Tsunade adjusted the loose folds of her kimono as she stumbled out of the casino, her breath laced with the heavy scent of sake.
The night air kissed her flushed skin, a welcome relief from the suffocating heat inside.
She hadn't meant to drink this much, but with the Third Shinobi War looming on the horizon, who knew when she'd get another chance? Maybe in a few months, maybe a year—maybe never.
It wasn't just her.
The whole world felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for the inevitable bloodshed to begin.
She sighed, rubbing her temple as she staggered down the dimly lit streets of the capital.
The city still buzzed with its Night life.
On her way back, she smelled it.
Blood.
Thick. Overwhelming. It was everywhere.
Her lazy, drunken steps faltered. Even with her dulled senses, the sheer intensity of the scent was enough to jolt her from her haze even if slightly.
The air was saturated with it, pungent and metallic.
This wasn't a simple mugging—whoever was bleeding had lost enough to paint the street red.
Tsunade followed the scent, sandals clicking against the cobblestones, her heart pounding harder with each step.
As she turned the corner, the sight before her nearly made her stomach lurch.
A man lay sprawled on the ground, his body a grotesque mess of ruin.
His left eye was gone, a gaping wound in its place, the flesh torn apart as if something had been ripped out of him rather than cut cleanly.
His abdomen was a horror show—twenty-one stab wounds, fresh and deep, had turned his torso into a leaking, pulped mess.
His organs… Tsunade didn't need to look too hard to know they had been reduced to little more than mush.
She crouched, peering down at him with a lazy, lopsided smile...which was there unconsciously.
"You need help?" she asked, voice soft.
She didn't get an answer.
She looked at his body and analyzed slightly sober now.
His arms—if they could still be called that—were skeletal, stripped of nearly all muscle.
The skin clung weakly to the bone, riddled with scars and incisions that told a horrific story of systematic mutilation.
These weren't battle wounds.
His body had been carved open, over and over, muscles removed piece by piece.
And yet, despite the lack of muscle, she could see how fresh, clumsy stitches ran along his limbs, as if someone had been playing with his body, cutting and reattaching whatever they pleased.
Her breath hitched as she pressed her fingers to his wrist, flooding his body with a small pulse of chakra to assess the damage fully.
Then, she felt it.
Pain.
Not hers—his.
Even unconscious, his body was on fire, every nerve screaming in agony. It wasn't natural.
Something foreign was in his bloodstream.
A drug? No, a poison—one designed to amplify pain tenfold.
Every breath, every small twitch of his body must have felt like pure torture, a suffering so profound that the human mind should have shut down by now.
And yet, he was still alive.
His nerves were shattered, his muscles torn apart, his wrist permanently useless, his insides turned to sludge.
He should have died long before reaching this state.
Tsunade swallowed, the alcohol completely gone from her system now.
This man should be dead.
The fact that he wasn't was more terrifying than anything she had ever seen.
As she knelt beside him, she couldn't shake the feeling that something inside him was still holding on, clinging to life with a sheer, terrifying force of will.
This was a miracle.
Even with all her skill, even with her mastery of the Mystic Palm technique, she could barely keep him together.
The technique relied on the body's natural ability to heal, but there was barely anything left to heal.
His organs were mutilated, his muscles were nearly nonexistent, and his nervous system was in complete ruin.
And yet, he was still alive.
Gritting her teeth, she forced as much chakra as she could into his shredded body, sealing what internal damage she could before the blood loss killed him outright.
It wasn't enough—far from it—but it would buy him time.
She had to move. Now.
Without hesitation, she scooped him up, his weight almost nothing in her arms.
Then, she ran.
The streets blurred past her as she sprinted, her sandals barely touching the ground.
The nearest hospital wasn't far, but every second counted. His breath was faint, his heartbeat sluggish—he was slipping.
She kicked the doors open, sending them crashing against the walls as she stormed in.
The receptionist jolted in shock, nearly toppling over in her chair. "Wh-What—?! What in the world—"
Tsunade didn't answer. She laid the dying man onto the reception table, barely pausing before vanishing in a flicker of speed.
When she reappeared, her arms were full—every medical supply she could grab from the storage rooms. Gauze, antiseptics, scalpels, sealing ointments, every blood-replenishing solution she could find.
She dumped them onto the nearest counter, her mind already racing through the procedures she would need to perform.
The receptionist scrambled to her feet, panic lacing her voice. "L-Lady Tsunade, you can't just barge in here and—"
Tsunade whirled around, her glare like a blade. "Get me every type of blood you have. Now."
The woman paled, glancing at the barely breathing husk of a man on the table.
Even in the dim lighting, the horror of his condition was unmistakable—the cavernous wounds, the sheer amount of missing flesh, the blood pooling beneath him.
"I-I—We need proper admittance procedures, I need to—"
Tsunade slammed a hand onto the counter, rattling the supplies. "There is no time! If you don't move now, he dies!"
The receptionist hesitated for only a second before scrambling toward the storage rooms, nearly tripping over herself.
Tsunade barely registered her departure.
Her hands were already moving, chakra flaring as she stabilized what she could.
She wasn't a religious woman. She had never once looked to the gods for help.
But this? This was divine intervention.
Miracle after miracle.
First, he had survived when no human should have.
Second, he had collapsed in her path at the exact moment she could find him.
It felt like an unspoken command, like fate itself had thrown him into her hands.
She wouldn't let this miracle go to waste.
"I'll save you."
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Power Stones and Reviews please