Sasuke finally emerged from the building, his hands covered in blood. It had taken almost three hours to stop the bleeding, and Metsuki was now being transported to the hospital, where they would continue to treat her. Something strange had happened though, when the Godaime had called in a seals specialist to control Metsuki's seal, which had began to spread even further. Once re-sealed, her body first went into shock before almost exploding. Perhaps it had been sealed wrong, but every one of her previous injuries from the mission had resurfaced, broken boned, internal bleeding and a new torrent of blood. Bt now, the Hokage had wondered how much blood one thirteen-year-old girl could possibly posess.
But that had not been all, after stopping the bleeding again, the Hokage tried to knit the bones back together, but they would not heal. Her TenKetsu was throbbing as well, and just as her and Sasuke managed to calm it down, Metsuki's temperature shot up in seconds to over one-hundred. At the moment, nobody even knew if she would survive the night. Sasuke sighed and headed off to tell Neji, he had noticed how concerned he had been with Metsuki during the mission, and thought he would want to know what was going on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neji had acted cold and uncaring, as usual, when Sasuke brought him the news of Metsuki's condition, but now he stood at the hospital desk for the fifth time in the last two days. They were allowing no visitors whatsoever into her room though, and she was in the middle of her second operation anyways. Her condition had become marginally worse, but thanks to blood transfusions and the hard work of many experienced medical-nin, she was slowly strengthening.
That's when she, due to the stress on her body, went into a coma. Sasuke had been called in for the use of his Sharingan again and had brought Neji the news, and he had taken it fairly well. That was, until Sasuke told him the other half. He had said that if her condition progressed for more than two months, which there was a seventy-five percent chance of happening, she would become a human vegetable. Vegetable meaning that she would not be able to move at all, not her mouth or her body, and would have no control over her body's functions. It would be fine it she stayed in a coma for up to three years or more, but if her condition persisted, she would turn into a lump of useless flesh and bone.
At this, Neji was visibly shocked. His shock quickly turned to anger, and when he found no one to blame it on, he went off to train along with Sasuke. Today they were going to practice their summoning after signing their contracts. It took a long time, and wasted alot of chakra. Their first day got them nowhere at all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In about a week, Neji and Sasuke had almost learned how to summon properly. Metsuki's condition had not gotten any better at all, worse if anything, and he was still unable to get into her room. They had been called to the Hokage's quarters for a mission with a high pay, sold out as bodyguards for the president of a big-name company as he passed through the countries towards the Hidden Moon. Many people were unhappy with him and assasins were repeatedly sent to try to kill him. They were on this mission with two other Anbu, Izumo and Kotetsu, led by Izumo, who was also the medic. Before leaving, Neji and Sasuke received their tatoos and a small code on their cards that stated they were now officially Anbu members.
The time passed slowly on the mission, only four assasins showing up, and the president made it safely to his destination. The four Anbu camped out there for a week as the man attended to his business. On the way back, there were another four assasins, nothing too difficult to deal with, and he made it safely back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
neji stepped through the hospital doors again, the fourth time since he returned from the mission. He followed his usual path up to the desk, and stood silently, waiting for the nurse to finish filing something.
She turned around and noticed him, recognizing him instantly because of the number of times she had seen him. She sighed as she sat in her office chair, turning to face him.
"Metsuki? Again? You should know the answer by now, Neji," she said, staring into his pupiless eyes. He sighed and turned to leave, but was stopped by the nurse.
"Why do you want to see her so badly? Are you her boyfriend?"
Neji paused, "...No." he said, turning to leave again. The nurse smiled.
"I suppose..."
Neji turned around again to face her. "I suppose I could let you see her for a moment, but only for a few minutes, she is still in critical condition. And she has another operation coming up soon."
Neji felt the corners of his mouth twitch as he forced back a smile. "Thanks."
The nurse stood and led Neji into the depths of the hospital, first passing through a door that said 'Long Term Residents' which her grimaced at, before passing through another pair of doors that read 'Restricted: Critical Care Patients.'
As the double doors swung closed behind him, Neji was greeted by a small hall teeming with medical-nin and doctors. Which was odd, he noticed, since there were only eight rooms and only four of them appeared occupied. The nurse he was following led him to the second door on the left, muttering something to one of the doctors before opening the door and letting Neji in, closing it softly behind him.
Neji felt sick at the sight of the room. There was hardly any room to stand, as the sides of the bed were almost completely surrounded by machines. There were four packages of liquid hanging from metal two metal poles, one on either side of the bed. Three of them contained blood, while the last contained water. Neji took a deep breath, wondering if he really wanted to look past the machines, before moving towards the bed.
Metsuki lay with the top half of her body outside of the thin sheets and her arms resting beside her. The front half of the bed was covered by a translucent plastic box, which elevated the wires and tubes that ran into her chest and neck. She wore no clothing, but her whole body was covered in bandages which stratched across her chest and arms, reaching up her neck. The top of her head was also bandaged and her hair had recently been trimmed shorter, now only reaching a few inches past her ears. She still wore her black bandana.
But that was not all. Over her mouth, which was slightly open, was a large breathing mask, fueled by duel pumps which clicked and hissed alternately as they moved up and down. A large tube, the size of his pinky finger, ran past the bandages and into her side, most likely feeding into her stomach. Her chest was barely moving, almost invisible to the normal eye, although Neji did not have normal eyes.
The bandages on her left side were red with blood, and he noticed the fingers of both her hands were all broken, and her right wrist was also broken. Small wires criss-crossed over the bed, a few dropping down and attatching onto her body. A tube even ran directly into her neck.
Neji would not believe what he saw, so instead he turned to the two clipboards attatched to the end of her bed. He scanned it with his mouth slightly open as his eyes grew wider. The injuries were listed from least severe to most severe or potentially fatal. There were things like which fingers were broken, broken wrist, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, snapped achilles tendon, fractured femur, growing even worse as her neared the last group of things listed. The group read internal bleeding: left lung, left kidney, and liver. Looking to the next list and still not beleiving, he read it slowly.
It was a list of her condition and her operations, both passed and upcoming, along with the results. Her next operation was a spinal tap; Neji flinched just reading it. She had already had her heart operated on, that was the first operation, after that her leg had been operated on, then they attempted to stop her kidney from bleeding, but ended up instead finding another problem and removing part of her stomach.
Neji looked back to where Metsuki lay, glancing at the many machines crowding around her thin form. One read '101.91 degrees F.' another displayed her heart rate, which was very faint, and yet another read 'Blood Pressure: 198.8' which was flashing between 200.6 and 198.5, rising and falling irregularly. Neji did not know what all of the terms written on the paper, or what the numbers on the machines meant, but he knew they were not good. Suddenly, one of the machines began beeping quickly.
The door to the room burst open a moment later as three medical-nin pushed Neji out the door, crowding around Metsuki's bed. Neji turned with his mouth still slightly open, he did not believe the last thing he had read on the second list. ' "If the condition does not begin improving within five days, the patient in question will have a remaining lifespan of five days maximum." Probability of Improvement: 28.86 - day one, 22.55 - day two, 14.90 - day three, 9.12 - day four, 0 - 3.67 - day five, 0 - day six.'
As much as he hated it, Neji knew what he wanted to do. He was going to head to the Hidden Stream, as they had the one person who might be able to help her, the one person who's skills would challenge even the Hokage's. He was going to get Ookami Iyasu.