Late December—the weather had already turned bitterly cold. Three days had passed since the war between Sunagakure and Konoha broke out.
Inside Konoha Hospital, medical staff could be seen rushing through the corridors from time to time, carrying supplies. The atmosphere was tense but orderly—clearly a wartime scene.
In the temporary wartime command room on the third floor, Tsunade stood with a furrowed brow, reviewing the final list of medical and logistics personnel to be dispatched to support the southwestern front.
Sunagakure had Chiyo, a master of poisons. Her toxins and puppets could inflict massive casualties and pose a persistent threat on the battlefield. As one of the top medical-nin not only in Konoha but in the entire shinobi world, Tsunade bore an immense responsibility.
Appointed directly by the Hokage as the overall commander of the medical and logistics system on the southwestern battlefield, she was scheduled to depart early the next morning with the personnel listed. Her duty was not only to coordinate battlefield medical operations, but also to neutralize Chiyo's poisons and establish an effective detoxification and treatment system.
She flipped through the list page after page—then suddenly stopped.
Her gaze locked onto a familiar name.
In the next instant, she slammed the list onto the table with a sharp crack, startling Shizune and Kurenai, who were nearby organizing documents.
"That brat!" Tsunade ground out through clenched teeth. Without explaining anything, she grabbed the crumpled list and stormed out of the room. She crossed to the other side of the hospital and kicked open the door to a treatment room.
The door slammed against the wall with a loud bang.
Several nurses inside, who had been organizing instruments, jumped in fright, nearly dropping their trays. At the desk, Shinichi, who had been sorting through preliminary injury reports sent back from the front, looked up.
"Tsunade-sensei." Shinichi closed the file and stood up, his tone calm, as if nothing unusual had happened.
"Don't call me that!"
Tsunade strode up to him and slapped the wrinkled list onto the table beside him. "This Higashino Shinichi on the list—that's you, right?!"
The nurses exchanged glances, then quietly slipped out, leaving the space to the teacher and her student.
Shinichi glanced down at the list, then looked back up, meeting Tsunade's almost blazing eyes.
"Yes."
"Yes?!"
Tsunade's voice rose several notches. "Who approved this?! When did you sign up?! Why don't I know anything about it?! And what is that old man thinking—actually allowing you onto the battlefield? How old are you?!"
She paced back and forth before stopping and staring at him.
"The frontlines are dangerous right now. You're not going."
Shinichi stood straight, meeting her gaze. "Tsunade-sensei, I'm a Special Jōnin of Konoha—a registered shinobi. The village needs strength. The seniors at the front are bleeding. How can I stay safely in the rear? And besides, I once said in front of the entire village—"
"I said you're not going!"
Tsunade cut him off sharply, anger flaring. "Special Jōnin? So what?! On the battlefield, even Kage die! Do you really think your level of strength is enough? This is war—not an arena!"
Although Shinichi had previously refused her arrangement to take up a permanent position at the hospital as a rear-line medical-nin, Tsunade had already anticipated that he would eventually go to the battlefield.
But not now.
The war had just begun—what was he rushing to the front for?
To die?
She took a deep breath, trying to make her tone more rational.
"Listen, kid. For now, you stay in the village. Stay in the hospital. We need people here too. This is still contributing to the village—and it's safer. More importantly, it lets you make full use of your medical talent."
Shinichi said nothing. He didn't argue. He simply looked at her quietly.
Those eyes of his, usually gentle and smiling, were now deep and calm—but that calmness only made Tsunade more restless.
She sighed, her tone finally softening.
"Kid, do you even understand?"
She turned her gaze away, looking out at the gray, overcast sky. Her voice lowered.
"I know you're strong. Stronger than your peers—even stronger than many Jōnin. You're a genius—the future hope of Konoha. The old man, and many others, have high expectations for you."
"But!"
She turned back, her gaze sharp again.
"On the battlefield, 'genius' is the most useless title there is! It can even be more dangerous than being an ordinary shinobi!"
"The battlefield isn't a stage. There are no rules, no audience, no applause. There's only survival—and death!"
"What decides life and death isn't who has more talent or stronger ninjutsu. It might just be a poisoned senbon shot from the shadows. It might be an explosive tag buried under your feet that you never even noticed—either one can kill you!"
"You have no idea where danger will come from! Do you think your eyes can watch every direction at once—every inch of ground, every single person?!"
Tsunade grew more agitated the more she spoke. "And precisely because you're a genius—because you're Konoha's brightest rising star—you'll stand out on the battlefield like a torch in the dead of night! Sunagakure's commanders aren't idiots. Once they get their intel, the first targets they'll eliminate are seedlings like you—those with the potential to grow into major threats! You'll be singled out, ambushed, and hunted down at all costs! Do you understand that?!"
"And look at your peers—who among them is on the battlefield right now? And that Hatake kid, Kakashi! Isn't he a genius too? Isn't he staying in the village, doing missions and continuing his training like he should? That's the proper arrangement for shinobi your age!"
What she said was indeed the truth. When the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, founded the village, one of his original wishes was for children to grow up away from the flames of war, in a relatively peaceful environment.
Therefore, even after the war broke out, Konoha remained relatively conservative in its deployment of forces, not easily throwing still-developing young shinobi directly into the most brutal frontlines.
In the original course of events, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin's generation had still spent over a year in the village even after the war had begun, even participating in the Chūnin Exams as normal during that period.
Even when the war reached its most desperate stage—when manpower was at its scarcest—Konoha was still extremely cautious in how it used young shinobi. Typically, only Chūnin were deployed, while Genin rarely participated in direct frontline combat, at most taking on auxiliary roles, patrols, or logistics in relatively safer second-line positions.
"Tsunade-sensei," Shinichi finally spoke. "You've read my analysis report. You should understand that Sunagakure's war against Konoha is only the beginning—it's the spark that will ignite the entire powder keg. Kumogakure's lightning offensive will follow soon after. Even Iwagakure and Kirigakure are watching closely, waiting for their chance to strike."
"When that happens, the flames of war will sweep across the entire border. Do you think I can hide in the rear forever? When the village needs every bit of strength to hold the line—when manpower is stretched to its absolute limit—can I still refuse on the grounds that I'm young, that I'm a genius who needs protection?"
He slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid not. At that point, it won't be a matter of whether I want to go or not—it will be a necessity. I might even be thrown hastily into an even more dangerous front, completely unprepared."
"Rather than passively waiting for that moment, letting chaos push me forward, it's better to choose now. Compared to the others who may later surround us, Sunagakure is currently the greatest threat—but also possibly the weakest link among them. Gaining experience on their battlefield, adapting to war, tempering myself—it's far better than being forced later into a more dangerous front against even more dangerous enemies."
At this point, Shinichi paused, then looked directly into Tsunade's eyes and said seriously: "And Tsunade-sensei—one week ago, in front of the Hokage Building, before hundreds of thousands of our fellow villagers, it was me who personally called on everyone to unite and fight to the end. If even I, the one who made that call, hide in the safety of the rear now for various reasons, what will the shinobi at the front think? What will the villagers think of me? How would the village's morale be maintained?"
"I think… perhaps that's exactly why the Third Hokage ultimately approved my inclusion in the first wave of reinforcements."
Of course, that was only the surface reasoning. Shinichi's true consideration was to accumulate merit on the battlefield against Sunagakure and quickly advance to Jōnin. Once promoted—and once he generated a Jōnin-tier Entry—he would gain a chance to draw a purple-quality Entry.
Purple quality was a tier he had never possessed before. The qualitative leap it could bring would undoubtedly be a tremendous boost.
Hearing this, Tsunade fell silent, quietly studying Shinichi.
In that instant, she suddenly realized something was different about him. That familiar warmth and youthful vitality, like a gentle spring breeze, seemed to have settled and deepened.
In its place was something harder to describe—a steady, composed presence that instinctively inspired trust and reassurance.
After a long moment, she let out a deep breath, as if reaching a difficult decision.
"…Fine. You can go."
But before Shinichi could respond, she immediately raised a finger and continued in a firm, decisive tone: "Listen carefully! When you go to the front this time, your identity is that of a medical-nin—and only a medical-nin! Your responsibilities are strictly limited to the field hospital, emergency stations, and the safe zones I designate!"
"Your duties are to treat the wounded, allocate medicine, manage medical supplies, and carry out any research or analysis tasks I assign! Without my explicit permission, you are absolutely—absolutely—not allowed to leave the logistics area, nor are you permitted to participate in any direct frontline combat as a combat shinobi! Is that clear?!"
"Yes, Tsunade-sensei." Shinichi nodded. "I understand, and I will strictly follow your orders. On this deployment to the front, my identity is Higashino Shinichi, medical-nin. All actions will be under your command, focused solely on my medical duties."
Hearing his clear answer, Tsunade nodded and said nothing more. She only gave him one last long look.
"Go get ready. Tomorrow morning at six, assemble at the village gate. Don't be late. If you're even a second late, I'll personally throw you out of the unit—I mean it."
With that, she pulled open the door and strode away without looking back, her footsteps quickly fading down the corridor.
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