Starring:
Date: April 16, 2014
Summary:
Shuuren uses a feather to send a beacon to Mushi to make haste to his palace to heal him from major wounds.
"Overwhelming Darkness - Emergency Healing"
Tea Village - Daimyo's Office
It's been a little while since Shuuren poured what chakra he could afford to spend into that feather Mushi gave him to signal her. In his office, the Daimyo leans on the floor up against his desk with some rather nasty looking chakra burns on his torso. He breathes rather heavily, holding his hands in a seal as he uses what chakra he can in a jutsu to keep himself alive until she can get here. The entire office is rather disheveled, quite odd for him. As one can tell, though, by the monsters running through the streets below tangled in a fights with guards who're holding them off as best they can to allow civilians to escape, this is far from a normal situation.
Bodies are already beginning to litter the streets, some of the lower ranked soldiers who haven't yet boarded caravans already fallen along with a small number of civilians. On the ride over here, the wandering medic would have spot hordes of caravans fleeing the country, guarded by soldiers trying their best to get them away from the danger of the monsters that are steadily spreading out from the town and over the countryside to the other villages. Barricades are being setup at all major entrances to the country to keep civilians from trying to re-enter, though shinobi help is being accepted through. Mushi would find her entrance is allowed easily, a message having already been sent to them to not disturb her flight in.
Mushi had just finished curing Sei, and she was on her way to Yuriko's. She couldn't wait to tell that girl what happened and help her too. But on her way down the street a giant hummingbird suddenly appeared before her in a burst of steam. Mushi yelped as Kirameki said bluntly, "We've been contacted."
"Who? Yuriko-chan? I'm just on my way…"
"No, the feather one you gave to Nagamura Shuuren."
Mushi doesn't hesitate to clamber onto the bird's back and say, "Hmm. Him. Let's go."
They'd been flying several minutes before Kirameki says, "You're not drunk anymore. I'm glad."
"Yeah, well. A bunch of Kiri kids sobered me up. And if they hadn't, Nagamura Shuuren sure would. That guy…ugh."
"If you don't like him, why did you give him a way to contact you?" Kirameki ventured.
That's when the creatures plaguing the Tea Country are coming into view. Mushi stares down at them grimly. "Because if there's something he can't heal, it must be bad. Sorry, Yuriko-chan, Kiyoshi-kun."
She's shivering by the time they get there. She'd had Kirameki fly high in the atmosphere to stay far above the chaos. And now there's the tower. How gloomy. "Thanks, Kirameki-chan," Mushi says and she'd jump through the window as she recalled the summon. Jump through the window, regardless of whether it was open or not to land in Shuuren's current position, and straighten up, brushing her hands off. "I've come," she says calmly.
As Mushi dives through the window, Shuuren looks up and nods in thanks. "Much appreciated…. I realize… the situation below is… not pleasant. I… merely… require some assistance… since this… is a bit more than I can handle… in my current state," he says, pointing out his wounds. When she diagnoses them, she'll find a massive amount of chakra was removed from him, along with his immortality… The Crawler itself has removed itself from him. If she really inspects, she may figure out that creature itself had created the seal as part of their deal. "That massive pool of chakra forging itself together down there belongs to the Crawler… It won't be…. long before…. it's reborn… I.. won't… ask you to stay and fight… because that could very… well be… suicide… Just help me… recover… and I'll pay you… heftily… for your services.
Mushi takes her time to examine Shuuren. Perhaps it's that he's a fellow medic that she doesn't conceal her worried expression from him. He knows what a carefully calm face means—he's probably made the same for thousands of patients. When he mentions the power of the creature Mushi says, "You're in luck. I was just banished from my Center, so if I fight it has no more consequence for anyone but myself. So I may stick around a bit longer." Why is she saying it like that? Why is she even telling him of all people? Mushi shakes her head ruefully as she breaks down her energy to convert to chakra.
"I'll restore some of your energy and heal your wounds," she says. "I have some advanced fuinjutsu techniques, both in removal and replacement. Tell me what you need." She doesn't usually say it so bluntly to people, but unlike panicked, injured people Shuuren would be able to diagnose himself.
"Banished, huh?" Shuuren asks, blinking a bit. "Huh. Well… if you need something… to do… I was considering building a chain of hospitals between… the villages." Most enduring sign of a bureaucrat. He's got a foot in the grave, and he's still thinking about business ventures he's got plotted if the right conversation comes up. At her next words, he says, "That's… got it covered. I can survive without his chakra… as I had for my entire life before then…. I just just need these wounds eradicated and enough chakra… that I can recover before he has time to get his minions to the country's borders when he's reformed."
Mushi laughs at Shuuren's words, as if he's told a great joke. "The way you talk," she says. "It reminds me of a merchant I once met. He got into a bad accident. While I was healing him and he was sweating through the pain, he was also trying to convince me to buy his merchandise." It seems she's thinking about his subject the same way. Mushi places both hands on Shuuren's chest and chakra would flood his body. It wouldn't only fill him with energy, but also boost his chakra circulatory system. It'd take a minute before he's fully healed with much of his energy restored. Mushi wipes her brow, although no sweat is there. Just a reflex gesture. She digs into her medic's pack and takes out a couple pills. "Just some basic pills to restore more of your stamina," she offers. "That creature that was inside you. Is it like a bijuu?" It seems she's not bringing up the hospital offer yet.
"Call it second nature," Shuuren says with a chuckle. "When it's built into your brain, you always go to it." With that, though, he'd go silent to allow her to work. As his wounds are mended, he lets out sigh of… well, at least relief from the pain he was feeling and the weight of nearly dying on the floor with the world at stake around him. He tilts his head side to side to crack his neck a bit as he reaches out to take the pills. "In a way, yes, but much darker. The Bijuu aren't innately evil. Some are that way due to life experience from what I know. That thing, though… It's evil to the core, actually made up of the darkness in the hearts of the dead. It plans on making a lot more dead to feed itself." With that, he swallows the pills and stands up to dust himself off a bit. "It's a monster in every sense of the word, and this time I won't be able to stop it with words or a contract."
Mushi nods. "Yes, bijuu aren't innately evil," she says. "That's their mood, not their nature. Even if it's been their mood for a very, very long time." She knows better than most the bijuu were all different before the rage and bitterness. Her lips press together as Shuuren explains what the creature below is. If his description is indeed literal, this passes into forbidden territory. She pops a stamina pill and straightens up to go look out the window.
"That's bad," she sums up. She's silent for some time then she turns to ask Shuuren with a smirk, "I exhausted Kirameki getting here, so even if I wanted to I couldn't wing out of here right now. But if I help you here, risking life and limb, you'll owe me. So how can I help?"
As his body adjusts to the healing and the pill, Shuuren turns to look out the window as well. The chaos below is rather disturbing to look at. If he hadn't been prepared for a disaster, the entire populace of this village could have been slaughtered. "We're not dealing with a small number of creatures here. There are thousands of these things… maybe more. I never really asked him just how many he had. They're going to kill everything in their path…" After a brief pause, he says, "You can stay and fight if you like, but this is where the road gets hard, even for people like us. If your friend were ready, I'd say the best thing you could do would be to warn the villages of what you've seen so they can do what they need to do to prepare for if these things get out of my country before I can stop them."
"Long and hard, hm?" Mushi says thoughtfully. Then she flicks through a series of hand seals and summons Kirameki. A lustrous hummingbird with emerald green feathers melting into sky blue, with yellow and white. Jewel-like almost. Though the startling thing about her is that she's large enough for not one but several people to ride on. "If that's so, I need to get something in order," she says. "I'll be back in a few hours Nagamura-kun. Sorry, Kirameki-chan, but you have to take me back and then come back here."
Kirameki says, "So you're his friend now? You're a fickle woman, Mushi-chan."
"Just fly me there, birdbrain."
"Very fickle." And then they're off. For now.
