{Dream 004 - Hands}
Warning: blood and gore.
There isn't any pomp or circumstance, or nervous anticipation, or time to mentally or emotionally prepare. It's as simple as an orderly running up to her and telling her in rushed tones (his words fall over each other like they're stumbling over too large feet) that Godaime-sama needed her in Surgical Theater Three yesterday. Sakura is down the hall before he's even finished speaking.
She pulls her hitai-ate out of her hair and holds it in her teeth as she ties whatever she can catch of her short hair back into a ponytail. The metal weight swings back and forth, counterpoint to her quick steps
Shizune is outside talking to a tall woman in an ANBU uniform as Sakura approaches, still in the process of re-knotting her hitai-ate. The kunoichi's white uniform vest is a mess, smirched with dirt and blood, but very little of it is hers or else she would not be out here.
Sakura's fingers are trembling, for some reason. She pulls her headband too tight and it snags her hair.
The ANBU--captain, Sakura guesses--stops speaking and looks at Sakura. Rather, her cold impersonal mask does. The porcelain masks that the anonymous ops wear make them appear to be stern and serious, but more than that, the kunoichi is wary, tense, and distrustful. She towers over Sakura, who feels very suddenly small. She is acutely aware, in that moment, that she is not quite fourteen.
"Go on in, Sakura," Shizune says, her warm voice a welcome distraction. It's a command but there's encouragement there, too, that cools a hot knot that had been winding around in Sakura's stomach without her notice.
"Okay." Sakura smiles, or tries to; hard to smile when her heart is pounding several inches higher than it's supposed to. It's more of a nervous twist of her mouth than anything. She does not look at the ANBU captain again.
Inside, the theater is chaos. Hospital staff run back and forth between three patients in white vests. Their masks are removed. Proper breathing takes a priority over anonymity, and the staff is forbidden from speaking about what they see here under pain of imprisonment.
Sakura knows none of them. Thank god.
Closest to the door, a shinobi is conscious and in the process of having his arm splinted by several nurses. In the scheme of things, his injuries must be minor. Tsunade herself is hovering over the patient in the middle. The man appears to be the least injured, but appearances are deceiving: his skin is shiny with sweat and his breaths come in harsh gasps. Just as Sakura looks, he thrashes out so violently that he sends one of the medics flying to the floor.
Tsunade grabs his wrists in her iron hands and pins them down. "Someone get restraints!" she shouts, and people scramble to obey.
Just then, she spots Sakura. "Sakura, I need you over there," and she tilts her head in the direction of the last patient.
"Yes, Shishou!" But Tsunade's patient bucks again and her attention is no longer on Sakura.
The last shinobi is unconscious, and that is a bad sign. And he looks the worst out of his teammates--weapon wounds all over him, with the blades that made them still sticking out of his flesh, red like the rest of him because there is blood everywhere, so they look like lurid sharp growths. There's a kunai stuck right where his left kidney is, and several shuriken embedded in his upper thigh--those are the most worrisome, but it's hard to tell what other injuries he might have, he's such a mess.
His blood is getting everywhere.
The two nurses who are working on cutting him out of his clothes look to her as she approaches, silently asking for instructions.
Sakura...
freezes.
Can't think.
All the knowledge that she's gained, all that she's learned from Tsunade in the past months, seems to fall out of her head like china off a table, slipping just past her hands as she reachs for it. She cannot for the life of her remember the map of veins and arteries through the body, or the location of the spleen, or how many bones there are in the body. It slips down and out, like her head is being tilted and it's all falling out her ear in a rush. She can't possibly help this man. What can she do? She's just a girl, there's nothing special about her, and he's going to die at this rate and what can she possibly--
Tsunade's patient screams, and Sakura jumps.
Everything falls back into place.
Her heart is still thudding in her throat. Her hands are still shaking. But she strides forward confidently and presses them to the wound on his left side; her chakra flows down the wound tract with practiced ease and winds together the threads of his broken flesh as she pulls the kunai from him.
Blood--warm, sticky, bright red as it hits the air--squelches between her fingers. She applies more pressure and channels more chakra to stop the bleeding and repair his organ. Somewhere between then and pulling the shuriken (gently, because she could nick his femoral artery if she isn't careful), her hands stop trembling.
They start again, but much later, after her patient is in stable condition and she's washing the crusty brown blood from her hands, scraping it out from under her nails. The adrenaline is retreating from her system, and in its absence her limbs are tired and achy like she's run several miles. Sakura feels like she's been though an intense training session, and in a way, she has. A trial by blood. (There's certainly enough of it coating her skin.)
A hand falls on her shoulder, and Sakura is too weary not to start. When she turns, it's Tsunade, looking the same as always. Almost regal. She earns the title "Princess." The intense healing session doesn't seem to have had much effect on her at all.
Some day, she thinks.
"Well done, Sakura," Tsunade says.
Sakura's smile is tired, but much more genuine this time.
------
[It takes her a moment to wake up fully. She sits up and stretches, arms akimbo, before she notices the Hitomi recording.
Wordlessly, Sakura shuts it off. It's a little early, but she might as well get up and get ready for the day.
Sasori's already up, as usual.]
{(OOC: for those of you not familiar with Naruto canon, references: Tsunade, Sakura's mentor and the Fifth Hokage; Shizune, Tsunade's right-hand woman; and ANBU uniforms look like this.)}
There isn't any pomp or circumstance, or nervous anticipation, or time to mentally or emotionally prepare. It's as simple as an orderly running up to her and telling her in rushed tones (his words fall over each other like they're stumbling over too large feet) that Godaime-sama needed her in Surgical Theater Three yesterday. Sakura is down the hall before he's even finished speaking.
She pulls her hitai-ate out of her hair and holds it in her teeth as she ties whatever she can catch of her short hair back into a ponytail. The metal weight swings back and forth, counterpoint to her quick steps
Shizune is outside talking to a tall woman in an ANBU uniform as Sakura approaches, still in the process of re-knotting her hitai-ate. The kunoichi's white uniform vest is a mess, smirched with dirt and blood, but very little of it is hers or else she would not be out here.
Sakura's fingers are trembling, for some reason. She pulls her headband too tight and it snags her hair.
The ANBU--captain, Sakura guesses--stops speaking and looks at Sakura. Rather, her cold impersonal mask does. The porcelain masks that the anonymous ops wear make them appear to be stern and serious, but more than that, the kunoichi is wary, tense, and distrustful. She towers over Sakura, who feels very suddenly small. She is acutely aware, in that moment, that she is not quite fourteen.
"Go on in, Sakura," Shizune says, her warm voice a welcome distraction. It's a command but there's encouragement there, too, that cools a hot knot that had been winding around in Sakura's stomach without her notice.
"Okay." Sakura smiles, or tries to; hard to smile when her heart is pounding several inches higher than it's supposed to. It's more of a nervous twist of her mouth than anything. She does not look at the ANBU captain again.
Inside, the theater is chaos. Hospital staff run back and forth between three patients in white vests. Their masks are removed. Proper breathing takes a priority over anonymity, and the staff is forbidden from speaking about what they see here under pain of imprisonment.
Sakura knows none of them. Thank god.
Closest to the door, a shinobi is conscious and in the process of having his arm splinted by several nurses. In the scheme of things, his injuries must be minor. Tsunade herself is hovering over the patient in the middle. The man appears to be the least injured, but appearances are deceiving: his skin is shiny with sweat and his breaths come in harsh gasps. Just as Sakura looks, he thrashes out so violently that he sends one of the medics flying to the floor.
Tsunade grabs his wrists in her iron hands and pins them down. "Someone get restraints!" she shouts, and people scramble to obey.
Just then, she spots Sakura. "Sakura, I need you over there," and she tilts her head in the direction of the last patient.
"Yes, Shishou!" But Tsunade's patient bucks again and her attention is no longer on Sakura.
The last shinobi is unconscious, and that is a bad sign. And he looks the worst out of his teammates--weapon wounds all over him, with the blades that made them still sticking out of his flesh, red like the rest of him because there is blood everywhere, so they look like lurid sharp growths. There's a kunai stuck right where his left kidney is, and several shuriken embedded in his upper thigh--those are the most worrisome, but it's hard to tell what other injuries he might have, he's such a mess.
His blood is getting everywhere.
The two nurses who are working on cutting him out of his clothes look to her as she approaches, silently asking for instructions.
Sakura...
freezes.
Can't think.
All the knowledge that she's gained, all that she's learned from Tsunade in the past months, seems to fall out of her head like china off a table, slipping just past her hands as she reachs for it. She cannot for the life of her remember the map of veins and arteries through the body, or the location of the spleen, or how many bones there are in the body. It slips down and out, like her head is being tilted and it's all falling out her ear in a rush. She can't possibly help this man. What can she do? She's just a girl, there's nothing special about her, and he's going to die at this rate and what can she possibly--
Tsunade's patient screams, and Sakura jumps.
Everything falls back into place.
Her heart is still thudding in her throat. Her hands are still shaking. But she strides forward confidently and presses them to the wound on his left side; her chakra flows down the wound tract with practiced ease and winds together the threads of his broken flesh as she pulls the kunai from him.
Blood--warm, sticky, bright red as it hits the air--squelches between her fingers. She applies more pressure and channels more chakra to stop the bleeding and repair his organ. Somewhere between then and pulling the shuriken (gently, because she could nick his femoral artery if she isn't careful), her hands stop trembling.
They start again, but much later, after her patient is in stable condition and she's washing the crusty brown blood from her hands, scraping it out from under her nails. The adrenaline is retreating from her system, and in its absence her limbs are tired and achy like she's run several miles. Sakura feels like she's been though an intense training session, and in a way, she has. A trial by blood. (There's certainly enough of it coating her skin.)
A hand falls on her shoulder, and Sakura is too weary not to start. When she turns, it's Tsunade, looking the same as always. Almost regal. She earns the title "Princess." The intense healing session doesn't seem to have had much effect on her at all.
Some day, she thinks.
"Well done, Sakura," Tsunade says.
Sakura's smile is tired, but much more genuine this time.
------
[It takes her a moment to wake up fully. She sits up and stretches, arms akimbo, before she notices the Hitomi recording.
Wordlessly, Sakura shuts it off. It's a little early, but she might as well get up and get ready for the day.
Sasori's already up, as usual.]
{(OOC: for those of you not familiar with Naruto canon, references: Tsunade, Sakura's mentor and the Fifth Hokage; Shizune, Tsunade's right-hand woman; and ANBU uniforms look like this.)}
