463/Radiant Infirmary Episode 463

Radiant Infirmary Episode 463
Date of Scene:	19 September 2023
Location:	Administrative Office
Synopsis:	This time on Radiant Infirmary...a mahou in need of some records comes in. Nurse Meiou manages to help him out and dispenses some classic strategy advice.
Cast of Characters:	Koji Silvia, Setsuna Meiou

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Koji Silvia has posed:
You can face literal monsters, but when it comes to adults and authority figures, it always goes so differently for someone as young as 16.

This being the case with one Koji Silvia as he sits outside of the Nurse's Office, waiting for his turn to be seen. Left leg bouncing off the floor, and not to the beat of any music in earbuds or anything else. Instead, the paler-than-usual looking young man seems to have this pensive look on his face that has nothing to do with his back being rolled forwards, or the fact that he's not dressed in the RHA school uniform at the moment because he's not cleared to return to all the normal things.

He's never met the Nurse, and never done anything more than class and clubs here at the school proper and as he presses his hands together, there expression of concern seems to give him a scowl that doesn't look like it fits on a normally pleasant face.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
The infirmary at the Radiant Heart Academy is, as perhaps expected, just as swank as the rest of the school. It's a large, well-supplied room separated with some of those rolling medical divider walls. Fairly nice beds can be seen here and there through gaps, and the main area is set up like a typical waiting room/nurse's station, complete with posters giving info about various adolescent diseases/conditions/problems.

One poster that stands out a little from the rest is a cartoon of two doctors standing over a patient lying on a bed with an arrow sticking up out of their arm. The caption reads: 'At a guess, I believe this arrow might be the source of her pain.'

For once, there's actually a brief wait at the Infirmary. A rarity, but apparently the current patient had some things to ask the Nurse they wanted to keep in confidence...and thus, Nurse Meiou shut the door and put up a sign indicating students to please wait.

It's not a terribly long wait, however, as said student vacates the room at enough of a rush that it's not really feasible to tell who it was even if one were trying to see.

A bare moment later, Nurse Meiou's voice can be heard calling from inside, "Come on in, Mister Silvia."

Koji Silvia has posed:
The Nurse doesn't get to see that the young man has to lean on his dominant arm to stand up, but the slightly uncomfortable expression on his face as he moves to towards the door is proof enough that Koji is obviously in some pain.

Stopping inside the door after a few steps, he turns and closes it, not realizing that a hint of the bandage on his back peeks out before he finally turns to face you, "Hello, Nurse Meiou-sama. I'm here for my mandatory screening before I can return to school."

The word 'mandatory' kind of has a note of annoyance to it, despite his politeness, but the young man moves along towards the examination area. Officially, it states in his record he was in an accident on a construction site, where he fell onto some concrete and his back was torn into by some rebar, and he has that sort of tender-careful movement of someone still dealing with some kind of back injury.

Finally settling himself on the examination bed, that faintly resigned face adds, "Sorry if I've come at a bad time. I know this is a formality, and that I can't rejoin the Gymnastics Club without a clean bill of health. I was going to write a letter to the coach to say I'm going to be out for the reason of the competitive season."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou frowns momentarily, then shakes her head and ushers Koji over to an exam bed. Seeing how he's moving, she sighs and shakes her head, then says, "Please take off your shirt, Mister Silvia. I'll need to look at those bandages before I can sign off on ANYTHING."

She then leans over so that he can see her looking at him, "...especially since you are obviously NOT fully healed."

She then shifts back, "How long ago did this happen?"

Koji Silvia has posed:
Before speaking up, Koji takes off his shirt and puts it to the side, then takes off an undershirt as well, letting you see up front that there's a pressure bandage on his left side over his ribs, and the longer bandage that goes from his right shoulder almost to his spine.

Glasses almost off, he readjusts them back onto his nose, and reaches up with his good side to pull his hair up and over his right shoulder so you can get a good view of everything before he says, "Two weeks ago, Meiou-sama."

He has the look that almost everyone gets though, the one that says 'isn't she a little young to be a nurse?' followed by one of someone who thinks they recognize someone but cannot place where. Both seem to bury themselves back behind an expression that is warring between being polite, and trying not to show how much things hurt at the moment.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou doesn't spot the looks from Koji, being on the wrong side of him for that...but she most certainly would recognize the former...as she's seen it MORE than enough times.

SOOOOO many times she's had to bite back the urge to snark that she's older than Hippocrates.

Instead, she spends her time inspecting the bandages, "So...when was the last time these were changed? And what medicines are you taking for this?"

She sounds professional enough, certainly.

As she waits for the answer, she steps over to one corner of the room to where there's a rack with a dozen or so tackle boxes, each a different color. She grabs the brown one, then walks back to the bed and opens it up to reveal a very well laid out kit for bandaging someone up.

Koji Silvia has posed:
"Two days ago." He answers first on the question about the bandages, "There is a pain creme that I was using on them to help with healing and to lessen the chance of scarring."

After fishing the tube of prescription cream from what looks like a sports medicine clinic out of his pocket, he then takes a breath, "I had to do it last time myself, since I was in the dorm bathrooms and no one was there. The ribs are a lot easier than the back. I had to sort of rig some tape to hold it against the wall before I wormed it into place and then pressed down. Never doing that again."

The admission is an honest one, and as he takes a breath, you can see some of the bandage edges already separating from the skin.

"I'm used to handling my own bandages. I've torn my hands and feet a few times when I was younger."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
The nurse sighs, "Yeah, we're gonna have to change these anyway. Give me a moment."

And from behind Koji comes a bit of rustling, followed by the distinctive 'snap' sound of someone making sure a pair of medical gloves are on properly tight.

A moment later, the young man can feel the looser bits of bandage being peeled back, "Yeah, a bandage like this is definitely something that requires more than one set of hands. You should have come here and let me help...or failing that, gotten your roommate to at least hold things in place while you redid them yourself."

And with that, she goes back to working off the taped part of the bandages in order to see how the wounds are healing.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Two things of immediate note.

The first one is that this back wound has healed FAR too quickly for something that happened two weeks ago.

The second is that it's too clean of a cut. This looks more like a blade wound than it does anything else. For a veteran mahou of Setsuna's caliber, this was an energy blade wound and almost... familiar. As if someone else she'd need had come in with the same type of cuts recently.

There is mostly healed and just red set of smaller slash-marks on the left bicep that if they were from the same time have also healed rather too quickly and too well for normal...

The final ones are the rib injury, and that is an ugly bruised spot that looks more like it should, with the scent of medication creme stinging at the nose as the bandage comes away.

Wincing at the tug of the tape on his flesh, Koji just mumbles back, "I'm not very good at asking for help... and there's been a LOT of people pointing that out to me recently."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Behind Koji, where he cannot see, Nurse Meiou arches an eyebrow as she not only recognizes the cleanness of the cut, but notices that the healing rates are all wrong. After all, she spent two hours, forty-eight minutes and thirty seven seconds in this very room sewing up that kind of cut before.

She shakes her head a little, "It sounds like you should start listening to them more."

A bit of fussing is done here and there...a few very gentle pokes to check for soreness or tenderness, "Well, I think for most part you can dispense with MOST of the bandages, though with this rib injury, you'll still probably need a bit longer."

She starts using some cotton swabs and alcohol to clean away the old application of cream around the site before putting on a new bandage, "...and you said you got this two weeks ago at a construction site? I do hope you reported them for some rather *flagrant* safety violations..."

Koji Silvia has posed:
The boy can lie. Because without skipping a beat, Koji says, "It was my own fault. I was there with some old friends from middle school I hadn't seen since coming here, and I was being too dumb for my own good. I slipped, bashed my side into the concrete, and then fell and caught my back on a piece of rebar before I hit the ground."

Despite the fact that he can, while you're working on all of that, you can see the tension working through his back from it, like he'd rather be saying something else...

"I don't think I'm going to see them again. Not if I can help it anyways."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou stops, then lets out a sigh. Pitching her voice a bit differently, she calls out to the room, "Niti-chan...please initiate privacy." A moment later, a pleasant voice responds, "Certainly, Nurse Meiou."

And with that, the blinds shift slightly as they make sure they're rotated to zero outside visibility, and the lock on the door can be heard to engage.

At the same time, Nurse Meiou walks around in front of Koji to more easily reach a bit of his rib wound as she finishes up cleaning, "...now then, since nobody is going to overhear, would you care to tell your medical professional...a class of persons whom, I might note, it is generally considered extremely unwise to lie to when they have your health in their hands...how you REALLY got those wounds?"

She gives him a serious look, then smiles a bit and says, "...and please...no 'VEILED' truths...just an honest answer, please."

Koji Silvia has posed:
By reflex, his hand goes to his smartwatch, one finger brushing over the odd circular gemstone mounted in it, and his mouth opens as if to say something... but then Koji stops himself. Eyes go around the room, as if someone has taught him the basics of situational assessment. The door, the beds, looking at what is here and what might be useful.
It takes him a moment to calm himself down and take a breath, "I should have known the nurse for THIS school would have to be..."

The thought trails off, and the expression changes as he meets your eyes. He's been in the trenches, as it were. It's something in the eyes of the ones that fight that just gives it away, "I made a run at Obsidian headquarters, and I got a lot more than I bargained for. Barely escaped, and a friend of mine, who I won't be naming, found me and healed me enough that I could get someplace safe. I'm been doing what I can for my own injuries, but my healing abilities are not the best."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
The look given back is one of someone else who's 'seen the elephant', as it were...and her expression gets a bit serious and slightly grim, "While I commend you on your initiative and ambition, circumstances force me to chide you for your lack of forethought and planning for an operation that big."

She steps back as she finishes cleaning the rib wound, "...all in all, not TOO bad a job for what you must have gotten hit with." She shakes her head, "I'm afraid you're likely going to have SOME scarring here and there, but it looks like it's not going to be TOO bad...some of them might not even be noticable at all from a distance."

She moves back to her tackle box and gets out some more bandages and a different tube of cream, "That last one looks like it's still gonna need a few more days if you can't get someone else to see about accelerating things for you."

Koji Silvia has posed:
That forces a chuckle from it, which aggravates the ribs, and causes him to reach up and lightly cup but not touch that wound, "That is the nicest way anyone has said 'Boy are you an idiot' all week."

But that little bit seems to have relaxed him more than anything else. As if he was expecting to get both barrels from someone who is obviously a senpai and aware, "To be fair? The ribs are from the building that I was hit into, and those have taken the long-..."

He suddenly stop, stares, and then his mouth falls open a little, "Was... was that you?"

He almost sits up off the exam bed, but wisely just shifts in his spot and sits still, "There was a larger fight the evening before, and I... someone was gravely injured, and I was trying to evacuate them, but..."

He gulps, and there are some real tears edging on his face, "I... wouldn't have been able to save him. All I could have done is kept him stable and maybe called for help until my power ran out. I..."

Finally, his head hangs, "Pardon me... I am mistaken. And I shouldn't be burdening you with more secrets than you need."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou blinks a few times at the raw emotion from Koji, then she smiles a soft smile, "Ah. Enlightenment. Yes, I was the one with the staff that ran off with the TSAB agent. He was in pretty rough shape, but some work got him stable again." She sighs and shakes her head, "But you're right about how bad he was off. It was a matter of centimeters."

She stands up and waggles a finger, "So as soon as those ribs finish healing, I suggest you start training...figuring out new magic or thinking up new ways to better use what you have."

That said, she gets her tube of wound cream (with a higher concentration of medicine) and covers a large square of bandage with it, then holds it up to the wound and says, "Hold that in place, please."

Once Koji does, she gets out a roll of stretch bandage and uses it to secure the medicated bandage in place by wrapping it around the young man several times before clipping it in place.

She steps back, then nods, "There. That should hold things in place, and the next time you need to apply it, just get your roommate to hold the bandage in place while you do the elastic or vice versa."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Once he's let go of the bandage, and lowered his other arm while you wrap him up, Koji says softly, "There are a couple people I can ask about that... but my abilities are more for hiding and getting information. I can fight, but I try and not go into anything I can't get myself out of fast."

Taking a breath, and twisting himself slightly back and forth, "That already feels better. I must have done something to aggravate my back. I'll ask my roommate to help next time. Or someone else I can trust to do it. I promise."

Then he adds, "I owe you for what you did for Chrono. If you ever need help moving someone fast or without jogging them too much, let me know. I can teleport them. Especially now that I've been here and I know the space better."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou starts cleaning up and she shakes her head, and she pitches her voice slightly differently to make it obvious she's quoting something, "In difficult ground, press on; In encircled ground, devise stratagems; In death ground, fight." She pauses and looks over at Koji a bit pointedly before going on in a more normal tone of voice, "Well then...might I suggest that next time you do your best to stick to difficult ground and avoid encircled ground? Clearly your strategems need some work, because she obviously pulled you into death ground, where you seem to be rather weak."

The used bandages get dumped into a biotrash bin, then the nurse walks over with a small bottle of pills that...sparkle.

Blue, in this case.

She hands them over, "I'd suggest also taking two of these as you need...pain is a sign that something is WRONG, not 'weakness leaving the body' or any of that macho nonsense."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Accepting the pills in both hands, Koji stands up and goes a polite half-bow that takes his still-healing back into account, "Thank you."

Coming back up though, he adds, "I'm not sure where that's from, but it sounds like Sun Tzu. A powerful influence on tactics in Japan for centuries."

Once more, he looks down at the pills, tilting his head as if wondering, but then he just lowers the bottle, and adds, "And believe me when I tell you... I don't buy into the jock mentality. That's my father. He could crack his head on the pavement, and laugh it off while he's still bleeding. In fact he did that just ONCE. Mom... she set him straight."

"Anyways. I will get out of your way now. But..."

Another pause, "It was nice talking to you. You were nothing of what i was expecting."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou hands Koji a small bag with several more bandages, a few more elastic wraps, and the rest of the tube of her higher grade wound cream, "Change that at least once a day, don't forget to take those pills whenever you start feeling pain, and you should be back to normal in a few days at this rate."

She then unlocks the door and says, "Take the rest of the afternoon off. I'll clear your records and smooth over any paperwork you might need.