chapter two, heck yeah! let's get the ball rolling!

doctor hiroshi, as a lil fact, is based off of the doctor who essentially saved my mom's life with how observant he was. kids, if you have symptoms that persist longer than 1-2 weeks - get 'em checked.

next chapter we'll have matt being conscious! and, you know, we'll hand wave all sorts of medicinal logic to do it. :)

Hiroshi Yuu had a maxim: all life is worth saving. He made it a point not to ask questions, not to let any sort of bias or prejudice or distaste get in the way of the operation. In the theater, the only problem was whether or not his hands were deft enough to do what he'd done his whole life, whether or not he would still be good enough to bring his patient back from the edge. People are people and they deserve mercy. He would not be accepting attempts to change his ways, thank you.

"Doctor?"

The old man glanced over at his assistant, his face habitually softening into an expression of pride. He was extremely picky with his staff, and she was the only one in recent memory who had stood up to his rigorous standards. Cassidy was exhausted, he could see plainly, but the livewire shock of having one's life in your hands had her standing up straight, eyes wide, stance ready. He watched her eyes – startled hazel – flick over the boy on the operating table.

He looked a mess, poor child. The thought of people – dozens, he would guess, based on the varied angles of the bullets' penetrations – consciously choosing to shoot such a young person, again and again, sickened him. Maybe there was more to the story, true, but until the patient was in the clear? Hiroshi felt nothing but fierce protectiveness over his charge.

He shook his head.

"Have a seat, Cassie," he told her. "You've been on your feet for the last eight hours."

At his gentle insistence, she smiled wryly.

"So have you, Doctor Hiroshi. And… actually, I'm not sure I can make myself sit down. Not if there's a chance something could happen."

Ah. Complications were a very real risk, and as it was the patient was nowhere near the picture of health. All the same, they had done all they could do and more – he had faith in his experience and in her ingenuity.

"I'm certain that between the two of us, he'll have no choice but to stay alive." Hiroshi winked; her smile softened a bit. Good. "This is a very strange case, no doubt, but he's fortunate that none of the bullets damaged any vital organs beyond repair."

"About that."

Cassidy leaned forward slightly, peering over the unconscious redhead's bare chest and pallid skin. Even treated, the sheer amount of holes punched into his body looked ghastly. They littered his shoulders, his arms, the outer edges of his torso and abdominals – one bullet had even clipped his skull. He'd have nasty scarring for sure.

Something rankled at her, though.

"I know you don't like speculation in the theatre, Doctor."

"I don't, but you look like you've had a Eureka moment. Continue."

"Yes, thank you. I just don't like the placement of the wounds, not to mention the volume. It makes you wonder who was pulling the trigger; obviously, a lot of people, but… Look. Every single shot missed center mass."

Obligingly, Hiroshi took a look at what he knew to be true. Every single one of the bullets almost carefully avoided the most important organs, major arteries. Given some of the ridiculous cases he'd presided over in his time, he had just about been ready to accept that their John Doe had been accosted by stormtroopers.

Cassidy was obviously more critical.

"It's too well done. Whoever attacked him like this did it deliberately. Maybe they were trying not to kill him, so they could move him to another location. Maybe…" A thought occurred to her; she turned to the surgeon curiously. "Are there any hints on the news, do you think? Surely the media would have covered it by now – I just haven't had time to check…"

Hiroshi raised his palms. "Neither have I. Before I was called in, I was asleep."

Cassidy paused in the middle of reaching for her phone, brows knitting together. "Ugh. So was I. Halcyon days…" She sighed, dismissing the notion of rest, and opened up the first news site that came to mind. A second of reading, and then two – and she almost dropped her phone.

"Cassie?"

Hiroshi narrowed his eyes concernedly at her shell-shocked expression. She worked her mouth for a couple moments, trying to find the words.

"I… there's been a kidnapping. Kiyomi… Kiyomi Takada, the spokesperson for –"

"Kira." The name left his throat in a growl. His feelings on the self-proclaimed deity were not particularly well-hidden. "Yes. I'm familiar with her. Kidnapped?"

"Yes, and this is what's interesting – it happened almost an hour before our John Doe was rushed into the general hospital." Her tone grew severe; her face grew bloodless. "The kidnapping appeared to have been carried out by at least two people – one of whom Takada's bodyguard force chased down, cornered, and shot."

Oh.

"Multiple times, I presume?" asked the old doctor, something dark swelling in his eyes. The two of them, almost in unison, turned to stare at the near-corpse on the table, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

"He's a kidnapper," Cassidy said softly. "We saved a kidnapper."

"Enough of that!" Hiroshi snapped, and she flinched. "You know what my policy is, don't pretend you don't! As long as this man – no, this boy – is within my care, it doesn't matter what he's done or hasn't done. He is dying, and we are going to get him back on his feet." His face, when he turned to fix her with a glare, was positively thunderous; Cassidy instantly felt chastized. "If, when that happens, he turns out to be the new age Hitler – which, might I remind you, is a role already being filled by Kira – then we will deal with it. I am an expert in judo, Leopold. Have faith."

Hiroshi sighed, a long, drawn out, thoroughly exhausted thing.

"I'm sorry," Cassidy said quietly. "I was just surprised. It's a lot to take in."

"Of course. But take care to remember – to be on my table is a grant of clemency, for as long as you are cared for."

"Yes, Doctor. I understand."

All was quiet in the theatre, aside from the beeps and drips of medical equipment, and Cassidy thought. She thought over the fact that their John Doe had been shot by bodyguards, had aided a kidnapping even though she'd bet that he was more distraction than anything else, leaving the actual kidnapper to make a clean getaway. She thought about what would happen once the patient woke up, what they would do then. She thought about the entry wounds, the careful avoidance of center mass, and she stopped.

"Any bodyguard force should be trained to be able to hit center mass without so much as a problem," she mused aloud. "And on the other side of that coin, they should be able to nail a kneecap, which is just as efficient for taking down an aggressor – less bloody, too. But our man here didn't have a single wound below the waist – the bullets were focused on his arms, shoulders, sides.

"Bodyguards are supposed to subdue aggressors, and then hand them off to the police." She narrowed her eyes. "But they didn't seem to be looking to subdue. It's like…"

"Like they wanted him to die?" the doctor met her eyes and found them to be just as contemplative as his own. "But surely in public, it would be best to keep things quick and efficient. Such mass discharge wasn't remotely necessary. A single shot is all it would take."

"Unless they wanted to drag it out."

"Meaning that they were either all incredibly sadistic, to murder in such a roundabout way, or they were intentionally causing as large a scene as possible. To make…"

"To make a statement." Cassidy's eyes widened. "Kiyomi Takada is one of the most outspoken Kira supporters – hell, she's his mouthpiece. It was a message. 'This is what happens to those who come against Kira. This is the amount of suffering you'll face if you try the same.'"

"Our boy here tried to go against Kira in possibly the stupidest, most reckless way," Hiroshi said gravely. Then, unbidden, he smiled. "I think I respect him."

"Can you do anything but?" Cassidy asked, surprised. "This pretty much makes him a vigilante. Painting a target on your back in defiance…" She paused. Wait. A target…

"They probably know he's here," she murmured, feeling ill. "Kira's people. They won't let him get away with this."

"Certainly not alive," Hiroshi agreed. A grim set overcame his face; an anxious replica settled on Cassidy's. "They would know to come to my clinic, just to see if I managed to save him. And then…"

Her stomach dropped to her knees. "Then what happens to him? What happens to us?"

The question went unanswered; it echoed around the quiet room, bounced off the walls, settled thick and heavy over all their shoulders like a sinister promise, a too-wide smile. The answer was, more than likely, then they'd disappear and end up in unmarked graves. There was too much risk in leaving people with questions alive. But instead, the room was quiet, and Cassidy took a moment to regret waking up.

No.

No regrets. You did the right thing.

She made herself step over to the patient, and she made herself look at him, the way she'd look at a person, a neighbor, a friend, a human worthy of regard. There was the red hair, the pale, freckled face. He was cute, in a disheveled, lanky sort of way. She imagined he'd be much cuter conscious; maybe he was eloquent, or told good jokes, or could do card tricks. She was not going to let herself regret being here for a person with a story. She had values; he had value.

"He's my age," she said softly, almost inaudibly. "He's like me."

When Doctor Hiroshi rose to stand beside her, she turned to him expecting to see that same thoughtful, worried expression that he wore a few minutes ago. Instead?

There was fire. There was mutiny, and daring, and vehemence. Hiroshi Yuu, renowned medical wizard, was determined, and he was furious.

"This is what we are going to do," he said calmly. "It's not safe for any of us to be here, especially not him. Please bring clean sheets and a trolley; this man is going to die."

This, thought Cassidy, staring up at the nondescript man in black, was a terrible plan.

"Come again?" she asked, smiling prettily – she hoped. Come on, channel every ounce of the ditzy little nurse that probably doesn't even exist inside you. "Forgive me, I'm a little tired."

"I can see that." The man turned toward his two companions, also nondescript, also dressed in black. "We have reason to believe that a very dangerous man was put under the care of Doctor Yuu Hiroshi in the last seven hours, ma'am. If you'd let us come inside…"

"What?!" All but scrambling backwards to let them in, praying that she looked half as shocked as she'd felt earlier today, she let her hands fly to her mouth. "I… I mean, there was an emergency procedure done today, but I didn't think… oh, my goodness. So the… Oh, my—"

"Ma'am," said the man, impatient and awkward. "Please calm down. So you didn't know?"

"I haven't really been keeping up with the news, I had no idea. I just came in off the clock because there was no one else to help with the… Oh!" She swept forward, then turned around as if to ensure that they were following. Then, a little louder, just to ensure that the old surgeon could hear their approach. "Yes. Did you want to speak to Doctor Hiroshi? He can probably explain a bit better than I can how the procedure went. Doctor! Doctor, are you still in the back rooms?"

"Eh? What is it, Leopold? Did you go have breakfast yet?"

If they weren't threading a very specific and dangerous needle right now, and if the outcome of this little gambit wouldn't determine whether they lived or not, Cassidy could have laughed. He sounded like a little old man, completely harmless and a little scatter-brained – not remotely capable of the kind of subversion he had planned!

"Not yet, Doctor, but thank you. I have some gentlemen with me who are interested in – in the John Doe."

Even before Cassidy and her shadows made it into the main operating room, the sudden swell of sadness enveloping Hiroshi's response made it all too clear what happened.

"The John Doe, you say… Oh. Oh dear. Leopold, I'm terribly sorry. You had done the best you could. I'm to blame, really. My hands aren't what they used to be…"

"Doctor Hiroshi?" asked the first man in black, bowing curtly at the old doctor as he examined the room. It was spotless – all surfaces wiped down, equipment sterilized, with no sign that an operation had taken place at all. "Tell me where he is. The patient."

Standing at barely five-foot-one, Hiroshi remained remarkably calm under the triple-scrutiny of the men, if doleful.

"Gentlemen," he said gravely, "I must apologize. The patient I operated on flatlined four hours into the procedure. I was unable to revive him."

Silence. The men exchanged glances. "Aren't you considered the best trauma surgeon in the prefecture, Doctor?" one asked accusingly.

Hiroshi's expression tightened.

"Why didn't I save him, is what you're asking. Or, rather, why couldn't I. Well, I'd like you to tell me this. How many times have you attempted to perform risky surgery on a man riddled entirely with bullet holes, when he has already been transferred one too many times to have been stable? The general surgeons hardly knew what internal bleeding even was and there are only so many mistakes I can cover." He shook his head once, furiously, as if attempting to shake off the regret and failing. "I can fix many things. Severe hemorrhaging of the pleural cavity, rapidly accelerating hemothorax, combined with the elapsed time since the injury went even beyond my experience."

He fixed them with a glare; his eyes were shiny with unshed tears. Immediately, the three men grew visibly uncomfortable, as if they had upset an elderly relative at a family gathering and now had to deal with the fallout.

"Next time, send me the patient from the start. Alright?"

"Uh... understood, Mr. Hiroshi. If we could see the body, then?"

A sigh, tired and a little bit tired of their questions.

"It's at the mortuary by now, sirs," he said starkly. "On receiving the patient, I was instructed that it was a special case. Normally I would still have the body on my table, so as to allow for an accurate coroner reading. However, since I was instructed to be discreet, we proceeded as usual – the mortuary is where the cadavers go."

Cassidy, with all her nervousness about lying straight to an apparent official's face, was completely floored at her boss's ability to act. Even she would give thought to believing his frustrated sorrow, the numbness that came of losing a patient.

She could almost believe the notion that the young redhead was very much alive, and unconscious in the backseat of her car.

The agents, disgruntled and obviously wanting to say something about Hiroshi's decisions but clearly being unable to, made their exit within the next few minutes – presumably to the mortuary across town the doctor had pointed them to.

Good. Good, that meant time.

Oh, God, that meant time.

"You have to leave, my dear," Hiroshi said quietly, coming up behind her. The clinic was once again quiet and dark, and worry knit his brow like she rarely saw. "I've left a list of addresses for you – some are motels, some are private homes, but they are all owned by people I have helped in some way. Tell them my name. Tell them I sent you. And don't, under any circumstances, tell them your name."

Cassidy stilled. This was overwhelming; she hadn't gotten up today expecting a mess like this. Sensing her panic, the doctor laid his hands on her shoulder, and kept talking, softer.

"I've left you plenty of supplies. It should keep for him until he can heal on his own. There is an envelope underneath the driver's seat of my sedan; it contains enough cash to keep you going for maybe a month, two if you're frugal. If you need help, call my cell phone – but not with your own. Get a burner."

"How do you know all these things?" Cassidy whispered, eyes wide. The kind old doctor she knew was quickly becoming an enigma, unrecognizable. Then he smiled, and she breathed.

"Cassie, I'm a polarizing medical practicioner who is pro-choice, anti-big-pharma, and just about the most vehement opposer of Kira you'll ever find – excepting our rash young friend, that is. The world hasn't been safe for me for years, if ever; I just like to be prepared."

His smile grew wistful; she saw the dismissal.

It was the first and last time she ever hugged Doctor Hiroshi, and in the car, as she pulled onto a backroad and glanced at the boy stretched across her seats, IVs and all, she wished she'd done it more often.