Nanaki padded quietly next to the seething man knowing that his silence was more appreciated than anything he could say at the moment. He wasn't sure what he could do in the situation, but Reeve had called him up in Cosmo Canyon to have him meet Vincent at this hospital in Kalm. However he could not contain the blink of extreme surprise when the first words out of Vincent's mouth when they walked into the reception area was "Where is she?"
Reeve, or someone from the head office had to have called ahead to warn them that Vincent was coming and what to expect from the man, as no one asked who he was talking about, only giving him express directions to a room in the critical care facility of the hospital. Taking the elevator up three floors Nanaki looked up at his silent friend. "She?"
Vincent was quiet for a moment longer, but the quality of his silence had changed. Instead of a brooding, borderline violent silence, this was one that was Vincent preparing to answer a question posed to him. "Maiya."
Nanaki blinked again, this time in understanding. He had not met the woman who had now been a long time friend of Vincent's, but he had heard several stories from the others about her. How she had brought him more out of his shell and accepted everything she had learned of him, giving him someone to talk to, to care for, and someone who cared about him in return. There was only one question left for him to ask then, as he now had an inkling as to what was causing his friend's protective tenancies to come out now. "Why am I here?"
They were on the critical care floor as this was asked and Vincent stopped near a waiting room area to look down at the creature he hoped would be able to save his friend. Thinking back in his mind to everything that happened in the last two days his jaw tightened as he put together the words needed to explain what happened. "Tuesti recalled me from a mission two days ago. When I got back to the WRO headquarters in Midgar, I was told that Maiya was in Kalm Hospital's critical care ward. She had been found out in the wilderness when she managed to activate her cellphone's recall function, allowing the Kalm tracking teams to find her and stabilize her. All I know is she's here, close to death, and I was her emergency contact both within the WRO and on her Cellphone's ICE list."
Nanaki was starting to understand what was going on and seeing that the doctors were now moving towards them, he made sure that his WRO identification badge was visible so he wouldn't have to fight about being an "animal" in a hospital setting. Letting Vincent take the lead for now, he knew that the man was on edge, but his ability to hide that edge was legendary.
"You are Vincent Valentine?" The lead physician asked, glancing at Nanaki and promptly ignoring the "animal" designation as soon as he caught sight of the WRO ID tag. Seeing Vincent's patient glower deepen he continued. "Craft Mistress Hattori is in bad shape. We're not sure what attacked her in the area, as nothing like this has ever been seen before in Kalm." Vincent wasn't surprised that the doctors knew Maiya's craft affiliations. She had told him several times over the years that she took an annual week long hunting trip up to the Kalm area to get materials she needed to help supplement what she got from traders and hunters over the course of the year. That she had been into the medical facilities for various minor hunting accidents would be no real surprise. Nanaki on the other hand was slightly surprised at the attention to detail displayed and continued to watch things unfold.
"You say she's in 'bad' condition. Elaborate." Vincent wanted to know what he would be walking into before he got to Maiya's room. Granted, both he and Maiya had seen each other laid up sick on various occasions, but this was different. This was going to change things in the future.
The assistant lead took over as she had been the primary treating specialist while the team worked to keep the woman alive. "Hattori-san has lost a lot of blood. Beyond that there has been major blunt trauma in the head and torso with sections torn up along her limbs." Looking over to the team lead she realized that she had been as blunt with this man as she would have been to another doctor, yet looking over at him again he seemed to be unaffected by the list of injuries.
"I wish to see her." Nanaki nearly smiled as he had expected the blunt demand, but the doctors before them had not expected it, and looked about ready to argue.
Deciding to hopefully put an early stop to an argument that could easily bring out Vincent's more violent protective tenancies, Nanaki stepped up, pulling attention to himself. "Miss Hattori is stable is she not?"
The assistant lead glanced at the lead and at his nod released the information. "Barely. We have only been able to stabilize her vitals just this morning."
"Then I would let us in to see the woman. Both Vincent and myself are familiar with the medical procedures you would have used to stabilize her and we may be able to help should she be stable enough to undergo what we have planned." The educated mellow voice coming from the "beast" before them surprised the doctors.
One of the sub-staff members looked at Nanaki curiously. "And you are?"
"Ahh, forgive my rudeness. I am WRO Section Commander Nanaki of Cosmo Canyon. My friend here is WRO Specialist Vincent Valentine." The lack of specialization was telling as most people understood that the WRO unlabeled specialists had no real specializations, instead, were a little bit of everything and could do everything they did well. Most of the specialists came from the remnants of the Turks, but a few were people like Cloud who had been trained extensively to take on the role.
While introductions were made and situations were settled, a woman in a room just down the hall was comatose. Within the room many machines and bags of medicines were hooked up to her, heart monitor, blood oxygen monitor, variable level oxygen mask, saline, morphine, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, sleeping medicines. All combined into a potent monitoring cocktail to keep the woman asleep, healing, and watched while there was no one in the room. Time had no meaning for the sleeping woman. Instead she was locked in a healing slumber where her memories played out, painful to remember and impossible to forget.
The day had been perfect for the hunt. Not too cool for her to need an additional jacket and yet not so warm that she started sweating to give away her position by her scent. Resting in a tree stand overlooking a small clearing she waited patiently for her prey to come to her. It was a game she had perfected over the years. The patience she had built up in that time was formidable, allowing her to be relaxed and still for hours at a time. It helped that she enjoyed nature as it was, untainted where she was. A flash of moving green caught her attention from her memories and looking down she smiled as she saw a small reptilian creature slink past her tree stand. From her position she could see that it had heavier scaled armor along the dorsal ridge so she aimed for what she knew would be the softer scales just under the ear hole in the hopes that her barbed arrow would pierce through and nick the command nerves in the neck.
The sharp snap of her bow shot was the first in a series of sounds that eventually ended in the death of the creature. Climbing down from her tree stand she was careful to keep her bow loaded. She had learned over 20 years ago that the creatures she hunted for hides, skins and scales weren't always dead when they stopped moving. Fortunately for her, this one had been a rather noisy kill. The bellowing and thrashing it had done in its death throes had torn up a chunk of the turf around it. Its movement however had been limited with the two arrows that protruded from its neck. Maiya always liked to have clean kills if possible. It made skinning and preserving the hides, skins and scales much easier.
Seeing that the creature was dead she clipped her bow back and pulled out her skinning and scaling supplies. If she was lucky, this would be the only kill she would need for the day. If not, she'd be pulling her tree stand down and moving to another clearing and repeating the process. About halfway through the process of pulling the dorsal scales off so she could get a better idea of how good the hide was she was interrupted by a low chuckle behind her. "Well well. What have we here?"
Having learned a few things from the Turks and Tifa over the last few years Maiya calmly put her scaling tools down and turned to face the man behind her. Only to find it was a small gang. Not well dressed, and somewhat disreputable looking. "Can I help you gents?" It had taken time and a lot of training, but Tifa had gotten the guys to train Maiya out of her bad habit of startling when men caught her off guard. Now she was able to maintain her cool and observe the situation for a way out.
"We were patrolling this area of our property when we heard you killing this creature. Since you're trespassing we're going to have to ask you for compensation for the loss of property." The smallest, but meanest looking member of the group said.
Maiya blinked in believable surprise. "I've been hunting these forests every year for the last 20 some odd years and never have I heard from anyone in Kalm about there being new property owners this far out. However, I know that this guy I just killed is edible. Let me finish skinning him and you can have everything else and you'll have quite a few good meals off him." Hoping that they'd take her up on this offer. She didn't like how they were looking at her and was hoping that compensation wouldn't involve more violence than she could handle.
"Well now isn't that just nice of you. Save us some effort to get a meal and all that. But no." The grins they were all sporting turned several shades more sinister. "I think we'll just take our compensation out on you."
Maiya was afraid of this but didn't hesitate. Rude, Reno, Tseng and Elena had trained any hesitation out of her when it came to responding to threats to her personal well being. Tifa didn't have the necessary cruelty for it and knew it so she asked for the favor to help the woman protect herself from potentially deadly situations. The Turks realized that once people started to realize who Maiya was in connection with the WRO, and the upper command staff, she would need that training. So they agreed. Rude and Tseng were especially hard on her. She was grateful for it now as her right hand released its tension and in a swift movement pulled the hand gun she kept with her while she hunted to normally finish any harder kills and started shooting.
Knees, shoulders, thighs, larger areas of the bodies available for disabling shots she used on those that weren't carrying weapons. Those that were she didn't hesitate and went for torso and head shots, emptying her 12 round clip in short order in a spray of violence that shocked the group that had stayed back in the treeline. This unassuming middle aged woman just disabled or killed most of their best men. However watching their partners get hurt, some of them crippled galvanized them into action.
Stepping out into the clearing the second in command brought out the other half of the group that had been watching. "You've killed or crippled our friends. We'll have to add that to your tab."
By this time the adrenaline had more than enough time to drive Maiya's reaction times up as she looked at the man who spoke to her. "Your friends would still be alive and whole if they'd just left me alone. The same will go for you." Her voice was not as calm as she would have liked it to be, but it was pitched low enough to drive home the point that she was in control of herself. Unfortunately for her, she was out of bullets, and too close ranged to use her bow as anything more than a melee weapon now. This was going to ruin her bow, but she'd rather have to get a new one than get killed.
Getting mobbed by a group of thugs in the middle of a city is one thing. People may come by and see what happened, or at least someone is almost guaranteed to walk by in time to save a life. Out in the wilds of Kalm, this was not the case and as they took out their anger on her, it was all she could to in the end to curl up on the ground to protect her softer tissues and hope that she survived long enough to call for help. The beating didn't stop however until she had blacked out and was completely unresponsive.
Maiya continued to breathe while she was in the hospital. Her memories ending there, her body so wracked with damage that she was barely holding on. What happened after she had passed out from pain and trauma was probably the very thing that saved her life instead of ending it.
As the gang searched her for anything worth money they found her cellphone and one of them glanced through the phone book before blanching. "Leave her for dead and hope no one finds her." The suggestion and fear in his voice caused the others to look up from their systematic search.
"What's up Gino?" The second in command looked over at his friend wondering what could have caused him to blanch like that.
"Hope we don't get found. This woman's got some powerful friends." Turning the phone over to the Second, the man looked over the phone book and his eyes widened as well.
"Enough searching. Take what we have now, pick up our brothers and scatter. The last thing we need is the wolves of the WRO breathing down our necks." Dropping the phone next to the corpse like body he picked up the corpse of his leader and like the rest of his friends, vanished into the forest.
As the phone hit the ground the send button was hit by a protruding rock, leaving the phone to ring through to the number that had been highlighted. It was from there that the person on the other side made the assumption that Maiya was in trouble and knowing what town she had been in called for a search of the area since they were able to triangulate the general area of the call. Leading up to Vincent's recall, and his request of Nanaki's assistance at the hospital they were both at.
As Vincent finished getting the information he wanted from the doctors he looked down at his friend and found he was being carefully watched. Not overly surprised as he was not the most predictable personality when upset, but he was also starting to get the feeling that the doctors were holding something back from him. Instead of drilling them for the answers he stood up straight again from his leaning position on the pillar and nodded. Without waiting for anyone he headed back down the hall again looking for the room Maiya was in.
When he found her, Nanaki was right behind him and in shock at the condition the woman was in. The doctors had mentioned that she had both blunt and sharp trauma to various parts of her body, but nothing had prepared him for the end result of the brutality he was looking at now. The blunt trauma was obvious from the sizes and shapes of the bruises that liberally covered more than 90 percent of her visible features. However due to the bandaging, neither he or Vincent could tell what had caused the gashes that were now sutured, Steristripped and/or bandaged and now carefully wrapped in the sterile white gauze to protect them from infection.
"Maiya." Vincent all but whispered as he moved swiftly across the room to stand by his friend's bed. Looking down at her from this vantage point he could see that the doctors had done a good job of keeping her in pain free sedation. He could also see that she was in worse condition than he had originally anticipated. She was pale, very pale and it reminded him of his own skin tones. She was very much a child of nature, and because of that she was outside quite often when she could. Pale skin tones for her indicated illness, or in this case blood loss. She was a fighter though and because of that, she wasn't about to just lay quietly and die. Instead she was here still alive, if only barely, waiting for someone to help her wake up.
Nanaki was watching from a slightly different vantage point and after cataloging everything he could about the woman, he knew that she wouldn't survive what they had originally planned. "Plan B it is." His gentle voice causing his friend to look over at him for an explanation.
Looking back at Vincent he knew nothing would happen in this room without his say so, now that he was there to protect her. "She will not survive the effects of a Fullcure. Her body is riding the fine line between sleep and death too well for that." Seeing Vincent's eyes narrow and knowing the man didn't like what he had heard he merely continued. "However I did bring another materia with me that will help her, but it will take time and concentrated effort over the next 24 hours for it to do what I have planned."
Vincent looked closely at his friend's various headdress pieces and finally saw what Nanaki had been referring to. A mastered Restore materia. Those who did not have regular access or exposure to the magics of the various materias found their bodies fighting the invading energies, even if the materia being used was meant to help them recover faster. A low level Cure spell from the Restore materia would not only help Maiya to recover, but would start the process of acclimating her body to materia magics. Nodding Vincent stepped back from Maiya, watching both Nanaki and her like a hawk for any abnormal reactions as Nanaki focused and unleashed the lowest level Cure spell.
Both the doctors who were now watching from the door, and Nanaki watched carefully hoping that the invading energies designed to help heal, would not upset the body's overtaxed resources. When they saw no poor reactions to the spell, the treating physician came in and looked the woman over. Smiling she turned to Nanaki, "Looks like she's going to accept this treatment plan better than we had hoped. One of her smallest lacerations has healed enough that I can take the sutures out of it now. Once an hour repeat this process and she should wake up by tomorrow morning."
Seeing that everything was starting to pull through for her patient she quickly ordered up the suture removal kit and took care of the small area before wrapping it again in a lighter swath of gauze. Standing to leave she had seen the look on Vincent's face and how protective he had gotten the moment he had seen his friend. Remembering the recommendation from Reeve Tuesti, who had called before this pair had arrived, she looked over at the crimson and black garbed man. "I'll have a cot and timer brought in so you two can can rest up some before the next spell."
Time passed and over night literally there was the visible changes to Maiya's well being. Six hours after the cure spell treatment started, Maiya was able to breathe again on her own without the help of the oxygen masks to ease the load on her lungs. Between treatments Nanaki rested, keeping a close eye on the woman for adverse reactions, especially while Vincent dropped into a light sleep, capable of being brought to full awareness in a moment should something untoward happen to his friend.
As the next morning came, most of the sutured sites on her arms and leg had been healed to the point where the sutures could be removed, the magic being used continuing to work on old sites while bleeding over the majority of its power into new sites, seeking out the 'abnormalities' in the physique they were healing to close and mend. The treating physician stayed on the clock for them, preventing them from having to deal with another medical team this late in the treatment. She had stayed in the break room when she wasn't doing rounds on her patients, always making it back to Maiya's room to watch in awe the level of care and control the two who stayed with Maiya displayed for her patient as they would cast the healing magics over and over.
Nanaki was sleeping to recover some of his own magic so he could continue to cast the spells needed as the treating doctor looked over at the alert Vincent. "She's a lucky woman." Blinking in slight confusion Vincent looked carefully at the doctor, looking for an answer to the questions that were now starting to come forward in his mind.
"She has good friends in you and Nanaki to have the WRO send you here to help her." Looking across at the quiet man she noted a slight smirk that had not been there before the talk.
"I am here because she is my closest friend, and Tuesti knows he would be having... Problems, if I were to be kept from her when she is in trouble." The dim early morning light emphasized the glow that was now starting to appear in his eyes. He was thinking terrible things, but not one iota of their content reflected in his features.
"I'm glad she has a friend like you. For the last 20 some odd years she's hunted the wilds around Kalm one week out of the year. She's always come here if she needed to be patched up but never in that time have I seen any family contacts or members come when she got more injured than a simple in and out visit would fix. She's alone in the world because of the Meteor event and I know her well enough from the last several years as being my patient that she's been terribly adrift without that connection before she met you."
This information while not new to Vincent, surprised him as it meant that she had connections in Kalm he hadn't previously thought about. Both were silent in their contemplations before the sound of a deep sighing breath grabbed the attentions of everyone in the room. Nanaki came alert as he had been only lightly sleeping, letting his ears tell him what he needed to know about Maiya as her breathing changed over the night to a deeper, more restful state.
Now it sounded like the woman was nearly ready to wake up, and he hoped that this was the case, as the room was sometimes stifling with Vincent's brooding. The taller man had shifted position to the chair that was next to the bed, placing himself in what would be her field of vision when she finally did open her eyes. If she would waken, Nanaki knew they could use some of the stronger Cure spells to help her get out of the hospital faster. Both doctor and friend watched as Vincent took Maiya's hand in his own before gently brushing her loose hair out of her face before rumbling quietly as he usually did when she was sick. "Maiya, wake up."
Maiya felt herself waking up from a deep and extremely restful sleep. While she was uncertain where she was, she could tell in her semi-sleep state that she was not out in the forests where she last remembered being. She could hear the soft voices of others near her, even if she wasn't coherent enough to understand what they were saying. Her confusion served to push her into a sleeping state of wakefulness prompting her to breathe deeply to ease the tension of the muscles that seemed to be constricting her chest some. It was shortly after this action that she felt someone move close to her, she felt a leather gloved hand take her own and something cool and metallic lightly brush against her forehead removing the tickle of her hair against her face. What made her want to open her eyes however was the softly spoken command for her to wake up.
As the doctor and Nanaki watched Vincent, they could see that while he was semi-relaxed, his eyes were not. They were observing, tracking, looking for anything that would indicate that his friend had heard him. a slight smile appeared as he found what he was looking for. The slight fluttering of her eye lids before her brow scrunched up in an attempt to deny the waking world.
Maiya didn't want to leave the relaxed state of sleep she was in, but knew she could deny the voice that had asked for her to wake up nothing. She knew the voice, its owner cared for her when she was sick, and sometimes even when she wasn't. As she let herself come into full awareness she started to put names to what she heard. The voice being Vincent, she heard him, as well as the doctor that usually took her case when she was in the hospital. Cracking her eyes open she found that they had gummed over with sleep making them crusty and a little difficult to open. Reaching up she gently rubbed the crud out, letting her eyes focus some more when she opened them again, finally seeing where she was, and who was with her.
Vincent smiled slightly as he watched her wake up. As she did whenever she slept deeply she never woke up easily, even if she did wake up for him. Seeing her eyes finally focus on the room, its occupants and himself he observed her and saw that she was still out of it some from her beating, but would soon recover. "About time you woke up sleeping beauty."
Maiya snorted, her voice cracking as she gave her longest friend a very sleepy evil eye. "Hi." She gratefully took the small glass of water from the doctor who had disappeared into the adjacent bathroom to get it and started sipping to ease the dry scratchiness of her throat.
Looking around she saw there was one more in the room she had not registered before. Looking From Vincent to her visitor she cocked her head to one side trying to make sense of what she was seeing. "What's that Vincent?"
She was startled by the snort and look of mock offense the animal gave her before it stood up, allowing her to see the markings and hair pieces he wore to much better effect. "I am Nanaki. Pleased to meat you Maiya, friend of Vincent."
He could see her mind racing to connect the name to a face and they all saw when she remembered. "I've seen pictures of you. Been told about you as well. Nice to finally meet you."
As they chatted for a short time, finding out what Maiya remembered of her beating and the people that caused it, they also worked on her body, hoping that the more advanced Cure spells would take hold and not set her back. Fortunately her body had adjusted to the cure magics over the many hours of treatment and accepted the greater spells without fighting her into a relapse. With Maiya awake, and in good hands, the doctor left for another round and to order breakfast for the small group. As Nanaki slept Maiya looked over at Vincent. "I thought you were on assignment, and not due back till after I got back?"
Vincent had already seen that her mental acuity had remained despite the head trauma and nodded. "I was. But when you were beaten someone must have dropped your phone because it rang through to Tifa. When she couldn't hear you or contact you once the connection broke she called Reeve to have him look for you. Once you were found, I was recalled. Not knowing how bad a shape you were in, I asked Nanaki to join me since he had access to curative materia. You know the rest."
Maiya smiled happier than she had been when she woke up, as confusion had been the dominant emotion then. Thinking on things a moment she smiled again, this time it was a mischievous grin. "How many did you terrorize to get up here?" Her voice holding a knowing tone in it. She would have terrorized the WRO hospital staff to find him if she hadn't had a permanent visitors pass at the front desk. She didn't need to find him often, but when she did most of the primary building staff now knew to stay out of her way or just point her in the right direction. Even Reeve thought she was a holy terror when she was worried about her friend. She couldn't imagine him being much different.
"Reeve must have called ahead and warned them." The equally knowing smile dancing across his face. "I was pretty much left alone till I got up to this floor." Hearing Maiya's laugh was a balm to his wounded ego. He hadn't been there to protect her. However he and Nanaki now had enough information to track down the bastards that tortured her and in time they would have all the information they needed to shut down their operations in that area.
The rest of the day was spent sleeping, healing or talking as the doctors refused to let Maiya go till they were certain she was healed enough to remain stable on the trip back to Midgar. That evening they received the good news that the next morning the paperwork would be delivered to release Maiya from inpatient care and into Vincent's care. Nanaki got a good laugh at the look of irritation and offense that crossed Vincent's face when Maiya made the comment about being transferred from a group of mother hens to one that could put the group to shame. She was forgiven however when he saw the look of amusement that dominated her face.
None of them could really stand much more of the hospital environment, and when all was said and done, were grateful to leave to go their separate ways. Nanaki promised to send in his report of what happened and Vincent knew that someone would be out in that forest soon. He looked forward to asking some rather pointed questions and he hoped that Reeve would let him do it. Till then he'd watch over Maiya and let the others know that she was back safe.