believe he wanted to discuss some matters concerning your… book. Possibly to correct certain medical inaccuracies, though I know how infallible you are." Toshihiro's smugness grew. "Now, while you two, ah, continue on, I shall proceed to the village. There was this one… tart that I wanted to sample." He snapped at his entourage. "Noburo, Kon, you two stay with the doctor. The rest, follow me."
Dutifully, the rest of the guards shuffled after him, leaving only the elder samurai and the youngest Inuzuka behind—and his large, bear-like dog, who whuffed once before lying on the floor. Eiji edged backwards, eyeing the dog with contained panic, while Sen crouched down and stared at it from several feet away.
Doctor Makoto cleaned his glasses for the third time as he squinted at her. Finally, he sighed, and with trembling fingers, placed them back on the bridge of his nose.
"Do you remember me?" he asked, wry.
Perhaps he was a tad familiar, but he didn't stand out from the sea of faces that had passed through her clinic. "Afraid not," she admitted.
"That doesn't surprise me. It's been almost a decade since we met." The doctor smiled at her, and it was self-deprecating but also rather kind, even as he fidgeted with his sleeve. "You may not remember me, but I remember you. How could I not? I've been thinking of you almost every day."
Yui paused, surprised. Had he been one of her patients? She cast her mind back ten years, only a year after Old Anzu's passing, trying to remember.
"I was a young man then, one who'd only become a doctor at his father's request. I'd just graduated, and I was restless and unhappy, convinced that I'd made the wrong choice in listening to him. So, like any other foolish boy, I decided that I wanted an adventure. I wanted to run away. And I did."
Makoto spoke like someone who had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in his head, each word deliberate and smooth. "Instead of working as a court doctor for one noble or another, as my father wished, I found a traveling caravan heading to Earth Country. They needed a healer, so I offered my services. They gladly took me along. Little did they know. Little did I know."
He continued, "It went smoothly at first. Then, everyone started becoming sick with cholera, and I panicked. I was arrogant, stupid… and worst of all, I didn't know what to do. As a last resort, the merchant leading the caravan had asked the local healer of a nearby village for help." The doctor paused. "And out comes this little slip of a girl, barely past her tenth year. She did everything I couldn't. She separated the patients, procured clean water, treated the symptoms… this girl healed them. I was utterly affronted."
Everyone, from Eiji and Sen to the ninja and samurai, were listening. The doctor blinked, noticing his audience was more than just her, and smiled again, just as wry.
"Even after we left the village, I couldn't help but think about her. How could this peasant girl do what I couldn't? When we returned from the trip, I threw myself back into my studies, determined to be better. As I grew older, it became less competitive and more admiring. This girl did what I couldn't, without any of the advantages I had, and that thought became tinged with sadness. How unfair it was, that I had access to so much and she didn't. As rumors of a village with an incredible healer arose, I immediately thought of her. Could it be?"
Doctor Makoto pointed to the book. "This was the last straw, of course. Yui's Primer. Written by someone with the same name as that girl from a decade ago, full of information that a village healer shouldn't have. I knew none of my colleagues would take it seriously because they didn't know." He met her eyes, and gone was the twitchy man of her first impressions. "You changed my life. I am here to repay the debt, Yui-sensei."
