As he reviewed several documents in his hands, reading reports on borders and supply requests, Hiruzen recalled what he had heard from Minato a few hours earlier.
To avoid getting too bored in his office, Hiruzen would occasionally stroll through the village and use that time to talk to certain ninjas he believed to be promising.
Among them was Minato, whom he met at the market during his walk and chatted with the boy.
Hiruzen would have forgotten about the boy if he hadn't found him at that moment, but he took the opportunity to chat with the boy and ask how things were going at the Senju compound.
Things were not as I expected.
He had heard from Jiraiya that his student was attracted to Kushina and hoped that something might come of it and keep the Uchiha boy away from the next Jinchuriki of the Kyubi.
But things didn't go as I expected.
Without noticing the frown on Hiruzen's face, Minato recounted how he hadn't been able to defeat Natsuo until now, which was very different from what was happening at the academy.
Hiruzen said nothing at that moment and continued chatting with Minato for a few more minutes before leaving and returning to his office.
And by reading the reports in his hands, he knew what he could do to keep the child occupied.
Hiruzen did not find the child dangerous or he would have had Danzo deal with him, so he simply chose a more subtle plan.
After signing some papers, Hiruzen called his secretary to send the signed documents to the relevant departments.
.
.
.
"I'm sorry to have you here at the hospital so late during your vacation, but we need as many hands as possible to run the hospital," Tsunade said as she gave a final check on a patient's medical report before moving on to the next one.
"No problem, teacher"
"I know how busy everyone here has been since several of the medical ninjas headed to the borders," Natsuo said as he healed a civilian's open wound and cleaned the blood in the area after closing the wound.
For the past few days, several medical ninjas have been sent to the borders by order of the Hokage to support the Leaf ninjas.
And since there weren't many medical ninjas left in the village, the hospital has been very chaotic.
Natsuo had heard that they were accelerating medical courses to bring more medical ninjas to the hospital.
Even the different clans in the village were doing the same thing.
Due to the lack of personnel, Natsuo was also called in to help and he agreed.
Since he was receiving a payment, Natsuo had no complaints on that matter.
The only thing he could complain about was that he had less time to do his experiments.
But since he could still train his body in the mornings and heal his body after using the inner gates before going to sleep, Natsuo's strength was not lagging behind.
Furthermore, his shadow clones continued practicing fuinjutsu and elemental chakra transformation.
Now he could open the second door with only a little difficulty and was practicing the elemental wind transformation.
As he headed towards another patient, Natsuo wondered what had changed in the world.
From what he heard, a reform was underway to train more medics, and the idea of having a medical ninja on every team was becoming popular.
Very different from what Natsuo expected, since Tsunade's future proposal during the second world war would be rejected and now it seemed that would change years earlier.
What Natsuo didn't know was that Hiruzen only did this now because a war hadn't started and they had the resources to spend on a broader medical program.
Since Natsuo was a child who hadn't even graduated yet, Hiruzen couldn't send him to the borders, but he was content keeping him occupied and out of the Senju compound. Especially now that he was on vacation.
In that way, he hoped Minato would spend more time with Kushina.
"Thank you," said an adult man, watching an elderly woman stand up.
Feeling no pain in her waist, the old woman smiled and told her son.
The old woman had fallen and her son quickly carried her in his arms since the woman could not move without feeling pain.
Natsuo examined her and she healed quickly, to the man's relief, and he thanked her for helping his mother.
"I'm happy to help"
"Take care," Natsuo said as a nurse guided them to pay the fees.
Unlike a ninja who didn't need to pay for injuries sustained on missions or received discounts when injured in other situations, civilians had to pay for all medical treatment.
Of course, since most of the time only chakra was needed, the fees were low.
As he approached a man with a cut on his hands, Natsuo sighed because tonight seemed to be a busy one.
.
.
.
Since he spent a lot of time at the hospital, Natsuo decided to keep busy during his mornings.
Since he only went to the hospital in the afternoons and evenings, he could spend his mornings training or experimenting with mice.
That way, he stopped going to the Senju compound regularly, and Kushina was upset about it.
Shrugging his shoulders, Natsuo continued with his training and experiments.
The fact that several medical ninjas were being sent to the borders alarmed him, and he didn't want to waste any more time.
And shortly afterwards, he found no signs of negative side effects after accelerating the growth of the mice.
With a sigh, Natsuo created a shadow clone before kneeling on the ground.
Creating Yang chakra and heading to his pituitary gland, Natsuo focused on the image in his mind.
Like a 3D image, his brain appeared before him and followed the path his chakra traveled.
His shadow clone was also on alert to absorb chakra if it noticed anything wrong, and Natsuo was ready.
Sigh*
Sighing, Natsuo relied on his fine chakra control to gently stimulate his pituitary gland and stopped shortly after.
The next moment, I stimulate the cells of his bones, tendons, muscles, and other parts of his body to force them to multiply.
In the same way that he experimented with mice, Natsuo performed the same procedure on him.
Seconds and minutes passed, and Natsuo didn't notice anything wrong with him.
Getting up, Natsuo headed into the forest to run and test his skills, and let out a sigh of relief when he didn't find anything wrong.
Sighing with relief, Natsuo thought about his next plans.
If your current plan works, it could accelerate your growth and increase the intensity of your physical training.
In addition to his weight training, which increased his weight further thanks to seals, Natsuo also opened the second inner door.
If everything goes as planned, he will be able to open the third door soon, and even the fourth door this year.
In addition to that, Natsuo also thought of other enhancers.
The Breath of the Seven Heavens and Senjutsu.
The breathing of the 7 heavens consists of collecting large amounts of oxygen to increase lung capacity.
As your body will be continuously getting stronger in the future, practicing the 7 heavens breathing will not be a great burden on your body.
Another way to increase their battle power was to learn Senjutsu.
Anyone who could use natural energy was undoubtedly a powerhouse, so learning Senjutsu was vital to Natsuo's plans.
The only problem was that the known method for learning Senjutsu was through summoning animals, and for that it was necessary to sign a contract with one of them.
As far as Natsuo knew, toads and snakes could teach Senjutsu to humans, and it was suspected that Hashirama Senju learned Senjutsu from slugs.
Of course, it was also possible that Hashirama could learn it on his own thanks to wood release or his sage body, so Natsuo had to ask Tsunade if it was possible to learn Senjutsu through slugs.
While thinking of an idea to ask Tsunade and give an excuse for his knowledge of natural energy, Natsuo will try to learn Senjutsu on his own.
Since he didn't want to be turned to stone, all he'll do for now is try to feel the natural energy.
In that way, he added 2 more things to his training routine.
In this way, he carried out his physical training in the mornings and went to the hospital in the afternoons while leaving 5 shadow clones in his room practicing fuinjutsu and transformation of the nature of chakra into the wind element.
And besides those 5 shadow clones, there was a sixth shadow clone meditating in the forest.
This last shadow clone's sole task was to try to sense natural energy.
Of course, this task was not easy, and Natsuo expected it would take years without results. After all, if it were easy, there would be many more Senjutsu users.