My Certainty, Is In You

The oil lamp in the tent had been replaced three times.

Tsunade did not remember what time it was.

The table was covered in petri dishes, reagent bottles, silver needles, scalpels, and crumpled notes of failed formulas scattered across the floor.

The sixth version of the antidote plan: failure.

Tsunade set the petri dish on the table and turned to look at the hospital bed behind her.

Kitahara Kaede lay there.

His complexion was a sickly grey, his lips dark and bruised.

The black-purple veins on his right arm had been forcibly suppressed by her chakra, preventing them from spreading further.

But they had not faded either.

A small Katsuyu clung to his chest, its green light pulsing on and off, maintaining his most basic heartbeat and breathing.

Tsunade stared at that green light.

It was fading.

Her own chakra was also running dry.

"Lady Tsunade, you have been at this for—"

"Get out."

The medical chunin pulled the curtain shut and retreated.

The tent was left with only the two of them again.

Tsunade pulled a stool to the bedside and took Kitahara Kaede's left hand.

It was cold.

She gripped his hand tightly, trying to warm it with her palms.

"Kaede."

No response.

"Can you hear me?"

The eyelids of the man on the bed trembled slightly.

His lips moved, and a voice squeezed out from the depths of his throat, intermittent and broken.

"I... believe..."

Tsunade leaned down, bringing her ear to his lips.

"...she... can..."

The remaining words shattered into his breath, becoming unintelligible.

Tsunade did not move.

She remained in that position, stunned for several seconds.

Then, she straightened up.

She looked down at the hand she had been holding.

Her fingers slowly loosened.

She placed his hand back on the bed, very gently.

She turned and walked to the medicine cabinet.

Picking up a scalpel, she pried off the wax seal on the poison sac and scraped a thin layer of the raw liquid onto a slide.

The seventh version of the formula.

Change the base.

She had already dismantled the core structure of the Weathered Scorpion Poison.

Of the three impurities Chiyo had mixed in, she could confirm two—one was the Cactus Alkaloid unique to Sunagakure, and the other was a neurotoxin extracted from the tail segments of a Sand Scorpion.

The previous six versions had all died on the third unknown component.

But just now, she had performed a control experiment with the raw liquid.

She had seen the reaction characteristics of that third substance before.

She had seen it in the ancient medical scrolls left behind by her grandfather.

It wasn't a poison; it was a catalyst.

Tsunade's hand stopped.

"Iron Sand Powder."

She grabbed a pen and quickly wrote down the new formula.

Chiyo had ground a trace amount of Iron Sand Powder into nanoparticles and mixed it into the venom, using the affinity of iron in the blood to let the toxin precisely lock onto meridian nodes.

That was why all conventional plans had failed—it wasn't that the poison couldn't be neutralized, but that the toxin was constantly being guided to new locations by the Iron Sand Powder.

Neutralize it here, and it would pop up there.

The method to break it was actually simple.

First, use a magnetic reagent to draw the Iron Sand Powder out of the blood, then apply a standard antidote to the remaining pure toxin.

Tsunade dug out the Iron Sandstone Powder from the bottom of the medicine cabinet and mixed it into the formula.

Her hands were shaking; it was muscle spasms from chakra exhaustion.

She gritted her teeth, finished mixing it, and poured it into a bowl.

She walked to the bed.

Supporting the back of Kitahara Kaede's head with one hand, she held the bowl with the other.

"Open your mouth."

He didn't react.

Tsunade set the bowl on the edge of the bed, gripped his jaw, and gently pried it open.

The medicine was poured in, but half of it flowed down the corner of his mouth onto his neck.

She wiped the medicine stain off his chin.

Her fingers touched his skin; it was still cold.

She poured the last of her chakra into her palm and pressed it against his chest.

Katsuyu sensed the pull of its master's chakra and cooperated by guiding the medicinal power into his entire meridian system.

Then, there was nothing more she could do.

Tsunade sat back on the stool.

She held his hand.

And waited.

One minute.

Three minutes.

Five minutes.

She stared fixedly at the black-purple veins on his right arm.

At the tenth minute, the black-purple began to fade.

From the fingertips upward, inch by inch, like a receding tide.

Tsunade didn't make a sound; she placed her other hand on his wrist to check his pulse.

The beat was weak, but steady.

When that patch of black crossed his shoulder and faded completely from his neck, Tsunade let out a long breath.

She exhaled everything she had been holding in for these dozens of hours all at once.

She stared at his face, which was gradually regaining its color, for a long while.

Her lips moved, but no words came out.

Then she leaned down, resting her forehead on the back of his hand.

Her body released its final string of tension.

The moment she closed her eyes, her consciousness snapped.

She didn't know how much time had passed.

What floated up from the darkness was not a dream.

It was the moonlight between the treetops, the wind rushing into his ears.

It was his right arm hanging heavy, unable to lift, his veins feeling as if they were filled with molten lead.

It was the ground falling away beneath his feet, his face slamming into the mud, black-purple blood choking his throat.

It was the camp firelight flickering at the very edge of his vision.

And Tsunade's voice.

He remembered pushing the poison sac toward her.

He remembered saying two words.

"I got it."

Then there was nothing.

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes.

Light leaked in through the gaps in the tent, warm.

His right arm was still numb, but the piercing pain that had burrowed into his bones was gone.

He looked down.

The black-purple veins had faded for the most part, leaving only faint grey marks.

He had survived.

Then he saw Tsunade.

She was slumped over the edge of the bed, her face turned toward him, sleeping soundly.

Her hair was disheveled, draped over his arm, and the dark circles under her eyes were unnaturally deep.

Her hand was still holding his.

She had gripped it so tightly that she hadn't let go even in her sleep.

Kitahara Kaede didn't move; he watched her for a few seconds.

His fingers curled slightly, touching her fingertips.

Tsunade's eyelashes fluttered, and then she snapped her eyes open.

She met his gaze.

She was stunned for half a second.

The next instant, she slapped his chest.

"Cough—!"

Kitahara Kaede nearly lost his breath.

A body that had just crawled back from the gates of hell couldn't handle that blow; his internal organs felt as if they had been rattled.

"You—"

"Two inches."

Tsunade's voice was not loud.

It was more terrifying than a shout.

"Two inches from your heart."

Kitahara Kaede opened his mouth.

"Is that how you throw your life away to me?"

She gripped his collar, her hands shaking.

"What if I hadn't been able to concoct the antidote? Did you think about that?"

Kitahara Kaede looked at her without speaking.

Tsunade glared at him, her chest heaving violently.

"Say something."

Her voice softened.

Kitahara Kaede raised his left hand and covered the hand she was using to grip his collar.

"I thought about it."

He looked into her eyes.

"I was certain, but that certainty wasn't in me."

He paused.

"It was in you."

Tsunade's fingers loosened one by one.

The collar she had been clutching fell back onto his chest in a crumpled heap.

She didn't move, nor did she speak.

She stared at him for a long time.

Then she turned her head away.

She raised her hand and flicked him on the forehead.

It wasn't hard.

"Don't let there be a next time."

Kitahara Kaede held the finger she had used to flick him.

"Okay."

Two seconds of silence passed.

The system notification sounded in his mind.

[Side quest complete: Assist Tsunade in neutralizing Chiyo's poison]

[Rating: A]

[Permanent reward: Toxin-immune constitution—Chakra within the body will automatically decompose invading exogenous toxins, reducing the probability of poisoning to near zero]

It was not an S-rank.

But this reward meant that from now on, he would be virtually invincible against any opponent who used poison.

That was enough.

He closed the panel.

Kitahara Kaede fished out the blue amulet with crooked stitches from the innermost layer of his ninja tool pouch and dangled it in front of Tsunade.

"The charm you made, it worked."

Tsunade glanced at it.

"...Next time, I'll sew you a coffin lid."

"Then I wouldn't dare to die."

The corner of Tsunade's mouth twitched.

Noisy sounds drifted in from outside the tent, and someone was calling her name.

Tsunade pulled her hand back, stood up, and wiped her face with her sleeve.

By the time she turned around, her expression had already recovered.

"Stay lying down, you are not allowed to get out of bed for three days."

She lifted the curtain and stepped out.

She walked two steps, then stopped.

She did not turn back.

"I'll bring your dinner over."

The curtain fell.

Kitahara Kaede lay on the hospital bed, watching the top of the tent ripple slightly in the wind.

Toxin-immune constitution.

If he had received this two days earlier, he wouldn't have had to crawl that kilometer through the mud.

But then again—

In exchange for a slap from Tsunade, a "don't let there be a next time," and a "I'll bring your dinner over."

It was worth it.

He closed his eyes, intending to catch up on some sleep.

No sooner had he closed them than the curtain was pulled open again.

Tsunade poked half her body inside.

"Forgot to say."

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes.

"That sentence of yours—"

She paused.

Her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.

She turned and left.

This time, she was really gone.

The sound of her footsteps faded into the distance.

Kitahara Kaede stared at the curtain as it swayed three times before coming to a stop.

Which sentence?

He thought about it.

"My confidence isn't in myself, it's in you."

What was wrong with that sentence?

He wanted to ask, but his body wouldn't allow it.

Outside the tent, Tsunade walked along the path toward the main command tent.

The sunlight was blinding.

She raised her hand to shield her eyes.

The warmth of his fingers still lingered on her palm.

The corner of her mouth curled up.