Disclaimer: I do not own the God Eater franchise but I do have control over original characters and storylines.
Pragmatic
The doors to the emergency room swung wide open with doctors on either side wheeling in the patient. Their exchange was frantic and fast paced, checking on the status of the patient who seemed to have one foot on the other side when he was brought in.
Behind the doctors were a group of people, following closely behind wondering all of them looking anxious and worried. One of the doctors turned to the girl in short black hair and said "We're taking him to the ICU now, we can't have anyone else here".
"Excuse me but I am a certified field medic with 104 successful operations under my belt", objected Sakuya, her eyes red and trails of dry tears coming from them "I can help with the surgery and more than anything else that is my friend over there".
The doctor gingerly turned back. Though her face was covered by a surgical mask, only exposing her eyes, Sakuya could tell that she was honestly contemplating on letting her join or not.
"I'd like her to accompany us", said a voice from behind. Everyone turned around to see Dr. Sakaki slapping on a pair of gloves, the jovial and carefree expression he normally had now completely gone. It only served to remind them how dangerous the situation had become. He strode forward with a purpose only to have Soma shoot to his feet and give him a stare that could melt steel.
"Why didn't you tell us what was going on?" he asked
"You can force me to stand here and have me explain everything", said Sakai not backing down "Or you can move aside and let me so my job."
Soma did not say anything, instead he simply took a step to the side allowing Sakaki to pass but not before saying "When this is over, you and I are going to talk".
Sakaki headed through the doors along with Sakuya and the doctor. The doors closed behind the trio leaving the rest of the people behind, wondering about the fate of their comrade.
Time now marched at a furiously slow pace. All three teams sat in the waiting room, with only Kota pacing back and forth. A door opposite them opened and Tsubaki stepped out, breathing out a heavy sigh.
"You all need to take a break and get some rest", she suggested but the words fell on deaf ears. Everyone present had no intention of leaving the room till they had some good news. Just then the door to the ICU opened and Sakuya stepped out, dressed in surgical clothes but nearly a quarter of it was covered in blood. Sakuya rubbed her head a little then collapsed to her knees. The others rushed to her side and helped her to a nearby chair.
After giving her some water, the medic looked at the floor for a moment then said "It's bad, to be honest I've never seen someone this badly injured before".
These were the facts, James' skulls suffered multiple injuries, the bones in his right arm are broken in ten different places. His lungs, pancreas and liver were also gravel injured. Half his ribs were broken and he was suffering from massive internal bleeding capped off by the fact that before he was rushed into the ICU, he lost eighty percent of his blood.
Sakuya knew that if she told the others, it would only serve to demoralize them even further. All she could do was tell them about the heavy internal bleeding, leaving out the more gruesome injuries.
"Given how tired I was from the mission", she said looking at their tired expressions as well "Sakaki told me to leave and to inform all of you to go get some sleep".
"No way are we going anywhere", objected Tatsumi "We're sticking here no matter what?"
"Suppose there's another aragami attack?" asked Tsubaki with a tone that clearly stated she had heard enough "If you went out right now in your tired states you'd only get injured which meant that the doctors would have to divide their time to keeping both you and James safe".
Alisa rose up to object that statement but the boss was not done "It's understandable how concerned you all must be. After all, he may not have been here that long but Castor has proven a valuable teammate and a friend. But as it stands no one here knows how long this operation is going to go so till the doctors have finished with their job you all are going back to your rooms and getting some sleep".
At this everyone exchanged glances at each other, unsure of whether or not to heed the order.
"If you like I can forbid you from coming here altogether", said Tsubaki with a shrug
"Alright fine", shouted Kota "We're going but promise to tell us the second they're finished".
All of them now departed from the room except for Sakuya and Tsubaki. The medic looked at her boss then looked down at the floor.
"How bad is it?" asked Tsubaki when she was sure no one would hear her.
"Very," replied the veteran god eater. "He's suffered more than twelve fatal injuries to his body, everyone is doing their best to try and pull off a miracle but…"
Tsubaki saw Sakuya looking up, tears now rolling down her eyes "I don't think he's going to make it".
Tsubaki felt a terrible pain forming in her stomach. Throughout her time as a god eater and as the second in command at the far east branch, she had seen many god eaters come and go, each of their deaths left a hole in the hearts of everyone who knew them.
She remembered how weak and emotional she felt hearing that her own brother had to be left behind and how hard it was for her to remain neutral despite wanting to everything she could to go out there and find him.
And now this latest tragedy, another promising god eater who had the potential like nothing she had seen before once again shared the same fate as many others before him.
When Alisa woke up she was drenched in a cold sweat. She kept remembering that moment when she saw James and how that black aragami capitalized on that opening. She closed her eyes tightly then got out of her bed and left her room. It was still very early in the morning which was why she saw no one while wandering the empty corridors of the far east branch.
The girl shivered a little when a particularly cold wind swept through the room she was in, causing her to rub her arms. It was only now she remembered she was still wearing the red jacket that belonged to James. For some reason after that mission where she saved his life, she fainted and when she woke up, she found the jacket was on her. As much as she wanted to ask him how that came to be but the flow of events prevented that from happening.
Eventually she found her way to the training room where she found Sakuya hitting the air with a furious pace. Alisa must have come nearing the end as Sakuya finished with a furious uppercut then stopped and caught her breath. The medic headed out of the training room, grabbed a towel and saw Alisa standing there. The two greeted each other then headed to the lounge. It came as no surprise that they found Hibari in her usual place going through information for the upcoming missions.
The red haired girl paused then lowered her head and hit her table with her right hand. She noticed this expression was not lost on the two girls. "Sorry", she said in a dejected voice "You shouldn't have seen that".
"Hey Hibari there's something I've been wondering", said Sakuya sitting on the chair
"I think I know what you're talking about", she said "Soma confronted me about the same thing after the mission was over."
"Almost ten minutes after Alisa and Kota were sent to the north and north east to provide backup, the main force of the aragami were coming in from the south side."
The two of them were taken aback by the statement. Alisa quickly recovered and spoke first "Then why? Why didn't you tell us about it? We could have gone back and provided some backup".
"I wanted to but the director stopped me", she said which only made things more confusing for the two
The doctor looked at the patient charts then looked at the body, his eyes widening in surprise.
"Doctor what does this mean?" asked one of the other medical staff.
Fascination and answers would have to wait. He could not speculate right now and needed to keep the information as tightly wrapped as possible before moving further. Sakaki relaxed himself a little then turned to the others and said "You've all done enough, now all we can do is leave it up to fate. Go back to your rooms and get some rest. You all have earned it".
Momentairly confused by this sudden statement, the adrenaline that had spurred them on to continue their work after 15 hours had passed finally stopped pumping, causing all of them to immediately feel relaxed. After that came a desire to sleep and it was one so strong that none of them could ignore it.
Without saying anything else, they bid their goodbyes to the director and left the room. Sakaki simply hoped that with everything that happened and how tired they were at the very end, they would forget what happened.
Sakaki looked at the documents once again, then back to the still body lying on the operating table. When Sakaki was reading on James' dossier before he transferred, he noticed how odd it was that someone could seem so plain. Whether it be athletics or field combat, he was always ranked at an average place.
At first he did not seem to care for such a detail but after receiving the recruit and seeing him in action, Sakaki began to wonder even more how someone with his talents was able to stay under the radar.
It was only in the recent mission that he got a good understanding of the teenager. To be able to predict the chain of events with that level of precision was not something even most veteran god eaters could do. It was only in the operation that his questions were answered.
Sakaki took a step back, took off his mask and said "You'd better wake up James, I have many questions for you."
AN: human? Robot? Alien perhaps? Or something else clearly left of centre. Even I have no idea
(I do but that was just said for fun)