janescayre | IC INBOX

[She doesn't know that!! She's not a doctor!!

If she were there'd be far less cringing and no low-pitch whines. The magic trick is fascinating, make no mistake, but she watches it with a bloodless line for a mouth and white-knuckled fists.

How was Sakura just sitting through all this like it was nothing?

Then there, at the very end. That tiny puff of air. The only crack in the armor. It pulls her back to attention, to reality.

Of course it damn well hurts. Not even the strong are infallible.]

All right... [She nods and fetches the tray. Fukawa holds it aloft for the other girl, and only slightly trembles.] I c-can't make any promises about q-quality...

Haven't you heard? Cool scars are all the rage.

（ so, it's okay. if the stitches are crooked, or it's not perfect somehow. sakura didn't ask her because she thought she'd be the best possible person for it, she asked her because she's a friend and she trusts her. ）

So, it's okay. （ said as she rummages for supplies, sterile sutures and a wickedly curved needle. her tone is conversant. distracting, maybe. the way she talks to her patients when they're the ones beneath her hands, but there's no reason the easy nonchalance won't help to steady fukawa's nerves as well. ） I have one on my stomach that's way worse. Did you notice it at the hotspring?

（ where madara ran her through, ugly entrance and exit wounds just left of her spine. another instance of being too low on chakra to heal it fully, she'd needed to put every ounce she had into obito to save sasuke. she doesn't regret it, either. what's life without a few scars? ）

For b-biker gangs, maybe.

[She bets Oowada would have called it "gnarly" or something insipid like that. Ugh.]

I don't know, I w-wasn't ogling you! [But she did see something. Couldn't be sure of what, since the water distorts everything and she had been dogmatically trying not to perceive a thing.] Was it a b-burn or something?

[She eyes that needle with pinpricked pupils. This is really happening, isn't it. Okay then. Oh god. Look, at least Sakura is still alive and isn't some corpse left to rot in the street.

Though, if she's alive she can still scream in pain when Fukawa stabs her incorrectly, or rips the thread out through her skin STOP IMAGINING IT.

She closes her eyes and counts to three under her breath.]

No, I was stabbed.

（ she might as well be talking about the weather, tbh. her voice maintains that soft, storyteller's cadence as she continues — ）

Here, focus on your breathing and the sound of my voice. Keep your eyes closed for a bit, I'll handle the first part.

（ the needle is threaded, and she wipes down the wound with a fast-acting analgesic, something from aspen's stores. she knows from experience it won't take too long to set in, and while she waits she tacks the edges of the wound together with temporary fixtures just so it's easier to stitch everything back up. if she had the chakra to spare to deaden the nerves, she would — she's tough, but not a masochist by any means.

a few exploratory jabs along the faultline of the laceration proves the pain relief is mostly working, and then she starts. the pop of the needle through flesh has a remarkable similarity to the sound of pulling grass up by the roots.

her sutures are incredibly neat and her hand is steady as she works, though every once in a while she'll stop and steady herself, blood caked into the leylines of her palm and fingertips, trembling on the ghost of her exhalation before she continues. ）

We were at war. Our enemy was someone we didn't think we would be able to stop. He was incredibly powerful, and wasn't able to die in the customary fashion. I was so eager to show off the fact I'd improved as a shinobi I pretty much jumped on his sword. It was stupid of me. I'm lucky I survived it, actually.

（ haha, remember that time i almost died? sick story, bro. ）

[Close her eyes? You don't need to tell her twice. They wrench shut at once, her mouth thinned to a bloodless line in tandem.

That ghastly pop has her flinching though, and eventually, she cracks an eye open. In and out the needle goes, in and ohgod out. Are her teeth chattering? She almost bites at her hand again but remembers just in time. Gotta stay clean, her turn is coming up next.]

W-w-war? [She thought she'd said a war just ended. Could a second one have broken out so soon? Or was she getting people's histories mixed up? You hear so many strange things here, it was inevitable some of the details would get muddled.] Customary fashion?

[See, this is why magic and all that crap was bogus. There were supposed to be rules. Once you took the lid off the limit of reality, no one was safe.]

So, you almost d-died. Is what you're telling me. [Small blink.] You got impaled? And you lived?!

The one I mentioned. This was several years ago for me now.

（ it's said breezily, though she does make a soft sound of annoyance when she pulls the stitch taut and begins threading the next suture through. ）

And he was... ah... hm. He was already dead. We were fighting his impure reincarnation. So, no matter how injured he was, he could regenerate.

（ the lid was definitely off the limit of reality. madara still gives her nightmares. sometimes, he looks like sasuke. ）

Yep. Like I've said, I'm pretty resilient.

Several years?

[So then—]

You were j-just a kid!

[It's said like an accusation. Fukawa's sufficiently distracted from the wound for the moment, imagined horrors taking precedent. For all that she's been forced to endure — the Killing School Life, the Towa City children's revolt and massacre of adults — she still had room left for outrage. She was forced to endure atrocities, not deliberately sent to take care of them. Hell, she wasn't even supposed to be in Towa City! And even if the Future Foundation sent her on an assignment, it wouldn't have been as cannon fodder.

And then there's a second horror. Her face rumples, disgust mixing with a weariness borne from thinly stretched sanity.]

So, he was a zombie. [God. Was nothing sacred? Was nothing safe?] I j-just...eugh! Resilience isn't — it d-doesn't matter how strong you are, or h-how much you think you can take. Kids shouldn't b-be sent out to fight anything. It's wrong. You're damn lucky you survived. You kn-know that, right?

（ her hand stills, and the needle with it as she wrinkles her nose up. young? certainly. but the right of passage to adulthood was passing the chuunin exam, and she did that when she was fourteen. ）

I wasn't a child in the way you're suggesting. Young, yes — but our culture doesn't really work like that.

（ constant war tends to age people before their time. she doesn't know many shinobi who've survived into their forties, after all. ）

And it wasn't only luck, either. （ she resumes her work, teeth catching at one corner of her lip as she does. ） It was also hard work, being in the right place at the right time, and the sacrifice of thousands of members of the allied army.

Kids b-being forced to do adult things doesn't make them adults.

[Does she ever know it. Maybe you grew up quick, but the point is you shouldn't have to. It shouldn't be expected of you.

Fukawa's teeth grit hard enough to crack. She's touched a nerve, maybe, or insulted Sakura somehow. If she's needing to defend her skills she must feel like they're in question. A retort is strangled midway out her mouth, ending in twisted lips and nothing said. She tries again.]

I'm n-not saying you're incompetent! Sheesh, I'm just — sacrifice. I don't abide b-by that. If they were all as young as you, how can I accept that at all? I'm so t-tired of war. I hate that soldier mentality. People sh-should be allowed to ch-choose what they become. When they're old enough to pick it. Not just sold some picture of honour and glory while th-they're still young enough to believe in that crap.

[And how different was that from Hope's Peak? Instead of being filed off for their talents, trapped in cages of their own precociousness, the children of Sakura's are ranked and filed for duty.

She flinches. Nevermind. It's hypocritical, but it's beside the point.]

I'm just...you d-don't... [Come on, isn't this obvious? Shouldn't it go without saying?] You should have h-had a chance to live peacefully, at that age. Not b-been held responsible for some maniac's antics.

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cw: imagined medical mishaps

poor fukawa, sakura's just traumatizing her all over the place

considering her canon she REALLY ought to be getting over it :weary: baby steps...

look she's going thru some things!!

wishing desperately for things to stop happening

sakura, meanwhile, offended

things should stop happening for her too tbh, time for beach vacation