✔️Heal My Heart {Kakashi Hatake}

106 | mission report

Yokina and I were sharing a room, as it turned out, and the guys were all in one room as well. When I got back late at night, Yokina was sat at the desk, writing.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh! Just a mission report. I promised the Tsuchikage that I'd send one every day," Yokina replied.

"I should probably send something for the Hokage too," I admitted.

"And your boyfriend," Yokina said cheekily. "He might worry."

"I guess so," I conceded, and pulled a scroll out of my holster.

"So how was working with Zanko?" Yokina asked.

"Fine, actually. I wasn't expecting him to actually be useful, but he was."

"How so?"

"Seemed to actually know what he was doing. He was the one who pointed out that it looks like it might be acid-based."

"Interesting," Yokina said, signing her letter with a flourish.

I bent over mine and started to write.

Lord Hokage,

I have arrived safely in the Land of Iron and have already commenced work on a cure. The others in the team are okay, I think. The Stone medic seems very nice, and I think we may become friends. The Cloud medic seems to be annoyed all the time, but I swear it's not my fault! The Mist guy is pretty mysterious, he barely ever speaks, but I was working with him today and he seems to know what he's doing, at least. The Sand guy doesn't seem like much, but he's nice enough.

We haven't made much progress, though I'm still optimistic. I spent much of today studying how the disease works - it appears to be almost acidic, and no matter how little there may be, it is eating away slowly at the victim's cells. Not very nice - I experienced a small taste while extracting chakra to study.

I'll send an update tomorrow.

Miyoshi

I signed off the letter and rolled it up.

"Want me to deliver that for you?" Yokina offered.

"It's fine, I can send it myself. I have another letter to write anyway. Thanks for the offer, though," I said.

"Anytime." Yokina smiled.

I returned her smile, and began to write on a second scroll.

Kashi,

All good up here, not dead yet. The others are all okay, but the Cloud guy seems permanently annoyed. I told the Hokage it wasn't me, but I'm honestly not sure. I think he hates me.

Not much going on, just been studying the disease. It's very dangerous, to say the least.

Love you, hugs and kisses and all that

Miyoshi

I rolled up the second letter and placed it with the first. Heading over to the window, I whistled two short blasts and a hawk fluttered down onto my arm. It was a messenger hawk, sent from the Hokage to deliver my messages. I tied the two scrolls to its leg, and it fluttered off.

::

The days and weeks drifted by without much change. We lost patients, more than I cared to admit to Kakashi in my letters to him. I felt obliged to send real figures to the Hokage, as much as I didn't like it. The letters I received in reply said much the same things. The Hokage's were always wishing me luck and thanking me for updates, occasionally adding in updates of his own. Kakashi rarely said much about what was going on with him, and instead his letters were centred around me, making sure I was being careful and not getting myself in danger. Occasionally he provided a little bit of advice, but nothing groundbreaking. After a while, there were odd hints that he missed me and was worried, then he bluntly asked when I'd be home. It actually stung a little to have to admit that I wasn't sure.

I wasn't getting a healthy eight hours sleep, and in the past weeks I'd broken my personal record for meals missed. It wasn't healthy in the slightest, but I stayed up late examining tissue and the effects of damaged chakra on various substances. I hadn't spent so long at a microscope in forever, not since my medic training, but I had slowly accumulated a small notebook full of observations and notes.

"Let me see that notebook again," Ikari snapped irritably. I handed it over, and he flicked through it with an air of frustration.

"You've already read that thing a billion times," I said. "I bet you know it back to front."

"Haven't you found out anything else?"

"You'd know if I had," I replied.

"What's taking so long, then?" Ikari demanded.

"Hey!" Yokina snapped. "We're all on edge, alright? Leave Miyoshi alone. I bet she's done more than the rest of us."

"Maybe that's because some of us aren't pulling our weight!" Ikari rebutted.

"Settle down, please," Sakyū begged wearily. "The last thing we need now is to fight."

"If you want to study chakra samples all day, be my guest," I said. "At least I'm doing it."

"I got something."

Zanko's deep voice cut into the argument. We all broke off immediately and turned to him. I hadn't noticed him at the microscope, but he was there now, not wearing his mask so his black bangs framed his face. He held out a hand for the notebook, and Ikari handed it over.

"Oi, Leaf. C'mere."

"What is it?" I asked him, now used to his habit of calling us by our villages.

"Something more down your street, I think." Zanko handed me the notebook and swivelled the eyepiece so I could see for myself.

Looking down the lens, I did not see what I was expecting to see. Somehow, although you couldn't tell without the microscope, Zanko had somehow managed to turn the affected chakra into a liquid. Chakra is pure energy, so it was scientifically impossible to classify it in a state of matter, but there was no doubt that I was looking at a liquid. In this state, it looked almost like an ionic compound, in the form of a giant lattice. The electrons, though of course they were too small to see, were charged up with the energy of chakra which made them so violent and aggressive that they were slamming into each other, releasing bursts of destructive energy which was causing the breakdown of the cells they occupied.

"You are a genius," I said. "How the hell did you do that?"

Zanko shrugged. "A little trick my old sensei taught me, years ago. It didn't even occur to me to try it until just now."

"But it's just acidic matter powered by chakra!" I said excitedly. "I can combat that with an alkali, if I can get the balance right..."

"Or you might kill the patient," Ikari pointed out.

"Do you have a better idea?" I challenged. When he didn't respond, I said, "I'll be back," and darted out of the room.