[shitai mitsuki]

One of the perks of traveling out-of-country was that, for a time, Mitsuki had not needed to return to her residence in the Shitai clan’s stronghold, that dim and dour fortress nestled into the Valley of Lightning. There was history there, yes, a great amount of honor and tradition, et cetera; but each time she stepped foot through those grandiose doorways, she thought for a moment that perhaps she was going to be escorted back down, down into the bowels of the keep, never to see the light of day again. She did not like being here, and did not relish her homecoming.

But, in the end, there was no better place to study her trade, and her grandmother would not permit her to wander forever. So here she was.

Mitsuki was in the medical wing, scrubbed and sanitized, preparing the first of three bodies on her docket today for embalming and transportation to Kumogakure’s deathcare services. The bodies were not in terrible shape, and the funerals would be open-casket. It was training for Mitsuki, supervised by one of the more experienced morticians of the clan, and also a way for Mitsuki to be useful while training. Anatomy study and productivity, rolled into one.

She was most of the way through notating the various scars and birthmarks on the cadaver when she was drawn from her focused reverie by an odd sound from the next room over, and she lifted her head to look quizzically at her supervisor.

Shitai Maimomu

[Shitai Maimomu]

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[attr="class","vgroup"] [attr="class","vogue"] [attr="class","mainv"]U M E [attr="class","vlyrics"] Cuz my insides are red And yours are too And the red on my face Is matching you [attr="class","vcred"]@tactitian9 - 289WC

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[attr="class","vpostbg"]Today she was overseeing and assisting the training of a clan member she was not entirely familiar with, despite recognizing her. By now, all of this was second nature, and truthfully she was having a hard time breaking it down in a way someone new to it could digest it easily. Regardless, each task she delegated was taken without argument, and though she didn't excel by any means, Mitsuki was competent. Ume found that she did not have to bark at her nearly as often as she did the other young man she'd mentored a few times.

The noise twitches one of Ume's pointed ears, but her gaze back at her student is slow. She shrugs. "A ghost of the dead come to avenge the blood we drained from him."

She pushes off the counter she's leaning against, walking around one of the operating tables to come stand parallel to Mitsuki. Glancing at the cadaver laid out in front of her, the fledgling tilts her head. "A shame they died. I heard these were good men." Then, she laughs. "Well, as good as a dead man can be."

"So, that was the easy part." Ume gestures to the note taking. "Now for the gross part. Then the fun part!" She walks forward just a ways, to a metal cabinet at the end of the room. It clanks as she opens it, pulling out an arm full of awkward tools. She lugs them to the counter, laying them out semi-neatly; a canister of a disinfectant solution, rags, needles, thread - blade tools, tubes - an assortment. First, she takes up the disinfectant and tosses it to Mitsuki. With two rags in hand, she approaches her cousin briskly. "First we scrub 'em down."

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[shitai mitsuki]

WE'RE LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM THE BEASTS THEMSELVES

Her supervisor cracked a dryly-delivered joke, prompting a thin, wary smile to rise to Mitsuki’s lips. She was on edge despite herself—ghosts weren’t real, she knew this objectively, but it was hard not to be tense when an unexpected noise happened while she was in the room with a group of very dead men. She did not like this keep. "I think most people become good after they die,” Mitsuki replied, making another neatly-inscribed notation on her clipboard. Birthmark by the ankle, a splotch of purple against pale skin. "In the collective memory, anyway. No one wants to remember Yamada Taro for dying of—” she briefly checked the clipboard, "—sharp force injury to the femoral artery.” Unpleasant way to go, hamstrung and bleeding out. Once she was done with her notations, Ume-senpai pulled out a number of clunky-looking tools, and tossed her the disinfectant. Mitsuki caught it deftly, her brow drawing into a puzzled expression. "There’s a fun part?” she asked dubiously, but she was nothing if not obedient, and also accepted the rag to begin scrubbing the bodies down. She was slow but thorough, ensuring that she cleaned every inch of the cadaver; though she left the groin for last, needing time to mentally prepare herself to muscle through the squeamishness that disinfecting the area would provoke.

Shitai Maimomu -- 218

LAIKA OF THQ

[Shitai Maimomu]

Though it is not offered with the tone of a joke, Ume laughs warmly in tune with Mitsuki's musing about how dead men ought not to be remembered for their death. She steps to the second cadaver, back to back with her trainee, and douses the rag in her own disinfectant to begin scrubbing this corpse. "There’s a fun part?” To which Ume's grin widens grossly, sharp teeth flashing at the dead man she scrubs, starting at the head and making her way quickly but surely, diligently, to his feet. She peeks over her shoulder to track Mitsuki's work and, satisfied, continues her own.

"Well, I think it's fun," Ume muses. "But I'm a fan of draining dead men of their blood. The smell alone is worth the getting all familiar with their dead bodies."

She's done this a thousand times over, so she finishes before Mitsuki's made it to dead genitals. She moves to the third body, takes a new rag, smears it with disinfectant, and starts anew. She continues speaking idly, casual, like they're discussing their days over a cup of tea and not discussing the process of embalming late men over, well, late men. "Less fun part, though - now that he's all clean, start massaging mister Yamada-san's muscles. We want them to look relaxed, not stiff and all... y'know, rigor mortis-y."

---

shitai mitsuki - 225WC

[shitai mitsuki]

WE'RE LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM THE BEASTS THEMSELVES

There is a degree to which Mitsuki is appreciative of Ume-senpai’s relaxed, almost flippant candor; that this act is so routine for her removes some of the mysticism and discomfort from the equation, turning something unpleasant and morbid into a clinical task. The tedium is no more or less than paperwork or weapons maintenance: repetitive motions carefully done. Still, she blanches at the thought of the smell. What is appealing to Umechika is appalling to Mitsuki, her stomach turning; or, more accurately, her stomach turning at the thought that it might be just as appealing to her, too. Her jaw tightens, unsure how to respond. Instead she turned to the task at hand. This, somehow, was not as off-putting as she had expected; her hands were strong, kneading into rigid muscle in a smooth rhythm up and down each limb, one at a time. With the body disinfected the distasteful aspect was removed, making this segment a somewhat less unpleasant tactile experience. As she worked, she asked softly, hesitantly: "Is it… overpowering, the smell? Have you struggled with temptation at all?” It was clear that Umechika liked it—it was not a question of enjoyment but of discipline. Mitsuki wondered, briefly, if she was being tested.

Shitai Maimomu -- 213

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[Shitai Maimomu]

A little after Mitsuki's begun her process, Ume is ready to as well. Her hands are small, slender - almost childlike, much to her distress - but they are firm, practiced. She soothes muscle beneath both her thumbs, using her fingers to mold the shape of the body as she works. Mitsuki's question hangs in the air and suddenly it is too quiet; even the soft buzzing hum of the overhead lights take a moment to think. Ume's face is slack, though her eyebrows are pinched just slightly. She massages her cadaver thoroughly. When she finally speaks, it is as soft as the question had been delivered. "At first..."

Maimomu had been a child then when she was first introduced to this play. She closes her eyes, thankful she is turned away from her student, and tries not to let the memories resurface.

Umechika shakes her head, clicks her tongue. She regains herself, voice steady once again as she moves back to her first patient. "Well. My circumstances were different." How much to tell the girl? Frankly, Ume did not want to answer personal questions at all. Thinking about herself was hard, and even harder was trying to put it into words for someone else. "I wasn't ready the first time they stuck me in front of a corpse. You are. At the very least, you're handling it better than I did!" Umechika lets out a harsh cackle, her head falling back just a bit, her hands stilling against the cadaver's left bicep.

When they are both done, Umechika will direct her further; their next step is to shave their corpses, and begin setting the facial features. The former is a rather easy if not tedious task, but doable by the two women. It's the next step that Ume would walk Mitsuki carefully through, having her watch as she performs first. "It's probably the most important process," the chuunin says as she finishes gluing the eyelids of the third corpse shut. She pulls out a suture needle and string. "For an open-casket funeral, anyway. We want them to look... peaceful. Like they're sleeping, kinda. Juxtaposing the way she speaks about the men with loved ones, Ume begins methodically stitching the jaw set; suture string threads through the lower gumline, no blood coming to the surface as she presses the point of the needle through. She weaves through the gums again, this time behind the top lip, and pushes the long needle all the way up behind the flesh there until it comes unceremoniously out of the left nostril. "It's comforting for the grieving. Seein' them, ah... how they were before."

Through to the right nostril and back through the top gums, securing it through behind the bottom lip; Umechika pulls the suture string tight, and the lifeless man's jaw screws together lifelessly. Tying the thread off and sealing the lips, Ume was done with the first process. She gestures broadly to Mitsuki's Yamada.

"Now it's your turn."

---

shitai mitsuki | 495
Post 3/7

[shitai mitsuki]

Mitsuki’s breath caught in her throat as Umechika considered her response—she wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of, a denial or an affirmation, but anxiety roiled sick and oily in her gut regardless. But just when she thought an answer would come, she received a deflection instead, and a heavy weight bore down on her shoulders. My circumstances were different. Different from—? How much did Umechika know about Mitsuki’s history, her tenuous place in the outside world? Was such a judgment cast based on her knowledge of Mitsuki’s experiences, or was it more of a pensive, vague reflection of her own? Mitsuki’s hands trembled, a subtle tremor that she couldn’t quite shake. If she was handling this better than Ume had, then either Mitsuki was a very good actor, or Ume’s experience had been truly horrid, and Mitsuki didn’t know which prospect was more terrifying. She tried to clear her mind, her lips pursing together in a flat line as they moved on to the next two steps. Shaving was simple affair even with the shake of Mitsuki’s hands; she went just a little slower than necessary, unwilling to risk even the slightest nick of the dead man’s skin. Then she shadowed obediently as Umechika showed her how to glue and suture and set. Eyecaps, eyelids; lower gumline, top lip, left nostril, right nostril, top gums, bottom lip, tighten. Delicate, but methodical. Mitsuki turned back to her own corpse and carefully went through, step by step; but the shaking of her hands only worsened, coming to a head as she tried to push the needle up through Yamada’s nostril, misaligned the tip, scraped harshly against the skin as it extruded through the nasal cavity. Cadavers didn’t bleed, but there was a faint line left in the needle’s wake. "Shit,” she whispered, dropping the needle and wiping her hands feverishly on her top, trying to dispel the cold clamminess that was emerging there. "I—I’m sorry. Let me just—” She took a couple of breaths, deep and steadying, and picked the needle up again; but she hesitated before delving back into the right nostril. "How do you…” Another breath, and she slipped back into a more professional tone, as polite and refined as she could manage. "How would you recommend adjusting the placement of the needle to avoid a mistake like that in the future?”

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[Shitai Maimomu]

Umechika is quiet and thoughtful, watching with a respectable distance over Mitsuki's shoulder as she takes a spin at setting her cadaver's face. The chuunin is aware that it is not as easy as it looks, and mistakes are to be forgiven on one's first try of course, so her expression does not so much as twitch even when her student's hands tremble. Even when the needle falters and leaves a mark in the one nostril. Even when she drops the needle and wrings at her hands, Ume only shifts her weight from one foot to the other without much urgency at all.

Though she could take it from her student and do it for her, Umechika was a believer in learning by doing; so she waits patiently for Mitsuki to take up trying again.

The polite and formal question makes Umechika smile a little, though it's unclear whether it's a warm or derisive gesture. Hands clasped at the small of her back, she weighs further in, peering over Mitsuki's work to see again the miscalculation. She hums with thought. "It's much to do with how yer holding the needle, and using yer other hand. Next time place your other finger over the outside of the lip, and guide the needle through. I know I did it freehand, but I've been doin' this since before I hit double digits." Another cackle, this time cut off shortly.

As the student would attempt again, Umechika this time continues to prattle. Her voice, grating as always, echoes in the morgue. "Y'gotta be sorta firm and loose. Just the right amount of equal parts finesse and strength. Y'don't have to worry too much about exact placement spots, just aim to keep the suture string mostly even and invisible, y'know?"

---

shitai mitsuki | 295
Post 4/7

[shitai mitsuki]

Perhaps it was Ume’s intention, perhaps not—but Mitsuki felt her shoulders creep up around her ears, tension coiling tight across her upper back and clenching hard around her slow-beating heart. The other woman was silent as the grave even as Mitsuki made what felt like a terrible error, and that inscrutable smile made Mitsuki feel as though she had misstepped yet again. Mistake after mistake after mistake. Her lips pressed into a thin, pale line as she rested the outsides of her wrists onto the cadaver’s face in a vain effort to steady herself for her next attempt. Slowly—too slowly, remarkably inefficient—she followed Umechika’s advice, placing her other finger on the cadaver’s lip as instructed and using that to guide her needle through. She was too hesitant this time, too scared to use force in the event that she accidentally broke the skin again, and she now struggled to actually thread the needle through. Mitsuki bit down on the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, her frustration mounting as she struggled to complete this basic, basic, basic task. "Before double digits?” The tension in her voice was clear, but she was desperate to take her mind off the failures piling atop her failures. "Do you mind if I ask why you started so young?” Mitsuki had been only nine herself when she was enrolled in the shinobi academy; she didn’t remember much of the time before that, but she felt fairly certain that she hadn’t been allowed near the cadavers until she had started training with the medical corps as a genin, well into her early teens by that point. Finally, she was able to get the needle through, more harshly than intended but achieving the needed result, thankfully. From there it was easier to finish up with the gums and lip, finishing off the suture with a delicate knot and a distinct sigh of relief.

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[Shitai Maimomu]

Asking another personal question. Umechika realigns her shoulders and worries at her bottom lip. She seems less concerned with Mitsuki's perceived mistakes. The chuunin is patient, watching as she searches for the strength to continue. She would humor her cousin's need for distraction. She stays propped over her shoulder though, and speaks somewhat low, as if that'll help the girl not to mess up. "I was, ah... Special. They threw lil ol' fresh genin me into the medical corps to assist in the plague. I was nine."

There's a moment of silence. Umechika steps back when Mitsuki sighs with relief, also satisfied with the student's work, even if it was amateur. She offers a smile, as sincere as it is chilling. "You're doing fine. Not the sloppiest work I've seen."

As she does up the last cadaver's face rather quickly, she goes on to explain the next step. "So we're gonna be draining their blood, then injecting them with embalming fluid. Then we're gonna cut them open just a little. Then we're basically done."

Finishing up and stepping away, she levels Mitsuki's gaze and tilts her head a bit. "I was kiddin' about the smell. It ain't too pleasant, even if you like suckin' blood. Just... Overwhelming."

Umechika would demonstrate the arterial embalming on the closest corpse first; she marks two incisions on its throat, over the jugular and carotid artery. One tube is placed into each, minimal blood showing until the process has started, immediately accompanied by the overpowering smell of iron and rot. The machine does most of the work; as it sucks blood from the jugular, it pumps solution into the carotid. The pinkette shows Mitsuki once more, knowing now that she might need a bit more demonstration, and tries to give some detailed tips- "-but it ain't too hard, if you know where the veins are."

It would be her turn on the last one.

[shitai mitsuki]

A genin at nine—Umechika couldn’t have been older than five or six going into the academy, then. Very common in their family. If anything, Mitsuki was the odd one out, not promoting to genin until twelve, still not a chuunin at nineteen… … but it seemed horrifying, still. Her memories of the plague years were fuzzy at best, shrouded in darkness and stained with blood. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, going through that so young, and she was too afraid to push further. The perfunctory praise that Umechika offered her went a long way towards unraveling the tension that was mounting in her shoulders, though. Like a dog who’d been given a treat and a pat on the head, Mitsuki was able to move on to the next task in their itinerary with a little less hesitation and a little more enthusiasm, watching carefully for both the first and second cadavers. Umechika was right—the smell wasn’t pleasant, nothing at all like the coppery fresh crimson that spilled from a live vein. The blood of the dead wasn’t awful in general, but in this context the chemicals were dominating everything else, and the feeling of hunger that she’d been dreading did not rear its ugly head. For now, at least. Again, she moved slowly—but a touch more confidently this time, shored up by even the most minute issuance of praise. She pauses after each thing she does, glancing over her shoulder as if seeking approval for what she was doing before moving onto the next step, needing reassurance that she wasn’t irreversibly fucking things up. She did know where the veins were. Her study of anatomy had been progressing at a solid pace, with more care paid to veins and arteries than bones and muscles; more relevant to her day-to-day needs. It took longer for Mitsuki to complete the task on one cadaver than it did for Umechika to do both combined, but she got there eventually. Another slow exhale as the machine completed its work; Mitsuki wiped her hands on her thighs, trying to rid herself of a sudden chilly clamminess. "Now we… clean the tank?” she ventured to guess. "And then just transport, right?”

Shitai Maimomu -- 371

LAIKA OF THQ