Hi everybody! Back to the Medic at last. Honestly, I've had this done for a while, but I wanted to get a head start on some of the other chapters so I could get a bit of a buffer. As a note, I do recommend rereading the last Medic chapter, if only so you don't miss a stealth pun I added after I realized it was possible. Also, this chapter has yet more introducing of weird, random concepts that I think are interesting in my head but have no real basis in canon or myth, as far as I know. But that's what fan fiction's all about isn't it? Taking pre-existing universes and characters and putting your own spin on them. So hopefully it doesn't annoy people too much. And I'm sorry it's a bit shorter than most of the chapters I've been putting out recently, but I think it's at a pretty good stopping point as it stands.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy! And thanks so much for reading, especially if you also review, favorite, or follow. It's always great to hear what people think of this story.
After walking down a few hallways, the Medic began to hear screams of pain coming from somewhere ahead. "Vhy are zey screaming like zat?"
Eirin sighed. "A day or so ago now, we admitted two patients with multiple incisions on their bodies. They said it was some sort of farming accident, which of course I didn't believe, but I treated them as if that was all it was. But whenever we heal their wounds, they simply spring open again. There seems to be some underlying cause, but I can't get at it unless I can keep them alive and lucid. That's where that machine of yours will come in."
"Ah, I see, I see. But using it on two targets at once vill be somevhat difficult, to say ze least," the Medic said, rubbing his chin. "I can do it if I constantly svitch back and forth, but zere are only so many times I can do zat before I vill get ze timing wrong."
"All I can ask is that you do the best you can. But I must ask, are you certain that your machine will work properly without any side effects?" Eirin said.
"Certain? No, of course not. I have no idea if it vill vork here in ze same vay it did back zere. But, based on vhat little data I have, I vould say zere's about a 63% chance of zere being no immediate side effects beyond a light glow," the Medic replied. "Zhough so far I've only tested it on Frau Reisen, so zere's still a risk," he said, trailing off as Eirin suddenly stopped in front of a door.
Eirin paused, hand on the door handle. "This is the room," she said, speaking loudly to be heard over the screaming. "I'm hoping your machine works, Mr. Medic."
"Oh, it vill vork," the Medic said. "Just maybe not in the vay ve vant it to. Vhich is alvays interesting."
A bitter smile crossed Eirin's face briefly. "'Interesting' is one way to describe it." She slid open the door and stepped in, the Medic trailing after her.
The smell of blood filled the room, causing the Medic to wrinkle his nose slightly. While Eirin walked to the side of the room to wash her hands and put on some gloves, the Medic saw the two patients.
Both were men, though at this point it was hard to tell any distinguishing features. All over their bodies were tiny, bleeding wounds, which, combined with the dried blood and scars already on them, made it difficult to make out any specific features. Not helping matters was that they were writhing around in pain. From what he could observe, the Medic could tell that one of the men was scrawnier than the other, and his dress would indicate someone more like a scholar, while the other man was bulkier, and dressed more like a farmhand. As he watched, another tear opened on the larger man, right above his left eyelid, and a trickle of blood began running down into his eye, and he let out a pained scream.
"How fascinating!" the Medic said, peering at them. "Zheir bodies seem to be destroying zhemselves!" He frowned. "I vish I could get a better look zhough, but vith all zis tossing and turning," he began before turning to Eirin, who was preparing a selection of scalpels and other surgical instruments. "May I ask vhy zhey are not on painkillers?"
"They are, technically. We gave some to them when they first arrived, but it didn't seem to be blocking the pain signals properly, which was downright vexing. We haven't given them any since, since it could interact badly with whatever's causing this," she said, setting up a tray with the instruments she believed she'd need.
"Really? Intriguing. Zere's not many diseases zhat can do zhat," the Medic said. "Ooh zis is so exciting!"
Eirin gave him an appraising look, then shook her head, sighing. "All right, I'm ready to begin whenever you are."
"Oh, yes, yes," the Medic said, tearing himself away from a closer examination. He grabbed the handle of his medigun, took a deep breath, and gently pushed the lever forward. A thin stream of healing particles drifted towards the scrawnier one, whom Eirin was closest to. As the stream touched the man's body, the wounds on him began to glow and slowly stitch themselves back together, while the man seemed to relax. Eirin let out an irritated noise, before bending down towards the man.
"Are you with us, Mr. Madoshi?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm, I'm feeling ok," the scrawny man said, "How-what is this?" he said, looking at the glowing spots on his body.
"A good question, Mr. Madoshi," Eirin said, turning to look at the Medic suspiciously, "but not the most important one right now. These wounds are not simple farm wounds, Mr. Madoshi." Madoshi suddenly went completely silent. "And if you're hiding what caused it, then it must be because you've done something wrong. Something very, very wrong. But right now, I don't care about that, because I'm you're doctor, and all I want to do is cure you. However, if I don't know what caused this, or where to start looking for it, then there's not much I can do, Mr. Madoshi. You will die, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it."
Madoshi looked away, clenching his fist. His expression hardened. "I won't-" he began, before the larger man screamed again, a large cut opening on his chest, causing Madoshi to flinch.
"Ooh, zhat doesn't look good," the Medic said. "Is zhat a lung I can see zhere? I don't zink he has much time left."
Madoshi's hands trembled, and he began to mouth a word.
"Vhat vas zhat?" The Medic said.
"The heart," Madoshi said, softly. "If the legends are right, you should look at our hearts."
"Legends?" Eirin said, frowning. "What legends?" Madoshi shook his head.
The larger man began to spasm, and the Medic looked questioningly at Eirin, who nodded. He quickly pulled the lever back, refocused on the larger man, and pushed the lever forward again, sending a stream of healing particles towards the larger man, whose wounds began to heal and glow. Madoshi, on the other hand, had all of the cuts that had been healed by the beam spring open at once, and screamed in pain. "Hello, Mr. Ishida. Are you with us?" Eirin said to the large man.
"Yes, I'm with you, I'm with you! Just, just get it out of me!" the large man said, panting.
"Get what out of you?" Eirin asked.
"I don't know what it is, alright? Just get it out!" Ishida said.
"Ok Mr. Ishida, ok." Eirin said. She turned towards the Medic. "Can your device keep them alive no matter what?"
"Vell, vithin reason. If you're asking if you can do open heart surgery, zhen by all means, go ahead! I've done it before, myself. Nine times in fact! One of vhich vas on myself," he said, chuckling. That had been an experience.
"It won't automatically close any incision I make?" Eirin asked, grabbing a scalpel.
"Ah, good point," the Medic said. "Vait just a second." He slowly eased back on the lever until only a small trickle of healing particles came out, stopping when Ishida started screaming again. "Vhoops, too far," the Medic said, pushing the lever slightly forward until Ishida stopped. "Alright, zhis should be a good amount to keep existing wounds closed without healing new any new ones you make!" he said, smiling. "Cut to your heart's content. Or should that be cut until his heart's content? Vell, I suppose zhe end result vill be ze same either vay."
Eirin stared incredulously at him for a moment, before shaking her head and focusing on the task at hand. She began to carefully make incisions into Ishida's chest, attempting to expose his heart. "You know, he von't be injured no matter how fast you vork," the Medic said, cheerfully. "You could use my bonesaw, if you vanted."
Eirin frowned and shook her head. "Forgive me if I don't fully trust the abilities of a machine I know nothing about."
The Medic nodded. "Fair enough. But it vould be faster," he said.
It was at his point that Madoshi began to spasm like Ishida had been. Eirin swore under her breath, and was about to call for her assistants to try and out stitch the wounds, when the Medic simply redeployed his Medigun on Madoshi, healing the man's wounds. Before Eirin could worry about Ishida, he switched back, causing both Ishida and Madoshi to be healed. "Please hurry, Herr Doctor," the Medic said, beginning to sweat. "I cannot do zis forever."
Nodding, Eirin continued her incision into Ishida's chest, working faster now. Ishida, still being conscious, saw her open up his chest cavity and his face began to turn green. "I vould recommend not throwing up into your own chest cavity," the Medic said, "I imagine zhat vould have all sorts of unpleasant effects. And vould also probably not endear you to Herr Eirin here." This comment did not seem to help Ishida, who promptly vomited into a bucket that seemed to have mysteriously appeared, probably having been brought in by Nao, who had been standing outside. "Ooh, you can see it move up ze esophagus from his stomach!" the Medic said, causing Ishida to vomit again. "Look at it go up and down like zhat," the Medic said, before realizing he hadn't been switching his healing back and forth and Madoshi was beginning to spasm again. "Vhoops! My mistake," the Medic said as he switched the beam back to Madoshi for a second.
"Please try to remain still, Mr. Ishida," Eirin said. "I know that may be…difficult, in current company, but I am beginning to work on your heart, which as you can imagine is a very delicate process, so please try to calm down." Ishida nodded, still looking a bit sick.
Eirin looked at the man's exposed heart, trying and failing to locate the problem, although she did see a slight black aura around it. She turned to the Medic. "If I make a cut into his heart," she began, causing Ishida to began stammering, "your machine will be able to heal it, correct?"
"Yes, it should be able to. As long as I don't turn it up too high, but I learned my lesson about zhat after ze first few exploded," the Medic said.
"Wait, exploded?" Ishida said, panicking. "That thing made people's hearts explode?"
"Only a few," the Medic said. Ishida began to stammer and seemed about to cry. "Oh don't be such a baby. Zey got better hearts out of it. Honestly, zhose Megababoon hearts are much more efficient zhan plain old human hearts!"
"Megababoon?" Eirin said under her breath. "I really hope you're right," she said, louder. She began to cut into the heart itself, only to find the blade of the scalpel stopped by a solid object. Frowning, she began to cut around the obstruction exposing what seemed to be a small black stone from which an dark aura seemed to be emanating. Her expression darkened, and she carefully began to remove it.
"Vhat's zat?" the Medic asked, curious.
"Something that shouldn't have been created. Not again," she said, her expression darkening. She removed the small orb and placed it into a beaker, at which point it seemed to melt into a liquid. "You can heal him up now," she said.
"Oh? Vell, alright zhen," the Medic said, and, training his beam on Ishida, pushed the lever forward until the muscle and skin over his chest began to knit itself together. After a few seconds, Ishida looked to be back to perfect health.
"How do you feel, Mr. Ishida?" Eirin asked.
"I feel fine," he said. "And no more of those wounds are opening! Thank you, Doctors." He sat up and bowed. "And what you said about my heart exploding, that's not still a possibility, is it?"
"Vell, anyzhing's a possibility," the Medic said. "Zere's a chance you'll suddenly turn into a balloon and float avay," he said, excitedly. "But no, your heart is probably fine."
Eirin shook her head. "In any case Mr. Ishida, while I'm glad you're feeling better, I'd like to keep you for observation for at least a day. I'm afraid that technology of his is relatively untested, as far as I know, so I'd appreciate it if you stuck around, just in case." Ishida's face grew pale, and he nodded quickly. "Glad to hear it," Eirin said, smiling. "Nao," she said, gesturing to Nao, who had popped up from somewhere, "will lead you to your observation room." She whispered something into Nao's ear, and Nao nodded, frowning, before taking Ishida's hand and dragging him along. Ishida looked at Hoshi briefly, but Hoshi was looking away, clenching and unclenching his fists.
As soon as the door closed, Eirin turned to Hoshi. "You've been awfully quiet, Mr. Hoshi." He remained silent. "I don't know what you were trying to achieve by doing this, but it seems like it's failed. This," she said, holding up the flask of black liquid, "is not something that should be made, Mr. Hoshi, it's not even something you should know how to make. I have a lot of questions for you, Mr. Hoshi." She stretched. "But those will wait until you're healed." Hoshi seemed to relax slightly, while Eirin began to open up his chest, in the same manner she'd opened Ishida's.
The process went much smoother this time, as Eirin knew exactly where to look, and the Medic didn't have to switch back and forth between the two patients. So the Medic spent his time looking at flask with the strange black liquid, wondering what it was. The liquid was as viscous as molasses, barely moving at all even when the flask was tilted horizontally. Occasionally he could swear he saw it move, but when he inspected it more closely it looked perfectly normal. Sometimes it seemed to shimmer and look vaguely metallic, and then, in the blink of an eye, would seem dull and bland again. It seemed to constantly be changing form.
As the Medic contemplated what it could be, Eirin finished removing the strange object from Hoshi's heart, and placed it in another flask, where it seemed to dissolve into a liquid as well. Eirin nodded, and the Medic pushed the lever fully forward, knotting together the hole in Hoshi's chest. As soon as his chest was healed, he bolted for the door, but a masked rabbit youkai, who had seemingly been waiting right outside the door, blocked him from leaving, pinning him against the wall as he tried to leave.
"Defender Sukasa!" Eirin said, surprised. "Perfect timing. Thank you for stopping him."
"No problem Mis- er…citizen! Happy to help!" the masked youkai said. As the Medic looked at the rabbit more closely, her saw a small cut in one of her ears.
"So you are called Sukasa?" the Medic said.
"Y-yes I am, citizen!" the rabbit said, nervously.
The Medic smiled. "I see. My mistake zhen. Zhat is a nice pin zhough." He walked towards Hoshi and whispered "As it is, if you struggle too much, your arm vill get dislocated, so I vouldn't try if I vere you." Hoshi froze.
Eirin approached the Medic and bowed. "Thank you, Mr. Medic. Without your device I couldn't have healed them."
"Oh, it vas my pleasure. Alvays happy to have more information about how this place affects ze medigun! No glow zhat I can see," he said, looking at Hoshi, "so zhat's different zhan I expected." Hoshi looked terrified.
"I would imagine it has something to do with magical energy in that case," she said. "Which leads me to my first question for you, Mr. Hoshi," she said, looking at the man still pinned against the wall. "How did you learn about the process for creating refined youkai extract?"
The Medic's ears had perked up at the word "refined" (probably something to do with how valuable refined metal was to the RED team), and hearing the rest of it, he grew interested.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Hoshi said. "I just found that stuff out in the forest."
"This isn't the sort of thing you just find, Mr. Hoshi," Eirin said, shaking her head. "This doesn't occur naturally, it must be made."
"Excuse me," the Medic said, "but vhat exactly is zhis 'refined youkai extract'?"
"Well, you know what a youkai is, correct?" Eirin said.
The Medic frowned. "Frau Reisen explained vhat youkai vere. Magical creatures, essentially?"
"Basically, yes. And this extract is, essentially what gives them their magical energy. And for a youkai, that is essentially their core. Without it, they enter a sort of trance, an almost cocoon-like state. It's basically temporary death," Eirin said. "And the process for extracting it," she said, turning towards Hoshi again. "Is very, very painful." Hoshi looked guilty. "So I'll ask again, Hoshi," how did you learn the extraction process?" Hoshi remained silent. Eirin sighed and began to walk over towards her laid out tools.
"You know, now that you're healed, I'm no longer your doctor. And therefore, I no longer need to care about your safety." She picked up a saw and examined it, frowning. "And I'm sure the Medic here could just heal you up no matter what, so no one would believe you if you tried to tell them what was happening here." Sukasa looked uncomfortable, while the Medic nodded. "So please, Mr. Hoshi, just tell me how you learned the process."
Hoshi looked terrified, his eyes darting back and forth wildly, desperately seeking someone who would defend him, but Sukasa wouldn't meet his eyes, and Eirin and the Medic simply stared at him. "L-look, it was just an experiment!" he said, trembling. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this." He began to breathe faster and faster, nearing hyperventilation. "It was just an old book I found in this store, ok? It said this would make us stronger, able to fight off youkai, if necessary. I just wanted to help out, take some pressure off the shrine maiden!"
"That book," Eirin said under her breath, frowning. After noticing the Medic staring, she shook her head. "How did you get a youkai to extract?" Eirin said, her frown deeping. "I don't imagine one would give away their energy willingly."
"You're wrong," he said, adamant. "She gave me permission. Ishida found her, out in the forest, where he goes to collect mushrooms. She wouldn't speak, or move or anything, it was like she didn't have any will to live, the only time she spoke up was when I mentioned the book, and she gave me permission to…extract her, so I…well, I did."
"Someone actually volunteered?" Eirin said. "That's very convenient for you." She frowned.
"Look, I swear it's true! She entered that cocoon state thing and we didn't know what to do, so she's still in Ishida's storehouse, out in the forest. I can show you," he said.
Eirin nodded. "Good. Sukasa, would you please take him to Mr. Ishida's room and stand guard over them please."
"Of course, citizen!" she said, and dragged Hoshi away.
Eirin sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, then walked back to the tools she'd laid out and began to clean them. The Medic had taken out his notebook and was writing furiously in it. For a little while, only the sound of the pencil scratching and water rushing over metal could be heard. Eventually, Eirin spoke up. "Thank you," she said.
"Hmm? Vhat for?" the Medic said, looking up from his book.
"Without the help of your invention, I don't think I could have saved them," she said. "So thank you."
"Oh zhat? Zhat vas no problem. Besides, ve still don't know if something vill go wrong vith zhem," the Medic said. "Zhey could revert at any time."
"That's what I was worried about," Eirin said. "But thank you in any case." She finished putting away the instruments and stretched, her shoulders popping. "Now you wanted to discuss diseases that we get here, correct?"
The Medic waved his hand dismissively. "Oh yes, yes, but that can vait until after zhis whole thing is taken care of. I am anxious to see this cocoon state you vere speaking about. I assume zhat it puts zhe subject into some sort of protective hibernation until zhis 'extract' is returned. If I could get a sample…" he said, trailing off.
Eirin, who had looked relieved when he said that it could wait, looked troubled. "You want to come along for that as well?"
"Of course! Vhat kind of scientist vould I be if I didn't vant to see a once-in-a-lifetime event like zhis?" the Medic said.
Eirin frowned, looking like she wanted to protest, but couldn't think of a good enough reason. She sighed. "Very well. However, if you breathe a word of what you see to anyone, or if you start trying to practice this, I will find you."
"Oh, you don't have to vorry about me. I vould never practice something zhat could harm others." He paused for a second. "Vell not one zhat could hurt zhem permanently, at least." He paused again. "Unless it's absolutely necessary. Or if it vould yield important information for my studies." Eirin glared at him. "But I von't do it in zhis case," he said, cleaning his glasses hurriedly.
"I suppose I owe you. But remember my warning," Eirin said. "I need to get some instruments for the reverse-extraction process, but that won't take long. You could go wait with Ishida and Hoshi," she said, an expression of distaste crossing her face as she said their names.
"Excellent! Zhank you, Miss Eirin," the Medic said, and promptly left the room, humming to himself.
"What a strange man," Eirin said to herself, as she took the bottles of extract back to her office.