Chapter 17.1- Gamer of the Desert

Pre chapter A/N; I am NOT a doctor. I apologies for any mistakes I make in this chapter. 

"I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you here," Rasa said as he took a seat behind the desk in the office, normally reserved for the head of the Medical Ninja Corps. Chiyo plopped down on a different seat, looking none too pleased with the happenings. I just grunted at him, not really interested in whatever bullshit he had for me.

"I made you a promise," he said, and I just lifted an eyebrow. "I made you a promise, and nothing will change. The position of Kazekage will be yours, but for that to happen, your stay here must come to an end."

"You sent me here," I reminded him.

"I know. But circumstances have changed. We've ridden out the economic windfall of your victory as best as we could, but that is beginning to dry up," he said, and I waited for him to include the bit where any of that was my business. Sure, I wanted to inherit an economically stable Suna, but I didn't really care either way. I knew enough about 21st-century finances and business that I was sure I could turn things around with enough time and absolute authority over the economy. After all, Suna wasn't lacking in exports, just the business acumen to make money from them.

"Re-introducing you into the active pool should drive some renewed interest, and besides that, the Daimyo himself has requested you for a mission."

"Since when did the Daimyo make demands of a Kage?" His eyes darted to mine at my words, and his tone changed as he replied.

"Requested, not demanded. Mind your words, boy," he said, stressing the words as he spoke. I just smiled placidly. He could dress it up as he wanted, but he had sent me here for a minimum of three years and was now summoning me after only two. Rasa didn't seem to me to be the sort to change his mind so easily.

"I apologize, Father," I said, enjoying the way he stilled at the words. If there was one thing time spent with Mebuki had taught me, it was how to read people and know exactly what to say to get under their skin.

"The Daimyo will be making a royal progress across all the lords of the Land of Wind, and your mission is to be his bodyguard for the duration of the mission."

"Doesn't the Daimyo have shinobi guardians of his own?" I asked.

"You will be expected to work with the guardian ninja where you can, but never mistake yourself for one of them. You take your orders from me," he said, and I didn't have enough data points to go off of, but I was guessing there was something between Rasa, the Daimyo, and the Guardian Ninja.

With my mission given, Rasa stood up, clearly preparing to leave before dropping some last words. "You will be expected to set off the day after tomorrow. Do your best to prepare. Your account remains active, so feel free to make withdrawals as needed. And finally, dispel the clones on my border before you manage to cause an international incident."

The last part of his sentence actually almost sent me reeling. He knew? How the fuck had he known? He left, and I was left alone in the room with Chiyo.

"I don't normally let my students leave so early, but the circumstances are anything but normal," she said, and I nodded at her. She still looked exactly as she had two years ago. I guess after 15 years, the stress of running two separate Ninja Corps was nothing new to her.

"However, it would be doing you a disservice to consider you a normal student. You've been ready to graduate for months now, haven't you?" she asked, and I nodded in the affirmative.

"Good. You will be taking your final exams today."

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The final exams for admission into the Suna Medical Ninja Corps were famed for their hellish difficulty, but I was confident. I was ready. First things first, though: dispelling the clones. Once I made the decision, I felt my chakra capacity swell as the chakra they had taken to create the clones returned back to me, with a healthy increase on top. I smiled, feeling my power return to full capacity. If I were being completely honest, I was beginning to get a bit bored from staying in the same place, attending the same classes, and reading the same scrolls day in and day out.

My exams were all scheduled to take place today, giving me the entirety of tomorrow to prepare for the mission. Normally, the exams would span three days, so it said something about Chiyo's confidence in my abilities. I was called by one of the doctors and I moved into the classroom that had been set aside for my use. I was to complete all the written exams in succession, without breaks in between.

The first sheet placed in front of me was filled out by the time they brought the second one. The exams were easy for me. To most others, they would have been something completely different. They didn't just test your ability to regurgitate information. Every single question dealt with real-world applications of the knowledge gained over years at this institution. Although I hadn't spent six years here, I had studied the entire curriculum, and with some of the information Mebuki had given me about her rotations at the hospital, I was able to answer the more practical questions that went beyond the official curriculum.

For the questions I didn't know, I did my best to guess and then moved on. I finished the entire exam in two hours and was quickly shuffled off to the practical exams. I stood in front of Chiyo and two other doctors as they asked me to perform jutsu after jutsu in front of them, and then patients were brought in. Most of them were unconscious, and I was given the duty of diagnosing and treating them.

It wasn't easy. Most of them had illnesses I had only read about, and some required surgeries that I did my best to perform with the doctors standing over my shoulder, questioning every decision I made. Eventually, the last patient was taken out, and once I set my eyes on him, I knew this was going to be the hardest one. He was pale. My diagnostic jutsu showed that he had a tumor in his brain. It was malignant, my second test told me, and it had progressed significantly, covering most of the anterior region of the brain already.

The only hope for him was surgery. I said as much to the doctors, and none of them said a word, neither encouraging nor discouraging me. I took that as permission to continue. Surely they wouldn't let me kill someone in an exam.

The sand outside the disinfected tent rustled as I willed it, and two clones of me appeared before hurrying inside the room. One of the doctors made a move to object but thought better of it. My clones had no need to speak. We were one mind in three bodies at this point.

With a flex of my chakra, my chakra scalpel formed, and I began cutting. It was easy to cut apart the skin to reveal the skull, and as I prepared my tools, one of my clones took my place to cut open the skull with a different version of the chakra scalpel jutsu. When he first set his eyes on the tumor, I took a deep breath. It was practically fused to his brain at this point. I scanned it through my clone's eyes as I prepared the instruments, trying to figure out which sections of his brain we'd need to remove to take out the cancer. A hemispherectomy was on the table, but I considered it a last resort.

I scoped it and began making cuts once my clone stepped aside. Both of them maintained mystic palms on the brain to give me a good idea of what I was working on. The mystic palm had a diagnostic function that often went overlooked. With the ability to get real-time feedback on what I was doing and what was happening to the patient, I could tweak and change my technique as time went on. I had to remove whole sections of the brain where the tumor had fully taken root and was impossible to excise, but it was still possible for him to live with those sections gone. My only goal right now was to maintain life and as much brain function as possible. It was possible to live a fulfilling life after a whole hemispherectomy, so I had faith.

Of course, as time went on, I began to see that it was nowhere near as easy as I had originally expected. In fact, no matter what I did, brain function was being lost. I flooded the brain with chakra to stimulate the neurons as they fired, but that proved to be nothing but a temporary measure. I set my knife aside, removed the sutures, and did my best to reattach the section of the brain I had just cut out with hands as steady as possible. My fingers blurred as I completed the delicate stitching and flooded the area with healing chakra again. The good news was that he was no longer expiring right on the table, but the bad news was that the area I had just operated on showed the largest tumor growth percentage.

I looked at the doctors, but they gave nothing away. I turned back to the brain, studying it from three angles, trying to figure out the next approach. I tried going in from the right instead, saving that section for last. When I finally returned to that area after finishing with the rest, the problem became even more apparent. He wouldn't survive long with a tumor this size. Even with all I had done, he was still a dead man if I didn't find a way to remove it. Cutting it out didn't work, but was that my only option?

I stepped back to think as my clones took detailed scans of the brain and the tumor, trying to figure out where one ended and the other began. How are cancers dealt with? My knowledge from this world told me surgery, but my previous life gave me another answer: chemo. Could I emulate cancer-killing radiation with my chakra? I could try. I could definitely try. Further scans showed that the man wasn't long for this world if I didn't get rid of the cancer. The worst thing that could happen would be that he'd die a few minutes earlier.

I placed my hands above the tumor and focused my chakra. The goal here was to kill the tumor without harming the brain. I began, starting with the medical chakra of the mystic palm and twisting and distorting it until the result bore no resemblance to the original. An actual killing jutsu. My clones could feel it begin to affect the tumor as the growth started to detach from the brain on its own. I was visibly sweating as I maintained the concentration to kill the growth.

When it was all done, we took another scan, and I felt my heart drop to my stomach. The cancer had been killing him, but it was also the only thing keeping him alive. He was losing brain function, and this time there was nothing I could do. I dropped to the floor as my failure became clear to me. The doctors only watched dispassionately as the patient expired right before our eyes.

"Return to your quarters and clean yourself up. We will summon you when your results are ready," Chiyo said as she swept from the room, with the doctors following closely, whispering among themselves. I couldn't even acknowledge her; my eyes remained on the patient. The patient who was very much dead.

A/N; I am NOT a doctor. Please don’t come after me for any inaccuracies. I apologise in advance if this offends anyone.