Chapter 123

By around one in the morning, feeling a bit battered and extremely tired, I slithered into the house with the help of shadow clones. While they tended to my body, I greedily devoured a reheated plate of rice with meat, prepared by a domestic clone. Now, just an hour of meditation to dispel the copies, and I could hit the hay!

Despite what seemed like habitual use of shadow clones for many years and the developed habit of receiving information from them, I still continued such practice, although I could do without it by now. Besides better assimilating the memories obtained, meditation greatly helped distribute the chakra energy received throughout the body, almost nullifying the physical effects of the technique, improving chakra circulation and control, albeit to a lesser extent than exercises specifically aimed at such results.

Let's not forget about stimulating the ability to memorize the information studied and concentrating more fully on tasks requiring solutions. But the main reason for spending a large amount of time every day was not even that, but something completely different - meditation over the years allowed me to cope with accumulating mental and moral fatigue.

No one can train day and night, year after year, almost without weekends and holidays, without any method of relaxation. Nerves, they're not made of iron even for an Uzumaki. Put an ordinary kid in my place, who's been through the same, and I bet his head wouldn't be screwed on right. That is, if he can withstand such stress. In any case, some rumors about myself that I overhear in the hospital aren't very pleasant. In principle, if I had heard about a nine or ten-year-old operating on people after some catastrophe or something without blinking an eye, I wouldn't have believed it or would have thought that he's not quite right in the head.

Anyway, in the hospital, I'm the youngest medical ninja in history; even interns are usually two or three years older, and that's when I'm already ten, not seven. An ordinary kid simply doesn't have enough intelligence for such an achievement, and the heavy workload can lead to a nervous breakdown.

And it's precisely meditation, and to a lesser extent, knowledge of past life, that allow me to remain a relatively normal kid. That's why every day, regardless of the situation, I meditate, even at the expense of sleep. Amen.

Opening my eyes, I rolled onto my other side - didn't I just go to bed! Then why the hell did I wake up when it's still deep in the night outside?! After lying in the darkness for a while, I was about to fall back into Morpheus's arms, but in the silence of the house, I caught sounds suspiciously similar to sniffling.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! When will this end! These damn nightmares annoy not only ma but me too! It seems that this month I'm just destined to suffer from sleep deprivation! Throwing off the covers, I sat up and shook my head, trying to wake up. Something needs to be done about this because I'm not at all attracted to losing the opportunity to sleep normally at least three days a week, especially after exhausting training.

With a sigh, I got up and practically blindly made the bed, rolling it into a bundle, then picked it up under my arm and trudged to Saya's room. Despite almost perfect knowledge of the house and the entire situation, I managed to stub my toe against the jamb of my own door when squeezing through the doorway with my load.

The desire to curse was almost irresistible, but considering ma's attitude towards foul language, I decided not to risk it. Reaching her bedroom, I pushed the door aside and entered. Luckily, the room was a bit brighter thanks to a couple of lone moonbeams that pierced through the curtains on the windows.

"Ryo-kun?" Saya's voice came.

"And who else?" I grumbled, dropping the bundle I brought onto the floor next to her.

Making the bed, I quickly dived under the covers and reaching out, grabbed Saya, who winced, by the waist, pulling her to me as if for the first time when I just brought her from the hospital.

"If you need a hot water bottle to sleep properly, then I'm willing to serve in that capacity, as long as I don't have to calm you down after nightmares anymore," I sighed, "and now let's get some shut-eye, or else tomorrow I'll have to get up completely shattered."

"Thank you, Ryo... for everything."

"Pfft, as long as there's something to thank for," I snorted and sleepily muttered, "the main thing is that I won't have to pick up the pieces of you anymore, and everything else can go to hell."

Closing my eyes and gradually sinking into the sleepy bliss, I fell asleep almost instantly.

I've got more interesting stuff on patreon (up to 150 chapter)

patreon.com/Chill76