As Azarea began to strip, Sho watched, waiting patiently for her to be done. Perhaps someone else his age might have petulantly felt the need to look, to perv on her body in this revealing state, but he didn't even consider anything of the sort for a second.
Not that he didn't find her beautiful. Azarea was, in his honest opinion, one of the most beautiful people that he had ever met. Even so, he was a doctor, trained and taught, and so this was the kind of experience he'd had hundreds of times over. He was desensitised, having gone through moments just like this so many times.
Usually, they didn't come in specifically asking for him, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.
And a first time for everything there certainly was, as Sho got his first glance at her back.
Exposed to the artificial light of the clinic, it looked pretty terrible. Her entire back was one large, pockmarked mess, covered with bandages soaked in blood and detritus. Without her shirt on, it almost seemed to stink, the raw aroma of blood and viscera pungent and undeniable within the room. A lesser man might have even vomited or burst running out of the room.
Sho, for his part, did neither of that. Instead, she could hear the snap of plastic as he pulled on a fresh pair of plastic gloves, fresh and disinfected so that he could handle her with the appropriate care that she needed. His hands moved forwards onto her back, gently pressing against her raw skin, trying to minimise too much contact in order to prevent causing any undue pain.
"Azarea... I'm sorry." he said, his voice quiet and small, sympathetic and quiet. He was not asking how she got this way, he wasn't forcing his way into her life unduly, he was simply giving her his sympathies for her body to be like this.
"If it's any comfort, I do think you're pretty. Not just your face, but every part of you. Even this back of yours, as burned as it is, is proof that you're a survivor. That you've been through things I've never been through and come out all the stronger for it.
Just another reminder I'll never catch up, huh? ~"
He tried to make it light-hearted, to joke, but his concern was too genuine for that. Regardless, with his now freshly plastic-clad hands, he moved his hand out to the middle of her back, fore and index finger moving to press against one of the larger masses of flesh on her back, sending a small shockwave of mana through her body.
She wanted him just to experiment, to probe around in the dark, but he was a doctor. This was his mission; he knew what he was doing.
Though, in retrospect, maybe doing that to someone who's entire body was itself a Secret Technique might not have been the smartest decision that he had ever made.