"I'm back!"
"Minato-nii, Kushina-nesan!"
Nawaki, Konan and Yahiko, upon seeing Minato and Kushina just after their sparring session, immediately ran up to greet them.
"Konan, Yahiko, you two came as well?" Kushina happily stepped forward and patted the two on their heads.
Nawaki wasn't too pleased with Kushina's warm welcome toward Yahiko, but when he saw Konan, his mood immediately improved.
Kushina and Konan were quite familiar with each other.
Previously, when Minato went to guide the three kids in their training, Kushina had tagged along many times. Tsunade turned a blind eye to Minato taking Kushina out of the village.
After all, with Minato around, she didn't think Kushina would come to any harm, so long as no one else found out.
After all, the Nine-Tails jinchūriki was a matter of utmost importance, part of a village safety strategy handed down from her grandfather.
On the surface, Tsunade couldn't openly oppose it for now, so she just let it happen quietly. This also meant that Kushina's relationship with the three kids had always been quite good.
As they chatted, Minato and Kushina quickly figured out what the kids were after.
That very morning, Minato had just agreed to a request from Mikoto and a few others for a sparring match, and now here came another situation in the afternoon.
He wondered if they should get the Ninja Academy students involved in this sparring as well.
And not just Nawaki's year, why not select the best from every grade in the academy?
Or even better, not just from the academy, he could pick from the entire new generation of ninjas and form a large team.
Once this idea struck, he immediately found it interesting.
If it were just a 3-vs-3 match, he honestly wouldn't be interested. Sure, Mikoto and the others were decent among their peers, having reached chunin-level strength.
But in his own three-person squad, he could send out any one member, have them use only thirty percent of their strength, and they'd still crush the opponents with ease.
But what about 3-vs-100?
He still thought it would be a one-sided match, but at least it would last longer and be more fun.
And this kind of one-against-many sparring could be held more often in the future.
With this idea in mind, Minato immediately told Kushina and the kids.
Upon hearing it, they were excited.
If it were just regular classes, they wouldn't care much, after all, unlike the others, they'd often been personally trained by Minato. No academy teacher could teach better than he could.
But this kind of sparring got their blood pumping.
In a same-grade selection, the three of them would definitely get chosen, there was no doubt about that.
Sure, with their current strength they'd just be cannon fodder in such a battle, but it would still be a great learning experience.
Once the decision was made, the group cheerfully accompanied Mito for dinner.
Minato then went straight to his place to tell Tsunade and Shin about the idea.
Tsunade and Shin immediately became interested.
Shin even suggested adding spectator seating around the training grounds and live-broadcasting the whole match so anyone who wanted to watch could do so.
He even gave the event a name: The First Konoha Youth Training Exhibition Match.
He also proposed charging an admission fee for the event.
The ticket revenue could then be used to establish a medical fund, dedicated to training more medical-nin.
Tsunade naturally accepted this proposal with pleasure.
As a medical-nin herself, she had always been deeply committed to training medical-nin.
The Second Great Ninja War had proven countless times the importance of an excellent medical-nin.
Tsunade and Shin alone had saved and healed thousands, preserving an enormous amount of Konoha's fighting strength. During that time, they also spared no effort in training battlefield medics.
Without the two of them, the number of Konoha shinobi killed on the battlefield would have at least doubled.
In that case, the outcome of the war might have been very different, and even if Konoha had still won, the village would have been left gravely weakened.
This fact was not only clear to Tsunade; everyone saw it and understood it well.
Thus, in the past six months, no one had ever opposed her plans for medical-nin training. On the contrary, they had all strongly supported it.
Over the past half-year, she had invested enormous effort in selecting talents across the village who showed aptitude for medical ninjutsu.
There were several prerequisites for mastering medical ninjutsu:
First, one had to possess extremely precise chakra control.
Second, one needed a vast amount of professional medical knowledge.
Third, through extensive practice, one had to develop the professional composure of a medical-nin, remaining calm at all times in the face of injured comrades.
The workload for this selection process was immense.
But in the process, Tsunade did indeed discover quite a few promising candidates.
To train these selected talents into excellent medical-nin, she implemented three measures:
First, she abandoned the old one-on-one mentoring model, which was inefficient, and instead adopted Shin's centralized training approach. All selected individuals attended classes together and underwent strict periodic assessments.
All medical-nin trainees were paid a salary, after all, many were already active shinobi who usually relied on missions for income. Without earnings, they would have struggled to make ends meet.
During training, Tsunade divided them into study groups so they could supervise and learn from each other, and she even introduced awards to encourage competition and collective improvement.
Those who performed well could earn extra bonuses, while those who did poorly would have their pay docked, or even be dismissed.
Second, every trainee spent half of each day interning at Konoha Hospital, assisting in or directly treating various injuries to gain extensive clinical experience.
They also rotated through the increasingly popular but injury-prone combat training grounds, standing by to provide on-the-spot battlefield treatment whenever injuries occurred.
Third, while studying medical ninjutsu, they were also required to undergo combat training.
This combat training was personally designed by Shin, tailored to each individual for maximum effectiveness. Even those with little natural combat talent were still required to train.
Tsunade did not expect everyone to become another version of herself, Shin, or Hizashi, but she did want medical-nin to be more than just healers.
Even if they didn't earn battlefield merits by killing enemies, they should at least be able to avoid becoming a burden to their squad.
Her ultimate goal was to assign at least one medical-nin to every team.
However, raising a combat-capable medical-nin was extremely expensive and time-consuming. Even with Tsunade pushing at full speed, half a year had only begun to show results.
This was also why she valued the New Hyūga Clan so highly, because almost every member of the Hyūga was a natural candidate for becoming a combat medical-nin.
The clan's combat talent spoke for itself; if it weren't for the restrictive old traditions of the past, the Hyūga's current strength would be on an entirely different level.