The Power of Please
~*~*~*~*~~*~*
When he strode through the doors of the Senju skyscraper, he ran into Itama trotting down the stairs. His bi-coloured hair was damp, as though he had just taken a shower. “Oh, hi!” the youngest Senju said cheerfully, giving him a wave.
“Itama,” he greeted, a little surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
“I had training this afternoon, we just finished. What about you?”
Madara breezed past him. “Good, you can come and help me then. Your brother got hurt.”
Itama gasped, scampering after him. “Wait, which one? How bad?”
“Kawa. And I’m not sure.” Itama made a quiet sound, and followed obediently as he made his way to the medical bay. Madara busied himself with reorganizing the few supplies he had on hand, directing Itama to prep his preferred medical bed.
The doors slammed open after only minutes, and Tobirama flew into the room. He was carrying Kawarama bridal style in his arms, and the teenager’s eyes were closed, his limbs limp, and covered in blood.
Oh, bloody hell, he looked bad.
“Set him down,” Madara barked, dropping what he was doing. Tobirama wordlessly obeyed, carefully settling his motionless brother on the table. “What the hell did you guys get into?”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Tobirama grunted through gritted teeth. “We had split up, and we didn’t have any communication. I don’t know how long he’s been this way.”
Madara cursed under his breath, quickly assessing him. Whoever Kawarama had tangled with, they had known what they were doing. Kawarama’s injuries, while at first glance didn’t seem visibly awful, were definitely life threatening. Clean slashes to vital arteries.
“Clothes off,” he ordered, grabbing the edges of Kawarama’s already tattered shirt and ripping it open. Tobirama helped swiftly, taking out a knife and cutting off his remaining clothes. Without the fabric in the way, the gravity of Kawarama’s condition became startlingly obvious. Deep, accurate injuries littering his body. They were shallower than Madara expected, but given the amount of blood he must have lost….
He grabbed Tobirama’s hands, moving them over to the inside of Kawarama’s thigh, above his femoral artery, which was leaking a steady spurt of blood. Let it go too long, and he’d bleed out in minutes. “Press down, don’t let up,” he ordered, and Tobirama nodded, leaning down on the wound. His pale hands were instantly drenched in blood.
“Itama, come,” he called, turning Kawarama’s arm. Another injury just under his bicep, slicing through his brachial artery. “Press down on his arm here, it’ll help slow the bleeding.”
But Itama didn’t move. He was frozen in place, staring at his elder brother with wide, horrified eyes. The blood had drained from his face. “Kaw…Kawarama…”
Damn it. He did not need to deal with another Senju about to pass out. “Itama!” Madara snapped, turning to crouch down in front of him, smacking him lightly on the cheek to break him out of whatever daze he was in. “Itama, hey, listen to me. I need your help, alright? Kawarama needs you. I can’t have you fainting on me now, okay?”
He waited until Itama’s eyes had focussed on him. “Good?” Itama swallowed thickly, and nodded. “Good. Now, give me your hands.” Madara stood, guiding Itama’s hands over Kawarama’s arm, directing him to press down over the steadily bleeding artery. “Keep the pressure on.”
“Now what?” Tobirama grunted, casting him a side-long look.
Madara ignored him, pulling his O2 monitor from his pocket and clipping it onto Kawarama’s finger. It started beeping quietly as it got to work, and while it beeped merrily, Madara took a quick reading of his blood pressure. He frowned at the numbers he received from both readings. “Shit.”
“What?” Tobirama demanded instantly. “Madara? What is it?”
“His readings are dangerously low, that’s what,” Madara grunted back. For the injuries he sustained, they shouldn’t be that low. Particularly his O2 saturation. There was something else going on here….
He gave Kawarama’s injuries a closer look, starting with the one on his side, sliced over his ribcage. Carefully, he peeled back the edges of the wound, swiping his finger under the flap of skin.
His finger came back red, and black.
Curiously, he lifted his hand to his nose, sniffing at the strange mixture. Mixed with the irony tang of blood, there was a sweet, almost citrusy undertone. It made his eyes water, and he wrinkled his nose. “What is it, Madara?” Tobirama demanded, his voice impatient.
Madara held up a hand, displaying the black liquid mixed with blood. “That doesn’t belong in the human body,” he said dryly, digging out his phone and scrolling through his contacts. “Keep holding the pressure.” When he found his desired recipient, he clicked call, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder while it rang.
“Cousin of mine, this is unusual of you to be calling me so much,” the familiar voice drawled when the call was answered.
“Hikaku.”
“Madara.”
“I need your help.”
His cousin sighed loudly. “With what?” he grumbled, sounding annoyed.
“A friend of mine is hurt.”
“So bring him to the hospital.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not? Who is it?”
“Do you remember Kawarama? The kid I sent to meet you a few weeks ago?”
“Yes….?”
“It’s him. I can’t help him alone.”
Hikaku was quiet for a moment. “How bad?”
Madara glanced over his shoulder, at Tobirama and Itama trying to slow the bleeding. “Very.”
“What do you need?”
“Everything.”
“Madara, do you have any idea how-”
“Hikaku, please.”
For a few moments, silence met him. “Text me an address, I’ll be there soon.” With that, he hung up.
That was one down. He wasted no time calling the next. She sounded comically confused when she answered, and if it was a different scenario, he would have teased her. “Uh, hello?”
“Hey, Naori, got a minute?”
“I’m at work.”
“Good. I’m sending someone over to you at the lab soon with a blood sample. Run it against every known poison and figure out what it is.”
Naori snorted. “Since when were you the boss of me? Madara, I have actual work to do here.”
“Yeah, and I have a kid to save, so do me this one favour. Please.”
“Urghhhh, you piss me off so much sometimes! Damn it, Madara, don’t manipulate me like that!”
Despite himself, Madara’s lips quirked. “Thanks, Naori.”
“Whatever, brat. Make it quick.” She hung up before he could snark back.
“Madara!” Tobirama called. “What are you doing?”
“Just one second,” Madara grunted, pulling up Izuna’s contact.
His little brother answered after one ring. “This better be you apologizing for ghosting me, big brother,” he said crankily.
“I need a favour, Zuna.”
“Of course you do. You never call just to check up on me, do you?”
“Izuna, please. This is important. I need you to meet me downtown and bring a blood sample to Naori for analysis.”
“A blood sample? Whose?”
“Tobirama’s younger brother. I don’t have time to argue, Zuna. Please.”
Izuna groaned. “Okay, fine. You’re so demanding.”
“Thanks, little brother.” He hung up in the middle of Izuna’s cranky reply, texting the address to him and Hikaku.
“Madara!” Tobirama barked, his tone frantic. Kawarama had risen from his comatose state, and his body was thrashing violently, seizing and spasming. Swearing quietly, he hurried back towards them, curling his fingers under Kawarama’s head.
“Let it pass,” he instructed, wincing at the sight. Tobirama shot him a disbelieving look, but nodded, doing his best to hold down on Kawarama’s leg as the seizure ran its course.
“What do you think is causing this?” he asked lowly.
Madara paused, carefully considering his words. “He….He’s lost a lot of blood, but whatever his attacker used must have been coated in some sort of poison. Excessive blood loss doesn’t cause seizures or an oxygen saturation so low.”
“Is that bad?”
Madara didn’t reply, soothing Kawarama’s bloody hair from his forehead as the seizure passed. He didn’t want to give Tobirama the full details of the gravity of Kawarama’s situation, but he didn’t want to play it off either.
The doors opened once more, and one of Tobirama’s men poked his head in. “Boss! There’s some people here, they say that Madara called for them?”
“Send them in!” Tobirama barked, and the man nodded, vanishing back down the hall. It was a painstakingly long few moments until Hikaku bustled into the room, laden with what looked like half of an operating room. And right on his heels, equally weighed down with supplies, was Kenara Yamanaka.
Madara stared at her as she walked into the room like she owned it. “Kenara? What are you doing here?”
“I caught Hikaku not so sneakily trying to steal from the stock room,” she said dryly, dumping her bags and boxes on an empty table. “And he’s a terrible liar. Eventually, he spilled the beans that you needed help.”
“I’m not good under pressure,” Hikaku protested, unpacking a mobile ECG and setting it up.
“Sit rep?” Kenara requested, immediately getting down to business.
“BP 70 over 50, O2 sats 68%, excessive blood loss, and I suspect poisoning. Hikaku, please tell me you brought something I can use to draw a blood sample to send to Naori.”
“Never leave home without one,” his cousin muttered, reaching into one of the bags and withdrawing a long syringe, holding it out to him.. Nodding his thanks, Madara took it, gliding around the table to the arm opposite of the one Itama was desperately clinging to.
“Kenara, set up a transfusion?”
“Already prepping it,” she replied, and Madara didn’t bother looking over to check as he inserted the needle into the prominent vein on the inside of Kawarama’s elbow. Dark red blood flowed sluggishly into the clear syringe.
“Hikaku, when you’re done with that, prep for surgery. Even if he’s been poisoned, we have to stop the blood loss or we’ll have nothing left to save.”
“Got it.” Hikaku gave him a two fingered salute, hooking up the heart monitor. Its steady beeping set a quiet rhythm in the background, much too fast. Shaking his head, Madara slipped the needle out, ignoring the tiny pinprick of blood that accompanied it, and twisted off the needle.
“Itama, you can let go,” he instructed, somewhat gently. “Take this, go outside. My brother Izuna will be here soon. Give it to him, tell him it’s from me, and he’ll know what to do with it.”
Wordlessly, Itama slowly lifted his bloodstained hands, shakingly taking the needleless syngine. As he hurried off, Madara took a quick stock of where everyone was at. Kenara finishing up setting up the blood transfusion, adjusting the insertion of the needle into Kawarama’s arm. Hikaku unpacking various surgical tools, then moving on to clean the wounds to prep them for work. And Tobirama, still pressing down on Kawarama’s thigh, unnaturally pale.
“Tobirama, we can take it from here,” he called, but the Senju didn’t move. “Tobirama?” Slowly, he stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, I need you to get out of our way now. Go wait outside.”
“I am not leaving him,” Tobirama snarled, whipping his head up to glare at him. Madara glowered back.
“Yes, you are. I need space, and you’re in the way.”
“I’m staying here.”
“You’re in the way. Get. Out.”
“You don’t give me orders!”
“I think in this situation I can! Go.”
“No.”
“If you don’t lis-”
“Madara!” Kenara called, her voice loud and urgent. “He’s going into shock!” Madara swore, turning away from Tobirama. Kawarama was seizing again, but his eyes were now open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, but still entirely unconscious.
“A dose and a half of norepinephrine, Hikaku, now!”
“On it.” His cousin turned to another bag, digging through it and withdrawing a large syringe and a clear bottle of liquid. He quickly measured it out, and moved to inject it into Kawarama’s arm.
Tobirama stopped him, grabbing his forearm in a bruising grip and glaring at him so darkly that Hikaku shrank back. “Don’t you touch him with that,” he growled.
“That’s enough, Tobirama!” Madara snapped, moving between them and shoving him away from his cousin. “Go. Outside.”
Tobirama ignored his demand. “What is that?” he barked, pointing at the syringe in Hikaku’s hand. “What are you doing to him?!”
“It’s norepinephrine,” Madara snipped back, splaying his hands on Tobirama’s chest and giving him a light shove. “It’s adrenaline. He’s in shock, which means his systems are failing to meet his body’s demands and needs. Adrenaline keeps the heart pumping and the blood flowing, which might buy us a little more time.”
In truth, Madara wasn’t fully confident in his own decision. While injecting Kawarama with adrenaline would be beneficial, increasing his heart rate and blood flow led to the risk of him bleeding out even faster. Not to mention it’d further increase the spread of the poison in his system already. But between two evils…. Well. They’d have to work fast to stop the blood loss and hope Madara made the right call.
Tobirama glowered at him. “How is that helpful?” he hissed, looking ready to shove him and the other two away. His hands were clenched into fists. “Don’t you dare hurt him further! I swear I will-“
Oh, for fucks sake. These Senju are senselessly overprotective and unreasonable.
Curling his fingers in Tobirama’s collar, he yanked the Senju forward, leaning up on his tip toes at the same time and pressing their lips together roughly.
Tobirama froze for a long few moments. Then, the tension slowly leaked from his body, and Madara felt his hands hesitantly come up to rest on his hips.
That’s better.
With one last, soft nip on his upper lip, Madara pulled away, just far enough that their lips weren’t connected, and tilted his head so their foreheads were touching.
“I can save him,” he said softly, so softly it was almost a whisper. He lifted his hands to cup the sides of Tobirama’s face. “We can save him, Tobirama. But you need to trust me. You need to let me do my job. Isn’t that why you called me here?”
Tobirama exhaled shakily. “I trust you,” he breathed. “But I don’t know them, how can I trust them to-“
“I trust them,” Madara interrupted, gently caressing the tattooed scar on his cheek. “Isn’t that enough?” He stepped back finally, and Tobirama’s shaded red eyes followed him. “Let us save him, okay?”
Tobirama squeezed his eyes shut, then pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. “Okay,” he muttered, sounding drained. “Okay….” With a last look at his brother, he slowly strode towards the doors, and left the room.
Madara exhaled a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding, turning back to his companions. Hikaku was still frozen, holding the needle with an uncertain expression. “Go ahead, Hikaku. He won’t bother you anymore.” His cousin nodded slowly, and quickly administered the shot.
Kenara tightened her pony tail, giving Madara an unreadable look. “Now what?”
It felt odd to have her request guidance from him. But while she had years of experience in the nursing field, he was the one with higher education, particularly in situations like this.
Madara glanced down at his blood stained hands. “Prepare for surgery,” he said briskly, heading off to do just that.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Hikaku and Kenara were invaluable, and Madara thanked his lucky stars that they were here. They worked well as a team, quickly and effectively working to stop the bleeding and treat his wounds.
Had it not been for the poison, Madara would be confident Kawarama would make it out. As it was…. He couldn’t make that call.
As they worked, Madara’s phone started ringing. “Do you need that?” Hikaku asked, shooting him a glance.
“If it’s Naori, then yes,” Madara replied, not looking up from the cauterizing artery he was working on. Hikaku dug Madara’s phone out of his pocket, clicking accept and switching it to speaker.
“Madara.” Maori’s voice came over the speaker. “I got that blood sample, analyzed it like you asked.”
“And?” Madara pushed, giving her as much attention as he could spare.
Naori signed. “There was a match. It’s Banebreath. It has a few different traits, but at its core, its purpose is to stop the binding and thus the transport of oxygen in the body.”
“Which explains why his O2 sats are tanking,” Madara realized, frowning.
“Yes,” Naori agreed. “It also interferes with the removal of CO2, eventually causing overall acidosis, resulting in cell and tissue death, eventual organ failure, and then death to the person itself.”
Madara swore. “How do I stop it?”
“I sent Izuna off with an antidote, he’ll be there any minute. You’re lucky. There’s been an odd rise in Banebreath occurrences lately. I’ve analyzed over a dozen separate samples in just under a month, and we happened to have some antidote here. Give your patient one full dose to begin with. If his O2 sats don’t rise in half an hour, give him half of the second one.”
He sighed in relief. “Thank you, Naori. I owe you one.”
“Yes, you do,” she said snidely, sounding very unamused. “If my boss finds out I gave away two doses of Banebreath antidote he’d have my head, and I’m holding you responsible if he does!”
“Understandable. Bye.” He nodded to Hikaku, who hung up and slid the phone away.
“Will he pull through?” he asked, nodding at their patient and handing Madara a thick wad of gauze. He mopped up some escaping blood before answering.
“I think so.” Kenara handed him a new stitching needle, wordlessly taking the old one and setting it aside.
“We’re making good progress,” she assured him. “His blood pressure is stabilizing, as are most of his other vitals.” Except his O2 sats. “Let’s focus on getting the rest of him fixed up. Worry about the poison when the antidote gets here.”
Bless Kenara and her straightforward head. They kept working quietly, treating his injuries one by one. And roughly ten minutes later, little Itama poked his head through the doors.
“Hey, Madara? Your brother is here.” And true to his words, Izuna nudged through the doors not a moment after, a small bag clasped tightly in his hands.
“Izuna,” Madara greeted, relieved to see him. He nudged Hikaku, and his cousin carefully set aside the clamps he was holding to stem the bleeding of the wound they were presently working on. He himself kept working on stitching it shut.
“The antidote?” Hikaku asked, holding out his hand. Izuna handed over the bag, and Hikaku pulled out two vials of yellow liquid. “One full dose, right?” he asked, uncapping one of the vials and replacing the cap with a thin needle.
“To start with,” Kenara reminded. Hikaku nodded, and injected the needle right into his right brachial vein.
“Thanks, Izuna,” Madara said quietly, cutting off the stitch and setting his tools aside. That ought to do it. “I owe you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Izuna sighed, waving him off. His eyes were fixed on Kawarama’s slack face. “This is him, then? Tobirama’s brother?”
“Kawarama,” Madara supplied, and Itama nodded, stepping off to the side of the room and grabbing a small towel as he went. He dampened it in the far sink and returned, carefully cleaning the blood from Kawarama’s face and matted hair.
As he worked, Madara, Kenara, and Hikaku finished stitching smaller wounds and bandaging others that were shallow enough to go without.
“Madara,” Hikaku said after a time, nodding at the monitor. “O2 sats are rising.”
Madara followed his gaze, and could have collapsed with relief. 78%, and rising as he watched. “I think it’s safe to say we’re in the clear,” he sighed, snapping off his gloves.
~*~*~*~~*~*~
Tobirama stroked his brother's damp hair away from his eyes, pursing his lips at how pale, how still his brother was. But Madara assured him, several times, that Kawarama would pull through.
Presently, Madara and his team were letting Kawarama rest, and were busy cleaning up after the rushed surgery. Izuna was hovering behind his brother, like he was worried he would vanish if he took his eyes off him for even a second. The other two, Hikaku and Kenara, if he recalled correctly, were much more methodic, packing up their supplies in preparation to go.
At one point, Hikaku wandered back over to retrieve a temporarily abandoned tool. “Hikaku,” Tobirama said quietly, his voice shed. The man paused, squinting at him suspiciously. “I have a question to ask you.”
Hikaku’s eyes narrowed further. “And that would be….?”
“Why did you drop everything so quickly to come when Madara asked you to?”
Hikaku was quiet for a moment, wiping off the clamps with a small frown on his face. “Because he asked,” he said quietly. “And he meant it.”
Tobirama frowned. “What does that mean?”
Hikaku gave him a look. “I don’t know what your….relationship is with Madara. But Madara is a fiercely independent person. He has this habit of thinking he has to take the weight of the world on his shoulders, and that he has to fix everything by himself. He doesn’t like asking for help, or relying on others. So on the rare occasions that he does asks for help, and says the magic word ‘please’, it’s serious. He’d drop everything for one of us if we needed him, and that devotion goes both ways.”
With that, Hikaku gave him a disdainful scowl, and strode off to rejoin Kenara. As he returned, the woman glanced over her shoulder, looking Tobirama over with an unreadable expression.
As Madara escorted them away, Tobirama stroked Kawarama’s hair again, and leaned down to rest his forehead on his brothers. The deep, bone wilting relief that Kawa would be alright….It was almost overwhelming.
When Madara returned a few minutes later, alone now, Tobirama glanced up, watching him loosen his hair from the messy bun he had haphazardly tossed it up into. “You look like shit, Senju. Go home, get some rest. Kawarama will be fine.”
“What about you?” he asked, straightening. Madara raised a judgemental eyebrow.
“I have a patient to look after. He’ll be alright, but I ought to keep an eye on him for a bit. Go, you’re of no use here.”
“Harsh,” Tobirama muttered. But he conceded without argument. Now that his worry was soothed, he could feel exhaustion starting to creep into him, weighing down his limbs and fogging his mind. Madara rolled his eyes at him, turning to check on the monitor displaying Kawarama’s vitals. Seeing as he was being utterly ignored now, Tobirama quietly slunk out of the med bay, and slowly made his way down the halls and the stairs.
Hashirama and Itama were waiting downstairs. Poor Itama was so tired he was half asleep, leaning against their oldest brothers shoulder. “Kawarama?” his anija inquired, dark eyes unusually shadowed.
“He’ll pull through,” Tobirama replied, pausing before them and shaving his hands in his pockets. “Madara’s keeping him under for a bit, but he expects he’ll make a full recovery.”
Hashirama sighed with relief. “We’re lucky we had him,” he said lowly. “Him and his little…team.”
Tobirama glanced over at the stairs he had just descended from. “Yes,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Yes, we are…”