Author's Note
Disclaimer in addition to my other disclaimers: I am not a doctor or anyone with any experience with operating rooms (yet)…
Chapter 26
Katiya (two weeks later, 8:00 PM)
Katiya knelt after she entered the room, as she had when she was first introduced to the man she was knelt before. The day she was introduced by Kabuto. She tilted her head up and opened her mouth to speak. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
Orochimaru seemingly ignored the question, proceeding to mind his lab specimens until he was ready. "Katsu… Katsu Shiratori… or should I say, Katiya Shiratori?" Orochimaru asked, with a flick of a glance.
Katiya bowed her head.
"Katiya Shiratori has a bit of a bad record in Suna… and Taki, if I remember correctly. I'd prefer to remain just 'Katsu' if at all possible… sir," she said in a level tone. She knew Orochimaru figured out a large part of who she was a while ago. After all, despite changing names while traveling, she never made moves to disguise her face or chakra signature.
She watched him carefully.
Orochimaru continued, a creepy facsimile of fondness gracing his features at the response she had given, "Your mother was a close ally of mine once..." he replied, "... As I'm sure Kabuto told you... Quite the star researcher… and loyal as well…"
Katiya kept her face deadpan but straightened herself from where she was previously knelt, shifting her eyes to watch him. She remained quiet as she waited for her superior to get to the point. He picked out one of his specimens to hold as he took his place on his throne before continuing at a meandering pace. "That loyalty becomes valuable when it comes to running a country… and it seems I'm now in need of yours. As I'm sure you're aware, my right hand has been encountering some… internal issues… particularly from his men stationed in Suna… it's been quite the source of stress for him…"
"I've… realized," Katiya replied neutrally. "And I can say the medical staff, and I as his assistant, have been doing what we can to alleviate his medical duties, Lord Orochimaru."
"Yes… which brings me to the reason why I called you here, Katsu… as it seems I am now in need of something other than your medical prowess," Orochimaru softly replied.
Katiya guarded her thoughts to keep them from showing on her face. "Oh?"
"It seems all of our spies in Suna appear to be defecting back and feeding us false information… Of course, those spies have now found themselves cut from our service, but it does leave us at a disadvantage… Which brings us to you... You have familiarity with the Sunagakure region, yes?" Orochimaru asked rhetorically.
"I do," Katiya breathed. But I also said I'm not welcome over there, didn't I?
"… Then I'd like you to take a mission to Suna with Kabuto… to do some reconnaissance for me and perhaps convince a few more shinobi to join our cause..."
Katiya met Orochimaru's eyes at that note, finally sensing an opening. Tread carefully. "Of course… but sir, considering your number of compromised spies from Suna, has there been any indication that Kabuto himself is not compromised? He is your spymaster, isn't he?"
A predatory gleam entered Orochimaru's gaze. "Kabuto has been in Oto's service since its foundation. There is no reason why he would defect now, and all unreliable information has been vetted already… by Kabuto… So what exactly would you be suggesting… ?"
Katiya bowed deeply. The way she had phrased it, she sounded like she was trying to find any reason to shirk going to Suna out of fear of death. "I meant no offense, sir… but have you ever heard of the Sleeper Jutsu?" she asked, "It's a jutsu, sir, that acts on the brain and allows a shinobi to suppress their target's memory and alter it for the purpose of having them unwittingly spy on a target organization. The sleeper wouldn't even know they'd be spies themselves. I'd say it's at least worth looking into, before you order an already compromised mission."
Katiya breathed. Having mentioned the Sleeper Jutsu herself, she was clearly not under the influence of it, skipping over the need for him to more invasively scan her himself… but if he had asked where she learned of it...
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes and flicked them over to where a dismembered pale hand was preserved in a jar, apparently lost in though. Orochimaru slammed the specimen jar in his own hand against his throne and leaned back, rubbing his chin. "The Sleeper Jutsu… native to Suna, isn't it… Sasori… it is possible…" he said quietly to himself while maintaining eye contact with the dismembered hand in the corner of the room, "who'd have thought that old allegiance of mine would come back to haunt me so soon…"
Katiya exhaled, seemingly at the outburst. "Sir?"
"Akasuna no Sasori…" Orochimaru explained in reply at a louder tone.
Sasori of the Red Sand, Katiya thought to herself. The same person Itachi mentioned… Orochimaru was a part of the Akatsuki… Katiya's eyes widened marginally, realizing something. If the Akatsuki are after the tailed beasts for immortality… and paired off by tailed beast and therefore region…
"I see you recognize the name… Yes... he has quite the grudge against me since my falling out of the Akatsuki. The impatient bastard doesn't take betrayal very well," Orochimaru continued in thought, "It is possible…" he breathed, "... Hmm… Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Katsu. I do believe this turn of events will play out in our favor after all," he smirked, the surety of a plan dawning his pale visage.
"Of course, sir," Katiya said verbally. She had something else entirely on her mind. In terms of strategy, the Akatsuki would want at least one member familiar to a region of a Jinchuriki, when possible to navigate the terrain. Sasori… he's likely to be the shinobi after the One-tail… Gaara… Itachi, you and I need to talk, she thought, finishing her train of thinking.
Orochimaru stood from his throne. "I suppose a reward is in order…" he trailed off, snapping Katiya's attention back to the present as he moved towards her.
Katiya refocused on Orochimaru, tilting her head in marked interest. The exact reward she wanted was at the tip of her mind, but she held her tongue. It would have been too obvious to push for it at the moment.
Orochimaru held up his specimen jar for Katiya, the one he had been playing with. She bowed and then lifted the jar from him. Chakra wood… Mom's, she realized, holding it. So those papers aren't the only things she left behind here.
Orochimaru smirked at her expression before walking past to stop by the door. "Oh, and Katsu… I do expect you to be ready for surgery… if my scans later today reveal Kabuto does indeed have a Sleeper Jutsu implant, I'd like you to assist me."
Katiya swallowed her shock and turned to bow to Orochimaru again. "Yes sir."
Katiya (one week later, 6:00 AM)
She formed a two-fingered chakra scalpel between her index and middle fingers, as thin as she could get it without chakra-burning them. Slow cuts to be extra careful, no chakra pills nor food pills, no caffeine before the operation like most medic-nin had to take to have enough chakra for the operations later in the day—the small resulting tremors disastrous for high-profile operations.
…
Incisions forming a hole, maybe five by seven centimeters, directly above where the needle needed to be extracted from. Every movement, meticulous, painstakingly slowly executed. With a final ninjutsu to siphon the blood away from the area, she moved aside.
Local anesthetic was then applied and the general one eased off to awaken the patient—Kabuto—from where he was after being carted in for the operation unconscious. A tag stopping external chakra flow pinned over his eyes, ensuring the Sleeper Jutsu remained inactive throughout the operation. To ensure his primary motor functions remained intact. Because that was actually important, unlike how it was usually.
Six people in a sterility-tagged private operating room. Four more than what was given to the average mass infirmary. Orochimaru—"surgeon of the day" in Katiya's sarcastic words—working smoothly, using one of the nurse-held scan images as guidance and another to hand him tools.
…
In less than no time, a small needle, less than two centimeters in length and at most half a millimeter in diameter was removed.
...
Katiya made her way to the recovery rooms after scrubbing out and donning her daily gear.
"You're awake," she noted, approaching Kabuto's bedside. She hadn't expected that so soon.
Kabuto gestured to the blood-plasma pills. "Perks of being a medic-nin. Faster recovery time. It was a good call you made."
Katiya nodded. It was a tough moment when Kabuto had seized up mid-chakra healing, the suppressed memories triggering multiple parts of the brain when it re-adapted to his natural neuronal flow, as she had later explained to Orochimaru. Hence her recommendation to him to give anti-seizure medications pre-operation for the subsequent high-profile Sleeper Jutsu implant removals, as unlikely as those were to occur… And the postoperative medications she suggested for Kabuto at the moment. But besides the seizures, the operation had transpired smoothly. Katiya hadn't been sure if she needed (or if it was her place) to explain to the person who did the operation, but despite Orochimaru being an adept scientist, he didn't have a true medic-nin license and therefore did not necessarily know... And she had taken other risks before, though not necessarily with patients' lives.
Katiya placed her stack of read-later medical reports on Kabuto's bedside table as well as notes from his own surgery. "From the last forty-eight hours, sir. I've already seen a good third of your patients today, too, but I'm also unfortunately behind on the ones you specifically assigned to me… some of them have been particularly stubborn about their appointments as well, so I took the liberty of rescheduling them, however. I hope that's alright."
Kabuto waved the thought away. "If it's Tayuya again, you can let it go. The curse mark she has ought to cover the last of her residual damage by now."
Katiya curtly nodded. "Thank you. If that's all… I only came to deliver the reports and check up on your status…"
"... Wait," Kabuto said, pushing back his covers and moving to stand.
"Sir, you shouldn't—" Katiya broke off, noticing once that Kabuto had sat up, that he had removed the bandages—that the incisions made during the surgery were completely healed—past the stage she had even healed them to—and that even the hair that was shaved off during the surgery was beginning to regrow.
"Modified Yin Wound Healing Jutsu," Kabuto explained to her inquisitive eyebrow raise, "usually I'd use it preemptively to heal regions I know would be struck mid-battle, but in this case, I simply used it essentially as an internalized form of the Mystic Palm Jutsu. It takes quite a bit of both chakra control and reserve, however, which is hard to come by… not to mention refined muscle control and the resilience to actually take damage rather than dodge like most shinobi tend to."
Katiya nodded. It was somewhat similar to a passive jutsu she knew she herself and many other shinobi employed, only refined to preemptively heal rather than simply protect from damage… and of course, likely requiring more chakra and muscle control than what she'd consider readily available during battle.
"I can teach it to you," Kabuto said, pulling out an envelope from a shelf under the bedside table. "After all, you seem to be doing much better with the Chakra Scalpel Jutsu variants and all the other medical ninjutsu considered standard in Oto already… and not learning it would really be a waste of medic-nin talent."
Kabuto handed the envelope to Katiya, who took it tentatively. "... What is it?"
Kabuto smiled knowingly. "Lord Orochimaru commended your work during the operation today. I already had the paperwork in for you seeing your proficiency with the Mystic Palm Jutsu when he decided to… streamline the process after seeing you in action... It's a high honor to be promoted by Lord Orochimaru himself. Congratulations."
Katiya read over the dossier. A full medic-nin license. You just knocked the "field" off of your qualifications. She inhaled. She didn't even have to undergo the standard examination processes.
Technically, that means you're still underqualified, you know, she reminded herself.
"... I don't know what to say," she started. A thought occurred to Katiya. She could make use of this promotion better than Orochimaru's "gift". She turned to Kabuto. "I… I don't suppose this promotion comes with new room access?" she asked hopefully.
Kabuto looked at her interestedly. "That depends… Why do you ask?"
"Well… truth be told, I guess I was the one who pointed out the possibility you were compromised and started all of this… which was really, just on a hunch... I was awarded, then, with this chakra wood…" She took the specimen container out of a waist-pouch scroll. Orochimaru's gift was as good a cover as any for her true reasons. "I was hoping for a room with a private lab attaché—it'd be nice if I could continue my mother's research undisturbed, after all," she explained.
It was too risky to ask for her when she had spoken to Orochimaru himself… but here, now… the timing was perfect. She met Kabuto's eyes.
Kabuto gave her a smile. "Consider it done."
Katiya (one week later, 8:25 AM)
Katiya climbed out of Oto's entrance. It was the first away mission she had in a while… and her first solo mission. A simple medical supply run from the Land of That. She let out a long exhale before taking off. Every Sleeper Jutsu Kabuto had remembered he installed into Oto's own spies had been removed from the prisoners that hadn't already been killed off… everything was cleared… And she had a crow she needed to find.
…
Katiya jumped tree-to-tree adjacent to a bird with distinctly red Sharingan before being led to a cave entrance. Glancing at the bird that stopped and perched on her shoulder, she paused at the entrance. Katiya moved over to the side of the cave's mouth to watch her surroundings.
After a moment, Itachi appeared next to her with a barely audible swish of fabric. He met her eyes, taking in her change in attire with impassively narrowed eyes.
The longer she stayed in Oto, the more she distanced herself from her past, it seemed. Her teal qipao-style vest had been replaced with a nondescript black flak vest with a paneled neck guard and the entirety of her head was stuffed into what resembled a thin black balaclava similar to the Oto-standard hood and mask number only without the portion set aside for the hitai-ate attachment. The only thing that Katiya had kept from her previous attire was her fading pastel blue multi-pouched belt. Even the matching arm and shin guards she had brought with her were replaced with Oto's greys.
Katiya met Itachi's gaze unperturbed.
"I've managed to secure a lab for me to analyze your condition," Katiya said, breaking the silence and pulling her goggles off, "Is this cave a safe enough location for me to get samples to use it?"
Itachi bowed his head. "It is," he said before walking into the cave ahead of her.
…
"Is this your first blood withdrawal?" she asked after setting herself up and tying an elastic tourniquet to her patient's thin-veined arm.
"No."
Katiya nodded. "Relax," she said, massaging the area before swiping it with rubbing alcohol and lowering Itachi's arm to rest on the makeshift table. She then plunged in the needle.
"... Eight vials?" Itachi asked in question after a moment of watching Katiya switch through.
"Nine," Katiya corrected.
"Why so many?"
Katiya glared at Itachi. "I literally know nothing about whatever can be afflicting you, so I'm testing for a little bit of everything, and one of the unmarked vials I'm probably going to be using for a cell count and a blood smear."
Katiya pulled out the needle and pressed her thumb to Itachi's arm to heal it. She sealed the spent blood draw equipment into a scroll after pouring a jar of bleach over it, and then melting it with a small fireball. The remaining mass of plastic and metal disappeared with a smokey pop.
She sealed the blood samples into another scroll before listing off the names of every test on her fingers. "Iron, ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase, hemoglobin, ammonia, bilirubin, two more for heart function, and then a general one for a good twenty or so vitamins and minerals—I'm actually combining some of these tests, by the way, so it would actually be more if I didn't—and worse comes to worse, I'm even reusing whatever blood I have leftover to do a blood sequence and pretend that staring at more than a million nucleotides in the form of dashes won't drive me insane," she said sarcastically.
And is totally something I know how to do and am qualified to do, Katiya added mentally.
"But nine," she finished aloud. Katiya watched Itachi's face. "Which… I also know is the number of tailed beasts… which… also brings me to something you and I need to talk about."
Author's Note
Okay… Note that the exam for a full medic-nin license is not canon. But… In my mind, there should be a different test between fighting capabilities in a medic-nin and healing capabilities in a medic-nin. Because while ideally shinobi ranks would progress with medical knowledge in-universe... stuff happens *cough genin Hokage *cough… and I think everyone would be damned in a situation where you have a glorified butcher sewing your leg on (which, not going to lie, is what Oto has, which explains a lot…) so… yeah.
Separate note: I am purposely leaving the ending Itachi-Katiya conversation ambiguous. But in short, they did the blood test thing, maybe a urine test, maybe talked about patient history, booked another "appointment", and discussed Jinchuriki and corresponding Akatsuki members… (which Katiya was already partly aware of since the FIRST conversation she had with Itachi that happened "off-screen")...
Separate—separate note: There exist quite a few trashy self-inserts. It's why I am uncomfortable writing my own OC… despite her being the only thing making this not just a text-only version of canon… because I can just feel myself edging over to trashy-self-insert land there if I'm not careful… also the reason why if you pop back a few chapters, there's been a few (hopefully) small edits… I ain't easily satisfied with my work… but all the same… I've got a plot slump for the Sand Siblings so brace for more Katiya.