The oil lamp in the tent had been replaced three tis.
Tsunade had long since lost track of the hour.
The table was cluttered with petri dishes, reagent bottles, silver needles, and scalpels; crumpled drafts of formulas lay strewn across the floor like discarded snow.
The sixth version of the antidote had failed.
Tsunade set the petri dish down with a heavy thud and turned toward the hospital bed behind her.
Kitahara Kaede lay there.
His complexion was a sickly grey-blue, his lips tinged with purple. The dark, violet veins creeping up his right arm had been forcibly suppressed by her chakra, preventing them from spreading further, but they refused to recede.
A small Katsuyu perched on his chest, its green light pulsing slowly, maintaining his most basic heartbeat and respiration.
Tsunade stared at that green glow.
It was fading.
Her own chakra reserves were nearly depleted.
"Lady Tsunade, you have already worked continuously—"
"Get out."
The dical chunin pulled the curtain shut and retreated.
Once again, only two people remained in the tent.
Tsunade pulled over a stool and sat by the bed, taking Kitahara Kaede's left hand in hers.
It was ice cold.
She gripped it tightly, trying to warm his skin with the heat of her own palm.
"Kaede."
There was no response.
"Can you hear ?"
The man on the bed flickered his eyelids slightly. His lips parted, and a voice squeezed out from the depths of his throat, fragnted and halting.
"I... believe..."
Tsunade leaned down, pressing her ear close to his lips.
"...she... can..."
The final words dissolved into a shallow breath, becoming unintelligible.
Tsunade didn't move. She remained in that position, frozen for several seconds. Then, she straightened up.
She looked down at the hand she was holding. Slowly, her fingers loosened, and she placed his hand back onto the bed with extre gentleness.
She turned and walked to the dicine cabinet. Picking up a scalpel, she peeled back the sealing wax on the toxin sac, scraped off a razor-thin layer of the original liquid, and applied it to a glass slide.
The seventh formula.
Ti to change the base.
She had already dismantled the core structure of the Erosion Scorpion Venom. Of the three impurities Chiyo had mixed in, she could confirm two: one was a cactus alkaloid unique to Sunagakure, and the other was a neurotoxin extracted from the tail segnts of a sand scorpion.
The first six versions had all failed because of the third, unknown component.
But just now, using the original liquid for a control experint, she recognized the reaction characteristics of that third elent. She had seen it before—in the ancient dical scrolls left behind by her grandfather.
It wasn't a poison. It was a catalyst.
Tsunade's hand stopped.
"Iron sand powder."
She grabbed a pen and rapidly scribbled a new formula.
Chiyo had ground trace amounts of iron sand powder down to a microscopic level and mixed it into the venom. By utilizing the affinity of iron within the bloodstream, the toxin could precisely lock onto the nodes of the ridian system.
That was why conventional treatnts failed. It wasn't that the poison couldn't be neutralized; it was that the iron sand powder constantly guided the toxin to a new location. As soon as one area was cleared, it surged up in another.
The solution, however, was simple.
First, use a magnetic dicinal guide to attract and pull the iron sand powder out of the blood, then apply a standard antidote to the remaining pure toxin.
Tsunade fished out a powder of iron-sand stone from the bottom of the cabinet and mixed it into the formula. Her hands were shaking—muscle spasms resulting from chakra exhaustion.
Gritting her teeth, she finished the preparation and poured it into a bowl.
She returned to the bedside. With one hand supporting the back of Kitahara Kaede's head and the other holding the bowl, she commanded, "Open your mouth."
He didn't react.
Tsunade set the bowl on the edge of the bed, pinched his jaw, and gently pried it open. As she poured the liquid in, half of it spilled from the corner of his mouth onto his neck.
She wiped the residue from his chin. His skin was still ice cold.
She poured the last remnants of her chakra into her palm and pressed it against his chest. Sensing her master's chakra, Katsuyu cooperated, guiding the dicinal power through the ridians of his entire body.
Then, there was nothing more she could do.
Tsunade sat back on her stool and held his hand.
She waited.
One minute. Three minutes. Five minutes.
She stared intensely at the dark purple veins on his right arm.
At the tenth minute, the purple began to fade. It receded from the fingertips upward, inch by inch, like a retreating tide.
Tsunade didn't make a sound. She placed her other hand on his wrist to check his pulse.
The beat was weak, but stable.
When the blackness passed over his shoulder and completely vanished from his neck, Tsunade let out a long, shuddering breath, releasing all the tension she had accumulated over the past few dozen hours.
She stared at his face as the color gradually returned for a long ti. Her lips moved, but no words ca out.
Then, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against the back of his hand. The last string of her endurance snapped. The mont she closed her eyes, her consciousness vanished.
...
An unknown amount of ti passed.
What surfaced from the darkness was not a dream.
It was the moonlight filtering through the canopy, the wind rushing into his ears. It was the dead weight of his right arm, the sensation of molten lead pouring through his veins. It was the feeling of the ground vanishing beneath him, his face slamming into muddy water, and dark purple blood choking his throat.
He rembered the flickering lights of the camp at the edge of his vision. And he rembered Tsunade's voice.
He recalled pushing the toxin sac toward her and saying two words.
"Got it."
Then, there was nothing.
Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes. Warm light leaked through the gaps in the tent.
His right arm was still numb, but the agonizing pain that had bored into his bones was gone. He looked down; the dark purple veins were mostly gone, leaving only faint grey traces.
He was alive.
Then, he saw Tsunade.
She was slumped against the edge of the bed, her face toward him, sleeping deeply. Her hair had co undone and draped across his arm, and the dark circles under her eyes were incredibly pronounced.
Her hand was still gripping his. She held on so tightly that she hadn't let go even in sleep.
Kitahara Kaede didn't move. He watched her for a few seconds, then slightly curled his fingers, touching her fingertips.
Tsunade's eyelashes fluttered, and she suddenly snapped her eyes open.
Their gazes locked.
She froze for half a second. In the next instant, she slamd a palm into his chest.
"Cough—!"
Kitahara Kaede nearly lost his breath. His body, having just crawled back from the brink of death, couldn't handle the blow; his internal organs felt like they had been shaken in a blender.
"You—"
"Two inches."
Tsunade's voice wasn't loud, but it was far more terrifying than if she had scread.
"Two inches from the heart ridian."
Kitahara Kaede opened his mouth to speak.
"You just threw your life to like that?"
She gripped his collar, her hand trembling. "What if I couldn't brew the antidote? Did you even think about that?"
Kitahara Kaede looked at her in silence.
Tsunade glared at him, her chest heaving. "Say sothing!" her voice softened.
Kitahara Kaede raised his left hand and placed it over the hand she was using to grip his collar.
"I thought about it." He looked into her eyes. "I had confidence, but not in myself."
He paused. "My confidence was in you."
Tsunade's fingers loosened one by one. The collar she had been clutching remained wrinkled as it fell back against his chest.
She didn't move or speak. She stared at him for a long ti.
Then, she turned her head away. She raised her hand and flicked his forehead. It wasn't hard.
"Don't let there be a next ti."
Kitahara Kaede caught the finger she had used to flick him. "Alright."
Silence reigned for two seconds before a system notification rang in his mind.
[Side Quest Completed: Assist Tsunade in breaking Chiyo's poison]
[Evaluation: A]
[Permanent Reward: Toxin Immunity Constitution — Chakra within the body will automatically decompose invading exogenous toxins; the probability of poisoning is reduced to nearly zero.]
It wasn't an S-rank.
But this reward ant that if he ever encountered a poison user again, he would be virtually invincible.
That was enough.
He closed the panel.
Kitahara Kaede reached into the innermost pocket of his ninja tool pouch and pulled out the blue amulets charm. Its stitching was crooked and uneven, and he waved it lightly in front of Tsunade's eyes.
"The charm you made... it actually worked."
Tsunade glanced at it.
"...Next ti, I'll sew you a coffin lid."
"Then I wouldn't dare die," he quipped.
Tsunade's lip twitched.
Noisy voices drifted in from outside the tent; soone was calling her na. Tsunade withdrew her hand, stood up, and wiped her face with her sleeve. By the ti she turned around, her expression had returned to its usual composure.
"Stay put. You're not allowed out of bed for three days."
She lifted the curtain and stepped out. After a few paces, she stopped, though she didn't look back.
"I'll bring you dinner."
The curtain fell shut.
Kitahara Kaede lay on the hospital bed, watching the top of the tent ripple slightly in the wind.
A toxin-immune physique. If he had acquired it two days sooner, he wouldn't have had to crawl that kiloter through the mud.
Then again—trading that for a slap from Tsunade, a stern "don't let it happen again," and a promise that she'd bring him dinner?
Totally worth it.
He closed his eyes, intending to catch up on so sleep. But the mont he did, the curtain was pulled open again. Tsunade leaned halfway into the tent.
"I forgot to say..."
Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes.
"That thing you said—"
She paused. Her lips moved slightly, but in the end, she said nothing. She turned and walked away.
This ti, she was truly gone. Her footsteps grew fainter and fainter.
Kitahara Kaede stared at the curtain as it swayed three more tis before settling.
'Which sentence?'
He thought back.
"My confidence isn't in myself; it's in you."
What about that?
He wanted to ask, but his body wouldn't allow it.
Outside the tent, Tsunade walked along the path toward the main command tent. The sunlight was blinding, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes.
The warmth of his fingers still lingered on her palm.
A small smile played on her lips.
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