Jiraiya's face went hard as he examined the scene. "Recent. Maybe six hours."
"The patrol was due to report yesterday," Minato said quietly. "They would have been carrying updated territorial maps."
"Which means Iwa knows we're interested in this sector." Jiraiya straightened, scanning the treeline. "Which means they're expecting a response."
Tatsuya crouched beside the nearest body, a chunin, maybe twenty-five, with a wound pattern that told a story. "Single strike to the throat. No defensive wounds. He didn't see it coming."
"None of them did." Jiraiya's voice was flat. "Professional work. Jonin-level, probably hunter-nin equivalent."
The forest felt different now. The shadows deeper, the silence heavier. Somewhere out there, the people who'd done this were waiting. Watching.
"We leave," Jiraiya decided. "Now. Different route than we came. Information's compromised, no point completing the reconnaissance if they know we're here."
They moved.
The first attack came two hours later.
Tatsuya felt it before he saw it, a displacement of air, the subtle wrongness of chakra moving where it shouldn't be. He was already diving sideways when the kunai cut through the space his head had occupied.
"Contact left!" Minato's voice was sharp, commanding. Then he was gone, yellow blur vanishing into the trees toward the threat.
Jiraiya's hands were already moving through seals. "Tatsuya, stay mobile. Don't let them pin you down."
Easy to say. Harder to do when shadows were resolving into enemies, not four or five, but nine figures emerging from concealment with the coordinated precision of hunters who'd done this a hundred times before.
Nine. Three-to-one odds even with Jiraiya and Minato.
Tatsuya drew his chokuto and moved.
The first opponent came fast, faster than the chunin he'd faced before. This one flowed like water, blade work vicious, pressing Tatsuya's guard before he could establish his footing. No wasted movement. No telegraph. Just steel seeking flesh with professional patience.
Tatsuya parried. Parried again. Each impact jarred through his arms, the enemy's strikes carrying weight that belied his lean frame. He tried to create distance for a jutsu—
The second enemy hit him from behind.
He felt the blade coming, twisted desperately, and the cut that should have opened his spine instead carved a furrow along his ribs. Pain flared white-hot. Blood immediately soaked his side.
Two on one. Of course.
He rolled with the momentum, came up with his chokuto in guard, but they were already pressing. The first enemy high, the second low. Coordinated. Practiced. A killing formation they'd probably used a dozen times before.
No time for hand seals. No space for jutsu. Just survival.
Tatsuya's free hand came up, chakra flickering at his fingertips—
The first enemy recognized the threat. His blade swept toward Tatsuya's reaching hand, forcing him to abort the scalpel attempt or lose fingers. The second enemy used the distraction to close, tanto driving toward Tatsuya's kidney.
They know??. Panic settles briefly, before he shrugged it off.
He barely deflected the kidney strike, the motion putting him off-balance for the overhead cut that followed. His parry was too slow. Steel bit into his shoulder, scraping bone before he twisted away.
Two wounds now. Blood loss accelerating. And they weren't even breathing hard.
Think. Stop reacting and think.
They knew about the scalpel. Were specifically guarding against it, keeping his hands occupied, denying him the close contact the technique required. Standard counter-tactics for medical combatants.
But they were guarding against hand contact.
Tatsuya let the next exchange push him backward, deliberately overextending on a parry. The enemy read it as desperation—moved to exploit—
And Tatsuya's forearm pressed against his reaching wrist.
The chakra emission was rough, inefficient, barely thirty percent of what his hands could produce. But the tenketsu in his forearm responded, medical chakra flowing outward through an unfamiliar pathway, and the edge he'd been developing for weeks found it's target.
The enemy screamed as tendons in his wrist separated. His grip failed. The sword dropped.
Tatsuya's chokuto opened his throat before the scream finished.
One down. One still fighting. Seven more somewhere in the chaos.
The second enemy had hesitated, just a fraction of a second, processing what he'd seen. Tatsuya used that fraction to put distance between them, to get his back against a tree, to buy a moment to breathe.
His side was wet. His shoulder was grinding. And the enemy was circling now, more cautious, reassessing threat level.
In the distance, the sounds of combat echoed, Jiraiya's jutsu shaking the earth, Minato's impossible speed leaving bodies in his wake. But they were engaged with their own opponents. Strong ones too, judging from the chakra signatures. No backup coming.
The wound on your side. Stabilize it or you'll bleed out in minutes.
His hand wanted to go to the injury. Instinct, training, the desperate need to stop the bleeding. But the enemy was watching, waiting for exactly that, for Tatsuya to commit to healing and leave himself open.
Instead, Tatsuya did something he'd only theorized about.
He directed medical chakra internally.
Not through his hands, through the pathways themselves, flowing from his core toward the damaged tissue. The sensation was strange, almost nauseating, chakra moving in ways his body wasn't designed for. But the bleeding slowed. The wound began to stabilize.
While his hands stayed on his sword.
The enemy attacked.
Tatsuya met him with steel, fighting one-handed while the other maintained internal healing flow, splitting concentration in a way that felt like holding two separate thoughts simultaneously. Parry. Circulate. Dodge. Mend. Each action demanding attention that had to be borrowed from the other.
He was slower now. Less precise. The divided focus cost him in reaction time, in strength, in much needed mental agency that kept shinobi alive.
But he was also still standing. Still fighting. Still not dying.
The enemy pressed harder, sensing weakness. Tatsuya gave ground, let the exchanges push him back toward the center of the clearing where—
—where a Konoha chunin lay wounded, clutching a gut wound and staring at the combat with terrified eyes.
How did he get here? Separated from another team?
It didn't matter. He was here, he was wounded, and if Tatsuya didn't act, he would die.
Tatsuya disengaged with a desperate burst of speed, sliding to the wounded man's side. His left hand—the one not holding his sword—pressed against the abdominal wound. Green chakra flowed outward while the internal circulation continued repairing his own injuries.
Three simultaneous tasks. Sword defense. Internal healing. External healing.
The world narrowed to points of focus that burned with the effort of maintenance.
The enemy closed in. Tatsuya parried one-handed, the impact nearly tearing the chokuto from his grip. The follow-up came low, he twisted, took the cut across his thigh instead of his femoral artery, and answered with a counter that the enemy deflected easily.
"You should have ran," the Iwa-nin observed, almost conversational. "Dying for a stranger is pointless."
"Running means leaving him to die."
"That's what I said. Pointless."
He attacked again. Tatsuya defended, healed, mended his own wounds, and felt his chakra reserves draining like water through a cracked vessel. Minutes left. Maybe less. He couldn't sustain this.
But the chunin's wound was closing. Another thirty seconds and he'd be stable enough to move.
Twenty-five. Twenty. The enemy's blade opened a new cut on Tatsuya's forearm. Fifteen. Ten.
Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire.
The jutsu was weak, scattered, unfocused, his concentration too divided for proper formation. But it was enough. The enemy jumped back, avoiding the flames, and Tatsuya used the moment to assess—
The chunin's bleeding had stopped. Tissue was stabilizing. Not healed, but survivable.
"Can you move?"
"I—maybe—"
"Then move. Northwest, toward the secondary rally point. Don't stop until you reach it."
The chunin scrambled away. Tatsuya turned back to his opponent, who was watching with something that might have been respect.
"Impressive," the Iwa-nin admitted. "I didn't think medical types could fight like that."
"Most can't."
"But you can."
"I'm learning."
The enemy's smile was thin. "Not fast enough."
He moved—faster than before, the cautious probing abandoned for decisive aggression. Tatsuya met him, but his movements were sluggish now, chakra reserves critically low, wounds screaming despite the healing he'd managed. The exchange lasted three seconds before steel found his ribs again.
Tatsuya went down.
The enemy stood over him, blade raised for the finishing strike. His expression was professional, detached, just another body to add to the count.
Yellow light.
The strike never fell.
Minato stood where the enemy had been, blade dripping, expression carved from ice. The Iwa-nin was simply gone, removed from existence with speed that defied comprehension.
"The others?" Tatsuya managed.
"Handled." Minato crouched beside him, hands already glowing green. "Lie still. You've lost a lot of blood."
"There was a wounded chunin. I sent him northwest—"
"Jiraiya found him. He's alive because of you." Minato's healing was warm, steady, far more efficient than Tatsuya's desperate efforts. "What you did back there... I've never seen anything like it."
"Necessity."
"That's not what I meant." Those blue eyes were thoughtful, assessing. "You were healing yourself, healing him, and fighting—all at once."
"Concentration splitting. Tenketsu emission." The words came out slurred, exhaustion dragging at his consciousness. "I've been... experimenting."
"Experimenting." Minato's voice was odd. "Right."
A pause. Then, quieter: "We need to stop meeting like this."
Tatsuya's laugh was more of a wheeze. "You could try arriving before I'm bleeding out."
"Where's the dramatic timing in that?" Minato's smile was tired but genuine. "Besides, you keep finding new ways to almost die. I'm starting to think it's intentional."
"Call it... practical research. Testing the limits of field triage."
"Your research methodology needs work." The healing continued. "Specifically, the part where you're the test subject."
The pain faded. The world went soft around the edges.
The last thing Tatsuya heard was Jiraiya's voice, somewhere distant, sounding jovial: "He's something else, isn't he?"
Then darkness.
He woke to antiseptic and canvas.
Field hospital. They must have evacuated him after the battle—how long had he been unconscious?
His body ached in the particular way of flesh that had been badly damaged and hastily repaired. The wounds on his side, shoulder, and thigh were sealed but tender. Someone had done real work while he was out.
"Back with us."
"Minato told me what you pulled." Jiraiya settled onto a supply crate, sake bottle in hand despite the hour. "Healing the wounded while bleeding out yourself. Fighting off that chunin with chakra running through your forearm instead of your hands."
Tatsuya said nothing. There wasn't a question in there.
"He was impressed. Kept mentioning it." Jiraiya took a long drink. "I'm more concerned."