Heroes

Chapter Twenty

“Chad?!” I whispered loudly. 

“Huh…” he muttered weakly. “A-del?”

I rushed over to him and helped Isshin pull Chad up. I got up Babs to open the door to the infirmary, and we pulled the huge guy onto a bed. 

Once Chad was safely seated, Isshin released him and sighed in relief. Pulling out a stethescope from his pocket, “The Doctor,” as Isshin liked to call himself, spoke. 

“Okay, Chad,” he said carefully. “I need to check your heart rate, temperature, y’know, the usual. So if you could remove your shirt, it’d make everything a lot easier for all of us.”

Chad grunted in agreement, as if he was totally healthy and happy-go-lucky (which I didn’t think was even possible for a guy like him), but it was obvious that he was having trouble controlling his movements; his fingers clumsily fumbled over the plastic fastenings, he was so weak. He couldn’t even get a single one open. 

I sighed, smiling sadly. “C’mon, buddy,” I said. “You can’t be that bad. You survived an I-beam, remember?” I started unbuttoning his shirt for him. Standing this close, I could feel his body heat and see the thick film of sweat covering his skin.

Once his shirt had been removed, I dabbed his forehead and neck with a wet rag. Moving the mask of hair covering his his eyes, I looked directly at him. 

I smiled. “You’re supposed to be made of steel, right?”

He slightly smiled back. “Yeah,” he grunted.

“Woah,” I heard Yuzu whisper from behind Chad. “What a horrible wound….”

I snapped out of my daze and moved to look at his back. I gasped at the monstrosity that was his injury: a huge, ugly burn covering most of his back, blood still dripping from the edges. It was zig-zagged, and you could see the different layers of skin that the heat had revealed. I saw that, under that deep Mexican tan he had (A/N: No, I’m not being racist by assuming he’s Mexican just because he’s Hispanic. He’s actually ½ Japanese, ½ Mexican.), there was a thin layer of pink. It made me a bit sick to my stomach, to be perfectly honest. 

Isshin bent down, examining the wound at a close range. “You’re gonna have to take it easy…” he said, half speaking to Chad, half thinking out loud. 

I rolled my eyes. Duh.

“Uh…I’m…I’m…fine now….”

“Are you crazy?!” I shrieked. “You’re messed up, dude! Stay here and do what you’re told, or, as soon as you get better, I’ll kick your ass into next Tuesday.”

Chad chuckled the best he could, a sound half-laugh, half-wheeze. I grimaced a bit at how pathetic it was, big ol’ Chad with a laugh that was so frail, it was sad that he was that weak. He must’ve really been in pain to laugh like that. 

“C’mon!” Isshin said in his normal, too-cheery tone. “Time to go beddy-bye.”

“Unh….”

I smiled a bit. “Come on, big guy. Cooperating will only make this easier for everyone.”

Chad paused for a moment, and I guess my persuasion finally got through to him. He laid down on the bed, and let Isshin do all his doctor stuff.

The other five patients soon flooded the house, and we were busier than every. Patching up small wounds, sewing larger ones back together, it was a maelstrom of medical supplies. We worked many hours into the night. 

Around midnight, we had finally gotte everyone fully patched up; mostly everyone was fine; two people even went strait home after treatmet. The others would be fine after a calm night’s rest, all except for the Chadster. (A/N: Sorry, my bro dared me to call him that idiotic name, at least once, so here ya go, moron.) We were still unsure of how long he would be bedridden.