Naruto: Tango with Death

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Upon arriving at the hospital, I walked to the front desk and asked with a nice smile, "Excuse me, I'm here to visit my friends."

The man behind the counter pulled out a sheet of paper and asked, "What's their names?"

"Amai Kuma, Laiko Yamanaka, Izumi Uchiha."

The man slightly shifted in his seat, looking over the sheet of paper to look into my eyes as he asked, "It's your team?" His eyes slightly tilted toward my hitai-ate, but remained in my eyes.

I nodded, and he said, "Your Sensei is currently in Intensive Care, and your two teammates won't be taking in any guests right now…"

I tilted my head and asked, "Why? They didn't look too injured."

The guy shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, you should come back later."

I nodded, a bit stiffly, before walking away. It was disappointing, and it did sound a little fishy, but I couldn't just burst into their rooms. Besides, I had a guess of why they wouldn't' want to see me.

So I instead walked towards the Hokage's Tower, where I was quickly granted an audience.

Walking into Minato's office, I saw him smile from across the table as he said, "I see you changed. Did you get that dress from yesterday at the Summon World?"

I nodded, I had changed back into my usual Genin outfit, I had lost the one I wore in the Land of Tea, but I had spares.

Minato showed the seat in front of the desk, so I sat down and he asked, "So, your mission…"

I nodded and started, "I didn't have time to write it down, so I'll make a brief one orally. Our mission went relatively easy at first. We…"

I slowly told him about everything we went through, well most of it, including my stay in Yami Mountain, although I kept a few details to myself about that one.

Once I was finished, Minato sighed and said, "It would seem Amai did not get over what happened."

I guessed, "The death of my predecessor? They died at Suna's hands, didn't they?"

Minato nodded and said, "Team 5 stumbled upon an important intel from Suna, and your predecessor died while escaping. I thought Amai had gotten over it, but it seems I was wrong."

I tapped my finger on the table and asked, "What's going to happen now?"

Minato leaned back into his seat and asked back, "Did you go visit your team?"

I nodded and said, "I did, but apparently I couldn't visit them."

Minato hummed lowly, before saying, "Your Team suffered both psychological and physical damage, so they will have to take a break."

I frowned and said, "But I'm fine."

Minato shook his head and asked, "Why not take the break? I'm not asking you to remain idle, just not to go on mission. I heard you had good relationships with the Uchiha, you could do a seminar in the police."

I replied, "I don't need it though."

Minato frowned and said seriously, "Sukaina, you went through a lot of stress…"

I interrupted, "And I relieved myself from it. I am fine, both psychologically and physically."

Minato and I entered a stare off, and after a few seconds he sighed and said, "We'll talk about it in a few days."

I nodded slightly, rising from my seat, and as I walked to the door, I said, "I'll spending the next couple of days in the Summon World, if you're searching for me. They have something that can help me heal faster."

Minato nodded stiffly, and I walked out.

I was a little miffed about our talk, so it was somewhat in a bad mood that I walked back home. Grabbing the feather coat, I used the Reverse Summon Jutsu, teleporting all the way to Yami Mountain.

The Owl Sage looked at me with a smiling expression as he said, "You survived."

I smiled back and replied, "And I finished my mission. I was injured while going through it though…"

I didn't need to say anymore for the Owl Sage to turn around and say, "You may go to the Sacred Water Pool. Once you are fully healed, I expect you to come to the training grounds."

I nodded, and set the feather coat back on the mannequin before walking to the Sacred Water Pool. As I took off my clothes and dived into it, I once again felt the rich liquid surround me. It was rather warm, and filled with Yang Chakra.

Closing my eyes, I started meditating as I sent pulses of chakra toward my skin, before receiving them back, stimulating every tenketsu point in my body as I started healing. At the same time, I felt my skin get filled with energy from the pool, which naturally merged with my chakra.

So after a time, I decided to try something new, and opened the pores in my skin. The moment I did, I felt an overwhelmingly strong Yang Chakra invade my body. Yang Chakra was generally good, but too much of it at once could damage my body.

So I quickly closed down my pores, focusing on absorbing the Yang Chakra that invaded my body. It took me half an hour to refine it to the last bit.

But once I was finished, I was surprised to find out that my injuries were all gone. Just like that, they had healed.

Instantly, I was reminded of the First Hokage, and Tsunade's technique. Hashirama Senju was said to possess such a strong healing factor that he could rival Tsunade's ultimate technique with nothing but his body.

The Senju were also known to have strong bodies in general, and just know, I felt like my body had gotten a little bit stronger.

So what if Yang Chakra was Hashirama's secret? Could I reach his body's level by refining large quantities of Yang Chakra?

My curiosity incensed, I decided to try once again, but this time in a milder way. I did not open my pores completely like before, but instead barely opened them to let a thin stream of the Yang Chakra within the Sacred Water to infiltrate my body.

Now that I was in the middle of my meditation, I felt like the water around me was a heavy concentration of Yang Chakra, with both a high quality and quantity. Even though I barely opened my pores, I had pores all over my skin, several millions, and the Yang Chakra was of a great quality, so I still felt like I was quickly approaching my limit.

Before that could happen, I started actively working on refining the coming in Yang Chakra, manipulating it to do the exact same as my chakra as it started forming waves, going both in and out of my body.

I didn't feel time pass as my body rapidly strengthened itself, it wasn't very accurate but I could feel myself get several times strong than before, my Tenketsu Points and Meridians widening as my Chakra Reserves also increased by several times.

But as I was in the middle of my training, I suddenly felt my body get yanked out of the water. My instincts kicked in as I flipped my body to land on my feet before crashing into the ceiling.

However, as my feet hit the ceiling, and I tried to stick myself to hit, I suddenly felt the rock under my feet explode as I fell to the ground. This time, I didn't manage to flip fast enough as I landed on my side.

But the pain I expected didn't come, making me confused.

I looked around, and spotted the Owl Sage, who was looking down at me with squinted eyes.

I couldn't help but groan, "Why did you do that?"

The Owl Sage's voice sounded very angry as he asked, "Foolish child, don't you realize what you were doing?"