Hospital Night Talk

The lingering glow of sunset dyed Konoha Hospital's white walls a warm orange-red, but beneath that warmth, undercurrents imperceptible to ordinary people were surging.

Having just finished the drawing ceremony, Ye Tian did not head home directly. Leaning on the tree-branch cane he had polished smooth with use, he made his way into the hospital's first-floor lobby with practiced ease.

"Cough, cough... Nurse, I'm back."

Ye Tian leaned over the registration counter, his face pale and his eyes melancholy. He skillfully handed over a thick medical record booklet. "Same as usual. Some calming brain tonic, and two more boxes of glucose... I've been preparing for the exams lately, and I feel completely drained."

The nurse handling registrations was already used to Konoha's "number one sickly patient." Her eyes were full of sympathy. "Ye Tian, I heard this Chunin Ninja Exams is dangerous. You're working yourself too hard. Go get an IV in Ward 302 first. I'll have someone bring the medicine over later."

"Thank you, Nurse. You truly are an angel in white."

Ye Tian gave a weak smile, took his registration slip, and slowly headed toward the inpatient ward.

However, the moment he rounded an empty stairwell corner, his previously clouded eyes instantly became incomparably clear.

"The admission procedures are done. Now I just need to wait for the 'guest' to come knocking."

Rather than going straight to his own Ward 302, Ye Tian wandered over to the intensive care area like an elderly man out for a stroll.

There was a ward there guarded around the clock by ANBU—Uchiha Sasuke's ward.

At that moment, inside the ward.

Sakura Haruno sat by the bed, carefully peeling an apple with a small knife. The long strip of peel formed an unbroken spiral in her hands.

On the hospital bed, Sasuke stared blankly at the birds outside the window. Although the Curse Mark had been sealed, the lingering terror of having his body eroded by power still remained in his nerves.

"Um... Sasuke, have some apple." Sakura handed him a sliced apple shaped like a rabbit.

Sasuke did not take it. He merely said coldly, "I don't want any."

"Oh, don't be so cold."

The ward door opened, and a familiar cough entered before its owner did.

"Cough, cough... Apples are good for you. They're rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and great for your... cough, cough, skin."

Ye Tian entered with a smiling face, carrying a rather shabby mesh bag containing several oranges.

"Ye Tian? Why are you here?" Sakura asked in surprise, then quickly stood to offer him her seat. "Are you hospitalized too?"

"Yeah. The doctor said I've severely depleted my vitality and need to stay for observation for two days." Ye Tian unceremoniously plopped down in the chair, picked up the apple Sakura had peeled, and took a bite himself. "Crunch... Mm, pretty sweet."

Sasuke frowned at the uninvited visitor. "Why did you come? To laugh at me?"

"Of course not." Ye Tian chewed the apple, but his eyes discreetly swept around the ward.

Through his Divine Sense, he could sense at least four ANBU hidden around the room. Such defenses might have been impregnable to ordinary ninja, but to a spy of Kabuto Yakushi's caliber, they were nothing more than corpses waiting to happen.

"I came to remind you of something."

Ye Tian swallowed the apple, leaned forward, moved closer to Sasuke, and lowered his voice.

"Tonight, don't sleep too deeply... Hospitals are heavy with yin energy. At midnight, they tend to... get haunted."

Sasuke paused. Looking into Ye Tian's deep eyes, his heart inexplicably skipped a beat.

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

"Believe it or not." Ye Tian shrugged and stood up. "All right, I'll leave the oranges here. I need to go back for my IV. This body of mine can't even handle a little breeze... Cough, cough..."

With that, he returned to his half-dead appearance and trembled as he walked out of the ward.

Watching Ye Tian's retreating figure, Sasuke's brow furrowed even more deeply.

"That guy... He was implying something."

The night deepened.

Konoha Hospital sank into dead silence. The corridor lights flickered dimly, interrupted only by the occasional ticking of operating equipment.

The clock hand pointed to two in the morning.

This was when human vigilance was at its lowest.

A black figure appeared at the end of the intensive care corridor like a ghost. He wore an ANBU mask, yet not a trace of life could be sensed from him.

He passed behind an ANBU guard. He held no weapon; his finger merely brushed lightly over the man's carotid artery.

Pfft.

The ANBU agent did not even make a sound before his body went limp and collapsed.

"That makes four."

Behind the mask, Kabuto Yakushi adjusted his glasses, a cold curve rising at the corner of his lips.

"Orochimaru-sama ordered me to take Sasuke away, or... kill him. Sasuke may have had his Curse Mark sealed, but that imperfect seal will collapse with only a little stimulation."

Kabuto looked at the tightly shut ward door ahead, the glow of the Chakra Scalpel in his hand flickering faintly.

"It's a shame, but for my lord's plan, I can only ask you to die, Sasuke."

He gently pushed open the door.

The ward was pitch-black, with only moonlight from outside spilling across the hospital bed. Sasuke lay there, breathing steadily, apparently fast asleep.

Kabuto silently approached the bed and raised the scalpel glowing with a ghostly blue light.

"Goodbye."

Just one second before the lethal scalpel pierced Sasuke's throat—

Click.

An exceptionally crisp and abrupt sound of a door opening rang out in the silent ward.

It was the sound of the lock on the ward's private bathroom door being opened.

Kabuto's movement suddenly froze. The scalpel hung in midair, less than a centimeter from Sasuke's neck.

"Seriously... Why doesn't this hospital bathroom even have an exhaust fan? I'm suffocating in there."

Accompanied by a lazy complaint, the bathroom door was pushed open.

Wearing blue-and-white striped hospital pajamas and a pair of pink bunny slippers, Ye Tian emerged sleepily, holding a roll of toilet paper.

By the faint light spilling from the bathroom, Ye Tian came face-to-face with Kabuto standing beside the bed.

Their eyes met.

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

Kabuto remained in the posture of raising his blade to kill, the shock in his eyes beneath the mask instantly transforming into intense killing intent.

Meanwhile, Ye Tian froze for a moment. Then an utterly bewildered expression of Who am I? Where am I? appeared on his face, followed by the delight of meeting an acquaintance.

"Oh... It's pretty lively for the middle of the night, huh?"

Ye Tian blinked, his gaze falling on the Chakra Scalpel in Kabuto's hand before shifting to Sasuke, who was still asleep in bed.

He neither screamed nor fled. Instead, he tightened his hospital gown around himself, wore an expression that said he completely understood, and lowered his voice.

"Um... Mr. ANBU, I know young people these days are under a lot of pressure and like to do performance art in the middle of the night... but pointing such a shiny knife at a patient is a little... impolite, isn't it?"

"And..."

Ye Tian sniffed, slightly furrowed his brow, and showed a trace of disgust. "You smell way too strongly of blood. That'll affect the patient's rest. Also... this hospital really is heavy with yin energy at night. Your forehead is dark, sir. Did you run into something unclean?"

Kabuto: "..."

Even someone as unfathomably calculating as Kabuto felt a surge of absurdity at that moment.

Was this guy really stupid, or was he pretending?

"So, I've been discovered..."

Kabuto's voice emerged from beneath the mask, carrying helplessness and chill. "I didn't want to create more bloodshed, but since you saw me, then I can only..."

Buzz!

Killing intent erupted instantly.

Kabuto no longer concealed himself. The Chakra Scalpel in his hand changed direction, and with a blur of motion, he lunged straight for Ye Tian's throat!

Since he had been exposed, he might as well eliminate the witness too!

However.

At the instant Kabuto launched his attack.

A chilling cold light suddenly flashed through the half-lidded eyes of Ye Tian, who had seemed drowsy and completely defenseless.

That was not the gaze of a ninja.

It was a kind of aloof indifference, as though a god were looking down upon ants...

[Divine Sense Lock: Spiritual Pressure]

Boom!

An invisible yet utterly terrifying mental pressure descended upon Kabuto without warning.

It was as though an unseen giant hand had seized his heart in an iron grip.

Kabuto's lunging body came to an abrupt halt in midair for an instant. His biological instincts screamed frantically in warning—

Move, and die!

In his perception, how was the youth in hospital pajamas before him some sickly weakling? He was clearly a prehistoric beast lurking in the darkness with its jaws wide open! If he extended his scalpel another inch, his head would be the first to roll!

"This... This feeling..."

Cold sweat instantly seeped across Kabuto's forehead, and his heart pounded violently.

He recalled that strange sense of wrongness when he had taken Ye Tian's pulse in the Forest of Death.

"So it's true... This guy... is a monster!"

In that fleeting stalemate.

The indifference on Ye Tian's face instantly vanished, replaced by his harmless, even slightly cowardly appearance.

He stepped back, raised the roll of toilet paper in his hand as a shield, and said while trembling.

"Hey, hey, hey! Sir! Let's talk this out! I only came to borrow the bathroom! The toilet in my room is clogged! I'm leaving right now! Right now!"

"Borrow the bathroom?"

Kabuto forcibly suppressed the shock in his heart and reined in his killing intent. He knew the best opportunity for assassination had already passed. Furthermore, against the unfathomable Ye Tian, if a fight broke out and made enough noise to draw Kakashi over, he truly would not be able to escape.

"Hehe..."

Kabuto slowly put away the Chakra Scalpel and removed his ANBU mask, revealing a refined, smiling face behind round glasses.

"What a coincidence, Ye Tian." Kabuto adjusted his glasses, his smile as warm as that of an intern doctor making rounds. "I also came to check on Sasuke's condition. Earlier, I was simply... conducting a small stress test."

"So it was you, Senior Kabuto!"

Ye Tian immediately put on a delighted expression as well, as though their life-and-death confrontation just now had never happened. "You scared me to death! I thought you were some perverted serial killer! I knew it—someone as gentle as Senior Kabuto would never go around slashing people with a knife in the middle of the night."

The two smiled at each other.

At that moment, the ward's air was filled with the mutual appreciation—or mutual disgust—of two master actors.

"Since it was a misunderstanding, I won't disturb Senior Kabuto's rounds." Ye Tian pointed toward the door. "My old kidney deficiency is acting up again. I need to go back and sleep, or I won't be able to get up tomorrow."

"Please, go ahead." Kabuto stepped aside.

Clutching the toilet paper, Ye Tian slipped out of the ward like a startled rabbit.

However, just as Ye Tian's front foot crossed the threshold, his back foot—

Boom!

The ward window suddenly shattered.

A streak of silver-white lightning burst in alongside a spray of glass shards.

"Stay away from my student, Kabuto."

Kakashi Hatake gripped a Kunai and stood in front of Sasuke's bed, his exposed Sharingan fixed firmly on Kabuto.

"Oh dear, I've been found out."

Kabuto helplessly spread his hands. He glanced at Ye Tian, who had not yet gone far beyond the door, then at the murderous Kakashi.

"It seems tonight's 'visit' will have to end here."

Kabuto flashed away, leaping directly out through the shattered window and disappearing into the night.

"Trying to run?"

Kakashi had just been about to pursue him when he suddenly recalled something and sharply turned toward the door.

There, Ye Tian leaned against the doorframe, weakly waving the roll of toilet paper at Kakashi.

"Oh, Kakashi-sensei. You came to... borrow the bathroom too?"

Kakashi: "..."

He looked at the mess covering the floor, then at Ye Tian, who had appeared here "by coincidence," and his expression became exceedingly complicated.

"Ye Tian, why are you here?" Kakashi asked in a low voice.

"Well..."

Ye Tian scratched his head awkwardly, a bashful—embarrassed—smile appearing on his face.

"If I said... I drank too much water tonight, the bathroom in my ward was broken, and I really couldn't hold it anymore, so I ran over here... would you believe me?"

"Also, I think I saw a shadow come in just now. I was about to call for help when Senior Kabuto showed up... and then you arrived too."

Ye Tian's explanation was seventy percent true and thirty percent false. He cleanly removed himself from responsibility while conveniently dumping the blame on the bathroom.

Kakashi stared at Ye Tian for a long time.

His instincts told him things were not that simple. On his way here, he had clearly sensed an extremely brief but utterly terrifying pressure, an aura that had even made him shudder.

And the source of that aura seemed to have been inside this ward.

But looking at the pale youth before him, still holding a roll of toilet paper, Kakashi simply could not connect him with that terrifying presence.

"Forget it."

Kakashi sighed and put away his Kunai. "Since you're fine, hurry back to your room and rest. The hospital isn't peaceful tonight."

"Got it! I'm going back! Right away!"

Ye Tian acted as though he had been granted a pardon and bolted away with the toilet paper.

After returning to his own Ward 302, Ye Tian closed the door and casually locked it.

He leaned against the door, slowly exhaled a long breath of foul air, and the weak expression on his face instantly vanished, replaced by a playful look.

"Kabuto Yakushi... He really is a sharp one."

Ye Tian raised his hand and looked at the faint, barely perceptible ripple of Spiritual Power in his palm.

"If Kakashi had come one step later, I might really have been unable to resist sending him on his way. After all, it doesn't feel very good to be targeted at a time like that."

Still, the outcome was not bad.

After tonight's "chance encounter," Kabuto would only become more wary of him. Before figuring out Ye Tian's true capabilities, Orochimaru's side probably would not dare act rashly for the time being.

"This could be considered... indirectly buying Sasuke some time to grow."

Ye Tian walked to the window and looked at the cold crescent moon outside, a smile curling across his lips.

"For the next month, I can finally focus on a little 'side business' without worry."

He pulled the Kubikiribōchō Fragment he had picked up in the Land of Waves from his robes, his eyes gleaming with the fervor unique to an artifact refiner.

"My Blood Drinker Flying Sword... should be born as well."