By the time the orderly came with a gurney to fetch Ginta off for surgery, he was bathed and shaved with his teeth brushed and his hair combed. Dressed in a fresh hospital gown as shapeless and unflattering as all the others, but smelling of detergent instead of pain-infused sweat. Medicated to the gills, so his balance was precarious and his vision blurred.

"Hold on there, Sakamoto-san," the nurse told him, catching him under the arms when his attempt at transferring himself from bed to gurney nearly landed him on the floor. "Can you get his shoulders, Yuuji, and I'll take care of his legs?"

"I can do it," Ginta protested.

"Yes, but you're going to let us do it for you anyway, because you wouldn't want us to get in trouble if you fell. And don't try to use chakra for balance. One of the pre-meds we gave you is a suppressor so they can do the surgery without worrying about re-routing."

Large male hands substituted for Mae's slender ones, while she moved down to Ginta's feet. "Left leg first, that's the easy one," she said, lifting Ginta's left foot and easing it onto the gurney. "Now shoulders." Yuuji lifted Ginta's upper body as if Ginta weighted nothing at all, settling him onto the cold, stiff mattress of the gurney.

"Eyes open, Sakamoto-san," Mae continued, forceful but light. Ginta obeyed, looking up to see Yuuji's grinning face and white hood bending over him, wavering as if Ginta were seeing him through the glass of an aquarium. "Don't close y'er eyes. Just makes the spins worse. Trust me on that," he told Ginta with a wink.

"All right. Now the other leg. Let me do the work, you just go limp."

Easier said than done, because despite the intoxicating cocktail diluting his bloodstream, Ginta could still feel the jarring through spider webs of cracks in his shin bones when Mae lifted his leg and placed it on a waiting cradle of pillows.

"Tha's right, keep y'er eyes on me," Yuuji told him. He tucked a pillow under Ginta's head.

If Ginta hadn't been quite so thoroughly drugged up, he'd have considered hitting the man.

And then they were going. Rolling out into the hall, where there was life and movement. The door to Kakashi's room stood ajar, and for just a moment Ginta caught a glimpse of another nurse gesturing sharply at a thick folder in her left hand. And Kakashi, towering over her but looking like he might fall at any moment, glaring at her with so much ferocity it gave Ginta a chill.

He didn't have time to ask about it.

"When you come out of recovery, they'll be moving you to the regular ward," Mae said, stepping to the head of the gurney and blocking Ginta's sight of Kakashi. "But I'll come see you, or you can come see me. As soon as you're up on crutches, you come visit us and show us how you're doing, okay?"

"Uhn," Ginta agreed. It was too hard to keep his eyes open. Too disorienting to try, as Yuuji started pushing the gurney again and the overhead lights rolled by.