A New Ninjutsu

The war grew ever more intense. The Hidden Sand Village's frontline outpost was like a nail driven into the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind, surrounded by dense defensive fortifications, medical tents, and supply depots.

Tsunade came by to inspect the wards once a day, and every time she came, she scolded all three of them over their injuries.

"You little brats, all you know is how to charge forward when you get on the battlefield. You don't even know the most basic evasive maneuvers. The fact that you survived is a miracle." Tsunade scolded him as she removed the bandages from Bai Ye's left shoulder, but her hands moved as gently as if she were dismantling an explosive tag. "The stitches are healing fine, but if you start moving around recklessly again and this wound splits open, stitch it up yourself."

Bai Ye said nothing. He had seen Tsunade stitch wounds before. The needle and thread had gone back and forth across his body so fast he could not even see them, hurting so badly that he had nearly cracked his back teeth.

"Lady Tsunade." Minato lay on the bed with his right hand in a splint. He raised his left hand before his eyes and flexed it. "When will my hand be healed?"

"If you ask me one more time, I'll break it and set it again." Tsunade did not even look up.

Minato shut up.

Fugaku glanced at Minato from the side, his eyes plainly saying, Are you sick in the head?

After more than a month of recuperation, the three of them had mostly recovered from their injuries.

Minato had his splint removed from his right hand. He clenched his fist, then released it, repeating the motion several times to make sure his fingers moved properly. He was the first to climb out of bed, running outside the tent. He stood in the mud for a while before he started running.

Bai Ye leaned against the tent entrance and watched Minato run.

"What's he doing?" Fugaku came over.

"I thought you wouldn't be surprised."

"Surprised?" Fugaku watched Minato's back as he ran back and forth through the mud. "I'm used to it, but I still can't help wanting to complain."

Bai Ye did not argue.

Jiraiya came looking for Minato the day after his splint was removed.

The curtain was lifted.

The man who entered was two heads taller than Bai Ye. Long white hair draped over his shoulders, a Konoha forehead protector rested on his brow, and his face wore an expression that screamed, I'm amazing.

"Where's Minato Namikaze?" Jiraiya's voice was not loud, but his shout made the air inside the tent hum.

Bai Ye pointed outside.

Jiraiya turned and left.

Bai Ye watched the tall figure disappear beyond the curtain, then lowered his head and continued wiping his blade.

That afternoon, when Minato was summoned away by Jiraiya, Fugaku also received notice from his clan. The clan had decided to transfer Fugaku back into its own ranks to move with the Uchiha Clan's main force. As for why Bai Ye had not been recalled with him, Bai Ye guessed it was because they were valued differently. After all, Fugaku had already been a core member of the Uchiha Clan's training program years ago.

"Stay safe," he said.

Then Fugaku left.

Just like that, the three of them went their separate ways.

Tsunade told Bai Ye to report to the medical unit that afternoon for a follow-up examination.

The results were better than Bai Ye had expected. The scar at the stitched wound had already begun to fade, and the range of motion in his left shoulder had recovered by more than ninety percent. Tsunade said that after another week of observation, if there were no complications, he could return to combat missions.

"Your body recovers well." Tsunade wrote a few words on his medical record and tossed the pen onto the table. "Better than that blond-haired friend of yours."

"Minato?"

"Yeah. That kid tried to secretly remove his splint even with a fractured right arm. I caught him twice." Tsunade leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. "He said, 'I think it's already healed.' I made him do a hundred push-ups with that broken arm. By the seventeenth, he stopped talking."

The corner of Bai Ye's mouth twitched.

Tsunade glanced at him. The corners of her mouth rose slightly as well, but she quickly resumed her cold expression.

"Once you're healed, don't rush back to the front lines for now."

Bai Ye looked at her.

"The front lines don't need one more genin." Tsunade's tone was calm. "But they need people who can work. The medical unit is short-handed. Come help out—move medicinal supplies, clean equipment, run errands, deliver things."

Bai Ye did not agree immediately.

Tsunade looked at him. "You don't want to?"

"No," Bai Ye said. "But I don't understand medical treatment."

"Who asked you to understand medical treatment?" Tsunade stood. "I told you: move medicinal supplies, clean equipment, run errands, deliver things. None of that requires medical knowledge. You just need arms, legs, and a brain."

"...All right."

Tsunade turned and headed out of the tent. She stopped at the entrance without looking back.

"Come over first thing tomorrow morning. Don't be late."

"Mm."

"For anyone late, I'll personally help them 'speed up their recovery.'"

From Tsunade's tone, Bai Ye judged that "speed up their recovery" was probably not a good thing.

Working in the medical unit was more exhausting than Bai Ye had imagined.

It was not physical exhaustion. Although moving medicinal supplies, cleaning equipment, and running between tents every day did leave his muscles sore for a while, that amount of exertion was nothing compared to training. What truly tired him was an indescribable feeling.

On the first day, while moving medicinal supplies, he saw a wounded man whose left arm was completely gone below the elbow. The stump was wrapped in thick bandages soaked through with blood, their color shifting from bright red to dark red, then from dark red to black. The wounded man lay on a cot, staring at the tent ceiling, his mouth opening and closing as if saying something no one could hear.

Bai Ye placed the medicinal supplies where they belonged, then turned and left.

On the second day, while cleaning equipment, he saw the instruments removed from the operating table: metal scissors, forceps, scalpels, every one of them covered in blood. Some of the blood had already dried, congealing in the gaps of the instruments and requiring hard scrubbing with a brush to remove. Bai Ye cleaned them, dried them, returned them to the sterilization tray, then went to carry the next batch.

On the third day, while running an errand, he passed a tent whose curtain had not been fully drawn. Through the gap, he saw a woman lying on a cot with a bloodstained piece of gauze covering her abdomen. Her eyes were closed, her lips pale, and the rise and fall of her chest was so slight it was almost impossible to tell she was breathing.

Bai Ye did not look any longer. He delivered the item to its destination, then returned the way he had come.

The fourth day.

The fifth day.

The sixth day.

On the seventh day, Tsunade called him into her office.

"You've been here for a week now," Tsunade said.

"Mm."

"How does it feel?"

Bai Ye thought for a moment. "Not good."

Tsunade looked into his eyes. "Remember this. This is war. I know your parents both died in a border skirmish before this war..."

Tsunade tapped her fingers twice on the table, as if considering how to phrase it.

"You know," Tsunade said, leaning back in her chair, "my grandfather once said that villages were established to protect children."

"War isn't for expanding territory. It's so the next generation won't have to go to the battlefield again." Tsunade's voice was softer than usual. "When he was young, he saw too many children his own age die young in war. That was why he wanted to build a village, so children could grow up in peace."

"But war still came," Bai Ye said.

Tsunade nodded. "So many people died."

She paused, stood, and walked to the medicine cabinet in the corner of the tent. She reached out and brushed the dust from its surface. "War itself is a man-eating monster. Your parents died in that monster's mouth. So did my younger brother. But you can't stand here only because you want to kill someone."

Bai Ye looked up at her.

Tsunade turned around and met Bai Ye's eyes. "The First Hokage once said, 'Where the leaves of Konoha dance, the fire burns on.' That isn't just a pretty saying. It means that the older generation passes its fire to the next, and the next generation passes it on again. As long as that fire keeps burning, the village lives on. Your parents passed their fire to you, but not so you could use it to burn others to death. They wanted you to live. To live well, and keep that fire burning."

Bai Ye was silent for a while.

"So I shouldn't hate the Hidden Sand Village?" he asked.

"You should hate war." Tsunade's tone hardened, as though she were stating something beyond question. "Hate it to your bones. Hate it until your teeth itch whenever you think about it. Then turn that hatred into strength—but not the strength of revenge. Revenge turns you into another monster. I've seen too many people like that. In the end, they all got themselves killed."

She stared into Bai Ye's eyes, looking down at him.

"You can hate, but you can't let hatred consume you. You must remember that your parents died protecting the village, not because they wanted to kill people. Those are two very different things."

Bai Ye's grip on his blade loosened slightly.

"I understand."

Tsunade took a scroll from the cabinet. Its rod was black, and intricate sealing patterns had been drawn across its surface in white lines.

"This was not something I should have given you." Tsunade tossed the scroll onto the table. "But you worked hard enough these past seven days. Consider it your payment."

Bai Ye looked at the scroll on the table.

"Yin Healing Wound Destruction," Tsunade said.

Bai Ye looked up.

"This isn't for you to learn. It's for you to study." Tsunade's tone was calm. "You run around the front lines all day. If you get injured someday, you should at least know how to stop bleeding, which wounds you can deal with yourself, and which wounds require someone else."

Bai Ye picked up the scroll. "Isn't this a technique only medical ninja can use?"

"In theory, yes. But in practice, the essence of this technique is predicting damage: placing chakra in advance at the locations where the enemy may strike, then having that chakra immediately treat the injury after you are wounded." Tsunade sat down again and leaned back in her chair. "Don't you have the Sharingan?"

"Sakumo told me that your combat style is too one-dimensional. Though the Sharingan has greatly improved your dynamic vision, you are actually different from Minato. Your physical reaction speed is only above average. You rely more on predicting other people's movements before responding, striking after the enemy moves. Yin Healing Wound Destruction's predictive healing contains many aspects. Not only must you judge where the enemy's attack will land and place chakra there in advance, you must also understand the human body well enough. In other words, you need to know which parts of the body are most likely to be fatal and where its defenses are weakest. And that is practically a perfect match for your fighting style."

Bai Ye put away the scroll and laid it across his knees.

"Lady Tsunade."

"Mm."

"Thank you."

Tsunade waved a hand. "Don't thank me. You can learn it, but you have to promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Once you learn it, don't die." Tsunade's tone did not ripple at all, as if she were saying something utterly ordinary. "Too many people have died after learning techniques I taught. It'll ruin my reputation."

Bai Ye looked at Tsunade's face. There was no smile on it.

"I won't die," Bai Ye said.

"Get out," she said.

Bai Ye left the tent with the scroll. Thick clouds covered the sky above the camp, obscuring the sun. Only a grayish light leaked through gaps in the clouds, shining over the muddy ground and turning every puddle lead-gray.

He wrapped the scroll in a layer of oilcloth, stuffed it into his ninja tool pouch, then went to move medicinal supplies.