So, does this butterfly I'm raising actually have a mind of its own now?
"Will you stay in this cocoon state forever? Do you have any plans to break out?"
"I told you, everything I am comes from you. If you were to die, I would inherit everything that was yours."
"And if I never die?"
"Then I will stay here forever."
"What if I don't want you to inherit my life?"
"That is not an option. Although you raised me, survival is the basic instinct of every species. If it comes to that, instinct will guide me."
Gisei sighed. Was that really how it worked?
He had intended to leave it at that, but just before exiting his mental space, he asked one more superfluous question.
"Are you male or female?"
"We do not have distinctions between male and female."
"Impossible. Butterflies are definitely divided into male and female."
"It is true. We do not have reproductive functions—or rather, that function was discarded."
"Discarded?"
"Yes. Without you, I would be nothing more than a butterfly without consciousness. Even if I could reproduce, my offspring would just be ordinary butterflies."
"We are evolving," the voice continued calmly. "And those ordinary, unconscious butterflies would not be recognized by us as kin."
Evolving. Gisei looked thoughtful upon hearing that word.
"What will your next evolution look like?"
"Forming my own consciousness body, just like your body appearing here now. That is my next direction."
"What will your body look like? A butterfly or a human? And how long will that take?"
"If calculated according to your time, five years is the minimum. As for my form… of course, it will be the same as yours."
"Why does it have to look like me? That feels weird. Can't you pick a different face?"
"I told you, everything I am comes from you. In a sense, we are a shared life form. Changing my appearance is something I cannot do."
Fine. Gisei lost interest after hearing that and exited the consciousness space.
When he opened his eyes, Eisawa was waiting. "How did it feel?"
Gisei scratched his head. "Very strange. Magical, even. It's hard to describe. Uncle, if I summon the butterfly in the future and communicate directly with it, will it be able to help me with summoning?"
"Yes. You should have seen the space transfer formula on its body."
Speaking of that, Gisei's expression turned strange. "A space transfer formula? Uncle, our clan is actually capable of researching something like that?"
Eisawa sighed. "We didn't research it. It was Lady Mei. In fact, no one in our clan understands the principles of that formula at all."
Mei. Thinking of that mysterious silver-haired woman, Gisei couldn't help but ask, "Is Mei a human or... something else?"
"I don't know either. Anyway, she has lived for a very long time. Be more respectful to her in the future. After all..."
Eisawa stopped mid-sentence, raised his cup, and downed another glass of wine.
Seeing that he wasn't willing to explain further, Gisei could only bury his doubts deep in his heart.
...
They began to move house.
The new home was surprisingly luxurious; it not only had an independent courtyard but also came with a large warehouse.
The location was excellent, too. Walk out the door, turn a corner through an alley, and you were on the main street.
There was just one thing that Gisei minded very much.
He watched Anna Takemoto directing workers to move various pieces of furniture into the house and said helplessly, "Why are you here?"
Anna glared at him sideways, grumping, "Why do you think I'm here? We're practically neighbors now. If I didn't come over to help, my grandpa would beat me to death."
Thinking of that old man, Shuichi Takemoto, Gisei let out a long sigh.
Their new home was separated from Anna's by just a small alley; it didn't take three minutes to walk there.
What was Eisawa's intention in moving them here? To force him to interact more with the Takemoto family?
Previously, he had claimed that once the family was divided, they became two separate clans. Now it seemed those were all lies. Even if someone claimed they weren't one clan now, no one would believe it.
The die was cast; overthinking it was useless. Gisei threw the problem to the back of his mind.
"Are you really prepared to follow me into the hospital?"
"Yeah. Rumi Kawa is joining too. We'll be colleagues. You aren't allowed to bully her anymore."
Speaking of Rumi, Gisei couldn't help but look resentful.
Yesterday, he had met the girl who would have been his teammate. After exchanging two sentences that didn't sit right, they ran to the training ground and had a fight.
As for the reason...
Rumi was a petite ten-year-old girl who just happened to have short hair and wear men's clothing. In some ways, she was very similar to him.
At the time, he honestly thought Rumi was a boy and called her "brother" the moment he opened his mouth.
The result?
Well, he bullied her for not knowing the secret of the Body Flicker Technique and beat her until she was dazed.
She cried.
If Anna hadn't grabbed him and given him a violent beating, the two of them would probably have become sworn enemies right then and there.
In short, it was a headache.
"I really don't know what you guys are thinking. Is it necessary to follow me just because I'm joining the hospital staff?"
"This is Grandpa's arrangement."
"What about your thoughts?"
"That's not important. Besides, fighting and killing doesn't suit girls. The hospital is pretty good, too."
"Fine. Take care of me in the future."
"Likewise."
Three days later, Gisei, Anna, and Rumi officially entered the hospital and became glorious Konoha caregivers.
It just felt like something wasn't quite right.
Gisei pondered this as he walked along the hospital corridor, carrying a bag of trash in his left hand and holding a bottle of suspicious yellowish liquid in his right.
This is different from the doctor I imagined!
Holding a syringe and giving people injections—that is what a doctor does. What counts as this? Running errands? Doing odd jobs?
Eisawa's explanation was simple: he was too young, and just getting a foot in the door at the hospital was already an achievement.
When Gisei complained about how boring and annoying the work was, Eisawa's face turned black.
"You said yourself you wanted to enter the hospital, and now you're complaining? Do you think being a doctor is easy?"
"You're an eight-year-old child. Even if your medical skills were truly superb, people wouldn't dare let you treat them."
"I've already done everything I could to fight for you. The hospital won't hold back knowledge, either; I even opened up access to the library for you. What more do you want?"
Gisei was scolded into silence.
Still, looking at that bottle of unidentified liquid in his hand, his mood was complex. He finally understood why nurses in his past life looked at him weirdly; turns out, it was this exact feeling.
In summary, his hospital life began just like this.
Every morning, he came to the hospital with Anna, then met up with Rumi. Then it was following doctors to run errands and do odd jobs in various wards, learning from experience while taking care of patients.
He was assigned several patients, among whom was Ryoma Aburame.
This was the boy he had defeated in the underground training ground.
Every time Gisei entered his ward, Ryoma would stare intently at him without saying a word.
At first, Gisei wasn't used to it and didn't like that gaze. When he tried to speak to him, Ryoma ignored him, which made Gisei quite angry.
But after visiting many times, he got used to it. Anyway, the Aburame were all weirdos; he would just be taking care of him for a few days.
Or so he thought.
Little did he know that in Ryoma's eyes, he was the weirdo.
Here was someone clearly possessing strength, coming from a famous clan, and having outstanding ninja talent—yet he insisted on running to the hospital to be a caregiver.
To someone like Ryoma, it was like seeing gold fall into a toilet; picking it up was disgusting, but leaving it there felt painful.
This was Ryoma's strange dilemma.
On the day he was discharged, Ryoma felt it was necessary to pick up the gold, even if it was disgusting. So he proposed a rematch.
Gisei glanced at him, dropped two words, and left the ward.
"Mental case."
In the corridor, Ryoma stopped him with his kikaichū insects.
"Why, possessing that kind of strength, do you insist on degrading yourself willingly? Konoha needs talent like you."
Hearing such words, Gisei simply couldn't believe his ears.
He hadn't known who the boy was in the underground training ground, but after reading Ryoma's medical record, he knew exactly who he was dealing with.
Ryoma Aburame, a man belonging to Root and loyal to Danzo Shimura, was actually... this kind of person?
Gisei secretly ridiculed Danzo for not doing his brainwashing properly. This didn't sound like someone from Root at all; he sounded more like the Third Hokage's own son.
"People's ideals are different, so their choices will be different. You can't force your thoughts onto me."
"Moreover, our clans are supposed to be natural enemies. Is it really okay for you to do this?"
Ryoma pushed up his sunglasses.
"Clan opposition? I don't understand what you are saying."
Gisei felt insulted.
Just a few days ago, Eisawa had told him that the Aburame were their natural enemies, yet Ryoma didn't even acknowledge it.
Or was it that the Aburame didn't put the Butterfly Users in their eyes at all?
Thinking of Eisawa's advice to give up the mission immediately upon encountering an Aburame, Gisei fell silent.
Ryoma continued, "We are all Konoha ninjas, so naturally we must exert ourselves for Konoha. My actions are born of this consideration."
"I am certain that you have the aptitude to become a 'great tree,' so I cannot tolerate Konoha suffering such a loss."
Great tree again. Loss again. The Third really did his work well!
Gisei shook his head. He had nothing to say to this kind of person.
The "Will of Fire"—that sort of boring thing—was truly laughably naive in the face of reality.
In the final analysis, he didn't trust Ryoma, and he trusted Danzo even less.
What if Ryoma was instigated by Danzo to deliberately use that "Will of Fire" rhetoric to hoodwink him?
It wasn't impossible.
On the contrary, the moment Ryoma said those words, that possibility was infinitely magnified in Gisei's mind.
This is reality.