25 Go to school
My first few days, I spent mostly just relaxing and healing.
I'm still recovering, but I can at least move around now without hurting, just so long as I don't get in a fight, I should be fine less than a week from now, the only reason I got such a long leave is that I need to get over my addiction.
Which is incredibly annoying, by the way, randomly snapping at people, feeling cold and itchy and hot all at the same time all while craving something, without even knowing what it is that I'm addicted to.
But the shots I've been prescribed 𝘥𝘰 help so it's not all bad.
Yes, it sucks.
No, I can't really do anything about it.
So, complaining won't help anyone, and I decided to be productive today.
Which is why I'm walking through ANBU HQ, looking for Lion, thankfully I already know where his office is.
I knock before entering, inside is Lion, and his assistant Tiger.
He looks up at my entrance but doesn't say anything until I approach his desk.
"can i help you, six?"
"hopefully, i was wondering where one goes to learn about medical jutsu."
"and this wouldn't happen to have anything to do with your recent encounter?"
It doesn't. Not really.
I had always planned to learn it, since I have a cool idea for medical chakra that I hope works.
But I stay silent, maybe if he thinks that I want to learn because of trauma or something, he will be more willing to acquiesce?
"well, i'm not the one you should be asking-
He must have seen the confusion in my posture, because he continued,
"i deal with inter-personnel problems and missions, you have a problem with your missions or your comrades 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 you come to me, for things more personal like this, you go to gecko."
"and where is gecko?"
*Sigh*
Oi.
After explaining to me the elaborate directions to Gecko's office (why is this place so damn confusing) I head over there in my quest for knowledge.
Eventually I find my way to the right door and after knocking and entering, I'm in a room, very similar to Lions, only without the assistant.
Gecko looks up from his paperwork, and even though he's wearing a mask, I just 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 he's smiling. He just 𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘴 a feeling of customer service.
"what can i do for you, six?"
I'm not surprised he knows my name even without meeting me, probably everyone in ANBU does. Not because I'm something awesome or anything, but the novelty of having a kid join is enough to start a conversation.
"i was hoping to know where i should go to learn about medical jutsu."
Looking down on me (I get it, I'm short) Gecko contemplates for a moment,
"medic training is a long process, it won't be quick, do you have the time and patience to do so? it won't be easy."
I never thought it would be quick, my fun little project, I don't even expect to finish for a quite a few years yet. So, I just keep silent, waiting for him to get to telling me what I want to know.
Seeing that I'm not going to be perturbed from this, Gecko sighs and grabs an empty scroll, before writing on it, rolling it up and handing it to me.
"here, take this to Archives, there were a series of books written to teach medical jutsu, so that our personnel wouldn't have to waste their precious time teaching when they could be saving. If you have any questions then just visit sheep in the infirmary, if he isn't busy, he'll answer some questions for you."
I grab the scroll and give my thanks before setting out for Archives, I swear, it's like I'm doing a fetch quest.
Go here, now go there, now take this and bring it there then come back here and take this, yadda yadda.
I reach Archives, and after handing over the scroll, am allowed in and told where to find what I'm looking for.
Archives is 𝘣𝘪𝘨, and as much as the bibliophile in me wants to rummage around and see what I can find, not only is that probably a crime, but I also can't just stay in here forever.
Quickly finding my way over to isle 3, I start looking for section 8-V-2-f.
Because it can't be as simple as isle 3 row 4 section 8. They 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 to make it confusing.
Damn ninja.
8,
8,
8,
8,
Aha!
Damn, 8-K-6-y, not what I was looking for,
8....
...8...
There! 8-V-2-f.
Finally finding the right shelf, I flip through what's there,
'Countering Jutsu', nope.
'Account of [Redacted] on Katon', nope.
'Genjutsu for T&I - By [Redacted]', not interested.
'Mission report 4-2-6-3-3-7-9-2-4-A', interesting but nope.
'Medical Jutsu for beginners part 1', perfect.
Grabbing the book, as well as parts two, three and four, I head back, while reading titles on the way.
Most of them are mission reports, which makes sense, since it's not like we throw 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 mission reports, there are a lot of them.
I do find some interesting titles while walking,
'List of Bingo Book entries', outdated and useless,
'Tsunoki marriage incident', sounds fun,
'Fuinjutsu for beginners part 1', oh.
Here I actually stop, Fuinjutsu is another thing I really want to learn.
Only part one is here, but I add it to the stack anyway, maybe I'll be allowed to take it? I don't see why it would be a problem anyway.
When I get back to the entrance, I present my prize to the guy there, I don't know his mask and I've given up on guessing. Suppose I'm just not very artistic.
He reads through all the titles, not even blinking at the Fuinjutsu one, before stamping his little stamp, and making me give him my registration number and writing it down.
"If you lose any of these make sure to let someone know immediately or you will face punishment or even be charged for treason if the information you were taking was more important than it is."
Good job I don't plan to lose them then and it's nice that there isn't a 'return before' kind of deal, after I acknowledge his words with a nod, I seal my bounty in my sealing scroll (every ANBU gets given one) and head out home to do everyone favourite past time, studying!
I jest, of course, nobody likes studying, however, when your subject is literal magic then suddenly it is a 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 lot more interesting.
Leaving HQ is as tedious as always, what with the winding corridors and all, when I do get to the exit however, I immediately take to the rooves and run home.
It turns out. This is a lot less fun than I had thought it to be.
I've already skimmed through all the medical books (I'm saving Fuinjutsu for later) and the first two are basically just biology textbooks. The only bit of chakra theory, which is thankfully the most important part for me, is how to turn your chakra into medical chakra.
Now, I had honestly thought that with medical chakra, all you had to do was run it over a wound or something and it would fix it.
Turns out, it's a 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 bit more complicated than that. See, all medical chakra 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 is essentially make your chakra 'neutral'.
Not in the sense of pure chakra, without influence, but in the sense that medical chakra doesn't inherently 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘵 with anything, which means you can pump as much medical chakra into a person as you want and basically nothing will happen, whereas if you did the same with fire chakra or your natural yin yang chakra, well, the book says the result is both 'explosive and unpleasant'.
So now I actually have to learn about biology, if I want to be able to make my medical chakra 𝘥𝘰 anything.
Mentally sighing at my suddenly increased workload, I get back to studying, at least it 𝘪𝘴 somewhat interesting and I 𝘥𝘪𝘥 say I wanted to do something productive after all.
It's been a week since I got my books and thankfully my chakra control is unnaturally good, because this requires a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of precision, enough that even I am struggling, though I think that's more about my unfamiliarity with medical chakra than it is about my control.
Still, I'm understanding more by the day, but it will still probably be a while before I'm anywhere good enough to even be an assistant Medic.
Maybe eating some sweets will help me learn? I mean we wont know until we try will we? It's important to have a large sample size for tests to be conclusive.
Coming to these thoughts I go and grab myself a bunch of sweets, from Pocky to Lollipops to chocolate bars, truly we have quite the selection.
Week three now, and I'm doing the thing all psychopaths have done at least once, which is to say I have captured a Squirrel and am going to do cruel things to it.
I am sorry Alvin, but in the name of science, you must die. Or even better, you could always just live, that would mean I'm doing it right after all.
Is it more or less sane to talk to a Squirrel you're about to cut up or to talk to mystical voices in your head?
Shaking my head, I apologise to Alvin for getting distracted, Alvin just keeps running into the walls of the cage I have him in.
I'm in the Forest of Death by the way and I used a small water prison Jutsu to capture Alvin.
Well, time to get started, grabbing a kunai, I cut Alvin, only a small cut on his leg, and I set about healing him.
Pushing chakra to my palms and moulding it into its medical cousin, I feed my chakra into his wound, and I effectively use immense chakra control to knit his skin back together, my chakra basically working in place of a suturing needle.
The only difficult part is making sure the veins and arteries reattach properly, but after around 20 minutes, the wound is fully healed, and I feel a little tired from focusing so hard for so long.
20 minutes is 𝘸𝘢𝘺 too long for an injury that, on a human, would be small enough that you wouldn't even put a plaster on it because it'll be fully gone in a week.
But hey, no reason not to try the next step up, thinking so, I mentally apologise to Alvin again before dragging my kunai across his stomach.
Now this is a much more difficult thing to heal, I focus my medical chakra again, pushing it into his torso, but there is a lot more going on this time, and it's difficult to spread my attention between them all, not to mention, I don't know which parts are more urgent than others.
All said, Alvin died as he lived, a squirrel, you will not be forgotten.
Now, time to find Simon and Theodore.
Week eight and I have finally found some success in my practices, Simon number four I was actually able to save from being cut open, throat to groin, before he bled out! Though he did die anyway, likely from shock.
But still! Progress!
I could probably help out in the hospital now, but I don't think they would want me there, being a kid. Not that I'd particularly want to work there, I doubt I'd get as much practical experience as I am getting with the Chipmunks, I mean, the squirrels.
I've been experimenting with more stuff too, like poison extraction, for that I just found some poisonous plants in the ol' Forest and fed them to Theodore the fifth and then tried to save him.
No progress so far on that front really, but I am getting much faster at closing wounds.
I think any further improvement is something that will only come with time.
Also, my addiction really hasn't been as bad as I had thought it would be, a mix of my prescription and keeping myself busy I think is what stopped it for being a problem, I rarely even get the cravings anymore, a couple more doses and I will probably not need them anymore.
Which is great, I really thought it'd be more of a problem but eh, I'm not complaining.
But now that I've got the basics of Medical chakra down, I can 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 take a look at that Fuinjutsu book.
With that thought in mind I head on home, leaving yet another small mass grave of Chipmunks in my wake.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Learning is fun!
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