The Anbu's afterimage was still kneeling on one knee, but he had already vanished.
Less than ten minutes later.
On the west side of construction site number two, outside a white canvas tent covered in mud and dust.
Bang!
The thick canvas flap was kicked open, snapping its tie cord.
The tent reeked of iodine antiseptic and blood.
Workers scalded by molten steel lay on two camp beds.
Tsunade huddled behind a medical cabinet in the corner, clutching her head in both hands.
Her face was deathly pale, her teeth dug into her bloodless lower lip, and she trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind.
The sight of blood on the gauze beside her made her nauseous. Stomach acid surged up her throat.
Two Anbu strode inside.
They wasted no words and showed her no courtesy for being the First Hokage's granddaughter.
One Anbu reached out a leather-gloved hand.
He grabbed the back of Tsunade's light green jacket by the collar.
"Let go... I'm not going..." Tsunade kicked wildly at the muddy ground.
One of her straw sandals flew off.
The Anbu flexed his wrist and lifted her like a chick.
He dragged her straight out of the tent.
He dragged her all the way into temporary laboratory number one.
Thud.
The Anbu let go, dumping Tsunade hard onto the rough wooden floor.
Splinters along the seams between the boards drove straight into her pale palm.
She flinched and drew back her hand, not daring to look up.
The laboratory smelled of machine oil.
Shu Shiraishi stood before a long wooden table. Several microscopes and centrifuges brought over from Konoha Hospital sat on it.
In the corner stood an iron post as thick as a wrist.
A Kumogakure prisoner of war was chained to it.
Both of the prisoner's legs had been broken.
A filthy rag had been stuffed into his mouth, muffling his groans.
"Raise your head," Shu Shiraishi said.
His voice was cold and hard, echoing through the spacious wooden building.
Tsunade buried her head even lower.
Her golden hair fell across her face.
"I... I can't look at blood. I can't treat anyone..."
Her voice was thick with tears, and her shoulders shook violently.
Shu Shiraishi wasted no more words.
He turned and walked toward the Kumogakure prisoner in the corner.
His right hand went to his lower back, and his thumb pushed against a sword guard.
Shing.
He drew a standard-issue Anbu short blade, its edge gleaming coldly.
The prisoner's eyes widened in terror, and he twisted frantically.
His chains rattled as he pulled at them.
Shu Shiraishi stood before the prisoner.
Expressionless, he raised his hand, the blade pointing down.
He aimed at the prisoner's thick right arm and slashed hard.
Shlick.
The sharp blade cut through the prisoner's tan flesh and severed a vein.
The dull sound of cutting flesh rang unnaturally clear through the wooden building.
Hot blood spurted out like a fountain, tracing a red arc through the air.
Several warm drops traveled two meters.
They splattered squarely against the side of Tsunade's face.
The blood's warmth clung to her skin.
The smell of iron filled her nostrils at once.
Tsunade's body stiffened, and her eyes instantly lost focus.
Her mind went blank.
"Aah-!"
A shrill scream tore from her throat.
She clamped both hands over her face, scratching two red marks into her fair cheeks with her nails.
She curled up on the floor and retched violently.
Bile surged up from her stomach, its sour taste filling her nose.
Shu Shiraishi casually tossed the bloody blade onto the table.
Its hilt struck the tabletop with a clatter.
He walked over, his military boots treading on the floorboards.
He stopped in front of Tsunade.
He bent down.
The rough web of his hand clamped around Tsunade's chin, and his fingers tightened sharply.
He forcibly tilted her face upward.
Tsunade struggled desperately, both hands pulling at Shu Shiraishi's wrist.
But it was like trying to bend a welded steel bar; it didn't budge.
She was forced to open her eyes.
"Look closely."
Shu Shiraishi forced her to stare at the bloody blade and the bleeding prisoner in the corner.
"A little blood, and the First Hokage's granddaughter is scared into this pathetic state."
Shu Shiraishi's voice dripped with contempt.
"Let me go... I can't take it..." Tears mixed with blood streamed down Tsunade's face.
Her fingers scratched several pale marks into the back of Shu Shiraishi's hand.
"Can't take it?"
Shu Shiraishi tightened his fingers again. The bone in her jaw creaked faintly.
"Do you think I called you here to bandage up those pieces of trash who break their legs on the job?"
Tsunade froze for a moment, stopping halfway through a retch.
"A barefoot doctor can handle that kind of patchwork."
Shu Shiraishi let go, took out a rag, and wiped the foundation off his hand in disgust.
"What I want isn't a doctor."
He turned and pointed at a sealed glass test tube on the table.
A grayish-white lump of living flesh floated inside.
They were Hashirama Cells that Orochimaru had just retrieved from the Anbu's forbidden repository.
"Konoha's machine tools are running."
Shu Shiraishi stood beside the table.
"I tested a machine gun yesterday. Its recoil could shatter an ordinary Chunin's shoulder blade to powder."
"The machinery can't be modified any further. The materials are already at their limit."
He turned to look at Tsunade, who was slumped on the floor.
"If the machinery can't be changed, then change the people."
"I want you to use Hashirama Senju's cells to develop a biochemical agent for me."
Tsunade understood.
She looked at the test tube, her face growing even paler.
"That'll kill people!" she shouted, her voice cracking.
"Grandfather's cells have a strong tendency to devour other cells. If they're implanted in a human body, the person will turn into wood! It's a forbidden technique!"
"People died because the researchers who tried it before were all trash."
Shu Shiraishi grabbed the test tube and slapped it down hard on the floor in front of Tsunade.
The glass tube struck the floorboards with a dull thud.
"If the proportions are wrong, keep testing."
Shu Shiraishi pointed at the prisoner, who was still twitching in the corner.
"Test it on cattle. Test it on pigs. Test it on these prisoners."
"You're a medical genius. Don't tell me you can't do it."
"Konoha is going to undergo full-scale heavy industrialization."
Shu Shiraishi looked down at her.
"Ordinary ninjas' bodies simply can't withstand the strain of industrial weapons."
"I want you to strengthen this batch of flesh and blood into perfect parts that can adapt to machines of steel."
Every word Shu Shiraishi spoke struck Tsunade's worldview like a hammer.
There was no such thing as a healer's compassion.
There was only the cold logic of industrialization and the exploitation of resources.
Here, human lives were merely a set of parameters whose stress-resistance data needed improving.
Tsunade bit her lower lip. Her teeth broke the skin, and the taste of blood spread through her mouth.
But this time, she didn't retch.
The grand, violent blueprint Shu Shiraishi had described.
That mad idea of modifying human bodies like machine parts.
Like a sharp blade, it pried open the mental defenses she had closed off because of severed limbs and blood.
This pure scientific truth and the pressure of overwhelming power.
They worked better than any gentle words of comfort.
Shu Shiraishi saw that she had stopped shaking.
He pulled over a wooden chair and sat down, legs spread wide.
"The microscope's over there." He jerked his chin toward it.
"Orochimaru has already prepared the basic cell-fusion slides."
Tsunade sat on the floor.
The pain of the splinter in her palm finally reached her brain.
She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the mixed smells of machine oil and blood.
She raised her trembling right hand.
She scrubbed hard at the side of her face with her sleeve.
The coarse fabric wiped away the drops of blood, leaving several red smears across her fair cheek.
She got up from the floor on her hands and knees.
Her legs were still a little weak, and she stumbled forward a step.
She steadied herself against the edge of the wooden table.
She walked over to the microscope.
Her palm was slick with cold sweat, and she could barely grip the adjustment knob.
She bent down and brought her left eye to the cold metal eyepiece.
Beneath the lens lay a microscopic battlefield.
It was a control group of ordinary muscle cells and Hashirama Cells that Orochimaru had prepared earlier.
Tsunade's breath caught.
She saw a cluster of living green cells.
They were like a pack of wolves that had gone hungry for half a month, or green algae spreading wildly.
The cluster of cells had no regular shape.
They lunged straight at the walls of the ordinary red muscle cells.
They weren't fusing. They were tearing and devouring.
With each act of devouring, the green cell cluster divided and produced stronger tissue fibers.
That vitality, so vigorous it was almost grotesque.
It possessed a primal, destructive beauty.
This wasn't medicine at all.
It was a machine of violence on a microscopic scale.
As long as she could find that critical point, as long as she could suppress that devouring tendency.
The human body's muscle density could definitely increase fivefold, or even tenfold!
Tsunade's hand stopped trembling on the dial.
She stared fixedly into the eyepiece, a faint ring of red around her eyes from the prolonged strain.
That visceral fear of blood
was being swallowed up, bit by bit, by an all-consuming zeal for an unknown power.
She ran the tip of her tongue over her split lower lip.
She tasted her own blood.
"If I want to suppress the plant transformation," Tsunade murmured, her voice barely audible.
"I can't inject the undiluted solution directly. I need a high-concentration Chakra stabilizer as a buffer layer..."
Shu Shiraishi sat in his chair.
He watched the medical genius as she became absorbed in her work and didn't disturb her.
The foundation for the biochemical troops was more or less secured.
Once this batch of drugs was ready, those Genin carrying machine guns could become real bulldozers.
Just then,
creak.
A faint, odd sound came from outside the window,
like the creaking of old wood under pressure.
Shu Shiraishi's gaze snapped toward it.
The window on the side of the wooden house was half-open.
Two dirt-stained hands rested on the sill.
A head of conspicuous white hair was cautiously emerging from beneath the windowsill.
There was red face paint on his cheeks.
Half his body hung outside the window, his backside sticking out.
His feet, clad in red wooden clogs, kept slipping against the brick wall, making faint scraping sounds.
The white-haired boy narrowed his eyes.
He was trying to peer through the gap in the window into the wooden house.
His eyes had a shifty, lecherous look.
He had just brought his eyes up to the edge of the glass
and hadn't yet gotten a clear look inside
when a leather-gloved hand reached out of thin air behind him
and grabbed the loose collar at the back of his shirt.
The Anbu Ninja outside the door was expressionless.
With a heave of one arm,
he yanked the snooping white-haired boy up from the windowsill like a radish.
"Ow!"
A startled cry came from outside the window, the voice cracking.