The pungent smell of Lysol shot straight into his nostrils.
Baishi's eyelids felt heavy. Beside his ear, the heart monitor gave off a monotonous beeping. On the right side of his abdomen came waves of tight, dull pain from flesh roughly stitched together, while his left collarbone was numb and cold from severe blood loss.
He did not open his eyes at once. Instead, he forced his breathing rate to remain at the level of someone extremely weak.
"The toxins near his heart have already been forcibly suppressed with serum. But the knife wound in his abdomen was less than two millimeters from his liver. For him to drag himself back to the village boundary in that condition is practically a miracle." The medical ninja kept his voice low, with a trace of disbelief.
"Understood. You may leave."
An aged voice rang out, carrying unquestionable authority.
Baishi slowly opened his eyes. His vision gradually focused. Beneath the white ceiling stood two people.
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, puffed on his pipe, and the acrid smell of cheap bluish-gray tobacco instantly overwhelmed the Toxic Water in the ward. Standing behind him was Namikaze Minato, draped in a white Hokage Haori. Minato's brilliant blue eyes looked down upon Baishi on the hospital bed, sharp enough to flay him open.
"Ho... Hokage-sama..."
Baishi's pupils abruptly contracted. Like a startled rabbit, he struggled to sit up. The violent movement pulled at the stitches in his abdomen. He sucked in a painful breath, cold sweat instantly covering his forehead, and crashed heavily back onto his pillow.
"Stay lying down, Baishi." The Third Hokage exhaled a smoke ring, his eyes deep as a pool of stagnant water. "What happened to the Venom Fang Squad? Why are you the only one who came back alive?"
The interrogation had begun.
Baishi's fingers clenched tightly around the white bedsheet, the veins on the backs of his hands bulging. His eyes instantly reddened, and large tears spilled out, mixing with his cold sweat as they ran into his temples.
"It was Iwagakure... eight elite Iwagakure shinobi!" Baishi's voice trembled with extreme fear, his words tumbling over each other. "We were ambushed in the Canyon... Senior Wildcat went ahead to scout and never came back... Captain Venom Fang stayed behind to cover me..."
He gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently, looking completely traumatized. "The captain was trapped by Earth Release, and that Iwagakure Jonin's stone fist came crashing down... The captain shoved me away! But he himself was struck in the chest!"
The Third Hokage tapped his pipe twice but said nothing.
Minato, however, stepped forward and stared into Baishi's eyes like a blade. "Baishi, I inspected the scene. Among the traces of shattered rock, I found remnants of a highly precise Lightning Release Explosive Tag detonation. Captain Venom Fang wasn't proficient in Lightning Release nature transformation. But this morning, outside Ichiraku Ramen, I smelled that scorched odor of potassium nitrate mixed with Lightning Release Chakra on you."
The air in the ward instantly dropped to freezing point.
Minato's killing move had arrived. Without any detours, he was using an extraordinarily keen sense of smell to expose the information gap and tear through Baishi's disguise.
Baishi's heart pounded wildly, but on the surface he wore an expression of utter confusion and even greater panic.
"Lightning Release? I... I don't know anything about that!" Baishi shook his head desperately, tears splattering onto the pillow. "The captain had been driven into a corner, so he snatched the Special Explosive Tag I bought... The captain said that even if he died, he would take someone with him! He forcibly poured Lightning Release Chakra into the tag. I only saw a blinding blue flash, and then the shock wave from the explosion sent me flying..."
Baishi abruptly tore open the left side of his hospital gown, revealing a collarbone wrapped in bandages and faintly seeping black blood. "Minato-sama, I'm only a Genin! If I was the one who used that Lightning Release, how could I have been stabbed through the bone by an Iwagakure Poison Kunai? How could I have failed even to dodge the blade deflected by the captain?"
He pointed at the deep knife wound in his abdomen, his voice shrill with anguish. "Before he died, the captain threw his knife at that Earth Release ninja. The blade cut open my stomach... He said this was the Will of Fire! He said that wherever leaves dance, fire would continue to burn... He told me I had to survive and bring the intelligence back to you, Hokage-sama!"
The ward fell deathly silent.
Baishi began coughing violently, coughing up a mouthful of bloody spit. He had brought the cowardice of a disposable grunt, a survivor's guilt, and blind worship of the Will of Fire to the pinnacle of his performance.
A perfect loop.
Venom Fang had snatched the Explosive Tag and forcibly detonated it, concealing the traces of Lightning Release. And the knife wound in his abdomen—less than a millimeter from severing his liver—was the ultimate get-out-of-death-free card. By the common sense of the Shinobi World, no one would inflict such a potentially fatal wound on himself merely to fake a battlefield.
Minato stared at Baishi for a full half minute before the tense line of his jaw finally relaxed slightly.
There were no logical flaws. Perhaps he really had been overthinking it. How could a Genin with such weak Chakra have killed everyone in that desperate situation, let alone calculated everything so precisely?
The suspicion in the Third Hokage's eyes also vanished completely. He sighed and gently patted Baishi's shoulder with his withered hand.
"You've done well, Baishi. Venom Fang was a true Konoha shinobi. He fulfilled the Will of Fire with his life." The Third Hokage's voice softened. "The village will not forget his sacrifice, and it will not mistreat you. Rest and recover."
"Yes... For Konoha!" Baishi lowered his head with a sob.
The Third Hokage turned and walked out of the ward. Minato gave Baishi a deep look before following him.
As the ward door clicked shut, the footsteps in the corridor gradually faded away.
Baishi instantly stopped sobbing on the hospital bed.
He pulled over the bedsheet and casually wiped away the tears and snot on his face. The cowardice and fear in his eyes were instantly replaced by icy coldness and mockery.
Old bastard. So easy to fool.
The so-called Will of Fire was nothing more than a fig leaf the higher-ups used to whitewash the peace and make the people at the bottom willingly march to their deaths. As long as he followed their logic and played the part of an obedient tool, he could survive perfectly in this man-eating system.
But Baishi knew very well that the crisis was not completely over. Sarutobi Hiruzen might be easy to fool, but that did not mean another person would be.
Deep beneath Konoha, at that moment, lay the Root base.
The gloomy, damp stone chamber had not seen sunlight for years. Torchlight swayed across the walls, stretching the half-bandaged body of Shimura Danzō into a long shadow.
Danzō's sole remaining eye was fixed on the field investigation report that had just been delivered.
"Wind Release tearing, Super Weighted Rock Fist crushing the chest, Lightning Release Explosive Tag mutual destruction..." Danzō's withered lips curled into a cold arc.
The Root ninja kneeling on the ground kept his head lowered, not daring even to breathe too loudly.
"That naive, good-hearted fool Sarutobi believed it, and that young brat Namikaze Minato believed it too." Danzō's fingers were thin as dead branches. He struck the scroll heavily with his fingertip, right on Baishi's name. "But I don't."
"Danzō-sama, we found no traces of any third party's Chakra at the scene. The injuries of that ANBU called Baishi are indeed fatal." The Root ninja reported cautiously.
"That's precisely because it's too perfect." Danzō snorted coldly, a viper-like chill flashing through his single eye. "Wildcat went to assassinate Minato and disappeared. Venom Fang went to silence him, only to perish alongside the Iwagakure shinobi. Yet this bait, who should have been the first to die, just happened to drag himself back with fatal injuries."
Danzō rose to his feet and walked into the shadows.
"There are too many coincidences, and it becomes a conspiracy. Whether this Baishi is truly useless or a wolf in sheep's clothing, a piece that has slipped beyond control has no place left on the chessboard."
Danzō turned around and threw down a black token engraved with the character "Root." It struck the stone floor with a crisp crack.
"Immediately begin Grade A surveillance. Once he is discharged..." Danzō's voice was cold enough to freeze.
The Root ninja abruptly raised his head, meeting Danzō's eye, filled with tangible killing intent.
"If he makes any suspicious move, don't report it. Bring me his head directly."