Koji had stated the brutal truth in the calmest possible tone.
Of course, from his perspective, there was nothing particularly painful about it.
He had killed those teammates himself.
If he’d cared about them, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
But for the four trainees in front of him—people who hadn’t even qualified to become genin—the effect was immediate.
The entire room fell silent.
It was as if someone had injected the atmosphere itself with anesthetic.
“My condolences.”
After a long moment, the boy who had asked the question finally spoke.
He looked somewhat embarrassed, clearly believing that he had accidentally touched upon a painful memory.
Before anyone could make the situation even more awkward, the training-room door opened.
“What happened to all of you? Why is nobody talking?”
Rie Shibata walked inside carrying two fish that looked barely alive.
The oppressive silence immediately struck her as strange.
Anyone capable of training in this room had an excellent chance of eventually staying at Konoha Hospital as a medical ninja.
And considering their age, these students should normally have been energetic enough to make the room noisy.
Instead, the atmosphere was so solemn that anyone walking in without context might have thought they had stumbled into a memorial service.
When no one answered, Rie didn’t press the matter.
She placed one of the dying fish onto the treatment table in front of Koji.
“This is your next training target.”
She pointed toward the fish.
“First, locate the injuries inside its body. Then use the Healing Jutsu to treat them.”
“When you can restore a fish like this until it’s energetic and moving normally again, you’ll pass this stage.”
“Understood.”
Koji studied the barely breathing fish.
For a moment, he actually found himself envying the Hyuga clan.
If he possessed the Byakugan, locating injuries inside the fish would be ridiculously easy.
Unfortunately, he didn’t.
So he would have to do it the normal way.
Koji carefully activated the Healing Jutsu.
Green chakra gathered around his hand before slowly entering the fish from the head downward.
Rather than immediately trying to heal anything, Koji used the chakra to probe through the fish’s body little by little.
Once he began practicing, the room returned to silence.
Not long afterward, the two medical ninja who had left earlier returned carrying eight more fish.
Training resumed.
Several minutes passed.
Koji finally located the injury inside the fish beneath his hands.
Unfortunately— just as he prepared to treat it, the fish stopped moving.
It was dead.
No second chance.
“You did well.”
Rie moved the dead fish aside while evaluating his performance.
“Your examination was very thorough. If its injuries hadn’t already been fatal, you probably could have passed this stage.”
She glanced at Koji.
“But remember something.”
“You only have the luxury of carrying out a detailed examination while the patient is still alive.”
Koji nodded.
“I understand.”
His attitude remained completely sincere.
Rie placed the second fish onto his table and gestured for him to continue.
As Koji prepared to try again, he noticed something interesting.
When the fish had still been in Rie’s hands, it hadn’t looked nearly this weak.
The instant she placed it on the treatment table, however, it once again looked as though it might die at any moment.
The explanation wasn’t difficult to guess.
These fish were training materials.
Obviously, Konoha Hospital couldn’t simply allow every fish to die immediately.
The medical ninja had probably been maintaining them with the Healing Jutsu until the moment they were handed over to students.
That made sense.
But then Koji noticed another problem.
The fish had been out of water for quite some time.
How was it still alive?
That was honestly a little absurd.
Still, Koji had no intention of asking.
However the medical ninja were keeping these fish alive outside the water wasn’t important right now.
His current objective was simple.
Save the fish in front of him.
Having learned from his first attempt, Koji changed his approach.
Instead of painstakingly examining every part of the fish from the beginning, he first sent chakra through its body in a rough sweep.
As the chakra traveled along its internal pathways and reached the abdomen—
Koji felt an interruption.
There.
That was the fatal injury.
The moment he identified it, Koji concentrated his Healing Jutsu on the area and began closing and repairing the wound.
Rie, who had been watching the entire process, suddenly brightened.
Compared with the other four students, whose progress had largely come from persistence and repeated effort…
this newcomer might actually be talented.
Five minutes later, the wound in the fish’s abdomen had gradually closed.
Koji continued examining the rest of its body.
This time, nothing unexpected happened.
One after another, he located the smaller injuries and repaired them.
While he worked, Rie picked up a spray bottle and occasionally misted the fish with water.
Seeing that, Koji finally understood how the fish had managed to survive outside the tank for so long.
When the glow of the Healing Jutsu finally disappeared, a smile appeared on Koji’s face.
He had done it.
Or so he thought.
Before he could even look around— the fish on the treatment table died again.
Koji stared at it.
Rie, however, didn’t seem particularly surprised.
“You did very well.”
“For a beginner, reaching this point is already impressive.”
She looked down at the dead fish.
“But this fish had reached its limit.”
Koji’s eyes shifted toward her.
“The essence of the Healing Jutsu is using chakra to stimulate the cells around an injury, increasing their activity and encouraging them to divide so the body can repair itself.”
“Our chakra accelerates that process.”
Rie’s expression became slightly more serious.
“But you need to understand that the number of times any living creature’s cells can divide is limited.”
“Your treatment just now was nearly perfect.”
“The problem is that it was too perfect.”
“This fish has been used for training too many times already. Its body had reached the limit of how much further it could repair itself.”
The confusion in Koji’s eyes gradually disappeared.
So that was it.
As an instructor, Rie really was quite competent.
Koji simply hadn’t expected Konoha Hospital to reuse the same fish this many times.
He wasn’t sure whether that made the fish unusually lucky…
or exceptionally unlucky.
“Try a few more times.”
Rie placed another fish in front of him.
“If you can consistently meet the standard, then in a few days, you can start learning proper wound treatment from me.”
The other two medical ninja immediately turned toward them.
Until now, both had been focused on supervising their own students.
“What happened?”
One of them sounded genuinely curious.
Normally, even after a student successfully learned the Healing Jutsu, reaching the point where they could begin learning wound treatment took at least a month.
The students these two instructors were currently supervising had already been here for around five days.
And this new kid?
He had entered this room less than half an hour ago.
“His chakra control is extremely precise.”
Rie smiled slightly.
She hadn’t noticed it immediately.
But once she began seriously watching Koji during his second attempt, she had found the precision of his chakra control almost embarrassing.
Her own chakra control…
was actually inferior to that of a student.
“Uh…”
One of the other instructors stared for a moment.
“Looks like you got lucky.”
The two medical ninja exchanged glances before turning back toward their own students.
When the first batch of trainees had entered this room, the two of them had selected their students first.
Koji had naturally ended up under Rie’s supervision afterward.
It wasn’t a formal master-disciple relationship, but until a trainee passed the final assessment, the supervising medical ninja was responsible for guiding them.
And if that student happened to be exceptionally talented?
Then the instructor’s job became much easier.
Who could have expected someone who had only arrived today to overtake everyone else so quickly?
For the rest of the session, Koji continued treating fish.
After that second failure, nothing unexpected happened again.
Every fish placed in front of him survived.
As for which unfortunate trainee would eventually be responsible for killing them…
that was another matter entirely.