"Senior Kitayama, this surgery was amazing! We even handled an Aburame case—that's supposed to be the hardest type!"
Baicao's voice was still full of excitement.
"The Aburame clan is notoriously difficult to treat,"
Kitayama exhaled slowly.
"This was a rare opportunity. Luckily, we made it count—and proved how necessary the improved combined-surgery method is."
The Aburame hosted swarms of insects in their bodies.
On top of that, this patient had been hit with a targeted infectious poison.
Pinpointing the exact source was a nightmare.
Fortunately, Yagyu Souma's new technique was strong enough to cut through the chaos.
"Sigh… after this, I never want to take another Aburame patient again."
Baicao shuddered.
"Seriously… that was insane."
"Agreed," Kitayama said.
Neither of them noticed the tall figure standing near the door—
a man in a high-collared coat and dark sunglasses.
Aburame Shibi stood up silently.
"Captain Kitayama," he said. "Thank you for the successful surgery. Without you, my child would never have survived."
"It was troublesome—"
Kitayama began, then realized who she was speaking to.
Her entire posture straightened abruptly.
"I mean, the difficulty was quite high. And the success wasn't mine alone."
She cleared her throat.
"We used a new medical ninjutsu to quickly and precisely locate the source of the infection. If we'd delayed… the consequences would have been much worse."
"A new medical ninjutsu… no wonder."
Shibi adjusted his sunglasses, the corners of his mouth twitching into what, on him, counted as a smile.
"I understand. Thank you very much."
"…"
That "no wonder" sounds… very loaded,
Kitayama thought darkly.
Believe it or not, next time I might just "slip" with the scalpel…
She knew exactly what the Medical Corps' reputation had been until recently.
Not bad.
Konoha's medical unit was still top-tier in the ninja world.
But when it came to targeted, clan-specific infections like this—
finding the source quickly and removing it cleanly has always been difficult.
And in terms of new medical ninjutsu, they hadn't exactly been bursting with innovation.
Ever since Lady Tsunade left, new techniques had been rare.
The last major breakthrough—
Was Souma's Chakra Needle.
Given Souma's track record, it wasn't hard to guess who had developed this new "combined surgery" method.
Kitayama and the others had participated, sure—
But they were in no position to shamelessly call it their creation.
"In any case, thank you, all of you," Shibi said with a slight bow.
Then he headed toward the ward.
Kitayama and Baicao exchanged a look.
"…When did he even get here?" Baicao whispered.
"No idea. We never noticed him standing there. Thank goodness he didn't complain, or we'd be in trouble."
"Pretty sure I handle complaints."
"…"
Around the corner, Shibi stopped at the ward door.
Even from that distance, his hearing—as a trained ninja—was more than enough to catch their muttering.
He stood there silently for a few seconds, then pushed the door open.
Whatever the truth behind the poisoning—
At least his child had been saved.
That alone was enough.
He stepped inside—
And froze.
"Lord Danzō?"
"Shibi. Sit."
Aburame Shibi paused for a few seconds, then sat.
His clansman wouldn't be waking up any time soon.
Danzō sat by the window, his gaze on the village outside.
"This whole incident," he said quietly, "do you think it was an accident?"
"…I don't know."
Shibi shook his head.
He did have his suspicions—
But that didn't mean he was going to lay them all out in front of Danzō.
Just because the Aburame clan currently supplied manpower to Root
did not mean Shibi and Danzō were on the same side.
Their cooperation was based on overlapping interests—
nothing more.
Shibi couldn't guess what Danzō was truly after.
So he decided to listen first.
Danzō chuckled coldly.
"The Kamizuru clan is barely surviving—they don't have the resources to develop a poison like this. They're almost extinct."
"Maybe Iwagakure started backing them again," Shibi said quietly.
Enemies often understood each other best.
If anyone could develop a poison targeting Aburame physiology, the Kamizuru could.
"Shibi," Danzō said, "this level of research is beyond them. The developer is someone else."
He sighed.
"Unfortunately, I haven't pinned down a suspect yet."
Then he stood.
"I'll point you toward someone. He can help you."
"Who?" Shibi asked.
"Yagyu Souma."
"Souma, what do you think?"
"I'm thinking with my eyes," Yagyu Souma said.
Then he rubbed his temples.
"Honestly? I don't see any good way to optimize it right now. Running an absorption barrier inside and outside does improve efficiency… but it creates a lot of new problems."
Solve one problem, and another pops up.
Internal–external dual barriers significantly boosted the conversion rate—
but barrier techniques were not something every shinobi could handle.
Even among jōnin, few were versed in seals and barriers.
"Yeah, that's a real issue…" Tenten admitted.
"If we used chakra iron for the structure, we could fix a lot of that, though."
"That would be way too extravagant," Kazane muttered.
Forging something of this size out of chakra iron?
The cost was insane.
With that much metal, they could forge multiple blades instead.
"What we have now is for the Hokage and the higher-ups to worry about," Kakashi cut in, steering the conversation back.
"Let's summarize the four models we have completed."
So they went over the current batch of four prototypes.
Unlike chakra weapons, where forging quality heavily affected performance, for these barrier-based tools—
Once the structure and formula were fixed, the forging process had minimal impact as long as it met standards.
That was very good news.
It meant the design was—
Scalable.
The only real drawback—
It was practical.
It was hard to use in small, three–to–four-man squad missions.
It really only shined in war scenarios, or when multiple teams operated together.
"Don't be disappointed," Kakashi said, smiling under his mask.
"For a first-generation prototype, this is already a huge success."
He pointed at himself.
"Take my own original jutsu, for example. When I first created it, the flaws were fatal."
"That one-handed lightning strike?" Kazane's eyes lit up.
That move was ridiculously cool.
She'd seen it once and immediately wanted to learn it, only to find no record of it in any manual.
So it really was Kakashi's original technique.
"Wait, Kakashi-sensei, you have your own original ninjutsu?" Tenten stared in disbelief.
Kakashi is half-squinted.
"…Do I really look that talentless? I used to be a very famous genius, you know."
"Uh— that's not what I meant, I just—"
"What Tenten means," Souma said kindly, "is that you don't look like it now."
"No, that's not—!"
Tenten's face went completely red.
It wasn't really her fault.
Kakashi was either late, reading his questionable books, or spacing out.
If nobody had told her, she'd never have guessed that he was a genius who had created his own jutsu.
"Kakashi-sensei once used that technique to cut actual lightning," Souma said on his behalf.
Kazane immediately pounced on that.
"Sensei! Did you ever fix its flaws?"
"…More or less," Kakashi said, sighing.
"The Sharingan, right," Souma said.
"Kakashi-sensei's Lightning Blade is all about high-speed assassination. In battle, you need extreme movement speed. The flaw was that a normal person couldn't perceive or react properly once they moved that fast."
"…Yeah."
Kakashi nodded.
Then a bad feeling crept up his spine.
This kid.
He knew way too much.
Souma had seen the technique only once, and he'd dissected the core problem already.
The essence of the Lightning Blade couldn't be hidden from him.
Don't tell me…
He's going to come up with a better fix than I did, too?
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