Chapter 462: Surgery complete, the familiar Chakra Pill

Inside the Tailed Beast Card,

Before Uchiha Gin, who was listening intently, the scrawny Shukaku spoke with such vivid gestures and flying spittle that it boasted quite loudly.

"Even if that guy is the reincarnation of Asura, I, Old Shukaku, don't fear him. I started off with two Air Bullets to warm up, and then..."

"Wait, just you?"

Uchiha Gin looked Shukaku up and down with a skeptical expression. A small fry like this could be refined in an instant by Shamon Laodi with a mere wave of his hand.

And it was spraying Air Bullets?

If it didn't crap itself, that was only because the kid was clenching tight.

"Ahem... The Baldy and the Blue Reptile helped a tiny bit, but if it were a real one-on-one, I'd at least be evenly matched."

Interrupted by Uchiha Gin, Shukaku wore an unhappy expression. Who was this human looking down on? It was the King of Tailed Beasts!

"Evenly matched? You mean getting chopped into five pieces in five seconds, right?"

"Nonsense! I, your grandfather—"

Uchiha Gin pursed his lips and raised a hand to stop Shukaku, who was about to quibble.

"Can you get to the point? Shamon Laodi is about to kick the bucket."

He then pointed to the unconscious Shamon outside.

"Where exactly did that thing on his stomach come from?"

"Ugh... That strange guy used Asura's secret technique to control the Baldy, then forcibly shoved a seed into his stomach."

At this point, Shukaku couldn't help but shudder a few times, a faint trace of fear hidden deep in its eyes.

"As soon as this thing entered the Baldy's body, it started frantically sucking up my and the Blue Reptile's Chakra."

"And you just watched as you were being drained?"

"Of course not! I cut off the connection with the Baldy, but then that thing actually started sucking his life force."

With his life force being drained crazily, Shamon Laodi certainly couldn't maintain consciousness. After falling into a coma, he was misdiagnosed by Chiyo, who performed a round of incorrect treatment, directly causing that seed to hatch ahead of schedule.

Just as he was about to be sucked into a dried husk, Shukaku and the Dragon Vein acted decisively, gritting their teeth to offer up their own Chakra to delay the process of Shamon's exhaustion.

"Roar!"

Just as Uchiha Gin was sorting out the cause and effect, a weak roar sounded from behind. He saw a tiny, extremely thin blue dragon looking at him with great urgency.

"You want me to save Shamon Laodi?"

Although they didn't share a language, Uchiha Gin could clearly perceive what the Dragon Vein wanted to convey.

"Roar~"

Upon hearing Uchiha Gin's words, the Dragon Vein immediately jumped up and down in excitement. Shukaku stood to the side, arms crossed in silence, though its expression was full of worry.

"No problem, leave it to me."

Uchiha Gin nodded at the Dragon Vein. His purpose in coming here was to save people.

"Stop talking big. Unless the Baldy is dead, that plant will absolutely not stop absorbing Chakra."

Seeing Uchiha Gin's confident expression, Shukaku curled its lip in disdain.

It had also tried to force that plant out of Shamon's body, but as soon as it made contact, it felt a very tyrannical aura that couldn't wait to devour it, scaring Shukaku into tucking its tail and running.

"It's just a minor surgical procedure. Watch me~"

Under Shukaku's skeptical gaze, Uchiha Gin exited the space of the Tailed Beast Card.

"Hmph! I want to see what kind of skills you, a human, have."

Returning to reality, looking at the thriving, bizarre plant, Uchiha Gin already had a solution in mind.

He reached back and drew the black wooden sword hanging at his waist. Although this weapon had been with him for many years, it mostly served as a decoration, leading many people around him to believe that this unremarkable wooden sword was truly a discounted prop Uchiha Gin bought from a TV shopping channel.

"That is... huh?"

Shukaku, who was watching Uchiha Gin make a fool of himself from inside the Tailed Beast Card, saw the black wooden sword in his hand, and its face, previously full of disdain, changed abruptly. Its thin body turned into a streak of red Chakra and vanished from the spot.

"There is nothing I cannot cut~"

Uchiha Gin brandished the wooden sword in his hand and began to gesture over Shamon's body.

Suddenly, the dim Tailed Beast Card at his side erupted with bursts of golden light, and then a violent Chakra overflowed from it.

Attracted by this scene, Uchiha Gin stopped his movements in confusion and watched that violent Tailed Beast Chakra land in front of him.

"Huh?"

The Chakra condensed together, finally turning into a Q-version fat raccoon, only a dozen centimeters tall, like an exquisite doll.

"How did you get out?"

Uchiha Gin blinked in disbelief. He didn't remember setting up anything like this.

"Don't nag. I've always been able to come out whenever I want. Never mind that, where did you get this thing?"

The Q-version Shukaku trotted over to Uchiha Gin on its short legs and touched the black wooden sword with its claw. The familiar aura it felt made it unable to stop bean-sized tears from flowing.

"You guy, how do you have the Old Man's sword?"

With a crying voice, Shukaku grabbed Uchiha Gin's thigh and questioned him repeatedly.

"Huh? I picked it up."

"Wuwuwu, you're lying! The Sword of Nunoboko isn't Chinese cabbage; you don't just pick it up when you say so."

Looking at Shukaku, who was like a snot-nosed brat, Uchiha Gin shook his leg with a look of disgust. But the fat raccoon was like a magnet, clutching his pants tightly and refusing to let go, with the attitude that it wouldn't release him until he explained clearly.

"My new pants! If you don't let go, believe it or not, I'll shave you?"

Seeing that his pants, bought not long ago, were about to be defiled by Shukaku, Uchiha Gin was instantly furious.

"I don't believe it!"

"It seems the other beasts haven't told you about my great feats. In that case, adhering to the principle of fairness, I'll cut off your roots right now."

Uchiha Gin sneered and lowered his head, looking with a sinister gaze at Shukaku's tail, which was held high.

"Ga!"

Hearing this, Shukaku froze abruptly. It only then remembered the gossip it had heard in the Tailed Beast Chat Room.

There was a pervert holding the Old Man's divine artifact who specialized in cutting off Tailed Beast tails, and he only ever cut the most sensitive tips.

Could that not have been a horror story, but an actual event?

The stiff Shukaku slowly released its claws, retreated several steps on its short legs, and looked at Uchiha Gin with a face full of vigilance.

"If it weren't for this phantom image of yours, I would have castrated you long ago."

Uchiha Gin, having shaken off the hanger-on, curled his lip. After issuing a threat, he turned around and continued to look for a suitable spot to make his cut on Shamon.

"With a cut like that, won't you chop the Baldy into two pieces?"

Although it was somewhat afraid of Uchiha Gin, Shukaku, concerned for Shamon, still braced itself and moved closer, though it was much better behaved this time and didn't continue to make a fuss.

"Don't doubt my medical skills. I've performed more circumcisions than the number of men you've ever seen."

Having chosen the spot for the incision, Uchiha Gin raised his head, took out a medical surgical mask and put it on, then held the black wooden sword level before his eyes.

As a thought arose, the black wooden sword glowed with a faint light. Under Shukaku's astonished gaze, the originally thick and long wooden sword gradually shrank, finally turning into a sharp scalpel with a chilling gleam.

"The Old Ancestor's things are just easy to use."

Testing the feel of the scalpel, Uchiha Gin nodded with satisfaction.

"Next, it's time to start cutting."

Holding the scalpel, Uchiha Gin tentatively cut into the grayish-brown branch of the plant. The hard thorns snapped at the sound, falling to the ground and turning into a piece of lifeless deadwood.

It's feasible!

Uchiha Gin nodded secretly, then began the pruning work with confidence.

Crack!

Crack—

After careful pruning, the plant, which had just been lush with foliage, was left with only a bare main trunk. But it seemed to sense a crisis of survival and began to frantically suck up the little Chakra remaining in Shamon's body.

Shamon's already shriveled body lost even more color.

"What are you still waiting for?"

Shukaku, who was quietly watching the surgery, saw Shamon in critical condition and immediately urged him anxiously. But when it looked up, it was instantly stunned on the spot.

Uchiha Gin's eyes had turned into a look it had never seen before; the blue-white pupils emitted an aura that made Shukaku tremble.

"What kind of eyes are those?"

Shukaku asked in shock and doubt.

It prided itself on having seen many strange-looking eyes—it had witnessed circle eyes, red-eye disease, and cataracts—but this blue-and-white pupil was truly the first time it had seen one.

"Found it!"

Uchiha Gin, glaring with his mutated Byakugan, let out a roar. The scalpel in his tight grip turned into black lightning, landing precisely three inches above Shamon's lower abdomen. The entire tip of the blade sank into the skin, a sight that made Shukaku's heart jump.

"Pfft!"

As fresh blood spurted out, a circular root emitting an inexplicable light was picked out by Uchiha Gin and landed steadily in his hand.

And the branches attached to Shamon's abdomen seemed to lose their life, beginning to curl and wither, finally falling down as a small piece of deadwood.

"Phew, surgery successful~"

After completing the series of procedures like flowing water, Uchiha Gin wiped the non-existent cold sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Huh?"

That's it?

Shukaku, whose heart had been in its throat, was completely bewildered. Didn't he say he was performing an external excision surgery? How did it turn into removing a tumor?

"Don't look at me like that. The difficulty of this surgery was still quite high."

Uchiha Gin shook his head with a serious air, his gaze falling on the circular root in his hand.

Just now, while pruning the mysterious plant's branches, he had keenly discovered that it actually had a biological stress response; after being injured, the speed at which it absorbed Chakra accelerated abruptly.

At this moment, if he had rashly cut off all the branches, the roots embedded in Shamon Laodi's body would definitely have chosen to go down with him.

Therefore, the cautious Uchiha Gin chose to activate his mutated Byakugan to perform an internal check.

As a result, he discovered a complete root network inside Shamon's body—one end connected to the external branches, while the other end was the main event.

All the Chakra absorbed by the plant was drawn by the spread-out root network into the most prominent circular root, while the external branches were just there to show the progress of the absorption.

If Uchiha Gin guessed correctly, when this plant sucked Shamon Laodi and Shukaku dry, it would grow a fruit at the tip of the branches, transformed from the circular root.

"This thing..."

Squeezing the circular root full of life force, Uchiha Gin's gaze tightened. His eyes pierced through the thick outer skin and saw the Chakra Pill inside, compressed to the size of a pellet.

It was just that it wasn't mature yet, looking like an irregular shape.

After pondering for a moment, Uchiha Gin picked up the black scalpel and made a light incision, causing an irregular dark red pill to fall out.

"Is this their goal?"

Looking at the Chakra Pill, which was like a gummy candy, Uchiha Gin frowned slightly. This thing gave him a sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

"That's my Chakra!"

By now, Shukaku had recovered from its shock. Seeing the bouncy dark red pill in Uchiha Gin's hand, it immediately began to circle him in anxiety.

It could clearly perceive that the candy-like thing was formed from its Chakra.

"This is the reward for the surgery."

Ignoring Shukaku, who was spinning in circles in anxiety, Uchiha Gin took out a small box and put the Chakra Pill inside, preparing to take it back and study it properly.

"You robber!"

"It's just Chakra, isn't it? You'll get it back after resting for a while."

Looking down at the fat raccoon beating his calf, Uchiha Gin squatted down and grabbed its big head, switching to his scarlet Sharingan, and began to reason with the Tailed Beast with both emotion and logic.

It's just a tiny bit of Tailed Beast Chakra; you'll make it back if you just sleep a bit more, right?

"Ugh..."

Shuddering all over from the cold, chilling aura, Shukaku, which had been extremely indignant just a moment ago, immediately quieted down.

It almost forgot that the man in front of it was a descendant of Indra.

"An obedient Tailed Beast is a good Tailed Beast."

Seeing that Shukaku was no longer jumping around, Uchiha Gin patted its head with satisfaction, stood up, and tossed a ball of Chakra full of life force to Shamon, who was like a candle in the wind, to give this Laodi, who had almost been drained to death, a boost.

Under Uchiha Gin's nourishment, Shamon, who had just looked like gold paper, saw his pale complexion recover at a speed visible to the naked eye, and his originally withered body began to swell like an inflated balloon.

"Huhu..."

In the blink of an eye, the previously barely perceptible breathing sound gradually grew louder. Upon hearing this, Shukaku jumped to the bedside, and only after confirming that Shamon's vital signs had returned to normal did a smile from the heart spread across its chubby face.

"Human, thank you."

"When Laodi is in trouble, how could I stand by and watch~"

Hearing Shukaku's sincere thanks, Uchiha Gin immediately waved his hand, appearing very loyal and righteous.

"I'll go report the good news to Chiyo and the others first."

Since the treatment was finished, Uchiha Gin had no reason to stay any longer. He turned and pushed open the door of the small hut.

"Uncle Gin! Is the checkup finished?"

The people of Sunagakure, full of anxiety, saw the tightly closed small door suddenly open. Chiyo rushed over before everyone else, her watery eyes full of worry.

"Finished."

Uchiha Gin nodded. Chiyo felt a slight joy in her heart; since Uncle Gin didn't say he was helpless, it meant the teacher could still be saved.

"Then when will the surgery be prepared? Do you need our help?"

"I said it's finished. No preparation needed, and no help needed."

"Huh?"

Thump! —

Reto, who was behind, heard this sentence. His hunched body swayed a few times, and he sat down on the ground, his aged face full of sorrow.

"Shamon, is he finished after all?"

"Wuwuwu..."

"Lord Kazekage died so miserably..."

"Don't leave us, Lord Kazekage..."

Seemingly infected by Reto's emotions, the Suna ninja present wiped away tears one by one, beginning to prepare for the funeral of the great Second Kazekage in advance. The sound of sobbing instantly filled the entire high tower.

"Sorry, I made you run for nothing."

Chiyo, who realized it later, also had red eyes. Forcing back her grief, she bowed deeply to Uchiha Gin. The exaggerated scar made him unable to look away.

"Uh... you might have misunderstood my meaning. By 'finished', I meant..."

Uchiha Gin only then realized that what he said was a bit misleading. He hurriedly pulled Chiyo up, preparing to explain, but a trembling figure walked out of the small hut behind him first, the shiny bald head dazzling under the light.

Vaguely hearing the sound of crying mourning Lord Kazekage outside, Shamon, who had just woken up, leaned against the door frame and asked with excitement,

"Did the First finally pass away? When does the feast start? I'm starving to death!" (End of chapter)