The ceiling flickered and waved far above the view of Akarui as he phased back into consciousness. A strange euphoria rippled through the red haired shinobi as he felt life within once again. However, this feeling of intense existential pleasure was quickly overtaken by the vicious bite of several dull and sharp pains throughout his body. With a wince and a jolt, Akarui slowly tilted his head downwards to view his body, held back only by the soreness in his neck. Through the blurriness which clouded his sight, likely due to dehydration, Akarui's vision slowly focused onto his worn and sickly body. The young man gritted his teeth and attempted to clench his fists in response to the pain which washed over him, but the attempts at the latter only send a new ripple of discomfort through his arms. Those injuries he remembered. A shiver made its way slowly across his body as he furrowed his brow, recalling the battering his right arm had received at the hands of that mysterious insect man as well as the vicious shrapnel that had ripped through his left arm. What he did not recall, however, was any injury to his abdomen, which was currently in the most pain. Glancing down his body, the only thing currently wrapping his torso were a wrapping of dirty bandages around his stomach: previously white wrappings now stained red and yellow in places, presumably from a wound beneath. The red haired shinobi glared silently at his battered body in discomfort for a few moments before an unfamiliar voice broke the silence.

"You're lucky to be alive, you know." Akarui turned his head slowly to the source of the noise: an old medical shinobi in traditional attire with a short white beard. Age made itself obvious in his voice and on his face, but he stood with a sort of stoic strength in spite of his presumed frailty. The aged doctor poked with his cane the corpse of a large insect which lay on an examination table near Akarui with its guts exhumed. "If scouting group had found you any later it is more than likely we would not be speaking right now. This creature would have devoured your internal organs in an irreversible way." Akarui groaned, attempted to question or protest or simply feel alive, but the doctor hushed him, interrupting. "Don't try to talk. We've done what we could so far but we currently do not have the capabilities to heal you fully. You'll need to stay in the hospital for a few weeks, or at least until we acquire a more skilled medi nin. For the moment, however, you should rest. I'll be sure to check on you later in the day." Without another word the older gentleman paced quickly towards the door, sliding open and closed the door in a single motion with a thump, and once more Akarui was left alone. With another grumble he lay his head back down onto his pillow and closed his eyes.

509

Another drearily hot day in Sunagakure, Karumo awoke early to enjoy the day while he could. Grabbing his morning coffee and breakfast, as well as some of his books and eating them while relaxing on the outside patio in the back of the hotel they were staying at. The group from Iwagakure had only been in Sunagakure for a day and a half now, Karumo, Harichimo, and Oomi had all arrived via caravan late the day before last. Quickly calling it a night once they had arrived, they were checked into their hotel, each given their own rooms all lined up next to each other, probably from the courtesy of the Sunagakure council trying to look hospitable. Karumo and Harichimo had spent most of yesterday working and filling out the terms for a small treaty between their two countries as well as a trade agreement with a few specific terms needed to go along with it. A stressful day to say the least, they handled themselves well, at least well enough for two rookies to the diplomacy war-games and things of that nature, but for today they wouldn’t have to meet up with the council again until late afternoon. Something about village updates and reports, typical village business that they must handle and it made sense, running a major village was no small feat. So Karumo and Harichimo essentially had the day off, but it was time to find something to do, and that something was what would plague Karumo’s mind all morning while he read and enjoyed himself. The temperature in a desert drops rapidly at night, so the winds early in the morning were cool and lively, aside from the sand being kicked up with it, it almost reminded him of the afternoon breezes he so enjoyed in Iwagakure. After spending nearly two hours reading, relaxing, and maybe at some points napping it was now 8 a.m. in the sand village and he was ready to see his companions and prepare the day’s schedule and events.

He made his way back up and into the hotel, setting his coffee mug in a dish tray so that it could be cleaned, he carried his things in his arm. Knowing it would be incredibly warm he shed the jacket when he got up, opting for his normal dark pants and shoes, but wearing only a grey t-shirt with his clan symbol in black and red on the front of it. A fairly scary looking symbol if he would say so himself, it would get many odd turns of the head from the early morning staff, making his way back upstairs to the fourth floor where they were staying he first passed by the room Oomi was staying in. He debated knocking and trying to wake her up but he thought that she might hear his footsteps, and it might be best to let her off to do her own thing for the day. Then he looked towards Harichimo’s room, knowing that he was a responsible, soon-to-be adult, and on a very important mission he imagined he might be up already or be getting up soon. But he thought it best not to bother him, not just yet so he went to his room and grabbed some paper and a pencil and began to write a note:



He would slide the note under her door, he imagined if she were awake and saw the note it wouldn’t be long before she opened her door and confronted him. Either demanding for him to let her come along wherever or to give her verbal freedom to do something crazy. Regardless he hoped she would still be asleep and hoped that she would sleep away half the morning, limiting the amount of trouble that she could cause.

Once that was done Karumo would lean against the wall opposite Harichimo’s room, debating grabbing one of the cigars out of his room to enjoy during the morning. While he was waiting he went in and cut two cigars, then slid them back in their wrappers and into the frocket of his shirt, along with a lighter into his pants pocket. He grabbed two because he couldn’t remember if Harichimo smoked or not, he remembered offering him at one point but his mind was blanking on if he accepted it or not. No matter, he might find out soon enough once Harichimo emerged from his room or returns from wherever he was.

Karumo would be waiting in the hallway for Harichimo, either to exit his room or to emerge from wherever he had gone if he had decided to spend the early morning actively. Once he caught sight of him he would greet him as he normally does, “Morning Harichimo, if you haven’t yet, there’s coffee and food downstairs in the lobby.” He said as he stood up off the wall and smiled towards his friend. If he were ready for the day then they would be off, Karu would keep his few ninja tools on him and his sword tied through one of his belt loops on his jeans. Once they were downstairs, either getting breakfast or preparing to head out, Karumo would begin to fill Harichimo in on his idea for the day’s agenda, “So we essentially get the morning off, we’ll have to be back here when the council summons us this afternoon but that shouldn’t be until later. Village business and all will keep them quite busy like they said. So I thought about what we should do,” he let his voice trail of and inflected that he was thinking about it even at that moment. “I had the idea over breakfast while I was hanging out this morning, I decided that instead of taking the morning off.” He paused as he let the sentence roll of his tongue and realized what he said, “That sentence didn’t taste right, we will be taking the morning off, but I want to be productive at the same time I mean. So, since today’s meeting is going to focus more on the trade agreement than the treaty, you may get called on for lots of question and things of the sort. So, my brilliant idea was to tour one of the hospitals here, not only will it give you a good reference for what they have and don’t have. As well as what we can provide, but it’ll be good to see the quality of their care too. Maybe our trade agreement can send medical supplies their way to help them in more ways they can imagine, but it would take a doctors eye to catch it, not my untrained eyes.” He said looking towards Harichimo with his purple eyes.

Sometimes he forgot about his eyes and their abilities, he didn’t really use them too often, at least not for their techniques. Once the two were ready to go he would turn slightly, “If you have any questions for me about the trade agreement or treaty then ask them on the way, we should probably get over there before it gets busy. Also, we may have to be fairly stealthy about this, since in some sense it could be seen as spying. Though without the harmful intent, maybe if they catch us they’ll believe us and let us go out of pity?” he chuckled to himself at the thought of getting accused of a war crime and getting to walk away from it cleanly. Making their way to the hospital he would hear out any questions from Harichimo if there were any, otherwise he would just use small talk for the way there. He might ask what his thoughts about Oomi thus far are, or if he had heard anything about Fukai in the chuunin exams since they had left? He was wondering how he was doing hopefully he could get out of Suna and head over there to catch the tourney before it ended. It most likely wouldn’t happen, but he could still hope for the best, still the duo made their way to the hospital and entered inside.

It reminded Karumo a lot of normal hospitals back in Iwagakure, in that it also shocked him that someplace like this could exist in a desert. It was very clean, the floors almost sparkling, clean white walls and black and white checkerboard floors greeted them. Chairs were scattered in rows in the waiting room and a front desk was in front of them with a short line, around there were three or four doors leading to different areas not counting the glass doors of the entrance. As he began to walk towards the line to check in or do whatever he slowed down to let Harichimo in front, whispering as he walked by, “Also if I forgot to mention you’re taking the lead here. You know all the lingo, use your special doctor mystique powers to convince them to let us look around.” He said and then quickly turned his attention around them, pretending not to notice any reaction from Harichimo before they were called to the front desk by another nurse.

He would put his hand on the shoulder of Harichimo and pat him forward to the desk, looking the other way while he did so, he stood to the side near one of the doors in the back. Labeled to the E.R. and to recovery rooms, an interesting area full of mangled corpses and other poor and unfortunate souls he imagined, he began to fade out of the conversation with Harichimo and the attendant and more to a conversation happening behind the door. Fortunately it was propped open by a janitor who was sweeping the floor and left it open so he could move back and forth easily, but what he heard from the other side interested him. What he saw was a younger man, who looked familiar, like one of the people from the council who was taking notes and running errands while they searched for documents and other papers to reference in their discussion. And the other man was a doctor, wearing his lab coat and dawning a white beard, he looked rather old and yet looked incredibly healthy for his age, he could hear the two talking, some panic in the voice of the younger man as he sought answers. “What do you mean, bugs did that? The preliminary showed that he was attacked by a person, no?” the younger man spat with some sass behind his voice.

The doctor calmly breathed in and retorted, “We only know what he’s told us and what we’ve gathered so far. I haven’t talked to him much but I do know that we found bugs scattered through him and eating away at his flesh. Just tell the council we’ll have more information later on, we have a few interns working on finding information on carnivorous bugs in the country. It is also possible that the bug didn’t show up until after he was attacked and started feeding on what it assumed was a dying animal. Or maybe there’s a shinobi out there with a carnivorous bug summoning jutsu. Either way we’ll know more later on and once he’s up to talking some more.” He waved off the kid for a moment, flipping the pages back on his clipboard and looking at him for more questions.

The kid huffed, it seems he was upset that he wasn’t getting what he wanted, or maybe he was more upset that not getting answers for his superiors would shine poorly on him. “You know the council isn’t going to be happy with that!” he was almost yelling but the door closed before he could listen further. His interest had been fully peaked and with that he knew exactly what room he’d like to visit, for a multitude of reasons he would decline to share earlier. He looked towards Harichimo whom may or may not still be talking to the attendant. He was hoping that he could get them in, but if not and he were still talking he would whisper to him again, “Hey, find out who got attacked by a carnivorous bug, and find a way in there. It should suit our needs well, say something like you’re a specialist consulting or something like that.” From there, it wouldn’t be long before Harichimo could use his witch-doctor smooth talk to get them some form of visitor’s badge or permission to take a look around.

From there he would search for the room with the guy who was nearly eaten by a bug, his curiosity peaked, he had so many questions and concerns about it. He could hardly contain himself, so he would let Harichimo take the lead in finding the room, and let him enter in first as well.

[2229 words]

A dry morning was what Harcihimo woke up to on his second day in Suna. Harcihimo had been quick to get himself settled into his council appointed dwelling while they were on diplomatic visit.The dry air made him uncommonly peckish for breakfast this morning so he just munched on a bit of his trail mix he had left over from the trip over knowing he would have to pick up more before they left to go home. He didn't know if anyone else would be up yet so he took the time and decided some morning stretches would do him some good. he pushed a couple chairs aside in the small dining area and took a spot facing the large window overlooking the village as he started his stretches. With every stretch he took in deep breaths of the dry air circulating through the room. Definitely not the brisk mountain air he was used to at home. It was also much hotter as he saw the heat waves blurring against the glass and sand being kicked up from small gusts. A totally new environment for the group of Iwa ambassadors.

As he finished his rounds of stretching he looked to the clock and saw it was a quarter to 8 and thought he should get rolling. Harichimo went into the apartment bathroom and showered up to get cleaned up and wet up his hair. When he was finished he looked to his bags as he put on a pair of lighter pants and through on a grey under shirt leaving his arms exposed and thought that would be enough not wanting to dress to warmly on this day. The thought crossed his mind that he had better see if Karumo had any objective for the day or if they were still waiting for the council to call them in. Harichimo grabbed a roll of bandage from his bag and made his way for the door.

As he opened the door he saw Karumo was already outside leaning against the wall. Harichimo smiled and answered to his friend. "Good to see you up and about to Karumo. Nah I'm fine, I had a small meal to get me started this morning." Karumo would offer Harichimo a cigar which Harichimo would refuse and respond. "I would but I have no where good to keep it for now without the thing getting crushed in my pants pockets and crushing it. So what's up on the agenda today?" Karumo would motion and the two would walk down the hall towards the exit. Karumo would fill him in with all of the details of his plan to visit one of the village hospitals and look for leverage points as Harichimo would call it in political mumbo jumbo. Harichimo would look to his friend and nod in agreement. "For sure it would be a great idea. If they are up to par then I should be able to hold it up to our clinic which has at least the minimal amount of supplies to handle a substantial injury. So I would hope they aren't to off here." The pair would exit the hotel and Harichimo would start to wrap up his arms as they walked to the hospital. All the muscle memory of the many times he had done it would make it take almost no time at all before they were as he liked.


They would arrive at the hospital and Harichimo would take in the sight of the waiting room which almost seemed to be an exact copy of the hospital in Iwa. Karumo would stop and whisper to Harichimo to take the lead which Harichimo would nod to and take their seat in the waiting area. When they would be called forward Harichimo would walk up to the desk as Karumo would go off his own direction. "Hello I am Harichimo Kazako and my friend over there is Karumo. We are the two ambassabors from Iwagakure. We were wondering if it was possible for a nurse or preferably a doctor that could show us around the place before we go into the medical talks with the council and give false information about your services." The attendant would flip through a few pages on her desk and look back to him. "I might be able to arrange that but I would have to ask you to wait here to I can go and talk to the appropriate people." Harichimo would nod and the attendant would go where she needed to and Harichimo would take a second look around to soak in the details of the place.


Then a small worried voice would catch the ears of Harichimo and look as a younger man was supposedly arguing details with a doctor. It concerned Harichimo to hear the details of the hospital being a bit understaffed and only interns to find out what might be wrong. Something about carnivorous bugs that seemed to not be a regular occurrence in the village. Karumo would speak to Harichimo but he was already on the case. Harichimo walked up to the door as the doctor was quick to notice him. "I am sorry sir but I am going to have to ask you to go back to your seat this is an area for medical staff only." Harichimo was quick to stop him. "My name is Harichimo Kazako, ambassador to your village but more importantly a medical ninja that was trusted to come here with the knowledge to talk about your medical needs to the council. I heard what you said and I want to help. If you only have interns here it surprises me to not have any medical nins on call here. I am offering my services to help on this matter before we go and talk to the council. I would like for that patient to have a higher chance of living so you and your interns can get to the bottom of their investigation if you would let me." The doctor seemed to shake his head but let in and hold the door open for them. Harichimo would look back to Karumo and motion for him to follow. "That is one of the ambassabors and my assistant for the mean time. If you wouldn't mind showing us the way to the patient."


The doctor would take them to the elevator and take them to the floor where they were holding the patient. When they reached the room they found the man looking as if he had gone through all sorts of hell but all Harichimo could think was to help the man. "So do I have your permission to do my work and make sure he is suffering less to nothing?" Harichimo would ask as the doctor would nod and he would bring his hands together focusing his medical chakra into his palms, washing them with a purple haze. Then Harichimo would slowly run his hands over the man watching as his flesh was slowly healing and closing up cuts. "A technique any basic medical nin should know how to perform. His cuts and bruises will be healed but his nerves will remain a bit messed up until they can heal on their own. This will at the least turbo charge his system and get them on the road to a faster recovery." When the last bit of flesh was back to a state of health Harichimo would clap his hands together again and the technique would dissipate. The doctor was about to speak when Harichimo threw up a hand. "There is no need to waste breath here. You can go and talk to your staff about the investigation. If you trust me enough we can stay here and monitor until the patient wakes up and we will contact you." The doctor would walk away and Harichimo would take a seat next to the man as he motioned for Karumo to take a seat. He wouldn't speak but keep his eyes intently on the man until his body would wake him up.

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