Chapter 6 - A Great Success

It was early in the afternoon when Mizuki was summoned to Hokage's office. She couldn't think of a reason as to what Kakashi would need her for, especially while she was at work, so she was really confused. Nonetheless she promptly made her way to the Hokage tower. She knocked on the door and waited for Kakashi's response before entering.

"Good afternoon, Mizuki-san." He greeted her when she approached his desk.

"Good afternoon, Hokage-sama." She replied.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I called for you out of the blue." Mizuki nodded. "There is a small favour I want to ask of you. You see, we seem to be short of jonin medics with the sudden influx of missions lately. Tsunade and I talked and were hoping that you would be able to fill in as the medic for one of our jonin teams? Despite being a chunin, Tsunade has faith in your capabilities and I take her word for it."

Mizuki was stunned, she hadn't expected this. Though she quickly said yes because she remembered when she was first hired, Tsunade had told her she was still expected to take field missions if a shortage of medic nins was a problem. It was her job and she wouldn't neglect her duties.

"Of course, Hokage-sama. When do I need to be ready?"

"I apologize for the short notice but in an hour. You will be joining your team at the gates. Your other teammates will include Asato Hideo and Hirai Kenzou. I need you three to pick up a few important scrolls from our Daimyo at the country's capital. If all goes well you should be back in three days. Do you have any questions?" Mizuki shook her head. Meet with the team, get some important papers, and come home; sounded pretty straight forward to her.

"That is all then. Good luck and thank you." Mizuki gave him a small bow and left the building to go inform Tsunade that she was leaving. She received a hug from her sensei who wished her luck.

It has been a while since she was on the field, nearly 6 months actually. She worried that her combat skills were a little rusty but when the lives of her teammates rested in her hands, she knew she couldn't mess up no matter what. And if Tsunade had faith in her like Kakashi said, then she should too.

After she fixed herself a quick meal she went about packing her stuff. She grabbed her bag and packed it with the essentials: bandages, disinfectant wipes, food rations, water, extra weapons, cloth, and a few small surgical tools. She changed into her kunoichi outfit, a light blue sleeveless kimono-style blouse with white vertical stripes and a navy obi around the waist, a pair of navy shorts, and black high-heeled boots. Her blonde hair was tied in a high ponytail and her new headband was worn proudly over her forehead. A black weapons pouch was strapped to her right thigh to complete her outfit.

Since it was her first mission in a while she decided it would be best that she get there early just to make sure she wasn't late. When she arrived at the gates she noticed there were two tall shinobis conversing with Izumo and Kotetsu. Since she couldn't see any other people there she decided to approach them.

When she got closer, Kotetsu noticed her and waved her over.

"Hey there, Mizuki."

"Hello." She gave a small wave to the other three who now noticed her presence.

"What brings you here, Mizu?" Izumo asked.

"Um...I'm supposed to meet my team here for a mission? I'm filling in as the medic cause there's a shortage of jonin medics."

"Ah gotcha. Well let me introduce you to them. This here is Hideo and that's Kenzou." Izumo said, gesturing towards the two males that they were originally talking to.

Mizuki peered at her two teammates and greeted them. Hideo looked to be about 6 feet, with spiky brown hair, warm hazel eyes and a slim muscled figure. He wore a red sleeveless shirt with black joggers and his headband was wrapped around his waist. His friend Kenzou was slightly taller but packed with a lot more muscles. His black hair was pulled back into a bun and a thick beard dominated his face. He wore a dark grey collared jacket with light grey joggers. His headband rested on his forehead and two pouches were attached to either thighs by white bandages. Compared to her short stature, he was quite the intimidating fellow.

"Nice to meet you, pretty lady." Hideo said grabbing a hold of her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. Mizuki's eyes widened at his actions and a light blush dusted her cheeks. She had her fair share of men hitting on her but that doesn't mean she didn't get embarrassed at the attention. When she was in public she usually ignored them or would politely send them away. However, in this case, she couldn't do either but she didn't have to because Kenzou quickly showed what he thought about his friend's actions.

Kenzou had smacked his fist over his friend's head. Hideo immediately dropped her hand to nurse the back of his head.

"Please refrain from flirting with our teammate, Hideo." Kenzou scolded in a deep voice. He turned towards Mizuki. "I apologize for my friend's inappropriate behaviour, Mizuki-san."

Mizuki nodded dumbly, unsure of how to respond. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Izumo and Kotetsu snickering at Hideo who in turn glared at them.

"Enough tom foolery, Hideo, we have a mission to complete." Kenzou grabbed the back of his friend's shirt and dragged him away from their other friends. Izumo and Kotetsu waved goodbye to the group, still laughing to themselves about Kenzou's treatment of Hideo.

Mizuki quietly followed the two men while Hideo decided to start an argument with Kenzou about his treatment of him. Kenzou sighed and turned his head to look at Mizuki. "I promise you, he can get more annoying than this."

Mizuki smiled and chuckled at his joke at the expense of his friend. The two slowed down their pace so she now walked between them.

"Are you new here? We haven't met you before." Hideo asked now behaving nicely lest his friend abuse him again.

Mizuki nodded and explained to them how she moved to the village and now works at the hospital.

"That's cool, you knew Tsunade before moving here?"

"Yep! I came here for a training program a few years before the war and she was the one teaching it. We kept in touch since then and she told me about the job opening here."

"Well I'm glad she hired you. Maybe we can get a drink after this mission?" Hideo grinned at her but it was quickly wiped off his face when Kenzou made another swipe at him. Fortunately, this time Hideo had anticipated his friend's assault and slyly dodged it.

"Let's focus on the mission shall we?" Kenzou grumbled.

Hideo rolled his eyes at his boring friend. "What's there to be worried about? It's just grabbing a bunch of papers for the Hokage."

"Those documents hold sensitive information. We mustn't let it get taken, understood?"

"Yeah yeah, whatever, we got it."

"Let's go." Said Kenzou. The three of them jumped into the trees and made their way towards the capital. They continued at a steady pace until nightfall came then set up camp in a small area by a running river. They each took turns vigilantly watching over camp while the others got some rest. Throughout dinner they continued to get to know each other. Mizuki found them both to be very friendly and were good company. Despite their vast difference in personality, she could tell that they complimented each other well and their friendship was strong. They had shared numerous stories with her from their childhood and made her feel very welcomed to their group.

By late afternoon the next day, they had arrived at the capital. The guards at the gates escorted them to the Daimyo's mansion. They quickly obtained the scrolls and placed a protective seal over it for extra protection. The Daimyo had offered to set them up with rooms for the night so they may rest before heading home but the three politely declined. They agreed that they wanted to head back as soon as possible and enjoyed sleeping out under the stars more than anything. However, they did accept the meal that the Daimyo had prepared for them as thanks.

Shortly before night fell, they thanked the Daimyo for his hospitality and left with the scrolls. By the time morning came they were only several hours from the village much to their relief. The mission was on the boring side so they would rather return home.

"Man, what a boring mission." Hideo complained as they ran through the trees.

Mizuki smiled. The whole way back he had been complaining about the mission. She and Kenzou had taken to ignoring their brooding teammate to talk about more interesting things.

"Hideo...enough with th-"

Whatever Kenzou was going to say was cut off when a kunai whizzed past them and exploded behind them. The three were immediately on high alert. They formed a tight triangle position and pressed forward faster. Mizuki glanced behind them and noticed several masked individuals following closely behind them. She couldn't see any sort of indication to their affiliation so she guessed they were either rogues or hired nins. Either way, she had a pretty good idea what they were after.

Mizuki's eyes widened when they threw a barrage of kunais and shurikens at her. She had just leapt off one branch and was in midair making it extremely difficult for her to counter the oncoming weapons. Luckily her teammates appeared in front of her and deflected the attack.

"Mizuki, keep running we'll hold them off." Kenzou ordered. Mizuki nodded and without glancing back, sped ahead. They had previously decided that she would carry the scrolls. Because of her lack of recent experience in combat, it was better that way. She heard the clank of metal on metal as her teammates and the enemies engaged in battle.

They were still a good six hours from the village and it was very unlikely that any help would be able to reach them so it was really up to them to get out of here alive and complete the mission.

A kunai whizzed past Mizuki and grazed her cheek. She glanced behind her and saw two shinobis that had managed to slip past her teammates, pursuing her. She created two water clones and scattered in different directions. If the enemy decided to pursue her clones then that would buy her enough time to run, and if one pursued her then at least she could fight him one on one.

She sent one clone towards the village, another went right and she herself bailed left to hopefully shake them; unfortunately, only one fell for her trick.

Mizuki grabbed a kunai from her pouch just in time to block an attack from her pursuer. She pushed him back and watched him land on the tree a few meters from her.

Mizuki weaved several signs in quick succession before her opponent could react. "Water release: Hunting Tiger pack!"

Water spilled from her mouth and took the form of three ravenous tigers. The large felines locked onto their target and sprinted towards him with fangs bared. Mizuki didn't look back as she continued to run. She hadn't even gotten more than what she guessed was 10 meters before another barrage of shurikens were flying towards her.

In the nick of time she managed to conjure a raging wave in front of her to block the attack. When the water cleared she could see the second guy had caught up to her. Running was not an option now, she had to kill him and quickly before his friend could regroup with him.

Mizuki brought her kunai up and charged at him. He blocked her attack but quickly jumped away when she brought her left hand that glowed with chakra in the shape of a blade upwards. The attack wasn't enough to kill but did leave a gash across his chest. She didn't allow the man to get a breather and immediately launched more attacks at him. In the end she managed to land a fatal stab on him when she restricted his movements with several water whips.

However, Mizuki saw the attack too late. She felt the hard bark of the tree connect harshly with the back as a large boulder was hurled at her. She summoned chakra into her feet and pushed herself out of the path of the sword that came swinging down on where she originally laid. Mizuki slowly allowed her chakra to spread throughout her body to heal some minor injuries.

He shot a barrage of rocks at her and it took her by surprise when the rocks forcefully pushed her back into the tree and wrapped around her torso, binding her arms together. Mizuki watched in anger as he walked towards her bag that had fallen off during the battle to retrieve the scrolls they picked up from the Daimyo. She tried desperately to break free from the binding but the more she struggled the stronger the bindings got.

In her vain attempts to escape she didn't notice the kunai with an explosive tag thrown at her by the enemy. She heard an anguished scream and a loud explosion. The force was enough to break her free of the bindings but also send her crashing to the ground. Through the cloud of dust she vaguely saw the enemy take off with her bag. Mizuki pushed up intending to get it back when a distressed howl caught her attention.

She looked to her side and was startled to see Hideo laying on the ground with a small pool of blood gathering around him. Mizuki was instantly by his side, they could always take a detour and retrieve the scrolls later but she couldn't let her friend die.

When Mizuki got closer to him she gasped, her stomach clenched in apprehension. The explosion, that he probably took the brunt of to save her, had mangled his left arm so much that it was barely connected to his shoulder with bits of burnt flesh and broken bones.

Mizuki didn't waste any time and got to work immediately. Her hands glowed green with her warm chakra and she pressed it to the area where his limb was detached. She grit her teeth when he heard his distraught cry.

"Y-you're going to be okay, Hideo. Please, just hang in there." She whispered, sounding unconvincing even to her own ears.

For the last several months, Mizuki had worked with Tsunade on different variations of her original jutsu in hopes that it would perfect it. The main issue that they ran into was the precise chakra control needed from the user. Not only did it require incredible chakra control but also an in-depth knowledge of the composition of the human body. The last couple years had seen a great strive in medical advancements. More medics nowadays are able to perfectly reconstruct human body parts but it takes an extremely long time and absolute focus. Her new technique was to ensure that injured shinobis and kunoichis could survive their injuries long enough to get to that point. The second issue was that it could be pretty draining on the user. To maintain the gel once it is molded to and filled in the injured area, the user would have to constantly stream their chakra into the gel. If the user did not have enough chakra to maintain it for the journey home then there was a good chance that the limb couldn't be reattached.

Once Mizuki had stopped the substantial bleeding she molded her chakra to form a blue gel like substance. Hideo had quieted down significantly since Mizuki had stopped the bleeding and also slightly numb the area. She kept whispering words of encouragement to him, urging him to stay awake long enough for her to complete the procedure.

When the blue gel accumulated into a hefty blob the size of a small watermelon, she carefully guided it to the area where the limb was severed. She gently pushed the blob until it encased the injured area. Mizuki gritted her teeth when she heard the pained hiss escape Hideo's mouth. His forehead was drenched in sweat and his eyes were tightly shut. Mizuki tried to work faster but couldn't let herself make a careless mistake. She carefully willed the gel to mold to the damaged bones, veins, and tendons until it filled in the missing gap caused by the explosion.

Mizuki felt her heartbeat quicken when she saw that the procedure was delivering good results. She saw colour and felt the warmth flood back into his lower arm. Mizuki wanted to scream in joy but composed herself, this was only the first half. If she could get him back to Konoha and successfully complete the surgery then she knew it was a success.

When Mizuki sensed a new chakra in the area she was immediately on her feet with her weapons drawn.

"Relax, it's just me." A deep familiar voice rumbled. Mizuki sighed in relief at the sight of Kenzou.

She saw his indifferent expression break when he glanced to her side and saw his injured friend. "What happened?" He growled, running to Hideo's side; he stared at Hideo's injured arm.

"H-he got injured blocking an explosive a-attack for me." Mizuki choked out. "I've been working on a new technique with Lady Tsunade that reconnects detached limbs long enough to get them proper medical care so injured nins wouldn't permanently lose a limb."

Kenzou clenched his fist and nodded. Mizuki was taken aback when a bag was thrown at her...more specifically it was her bag that had the scrolls.

"I tracked down the last guy, they're all dead. Is he stable enough to be moved?"

Mizuki nodded. She watched Kenzou gently pick up his friend and made sure to move Hideo's injured arm so it was safely cradled on his torso. Without a word the two took off as fast as they could in hopes that they weren't too late to save their friend.

By the time they arrived at the gates 6 hours later, Mizuki felt exhausted but she couldn't let herself rest at such a crucial time. Izumo and Kotetsu were at the gates smiling and waving at them to welcome them back but quickly stopped when they saw the state of Hideo.

Kenzou and Mizuki ignored their two friends and rushed to the hospital. When Mizuki threw open the doors she immediately got into action ordering nearby nurses to prepare an operating room and to assemble a team to assist her with the surgery. Kenzou followed the nursing team to an empty room and placed his friend atop the operating table before he moved to the waiting room, anxiously waiting for some good news.

Shizune had been nearby whenMizuki returned, she followed Mizuki to help her mistress' student prep for the surgery. Her and Sakura also aided Mizuki and Tsunade in doing research and experiments with the new technique so it made sense for her to be there as one of the more knowledgeable staff. Shizune stayed by Mizuki's side when she began operating on Hideo's arm. Shizune looked upon the blue gel and was astounded that it worked seemingly perfectly. The team worked delicately to slowly pull back the gel and reform the damaged arm just so a constant connection could be kept between the two parts.

Meanwhile, Kakashi and Tsunade were in a meeting discussing the new budget for the different areas pertaining to the health care system of the village when the door to his office was thrown open aggressively. Kakashi was about to dismiss the individual who interrupted their meeting when he and Tsunade noticed the distressed look on the panting nurse.

"L-Lady Tsunade...hospital...Mizuki performing surgery a-and new technique…" The nurse explained in broken words. At the girl's words Tsunade was immediately up on her feet and rushing to the hospital. Kakashi was also up on his feet, he vaguely understood the situation from the girl's explanation. He approached the nurse and asked if she was okay.

"Y-yes, my Lord." She answered, trying to catch her breath. Kakashi pressed his hand to the small of her back and guided her towards the staff's break room so she could rest. After he double checked that she was okay, he made his way to the hospital. If he understood what the girl's words meant, then it probably suggested that they would soon have a medical breakthrough.

Kakashi walked through the hospital and noticed there were several small groups of nurses and doctors whispering amongst themselves. With a trained ear he could hear the different opinions they shared about their colleague's current surgery. He walked down the hallway and noticed one of the nins he had assigned to the mission with Mizuki. He approached the burly man and took a seat beside him on the bench.

"Are you okay, Kenzou?" Kakashi asked. He had the pleasure of getting to know the man who was a few years younger than him because they both ran in the same friend group. He had tremendous respect for the young man. Not only was he exceptionally skilled, but he was also very loyal to his friends; something Kakashi valued highly.

Kenzou was slightly hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together underneath his chin. He silently nodded in response to Kakashi's question. Kakashi watched the man reach to the seat on his left and hand him a backpack. Kakashi curiously grabbed the bag that was handed to him.

"The scrolls you asked for." Kenzou explained.

Kakashi stared down at the dirty ripped bag. "What happened?" He asked. Kenzou sighed and recounted the details of the last several hellish hours. When Kakashi heard the details of Hideo's injury he prayed for the young man's recovery. He's seen his fair share of gruesome injuries after numerous battles and especially after surviving two wars. Normally the injury that Kenzou described would mean certain amputation for the individual if this were a few years back. Tsunade creating a new hand for Naruto and Sasuke alone was a feat but years later and many more medical advancements meant something like that could be more easily accomplished. He had no doubt in his mind that Hideo would be as good as new in a few weeks' time.

Kakashi sat with the young man to offer some support even if it was just sitting in silence with him. It was maybe 6 hours later, quite late into the night, when they noticed a group walking down the hallway towards them cheering happily. At the front of the group was Mizuki who was being congratulated by all her colleagues. Tsunade had a look of pride on her face as she hugged the young girl around the shoulders.

Mizuki stepped out of Tsunade's embrace and made her way to Kenzou who anxiously stood up when he saw her. He felt relief wash over him when he saw the genuine smile on Mizuki's face and when she pulled him into a hug.

"He's going to be okay." She shared. "The technique worked perfectly and we managed to save his arm and reconstruct the parts that were damaged. He just needs to rest for a couple weeks now."

He gave her a return hug and thanked her again and again for saving his friend. He pulled back from her and made his way towards the surgical team to thank them as well. Kakakshi stood beside the tired girl intending to congratulate her when he noticed her swaying slightly.

"Mizuki, are you ok-" Before Kakashi could even get his question out, she collapsed. Thankfully he had anticipated that and caught her in his arms before she collided with the ground.

He picked her up as Tsunade walked towards them. She sighed and gently ran her hand over the girl's sweaty forehead.

"She's been up for nearly 24 hours now and completely drained her chakra reserves just to maintain the jutsu and perform the surgery, not to mention the battle she had before all of that. I'm surprised she didn't pass out sooner." Tsunade shook her head with a small smile on her face. "Come, we'll put her in one of the rooms to rest."

Kakashi followed Tsunade down the hall to one of the recovery rooms. While walking, he glanced down at the woman in his arms with admiration in his eyes.

'What a remarkable woman.' He thought to himself.