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"Hi, Lal Mirch! Nice to see you again!"
Lal Mirch paused by the door of the infirmary room in surprise, then walked over and examined Yamamoto's pupils. "It doesn't seem like a concussion, at least not a severe one..."
"I mean it, I'm glad to see you." Yamamoto's grin grew mischievous. "Since I'm in this shape, you can't hit me!"
"If you're so happy about that, then I'm going to assume that the painkillers are working."
Yamamoto blinked in vapid surprise and then regained enough self-awareness to look embarrassed. "Haha, yeah. Sorry if I say anything weird."
She nodded acknowledgment as she pulled the blanket off him and then put on sterile gloves. Kusakabe hadn't had much time to get him stable before going back to Gokudera to follow up on his more severe injuries, and in places blood stuck the blanket to wounds that were still open. She would have to take care to clean all fibres out - but the situation could be far worse. Judging by the readings of the monitors around the bed and her experiences in the field, the booster to mitigate effects of shock had worked. Yamamoto would live in the short term, and if he needed antibiotics later, they were stocked with a range of the best available.
Lal Mirch glanced at his face and then tilted Yamamoto's chin so that his gaze was directed to the ceiling. "It's best not to look. All you need to know is that it seems like you'll be fine, even if it takes time."
"Good! Good." Yamamoto's grin was sunny and fixed.
Lal Mirch examined him with practiced eyes and hands, but it took her a while to realise why he held his body stiffly when he didn't seem to be feeling pain. "Gokudera's fine too. Same for Sasagawa."
His tension snapped like an elastic band, leaving his body to sag so heavily that the bed creaked. Yamamoto's grin widened and curved back and down, pulling his lips thin over his teeth in a grimace that made it look like he was in the worst pain in the world. Such relief.
He began to curl up, wincing at the protests of his body, to hide his face.
"If you're well enough to act this stupid, I will hit you."
Yamamoto glanced over his shoulder. Then, having read her appropriately, he uncurled as fast as his body allowed and proceeded to lie very still. He was blinking fast against his emotions all the same, and as soon as she turned away to get what she needed from the medicine cabinets, he felt he had space to say, "You're sure? About the others? I know I'm just a kid, but I have to know the truth."
"Regardless of whether you're a kid, you're a soldier. You fought as well as could be expected, and you've survived in good shape." Not physically, but he would heal; it was more telling that he could keep his voice steady and that his hysteria had lasted only minutes. "It wouldn't do our war any good to lie to you."
Now Yamamoto's bleary eyes rested on her for a long time, but she let him be. The aggravation of being stared at was nothing if it kept him from getting worked up about his wounds.
"And did you and Tsuna have to fight anybody?" Yamamoto asked.
"No. Sawada's outside with Reborn, waiting for me and Kusakabe to report back about you and Gokudera."
"So someone's taking care of Gokudera? OK." Then the relief in his voice turned tenuous again: "How about you?"
"Fine."
"But that ... on your face ... is it worse?"
Lal Mirch's hand flew to the scar. She looked frantically around for a mirror, then ran into the en suite bathroom. A mirror was on the wall over the basin. She held her hair away from her face and stared at the scar that crawled over her from inside out ... for far too long, she realised.
So much for keeping sterile, too, when she'd put her gloved hand to her face and compromised both her own safety and Yamamoto's. That Millefiore agent had combined thorough and sloppy in his work on Yamamoto's body too well for her to break like this. She wrenched herself away from the sight of her own horrified face and schooled her expression to disgust, so she could return to the vital task that was her duty. "It's the same as it was before," she told the young idiot bitterly, and when he laughed in relief, she took yet another moment to calm down before putting on new gloves.
There was little point being frustrated at him too: Yamamoto's vision was blurry from medication, pain, and adrenaline. Sometimes people saw things. Friendly as he acted, he was the type to have worry to spare for comrades though he didn't know them personally. He needed treatment now.
Yamamoto's smiles cut off as she unwrapped the bandages on a cut that, judging by the amount of blood soaking the bandage, still needed stitches.
"I said, don't look," she said as she reached for the needle and thread.
"Yes, ma'am."
The response had a familiar cadence - it could have come from any number of new recruits to her unit. Inevitably thoughts spilled forth of another man with rain flames and too much of a tendency to laugh. But then, in her concentration on not fucking up her own attitude or Yamamoto's hide any further, she realised that both of them were gritting their teeth. She adjusted the amount of painkiller Yamamoto was receiving and felt strangely surprised about that expression on the kid's face - though it wasn't as if she knew him personally either. That Colonnello would have chattered straight through, as happily as he could manage, much rather than he would have given her cause to worry had no bearing on Yamamoto.
A tendency towards being light-hearted through any damned situation wasn't mandatory with a rain flame - after all, she'd been one. Enough so that her flame had been judged as having the greatest purity, before the curse and her would-be rescue had twisted her body and future. Best satisfied by being the last one off the battlefield, striving to be aware of what was the most necessary and not questioning whether or not it could be accomplished - a pointless concept when the job had to be finished off and finished well: that was what it was about.
Had she ever felt washed clean in her accomplishments even as her hands were the dirtiest among her companions, as the lore around dying will flames would have it? Had Yamamoto? What would become of him if that part of him was refracted, turned into something that was slowly crumbling, and his will was forced into a different mould?
"Haha, ow!" said Yamamoto.
Right. He was definitely still himself.
Lal Mirch wiped sweat off her face on her upper arm and sighed, "Why is this funny?"
"It hurts, but - I'm here to hurt!" He gave a wincing sort of grin. "So, does that mean you'll train us up again?"
Back to treating smaller wounds, Lal Mirch started to snap at him. Then she ducked lower over the wounds as she tried not to let her face express the unfortunate realisation that masochism could probably also be a rain trait. "Believe it or not, that's not the point of training. Even mine."
"Huh? Oh, sure. I just mean because we ... well, Gokudera and I got beat pretty badly. Obviously." Yamamoto smiled, but he didn't mean this one and it faded quickly. "But you're still going to show us the way, right? And we're going to get stronger."
Are we?
Doubt struck her hard enough that her hands trembled - but not too much, and Lal Mirch kept working instead of voicing it. It would take time but Yamamoto's healing was nearly guaranteed, while hers crept away at the same pace as the curse crept along her skin. His injuries were not hers, whatever the echoes between their approaches to fighting; to dying and fighting on. And even if for a moment it was a comfort that she was no exception to his feelings of camaraderie.
"About two or three weeks and you'll be back on your feet."
"Oh. Oh, no. I'm going to go nuts. It's just that I hate losing. I want to go blam, schwingng, ka-ba! right away, as soon as another Millefiore guy comes close."
As Lal Mirch concentrated on a cut on his arm she concentrated even more on the corners of her mouth. She emphatically did not smile. He didn't need to get any ideas that being a dumbass was funny, even though it was.
However, she also didn't tell him how lucky he was that his condition was only this bad. He would deserve it - but only a little. Realisations about all aspects of his failure would find its time to sink in over the course of recovery.
She preferred Yamamoto laughing, really. There was something compelling about the hope in it. If all they could do was crawl, then damned if they wouldn't crawl.
"I'll give you exercises you can do in bed to help you get back in shape before then. But absolute rest for the first three days, and after that I'll need to check first to make sure you're in good enough shape for anything else."
Blinding bright, Yamamoto smiled again. "Thank you!"
Lal Mirch tucked her chin down, too pleased. She turned to the linen cupboard in the corner. "Your sheets need changing. I'll let the others know they can come in after that."
Now she let him look at himself all he could stand, to get perspective about what kind of shape he was in as he moved achingly off the bed and she stripped the bloody sheets and blankets.
"Looking forward to seeing you again," Yamamoto called out as she turned to go. She glanced over her shoulder to see, despite all grimness that he'd just done up, that he was absolutely sincere.
"Yes," Lal said in a tone of acknowledgment and walked out.
"You're looking forward to it too?" Yamamoto said to her back, delighted.
Irritating - he might be an idiot but he could read people. "He's all yours," she told Reborn and Tsuna, who hopped off their chairs and dashed past her.
"Tsuna! Kid!" Yamamoto's voice resounded happily down the hallway. "Don't worry about me looking like this, OK?" It was almost addictive, the sound of that hope in that broken body. She could already imagine him steady on his feet, ring lit with clear blue flames. "We've already got a plan to get me in shape!"