The door to the patient room opened.
Sarutobi Hiruzen stepped inside.
Behind him walked an elderly woman none of them recognized.
At Hyūga Kumokawa's surprised tone, Hiruzen offered him a gentle smile, then turned to the woman and sighed. "Thank you for coming, Koharu."
"Oh, stop it. This old lady's only good for a few things anymore," Utatane Koharu grumbled, shooting him a sideways glance as she walked straight to Akimichi Dōtō's bedside.
Dōtō was suffering from moderate burns to his respiratory tract, including the trachea and main bronchi. Every breath felt like swallowing a mouthful of scalding gravel. His throat scraped raw, his nasal passages thick with the metallic reek of rust. It was as if feathers kept brushing the inside of his windpipe—each cough made it itch worse, and the more it itched, the harder he coughed.
"Cough! Cough!"
Right now Dōtō sounded like he was trying to hack up his own lungs. The hoarse, ragged coughs cut sharper than the wind outside the window. Black phlegm streaked with blood and soot clung to his lips.
Treating burns like this usually required irrigating and scraping away necrotic membrane and soot, sometimes even emergency intubation or a tracheotomy to keep the airway from swelling shut.
Yet Hiruzen seemed perfectly at ease leaving it all to Koharu. He hadn't called in any other medical-nin.
For all the times she appeared to waver between Danzō and Hiruzen, Koharu had once been part of the elite guard unit serving directly under the Second Hokage.
She drew a scalpel and made a precise incision, then placed her palm over Dōtō's chest. Delicate streams of chakra flowed into the wound, drawing out blackened necrotic tissue and pus-filled blood.
Delicate Illness Extraction Technique—a B-rank medical ninjutsu. By sensing chaotic chakra inside the body, it could pinpoint microscopic sources of toxins or pathogens and remove them while healing the damaged tissue. Even among the notoriously difficult medical arts, this one ranked high in complexity.
Hyūga Kumokawa watched her every move with intense focus, not even bothering to hide the fact that he had activated his Byakugan to study the technique. Hiruzen simply assumed the boy was worried.
"Don't worry," Hiruzen said, setting his Hokage hat on the coat rack and lowering himself into the other chair. "Aside from Tsunade, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more experienced medical-nin in all of Konoha than this old woman."
"Sandaime-sama…"
Kumokawa finally relaxed and looked away. When he met Hiruzen's kind gaze, a trace of guilt and dejection crossed his face.
He started to rise from his seat, but Hiruzen stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Stay seated. I already know the broad strokes of what happened. Dōtō and I both understand—this wasn't your fault."
"The doctors said you were injured too. How are you feeling?"
Kumokawa sank back into the chair, the warmth of Hiruzen's hand still lingering on his shoulder. He placed his hands awkwardly in his lap, cheeks faintly flushed with a mix of restraint and excitement.
Their positions in life were worlds apart. They would normally never sit together like this, speaking so closely. Hiruzen found the boy's respectful demeanor very pleasing.
"Thank you for your concern. Thanks to Lord Dōtō, I only suffered minor injuries."
Kumokawa kept his eyes on Hiruzen, his voice full of humility, sincerity, and gratitude.
"Those weren't minor injuries," Hiruzen sighed. "Aside from Dōtō, you were closest to the blast. Anyone else would have been killed or crippled."
Reading the implication behind the words, Kumokawa's face paled slightly. "Sandaime-sama, I—I didn't mean to secretly copy the Kaiten, I just—"
"Kumokawa, I'm not blaming you," Hiruzen cut in with a smile. "If you and Dōtō hadn't stood in front, the escort team's casualties would have been far worse."
"I simply didn't expect your progress to be this remarkable—or your performance this outstanding."
Hearing Hiruzen's still-gentle tone, Kumokawa relaxed further. He pressed his lips together, hesitant. "I… I don't really know why. Ever since I awakened my Byakugan three months ago, my control over my body and chakra seems much stronger."
Hiruzen studied the innocent confusion in the boy's eyes and found nothing out of place. He narrowed his own eyes slightly, forming his own quiet theory.
The change had appeared after the Byakugan awakened three months ago?
No… it was probably after Orochimaru's defection.
It looked like Orochimaru really had done something to the boy. No wonder he had tried to take Kumokawa with him when he fled. Nothing obvious stood out yet, but keeping the boy close for continued observation seemed wise.
Hiruzen had even forgiven Kakashi and Yamato after they tried to assassinate him and their comrades, eventually placing them in the ANBU as his personal guards. There was even less reason to push away someone like Hyūga Kumokawa, who had always carried the Will of Fire in his heart.
At least for now, the boy's character and loyalty seemed solid. His strength and talent might even have been improved by whatever Orochimaru had done.
With that thought, Hiruzen set aside his last trace of suspicion. No more testing. He turned serious and asked, "Kumokawa, Dōtō told me you used your Byakugan to see what happened after you left. Is that right?"
"I need to know exactly what you encountered, who you encountered, and what finally took place."
He had shown concern, he had probed, and now it was time for the real questions.
Kumokawa's face filled with fear, as if the memory had rushed back in full force.
"They're dead… all of them," he said, voice trembling. "That thing wasn't human. The power it used… no human could possess it."
At the same time, on the border of the Land of Hot Water, four figures stood silent in the moonlit night.
Samui let out a long breath, trying to exhale the chill that had settled in her chest and steady the dread still swirling inside her.
From where they stood, the terrain was finally clear.
It looked like the cap of an enormous mushroom. Their position was the highest point; everything around them sloped downward.
Except for the small rise beneath their feet, the rest of the ground was scarred with deep, jagged trenches that stretched all the way to the horizon a thousand meters away. The devastation was total, radiating raw violence and terror.
Just looking at the marks gave off a sharp, cutting sensation.
Samui closed her eyes and pictured what must have happened here.
A single figure standing at the center, unleashing some kind of tornado-like Wind Release ninjutsu that shredded everything in front of it into dust, turning the entire area into a barren wasteland.
Not only that—the figure had spun the vortex in a full circle, sweeping and destroying everything around it like clearing trash.
A hurricane powerful enough to be called a natural disaster had obeyed this person's every whim. Anyone or anything that tried to stand in its way had been reduced to mist. Blood, flesh, and bone had become nothing more than fertilizer buried beneath the soil.
That kind of power…
***
Hi guys, Elenea here. I hope you're all doing well.
I wanted to let you know that I'm currently working on one of the best projects you might ever read. This project is set in the world of Fairy Tail with some combined elements from the Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
I'm confident you won't regret giving it a try, so don't hesitate to visit my second account's page (elenea) and start reading it.
[Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu Gi Oh Deck?]
Synopsis:
Getting isekai'd into the world of Fairy Tail sounds amazing with all the magic and beautiful girls in it...
But do you know what's even more fun than that?
Getting isekai'd with a Yu-Gi-Oh deck!
(No knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh is needed, so don't worry.)
...
If you like it feel free to giving it a try.