A few minutes later,
after hearing the full story of the duel at the Ninja Academy from Hyūga Kamon, Hyūga Hizashi fell into deep thought.
"I understand… I'll think this over first. Once I have an answer, I'll tell you. Calm yourself down and train properly. Winning and losing are common in battle—don't take it too hard."
"Yes."
After Hyūga Kamon left,
Hizashi stared at the wooden training dummy for a while, then tidied up, pushed open the door, and went out.
…
"Achoo—!"
Mikami Yuu sneezed.
Right now, he and Nohara Rin were standing at the entrance to their homes, preparing to head to Konoha Hospital to audit the medical training course.
"…That Obito, seriously—he's late again. We agreed on the time yesterday!"
Rin had changed into a light-blue top today. She looked a bit livelier than at school, but her small face showed a hint of anxiety, and her delicate brows were slightly knitted.
Compared to Rin,
Mikami Yuu looked completely calm. He stood to the side with both hands laced behind his head, looking up at the sky.
He'd expected this. Obito being late was basically a default setting—expecting him to be on time was like expecting pigs to climb trees. Besides, Mikami Yuu wasn't even coming purely to study; whether Obito showed up or not didn't matter. The only question was whether Rin wanted to keep waiting.
Finally,
with time getting tight, Rin took one last look toward Obito's house. There was still no sign of that hedgehog-haired figure on the road. She stomped her foot.
"Forget it. We're not waiting for him. Yuu-kun, let's go first—otherwise we'll be late for class!"
"…Okay."
Mikami Yuu nodded and followed.
The two crossed a small bridge and headed toward Konoha Hospital.
Even though the Naruto world's tech tree was kind of lopsided and medicine had its own extreme gaps, the hospital's layout was actually pretty similar to a modern one.
The moment Mikami Yuu and Rin stepped into the courtyard—before they even entered the building—a strong smell of disinfectant hit them, mixed with a faint herbal scent.
Just as they were about to go inside, a panting voice suddenly chased up from behind:
"Rin! Wait for me!"
Mikami Yuu and Rin turned around and saw Uchiha Obito sprinting toward them from behind. He only stopped when he was a short distance away, hands on his knees, gulping air. His signature goggles were crooked on his forehead, and sweat had soaked his messy hedgehog hair.
"Obito-kun?"
Rin stopped.
"Haa… haa…"
Obito straightened up, forcing his breathing to settle while squeezing a smile onto his face. "Rin, sorry—I ran into something on the way out… I went to your place and couldn't find you. Aunt said you already left, so I hurried and chased after you!"
"…Let's go in."
Rin took a deep breath and swallowed her urge to scold him. "The training's about to start."
The three of them entered the hospital lobby.
Rin looked around, walked up to the front desk, and gave the nurse sorting documents a sweet smile.
"Big sis, we're students from the Konoha Ninja Academy—Nohara Rin, Mikami Yuu, and Uchiha Obito. We booked the basic medical-ninja course for today. Which classroom should we go to?"
"Auditing students?"
The voice didn't come from the front desk—it cut in from the side.
They turned and saw a boy who looked twelve or thirteen, wearing a Konoha forehead protector and heavy eye shadow painted around both eyes. He was looking them over.
"Come with me. My name's Hyakusō. I'm here for class too—I'll take you over."
"Thank you, Hyakusō-senpai."
Rin bowed quickly.
Soon,
the four of them arrived at a classroom. There were already more than ten people inside, mostly teen boys and girls. A few wore the medical division emblem on their chests—apparently newly promoted medical ninja from the past year.
"Find a seat wherever. Any open spot is fine—the course is about to start."
Hyakusō spoke and walked straight to the front row.
Most of the others sat in the middle rows, leaving more empty seats in the very front and the very back.
By habit, Mikami Yuu and Obito would've preferred sitting in the back, but Rin headed straight for the front rows, so the two of them had no choice but to follow.
After they sat down,
Hyakusō glanced at them a couple times, then slid the book in front of him—Fundamentals of Human Anatomy and Trauma Identification—a little toward Mikami Yuu and Rin, signaling them to share.
"Thanks, senpai."
Mikami Yuu and Rin nodded.
The boy said flatly, "I just became a genin too. I'm only a few years older than you—just call me Hyakusō."
"Yes, Hyakusō-senpai."
At that moment, the medical-ninja instructor on the podium cleared his throat and began the lesson:
"Last class, we covered the bones and muscle structures of the head and neck. Today we'll discuss the trunk—internal organs. First is the heart, the most important organ in the human body. It is located on the left side of the thoracic cavity…"
As he spoke, the instructor used a pointer to indicate an anatomy chart on the wall, explaining in more detail.
There was also a skeleton model beside him to assist.
To be fair, this level of knowledge was still quite difficult for beginners.
Especially since most younger ninja generally didn't have a very high level of academic education.
Rin listened extremely seriously, taking fast notes in a small notebook, brows knitted—clearly struggling.
Obito, meanwhile, became restless in just a few minutes. The awkward terminology and complex diagrams felt like heavenly script to him—harder than anything at the Ninja Academy. In the end he simply gave up, propped his chin in his hand, and started sneaking looks at Rin's profile.
Only Mikami Yuu looked relaxed.
—Thanks to the books he'd read as a child in the Konoha library, plus knowledge from his previous life, what a chūnin-level instructor taught felt like review to him. Some parts even struck him as too simplified, not worth taking special notes for.
Finally,
the class ended, and a short break began.
Rin put down her pen, rubbed her aching wrist, then looked at a couple places in her notes she didn't understand. She turned instinctively.
"Yuu-kun, when the teacher talked about the branches of the celiac artery and the venous return pathway of the splenic vein… do you still remember? I didn't really get it…"
"Oh, that."
Mikami Yuu glanced at Rin's notebook and immediately understood what she meant.
"The celiac artery mainly branches into the left gastric artery, the common hepatic artery, and the splenic artery. The splenic vein doesn't return directly to the inferior vena cava—it first joins the superior mesenteric vein to form the portal vein. Then portal blood goes through the liver for processing, and only after that does it enter the inferior vena cava via the hepatic veins…
"The diagram on the board was a simplified sketch—easy to misread."