"Bring me more!"
In Shushu-ya, an old man yelled for yet another drink. The waiter sighed. He took the bottle of sake to his table and poured him more sake while thinking, 'Why does he keep yelling? All the customers from nearby tables have moved away due to him. He even chased a few away at the door!'
Despite the waiter's worries, the old man wasn't concerned. It was as if he didn't care about anything. He repeated his actions until one guy had enough.
He got up and walked to his table and said loudly, "Why do you keep shouting old ma….."
The man suddenly stopped speaking and went pale. He fumbled, "Yo…osss…shi sen…sei?"
Yamanaka Yoshi looked up and saw the middle-aged man. He exclaimed with a wide smile on his face, "Isamu! Have a seat! Drink with me!"
Isamu sat down unwillingly. Seeing Yoshi's state, he was sure that he would be embarrassed and unlike Yoshi, he wasn't drunk enough to not care.
He thought, 'I am a Jounin and a senior medical ninja. There are very few who would outrank me. To think that my luck is so bad that the drunkard I wanted to quiet down just happened to be one!'
With one last hope of saving himself from the embarrassment, he asked, "Why are you drinking so much, sensei?"
Yoshi was very tipsy. However, he could still hold rational conversation but his voice and tone were very inconsistent. He said, "You won't believe what I witnessed today, Isamu! It was mind-blowing! In my forty years of being a medical ninja and thirty years of being an instructor, I have never witnessed such a sight."
Isamu sighed in relief that Yoshi could hold a sane conversation. He was also intrigued at the same time. He couldn't help but ask, "What did you see?"
Yoshi asked, "Do you remember that happy thoughts speech I used to give to the mystical palm trainees?"
A smile formed on Isamu's face as he replied, "Yes Sensei. We drank multiple times while laughing hilariously at their hilarious attempts."
Yoshi said, "Yes, that one. One of the trainees followed my advice and made huge improvements!"
A peculiar expression appeared on his face. He said, "How could he? We both know that it is bullshit. They just need some time and practice to tune their chakra to healing mode."
Yoshi said, "No, it did happen. He managed to heal a bit on his 2nd try. In his 2nd session itself, he made a lot of advancements. And after every attempt, he would think of more happy thoughts and make more improvements. He even thanked me after every improvement. I won't be surprised if he masters the Mystical Palm jutsu in a month! The whole room was looking at me with reverence in their eyes."
Now Isamu was dumbfounded. His mind went into overdrive to make sense of the situation. Soon, he reached a conclusion. He asked, "Are you sure that he hasn't already learned the jutsu? Or perhaps someone else is tutoring him?"
Unlike Yoshi, Isamu wasn't overwhelmed by the situation. So he could think with a stable mind. However, Yoshi shook his head and said, "No way. He definitely never used this jutsu before. As for a tutor, that is probably a no as well. I could see how thankful he was in his eyes after every small improvement! It felt so genuine… BRING ME MORE!"
The waiter hurried to his table while Isamu became embarrassed at being seen alongside him. He got up and said, "Bring me along with you next time to see that trainee, sensei. I will take my leave for now."
However, Yoshi said, "What's the hurry? Sit down. I'll tell of all the fun and weird things that happened today!"
Isamu could only sit back reluctantly. Yoshi had taught his batch of medical ninjas and hence held a lot of respect. He couldn't disobey him so brazenly. So he sat down and endured the embarrassment of being seen alongside him.
At the same time, loud laughing noise could be heard from the Ichiraku stall. Though the person laughing couldn't be seen due to the curtains, he caused a lot of weird looks to fall on Ichiraku.
Teuchi sighed. He had lost count of how many times he had repeated himself, but he had to say it again, "Fujin-kun. You shouldn't laugh so much while eating."
Fujin replied, "It's fine. It's fine. It was just so hilarious! Hahahaha."
Ayame pouted and said angrily, "You keep laughing but don't even tell me what is so funny!"
Fujin kept laughing and said, "You won't understand."
Ayame snorted and looked away and said, "Tell me. I'll see whether I can understand or not."
Fujin replied, "It's ninja stuff. Anyways, I am learning a new technique and the old instructor I have was trying some bullshit on us. So I just used his bullshit and made it look like it was true. His face was so hilarious! Hahahaha."
Ayame looked at Fujin with a confused expression. She muttered to herself, "What part of that is so funny?"
She looked at her father, but he too didn't understand and shook his head. The father-daughter duo left Fujin to his devices.
Isamu helped Yoshi to his house before returning to his. However, en route, he couldn't help but think about Fujin. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't make sense of it.
In the end, he sighed and muttered, "I need to check on him. No way that happiness bullshit works. Either he has taken training or has someone guiding him. Otherwise, he will be the greatest talent in medical ninjutsu in our village. No, in the entire Ninja world and perhaps history too!"
After filling his stomach and laughing a lot, Fujin returned home. He took out a scroll as he recalled the earlier events.
Earlier in the Konoha Hospital :
The trainees had trained hard for over 3 hours. But other than Fujin, no one else managed to make much progress no matter how 'happy' they were.
Finally, Emi and Asuka handed all 29 Trainees a scroll. Yoshi said, "This scroll is similar to the big scroll that preserves the fish. We will be temporarily giving these scrolls to you. When your training is completed, you have to return them. If you fail to return or damage them, then you will have to pay One Hundred Thousand Ryo as a fine."
The huge fine made most of the trainees gulp. They held the scroll properly as if it was an expensive and precious jade!
Meanwhile, Fujin thought, 'This scroll has the same seals? I should try to study the seals. Though I have Sora's seals that were used to store the dead body and eyes, I didn't want to risk experimenting with them as it would have been a huge loss if I damaged the scroll. But, if I damage this scroll, then I only have to pay 100k Ryo. It could be helpful if I can replicate the seals.'
Though 100k Ryo was a lot for a normal genin or even weaker chunins, it wasn't much for Fujin who had claimed multiple bounties.
Yoshi continued, "Every scroll has 12 Fish that you can use to try your Mystical Palm jutsu. This is a gift from us to you. In the future, you can ask for more fish at the reception, but you will have to pay for them. Is that understood?"
Everyone nodded. Yoshi said, "Try to heal the fish by yourselves until we meet next week. You will have to practice a lot in order to succeed. Now leave."
At his home, Fujin looked at the scroll and muttered, "It looks like Konoha wants as many ninjas to learn this jutsu as they can. Otherwise, they wouldn't use so many resources on us. After all, we are just one batch.
From what I heard, a new batch is started every month. And Yoshi claimed that it normally takes around 8 to 12 months to learn this jutsu and use it without any risks. So there might be another twelve batches being trained alongside us. Now that I think about it, it is kinda surprising that Tamotsu's squad didn't have anyone who could heal."
Fujin opened the scroll and summoned a fish. He observed, 'Hmm, it seems to be the same seal… Good. I'll first use up the fish and then try to study the seals.'
Fujin began practicing the Mystical Palm jutsu once again.
