"Chen! Chen! What's wrong with you?!"
Fei Liu didn't care about her soaked clothes and stumbled over to Chi Chen, desperately shaking his shoulders with her small hands. But Chi Chen's eyes were tightly closed, his breathing was weak, and his whole body seemed to have been drained of strength. He fell limply onto the gravel beside the stream.
"Wake up! Don't scare me!" Fei Liu's voice was filled with tears, and tears mixed with water droplets rolled down his face. He didn't understand what had just happened, why Chi Chen's eyes looked like that, why those Sand Ninja turned to dust in an instant. He only knew that the only person he could rely on was also fallen.
"There's movement over there!"
In the distance came the shouts of the Iwagakure ninja, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps. Fei Liu looked up suddenly and saw several ninjas wearing Iwagakure forehead protectors rushing towards him. Leading them was a stern-faced jonin with eyes as sharp as a knife.
"Kid, what happened?" The senior ninja squatted down, his eyes swept between Chichen and Feiliu, and finally fell on the strange blue crystal sand around them.
"The Sand Ninja attacked us!" Fei Liu stammered, clutching the corner of Chi Chen's clothes tightly, fearing that they would be left behind. "Chen suddenly...suddenly fell down!"
The jonin frowned, reaching out to feel Chichen's pulse and sighed in relief.
"Chakra overdrawn?" He muttered to himself, then suddenly looked up and ordered his subordinates behind him: "Take them back to the village immediately! Notify the Tsuchikage-sama, this is an emergency!"
Fei Liu was picked up by a Chunin, while Chi Chen was carried by a Jonin himself. The unconscious boy's body was incredibly light, as if it would dissipate in the wind at any moment.
"Hold on, brat," the jonin whispered.
·········
Chi Chen was lying on the hospital bed by the window, his long silver-gray hair scattered on the white pillowcase, making his face look even paler.
The morning light filtered through the gauze curtains onto his face, his eyelashes casting a shadow under his eyes. His chest rose and fell slowly with his weak breaths. The medical team had just finished a round of examinations and retreated to the corner of the ward, talking in low voices.
"His chakra is severely overdrawn, but the remaining energy in his body is... very unstable." The female medical ninja wearing round-framed glasses flipped through the test report, her brow furrowed. "The chakra flowing in his meridian system isn't ordinary chakra, it's more like... some kind of earth resonance."
"Inject nutrient solution intravenously, and add two drops of salamander extract to stabilize the chakra." The older medical squad leader instructed in a low voice, "This child's condition is special. Do not use conventional methods."
·············
The door of the ward was suddenly pushed open, hitting the wall with a dull thud.
"dust--!!"
A fiery red figure rushed in like the wind. Fei Liu had red hair as bright as the burning sunset, with the ends of her hair slightly curled up, sheening like silk in the morning light.
His skin was so white that it was almost transparent, his facial features were as delicate as a doll's, and his amber cat eyes were filled with anxiety.
He rushed to the bedside and reached out to grab Chi Chen's wrist—
"Stop!" The Chunin guarding the ward grabbed his shoulders and said, "Hiru, don't touch him!"
"Let go!" Fei Liu turned around suddenly, his red hair rising like flames, his amber pupils narrowed into a thin line, "What happened to him?! Why are there so many people here?!"
············
Tsuchikage Office: Early Morning
Ohnoki hovered half a foot above the ground, his aged fingers clutching a border report, his brow furrowed. The tea on the table had already grown cold, its steam long gone. He had just finished reviewing a stack of documents regarding border harassment in Sunagakure and was about to take a break.
The office door was suddenly flung open.
"Lord Tsuchikage!!"
Huang Tu's loud voice shook the documents on the table slightly. A vein suddenly popped on Ohnoki's forehead, and the pen in his hand poked a hole in the scroll with a "click".
"On the mountain!!!" Ohnoki turned around abruptly, his height rising a few degrees due to his anger. "How many times have I told you! Knock before entering!"
Shan was panting heavily, the forehead protector on his forehead slightly tilted, obviously he had been running all the way here. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, but his voice still had a rare urgency: "Lord Tsuchikage, let's not talk about this for now, there is something important."
"The Border Patrol just brought back two kids, one of whom was acting strangely..."
Ohnoki's eyebrows raised high: "What's strange?"
Shan Shang swallowed and said word by word, "The performance is somewhat similar to Dust Release."
It is said to be similar because Dust Release requires learning, but this is the first time I have seen someone release it so unconsciously.
The air froze instantly.
Ohnoki slowly descended from mid-air. The moment his feet touched the ground, the temperature in the entire office seemed to drop a few degrees. The wrinkles on his old face deepened, but his eyes were terrifyingly sharp.
"Speak clearly." His voice was low and slow, with unquestionable majesty.
Yamagami immediately handed over a combat log stained with dirt and blood. "This morning in the valley outside the village, a patrol discovered the... 'remains' of twelve elite Sunagakure ninjas." His tone was a little strained. "They weren't killed by ordinary ninjutsu, but... they vanished in an instant, leaving no bodies behind."
Ohnoki took the report and scanned the description: "What are the on-site test results?"
"High-purity Dust Release attribute chakra residue." Yamagami whispered, "And the perpetrator..." He paused, his voice almost squeezed out through his teeth, "is a four-year-old orphan."
Ohnoki's beard curled up slightly.
He silently floated to the window, with his back to the loess, overlooking the Iwagakure Village in the morning light.
Ohnoki's fingertips tapped the window frame unconsciously. After a while, he suddenly said, "Check his information in detail."
Yamagami was stunned. "We've checked. His parents were both ordinary Chunin. They died in a border conflict three years ago. There's no record of any special bloodline in the family history. His best playmate was called..."
"Check again." Ohnoki turned around, and a thin layer of frost suddenly formed on the surface of the teacup on the table. "From today on, this child is placed on the A-level guardianship list."
···············
Chi Chen slowly opened his eyes, his silver-gray pupils shrinking in the light. The hazy white ceiling in his vision gradually became clearer, and the smell of disinfectant irritated his nostrils. He tried to move his fingers, but found his whole body felt heavy as if it were filled with lead.
"dust!!"
A familiar voice pierced the ringing in his ears. Chi Chen twisted his head with difficulty and saw through the glass window Fei Liu's face, almost on the verge of tears. The red-haired boy was banging on the window desperately, being dragged back by two chunin by the arms, like a cat with its fur standing on end.
"Fei...Liu..." Chi Chen's lips were cracked and his voice was so weak that it was almost inaudible.
The medical squad leader leaned over and blocked his sight gently but irresistibly: "Child, don't speak so hastily. Your chakra meridians are very fragile right now."
Chi Chen's brow furrowed as fragments of memory flashed through his mind—the hideous face of the Sand Ninja, the screams of Fei Liu as she was entangled in the puppet strings, the sudden burst of scorching energy within his own body...
"Those...Sunagakure..." He squeezed out a few words with difficulty.
"It's all resolved." The medical squad leader patted the back of his hand. "You protected your friend. You were very brave."