"THE SOUL?!" Tsunade bellowed, her voice echoing off the hospital walls so loudly that the windowpanes rattled in their frames.
In the shinobi world, the human soul was one of the most enigmatic, unexplored, and absolute concepts in existence. Sure, high-level Yamanaka clan techniques could touch the mind, and terrifying sealing jutsus like the Reaper Death Seal could consume a spirit, but medical ninjutsu? Medical ninjutsu stopped firmly at the physical level. Even the legendary Katsuyu could only accelerate cellular division to mend flesh, bone, and internal organs.
A creature capable of directly restoring and repairing a damaged human soul was nothing short of a divine anomaly!
Tsunade leaned in close to the Round Deer, her hazel eyes practically shining with the manic curiosity of a mad scientist. "So... you're telling me that no matter what kind of damage someone takes, this deer can just boop them with its nose and patch them right back up?!"
Rei offered a casual, self-satisfied nod, throwing his hands behind his head. "Yup, pretty much. If your soul gets slapped around, Bambi here just outputs a wave of positive Yang-Yin energy and stitches you back together. Pretty neat, right?"
Tsunade took a deep breath, trying to process the implications of what she was hearing. She immediately turned back to Rei, her eyes flashing with intense curiosity. "Rei, you said this is called the Ten Shadows Technique, right?! If the deer can output healing energy, what the hell do the other nine shadows—"
BANG!
Before Tsunade could finish her question, the heavy wooden door to the ICU room was violently thrown open, slamming hard against the adjacent wall.
"REI!"
A frantic, tear-stained voice filled the corridor. Swinging into the room was an elderly woman with silver hair pulled into a tight bun, her eyes completely red from crying—Rei's grandmother. Right behind her was a stern-looking, broad-shouldered old man with a thick mustache—his grandfather.
Before Rei could even open his mouth to wave, his vision was instantly cut off for the second time that day as his grandmother lunged forward, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a tight, trembling embrace.
"My baby! Oh, thank the heavens! My sweet child!" she sobbed hysterically, burying her face into his hair. "Do you have any idea how worried I was?! Don't you EVER scare your poor grandmother like that again! If anything happened to you, I don't know what I would have done!"
Rei stood there, feeling the fabric of his hospital shirt instantly get soaked through with his grandmother's warm tears.
He glanced over her shoulder at his grandfather. The old man was standing near the doorway with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, trying his absolute hardest to maintain a tough, stoic patriarch facade. But his trembling mustache and the heavy tears pooling in the corners of his eyes betrayed him completely.
A warm, genuine smile spread across Rei's face.
Even though he was technically a transmigrated soul, receiving this kind of raw, unconditional familial love hit him right in the chest.
"Don't worry, Grandma," Rei said softly, gently patting her back as they separated. "See? I'm completely fine! Healthy as an ox!"
He puffed out his chest, pointing a thumb over his shoulder toward the towering four-eyed beast taking up eighty percent of the room's floor space. "And not only am I totally healed, but look! I even awakened a super cool new bloodline technique while I was asleep!"
Rei's grandfather slowly shifted his gaze from his grandson to the ten-meter-tall, four-eyed monster scrap-scraping its giant antlers against the ceiling.
The old man's stoic facade instantly shattered into a million pieces. His jaw dropped so low it nearly hit his sandals, and his eyes bulged out of his head.
"...What the actual fuck did you just say, kid?" his grandfather stammered, his voice cracking.
....
Meanwhile, inside the Hokage's Office...
Fuuuuh...
A thick, fragrant cloud of gray tobacco smoke drifted lazily across the sunlit room, swirling around the heavy wooden desk belonging to the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
In front of the desk, a masked ANBU operative knelt on one knee, reporting in a quiet, respectful tone. "Lord Hokage. The civilian-born boy, Rei... has officially awoken from his coma at Konoha General Hospital. Lady Tsunade's emergency treatment has concluded, and the boy's vitals are completely stable."
Hiruzen took another slow, rhythmic drag from his wooden pipe, exhaling a thin stream of smoke through his nose.
"I see..." Hiruzen murmured, his weathered face showing a mix of relief and deep, lingering exhaustion. "He woke up, did he? Good. That is good news. You are dismissed."
"Sir!" The ANBU vanished in a silent flicker of body-flicker jutsu.
Once the operative was gone, Hiruzen let out a long, heavy sigh, resting his elbows on his desk and massaging his throbbing temples.
Normally, a random civilian-born kid getting hit on the head wouldn't warrant the personal attention of the Leader of the Hidden Leaf Village. Kids got hurt in training all the time; it was a rough world. Under normal circumstances, Hiruzen would have just sent a small compensation check to the family, called it an unfortunate accident, and moved on with his day.
However, this specific accident was a total nightmare.
Because the incident directly threatened to completely destroy the internal cohesion of his team.
Twenty days ago, poor little Rei was casually walking down the street. At the exact same time, a short distance away, Jiraiya was doing what Jiraiya did best: covertly peeping on the women's hot springs behind a wooden fence.
Unfortunately for Jiraiya, one of the women enjoying a bath that afternoon happened to be a high-ranking, hot-tempered kunoichi on leave.
The moment Jiraiya was spotted, the enraged kunoichi didn't just throw rocks—she immediately cast a high-level, explosive Earth-Style ninjutsu right at his face!
Panicking, Jiraiya executed a mid-air Substitution Jutsu to swap places with a heavy wooden log. Under normal circumstances, he would have cleanly escaped into the trees. But because the kunoichi's blast had hit the substitution point with such insane kinetic force, the pressure launched Jiraiya through the air like a high-speed human cannonball.
And as fate would violently have it... Jiraiya's flying, mid-air body shot straight out of the steam, hurtled over the fence, and slammed at roughly one hundred miles per hour straight into the back of unsuspecting five-year-old Rei's head.
For Hiruzen, if that was the whole story, it would just be Jiraiya being an idiot as usual. He would have dragged Jiraiya by his ear to apologize, paid the hospital bills, and called it a day.
The real problem was Tsunade.
It turned out that little Rei was Tsunade's absolute favorite person in the entire village—a close friend, an indispensable gambling buddy, and a kid she personally dragged around with her everywhere.
Even worse? On the day of the incident, Tsunade was the one physically dragging Rei down that specific street toward the casino district!
When Jiraiya smashed into the kid, Tsunade felt a massive wave of overwhelming personal guilt. She watched the boy drop like a stone, his brain bleeding, entirely because she had forced him to come along with her.
Since that day, the relationship between Tsunade and Jiraiya hadn't just gotten bad—it had devolved into a nuclear fallout zone.
Normally, when Tsunade was pissed off at Jiraiya, she would smash his ribs, punch him through three stone walls, call him a perverted idiot, and then eventually calm down over drinks. That was their dynamic.
But this time? This time was completely different.
Tsunade didn't punch Jiraiya. She didn't yell at him. She didn't even glare at him.
She completely cut him off.
For twenty days straight, Tsunade had treated Jiraiya like absolute, non-existent air. If Jiraiya walked into a room, she walked out. If he tried to apologize, she ignored his presence as if he were a ghost. Total silence.
And as Hiruzen knew all too well, an angry Tsunade throwing punches was harmless. A quiet, cold Tsunade who refused to acknowledge your existence was the most terrifying thing.
If this psychological cold war continued, the trio would permanently split apart!
Fuuuuh...
Hiruzen puffed his pipe one last time, setting it down in an ashtray with a heavy clatter.
"That damn perverted idiot..." Hiruzen muttered under his breath, shaking his head in utter exasperation. "Causing such a massive mess just to peek at a bathhouse..."
The Third Hokage pushed his chair back and stood up, reaching for his red-and-white Hokage hat resting on the coat rack.
There was only one way to fix this mess.
He had to personally head over to Konoha General Hospital right now, put on his warmest, most grandfatherly smile, and thoroughly coax and bribe little Rei into forgiving Jiraiya.
If the kid officially declared, "Hey, I'm totally healed, it was just an accident, I forgive him!" then Tsunade might finally thaw her icy attitude and stop treating Jiraiya like a biohazard.
Hiruzen adjusted his robes, letting out a small, self-deprecating chuckle.
Sighing at his own pathetic situation, Hiruzen opened his office door and stepped out into the hallway, heading straight toward the hospital.
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