To treat the troublesome bloodline sickness, Lady Tsunade had been staying at Konoha Hospital for the past two days.
She spent her time researching data and refining sealing jutsu, striving to find a suitable treatment method as soon as possible.
That kid Naraku might not last much longer.
Lady Tsunade scratched her golden hair, letting out an annoyed click of her tongue.
Damn it, she had felt uneasy all day, all because of that troublesome man, Sakumo Hatake!
Just as she was about to look for another case file for comparison, a commotion gradually rose in the distance, faintly reaching her ears.
Many Anbu were rushing about under the moonlight, their noisy movements shattering the peace of the night.
Lady Tsunade jumped out of the window and, in a few swift movements, reached the hospital rooftop.
From there, she saw a strange shadow moving toward the building in the distance.
The figure ran with obvious difficulty, yet maintained a frantic speed.
It wasn't until he drew closer that Lady Tsunade could clearly make out his form.
It was a young boy carrying a grown man on his back, with a squad of Anbu closing in on them.
Strange—why would the Anbu block an injured person from coming to the hospital for treatment?
If he were an enemy, how would he dare show his face at Konoha Hospital?
The figure drew closer still.
As he leaped from the eaves of a house, he exhaled a stream of fire against the moonlight, and Lady Tsunade finally saw the boy's face.
Uchiha Naraku...?
Then the white-haired man he was carrying must be Sakumo Hatake!
While Lady Tsunade was still reeling from the shock, Naraku reached the open space in front of the hospital entrance.
He stumbled, falling heavily to his knees.
He didn't pause for even a second, struggling to get back up and limping step by step toward her.
Lady Tsunade made a swift decision, jumping from the rooftop and landing with a crash in front of the hospital.
Ignoring the crater her feet had made in the pavement, she hurried forward to meet them.
However, as the two figures emerged from the pale moonlight and entered the warm glow of the hospital lights, the blood on their bodies became vividly clear.
The sight instantly triggered her hemophobia, making her dizzy and weak.
She collapsed to the ground, her body trembling uncontrollably.
By this time, emergency personnel had already rushed out of the main entrance.
Many hands reached out to take Sakumo's limp body from Naraku's back, rushing him into the emergency room.
Naraku, gasping for air, knelt before Lady Tsunade.
His voice was a desperate plea, like a wounded bird's cry, each word dripping with agony.
"Lady Tsunade… please… save Master… save him…"
But the blood covering him only plunged Lady Tsunade deeper into terror.
Her remaining sanity screamed at her to pull herself together, but her body refused to move.
"I…" Lady Tsunade tried to stand up several times, but her limbs would not obey. "I… the blood…"
Naraku coughed up another mouthful of blood.
As if he had realized her condition, he looked up and met Lady Tsunade's eyes, his Sharingan spinning.
Lady Tsunade felt her soul tremble.
The overwhelming scent of blood vanished instantly.
The boy in front of her was no longer a dazzling crimson but a deep, dark black, and her trembling was forcibly stilled by the genjutsu.
She knew she wasn't truly cured of her fear.
Even if she couldn't see the color or smell the copper scent, she could still feel the terror gnawing at her mind like invisible knives.
But at the very least, she finally had the strength to act.
Lady Tsunade gritted her teeth, stood up, and decisively turned to enter the emergency room.
The Anbu seemed to have received a new order, as they began to withdraw from the hospital grounds.
In the cold, empty space of the lobby, only Naraku remained.
The countdown reached zero.
Naraku staggered further into the hospital, the front of his shirt soaked deep red from his abdomen.
With each step, he left a bloody footprint on the floor, trailing all the way to the emergency room door.
He leaned against the wall and collapsed, listening to Lady Tsunade's commands and the frantic alarms of the instruments inside.
The situation sounded grim.
Naraku looked up at the ceiling, his gaze unfocused, as the system panel appeared before his eyes.
Several words flashed red in the center of his vision.
Pseudo-Izanagi: Time Reversal Modification.
He had never obtained this forbidden jutsu through normal means, so he couldn't sacrifice his eyes to cast it the traditional way.
Originally, he could use popularity points to cast the jutsu and alter a small node of reality.
This would gain him a more favorable future while deceiving the laws of the world, making fate appear as if it were always meant to unfold that way.
But now, his popularity points were nearly exhausted, and it would take far too long to accumulate enough to cast it.
The only thing left that he could offer as a price was his own lifespan.
"I wish…" Naraku covered his face, suppressing his sobs, and murmured a silent prayer in his heart.
He wished to reach a future where Sakumo Hatake lived.
His dark eyes, without him even realizing it, turned blood-red.
The three tomoe began to spin faster and faster, their afterimages blurring into a singular, peculiar shape.
The diamond-shaped seal on his forehead instantly expanded, black marks crawling over the upper half of his face.
The seal desperately tried to suppress the violent, evolving Pupil Power, but it was being battered by the sheer intensity of the chakra and was on the verge of shattering.
Bang!
Lady Tsunade's Shadow Clone kicked open the emergency room door.
She appeared instantly before Naraku, her fingers pointed like a sword at the seal on his forehead.
The seal, empowered by Tsunade's chakra, entered a stalemate with the rampaging Pupil Power for a fraction of a second.
Then, the marks shattered and vanished.
But in that final instant, the surge of Pupil Power was successfully severed.
The spinning tomoe slowed and stopped, reverting to their three-tomoe state.
Lady Tsunade bent down to catch Naraku's falling body.
The green glow of the Mystical Palm Technique deftly covered his wound.
If his Sharingan had evolved into the Mangekyo, his bloodline sickness would have worsened to the point where he wouldn't have survived a month.
Truly, a pathetic child—both incredibly lucky and devastatingly unlucky.
She sighed softly.
Inside the emergency room, the monitors emitted a steady, rhythmic ticking.
One beat.
Another beat.
The heart was still fighting.