No one liked dealing with Aburame Ryoma. Kazeya Fūsai was no exception.
Ryoma wasn't just the deputy head of Konoha's Medical Corps—he was also Danzo's right-hand man in Root.
"I know your body's always been frail," Kazeya said nervously, "but the village is short-staffed. The new generation coming out of the Academy isn't ready for serious missions yet. Besides, you know how Lord Ryoma is. He doesn't listen to suggestions from a mere chūnin like me. He just expects orders to be followed."
Kazeya often worried Tsukasa Kaede would drop dead mid-mission. Truth be told, most people worried the same whenever Kaede was forced to move.
And yet—Kaede endured.
"What choice do I have?" Kaede answered, his smile more skeletal than human, like a grimace carved onto a corpse. "Ryoma's Danzo's left hand. He doesn't even show basic respect to regular Leaf shinobi. What do you think a war orphan like me amounts to?"
War orphans were common in all shinobi villages. When a village had the resources, they would gather abandoned children and train them into tools of war.
In Konoha, that duty now fell to Yakushi Nono, a woman who would, a few years from now, lead the village's entire Medical Corps during the Third Shinobi War.
Among all the orphans, her greatest "success" would be Yakushi Kabuto—rescued and raised on the battlefield, turned into a prodigy.
Kaede, too, had been brought back to the village. But trust? That was never on the table. He was only trained—like a tool. A specialist, meant to excel at a single function… and then be used up.
Root was the first to select candidates.
Ryoma didn't care whether a child might secretly be a spy from another village. Once you entered Root, secrets died with you.
He selected those with rare bloodlines first. Kaede had none. He was half-dead already. Naturally, he was skipped.
Then came the tests—those with quick wits and espionage potential were picked out. Kaede feigned fever, played dumb, failed intentionally.
By the time regular handlers arrived to take the leftovers, Kaede was still there—unsorted trash. If not for Konoha's founding principles demanding even the weakest be given some chance, he might've been left to rot outside the walls.
"A village like Konoha—structured like a military district—has too few civilians to sustain itself. It has to pull manpower from towns across the Land of Fire. I'm lucky I've lived this long. The least I can do is serve however I'm able."
Kaede's words held a grain of sincerity. "I've been working on a new jutsu. I hope I never have to use it."
In this cursed world, chakra turned children into weapons. A few years old, yet strong enough to slaughter grown men. When war came, they were sent to fight.
If any village gave Kaede time to grow, it was Konoha. Of all the Five Great Nations, Konoha was the last to deploy children to the front lines—at least during the Second War.
That was a legacy passed down from Hashirama, Madara, and Tobirama. Konoha's founding ideal had always been protect the children.
But even that dream cracked under pressure.
Toward the end of the Second War, even Hiruzen Sarutobi was forced to send children into combat, assigning them menial or low-risk support roles.
It was during this phase that Kaede entered the battlefield.
Armed with nothing but subpar medical ninjutsu, he did what he could to heal the wounded—often scorned, often overlooked. Eventually, he was relegated to the corpse recovery squads—teams that transported the dead to secure sites.
He wasn't entrusted with corpses that had valuable bloodlines, of course. Kaede was only assigned to move the most mundane, useless bodies.
"I've passed the tipping point," Kaede muttered, leaping from one towering tree to another. "My body's stabilized. All these years refining chakra, drop by drop, rebuilding from within... finally paid off."
He followed Kazeya through the dense forest, moving like a proper genin now, flowing between treetops with practiced grace. No one knew the pain and effort that went into every jump.
The instant his foot touched a branch, chakra flared at the sole for grip. Then—launch. He moved cleanly.
It was all worth it. His time was coming.
"Honestly, compared to me, even Hayate Gekkō is a chiseled demigod," he wheezed mid-leap, pausing to cough and catch his breath.
"Almost there," Kazeya said, flashing a signal.
Kaede and another medic-nin dropped low, hiding in the underbrush.
"Three allies spotted. One with light injuries is escorting two critically wounded. No enemies in sight… yet."
Kazeya moved cautiously, signaling for Kaede to stay alert. After confirming the identity codes, he rushed forward to assist.
"Captain Kazeya, we were ambushed by Kirigakure shinobi during patrol! Please—my comrades need help! They're barely alive!"
The genin looked like hell—mud-caked, bleeding, strung tight with panic. Only when he saw Kazeya did his tension break.
Kazeya was semi-famous, after all. One of the few allowed to train under Jiraiya himself.
Kaede crouched, scanning the wounds. He traced battlefield traces with his fingers, eyes narrowing.
"You were a standard four-man squad, right? Where's your medic-nin?"
"Dead," the genin choked out. "The Mist never fought us head-on, but they knew we assign medics to every squad. They always target them first."
During the war, Tsunade and Dan Kato pushed hard to make one-medic-per-squad the standard. Despite low personnel and awful training resources, they pushed the doctrine forward.
Most "medics" weren't true specialists—just genin with basic healing skills.
Even Kaede, with his crippled body and pitiful chakra, could be slapped with the title "medical-nin."
As the war wore on and armies shrank, the age of small-unit infiltration ops began. Every squad had to have a healer.
By the time the Third War broke out, it would become standard for elite four-man teams—like Minato, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin—to have a real, educated medical-nin onboard.
"Mist shinobi…" Kazeya said grimly, treating one unconscious soldier. He nodded at Kaede and the other medic. "Work fast."
Veterans who survived the edge of death often became colder, smarter, stronger. Their survival meant more than just a body—they were investments.
Everyone present shared the same grim fear: if Konoha, bleeding and fatigued, clashed again with Mist at full strength… the death toll would be catastrophic.
"Sandaime will probably seek peace," Kaede thought. "Trade concessions for time. Let Konoha rebuild. That's his style."
He remembered what was coming. The attempted kidnapping of Kushina Uzumaki. The fate of Hiashi and Hizashi Hyuga.
He turned back to the wounded.
"Through-and-through injury in the lower left abdomen. Ragged edges—likely a kunai. Deep laceration to outer right thigh. Shoulder swelling. Breathing rapid. Weak pulse. Slipping consciousness."
The other medic said, "I'll use the chakra scalpel to work on the leg—"
"No. Save your chakra. Use Mystic Palm Jutsu on the abdomen. If I'm right, the liver or intestine's ruptured. That's the priority. Mystic Palm burns through chakra fast."
Kaede rolled up his sleeves, reached into the leg wound with bare hands. No flinch. No hesitation.
He found the vein, tied it off with a clean knot. "That'll buy him time."
The other medic stared in shock.
In this era, medical knowledge wasn't systematic or refined. People defaulted to chakra and pills. Physical interventions were rare.
"As for the coma…" Kaede looked to Kazeya. "Captain, you only carry one vial of adrenaline, right? Use it on the other patient."
"What? Then what about him?" the genin cried. "They're both my comrades! I can't choose! Damn it!"
"Calm down. We never abandon comrades. You're Fly-Bamboo Dragonfly, right?"
Kaede kicked the semi-conscious man in the groin.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The man screamed like a butchered animal—louder than any drug could manage.
The medic gawked.
In this time, no one taught unconventional field trauma solutions. Kaede had no time for propriety. Chakra was precious. Lives were not.
The man's hands shot instinctively to his crotch, even while half-conscious.
Kaede nodded, pleased. "Good. He's still got life in him. Another one saved."
Kazeya wiped his forehead, smiling faintly. He had partnered with Kaede before. He was used to the madness.
"With both stable, we stand a chance. But stay alert. The border's far from here, but Mist has infiltrated deeper before. In fact…"
In fact, they sometimes let wounded enemies escape, just to bait medical-nin into the open.
Killing a medic was worth five regular shinobi in terms of damage to the village.
The genin—Fly-Bamboo—glanced between them, then spoke up. "Captain, I don't think I can escort both back alone. Could I request backup?"
"Denied," Kazeya said. "We have orders from Lord Ryoma. Unless Lady Tsunade herself calls it off, we proceed."
The Medical Corps, in this era, was chaos incarnate.
Kaede and Kazeya had both been deployed to Amegakure before—following Jiraiya's command.
A year ago, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru fought Hanzo of the Salamander. They were defeated, but not broken. That battle earned them the name Sannin and ended the war with Amegakure.
Tsunade and Orochimaru returned. Jiraiya didn't.
Many resented him for it. Why vanish during wartime? Every day more comrades die. What's more important than this?
A year passed. Still no word.
But Kaede knew.
Jiraiya stayed behind to train Nagato—the Child of Prophecy.
To him, shaping that future was worth more than a hundred wars.
"Uchiha Madara awakened the Rinnegan during the Second War," Kaede thought. "He's probably hiding in the Iron Country mountains, watching, waiting for a successor."
Too many seeds were sown during this war.
Nagato. Obito. Every shadow of the future began here.
Suddenly, Kaede stepped forward. "We have our orders. But this qualifies as an emergency."
"Emergency?" Kazeya asked.
"Three-man squad ambushed. One genin dragging two half-dead teammates all this way? That's not normal."
He shifted position, protecting the others with his body.
Kazeya's eyes narrowed. "I knew it…"
Shff shff shff.
"You noticed us, huh?" came a voice. "But it doesn't matter. Our job's done. You're low on chakra, right? Medical-nin are much more valuable targets than regular shinobi."
Three Mist ninja emerged from the trees, surrounding them.
Infiltrating the Land of Fire was a high-stakes risk—but the reward was massive.
Kill three medics? Worth it.
"Not quite the Hyuga I was hoping for," the leader said, drawing a kunai. "But I'll take it. Remember this name in the Pure Land—Aoi, jōnin of Kirigakure."
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300 Stones in this story = 1 Bonus chapter in every fanfic currently translated