I wake up in a cold sweat, still thinking that I am falling down into the abyss. A woman in a blue shirt and pants is standing beside me. “You’re finally awake,” She says. She clasps a piece of paper back into a file and tucks a stray piece of hair that toppled out of the red ball of hair on her head behind her ear. “You can finally wake your boyfriend up now.” I catch a hint of jealousy as she moves towards plastic bag and fiddles with the tubes. I realize that the tubes lead to my arm, and are pumping a strange clear liquid into my body. I want to rip them out, but a rustling over to the right of me persuades me otherwise.

The woman leaves the room. I look over and find Kuronuma snoring lightly by my hip, his head resting on his arms. He mumbles something in his sleep just before I shake him awake. He raises his head, eyes groggy. He wipes them and blinks a couple of times before noticing my presence. “So you’re up, Koe?” I nod. He sits up and stretches his arms, fingers interlocked above his head. His back cracks a couple of times before he finally rests one of his hands on the bed, the other still rubbing the sleep from one of his eyes. “They checked your brain during a C.T scan and found out you have amnesia. As it turns out, you also have an extreme case of motion sickness and they’re giving you some fluids now through the intravenous just so you don’t dehydrate.”

A light knock is at the door and a doctor walks in. He’s wearing clothes similar to the ones that the nurse wore, except he adorns a crisp, clean white-coat with a name embroidered on the front. Two men follow in after him, both are wearing a dark blue outfit with a badge on it. Together, the three of them emit an essence of authority with every step they take. The man in the coat clears his throat and speaks. “Ms. Koekura,” He speaks with a deep voice. He taps a pen on his thigh as he walks towards me. He puts a hand on my forehead as he talks. “It’s good to see you finally awake.”

The two men in the dark blue uniforms step forwards. Both of them are gorgeous; both with chiseled chins and a firmly broadened set of abs. There forearms were thick with muscles. One adorned a faux gold watch while the other had the tan-line for a watch, but no watch. The one with sandy-blonde hair stepped forward and started with the questions. “Ms. Koekura,” He starts. “Do you know why you were in the woods?” I shake my head in reply.

The other man, this time with dark brown hair starts to ask questions. “As mister Kuronuma described, you were hurt on the head and you were wearing old-fashioned clothes.” I glare at Kuronuma at the corner of my eye. These aren’t old-fashioned. Not in the slightest. “We believe that someone had kidnapped you from wherever you came from, and kept you alive for days, maybe weeks on end, playing around with you and even dressing you up in different clothes.”

“There was no missing-person’s report, so this theory is inconclusive, so until we get further answers from you, we can’t be positive.” The blonde man says.

The man in the white coat turns to him and starts to speak. “Ms. Koekura has amnesia, officers,” He explains lightly. “I’m not so sure she would be able to answer your questions. Perhaps the trauma, or the blunt-force could have caused this relapse, we could only guess.”

Kuronuma speaks up. “Perhaps her working here might help her regain some of her memories--sort of like cognitive therapy.” He fishes around in his pocket and produces a document with my name printed in the top left corner. “It says here that she is an excellent doctor--a prodigy, perhaps. Maybe she still retains some of that memory and might be able to help out here, while simultaneously regaining her memories.”

The man in the white lab coat stops tapping his pen against his leg. “You can’t be serious, right?” He glares at Kuronuma. My back tingles at the thought of him actually glaring at me. “So, your idea is to just let her run loose? What is she forgot all of her medical knowledge and just kills somebody?”

Kuronuma returns the glare with full force. “A prodigy is a prodigy, sir.” He says, emphasising ‘sir’ with a sneer. “If she knew how to stitch a heart after reading a single book, then she’ll know it if she read another book, don’t you think, Dr. Raye?”

“I think that might be true.” Raye thinks deeply for a second, then looks up at me with a newfound interest. “What’s your specialty?”

“I’m mostly good at working on the spot.” I say. “I’m best at helping heal stab wounds from katanas or arrows in the back. Also, pediatrics.”

Raye starts tapping the pen on his thigh again. He’s tapping his foot lightly on the floor, unable to think. “Fine,” In a loud voice, he calls for a woman named Yume. A short woman with curly blonde hair and baby-blue eyes steps in.  The woman with the red ball of hair escorts her into the room where Yume looks at Raye’s mouth, studying it. Her thick red glasses hung loosely on her face. She wears the same clothes as Raye, yet they somehow look much more larger on her than it did him. “ Koekura to the locker room, get her changed into a fresh pair of scrubs, then hit the books.”

Yume saluts then moves her hands in an array of motions. She makes a small gesture with them and Raye seems to understand this weird language. “Teach her everything starting from your A to your Z’s.” I get out of the bed, the floor as cold as ice on my bare feet, and follow Yume out of the room. Kuronuma makes no gesture to stop me, neither does Raye, making me trust in the small deaf girl who now leads.

She show me to a room, hands me a pair of clothes, and I change into it. I emerge from the room, feeling squeamish between my legs. Yume finds understanding, and gestures me to a porcelain bowl, and I relieve myself, it feeling like ages since I last done so. I follow her again to a room filled with books. She takes five off the shelf, hands them to me, and I set to reading them as quickly and as thoroughly as I can.

I soak the information up like a sponge, perfectly memorizing everything. I imagine where each of the organs are in my own body by looking at the diagrams and feeling around on my body-- my kidneys, ovaries, spleen-- each term already remembered from my last life as a priestess practicing Buushuu.

Buushuu, although a relatively new term where I’m from, is probably ancient by now. Priestesses of Buushuu are taught strict mannerisms and have an extensive medical knowledge. They are taught to be more resilient than the medicine they distribute and more graceful than even a princess. Buushuu is only taught to a few chosen children. Sometimes it would be ten children, other times it might only be one or none that is taught every generation.

I put the training to good use and have more than aced Yume’s practice tests. Now, I’m ready to prove it.