[Sonnet Matsuda]

In the end everything collides

421

@justice

With how fast the woman dropped the pistols, Sonnet almost shot her. She hadn't been expecting a reaction that swift, or that sudden. It took a monumental feat of will not to simply pull the trigger of her own gun, the thing that kept her from doing so, was the other woman's direction of travel. She was moving fast towards Sonnet's man. The one that had been hit by her bullets.

Sonnet climbed to her feet, still carefully holding the gun in case the other woman changed her mind and tried to recover her weapons. Judging by what she was doing now however, that didn't seem to be a possibility anymore. Instead the woman was focusing on the man on the floor, who was clutching at his torso and groaning as the woman lifted him up. He had been hit, Sonnet knew that, but she didn't know how bad. Judging by her reaction, it was really bad. Though why she would be so worried after putting him in that state Sonnet didn't know.

That said, it was one of her men, and Sonnet wasn't just going to stand by and watch him die. The Yakuza had people they went to for this kind of thing, but this woman seemed to know what she was talking about, and Sonnet didn't want anything getting back to Kenshin any quicker than she could. She stood for a moment while this train of thought ran through her mind, then tucked the gun away and picked up the key card. Not only was it for a different room, but it was on a different floor. She raised her eyes to the heavens. God save her from drunken Americans.

She tossed one of the abandoned guns across to her man that had remained uninjured, snapping an order in Japan as she did so. "Watch her."

Then she spun about and began to run. She couldn't teleport to the room, she had never been there before, but once she was there she would be able to teleport back. It only took her a minute to get there, and she was seconds away from kicking in the door before she remembered the plastic key card in her fingers. A moment later she reappeared in the room with a sound like an exhalation and a first aid bag in her hands.

She thrust it towards the woman who had ruined everything. Speaking in the clipped harsh tone that spoke of English having been learned as a second language. "Save him."

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

► kaigra ◄

[Deleted]

The woman left and got back in a time which may or may not have been impressive - she didn't know for sure where her room was right now. Anyway, not much reason to concern herself with that, because shorty had brought back her life-saving medial kit. Virginia nodded eagerly as the bag was tossed to her, quickly spilling out some of the contents onto the floor next to her patient. No time to be fancy. Just had to get in there and work on the damage.

"Allllllriiiiiiiight, just gotta stay with me here for a second buddy!" she did her best to reassure the man while hastily throwing some surgical gloves on, followed by a syringe she popped out and injected into her patient just as quickly. Rapid shot of ketamine as anesthetic - not exactly the ideal way to anesthesize someone, but it worked well enough as a field option. He'd be out long enough for her to get done.

Which, thankfully, wouldn't take long. In spite of all the white powder screwing with her head, there wasn't a hint of shaking as she quickly cleaned both wounds, clearing away any potential infections. That done, she finally grabbed a pair of forceps and plunged right into the wound that still had a bullet inside. Before long she heard a dampened metalling ping, indicating that she'd found her lingering 9mm round.

She still wasn't eager to tear this thing out. Biting her lip, she decided to hold off on that, instead merely clamping the forceps around the bullet before moving around to his other side, where the other bullet wound needed to be treated yet.

As she did so, an idea struck her. Her clothing teleported when she did - maybe other things could? That might be the best way to ensure she was able to quickly address any severed arteries exploding with blood. "Hey, Cutie! How minute is that beam-me-up schtick? Think you can teleport out a bullet if you've got a good grip on it?"

[Sonnet Matsuda]

In the end everything collides

410

@justice

The way the woman was working, and talking, wasn't exactly reassuring. The fact that she was clearly completely high from the amount of cocaine she had ingested was hardly filling Sonnet with confidence, but she didn't have much choice if she wanted to save her man's life. She wasn't squeamish, and she didn't look away from the scene as she started to clean the wounds and eventually produced what looked like a pair of scissors with blunt ends. She frowned as the woman inserted those scissors into one of the bullet holes.

The man groaned, and Sonnet took a step forward, ready to put a bullet through the head of this woman if she was only going to hurt her man further. If he was going to die, then she would take him to the doctor that the Yakuza used, and Kenshin be damned. She hadn't yet released the gun from the holster at her hip before the strange woman was speaking again.

Sonnet fairly vibrated with rage at being referred to by this woman as 'cutie', and it was only the next few words that stopped her. "You want me to..?"

It was a strange request, and the last thing that she had expected, but she had to admit, it sounded like it might work. She wouldn't be discussing the minutiae of her ability with this woman, but she knew that if she was holding something, taking it with her when she teleported was easy. It was just as easy to leave something or someone behind. Could she do it and take the bullet out of him as well? If he was in such a bad state that the woman was asking her to do this, it was probably too late to take him elsewhere, even with her ability.

"I think the only option is for me to try."

She crossed the room and crouched down next to the injured man, taking a firm grip of the handles of the scissors. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, speaking a few words in Japanese, then, "Are you ready?"

She disappeared with the sound and faint air current of an inhalation. The forceps that she had been holding were gone as well, and as, standing behind Virginia, Sonnet examined the strange device in her hand, she saw the glint of a bullet between the blunt ends of the scissor like tool. She let out a sigh of relief. "Shit…"

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

► kaigra ◄

[Deleted]

In a quiet rush of air, the woman disappeared, and Virginia was presented with exactly what she had been afraid of. Blood began to spurt out from a nicked artery, and just as quickly as the cute Asian woman had teleported the bullet out, the doctor was rushing to stop the bleeding in the few seconds she had before he lost too much to be saved. She swore, diving right in with a pair of clamps that were as steady as ever in spite of the quite frankly dangerous quantity of alcohol she'd consumed. If it wasn't so much more dangerous to mix drugs with liquor, she might have considered dropping cocaine right before surgery more often.

In any case, she was just focused enough to clamp the thin metal around the bleeding artery, stemming the flow just in time to give him a shot. Good enough. With hands flying at a mile a minute, she set straight to work on suturing the wound shut, quietly thanking whoever might be listening that it was just a tear and not a fully severed artery - made her job a bit easier, and made the work faster, fast enough that she might actually be able to patch it in time to move onto his other injuries and keep him breathing for another day. Probably would serve her own life expectancy well to save this guy.

Whoever he was. She still wasn't entirely sure of that.

"Okay, okay, you're gonna live buddy! You're gonna need a hell of a blood transfusion, but you're gonna live!" There was a genuine undercurrent to her clearly over-excited tone. "You, uh... you wanna tell me who you are, though? What's your name, your blood type, what the hell are you guys doing with this much cocaine and a bunch of Russian or whatever guys... you know, basic medical questions, gotta ask those as your doctor now! IIIIIIIIIIIIII am definitely your doctor now, Doctor Virginia MacLeod, best doctor in the west even though we're not in the west, but you know, that's the way the cocaine gets sniffed!"

[Sonnet Matsuda]

In the end everything collides

368

@justice

So the man seemed to be alive, at least for now, though far more blood had spurted from the wound than she was really comfortable with. Or indeed, he was probably comfortable with, he had gone noticeably pale, and was gritting his teeth. It was clearly the pain keeping him awake. Sonnet didn’t envy any of it. The problem was what they did next, they couldn’t stay here, the Police would already have been called by someone no doubt, and they couldn’t go to the clinic they normally used for fear of Kenshin finding out. She looked to the man who was still on his feet. She could take all three of them, but she hadn’t eaten properly in hours, it would limit her range drastically if she took them all at once.

She nodded at the case, speaking in Japanese. "Take that."

She turned back to the woman crouched on the floor by her injured employee. "I’ll be right back."

She grabbed her man's shoulder, taking him and the case of drugs out of the room. They reappeared in an alleyway half a mile away, one she had used before. She spoke quietly to him in Japanese for a moment, instructing him to take the case to a safe place, and to lay low there until she contacted him. He was trustworthy, reliable, without enough ambition or imagination to try for her position. It was why she had brought him along.

Then, a moment later she was gone, back in the hotel room with the prone man and the doctor. She Her tone was harsh as she spoke in English again. "Shut up and stop asking questions. You might want to look away, this is going to make you vomit"

She grabbed both of them, Virginia considerably more roughly than the man, and they disappeared, the sounds of sirens growing louder as they did so.

They reappeared in an apartment, a cheap one. The floor was carpet, and stained, and the bed was made, with the stale scent of one that hadn't been slept in since it was prepared.

"It was a fucking drug deal you idiot, and you walked right into the middle of it."

She looked back at the supposed doctor once she'd finished retching. "What do you need to save him?"

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

► kaigra ◄

[Deleted]

Shorty hadn't lied.

Virginia dove straight for the trash can the instant they appeared in a stained, halfway-to-reputable apartment, less concerned with the miracle of their teleportation than with the release of her lunch. Unpleasant sounds filled the air, though their chunky nature was soon replaced by a more groaning style of noise. It was at that point where Virginia pulled away from the wastebin, looking like she'd just been smacked in the face with a mortar shell as she hobbled back over to her patient.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucke me," she muttered quietly, shaking her head back and forth rapidly as she kneeled down next ot the injured man once more. Oh boy. She'd been hoping that cute little thing would make her head spin, but not like this. Even with that white gold lighting up her brain like a chirstmas tree, it took her a minute to refocus, the brain only slowly going back into medical mode as she fought out an answer to the smaller woman's question. Or rather, fighting out a groan that lingered in the air for a few moments.

Then, finally, she gave an answer. "He, uh... I got everything I need, except blood." Ahhhhh, there was the migraine she'd been expecting. Perfect. "Ay vei... he's gonna need a transfusion, and, uh, I don't know his blood type, so... get that, if you know it. O Negative if you don't." Last thing she needed was for her patient to die right in front of her just because of something stupid and avoidable like being given an incompatible blood type.

Well, second to last thing. The actual last thing was the feeling of her stomach doing naseous backflips inside her gut.

[Sonnet Matsuda]

In the end everything collides

628

@justice

Hopefully the throwing up would have gotten some of the alcohol and cocaine out of the doctor's system. Sonnet knew she wouldn't be exactly happy to discover that the person responsible for saving her life was high and drunk at the same time. She also wouldn't have been happy that said person was also the one who had endangered her life in the first place. Regardless, Sora didn't have a choice.

Sonnet looked at Sora, her man was unconscious now, and concerningly pale. She didn't have a choice in the matter. Kenshin was going to find out about this, it was inevitable, but maybe if none of hers died she could spin it positively. She pointed at Virginia. "If he's dead when I get back you'll be joining him."

With that she was gone, leaving Virginia alone in the apartment with the unconscious man and her threat lingering in the air.

---

She reappeared just off 8th avenue, there was a blood bank here, and it wasn't as if she'd visited the inside of one before, she wasn't the type to give blood. Looking around, she oriented herself and began to run.

There were people around, of course there were, the city never slept, but there wasn't the usual bustle of people you would find during the day. She was nearly there when the faint scent of food reached her nostrils, she glanced down a side street, seeing a street vendor packing up his cart. Her stomach growled. Sonnet had transported passengers, and already teleported multiple times today. She was hungry, if she wasn't careful her ability might start feeding off her own body. She ran down the street, pausing only to hurl the wad of cash from her pocket in the man's direction before seizing a bag full of pretzels. It would have to do.

She vanished again, reappearing in her own apartment, an altogether nicer affair than the one she had left the doctor in. It only took her a few seconds to grab her mask, stuffing pretzel into her mouth as she did so. She returned to the street she had just left, scaring the shit out of the pretzel seller for the second time in less than a minute. She was going to have to break into the blood bank, and she didn't have time to take it carefully.

Fortunately the gun she was carrying was still loaded, and she fired two bullets through the glass window.

The lobby of the blood bank was empty and clinical, with white flooring and taupe paint on the walls. There was a neatly stacked pile of magazines on a coffee table in one corner, and the green glow of an emergency exit sign above a corridor. Sonnet cast about looking for something that might direct her towards what she needed. There was a door complete with numpad. Half of the magazine solved that problem and a moment later she found herself in a room filled with carefully labelled refrigerators. It was cold, and she felt it all the more keenly for the sweat she had built up running here. She tore off another hunk of pretzel from the bag, shoving it into her mouth as she walked to the end of the room and wrenched open the door of a refrigerator marked O negative. She grabbed a handful of the bags, then paused for a moment, looking around the room to set it in her memory. There was always a chance she would need to visit here again, it would be easier if she could simply teleport directly into the room.

---

She reappeared in the apartment, dropping the bags of blood on the floor. A slight sweat sheened her skin, and she grimaced. "Will that do?"

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

► kaigra ◄

[Deleted]

Virginia seemed a bit too busy with losing her dinner to offer anything beyond a hazy thumbs up to Shorty's threat. She only managed to drag herself away from the trash can after the smaller woman had already poofed away, shooting off to god knows where to find her some blood. Well, if nothing else, she was a hell of an assistant - of all the nurses Virginia had worked with during her medical career, none had managed to actually teleport needed tools and materials to her.

Sadly there was little time to relfect on how insane that thought was. Had a patient to stabilize. Shaking her head rapidly, Virginia did her best to work through the naseua as she started digging around once more in her bag, this time hurrying to pull out an IV line and needle. Might as well get that ready, in advance of when she would hopefully have some blood to transfuse into the poor bastard. She'd need a stand, too, or something to hold up the bloodbag - lampstand off in the corner? Screw it, good enough. She hopped right over, unplugging the tall lamp and throwing off the shade and bulb onto the bed, thus freeing its highest point for use with her patient. Just enough verticality to make everything work out.

And right on cue, as soon as she had her improvised stand ready, Shorty reappeared in the apartment, dumping out multiple blood bags at her feet. Well then. Truth be told, she probably only needed one... but better safe than sorry, right? "Shit yeah it's enough," she said with clear surprise, not even wanting to question where or how she'd gotten this stuff, "Okay, okay, you're gonna be fine for sure now buddy! Just let me hook you up, alright?"

She was just as quick to hook up the impromptu transfusion as she had been to seal the wounds, connecting everything with the ease of a woman who'd done this a thousand times before, often under much worse conditions. Mercifully, this time wouldn't involve any poor kids never seeing home again, or a mere boy losing an arm or a leg for some pointless war of bullshit. A criminal, actually probably several criminals to be honest, but a criminal who would live to... do whatever these people did. The cocaine sort of implied it wasn't a good thing.

"Alright, I gotta keep on eye on him for a bit here, but he's gonna make it," she assured the other woman, rubbing her neck where that stupid dress jacket had been chafing on the skin. "Really he should be going to a hospital, but I get it, you're some crazy Yakuza or whatever crime syndicate guys, so no hospitals. That's how you pronounce it right, Yakuza? Or are you guys like, not Japanese, cause I don't know what the Chinese Yakuza is called, or the Korean or Vietnamese or whatever you guys are. Sorry, I know, shouldn't assume!"

[Sonnet Matsuda]

In the end everything collides

263

@justice

The blood at least seemed to be the right type, not that Sonnet understood the science behind the need for a specific kind of blood. She only knew that it would have been really bad if she’d brought the wrong type. She watched as the woman hooked up one of the bags to what was left of the lamp that had once been in the corner of the room. It looked like her man would live, even if he was desperately pale.

Once Virginia reassured her that he would survive she couldn’t help but feel an intense sense of relief come across her. She looked away, gazing around the sparsely and cheaply furnished apartment. It wasn’t a home, just somewhere that she maintained if she needed to lay low.

She collapsed onto the bed, leaning back against the head board and closing her eyes. She was trying to think of a way that this could have gone worse. It was a struggle to do so, and she exhaled heavily. No doubt Kenshin would have found out about how badly the deal had gone wrong by now, and holding off on seeing him would do nothing for his temper.

She banged her head against the headboard in frustration, then opened one annoyed eye at Virginia’s question. She made no effort to hide her anger ”That’s right, Yakuza.”

She sat up a little, opening her eyes. ”And you’re what? Army? It’s always fucking army.”

Every time someone from the army showed up her life seemed to take a dramatic downturn. First Tank, now this woman.

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

► kaigra ◄