The doctors gave little notice to Mako and Teke as they left. They were not their responsibility right now, unlike Karu and Takeyashi. Calm. They were eerily so, considering they had two to take care of and one not quite but nearly dead. No, neither would die today. The twins not only promised it out of duty but out of certainty. Their souls were young and Death had yet to knock on their doors.Still, they doubted and second guessed that feeling. How did they even know? What did they know?
“Rest here,” Akihiko spoke in an authoritative voice that brook no argument to the spider boy Reassuringly with a light pat to the knee, he added: “We have to take care of your friend. But we’ll be right back, just in time for your laboratory results so that we know what to do with you, alright?”
They had called for a gurney and two nurses had now stood outside their room, ready to go into surgery. Calm. There wasn’t an ounce of worry. Rather, there was annoyance. Because dealing with multiple entry wounds was, suffice to say, tedious. Karu was lucky to have someone like them with him in the surgical theater.
Clean scrubs, sterile gloves, masks and those unsightly hair caps.
The area around each and every wound had to be scrubbed to avoid infection but the hydrogen peroxide would not be allowed to get into the wounds itself. Care and precision was a must; it helped to be a perfectionist and a neat freak when one is a surgeon.
Two pairs of hands and more were necessary for such a procedure. It was a shame that the two only had one of each, else they would have handled these themselves. It was a good thing that an assistant was assigned to them and they were tasked with holding the wounds open, nearly prying skin and muscle and fat apart so that they could get to the rocks with forceps. Though the injuries seemed skin deep at first, extraction wasn’t so simple by the sheer number of entry wounds. Leaving even the smallest bit of dirt in in would guarantee an infection. Some even forced them to cut him up due to how deep they had gone in.
Thankfully, Karu was already knocked out though anesthesia had been administered for good measure. It wouldn’t do for them to have the boy waking up in the middle of surgery, screaming.
The headlamp is hot overhead and one of the nurses have to wipe at the dampness of their forehead several times throughout it all.
Thankfully, as the last of the rocks were extracted, nothing fatal was ruptured and the child will recover in due time. Some of the injuries might scar. But scarred and living was preferable to... well, the contrary.
They did not carry out or oversee the rest of the procedure themselves however. Rather, they were confident enough to leave the assistant in closing the rest of the wounds. That part was child’s play, after all, whether they chose to use a needle or to cheat cheaply with shinobi techniques.
They had to leave when the Medical Ward Akihiko had secretly left on the other boy alerted them to a change in his state and a danger he might face. Running back to their clinic, the two looked at Takeyashi. Only to find that the boy was incapacitated, unconscious, contrary to the loopy state they had left him in.
And that their steel clone was there, waiting for them.
“The results from pathology?” Akihiko asked, cold and professional. Odd, considering he was basically talking to constructs of themselves.
“Inconclusive, Shoukyou-hakase. They don’t know what’s wrong with him. But they assure that the best diagnostic team is working on it right now and they’re on their way.”
The brother looks annoyed but knew there was little to change that. At the very least, it didn’t seem or feel like the boy was in any danger. “I understand. Perhaps if you can page one of their Medical Chiefs. We’ll need to-” He was surely more stable than his friend who would be recovering from surgery. But. “Sister? What are you doing?”
He had to stop, gaze snapping towards Akane who was focused so intensely on Takeyashi. Her arm is outstretched, towards the prone form of the desert spider and she started to – “No! Sister, stop! You mustn’t!” – pull.
And suddenly waves of pain, unmuted, much like the patient had been feeling before they had numbed it all for him. Fire coursed through their body as it tensed up. Their throat and lungs burned as if they had been inhaling the thickest of smoke. Adrenaline ran through their body, firing off in every part, in every nerve.
Then there was nothing but cold.
Cold.
Colder.
Yet colder.
The two stood, no longer in the tiny hospital room with its bare and impersonal furnishings. Instead, they stood in a dark cavern, walls made of ice and a strange light that glowed in different shades. Blues and greens, purples and grays.
And whatever pain and worry Akihiko had felt before was all gone. This felt natural. This felt right. Even for all the terrible things the ice had held for them. Akihiko was gone, as was Akane. All was left was the Deaths who looked down upon this suffering child with such pity.
Oh, how humans loved Life when true peace could only be found with Them. Though they could not begrudge this fact. They loved Life just as much, after all. For better or for worse. Till... something took them apart, heh.
“Hello, child,” Akane and Akihiko – but not them – greeted the boy as they summoned him before them. They weren’t real of course, as was he, or this place. This was something else. A place where only the likes of them: Dark Sages, Ghost Walkers and Spiritualists can visit. The space between life and death. Reality and another realm entirely.