The Pathologist: A New Client

Spoiler:

It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and Zunair didn't give a damn. He was too busy with a corpse. Some job, eh? Zunair put his hands down onto the table; his gloves stuck to the cold surface as he tapped his fingers to the beat of the song playing from an office across the hall. The morgue was an uncommonly quiet place and so the usually annoying shoujo anime openings were rather pleasant from the unseen radio as he looked down into the chest cavity of the woman from room 103; an oddity to see and feel something so cold while his own was functioning.

Zunair had been filling in for the pathologist as he had been away because Anima suggested he did the job to help in some of his medical training. He then rolled his eyes at himself as his thumb pinched a small hole in the woman's lung, "shit."

The part he disliked the most about working in the morgue was the moment before deciding if he needed to open the person up if their death was suspicious, or straightforward. Then of course if he did, he'd have to put them all back- the organs. Honestly, Zunair didn't know why people didn't sign themselves up for being a donor, or why families even wanted to bury their loved ones with everything intact. Zunair knew what happened to bodies that were buried: nothing. The bodies took up space in the earth that people didn't even have the decency to think about, purely because they wanted to stand above something, not just see a grave.
The music suddenly stopped; Zunair’s hands froze as he placed the last organ into the body, enclosed in a bag to prevent leakage. The Hyuuga then removed his hands and gazed down, like an artist looking curiously at their canvas: would he find himself on a table like this? No, of course not- he wouldn't be there, but would he die of mysterious causes?

The doors behind him swung open as Anima rushed in with three interns behind him, "This is Zunair." He nodded at them.
"It smells in here," one of the interns muttered.
"I stopped noticing," Zunair remarked, rolling his gloves into themselves as he peeled them off his hands. "It's not a bad smell, you know?"
He found himself wandering into the hallway swinging his hands around in the pockets of his lab coat. He felt at loss to be free of something he didn't particularly like or hate; he hadn't thought about what he would rather be doing, or what he would do when he left.
Behind her, a gust of air came as the door opened once again by one of the interns. After breathing in the normal air, what escaped to him from the morgue came as a shock, I suppose it does smell.
"Zunair, Anima would like to see you."
Zunair looked discontentedly at the intern for a moment, "Take a look at the lining of her stomach."
Like all interns that were brought to the morgue, making them vomit wasn't a difficult task. Was the lining of the woman's stomach nearly nonexistent? Yes. However, it was not the cause of her death and therefore only an irrelevant detail that could be taken advantage of. Doing so, Zunair felt like a bully, but it was to the best of his knowledge that everyone got sick in the morgue one way or the other- for him, it was draining the body of its blood. if he could get them to throw up today, they wouldn't do it again-unless something worse rolled in.
Zunair began towards the east stairway, hoping Anima hadn't given herself another heart attack or something. He probably would have received the message sooner if he hadn't left so suddenly, but of course, that would have been too convenient for everyone. He didn't like being around the interns half as much as he liked to cut open bodies- and that wasn't saying a lot. They were so young they were Zunair’s age and he felt like they were watching her with their beady little eyes constantly when they were around. He could appreciate that they wanted to learn as he has, and he definitely knew that he was like them at some time, but they always stood too close, or spoke too often, or said things like, "it smells in here."
"Of course it smells," he said beneath his breath, trotting up the stairs under the florescent lighting. "It's a damn hospital."

When he escaped from the stairs and arrived at the correct floor, it was almost as shocking as the difference between smells; the same fluorescent lighting from the lower floors looked less blue. However, something odd occurred to him: there were interns everywhere-like an infestation of rodents or insects. He stuck to the wall and made a straight path to where he knew Anima would be, what's happening.

“Anima," He hummed, pushing open the almost-closed door with his foot. "I need to look at the details of my mission-"
"About that," Anima said, ceasing whatever she was writing and slapping her pen against the table.
Zunair closed the door and took a seat in the chair opposite the intimidating the grat-haired elder.
"New assignment."
Zunair took a breath, "How so?"
"You're enthusiastic," Anima remarked.
"N-No it's just that I just got back from the morgue and-"
"Forget that, the mission I have for you is nothing like your original," Anima said, smiling at the corner of her mouth. "After your shift here ends, I want you to come by my office at the main building so we can discuss it."
Zunair was skeptical about why her superior was smiling at him the way she was.
"This office is beginning to look ragged again," Zunair noted.
"I'll just tell one of the interns to tidy up," Anima scoffed.
"Sounds like they're here for free labor," Zunair chuckled. "I shouldn't be hypocritical though because I made fun of a few interns after I gave an autopsy on that woman."
"Which woman?" Anima asked.
Zunair crossed his leg over the other, "room 103."
Zunair looked upset but it was the same upset face all the nurses or medical ninja had when someone died at the hospital; it was a look that said, I assumed they'd live longer. The employees at the hospital, Zunair, and Anima included were not shy or curious about death- it happened every day.
"Sad to see a girl die like that," Anima said lightly.
Zunair agreed silently.
"You're off right about now, aren't you?" Anima asked.
"Half an hour," Zunair corrected. "I have to make sure 103 wasn't left out on the table, anyway."
"That's the last thing we need to get out to the parents."
"Hmm?"
Anima began to write again, "Oh, just that we leave bodies out in the morgue for anyone to see."
Zunair tried not to laugh, not completely sure why she found humor.
"I'll let you get going then, thank you for filling in for our pathologist,” Anima said, not looking up.
Zunair scooted from the chair, which screeched across the floor, "I'll see you later."
Zunair departed from the room and like exiting the morgue, he now stood in the hallway with no direction. He felt herself being pulled towards the stairs; back to the morgue to check what he needed to check-but he also had a sensation of being rooted where he was standing. His mind was winding itself up, morgue, morgue, morgue-stay!
The mint-eyes Hyuuga let out an exasperated breath and look up; the grey wall of the hospital was looking back at her silently and like a fool, she thought it would give her a task.
"Morgue."
His feet began to walk him across the floor; his knees started hin at a trot; his legs pushed him into a run. The genin leaned into the bar to open the door, and was back inside the atmosphere of blue light; it was like being underwater. The uncertain heaviness of being in an atmosphere so cold and empty as familiar to his senses and perhaps even calming. He wasn't sure why, but lately he hadn't enjoyed being above floors with the patients and their adoring families.

"Dr. Hyuuga!"
Zunair stopped mid-step and found herself face to face with an intern. He liked how Dr. Hyuuga sound, but he was no doctor, well not yet. 
"We-we don't know what to do with the body."
Zunair blinked, "You were down here with a doctor, weren't you?"
He nodded.
"Well, where is he?" Zunair asked, making short work of the space between him and the morgue entrance. "He can't just leave you people alone with patients."
The other intern was standing at the other side of the woman on the table, looking thoroughly disgusted with the sight. Zunair wondered what circumstances would have ended up leaving two kids with a dead body, they're probably mortified.
"H-He got a sudden call and said he'd be back, but he..."
"I've had it with this shit," He muttered, rolling the woman across the floor, causing the interns to rush out of the way. He opened the hatch and gently pushed the tray, and the woman on it, into the cooler.
Zunair turned to look at them, "do you remember how to get back up?"
As soon as they left she felt the weight of herself sink into her shoes. The consistent aching in her heels by the end of her shift-the pain in her shoulders was all becoming daily. Since when?

Are you done in here?"
The lingering male voice moved through his conscience until he pieced the words together; he was leaning against a wall and his face was resting against his knees.
"Zunair?"
"D-Down here," he said, catching his breath. He took hold of the countertop behind him and pulled himself to his feet.
"I didn't know anyone could fall asleep in here," the male nurse said, surprised.
Zunair blinked and adjusted his eyes to the lighting, "What time is it?"
"Well, my shift ends at 1 and I'm doing my last rounds-"
"Could you get someone to clean up down here?" He asked. "I-I think I have everything put away but if because-I's got to be somewhere and I'm not there."
"No problem," the nurse chimed. "It's my job, right?"
Zunair smiled weakly, "Thank you."
He had been asleep for a few hours; a few hours ago Anima and been expecting him for a meeting. Zunair was almost disappointed that the nurse had found him during his shift, because now he had to walk to the center of town, regardless of Anima was still there or not-if he had slept until morning, he could have apologized and yet not put himself through the task of early morning exercise in the cold winter air.
This tiresome day.
After successfully clocking out and pulling on his coat, insulated with fur, he was at the top of the outdoor staircase. It was colder than before and to his dismay, he found himself nearly crawling down the steps leading down to the street due to black ice that had somehow settled-how embarrassing would it be to slip and harm herself right outside of a hospital? Well, perhaps not so much, but he had long since concluded that every human being had a fear of slippery steps.

The next day, Zunair could have fooled himself into thinking that, as a medical professional, he would be attending major surgery on a patient who, of course, was a hero-but such a tale, no-such a false belief did not happen in a life like hers. He knew for a fact that she would be in the morgue working with patients who had either lost a battle or were attacked by it since he was covering for the pathologist - he wondered when he would get back-; whether they had the wish to live was irrelevant. This was the life of working days on end in a room of dead bodies.
Needless to say, not very much conversation to be had.
He flicked the light off and adjusted her button-up shirt as he walked down the short hallway to his kitchen. He would need to be back at the hospital by 4:30, half an hour, and so he knew that sleeping would be a wasted effort. Thought, he made the correct choice to put a fresh pair of clothes on as he waited for his alarm to go off only of course he would be awake for it.
Zunair poured the liquid into his cup and set the kettle back onto the stove, turning the burner off. From a tin sitting close to the wall on her counter, he removed the rectangular lid and took out two small cookies shaped like lions, I think. His father has been to too many places and in different areas he found. Ew teas and brought back to Zunair, so now he is drinking many kinds of tea and now eating cookies or crackers with it; his father told her that it was unhealthy to eat so many cookies but Zunair was at the age of a fast metabolism, and he was going to take advantage of it while he still could.
He collapsed into a chair in his kitchen and crunched the second cookie while washing it down with a gulp of tea; he had a thing for vanilla cookies. He looked aimlessly around, not sure what to do now that he was fully awake- he couldn't watch television. His tea had diminished while he felt his mind circling the drain in search of an activity that would take about thirty minutes to complete.

After he had his meeting and apologized to Anima he has a new client he needs to find the cause of death on this one too. The corpse he was looking at now looked like she was soaked in blood. Sheesh, can't these blood n' gore cases come up with anything less cliché?
Zunair ruffled the pages of the victim's file report. "Hemorrhaging…shock…la dee dah. Name Rukia Ishida…once a nurse at Konoha Hospital…special care. Looks like this girl was pretty qualified." Zunair handed the clipboard to the intern. He looked rather green. Zunair grinned. It was fun to scare the newbies. "Do you want me to open her up, or do you want the honors?" Zunair held did the hand signs and created the chakra scalpel.
"No thanks, Doctor…you go right ahead."
Zunair shrugged. "Suit yourself." Adjusting his surgical mask and gloves, he moved to the side of the slab. Making a face, the mint-eyes Hyuuga fanned at his nose; Rukia was beginning to stink.
Zunair did a quick incision right above the collarbone and cringed. The flesh was as tough as leather, not like someone lying saturated with blood. Gritting his teeth, he continued the incision and continued down the torso, making a midsagittal cut directly down to the navel. By this time, he was getting irritated. Dead or not, there's usually a bit of blood when the skin is cut. Still, with the amount of blood on her clothes, Zunair was beginning to think that she'd bled out completely. Who cares that it's impossible? It can still happen. Not.
He resisted the urge to wipe his face. You learn that after you get smeared with dead blood for the first time.
"Yuma, be a sweetie and get me a blood sample before I open her up, would you please?" He flashed the intern his most charming smile.
Yuma didn't seem fazed. That was a first. Most people get all starry-eyed when Zunair flashes that grin. Oh well, he was getting a syringe. Positioning himself across from Zunair, he grasped Rukia’s wrist and held it for a moment.
Zunair fought back a snicker. "Er, Yuma, I don't think she'll have a pulse."
Yuma glared at me, blushed, and inserted the needle in the bend of her arm. He pulled the plunger slowly, and Zunair’s jaw nearly dropped.
The syringe was full of air.
Okay, maybe he DID bleed out completely.
"Okay. I've never seen THAT before…" Yuma seemed afraid. No, scratch that. He looked somewhere between bed-wetting and a near-death experience.
"Neither have I. Let's open her up and see if we can get anything directly from the heart." Zunair grasped the skin on the edge of the cut with a pair of rat-toothed forceps. Yuma did the same, with some effort. "On three. One, two, three." We pulled.
And gasped.
The inside was shriveled and diseased-looking. Every last piece of tissue was mottled and purplish, even brown. The smell was even worse. It came over them in a wave, and Zunair’s eyes began to water.
"Holy shit…" Yuma coughed. "What in the hell happened?"
"We opened up a corpse. Get your blood sample."
"From where?"
He had a point. The heart, or the thing that once was the heart, was a black, almost crispy hunk of meat. It looked like a short bratwurst that had stayed in a doll several months too long.
"Well…try."
Yuma glared at Zunair, then stuck a newly opened syringe in the right ventricle. Good, it was filling up with some red, cloudy substance. It looked pus-filled. Not the best blood around, but it was a blood sample nonetheless.
"Good. Go take it to the lab. Do what you can; I'll finish up here."

Yuma looked relieved as he tromped out of the room. Zunair pulled a white sheet from a stainless steel cabinet and draped it over Rukia’s still body as he looked at her frozen brown eyes.
"Girl, you had problems."
Twelve hours and three visits to Rukia later, Zunair was sitting in his temporary office trying to finish the autopsy report for Anima. He still hadn't come up with the cause of death; there seemed to be no stabs, blasts, anything that would have made her lose that much blood. His only guess was spontaneous fatal hemorrhaging. Zunair, big heap forensic pathologist; knew what any bum off the street knew at first sight. 

“Zunair, I finished the blood reports,” Yuma said as he entered the room. 
“Good, what did you find,” Zunair asked. 
"I found leukocytes, disabled platelets, destroyed red blood cells, and some random drugs."
"Come again?"
"The girl was on drugs. Saigenzai, if the lab reports are correct. I found only traces, but it was probably enough to wipe out her immune system. While saigenzai can create "malfunctions" in a person's vision, hearing, and semicircular canal with this drug, but I'll tell you one thing. It will give you a hell of a blood problem."
"So the drugs were what caused the hemorrhaging?"
"It seems she OD’d on it so that’s what I think."
"Good. Thanks, Yuma. Get me the copy of the report, if you please."
"No problem."
"Ta."
Zunair rested his head on his hand, while the other hand was writing while Yuma went to fetch the report. 
'Cause of death: Drug overdose leading to hemorrhaging. Zunair Hyuuga.'

Zunair then left his tiny office and headed into the hallway. 
"Where might I find Anima?" Zunair said, tapping the arm of a fellow employee; a woman perhaps in her late 40's that went by the name "Pepper". 
"Anima was last seen on the third floor," Pepper said, a thick smoker's voice.
"Thank you."
Zunair had never tried cigarettes.
He wondered if being seen with a cigarette would make him more attractive.
He entered and exited the elevator, suddenly on the third floor- his day was flying overhead. His regular daily tasks were so forgetful and happening around him.
"Zunair?"
"O-Oh, Anima."
"What do you need, Zunair?"
“I’m here to talk about the body, I finished the report on it,” Zunair told her. 
“Ah good, what did you find out?”
“It seemed the girl OD’d on Saiganzai, that’s why his body was like destroyed from the inside out,” Zunair said to his elder. 
“Hm, interesting, give me the report and get back to preparing to body for burial, and then you can have the rest of the day off,” Anima said as Zunair thank her and went to prepare the body. 

After the embalming was finally over. The open-casket viewing was supposed to take place tomorrow and Zunair didn't have much time in his hands to prepare the body. As switched from a pathologist to a mortician, his duty with bodies was simple: wash and dress. He removed the mask he wore and prepared the necessary things for washing with earned practice before putting his gloves on.
He started gently dabbing the dead girl's face with a soft, wet sponge. The death certificate stood right next to the bucket of clean water he'd brought along, and as he dipped the sponge in it once more. She must have suffered terribly while dying. Tragic. He wondered if his mother was lying on the table like this, or since that we knew what she died from, she didn’t have to cut up like how he had to do to this woman. Zunair shook his head at the thought of that. 

As Zunair finished up putting the clothes on her, he went and found Anima again to let her know that Rukia was ready for burial. Anima thanked him and told him that she will get the men to put her body into the casket. 
“Thank you so much for filling in, you’ve done great work Zunair,” Anima said to him.
Zunair turned away with a thank you and smile as he then gathered his belongings and headed home. 

[WC: 3,618/3,600]
Claiming:
9,000 Ryo
(+100 Ryo to added Genin Salary)
+30 AP
+60 AP (for maxed stats)
1,500/1,500 for B-Rank Shattering Thrust
1,500/1,500 for B-Rank Bodily Restoration
618/2,500 for A-Rank Hyuuga Valor

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