Healy Hinode

I was born during the mandate of Ishymm, the Fourth Hokage, and I belong to the Hinode Clan. I was never particularly interested in Ninjutusu like most children in my village, not even Kenjutsu like almost everyone in my clan: my aim with the kunai was terrible, and I've never got along with the swords. My career as a Ninja did not look promising at all, which, in a mostly military village, brings a lot of problems.

The other children my age always made fun of me because of my clumsiness: they called me "that girl who is not a ninja" and they laughed at me every time I failed a Taijutsu test in the academy (which I had to attend out of obligation: village politics). Besides that, my parents constantly asked me about my future, hoping that at some point I would decide to choose a ninja path, but that moment never came, and although most of the time they were understanding and affable, I knew that in In the background, they worried and were ashamed that their only daughter was so denied for Ninjutsu.

My only consolation was the books. In the academy we were taught to read, and although almost all my memories of that time have already vanished, I will never forget how good it felt to be the first to learn to read in my class, and how I started to devour books from the library as soon as they let me in: I spent all my time shut up in my room or in the library, marveling at the infinity of worlds that were locked in those pages ... There is something in the letters and the thick tomes with endless pages that captivated me, and since then I am a library rat without remedy.

"How did I become a ninja?" you will ask... That’s a long story...

One day I accompanied my mother to the bookstore, as we used to do every weekend. I returned the books I had taken and she let me choose others. Glad to have other small universes to visit, I ran to my room as soon as I got home, sat by the window and opened the first book I had on my list... The problem was that this was not the book that I had chosen.

I was supposed to be about to read a fantastic story of adventure, romance and magic, but instead, I found an odd web of drawings and images that I did not understand, as well as words I had never read. I took the huge 2000-page dictionary that my parents gave me for my birthday and started looking, only to come across a pleasant surprise: for the first time in my life, I could not decipher the meaning of the words that this strange and mysterious book relates to, so I begged my mother:

"Mom, what does" hypoxia" mean?" I told her. She looked at me for a moment, blinked, and said, "Ah, it's when a tissue or organ does not have enough oxygen to ... Hey, wait, where did you hear that word?" In response, I showed her the book where I had read that word. 

My mother was a medic who works in the village hospital, and apparently, she had chosen that book because she needed to study on a specific subject: I took her book by mistake and she took mine. "Oh, I'm sorry, honey, take your book," she said and handed me the book that I had chosen ... But, instead of accepting it, I hugged the huge encyclopedia in my hands.

As I said, I'm a library rat. My curiosity knows no limits, and even more when it comes to words or terms that I do not know. A book full of strange words to learn, about a subject that I do not completely know, and with a professional by my side in which to empty the enormous amount of doubts that were forming in my head like foam?

"Mom ... can you explain more about these things?"

And that's how my passion for medicine was born.

My mother was the best teacher I could ever have. Patient and understanding, she was never annoyed when I questioned her about the smallest details, I would even say that she looked cheerful. At first neither my mother nor I took it seriously: we both saw that as a simple curiosity, almost like a game or a way to pass the time, but I did not stop fascinated by each new thing I learned, and the more she taught me, more conscious was what a lot I had left to discover.

"Mom, how long did it take you to learn everything about medicine?" I asked her once, as innocent as a little girl can be, to which she coaxed with a tender smile. "Oh, honey, I do not know everything about medicine, in fact, I do not know much, nor do I think anyone is capable of learning everything."

That blew my mind. Was there really something in the world that nobody else knew? Something so extensive that nobody in the world could learn it completely?... That was like an endless book! My dream come true!

My taste for fantasy and magic was put aside, replaced by an insane addiction to medicine... It's... Hard to explain. There is something that fascinates me to understand how things work, to know that there is always an explanation for everything, you just have to discover it. It's as if the world is full of mysteries and secrets, and each new lesson is nothing but discovering what lies behind my own ignorance. It feels good to be able to make sense of something, and little by little I realized how rational I was: even as a child, I began to ask myself things like: "How does exercising make you stronger? Why do we need to eat? and why does the stomach hurt if we do not? Why do we breathe? Who created us?... Or rather, how have we become what we are today?"

My life became a non-stop reading. I got up early in the morning, usually with a book as a blanket, and I spent all day, all afternoon and all night investigating, asking and searching for new books. I needed to learn more, to know more things, to quench my thirst for knowledge ... And then, that happened.

One day while going to the library to return some books I had borrowed, I saw a crowd that were talking nervously and shouting for help. Curious, as always, I went to see what was happening. I slipped between people, and since I was still very small, everyone let me in, they ignored me or they did not realize that I was there, so it was easy for me to get to the center of the crowd ... Only to find myself a man lying on the ground, rolling, carrying his hands to his neck and with his skin completely blue.

A thought emerged from the depths of my mind and echoed in my head: "suffocation."

I dropped the books I was carrying with me and ran towards the man. I knelt beside him, put my hands together as I had read and began to press his chest; under the ribs and on top of the stomach. At first, nothing happened, but I was no longer aware of what I was doing: at that moment I was a simple spectator, seeing how my body did what it wanted without asking for my consent.

The man spat and then took a big breath. He breathed again, at first with difficulty, and then more calmly. He sat down and looked at me in amazement. All the eyes of the crowd loomed over me, but I was in shock that I did not even notice it.

"You... You saved me... You saved my life! Girl, thank you very much for... Hey... Why are you crying?"

At that moment my consciousness returned to me and a spiral of emotions hit me like a slap. I started to tremble and I felt the tears running down my cheeks ... What did I just do and why did I do it? So many things could have gone wrong ... That man could have died because of me ... I hugged myself and I stood there, paralyzed with fear, while everyone present tried to make me react.

My memories of the following days are a bit vague ... I just remember that I distanced myself from medicine: anyone would think that saving someone's life would motivate me, but it was not like that at all. With everything I knew about medicine I was perfectly aware that it could have ended horribly wrong ... I should not have acted, a young girl is not supposed to know anything about that risky world ... Medicine is something for people skillful, not clumsy girls like me ...

And then, there she was: my angel guarded.

My mother found me locked in my room, hugging my knees against my chest. All my books were scattered on the floor and the curtains were closed. I did not want to know anything about the world ... Or rather, I did not want the world to know anything about me: I was afraid that my body would not obey me again and everything would go wrong.

She ignored all that. She crossed that barrier of sadness that surrounded me as if nothing, sat down beside me, took me between his hands and, with my ear on his chest and the beating of his heart to console me, I cried on his shoulder.

I do not know how long I was there, I only know that it was too much, but she did not move: she stayed in that awkward position for what could have been hours and said nothing, because although the words were able to amaze me, the reality is that They are not magical: sometimes, their absence or presence is irrelevant.

"I know how you feel..." she said when I finally stopped crying. "I know it's scary ... But you did the right thing ..."

"And if it had gone wrong? ... What if that man had ...?" She did not let me finish the sentence: she took me in her arms delicately and let me cry a little more because she knew even better than me that was what I needed.

"Everything can go wrong, always: no matter how skillful you are, sometimes we can not do anything else other than tilt the scales slightly, and pray that fate would smile to the needy, but, if we were not there to give that little push in the right direction, many people would lose everything ... "

She took me by the shoulders, and although my swollen eyes were still full of tears, I could clearly see how her gaze rested on me, and like a small flame of joy in the middle of an immense mass of darkness and sadness, she smiled at me, and proudly said:

"We are the ones who must bear the burden of death on our shoulders ... But also, we are those capable of working miracles and returning hope to those who have already lost it ... Our job is to help those who need it , even when everything can go wrong ... Because ... As medics we are ... "

"That's our job."