Konoha Hospital.
After finishing his morning training, Taiichi cleaned himself up and arrived at the hospital early. Watching the crowds surging in and out of the entrance, Taiichi couldn't help but sigh. No matter where you go, hospitals never lack business.
Stepping through the main gate, Taiichi stopped a young nurse and asked, "Excuse me, miss? Do you know where I can find the Director?"
"My, what a sweet-talking little brother. Tell me, why are you looking for the Director?"
Taiichi didn't beat around the bush. He took out the internship certificate Tsunade had given him and handed it to the young nurse.
The nurse took the certificate suspiciously, scanned it twice, and looked at Taiichi in shock. "This is referring to you?"
"Yep, the one and only!"
The nurse checked the certificate again. Confirming it was legitimate, she pointed out the location to Taiichi. "Go up those stairs to the top floor, then turn left. The first room is the Director's office. Director Biwako should be in there right now."
"Thank you, miss! See you next time!" Taiichi said a polite goodbye.
...
Arriving at the Director's office, Taiichi knocked politely. After hearing a "Come in," he pushed the door open and entered.
Closing the door behind him, the first thing he saw was a desk piled high with documents, followed by the beautiful middle-aged woman sitting behind it, reviewing files.
"Hello, Director. I'm Taiichi Matsushita. Big Sister Tsunade introduced me for an internship. Here is my certificate." He handed over the document.
Biwako finished marking a file, looked up at Taiichi, and took the certificate. She glanced at it briefly, then said warmly, "Ah, it's Taiichi. Tsunade already told me about you. She couldn't stop praising you—I've rarely seen her praise anyone like that!"
"It's all thanks to Big Sister Tsunade's teaching!" Taiichi wasn't about to undermine Tsunade here.
"Hehe." Biwako chuckled lightly, seemingly amused by a thought.
"Alright. Since Tsunade introduced you, and the hospital happens to be short-handed, you can stay. From now on, come for your internship every morning." Biwako didn't waste time. "Follow me. I'll show you around the hospital first, then take you to the department where you'll be interning."
Director Biwako led Taiichi through corridors that smelled of disinfectant. Sunlight slanted through the frosted glass windows, casting long bands of light on the gray-white floor tiles. Passing the infusion room, several children with bandaged heads peeked out from the doorway, staring curiously at the short sword on Taiichi's back.
The door to the Trauma Department had three scratches near the nameplate. The hinges squeaked from lack of oil as Biwako pushed it open. A female ninja organizing bandage rolls turned around, revealing sharp, short hair under her forehead protector. Biwako patted Taiichi on the shoulder. "Director Fujita, this is the child Tsunade recommended."
Sana Fujita adjusted her round glasses, her gaze sweeping over Taiichi, who didn't even reach her chest. "Excellent scores in the Healing Jutsu assessment?" She suddenly grabbed a clipboard from the desk and flung it at Taiichi. The papers fanned out in mid-air. Taiichi instinctively raised his hand and caught the page closest to his face, while the rest fluttered to his feet.
"Reaction speed is passable." Fujita picked up the scattered medical records. "But on the battlefield, you won't have time to organize things slowly." She kicked a gurney out of the way, its metal wheels screeching against the tiles. "Trauma deals with over sixty emergency cases a day. Your task today is to assist Haruno."
The nurse named Haruno was sterilizing debridement tools. She brushed back strands of hair stuck to her sweaty neck and signaled Taiichi to look closely at the tweezers soaking in the solution. "Soak in 75% alcohol for fifteen minutes. It's much faster than boiling." Just then, the rumble of stretcher wheels came from the hallway. Haruno grabbed a tray and rushed out, shouting back, "Put on your mask!"
The first casualty was a Genin with a palm sliced open by a kunai. Haruno cleaned the wound with the precision of someone dismantling an explosive tag, tweezers gripping cotton balls to wipe across the everted flesh. Taiichi noticed rust deep in the wound. Just as he was about to speak up, Haruno had already uncapped the hydrogen peroxide. "Hold his arm down."
As the liquid sizzled against the wound, the Genin's scream shook the instrument tray. Haruno used the moment to probe deep with tweezers and extract the debris. Turning around, she found Taiichi already waiting with a needle and thread. Bloody cotton balls were tossed into the bin one after another. When Haruno cut the suture thread, Taiichi timely handed over gauze soaked in antiseptic.
"Learned battlefield first aid?" Haruno raised an eyebrow as she tied the bandage. Taiichi, who was wiping bloodstains off the instrument table, pointed to the acupoint chart on the wall. "Big Sister Nono taught me pressure points for hemostasis."
The late morning sun began to scorch. A newly arrived casualty brought the fresh smell of burns. When Director Fujita opened the window for air, she saw Taiichi squatting in the corner of the treatment room. The boy was enveloping a crying child in green Chakra light. The blistered knee scabbed over at a visible speed under the glow.
"Healing Jutsu isn't for treating scrapes," Fujita said, appearing behind Taiichi with her arms crossed. "A ninja's Chakra is limited and should be used where it's needed more. A scrape like this just needs disinfection."
"Yes, Director," Taiichi replied, but the Healing Jutsu in his hands didn't stop.
Seeing this, Fujita didn't get angry. instead, she dropped two boxes of brand-new medical gloves at his feet. The cicadas outside suddenly became shrill as the sound of stretcher wheels approached from afar. Haruno's shout mixed with the groans of the wounded surged into the room: "Open fracture! Prepare the splints!"
When Taiichi rushed out, he saw the transport ninja covered in his comrade's blood. A fractured tibia had pierced through combat trousers. Haruno was trying to align the twisted lower leg. Taiichi's hand moved faster than his thoughts, pressing down on the bleeding groin of the wounded ninja. The green light from his palm turned the spurting blood flow into a slow ooze.
"Blood pressure!" Director Fujita's voice was like a taut steel wire. Taiichi maintained his Chakra output until Haruno had splinted the fracture. As the wounded ninja was wheeled to the operating room, Haruno pulled off her blood-stained rubber gloves and noticed Taiichi's lab coat hem was dripping blood. The boy, however, was staring blankly at his trembling right hand—the sustained Chakra output caused his fingertips to twitch slightly.
When the cafeteria delivered boxed lunches, Taiichi was in the break room practicing tying knots. Haruno broke apart disposable chopsticks and poked him. "Surgical knots are different from ninja knots; you have to leave room for swelling." The square knot she demonstrated formed a small mound on the gauze. By his third attempt, Taiichi's knot already looked decent.
Director Fujita returned from the X-ray room chewing on a rice ball. She glanced at the anatomical sketch Taiichi was drawing on a notepad. His charcoal pencil outlined the cross-section of a laceration caused by a kunai, labeling blood vessel locations with a precision that reminded her of a certain blonde woman. When Taiichi handed over the organized inventory list of sterilized instruments, she finally pointed to the supply cabinet. "Starting tomorrow, you're in charge of restocking supplies."
The bell signaling the end of the lunch break rang. Taiichi's lab coat pockets were stuffed with fruit candy given by the nurses. As Haruno pinned a new name tag to his chest, she realized the boy had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, still clutching a broken hemostat—something he had secretly fished out of the scrap bin that morning to study. The cicadas outside were still noisy, but no one moved to wake the child who still had a speck of dried blood on his eyelashes.
...
Taiichi's first morning of internship passed in this busyness. The hospital internship was far harder than imagined, but the gains were also far greater than expected. In just one morning, Taiichi received constant notifications from the panel.
> [You performed medical practice. Your comprehension has improved!]
> [You used Healing Jutsu. Your comprehension has improved!]
> [Your skill Healing Jutsu has leveled up. Experience +1]
> [You used Mystical Palm Jutsu. Your comprehension has improved!]
> [Your skill Mystical Palm Jutsu has leveled up. Experience +1]
> [You focused on medical practice. Apprentice Ninja Class Experience +1]
One morning not only pushed his already proficient Healing Jutsu to Lv7 but also directly pushed the newly learned Mystical Palm Jutsu to Lv2.
In the afternoon, Taiichi dragged his exhausted body back home. The morning internship had consumed too much of his Chakra. Reflecting on it now, Director Fujita was right: a ninja's Chakra was indeed too scarce and should be used where it was needed most. However, Taiichi didn't regret treating that child in the morning; he would just be more measured in the future.
Hokage's Office.
The door was pushed open forcefully, Danzo's wide sleeves whipping up a gust of cold wind. Hiruzen Sarutobi put down his pipe, the blue smoke weaving a spiderweb between them.
"Hand that orphan over to me." Danzo's knuckles were white as he gripped his cane. "Flowers raised in a greenhouse cannot withstand the storm."
Hiruzen methodically organized the internship documents under his crystal ball—the report and certificate Biwako had just sent over. Tsunade's elegant signature had inked into the parchment. "Director Biwako praised the child's suturing technique just this morning." He blew away the ash. "The Medical Corps is desperate for seedlings like this."
The cane struck the floor heavily, the vibration sending ripples through the cinnabar ink in the inkstone. "Your so-called cultivation is letting him bandage wounds? The Root training camp can temper his blade with real blood!" Danzo's single eye flashed cold.
"What he needs now is to build deeper bonds with everyone, not to bloody his blade immediately. Besides, he saved three burned ANBU members with his Healing Jutsu this morning." Hiruzen stood up, the flame patterns on his Hokage cloak undulating with his movement. "Do you know how that child practices? He uses Chakra to set the broken bones of stray cats every day."
The smell of disinfectant drifted in from the window, and the sound of the emergency squad's stretcher wheels crushed the silence downstairs. Danzo suddenly grabbed the Ninja Academy report from the desk, crumpling the photo of Taiichi sparring with Kakashi. "A brat with this terrifying level of self-discipline will be the second Orochimaru in twenty years!"
"That is why he needs the ginger soup Nono brews, not your Cursed Seal." The veins on the back of Hiruzen's hand bulged as he pressed on the desk. "Back then, Nawaki..."
A teacup swept off by the cane shattered against the wall corner. The dark patterns on Danzo's cuffs flashed with Chakra light. "Womanly benevolence! When the enemy's blade is at his throat, you will regret not letting me saw off those weak branches!"
"Danzo, I am the Hokage!" Hiruzen's sudden shout shook the window lattice. The crystal ball displayed an image from the hospital corridor—Taiichi squatting down to give candy to a crying child, the short sword on his back wrapped in cotton cloth to prevent accidental injury.
Danzo fell silent for a long time, seemingly suppressing his anger. It was unclear if he was angry at Hiruzen's indecisiveness or his own hesitation back then.
Finally, Danzo sneered. As he turned, his sleeve knocked over the bonsai Tsunade had sent. The purple clay pot rolled across the red carpet, leaving a wet trail, the roots of the half-withered pine seedling covered in soil. The air current from the slamming door sent the papers on the desk flying. The internship application stamped by the Medical Department fluttered down, finally covering the smiling face of the child in the crystal ball.