Leaf forward camp, Land of Rivers.
Yohei and the others had just grabbed their new mission scroll and stepped out of the main command tent when Obito grabbed Yohei's arm, eyes wide.
"What's the job? You look way too happy about it."
Yohei smirked and held the scroll just out of reach, letting Obito stew for a few seconds like a cat with a laser pointer. Only after they were well clear of the tent did he hand it over.
"Support mission," he said. "But flexible as hell. We roam the front lines and jump in wherever we're needed. Total freedom."
Obito read it and lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. He took it as proof that command finally recognized their strength.
Kakashi scanned the scroll too and kept his thoughts to himself. He figured Jiraiya was mostly giving them breathing room after the hell they'd just survived while still letting them stay useful.
"Gear up and meet at the main gate in thirty," Yohei ordered.
"Got it!" the others answered in unison.
---
A few hours earlier, just after dawn.
Taiichi had worked straight through the night and knocked out five more antidotes. The patterns were finally clicking. He was this close to cracking the whole system.
Then the familiar tug of a reverse summoning hit him. Katsuyu was calling. Tsunade's reply had arrived.
He dropped everything, summoned the slug, and tore open the letter the second it was in his hands.
The opening line made him want to smack himself. You cocky little shit. You really thought that sob story would fool me?
He groaned, then kept reading. Tsunade roasted him for a solid paragraph before bragging about her "insane" winning streak at the tables and how she was living large. Taiichi didn't believe a word of it—her gambling luck was legendary for all the wrong reasons—but he appreciated the effort.
The real gold was the analysis that followed. She'd broken down the core mechanism behind Chiyo's poisons: one or two base structures with minor tweaks for different symptoms. Destroy the foundation and the whole family of toxins collapsed.
Taiichi's eyes went wide. That was the missing piece. Everything he'd been circling for days suddenly snapped into place.
He spent the next hour devouring Tsunade's annotated reports, then dove back into the lab. Two hours later he had antidotes for the last two unknown variants and a working theory on how to counter any future variations Chiyo threw at them.
"Hell yeah!" he shouted, pumping his fist. He grabbed his short blade and flashed straight to the medical tents.
Director Fujita was knee-deep in chaos when Taiichi appeared. Six new toxin variants had shown up overnight. She looked ready to pull her hair out until Taiichi shoved the new formula into her hands.
"This covers the whole family," he said, bloodshot eyes blazing with excitement. "Even if Chiyo keeps tweaking them, as long as the core stays the same we can neutralize it."
Fujita's jaw dropped. "You're serious?"
"Tested it myself. Hand this off to the compounding team right now."
She didn't need to be told twice. While she barked orders, Taiichi swayed on his feet. Twenty hours without sleep had finally caught up with him.
Fujita noticed the state he was in and her voice softened. "Go. Sleep. Now. Before you pass out on my floor."
Taiichi didn't argue. He flashed back to his tent, collapsed onto the cot fully dressed, and was out cold before his head hit the pillow.
---
While Taiichi slept, the battlefield stayed loud.
Leaf launched the big push Jiraiya had planned, but Sand had been ready. Rasa had warned them after losing Yohei's team. The attacks hit hard, but Sand's numbers held. Both sides traded blows and pulled back with similar losses by evening.
Behind the lines it was a different story. Minato's rescue run saved three of the four remaining Leaf recon squads. Sand lost six full teams in the process—five of them to Taiichi and Yohei's group alone.
Rasa was not happy.
That night the Sand command tent was quiet. Only Rasa, Chiyo, and Ebizo sat around the map table.
"We've been bleeding too much," Rasa said bluntly. "Especially to those two Flying Thunder God users. Any ideas?"
Ebizo rubbed his temples. "They're turning every supply run into a nightmare. We lose two or three times the normal amount just moving food and medicine."
Chiyo's eyes narrowed. "Most of our casualties trace back to those two. Wave after wave of attacks won't work on someone who can teleport out whenever he wants."
Rasa leaned forward. "Then we stop trying to kill them ourselves. Let someone else do it."
Chiyo and Ebizo looked at him.
"Spread the word through every spy we have. Make sure every village knows how dangerous Matsushita Taiichi is. Young, ridiculously strong, and already a medical genius on top of everything else. Paint him as the next Fourth Hokage."
A slow, vicious smile spread across Chiyo's face. "And do the same for Namikaze Minato while we're at it. Two monsters in one village? The other Kage will lose sleep over that."
Rasa nodded. "We can even ease pressure on certain sectors and let Leaf think they can pull forces away. Once those two are busy fighting on other fronts, we breathe easier here."
Ebizo chuckled darkly. "Cheap. Effective. And if Rock or Cloud actually takes one of them out, even better."
The three of them kept talking late into the night, refining the plan. By the time they finished, the first seeds of rumor and misdirection were already being planted across the ninja world.
Taiichi had no idea he'd just become the hottest target on every other village's radar.