Thrown Off-Balance [Social]

{Thread Reference: Crossroads}



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It had been such a long time since Ami had slept this well, the exhaustion from recent events finally catching up to her. Having been carried like a piece of luggage by Sojiro from Kataki Road, the side of the road would be replaced by slightly piercing florescent lights that would reveal to be the ceiling of his clinic when she next opened her eyes. It was understatement to say she slept, having been knocked out for almost a full day. She would find herself on a bed, her weapons carefully placed on the table next to her. She would shift a little in the bed, adjusting her eyes to the new sirroundings, not recalling much of what had happened some twenty hours ago.

Looking at her bandaged hand, she winced a little. She tried moving her fingers but found it difficult to move her pinky Wait...she stared at her hand in awe for a few moments. Her finger, was back?! Having severed it as the consequence of the tomb, she thought she had lost it forever. Sojiro was more than just any normal medic, the thought suddenly dawning on her. He not only saved her twice but giving her back her finger, she didn't know what to think. Ami would sit up on the bed slowly, scanning the relatively simple room. It was awfully quiet, a little eerie even.

The silence that was filling the room would only last for a few moments before muffled voices could be heard from somewhere outside of the room. One of them was definitely Sojiro, one could tell from the tone it talked in and the other sounded like an older woman of some sorts. The conversation seemed nice enough, quick and curt, before footsteps would start to approach the room that Ami was in. The handle of the room would turn and Sojiro would walk in, though he was in a different attire than the last time she had seen him.

Sojiro would be dressed within a pair of black dress pants and a white shirt, with a red tie to match the outfit. Overtop of the whole outfit was a long white coat, the one that most doctor's wore and finally, even his feet were covered. He didn't wear shoes but they were completely wrapped in bandages, so that he was still being sanitary inside of his own clinic. He had a clipboard underneath of his arm and besides that, there was nothing to really say he was a shinobi; no headband or anything on his body. He would let his eyes look the woman up and down, in strictly professional way, as he would walk over to her, "Alright, so how are you feeling?"

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The eerie quietness was immediately replaced by sounds of muffled voices and footsteps. She recognized one of them to immediately be that of Sojiro. Ami couldn't hear whst they were saying from insidethe roomand would find she didn't need to as the handle of the door turned, revealing the man himself, as she made his way in. She took the time to take a good look at him, realizing she had inly met him at night time the three times they had met before. It was unusual for her to be able to see his face so cleaely now under the room's florescent lights. She took a moment to study him closely.

Ami could have been fooled by his choice of clothing that he was anything of a shinobi if she hadn't seen him in action before. Nothing about his fashion screamed ninja, rather the subtle roughness of a doctor, kind of with an unexplainable animalistic edge. She admired his attire before letting her lavender eyes travel to his face. The markings under his eyes ever so apparent now as he drew near, she wondered what they were. She would hardly hear him ask her condition and for a brief moment their eyes would meet, hers shifting immediately to the covers of the blanket covering her body. Clearing her throat, she would reply, "Much better now, thank you." The regular interaction between doctor and patient, she supposed, still mesmerized by the pattern on the blanket cover.

Sojiro would pull over a chair as he would get closer to the woman, placing down the clipboard on a nearby small table while letting his eyes meet her face, "Good. You're a glutton for punishment, it seems. Your body was exhausted. You need to make sure you take more time off." He would lecture her the same way that most doctors would, turning his attention to the rest of her body. He hands would start at her arm, taking the once injured hand and taking a few moments to look it over. He would move her finger, the one that was previously missing, softly nodding his head. He was obviously pleased with his handiwork, "So, how does it feel? Can you move it and feel everything?" He asked as he would reach back over towards his clipboard, flipping over one page as he got his pen ready. Sojiro took a few notes before looking up from the paper, looking at the woman with a raised brow as he waited for her to respond.

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The professionalism of a doctor, mixed with skill and coldness could easily be misinterpreted. Although Ami wasn't a child, she would look at Sojiro as he studied his handiwork, lifting her hand to examine it. His touch was soft, his voice slightly more gentle than she had ever remembered. She knew he was probably only doing his job and so pushed any other ideas out of her hand. "It's like it never was sliced off," she responded truthfully, her fingers moving a little as she spoke. He was a great doctor, unparalleled to any other, and it was just her luck to have met him twice when she needed a medic the most. She would continue to move her bandaged hand, trying to get used to the sensation.

"I'll do my best, doctor," she would say with a smile, his suggestion of her taking a break really appealed to her. It wasn't the first time someone had told her this, recalling the words of her family physician back in the Moon Village. She subconsciously tugged at the locket around her neck, ashamed of how her illness had hindered her advancement in the shinobi world. Though it was not her fault for being ill, she longed to be well again, to be normal. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her other hand still tugging gently on the chain.

Sojiro would continue to nod his head while she responded, taking down some notes and jotting things down on the paper before flipping over the top paper to hide the contents that were underneath. He'd slowly stand up, stretching as he did and pressing his form tightly against his silken shirt, "Well, whenever you're ready to leave, you're free to go." The man would hold the clipboard in one of his hands before reaching out with it and thudding it gently against her head, "I'm serious about taking a break, being tired only makes you sloppy." This he said less as a doctor and more like shinobi to shinobi.

He would turn on his heels and move towards the door to the room, "Now, I have other patients that I need to see. So, unless you have more medical issues that I'm unaware of, I'll be on my way." And, even though he said this, he didn't really stop as he moved to the door and out. If she said something to stop him, he'd turn around but without that, he'd go back to doing his job.

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The chain on her locket broke at that moment, perhaps from the wear and tear of use or the fact that she kept tugging at it. The antidote from it shattered from it, spilling its contents. Ami would quickly try to get out of bed, her feet touching the stone cold floor as she hoisted herself up into a standing position only to stop suddenly. Her eyes widened, a hand moving swiftly to her chest as she almost fell backwards onto the bed. Pain gripped her body, coarsed through her veins and her chest felt tight, as though being squeezed by someone.

She couldn't speak, her face paling as she began to gasp for air. Had Sojiro not left the room he would immediately notice the heavy breathing as she tried to communicate with her eyes what her voice could not. She hadn't had an attack in a long time, not counting the time she almost died outside the Hyuuga compounds. As the pain set,she would close her eyes, her muscles in her body tensing with each passing second. She would plead with Sojiro silently, as a patient would to a doctor as she trembled, as though somehow she hoped he'd be able to understand. 

As Sojiro was preparing to leave the room, there was the sound of something breaking against the ground and he turned to look at Ami. What he saw wasn't something that he was expecting, but he didn't let it catch him off guard and instead kept his cool the best he could. Quickly did he move across the room to the woman, not wasting any time starting to check her condition. She couldn't breath and seemed to be in extreme pain, taking only a few moments to sum it up as some type of heart attack. After a moment he would look at her in the eyes with a strong sense of confidence but also reassurance, "I'll be right back." He said before he would dart from the room and into the hallway, down to his office.

Once there, he would start to throw together a few remedies while grabbing a few of the other medicines he had already made. It didn't take more than three minutes max before he had returned, the man coming back into the room to hope that there was a dead woman in his clinic. In his hands were a few things, a small bowl with some liquid in it and a needle. He'd place the bowl down, bringing the needle to her arm and injecting the contents into her. It was a muscle relaxer of sort, nothing too strong but hopefully enough so that her body could start relaxing and her throat could open up some more.

He would then grab the bowl, holding it in his right hand as he got close to the woman. His left arm would slip underneath her back easily, lifting her up just a bit so he could bring the liquid to her lips, "Drink this." He would command her gently, watching her intently. The contents was a type of heart relaxant medicine he had made for himself, for undisclosed reasons. He could only hope it would work for this, too.

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It seemed that he had caught on, for as he turned, he would swiftly move to her side, checking her vitals like that of a dutiful doctor. His motions were fluid, with no signs of frustration or fluster as he reassured her, in one of his signature doctor tones that he would be back. He seemed to have caught what she had meant to communicate with her eyes. Pain still taking over her, she merely nodded, closing her eyes as she waited for him to leave and return, the few minutes seemingly like years as she battled and struggled. She tried to calm herself, to tell herself to trust in Sojiro's abilities and that she was in good hands. For he had saved her once...if not twice already.

He would return, as he had promised, carrying what looked like a small bowl with some liquid and a needle. He injected the needle into her arm, a muscle relaxant as she would soon find. As the liquid traveled through her veins and into her body, she could feel her tense body slowly begin to relax. The pain was still there but at least she would be freed from her shocked state as being in shock only made matters worse. The bowl proved to be an antidote of sorts, which she wouldn't even question, taking it to her lips and drinking the substance. It could have very well been poison for all she knew but she trusted Sojiro. The girl would finish the medicine and would return the bowl to him. Ami would make no effort to verbally communicate, instead bowing to him. She would lie her tired body back down on the bed, closing her eyes as she began to feel the affects of whatever medicine he had given her.

It would be later when they met again that she would ask about the medicine in detail, because it seemed like an oddly specific antidote to simply prepare on the whim, unless his sense of smell was that good that he could smell the contents of the medicine from her broken locket.