The young nurse, likely in her twenties, was pushing a three-tiered medical cart loaded with bandages, hemostats, and other surgical tools. Spotting the seemingly bewildered girl standing at the door, she paused her work, her large, pretty eyes sizing up Hikari as if inspecting a fresh cut of pork.
"Blind, but the body looks healthy. This test subject seems decent—probably won't die too easily," she remarked.
"Still too old," said a doctor in green surgical scrubs, peeling off blood-stained gloves. He glanced at Hikari and shook his head in disappointment. "The optimal window for inducing a chakra core is one to three years old. This one's at least six or seven—results won't be ideal."
"Under three, the recipient's too weak. Remember how many died during those transplants? This age is perfect—the core's starting to form, and the body's strong enough to handle it," countered a taller doctor, setting a small booklet on the cart as he joined the discussion.
The two debated as if Hikari weren't there, occasionally pointing at her and tossing around incomprehensible jargon.
Hikari lowered her head, glancing at the mask and clothes in her hands, suddenly realizing their true purpose. Are they blind to me?
Picking up the owl-shaped mask, she waved it at the doctors. "I'm looking for Doctor Chihaya—"
"I still say we stick with subjects under three, ideally newborns. We've had success cases before. If we keep replicating, we'll find a way," the first doctor insisted.
"Even if you replicate it, it lacks that unique vitality. No matter how many defective copies you make, they're still defective," the taller doctor shot back.
Their heated discussion continued, completely ignoring Hikari. Even the nurse who'd first noticed her couldn't get a word in. She busied herself instead, retrieving two steel chains and a short black rod from the room. The chains had five steel rings with specialized clasps—one large, four small—clearly designed for restraint. The black rod, about fifteen centimeters long and as thick as a man's wrist, had two parallel silver metal tips extending from one end.
Holding the rod with an icy stare, the nurse approached Hikari swiftly.
"I'm new here—" Hikari began.
Click!
The nurse flicked a switch, cutting her off.
Zzt!
A sharp crackle erupted as an electric arc sparked between the metal tips. The nurse aimed the buzzing rod at Hikari, deaf to her words.
"I think the test subject—" the nurse started.
Buzz!
The air trembled faintly.
Clank! Crash!
"Aaahhh!"
A piercing, agonized scream sliced through the air like a scalpel, shattering the calm of the honeycomb-like Experiment Department. Even the doctors, engrossed in their academic debate, were forced to divert their attention, frowning toward the source of the noise.
"What's going—" they began, but their words caught in their throats as they swallowed hard, fear unmistakable in their eyes.
Under the harsh fluorescent lights, a vivid red stole their focus.
"Ah!"
The nurse clutched her bleeding forearm, writhing on the floor in agony. Her pristine white uniform was stained crimson, her body twisting like a blood-soaked maggot.
Thud!
A black ninja boot kicked aside a severed, delicate hand, which rolled across the clean tiles, leaving a scarlet trail before stopping at the doctors' feet.
The nurse's screams continued.
The two doctors stared at the silver-haired girl, trembling as they backed away. More medical staff emerged from the rooms—white coats, green scrubs, all in similar attire, but none bore the familiar, malnourished figure Hikari sought.
Facing the growing crowd, Hikari flashed a bright smile, waving her mask. "Anyone know where Doctor Chihaya is?"
"Intruder!" someone shouted.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
A shrill alarm blared through the Experiment Department.
Hikari's smile faded, lightning crackling involuntarily through her muscles. She hated people who didn't listen. If I accidentally kill everyone here…
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Three figures in standard Root gear appeared in a puff of smoke. Recognizing them, the chakra core in Hikari's chest dimmed.
"Misunderstanding! Misunderstanding!" shouted Cho, rushing forward with hands raised to calm the dangerous aura radiating from Hikari.
The other two, bare-chested with bandaged abdomens, were Iwauma and Arashi—the pair Hikari had defeated at the meeting hall. Blood seeped from their freshly torn stitches, a result of their hurried arrival.
Sweating profusely, they followed Cho. They'd been brought to the Experiment Department for treatment after their injuries, never expecting to encounter a rare enemy attack. Only upon arriving did they realize the source of the killing intent was the same freak who'd sent them here.
The medical ninja in the Experiment Department were Danzo's treasures. If this fearless monster wiped them out, they'd have no way to explain it to him. Fortunately, nothing irreversible had happened yet—just a nurse's arm was maimed. No big deal.
As Cho stepped in to stop Hikari, the two quickly deactivated the alarm and turned to reassure the startled staff. "This is Hikari Tsuisui, Danzo-sama's new disciple! She's not an enemy or some damn test subject!"
Hearing their explanation, the doctors eyed Hikari skeptically. Spending years in the underground base, their information channels were limited; they'd never heard of her. Danzo-sama took a disciple? A young blind girl?
Curious gazes converged on Hikari, but survival instincts kept them from questioning aloud, though hushed whispers spread.
"Hikari-sama, why… why are you here?" Cho asked, his emotional intelligence kicking in. Noticing her agitation, his tone was far more respectful than before.
"Teacher told me to find Doctor Chihaya. I haven't met many normal people along the way," Hikari replied, stunned that the most normal people in the Root were the three who'd greeted her that morning. The ghostly gatekeepers at the meeting hall, the panda-eyed woman in Equipment, the cold insect man, and now these doctors who wanted to experiment on any kid they saw without listening—where were the normal people in the Root?
By comparison, Arashi seemed downright charming.
Thinking of how Danzo had sent the Root's most normal members to welcome her, Hikari felt a twinge of gratitude. You guys are the normal ones!
Cho shot a sidelong glance at this "normal" blind girl who'd lopped off an arm without hesitation. If he hadn't intervened, the Experiment Department would likely be a morgue by now. Her killing intent was practically made for the Root.
"Help—" The nurse on the floor lifted her head, clutching her bleeding wrist, lips trembling as she whispered for aid. Her mask and cap had fallen off in her pain, her pale face drained of color—whether from fear or blood loss, it was hard to tell.
The onlookers had noticed her plight but stayed back, too afraid to approach the girl who'd severed her arm. They pretended not to see her.
As she begged for help, the crowd stirred but no one dared step forward. Despair flashed in the nurse's eyes. Driven by survival instinct, she dragged herself toward the crowd, blood pooling from her wrist and smearing across the floor and her clothes, a pitiful sight.
"Move aside!" a lazy, half-asleep voice called from the back.
"Chihaya-sama is here!"
The crowd blocking the corridor parted instantly, clearing a path.
Still in his pristine white coat, Chihaya To emerged, rubbing his hair, his sunken cheeks set in a wry expression. "Finished your work, have you? Why're you all crowding here? Someone, get the injured to the operating room."
At his command, a few burly men stepped forward, pushing a medical cart. They lifted the bloodied nurse onto it, picked up her cold, severed hand, and wheeled her toward the operating room. The rest of the crowd scattered like startled birds.
Aside from the bloodstains on the floor, the department returned to its cold, quiet state.
Seeing Chihaya arrive, Arashi and Iwauma nodded to him, then to Hikari, before clutching their bleeding bandages and retreating to their ward. Their wounds had reopened.
"Ugh, you're a real troublemaker," Chihaya said, frowning at the problem child before him.
When Danzo assigned Hikari to him, he'd braced for chaos, but he hadn't expected her to teach him a lesson on her first day.
"No choice," Hikari said, spreading her hands helplessly.
Her young age and harmless appearance had been an advantage when she was weaker, but now they brought trouble just as often.
"What did Teacher send me to you for?" she asked.
"You want to learn medical ninjutsu, don't you? Who else would you come to? Let's walk and talk," Chihaya replied. Since revealing his Root affiliation, he'd dropped his polished Konoha Hospital facade, showing his laid-back side.
Leading Hikari toward the operating room, he slipped on a pair of gloves. "Your weekly medical ninja training at the hospital is canceled. Instead, you'll come to Base No. 2's Experiment Department to assist me. I'll teach you medical ninjutsu and… other things."
"Human experiments?" Hikari added, finishing his unspoken thought as she surveyed the underground honeycomb.
"You know?" Chihaya's eyes flashed with surprise—not just at her knowledge, but at her eerie calm when mentioning human experiments. Most in Konoha viewed them as taboo; even a young Orochimaru had been wary when joining the Root.
"I ran into two shadow-controlling ninja with Sharingan at the third-floor meeting hall," Hikari said. Expecting the Root's dark dealings and aiming for Hashirama cells, she wasn't fazed.
"Oh, you mean the Nara twins," Chihaya said.
"What're their names?"
"No idea," he said, shaking his head. "Root members use codenames in the base and numbers in the lab. Their real names are usually only known to themselves."
"Then what's with you and Aburame Ryoma?"
Chihaya gave a mysterious smile, then sighed. "Back when we joined, the Root wasn't so strict with rules. And… never mind."
"I hate people who don't listen, and I really hate riddle-talkers who only say half a story," Hikari said, clenching her fists, tempted to give Chihaya a whack.
"No choice. Some people wouldn't be happy if I said more," he replied, mimicking her hand-spreading gesture as he headed for the operating room.
Whoosh!
The door slid open.
Inside, the sweating nurse lay topless on the operating table, a white cloth over her chest, her right arm limp with a clean-cut stump exposing white bone. Nearby, a cart held sterilized hemostats, scalpels, and her bloodied severed hand.
No one else was present.
Seeing Chihaya enter, the nurse's eyes lit up with relief.
"Hikari, can you suture wounds?" Chihaya asked.
"I only know how to cut," she replied.
He glanced at the nurse's neatly severed arm. "You do cut cleanly."
"Why suture? Can't you just heal it with vitality?" Hikari asked, voicing a long-standing question.
"Vitality isn't renewable. Using it shortens the patient's lifespan, and it's unstable," Chihaya explained, handing her a pair of gloves. "Medical ninjutsu requires manual control. Humans aren't machines—they tire, lose focus. It's far less reliable than the body's natural healing. Since you can't suture, I'll assist."
"And the lead surgeon?"
"You can cut, can't you? You do it."
The nurse's eyes widened, her relief morphing into overflowing terror.
"It's my first surgery," Hikari admitted, hesitating. Unable to save even a fish, she wasn't confident about reattaching an arm.
"No problem. I'll guide you. First time's rough, second time's easier. Practice makes perfect," Chihaya said, patting her shoulder encouragingly.
The nurse was on the verge of tears but lacked the courage to refuse the silver-haired demon or interrupt the seemingly kind Chihaya.
"Fine," Hikari said, slipping on the gloves with a reluctant nod.
Practicing on a live human was a rare opportunity only the Root could offer. At Konoha Hospital, she'd be stuck in training for years without touching a scalpel.
"Step one: anesthesia," Chihaya said, inserting a needle into a vial and drawing half a syringe of anesthetic. Sssst. He expelled air to check for bubbles, then approached the nurse.
Her lips trembled. A blind girl performing her first surgery to reattach her arm? After this shot, she wasn't sure she'd wake up. Suddenly, she wasn't so attached to her hand.
"I've heard anesthesia can hinder wound healing," Hikari said.
"It does, but she's so scared of you, we'd better use it," Chihaya replied.
As the needle pierced the nurse's neck and Hikari approached with a scalpel, the nurse's hazy eyes filled with despair. Her body grew numb, the cold scalpel slicing her arm inch by inch.
"Open the wound—find the neurons and activate them with vitality—"
Her mind grew heavier, Chihaya's instructions fading into a blur.
Boom!
Her world sank into endless darkness.