Needles and Nurses [Requesting Akujin]

[Kazumi]

The tall kunochi was officially released from hospital care over a week ago, but one might never have guessed with how many appointments they had ordered her to return for. Apparently mysterious illnesses and even more mysterious cures were a hot topic among the administrators of the Omni Prime Medical Facility. Had she not been a kunoichinow, she might have been tempted to not show up, as she felt like it would all be a waste of her time, and the thought of spending another minute in the hospital after spending a week inside of one was enough to make her ill.

Reluctantly, she sat patiently in the examination room on the sixth floor of the facility, awaiting some doctor to come in, poke her with needles, pepper her with the same questions that she always tried to sidestep and eventually do even more tests. Some of them were slightly painful and others were uncomfortably invasive, and she knew why they were doing them, but she couldn't bring herself to explain why this would likely never occur to someone else. It wasn't a disease or illness she caught. It wasn't some latent virus in her system that she brought in when she and her family moved to Sunagakure. It was much more than either of those things, but she knew it wasn't anything contagious.

So, she sat, her feet softly dangling off the side of the bed as she silently waited...

 

[Tomomi]

Spoiler

Birth/Real Name: Kanemoto Akujin
Adopted Name: Byakko Kyūji
Alias: Mikisugi Kyūji
Physical Age: 24
Height: 5 feet 10 inches tall
Weight: ????
Gender: Male
Day of Birth: October 5th
Zodiac Sign: Libra
Village: Sunagakure, Formerly Iwagakure
Alignment: ????
Rank: Jounin/Medic
Religion: Agnostic
Languages: English(Site Generalized Language), Runic Terran(Suna Language)
Skin tone: Well he was white but now he is darker like all of Kuro's clan apparently. He is not black, but has a tan I would say.
Eyes: Golden(They glow yellow in some situations) and they are feline-like eyes
Glasses: Not anymore, corrected visions through taking the Byakko Oath
Hair: Long, straight and white. I suppose if you would like a reference image look at Inuyasha.
Hands and feet: He has normal feet, but his hands are cat-like claws.
Markings/Tattoos: Silver-white markings formed around his left hand and forearm; also Byakko Tenshi seal is on his back.
Other features: Neko-ears
Relationship: Betrothed to the Head of the Byakko Clan
Looks Like: August 7 from Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor

It had been quite a few long shifts in a row at the Hospital for the descendant of Byakko and he was almost off his shift. The only individual that was separating him from work and play was the one who had given Kumoni and himself a hard time diagnosing who went by the name of Koizumi Tsubaki, the older sister of Mao. Apparently, they had kept the patient away from him after that first fateful day together so that more skilled and experienced shinobi that focused on medical mysteries could conduct tests and evaluate her. But yet, he was going to see the girl once again and would have to do a typical checkup with her to get her completely cleared by the hospital. He was sure she was as excited about it as he was.

Within moments of checking in and being placed into a room, he would knock on the door of her room and walk in. He was wearing his typical clothing and had a clipboard with him. He would sit down in the chair beside the girl as he would smile and begin. "Alright, Tsubaki. I know you probably are sick of these same questions and being stuck here, but can you fill out the paperwork one more time and I will try to get you out of here as soon as possible. I am sure Mao and your family are tired of not seeing you as well."

 

[Kazumi]

The soft click of the handle turning pulled Tsubaki's attentions outward once more as the familiar garb of another of the hospital doctors made their way inside. She had never met the man personally, though he did feel familiar to her somehow. Even after she had stabilized, she had drifted in and out of consciousness the next few days, even though her condition appeared stable. It may have been to Kyujis annoyance to hear that she had remained in the hospital as long as she had, but it seemed that in the end the other officials had more interest in the circumstances that he. Even so, he certainly did not have any shortage of his own work to attend to, and had not been required to attend to her past that day.

Tsubaki's head perked up as he began to speak, the girl looking attentive and polite, despite her feelings of being there. "Alright, Tsubaki. I know you probably are sick of these same questions and being stuck here, but can you fill out the paperwork one more time and I will try to get you out of here as soon as possible. I am sure Mao and your family are tired of not seeing you as well." As he sat and proceeded to speak, Tsubaki nodded in apparent appreciation of his apparent desire to have her on her way as quickly as possible.

A voice would suddenly speak inside of his head, one not unfitting for a girl of her size and stature. It was soft and respectful, yet still firm and confident, "Thank you, doctor. What else is it that you needed to know?" A momentarty pause ensued before another voice sounded in his head, but this one was very different from the first. Loud, cocky and the epitome of impatient, it sounded like a man just a few years Tsubaki's senior. "Just get it the hell over with, getting tired of these fracking stupid-." The voice suddenly caught off and Tsubaki looked off towards the side of the room, her expression not betraying anything she might have known about what he heard. Perhaps it was all in his head after such a long day, or at least that was what she was desperately hoping the might believe...

 

[Tomomi]

As he sat in his seat, he listened to the girl speak in response to his statements asking him if there was anything else that he needed to know. He did have his clipboard that had questions for her to fill out, but he and her both appeared that they wanted to get out of this small room and back to their everyday lives. He actually was getting ready to respond to her question, when he heard another voice that seemed aggravated towards him. He was going to mention to her about hearing a voice, but he assumed he was merely hearing things after having a long day on the job like he had daily and his senses were just playing tricks on him due to the lack of sleep and his mind being overworked with so many patients and checkups due to the lack of medical shinobi in the field recently since the Cabel attack. Did that terrorist attack actually harm the village that badly or was the medical branch already exhausted prior to that? He would never truly know if he didn't ask around, but he couldn't do that right now as this girl was the main focus at this very moment.

After a few moments, he would place the clipboard on the table beside him and rise to his feet. He would examine the girl from the front and then walk behind her to examine her there. It appeared just from physical signs that she was well and he placed his eye in her eyes to make sure that her eyes dilated properly. He also would check her blood pressure which was normal more or less and she was her lungs sounded fine. He would then sit back into his seat and say with a smirk: "It appears that you are healthy and doing well after your operation. I am not sure how much of that you remember but it was one crazy day to say the least, it took three medics to make you better, but that is our job so no worries! The important thing is you are doing well and you seem to have no side-effects or long-term effects from the operation. If you have any concerns or questions, let me hear them now please."

 

[Kazumi]

As Kyujin stood, made his way around her, and began his inspection, Tsubaki breathed a small sigh of relief. If he seemed to notice the voice, then he must have dismissed it... if he actually even heard it. The next few minutes passed in outward silence, her complying to his small routine requests that accompanied all of her prior examinations. It was when he began to check her eye dilation when the voices started up again. She kept them silent, relegated to her own mind, but one by one they began to speak up. Some commented on how bright the light was, some how nicely he was dressed, others simply talked amongst themselves about things that happened in their past. It was becoming more and more like standing in the middle of a growing crowd and it was begging to become difficult to keep her mind clear, so much so that she didn't even seem to be paying attention to what he was saying.

"... side-effects or long-term effects from the operation. If you have any concerns or questions, let me hear them now please." Tsubaki's eyes finally looked up towards him in the final parts of his speech. She had a momentary look of confusion, as if she had not paid any attention to him, which, while true, was not intentional. One dozen soon grew to two as the Many continued their commentary and conversations. The girl wished to tell him that she had no questions, to thank him for his expediency, but she feared that if she attempted to do so, the chorus might leak through. So, as a faint, but notable pounding sensation began to rise in her head, Tsubaki quickly shook her head and pushed herself off the side of the bed. SHe proceeded to step past him towrds the door, closing her eyes hard to focus her attention on building a wall around her own mentality.

Unfortunately, she was no Naoki, and having her eyes closed in an unfamiliar area was not the brightest of plans. Her foot caught on the chair that the doctor had sat on, and within a blink of an eye the girl found herself collapsing face first to the ground. She managed to catch herself, barely avoiding cracking her skull on the smooth hard ground, but the sudden shock stirred the Many up something fierce. A few chuckled in amusement, many others voiced concerns and words of sympathy, and even more things she couldn't discern from the growing neural overload. The pain in her mind grew as she stayed there, half on the ground and her head leaned forward, pressing her eyes shut as she tried in vain to quiet them. To the outsider, it might appear she wasn't so lucky and had indeed impacted her head, pr perhaps that she was so drained she couldn't bear to push herself up, but oh.. if only it were as simple as that.

 

[Tomomi]

The good doctor sat with his arms crossed evaluating his patient as she shook her head and started to stand. Overall, she seemed to be doing fairly well after her traumatic check-in for the medical professional where he had been shaken by the girl's friend and former partner against a Cabel sympathizer. That terrible day had been at the end of a long string of bullshit that had been occurring to the descendant of Byakko during that week that had just passed recently. In all honesty, he was happy that she was doing so well but yet he didn't feel like she was feeling one hundred percent as she rolled to the side of the bed she was sitting on and began to walk away past the the soon-to-be Sennin. Unfortunately for the girl, she tripped and fell to the floor but luckily gave herself enough support to not knock herself silly and out cold.

Obviously, the demigod heard her collapsing to her hands and knees as he inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly as he rose from his seat. He would kneel beside the girl, putting his hand on her back and saying cautiously: "Miss Koizumi, are you okay? Why don't you sit down and take it easy since you are probably still weak. You need to not overdo it right now or you are going to hurt yourself and have yourself readmitted. And with the amount of patients we have currently admitted and the lack of staff, I don't know how we could handle another patient in the hospital. Would you like to go to my office and sit until you feel better or would you like me to call Naoki or Mao?" In all honesty, he was very concerned with the girl considering that chakra sucking source was still in her body and never removed because he couldn't do it without killing her and his assistant had gone cold on him mid-operation probably due to her lack of experience and not knowing what to do. Then again, he did the same thing earlier when she was taking control of the operation; touche, Kumoni, touche wherever you are kid.

 

[Kazumi]

Tsubaki kept on the ground as he made his way over to her, kneeling down to attempt to presumably check on her status as well as to comfort her. His words were mostly lost amidst the sea of the Many, but she could tell he was speaking. Her head hurt too much to concentrate on what he said, but she knew she wanted to simply get home and rest. The prospect of being stuck in a hospital bed for any further length of time was almost frightening to the girl. As his voice ceased she paused a moment, unsure of what he said, before she opened the mental link to respond. Unfortunately, a combination of her dampened concentration and the contact of his hand on her back it did not go as planned.

As the mental link jutted into the doctor's mind, it was not Tsubaki's mental voice that came through, but hundreds. The sensation was like suddenly being thrown into a small room with hundreds of other people who all shouted to try and be heard over one another. Except in this case, one could not simply cover their ears in an attempt to drown them out. The jarring cacophony of voices would continue until either a few seconds passed and Tsubaki was able to forcibly cut the link off or if the demigod removed his hand from her back. Once ended, the calm near-silence of the room would likely feel like a true perfect void of sound in what would likely feel like a grateful euphoric surge of relief.

It would be uncertain if Tsubaki knew what exactly had occurred, as her position still remained the same, her hands on the ground as she kept her eyes pressed shut. The good doctor may have been able to easily retreat for respite of the Many, but Tsubaki would not be so fortunate.

 

[Tomomi]

As he was kneeling beside the girl trying to talk to her and comfort her, he started to slowly hear voices again in the room that he had ignored before. The voices however this time were louder than they were before and it seemed like some were laughing, some crying and some fighting with one another along with others cursing slurs at him and at each other. His eyes were widened at this point as he heard all these voices to the point where he sat on his arse with his hand leaving the girl's back and the voices disappearing from his head. If he had heard these voices before and they were getting louder when he was near Tsubaki then maybe they were coming from her. Then again, he was always sleep deprived so you could never assume anything when you were Byakko Kyuji.

He would just sit there with his hands in his lap before he rose and grabbed his clipboard jotting down some notes thus far from the checkup. He couldn't technically let her go considering she didn't seem right but he also didn't know what to do for her since she seemed perfectly fine. They could always run more tests on her but that would cost her and her family more money that he was guessing they did not have. But, if she left, he would be in loads of trouble if she actually got hurt or had to be readmitted. Decisions, decisions, decisons. What to do what to do.

He would sit back down with his clipboard looking at the girl and say in the hopes that she would hear him: "Is there something that you would like to tell me? Maybe oh I don't know all the voices that I just heard when I had my hand on your back? What is going on?"

 

[Kazumi]

Bit by bit, as she concentrated, the walls around her own person mind formed. It was not an actual wall, it had no form, shape or appearance, but it manages to separate her from them when she simply needed space. In time, perhaps such a measure would not be necessary, but for now it was all that stood between her and insanity. The voices became quieter as the wall formed, segmenting her own thoughts and that of reality from theirs. She finally heard the small creak of someone sitting down nearby, and then the only voice she heard was that of the doctor speaking to her.

"Is there something that you would like to tell me? Maybe oh I don't know all the voices that I just heard when I had my hand on your back? What is going on?"

Tsubaki froze where she was, bent over on the ground. She could move, the pain and her head lingered faintly, but it was only en echo. She simply didn't wish to move. She had messed up, and to the worst possible person. If he heard the voices then... Tsubaki hesitated further, not responding for a good ten seconds of complete silence between the pair. Silently, she gulped, her throat feeling as if it was going to constrict down and make it impossible to breathe. "You heard them..?" her thoughts paused a moment before she finished. "It is... complicated." she telepathically replied, this time with her voice and that one alone. It felt calm and reassured, but even that took a lot of effort. There was not such a thing as inflections and tone with mental communication, but the feelings that caused such coudl easily be passed along, even without intending to do so.

Slowly she pushed herself up to a sitting position before finally standing up, her right foot ore from the fall. "Any chance we could just not mention this and I could just leave?" She knew the odds were low. He was a doctor, and if anything she would be lucky not to be either locked up for being crazy or strapped to some medical table and experimented upon. Both were likely absurd notions, but logical reasoning was the first thing to go once Tsubaki began to panic, which thankfully was not too often. She turned and looked over her shoulder towards him, a weak smile across her lips that seemed to say 'please?'

 

[Tomomi]

He continued to sit with his clipboard in his hand as he somehow telepathically heard Tsubaki talking to him telling him that it was a complicated situation and wishing to leave the room. Within the normal checkup procedures, she had passed everything, but this mental "disorder" was quite alarming to him and apparently herself. However, this was a normal checkup and nothing more nor something that he could do without a psychologist's advice on the matter. He had to let her go and hopefully she would go right to her parents and figure out what was going on.

He would nod to her and say: "You may go and I won't even write this down on the clipboard. You passed your checkup and you may leave. I would however advise you to seek help about the matter before you go insane and lose your mind. I am here if you ever need me, just ask for me by name and I will come to the hospital no matter the time. Take it easy the next few days while you are recovering and make sure Mao helps you out around the house until you are feeling completely better, alright? See ya later!"

He would rise from his position and walk by the girl out of the room and sit in his office with door closed. He would make a note to himself about what he had just experienced with the girl and put it into his own personal file on the patients. It was better to have documentation than be admitted to the crazy house if people came for him.

[Topic Left Unless Stopped.]

 

[Kazumi]

Tsubaki stood there for only a second before he would answer, but that second seemed to feel like it was lasting for an eon. A single bead of sweat dropped from her hairline as she tried to maintain that calm pleading smile, but she knew that there was no way he was simply going to, "You may go" The words seemed to catch in her ears as her heart felt as if it stopped beating for a few moments. He was not going to keep her here? "You may go and I won't even write this down on the clipboard. You passed your check-up and you may leave. I would however advise you to seek help about the matter before you go insane and lose your mind." As he continued to speak, her worried began to evaporate bit by bit. How would any self respecting medical professional simply let her walk free with a pat on the back and some simple encouragement?

"I am here if you ever need me, just ask for me by name and I will come to the hospital no matter the time. Take it easy the next few days while you are recovering and make sure Mao helps you out around the house until you are feeling completely better, alright?"</B><i></i> She nodded along, her mouth absently hanging open half of an inch as she stared in shock. He stood and escorted her over towards the door. A part of her expected him to sic a pair of nurses at her when her guard was down, but she knew that was only her irrational paranoia speaking. Before he turend and made his way off he concluded with a simple, <B>"See ya later!" and went on his way down the opposite end of the hallways.

Tsubaki was left standing there in mild shock until he turned a corner and dissapeared from view. Perhaps the Many had frightened him off? There was no telling what he had heard, even though most of it was incomprehensible due to the disorder of their multitude of overlapping words. They were not evil spirits, simply people who had been merged into this strange collective that the Spirit housed. She didn't understand it fully, even with their attempts of explaining as much as they could, bit by bit. So, Tsubaki turned and walked her way towards the lobby of the hosptial. Down thee flights of stairs and out towards the lobby. She spoke with the nurse at the desk for a few moments as she checked out. Just as she turned to make it towards freedom she paused, and found herself turning to the nurse once again.

Before she could stop herself, she found she was standing in front of his door. She didn't understand why she was leaping back into the fire by asking the nurse where his office was, but she assumed it was the influence of a segment of the Many. Did they trust him? Surely not everyone did, but some may. One name floated to her mind, Kenshi, and she presumed this must have been his influence, but as she knocked on the door, she pushed all those thoughts aside. If answered, he would find the girl standing there, looking awkward as she stared down towards his shoes, her hands clasped together just below her waistline. A few simple words floated into his mind as she stood there motionless, "why did you let me go?"

[[Intercepted!]]

 

[Tomomi]

The man known as Kyuji had just completed the paperwork for a standard checkup for the bizarre girl named Tsubaki and was just relaxing in his office after the clusterfuck associated with hearing those strange voices emulating from the poor girl. He still had many questions that he could've asked the lady about herself and the disorder that she was dealing with. But, she seemed adamant to get out of the hospital as soon as she could and he could understand that as he had people that he wanted to see as well after working his long and often painstaking shifts. But, that was the life of a medical shinobi and the girl would not know about that life unless she wanted to venture down that rabbit hole.

However, the odds of having someone willing and adamant about joining the branch were declining sadly. However, you never knew what someone would do when they were given the opportunity and assistance that they needed to succeed. Maybe just maybe he would factor the medical field into his future lesson plans at the academy to try to raise the interest in his field. He had to do something because the amount of medical shinobi were declining due to having families, age, and retirement; while they were falling, there was a raise in patients coming in and medical procedures that needed to be done. A meeting of sorts would probably have to be rearranged after his initial one in order to keep the branch in control.

But, a knock was heard on his door and he rose to see Tsubaki waiting outside with her head down staring at his shoes when he opened the door. He would hear the girl ask him why he let her go telepathically it appeared as she stood motionless in the corridor. The initial look on his face obviously was confusion as to why she was here and then a sigh could be heard escaping his mouth as he moved to the side and motioned to her to sit down in his room. If she walked into his room and sat down, he would sit in the chair on the other side of the desk and begin to speak; if she chose to stand there, he would just begin talking to her like any normal person would do.

"I wouldn't say I let you go. You were done with your checkup and were clear to leave the hospital. We both know you have other voices that are radiating from you, but that isn't really my field of work. I am not a psychologist nor do I do any work with mental conditions like yours. I'm sorry..."

 

[Tomomi]

He would stand there waiting for a girl to respond and even wave his hand in front of her eyes to see if she would respond. But, there was no reaction to his moves and sadly he was slowly creeping her out just standing there. He would close the door on her face and go back into his office paging a receptionist to come and escort the nice little girl out of the hospital and send her on her way. She definitely had something wrong with her mentally, but he didn't know what it was and it was outside of his field of expertise currently. Maybe if she came to him at a later date, he could help our out more, at least he hoped so. At least she was out of that cramp and busy hospital and headed towards her family hopefully. What he would do is file more paperwork and go check on some of the other patients in the hospital to make sure they were okay and to hopefully get more of them out of the hospital and back to their families.

[Topic Left Due to Inactivity]