Medical Ninjutsu and the Flower-Protecting Messenger

Around noon, Higashino Makoto set down the scroll he was reading and started making himself lunch.

It had been a little while since Higashino Megumi finally agreed to her son's request and stopped waking up early to cook a full day's meals before heading to work.

For one thing, Makoto didn't want his mother to work so hard, and for another, reheated food never tasted as good.

Living a second life, Makoto's thinking was simple: train hard to enjoy the Shinobi World's excitement without getting eliminated by some random person, living a life different from his Previous Life, but he wouldn't become an ascetic and deprive himself of life's pleasures.

Today, he planned to eat steamed fish.

Makoto scooped a live fish out of the kitchen bucket and slammed it hard onto the floor. The once lively fish immediately suffered a fatal blow and felt the call of death.

After placing the fish on the cutting board, Makoto didn't start processing it. Instead, he extended his right hand over the fish's body, and green chakra gradually appeared in his palm.

This was a simple Healing Technique, the prerequisite for the A-rank Medical Ninjutsu Mystical Palm Technique.

The green chakra was the legendary Medical Chakra. It could act as energy to stimulate tissue cell regeneration in injured areas, achieving the goal of healing wounds.

But not all chakra could perform Medical Ninjutsu; only chakra with a strong Yang Release attribute could produce healing effects.

How to train this involved precise Chakra Control.

As everyone knew, chakra was energy produced by a ninja roughly combining Body Energy extracted from every cell in the body with Mental Energy in equal proportions. If the ratio was off, it couldn't be refined at all—the two energies simply wouldn't merge.

But that was the general rule.

To make one's chakra reach a medical grade and produce healing effects, one had to precisely adjust this ratio.

To become a Medical Ninja, when refining chakra, one had to control the process to increase the proportion of Body Energy and decrease the proportion of Mental Energy, allowing the fused chakra to possess abundant vitality. This was the simplest Yang Release Training.

The higher the proportion of Body Energy, the stronger the vitality, and the better the healing effect.

A contradiction arose: lowering the proportion of Mental Energy naturally weakened a ninja's control over chakra, but the problem was that Medical Ninjutsu required precise Chakra Control.

It was a "both this and that" requirement, which was why advanced Medical Ninja were so rare.

Reversing the ratio, with Mental Energy taking the larger share, was simple Yin Release, suitable for performing Genjutsu and some Secret Jutsu.

So, Genjutsu users and Medical Ninja both required extremely high Chakra Control, the ability to refine chakra even when Body Energy and Mental Energy were imbalanced, and to control it even more precisely.

This wasn't something just anyone could handle; it required considerable patience.

Of course, this referred to ordinary ninja. Those born with good genes were exceptions.

For example, the Uchiha Clan was born with extremely high Yin Release, while the Senju and Uzumaki Clan were born with extremely high Yang Release.

Tsunade becoming the top Medical Ninja in the Shinobi World wasn't because of her chest size.

In the Shinobi World, training in Chakra Control aimed for precise mastery. The deeper the control, the less chakra wasted when performing techniques, the faster one learned ninjutsu, and the greater the power.

This was the First Stage, and most people were deeply engaged in this stage.

The Second Stage was being able to stably refine chakra even when modifying the ratio of Body Energy to Mental Energy. The greater the ratio difference, the deeper the development of Yin and Yang Release.

Makoto was at this stage. Knowledge about Yin and Yang Release was hard to find in Konoha's public materials; most ninja didn't even have this concept. He had organized it based on his understanding of the Naruto World from his Previous Life.

As for the Third Stage, he had some guesses, but talking about it now was too far off. Even deepening the Second Stage was a long-term training effort.

On the cutting board, there was no auxiliary scroll under the fish's body.

It was the kind of scroll with a special formula that Haruno Sakura used underneath when she treated a fish under Tsunade's tutelage. That was an aid for apprentices to refine stable Medical Chakra. Makoto had used it when he first started, but he no longer needed it now.

Under Makoto's treatment, the fish came back to life again and started happily flopping around. It felt like it was good to go.

Then it was smacked on the head with a knife and died.

Fish: "???"

Seriously, Buddy, is this fun? Can't you just finish me off quickly?

The chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits that had once enjoyed the same treatment at the Higashino Family: "Brother Fish, you said it."

After eating, Makoto headed out, using his mother's library card to dive into the Konoha Library.

The books at home were always limited, but the library was much richer. Lately, Makoto usually spent his afternoons here studying chakra knowledge.

Konoha's Library had these materials, including the properties and characteristics of each chakra nature, the principles and analysis of various Genjutsu effects, and so on.

They were all works summarizing the experiences of predecessors.

When the little rich girl Tenten fell into the Infinite Tsukuyomi, she had consulted various Genjutsu theory books here.

Although it was a Genjutsu world, Tenten knew her situation at the time. The fact that she could run to the library to look up information in the first place meant the real world definitely had them too—she had been there.

These were all basic theoretical knowledge, with no usable ninjutsu or Genjutsu techniques. Don't expect this place to be the Shaolin Temple's Sutra Library, where the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra had the Nine Yang Manual tucked inside.

Any Training Method for ninjutsu, Genjutsu, or Taijutsu was a secret of each clan and village. To get them, you had to trade merits or apprentice yourself to a powerful master.

Most ninja thought that learning powerful ninjutsu would make them strong, but they neglected these most basic theories.

Especially those little brats dreaming of becoming Hokage, who thought learning a few strong techniques would make them Hokage.

Makoto, however, felt that these theoretical summaries from predecessors were the most valuable things. As for the techniques themselves, they were just the fruit borne from the Big Tree of this knowledge.

Time flew by as Makoto instinctively trained his Second Stage Chakra Control and read books. Soon, the sky gradually darkened.

Makoto didn't go home. Instead, he went and wolfed down several big bowls of ramen, then headed toward Konoha Hospital, ready for his lesson.

For a while now, his mother Higashino Megumi had been coming home late several days a week.

That was because, besides treating patients during the day, she also taught evening classes, training newbie Genin who aspired to become Medical Ninja.

The Ninja Academy offered basic medical knowledge courses, but for those who wanted to specialize after graduation, they had to sign up at the hospital, learning while practicing—a method originally proposed by Tsunade.

Build a foundation at the Academy, then have seniors mentor newcomers at the hospital.

The classroom was in one of the hospital's meeting rooms, specially remodeled for lessons, similar to a Ninja Academy classroom but a bit more cramped.

At the moment, there were over a dozen students inside, more girls than boys.

The room wasn't even full, showing that people with talent for Medical Ninjutsu were truly rare. The students were mostly clustered in the front rows—after all, anyone here genuinely wanted to learn, and no one was slacking off in a back-row seat by the window.

These students were mostly young, but all wore Konoha Headbands, having graduated only a year or two ago. When they saw Higashino Shinichi enter, they were a bit surprised by his age, but no one said anything.

Being here meant the hospital had allowed it.

Higashino Shinichi looked around and noticed that on the left side of the first row, at a desk meant for three, there were only two people: a boy and a girl. The girl sat in the middle, the boy on the outside.

Without hesitation, he slipped into the empty seat inside.

"Hey, kid, someone's sitting there."

Higashino Shinichi glanced at the speaker and froze. It was a boy who looked about ten, with short black hair. Besides the Konoha Headband on his forehead, he also wore goggles over his face.

"No way," Higashino Shinichi muttered to himself, then leaned back. Sure enough, he spotted a large fan-shaped pattern on the back of the boy's clothes.

That look, no mistaking it—you're Uchiha Dreamer.

He then looked at the girl in the middle. Sure enough, she had brown hair like his mother's, with face paint on both cheeks, and a pure, cute appearance.

It was definitely Nohara Rin.

Wherever Rin was, Obito was there too—a faithful, devoted guard dog.

Obito learning Medical Ninjutsu? Yeah, right. He was just afraid someone would steal his goddess away.

"Come on, Obito, don't be so mean. He's just a Junior Student," Nohara Rin said gently, stopping her comrade's rude behavior.

But Higashino Shinichi wasn't about to let him off. "Am I not a person? Am I really not a person?"

"Kid, you're pretty cocky. Looks like you haven't even started the Ninja Academy yet. You're so young, coming here—do you even know what Medical Ninjutsu is?"

Seeing that Higashino Shinichi wasn't afraid of him, Obito tried to expose him as an intruder from a professional angle.

"And do you know? Do you know how many types of blood vessels there are in the human body, the different characteristics of bleeding, and the different ways to stop it?

Do you know how to clean a wound from a kunai piercing through a palm, and what to watch out for when using the Healing Technique after cleaning?"

"Uh, well..." Obito was a total slacker and had no clue about any of that. But no big deal—he quickly found a new angle. "So what if you know? You're too young. Who let you sit in on this class?"

"My mom did."

"Your mom? That's a laugh, kid. Who's your mom that she can boss around Konoha Hospital?"

"My mom is the teacher giving you this class. Her name is Higashino Megumi, and I'm Higashino Shinichi."

"Uh, well..." Obito finally choked. He couldn't keep going—what if he offended the teacher and made Rin lose her chance to learn?

As long as it involved Nohara Rin, Obito started to hold back.

"Oh, so you're Teacher Megumi's child? Now that I look, you really do resemble her," Nohara Rin said curiously, sizing up this Junior who seemed to have decent basic medical knowledge.

"Yes, Senior. My name is Higashino Shinichi. Please take care of me from now on."

"I'm Nohara Rin, and this is my comrade Uchiha Obito. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, same here. I hope we can improve together and become excellent Medical Ninja," Higashino Shinichi said, raising an eyebrow at Obito as he spoke.

"..." Obito was already seething. This little brat not only dared to chat intimately with his Rin but also kept provoking him.

He really wanted to beat him up.

But he only thought about it—he wouldn't actually lay a hand on a kid. Before he turned dark, Uchiha Obito was actually a very warm-hearted, kind boy.

Just a bit awkward in personality.