Following the guiding Konoha Ninja, Takuno silently walked toward the battlefield medical station.
The rusty scent of blood in the air grew thicker.
The clamor of the front line was gradually replaced by a different, hellish sound.
Suppressed groans, piercing screams, hurried commands, and the cold clinking of surgical instruments.
The moment he stepped into the medical station, it was as if he had instantly entered another battlefield.
There was no smoke of gunpowder, but it was a bloody Asura field similarly permeated with the aura of death. The narrow space was packed with injured soldiers, missing limbs, and pale faces.
Bright red blood stained nearly every corner of the tent, and the pungent smell was suffocating.
Takuno's gaze swept over the tragic scene, and the calm on his face was replaced by solemnity.
He did not hesitate in the slightest, nor did he have the mind for any unnecessary pleasantries.
He walked straight toward a frantic Medical Ninja and spoke quickly: "Please give me a set of sterile instruments and gloves. I am a Medical Ninja here to provide support."
The guiding Ninja watched Takuno efficiently complete the sterilization process, quickly put on blood-stained medical gloves, and then, like a true medical backbone, walk straight toward a Ninja whose abdomen was deeply pierced by a Kunai and who was struggling to breathe, taking over the treatment.
He was stunned.
His original intention was to take him to see the Medical Squad Leader, but given the extreme chaos before his eyes—
Where was the time to find someone for an introduction? However, something even more astonishing happened.
Takuno's incredibly steady hands displayed extraordinary skill, surpassing that of ordinary Medical Ninja.
Facing complex injuries and critically wounded patients with exposed organs that others were helpless against, his highly condensed Chakra transformed into the most precise "needle and thread" and the most delicate "forceps."
Every time the blue Chakra aura lit up, the effectiveness of stopping blood loss and repairing wounds was visible to the naked eye!
Several severely wounded individuals, deemed extremely difficult to treat by multiple Medical Ninja, were miraculously stabilized under his care!
"Master! A true medical master!" The guiding Ninja was profoundly shaken.
The person brought by Jiraiya was definitely not some spoiled relative who got in through the back door!
In fact, Takuno's reserve of medical knowledge was not top-tier.
However, his unparalleled Chakra control compensated for the huge gap.
Fine-tuned operations that ordinary people could never achieve were as natural as breathing to him.
Chakra was no longer crude energy, but tamed silk threads, precisely stitching up the fissures of life.
The sky was gradually dyed deep gray by gunpowder smoke and twilight.
Jiraiya, having finished the military strategy meeting, finally remembered Takuno, whom he had temporarily forgotten.
He quietly walked toward the medical area, which was filled with pain yet flowed with the hope of life, and stopped in a corner.
His gaze focused on Takuno.
He saw that Takuno's movements were swift yet steady, and a faint blue aura of healing Chakra emanated from him.
Seriously wounded individuals were effectively stabilized under his hands, and complex injuries that would make ordinary Medical Ninja hesitate were resolved one by one by those unbelievably steady hands.
His efficiency was so high that even the busy Medical Squad Leader couldn't help but take several extra glances, his eyes showing admiration.
Watching all this, Jiraiya's eyes glazed over for a moment. The figure of this young man focused on healing quietly overlapped with the Medical Master in his memory—
Tsunade.
A name silently crossed his mind, then dissolved into a soundless sigh and self-mockery.
He quickly shook off this momentary daze. After all, this could only be an illusion.
That comrade, who had a profound fear of blood, could never appear in this bloody place.
No one understood Tsunade's bone-deep fear better than he did.
Even so, Takuno's "Tsunade-level" performance still left a deep impression on Jiraiya.
Although he knew that in terms of pure Medical Ninjutsu mastery, Takuno was still separated from Tsunade by a chasm, this terrifyingly precise Chakra control and highly efficient healing technique meant that, looking across the entire Medical Squad, perhaps only the experienced Squad Leader could compare to him.
"Perhaps he can play a bigger role here—" Jiraiya's gaze became profound and resolute.
A bold idea formed in his mind: appointing this young man as the Temporary Deputy Commander of the Medical Division!
His abilities warranted an important position to save more Konoha ninja struggling on the brink of death.
The battlefield never lacked a stage to display talent, and the medical station urgently needed a light like him.
Several months passed quietly amidst the intertwining of gunpowder smoke and pain.
Takuno walked along familiar paths, moving through the temporary camp constructed by Konoha behind the front lines.
"Hello, Takuno!"
"Takuno, are you getting busy again?"
"Min—"
Every few steps, enthusiastic greetings surged toward him like a tide, almost ceaselessly.
Takuno did not stop walking, a gentle yet slightly helpless smile hanging on his lips as he nodded frequently in response.
This honor did not stem from the Jonin promotion ceremony that had crowned him a "hero."
Although the ceremony was brief and dazzling, it would eventually be covered by the dust of time.
The reason he was so remembered in the camp now was that virtually every living Ninja had benefited from his grace.
Those faces that had once lingered before Death's Door, their bodies torn by pain, had been personally restored to vitality by him.
The vast majority of people genuinely owed him their lives!
This gratitude, paid for with life, was the most sincere and profound.
After months of fierce fighting, the war between Konoha and Kumogakure had fallen into a suffocating stalemate, with both sides acting like two giant beasts locking horns, neither able to overcome the other.
Since arriving at the front line, Takuno had not stepped foot in Konoha, having long since taken root here.
As soon as the stalemate first appeared, he naturally took on the heavy responsibility of the Medical Corps.
He did not intentionally strive for authority; it was simply that the original experienced Medical Captain, after witnessing his Medical Ninjutsu and his tireless, life-burning "effort" day and night, willingly ceded the position to him.
Everyone knew that without Takuno's hands, which seemed capable of reversing life and death, the casualty list for Konoha Ninja would surely have been a terrifying double its current length.
Looking around the entire camp, only the high-level Ninja in the Command Center had yet to receive his treatment.
They were in the deep rear, strategizing, and naturally rarely put themselves in danger.
However, the powerful combat-type high-level Ninja who frequently appeared on the front lines of intense battles had almost without exception received his treatment, and through this opportunity, their relationships quietly grew closer.
Takuno's steps were steady, and a firm premonition clearly surfaced in his heart.
After this campaign, his popularity and reputation in Konoha would undergo a qualitative leap.
Perhaps it couldn't compare to the dazzling glory of the Fourth Hokage, Minato, but matching the legendary Konoha Sannin was not an extravagant hope.
The reason was simple: his hands alone had saved the lives of the most fundamental and numerous group in the Ninja Village, the ordinary Ninja.
This collective life-saving grace, imprinted in the hearts of countless survivors, was the capital most easily and eternally praised.
"Heh, this trajectory, why do I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to the upper echelons of Konoha's power?" Takuno murmured inwardly, a sense of absurdity accompanying his reflection.
When he first joined the Medical Division, he only wanted to quietly fulfill his duties and avoid being completely overlooked, which would lower his evaluation.
He never expected that the skill level of his colleagues in battlefield medical techniques was far more inadequate than he had anticipated.
In contrast, his healing techniques shone like a bright moon in the sky, dazzling to the point of being almost blinding.
Sometimes, he would even complain inwardly: "Is this what Lady Tsunade personally taught? The skill gap is far too wide."
Naturally, if Tsunade heard this thought, she would likely feel deeply helpless.
In the eyes of her, the Medical Master, the value of a single, peerless genius Medical Ninja, in the rapidly changing, meat-grinder battlefield where casualties surged like a tide, often could not outweigh a group of ordinary Medical Ninja who had mastered basic first-aid Ninjutsu.
Because the power of one person, no matter how heaven-defying, could only be a drop in the bucket against a tsunami of injured, leaving them helpless.
Tsunade's strategic thinking had always been "emphasize scale, not specialization."
However, Takuno became an anomaly. His incredibly abundant stamina and his Chakra control, which was enough to make his predecessors sigh in shame, forcefully turned the impossible into reality, leading to a revolutionary change in Konoha's frontline medical system.
Takuno stopped walking and habitually stretched his somewhat stiff body.
Looking into the distance, Konoha currently held the strategic upper hand, an advantage achieved even though the Fourth Hokage remained at the command center and had not personally entered the fray.
Of course, Kumogakure also maintained an eerie balance; their Fourth Raikage and the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, Killer Bee, were also holding their forces back.
The most active Tailed Beast power on the battlefield was the Matatabi, which was like a scorching flame. Its wielder, Yugito, was one of the enemy's sharpest spearheads.
Although Konoha held the initiative, Takuno was plagued by another worry.
He urgently desired the Two-Tails' Chakra, a crucial part of his plan. However, after careful consideration, attempting to snatch it under the current circumstances of open confrontation between two armies was an almost impossible task.
The hidden identity of "The Collector" absolutely could not be used right now.
He knew well that the identity that had stolen the Scroll of Seals from Konoha was already on Konoha's internal cold case blacklist.
If he acted under that identity, Konoha would certainly not back him, but would instead pursue his arrest with full force.
Furthermore, once he made a move on the Two-Tails, he would completely stand against Kumogakure.
At that point, becoming an enemy of the two major factions of the Ninja World simultaneously? This was undoubtedly a suicidal and insane idea.
"As expected, forcibly taking the Two-Tails' Chakra on the front lines is a slim hope—" Takuno sighed silently.
However, the light of hope had not been extinguished in his deep eyes.
Information from the depths of his memory surged: Yugito, that proud and fierce female Ninja, was far from cold-hearted.
Her profound and sincere concern for and desire to protect her comrades was precisely his greatest opportunity!
Just then, a commotion deep within the camp, moving from far to near, pulled him back from his contemplation.
Familiar, hurried footsteps and the sound of stretchers scraping the ground, mixed with suppressed groans, meant that another batch of severely wounded soldiers had arrived from the front line!
All complex emotions instantly faded from Takuno's face. His tired yet resolute gaze swept over the ready-to-move Medical Squad members beside him, and he simply said in a deep voice: "Let's go."
Immediately, without any further hesitation, he took the lead and strode quickly toward the medical room area, which was permeated with the smell of disinfectant and blood.