After his little scuffle with Sakura, Saul told Sakura where else to find him and sent her on her way. He saw little point in continuing his training like this - body weight exercises such as pushups now had little use to him. The exertion required from such mundane acts at this point were akin to breathing. He could do them forever and never get tired. Even after Karin was so kind as to refill his chakra reserves, he'd struggle to push his body past his current limit with his current thods.
Instead, Saul made his way back over to the hospital. There was still much for him to learn, gaps in his knowledge that he might have not even thought to test or question. He was very far away from being able to regenerate his entire body as long as he had the chakra, like Tsunade or even Sakura had shown themselves to be capable of later on within the series.
"Saul? What brings you back again?"
He handed over a card. "Actually, I was told to give this card to the Hospital and ask to see a woman called Yakushi Nono. I forgot to do so last ti."
The receptionist, Yakushi Himari's eyes sharpened.
"She is like a tree, planted by water. When heat cos it does not fear, for its leaves remain green. Even in the year of drought..."
'The tree still bears fruit, for its roots keep the tree strong.' The plain faced woman finished in her mind, while looking at Saul impassively.
"..."
What crazy nonsense was this woman saying? He was just asking to see a woman called Nono?
*Ahem* "I was referred to the hospital by a mber of the dical corps after they saw my work with the mystical palm. I'm still learning, and he said she could teach . Is there a problem?"
"No. No problem! Mother is not here right now. If she wants to et you, she will."
Her mother, huh. The woman in front of him seed a little younger than Kurenai. Saul didn't rember a Nono from the original series, but now he figured it was a woman in her 50's. Involved in so sort of secret force within Konoha, based on the riddle the woman badgered him with. The Anbu, maybe?
Saul did not rember Nono from the original series.
"Got it... In the anti, I'd like to help out at the hospital if that's ok. I'm still lacking in experience."
Himari smiled. "Good! If that's the case, I'll have you start by shadowing Ugai. He's a big, mustached, middle aged man with lots of facial hair. You'll find him in room 120B."
The first thing Saul noticed about Ugai was that the man was fat. He stood over a ninja groaning in pain, from what he did not know. His gigantic fra obscured the body of the ninja from Saul's gaze.
"Get out, you're in the wrong room. I'm currently performing an operation."
The man spoke without speaking. He grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray and made an incision. The patient groaned in pain. Saul closed the door behind him and approached silently.
Ugai's thods resembled his own regarding patients. Unrefined, no anesthesia, with the patients tied down so they cannot move. It was brutal work, no matter how necessary.
Moving closer, Saul could finally observe the procedure from another angle. The Ninja was on his stomach with his head to the side as he groaned. His back was a bloody, mangled ss. Shards of so kind of... glass were embedded all over.
Ugai was making small incisions in the flesh, pulling the shards out with tallic forceps, then wiping the blood with a cloth so he could see. Saul rely watched the man as he worked. Every swap of a tool or instrunt was crude, hurried. The man's fingers were covered in bandages.
He dropped the forceps into the nearby tray before switching to a cloth again, wiping the blood. Then he reached for the scalpel again but grasped the blade this ti.
*Ssssss*
Ugai hissed in a sharp intake of breath as he held up his hand. Then he noticed Saul who stood there quietly.
"What the HELL are you still doing here?" He hissed, "Look at what you did! I cut myself because of you!"
Saul didn't see how exactly Ugai's haphazard grasping for tools was sohow his fault, but his presence here at the hospital was both to continue to develop his outside persona and to gain valuable experience in the field. Already he was noticing a factor that he hadn't previously considered - healing could not proceed properly without first removing any residual material within the body. How then did Tsunade manage to rectify this problem when developing her creation seal rebirth?
Thoughts aside, Saul ford the hand seals for the dical palm ninjutsu and healed the man's hand.
"I'm sorry. I was sent here to help."
Ugai though, only grew more upset at the sight.
"What are you DOING? Chakra used for healing could be better used for the patient who's actually in danger! Stay out of my way!"
Yeah, Saul wasn't liking this asshole already. The man grabbed the scalpel again, unfortunately this ti the handle instead of the blade, and went back to work.
"Make yourself useful. Stop the bleeding as I remove these shards. You can at least do that, can't you?"
Saul remained silent, yet healed the shinobi being operated on. That was good enough for Ugai, apparently. He was silent as well as they continued the process. Removing a shard, wiping up the bleeding, and healing the open wound. They continued the process until every last shard was removed.
Ugai then pressed his hand into the center of the shinobi's back, investigating.
"We got all the glass. Help heal him for a bit. We need to induce scabbing so his wounds don't open back up and manage so of the deeper wounds."
Saul nodded. "Lead the way sir."
The man was out of breath by the ti the healing finished, while Saul was no worse for wear. They had both used a miniscule amount of chakra only, after all. For Ugai however, Saul guessed the relative portion of chakra was much more massive.
"Let's go. On the way to the next patient."
Ugai had only been assigned relatively minor wounds, it seed. As they went from patient to patient, Saul quickly figured out the clumsy middle aged man was much worse than him in terms of both general surgical operation, chakra reserves, and dical Ninjutsu.
The only relevant knowledge he had that Saul lacked was general hospital procedure for wounds of varying severity - sothing he picked up quickly. As ti passed, Ugai had to relegate more and more wounds to Saul as he grew more and more exhausted until he was the assistant instead as Saul took the brunt of the work.
"Shit, are you so kind of Genius ninja or sothing?" Ugai's voice was filled with envy and contempt.
"I just graduated a few months ago, after all."
Saul said, as he removed the bandages on a grateful Chunin who had been stabbed through by so sort of Kunai. He had taken to healing the wounds he encountered completely rather than rely following procedure, sothing that had both earned a lot of gratitude from his patients and ire from Ugai.
"You're just a Genin!?"
The ponytailed shinobi's eyes widened. She was an Inuzuka clan mber who had been stabbed through her arm while trying to stop a ninja fight. Luckily the wound wasn't life threatening, but it had damaged the muscles pretty badly. She needed to be able to use both her arms asap, or she'd lose her position in the pack.
"Thank you so much, my na is Inuzuka Hana. I've actually only learned a little dical ninjutsu after I lost my Ninken - most dical nin only know how to heal people after all. As for , I can only heal dogs, haha. So I know first hand how difficult it is. You must be really smart to be able to heal this well just after graduating from the academy! What's your na?"
"Thanks! I'm Saul, nice to et you Hana. Actually I'm just volunteering at the hospital right now, after learning everything through self study. You should thank the hospital instead of for keeping everything available for everyone to learn freely."
That's right. Technically at the mont he was a volunteer. Saul made sure to let this slip sohow in conversation with his patients.
"Volunteering? You're not even getting paid!?"
"Not yet."
Hana used her newly healed arm to reach down into her pocket. Out of it she pulled a clump of ryo.
"Take this. It's all I have in hand right now, and I know it's not enough. But I hope you can be happy with it as a token of my gratitude."
"No, thank you. I wasn't expecting anything in the first place; you're a really kind person, Hana."
She smiled in response.
Because of the exceptional healing they received combined with the fact that he was a volunteer, most ninja he healed were overwheld with joy. More than a few had given him gifts on the spot, so gave explosive tags, others gave him ryo, so gave nothing. Regardless, Saul accepted them graciously like so sort of saint.
Yet he was anything but! Ugai could see through his little gas, how he 'fished' for an extra reward from every single patient he ca across! Saul made him look like an incompetent fool in comparison when they treated patients, too. He was already middle aged, yet sohow, he was being outdone in his main profession by so guy almost half his age.
They both exited the room, onto their next patient. Just as Ugai felt like he was about to explode, Saul spoke up.
"Thank you for your ti sir. I really learned a lot today at the hospital with you, but I need to go now. Is there any way I could be arranged to treat more difficult wounds next ti? This was too easy."
Easy!? Normally a newbie would shadow him for a while, but Saul needed to learn a lesson. Ugai would show him easy! Lets see how he fared under Kito!
The fat man gave an ugly smile, "I understand. A genius ninja like you shouldn't be wasting ti under soone like . If you're willing, why don't I recomnd you to apprentice under Chunin Kito? He handles so of the most difficult operations in the Konoha hospital."
Kito. That was the na of the dical corps Chunin who recomnded him in the first place! Saul smiled.
"Perfect. Then I'll see you all tomorrow then?"
"Yep! I'll be looking forward to seeing you, early tomorrow. Co in the morning so I can introduce you!"
He couldn't wait to see Saul get his turn to look like a blundering idiot. He'd give a stellar recomndation, just for him. Ugai would laugh when the busy man inevitably dropped Saul after he couldn't keep up.
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