I have half a mind, it's cracked and breaking

[sipthehoneylikeabutterfly]

The ragged stump of Ienzo's arm had been a mangled mess. Szayel had carefully trimmed away everything ruined beyond repair, playing conservatively with how much of Ienzo's arm he left behind. He didn't have enough to be useful; all trying to save more of the arm would get anyone would be a higher risk of later complications. In the end, he removed everything left below the shoulder joint, which also gave him enough undamaged skin to cover the amputation wound somewhat tidily. It was still going to be scarred, but at least it wouldn't be twisted and puckered scar tissue on the end of a stump.

The very first thing he'd done, once he'd cut away enough damage to see what he was doing, had been to seal off the blood vessels. Ienzo had lost a lot of blood, and Szayel hadn't needed to get a band around his good arm to know his blood pressure would be dangerously low. Nel had worked on that, feeding drips into his veins and casting curative spells to accelerate his body's own replenishment speed.

Szayel had put aside what he'd removed in a kidney dish, temporarily focused solely on the task at hand. With Lumi hovering over his shoulder, he hadn't expected to get a chance to keep so much sample tissue anyway, but he'd hoped that if he pretended to ignore it then Lumi would also pay it little heed.

Once the obvious wound had been covered Szayel turned to a more detailed examination of Ienzo, a task which required stripping him of most of his clothing. There were parts that seemed as if he'd be bruised and sore, but no other obvious, major injuries seemed apparent, and Szayel couldn't find evidence of any internal injuries that required attending.

Nel carefully applied bandages to Ienzo's arm and up over his shoulder while Szayel cleaned away his things, simply moving them to the back of the infirmary for the time being. He wanted to take the excised tissue and store it, safely, but that would only make things look obvious to his audience. Instead, after moving things out of the way, he returned to Ienzo's bedside, as if he'd only been intending to do that, and gave him a dose of the antidote for the sedatives they'd used.

They needed to see if he was capable of consciousness, after all.

"He's going to need close monitoring," he said, mostly to Nel. "Through the night as well." It might in the least be another chance for him to get his hands on some samples, too.

Comments

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi eyed Szayel, an eyebrow raised. Well, one of them could. None of them in the palace, that was true, but the answer to the question was still almost a yes.

"It's a shame this backwards world lacks the technology to correct limb loss," he said quietly.

They seemed to dislike the notion that their technology was somehow sub-par compared to what some of them knew, but it was just a fact. Even had made replicas of people, from what he'd heard. The tech on his own world far, far outstripped what he'd seen on Spira, too.

He watched Nel from the corner of his eye. Ienzo wasn't quite awake. That would take a few moments. He was weak, and seemed to struggle to open his eyes. It could easily be a lingering result of the sedative as anything else.

[sipthehoneylikeabutterfly]

Szayel turned his head to eye Lumi, a slight sneer on his face. Backwards world, indeed.

"We do," he said, snippily, "it's called automail." He'd trained to install it. Yylfordt had trained to build it. Together, they were able to design it. It had proven to be a monumentally bad idea to attempt it when he and Ylfordt couldn't get along for more than five minutes at a time in order to do so, however, and Szayel had gone and taken the job in Draklor while Yylfordt had gone to his precious airships.

"Unfortunately for him, it takes months to be fully rehabilitated." Szayel sniffed, "Not to mention, it isn't cheap if he does last long enough to be worth the effort and expense."

[declaregamuza]

Nel cast Szayel an irritated glance, but proceeded to ignore him as she brushed the backs of her fingers over Ienzo's remaining hand. She wanted to just gather the boy up in a hug, but he'd probably be in too much pain if she did that just yet.

"We've got you, Ienzo. You're in the infirmary."

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi tilted his head, interested. He had no idea. Either it was so unrealistic people covered it up, or it was rare due to the expense Szayel mentioned, or people preferring to live with a missing limb because of the lengthy rehabilitation time. Still, he had to admit to himself he was a little impressed they'd managed it with their level of advancement.

He scowled a bit when he wondered how much magic was involved, but turned from Szayel to Ienzo.

[theschemer]

Ienzo felt numb, and fuzzy.

He felt like he'd just woken from a very long sleep, the sort of sleep that gave you a headache and made it hard to ball your fists for half an hour or so. He felt too warm, too sluggish. He wasn't sure where he was. The bed didn't feel like his own and he could hear a voice somewhere far away, but he couldn't open his eyes. Sleep wanted to pull him back down.

[declaregamuza]

"Come on," Nel said, encouragingly. Ienzo was trying to come round; that was definitely a good sign. She'd be happier once he'd opened his eyes and focused on something. "Ienzo? Time to wake up, now."

Time to wake up and face an unfortunate reality. Nel wished Ienzo had some other friendly faces present. Ulquiorra hadn't shown himself, yet. Nel didn't know what had happened, none of them did, yet, but if he wasn't responsible, she couldn't help but feel he should be here for Ienzo.

She'd have to find him, once Ienzo was secure and comfortable.

[sipthehoneylikeabutterfly]

Szayel took a moment to watch Nel gently encouraging Ienzo to come round, and then turned away, shaking his head. If it was him, he'd be smacking Ienzo on the cheek, and that would be him being nice about it. Right now, he was inclined to check his pupils with a torch, but Nel was unlikely to let him close enough.

He discarded the needle before he turned back. His attention briefly fell to the removed tissue from Ienzo's arm, but he made himself continue to ignore it.

"Perhaps you should go and tell the others he's waking up?" he suggested, to Lumi.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi stayed precisely where he was and folded his arms, raising an eyebrow at Szayel's suggestion. he didn't dignify it with an answer. He wasn't about to go anywhere until somebody else turned up to relieve him of Szayel-watching duty.