Night Hunters

Chapter Five: Meeting the Panther

"He's with the Scouting Base!" Riko said grimly. "The report that got to us stated that the squad that he's with walked straight into a mine field! The others that he is with weren't so lucky! They were literally blown to pieces when they stepped onto the landmines! There were nothing but just pieces of them lying all over the place!"

Kagami turned vaguely green at the mental image that Riko had conjured up with her words alone, trying to resist the urge to puke at the coppery smell of the blood. He had never seen so much blood coming from one person before.

"Hyuuga-kun, hold this!" Sakurai returned just then from his medical cabinets, an unnaturally grim expression on his face, even as he dumped a silver surgical tray containing several surgical tools and even medication into Hyuuga's hands. "Hold him still, and don't let him move!" He told the others, even as the patient started screaming, with a growl almost like an animal tearing from his throat.

The brunette then took a pair of silver surgical scissors from the tray that he had just handed Hyuuga and started cutting the patient's shirt open. More blood flowed from the chest area, thus staining their hands even redder with blood. And it was then that Kagami realised to his horror that the chest was opened. He could even see the rib bones of the guy, also red with blood.

"Oh God..." Riko whimpered, staring at the opened chest cavity with horrified eyes.

Tamaki meanwhile was still trying to stop the bleeding by holding a cloth that seemed suspiciously like one of the bed sheets to the guy's abdomen, but to no avail. Quite a number of blood soaked sheets were already gathered in a pile next to Shigehiro on the ground, and the ground was getting slicked with wet coppery blood.

"Damn it! We're losing him!" Riko screamed, as the harsh and ragged breathing of the guy on the bed is getting fainter. It is already a miracle in itself that the guy is still alive as it is, especially after having stepped onto a landmine that had basically blown off his limbs.

"God...damn it!" Sakurai cursed for the first time in his life, banging the surgical tools that he had been using onto the tray that Hyuuga is holding with more force than necessary, with the blood still pouring out like a fountain from the chest cavity. And then, all of them stared in shock as Sakurai dug his hand into the guy's body, and Kagami resisted the urge to puke at the sight.

"His stomach is bleeding." Sakurai said, feeling around with his hand, his head turned away so that he did not have to watch. "One kidney gone; they must have lost it when they were transporting him here, and when we had stuffed his other organs back inside earlier..." Kagami turned a little green at that; he wasn't a fan at seeing someone stick his hand into a dying man's chest to check if he had lost any organs. "His heart..." Sakurai grimaced, still with his head turned away. "...It's still pumping, but it's getting weaker... His lungs... Oh my god...!" He bit on his lower lip. "We're losing him!"

"Damn it!" Tears were nearly spilling from Riko's eyes. It was then when Kagami was solely reminded that no matter how tough an outlook that Riko and Hyuuga portrayed, they are still relatively new to this whole war business—just like the rest of Seirin. And this is still the first time that they have seen someone barely hanging onto the threads of life, and slowly slipping to the afterlife in such a state.

"Can't you do anything?" Hyuuga barked at Phantom's resident doctor.

"We have to at least stop the bleeding before I can actually do anything!" The normally meek young man shouted back. Apparently, his personality took on quite a different side when he is in 'doctor mode'. "This isn't a proper hospital facility! I don't have all the required tools for something of this magnitude!"

"Well then, you're going to have to do something!" Tamaki said grimly, holding the cloth to the abdomen. The floor beneath the bed was already long covered with blood. "We're losing him!"