Hospital Internship and I Am the Hokage

Konoha Hospital.

After finishing his training, Taiichi arrived at the hospital early in the morning, neat and ready. Watching the crowds constantly coming and going at the entrance, he could not help but sigh. No matter where it was, hospitals would never lack business.

As soon as he entered, Taiichi stopped a young nurse and asked, "Excuse me, Nurse, do you know where I can find the dean?"

"What a sweet-talker. Tell me, little brother, why are you looking for the dean?"

Taiichi did not beat around the bush. He took out the internship certificate Tsunade had given him and handed it to the young nurse.

The nurse accepted it suspiciously. After glancing over it twice, she stared at Taiichi in surprise. "This is talking about you?"

"That's right, guaranteed genuine!"

The nurse checked the certificate again, then pointed him in the right direction. "Take those stairs to the top floor, then turn left. The first room is the Dean's Office. Dean Biwako should be in there now."

"Thank you, Sister. Well then, see you next time!" Taiichi said politely.

When he reached the Dean's Office, Taiichi knocked courteously. At the sound of "Come in," he pushed open the door.

After casually closing the door behind him, the first thing he saw was a desk piled high with documents, followed by a beautiful middle-aged woman seated behind it, reviewing paperwork.

"Hello, Dean. I'm Taiichi Matsushita. Sister Tsunade referred me here for an internship. This is my internship certificate." As he spoke, he handed over the document.

Biwako had just finished reviewing her paperwork. Hearing this, she looked up at Taiichi, took the certificate, and gave it a quick scan before saying warmly, "So you're Taiichi. Tsunade already told me about you. She praised you to the skies—I rarely see her compliment someone so much!"

"It's all because Sister Tsunade taught me well!" Taiichi could not possibly undermine Tsunade at a time like this.

"Hehe!" Biwako chuckled, as though she had thought of something.

"Since Tsunade referred you and the hospital happens to be short-handed, you can stay. Come intern at the hospital every morning from now on." Biwako did not mince words. "Come with me. I'll show you around the hospital first, then take you to the department where you'll be interning."

Dean Biwako led Taiichi through corridors scented with disinfectant. Sunlight slanted through frosted windows, casting long strips of light across the gray-white tiles. As they passed the infusion room, several bandaged children poked their heads out through the crack in the door, curiously staring at the Short Sword on Taiichi's back.

The sign for the Trauma Department bore three gouges. When the door was pushed open, its dry hinges let out a squeak. A female ninja who had been organizing rolls of bandages turned around, her neat short hair visible beneath her Headband. Biwako patted Taiichi on the shoulder. "Director Fujita, this is the child Tsunade recommended."

Fujita Sana adjusted her round-framed glasses, her gaze sweeping over Taiichi, who did not even reach her chest. "Excellent scores in Healing Technique assessments?" She suddenly snatched up a medical chart from the desk and flung it at him. The pages scattered through the air like a fan. Taiichi instinctively raised his hand and caught the sheet closest to his face while the rest fluttered down around his feet.

"Your reaction speed passes." Fujita picked up the scattered charts. "But there won't be time for you to slowly organize things on the battlefield." She kicked aside a transport bed blocking the way, its metal wheels scraping harshly against the tiles. "The Trauma Department handles more than sixty emergency patients a day. Your task today is to assist Haruno."

The nurse named Haruno was sterilizing wound-cleaning instruments. She brushed aside the strands of hair stuck to her neck with sweat and motioned for Taiichi to lean closer and inspect the forceps soaking in disinfectant. "Seventy-five percent alcohol for fifteen minutes. Much faster than boiling." As she spoke, the sound of stretcher wheels rolled down the corridor. Haruno grabbed a tray and rushed out, but not before reminding him, "Put on your mask!"

The first patient was a Genin whose palm had been slashed by a Kunai. Haruno cleaned the wound as though dismantling an Explosive Tag, using forceps to guide a cotton ball over the turned-out flesh. Taiichi noticed rust embedded deep in the wound. Just as he was about to warn her, Haruno had already unscrewed the hydrogen peroxide. "Hold down his arm."

Amid the sizzling of the solution touching the wound, the Genin's scream shook even the instrument tray. Haruno took the chance to probe into the wound with the forceps and extract the debris. When she turned around, she found Taiichi already waiting beside her with needle and thread in hand. Bloodied cotton balls were continually tossed into the bin, and when Haruno cut the suture, Taiichi promptly handed her gauze soaked in anti-inflammatory medicine.

"Have you studied battlefield first aid?" Haruno raised a brow as she tied off the bandage. Taiichi was wiping bloodstains from the instrument table. At her question, he pointed to the human acupuncture chart on the wall. "Sister Nonō taught me how to compress pressure points to stop bleeding."

The late-morning sunlight was beginning to burn, and the next patient brought in had fresh burns. When Director Fujita opened the window for some air, she saw Taiichi crouching in the corner of the treatment room. The boy was enveloping a crying child in green light condensed from chakra, and the blisters on the child's scalded knee were visibly scabbing over beneath the glow.

"Healing Technique isn't for treating scrapes." Fujita appeared behind Taiichi with her arms folded. "A ninja's chakra is limited. It should be used where it is needed more. A scrape like this only needs disinfecting."

"Yes, Director," Taiichi answered, but the Healing Technique in his hands did not stop.

Fujita did not get angry at the sight. Instead, she placed two boxes of brand-new medical gloves beside his feet. Outside the window, the cicadas suddenly sounded piercing. The wheels of a stretcher drew closer, and Haruno's shout surged into the room alongside a patient's groans. "Open fracture! Prepare splints!"

When Taiichi rushed out after her, he saw that the ninja transporting the patient was covered in his comrades' blood. A broken tibia had pierced through the man's combat pants, and Haruno was trying to straighten the twisted lower leg. Taiichi's hand moved faster than his thoughts, pressing against the patient's bleeding groin. The green light blooming in his palm turned the spurting blood into slowly seeping droplets.

"Blood pressure!" Director Fujita's voice was taut as steel wire. Taiichi maintained his chakra output until Haruno had secured the fracture with a splint. As the patient was pushed toward the operating room, Haruno tore off her bloodstained rubber gloves and noticed that blood was still dripping from the hem of Taiichi's white coat. Yet the boy was only staring blankly at his trembling right hand—his fingertips still twitched faintly from the sustained chakra output.

When boxed lunches arrived from the cafeteria, Taiichi was practicing knots in the break room. Haruno snapped apart a pair of disposable chopsticks and poked him with one. "Suture knots aren't the same as ninja knots. You have to leave room for swelling." The square knot she demonstrated bulged like a small mound on the gauze. By the third knot Taiichi copied, it already looked fairly convincing.

Director Fujita returned from the X-ray room while chewing a rice ball and caught sight of the anatomical sketches Taiichi had drawn in a medical chart. His charcoal pencil was outlining a cross-section of a tearing wound caused by a Kunai, and the precision of his vessel markings reminded her of a certain blonde woman. When Taiichi handed over a neatly compiled list of sterilized instruments, she finally pointed to the storage cabinet. "Starting tomorrow, you'll be responsible for restocking supplies."

When the bell marking the end of the lunch break rang, Taiichi's white coat pockets were already stuffed with fruit candies fed to him by the nurses. As Haruno pinned a new name tag to his chest, she found the boy asleep against the wall, still clutching a worn-out hemostat—something he had secretly retrieved from the scrap bin that morning to study. The cicadas outside continued their racket, but no one woke the child whose eyelashes still bore blood-crusted scabs.

Taiichi's first morning of internship passed amid that bustle. Hospital work was far harder than he had imagined, but the rewards were also far greater than expected. In just one morning, he received constant notifications from the panel.

[You performed medical procedures. Relevant comprehension increased!]

[You used Healing Technique. Relevant comprehension increased!]

[Your skill Healing Technique has improved. Experience +1]

[You used Mystical Palm Technique. Relevant comprehension increased!]

[Your skill Mystical Palm Technique has improved. Experience +1]

[You focused on medical practice. Genin class experience +1]

That single morning not only pushed the Healing Technique he had long mastered to LV7, but also directly raised the Mystical Palm Technique he had just learned to Lv2.

That afternoon, Taiichi dragged his exhausted body home. The morning internship had consumed far too much chakra. Thinking about it now, Director Fujita had been right—ninja had far too little chakra, and it should be used where it was needed most. Still, Taiichi never regretted treating that child that morning. He simply understood better now how to exercise restraint in the future.

Hokage's Office.

The doors were violently pushed open, and Danzo's broad sleeves swept in a gust of cold wind. Hiruzen Sarutobi set down his pipe as bluish smoke wove a web between them.

"Hand that orphan over to me." The fingers gripping Danzo's cane turned white. "Flowers raised in a greenhouse cannot withstand wind and rain."

Sarutobi leisurely arranged the internship certificate beneath the crystal ball. Biwako had just delivered the certificate and report, while Tsunade's elegant signature had bled into the parchment. "Dean Biwako praised that child's mature suturing technique this morning." He blew away a bit of ash. "The Medical Team happens to need seedlings like him."

The cane struck the ground heavily, sending ripples through the cinnabar in the inkstone. "Is your idea of nurturing him really just having him bandage people's wounds?" A cold glint burst from Danzo's single eye. "Root's training camp can temper his blade with real blood!"

"What he needs now is to form deeper bonds with everyone, not have his blade taste blood immediately. Besides, this morning he saved three burned Anbu with Healing Technique." Sarutobi rose to his feet, the flame patterns on his Hokage cloak shifting with his movements. "Do you know how that child trained? He used chakra to set wild cats' broken bones every day."

The scent of disinfectant drifted in from outside, while the wheels of the emergency team's stretchers crushed the silence below. Danzo suddenly grabbed the Ninja Academy report from the desk, creasing the photograph of Taiichi and Kakashi sparring with swords. "A little brat with discipline this terrifying will become another Orochimaru in twenty years!"

"That's why what he needs is Sister Nonō's ginger soup, not your Curse Mark." Veins bulged on the back of Sarutobi's hand as it pressed against the desk. "Back then, Nawaki..."

The teacup swept off the table by Danzo's cane burst into porcelain shards in the corner. A dim chakra glow flashed through the dark patterns on his cuff. "Womanish compassion! When an enemy nation's blade is at his throat, you'll regret not letting me saw off those weak branches!"

"Danzo, I am the Hokage!" Sarutobi suddenly raised his voice, making the window lattice rattle. The crystal ball showed the hospital corridor—Taiichi was crouching and offering candy to a crying child, while the Short Sword on his back was wrapped in cotton cloth to prevent accidental injury.

Danzo fell silent for a long time, as though suppressing the anger in his heart. It was unclear whether he was angry at Hiruzen Sarutobi's indecision or his own hesitation back then.

At last, Danzo sneered. As he turned, his sleeve knocked over the bonsai Tsunade had sent. The purple clay pot rolled across the red carpet, leaving a wet trail behind it, its half-withered Pine Sapling roots smeared with soil. The gust from his slammed door sent the documents across the desk flying. A Medical Team-stamped internship application drifted through the air before finally covering the face of the child in the crystal ball as he smiled through his tears.