Nutella
Homoerotic Subtext
ILLUMINATE
nerra • groam
2,263 words
2,263 words
Ren and Ansherina walked through the double doors and down the hallways towards the Emergency Room. Already having a crash course in how to use Chiyudou, Ren was on her way to have a more in depth learning experience with her Russian superior. The two medics pushed open another pair of doors, and were greeted by the Emergency Room.
Ren looked at the various patients, most lying on operating beds or tables. She kept close to Ansherina, hoping she wouldn’t disturb any of the operations or treatments going on. “What now, Miyahara-san?”
“Well, one thing that would be apparent to you, perhaps, is that the emergency room is worlds different from the other, less urgent rooms. In here, a correct diagnosis crucial. I do not wish to insult your prior knowledge, however, it might take some time before you find yourself fully capable of diagnosing the trickier side of fast-paced healing. However, I am quite sure that this exposure will help you in, well, perhaps the speed at which the spells come to you.” Ansherina smiled at the other woman, her silvery irises scanning through the room. The blonde healer merely stood there, hawk-eyed for potential patients.
“Now look at the list, and commit the most convenient ones to memory. Probably the ones that would be most often used.”
Ren nodded, avoiding Ansherina’s eyes for the brief moment. She wasn’t that good at diagnosing stuff, but she’d get better. Hopefully. The vampire lifted the list up, two-coloured eyes looking through the list. Then, after a silent moment or two, she turned to Ansherina. “I think I’m ready.”
Ansherina remained in silence for a while, eyeing her test subjects for this session.
“Then... how would you go on healing that one? Series of spells you can think of!” She suddenly spoke up, pointing to the man who was wheeled through the emergency room’s door. At best, Ren would have only a glance at it. No further inspections, no close-ups... her diagnosis would rely only on what she saw in passing.
It was a badly charred one, bleeding a lot and seemed to have cuts all over his body. He groaned in pain as his exposed flesh was touched by the cold, but he was near... near to getting healed.
The former Mystic looked at the man, only catching a glimpse of his burnt flesh. He looked like a walking marshmallow with a face, though a bad one. She immediately went through the recent list of memorized incantations and Chiyudou. “Uhm. Chiyudou number thirty-two, Deep Breath for his burns. His bleeding can be stopped with Chiyudou number fifteen, Pressure Seal. And his cuts can all be healed with... uhm. Chiyudou number fifty-two, High Mend. High Mend should also help his burns, but I’m not so sure.”
“Mm, that works. Although at that pace of bleeding, it would be advisable to do that first, before anything else. Intense burns would kill him slower than running out of blood.” With a wink at Ren, she pointed to a far side of the room.
“How about that one?” The patient was already asleep, it seems, and the healers started to swarm around him. His dismembered arm was placed right beside him, and a large wound that ran from his shoulders to his waist made itself present, even from their distance.
She looked at the man with the disembodied arm, immediately remembering a kidou for it. Actually, the only kidou that would help a severed arm. “Chiyudou number seventy-five, Rejoin, and for his laceration, I would use, for the sake of time, Chiyudou number ninety-one, Superior Mend, because the wound looks horrible and would need to be tended to as fast as possible once Rejoin was used.”
She could feel a numbering sensation on her back that led to her elbow, from the scar Eiji left on her. She knew exactly how bad a cut like that was, and how painful it was to continue fighting with.
“Are you a math genius? You seem to be particularly good at remembering these numbers,” she spoke rather distractedly, her gaze still scanning the room. “That aside, Rejoin would definitely patch them back together. Superior Mend would definitely work on a normal wound, or a hole, but if there is something lodged in the wound, like, say, shrapnels from the fight, it might need a surgery and a Spirit Stitch. And probably a bunch of Safety Binds. No matter what happens, that one depends on the damage to be healed.” The petite healer smiled at Ren before continuing, “You know, precautionary measures. Although I assume you would have better uses for those spells.”
After a momentary pause, Ansherina gestured to a patient near them, with only a single healer tending to her affliction. No wounds anywhere, no physical symptoms, no burns anywhere. Just pain that seemed to throb on the patient’s body. No seizures, either-- but the agony on the woman’s face betrayed that she was, indeed, in great pain.
Ren smiled, looking over at Ansherina. “I memorize them so I don’t mess up the incantations should I learn them officially.”
When the next patient was brought to her attention, she knew immediately what the first step was, only because of her previous errors. “Chiyudou number thirty, Clear Sight. She’s lacking physical injuries, so it’s something internal.” She leaned a little closer, as if she had the same Chiyudou active. Then, she incanted. “Chiyudou number thirty, Clear Sight.”
She looked through the skin of the woman, into her very innards. “Perhaps Sigh of a Spring might help her muscles relax. Then perhaps Chiyudou number thirty-seven, Ghost Surgery? If it’s something I can’t see, like the disruption of reiatsu that is very painful for her, she could have Restoration casted on her until she feels well once again.”
Ren looked back over at Ansherina, the starburst in her eyes disappearing as she finished her answer.
“That works,” Ansherina spoke up, nodding at the other healer. “But then, if it is a very specific limb, it might as well be anesthetized, such as Numbing Touch. While it may not appear to aid or ease the rest of their body, it may help the one where the pains go most intense. I would say, though, that your solution does work. After all, it was about the belly. Surgery might be able to take it out.”
With a pat on the shoulder, she directed the healer’s attention to another. It was a child with a wonky-looking arm. Horribly bent, as though it had been hit by a club. “And that?”
She winced at the arm, a frown on her face. The poor child was wounded, and by the looks of it, pretty badly. She almost went after him to heal him herself, but she remembered she had her own task. A nurse next to them walked to the poor child, beginning to heal him, though eavesdropping on Ren to hear her verdict.
“I believe Chiyudou number eighteen, Lacuna Release would help. His bones look horrible and broken,” she said, looking at the young one.
“Lacuna Release would work, however, you might have forgotten its other aspects.” She smiled warmly at the other healer before walking towards the patient. “Firstly, it is a child. If adults find it hard to endure pain, children would find it harder. So in essence, you might want to cast a spell that lessens pain, then fix them. To avoid further damage right after going out from the Fourth, it might be advantageous and convenient to put a Reiatsu Cast around the arm.”
The blonde healer looked around once more, checking to see if there are still basic cases. Actually, a lot of patients were wheeled in and out of the emergency room, and she was at least, satisfied by Ren’s progress in checking them out.
“One critical thing about healing, Miss Tegishahara, is that it does not accomplish the job in just one spell. In most cases, you will have to do more in order to ensure that the patient is safe and not hurting anywhere. If inevitable, it is best to minimize it.”
Together, the two healers reached the center of the room, their eyes on the patients around them. “Then, Miss Tegishahara, please heal to your heart’s content. We shall see if you do get it quite correctly when you are done.”
Ren nodded, finding a patient to assist with immediately. An elderly man, no older than sixty or so, with shaky, audible breathing and a horrid cough that forced him to bend over a bucket and spit copious amounts of blood into it. Ren held his hand lightly, causing his dull blue eyes to stare at her curiously. “I’m going to be taking care of you.”
“Clear Sight.” The familiar starburst formed in the center of her eyes as his clothing and skin was seen through, allowing her to see his inner workings and whatever perplexed the man. It was a type of parasitic reiatsu clinging to his left lung and beginning to move to his right, making coughing incredibly painful and even more so, his breathing. “I see what the problem is. I’m going to try my best to help you.”
Ansherina stared curiously at the other healer, wondering what she’d end up doing to the elderly--not in a bad manner, of course. Just pure curiosity and slightly wondering how she’d do it.
“Clear Sight,” Ansherina spoke softly so as not to disturb Ren from her work.
“Remnants of the past, be banished from the present. Thy presence is not desired. Chiyudou number twenty-six, Current,” she incanted, the wash of reiatsu within her hands pressing through the man’s body and into the offending area near his lungs. Through Clear Sight, she could see his lungs slowly being cleansed of the horrid reiatsu, though the reiatsu seemed to be defiant at first.
She nodded in interest, watching the greenish blobs get destroyed by the current, albeit a bit too slowly.
“Chiyudou number thirty-six, Purification.”
After a few moments, it was gone. The constriction caused by the poison had loosened up quite a bit, the inflammation on the veins towards the man’s lungs slowly easing up.
It was an honest shot in the dark in what the remaining problem was made of, but it seemed to work after some time. The area around the two became more pure, easier to breath in and cleaner air to boot. Within seconds, the reiatsu fully washed away from the man’s lungs. There were a few heavy coughs, but no blood came from them. “Chiyudou number one, Mend,” she finally incanted her last Chiyudou for the patient, healing any other minor damage caused by the bad reiatsu.
An gaze fell back on Ansherina as she tended to the elderly man, her scarlet-azure orbs curious about her success.
The blonde healer nodded affirmingly, with a smile on her face. Ren had done a great job in the task. Not lacking, but could be done better. “Sweet Breeze would have done better as a last spell, miss Tegishahara. After all, we have entirely no idea of what the man inhaled prior to going here. Although Mend works, too.”
With a pat on the other healer’s back, Ansherina made her way towards the man and placed her hand on his shoulder. “However, in order to determine how successful you are, it is necessary to consider how the person feels after the situation. After all, there is only so much Clear Sight can see.”
Turning on her heel, the woman faced the elderly man, her bright silver eyes meeting the dry emerald gaze of the elder.
“How do you feel, sir?” She asked, leaning forward to hear his response.
The man looked from Ren to Ansherina, his dull eyes meeting hers as his lips slowly curved into a generous smile. He redirected his stare back to the medic who relieved him of his horrid coughing, wrapping shaky arms around her body in a tight, happy embrace. He spoke only two words, not of how he felt about his body, but how he felt about Ren.
“Thank you.”
“I will consider that a success,” Ansherina beamed at Ren, patting the other healer on the shoulder. “That success can only be determined by how much you were able to aid the patient, but the training will never end.” With a slight, gracious nod at the old man, she took a step back and scanned the emergency room as the image of agonized patients and scurrying healers flitted right before her silvery irises.
“Our session for today may be finished, but the days ahead will prove to you that sometimes, knowing how to cast chiyudou is not what it means to be a healer.” With a smile, the blonde healer turned on her heel and sauntered away, allowing the words to linger in the air.
Ren grinned as she began to stand up, offering the elder a final hug as she followed Ansherina. “With a teacher like you, I’ll be pretty fine with the days ahead, Ansherina-san.”
“I would not say that. To be fair, it was only recently that I have learned the Way of Healing myself,” she spoke over her shoulder, concealing the sudden flush at her usually blush-kissed cheeks. “But if I were to continue being ‘pretty fine’ with the hours ahead I would definitely go for a bit of ice cream. After all, a healer’s day is never too short.”
Without another word, Ansherina disappeared from Ren’s sight, and into the flurry of healers moving past.
Ren looked at the various patients, most lying on operating beds or tables. She kept close to Ansherina, hoping she wouldn’t disturb any of the operations or treatments going on. “What now, Miyahara-san?”
“Well, one thing that would be apparent to you, perhaps, is that the emergency room is worlds different from the other, less urgent rooms. In here, a correct diagnosis crucial. I do not wish to insult your prior knowledge, however, it might take some time before you find yourself fully capable of diagnosing the trickier side of fast-paced healing. However, I am quite sure that this exposure will help you in, well, perhaps the speed at which the spells come to you.” Ansherina smiled at the other woman, her silvery irises scanning through the room. The blonde healer merely stood there, hawk-eyed for potential patients.
“Now look at the list, and commit the most convenient ones to memory. Probably the ones that would be most often used.”
Ren nodded, avoiding Ansherina’s eyes for the brief moment. She wasn’t that good at diagnosing stuff, but she’d get better. Hopefully. The vampire lifted the list up, two-coloured eyes looking through the list. Then, after a silent moment or two, she turned to Ansherina. “I think I’m ready.”
Ansherina remained in silence for a while, eyeing her test subjects for this session.
“Then... how would you go on healing that one? Series of spells you can think of!” She suddenly spoke up, pointing to the man who was wheeled through the emergency room’s door. At best, Ren would have only a glance at it. No further inspections, no close-ups... her diagnosis would rely only on what she saw in passing.
It was a badly charred one, bleeding a lot and seemed to have cuts all over his body. He groaned in pain as his exposed flesh was touched by the cold, but he was near... near to getting healed.
The former Mystic looked at the man, only catching a glimpse of his burnt flesh. He looked like a walking marshmallow with a face, though a bad one. She immediately went through the recent list of memorized incantations and Chiyudou. “Uhm. Chiyudou number thirty-two, Deep Breath for his burns. His bleeding can be stopped with Chiyudou number fifteen, Pressure Seal. And his cuts can all be healed with... uhm. Chiyudou number fifty-two, High Mend. High Mend should also help his burns, but I’m not so sure.”
“Mm, that works. Although at that pace of bleeding, it would be advisable to do that first, before anything else. Intense burns would kill him slower than running out of blood.” With a wink at Ren, she pointed to a far side of the room.
“How about that one?” The patient was already asleep, it seems, and the healers started to swarm around him. His dismembered arm was placed right beside him, and a large wound that ran from his shoulders to his waist made itself present, even from their distance.
She looked at the man with the disembodied arm, immediately remembering a kidou for it. Actually, the only kidou that would help a severed arm. “Chiyudou number seventy-five, Rejoin, and for his laceration, I would use, for the sake of time, Chiyudou number ninety-one, Superior Mend, because the wound looks horrible and would need to be tended to as fast as possible once Rejoin was used.”
She could feel a numbering sensation on her back that led to her elbow, from the scar Eiji left on her. She knew exactly how bad a cut like that was, and how painful it was to continue fighting with.
“Are you a math genius? You seem to be particularly good at remembering these numbers,” she spoke rather distractedly, her gaze still scanning the room. “That aside, Rejoin would definitely patch them back together. Superior Mend would definitely work on a normal wound, or a hole, but if there is something lodged in the wound, like, say, shrapnels from the fight, it might need a surgery and a Spirit Stitch. And probably a bunch of Safety Binds. No matter what happens, that one depends on the damage to be healed.” The petite healer smiled at Ren before continuing, “You know, precautionary measures. Although I assume you would have better uses for those spells.”
After a momentary pause, Ansherina gestured to a patient near them, with only a single healer tending to her affliction. No wounds anywhere, no physical symptoms, no burns anywhere. Just pain that seemed to throb on the patient’s body. No seizures, either-- but the agony on the woman’s face betrayed that she was, indeed, in great pain.
Ren smiled, looking over at Ansherina. “I memorize them so I don’t mess up the incantations should I learn them officially.”
When the next patient was brought to her attention, she knew immediately what the first step was, only because of her previous errors. “Chiyudou number thirty, Clear Sight. She’s lacking physical injuries, so it’s something internal.” She leaned a little closer, as if she had the same Chiyudou active. Then, she incanted. “Chiyudou number thirty, Clear Sight.”
She looked through the skin of the woman, into her very innards. “Perhaps Sigh of a Spring might help her muscles relax. Then perhaps Chiyudou number thirty-seven, Ghost Surgery? If it’s something I can’t see, like the disruption of reiatsu that is very painful for her, she could have Restoration casted on her until she feels well once again.”
Ren looked back over at Ansherina, the starburst in her eyes disappearing as she finished her answer.
“That works,” Ansherina spoke up, nodding at the other healer. “But then, if it is a very specific limb, it might as well be anesthetized, such as Numbing Touch. While it may not appear to aid or ease the rest of their body, it may help the one where the pains go most intense. I would say, though, that your solution does work. After all, it was about the belly. Surgery might be able to take it out.”
With a pat on the shoulder, she directed the healer’s attention to another. It was a child with a wonky-looking arm. Horribly bent, as though it had been hit by a club. “And that?”
She winced at the arm, a frown on her face. The poor child was wounded, and by the looks of it, pretty badly. She almost went after him to heal him herself, but she remembered she had her own task. A nurse next to them walked to the poor child, beginning to heal him, though eavesdropping on Ren to hear her verdict.
“I believe Chiyudou number eighteen, Lacuna Release would help. His bones look horrible and broken,” she said, looking at the young one.
“Lacuna Release would work, however, you might have forgotten its other aspects.” She smiled warmly at the other healer before walking towards the patient. “Firstly, it is a child. If adults find it hard to endure pain, children would find it harder. So in essence, you might want to cast a spell that lessens pain, then fix them. To avoid further damage right after going out from the Fourth, it might be advantageous and convenient to put a Reiatsu Cast around the arm.”
The blonde healer looked around once more, checking to see if there are still basic cases. Actually, a lot of patients were wheeled in and out of the emergency room, and she was at least, satisfied by Ren’s progress in checking them out.
“One critical thing about healing, Miss Tegishahara, is that it does not accomplish the job in just one spell. In most cases, you will have to do more in order to ensure that the patient is safe and not hurting anywhere. If inevitable, it is best to minimize it.”
Together, the two healers reached the center of the room, their eyes on the patients around them. “Then, Miss Tegishahara, please heal to your heart’s content. We shall see if you do get it quite correctly when you are done.”
Ren nodded, finding a patient to assist with immediately. An elderly man, no older than sixty or so, with shaky, audible breathing and a horrid cough that forced him to bend over a bucket and spit copious amounts of blood into it. Ren held his hand lightly, causing his dull blue eyes to stare at her curiously. “I’m going to be taking care of you.”
“Clear Sight.” The familiar starburst formed in the center of her eyes as his clothing and skin was seen through, allowing her to see his inner workings and whatever perplexed the man. It was a type of parasitic reiatsu clinging to his left lung and beginning to move to his right, making coughing incredibly painful and even more so, his breathing. “I see what the problem is. I’m going to try my best to help you.”
Ansherina stared curiously at the other healer, wondering what she’d end up doing to the elderly--not in a bad manner, of course. Just pure curiosity and slightly wondering how she’d do it.
“Clear Sight,” Ansherina spoke softly so as not to disturb Ren from her work.
“Remnants of the past, be banished from the present. Thy presence is not desired. Chiyudou number twenty-six, Current,” she incanted, the wash of reiatsu within her hands pressing through the man’s body and into the offending area near his lungs. Through Clear Sight, she could see his lungs slowly being cleansed of the horrid reiatsu, though the reiatsu seemed to be defiant at first.
She nodded in interest, watching the greenish blobs get destroyed by the current, albeit a bit too slowly.
“Chiyudou number thirty-six, Purification.”
After a few moments, it was gone. The constriction caused by the poison had loosened up quite a bit, the inflammation on the veins towards the man’s lungs slowly easing up.
It was an honest shot in the dark in what the remaining problem was made of, but it seemed to work after some time. The area around the two became more pure, easier to breath in and cleaner air to boot. Within seconds, the reiatsu fully washed away from the man’s lungs. There were a few heavy coughs, but no blood came from them. “Chiyudou number one, Mend,” she finally incanted her last Chiyudou for the patient, healing any other minor damage caused by the bad reiatsu.
An gaze fell back on Ansherina as she tended to the elderly man, her scarlet-azure orbs curious about her success.
The blonde healer nodded affirmingly, with a smile on her face. Ren had done a great job in the task. Not lacking, but could be done better. “Sweet Breeze would have done better as a last spell, miss Tegishahara. After all, we have entirely no idea of what the man inhaled prior to going here. Although Mend works, too.”
With a pat on the other healer’s back, Ansherina made her way towards the man and placed her hand on his shoulder. “However, in order to determine how successful you are, it is necessary to consider how the person feels after the situation. After all, there is only so much Clear Sight can see.”
Turning on her heel, the woman faced the elderly man, her bright silver eyes meeting the dry emerald gaze of the elder.
“How do you feel, sir?” She asked, leaning forward to hear his response.
The man looked from Ren to Ansherina, his dull eyes meeting hers as his lips slowly curved into a generous smile. He redirected his stare back to the medic who relieved him of his horrid coughing, wrapping shaky arms around her body in a tight, happy embrace. He spoke only two words, not of how he felt about his body, but how he felt about Ren.
“Thank you.”
“I will consider that a success,” Ansherina beamed at Ren, patting the other healer on the shoulder. “That success can only be determined by how much you were able to aid the patient, but the training will never end.” With a slight, gracious nod at the old man, she took a step back and scanned the emergency room as the image of agonized patients and scurrying healers flitted right before her silvery irises.
“Our session for today may be finished, but the days ahead will prove to you that sometimes, knowing how to cast chiyudou is not what it means to be a healer.” With a smile, the blonde healer turned on her heel and sauntered away, allowing the words to linger in the air.
Ren grinned as she began to stand up, offering the elder a final hug as she followed Ansherina. “With a teacher like you, I’ll be pretty fine with the days ahead, Ansherina-san.”
“I would not say that. To be fair, it was only recently that I have learned the Way of Healing myself,” she spoke over her shoulder, concealing the sudden flush at her usually blush-kissed cheeks. “But if I were to continue being ‘pretty fine’ with the hours ahead I would definitely go for a bit of ice cream. After all, a healer’s day is never too short.”
Without another word, Ansherina disappeared from Ren’s sight, and into the flurry of healers moving past.