Muted sobs and occasional whimpers drifted from the room next door.
Isamu could only shake his head helplessly.
Over the past few days, Tsunade had given him a rough understanding of what kind of person Nawaki was.
From Isamu’s perspective, Nawaki was still a child.
A child who had yet to truly understand how cruel the shinobi world could be.
He had dreams.
He had ambitions.
But his abilities had never quite caught up with them.
Nawaki’s performance at the Ninja Academy wasn’t actually poor.
Well, compared with his classmates, Nawaki could actually be considered one of the outstanding students.
But as the grandson of the Hokage, his performance could only be considered average.
The fact that he had accidentally fallen into a trap on the battlefield and nearly died was enough to illustrate the problem.
At its core, the promotion system for shinobi was essentially a survival-of-the-fittest game.
Countless Genin were thrown onto the battlefield and forced to fight for their lives.
Those who survived had a good chance of becoming Chūnin.
If they possessed decent talent and had the resources necessary for further training, then after enduring enough life-and-death trials, they might have a chance of becoming Jōnin.
Nawaki had not inherited the sort of astonishing talent that had once made the Hokage’s name shine.
After a long while, Nawaki finally quieted down.
Seeing that her brother was all right, Tsunade originally wanted to stay with him a little longer.
But Nawaki told her that he wanted some time alone, so Tsunade left the room.
Knock, knock.
A short while later, someone knocked on the door of Isamu’s room.
“Come in.”
Nawaki pushed the door open and walked inside, dragging along a body that did not completely belong to him.
For Nawaki, surviving like this felt almost worse than dying.
His body had been pieced together from the remains of several of his teammates.
His life had been prolonged at the cost of several of his comrades’ deaths.
Isamu had expected him to complain to ask why they had saved him, or say that they should have simply let him die.
Instead
Nawaki merely bowed deeply.
“Thank you for saving my life.
I will repay you someday.”
Nawaki turned and left, returning to his own room.
There were too many things he needed to sort out on his own.
Isamu had actually prepared an entire speech intended to convince Nawaki to give up on becoming a shinobi.
In the end, none of it was needed.
Several days earlier, Tsunade had asked Isamu that if Nawaki woke up, he should try to persuade him, from the perspective of a doctor, to abandon the path of a shinobi.
The Senju clan had already sacrificed too much for Konoha.
There was no need for them to sacrifice another Genin.
Moreover, Nawaki had already died once.
As his older sister, Tsunade didn’t want her younger brother to fall into that kind of danger again.
Even if Nawaki became depressed for the rest of his life and simply lived as a young master who did nothing but eat and wait for death, Tsunade would still ensure that the Senju bloodline continued.
At worst, she could send Nawaki to the Capital of the Land of Fire under the pretext of recuperating from his injuries, where he could live in comfort.
Isamu had used his Secret Technique to reconnect Nawaki’s severed limbs and internal organs, but that only meant that Nawaki’s life had been saved.
Because of the urgency of the operation and because Isamu simply hadn’t possessed the necessary ability at the time the chakra pathways throughout Nawaki’s body had not been properly reconnected.
As a result, his chakra could no longer circulate smoothly.
In other words
Nawaki could no longer use ninjutsu or genjutsu.
He could only use chakra for basic applications, such as walking on water.
But for a shinobi, being unable to use ninjutsu was almost equivalent to having his shinobi path cut off.
Konoha wasn’t without shinobi in similar circumstances.
Might Dai, who passed by the house every morning, was one such example.
He was unable to use ninjutsu or genjutsu and was one of the few shinobi in Konoha who had remained a Genin for countless years.
In Isamu’s eyes, someone like that couldn’t even be considered cannon fodder.
The next morning, when Isamu had prepared breakfast for the three of them, Nawaki came downstairs.
Without saying a word, he finished his portion and silently returned to his room.
He didn’t even acknowledge Tsunade when she greeted him.
Nawaki shut himself inside his room.
Even when Tsunade entered, he merely stared blankly at his hands and refused to speak to anyone.
The only time he showed even the slightest reaction was when Isamu brought him meals with the Increased Appetite effect.
Even then, Nawaki didn’t say much.
After finishing his meal, he would silently leave the empty container outside the door before closing himself inside again.
Lying beneath the covers, Nawaki thought about the discussions he’d overheard during the day between Isamu and his sister.
His heart was filled with envy.
The subjects they discussed were already completely beyond Nawaki’s understanding.
Isamu is younger than me, isn’t he?
Yet he could actually have discussions like that with his sister.
Perhaps
This was what talent meant.
Before leaving the village, Nawaki had been proud of how outstanding he was compared with his peers.
Now, he understood.
He was actually both weak and arrogant.
His current body couldn’t even use ninjutsu.
There was no way he could become a shinobi.
Perhaps I should
“Dai!
Persevere!
First, five hundred laps around Konoha!”
At that moment, a beast-like roar rang out through the night.
It was followed by the curses of countless villagers.
Nawaki knew that this was Might Dai’s morning-running battle cry.
Ever since he was old enough to remember, whenever Might Dai was in the village, that voice had never failed to ring out.
This senior who had been in the same class as his sister had spent more than a decade training relentlessly.
And after all those years, he was still a Genin.
Watching Might Dai run through the darkness while enduring the curses of everyone around him, Nawaki seemed to see his own future ten years from now.
He was now a shinobi who couldn’t use ninjutsu either
Was he supposed to train like this as well?
And what meaning would that have?
Once a person begins wondering whether something has any meaning at all, it becomes very easy to fall into a dead end.
For several days, Nawaki remained in this state.
He never left the house.
A fog lingered in his heart.
Where was he supposed to go from here?
One evening, after Tsunade had finished giving Isamu his lessons, she suddenly asked,
“Is there still any possibility of repairing the chakra pathways inside Nawaki’s body?”
In the end, Tsunade’s heart had softened.
If there was even a possibility, she still wanted Isamu to try.
When Isamu had performed the operation on Nawaki, he had been little more than an amateur with no systematic understanding of the human body.
Being able to reconnect Nawaki’s shattered body and internal organs in such a short amount of time had already been an extraordinary feat.
But now, under Tsunade’s guidance, his understanding of both the human body and chakra had deepened considerably.
Give him a few more years, and it might not be impossible for him to perform another, much more delicate Modification, allowing Nawaki to possess a normal body.
The question was
Would Tsunade be willing to accept that kind of risk?
“Give me a few more years.
Perhaps I could perform another operation.
It’s just”
Tsunade looked at the silent Isamu.
She seemed to have thought of something as well and sighed.
If they performed another operation, there was a possibility that Isamu’s chakra would once again remain inside Nawaki’s body.
That was precisely the root of her concern.
As for Isamu, he actually wanted to study Nawaki’s body.
He had already noticed that there was a latent, unusually active genetic trait within Nawaki.
If Isamu wanted to become stronger, perhaps he could use that genetic trait as a reference for his own Modification.
But this was something Isamu absolutely couldn’t bring up himself.
He could only wait.
Wait for Tsunade or Nawaki himself to bring it up.
Or perhaps
Wait until Nawaki once again found himself in that kind of crisis.