"Yuji."
The meeting had just ended. Yuji was stepping out of the building when the voice came from behind.
He turned. Rasa.
"Is there something I can help you with?" Yuji asked, with an expression of mild surprise.
"Nothing in particular." Rasa's face carried the slight stiffness of someone working harder than usual to appear casual. "Just a sentimental thought. Six years have passed since I sent you to the border for that mission. It went by quickly."
He forced a thin smile. It didn't come naturally to him.
Yuji had noticed Rasa's expression during the meeting. He kept his own demeanor easy and let the conversation find its pace.
The man who had already been internally designated as the village's next Kazekage was having a more complicated afternoon than he would ever admit directly.
"Every time I see you, the growth and the surprises you bring never stop being remarkable," Rasa said.
Yuji had heard enough about Rasa from people like Shimizu to know that this was not how he normally operated. Iron-blooded on the battlefield. Stern. Not someone who praised subordinates regardless of performance.
And here he was, offering a compliment unprompted to someone he had just watched upend his assumptions about the village's future.
The feeling was genuinely strange.
Rasa noticed the slight oddness in Yuji's expression and cleared his throat. "With your abilities, becoming Kage in the future would be no problem."
Yuji understood immediately.
Rasa was panicking. And his conversational approach, well-intentioned as it might be, was not subtle.
"I don't have much interest in the position," Yuji said with an easy laugh. "Though whether someone can become Kage isn't really my decision to make.
It depends on the entire village, from the top down, whether all the conditions are met, whether the person has the ability to make the village stronger. In that respect, I think you're quite good, Big Brother Rasa."
Something in Rasa's expression relaxed.
"I still have a long way to go," he said.
Right now I still have a long way to go. Meaning the future was already settled in his mind.
He really wasn't bothering to soften it.
"I'm not the only one who thinks so," Yuji added. "Grandma Chiyo and the others are likely considering the same thing. I have high expectations for you."
"Thank you," Rasa said.
They talked for a short while longer before Yuji excused himself first. The two of them didn't have the kind of closeness that sustained long conversation, and Rasa's natural reserve made the air slightly stiff even when things were going well. There wasn't much more to say.
But Yuji was fairly confident his answer had accomplished what Rasa had come looking for.
The man was genuinely thirsty for the position, not out of outsized ambition exactly, but because he simply didn't trust anyone else with it. It was the same instinct as the Third, the conviction that he was the one most suited and most capable.
The idea of someone else in that role produced a discomfort he couldn't fully set aside.
Walking back, Yuji turned the situation over.
Rasa's strength and his Kekkei Genkai would both be crucial when the Third Ninja World War arrived. He couldn't afford to alienate him or leave him with a lasting grievance over how the succession played out.
The goal was to ensure that even if Rasa lost the competition for Kazekage, he remained in the village and continued contributing to it. A talent of his level was irreplaceable for a village that was already stretched thin.
Telling him what he had told him today was simply an early reassurance. And it hadn't been dishonest. Yuji genuinely had limited interest in the Kage position. The work was relentless, the responsibility suffocating, the headaches constant.
His actual plan was for Sasori to become the Fourth Kazekage, with Yuji operating from the side providing direction. In practice, the difference from being Kazekage himself was minimal, but the difference in daily obligation was significant.
The problem was that Sasori, when presented with this arrangement, would almost certainly refuse it and attempt to transfer the responsibility back to Yuji.
They were remarkably similar in that specific way.
Which meant there was a real possibility that Yuji would end up being pushed into the position anyway, with Sasori being the one doing the pushing.
He sighed.
Then he opened the system panel.
Host: Yuji.
Identity: Hidden Sand Chunin. Medical Ninja. Hidden Sand Village higher-up.
Age: 14.
Positive Experience Points (Saving people): 873.
Negative Experience Points (Killing people): 1201.
Exchanged abilities: Kuroo's Medical Notes and Insights. Special scalpel from Black Jack.
Medical Ninjutsu: Mystical Palm Technique, Yin Healing Destruction, Resurrection Life Reforming Technique, Chakra Scalpel, Body Pathway Derangement. Attachment Line. Death Waltz (from Belphegor in Reborn!, assimilated into the self-created Blade Intent Manipulation).
Blood Manipulation: full progress, all techniques including Blood Blade, Blood Meteor, Red Scale Jump, Flowing Red Scale, Slicing Exorcism and derivatives including Piercing Blood, Supernova, Canal, Wing King, all Cursed Womb Effects configured, assimilated into Blood Release Kekkei Genkai.
Reverse Cursed Technique - assimilated into a seal-less Ninjutsu.
Yuji looked over the panel and rubbed his chin.
The experience rate had slowed considerably without the battlefield multiplier. The reduction mechanism on top of that made the peaceful period even less productive for accumulation. To harvest in meaningful volume, he needed real conflict, genuine powerhouses, plot characters worth targeting.
A thought surfaced. Once his medicines spread across the ninja world and began curing people at scale, would those recoveries generate positive experience?
He felt a small spark of excitement, then acknowledged it was probably wishful thinking. But if there was a system exploit buried in there somewhere.
He closed the panel and let his attention drift to the larger picture.
The economic foundation was barely established. Once the village's situation stabilized, the next priority had to be talent. He turned that over and found himself quietly irritated by the reality of it.
Sunagakure genuinely had almost nothing to work with in that department. The Hidden Mist, for all their problems, at least had an abundance of Kekkei Genkai users, raw talent in volume, even if their leadership had squandered it consistently. Sunagakure couldn't even claim that much.
And talent was only part of the problem. Ninjutsu resources were also critically thin. A village's combat capability wasn't built on individual ability alone, it needed a deep library of techniques to give that ability shape and range. The Hidden Sand's library was not deep.
He also had his own gaps to address. The Blood Release had brought Water and Earth chakra nature affinities with it, which meant related techniques were within reach. He should also test whether he retained any capacity for other nature transformations beyond those.
More options, more firepower. That principle didn't expire.
The problem was time. He was managing too many threads simultaneously and the hours weren't expanding to accommodate any of it.
He shook his head.
One step at a time. Handle what was directly in front of him first.
The meeting had concluded with a clear set of immediate decisions. The research lab would be relocated from the hospital to a vacant building elsewhere in the village, with Anbu handling round-the-clock security and personnel verification.
The Kazekage and Chiyo were already preparing to travel to the Daimyo, which said everything about how urgently the senior officials were treating this.
Yuji estimated the trip would accomplish nothing.
The higher the expectation, the harder the landing when it didn't materialize.
...
Bonus @300 PS
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