Eighteen Minutes

At Riyue's words, it was as if a thunderclap had struck. Tsunade's body stiffened. She came to her senses, raised her head, and stared at Riyue in a daze, confusion in her eyes, along with a faint, inexplicable hope.

"W-what did you say?" Tsunade asked.

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Riyue split off five shadow clones in one breath. The six Riyues immediately went their separate ways, taking out scrolls and various tools and putting up a makeshift tent. The emergency operating table was ready!

"Dan Katō still has a chance! How many minutes has his heart been stopped? One minute? Or two?" Riyue asked quickly, his gaze firm and sharp, leaving no room for doubt as he judged the activity of Dan Katō's body cells. (BGM: Red Dragon, Hiroyuki Sawano)

"One minute and thirty seconds..." Tsunade said dejectedly, shaking her head.

"Good. For an ordinary person, the brain dies eight minutes after the heart stops. But Dan is a jonin. His body has been tempered through years of training, and he's skilled in the Spirit Transformation Technique. His body and spirit energy are far greater than an ordinary person's. That means his cells are exceptionally strong, and we can conservatively estimate that the point when his brain cells begin to die can be extended to twenty minutes." Riyue rapidly explained as he worked at a furious pace.

"Dan's heart has stopped, and he has no blood pressure. The bleeding has slowed considerably. This is actually the best time to repair his damaged organs and blood vessels!"

"You mean..." Tsunade was astonished. Ordinarily, people tried desperately to stop the bleeding and save the patient before the heart stopped. This was the opposite: stopping the bleeding quickly after the heart had stopped. Such a reckless idea seemed... possible! But could they do it now? Was there enough time?

"Then let's gamble everything on these eighteen minutes! We'll stitch the wounds and repair the organs within eighteen minutes, then get his heart beating again! Everyone, come help! I'm starting emergency surgery! We can only succeed if you give me your full cooperation!" Riyue spoke gravely, his hands moving at an unbelievable speed.

The three stared blankly as Riyue and his shadow clones worked together with practiced coordination, their movements swift and precise. Their astonishment lasted only a moment before they sprang into action to help.

Riyue used the Gentle Fist to strike several acupuncture points on Dan Katō's body, stopping the bleeding from each wound and slowing the flow of blood. They moved Dan onto the makeshift operating table and cut open his clothes, exposing a body covered in countless wounds. The sight was horrifying.

Meanwhile, after a shadow clone intubated Dan, it began administering oxygen. Riyue poured disinfectant directly over Dan's body, while another shadow clone began a blood transfusion and fluid replacement. The tent had also been sterilized. All six Riyues put on surgical gloves and masks, then raised their hands as they moved to Dan's side.

Sixteen minutes left!

"Tsunade, you've already repaired quite a few arteries. Now focus on repairing his kidneys and other major blood vessels, especially the arteries! I'll repair his heart, and my shadow clones will work on his liver and spleen! Ignore all the other wounds for now. Get started!"

As he spoke, Riyue performed pericardiocentesis on Dan Katō, buying time to open his chest and stitch the ruptured heart. Then he cut open the skin over Dan's chest with a scalpel. At the same time, one of Riyue's shadow clones cut open his abdomen.

While Riyue quickly sliced through the chest muscles with an electrocautery knife and crudely but swiftly sawed through the sternum, his shadow clone cut through the abdominal fascia, muscles, and peritoneum, opening the abdominal cavity. It was full of blood, and the organs and blood vessels were severely damaged. The clone began drawing out the pooled blood with a large syringe, while another shadow clone started stitching the wound in the liver.

Tsunade quickly placed a hand on Dan Katō's lower back. Green chakra blazed as she began treating his kidneys. Guided by Riyue's Byakugan, her other hand repaired the major blood vessels, especially the arteries. Any vessels she couldn't repair in time, she treated with a technique to stop the bleeding. Riyue's shadow clones were also carefully cauterizing the bleeding vessels with chakra needles.

Ten minutes left!

A jonin nearby watched in astonishment as Riyue's shadow clone rapidly stitched the liver wound. Its fingers moved constantly, the needle holder and suture thread weaving together like an incredibly fast piece of music. The shadow clone handing over the surgical instruments passed them over with perfect accuracy, wasting not even half a second. Riyue himself and his shadow clone assistants worked even faster to open the chest. It was as if several lead surgeons were operating at once, their coordination flawless.

Tsunade held her hands apart, using the Mystical Palm Technique on both sides at once. Her chakra was draining rapidly, and sweat streamed down her face. Gritting her teeth, she pressed on. "If we keep this up, I can repair the kidneys and damaged arteries in about seven minutes. Hang in there!"

Riyue used a chest retractor to spread Dan Katō's chest and cut open the pericardium. His heart was exposed, a complete mess, with blood covering half of it and six ruptures across its surface.

Six minutes left!

"Keep time for me. Six-minute countdown, call it every fifteen seconds. Starting to stitch the ruptured heart!" Riyue said to the Konoha jonin beside him as he examined the heart and removed the pooled blood.

"O-okay." Stunned by Riyue's dazzling technique, the jonin quickly nodded.

"Five minutes, forty-five seconds!" Riyue began repairing the ruptures in the heart. The heart wall had six separate wounds, and he swiftly stitched the first one. He tied the knots and stitched at the limit of his speed, thread flying around his fingers as though he were speedily weaving a string game. His technique was rough and simple, but reliable.

"Four minutes, thirty seconds!" Riyue cut the thread with scissors. The first wound in the heart was stitched. The liver wound was also finished, and the shadow clone began repairing the spleen.

"Three minutes, thirty seconds!" The second rupture in the heart was stitched. Tsunade had successfully repaired the kidneys and finished repairing the arteries.

"Tsunade, give it everything you've got and repair the spleen!" Tsunade immediately focused all her efforts on the spleen and began repairing it alongside Riyue.

"Two minutes!" the jonin called loudly. The third major rupture in the heart was stitched. Riyue's hands sped up again as he raced for his life against the Grim Reaper!

"Thirty seconds left!" The fourth rupture was successfully stitched, and the spleen was repaired!

"Come on, faster!" the jonin silently urged, his hands clenched tight without him even realizing it.

"Fifteen seconds!" There wasn't time to stitch the fifth rupture!

"We're running out of time!" the jonin cried desperately, sweat beading on his forehead from the tension.

"Damn time! Slow down!" another jonin cursed. He was gripping his hands so tightly that his palms had turned red.

"Is it still not enough? The damage to the heart is too severe. Even using the Mystical Palm Technique, it would take me twenty minutes to repair it... If the heart can't be repaired, everything we've done will be for nothing... Damn it!" Tsunade's heart sank, and her voice trembled.

Just give us a little more time! Was all their effort going to be in vain after all?!

Tsunade felt as if an invisible hand had clenched around her heart. Riyue glanced up at her. There was not a hint of helplessness in his eyes; instead, they were full of calm confidence.

"Zero seconds!" The jonin called out the final time, his voice weak.

The countdown reached zero. At that moment, Riyue reached out and grabbed the heart!

"Starting cardiac resuscitation!" Riyue's hands were small, so he had to grip the heart with both hands and perform manual cardiac massage! The benefit of the acupuncture-point strikes became clear immediately. Blood circulation was concentrated in the intact vessels, greatly reducing bleeding. Blood began flowing to the brain, supplying it with plenty of oxygen.

"What is this?!" Tsunade froze. It was indeed a method of imitating the heart's contractions by squeezing and massaging it, making the heart beat again. But the key was that Riyue's hands were pressed right over the wound he hadn't had time to stitch, plugging the bleeding opening.

"Did he plan from the start to press on the wound and restart the heart? Did he choose to stitch the parts of the heart that his fingers couldn't reach?" Tsunade was stunned. This skill, backed by such daring, was almost godlike... But it was the only way to save Dan Katō.

"This will work! It's one of the lifesaving tricks used in cardiac surgery! Teacher Dan Katō, come back to life! Come back!" Riyue silently urged. His hands gently, calmly, and rhythmically pressed and squeezed the heart, again and again, each movement mimicking a normal heartbeat's contraction and relaxation. It was as if he were massaging a newborn, slowly coaxing it awake.

"Come on! You can do it!" A shinobi clenched his fist, gritting his teeth. His forehead was drenched, though it was impossible to tell whether the drops were rain or sweat.

"Keep going! Just a little more!" Another jonin's hands trembled with nerves.

"You can do it. You can definitely do it!" Tsunade's expression was solemn. Her heart pounded in time with Riyue's presses, but she continued treating him with all her strength.

"Come on! Start beating again!" Riyue shouted in his heart!

Suddenly, Riyue felt the faintest quiver of the heart muscle in his hands, like the flutter of a baby in the womb—weak, but filled with a tenacious spark of life. Riyue stopped massaging.

"Dan?" Tsunade stared at the heart, tense with worry. Everyone present watched Dan Katō's heart. The scene fell utterly silent, as though time itself had frozen.

Slowly... the heart gave a faint beat... (BGM: Ai to Shu, Mutsushi)

"It worked! His heartbeat's back! Phew..." Riyue let out a breath of relief as the heart continued beating. He immediately began repairing the remaining damage while it was beating.

"It really... worked... Dan... Thank goodness... Thank goodness!" Tsunade froze, then broke into a joyful smile. Her heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled. After losing and regaining him, she felt a wave of relief; after such violent emotional swings, a jumble of feelings surged through her, and beneath her overwhelming excitement, a deep fear lingered.

Tears streamed down her face again, beyond her control. She covered her face with a hand and slowly backed toward the tent's edge, unable to stop herself from sobbing quietly. "Wah... w-wah..."

"A miracle... Is this what a miracle is?" The two jonin stared in shock. When they finally came to their senses, they excitedly embraced. "Thank goodness!" "We did it! We saved him!" "Yeah!!" "It really is a miracle!"... "Whoosh!" Riyue's five shadow clones turned to glare sternly at them at the same time. Their warning looks made the two hurriedly cover their mouths and behave themselves as they stood guard nearby.

Tsunade cried alone for a while, then silently wiped away her tears and quelled her excitement. Her gaze grew utterly resolute, and she returned to the operating table.

Riyue let Tsunade release her emotions as she needed to and continued the operation, stitching the last two wounds in the heart. There were still many wounds to treat and numerous fractures that required surgery. When he saw Tsunade return a short while later, he thought, She pulled herself together that quickly? She's a tough woman.

Tsunade continued using the Mystical Palm Technique to repair the injuries to the various organs and the horrifying wounds all over his body. Most important of all was treating his broken bones. The two of them worked nonstop. After several hours of resuscitation, they finally wrested Dan Katō from the Grim Reaper's grasp. He fell into a deep coma, but was out of immediate danger. He needed intensive care and was receiving plasma and various medications.

Riyue could finally catch his breath. Tsunade sat nearby to rest as well. After an intense battle and a long stretch of using Medical Ninjutsu, her chakra was nearly depleted, and she was exhausted.

The two jonin remained silent, but their hearts were surging with excitement. What they had witnessed today had been utterly staggering. The man had been dead—his heart had stopped, and his body had been mangled—yet they had still managed to save him. Was this child some kind of deity? How could he have such medical skills? It completely shattered everything they knew.

Saving Dan Katō had been the result of Riyue and Tsunade working together with all their might. Their superb medical skills, Riyue's guidance with the Byakugan, and the powerful healing ability of Tsunade's Mystical Palm Technique had pulled Dan Katō back from the brink of death. Without even one of those things, they might have failed.

Night had already fallen, and the rain outside had stopped. Riyue and the others decided to return to camp at once, since the area nearby was unsafe. The two jonin carried the unconscious Dan Katō on a stretcher, while Tsunade and Riyue guarded him on either side as they quietly made their way back to camp.

Everyone remained silent along the way. They were exhausted from having escaped death and needed to stay hidden in Hidden Sand territory. They had also witnessed a desperate rescue at the very limits of possibility, and were still reeling from it. And each of them had their own thoughts to contend with.

It was not until the middle of the night that they finally returned to camp and took Dan Katō to the Medical Station for proper care.