Initial Treatment

The outer walls of the Senju Clan Compound resembled hardened beeswax, mottled and crumbling.

After passing through three stone torii gates, the vast residence held nothing but the soft scrape of a broom against the wooden corridors.

"Think it feels deserted?" Tsunade noticed the strange look on Neji's face. "If the clan compound had been kept back then, the Senju Clan would have lost at least several hundred young adults during the Third Great Ninja War."

"During the Warring States Era, several thousand Senju Clan members were permanently stationed here." Tsunade kicked open the creaking lattice door to the main hall. Dust revealed the Senju Clan crest within the shafts of light. "When Grandfather disbanded the clan, even the sealing scrolls from the armory were moved to the Hokage Tower."

"The First Hokage was truly farsighted. Pearls mixed among the grains of sand will one day shine again."

Neji said this with some admiration.

"Shine again? Perhaps..." Tsunade said noncommittally.

Neji caught the fleeting gloom in Tsunade's heart. After giving it some thought, he said, "Different circumstances naturally call for different choices. That is true for individuals, and it is true for clans as well. The Senju Clan's bloodline is powerful. Even after integrating into Konoha, gifted individuals will continue to emerge without end. Setting aside matters of ancestral lineage, this is actually tremendously beneficial to the clan's continuation. The Uchiha Clan and Hyuga Clan are exactly the opposite."

Neji paused. Seeing that Tsunade had become interested, he continued, "The Uchiha Clan and Hyuga Clan both require pure eyes... and that inevitably requires pure bloodlines. Living together as a clan thus becomes unavoidable."

"Do you know what the Senju Clan's greatest legacy is?" Neji abruptly changed the subject. Tsunade and Shizune failed to follow his train of thought and froze for a moment, exchanging glances as though asking, "The Senju Clan has a legacy? How did I not know?"

"The Senju Clan's legacy is that it can create countless 'what-ifs' throughout the village in the future. With all those 'what-ifs,' the Senju Clan's prestige will never fade. The Hyuga Clan, on the other hand, creates countless 'inevitables.' Once the Caged Bird becomes a necessity, its keeper will never be able to leave the cage."

Neji's tone was distant and drifting. Tsunade and Shizune had not expected to view the matter from such an angle. In that instant, Tsunade thought of how the Senju Clan's name would endure forever, and the clan compound she had worked so hard to maintain suddenly seemed far less important.

"Grandfather, was this your intention too...?" Tsunade's eyes reddened slightly.

After a long while, Tsunade and Shizune sat at the ancient tea table, staring at Neji with strange expressions, as if trying to see whether the body of this young boy housed the soul of some old monster.

Neji had no idea what they were thinking. If he did, he would have praised them—you guessed pretty accurately. More precisely, he had been filled with the soul of an exemplary young man raised under the red flag and nurtured by the spring breeze.

"Enough. Tell us about your treatment method." Tsunade did not realize that she had already developed a fair amount of trust and interest in Neji.

"The treatment method? Haven't I already begun?" Neji smiled mysteriously. Ignoring the two women's exchanged looks, he went on, "A sickness of the heart needs medicine for the heart. What is heart medicine? In my view, it means saying words that closely match the patient's state of mind, taking measures to open the patient's emotional defenses, and helping the patient actively seek a way out during the process—to emerge from the dead end they have trapped themselves in."

"Please consider it: haven't we already achieved a fairly pleasant exchange?"

Neji took a sip of tea and smiled at the two women communicating with their eyes.

It feels like he's talking us in circles, but the more we think about it, the more sense it makes... The two exchanged another glance, signaling for Neji to continue.

In the Ninja World, slaughter and despair were part of a ninja's daily life. Under such circumstances, nearly every ninja suffered from PTSD. Those who could pull themselves out on their own, or who were moved by some experience, were said to have found their own "ninja way." Those who could not simply lived on in pain and numbness.

Thus, Neji's novel method of psychological treatment opened an entirely new perspective for both Tsunade and Shizune.

"Next, I'll need to use certain methods to treat you. Please lie down on the couch."

After Neji spoke, Tsunade fell silent for a moment before lying down as instructed on the low couch beside the tea table. The small couch immediately rose and fell like mountain ranges. Neji swept his Byakugan over her, and his expression stalled for an instant. At that moment, he was immensely grateful that his body had not yet fully matured, sparing him an indescribably awkward situation.

Composing himself, Neji sent a stream of Inner Qi into Tsunade's body from afar. Tsunade only felt warmth spread through her entire body, while a long-lost sense of ease slowly rose in her heart. Her expression gradually became hazy.

Neji sat before the low couch and said in a deep, magnetic voice, "Now, we are going to revisit a scene. You are merely an observer, and no one in that scene has anything to do with you. I need you to guard your mind and watch every person within it, as well as the choices they make. Remember, they have nothing to do with you. Can you do that?"

His words drifted into Tsunade's ears. As though she sensed what was coming, Tsunade hesitated, but in the end, she agreed and slowly nodded.

Neji quietly let out a breath. After so many days of planning and groundwork, Tsunade had finally lowered her guard a little. Neji was not Naruto Uzumaki; he did not possess the ability to win people over with words. Without careful preparation, Tsunade would never have even given him a chance to speak.

Tsunade would not look at him differently just because Neji shouted things like, "I'm going to become Hokage!"

"Good. Let us begin this wondrous journey of the mind. Now, return to that battlefield you do not wish to remember. Look... there stands a man who could hold up the heavens. Do not get agitated. Remember my words. Keep watching and see why he made that choice..."

As Neji soothed her with his words, he sent another thread of Qi into Tsunade's body. Her trembling form gradually calmed, and her breathing slowly eased.

Torrential rain battered the rocky beach along Hidden Grass's border. When Kato Dan's shuriken sliced through the throat of the seventh Hidden Mist ninja, the wound piercing his left ribs began to gush blood.

The Spirit Transformation Technique had reached its limit, his chakra was nearly depleted, and only a few comrades remained behind him. Yet the crucial intelligence still had not been delivered.

Watching the enemies close in, Dan shut his eyes and recalled his life: war and blood, cruelty and struggle. He could not help asking himself, Was it worth it?

It was!

He remembered himself striving day and night, constantly honing his skills; himself strolling beneath flowers and moonlight with the woman he loved; himself holding his little niece, marveling at the miracle of life; and the countless smiling faces in Konoha, along with the deeply engraved names upon the memorial stone.

"Spirit Transformation Technique!"

With that final roar, Dan exhausted the last trace of his chakra. His soul burst forth like a whirlwind, dragging the enemies around him into the storm.

Watching the younger ninja carrying the intelligence depart, Dan and the few remaining survivors staggered forward to stand before the last of the enemy. When the first enemy ninja's kunai pierced his body, he leaned against a shattered stone monument and laughed softly. So the scent of death was the same as the cherry blossoms along the Nanga River.

"Forgive me... Tsunade... Carry my dream... and keep moving forward... Forgive me!"

Dan's final consciousness lingered on the curve of the mountain ridge at Konoha's border, yet a gentle arc still lifted the corner of his bloodstained lips.