Even through his mask, Uchiha Kin could sense the other man's resentment. After disinfecting himself and putting on protective medical gear, he made the rounds of the tents, checking on all the patients he had treated. The three who'd received skin grafts yesterday were severely weakened and were still unconscious.
Seeing the three Tiger Power Great Immortal, Deer Power Great Immortal, Tiger Deer Power, and Sheep Power Great Immortal, Uchiha Kin felt a strange, disjointed sensation.
I wonder how they'll react when they wake up and see what they've become. Will they think they've transmigrated and turned into monsters, or...
He was looking forward to it.
Yamanaka Fu followed behind Uchiha Kin. When Kin checked on the patients, Fu went with him. When Kin went for a walk, Fu followed him there, too.
Uchiha Kin lifted the curtain to the central tent. Yamanaka Fu... saw Yakushi Nonō inside, wearing a turtleneck sweater. Her face was slightly round with baby fat, and her hair was tied back in a casual, loose style. He silently withdrew his foot and stood guard at the entrance.
He'd instinctively gotten cold feet, following his gut. He felt it would be better not to go in under the circumstances.
"Kin, did you get a good rest?" Yakushi Nonō tucked some hair behind her ear, then poured him a glass of water. "You performed such a major operation yesterday. On three people, no less. Only you could do that. I can't even imagine trying it myself."
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll write up the mission report... Um, Nonō, could you bring me a meal when you go to eat?"
"Of course." Nonō finished speaking and paid Uchiha Kin no further attention. She let her hair down, tidied herself up, changed clothes, and went out.
Yamanaka Fu quickly stepped aside and respectfully saw her off.
Inside the tent, the scratch of a pen moving across paper filled the air.
Yamanaka Fu felt at ease.
After a while, Uchiha Kin finished the report. It was extremely brief, and his wording was dry and matter-of-fact—
After filling in the date, he wrote: "Uchiha Kin, captain of the Kin Team in the Konoha Battlefield Medical Corps, was ordered to serve under Elder Danzo and travel to the Land of Rain to negotiate with Hanzo, in order to have Hanzo restrain his country's organization, Akatsuki. During the clash between Hanzo and Akatsuki, Kin guarded Elder Danzo during his retreat, bravely leading the way and setting an example for his team as they broke through the encirclement."
After carefully checking for typos, he lifted the tent flap and handed the report to Yamanaka Fu.
"Here, the report!" He yawned lazily. "Honestly, first thing in the morning. Go turn it in."
Yamanaka Fu read through what Uchiha Kin had written. Good grief. It was less than a hundred words, yet he knew every word individually. Put them together, though...
How shameless! Kin had clearly been the first to run, yet the report said he'd "bravely led the way and set an example"?
Did that mean the ones who'd run at the back had been "afraid to fight"? Yamanaka Fu was stunned. His urge to complain built up inside him, but he didn't know how to let it out.
He left and returned to Root's small base, where he handed the report to Danzo. Yamanaka Fu hesitated. "L-Lord Danzo, this Uchiha Kin..."
Danzo raised a hand. "I understand." He ignored Yamanaka Fu and began reading the report in his hand.
He was just as shocked as Yamanaka Fu.
This was turning the truth upside down and lying through his teeth—no, it wasn't exactly a lie... In any case, Kin's shamelessness was beyond him.
"You may go." Danzo sent Yamanaka Fu out, then took out his own report paper and began copying the account.
Of course, his version said that, as the leader of Root, he had let the Medical Ninja go first to protect Uchiha Kin, while bravely staying behind to cover their retreat.
The two reports described the same event, but each highlighted its own protagonist. Together, they complemented each other perfectly, painting a harmonious picture of "a wise lord and a capable subordinate."
Danzo basked in the satisfaction of it, then put the report away. The mission itself had been "ordinary," but in this report, it had become the most glorious and momentous achievement of his entire career.
Now that was the "art of language"...
Uchiha Kin paced around the central tent, leisurely looking this way and that. One of the four Byakugan inside him had opened, and he calmly observed his own chakra pathways.
His heart, lungs, spleen, liver... Every organ stacked inside his body, along with the pathways beneath his skin, looked complex, intricate, and orderly through the Byakugan. His digestive tract, of course, looked disgusting.
His chakra was faint. Since he'd already grown used to the task of kneading chakra, it kept forming on its own, inefficiently, and coursing through his pathways.
Snake!
He raised a hand and formed the first seal of the Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique. The chakra inside him began to move.
Then came Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, and Tiger.
The hand seals crudely controlled the direction of the chakra's flow. Each seal was one act of control. Every time he controlled it, some chakra failed to enter the correct pathways and went to waste. When he reached the Tiger seal, Uchiha Kin pursed his lips with interest and blew gently.
A pale yellow flame, barely a foot long, licked out with a "whoosh." It burned for less than a second, then vanished.
He'd done it on purpose. It wasn't that he couldn't use this C-rank Fire Style ninjutsu; he simply wanted to use the Byakugan to confirm something more precisely.
As he performed the Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique, he hadn't controlled anything at all. He'd simply let the seals crudely guide the chakra.
Each seal controlled more than one chakra pathway, so whenever he changed seals, chakra was lost.
This was called "chakra efficiency." They'd studied it at the Ninja Academy. It was tied to chakra control.
Of the original ten parts of power, three remained after the first choice of pathway. Another choice left three parts of those three, and so on. For some beginners learning ninjutsu, by the time they completed the final seal, they could barely manage a puff of smoke.
With practice and familiarity, the body gradually grew accustomed to the pathways, and less chakra was wasted. That was how they learned to complete the technique.
Before, Uchiha Kin could only vaguely sense this "process" through his own perception. Now, things were different. He could see it through the Byakugan.
"See"—or rather, "sense precisely." For him, that meant a great deal.
If he could "see" it, he could control it.
He returned to his seat and drew the pathway for the Fire Style technique in his notebook. Starting from the final seal, he kept only the effective pathways and removed all the useless ones. The original pyramid of chakra, dwindling with every step, became a single line.
Uchiha Kin set the notebook on the table, propped his cheek on one hand, and tapped the tabletop with the other. "Tap, tap... tap, tap..."
He needed to find somewhere to test his skill! Just how powerful would this Fire Style technique be with the "correct pathway"?
Before you continue