The nurse in white was young, maybe in her twenties. She pushed a three-tier cart stacked with bandages, hemostats, and other medical tools.
When she spotted the girl standing at the entrance, looking "lost," she immediately set her work aside. Her pretty, wide eyes swept up and down over Konome, the way someone might appraise a fresh cut of pork.
"Blind. Body looks healthy. This test subject isn't bad. Shouldn't die that easily."
"Still too old."
A doctor in green surgical scrubs stepped out with her. He peeled off bloodstained gloves, glanced at Konome, and shook his head in disappointment.
"The best window to induce the chakra core is between one and three years old. This one is at least six or seven. The results won't be ideal."
"Under three is too fragile," the nurse argued. "How many died during transplantation back then? This age is fine. The core's starting to sprout, and the body can handle it."
A taller doctor disagreed. He set a small booklet on the cart and joined the debate.
The two of them discussed her as if she wasn't even there, pointing at Konome now and then, tossing out jargon she couldn't make sense of.
Konome lowered her head and looked at the mask and uniform in her hands.
Only then did she realize what these things were really for.
They can't see?
She lifted the owl-like mask and waved it toward the doctors.
"I'm looking for Doctor Chihaya…"
"I still insist we use recipients under three," one doctor said, utterly ignoring her. "Preferably newborns. We've had a successful case before. If we keep replicating it, we'll eventually find the method."
"Even if you replicate it," the other snapped, "you won't reproduce that unique life force. A defective copy is still defective, no matter how many you make."
Their argument only got louder.
Once they were in the zone, neither of them even acknowledged Konome. Even the nurse who had noticed her first couldn't get a word in. She returned to the room, acting brisk, and came back with two iron chains and a short black baton.
The chains were steel, fitted with five steel rings, each with a clasp. One large, four small. Anyone could tell how they were used at a glance.
As for the black baton, it was about fifteen centimeters long and as thick as an adult man's wrist. Two parallel silver metal tips protruded from its end.
The nurse gripped the baton, her eyes going cold as she strode toward Konome.
"I'm new…"
Click.
A switch slid up, cutting her off.
Bzzt.
Electric arcs crackled between the twin metal tips. The nurse aimed the sparking baton at Konome's body, deaf to her words.
"I think the subject…"
A faint tremor pulsed through the air.
Rattle.
Clang.
"Ahhhhh!"
A shriek, sharp and piercing, stabbed into everyone's eardrums like a scalpel. The calm hive erupted into chaos.
Even the two doctors, deep in their academic argument, were forced to look over, frowning toward the sound.
"What's going on…"
The rest of the sentence died in their throats.
They swallowed hard. Terror spilled into their eyes.
Under the glaring fluorescent lights, something even more glaring seized their vision.
Red.
"Ah!"
The nurse clutched her forearm, blood pouring between her fingers. She writhed on the floor, trembling. Her white uniform stained crimson, and she looked like a maggot dyed in blood.
Thud.
A black shinobi boot lifted and kicked a delicate, severed hand away.
The hand flipped and rolled across the clean tiles, stopping in front of the two doctors, leaving a bright red smear behind it.
"Ahhh…!"
The nurse kept screaming.
The two doctors backed away, shaking. More medical staff poured out of the rooms.
White. Green.
All dressed similarly.
But none of them were the familiar, malnourished figure Konome was looking for.
As the crowd thickened, Konome bared her teeth in a bright smile and waved the owl mask in her hand.
"Does anyone know where Doctor Chihaya is?"
"There's an intruder!"
Someone roared.
Beep beep beep.
A shrill alarm immediately blared through the Experimental Division.
Konome's smile slowly faded. Lightning slithered through her muscles on instinct.
She hated people who refused to listen.
If she slipped up and killed everyone here…
Three figures in standard Root attire appeared in front of her in a burst of smoke. The chakra core in Konome's chest dimmed slightly.
"A misunderstanding. It's a misunderstanding!"
"Konome-sama, please don't move."
Die came sprinting in, hands raised, soothing the murderous aura leaking from Konome.
The other two were bare-chested and powerfully built, their lower abdomens wrapped in bandages. They'd come running in their panic and torn open freshly stitched wounds. Fresh blood seeped through the cloth.
Iwa Kuma and Arashi.
The two she had taken down instantly in front of the conference chamber.
Both were drenched in sweat, trailing behind Die.
They'd been badly injured and brought here for treatment. They never expected a "once in eight hundred years" attack to happen the moment they arrived.
And when they rushed out, they discovered the killing intent filling the hallway belonged to the very monster who'd put them on those bandages.
The medical-nin in the Experimental Division were Danzo-sama's treasures. If that fearless lunatic slaughtered them, they would have no way to answer for it.
Thankfully, nothing had escalated. One nurse was maimed. That was still manageable.
With Die blocking Konome, the other two moved quickly to shut down the alarm, then turned back to calm the shaken doctors and nurses.
"This is Konome of Chasing Sun, Danzo-sama's newly accepted disciple. Not an enemy. And definitely not some damned test subject!"
Only then did the doctors stare at Konome with suspicion instead of panic.
These people lived underground. Their information channels were narrow to the point of absurdity. None of them had even heard her name.
Danzo-sama took a disciple?
And she was a blind girl, still young?
Curious gazes gathered toward Konome, but the instinct to survive was stronger than curiosity. No one dared to challenge the claim openly, only whispering among themselves.
"Konome-sama, why… why are you here?" Die asked. His tone was noticeably more respectful than before, reading the room with the emotional intelligence that kept him alive.
"My teacher told me to find Doctor Chihaya. And on the way, I didn't run into many normal people."
Konome genuinely hadn't expected the most "normal" people in Root to be the trio who met her this morning.
The ghost-like gatekeepers with implanted Sharingan. The armory's panda-eyed woman. The cold, shadow-hugging insect man. And this group of doctors who saw a child and immediately wanted to experiment, refusing to listen to a single word.
Where, exactly, was the normal in Root?
Compared to them, even Arashi was starting to look presentable.
Thinking of how Danzo had sent the "most normal" Root members to greet her, Konome almost felt… touched.
At least you look like a human being.
Die shot her a covert glare.
Normal? This blind girl chopped an arm off the moment someone annoyed her.
If he hadn't shown up, the Experimental Division would already be a morgue. She didn't need training. That killing aura was Root-born.
"Help…"
The nurse on the floor lifted her head. With trembling lips, she clutched her bleeding wrist and begged.
Her mask and cap had fallen off in her agony. Her delicate face was pale as paper. No one could tell if it was fear or blood loss.
The staff had noticed her condition long ago, but she lay behind Konome. No one dared to cross that line to help her, afraid they'd lose limbs too. They pretended not to see.
Now that she pleaded out loud, a stir rippled through the crowd.
Still, no one stepped forward.
Despair flashed in the nurse's eyes. Driven by sheer survival instinct, she gritted her teeth and began crawling toward the crowd. Blood streamed down her arm to the floor, smeared by her body across tiles and uniform. It was pitiful, ugly, and desperate.
"Move."
A lazy voice, like someone being dragged out of a nap, came from behind the crowd.
"Chihaya-sama is here."
The people blocking the passage immediately parted, clearing a clean corridor.
Still in that spotless white coat, Chihaya Tōru rubbed his hair as he emerged. His cheeks were hollow, his lips dry, his expression pure exhaustion and irritation.
"You all done with your work? Why are you clogging the hallway? A few of you, take the injured to the operating room."
At his scolding, several strong men stepped forward with a gurney. They lifted the blood-soaked nurse onto it, then picked up the severed hand, already gone cold, and pushed her deeper into the operating room.
The rest scattered like startled birds.
In an instant, the hive returned to its usual sterile quiet, leaving only bloodstains on the floor.
With the true authority now present, Arashi and the others nodded to Chihaya Tōru, then signaled to Konome as well before retreating, hands pressed to their bandages.
Their wounds had just been wrapped. Now they were bleeding again.
"Honestly. You're trouble," Chihaya Tōru said, glaring at the walking disaster in front of him.
When Danzo handed Konome to him, he had already pictured the chaos to come.
He just hadn't expected the first day to be a lesson.
"No choice," Konome said with a helpless shrug.
She was too young. Her face looked harmless. Back when she was weaker, that appearance had been useful more times than she could count.
Now it brought its own kind of trouble.
"What does my teacher want me to do with you?"
"You wanted to learn medical ninjutsu, didn't you? If you're not looking for me, who else would you look for? Come on. Don't stand here. We'll talk while we walk."
Now that his Root identity was exposed, Chihaya Tōru didn't bother acting like a proper hospital doctor. In Konoha Hospital he played the part. Down here, he was openly lazy and casual.
He led Konome toward the operating room, pulling on gloves as he walked.
"From now on, your weekend medical training is cancelled. Instead, you'll come to the Experimental Division at Base Two and work as my assistant. While you're here, I'll teach you medical ninjutsu. And a few other things."
"Human experiments," Konome said calmly, supplying the part he hadn't said aloud.
"You know?" Chihaya Tōru glanced at her, genuinely surprised.
Not just because she knew.
But because she said it with a calm that didn't belong to a normal child.
To most people in Konoha, human experimentation was an unacceptable darkness. Even Orochimaru, when he was young and first joined Root, had still treated the taboo with caution.
"In the underground conference chamber hallway, I met two Shadow Possession users with Sharingan."
Konome had already expected Root to be like this. She'd come here for the Hashirama cells in the first place. Of course she wasn't shocked.
"Oh. You mean the Nara clan twins," Chihaya Tōru said, as if it were nothing.
"What are their names?"
"Don't know."
He shook his head.
"Root members use codenames inside the base and outside. In the lab, we use numbers. Their real names are usually known only to themselves."
"Then what's with you and Aburame Ryūma?"
Chihaya Tōru gave her a sly smile first, then his face sank into a quiet melancholy.
"When we joined, Root didn't have this many rules. And…"
He paused.
"Forget it. It's nothing."
"I hate people who don't listen," Konome said, fists tightening, "and I hate people who speak in half-sentences like they're trying to be mysterious."
She was already itching to punch him.
"Can't help it," Chihaya Tōru said, mimicking her shrug with both hands. "If someone hears it, they'll be unhappy."
He walked straight to the operating room door.
Slide.
The door opened.
Inside, the nurse lay bare-chested on the operating table, drenched in sweat. A white cloth covered her chest. Her right arm lay limp, the stump cut cleanly enough that the flat white plane of bone was visible.
On the tool cart sat sterilized hemostats, surgical blades, and other instruments.
And one blood-soaked severed hand.
No one else was in the room.
When the nurse saw Chihaya Tōru, her eyes lit with desperate relief.
"Konome, can you suture?"
"I can only cut."
Chihaya Tōru glanced at the stump.
"You did cut it clean. I'll give you that."
"Why do you even need sutures with medical ninjutsu?" Konome asked, voicing the doubt she'd carried for a long time. "Why not just heal it with life force?"
"Life force doesn't regenerate. Using it directly shortens the patient's lifespan. More importantly, it's unstable."
"Unstable?"
"Yes."
Chihaya Tōru handed Konome a pair of medical gloves.
"When medical ninjutsu treats a wound, the healer has to manually control the process. People aren't machines. We get tired. Our attention slips. The body's natural repair is far steadier.
If you can't suture, I'll assist."
"Then who's the lead surgeon?"
"You said you can cut, didn't you? You do it."
The nurse on the table instantly widened her eyes. Relief curdled into terror so fast it nearly overflowed.
"This is my first surgery," Konome admitted, a little uncertain.
She couldn't even save a fish.
And now she was expected to reattach a severed arm.
Chihaya Tōru patted her shoulder like he was encouraging a student.
"It's fine. I can guide you. First time is rough, second time gets easier. Practice makes it familiar."
The nurse looked like she was about to cry.
But she didn't have the courage to refuse the silver-haired witch. And she didn't dare interrupt the "kind" Chihaya Tōru either.
"Alright," Konome said finally, forcing herself to nod as she pulled on the gloves.
Using a live person as practice was something you'd only get in Root. If she stayed in Konoha Hospital and trained the normal way, she might not see a case like this for two years.
"Step one," Chihaya Tōru instructed, "anesthetic."
He drew a syringe, slid the needle into the vial, and pulled out half a tube.
Pss.
He expelled a few drops, checking for air bubbles, then walked to the nurse.
Her lips trembled.
A blind girl doing her first surgery was going to reattach her arm.
Once the anesthetic went in, would she ever wake up?
Suddenly, she wasn't sure she wanted that hand back anymore.
"I heard anesthesia affects healing," Konome said.
"It does," Chihaya Tōru replied, "but she's about to die of fear. Better numb her."
The needle pierced the nurse's neck.
As Konome approached with the scalpel, her covered eyes turned into a nightmare. The nurse's gaze went foggy with despair.
Her body began to go numb.
She could still feel it clearly, though.
The cold surgical blade.
Slicing, inch by inch, into the skin of her arm.
"Cut open the wound, locate the neurons, activate them with life force…"
Her mind sank heavier and heavier.
Until even Chihaya Tōru's guiding voice blurred into nothing.
Boom.
The world fell into endless darkness.
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