Chapter 36

The girl turned her head in the direction I indicated and gave a weak smile. After briefly closing her eyes, she looked at me again.

— I won't die? — The barely audible whisper contained so much hope that I felt a bit uncomfortable.

— We all die; the only difference is when, — I darkly joked, but to avoid scaring her, I immediately added, — After my efforts, you should feel better, so you won't die in the next week. If I can piece together the remnants of your keirakukei and direct it from the source to your organs, you might even reach old age with some luck. Of course, by not taking care of your health right after pregnancy or even during it, you've definitely cut a decade off your life expectancy and eliminated any chance of becoming a shinobi again. But living an ordinary life should be within your reach. So, lie still now and let me do my job.

Akiko wearily closed her eyes, and I got to work. Thank the gods, the girl's source began to stabilize with the cautious infusion of nutrients into her body, so I proceeded to more delicate manipulations.

A small number of primary chakra channels around the core still remained, as did those leading to the head, so gradually pulling fragments from various places, I began to form a rough, very rough semblance of a keirakukei to channel to the organs and one channel in each limb. Compared to what I did with Keiko — it was night and day, but I didn't need to restore the keirakukei to perfect condition now; I just needed to make sure the chakra could circulate through the body, without the immediate ability to escape outside.

After all, tenketsu are needed for using jutsu, not for normal life. But what potential kunoichi Ro missed — even considering her underdevelopment, disrupted by pregnancy, prolonged illness, and exhaustion, her source had already started to recover and remained at the level of a strong chunin.

Wait for her husband for a couple of years and Akiko could have given birth to children even from the strongest shinobi without much trouble. All it needed was time. Although, in some ways, I understand Ro. If the girl had the opportunity to fully develop, in a couple of years the clans would have noticed her and started courting her. No hereditary shinobi could resist that.

After working literally until evening with the rough semblance of a chakra system, I managed to complete the task, even though I worked in a hurry. Seeing the girl starting to move much more energetically and no longer looking like a dried-up skeleton, I nodded in satisfaction and stretched my shoulders, cracking my joints. Well, even though it's a rough substitute, it will suffice for the destroyed one. Although…

An interesting thought crossed my mind. Given that I've already trained enough with Keiko and will finish with her in about three or four months, a girl with a nearly destroyed keirakukei falling into my hands might come in very handy, but first, she should be taken for an examination at the hospital to document her current state. Maybe even to Kuminaro. But then…

Thinking about potentially achieving the highest rank of iryō-nin in a couple of years, I smirked. After all, reaching the second rank requires patching up what exists, while the first rank requires complete development of chakra channels, and now I already have a candidate. At least it's better than doing charity work left and right at every opportunity.

There won't be enough health for that. And if another patient turns out to be a girl, well, I'm not running to save men. If it's men, they should fend for themselves; if they can't, others will be found. It's called cleaning the gene pool.

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