Ito-sensei's words straightened her spine, calling her back into a more professional mindset. A medical mindset: sometimes you have to hurt the patient in order to help him.

His words to Genma made her cringe again, though, and she unconsciously hunched back down. Ito-sensei shouldn't have been apologizing, not when it was her fault. "I'm sorry--I was going to get you before I started anything, but there was a surge..." Trailing off, she stood and pulled her brush out again, gesturing with the blunt end.

"See here, and here, and here--" Looking up at Ito-sensei, she pointed to several freshly-painted seals, the ink still shining. "Since he's been off the chakra-suppressors, I think his chakra-flow is recovering; it overwhelmed the channels at these points, and I had to fix them right away. I didn't think I could wait..."

Ito stepped in and smoothly guided her brush away from Genma's hand, pushing up his spectacles and peering more closely at the seals she'd indicated. "I can see that. You did well, fixing it so quickly. There's hardly any peripheral damage." He straightened up again, answering her hopeful-eyed gaze with a benevolent smile. "Perhaps later you can tell me why you used Aizawa's channel-seals instead of Imamura's simpler ones."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, chagrin forgotten, enthusiastically launching into her explanation. "It's because--"

"--later, Rina-san," he interrupted gently, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you finish checking the seals on his other hand now, and come get me when you're done? That dose should take effect soon; he shouldn't feel any more pain."

She nodded and gave him an embarrassed smile, then slipped around to the other side of Genma's bed, turning her brush right-way-around with one idle flick.