mission description:

Chiaki awoke with a start to a banging on her front door. She groaned and called out, “I’m coming!” Her voice was hoarse and weak, she tried clearing her throat from the night’s congestion. Then quieter she said “I’m coming. And where are my shoes?” She stumbled about the room and ran a hand through her hair. “Need to shower and get my shoes and get out the-” The knocking came again, this time more incessant, quicker and louder. “I’m coming!” She shouted and being irritated it was a bit too loud. The banging stopped and reverberated through the empty apartment. She chose to just walk to the door as she was, the person be blasted if she wasn’t going to be caught with her hair a mess. Chiaki was in her pajamas, a pair of worn out grey sweatpants with a blue line down the outside of her thigh, trailing down her calve with a loose bottom. The top that she wore was an old t-shirt of her dad’s, it was more of a mini-dress on her and hung loosely on her neck. She readjusted the neck so that she was sure that she was decent. Chiaki picked up the brush that was laying on the counter and combed through her hair a couple of times, dropped it and went to the door. Clearing her throat she asked, “Yes?”

Standing on her doorstep, she had caught the man that was carrying her courier mail to her mid-knock again, his fist raised above her, as she came barely to his chest. He looked down at her, frowned, a confused look on his face. She gave him a little glare and lifted an eyebrow, “Can I help you?”

Opening his mouth to speak, he cleared his throat and took out a scroll, proffering it to her as he asked, “Guanyin Chiaki? You have a mission from the administration building. Based on your previous performance and observations of your fighting style, prowess, and jutsu: we believe that you are the perfect person for the job. Take it and read it over, I’ll take it back to headquarters if you don’t want to take on the mission.” He then stood there, waiting for her to finish reading her scroll. He gave her another doubtful look, which was returned in kind by another half hearted glare from her. She would prove to him and everyone else that she was a good kunoichi.

She opened the letter and it was signed from a Dr. hui. Well, that was the first thing that she noticed. She had actually worked with doctor Hui before, but only in a volunteer setting. Now this was something that was a bit different. Apparently he had heard that her guanyin powers had manifested and wanted to use her for some medical uses in his next surgery. It was a great honor to be called into the hospital in a professional setting, she had no idea what she would do now. Should she accept it? It was a great honor, but what if the patient died? She didn’t know what kind of surgery it was. After all, wasn’t this too sudden? What would her father think, being a doctor in the self same hospital?

She nodded to the courier, “I’ll take it, you can go now. It doesn’t say what time my shift starts.” She scratched her head a bit, her scalp a bit itchy from the morning dry air. Why was it that she was becoming more famous.

“Your shift starts in two hours, and you are expected to work a full eight hours and then you may do what you wish.” The messenger readjusted his shirt and grumbled something about the early morning. Chiaki looked at the clock and was surprised at the time, only 3 am? Oh well, maybe it was a good thing. It was, after all, her goal to become a world renowned medical kunoichi right? She sighed and looked at the boy, gave him a ryo for delivering the message and shut the door. She knew that it was an old custom to tip, as they got paid better than she did for missions, but she still did it because she thought that it was rude not to pay the boy.

She quickly stripped on the way to the bathroom and took a quick, hot shower, making sure to be clean before a day’s work in a hospital was essential. When she got out she blew her hair dry and combed through it. It would be a tough day, but would be well worth it. Her goal was to be a medical shinobi and she wanted every opportunity to succeed. Her father didn’t use chakra to heal people, but doctor Hui did.

She nodded to herself and tied her hair back in a pony tail, letting it cascade like a waterfall down her back and hang at her tailbone. Swishing it back and forth, she tested it. Good and dry. Good, she would need for it to be.

She looked at the clock and bolted upright, almost four? Already? Her heart raced almost as fast as her feet towards the bedroom. She flung open the door, and it swung back in indignance and clipped her foot, making her stumble into a pile of clothing. It was a good thing that she didn’t have a pet, for now, or it might have laughed at her. Chiaki, in her naked scramble, managed a bra, couldn’t find matching panties, gave up, found another pair, clambered into them, threw on a shirt, skirt, and over-shirt and looked in the mirror. No, no no, that wouldn’t do. It clashed like two budding siblings in the prime of their pubescence. She looked at the clock and moaned, ripping off her over-shirt and digging through a pile of, she hoped, semi-clean laundry. She had been lazy this week and was now paying the price. Finding the shirt she wanted she nodded to herself before walking out the door, one arm raised and face scrunched trying to fidget her way into it.

She managed a teal outfit, her skirt a plaid teal, while her shirt was a plain teal of the same hue, but different shade. She couldn’t figure how she had done it, but she had, and just in the nick of time. She grabbed her keys to the front door, jetted out, forgot to lock it, backpedaled with a huff and then set out across the rooftops.

Chiaki ran until she was out of breath, and the hospital was in sight. Looking around, she found a clock, ten minutes to five. Enough time to walk there, but she wanted to be early, wanted to make an impression on doctor Hui. She rounded the rooftop, slipped down the gutter and landed with a whump on the ground.
Chiaki jogged into the front and the receptionist didn’t even glance up before she asked, “Emergency or non-urgent care?” She finally, after Chiaki had straightened herself a bit, looked up and smiled, “Oh Chiaki, back to do some volunteer work? I have a pati-” Chiaki silenced her with an explanation, “I’m working, actually, with Doctor Hui today and I am supposed to meet him at five?” She gave an apologetic smile for interrupting, but the receptionist didn’t seem to mind. Clicking her tongue as she looked through a stack of papers in front of her, the receptionist took her time finding a hastily written note.

“Ah, he will be in office 306, on the th-” She looked up, but Chiaki was already charging down the hallway at breakneck speed towards the stairs. Office 306 was the office for inpatients, and she knew, as she was rounding the second flight of stairs, that since he was working inpatient today, that she would need to put her hair up. The patients in inpatient care were usually the more rowdy, the more intensive, and perhaps some of the most challenging of the patients in the hospital. Usually, they would include dementia patients, those who required long term care and were having a medical crisis, or those who had been hurt badly enough to require that long of a stay. They were, for lack of a better word, patients that needed to be hospitalized overnight.

She sighed as she rounded the halfway point to the second flight of stairs, bobbing her head experimentally. Her bun held tight as she sprinted up the last leg of the stairs, she was certainly getting her workout this morning, and it wasn’t even the start of her shift yet. She almost yearned for volunteer work, at least it was better than this kind of work. But it didn’t pay the bills. She counted the numbers in her head, 303, 304, 305… and 306. Chiaki burst through the door, looking up at the clock, exactly five o’ clock. She smiled to doctor Hui, who looked up at the self-same clock with a slightly bemused look and then back to her, raising his eyebrows slightly.

“Guanyin-san I presume?” he used the honorific, and steepled his fingers, looking out over them, waiting for her response like a hawk waits for a groundhog to appear from their hole. He was every bit as predatory in his gaze, silently judging her attire, stance, and height. He weighed it all like a butcher would weigh meat, trying to judge her value. Or at least, this is the impression she got. She straightened and nodded, “Guanyin Chiaki, at your service, reporting in for the mission that I was assigned.” She was the perfect picture of attentive.

“Ah, right, I remember sending for a shinobi to help me today, as I am in inpatient. It seems like the missive got to you just fine?” Another raised eyebrow, this one followed by a bit of a bemused smirk. He drummed his fingers together, keeping them steepled and waited for a response.

“Ah- Yeah!” She nodded and then remembered her manners, “I mean, yes doctor.” She had forgotten formality, as she had worked with the doctors here.

He nodded twice and smiled, “Read anything good lately?” She shook her head and he frowned, “Too bad,” he clicked his tongue and sat up, placing both palms gently on the table to assist in the process, though he didn’t put much weight into them, a gesture and nothing more. His hands folded behind his back and as he left the room, one of them curled, a signal for her to follow.

“Patient in room number 326 needs attention to two wounds approximately two inches deep and the patient in room number 353 has burns over the entirety of his hands of a severity that I would like you to take a look at. There is also a patient in room 321 that has suffered a beating from some thugs, I would like you to assess them and treat any wounds you can. I need to diagnose a few patients and see to them to make sure they’re stable.” He walked surprisingly fast into room 334 and closed the door behind him, leaving her in the hall, scrambling and gulping. What rooms had he said, She stammered them aloud, “326, 353, and 321.” She sprinted back to his office, stole a scrap but of paper and jotted them down. Good, she would use this for the next couple of minutes.

Running to room 326, she nodded at the patient, a woman who had been asleep before but woke up, her right side obviously the one that was wounded. It looked like an attempted murder, or at least a crime of passion, one wound went clear through her hand, the other was her side. They were bandaged and Chiaki noted this, all of it at the time of entering the room.

“I am Guanyin Chiaki, Doctor Hui sent me to check on your wounds and perhaps help with some medical ninjutsu.” She nodded to the wounds and smiled at the woman. She nodded back to Chiaki and said, “Alright miss guanyin-san, please come closer, I won’t bite.”

She did so and formed the hand-seals for pangolin’s paw, laying her hands on first, the woman’s hand as she approached. The woman winced in anticipatory pain, but as her wound healed, she looked with genuine surprise at the wound. She undid the bandage, but hissed in pain at the sudden movement, as Chiaki made the hand seals again for pangolin’s paw. The wound had closed entirely, the bones not out of place anymore, and the wound left no mark. She wiped at the left-over blood, it smeared, but didn’t cover any residual part of the wound. Chiaki moved past the woman’s hand to the wound in her side. A wince of genuine pain this time, as the wound healed.

“Must have been a small knife.” Chiaki said with relief, as the wound closed as well, Her jutsu didn’t work if the wound was too severe, it just, lingered there. She was relieved that it had closed.

“It was.” The woman nodded and patted her stomach, “Do I really have to stay here overnight?”

“Yes, just in case there is any residual damage that we haven’t seen, or in case your body goes into shock. You’ll feel more tired than you usually do, and the area will be more tender than it normally is for a couple of days.” Chiaki said as she stood up, patting her hands together, “You can call for someone to pick you up if you feel like it, but I think you should be able to make it back home after this.”

“This is so much better than stitches.” The woman said, amazed, “I’m definitely coming to this hospital from now on.” She looked at the woman, after almost heading out, “I’m sorry hmm?” Chiaki asked.

“Oh, I live outside of town, but the doctors here are much better.” She nodded, “When I was rushed here, I didn’t think that I would be able to afford the care. Now I don’t care what they charge me. Thank you Guanyin Chiaki.” She bowed her head and offered thanks.

Chiaki blushed and said, “Never you mind.” She waved away the compliment and went to the next person’s room.

In this one, she found a grumpy old woman, or what appeared to be one from her wrinkles and frown-lines, one who was breathing lightly while asleep, “Excuse me ma’am?” She asked, the woman turned over with a groan and she stepped back out of the room, best to leave her for last. She ran to the other patient’s room and bowed her head, “Ah I am Guanyin Chiaki, d-do you mind if I look at your hand?”

“I don’t mind.” The man proffered his bandaged hands, “They’ve been killing me all day.” She opened the bandages and winced in pain herself.

“Oh, those are almost second degree burns. I’ll… uhm, do you mind if I use Medical ninjutsu on them?” She asked, and he looked at her flatly.

“That’s why I came here.” Rolling his eyes he offered his hands to her and looked distractedly away and out the window. His eyes burned with impatience, and his features mimicked his eyes. His hands had all but been turned useless, she didn't know what he did, but they were delicate, definitely not the hands of a working man.

“Right,” She said, and moved to make the hand seals, “You’ve also been asked to st-” He cut her off as his hands started to heal under her ministrations of the pangolin’s paw.

“I am in a hurry, so when you’re done I am leaving, your bosses be damned. I have work today, and I am already late.”

She nodded and finished. He flicked her hands away with his own and got up, stating, “Leave. I am going to dress.” She did so with a small bow and left the room. She would have to tell Doctor Hui that one of his patients was leaving before he was discharged, against medical advice. She hoped that she had done a good enough job to heal his hands.

When she went back to the woman’s room Doctor hui was hovering over her, staring at her wounds and frowning, “She’s dying.”

“I’m sorry wh-” Chiaki started to say, her reaction cut off by a sudden:

“Get a scalpel, four gloves, two masks, sutures, clamps, and six forceps.” He said in a calm voice, his hands already making some hand-signs. She nodded and ran back to his office, scrambling around to get the supplies she couldn’t even remember running back into the room as she did, she found him concentrating with his eyes closed over the woman. “She has a broken rib, it has punctured a lung. I can’t heal that, but I can heal her fractured rib, we have to remove the rib’s sharp edges from the lung, reattach it loosely and suture it back together.

“Mask.” He asked, his hand spread, she handed him a mask and put one on herself, “Gloves.” She put the gloves on him, and put her glove on more carefully, as soon as she did he asked for the scalpel and made an incision 3.5 cm deep and found the pocket where the rib had punctured the lung.

Forceps were given after being asked for and she nodded, he evenly spaced them, the wound looking more like raw meat than anything else.

“Sutures.” She handed him the suture kit, having already threaded the needle. He took it in one hand and said, “Now you’re going to have to pull the rib out carefully while I suture her lung, or she will die. Do you understand?” He looked up at her and the severity in his eyes told her that it was no joke. “I ah,”

“Do. You. Understand?” He reiterated, his voice grating.

“I do.”

“Good, my medical ninjutsu anesthesia will wear off here in a bit, so let’s work quickly. Ready? Pull slowly.” She did so, and the rib came free of the lung, the lung collapsing.

“Grab a straw from the room when we’re done.” Doctor Hui moved with the precision and the speed of a ninja and closed the small wound, making hand signs he placed a finger on the wound and it healed a small bit. “Just to help it out.” He explained, not sure to whom.

“Alright. Now grab the forceps two by two while I suture the wounds shut.” She nodded as he did so faster than she could grab the forceps and put them on the table next to her. “You will need to sterilize that when we’re done here.”

Nodding, he smiled and made some hand signs, placing his hand on the wound it closed partially, looking less like an open wound and more like a wound that had already undergone a week and a half’s worth of healing.

He then walked out of the room, returning a bit later with a metal straw, which he stuck into the patient with the precision and what looked to be apathy of a man who had reinflated a lung before. “Right.” Then he placed a small, what looked to be a turkey baster over the straw and squeezed. The woman coughed, some blood coming up, and he made some more hand signs, placing his hand over her wound once more. This one closed right up.

“Right, I am going to have to make a report. You sterilize the room and report back to me when you’re finished.”

The next half-hour was spent cleaning up her room and making sure the patient was indeed going to make it. She walked into the room and he said, “Sit.”

“Right.”

“Did you learn anything today?”

“I-” She came up with a loss for words.

“If you are ever unsure of a wound or anything about the status of a patient you report it immediately to a higher ranking shinobi, or a doctor. Do you understand?” He sighed and rubbed his temples, then looked at her, opening his mouth to ask the question again.

“I understand.” She said simply, nodding.

“You did very well.” He smiled, all of the tension suddenly leaving the room, “That woman owes you her life.”

“I ah-”

Cut off.

He held up a hand, “Don’t cheapen it. Go home, you’ve earned it. I’ll see you for your next shift the next time I am in inpatient.” He grinned and winked, a small smile on his face.

Chiaki didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, her  mouth opened and closed mechanically as she struggled to find the words for what she was feeling, what a rush that was. The adrenaline pumped blood into her ears with the sound of rushing water and she didn't know how to respond, how to deal with this new situation. She didn't know how to face the man that was in front of her with the courage to tell him that she was scared, and felt alone and like she didn't know what to do. She nodded in silence, tears brimming on the edges of her eyes, easily blinked away as he stared at her and waited for her response. Her voice caught in her throat, what could she do? She panicked, and the world fell away from her. What could she say? She decided on not saying anything at all.

Chiaki walked out of the room, down the hall, mechanically down the stairs, slowly across the street, started to crawl her way towards home, The people passing were talking, she could tell by the way that their mouths moved, the way that their faces contorted to laughter, joy, anger and despondence all around her and when she shut the front door behind her to her small apartment, the only noise that could be heard was the small sobs which came from a small kunoichi who had saved an old woman’s life.


WC: 3750

Ryo for mission completion -1500; +300 ryo

2250 remaining.

Training for Speed D to D-3: -2250

That's all!