（ the lack of push-back against her assertion and assessment has her feeling a bit like she's stepped over a cliff, the unsettling jarring twist in her gut as she starts to fall and the wind rips past, curling long fingers in her hair. she is still learning how to react to anyone taking her opinions seriously — but with sasuke, it's a whole other beast. years of ingrained reactions splintering and breaking apart like temple glass.
but at the same moment she feels dizzyingly out of her depth — unselfconsciously, unknowingly — she does respond to that challenge. she lifts the point of her chin in something very like defiance, and there is a rush as it bruises through her — intoxicating and heady as a drug. it feels a little like the first time sasuke has ever actually looked at her. not with the tenderness she's yearned for nor with the adoration she hoped might one day be returned, but with the faintest susurrations of respect.
it's as if it flips a switch she didn't even realize she had — and it occurs to her, belatedly, that she wants that more than all the rest of any emotion she could ever desire from him. ）
I'll do it. Just hold still.
（ the cape gets pushed back over her body's shoulder, and the shirt drawn up. she is very carefully not thinking about sasuke's hands on her body, for all that it's something she's dreamed of for so long — that thought is pushed firmly from her mind. she is a doctor, and regardless of the body she's in, there is a patient beneath her hand that requires her attention.
sasuke's chakra is a dark, boundless pool, but instead of still water it's rather like a net of energy, constantly crackling, roiling with power and sharp points of violet light. there is nothing of healing in it, from the highest peaks where its brilliance shimmers like a lattice of stars, to the lowest depths where everything tastes of rust and the muddied, dusky taste of a gathering storm.
it sends a shiver through her. it's difficult to say whether or not it's different than how it felt when they were children, or if it's his experiences that drew the darkness to the surface and eclipsed the rest, but it takes her a long, long time to find echoes of the boy he had been in the tangled web of electric essence. she felt she had known him then, even if she's realizing she never had at all.
she finds what she is looking for eventually. a little spark. something almost like hope. that's what she pulls from, and when she opens her eyes again her hand is awash in the soft blue of healing chakra. she can see it differently, through the rinnegan. chakra isn't normally visible like this — one senses more than sees it, but it's not a surprise the dōjutsu can piece it apart like this. she finds herself making clinical notes in the back of her mind, parallel to her work to heal the injury. she'll never get this chance again, after all, and it may improve her own precision.
the skin is split where she'd stitched it shut, and she peels the bandage carefully back. it feels like an indulgence to be using chakra to heal herself — but she'd rather sasuke not deal with any ill effects. dead blood beneath the skin has left a patina of wild colours painted against her skin, sickly yellows and greens blooming into violet-black, a livid red from where she'd landed the blow that drove him away.
healing it is a clumsier, slower affair than usual. but, by degrees, the bruises hollow out, the lividity fades, the skin knits together, pushing out the catgut stitches she'd used a clone to gather the edges of the wound together. the bones of the ribcage are trickier, but manageable, and she's aware of the fact she's pushed his body's tolerance for this manner of work by the fact she can feel sweat gathering on her brow.
it's going to scar, she thinks ruefully, thumbing over the jagged crest of the fading mark. she only has a few, more pride in her ability as a healer than vanity as a woman, as she doesn't consider scars to be anything but a sign of what the body has survived. there's a part of her that thinks he might judge her for that, for the lack of skill it suggests not to be able to completely erase it, but that clamouring voice is choked down. surely even sasuke must recognize that the way stygia affects chakra, coupled with her being in a foreign body will impact how efficiently she can heal.
she rocks back on her heels, balancing strangely with only one arm, and nods vaguely towards the injury. ）
no subject
but at the same moment she feels dizzyingly out of her depth — unselfconsciously, unknowingly — she does respond to that challenge. she lifts the point of her chin in something very like defiance, and there is a rush as it bruises through her — intoxicating and heady as a drug. it feels a little like the first time sasuke has ever actually looked at her. not with the tenderness she's yearned for nor with the adoration she hoped might one day be returned, but with the faintest susurrations of respect.
it's as if it flips a switch she didn't even realize she had — and it occurs to her, belatedly, that she wants that more than all the rest of any emotion she could ever desire from him. ）
I'll do it. Just hold still.
（ the cape gets pushed back over her body's shoulder, and the shirt drawn up. she is very carefully not thinking about sasuke's hands on her body, for all that it's something she's dreamed of for so long — that thought is pushed firmly from her mind. she is a doctor, and regardless of the body she's in, there is a patient beneath her hand that requires her attention.
sasuke's chakra is a dark, boundless pool, but instead of still water it's rather like a net of energy, constantly crackling, roiling with power and sharp points of violet light. there is nothing of healing in it, from the highest peaks where its brilliance shimmers like a lattice of stars, to the lowest depths where everything tastes of rust and the muddied, dusky taste of a gathering storm.
it sends a shiver through her. it's difficult to say whether or not it's different than how it felt when they were children, or if it's his experiences that drew the darkness to the surface and eclipsed the rest, but it takes her a long, long time to find echoes of the boy he had been in the tangled web of electric essence. she felt she had known him then, even if she's realizing she never had at all.
she finds what she is looking for eventually. a little spark. something almost like hope. that's what she pulls from, and when she opens her eyes again her hand is awash in the soft blue of healing chakra. she can see it differently, through the rinnegan. chakra isn't normally visible like this — one senses more than sees it, but it's not a surprise the dōjutsu can piece it apart like this. she finds herself making clinical notes in the back of her mind, parallel to her work to heal the injury. she'll never get this chance again, after all, and it may improve her own precision.
the skin is split where she'd stitched it shut, and she peels the bandage carefully back. it feels like an indulgence to be using chakra to heal herself — but she'd rather sasuke not deal with any ill effects. dead blood beneath the skin has left a patina of wild colours painted against her skin, sickly yellows and greens blooming into violet-black, a livid red from where she'd landed the blow that drove him away.
healing it is a clumsier, slower affair than usual. but, by degrees, the bruises hollow out, the lividity fades, the skin knits together, pushing out the catgut stitches she'd used a clone to gather the edges of the wound together. the bones of the ribcage are trickier, but manageable, and she's aware of the fact she's pushed his body's tolerance for this manner of work by the fact she can feel sweat gathering on her brow.
it's going to scar, she thinks ruefully, thumbing over the jagged crest of the fading mark. she only has a few, more pride in her ability as a healer than vanity as a woman, as she doesn't consider scars to be anything but a sign of what the body has survived. there's a part of her that thinks he might judge her for that, for the lack of skill it suggests not to be able to completely erase it, but that clamouring voice is choked down. surely even sasuke must recognize that the way stygia affects chakra, coupled with her being in a foreign body will impact how efficiently she can heal.
she rocks back on her heels, balancing strangely with only one arm, and nods vaguely towards the injury. ）
How does that feel now?