They arrived at the front line the following day.
Yuji felt the difference the moment they crossed into the combat zone. This was not an outpost or a border patrol position, it was a garrison, active and inhabited, built into the landscape with the permanence of something that had been there for years and expected to remain.
Tents covered the desert floor and spread into the areas behind the mountains. The distant peaks had Sunagakure footholds cut into them. Shinobi moved through the camp in steady streams, coming and going with the purposeful rhythm of a force that had long since stopped treating this as temporary.
A welcoming party met them at the edge of the zone and walked them in, directing most of the explanation toward Yuji. Among their group, he was the only one genuinely new to a front-line posting.
Nearly two thousand shinobi in the daily garrison alone, excluding the scattered outpost personnel. Logistics, Medical, Intelligence, Puppeteers, Military Affairs, Analysis, Reconnaissance, every operational function represented and staffed.
For Sunagakure's current reserves, the scale was considerable.
It felt nothing like the missions he had done before. The border near Amegakure had carried nothing close to this weight of presence.
That difference said something clear about how Sunagakure ranked its threats, Iwagakure on one side of the scale, Amegakure on the other, and no ambiguity about which end concerned them more.
Further north lay the Land of Birds. Iwagakure treated it the way Konoha treated the Land of Grass, a buffer, a forward position, but Sunagakure lacked the reach to push conflict into that territory and keep it there.
Without that ability, any exchange with Iwagakure would eventually come back to the Land of Wind itself, which gave Iwagakure room to operate without risking its own ground.
As they moved deeper into the garrison, voices called out from among the shinobi nearby.
"Yuji? That's Yuji."
"You actually came out here, kid."
He recognized some of them. Others he didn't, but they clearly knew him, people he had treated at the hospital, shinobi who were still walking around because of work he had done at a bed somewhere in Sunagakure.
He returned each greeting with a nod, unhurried, genuinely warm.
Sasori glanced at him sideways.
He hadn't expected this.
Shimizu was a lean, dark-skinned man, and he came to meet them himself. The unit leader stepped forward immediately, reporting and making introductions. Shimizu listened, then looked at their group with an expression that briefly registered disappointment before settling back into neutrality. He didn't comment on the numbers.
His gaze moved to Yuji and stayed there. He had been on this front for years and had only heard things about the village's rising talent secondhand; this was their first meeting. Sasori, he already knew.
Two Puppeteers tended to know of each other regardless of circumstance, and Sasori's ability was not something that stayed quiet for long.
"Get me a few captains and Squad Leaders," he said to the unit leader, still looking at the document that had been handed to him.
The leader left.
Shimizu read through it.
"Yuji."
"Here."
"Medical Ninja?"
"Yes."
Shimizu started to say something and stopped. His eyes had reached the mission data.
A-rank and B-rank missions, at this volume, at this age. A-rank missions were Jonin-level assignments by definition. The number in front of him could not be described as outstanding, it had passed that point entirely. He looked at it for a moment longer.
Medical Ninja operated differently from combat Ninja. Long-term battlefield postings, support roles, and extended deployments, the nature of the work kept mission counts low. This record did not belong to that pattern.
"What kind of missions?" he asked.
"Intelligence work, mostly. Independent squad assault operations." Yuji smiled.
"..."
Shimizu's expression shifted slightly as he closed the document.
From a purely functional standpoint, Yuji belonged in the Medical Corps, that was straightforward. But a Medical Ninja with a mission record like this sitting in logistical support was a waste of ability that was difficult to justify cleanly.
"Who was your mentor?"
"Arai-sensei. Most of these missions, Sasori and I completed together."
"Not bad," Shimizu said, which was the most neutral thing he could find.
He turned it over privately. The volume of missions made more sense if Yuji had leaned heavily on Arai and Sasori, he was a Medical Ninja after all, and while his Chunin promotion had come early, Medical Ninja assessments weighed clinical skill over combat output.
He had also heard something about a Kekkei Genkai. Perhaps the missions had served as a way to develop that side of his ability. Shimizu had been on this front for long enough that village news rarely reached him in any detail, and he had too many daily matters to chase it down himself.
He was not aware that Yuji's Chunin examination had been personally overseen by the Third Kazekage.
"Shimizu."
Several captains and Squad Leaders were approaching from across the camp, the one at the front calling ahead as they came.
Shimizu set aside the thought. "Roster's here," he said to them as they drew near. "Come take a look, pick who you want."
Before anyone had properly looked at Yuji, a figure broke from the group at speed, crossed the distance between them, and wrapped both arms around him without slowing down.
Yuji went still.
He had no idea who this woman was.
"You're even cuter in person," she said, holding him with the complete ease of someone who had already decided this was entirely acceptable.
"Hands off, all of you, he's a Medical Ninja, which means he's coming to the Medical Corps. That's final." She turned on the other captains and Squad Leaders with her arms still around Yuji, her expression making clear that the matter was settled.
"Saori," said a captain with a heavy stubble, sighing with the resignation of someone who had been through this before. "You're going to frighten him."
"I don't care. He's mine. None of you are taking him."
The Medical Corps and a Medical Squad were not the same structure. The Corps was the central body, the main hospital, effectively. Medical Squads were the branch units, one embedded in each team across the force, smaller in number and far more exposed. The distinction was not trivial.
Several people in the queue exchanged glances. The boy had been claimed before he'd had a chance to say a word. That was either connections or reputation, and with Yuji it was apparently both.
"Think about it properly," Saori continued, turning back to the other officers with the air of someone delivering a lecture they had already decided to ignore at their peril. "In the Corps, his skills reach the entire army. In one of your squads, he leaves the garrison on missions. That is not happening.
And before anyone suggests his age is a reason to underestimate what he can do.." her eyes moved across the group "...I would encourage you to consider how well my memory works when it comes to which of your people come through my ward."
The silence that followed was complete.
"She has a point," someone said eventually, with considerable reluctance.
Saori ignored this entirely and turned back to Yuji, pressing her cheek against his with visible satisfaction. "Big Sister has been waiting since she heard you were coming."
Yuji, who considered himself reasonably adaptable in most social situations, had run out of responses. He raised one hand toward Shimizu with the expression of a person appealing to a higher authority.
"Can I choose for myself where I'm assigned?"
...
Next Bonus Chapter @200 PS
Support me on p@reon and read upto 20 chapters ahead @keepsmiling 818 P@reon