Shifts (naruto)
SHIFTS
A MAD HOPE
for 31_days
Series: Naruto
Characters: Haruno Sakura, cameo of Team 7, Shizune, Tsunade and Anko
Rating: G-PG
Set anytime before Shippuden. All characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi
--------------------------------------------------------------
You're still alive below the waste
Ripples come and ripples go
And ripple back to me --TORI AMOS, "PANDORA'S AQUARIUM"
--------------------------------------------------------------
There are many things she does not believe in, especially if these failed to prove themselves to her physically. That a bad case of hematoma could be treated simply by licking until the discolouration disappeared, for instance; she had given Kiba his way for a day after he fussed about it like a child, then drained it with smug scrutiny the morning after the largely unsuccessful attempt. She did not believe that simply 'training to be stronger' could eliminate imperfections in the biological system. She always included a bottle of remedy in Rock Lee's kit when hayfever in spring came around.
"It's amazing how she's grown up, Hokage-sama," Shizune had said to the Fifth when the older woman made her daily rounds in the emergency ward. "And I don't mean it simply with how she treats the strange and dangerous cases that come in her shift."
"They seem to always come during her shift, don't they," Tsunade mused. She had read feedback on her apprentice's grueling hands-on training in the surgical section of the hospital, and all of them were positive. All of them were written with a barely hidden tone of disbelief.
The Fifth Hokage stopped, and trained eyes to the bustling figure on the other side of the glass paneling, who was attending to what appeared to be a very bloody, but very successful operation. The girl's surgical apron was soaked and her arms, wet to the elbows with blood and water and fluid, were coloured the deeper pink of her hair.
"They come to her, completely torn up, and leave well mended." Shizune shook her head and smiled. "They believe in her. They're good to go when they check out."
In the small hours of the night, when the aneasthesia did its work and the overhead lights seemed to desaturate the colour of everything it touched, they came to her: first as phantoms that lurked along the periphery of her thoughts, kept at bay by work, but now edging along and threatening to take form. They always came together, and apart; always from opposite directions, the bright one backlighted by the moon, the dark one casting sharp shadows against the wall.
She was always a bloody mess herself, many surgeries ago, the psychological bindings she kept herself together with pulling apart easily after everything was over. Sometimes she was angry. She was angry at them for leaving her (they always seemed to be leaving her), moving away to where she could not see or hear of them. It was ages since she'd seen Sasuke, and Konohamaru's loud laughter wasn't quite as sunny as Naruto's.
"Sempai! Thank goodness."
The intern was out of breath, but relieved that he had found her. "We know your shift is over sempai, but..." he trailed off apologetically, then continued. "It's bad. A scout team fresh from an Amenokuni mission. Three sustain minor injuries, but one is hemorrhaging. An advanced Chi-bara no jutsu. We don't believe she will last the night, but we'll operate and try. Several medics have already set up the chakra circle, and the operating table."
Sometimes she simply locked the four-cornered room of the surgical section when everyone had left it, found a corner, and cried.
"I'll be right there."
Too many times she had felt boxed in by her profession, and even as she exchanged blows with the Godaime in training, she felt boxed in by the village. The healer leaves last, if she ever leaves at all. Everyone else flies away.
"Thank you very much sempai; you were the only one we could think of to work on such a case. Every other senior surgeon seems to be out."
The wounds on a person told her things truer than any pre-operational data could. When she dug deep in the foreign continent of another body, she felt around for things that told her where they were sustained. Here, a spleen, badly damaged from Kusagakure poison; and here salt water straining a lung. Sand in a collapsed esophagus. A heart responding feebly to sound-vibration.
These reminded her where she was.
There are many things she does not believe in, and mending people, mending fellow nin who have served in combat, had taught her this. Abstract things were relative and needed to be proven before called for what they were. When the flame that corresponded with the girl's vitality signs turned gold after the third set of chakra transfusions, when the coagulated blood caused by the enemy jutsu was cleared of impurities, only then did she confirm "life", and "tomorrow", and the narrow avoidance of "death" and "grief."
The wounded scout's status had normalised. Sakura wiped her brow. The patient would stay unconscious for about a week, and experience major pains upon awakening, but she would be fine. No missions in the immediate future, and no solid food. She sighed.
"They got her here on time. She's a lucky girl; if they'd come any later, she would have..."
The intern who had called her nodded in relief. He was still holding seals, keeping the flow of blood from the transfusion bag in lateral flow with the water-type chakra that another assistant regulated in in a small talisman-sealed vat. The amputated arm had been cleanly wrapped, and a nurse was drawing seals of warding on the surface, prohibiting what chakra remained on the stump from dissipating, effectively keeping it from fast decay.
Then there are things she believes in. She believes in the human body's propensity to regenerate after a trauma, its ability to pick itself back up and return to normal. She believes that by healing people, she was actually healing herself, by stepping into the private spaces between a person's death and a person's life and mending the rift. She believes that these remind her of what only she could do.
"We'll keep the flow level, until the vat runs out. Take turns if you need to. She'll be ready for recovery by tomorrow morning."
Sometimes she lets herself believe that they could be a team again. She is surprised how much mad hope she can still scrape up from the dregs of the day. Maybe these were patches she picked up from everyone who came to her in the odd hours of her shift, like the team outside in the waiting room, looking all the worse for wear, but concerned only about their member.
When the three of them would meet again, she knew, there would be much blood. Especially between Sasuke and Naruto. When the three of them would meet again, she would be the last to walk away--after she had fixed things between them. No, they did not leave her; they needed to find what she found on her table everyday.
Anko met her in the hallway, after she dallied to speak to the worried team and convinced them that they too needed to rest.
"Oya, Sakura-chan! Long shift?" The jounin grinned encouragingly. "Go to bed sweetheart. You look a downright mess."
She couldn't very well deny "hope" when it came to her to be fixed everyday in the warm bodies of broken strangers. At the end of the day, she still didn't get what she wished for, but that didn't mean she wouldn't. She believed--knew--that they would come back again, on her watch.
"It's nothing Anko-sempai," she replied, looking up with a tired smile. "I'll be fine in the morning."
-----------------------------------
NOTES:
① Written supposedly for either "mad hope" or "warm strangers", as both became 'joint-prompts'; eventually it became more of the former. Running image is of Pandora's box, where Hope is the last to get out. Apparently the Greeks regarded Hope as a thing that was as dangerous as all the other 'sufferings', but it was still a more welcome one.
② I'd like to imagine Sakura's training to be comprised partly by active and intensive duty in the hospices of Konoha, if to gain experience in medical matters. If she was able to work on an antidote to the poisons of Sunagakure no Sato's errant Sasori, she would have gained such knowledge only through exposure to such cases.
③ Chi-bara no jutsu » "Blood Rose" Jutsu in translation; massive anti-spiral chakra that coagulates the blood, making it form into hard clumps, effectively causing hemorrhage, and mild heart failures.
Crossposted to chuunin
A MAD HOPE
for 31_days
Series: Naruto
Characters: Haruno Sakura, cameo of Team 7, Shizune, Tsunade and Anko
Rating: G-PG
Set anytime before Shippuden. All characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi
--------------------------------------------------------------
You're still alive below the waste
Ripples come and ripples go
And ripple back to me --TORI AMOS, "PANDORA'S AQUARIUM"
--------------------------------------------------------------
There are many things she does not believe in, especially if these failed to prove themselves to her physically. That a bad case of hematoma could be treated simply by licking until the discolouration disappeared, for instance; she had given Kiba his way for a day after he fussed about it like a child, then drained it with smug scrutiny the morning after the largely unsuccessful attempt. She did not believe that simply 'training to be stronger' could eliminate imperfections in the biological system. She always included a bottle of remedy in Rock Lee's kit when hayfever in spring came around.
"It's amazing how she's grown up, Hokage-sama," Shizune had said to the Fifth when the older woman made her daily rounds in the emergency ward. "And I don't mean it simply with how she treats the strange and dangerous cases that come in her shift."
"They seem to always come during her shift, don't they," Tsunade mused. She had read feedback on her apprentice's grueling hands-on training in the surgical section of the hospital, and all of them were positive. All of them were written with a barely hidden tone of disbelief.
The Fifth Hokage stopped, and trained eyes to the bustling figure on the other side of the glass paneling, who was attending to what appeared to be a very bloody, but very successful operation. The girl's surgical apron was soaked and her arms, wet to the elbows with blood and water and fluid, were coloured the deeper pink of her hair.
"They come to her, completely torn up, and leave well mended." Shizune shook her head and smiled. "They believe in her. They're good to go when they check out."
In the small hours of the night, when the aneasthesia did its work and the overhead lights seemed to desaturate the colour of everything it touched, they came to her: first as phantoms that lurked along the periphery of her thoughts, kept at bay by work, but now edging along and threatening to take form. They always came together, and apart; always from opposite directions, the bright one backlighted by the moon, the dark one casting sharp shadows against the wall.
She was always a bloody mess herself, many surgeries ago, the psychological bindings she kept herself together with pulling apart easily after everything was over. Sometimes she was angry. She was angry at them for leaving her (they always seemed to be leaving her), moving away to where she could not see or hear of them. It was ages since she'd seen Sasuke, and Konohamaru's loud laughter wasn't quite as sunny as Naruto's.
"Sempai! Thank goodness."
The intern was out of breath, but relieved that he had found her. "We know your shift is over sempai, but..." he trailed off apologetically, then continued. "It's bad. A scout team fresh from an Amenokuni mission. Three sustain minor injuries, but one is hemorrhaging. An advanced Chi-bara no jutsu. We don't believe she will last the night, but we'll operate and try. Several medics have already set up the chakra circle, and the operating table."
Sometimes she simply locked the four-cornered room of the surgical section when everyone had left it, found a corner, and cried.
"I'll be right there."
Too many times she had felt boxed in by her profession, and even as she exchanged blows with the Godaime in training, she felt boxed in by the village. The healer leaves last, if she ever leaves at all. Everyone else flies away.
"Thank you very much sempai; you were the only one we could think of to work on such a case. Every other senior surgeon seems to be out."
The wounds on a person told her things truer than any pre-operational data could. When she dug deep in the foreign continent of another body, she felt around for things that told her where they were sustained. Here, a spleen, badly damaged from Kusagakure poison; and here salt water straining a lung. Sand in a collapsed esophagus. A heart responding feebly to sound-vibration.
These reminded her where she was.
There are many things she does not believe in, and mending people, mending fellow nin who have served in combat, had taught her this. Abstract things were relative and needed to be proven before called for what they were. When the flame that corresponded with the girl's vitality signs turned gold after the third set of chakra transfusions, when the coagulated blood caused by the enemy jutsu was cleared of impurities, only then did she confirm "life", and "tomorrow", and the narrow avoidance of "death" and "grief."
The wounded scout's status had normalised. Sakura wiped her brow. The patient would stay unconscious for about a week, and experience major pains upon awakening, but she would be fine. No missions in the immediate future, and no solid food. She sighed.
"They got her here on time. She's a lucky girl; if they'd come any later, she would have..."
The intern who had called her nodded in relief. He was still holding seals, keeping the flow of blood from the transfusion bag in lateral flow with the water-type chakra that another assistant regulated in in a small talisman-sealed vat. The amputated arm had been cleanly wrapped, and a nurse was drawing seals of warding on the surface, prohibiting what chakra remained on the stump from dissipating, effectively keeping it from fast decay.
Then there are things she believes in. She believes in the human body's propensity to regenerate after a trauma, its ability to pick itself back up and return to normal. She believes that by healing people, she was actually healing herself, by stepping into the private spaces between a person's death and a person's life and mending the rift. She believes that these remind her of what only she could do.
"We'll keep the flow level, until the vat runs out. Take turns if you need to. She'll be ready for recovery by tomorrow morning."
Sometimes she lets herself believe that they could be a team again. She is surprised how much mad hope she can still scrape up from the dregs of the day. Maybe these were patches she picked up from everyone who came to her in the odd hours of her shift, like the team outside in the waiting room, looking all the worse for wear, but concerned only about their member.
When the three of them would meet again, she knew, there would be much blood. Especially between Sasuke and Naruto. When the three of them would meet again, she would be the last to walk away--after she had fixed things between them. No, they did not leave her; they needed to find what she found on her table everyday.
Anko met her in the hallway, after she dallied to speak to the worried team and convinced them that they too needed to rest.
"Oya, Sakura-chan! Long shift?" The jounin grinned encouragingly. "Go to bed sweetheart. You look a downright mess."
She couldn't very well deny "hope" when it came to her to be fixed everyday in the warm bodies of broken strangers. At the end of the day, she still didn't get what she wished for, but that didn't mean she wouldn't. She believed--knew--that they would come back again, on her watch.
"It's nothing Anko-sempai," she replied, looking up with a tired smile. "I'll be fine in the morning."
-----------------------------------
NOTES:
① Written supposedly for either "mad hope" or "warm strangers", as both became 'joint-prompts'; eventually it became more of the former. Running image is of Pandora's box, where Hope is the last to get out. Apparently the Greeks regarded Hope as a thing that was as dangerous as all the other 'sufferings', but it was still a more welcome one.
② I'd like to imagine Sakura's training to be comprised partly by active and intensive duty in the hospices of Konoha, if to gain experience in medical matters. If she was able to work on an antidote to the poisons of Sunagakure no Sato's errant Sasori, she would have gained such knowledge only through exposure to such cases.
③ Chi-bara no jutsu » "Blood Rose" Jutsu in translation; massive anti-spiral chakra that coagulates the blood, making it form into hard clumps, effectively causing hemorrhage, and mild heart failures.
Crossposted to chuunin