My Confidence Was in You

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

Tsunade had lost track of the time.

Petri dishes, reagent bottles, silver needles, scalpels, and crumpled-up notes for failed formulas covered the table and littered the floor.

The sixth antidote formula had failed.

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

Kitahara Kaede lay there.

His face was ashen, his lips dark.

She had used chakra to force the black-purple markings on his right arm to stop spreading.

But they hadn't faded.

A small Katsuyu clung to his chest, its green glow pulsing faintly as it maintained his heartbeat and breathing.

Tsunade stared at the green glow.

It was fading.

Her chakra was nearly depleted, too.

"Lady Tsunade, you've been at this for—"

"Get out."

The medical Chunin drew the curtain and left.

Once again, there were only two people in the tent.

Tsunade pulled a stool over to the bed and sat down, taking Kaede's left hand.

It was cold.

She clasped his hand tightly, trying to warm it with her palm.

"Kaede."

There was no response.

"Can you hear me?"

The patient's eyelids twitched faintly.

His lips moved, the words scraping out from deep in his throat, broken and halting.

"I... believe..."

Tsunade bent over, bringing her ear close to his mouth.

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

The rest of the words dissolved into his breathing, too faint to make out.

Tsunade didn't move.

She stayed frozen in that position for several seconds.

Then she straightened up.

She lowered her gaze to the hand holding his.

Her fingers slowly loosened.

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

Then she turned and walked over to the medicine cabinet.

She picked up a scalpel, broke the seal on the poison sac, and scraped off an ultrathin layer of crude extract to smear onto a slide.

The seventh formula.

Change the base ingredient.

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

Of the three impurities Chiyo had mixed into it, she could identify two: a cactus alkaloid unique to Sunagakure and a neurotoxin extracted from the tail segment of a Sand Scorpion.

The first six formulas had all failed because of the third, unknown component.

But just now, she had used the crude extract in a control test.

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

In an ancient medical text 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 a new formula.

Chiyo had ground a tiny amount of Iron Sand Powder down to the nanoscale and mixed it into the poison. Taking advantage of iron's affinity with blood, she had made the toxin target the meridian nodes with precision.

That was why all the conventional methods had failed. It wasn't that the poison couldn't be neutralized; the Iron Sand Powder kept redirecting it to new locations.

She'd neutralize it in one place, and it would crop up somewhere else.

The solution was simple: first, use a magnetic medicinal agent to draw the Iron Sand Powder out of the blood, then treat the remaining pure poison with a conventional antidote.

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

Her hand shook from the muscle spasms caused by chakra depletion.

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

Then she walked to the bed.

She supported the back of Kaede's head with one hand and held the bowl with the other.

"Open your mouth."

He didn't react.

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

She poured in the medicine. Half of it ran from the corner of his mouth down his neck.

She wiped the medicine from his chin.

Her fingers touched his skin. It was still cold.

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

Sensing the pull of her chakra, Katsuyu cooperated, guiding the medicine through his meridians.

Then there was nothing more she could do.

Tsunade sat back down on the stool.

She held his hand.

And waited.

One minute.

Three minutes.

Five minutes.

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

At the ten-minute mark, the black-purple color began to fade.

It receded from his fingertips upward, inch by inch, like the tide going out.

Tsunade didn't say a word. She placed her other hand on his wrist and checked his pulse.

It was weak, but steady.

When the black had passed over his shoulder and faded completely from his neck, Tsunade let out a long breath.

She released everything she had been holding in for the past few dozen hours all at once.

She stared at his face as its color slowly returned.

Her lips moved, but no words came out.

Then she bent over and rested her forehead against the back of his hand.

The last thread holding her together snapped.

The instant she closed her eyes, consciousness left her.

Who knew how much time had passed?

What rose up through the darkness wasn't a dream.

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

It was his right arm hanging limp, impossible to lift, his blood vessels filled as if with molten lead.

It was the ground giving way beneath him, his face crashing into the mud, black-purple blood choking his throat.

It was the campfire 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.

"Got it."

Then there was nothing.

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes.

Warm light filtered through the gaps in the tent.

His right arm was still numb, but the pain that had drilled down to the bone was gone.

He lowered his gaze.

The black-purple markings had nearly faded, leaving only faint gray traces.

He was alive.

Then he saw Tsunade.

She was slumped over the edge of the bed, her face turned toward him, fast asleep.

Her hair had fallen loose over his arm, and the dark circles beneath her eyes were so deep they looked unreal.

She was still holding his hand.

Her grip was so tight she hadn't even let go in her sleep.

Kitahara Kaede didn't move. He watched her for several seconds.

His fingers curled slightly, brushing hers.

Tsunade's eyelashes fluttered, then her eyes flew open.

Her gaze met his.

She froze for half a second.

The next instant, she slapped him on the chest.

"Cough—!"

Kitahara Kaede nearly choked.

His body had only just crawled back from the brink of death; it couldn't take a hit like that. His insides lurched.

"You—"

"Two inches."

Tsunade's voice was quiet.

That was more frightening than if she'd shouted.

"Two inches from your heart."

Kitahara Kaede parted his lips.

"You just threw your life away and left it in my hands?"

She clutched his collar, her hand trembling.

"What if I couldn't make an antidote? Did you even think about that?"

Kitahara Kaede looked at her without answering.

Tsunade glared at him, her chest rising and falling sharply.

"Say something."

Her voice softened.

Kitahara Kaede raised his left hand and covered the one clutching his collar.

"I did."

He looked into her eyes.

"I was confident, but my confidence wasn't in myself."

He paused.

"It was in you."

Tsunade's fingers loosened one by one.

His collar, bunched up in her fist, fell back against his chest.

She didn't move or say anything.

She stared at him for a long time.

Then she turned her head away.

She raised a hand and flicked him on the forehead.

It wasn't hard.

"Don't ever do that again."

Kitahara Kaede took hold of the finger she'd flicked him with.

"Okay."

Two seconds of silence passed.

A system notification sounded in his mind.

[Side Quest Complete: Assist Tsunade in Breaking Chiyo's Poison]

[Rating: A]

[Permanent Reward: Poison-Immunity Constitution—Chakra in the body will automatically break down invading external toxins, reducing the chance of poisoning to nearly zero]

It wasn't S-Rank.

But this reward meant that from now on, whenever he faced an opponent who used poison, he'd be practically invincible.

That was enough.

He closed the panel.

Kitahara Kaede reached into the innermost pocket of his ninja tool pouch, pulled out the blue amulet with its crooked stitches, and waved it in front of Tsunade.

"The good-luck charm you made works."

Tsunade glanced at it.

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

"Then I won't dare die."

Tsunade's mouth twitched.

A commotion rose outside the tent. 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 returned to normal.

"Lie still. You're not getting out of bed for three days."

She lifted the flap and stepped outside.

She took two steps, then stopped.

She didn't turn around.

"I'll bring you dinner."

The flap fell shut.

Kitahara Kaede lay on the sickbed, watching the tent roof ripple gently in the wind.

A poison-immunity constitution.

If he'd gotten it two days earlier, he wouldn't have had to crawl that kilometer through the mud.

Then again—

In exchange for a slap from Tsunade, an "Don't ever do that again," and an "I'll bring you dinner."

Worth it.

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

The moment he did, the flap opened again.

Tsunade leaned halfway inside.

"I forgot to say something."

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes.

"That thing you said—"

She paused.

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

She turned and left.

This time, she really was gone.

Her footsteps grew farther and farther away.

Kitahara Kaede stared at the flap until it swayed three times and finally went still.

Which thing?

He thought about it.

"My confidence wasn't in myself. It was in you."

What was wrong with that?

He wanted to ask, but his body wouldn't let him.

Outside the tent, Tsunade walked along the path leading to the main tent.

The sunlight was dazzling.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes.

The warmth of his fingers still lingered in her palm.

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly.