Wait, We're not Veterinarians

The short-haired Jounin strolls along the bright white halls of the second floor to the hospital, hands tucked away in the pockets of the navy blue, baggy pants he's wearing. They're tucked into his matching open-toed sandals, and contrasted by a long sleeve sweat shirt. Naturally, a dull blue flak jacket customary of Kumogakure's Jounin is attached to his torso, blending well with the rest of his blue outfit as he treads through the hospital, reaching the end of the hall.

Sakata makes a swift turn to his left and paces past three more doors, with a black mission scroll pinned to the side of the kunai pouch attached to his leg by white gauze wrapped about his right thigh. The male comes to a brief stop and shortly after, opens up the door, pushing on into the room with a relaxed smile upon his youthful features. His brown gaze shifts about his surroundings, settling upon the numerous snakes and hospital personnel, apprehensive on making their approach.

With a brief chuckle, he strides further into the room and removes the scroll from its positioning, flashing it to what looked to be the one doctor in the room.

"Here to take care of this snake issue. My partner should be showing up soon." Sakata states calmly, glancing towards the hissing animals in silence. They were within their own segment of the room, surrounded by mini-wall like borders that kept them away from the personnel. To be completely honest, he had absolutely no idea who he was going to be working with. He just hoped they'd be less clueless than he was on how to deal with this -- apart from having the qualifications to actually remove venom and all that, properly treating a snake was a whole different scenario.

---

Mission:

Akame sighed as she approached the hospital, sensory on full alert. It was a useful skill she had learned over the last couple years and one she practiced all the time to naturalize it in her everyday interactions. That way it wasn't a strain in a fight since it would be as second nature to her, like breathing and blinking. She was dressed more casually than normal, this being a non-combat oriented mission within the walls of the village itself. It was actually pretty convenient, all things considered.

Over the last couple years she had matured fully into a grown woman, with her face having a more feminine appeal to it and her body being fully developed. She had grown into a fine young woman, and a highly lethal one as the captain of Kumogakure's black ops department. She wore no mask today, being an ordinary jonin rather than a hunter nin. A knee length skirt that matched her eyecolor with a tight pair of black shorts on underneath to prevent any unfortunate flashing should she need to move quickly in case of an emergency. Her choice of a top was simple, a white blouse with black polka dots that had the top three buttons unbuttoned to let the girls breathe a little bit. After all, it was a beautiful day outside. The standard issue shinobi sandals were her choice of footwear, being the one she wore most often.

A seal decorated the back of her blouse, just the generic sealing technique, that contained her flak jacket in case things got hairy. Otherwise, she had only one katana on her left hip. It was the one thing she would never be without, no matter the day or situation. It was the one item she would take with her in any given situation. Getting by without armor and clothing is easy, getting by without something to defend yourself was not. Her full and long, jet black hair was braided in a french braid all the way down. It reached to her waist, showing a dedication to keeping it clean

Akame entered the hospital, sensing both those recovering and those dying among the regular signatures. It was an ominous feeling, to feel someone else's life dwindling away like a fire without fuel. She had taken many lives before, but she had never felt death as she did now. The knowledge was a great mental workout for her, as she frequently had to shut her emotions off completely in order to blindly kill someone. The seasoned teenager wished no harm on anybody, which is one of two reasons she had been assigned this mission. Helping where she could was something she enjoyed doing after all. The second reason was that she was very good with animals, though very, very few knew the exact reason why.

She had memorized the room she was supposed to go to and quickly navigated the familiar halls and floors of the building until she was at the assigned room. There was supposed to be a chemist here to create the anti-venom once she had managed to get the snakes and extract the venom from them. Akame entered the room, glancing around until she found the man who was obviously a shinobi. From first glance, she would guess a jonin. Nothing really stood out about him... but nothing indicating any weakness either. He had a good pool of chakra and his life force was strong too. It was odd, but this was the first shinobi she had run across where she could say with close to one-hundred percent certainty that he was competent in every area without getting to know them a bit better. She next say the snakes, smiling at the serpents who all seemed to calm down a little when she entered the room.

Akame turned back to the presumed jonin and gave a friendly wave and a warm smile. "Hi! You must be my partner for the day. I'm Akame Sasumi," she began, stopping to give a short bow. She popped back up quickly however, remembering that she had left that third button undone. Akame quickly fixed that situation, leaving only the top two unbuttoned as a light blush settled on her face. It wasn't often she spaced off. Perhaps it was all the snakes...

"I guess I'm the snake-whisperer, ahaha. Pleasure to meet you!" She kept the smile up, though it had shifted slightly in appearance to one of embarrassment rather than purely kindness. Today was going to be an interesting day, of that she was sure.



Using: Sensory

Stamina used: .5/160

Sakata peers over his shoulder as Akame steps foot into the room, glancing at her from head to toe for a moment. From the looks of it, she seemed to be eyeing the snakes initially. After the female turns her head and introduces herself, the male quirks his brow up for a moment, then smiles. He'd recognized the name faintly as another high-ranking shinobi in Kumogakure's military -- though he was a little surprised that someone else of his caliber had been assigned to the mission. He saw it as a chance to potentially find another student, but a colleague was just as good.

The male turns on his heel to face her, offering a smile of his own and raising his hand, giving an idle wave. "Looks like it. Name's Sakata Kishima -- pleased to meet you, Akame." He remarks casually, briefly blinking wide at the predicament regarding her shirt from the moment she bows. He respectfully turns his head, partially shifting himself to glance back at the snakes for a moment. Pleasant sights could wait for some other time.

After that awkward moment, she seems to go on, stating her own role in the mission that he'd suspected. Sakata looks back at her at that point, fixating his gaze on hers. He'd definitely noticed she'd adjusted it but the male focuses on their mission at hand, or at least doesn't mention it. "Seems like it. I'll be doing the extracting and stuff, since I've got no experience with ensuring those snakes won't attack. I take it you're experienced on your end of things?" He inquires. The room pretty much had all the equipment they'd need in order to handle the snakes, with vials for the venom among other little tools.

Well, at least this Sakata person wasn't like most other men. When Akame stood erect from her bow, she noted that he had turned his head to avoid the phenomenal view he would have gotten otherwise. Well, good to know you're not as much of a horndog as most other men are, she thought to herself. The conversation carried on as it otherwise would have, Akame taking a second glance around the room to get an inventory of everything that was inside. There were vials and measuring containers as well as odd filters of some sort that appeared to fit the measuring containers. Those were likely what the venom was drained into before being made into an anti venom and stored in the vials. Chemistry was only of mild interest to Akame, however when it came to chemistry that had to do with animals that level of interest was spiked a bit up to the level of genuine curiosity.

Sakata asked if she was experienced with these kinds of things as Akame turned and walked over to the enclosed snakes. She bent over rather than squatting, again giving Sakata an unintentionally great view of one of Akame's... ahem... assets. The ANBU captain tapped on the glass a couple times to draw the attention of the snakes within, unable to hear exactly what they were whispering to each other from the other side of the barrier. "Yeah, I guess you can say that. I've always been pretty good with animals and they generally seem to like me," she said with an upbeat tone. This would shift to one that was half serious and half joking for her next statement. "Except for deer. I don't know what it is about those skittish bastards, but we never seem to get along." This was stated as a fact, with Akame continuing to act as normal as she said it though she DID intend for it to be amusing when she said it.

"Have you ever done this before, Sakata-san?" Akame kept her attention on the snakes, moving around a little while still bent over to follow one of the snakes that had caught her eye around a little bit. "Creating anti-venom, that is," she added for clarification. The earlier redness in her face had subsided back to her regular coloring, her beautiful dark eyes tracing the movements of the snakes within the enclosure. Hmmm, I wonder which one we should start with? The brown one? Perhaps the rattles-"

GET THE ONE THAT'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!

Akame stood up, startled by the sudden voice she heard. She turned to Sakata, confusion on her face. "Did you say that?" As she asked, she glanced around the room again with a very scrutinizing gaze to see if someone was hidden or if there was some kind of fancy gadget that projected sound. She didn't see anything.

No, you moron, that was MEEEEEEEEE! HAHAHAHAHA, you're more dumb than I thought you were! Again, she was startled. Again, she would look around, her body slightly tensed out of martial habit. She was on high alert for seemingly no reason to those outside of her mind, but for her, there was never a better time to be worried.

Right... well, whoever is playing this trick on me can go fuck themselves, she thought somewhat bitterly.

Ain't no joke, stupid! Just my handsome self making your life difficult now that you can finally hear me! I'm gonna keep you awake ALL NI-

Fuck off.

And with that dismissal, Akame would shake off her tension and focus on the task at hand. She hadn't sensed a technique being used or one being in place already, and there were very few who were good enough at genjutsu to fool her for any extended period of time. No, this had to be because of... THAT.



Notes:


Stuff is all the same.

Sakata quietly peers at the female as she heads on over to the snakes, beginning to tap on the glass. And well, given the mannerism in which she was doing it, his brown gaze briefly glazes over her rear, though he's quick to switch it back to observing her interact with the snakes somewhat. At the very least her skirt ensured that there was no unintended flashing occurring, though it still felt a little too convenient this happened right after the wardrobe malfunction with her shirt's button.

None the less, the male strides on forward, responding to her statement and the inquiry that followed it. "Ah really? That's a cool trait to have -- Heh, deer seem to scared by just about anything. That's just one animal out of the many you can get along with though, As for dealing with antivenom.. no, not really. I've never really done it firsthand. Luckily I've studied it a lot though so there won't be any trial and error process here." He remarks, going ahead and peering at the snakes himself. He made sure to stay at a decent distance since after all, she was the one with more experience keeping them relaxed.

As the female stands up out of nowhere, he quirks a brow upright, glancing at the snakes for a moment. Nothing different there. Nothing else had seemed to change either. Upon her question about him saying anything, he shakes his head. "No, did you hear something?" The Kishima inquires, before striding into her line of vision just to assert that he was indeed, not saying more than what actually came out of his mouth directly. As she expresses discomfort from seemingly nothing again, he squints for a moment, glancing around the room.

Still nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe some kind of single target genjutsu? "Hold on a moment." Sakata states, before striding toward the door and peeking out of the room briefly. Still nothing had seemed to change -- infact everything was conducting as it had been prior. Strange.

The Kishima slips the door closed and heads back on over to her, feeling a little concerned. He keeps the sentiment laced behind his usual lax nature though.

"You alright?"

Sakata acted how she figured he would after analyzing the situation a bit better. He checked around the room and outside the hall to see if there was anybody there when she began to ask him her questions. He came back in and asked if she was alright, to which Akame would nod. "Yes, I suppose I was just hearing things. Pipe in the walls or something," she said casually, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. In her mind however, she was under a constant mental assault. It was like somebody had taken a sledgehammer and broken down a dam of untold amounts of vile, filth, racial epithets, slurs, and other obscenities. Half of which she wasn't entirely sure the meaning of.

... only white woman in this entire mother fucking village and you wonder why you don't have any friends. Just wait til you go to sleep tonight you hussy, I'm gonna give you a performance like you've never seen before! HAHAHAHA! Tonight is gonna be a good nig-

Do you ever shut the hell up?

NOPE! This thing sounded a little too happy to not know how to shut its mouth. Why did she get the feeling this was going to be a long, long life? And not in a good way, either.

Akame brought her hands up and rubbed her temples a little bit before her right hand moved to her sternum where she would hold it. Fuck. Me. Why did I get the annoying one, she thought somewhat bitterly as she continued to try and ignore the stream of garbage that was constantly being recited in her mind. Whatever the hell this thing was, it didn't have an off switch. Akame turned to Sakata and smiled again, no hint of the mental turmoil she was going through playing across her face. "Alright, well, which one do you want to start with?"

She motioned for him to come over to the enclosure next to her before continuing. Once there, she would bend over again and start pointing at various snakes as she described them. "We could start with the brown one there if you want to take it easy. Its venom is one that paralyzes the victim rather than killing it, so if either of us mess up with it then it shouldn't cause any lasting damage. We could also go ahead and start with that black one in the corner with a red stripe running up its back. It has one of the deadlier strains of venom and is probably the most aggressive snake in the group. It comes from the southern mountains of the Land of Earth if my memory serves right. One bite is enough to kill a fully grown mountain lion." She shifted over a little, closer to Sakata as her finger tapped on the glass almost directly in front of him, bringing the two very close to contact. "And then there's this little guy here. He has the deadliest venom in here, but he's not quite as nasty as that black one is. One bite and you're dead in a couple minutes," she finished, looking at Sakata with her large, dark orbs in anticipation of his choice.

PICK THAT ONE! AND THEN TICKLE ITS BALLS!

Akame grinned when Sakata offered to begin with the deadliest one of the group, the little brown snake that was in front of him. "Works for me!" The ANBU captain opened the top of the enclosure after standing, not waiting for Sakata to get ready or anything. Without halting, she reached in and snatched the little brown snake by the base of its skull. "All of you can just calm down, I'm not going to hurt you," she muttered to the snakes as they began to hiss their complaints. And Akame could tell you this, the things they were saying indicated that these snakes weren't exactly in the mood to be handled. A quick motion brought the snake directly in front of Sakata's face, writhing around in the air as it tried to find something to wrap around for support.

"LET IT BITE YOU!"

"Grab it like this, right behind the skull so it can't bite you. Squeeze a little bit to force the jaws open so you can do your thing," she advised. Then she would turn to the snakes still writhing and hissing in the enclosure. "Oh, calm down, you're all going to be fine. I swear to god though, if any of you little fuckers bite me I'm going to rip you in half." The threat was real, with Akame releasing the snake in her hand whenever Sakata got a good grasp on it to do his part of the mission. The snakes hissed some more, some trying to slide up the side of the enclosure. Akame replaced the top calmly, smiling a smug smile at the reptiles now trapped within. "I know, I'm a bitch, right?"

"YES!"

Her mouth tugged down in a frown briefly before she returned to her normal expression. This was definitely... inconvenient. Akame would watch what Sakata was doing in order to get the venom from the snake, following him wherever needed in order to do so. She was also prepared to take the milked snake from him once he was done so she could replace it in the enclosure. "So, what do you have to do to make this work? Do you use medical chakra to make it, or is it done purely with chemicals?" Her curiosity was most assuredly piqued, that much was obvious. Even with the annoyance in her mind, she could still focus on what was going on around her thanks to her raw brain capacity. Paying attention to multiple things at once was something she could do fairly easily, her excellent memory and quick wit serving her exceptionally well in her predicament.

Sakata apparently found her mannerisms amusing, as he gave a small laugh after Akame cursed at and threatened the snakes. He seemed to accept her explanation of how to handle the snake, perhaps already knowing that information and choosing not to point it out for the sake of civility. The jonin watched and listened intently as Sakata went about collecting the venom, noting the container and the process used so that she could do the same thing if she had to out in the field. Gathering poison from the natural environment rather than lugging around a bunch of crafted poison seemed like a good idea, especially for an ANBU that often times is cut off from any kind of reinforcements or supply from the village. Snake venom was a great natural poison, for obvious reasons.

He got a bit of the venom from the snake, repeating the process a few more times before he finished. Akame took the milked snake and placed it back in the enclosure as she would have done before, continuing on with her line of questioning. Sakata replied in saying there was another method to collecting the venom other than what he had just shown her though it was more dangerous and had to do with his previous comment on extracting venom from snake bites. Perhaps he had just misunderstood her question, or misheard it rather, as that wasn't what she had wanted to know.

"Oh! No, that's fine, there's no need to hurt yourself," she quickly replied, holding a hand out and shaking it as an awkward smile graced her beautiful face. "I just wanted to know how you actually made the anti venom, like if it needed some chakra added to it or if everything was done purely with chemicals. I'm sure there's a way to do both, but milking snakes isn't exactly my area of expertise," she finished honestly. And it was true, too. She was good at talking to and understanding animals but actually doing some of the more in-depth stuff with them was out of her league. Feeding and watering them was easy enough, everything else just wasn't important to her at this point and time.

Why not just read a damn book? Akame ignored this, continuing on with the mission as if nothing was wrong. YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME FOREVER! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, HEY! HEY! HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME, DAMMIT! Yes indeed, this was going to be a long life...

As she finished up her more elaborate explanation of what she was curious about, the ANBU captain would head back to the enclosure to grab another snake out of there. She didn't pick either of the other two, instead coming out with a light brown snake that had purple diamonds running down its spine. It wasn't particularly aggressive, letting her pick it up without so much as a warning hiss. Of course, her ability to understand and better deal with animals made this a lot easier for her. For a normal person, they probably would have been bitten by now. For her, it wasn't a problem though she could understand why she had been tasked with such a mundane mission given her rank.

Akame walked back over to Sakata with snake in hand. This one was longer, being roughly three feet in length. She supported its tail with one hand while holding it behind the head with the other, the animal wrapping its tail around her hand. "This little lady here has a venom that can cause numbness and paralysis within a minute of getting bitten. Thankfully, she's fairly docile as far as snakes go. Her breed typically doesn't lash out until you've gotten near enough to step on them, and even then they'll probably just try to stay hidden from view." She handed the snake over to Sakata, a little grin on her face. "Be careful handling them though, they're notorious for fighting to get free from their caretakers." Even as she said this, the snake gave a violent wriggle trying to get away from Akame. "See?"

Hmmm, so her initial thoughts were correct. This was a more chemical related thing rather than something that could be done with chakra alone. Having the gift of chakra and some talent in ninjutsu made many things much easier in their world. She honestly couldn't see how people could get along without it in their day to day lives now that she had become able to utilize it. But it appeared there were still some things chakra couldn't cure entirely. At least, until Sakata revealed that there was a medical technique to withdraw poison from a person's body. That lowered the value of these anti-venoms somewhat, but she knew that there was only so much chakra a person could expend in a day before they were utterly wiped out. She had driven herself to that point before quite often in her pursuit of mastering the art of kenjutsu.

"That's certainly an invaluable technique I would imagine. Ijutsu seems to be the miracle art of the shinobi skills from what I've heard about it. You can draw out poison, heal wounds that would have taken weeks on their own. I've heard you can even perform surgery without cutting open the skin, too," she commented after Sakata revealed the ability to draw out poison being a thing for medics. Perhaps she should study the art one day. That kind of stuff wasn't really in her line of study right now, but who knows what the future might bring?

She watched as he repeated the process for the second snake, draining the venom with the interesting container with some kind of material on the top she assumed was meant exclusively for this purpose. It really was interesting to see how much venom each snake could contain within itself. There was enough in each one to give full dosages to multiple things which explained why so many different types of venom were lethal or as effective as they were. A triple or even higher dosage hit you when you got bitten, more than enough to cause some damage.

Sakata was finishing up with this snake when he made another comment, Akame holding her her hands out to take the snake back from him. She would place it back in the enclosure and began to fish for a third snake. One caught her fancy and she decided on that one, grasping it the same way as she had the previous two with her great reflexes keeping her out of harms way. This one as about the same size as the previous one and was also brown in color, however it was solid brown with no diamonds on its back. It was a lot more pissy, too, writhing around angrily. "Yeah, I've always been good with animals ever since I was a little girl. When I grew up, I studied them a bit to see what motivated them so I could understand them better. As the years passed, well, I guess I got to learn a bit more than I had been expecting to," she replied earnestly. And that was the truth, too. Being able to communicate with animals made it easier to understand their actions once you had studied about them. That information was invaluable in certain scenarios, as you could tell various things about the environment you were in by how the animals behaved within it.

She brought this one over to Sakata, her arms extended away from her body a little more than they had been with the previous ones. "He doesn't like being held. Sorry," she said with a light grin. "The venom in this guy's fangs destroys the tissue around where the bite is so please be careful. Not only will it kill you, it'll hurt the entire time you're dying," she informed her fellow jonin. Once he had taken this interesting specimen, Akame would make an inquiry about Sakata just as he had about her. "Well, I know about animals, how about you? You do anything interesting outside of shinobi duties?"

(Sorry Copy, gotta cut this short so we can do other stuff)


"Yes, interesting..." Akame said in reply to Sakata's first few sentences. The two continued their work, Sakata commenting that the magnitude of danger with these reptiles was likely why genin or even chuunin hadn't been assigned to the task. A practiced hand and a little natural talent were needed for this, of which there were likely very few in the village with said talent. He mentioned a clinic which made the ANBU captain smile a little as she watched him drain the venom. "A clinic, eh? Already thinking about retirement?" After this little exchange, Akame would go back to the enclosure with the snake and place it back before grabbing another. Over the next couple hours, she would repeat this process while continuing the idle banter between Sakata and herself, getting to know him a little better than she had when they initially started. Of course, he would be learning a few things about Akame herself in the process. Then, almost like a ghost, an ANBU would appear in the doorway of the room bearing two scrolls. Akame turned her attention to the ANBU in question, recognizing his mask and the identity behind it.

"The two of you have been reassigned. Each of you will depart during the exams and the tournament for the more skilled combatants. The details are in these scrolls," he said, pretending as if he wasn't speaking to his superior. Akame played along too, stepping to the ANBU and taking both scrolls from him. She gave a smile, the man behind the mask knowing that to be his cue to depart. And depart he did, like a good little NPC. Akame turned to Sakata, tossing him the scroll with a blue ribbon tied to it while she kept the second one, which had a red ribbon. While it wasn't known to many in the village outside of the ANBU and the administration, red ribbon meant the information contained within was for an ANBU. To most people, it was just a choice of color.

"Alright... well, I supposed we should head off to get prepared for whatever we've been reassigned to. It was a pleasure working with you Sakata," she began, bowing her head and upper body slightly for a quick bow. "I hope we get to do it again soon." With that, Akame would give the jonin a wink before turning and heading out the door, her black hair the last thing he would see as she departed.






[exit]