[OPEN] The Strange Man's Arrival

[soveryhelpful]

Within hours of finding himself in this new location, he'd removed his Sound forehead protector and buried it in a copse of trees beyond a rice paddy. It was clear that there were no shinobi here, and he had no desire to stand out. What was the saying about the post that sticks up...? If captured, he would need to be able to morph his allegiances to suit, not be branded prematurely by a piece of metal. Purposefully, he'd masked his Chakra and made to blend in, smiling and earning himself the trust of a simple herbsman within the village itself. To even the most trained eye, the young man with the prematurely-grey hair had made himself a home in this so-called Michi no Sato.

Yakushi Kabuto had no home, only cover stories.

Whether this was a test of Orochimaru-sama's or a genjutsu prison devised by any one of their many enemies, Kabuto would survive, would thrive, and would eventually escape to rejoin his master. Any lingering doubts that he might eventually be happy here on his own were quickly squashed. Independence was not an option.

Within a few days, other shinobi began to arrive, some more obviously than others. Through it all, the young man only smiled, collected herbs, mashed poultices, and took careful, careful notes.

The bustle of the Frost Festival provided the perfect opportunity to personally gather more information. The shifting timelines and alternate personalities he'd observed would only be to his benefit here.

Comments

[soveryhelpful]

Itachi's disease was like a puzzle. Kabuto liked puzzles of this nature, liked testing the body's endurance and limits as far as he could, bring him to the point of death and back again. All in the pursuit of eventually finding a cure, of course.

The most important thing had been to first repair the damage done to his internal organs. Really, the Uchiha was living on borrowed time as it was, and if Kabuto hadn't been there? Well, who's to say how long he would have survived at this current pace? Modifying existing medications, the med-nin managed to stablize that to the point where he could choke down liquids without them coming back up, though solid food was still restricted to things that were easy for his body to break down.

The stopgap solution was to repress Uchiha's immune system as much as possible; until Kabuto could come up with something to fight the disease itself, he had to make sure it didn't kill him, first. Other infections and illnesses could be treated with his own ninjutsu and knowledge, but this disease...

Kabuto was growing rather fond of it.

[itachi_san]

Of course, forcing the body from one extreme to the other was merciless. Itachi didn't know how he would feel from one hour to the next, if he even had the strength to feel anything at all. Sometimes Kabuto kept him so drugged, that he just slept.

But sometimes, he managed to stay awake.

"... Have you figured anything out yet?" he tugged against the restraints a little as he stretched. He could breathe a little easier at the moment. That, at least, was a good sign.

[soveryhelpful]

"Yes." As usual, Kabuto is at his workstation, wishing for monitors like he had set up in their hideout in the dummy village called Oto. There were only so many things he could steal from the local hospital, a place more designed to treat sprains and broken bones, things that might be sustained in the course of fieldwork, that work of the level of sophistication Kabuto was accustomed to. Still, he'd managed to procure life-sign monitors and kept his eyes on those, rather than on his patient.

"It seems your disease grows worse the more your immune system tries to defeat it. Currently, I've almost completely neutralized it and repaired some of the damage to your lungs. Do try not to get a cold, though. That would be enough to kill you."

[itachi_san]

"That's... what Sasori's medicine did... why it was considered poison..." he repeated, more of a confirming statement than a question. "It suppressed the immune system..."

That, in itself, was a frightening thought. A simple infection really could be enough to kill him.

He took a few more breaths, and realized that it didn't hurt as much as it usually did. Kabuto really had healed a fair amount of the damage, drained the blood. Of course, Itachi knew it couldn't have been permanent healing. It didn't matter if Kabuto had neutralized it now. Without medicine, poison, whatever the man was using to suppress his immune system, the disease would come back. He would have to get the damage healed all over again.

"Were you able to make medicine?"

[soveryhelpful]

"Precisely. If I am to develop a cure for this disease of yours, I must first make sure it won't kill you. I would like to keep you under observation as long as I can."

As if he had been waiting for the other to ask, Kabuto moves to retrieve a small glass vial from the table, stopped by a cork and filled with what looked like blood pills and holds it up so the other can see. "These will keep your immune system repressed, but we are both aware, that will make you susceptible to everything else."

Setting the bottle down with a small clink, he comes over to undo the restraints on his arms. "Can you sit up?"

[itachi_san]

He'd been lying motionless for a long time. Aside from still feeling weak, his body was certainly stiff. It took him a moment, but he forced himself up on the table.

"Yes..." he huffed. "That feels... better, thank you."

[soveryhelpful]

"You're quite welcome, Uchiha-san." Now that the other is sitting up, Kabuto touches his palms lightly to his chest, feeding his Chakra to heal more of the dying cells in his lungs, killing off those too weak to survive, strengthening those left over. "Breathe as deeply as you can, please."

[itachi_san]

Itachi took a deep breath, moreso than he was used to. It made him cough, but at least it was a dry cough. There was no blood, just a sore, dry throat.

[soveryhelpful]

Kabuto nods once and undoes the rest of the restraints, confident enough that the other needs him too much to flee now. A moment, then he moves to fetch a glass of water from a pipe in the wall, sterilizing bacteria in a moment before offering it to him. "Drink slowly. Too quickly, and you'll vomit again."

[itachi_san]

Itachi nodded. It felt good to move again. And the feeling of cool water on his throat was a pleasant one. But true to his word, he only took a few small sips.

"Thank you... I believe I can manage from this point on." he replied. He reached for the bottle of pills. "What do I need to know about the medicine?"