Hiyochi And The Metal Scrap

"Lia-nee... Lily-nee... Griff... Jeff... and Alexia-nee? Nice to meet you! I'm Hiyochi. Here, I'm one of the main surgeons and various other kinds of doctors that you might need. My parents taught me it all, and I wish to train new people!" She said with a smile.

Hiyochi adjusted the black hair tie that was clearing the hair from her forehead and happily bounced around as she explained. She was a pure example of happiness, and I wanted to learn more than just doctor things from her.

"I don't mean to be rude, but why do you add that '-nee' thing to the end of our names, but not Griff or Jeff's? What is it? And... you seem kind of young to be a full-fledged doctor, don't you?" I asked. I analyzed the way she spoke. I don't know if it was the distrust in my body, but looking at her put a bad feeling in my body as if she would betray us.

"Don't know! My mom always called her friends that, so I just stole it from her... and yes! I'm only thirteen years old, but I'm really good!" She said.

I almost didn't believe her... but she was far too confident to be lying.

"Wow, you're my age. Lia and I are thirteen as well, but we'll be turning fourteen in two weeks." Lily said, happily shaking Hiyochi's hand as well.

"Awesome! And, you two? Griff and Jeff? Are you their age as well?" Hiyochi asked next, getting uncomfortably close to the two.

"N-No. We're a year older... but seriously, you're thirteen? Xavier was fourteen and knew a little, but he passed down the information to us and it was barely anything. You know... everything?" Jeff said in a confused tone.

"Correct. Xavier... Ruby filled us in on the details... he was the one who was good at the doctor stuff, like me, right? And then Drake was the weapon forger..." She muttered. She really knew all of that?

"That's right. I look forward to learning more with you, Hiyochi! Jeff and I will be working hard in order to make Xavier proud!" They shouted out.

"Pleasure to do business with you! And you, Alexia-nee... you're from that other world... and you are more of a utilitarian person?" Hiyochi turned her blue head to the side and her wavy hair followed, focusing on Alexia.

"That's right. With my old ability, I could enlarge things and shrink them, sometimes I could even do that with body parts, but I've departed from that ability. I have steady hands and my concentration is like titanium. I can do whatever you need me to." Alexia said in a committed tone.

"Good! I think studying these sorts of things with books isn't that efficient, so I'm glad you told me about one of your strengths. Ready to put that to a test?" Hiyochi turned her head with a wicked smile, which freaked us all out. However, Jeff and Griff did their best to match that energy.

That's when Hiyochi picked up a small piece of metal off of the counter on a tiny plastic plate and shoved it into her arm. Blood spurted out for a quick moment, then it stopped.

"Hiyochi?! What are you doing?!" Jeff screamed out, but not a shred of pain was on her face. In fact, she was smiling.

"Alexia-nee, go ahead and get this out of me." She said, handing over a small scalpel.

"I've seen worse, okay, I'm going in," Alexia said. Hiyochi was put into a patterned chair by the counter and looked up at Lily and me, examining the expressions on our faces.

"You two seem desensitized to blood, have you seen terrible things?" Hiyochi finally dropped the perky attitude and got serious, to which we all nodded, Alexia included. After seeing our expressions, she continued, "I'd love to hear them. What happened to your group?" Hiyochi asked. It seemed like she was asking far past the scope of our experiences, and our group experiences as a whole.

"I was enslaved as a kid, only recently escaping. I used to do the dirty work that my Master wouldn't do. I've taken the guts out of people on various occasions, and have gotten a couple of nasty cuts myself. I have one across my nose." I said while pointing.

"It must've been rough. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but you know how ugly both Arkian and Human bodies are on the inside, and how similar we all are. So, whatever injuries you've caused or sustained yourself, use that to your experience. Right now, the scrap of metal I put into my arm is bordering on my Humerus, about three millimeters from hitting the bone. If you want to get it, you have to make sure to avoid all major arteries with your steady hands, and extract the piece without cutting anything else." Hiyochi said. She kept a straight face while Alexia dug into her arm, looking for a scrap of metal.

I was impressed looking at her. Not even a wince of pain came from Hiyochi as she talked to us about our experiences. That had to be something from a monster...

"I sort of understand your pain, but it was inflicted on myself before anybody else. My parents were both famed doctors of Antarctica before they died, and they wanted me to choose my path without feeling like I was in debt to them, and take their careers from them. After all, all parents want to see their children live out their own dreams, but I respected mine so much that I wanted to follow in their steps. Ever since I was five years old, I was playing doctor by myself. I was scraping my knees on the concrete to see what kind of wound it would produce, and I would tend to it myself using whatever I could. Of course, my parents didn't like that, but, look where it brought me." Hiyochi said, using her off-hand to give animation to the things she was explaining.

"If you didn't catch my point by now, I just wanted to tell you guys that no matter where you want to be or what you've done in the past, it means something, and it will always mean something. Those people you've killed, those cuts and bruises you've received, they brought you to me, and now you can learn everything I know." She said.

Alexia, unable to maneuver the scalpel in a way to break the metal scrap out from the confines of Hiyochi's arm, gave up after thirty more seconds of trying.

Within the same second, Hiyochi grabbed the scalpel, found the scrap, and flicked it out of her arm. On top of that, she caught it and put it back on the plastic tray.

"You were steady, you were right. Nothing else was cut on my arm. That's impressive." Hiyochi said, looking at her wound.