A thin line between brave and stupid (Kitsune/ask)

[Azai Momotaro]

Another lovely day, the weather was cloudy which is normal for the village hidden in the clouds. The winds made the air feel refreshing, everyone was having fun and enjoying themselves. Everyone but one boy, Azai Momotaro was beaten and battered to a pulp, a head injury made his head bleed forcing him to cover his right eye, his left hand was immobilized due to it being broken. It was a cruel scene as the boy was only thirteen years old, he was not alone though he is carried by another boy a bit older than Momo, even a bit taller than him, he wore glasses. Distressed the boy ran towards the hospital in order to search for a medical ninja that will be able to help Momotaro.

Finally reaching the hospital the older boy rushed to the emergency room and kicked the door open, having no time for proper manners. He looked around trying to search for someone, anyone to help Momotaro with his severe wounds.

“Come on! Is anyone available I need help, this boy is in grave danger. I need someone who knows what they are doing, have any of you seen Kitsune-Sama ?”

The desperation was clear in both the face and voice of the Chunin who carried Momo on his back, he knew clock was ticking and while he was not a big believer of miracles, right now he wished for one.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Being a typical day for Kitsune, the Head of the Research department of the medical branch, she started out touring the labs, checking up on the experiments that were running, and her subordinates as well. She did this every day, because someone had to keep track of everything, and that someone was her. Otherwise she’d just end up losing her position as department head, and the substantial salary increase that came with it. Granted, she didn’t need the salary one bit, but it was nice to be compensated for the time she spent coming up with ways to improve the hospitals efficiency. Even if not all of her ideas were taken seriously…

While on the trip, her assistant and construction Hisako, an artificial human puppet, with a heart-shaped chakra power core instead of an actual heart, and an electronic brain to boot, were taking notes of everything going on, as well as what Kitsune was saying regarding the experiments. From there, she’d perform a risk analysis and submit it to Kitsune at lunch time, so any potential dangers could be sorted out. But now, however, Kitsune had performed her initial rounds and had then gone to the main building of the hospital, rather than the research wing.

As coincidence would have it, around that time she heard a loud voice from the emergency room asking for her. An uncommon event, but not entirely unheard of. She used to spend a lot of time in the emergency room but even more time in the operating theaters. So, she strolled into the emergency room and tapped the Chuunin on the shoulder. ”No need to search. I’m right here. Run down the events leading up to now.” she said in a matter-of-factly kind of tone as she got a bay ready for the kid that had clearly been injured. ”Place him down, gently, on the bed.” she ordered as she put on gloves to prevent contaminants from being introduced to the kids wounds.

[MFT; WC: 330]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

The young Chunin was pleasantly surprised at the quick response he got from Kitsune sama, feeling relieved that the young genin will receive the treatment he needs now. Listening to her demands the young chunnin had no choice but to listen to her, placing the boy on a bed gently the young man turned towards Kitsune. He struggled to answer her question, it was a weird situation and the young genin did a stupid mistake, and he did not get a chance to tell him why it was a stupid mistake, so maybe Kitsune could break it down to him.

“well to be honest with you, me and two of my teammates where chasing down a criminal. Nothing the three of us could not handle with ease, or well so we thought. The bastard sneaked his way out of our grasp and managed to try and make a break and escape the village. We hastily made chase and well, apparently according to the criminal the boy was there doing some training and the two fought. Sadly well the boy got beaten badly his wounds are terrible, he did managed to slow him down enough for us to catch and beat the criminal. But if we were late he might have not make it, he did not stand any chance.”

The chunin said with a grim look on his face, as he thought how bad it would have been if the village had lost one of her bright young shinobi, he was just too happy it did not end like that. Looking over the unconscious young boy on the bed, the man remembered to let Kitsune know information regarding the young boy in case she needed to tell his parents what happened to their son.

“oh by the way before I forget, I need to tell you who this boy is. His name is Azai Momotaro and he is a gennin, a bright young man. His father is a Jonin, he is out of the village now, but he should be back tomorrow.”

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune shook her head slightly at hearing the explanation. ”So in other words, the kid got injured trying to play a hero, and you were too slow in chasing down a criminal despite being able to channel chakra into your feet to give a rather explosive burst of speed. Got it.” she summarized, clearly disapproving of the lack of speed from the chuunin. She examined the kid and determined that he’d need more than just regular medical treatments. Ordinarily she’d let things heal on their own as it’d be better in the long run, but this was critical and the kid likely had a concussion.

”I’ll let you get back to your duties. You did well in bringing him here. Now though… I’ve got a genin to save.” she said, effectively dismissing the chuunin from her presence as she focused on stabilizing the youngling, applying touches of healing chakra at critical points like the head. Kitsune visualized her next actions in her mind before actually performing them Lets see… Stabilize the head injury. Stop the bleeding. Then, follow up with treatment to the broken hand. Realign the bones back to normal. Then, put it in a cast. Finally, administer healing chakra to head again. And then, she performed them in sequence.

If all things went according to plan, Momotaro would be waking up any second now that he’d been stabilized and had his head healed. When he did come to, Kitsune would most likely be in the process of writing his chart, detailing the treatments performed along with what would need to happen afterwards, in terms of re-training the broken hand so he could use it like normal again once it was done healing.

[MFT; WC: 284]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

The chunin was way to embarrassed to even look at Kitsune, him and his group got way overconfident trying to catch what was supposed to be a petty thief but stuff escalated and a kid almost die cause of them. Biting his lips when the doctor scolded him, the chunin was unable to even let out a word and just nod as she dismissed him. Leaving the boy with her, the young teenager wished the kid to recover and maybe one day apologize to him properly but now he has to join the rest of his team and confront their teachers.

Soon after the doctor began to work her magic on the young boy, treating all of his wounds and putting his broken arm in a cast. It did not take long for the help she provided to show results, the unconscious boy first began to twitch ever slightly. Before slowly opening his eyes and looking around, first thing the boy did was slowly trying to get up and examine the room around him. He figured that it is probably the hospital but what caught his attention was the red haired woman standing near him.

“Where am I ? what happened ? and who are you ?”

The boy simply asked, before suddenly feeling some pain on his shoulder, trying to hold it with his broken arm. The boy then just realized that his arm was too broken to move around. “ouch! It hurts.” The boy exclaimed in pain, still looking at Kitsune with bewilderment.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune looked at the boy as he woke up and immediately tried to sit up, which eventually resulted in a lot of pain. ”Your arm is broken, please don’t try to move it around just yet. You’re in the hospital. A chuunin brought you here. Said you’d helped stop a thief.” Kitsune said in a tone of slight disapproval ”And I. Am Shinrya Kitsune. Head of the Research Department here at the hospital. Luckily for you, I was on duty in the emergency room when you were brought in. And don’t worry, you’ll be just fine. Just need time to heal.”

She performed some routine checks of his body, now that he was awake, including that one test where she shines a small pen light into his eye and asks him to track the light as she moves it around to see if his eyes dilate as they’re meant to. As it seemed that they worked fine she went on to check the rest of his body for potential fractures, bruises and other such things. She hoped there was no internal bruises, or he’d be sore for quite some time, depending on his healing factor. Luckily for the kid, there was no internal bleeding, or he’d have needed some more… Invasive procedures performed.

”Your arm should be fine after about six weeks in that cast now that I’ve set the bone properly. When the cast comes off, we’ll need to put you on a schedule of retraining, so you can regain your motor functions fully. You might experience a lack of grip strength initially, but that’s due to not having used the arm for six weeks.” she explained and wrote a few more notes on the chart before putting it aside. ”Now then. Do you have any questions regarding your treatment or anything else?”

 

[Azai Momotaro]

When Shinrya Kitsune told Momotaro what had happen to him, the memories came flooding in back in. The look on the eye of the criminal he fought minutes ago, and the defeat he suffered and the injuries he sustained all came to him. Shrugging that horrifying memories off, for a moment he turned to the doctor and nodded to her. “Thank you Shinrya-Sensei, I owe you a debt of gratitude. And I cant wait to heal back up again and return to my training. Next time I will be strong enough to protect myself from random thieves. I was too weak to fight him, but I am glad I stalled till reinforcement showed up, I fell unconscious right after that but seeing that I am here mean the others managed to defeat him.” He said with a relieved smile on his face, he was happy his struggle was probably not in vain.

Moment later he complied with Shinrya’s procedure and test, following the light with his own eyes. Nervously waiting to see if she finds something else wrong with him, the boy eagerly looked her in the eyes, his eyes feeling a bit more weak and passive not like his normal lively and passionate look he always has. The boy then received a news that was not good for him, his shocked expression was immediately apparent. He then clinched the sheets of the bed with his good hand, the number of weeks he should wait is not something he wanted to do.

“What!? Six weeks is too much, I must get back to my training way sooner than that. Is there no way for me to swing my sword as soon as say a week ? I need to get stronger, and I cant make my teacher wait on me. Please miss Shinrya there must be another way I Cant just wait for six weeks doing nothing.”

The Boy’s voice was a little loud and intense, the desperation in his face was apparent. It was like he was scared of something will happen to him if he waits for six weeks.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune scratched her head. So the kid wanted to get back to training, and faster than what was good for him. ”That’s the amount of time it’ll take I’m afraid. Unless you want to lose the ability to use your hand later on, because in that case I could just use very intense healing jutsu on it, and have it knit itself back together faster than what your body can handle under normal circumstances.” she said and folded her arms under her sizable bust ”Ironically, had the arm been damaged beyond repair, I could’ve replaced it with a prosthetic, connected to your nerve system, so you’d be able to move it like a normal arm.”

She gauged his reaction to that bit of information before continuing ”Thing is. You wouldn’t be able to feel anything through the arm, but you’d be able to move it around like a normal arm. It’d just take even longer to work properly, and require even more hard work. Aaaaand regular maintenance of the machinery so it doesn’t lock up on you and cause even greater pain.” she explained, further illustrating the point that what she had done for him so far was the best possible course of action for him.

”Not only that, but as it is, I can’t just replace your limb with a prosthetic all willy nilly. There has to be a proper reason. Loss of limb… Becoming a cripple… Transitioning into a becoming a human puppet over time… Those sorts of things.” she finished, outlining some of the possible reasons for a limb replacement to take place. She was pretty sure the hospitals insurance wouldn’t allow the replacements without a good reason.

[MFT; WC: 281]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

Momotaro realized that he never been to a hospital before, so he was unaware of how Med Nin work. they were different than what he thought, Kitsune was cold, blunt and to the point. The boy wanted to be mature and appreciate reality of the situation, but he could not. The rush of emotions overwhelmed him, fear, anger and frustrations were all over him.

“damn it! Alright I will wait, I do not want a mechanical hand. I rather have my normal hand. But I cant believe that I was so weak, and here I thought I had what it takes to be someone. I want to be stronger than this, damn it.”

The boy cussed, his face was filled with anger and his hand clenched up. It took him a couple of seconds of self absorbed hatred, before turning towards Kitsune. He felt a bit embarrassed as he felt a bit rude to her, when he was supposed to be grateful towards her for saving his life.

“I am sorry Shinrya-sensei, I did not mean to explode on you like that.” He said looking down on the floor, he then looked up once more as he heard about what she can do and why.

“people can turn themselves to a human puppet ? why would anyone want that ? I can understand why would people might want prosthetic arms, some shinobi can lose their limbs. But changing their whole body sound a bit strange for me, can you tell me any benefits of that ?” Momotaro looked at the woman, raising his brow the boy was very confused and curious.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune chuckled ”See, that’s just it. You’re still young and have plenty time to train and get better” she said after Momotaro’s exclamation, or explosion rather, ”There’ll always be someone stronger eventually. You’ll just have to train. Get better. Practice your techniques. Practice everything you can.” she continued, trying to calm the kid down and give it all a positive spin. ”To be honest with you, I’ve been beaten before, too. Took a while, but I picked myself up and got stronger. And I’m entirely sure you can do that as well. Luckily you didn’t die, like I did, but still.”

She dropped quite a bombshell at the end there. Had she really been dead? And yes. Yes she had. Twice in fact. The first time it required the usage of the holy grail to revive her, and the other time she basically just… Woke up. ”Oh don’t worry. I’ve seen worse explosions, dear boy. Like, literal ones, too.” she said, stifling a laugh as she gave Momotaro’s arm another look ”If all goes well, we might even be able to give you a clean bill of health in 4 weeks instead of 6. Depending on your healing factor of course.”

Then, when he asked about people becoming puppets she smiled ”Well, think of it this way. With a puppet body, you’d be getting rid of most of the systems that can fail in your body and replacing them with machine parts. Parts that can be repaired and replaced rather than needing to wait for healing.” she explained and withdrew a small model of a leg from her coat pocket ”This is a scale model of a leg I designed. It’s got the same kind of range a normal leg does, and even an artificial nervous system, so you’d be able to move it like a normal leg. But no pain receptors so if it breaks it won’t hurt like hell.”

[MFT; WC: 321]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

She was right, the boy knew she was right in the fact that he should be thankful for the fact that this injury was not permanent and in some time he can go back to his training. “yeah you are right, I knew I was not that strong to begin with but I still did not know how weak I was. But that is just more motivation for me to train, in order to ascend higher and get stronger. I won’t let this happen again, I will put up more of a fight.” He said with a determined look on his face, the boy is slowly trying to spin this situation for the better.

He then began to rub his eye a little bit, hearing that doctor Shinrya was once beaten is a shock, he never thought that older people would have been through stages of being not as invincible. “oh so you also got bea-“ the boy stopped when the last part of that sentence finally settled in for him, the boy sat in silence for a couple of a seconds, he looked up slowly towards the doctor. He slowly tilted his head at her in confusion, he could not believe what he just heard.

“wait what ? you died ? but how are you standing in front of me now ? am I in a genjustsu ? are you a puppet ?” the boy decided to throw a barrage of questions at the doctor, for the boy desperately needed answer.

He then nodded his head at her, no reason to fight the decision the doctor made he would wait as long as he needs to for his hand to heal. Trying to deny what already happened or fight it was going to be pointless and luckily the boy was able to come to that conclusion quickly. “alright, I will wait for 6 weeks. At that time I will have to go and visit the library and read some things. I need to educate myself if I am going to be a strong shinobi.” The boy said as he clinched his hand to a fist, trying to convince himself that he is excited.

“I see, I guess that kinda makes sense. But I think that I rather have a normal hand if I can, feeling pain may not be the greatest thing in the world. but I feel like it’s a constant reminder of my humanity and flaws.” The boy said a he put his hand on his shoulder. “so its thanks to the pain I felt today, that I can motivate myself to get stronger. But that just my opinion.” He said with a smile.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

Kitsune nodded at the kid as he determinedly decided that being beaten was just motivation. ”That’s the spirit I like to see.” she said with a slight smile ”I’ve got an inkling that you’re going to be just fine.”, then, she stepped aside to make some notes on Momotaros chart, letting the other staff know the treatments laid out for him, and the plan to rehabilitate his arm. While she did so, it seemed that the reality of what she had explained before had begun to sink into his head, as he stopped partway through a sentence, only to bombard her with questions.

”Yes, yes, I got better, no you’re not, and no I’m not.” she answered, answering his questions in sequence. ”The first time, I was revived by a holy artifact. The second time I just sorta… Woke up. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it though. 2/10 rating. Terrible experience.” she continued, scratching the back of her head before continuing ”So yeah. Very much alive. Got a pulse and everything, so I’m also not a puppet. Not even partially. I’m all flesh and blood over here. As for the genjutsu part, that would also be a no, as I’d have sensed that.”

All in all, Kitsune hoped those answers would be satisfactory for the young genin. He did seem resigned to letting his arm heal for the six weeks she had recommended. ”If you’re aiming to become Raikage eventually, I’d suggest you also study up on Ancient Kumogakurean. As a Kumo native, it’s your birthright to learn it. Or at least to learn the vulgar variant. To learn the proper, classical variant, you’ll need permission from the Raikage.” she suggested, to give the kid an idea of something to do while waiting for the arm to get better.

[MFT; WC: 298]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

The kind’s doctor words helped in reassuring the young boy, she seemed to know her stuff so the vote of confidence was appreciated. He just looked at the doctor, smiling gently. He was happy that his misfortune had some little silver lining, and he held on it.

The boy was relieved to hear that he was not in a genjutsu and that Kitsune was not a puppet, but there was a more important thing now. And that was how in the hell is she still in front him ? luckily he would not have to wait to get the answer he so badly wanted. However that explanation was far beyond what he could perceive as normal, the red headed doctor broke all the rule of reality Momo once knew and believed in. “wait what ? you did that ? that’s Amazing, I never heard anything like it before.” He blinked as the lady sarcastically dismissed death as an inconvenient event, this implanted the idea in Momo’s head, lady Shinrya is not to be trifled with at all. His ears perked when she mentioned that she would have sensed any genjutsu if it was taking place.

“oh Shinrya-sensei!!” in his excitement the boy almost leaped out of the bed, but he managed to contain himself. “you know how to sense Genjutsu ?” the boy asked with sparks on his eyes, he was fascinated by technical ninjas who wield genjutsu.

“yes, I should head to the libraries more often now. I want to become the Raikage when I grow up myself, so I will have to take things more seriously. I can’t slack anymore once my arm heals I will double up my effort, from 50 laps around the village to 100! No backing down.” Momotaro said with a determined voice, he was not going to lose his enthusiasm just because he had one very bad day.

 

[Shinrya Kitsune]

She gave a smile,”Don’t overdo it either. Your muscles need time to repair themselves after usage. That’s also how they grow and get stronger.” she said, explaining basic muscle functionality.”You know when your legs feel like they’re burning after you’ve been running? That’s because you’ve basically torn lots of muscle fibers. And when they grow back together, they get stronger and your body gets more used to it.” It was a simple explanation, but it’d suffice for the time being.

”And yes, I do know how to sense Genjutsu” she said with a slight smirk ”It’s all about always being aware of yourself and your surroundings. And it also helps that I’ve got certain skills to assist in noticing even the slightest of differences.”, and as she said so, she tapped a finger against the side of her head, near her right icy blue eye, indicating it as the source of said skill.

Kitsune finished making notes in the chart before putting it under her arm ”Alright, Momotaro-kun. I’m discharging you from the hospital, with strict orders to not use that arm for anything strenuous. No lifting, no stress, no nothing. If you do, it’ll slow the recovery, and potentially make it worse. Come back here in six weeks time, and we’ll remove that cast off of your arm and begin the retraining.” she explained and guided him towards the reception, albeit carefully as he might not have found his legs just yet. ”Be more careful with thugs in the future~” she admonished him before sending him on his way

[Topic left; MFT; WC: 260]

 

[Azai Momotaro]

Well Kitsune was leagues and bounds ahead of Momo in terms of intelligence, not only because she repaired his arm and the other damages but because she explained to him a sensation he has been feeling for a quite some time, being a training junkie he never understood why he needed to rest. But it was simple, Momo felt like a dunce for not getting that, but he kept a straight face. trying to salvage what little of his pride is left, he just nodded at her explanation and request. He will listen to her, he always listened to the professionals so this is no different.

Seeing her gesture at her eyes, when she mentioned that she knows how to deal with genjutsu. Made the boy wonder, her eyes were blue so she can’t be the Uchiha his dad mentioned. So what is this undead woman ? she seems to have been through some weird stuff, so Momo figured that she may have some sort of weird powers. So he did not question her logic and just got ready to leave, leaping out his bed and getting his feet on the ground he turned towards the women and said.

“I will follow those instruction to heart, and thank you for everything, I will never forget this.” he said as he was finally allowed to leave the hospital, he wont forget this day for a very long time.

[Topic left]