An Interesting Turn of Events [Mizuko or Invite]

Well, this wasn't ending well. Not ending well at all. Umiko had spent the past three days busy on a mission away from home; her task had been to track down an individual and either bring him back alive or kill him and bring back proof of his demise. A simple task for someone with natural defenses up the ass, yes? Well, not entirely. Unknown to her - at least until it was too late - her target had been a raiton user. A nasty shock to Umiko's skull and she was feeling a bit... strange, as well as looking a bit burnt.

What was normally an addiction to pain and a severe enjoyment of it had turned into well... that shit hurt now. In fact, it had unnerved Umiko so badly that instead of heading straight home after getting back to the village and reporting in she had instead went straight to the hospital. Oh, a messenger had been sent home to inform Mizuko and Ryuu of her return of course, but that message had also come with a note stating where she was located.

Thankfully, her 'severe' injury as the medical staff thought it as was enough to get her instantly into a private room instead of having to sit around waiting to be seen. The bad news? Well, the fuckers were poking her and asking her how badly something hurt, a lot. After about the fifth time of being poked she shoved the nurse backwards and curled herself up into a little ball. "Look, it fucking hurts, okay? How the hell am I supposed to judge how badly when I've gone the past many years of my life unable to actually feel pain? It just fucking hurts okay? And I don't like it." Oh yes, grumpy Umiko was grumpy but with good reason.

The nurse simply took some notes, shook her head, and pulled out something that resembled a pen but which was simply a small flash light. A click of the tip and the light came on which the nurse attempted to shine into Umiko's eyes and which gave Umiko a instant headache. "Ah shit. Knock that off. That hurts."

"Sit still, please. I need to be able to examine you to see what's wrong. If you keep flinching and wincing you're only going to prolong this and make my job harder.", the nurse commented in a dull and bored sounding voice; she was clearly annoyed with Umiko and her constant twitching.

Umiko, however, wanted nothing to do with being poked and prodded anymore. In fact, all she wanted at this point was to go home. Yet, she knew that something was wrong and that it needed looked at. "Can you do it without shining that bright ass light in my eyes? My skull feels like it's about to implode and that's not making things any better."

The nurse grumbled something beneath her breath, shined the light into Umiko's eyes anyway despite her protests, on top of poking her several times more and was soundly slapped because of it by Umiko. "That's it! I fucking quit! Someone else can look at you!"

Umiko simply watched the nurse storm out and slam the door behind her before curling herself into a ball and letting out a soft whine as she rested her head on her knees very gently. Eyelids closed for a moment as Umiko silently thanked the god's that the lights were dim enough not to cause her head anymore pain.

So, what had been a fairly normal, even a rather pleasant, day was quickly turning south. She didn't like the idea of any if them being in the hospital unless they needed to be for work or whatever, so getting a note saying basically "I'm alive, but I'm in the hospital", which while definitely better than a ' we regret to inform you...' note/visit, it was still shit. She'd made her way from her happy training session to the medical compound, shoving her ID in faces of people trying to stop her from getting to Umiko to shut them up, and following the sounds of frustration and such. It was easy enough to find her, as once she had, she settled in a lean against the door jam.

Pen lights, ugh. The bane of eyeballs and headaches everywhere. "You're doing it wrong. You can't force her to do things, only Ryuu and I can do that. " She yawned in that faking boredom way, scratching at her anemone arm gently, she had been working in one of the flooded grounds, and wasn't wearing her normal gear, so her skin was dying out and it itched when it did that. "Let me do this, go do something else."

She lifted herself from the wall and shifted around nurse, reaching over to press her anemone against Umiko's soon e and releasing a compound through it that would induce a soothing, almost euphoric effect, as well as acting as a pain blocker. It was normally used in massively higher doses, to cause a waking paralysis effect, but she was a master in tweaking and controlling the release of her toxins and such. She routinely turned harmful substances into helpful, so this was child's play. "Talk, pet. What happened?"

Oh Mizuko, sweet sweet Mizuko. Her very presence made this whole ordeal better: the hospital staff knew better than to mess with her, and were willing to listen to her while they tended to ignore what Umiko was saying given she was the patient. The nurse left quickly enough, likely more than glad to have Mizuko handling things so that she didn't have to. Umiko heard her chart get shoved into the slot outside of the door before the sound of hurried footsteps and grumbling disappeared down the hallway until it faded too much for her to focus on.

With Mizuko hitting her with the compound that she had Umiko found herself relaxing: the mixture between Mizuko being there plus what she had hit her with exactly what she had needed. She uncurled herself from the ball she had been in and laid back against the bed: actually relaxing despite the fact that she absolutely couldn't stand hospitals.

"I got sent on a solo mission to go after someone. The guy was supposed to be really paranoid so I was told I was going to have to handle him alone because more than one person would spook him. I saw his file; he was supposed to be an ex-chuunin who wasn't very strong at all, showed little aptitude for elements, and relied mostly on taijutsu. Easy peasy for me given my shields. They were wrong though; he was a lot stronger than they thought and he used raiton to fight - damn good at it too. As I was crushing him to death he hit me with a dose of raiton straight to the head. I blacked out for a while and when I came to all I could feel was pain; agonizing pain. Even moving caused me to hurt."

Umiko paused in her explanation, giving herself a chance to catch her breath and relax more. "Given I've never felt pain in my life I figure that's why it was so bad. I checked myself over; I didn't have any other injuries minus the burns on my head. Eventually, I managed to get used to the pain enough to get myself home: the hospital just happened to be closer than home. One of the gate guards helped me to get here; my cousin Milo. She's who sent you the letter; she said she'd make sure you got it and knew where I was."

As Umiko fell silent once more she could again hear the nurses in the hallway. The conversation she was picking up on didn't sound angry though; in fact they were discussing Umiko's unique ability to not feel pain - at least under normal circumstances. The way the conversation was going it sounded to her like they wanted to run some tests on her. A whine of a sound escaped Umiko: this was exactly why she didn't like hospitals - being some lab rat was one of her worst fears. "I just want to go home..."

"Well, there's your problem. Raiton to the head will overload the nervous system, and you'll end up with intense pain all over the place. Your nerves are basically burned, and the body takes a long time to repair nerves. It's why it can take years for nerve damage to repair, if ever. However, medical ninjutsu is wonderful, and a talented enough medic can easily repair them. It'll take a few treatments, and it'll hurt pretty bad itself, but it's much faster, and given I can number specific parts of the nervous system, I can numb you down so you won't feel it while I do the repairs. Or rather stimulate your body to do the repairs faster. There are toxins that are deadly specifically because they cause explosive growth in places, and essentially cause what can be called non-malignant tumors to basically crush the body from the inside. However, when used in the right doses, in conjunction with a few other substances that control and protect the body from the growth, it can be used as a healing method."

She turned on a hell, taking the couple of steps needed to move to the door, stick her arm around, fetch the chart, and start scribbling on it with a pen that was attached to the top. She was making notes, the obvious diagnosis and that she was having Umiko released into her care; which was something that should have been done anyway; and that she was taking her home. Slipping the chart back into the holder; she literally could not be bothered to care to call another nurse to take and file the damn thing; she moved back to the bed and shifted to lift the smaller female into a bridal carry; it would be comfortable, and give her plenty of surface area to attach tentacles too, allowing her to release a constant, very low dose of painkillers and sedatives; it would mimic her normal reaction to pain, even with a burned nervous system, and help reduce the stress she was under, which would make the rest of the treatment easier. "Let's get you to bed; I can start the first leg of treatment there. You'll be sleeping off a lot of this, but when I'm done you'll be good as new. Well, healthy, anyway. There's no telling when, and even if, you're going to end up recovering your pain addiction. It may not, or it may reappear at random days or weeks down the road."

She listened to Mizuko explain what was going on and in truth it all made sense; of course that didn't make it hurt any less. Plus, it was definitely just weird in general to be able to suddenly feel pain. It was something she still couldn't wrap her head around: like a blind man suddenly able to see, or a deaf person suddenly able to hear years later. It was... strange. The only difference was that the pain hurt; where as seeing for the first time or hearing for the first time didn't.

She watched Mizuko grab her chart, write something down, and then replace it before walking over to her and picking her up: an action that had anyone else done it would have had her screaming agony. As it was Umiko simply sighed in relief and rested her head against Mizuko's shoulder before closing her eyes - it was going to be bright out there, and she had no idea if Mizuko's wonderful workings was actually going to effect the headache she had or not.

"Thank you... I still don't understand how you and Ryuu deal with feeling pain... this just sucks, horribly." No, she definitely preferred her pain addiction to this.

Upon seeing that Mizuko was carrying her several of the nurses and medical staff that had been talking about 'further testing' turned their attention onto her. The bravest of the bunch held her finger up in a clear sign for Mizuko to stop. "Wait! We need to run further.. tests. To make sure there's nothing else wrong with her."

"No, you just want to prod at a child that after years of having an addiction to pain due to her brain releasing nothing but endorphins and entirely ignoring the pain signal can sudden;y actually feel the pain, without the rush of happy she normally gets; and some pencil pusher offered you the funding you've been waiting for to study her and figure a way to replicate her condition via medication and artificial stimulation so you can make new super soldiers without the ridiculous amount of time, training, and money, it takes to make a PROPER ninja. You can kindly go fuck yourself. Umiko belongs to me, and I don't share. I'm taking her home, and I am healing the very obvious damage to her nervous system. IF I'm feeling lucky, I might write down what I do."

And with that, she just brushed passed them; brave or no, no one was stupid enough to try and stop her. She was a trained taijutsu specialist with enough medical knowledge and toxins in her anemone to turn the entire city into a graveyard. You don't fuck with that. She made her way out without another word, merely holding Umiko close to her body and continuing to feed her enough drugs to keep her happy and not in agony as she made her way home.

"....." Even as drugged feeling as she was at the moment - and she was quite blissfully happy and numb - she couldn't help but grin a bit as Mizuko put the medical staff in their places. If the medical staff had had their way Umiko would likely have been tied down to a table the first chance they got and poked and prodded with all sorts of instruments - all while the medical staff ignored her screams of agony. Yeah, she knew it happened from time to time with odd balls that showed up and allowed their differences to be known. It was Umiko's worst fear and personal hell.

Which, was why at that moment she was even more glad that Mizuko was there. Not only was she helping with her current issue and ensuring that her being moved from the hospital to home was painless as possible, but she also didn't have to fear anyone trying anything stupid: Mizuko would put them in their place just as easily physically as she had verbally. It was something that the medical staff knew too as they dropped the subject instantly and didn't try and get in their way again as they left.

Umiko found herself chuckling a little bit. "I rather enjoy watching you put people in their place; especially people like that." It was then that Umiko sighed and simply rested her head back against Mizuko and closed her eyes once more. Umiko had a feeling that she was going to be avoiding the hospital from now on no matter what injury she got: she wasn't going to give the medical staff another chance at poking and prodding and examining her.

"They make it easy, and that is almost sad. Although, to be fair, they made that painfully transparent. They've been trying to get their hands on me for years as well; it's not often that one of my clan ends up with a partial fusion and still has all the of resistances, immunities, and abilities of the rest, so I'm a gold mine." The trip across the village was quick enough; she didn't need to bother with walking at a 'normal' pace, nor use normal routes; they were both used to the quick bumps and odd angular movement of leaping and jumping during running, so that wasn't an issue. Once she'd gotten them home, she mode her way in through an actual door, versus the windows they normally used; really, ninja doors where windows after all, but sometimes it was good to just use the damn things, specially when you're attempting to not crush someone in pain that's half your size.

Ignoring the pile of mail that they always forgot to deal with, as well as the general explosion of mess everywhere; none of them cared, when they had the time anyway, to clean up, and it was mostly just clothing and the like strewn everywhere. They kept the kitchen spotless on principle. To their shared bedroom; the massive bed was disheveled, but that was the best way for it to be, Ryuu liked to cocoon himself in blankets, she hated being too warm, and Umiko drifted between the two; so it worked out to not make the sheets up and junk. She placed the smaller female down gently, leaning backwards in that 'no-bones' way only an Anemone could to yank the blackout curtains closed properly, giving them a nice, dark, no-photosensitivity pain environment. It blocked out the last of the sound from outside the room too, so that would help some.

"Do you want to rest for a bit, or shall I start now? Either works for me, I have no intention of leaving you alone for the rest of the day as it is."

Umiko didn't mind the trip home, nor did she mind the bumps - in fact, she didn't really mind anything at this point. She was quite numb, no longer in screaming her head off agony, and she was heading towards the one place she wanted to be which was home. The hospital staff wouldn't be able to get their hands on her, nor run any sort of tests: none of them would dare to try with Mizuko or Ryuu around. And none of them would definitely dare try and come to their home to persue the matter further. All in all things were looking up.

Once home, in bed, and the black out curtain closed Umiko finally bothered to open her eyes since she didn't have to worry about the pulsating headache that had been throbbing in her temples roaring up again. She thought over Mizuko's question and weighed her options: on one hand it was probably a good idea to get started sooner rather than later, while on the other hand she was rather enjoying her momentary lapse in pain. Figuring it couldn't hurt to wait just a tiny bit later that was what she decided to go with.

"Hnn... I'd rather wait for a little bit unless you think it's absolutely necessary to start now. I'm rather enjoying the moment without pain. Hnn.. don't understand how people deal with this. Or maybe it just hurts that much worse because I'm not used to it... either way it sucks. I'd take being addicted to pain and risking losing my mind every so often to this..."

"We can wait a bit. So long as we start before the damage gets much worse you'll heal up just fine." She gave her a moment to settle into the bed before climbing in next to her, shifting and worming the blankets up to cover them both before wrapping her larger form around the smaller female. There where two reasons for this; one, she knew it would make Umiko feel better to be cuddled with, and not incidentally she very much enjoyed the cuddling as well; and two, it made it easier to get a solid connection between them, so that she could start the treatments when Umi was ready.

"Pain is strange, from a medical perspective. It's entirely subjective, there's absolutely no reliable way to measure it accurately. Everyone perceives it differently, and everyone has wildly different tolerances. Most are able to adapt to some levels of pain over time; one aspect of ninja training is adapting to pain after all, it's why the training is so insanely grueling compared to normal soldiers or civilian police; but even that isn't guaranteed. Some people just cannot handle pain. I would say it is a mix of the damage amplifying what you feel, on top of your lack of experience, that makes it hurt so bad. If you had to deal with it long enough, you would adapt, but I'd rather not torment you for months."

Umiko nodded; a bit longer was all she wanted, even an hour at the most was good. The reprive from pain was more than welcome, as was Mizuko crawling into the bed with her. With covers wrapped around them she simply snuggled herself right up against the other female and closed her eyes. She had no intentions of actually sleeping, she was just simply happy and comfortable for the moment and she wanted a chance to enjoy it. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, calming even more.

She listened as Mizuko explained about pain; it all made sense of course. Different things hurt different people in various methods. Some people could handle a lot of pain and others couldn't. Training helped, but in the end it was simply how ones body reacted and how it didn't. In Umiko's case she had spent her entire life unable to feel pain so she wasn't used to it; that mixed with her condition were making for some very uncomfortable times.

Or, well, they would have been uncomfortable had it not been for Mizuko. "How badly will it hurt when you start the treatment?", she asked softly. She wasn't scared of the pain to come - she trusted Mizuko absolutely and knew that she wouldn't harm her on purpose - but she simply wanted to be prepared for what was to come. It had to happen, like Mizuko said she'd rather not torment Umiko for the next several months and torment would be exactly what it would be like while her body adjusted to feeling pain. No, she would much rather go back to being completely oblivious to pain.

"You won't notice it, after a few moments. The burn will be there, but it would be like a good workout for most of it. Only when the major nerves are being repaired would it be uncomfortable. Thankfully, pain is felt via multiple channels, so I can numb out the working ones, and block the damaged. You will only feel the burn and such because the sensation of temperature will be activated by the treatment, but I need that to work as a safety precaution. I can check for side effects that way, and stop them before they cause secondary effects." She shifted a bit more, so that their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces, making it so that they would be perfectly comfortable for hours to come.

"Eventually I'll need to outright sedate you, but that's less because of pain, and more to slow the firing of the neurons at the highest level. They will heal better when they are not being used as much. Once the majority of the repairs are made, I would make them overfire again, to essentially recondition them to their former levels, so that you're not stuck in over-sensory hell for several months. So long as I don't screw up, you'll come out of it in the same condition you were in before this all happened. I can't tell if your pain addiction will return or not; I can't heal the damage in the brain itself without medical ninjutsu, and I don't feel I have a powerful enough jutsu for that just yet."

Comfortable Umiko was comfortable. At this point Mizuko could have been talking about cutting her leg off and she wouldn't care. As it was she was indeed paying attention, she just simply felt so safe and serene that it didn't matter. Even if the treatment was going to hurt she would simply deal with it, but from what Mizuko was saying that wasn't going to be the case.

Umiko took a deep calming breath and then yawned very softly. "Perhaps now would be best, then, given my inner dragon is sleeping." It tended to be the case after the beast within her was unleashed - she would sleep for quite a while despite what was going on with Umiko. It meant she wouldn't try interfering - not that her inner beast didn't listen to Umiko and Ryuu just as well as Umiko did, her inner beast just liked ot press buttons a little more where as Umiko was calm and kind and quiet.

"Mmm.... Do I have to move though? I'm quite comfortable."

"No no, you're fine, Pet. For now, we can do the treatments here. So long as nothing goes wrong, we don't need to move, not for many hours yet. In fact..." well, she was already starting to release the proper mix of toxins and substances that would start the healing process, without pushing into territory that would have caused any symptoms. "I had already started, a bit; get a little ahead, but I can increase the dosing to get things really started. Only if you are sure, Pet."

She wasn't going to have to move? Excellent, because she was loathing the idea. She was comfortable, and she felt safe: the doctors had rattled her more than she liked to show, but that was simply because being injured plus facing what was one of her worst fears in a single day was never a party. Not for her, not for anyone. So, happy Umiko was happy upon hearing she was able to lay exactly where she was and remain cuddled up close to Mizuko.

"I'm ready.", she responded. The warm feeling Mizuko had spoken about was the only thing that she was worried about bothering her - she normally ran a bit lower temperature than everyone else due to her icey nature, so if anything she was more worried about that feeling uncomfortable than any sort of pain that might end up coming later on. But, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it, and she knew she was in safe hands.

"I'm glad you know about all of this stuff. I couldn't imagine trusting anyone else to do this. Had you not shown up at the hospital when you did I probably would have ended up knocking that nurse unconscious and making my escape; albeit a painful escape."

"I wouldn't have been surprised. It was pure chance I was there anyway, I was only there to drop off some anti-toxins I had made up, since we're coming to jellyfish season again." Hell, the paperwork wouldn't have even been bad, she'd done worse for the escapes she'd made over the years. She was slowly ramping up the release of the 'medication', funny how you called what was essentially a controlled poisoning medicating. Irony is fun.

"Pretty much anyone in my clan could have come up with the treatment, it's not difficult. It's not medical ninjutsu, but hey, not everything needs to be solved by some stuffy medic with no idea how the body actually works. Most of those 'doctors' don't know anything; past the bare bones of anatomy, and even that is shit. When your experience is in destroying the body from the inside and out, you get to be really good at using that to take care of people. It's why I can be an effective medic without using medical ninjutsu; I can use more... natural abilities and medicines to do mostly the same thing."