Nervousness.

That's what Georgette Lemare felt as she pulled on the thick medical gloves made of neoprene onto her freshly washed hands, supplementing the stark white medical scrubs that she was now wearing. She hated doing surgery like this. While she had some experience with doing stuff like this, she had been taught back at the witch academy how to do Field Surgery. But taking part in actual surgery? That was something that she hadn't expected to do in her life. Let alone actually doing it on someone she knew, but she had promised Hikari that her sister would survive. She wasn't going to fail in this objective that she set forth unless they tried absolutely everything, but she knew that while it was likely plausible to save Takami, from what she had heard of the leg injury. She doubted that they could save it, which caused her eyes to slide over to the instrument that would be used to remove said leg, sitting there freshly steam sterilized, a Gilgil Saw.

The Gallian glanced up at the clock as she grabbed a surgical mask, the mask was rectangular and made from layers of cotton and gauze. She looked at the mask for several moments and steeled her resolve. Then she slipped it on and looked at the surgeon. "Ready." she stated.

The surgeon, a tall Russian man, nodded. "Good. They are just finishing prep now, she'll be here in probably a few minutes." he replied in a clipped tone, but there was an undercurrent of clearly hoping that Takami could survive this surgery.

Then the doors banged open and into the surgical ward came a stretcher with Takami on it, accompanying it came the unpleasant stench of charred and cooked flesh, accompanying the stretcher were several people, including a witch whose hands were around gently clasping Takami's head and glowing softly with magic. While the girl didn't appear to have any familiars, she was clearly a witch who had some sort of mind magic ability. Takami for her part looked relaxed as well as a little sleepy, with no pain in her eyes despite her grizzly wounds, which now drew Georgette's attention.

It wasn't a pretty sight, the plasma wound in Takami's side was horrific, a deep ugly crater the size of a small grapefruit. The center of the crater was filled with blackened, cauterized blood and flesh. She could see parts of the rib cage, the bone charred black to the point that it had split revealing the material underneath which was discolored in a gradient from black to white. Clearly visible on Takami's front were places where her skin had split and blood now leaked through; this also meant that there was little doubt as to what the state of the organs and muscles in her torso were. It left the Georgette with a very good impression of what had done this, likely a Neuroi 30mm Plasma Pulse Cannon throwing a 30x1800mm plasma bolt at hypersonic velocities. Takami was frankly lucky that she hadn't been blown in half by such a weapon, even with the enhanced durability that witches had, the lethality of large caliber Neuroi plasma pulse and particularly plasma beam weaponry, could effortlessly kill witches and usually in a very messy fashion.

The thigh wound had clearly been done by a Neuroi kinetic round either a shell or gyrojet, probably one with the new plasma warhead and that had probably saved Takami's life in a twisted sort of way. It was an ugly gash some seven inches in diameter, a little oblong in shape indicating a not entirely flush angle of impact otherwise it would have been shaped more like Barringer Crater in the United States, a near perfect circle. As it was, layers of muscle and tendons had been brutally shredded and torn by the force of the explosion along with significant charring and burning from the heat, the femur had been outright fractured maybe even shattered judging by the look from leg, and the arteries had clearly been pinched and cauterized shut. The only good news was that there was a tourniquet just under the hip which was likely constraining the blood flow. Georgette could tell just by looking at it that the leg was beyond saving. Amputation was going to be the only recourse then, Takami's career as a fighter witch, was over and it stung.

But the prospect of actually doing an amputation, it sent a wave of revulsion through her. Robbing the mobility of a person who she considered to be practically family. Doing this just wasn't right, why would she have to do this? Right, she pushed that thought aside. She needed to do this in order to save Takami's life.

Takami looked around a little with her eyes until she sighted Georgette, there was that spark of life in them despite that sleepy look, she was still somewhat responsive and apparently at least aware. Her lips moved as a gentle rasp came from her lips as she silently spoke. Takami was clearly too tired from the effects of the magical sedation and her own endorphins to properly speak but she was at least semi-aware of her surroundings.

Georgette clasped her hands around Takami's. "I know it hurts Takami, we'll make you better, I promise."

Again the lips moved in that slight rasp and Takami mustered the strength to give her hands a gentle squeeze.

"Hikari's alright, she was slightly wounded, but nothing a little healing magic, a shower, and a good night's sleep will solve." Georgette replied as she looked around and saw that the Positive-Pressure Ventilator was being prepared as she spoke with Takami as was the General Anesthesia.

Those lips moved, producing that slight rasp as Takami replied to the best of her ability.

Georgette felt like she wanted to cry in response. "I-I will, we'll take care of her if you don't pull through. But you will pull through Takami," she looked up at the Surgeon who signaled his readiness, "alright, we're starting. We're going to put you under, okay?"

Takami nodded imperceptibly and allowed the mask to be slipped over her face and then came the sound of the machine activating and the hiss of gas. Takami's expression rapidly turned groggy and then she slipped under completely.

"Alright, starting operation, ECG connected?" The surgeon asked and there was a nod from one of the orderlies, the machine in question was printing away. "Good," he continued, "Georgette, I want you to focus your magic on the plasma wound." Georgette tuned out the rest of the instructions being done as everyone got into motion.

A simple touch and sending a pulse of magic through Takami's torso revealed the extent of the damage, the right kidney was just gone, seemingly deleted from existence as if hadn't been there in the first place. There was also very extensive damage to her stomach, liver, spleen, and intestines, with the same being true for the various muscles in her torso. There also appeared to be damage to the great vessels, they weren't breached otherwise Takami would have been DOA, but were very clearly damaged. The Gallian decided that she would focus her magic there first, stabilize the most life-threatening things first, then work on everything else.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the surgeon cutting open Takami's leg as they prepared to do work that would see Takami's leg removed. She pushed that out of her mind and focused on what exactly needed healing in this situation, breathe in and release, let the magic flow. Her hands glowed and the gentle hum of healing magic filled her ears.

The trick with healing magic wasn't to force where the magic went, that method led to rapid physical exhaustion and could result in at best a healwitch being bedridden and at worst, they could pay for it with their life. But if you let the spell do the work with only providing guidance as to where you wanted the majority of the magic to be directed instead of forcing where the magic went, then it was as easy as breathing. It was a method that witches with excellent control could handle vast quantities of patients. Some of the most legendary feats of healing magic had occurred during the Great War where healwitches had been forced by necessity to become literal grandmasters of their craft. She wasn't at their level yet, but she was no slouch. One thing she'd been taught was a subtle tell for her pausing and assessing on progress.

She tapped her foot at a beat of roughly one beat per second. She engrained this into her muscle memory when healing, after she completed six sets of ten beats. She reached out and sent another pulse of magic, this time with the intention of analyzing how the repair to the great vessels were going. The muscle layers in her pass with healing magic had their damage to their outer layers healed, okay good, that was progress.

Bring the hands back up and continue healing. She began running on automatic whenever she fell into, as Naoe called it, her Healing Trance. It was an apt way of describing it, she hadn't fallen into it fully when she met Hikari earlier, but that was because the Fusoan had kept up a conversation with her.

She paused and assessed her progress again. Okay, the Great Vessels had been repaired to the point that she was convinced that they would hold. Now she could shift her focus, Takami's lower digestive tract was a ruin, the same with her core muscles and reproductive organs. But Georgette figured that she could repair both of them. However, she would have to take her time while doing so, focusing her magic on specific components, along with hopefully killing off the bacterial infection that might occur due to the damage.

She started her process over again, pouring her magic into areas that needed it. She decided to first focus on the Fusoan's stomach then move onto different parts of her digestive tract. Again she slipped into her healing trance. Such was her focus on her work, she was doing this to save someone who she considered to be a sister.

Then she heard the words she knew were coming. "Saw, Georgette, I'll need you to apply some magic to kickstart the healing process once we've separated the leg after you're confident enough to focus your efforts there." the surgeon said, there were a couple of rather stark blood stains on the white sleeves of his gown.

Georgette nodded very slightly as she continued her trance, sending magic into Takami's torso, but she glanced at the leg, layers of muscle and skin had been cut and pulled away, clear to bone. The arteries and veins were properly pinched and now cut. The bone shone in the lights of the surgical suite and an orderly handed the surgeon the saw. He pulled it taut and began cutting with quick motions, the sound of the blade shearing its way through bone and then the marrow made the Gallian's skin crawl. With a jolt the blade finished cutting its way through the bone and then the process of cutting through additional layers of muscle, tendons, and veins continued, until finally the last few connecting layers of skin were peeled away. Blood oozed from the stump and now ran down, turning the covers that Takami was laying on red as the orderlies now began swathing it in bandages to prevent infection from setting in.

She sent another pulse magic through Takami's torso and nodded imperceptibly, she would have to repair Takami's Liver after getting the intestines healed. The importance of the Liver couldn't be understated and without it in working order, Takami was as good as dead. As she kept the train of magic up, she realized that Takami's best hope of pulling through her recovery would be for her to stay in Saint Petersburg. The reason for that was because the 502nd JFW was here as was her little sister. She made a mental note to ask the Wing Commander about doing something to prevent Takami from being shipped home.

Then came a cry she dreaded. "CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!" from the orderly watching the ECG.

"Georgette, magic pulse right to the chest." the Surgeon said calmly.

Georgette reacted immediately, she stopped healing and started focusing her magic into her hands as another man ripped open the ruins of Takami's jacket, revealing her undershirt as the Gallian focused on building up a charge of healing magic charge in her hands. She placed them carefully. "Ready!" she called.

"Release!"

The release of the built up charge of healing magic was a sound like a thrum and the surge of such a release caused Georgette's skin to tingle in a strange way.

"Normal heartbeat restored." The ECG orderly said.

That caused Georgette to exhale a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. This was going to take a long time.

Hikari couldn't sleep. This was unusual for her as she could normally do quite well in such a situation, even with the thunder of artillery that was a constant feature here as background noise. But tonight was different, she just couldn't fall asleep no matter how much she wanted too.

In a sense it was irritating, but she also knew why this was the case as well. She was worried, she was worried for Raya and she was worried for her sister. The nervousness, the stress, it was all working in concert to make sure that she couldn't successfully fall asleep. But just thinking of Raya and the fact that she had saved her life, it made her also realize that she was possibly in uncharted territory right now, for all she knew, Russians could have life debts. She knew that was a thing mostly in Southeast Asia from what she had heard, it was occasionally invoked in Fuso as well. But she didn't know if Russia did it as well, part of her hoped that it wasn't the case. Mostly because by her own assessment, Raya wouldn't be ready for combat for months more than likely.

She shook her head and sighed, if Raya wanted to invoke a life debt, then she would allow it. But would have to make sure that Raya didn't always come with her, not until the Russian witch was fully healed. Which would be weeks at best and probably months at the very worst, but she would be willing to welcome Raya on missions.

After all, her being a runner, with Miya and -once she'd recovered- Raya being her escorts, it would at least allow her to have two friends she could trust. But given how this theater ate men, witches, and equipment alike. A dark part of her mind, the part she hated, noted that there was also a chance that the three of them would end up more than likely going home in a pinebox, more than likely on the same mission as well if it all went sideways. She really hated that voice.

The Fusoan cast a glance at Dunya, the cat familiar was soundly resting but was likely watching her with the magical senses that familiars had. Shaking her head, she cast a glance at Matsuda, the squirrel familiar was also soundly asleep.

It caused her to sigh deeply, she at least wanted to get some sleep so she could hopefully visit Takami tomorrow after her surgery. She paused in her line of thought.

Takami.

That is what was preventing her from falling asleep. Nervousness for her sister, she was so anxious when it came to waiting for word, any word really, about her older sister that it was keeping her awake. She knew that her sister was strong, but she hadn't been so gravely wounded well, ever, to require surgery. But from her extremely limited knowledge, weren't surgeries always inherently risky?

Shaking her head, she pushed it out of her train of thought and tried to relax through the techniques she had learned from Takei-Sensei on how to fall asleep quickly. She breathed deeply in and out as she rested her hands palms flat on the bed. Slow breaths every so often and before she knew it, her eyelids slid shut and she was cast into a deep sleep.

Just two beds over, Witch Surgeon Tsitsyanova heard the change in Hikari's breathing rate as the Fusoan witch finally fell asleep. That was good, already she had been visited once by an orderly to give an update on Takami's condition. They had already amputated her leg and the veteran witch had already crashed once during her surgery. If Takami was to pull through her prolonged recovery, she would need the support of her sister. Part of her hated this war on a fundamental level, her parents had seen war of a different type and magnitude compared to this. But the war that she was now serving in was different from the battlefields of Austria-Hungry and the battles against the Traitor Red Russians during the Civil War. But one thing she had noticed during the Siege was that artillery barrages from the Neuroi were almost exactly how artillery barrages were described in the journals of her parents from the Great War and Civil War. Granted there were differences in those bombardments, mostly in how things sounded, Neuroi shells sounded different, but other than that, they were the same.

Raya began to murmur in her sleep and Tsitsyanova sighed, she had expected that her patient would start suffering from nightmares. But she had expected it to be later, she wasn't trained for this shit, she was a witch surgeon. It meant that while she was qualified to be a surgeon (or surgeon assistant), most of the time she helped in the infirmary given the almost chronic shortage of healwitches that had resulted in Saint Petersburg due to the grueling siege. But having to deal with sullen runner witches on a semi-regular basis, girls who had the shit the scared out of them and seemed terrified about going back out, she had learned to an extent in the tricky task of getting their morale back on its feet..But she wasn't sure that she could handle Raya, mostly due to her being a trainee and the fact that she had nearly been killed in action in her first engagement against the Neuroi.

In many ways it just wasn't fair, Raya should be at a witch academy, learning of the history of the Imperial Russian Empire, how witches and magic had affected said history, how magic and witches worked, along with dozens of other topics including Math and Science. Instead she was fighting in a war that made The War to End All Wars look pathetic.

Raya's murmuring intensified rapidly and then she suddenly woke up with a startled cry. Her remaining emerald eye cast a terrified sweep around the room, quickly taking in her location and a full body shudder of relief seemed to pass through her.

"Where am I?" Raya asked in a slightly fearful tone.

"Trainee Raya, you're currently at the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg in the infirmary." Tsitsyanova replied, her Siberian accent coloring her accent. "I am Witch Surgeon Tsitsyanova Nina and I am going to be responsible for watching you tonight."

Raya looked around as with a pained grunt of effort she tried to sit up, it was then she noticed that she still had her familiars active. With a flash of light she disconnected and a Moscow Watchdog, an extremely rare familiar breed, materialized on the bed which immediately groaned under the extra weight. But then again, given the sheer weight of the breed that the familiar was, this wasn't much of a surprise and besides, the beds in the medical ward could handle that weight. A moment later, said dog put a large paw on Raya's chest and very gingerly pushed her back into the covers and pillows, which the Russian didn't even try to fight. She gracefully allowed the familiar to push her back.

"How are you feeling Raya?" Nina asked as Raya settled back into the pillow and tried to make herself comfortable as her familiar curled up, practically laying on her midsection.

Raya paused for a moment before answering. "Not great Nina, my face really hurts and my vision seems to be off. I am sore and it feels like someone took a battering ram to my torso and it's really starting to hurt." she admitted, her expression contorting into a grimace of pain.

Nina checked her watch and frowned, it had been a few hours since Raya had been given some morphine. Which meant that the stuff that was in her system was likely starting to wear off, given that one side of Raya's face looked like it had been hammered with a weighted glove due to all the bruising and swelling, plus the ruined eye, not to mention maser shot to the side; while the latter and a part of the former had been fixed by healing magic. It was no surprise that she was beginning to feel pain, while Hikari had caught Raya before she hit the waters of Lake Ladoga, the impact hadn't really been gentle. If anything from what Pilot Officer Naoe had found out, the Fusoan Flight Sergeant had caught Raya going several hundred KPH, which meant that Raya was lucky that she wasn't shrieking her lungs out in pain. "Alright, I'll be right back, trainee. Let me get a bit of morphine and then we'll have you fixed in a bit." she said and Raya nodded, tears starting to well up.

It took her a moment to find a syrette of morphine and some rubbing alcohol. With that in hand, Nina grabbed a pen, then walked back to Raya's bed. She made a note on the witch's chart recording the time and that she had given her a syrette of morphine, then swabbed Raya's arm and injected the morphine. "You'll be feeling better in a few minutes." she said and Raya nodded.

A few minutes later, the expression of torment in Raya's face softened and eventually vanished as the painkiller did its job. "Comrade Surgeon?" Raya asked.

"Yes, Comrade witch?" Nina replied thoughtfully.

"Will I be kicked out of the military because of my wounds?"

Nina paused and hummed. She honestly didn't know that answer for certain. "I don't know, that really depends on what the head doctor has to say. I don't think that you will though, we have sufficient healwitches here that eventually, you'll regain the use of your eye. But for the moment, I want you to go to sleep." she said and Raya nodded.

"Can you give me something to help?" she asked, pain quite evident.

Nina paused and thought about it before nodding. "Sure."