Kekeke, it seemed that being pushy got results. Results that were borderline defensive. :D

A kind of hilarious dance. People say "pairings!", I say "NO LEMONS", and then people are tilting away, apologizing profusely. Hilarious.

Mr Wang 330: Hmmm. Squad 7 will know something, but if I want to keep a lid on canon, I can't let them know EVERYTHING. Events have to tick so that canon progresses as normal. And Celes and Isara? A "bittersweet" relationship? … more like "wrench-to-skull" relationship for a while, the way I'm seeing it right now.

skycomv2: Congratulations, you're a long reviewer, and should be treated to cookies and godly mana every day! … okay, a bit over the top, but I am very welcome. I haven't gotten the impression of being pushy at all – discussion relies on everyone presenting their points, and it helps when those points aren't obscured with attempts at being dignified. Yay for action being easy (no x shot y combat for me!) and I'm staying within expected results. Oops – the –thoughts- that you're mentioning… aren't supposed to be thoughts. They're interjections, a guiding hand of how the narration is being played out. As in, you know how an often unrelated or random idea will pop into your head upon seeing something? –interjection- is supposed to guide that along, telling you what you're supposed to be thinking, just like the choruses in ancient Greek dramas (or whatever you call them). Geek reference is geeky.

Rotten-Kraut: I thought about stalling LIEUTENANT Karst's introduction (HE IS ALWAYS MENTIONED WITH LIEUTENANT :O) but in the end, it wouldn't change anything. Also, it's probably more realistic that the revelations are all occurring at different times. It may be longer, and more awkward to read, but truthfully, a scene in which Celes and Lieutenant Karst have to square off against Charles, Welkin, and Alicia all at once would seem forced to me. So Charles finds out about the Imperials first, but Celes is clueless. Then Welkin and Alicia find out about the Imperials, but Celes is still clueless. Now, Celes is going to have to walk into a room that knows all about him… and his attempts at subterfuge are going to be humorously bad. :D

Exum: The main reason is that my job is at a slow point right now, my supervisor haring off somewhere else, and because she's the only one who can start new experiments (I work in a laboratory, soisoisoi) all I can do is maintain the current ones. There aren't even any that need to be finished, so these weeks have been a real boost to writing. I'll have to go to a medical workshop for practically a month on June 28, 2009, though, so that'll be a real cut in my work. Still, I'll do my best! Expect modest updates. I'm trying to get the story to a less crucial stage (post-separation of Celes and Isara from established canon to begin a new arc) before then, so that's also why I'm writing a lot right now.

Wow, long notes are long. I think I covered everything I needed to say about this blurb in my responses, so if you've been skipping over them, read them.

And I most graciously thank all of my dedicated reviewers. If you know ANYONE who has played Valkyria Chronicles, link them here. I need more readers. This is not a shameless plug. :3

And now, Celes is going to work on Isara… not that way. For the love of Valkyrur, half of these blurb summaries sound absolutely perverted.

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Sedate.

Sterilize.

Cut.

Arrange.

Solve.

Cure.

Seal.

Such were the steps that Celes took. After injecting Isara to keep her still while he operated, he had quickly slashed away the bandages, which, he noted, were wrapped competently and perfectly. The previous caretaker had been a good one, by emergency standards.

Upon viewing the ghastly wound underneath the protective coverings, steady hands bathed the wound in the glow of adjusted ragnaid, meant only as an antibiotic. Alcohol wipes finished the job, while the tent of paper kept the entire area clean of dust. Thinking, he refrained from reopening the wound immediately – digging out a long hollow rod no thicker than a pencil, loading it with granulated ragnaid, making sure the toggle was where he thought it was. Only then did he pick up his blades.

Sutures flew away, although he noted with frustration that the unneeded of raw ragnaid had caused the layers of skin to half-heal together already. "Ragnaid is not a cure-all," he said to himself as he carefully separated the two sides of the previous incision with a tiny blade.

What he saw underneath was a ghastly sight. The tissue had been bruised to the point of practical destruction, and signs of previous bleeding into the chest cavity were there. The liberal application of ragnaid had, while stopping the immediate bleeding, caused the internal muscle to heal all wrong. Worse, it had pushed over the bullet that was supposedly still in her chest and near her heart, most likely jeopardizing her condition further.

She hadn't had a day. She had minutes when they'd given her to him.

He centered himself again – no mean feat when his mind was already in razor sharp focus – and began the race. Using forceps, his array of blades, and probes, he deliberately wounded the tissue again, hacking it into as few pieces as he could, carefully moving it aside. The tissue bled freely, but there was nothing he could do about that. The bleeding was the least of her worries for now, anyways. If the bullet reached her heart, it wouldn't matter.

"Got you." A squashed hunk of metal suddenly rose out of the muscle. Irritation rose in him again – the ragnaid had let the muscle clench around the bullet, hard, and this close to the heart, the muscle pulsed with her heartbeat. Had the ragnaid not been used, he could have easily plucked it out with the forceps, but now he'd have to use blades = and there was no way he could cut it out without accidentally stabbing too deep into the moving flesh, no matter how quick he thought he was with his hands.

The only solution was to stop the heartbeat and finish as fast as he possibly could. Numbers and conjectures flew in a spiral within his head, and he carefully measured and injected a second dose of sedative - straight to the heart. This was dangerous; if he got the hastily estimated dosage wrong – he hadn't been able to even weigh her, much less take a surface area measure – it either would cost him precious minutes that he didn't have with the bleeding if he underestimated, but too much and it would poison the tissue, killing it. No amount of ragnaid could fix that.

As expected, though, his intuition was perfect.

Celes bared his teeth in a feral grin of satisfaction underneath the mask, as the exposed tissue slowed to stop without annihilating the tissue. It took mere seconds to excise the bullet and drop it onto a tray, before arranging the tissue in a facsimile of the natural form they were supposed to be in.

Carefully, the medical student inserted a drain, removing the dead blood that had pooled earlier. It would putrefy and cause infections otherwise, but the rate of bleeding meant that even if he did, before he could wrap up the operation, she would have bled enough to warrant draining again. And so the cycle would continue until she simply ran out of blood and died.

Celes had the trump.

Snatching up the ragnaid-rod he had prepared earlier, he applied its business end to the damage that was not immediately around the drain. Thumbing the switch on the other, the apparatus activated the ragnaid only at the very tip, letting the grains higher up in the instrument fall down to replace it. Like a magic wand of healing, the meticulously arranged tissues flew together and sealed wherever it went in a relatively flawless manner. They wouldn't be completely attached, so she'd need to avoid moving for a while, but that was a small price to pay. It was certainly better than being down for weeks, possibly months, and perhaps not healing correctly anyways.

With the bleeding almost completely stopped, Celes drained away the new fluids, removed the pipe, and reapplied to the wand to the tiny slit. It knit together in an instant.

The rest of his work was mere cleanup, albeit cleanup against a second clock, that of her stopped heart. But that was no problem, as he rearranged the upper layers and sewed them back together, before blasting it with the ragnaid wand once more. Once again, it wasn't a perfect heal, but ragnaid couldn't do everything. She'd scar, but it would be nothing like if it was allowed to heal naturally.

He smiled ironically, thinking of how ragnaid alternately was too much or little depending on the situation. Although he felt hypocritical, the knowledge that his ragnaid wand – his own invention, no less, not yet released to the Empire – had functioned so well filled him with satisfaction, shaking off any bad feelings.

However, he immediately shook off the good feelings as well. He wasn't done yet.

To finish the most crucial point of the procedure, he inserted a syringe into her thigh, extracting non-sedated blood to put back around the heart for a wakeup call –

"VALKYRUR," he stated aloud. It was not a curse, but a fact. The syringe resisted his efforts to draw it up - she was so low, drawing blood was impossible.

Releasing the syringe pressure and removing it, he checked the fluids he had drained earlier – not much, not even a cup from what he estimated the four to five quarts she should have had. She must have bled much more than she should have when she was first injured - and her previous caretaker certainly hadn't had the supplies for a blood transfusion from the results in front of him.

Mind racing to solve this new problem, Celes reviewed his options. There was really only one with the minutes – quickly approaching seconds – that he had. Not only did he have to start up the heart again, he had to get enough blood into her for her heart to pump in the first place. Sweat that he hadn't noticed soaked into his eyeband, which acted once again as a concentration blessing.

Unhesitatingly, he made his decision and took the option. He had type O blood, just one of the small factors that had him working as a medic in the first place. There was certainly no way to distinguish what type she was before she died; there wasn't even enough time for him to ask the people - Welkin and Alicia - who had brought her in.

An alcohol wipe, two incisions, and a piece of medical tubing later, the Imperial watched his own blood drain into Isara's body.

He didn't know how much he gave her, although he did know that he'd been competent enough to make sure the siphon could only go one way. The moment he started feeling remotely dizzy, though, he stopped. If he let himself go unconscious, and there was a complication, she would die while he danced around in the depths of his own mind – that wouldn't do.

Two quick adhesive bandages later, he checked the heart. With a grimace, he realized it hadn't started beating yet, and he couldn't massage the chest to circulate flow while she died, what with the damaged tissue underneath –

Ah. There it was.

And Celes began busying himself, checking all of the Darcsen girl's vital signs. He stayed like that for a few hours, measuring breath rate (slow while she worked off the dispersed sedative), pulse rate (slow for the same reason), movement of any kind (once again, not very much due to the chemical).

It was then that he decided to check Isara's other health signs while he was at it. Watching her face for signs of consciousness, he put a hand on her abdomen to palpate the internal organs - the kidneys, liver - for damage. If she had been that bloodless for as long as he thought she had been, they easily could have failed, and then nothing could save her.

Isara's eyes opened at the touch. After all his concentrated study on every example he'd been given during school hours – and after them – he had concluded that a patient regaining consciousness mere hours after such an operation was impossible.

Apparently not. Maybe the ragnaid wand had further side effects.

"Let go of me, you pervert," she croaked out.

Still dizzy from blood loss, it took every mindtrick Celes had to resist the urge to explode with laughter.

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Lieutenant Karst, eh? Here's his profile:

Lieutenant Karst

Sniper (Oh yes.)

Potentials

Born Commander – Being first to take action boosts own abilities and those of nearby allies. (NEW)

Ultimate Melee Skills – All abilities boosted when close to enemies. (NEW)

Ultimate Accuracy – Firing accuracy greatly boosted permanently.

Concentration – Occasionally all shots hit a single point.

Full HP Recovery – Chance of fully recovering after attack.

Neutralize – Set chance of preventing counter attack.

And the consensus is, don't mess with the Lieutenant. Ever. Unless you're Squad 7 and have both your tanks, as highlighted in Chapter 1.

Also, Celes is a pervert! This should be amusing to watch.

The next POV will be that of Isara's… finally. Took me long enough. Expect a wrench to the skull very, very soon.

You know, I just realized that Celes is only 17, Isara 16 (right?) so anyone crying "statutory rape" is absolutely correct… in America. (Bandit Keith!) However, anyone trying to sue me for that deserves to be shot.

This one's a bit shorter than I'd like (looking up medical procedures ate a LOT of time, I worked longer on this than any other blurb) but that makes a good enough cut-off point as any, with Isara's awakening. (A bit too deus ex machina?) Expect to see a loooooooooooooooooooong next blurb as Isara and Celes delve into their first actual conversation. Maybe.

If I get some reviews, that is. :3

This medical work is still shaky – if at any time you see a major medical blunder that is NOT workable through ragnaid (applied phlebotinum!) point it out IMMEDIATELY. Realism (as real as a world with ragnite gets) is something I want in great deal with this story. Note how I made the classic innocuous "shoulder shot" into something near fatal, as it should be.

For anyone who feels offended by my notes, go ahead and put a :3 face after everything I say. It'll usually make a LOT more sense.

And yes, I'm still waiting for some great reviews. Reader input is key! (insert cat face here)

(It just occurred to me that most of this blurb is omake. Oh, well. :p)