"The fuck happened to you?" I say, looking at multiple Jounins laying on hospital beds, all of them slightly purple, some with bite marks on their bodies and some with multiple senbon holes leaking blood. "Why are your wounds leaking purple blood? Last I checked, blood was definitely red coloured. Please don't tell me you're poisoned, I hate dealing with those cases."
"They've been poisoned, Akari." A Medic-nin replies.
"No shit, Sherlock, I knew that. You answered just to fuck with me, didn't cha?" I drawl out. "Who'd they run into? Orochimaru?"
"Who the fucks Sher- nevermind. They ran into some A-ranked sand rogue ninja, puppeteers and poison combo got them into this state. Pretty sure it's one of sand's unique poisons, the slow ones, don't have an antidote. You want to give this a try?" The Medic-nin grimaces. "I don't think some of them can survive without an amputation. That guy with the scar on his hand in particular. His hands don't look good, had six poisoned senbons sticking out of it by the time he got here."
Great, another pale white boy for me to fix. "I'll try my best, but it will probably hurt like hell. I'll draw the blood out and you see if you can deal with the remaining poison after."
The guy in question groans. "Get on with it, I'd rather have my arms thank you very much. I can take the pain!"
"That's what everyone says, but alright, you asked for it. Get him something to bite on." I order a staff to shove a washcloth in the Jounin's mouth, and someone immediately complies. Huh, the groaning and cries of pain just stop, really should have done this ages ago.
All of his teammates are looking at me with anticipation, some biting their nails, their faces turning all kinds of colors. Looks like I actually have to put some effort into this.
A Chakra Scalpel appears between my index finger, and I cut away some of the poisoned skin. I can't even do this with seals when I'm putting both my hands on the poisoned area, which means I have to do all this with plain chakra control, so troublesome. Can't people be more considerate and not get poisoned?
Poison drips out of the wound drop by drop as I forcibly separate them from all of his blood. "Someone drug him, make him so high he can't fucking see." I bark out, seeing the way the Jounin's body convulse. The way his fingers twitch must be setting some kind of world record. The restraints keeping him from moving too much are starting to creak, and I don't really want to deal with a struggling patient. A Jounin, no less.
After another ten minutes of intense concentration for me, and probably hell for the poor bastard, I finally have all of the lethal poison out of his system. Seriously, who the fuck did he run into to put so much poison in him?
Job done, time to crack my knuckles and give myself a pat on the back. Oh, and tell the patient the news.
"Your arms probably won't be fully functional for an entire year, and your chakra control has been shot to hell, with the poison destroying some of your chakra points in your arms. Probably going to be two years until you go back to throwing out elemental jutsus." The ninja has a dazed look on his face, still twitching from time to time. He mumbles something out, and then giggles.
"Woah, you guys got him on the good shit, didn't you?" I ask the staff. The giggles from the poisoned Jounin turn more and more hysterical. Jesus, from the way he's acting, you would think that we would suffer from drug overdose, but Jounin body structures are weird.
"Is the poison fully out of his system?" That's a Genin asking a question. What is a Genin doing here? Aren't extreme cases of poisoning reserved for Chunin or above? I'm just going to ignore that and be thankful for another pair of hands.
"Not fully, but you guys can probably do the rest now. All that's left is some harmless paralyzing poison. Not even that deep in his bloodstream." I reply, feeling extremely drained. "I'll take care of the rest of the critical cases, and then I'll take a break."
No one objects to that, how smart.
After a whole hour of precise chakra control to pull out most of the lethal poison stuck in the Jounins' system, I am all covered with blood and sweat. Most of the ninjas are too high to offer their thanks, so their families shower me with praise. I'm normally more used to people screaming at my ear telling me to save their son or daughter, so this is a nice change of pace.
A mother's even clutching her lucky charm and praying for both her son and my good health. I'm flattered, really, but does the lucky charm even work if her son almost died on a mission gone wrong? I did stop myself from voicing that concern since I was, and am still exhausted, and the question's in poor taste. I'll just nod my head and leave.
Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave.
Thank god the hospital has a place for me to take a bath, at this point, it's one of the few redeeming qualities this godforsaken place has left. Of course, I can't really take my merry time, so I spent a few minutes in the shower before getting back into the fold.
Took a while for us to finally deal with all the lethal injuries, and would you look at that? It's already black outside, and that's some extra Medic-nin coming in. That's my shift over, I'm not staying another hour. Won't be much help with my chakra running out anyways.
I was planning to leave and just go take another shower and sleep everything off, and one of the Jounin we saved walks up to us and invites everyone involved in saving his ass to a bar, he'll even foot the tab.
I kind of want to say no, but that kind of seems like a dick move. Plus everyone's going, so I might as well.
Wait, did I just… get peer pressured into this?
That's how I ended up in a decent bar, drinking so much I can feel my liver protesting. Most of the staff and ninja now are either extremely drunk, or already passed out. Some of them started to sing folk songs popular amongst ninja a while ago, and one of the staff had the nerve to tell them that I am a pretty good pianist and singer. Well, I'm decent, but in this place where all songs are more or less the same, a little knowledge about music from my past life gave people the illusion of me being talented. Great, now everyone's chanting for me to sing them a damn song. Might as well.
I've been saying that line a little bit too much for my liking, honestly.
"Alright, alright! I'll give you all a fucking song!" I drunkenly declare, with cheers all around me. God, the smell of this place alone is enough to make someone drunk!
I sit in front of the piano, contemplating what song to give them. Huh, I'm a girl sitting in front of a piano, so why not give them one of the classics? Give them a piano man.
I put my hands on the piano keys, and the melody starts. Some of them probably recognize it as they begin to chant the name of this classic. Yea, I've played this one a few times before, makes sense they know the lyrics.
"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sittin' next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin
He says, "Son, can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"
La, la-la, di-di-da
La-la di-di-da da-dum
Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke, or to light up your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me"
As a smile ran away from his face
"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"
Oh, la, la-la, di-di-da
La-la di-di-da da-dum
Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the navy
And probably will be for life
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone
Sing us the song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright
It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say man what are you doin' here?
Oh, la, la-la, di-di-da
La-la di-di-da da-dum
Sing us the song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright"
The song ends, the drunkards whoop and cheer, with some requesting another.
For now, life is good.