Starring:
Date: October 17, 2016
Summary:
Goh's lack of a chakra network begins to show physical symptoms.
"Damage takes a toll"
Inn at Kirigakure
The morning after Goh and Mushi's all night rumble-tumble brings with it plenty of sunshine, clearing a great deal of mist and fog in the atmosphere. Granted, the morning was nearly over, as the sun ticks to a position just before noon. So it's going to be as clear as it will ever be.
The pickler is up first. Still partly tired, the man stumbles out of the bedding and towards the kitchen. With a casual, sleepy glance back towards Mushi, he rounds into the kitchen and starts to busy himself. Just getting some fruit and vegetables, peeling and readying the various items. "Wow… I might need some pickled tomato after that." He mutters to himself, gripping his head. Energy was certainly hard to come by these days. With a casual finger flip, he tosses a piece of mandarin into his mouth and chews down.
As Goh peels vegetables he'd feel warm arms wrap around him from behind. Mushi gives him a close hug, resting her head against his back. By the time he turns around she'd sit at their table (now with a single chair) with a pile of medical texts before her taken from Kiri's library. They are all related in some way to chakra, from beginner level to more advanced indexes. She seems quite absorbed in one of the books, hardly paying any attention to Goh, until he'd feel a light flick. Now and then more would follow. The cause would eventually become apparent. At some point Mushi had picked up some of the orange peel, and was flicking bits of it at Goh. Though she's so fast any time he looks around, she'd seemingly be deeply engrossed in her reading.
As he peels and cuts the breakfast fruit, Goh twitches a bit when the bits of orange skin hit him. "I can see you move, Mushi." He groans, as if it was obvious. Hey, at least he got that hug!
When he turns around and heads to the table, bowl of fruit in hand, the healer will be able to see something stark. His right eye is completely red. Left eye is fine, but the right has bled badly from… somewhere. Somewhere internal. Given how normal Goh is behaving though, he is clearly unbothered by it! His vision must be fine, with only the eyeball surrounding his nerves and lens being damaged and filled with blood.
"I may not have my super special ninja powers anymore, but I'm not blind." He smirks, sliding the fruit bowl down onto the same table that the healer is studying on. "How're you feeling? That's some heavy duty reading you've got going on."
Even if he sees her flicking the peels at Goh, that doesn't keep Mushi from stopping. By the end she's sniggering. That's until he turns around and comes up to her. Her coy smirk is wiped from her face in an instant. "Goh-kun…" she says. Now she's looking at him closely. Not the wound, but his expression. It doesn't look like he even feels it. She waits for him to point he /knows/ his eye is bleeding. But when he doesn't she stands up and says, "Goh-kun your eye is bloody. Sit down on the bed…" She'd already be gathering her pack, and her chakra as well. Giving him a bit of time to look in the mirror.
"What?" Goh replies, tilting his head. "My eye is bloody?" What is that meant to mean? For a moment he considers that she is joking, slowly nodding. "Ooooh, I see what you're getting at. You want to play Nurse or something? Heh. 'Sit on the bed'. I guess I am feeling a bit unwell." The pickler coughs, though it's clearly a fake cough. Designed to be 'in play'. Nevertheless he obeys, popping a slice of apple out and munching on it as he wanders over to the bed. Sitting on the end with a huff, he tilts his head. "How did you want to do this? Did you want to handcuff me? Wait — that's police, isn't it. Have you got… I dunno, some sort of uniform?" The man beams wide, obviously keen. Then… then he feels it.
"…what the." He can't necessarily feel the pain, but the blood is now running out of his tear duct. It feels like a tear, but when he instinctively raises a hand to touch and wipe it away, he sees the redness on his finger. "…oh no." Something in his tone suggests that he isn't /entirely/ surprised by this event. As if he's seen it before. "…now from my eye…? What the heck is going on?"
Mushi sighs in regret. That bit of medic foreplay was one she had in mind for the future. If there is a future. What if she's killing him with her treatment? She takes a deep breath. It seems to work. When she comes over she's calm and clinical. She probes him with chakra to find out what's going on. "No entry wound," she says. "Something inside you is doing this damage. And you didn't feel it." She's touching his face, not in romance, but pulling back his eyelid, peering deeply into his iris, and…wait… "What do you mean 'now from your eye' Goh-kun?" Mushi asks mildly. "Has this happened before? When? How many times?"
"Not from my eye," Goh reveals, leaning back a bit so Mushi can get a better grip of his eye. There is certainly no external damage. No scrapes, no scars. Just a few bruises and love bites around his neck. "A couple of times I've had a bloody nose. But they've been no big deal. Not painful or anything, and they go away in a few minutes. When?" He considers. "I dunno. Had one a few days ago, day before I met you actually. One before that was about a fortnight ago when I was hiking back down through the Land of Lightning. Thought it might have been just dryness… you know? Dry air making my nose super dry, and then bleeding when I have to clean house every now and then."
The blood continues to trickle out of his tear duct. There's not a whole lot gushing out. Just small droplets. The pupil is fine, looking to be in tact. The iris also looks mostly fine, with only the edges red. The normally white sclera though is very, very dark red. "What's wrong with my eye?" He asks, hoping the healer would know.
Mushi's face is impassive as she searches him internally. It's bad, very bad. And since it began before he met her, that means she had come just in time. Because as bad as it is it's not incurable. With the right treatment this can be resolved. But by her? She puts an arm on his shoulder and her next words are calm. "Goh-kun allow me to explain the state of your chakra network. You still have chakra, enough to once again become a shinobi. But it's not flowing. It's not controlled. And right now it's building up in such a way that it's also harming your physical body, from within." She says, "I'm going to restore the damage it's doing. Then I'm going to go and find a way to fix your chakra. Because…you can no longer live without having a body that properly channels chakra. Hold still." She puts both hands on either side of his head. And then his face would seem to go numb as well as his eye. She's restoring his body, healing the internal damage. "This technique specializes in treating vital processes, and organs," Mushi says.
"What?" Goh repeats, that relatively lament description still causing him to think. "My own body is making my eye bleed?" That seems strange to him, but he remains still when the healer begins her treatment, the numbing feeling washing over him. Once it's complete, and Goh opens his eye, it's clear again. The blood has dissipated into near nothingness, with only a few trickles coming out of his duct as the remains drain out.
"This is alright, right? I mean, you're treating me. Every day we're doing a little bit for you to help." The pickler smiles faintly. "I'll be alright. Besides, a little blood never hurt! I didn't even feel this." Though had his organ detonated anymore and hit the nerve, he would have been in /agony/. But it seems he's blissfully unaware of that fact.
"Wait, you said we're going to go all out, right? Do just one treatment and fix me up?"
Mushi sighs. She can constantly monitor Goh and keep him alive. But if she were to leave, there's none of her techniques that would sustain him and guarantee his safety. She spends the next few minutes using her jutsu to diagnose his internal functions. During that time she assures him that of course that's always the option. But the more she finds out, the more she doesn't like what she sees. His chakra flow is a mess…and she doesn't know exactly how it is, or what to do about it. She's fairly sure he won't die from it. She just needs to control is chakra a little and this will go away. He'll be able to live a normal life.
Later, she'd find out how very wrong she was about that.
Eventually Mushi says, "It may just be a small fluke, Goh-kun," she says, "or it may be more serious. I'm not sure. But I'll fix it. Still, I need to do a bit of research which means I'm leaving. You stay here. In the meantime I'm going to use a jutsu that will ensure no hiccups happen for awhile. Wait a minute for me to prepare." She'd go out of the room and come back a few minutes later, before pressing a hand to his stomach. He'd feel vitality as he never had before, a wonderful feeling of wellness washing over him that wouldn't be gone for quite some time. Mushi's face is a mask of intense concentration. At the end Mushi nods. "That will do it for quite awhile." Then she'd stand up and start to pack.
Goh sits there, a hand lifting to scratch his head as Mushi goes into serious medic mode. He's still a bit unsure what's going on, the medical science of it far beyond his relatively simple understanding of the chakra network. "Stay here?" Goh repeats, looking out the window. "I can't even go outside for a walk? Or sell some sneaky pickled veggies?" At the healing energy, Goh's eyes brighten considerably. Still naked from the sleep prior, he stands up straight and flexes his muscles. "…oooh YEAH! I feel fantastic! WAHAAHA!" He throws his head back to laugh heartily.
As Mushi begins to pack, he moves over to the side of the bed and puts on his own clothes. "Where are you going, exactly? How long do you plan to be gone for?" He sniffs, clearing his throat. "I'll be careful if I'm outside. Promise." Gosh, he sounds almost like a child.
Mushi had tried to use that technique without crippling her ability to use chakra based jutsu, but she has yet to perfect it. Perhaps she'll have to work on that. And the pain. Though she says none of this aloud. Goh wouldn't like knowing what that "healing" technique meant, not one bit. Mushi turns away trembling, trying to hold in the strain. It's obvious what she's doing, so she says, "Sorry Goh-kun, I'm just angry and worried. I wish I could help you this instant, but I want to do a bit of research before I return to heal you." She gets herself under control and gathers up a few more things. She leaves the books on the table.
Then she'd turn around and pull him close, leaning her cheek against his shoulder and just drawing in his scent. "I'll be back in a week. You'll be fine till then. You can go out, but no talking about this. Or fighting. Or drinking. Eat healthy. Go to sleep on time." She rails off a few more pieces of advice before kissing him and leaving in a moment.
"A /week/?" Goh repeats, face falling. After a night like the one they just had, a week apart is going to be difficult to stomach. As she comes to cling onto him, Goh wraps his arms firmly about Mushi, kissing her goodbye and just waving as she marches off. "Good luck, Mushi. And don't worry! We'll definitely find a way to fix me right up. I can even do some research into some secret pickling recipes!" He calls after her, blue eyes following her as she is out and then gone.
Once she's gone, he turns around slightly to look out the window. With a deep breath, he throws on a shirt, getting ready for the day.
