The Kagaijin Chronicles: Kentama

Once he had finished with the leg, he then cleaned and bandaged the lump on her forehead, taking care not to exacerbate the split in her skin that the swelling had opened. He hadn't treated such a nasty lump in quite a while. Then again, it took a lot to injure a kagaijin like this, so it was normally human patients who sported such ugly lumps and gashes.

"There," he said at last. "That's as much as we can do for now. I hope you don't wake up just yet; that leg is going to cause you a lot of pain before this is through, and right now is when it's at the worst it's going to be."

He stared at her face for a few moments before he let his eyes wander along the slender curvature of her unconscious body, noting the athletic build and unusually tall stature. She was a unique specimen, but certainly enticing too. He again found himself wondering who she was. What had she been doing up there alone on the mountain? Did her solitary status there mean that she didn't already have a mate? When this thought tugged at his mind, he felt his face flush a little, and he cleared his throat, trying to return to more professional, dignified thoughts. In any case, he'd made the unconscious decision to take her on as his patient, and as such, keeping things at a doctor-patient level was best.

This cool, rational train of thought remained firmly rooted to the tracks for all of about ten minutes, and as he pulled up a chair and maintained a silent vigil over his sleeping charge, he found himself constantly returning his gaze to various areas of her body and noting different things about her that intrigued him. He returned many times to her chest, and he kept staring at the little bumps that were coyly poking into the soft, cotton fabric of her tank top. It was a little chilly in the office, and even with her sports bra and over shirt, the sensitive nubs atop her breasts were visually expressing their reaction to the chilled air.

His eyes kept coming back to this one image in particular, and gradually, his prudence began to slacken, as a nearly irresistible urge presented itself to him. He wanted to touch them. He wanted to rub his fingers against the apex of one, and then clamp it between his thumb and forefinger and tug it a bit. He imagined many other things he'd like to do with the provocative bumps that slowly rose and fell with her steady breathing, and he found himself glancing around to see if anyone was looking. What was the harm? She was asleep, and she wouldn't know he'd done it. But what if she woke up? What on earth would he say to explain himself?

He wrestled with these arguments, while his hands began to move on their own. He licked his dry lips and decided to just throw caution to the wind and do it. He reached a trembling hand out toward her, allowing his human hand to dissolve into the kagaijin one, with every tentacle wriggling furiously in anticipation. He had only barely grazed the tip of the closest nipple with a single, straining fingercle when Pakkun's voice came barreling down the hallway at him from the dining room.

"They're here!" he shrieked. "I can hear the helicopter! They're here, Doctor!"

Kentama fairly well leaped out of his chair when Pakkun's excited voice hit his ears. The sudden outburst had made him jerk his hand back so quickly that he nearly toppled over backwards, and he let out a grunt as he grabbed onto the arm of the couch to steady himself. Trying to calm his now palpitating heart, he stood up and shook his head.

"Never again," he muttered angrily at himself. "You've shown your real worth at last, Kentama, you dirty lecher. If Sanjima had seen you now, you'd never hear the end of it."

Sighing in disgust, he gently slid his arms underneath Hatoko's shoulders and her knees, and he lifted her off the couch. He would waste no time; he would take her outside immediately, so that they could take off as soon as possible. He could hear the helicopter now too, and he hoped they were landing nearby.

He walked down the hall and out into the dining room with her, thanking Pakkun as he held the door open to let him carry her outside without any difficulty. Thinking again about how rudely he'd snapped at him earlier, he hesitated in the doorway before turning toward him and saying that if he ever needed medical advice or help, to come by his clinic and have a free office visit. Pakkun laughed and said he might do that.

By now, their voices were almost drowned out by the beating rotors of the helicopter, as it was landing in the empty street just outside. Pakkun followed him out and they watched as the compact, darkly-colored craft hovered over the pavement for a second or two before gently dropping onto the road. The rotors slowed but did not stop, and the hatch on the side of the helicopter opened, with the king himself poking his head out and beckoning with an excited wave for Kentama to come aboard. After thanking Pakkun again, he ran to the chopper, careful to keep his head down away from the deadly blades.

"We've got a stretcher and a medic in here," Tsuyoken yelled above the chopping roar of the blades. "You can get help him get her settled in and we'll go ahead and take off."

Kentama nodded and waited for his king to move aside and give him room to clamber into the helicopter. He found the stretcher waiting just behind the passenger seats where he had entered, and he helped the medic strap her down onto it while Tsuyoken gave the hand signal to the pilot to go ahead and take off. As they rose into the air, Pakkun watched in elated amazement. The king had landed his personal helicopter just outside his diner. Now that was something you didn't see every day! He glanced westward and frowned at the sky, darkened with ash from Usuzan's latest eruption. He would have to close shop early and head home before the fickle winds shifted in his direction. He was glad he had waited, though. If he hadn't been there when Kentama showed up, he would have missed out on all the excitement!

"Thank you so much for coming," Kentama said as he belted himself into the passenger seat next to King Tsuyoken. "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything crucial."

"Not at all. Yumi and I were just deciding where to go for our next dig," he laughed. "She's the one who suggested I should come here personally. She knew I'd just fret and be useless to her if I stayed there. It wouldn't be easy to replace a decent doctor like you, you know!" He slapped Kentama on the back and laughed heartily.

Kentama grinned as he caught the veiled relief in Tsuyoken's comments. Ever since he'd cleared up Queen Yumi's terrible case of pneumonia in the spring, he had been a friend of the royal family, and the king had told him on many occasions that if he ever needed his help, he had but to ask. He was glad that it hadn't been an empty promise. This was an extraordinary help to his current case.

"So who is she?" Tsuyoken asked him, jerking a thumb at Hatoko and grinning as he elbowed Kentama in the ribs. "Don't tell me you've decided to give up being a bachelor at last?"

"Don't you start too," Kentama laughed at him. "It's bad enough that Sanjima gives me the business every other day; I don't need my own king telling me that I need to find a woman."

Tsuyoken chuckled and shook his head. "Okay, okay. Touchy subject, eh? We'll just rephrase that a bit. Who is she, and why are we taking such pains to get her to Henkyuu in a hurry?"

"As to who she is, I haven't a clue. I encountered her on the mountain during the earthquakes before the eruption. She'd been injured by some falling boulders, and I couldn't just leave her there. If I don't get her back to the clinic in time to operate, she could lose her leg. It's already showing signs of tissue death in a couple of places, and it's like a ticking time bomb with all the open wounds and crushed bones in there. Add to that a nasty bump on the head, and she's in pretty bad shape. I've got my work cut out for me."

"So your interest in her is purely professional then?" Tsuyoken prodded him. "The fact that she's such a hot little number has nothing to do with it?"

"At the risk of insulting royalty, I'd like to tell you to stop being an ass," Kentama chuckled. "Honestly, I'm just bringing her in for medical treatment. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Well, you disappoint me then, Kentama. And here I thought you were a bright guy. If you can't even see the golden opportunity in front of your own nose, then what can I say? Just make sure you try to open those eyes of yours after you're done poking around inside that pretty girl's leg. It would do you a lot of good to spend a little time looking at the outside of her a bit too."

Kentama just shook his head and smiled. It seemed like the whole world was trying to get him to choose a mate. Why was it that so many other people took more notice of his marital status than he - the one who it affected most - did? Coming from people like Tsuyoken and Sanjima, it wasn't exactly insulting, but it wasn't flattering, either. It was a bunch of hassle that he didn't need and he certainly didn't want.

Within twenty minutes, they had arrived back at Henkyuu, and the king sent them off to the clinic in style, complete with ambulance and police escort. Kentama was admittedly flustered by the time he wheeled Hatoko into the receiving entrance of the clinic, but he was quite ready to forget about the day's anxieties and focus on the more pressing task at hand. It was a good thing, because he was about to undertake a risky operation that would take hours, and it would tax his knowledge of human anatomy and physiology to its limits.

- - - -

"Finally," Kentama groaned with an exhausted sigh. "What a mess!"

"I can't believe all that damage was caused by one rock," Sanjima commented, stretching his stiff limbs and rubbing the back of his neck. "Man, what a tough one. That was amazing, Boss. I have to hand it to you; I would've recommended amputation as soon as I saw it."

"Well, I knew enough about the timing from when she sustained the injury to when we got her here, so I could make an educated guess at our chances of success. Even so, we have to wait and see how well it heals before we pat ourselves on the back. I have to admit, though, I feel pretty darn confident that the leg will be fine. All the same, don't you think for a second that this one case is going to help you make the right decision in all of them. Every one of your cases will be different, and invariably, you will make a wrong call. It's something we as doctors have to live with just as much as our patients, so you remember that."

"Yeah, I know," Sanjima replied, rolling his eyes like he always did when he heard one of Dr. Kentama's regularly given "don't you think for a second," speeches. "What about that lump on her head?"

"Well, the X-rays didn't show any skull fractures, but she might have some brain damage anyway; she seemed coherent enough when I found her, but that doesn't mean anything. Without a full CT scan and more importantly, listening to her when she wakes up and starts talking again, we won't know for sure."

"It'd be a shame to waste a nice body like this on a vegetable. I hope she turns out all right. Should we put her in one of the rooms now?"

"I'll take care of it. You go get some rest; you look dead on your feet."

"Me?" Sanjima chuckled. "What about you, Mr. Superhero? Flying around like some kind of bird, rescuing damsels in distress - that's got to be a hell of a lot more tiring than pacing around here like a fool. I'm surprised you still have the strength to stand upright."

"Never you mind," Kentama shot back with a grunt. "Now get out of here and take a break. I'll fix us some dinner when I get her settled in."

"All right, all right. You're the boss. Oh, hey Boss?"

"What is it?" Kentama asked as he picked Hatoko up and set her onto a gurney.

"I forgot to ask earlier; was your vacation nice and quiet?"

"Get the hell out of here, you imbecile!" he laughed, picking up a canister of tongue depressors and brandishing it as if to hurl it at his assistant. Laughing and making a face, Sanjima dashed out of the room, pretending to be quite terrified indeed.

"Brain-dead moron," Kentama chuckled, wheeling Hatoko off toward one of the recovery rooms, pulling her IV stand as he went.

- - - -

The bright light above her made opening her eyes difficult, so at first, Hatoko left them closed. She wasn't sure where she was, or really what she was, for the first few moments of consciousness, but as her memory and self gradually returned to her, she began to realize that she had had an accident on Usuzan, and that some unnamed man had rescued her. She could tell that she was on her back, and that although her leg hurt, it wasn't nearly as bad as she had remembered its being before. Likewise, her head was killing her, but the woozy, dizzy feeling wasn't there anymore. Adding to her general discomfort, her mouth was parched, her throat hurt, and she felt that if she didn't pee soon, she might burst. Groaning, she tried to lift her arm to touch her forehead, but found it somewhat restrained by the IV tubes attached to her wrist. She looked down at them, trying to get her eyes to focus in the bright light, and all at once she realized she was in a hospital room. That was strange... had that man brought her here?

"She wakes at last," came a familiar voice from her left. She turned and saw the hazy figure in white advance upon her from across the room, and she squinted, trying to define the edges through the blur. "How do you feel?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, disliking the cottony feel of her dry mouth. "I can't see very well. Everything's so hazy and blurry."

"Oh? Hold on a second." The man went over to a counter and opened a drawer. After digging around for a few moments, he came back and leaned over her. He pulled open the eyelids on her left eye and shone a bright light into it. "Let's see here... well, it's certainly dilated... that's a possible side effect of the pain medicine we have you on, I'm afraid. We'll have to cut back on it, I can see. Other than impaired vision, how do you feel?"

"My leg and my head hurts, but not so much that I can't stand it," she replied truthfully. "I'd like a drink of water, if you could spare it. My mouth feels as dry as a desert."

Chuckling, Kentama pulled a paper cup up off the stack by the sink and ran her a cupful of tap water. "Drink it slowly," he replied. "You've just come off of general anesthesia, and some patients can get sick if they eat or drink too quickly afterward."

"Thank you," she replied, taking the cup and tipping a gulp of water down her parched throat. "Oh, that's nice..."

"Anything else bothering you?" he asked her, pleased to see that she was so responsive and coherent. "No other discomforts?"

"Well... now that you mention it, I would like to use a restroom," she replied, feeling her face flush a little in her embarrassment. "I'm sorry; I'm sure it's silly of me to ask, but who are you?"

"Oh, how stupid of me! My name is Nozawa - Dr. Kenji Nozawa. I'm the one who found you on Mt. Usu, and I brought you here to my clinic so that I could fix that leg of yours. I probably should have told you that as soon as I came in, but I was eager to find out how you were doing. I haven't had a chance to speak with you since I first met you, after all."

"Oh! You're a doctor! Now I understand. Imagine my luck! Running into a doctor just when I needed one most!" she laughed, bringing her unrestrained hand up to hold her head as the laughter had caused it to ring a little. "Ergh, that smarts. I guess I should thank you, Doctor. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along when you did."

"You would have burned to a crisp, that's what you would have done," came a laughing voice from the entrance that Nozawa had used. "Hi there. I'm Sanji. I'm Dr. Nozawa's apprentice of sorts. Pleased to meet you, Miss...?"

"Oh, it's Hatoko," she replied, bowing respectfully, and wincing at the pain it brought her. "Hatoko Shiratori. What was that you were saying about being burned to a crisp?"

"Sanji was just being dramatic," Kentama replied, shooting Sanjima a warning glance that went entirely unnoticed. "He likes to overplay things to make them sound more exciting."

"And that's just Kenji being modest," Sanjima laughed, smacking Kentama on the back and grinning broadly. "Why, if he hadn't brought you down when he did, you would have been burned alive for sure! When Usu erupted, it caused a lot of damage, and there were even some unfortunate people who didn't make it. You're lucky it was mountaineer Nozawa here who found you. No one can pick his way down a mountain faster!"

"You're kidding, right?" Hatoko cried, her horrified expression surprising in its suddenness. "Usuzan has erupted? How long ago?"

"Just this afternoon," Kentama sighed. "Look, it's not like Sanji says. What I did wasn't all that hard. There's no need to get all worked up about it."

"This is terrible!" Hatoko wailed, gripping the railings on either side of the hospital bed with her hands as she bolted upright. "All my research! All my findings! How can I possibly say they're complete without data on the eruption? I'll never make it back out there in time!"

"Hold it now," Sanji exclaimed in a bewildered voice. "You want to go BACK there? It's a total disaster! People have DIED, and at least they had the sense to try to leave!"

"All the more reason for me to go back!" she snapped at him angrily. "What I'm doing is going to revolutionize volcanology! Do you know how hard it is to predict volcanic eruptions in time to get the word out to the public? It's practically impossible! If I can find the connection between the chemical composition of the magma chambers beneath them and the flows generated above them, I can make those predictions even better. If even a few minutes' worth of time is shaved off of our warning system, we can save hundreds more lives! Don't you see? I'm stuck here in a hospital, when I should be out there, monitoring the mountain! Oh, why did I have to go climbing around on it today, of all days?" She buried her face in her hands and shook her head.

"Well that's a fine thank you, isn't it?" Sanjima said coolly, stopping when Kentama put his hand up for silence.

"Now listen," Kentama urged her, his voice soothing and calm. "We all have setbacks from time to time. The important thing is that we're still alive. As long as you're alive, you can pick up where you left off and try again. Isn't that more important than dwelling on what might have been?"

Hatoko looked for a moment as though she were about to argue with him, but apparently the sense of his words must have sunk in, because all at once her tightly drawn expression slackened and she gave a shaky sigh as she loosened her grip on the bed railings. "You're right," she sighed dejectedly. "I'm being a selfish fool. Here you are, having risked your own life to save mine, and I'm more worried about my research than I am about what you did for me, and what could have happened to you because of it. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I truly am grateful for what you've done. I just... I just got disappointed, is all."

"There's nothing to forgive," he replied, relieved that she had calmed down so quickly. "I'm only sorry now that I may have caused you even more grief. I hate to mention it, because I'm sure it will upset you further, but your backpack and mine... they were both still on the mountain when I left. I couldn't carry everything and you all at once. I'm sorry. I hope there wasn't anything important in yours."

Hatoko stiffened, and for a moment, she looked as though she was about to cry. "No," she said at last, heaving another shaky sigh. "They were just field notes and samples. They were things. They weren't as important as either of our lives. Don't worry about it." The dejected tone of her voice didn't sound very convincing, and it was easy to see that she didn't exactly agree with what she was saying; she just didn't want to burden them with her miseries.