Ever since Taiichi ran into Obito and the others at the hospital, news of his internship at the Konoha Hospital spread through the class like wildfire.
Everyone was curious about just how skilled Taiichi was to be working at the hospital already. The rumors grew more and more exaggerated, until some were claiming Taiichi was already a Special Jonin-level medical ninja. And somehow, people actually believed it. It seemed this bunch had lost all basic judgment.
As a result, classmates started showing up at the hospital with all sorts of excuses to visit Taiichi. Some claimed a family member was hospitalized, some said they were looking for someone, and a few daring idiots even cut their own arms just to get treatment from him. The chaos eventually alerted Director Fujita. After she caught and scolded a few of the more audacious brats, things finally quieted down.
Taiichi's life finally returned to its disciplined routine.
Then came the day when a massive influx of casualties hit the Konoha Hospital. The smell of disinfectant was overwhelmed by the heavy scent of blood. The corridors were jammed with stretchers. Dust from plaster mixed with the metallic tang of blood mist floated in the air, and stretcher wheels made sticky sounds as they rolled over the tiled floor. The hem of Taiichi's white coat was already stained dark red, and the green Chakra concentrated in his palm flickered uncertainly over a worker's chest.
"Fracture of the third rib on the left, perforation of the right lung lobe." Nurse Haruno tore open the worker's shirt, which was covered in concrete debris. "Blood pressure 70/40!"
Taiichi's fingertips hovered over the bleeding chest cavity, his Chakra extending like fine filaments into the wound. He could feel the jagged bone fragments pressing against the alveoli like daggers, the adherent tissue trembling with each weak breath. Three months ago, he would have needed an anatomical chart to confirm organ positions; now, he instinctively manipulated Chakra to wrap around the sharp bone fragments.
The sound of colliding stretchers came from the end of the hall. A newly arrived casualty had his entire left leg twisted at an impossible angle. Taiichi had just finished stopping the bleeding in the lung. As he turned, he stumbled and had to grab the treatment table for support—hours of continuous Chakra output made his temples throb violently.
"Make way!" Director Fujita burst through the safety doors, carrying an unconscious little girl in her arms. Pinkish-white brain tissue was oozing from a wound on the back of the child's head, and bloody water mixed with concrete rubble soaked the Director's medical forehead protector.
Taiichi grabbed gauze and pressed it against the defect in the girl's skull, a viscous sensation seeping between his fingers. When he tried to gather Chakra, the familiar cool sensation didn't appear. His overdrawn body couldn't even perform the most basic hemostasis technique.
"Intravenous injection!" Fujita's voice sounded like it was coming from far away. "Prepare craniotomy instruments!"
The sterilization lamp cast a pale halo overhead as Taiichi mechanically pressed the gauze. He saw his internship badge floating in a pool of blood, the name "Taiichi Matsushita" blurred by the crimson stain. The groans filling the corridor gradually grew faint, until a familiar voice pierced through the thick scent of blood.
"Move!"
Tsunade burst through the emergency exit, her dark green haori snapping behind her. When she saw the scene in the treatment room, her pupils constricted—the boy kneeling in a pool of blood was biting on a bandage to stop the bleeding in his own right hand, and the medical forehead protector tied around his forehead was stained beyond recognition.
Memory pierced her temples like a kunai. On a rainy night twenty years ago, Nawaki had knelt on the battlefield just like this, binding an abdominal wound with blood-stained bandages. The shattered medical forehead protector, the pale knuckles, and that sentence dissipating into the rain: "Sister, save them."
"Let a professional handle this." Tsunade grabbed Taiichi by the collar and lifted him up, but lightened her grip when she felt the boy's trembling shoulders. When she saw the little girl's injury on the treatment table, a familiar burning sensation rose in her throat—the prelude to a hemophobia attack.
Taiichi wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve and gathered Chakra in his palm again. "The Director said if brain tissue is exposed for more than twenty minutes..."
"Go treat the puncture wound on the leg bone." Tsunade interrupted him suddenly, her fingernails digging deep into her palms. The sterilization lamp stretched her shadow long, momentarily merging with herself standing before the operating table twenty years ago. Back then, she could calmly cut open her brother's chest; now, she couldn't even look directly at a child's wound.
Taiichi grabbed the first aid kit and rushed into the corridor. Moonlight spilled through the broken window lattice onto the stretchers. His Chakra was too weak to use the Mystical Palm Jutsu, so he could only set the splint manually. When a worker bit his wrist in agony, the boy simply silently stuffed a piece of gauze into the man's mouth.
It wasn't that Taiichi refused to use Attribute Points to restore his stamina; he was, after all, selfish to an extent. This was as far as he would go for strangers.
Tsunade leaned against the cold wall, the sound of clinking instruments echoing in her ears. For the first time in twenty years, she hated her keen senses—she could clearly hear Taiichi in the next room using primitive physical methods to stop the bleeding of a patient with a ruptured artery. The boy's rapid breathing wove together with the fading heartbeat of Nawaki in her memory, tightening around her sanity layer by layer.
The darkness before dawn was the heaviest. When Taiichi knocked over a cart for the third time due to Chakra exhaustion, Tsunade finally grabbed his wrist. The skin under the boy's white coat was scorching hot, but his pulse was as weak as a candle in the wind.
"Enough." Her voice was so hoarse it didn't sound like her own. "Go to the break room."
"But the worker in Bed 3..."
"That is an order!" Tsunade raised her voice suddenly, but her eyes reddened as Taiichi stumbled away. Moonlight illuminated the medical symbol on the boy's back—the green cross symbolizing healing was now stained a dark brown by blood.
When morning mist drifted into the corridor, the last critical patient was wheeled into surgery. Tsunade stood in the shadows of the emergency exit, watching Taiichi curled up asleep on a bench. The boy's right hand, covered in blood scabs, hung off the edge of the seat, the marks of medical Chakra on his palm not yet fully faded.
"Stubborn, just like Nawaki..." She took off her haori and draped it over Taiichi. The dark green Senju crest shimmered faintly in the morning light. The coat she hadn't been able to drape over her brother back then had finally found a home.
When the first ray of sunlight pierced the morning mist the next day, Tsunade unfurled a brand-new scroll in the light. The ink on the Advanced Medical Ninjutsu Compendium was still wet, mixed with dew collected before dawn.
"From today on, two hours of extra training every day." She stuffed the scroll into Taiichi's arms, her fingertips brushing over the scabbed web of the boy's hand. "I'm going to teach you more than just how to save people."
Taiichi looked at the scroll in his hands, still a bit dazed. having slept for over ten hours, he hadn't fully shaken off the grogginess. "Big Sister Tsunade, this is...?"
"From now until school starts, come find me for two hours of study every day after your internship ends. With your current level, going out there is just embarrassing me!" Even though she was offering to teach him, her words were tsundere to the max.
Taiichi knew Tsunade's personality and didn't take offense. If people knew the legendary Tsunade was willing to teach someone personally, the line of applicants would wrap around Konoha.
"Thank you, Big Sister Tsunade! I will definitely work hard and won't let you down."
"Alright, brat. Go clean yourself up."
"Yes!"
...
From that day on, after finishing his morning internship, Taiichi would find Tsunade for lessons. Tsunade taught him medical ninjutsu meticulously from the very beginning, which perfectly filled the gaps in Taiichi's medical foundation. After all, his previous knowledge had been self-taught or gleaned from asking Nono.
Now, with Tsunade's systematic guidance, Taiichi's theoretical foundation and medical ninjutsu improved rapidly. More importantly, his Yang Nature Transformation also made huge strides. within the next half-month, Taiichi even learned his first A-rank jutsu—the Chakra Scalpel.
Current Taiichi: Healing Jutsu Lv10 (14/2000), Mystical Palm Jutsu Lv6 (24/1000), Delicate Illness Extraction Technique Lv5 (231/800), Chakra Scalpel Lv3 (84/400), Yang Nature Transformation Lv4 (75/600). It could be said that Taiichi's medical skills now completely surpassed his combat abilities.
This was something Taiichi had never anticipated.