Shocks and Burns [m]

[Hirihi]

Before Kenji would return, Hirihi would rifle through a set of handseals and begin to examine the girl from a chakra perspective. Using her sensor ability, Hirihi was astonished at what she was seeing. Not only were the burns chakra related, but the jutsu had seemed to trigger a response inside of her own body. What it was doing was leeching her chakra through the affected skin tissue, slow spreading and destroying the flesh as if it were being burned with the intensity of the chakra. This was no ordinary technique. It would kill her if Hirihi did not act fast. As it was, the girl was already beginning to fall into the symptoms of chakra depletion.

When Kenji returned, Hirihi first snatched up one of the chakra pills from his hand. Opening the wrapping, Hirihi held it to the girl's lips. "This may seem odd, but I need your chakra to be high. The jutsu is sapping your chakra and feeding the flame jutsu that was used on you. Which... actually, let's hold off on that." Hirihi said, setting it in the plastic wrapper and setting it to the side. "Let's sever the infected flesh first, then do it. Giving you the chakra pill now would probably cause you to feed the jutsu enough to consume you." Hirihi said.

It was a plausible thought, but Hirihi was in no mood to actually test the theory. Looking to Kenji, Hirihi began to explain what she was going to do. "Her skin, and likely some of her intestines, have a parasitic form of chakra attached to them, leeching her life and feeding itself in the process. We have to sever the skin first. That means we are going to do a lot of damage. That's where we are going to need those skin grafts. If you have never used them, they are very easy to understand. You place them over the spot, press healing chakra into it, and the skin will attach as if it were part of their body to begin with. What I need you to do is while I am severing skin is to come behind me, healing the damage I make."

"But, what about her internal organs? Are they affected by this supposed chakra?" Kenji asked. She hadn't thought about that, and quickly opened up her sensor eyes to check. From what she could tell, none of it was below the skin. How the technique was meant to work, according to her observations, was to destroy the skin and work its way down. Once it reached it's goal of stripping the flesh, it would have nowhere else to go but down. If they cut it off, though, she might very well live.

[Hirihi]

With Kenji at the ready, a pale flap of skin in his hand, engineered by some of the medics there at the hospital, Hirihi nodded and pressed the tip of the scalpel into the skin. If she worked fast enough, she wouldn't have to worry about anesthesia to keep her from feeling anything. The adrenaline was doing a great job keeping her from feeling the flesh-eating chakra that was killing her slowly from the inside out. Giving herself a generous bit of room to work, cutting a little over a half inch away from any infected tissue, Hirihi began to carve out the infection.

With each slice of the skin, Hirihi would discard it into a metal bin for observation later. She was curious to learn the nature of this chakra and how to actually incorporate it into her own techniques. This would be a great thing to use as an offensive weapon. It would only work on things with skin, of course, but she could easily engineer some very destructive techniques with it. Some that were even a bit frightening to her. Working around the underside of her chest, near the edge of her ribcage, she slowly moved upwards. The slow and tedious process of cutting and removing the flesh from her body seemed so backwards.

In most cases, it came down to her attempting to save the patient through the least severe methods possible. In this one, she had to be more severe than she had in a long time. She'd gotten good about using minimally invasive procedures. Playing nice with this leech, though, was almost like playing chicken. However long she could go, the leeching chakra would be able to always outdo her on the endurance factor.

With her scalpel about to her shoulder, she found that there was none that had worked it's way up her neck or to her back. It was all going to simple, leaving Hirihi believing that they might very well be able to do this flawlessly. It wasn't until she noticed that the girl's pulse had quickened. A look of almost torment was filling her face, her eyes screaming where her voice was completely gone. She was beginning to feel pain again. This was not the time for it to happen. Her body must have reached its end, causing her body to go into a state of shock from the extensive damage from the burn and the extra from Hirihi's cutting. Hopeless didn't even describe how the girl must be feeling, her flesh being severed as if she were just as much of a lost cause as the two medics were tempted to believe she was.

[Hirihi]

Immediately stopping, Hirihi stepped back and looked at her patient. Kenji continued to apply the skin grafts, hopefully aiding in the pain that she was probably feeling. Going to the other side of the bed, Hirihi hooked an IV to her arm, securing it with a bit of tape. Adding a bit of morphine to the saline drip, Hirihi set the syringe aside and sighed. She so rarely depended on the medical equipment in the hospital. She was often known for how much of her chakra she would expend to save her patients. This one, though, was beyond her. Giving it a minute for the morphine to surge through her system, Hirihi would look into her eyes as she spoke. "We're making progress. It shouldn't take long for the morphine to get rid of the pain, but I have to continue. If we are going to save you, we'll have to keep cutting. I hope you can hold on just a bit longer." Hirihi said.

Immediately setting to the task once again, Hirihi began to continue from the other side, cutting the skin away in small strips. Discarding the bits into the pan, Hirihi hoped that Kenji would be able to hold on. He was exerting a lot of chakra to maintain applying those skin grafts. "If you are getting tired, take that soldier pill. You'll need it to keep yourself going at this rate." Hirihi said. Kenji nodded his head, as if acknowledging her. He didn't take the soldier pill, though. She wasn't going to make him do it. God only knew what those pills would do once he was done with this patient.

With 75% of the skin afflicted removed, Hirihi saw a noticeable change in her chakra circulatory system. She was losing far less chakra, and she was slowly beginning to stabilize. This helped Hirihi a bit, knowing that they had a lot more to do. It was the small victory of knowing that she had been right. Extending the blade along her side and downward, Hirihi continued the tedious removal process. Occasionally glancing through her sensor eyes, she would make sure none of it was replicating onto the skin grafts. It hadn't seemed to, thus far, which was a great thing to know.

Once all of the afflicted skin had been removed, sitting in a large pile on the metal pan, Hirihi moved the pan out of sight. She'd probably freak out to know how much of her skin had actually been removed in the process. Laying before the two, Hirihi sighed and began to do an x-ray of her body. Any damage to her body that had been done while cutting would need to be taken care of. If she was to make sure that she walked away from this, she'd have to be thorough.

[Hirihi]

At first glance, Hirihi found that there were some minor cuts along her internal organs. None of them were severe, but she was going to make sure to take care of them. Pressing her hands to her side, Hirihi pressed the bright green healing chakra into her body. Filling each of the nicks with the chakra, her intestines would speedily heal themselves, the damage seemingly undone. Withdrawing her hands away from her body, Hirihi would flicker through the handseals to reopen her eyes to see her chakra. There was no trace of the flesh-eating chakra on her body anymore. It all now lay in the pile of flesh off to the side, slowly dying as it had been severed from its connection to a chakra system.

For the most part, they had stabilized her. With a moment to think, Hirihi stepped back and began to remove the small shreds of clothes that remained and, with Kenji's help, slipped a hospital gown over her body. They'd have to do a bit of work to get feeling in the skin they had placed on her body, but they would, in time, be able to get her back into a much better place. Looking up to the clock, Hirihi was dumbfounded. More than an hour had passed in the time that they had been working. She hadn't even noticed that the time had gone by, giving her a very plausible reason to be tired. Kenji, though, looked exhausted. He had taken the role of applying the skin grafts, which was far more taxing on the body of the medic.

"Go rest. I won't have you passing out on me." Hirihi said, patting him on the shoulder. Kenji, though, would refuse to accept the kind gesture. "We have to m-make sure that she's okay..." He said. Kenji nearly fell into the wall, his legs barely holding him up. Curling an arm around his shoulders, Hirihi began to lead him to a spot to sit and relax. "You did good. You've proven enough. Now rest..." She said.

Maybe being like Ashlin was having more of an effect on her than she had thought it would. She was pushing her people harder than she meant to. Pushing someone to greatness is one thing. Pushing them to exhaustion is another. It couldn't be healthy to work that hard, not as Kenji had. If he was trying to make up for what he had done before, with their last patient, he had nothing to worry about. She had let that go for the moment.

[Hirihi]

Leaving Kenji in the hall, advising a nearby nurse to make sure he made it to a bed, Hirihi went back to her patient who was breathing evenly. Her eyes were closed, relaxing from the pain relief. As exhausted as she might be, she needed to see this through to the end. Taking the soldier pill, as tempting as it might be, was a horrible idea. Pressing her fingertips against the skin grafts, Hirihi would check the various bits of artificial skin, a silent hope that nothing else would go wrong with her recovery. as she worked, the Jounin from their missino would walk in, knocking his knuckles against the side of the door and looking from the large pile of flesh in the corner to the exposed belly of his female chuunin.

"Is...Elisa going to be okay?" He asked, a bit concerned from the sight of the decaying flesh in the corner. "She will be fine, from my findings thus far. She was hit with a Katon blast that was leeching her chakra. It was using this chakra to burn off her skin, slowly working its way towards her internal organs. Whoever hit her, was working towards a slow and painful death. Getting her here any later would have left her pretty much dead." Hirihi said.

With this, he showed a look of concern and worry. "Did you remove all of it? Will she have to get follow ups?" He asked, Hirihi shrugging her shoulders as she thought to herself. "She may have to come in to make sure the skin grafts aren't rejected when she is well, but that isn't major. as long as she is not straining her body for a week, she should be fine." Hirihi said, getting the chart from the foot of her bed and turning to the Jounin. "I'm certain youa re tired of hearing about the idea of paperwork, but I have to fill out an accident report on her. Just for medical documentation." Hirihi said.

It was a private desire to learn the technique behind it, too, that made Hirihi get as much detail as she did. From what he was saying, the user had definitely said something about Katon in the words he muttered, but the blast that came out was not a normal katon blast. It was a dark red, looking almost like blood, and it had hit her dead in the chest. "Just out of curiosity, was this because she was taking a hit for someone else? Judging from how it hit her directly in the chest, after the presence of the enemy was well known prior to attack, tells me she threw herself forward to save someone." Hirihi said, her fellow Jounin nodding his head.

[Hirihi]

Setting the clipboard at the foot of the bed, having gathered the necessary details for both her private research and the medical requirements, Hirihi ushered the Jounin out. "I am going to work with her on recovering, but this is going to take at least a day or two. She, basically, had surgery and is going to need the time to recuperate. She might also need the time to reflect on what happened, and that will likely mean a psychiatric evaluation." Hirihi said. In this case, she was almost certain that a psych evaluation. It was a traumatic experience. She might never look at fire the same way again.

Hirihi surely wouldn't, especially after witnessing the after effects of the katon attack that was used on her. What if that had been Hirihi on the table? It was so easy to let those thoughts go in the middle of doing medical things, but it always hit her hard later. She never showed this, of course, but the weight of her job was a bit more enormous than she could handle on occasion. She imagined most medics got to feel that way from time to time, feeling the pressures of the medical part of it all hitting like a ton of bricks.

Going back to speak with Elisa, now that her squad leader was gone, Hirihi flashed a smile at her. "Before we let you rest, I need you to tell me if you feel anything strange at all. Pain, aches, anything that comes to mind. I don't want to leave you unattended for a second without an all clear on my behalf." Hirihi said. With her voice seeming to find itself, Hirihi listened closely as she spoke. "I'm thirsty, and the skin grafts feel strange..." She said, reaching up and pressing her fingers to the new skin.

"It isn't fake skin, just so you know. It's as real as your own skin. Just don't ask how we got the stuff." Hirihi said, chuckling along with Elisa. "Well, that's good to know. So, is it normal for the skin to feel cold and look pale like this?" Elisa asked. Hirihi frowned and leaned forward, glancing close at the grafts. "It should have filled with blood. Here, let me try something." Hirihi said. Placing her hands over the grafts, Hirihi began to filter a different colored chakra into her body, encouraging the creation of more blood to be created inside of her body. There had likely been a lot of blood loss in the accident, and it was leaving her at least a liter or two less than normal.

[Hirihi]

As blood began to flow more evenly through Elisa's body, the skin would begin to take on the same color as the skin surrounding it. It took it a moment, but the once pale, lifeless skin would be a healthy, flushed color. "Is it always going to be red like that?" Elisa asked, seeming concerned as Hirihi shook her head. "Your body is merely adjusting. During the trauma, it was putting into effect severing the skin from your body in an effort to prevent further damage. It also is this way because the skin has no tone to it naturally. It will get the necessary pigments to look normal again over time."

With that, Hirihi went and grabbed a bottle of water from the hall and went back into Elisa's room, a straw jabbed through the cap where Hirihi had cut a convenient hole. Handing the bottle to Elisa, Hirihi finalized the rest of her chart and hooked her up to the heart monitor in the room. "We'll be keeping you here for about 24 hours. As I told your squad leader, we have to clear you first before you can go back out. I'll be your primary doctor, so if you need anything feel free to ask." Hirihi stated plainly.

This was where the job got mundane. It was just as plain and simple as any other job, breaking down into a simplistic job of working with people and soothing peoples' worries about life in general. With all of Elisa's needs taken care of for the moment, Hirihi walked out of the room and saw that Kenji had been moved to an empty bed in one of the patient wings. Not really the protocol she'd have followed, since they had their own beds in the back, Hirihi left Kenji alone. He'd worked hard, and they'd saved a life that day.

Going to do the same herself, Hirihi knew she had to at least get some rest between now and tomorrow. She also had to get a psych evaluation done on Elisa, which required her presence. That would probably be the last part of her stay. Once the psych consult was done, she'd gladly send Elisa on her way back to the battlefield.

[Hirihi]

Curling up in the medical quarters of the hospital, Hirihi would check her pager to make sure that it was loud enough to wake her if necessary. Closing her eyes as she laid against the pillow, Hirihi felt the wave of exhaustion take her into a land of sleep. as she slept, the hospital continued to run, with the occasional nurse coming in and checking on the various patients. A patient of priority, marked as such on her chart by Hirihi, was Elisa. Every hour, someone was required to make sure that there were no abnormalities with anything that they found.

They were also required to check the skin grafts to make sure there was no bleeding, lack of color, or rejection by her body. Just like clockwork, every hour the job was done. Nothing would happen in the short 6 hours that Hirihi rested. probably the most exciting thing had to be the newer patients that were filtering in and out. Some were civilian related, while others were other injured ninja that needed treatment. Anything from kunai stabbings to wire cuts along the throat, the hospital saw all of it.

Stirring from her sleep at about 5 hours in, Hirihi would sit up and rub her eyes. Quickly snatching up her pager and checking for any messages, there were a slough of updates on her patient, each reporting that there was no change in her symptoms. This was the best news that she could have gotten all day. If everything had gone so perfectly, then they would only need to get the psych consult for it to be done. Stirring from the medic quarters, Hirihi went straight to Elisa's room, seeing that her team had come in to cheer her up, each of them in turn stirring a bit of laughter.

When Hirihi entered, the room went silent, Elisa turning to look at Hirihi. Now that she had rested, Hirihi noticed that her hair had been greatly burned in the attack. Reaching out, Hirihi ran her fingertips through it and sighed. "You'll probably hate to do this, but cutting your hair might be a good idea. I can't save the hair. Now, how are those skin grafts doing?" Hirihi asked, looking at the chart to make sure each nurse had checked them thoroughly as she listened to Elisa. With no complaints, a gradual improvement over things from earlier, Hirihi smiled and nodded. "Well, we just have to make sure that everything is fine in the morning, then we can let you go. You... may want to bring some clothes for her." Hirihi said, since the others had been cut up and burned.

[Hirihi]

The remainder of Elisa's stay was smooth sailing. With the morning sun filtering in through the hospital windows, Hirihi went over her to do list for the morning. Her priority was getting Elisa out, as she was improving greatly. Unlike her last patient, she had taken far less damage that needed to be healed by time. Granted, she would need to be careful with the skin grafts, but they were holding well. With one of her colleagues following behind her, Hirihi entered Elisa's room for her evaluation to make sure she was fit to return to her ninja duties.

As boring as it was, Hirihi had to pay attention for it. She'd been through one of these before, as a person who had been admitted for being attacked by a bear on a mission. If the animal hadn't snuck up on her, she would have seen it coming and would have dodged the slash. The claws, though, had done a number on her, leaving her quickly losing blood. As Elisa answered each question with a wavering sense of uncertainty, the evaluation would be finalized and Hirihi given the results.

"Well, Elisa, you get to leave today." Hirihi said, Elisa smiling and showing just how grateful she was to be leaving as fast as she was. Handing her a bag of clothes that had been brought to her by her squad, Hirihi stepped out so that she could get dressed. Waiting by the door, Hirihi turned as it opened and handed Elisa her discharge papers, showing her to the receptionist's desk to have her discharge finalized. With the proper signatures in place, Hirihi sent Elisa on her way, laughing and conversing with her squad once again.

Turning to the receptionist, Hirihi pressed her hands against her face. "If I look to my left and there is another critical patient, I'd like you to drive a syringe into my temple." Hirihi said. Peeking through the edge of her fingers, hirihi would sigh with relief at the sight of a clear street. "I'm out. Page me if you need me." Hirihi said, passing Kenji with a wave on the way out of the hospital.

.:Exit:.

[¤ Tenkai ¤]

+ 223 exp.