[Uchiha Hotaru]

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It had been one week since little Yamato had fallen into the Tori canal, nearly drowning and fracturing one of his arms in the process. He was one of the children living in Hotaru’s orphanage, and thanks to the help of some of the older children the boy was saved and brought to the hospital built in his house for treatment. Since that point Hotaru had put the boy’s arm into a splint and things were going as well as they could be.

However, with Ruto being in town Hotaru saw a rare opportunity to perhaps learn more medical ninjutsu that would allow him to treat fractures more easily. He had gotten him to agree to come to one of the hospital beds on the first floor, and they were simply waiting for one of Hotaru’s aids to finish cleaning the child up before the examination.

"Thank you again for your invaluable knowledge,” he told Ruto as they stood in an empty room. "The child is only about eight years old and having difficulty with the cast. I hope to ease his suffering and learn to help others with fractures faster than time might allow in the future.”

Yamato was being ushered from the orphanage to Hotaru’s home and hospital. He would arrive very soon and the training (and procedure) could soon begin.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

While they were in town, Ruto did not mind playing second doctor. The children were in need of help. Helping was a good thing. Despite all that he was responsible for, he did still find himself gripped by that instinctive urge, to be good. To help. It was something that came naturally to so many people, and yet he found himself wondering if it was something that came naturally to him. If it was something he would do if he did not actively stop and decide to do it. 

No matter. Today was a day he had decided, again, to help. A small child with a broken bone. It wasn't uncommon. Children were reckless, and good at coming into harm. Luckily, children were also easier to mend. Small children had growing bones, and so they bones were not only able to heal faster, but also able to correct their shape without as much intervention as an adult needed. 

There were a few things that would need to be established before the child arrived. 

"Can you tell me more about the kind of fracture we're dealing with?" Ruto wondered. "The healing timeline and the chakra input will differ slightly based upon the severity and complexity of the break." A simple fracture could generally be handled in one session of mending, while a complex break might take four. 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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"It is a transverse, non-displaced fracture on the radius of the right ulna,” Hotaru told Ruto. "So it could be worse, but I fear that with the boy being so young that he will not keep the discipline to avoid worsening it.”

The front door would open, and a young boy with shaggy flaxen hair entered alongside a person wearing loose clothes with bandages over their form beyond their eye: one of Hotaru’s aides. They were led down the bay until they reached near the end, passing curtains hung up that created privacy for other patients. When they arrived the aid silently hurried Yamato to the cot and they shut the curtains around the three of them to create an enclosed area.

"Hello, Yamato,” the Uchiha said.
"Doctor Kazutoshi! My arm still hurts,” the kid said with R’s that sounded like W’s. "This cast is itchy too, I hate it!”
"Hmm, well… my friend Dr. Abe is going to take a look today and see if we can’t help,” he said.
"Hello, Doctor Abe!” the boy said waving with his good arm. There was a small hint of pain and discomfort in his voice, but he overall seemed to be in good spirits. He was a bit uneasy around doctors but was behaving rather well today.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

This child was so small. Spirited, too. He could understand Hotaru's concern. If he was already complaining about the cast, it was very likely that he would end up putting some exertion on the limb and cause the bone to slide out of place. He was lucky it wasn't displaced. Setting a bone was sometimes the most traumatizing part for a young patient. It hurt, it was scary, all that. Best to avoid. 

He smiled softly at young Yamato and returned the greeting. 

"Hello, Yamato. It's nice to meet you." His demeanor with patients was easier. Friendlier, less flat. "How did you hurt yourself? Was it an accident, or were you and some friends playing too rough?" He had a jokingly chiding tone on the latter part of the question, but to be sure Yamato knew he wasn't actually blaming him, he moved on right away. 

"We're going to be performing some special medicine today. You're lucky, because it doesn't sound like your fracture is very bad. We might be able to matter it all better in just a couple minutes." 

He looks to Hotaru. 

"The first part of the technique is synchronizing your chakra with your patient's system. If you already know the chakra transfer technique, that part shouldn't be too difficult. You're pulsing your chakra through the chakra circulatory system in the same way. However, instead of releasing it there, you want to keep your control over it and navigate the chakra down into the area of the break. Yamato, can we please see your arm?" 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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"We were playing Kei-doro and I was a thief, I got too close to the canal trying to get away from Natsu-chan... I felled in!” the boy told Ruto as he fidgeted about in his seat. "I’m normally the best thief, but not that time. I’m not even allowed to play now,” he said with a bit of a pout.

His legs were swinging back and fourth, and it was clear that while the boy was very friendly he was indeed abundant with energy.

"I don’t know, it is going to hurt isn’t it?” he protested when Ruto asked to see his arm.

"We’ll be very careful,” Hotaru promised as he brought himself closer to the child. He undid a mechanism beneath the hospital bed that allowed him to pull a tray up. "Please place your arm here.”

"O-Okay,” the boy said. Wincing a bit as the cast was brought up with the help of Hotaru onto the tray. Using several straps he would secure the arm, and the he slowly cut the cast off with a chakra scalpel. The flesh was very bruised, but the fracture hadn’t gotten worse so far.

"I am familiar with chakra transfer, I will get in attunement,” he would start not with moving his hands over the boy’s arm but near his stomach where the chakra network was most concentrated. He would begin to transfer a small amount of chakra into his body, slowly moving his hand to follow the path of the network towards his arm.

"Eee, that feels weird,” Yamato complained.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

Hotaru treated Yamato with such care. It was interesting to watch. Some doctors were very strict, harsh. Healing at the expense of emotion. This had been something of a problem in Takigakure. Maybe it was unique to that land. Progress mattered more than the soul. There were kind medics, but he had also worked with decently cruel ones. One who would not put on the charade. Back "home," if the child asked if it would hurt, they would merely manipulate the arm instead of patiently answering. It was a very different ethos. 

"Of course it feels a bit weird," he says, cheery, to the child. "That means it's starting to do its work. He's putting magic in your body to heal you up." Now, to begin properly instructing. He hovered his hands over the site of the break, where the fracture was clear, and started letting in his own chakra, more to monitor the situation than anything. He couldn't see what was going on inside the body with his eyes, so he would have to feel with his medical expertise. 

"Kazutoshi, can you feel the fracture?" He asked after giving Hotaru a moment to settle in, focus on the task at hand. "Once you are synchronized with his chakra, and can feel the place of the fracture, what you want to do is focus on pushing and pulling his chakra back and forth between the two sides of the fracture. Start very slowly. This will feel a bit weird, too, Yamato. Kind of like... when you touch your teeth with your tongue." 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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Almost instinctively the young boy would begin pushing his tongue against his tiny teeth while his mouth was slightly ajar. He fidgeted around a bit, making the procedure slightly harder than if he were an adult staying still. Hotaru compensated for the movements and adjusted to deal with the rogue flows of energy that the boy generated.

Eventually he was in sync with the child, and he began fluctuating the chakra as Ruto had suggested. He gave push and pull to the chakra around the fracture, being very careful not to go overboard. He was perhaps overcautious, as he was very protective over the children in his care.

"You’re doing good,” Hotaru said softly to the child as he began to increase the chakra by a small degree. "Just try to keep as still as possible, okay?”

"It itches, big brother,” the boy complained and began swinging his feet. A bead of sweat dripped from the side of Hotaru’s head. He was able to maintain the connection but the movement was making it more difficult.

"I know, but if we can fix it you should be able to go and play again much sooner,” he told him.

"Okay,” the kid muttered and began calming his fidgeting. Hotaru let out a sigh of relief as he continued to manipulate the chakra.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

Hotaru was taking it very slow. He had instructed him to go slow, so it wasn't surprising. Hotaru valued the wellbeing of the children over results. He would take it cautiously until he knew he had it right. Ruto continued to monitor the situation, noticing how it became more difficult when the child began moving. He was trying to control himself, but he was being asked to hold still. Child struggled with holding still. 

"Are you moving because you're anxious?" He asked the child. Yamato had excess energy he was trying to get out. Whether he was bored or a little nervous didn't really matter. "You know what's a good way to hold still? With your good hand, hold your arm out in front of yourself and make a fist. Practice squeezing it as hard as you can." It would stop him from moving the rest of his body around, hopefully, if he had one specific place to focus his attention. 

Ruto turned his attention back from Yamato to Hotaru. 

"His chakra system is working with you. Once you can feel that it's not being rejected, it's alright to start moving a bit quicker. You can keep flowing back and forth, but at this point you also want to slightly surround the bone. Like you're filling a crack with adhesive. You're stimulating the cells there to regenerate more quickly." 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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Yamato took a hard look at Ruto and then at his left hand. With a goofy grin the kid reached his arm forward and began making a fist with a look of intensity in his eyes, to the point where his whole arm shook slightly. It was a relief for Hotaru.

"You’re pretty good with kids,” Hotaru said in passing as he began to follow Ruto’s instructions. He didn’t want to broach the topic of their home life if they weren’t comfortable. An unspoken respect for privacy had existed between them so far. he couldn’t help but be curious about the life that the wanderer lived though.

He would follow their instructions, beginning a stronger fluctuation and bringing more chakra around the fracture. It was always a difficult task as it was like trying to control the flow of water against a current, but a iryo specialist had the knack for such things given enough persistence.

Yamato didn’t seem to notice, still fascinated with his own hand at least for the moment. Progress was being made, though it would still take some time for him to get the perfect flow. Even with good chakra control, practical experience was needed to master these jutsu too difficult for the majority of shinobi to learn at all.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

He was. He'd always been good at that aspect of things. Even when he was very young, still in that place, he was an oddity. More comforting than any of the cruel doctors, even if he was just as cruel. He had always wanted to help, stop others from feeling fear, but he had also wanted to instill fear. As he got older, he obviously focused that more on adults. He wouldn't do that to children. They reminded him too much of himself at that age. How anyone could take the simple innocence of childhood and crush it under heel with cruelty really baffled him. He wouldn't talk about it too much in Yamato's company, but dealing with sick children, slowly coaxing them off their deathbed and into health, gave him much experience in the area of distracting them from their suffering. It was a necessary skill. 

"I've been a doctor for a few decades," they responded to Hotaru. "You have to learn to respond to your patients, or you'll be a bad doctor. You already have it covered better than a great many people who've been in the practice for years." 

Back to the bone. 

"If this were a more complex break, this would probably be where I would recommend a break for you both," he says. "You would give his body time to recover, then come back later for another session. I would usually do two sessions across the span of two days, but you can also do one across the span of four days to patient preference... Here, though, we should be able to finish shortly." 

What other advice to give? It seemed Hotaru was grasping the jutsu well. 

"Take a moment to just feel the bone now. Is there still a fracture? If there is, continue. If not, you can let him go." 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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Hotaru nodded and brought his hand down over the arm, maintaining a link with his chakra but physically feeling around the area. It was a bit swollen from the gathering of chakra and cells that he had encouraged. He could feel the bone but it still seemed like there was a greenstick bend.

"I don’t think it is transverse anymore but there is still a small crack on one end,” Hotaru admitted and kept maintenance on the link. "Should I keep going or would you let the rest heal naturally?” he asked. He didn’t want to push things too far and compromise the child’s immune health. He was amazed at how the jutsu had repaired the issue as much as it already had.

If it was safe to continue he most certainly would with Ruto’s assurance. As he waited on him to decide he continued to hold a transfer of chakra with the boy but didn’t manipulate it. Regardless of if they could completely heal the fracture in one sitting or not he was ecstatic, this was a jutsu that would be of great benefit to everyone in his community.

"I wish I had focused on it when I was younger…” he said. "I wanted to but… my old man had other ideas.”

Even when his father had agreed to let him study medicine, much of what he had learned was to further weaponize him and set him up for a career in ANBU. It was a sad joke. It might have still been funny coming from him, given he was still certainly a young man despite his attempts to seem mature.

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

"If it is small enough, I would probably finish it off. Just a few more minutes of the technique won't harm him. However, if you're hesitant, it wouldn't hurt to take a small break now and resume in a few minutes," Ruto assured him. A hairline fracture like that wouldn't be likely to break again if the rest of the bone was study and the child was at least minimally cautious. He could understand some anxiety. Putting this kind of pressure on the body's system didn't come without some small drawbacks. Human bodies weren't meant to heal so quickly. He wouldn't be surprised if Yamato slept a good, full twelve hours after this treatment. Still, compared to weeks of healing, it was practically nothing. 

The talk of his family life was interesting. It was probably the most Ruto had heard of Hotaru's past yet. The pressure of a parent on him. Ruto never knew his parents, but he still understands the idea of heavy expectation. People having a certain vision of you and wanting you to live up to it. Being more like a tool than a person, in someone's perception. 

"It is disappointing, when people refuse to value you for what you bring to the table, what you're interested in, rather than what they want to see. I'm sorry your father made it difficult. It is good you're able to study now and do what you like, though." 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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"Indeed, freedom is a beautiful thing,” Hotaru agreed. "I understand those kinds of behaviors are often learned, even then it is hard to forgive while free will exists.”

He looked at the boy, who had put his arm down and had a look of tiredness in his eyes. He thought about what he knew of Yamato, a boy who was full of energy and suffered the rare days that it rained. He decided that he was resilient enough for him to finish off the fracture, it would be better for his mental health even if it meant the boy would sleep a bit longer.

He would refocus his efforts, getting started more gently with the push and pull motion at first and then switching back to a flooding of cells pressed into the shrinking fracture. It would take a bit longer but things were healing nicely now.

"I’m feeling sleepy,” Yamato said as he looked down.

"Don’t worry, I think I am all done,” Hotaru told him as he released the jutsu after giving the bone a good feel, it seemed solid. "I’m just going to have Dr. Ruto double check over my work since this is new to me, as long as they don’t mind?”

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[Mikatakujira Ruto]

The drain of energy wasn't particularly surprising. In a way, it was a good sign. His body had been working hard to help Hotaru repair the damage. It hadn't rejected the influence, which meant that the formation of the bone would be sturdy. Basically as good as new. They would be happy to check everything over, though. Always best to get a second opinion when you're just beginning with a new medical technique. 

Ruto very gently gripped Yamato's arm, trying to avoid the site of the bruising, and focused their chakra into the limb, feeling along the bone with their chakra to try to pick up any areas of weakness or any missed cracks. After a long moment of inspection, they didn't come across anything. So they let go of Yamato's arm and give him an encouraging smile. 

"It seems like Doctor Kazutoshi did a great job. Your arm is all better. The bruises will probably still take some time to recover, but you should be fine to go without a cast and to mostly return to your normal activities. Try to take it slow for the next couple days anyways, just in case," Ruto recommended. 

He looked to his fellow doctor and said, 

"Do a checkup in a few days. If any fractures resurface, just do another mending session and that should resolve everything." It was sometimes easy to miss a small internal weakness, but he felt it was unlikely in this situation. 

[Uchiha Hotaru]

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Hotaru was relieved that he had done well. One of his greatest fears with practicing iryo ninjutsu that he wasn’t familiar with was that he might end up hurting one of his children. It wasn’t something he would risk without assistance. He brought the child down against the hospital bed.

"I think that is the first time i’ve seen you sleepy,” Hotaru said to Yamato. The boy laughed but didn’t say anything, closing his eyes. It put a smile on the former shinobi’s face, though it was covered by a high collar.

"I will leave the general care to Aoi,” Hotaru told Ruto as he opened up the curtains. The bandaged figure in robes began making their way down the hall. He made away from the hospital bed and began making rounds to other patience. "I can’t thank you enough for your assistance, once again.”

He still felt that there wasn’t enough equity in their relationship. He was sure that Ruto appreciated having somewhere to lay his head when he ventured to this part of the world, but he was teaching him things that could save lives. The medical knowledge that he might give in return was the weaponized medical ninjutsu that he was taught, and as far as he knew Ruto wasn’t interested in such things. There wasn’t a polite way to broach the topic.

"When next you come I will have my cellar cleaned out for you, should you need office space or small laboratory,” he promised. He imagined something like that could be useful to a wanderer of Ruto’s skillset to have. He couldn’t provide more resources than the space and electricity, but those could be rare commodities for one on the road.

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