#Ninjutsu and Medical ninjutsu

[cherry-arcadebasement24]

[brighteuphony]

@xoxo-lahh

So in this verse, Tsunade never ends up teaching Sakura- as that role is fulfilled by Chiyo. (But she DOES return to Konoha eventually).

And Chiyo's first rule (for everything lol) is: Nothing is Free.

Chiyo always demanded something in return for healing, and unlike Tsunade, she considered medical jutsu a part of her arsenal. If it could kill, then it was always an option.

So Sakura learned from that mindset, trading her services and using her rare skillet as a powerful negotiating tactic, especially during Tea Country's civil war. Her healing effectively kept her, Enji, and Saeko in relative safety and provided her a card to play when she needed.

And, while Sakura is nowhere near as jaded as Chiyo is, and often enough of a bleeding heart to help people for damn near free, (a place to stay, food for the night, a new holster for her kunai), she is also VERY pragmatic about her skillset. The civil war taught her that sometimes, letting someone die is better. This puts her at odds with Tsunade, who has a very different mindset (and was, historically, bitter enemies with Chiyo).

Another issue that arises with Tsunade, is that the Godaime is a doctor- while Chiyo is more of a healer. Their understanding of the human body comes from a different place.

Tsunade can name every bone and muscle and perform open-heart surgeries. Sakura can heal bone and stitch back together muscles and flesh on a very basic level, but she's never going to be able to open up a human body and revolutionize medical history like she does in canon. (In canon, Sakura creates a Jutsu that allows her to do a four-man surgery alone; she can't do that here.)

However, she can do some stuff that Tsunade claims is impossible—like reconstructing/altering someone's chakra network, unblocking tenketsu, sometimes turning off someone's dojutsu from a distance, and lite-healing remotely (Tsunade is very upset about this one specifically). A lot of it comes from her mastery of Genjutsu.

Genjutsu, as I reworked in my comic, requires a complete understanding of someone's chakra network to control ALL their senses. Sakura's understanding and control are so prodigious that she can almost autonomously control people's bodily functions (a skillset that is GREATLY aided by training with Chiyo's puppet mastery).

She uses Genjutsu as a tool to understand the body and employs it as both support (helping an ally maintain a sense of gravity as they're pulled underground or flung in the air, etc) and offense.

And that's it for the wall of text! Once again, thank you SO much for the amazingly kind words and all the interest in this AU! <3

[evilkitten3]

ok so like i know the reason is just. sexism but one thing that really irks me about how the post-timeskip naruto manga handled which characters became medic nin bc it makes absolutely no sense to me

sakura's decision to train under tsunade makes sense, and i love that she got a super strength power up, so no notes there, but the other teams.... yeesh

so first off, team ten. we're told that ino decided to follow sakura into mednin land to keep being rivals with her... despite that at no point factoring into their rivalry at all beforehand. ino never showed any interest in that, nor was the yamanaka clan ever mentioned to have anything to do with healing as far as i can remember. it's like going to art school to stay with your bestie when your goal is to become a dentist. why are you there. find other ways to spend time together. it also kinda goes against her family's whole thing as. the guys who do the torture stuff. and it's barely ever relevant anyway

for team ten, i think the team medic should've been shikamaru, and i think this not just bc i think it makes more sense skill-wise (something about the way the nara clan's various shadow jutsu work just screams "you need good chakra control for this" to me), but also bc i think it would make asuma's death a thousand times more painful. bc shikamaru is a slacker. he's not learning medical ninjutsu bc he wants to, he's learning it bc someone on the team has to in order to stick together. they're all chuunin now; one of them has to be a medic. them's the rules. but he doesn't really care that much, even when he is trying to learn, and he's so used to being smart enough to not have to pay attention in lessons anyway that he's not prepared for classes that require his full focus. and then asuma dies and shikamaru is doomed to spend the rest of his fucking life wondering if he could've saved him by paying just a little more attention to those medical ninjutsu lessons (he could not have (but he'll never know for sure))

team eight makes some sense, since giving the girl who struggles with fighting the healing job isn't exactly out of nowhere, but i do feel it was the lazy choice. kiba already had a sister involved in the medical business, even if she deals more with animals, so he could've started learning from her and found that he liked it. plus kiba's goal is to be hokage, and the current hokage is a mednin, so it's not like it wouldn't support his goal. or shino could do it; would add another layer to his character. hinata works fine but. it's just not a very interesting development imo

but what really gets me is team gai. good freaking grief. out of every single team, team gai was the one with the most obvious choice. bc there was only one choice. lee can't do any kind of ninjutsu, and tenten's only real backstory is that her chakra control isn't good enough for her to be a medic nin. so it had to be neji. canon establishes that every team has to have a medic; this is a policy tsunade got passed even before she became hokage, so no way in hell is she going back on it now.

moreover, neji becoming a medical ninja - especially if hiashi encouraged it - would show some development for the hyuuga clan maybe starting to suck a bit less. bc as a medic, neji would be bound by oath to stay alive for as long as possible. imagine a world in which hizashi came back and hiashi was able to tell his brother that not only was their family starting to change, but his son had chosen a path that would prevent him from ever following in his father's footsteps. it would be the first step (of many) to show that the hyuuga clan was freeing itself from its own bullshit.

also it would've made sakura catching the zetsu pretending to be neji a thousand times funnier. like that's her coworker. they've shared shifts at the hospital together. she's seen neji drink vodka straight from a bottle and then crash on her couch after they got out of a twelve-hour surgery on the fucking dumbass chuunin who managed to step on his own boobytrap. she knows him.

[team7-headquarter]

Shout out to the medic nins in the Naruto world who keep trying to piece things back together in a world made of violence and destruction.

Shout out to Lady Chiyo, who created a jutsu to give her life force to bring a puppet to life because she knew Sasori missed his parents. Later, Chiyo used that technique to save a girl who took a sword to a vital point to protect her and told her to use the last of the antidote for poison. Later, Chiyo used it to save Gaara after he was long gone, hoping it'd make the world a better place. It was her love that defeated Sasori, what brought him down in the end.

Shout out to Tsunade, who saw the corpse of her little brother after an ambush. She fought so that every team could have a healer having their back and fell in love with the man that supported her. The same man who died with Tsunade's hands covered in his blood, the other man she couldn't save. Shout out for her for saving so many nins, for overcoming her trauma, for becoming hokage and draining herself again and again and again to save others. Shout out to the woman who got cut in half and fought her way back and kept healing and lived to see the world she promised Nawaki and Dan, the world they'd have wanted to create.

Shout to Karin, who was used and abused and who got treated like trash, whose mom died of giving things she didn't want to give, who got bitten in far too private places since she was nothing but a kid. And yet she used her skills to save others. And yet she fought.

Shout out to Shizune, who never left Tsunade's side, who followed the step of her uncle and the woman that should had been his wife. Tsunade, who lost too much in one war and then led the medic corps on the next, the woman who stepped as counselor and assistant for both Tsunade and Kakashi, who cared for the wellbeing of the village more than in just the physical aspect.

Shout out to Kabuto, found his way back from the darkness and devoted his life to atone and heal and do as much good as he could.

Shout out to Rin, who saw one of her teammates get crushed by a rock and had to perform field surgery to remove his eye and give it to her other teammate. The girl who fought and loved and who preferred to die by a friend's hand than to be used as a weapon against the people she loved.

Shout out to Sakura, who saw two of the most realities develop in her teammates lives, so she promised she would become the absolute best and find a way to be strong enough to deal with the aftermath. The girl who used herself as a human shield to protect older people and kids and teammates and enemies. She healed Karin, she offered to be Chiyo's puppet and she held her in death and she led Konoha's hospital and saw it get totally destroyed by Pain, fallen to her knees. She was beaten and mocked and insulted and pushed aside, never enough, but when the medic nins couldn't reach the battlefield, she unlocked in record time and ability only the best medic nin possessed to heal them, so she could fight. In a world of powers and gods, she kept Naruto's heart beating with her hand, breathing for him.

Shout out to every medic nin who got targeted and killed and who risked their lives to save the lives of others. Shout out to the strength it takes to never break, even when death is something you face every day, not only in the battlefield. Shout out to their saviour complexes and the ones who become martyrs and the ones who forget to take care of themselves because they are as valuable.

Medic mins will forever be one of my favorite parts of the Naruto universe.

[primnroses]

— An insight about summons: Katsuyu, the slug of the Shikkotsu Forest

The information presented in this post has been checked and revised. My aim is not to hate or to discredit any of the characters mentioned. Please read about me for further information.

This post will contain evidence in picture format directly from the manga Naruto (1999 - 2014) created by Masashi Kishimoto and published by Shueisha in 1999. I will also use information from the official databooks of Naruto.

This informative post will analyze the concept of animal summons in the world of Naruto and highlight Katsuyu’s unique abilities throughout the series providing evidence. This meta will also mention other animal summons from the Three-Way Deadlock. I will not use information present in the novels because there is none.

This meta is crossposted in AO3.

I give my permission to use or share this thread with informative purposes as long as you credit me.

I do not support the anime or the work of Studio Pierrot in regards to Naruto because I consider it over exaggerated and beyond biased. Furthermore, these fillers include some actions that these characters are unable to do in the canon according to official sources and they also generate unnecessary debate.

Please, take this into consideration.

Katsuyu, also known as Katsuyu of the Shikkotsu Forest, is a giant slug from the Shikkotsu Forest, a secret and legendary place from the Three Unexplored Sage Regions (仙人三大秘境, Sennin Sandai Hikyō). 

The Three Sage Unexplored Regions according to the Fourth databook.

She is the personal summon of the Fifth Hokage Tsunade, and later, her disciple Sakura Haruno; both women are probably the only people in the world that have been able to summon the slug.

Katsuyu possesses one of the most unique qualities and abilities among animal summons, most of which are still a mystery within the series. 

— WHAT IS A SUMMON AND ANIMAL SUMMONS?

A summon is the ability to invoke objects, weapons, people or animals. This action is carried out through a Summoning Technique (口寄せの術­, Kuchiyose no Jutsu), a special hand seal based jutsu to transport any element to the user’s location for a limited amount of time. 

A Summoning Technique is classified as a space-time ninjutsu and a C-Rank (chūnin level) difficulty jutsu. 

Summoning Technique according to the First databook.

Usually, in order to summon objects or weapons, users apply scrolls or special sealing techniques to contain the desired material. This is the case of Tenten, for example; she uses scrolls to seal multiple kunai, shuriken and any weapon of her choice, granting her the title of “Master of space-time ninjutsu”.

However, for animals and living creatures, this is different.

An animal summon is a technique that adds to the ninja’s ninjutsu repertoire, as a shinobi can take advantage of the animal’s abilities for battle or other purposes.

Before any animal can be summoned, the animal and the user must sign a contract with the species or the specific creature using their blood. In order to summon said animal, the user applies some of their blood, normally by biting their fingers, and channels their chakra to their hands thus invoking a sealing pattern that transports their summon to that same location. The amount of chakra used to summon the creatures determines the size and number of summons. 

The summoning contract of the Toads of Mount Myōboku, Naruto chapter 92.

In the case of the Three Unexplored Sage Regions, the summoning contracts vary. 

Naruto Uzumaki Jiraiya and Minato Namikaze sealed a contract with the toads of Mount Myōboku using their own blood, so when they perform a Summoning Technique, any available toad can offer their services to them. 

Orochimaru has his contract with the snakes of the Ryūchi Cave tattooed on his arms. The methods his disciple Sasuke Uchiha uses to summon snakes from the same location is unknown. 

Tsunade and Sakura Haruno do not have a physical contract, or at least it has never been revealed. However, by reading the manga, the contract with the Shikkotsu Forest might be through their Strength of a Hundred Seal, as it is only possible to summon Katsuyu if the summoner possesses this seal.

It is unknown if there is a blood contract involved, but it is likely that there is since the method of summoning is blood like his companions. 

Orochimaru's contract Naruto chapters 165 and 344.

— KATSUYU AND HER ABILITIES, WHAT MAKES HER SPECIAL?

Katsuyu is a very intriguing and interesting animal and the only one whose past has never been explored.

Summon’s habitats and the Three Unexplored Sage Regions are home to a single species of animals. 

The Ryūchi Cave is home to snakes such as the White Snake, Manda or Aoda, and Mount Myōboku is home to toads like Gamakichi, Gamamaru or Gamabunta.

But, unlike those, Katsuyu is the only organism living in the Shikkotsu Forest. She does not have any other slug companions. 

Following the same scheme as the rest of summons, Katsuyu resembles a real slug. 

She is white or ivory in color, with three turquoise stripes running on her head and sides that start on her head and end in her tail. 

One special feature about her appearance is that her true size has never been seen. Using one summoner, Katsuyu is bigger than the Hokage Residence, and using two summoners, Katsuyu is the size of the roots of the God Tree, which is just one tenth of her real size according to Tsunade. 

Katsuyu's size summoned by one person or two, Naruto chapters 422 and 650.

Her size changes depending on the amount of chakra used to summon her. She can appear as a small slug used to gather intel or help in supplementary tasks, or she can appear as a giant creature using one or two summoners. 

Small Katsuyu summoned to assist Headquarters Naruto chapter 561.

Her age is a true mystery. It is known that toads and snakes live many years and have descendants, such as Gamabunta and Gamakichi’s father and son relationship, or Aoda having great grandchildren; or certain summons retiring when they reach an age while their companions or children replace them. 

The Three Unexplored Sage Regions are legendary places known for many generations. 

Katsuyu, on the other hand, is the only inhabitant of the Shikkotsu Forest. She does not have descendants or companions in her home habitat. Her age or her true origins are a mystery. The first shinobi to discover her existence or previous masters before Sakura Haruno and Tsunade are also unknown.

The first and most important thing to point out is that Katsuyu can only be summoned by users of the Strength of a Hundred Seal. This seal is an extremely difficult jutsu to learn and achieve, so there have only been two summoners in history.

The reason for this is that Katsuyu is such an enormous animal that it requires an immense amount of chakra to summon, and that chakra is stored inside the seal. 

Tsunade and her disciple Sakura Haruno are the only beings able to summon Katsuyu Naruto chapter 650.

The primary skill Katsuyu has is the ability to divide herself in many fragments, hundreds or thousands of them in fact. This technique is called Slug Great Division (蛞蝓大分裂­, Katsuyu Daibunretsu) and it can be used for supplementary purposes, as well for battle. 

In a fight, thanks to her rapid ability to transform her body and divide herself, she can separate herself to nullify attacks by avoiding any strike at incredible speeds. She can do this as many times as she wants without exhaustion. Each of these fragments are also quite fast, able to throw themselves in front of people to shield them from danger.

Manda trapping Katsuyu but she escapes Naruto chapter 170 and Second databook.

She also has the ability to spit a sticky and elastic acid, a jutsu called Tongue Tooth Sticky Acid able to melt stones and vaporize everything it touches (probably senjutsu although never truly revealed). It is also very difficult to dodge due to its unpredictable nature. 

Slug acid, Naruto chapter 170 and Second databook.

Unlike Shadow Clones or other regular clones that are independent from each other and are not interconnected, what Katsuyu does is divide her own body in equal parts, so she is in as many places as she wants at once. She is one entity divided into many other independent and interconnected parts while remaining one single body. Each of her divisions behaves like their own person, so she can complete different tasks while also knowing what her other parts are doing in other places.

Being the summon of medical ninjas, Sakura Haruno and Tsunade take advantage of Katsuyu’s ability to divide herself in order to channel their healing chakra and treat as many people as necessary. 

With a technique called Immense Network Healing (蛞蝓・網療治夥­, Katsuyu: Mōryōjika), Katsuyu collects chakra from the Strength of a Hundred Seal to transform it into healing chakra and treat the injured. 

Using the Great Division and Immense Network Healing in tandem, Katsuyu has the ability to heal and protect everyone she makes contact with. Healing any kind of injury or absorbing people inside her in order to shield them from attacks or sudden explosions is her specialty. Her body is able to resist explosions and even Kurama's corrosive chakra.

Katsuyu divides her body and heals the Alliance Naruto chapter 634 and Fourth databook.

In fact, Katsuyu's power is not only limited to healing wounds, but regeneration too. One of her most impressive feats is the ability to maintain a patient in suspended animation, keeping them alive for as long as she possesses chakra from the seal in order to ensure their survival. 

Katsuyu was able to keep Tsunade alive despite having her body bisected, which on normal circumstances, would mean instant death. However, the slug's regenerative abilities allowed Tsunade to remain alive until she obtained a chakra boost from a third party. This fact is known as Tsunade does not really present the unique Uzumaki Clan ability to keep themselves alive for as long as possible.

Katsuyu kept Tsunade alive despite having her body cut in half, an impressive feat Naruto chapter 635.

This jutsu also acts as a sensing technique due to Katsuyu being connected to the chakra of the injured in order to heal them and her master. Katsuyu is able to relay Kakashi Hatake and Chōza Akimichi’s conditions to Tsunade through their connection, as the slug is connected to the Strength of a Hundred Seal; as well as being able to tell Sakura that Kurama’s chakra was still connected to the Allied Shinobi Forces.

Katsuyu can transmit the chakra levels and the condition of everyone she is in contact with Naruto chapter 427.

This way, Katsuyu was able to protect Konoha’s citizens from Pain’s Shinra Tensei and even survive Kurama’s toxic chakra. 

Able to be in many places at once, her ability to cover infinite distances while her parts remain interconnected allows her to fulfill communication and intel gathering roles. Being in many places and her clones being part of the same body, Katsuyu relays information to one person or multiple people, something she could do by attaching herself to someone’s shoulder and speaking. 

It was Katsuyu the one giving Naruto Uzumaki information about Pain and also told him that Nagato had revived Konoha citizens through the clones that stayed in the village, kept every villager informed about the situation and followed evacuation protocols when Naruto transformed into six tails, and told Tsunade everything that was happening in the battlefield thanks to having another body summoned by Sakura on the other side of the country, and vice versa.

Sakura instructing Katsuyu to evacuate the area through the multiple clones Naruto chapter 438.

This communication ability can cover immense ground at once because the communication is instant. It works similar to regular telepathy, but instead of hearing the other person's voice in their head, people are talking to Katsuyu, and Katsuyu in turn is actually talking to herself through her clones.

Katsuyu's clones on different parts of the Land of Lightning tell Tsunade and Sakura the events that have taken place on both ends Naruto chapters 635 and 647.

An animal summon can only perform at the top of their abilities for a limited amount of time, what is known as the summoning time limit. 

It is unknown exactly how long the invocation lasts, or whether it varies between animals. A summon will help its master before the jutsu runs out or the summon has exhausted its power. 

Gamakichi mentions the summoning time limit Naruto chapter 642.

However, for Katsuyu, this is not the case. 

The slug can be summoned for unlimited periods of time and several times a day, as seen when Katsuyu spent the Fourth Shinobi World War by Tsunade’s side in the Headquarters, primarily helping Shikaku Nara and participating in the planification of the troops, and later with the Five Kage against Madara and Sakura with the Allied Shinobi Forces.

This could be explained by the symbiotic bond Sakura and Tsunade share with Katsuyu through the Strength of a Hundred Seal. 

The seal stores unimaginable quantities of chakra inside, which are used by Katsuyu to perform healing on people. As long as Katsuyu has been transmitted every drop of chakra in the seal, she will continue her work, as seen when Tsunade gave the slug all the chakra inside her Byakugou to the point it disappeared but Katsuyu physically remained in Konoha until her services were no longer needed.

Tsunade's Byakugou disappears but Katsuyu still serves her purpose as a summon to evacuate Naruto chapter 430.

Still, like any other summon, Katsuyu can be exhausted from battle and disappear. When the Ten Tails absorbed the chakra of every shinobi in the battlefield as the Kurama Chakra Cloak, every Katsuyu fragment attached to them was also absorbed and vanished, but the main body remained intact protecting Sakura Haruno form the tree. 

Katsuyu's clones disappeared absorbed by the God Tree Naruto chapter 647.

— THE PERFECT SUMMON?

Katsuyu is very different from the rest of summons. 

From the immeasurable amount of chakra it requires to summon her, to her multiple multitasking and supplementary abilities and her mysterious origins, Katsuyu might be the perfect summon and the strongest animal summon of Naruto and Boruto.

Her ability to divide herself in thousands of fragments, a body and chemical composition resistant to blasts that can reshape her own state, no summoning time limit, outstanding healing and regeneration factor, the unlimited wide range communication she offers, acidic attacks, useful to gather intel by herself and turn small enough to offer battle assistant, and a sensory connection with her master and other people she is attached to. 

Katsuyu is the ultimate creature.

Without a doubt, the most essential ally in desperate times. A valuable help in case a village is being attacked by powerful enemies that threaten to destroy everything around them, Katsuyu is the only weapon able to protect thousands of people from any attack and offer assistance while in contact with her master and everyone she is with.

Thanks to her, every Konoha villager that had not been killed by the Pain Paths previously could survive the Shinra Tensei explosion that destroyed Konoha, which later allowed the surviving shinobi to handle evacuations, as well as allow Naruto to obtain intel about Pain and Nagato or be told that Konoha's villagers were revived.

Katsuyu is an unrivalled intel summon Naruto chapters 431 and 449.

She was also the main link of communication between the Headquarters and the two different fronts of the war, Five Kage and Allied Shinobi Forces, and the reason why the Five Kage survived the fight despite their fatal injuries.

Lastly, it was also Katsuyu who protected the Allied Shinobi Forces against the roots of the God Tree, saving a large portion of the shinobi from death, and later offered a healing area for their future fight against the Kanzeon Lotus King.

— CURRENT WHEREABOUTS.

Ever since the death of Madara Uchiha, Katsuyu has not been summoned again.

With no threats to the destruction of Konoha or the need to establish connections between battlefields, Katsuyu was not summoned in the Blank Period. 

In Boruto, Katsuyu’s debut is strictly linked to Sakura’s appearances: if Sakura does not appear, neither does the slug. This is something that is hard to fathom considering that the village has been exposed to explosions, invasions and multiple deceased shinobi ever since the start that could be prevented by Katsuyu like previous times.

Katsuyu appeared in the anime arc “Kawaki and Himawari in the Academy” where the students had to put on a play about the Sannin and Kawaki dressed as Katsuyu.

Kawaki representing Katsuyu in Boruto episode 267.

-

[teatitty]

My biggest question about medical ninjutsu is actually how it works with a person's chakra system. The lore for your chakra system in Naruto is that it's "enmeshed within the body, transporting chakra through the body and each organ as the circulatory system does blood. The system is involved in the creation of chakra itself as well, as every cell and protein in the body are connected to this pathway system by a capillary which draws out the cell's physical energy and is refined into chakra by several organs, notably the heart"

We're even shown what this system looks like around the organs, and stopping the flow of chakra in one part of the body will stop that areas functions

So if your chakra pathway operates the same way as your veins, muscles, blood vessels etc and everyone is born with a different chakra nature, which operates like a blood type, what happens when you need a blood transfusion? Do you have to get blood from somebody with the same nature as you, so if you're a Wind type you can only accept transfusion from other Wind types? If you have an organ transplant how does the new organ get integrated into your chakra system? Is there a higher chance of rejection because of the added chakra system complications? Are organ transplants even possible in this universe outside of whatever the fuck Kakuzu was doing with those hearts? Does medical ninjutsu have to mould itself to match your individual pathways when you're getting healed up?

In real life we have doctors that specialise in certain medical fields, so does the shinobi world have something similar, where one doctor could specialise in emergency medicine and another in family medicine? Do we have neurologists in this universe? Anesthesiology? Are there doctors and surgeons that specialise in the chakra pathways?

What sort of illnesses and diseases exist in this universe? Any chronic or terminal sickness? Are there genetic illnesses, or illnesses that only attack certain chakra types?

These are the questions I have and I know fuckall about the real life medical field so I cannot give answers to any of them but I sure do think about it a lot

[everyneji]

[senjutsunade]

[ Tsunade wasn't a genius with medical ninjutsu from the get-go; she obviously had to study and work with senior medics before she made a name in the field. Could you expand on that?

Anything I am writing in this post are my head-canons and assumptions.

Tsunade wasn’t always destined to be a medic. In the early months of her training under Sarutobi, no one had even considered it. The plan had been to hone her natural strength, focusing on Taijutsu, leveraging the legacy of her grandfather, Senju Hashirama. Certain expectations came with her lineage, and medical training wasn’t part of that vision.

But life had a way of altering plans. Tsunade's path took a decisive turn after her first kill. She didn’t regret the act—she was under no delusion about the life of a shinobi, even at that young age. She understood her duty to the village, and though killing didn’t fill her with remorse, it left her with an unexpected clarity about her desires. She realized there was more she wanted for herself beyond the battlefield.

That moment of realization led her to make a decision that no one had anticipated. With her mind made up, she approached Sarutobi and Uzumaki Mito. It was then she expressed her desire to learn medical ninjutsu. This choice wasn’t driven by regret or a rejection of her shinobi duties, but by a deeper understanding of what she could offer. She wanted to balance her ability to take life with the power to save it.

Her sensei and grandmother had been taken aback by the sudden change in her path. Yet, they recognized the strength of her resolve and the clarity of her vision, even if it meant deviating from the expectations placed upon her by her lineage. It was a path she chose for herself, one that would redefine her legacy and shape the future of the medical field in ways no one had foreseen.

The second stage of Tsunade's training had always included fuinjutsu, taught by Uzumaki Mito. Mito had trained other prominent figures in Konoha, including Senju Tobirama and Sarutobi Hiruzen. For Tsunade, this training was not only practical, given her perfect chakra control, but also a birthright through her Uzumaki lineage.

When Tsunade declared her intention to become a medical ninja, it opened a new path for her. This decision enabled her to learn medical skills that Konoha had never had access to before - advanced skills that had only been accessible to Uzushiogakure, until now. Alongside her ongoing training under Sarutobi and her team, she was placed under the supervision of Sarutobi Biwako for her medical training, and continued her fuinjutsu training with Uzumaki Mito.

Under the meticulous guidance of these two formidable women, Tsunade’s skills flourished. Biwako’s rigorous and comprehensive approach to medical ninjutsu complemented Mito’s profound understanding of fuinjutsu. Tsunade’s natural aptitude, combined with her relentless hard work, allowed her to start making a name for herself in the medical field in less than half a decade.

By the time she had completed her training, she had learned all she could from both Mito and Biwako. Her mastery in both medical ninjutsu and fuinjutsu set her apart, marking the beginning of her legacy as one of the most skilled and innovative ninjas in Konoha.

This period of her life would lay the foundation for the legend she would one day become. Equipped with her medical knowledge and fuinjutsu skills, Tsunade began exploring the idea of combining the two on a level that had never been attempted before. It was an immensely challenging endeavor, fraught with more failures than successes in the early days. Many of her experiments ended up becoming techniques adopted by Konoha's T & I force.

Each failure, however, only fueled her determination. She meticulously analyzed her mistakes, learning from them, and gradually began creating techniques that revolutionized the medical field. Her innovative approach and unwavering persistence allowed her to bridge the gap between healing and sealing, crafting methods that were unparalleled in their effectiveness and ingenuity. Tsunade carved out a legacy that would not only define her career but also transform the future of medical ninjutsu in Konoha. Her contributions became the cornerstone of advancements in the field, solidifying her status as a pioneer and a legend in her own right.

Then, war threw a wrench in her plans. She had to pull away from her research once she was deployed. Yet, even on war-torn fronts, it was her medical skills that shone brightest. Against Chiyo of Sunagakure, who had already established a reputation as the best poison concoctor in the world, Tsunade rose to fame across the lands. There was no poison Tsunade couldn't counter. She even took to adapting Chiyo's creations, turning them into weapons for Konoha-nin with her own twist to the formulas.

Tsunade's skills saved countless Konoha nin while wreaking havoc on the Suna populace. Her ability to neutralize Chiyo’s poisons and repurpose them into potent weapons underscored her genius and adaptability. The battlefield became another arena where her medical expertise and innovative mind were unmatched, further cementing her legend.

Having achieved all she had, and with the war over, Tsunade took her research in a new direction. Much of her focus and experiments were now conducted on herself, as she dabbled in techniques both dangerous and likely forbidden, requiring a level of chakra reserves, control, and understanding of human anatomy that few possessed. This was where her Uzumaki and Senju genetics set her apart. As a descendant of both the Senju and Uzumaki clans, Tsunade inherited their life-force and physical energy, allowing her to turn her body into a weapon.

Creation Rebirth was the final form of her work—a skill she finally perfected after having left the village. This technique, the culmination of her years of research and experimentation, showcased her unparalleled mastery over medical ninjutsu and fuinjutsu.

--

This took forever to write, you stupid flake. e-e

[hidansexwife]

i feel like ino is compatible with almost any of the other girls cuz she's just so fucking sweet. so here's her (kind of) helping tenten achieve her dream of using medical ninjutsu.

[fullbarbarianprincess]

Nobody's perfect Sarada, it's okay to be imperfect: You're a working progress.

[cherry-arcadebasement24]

[colorfulfoxengineer]

[evilkitten3]

i don't remember when he first saw it in canon, but it would be really funny if sasuke didn't have any clue whatsoever about sakura's super strength until like the very end of the series. like every time he sees her he's been thinking "oh it's sakura probably still as annoying and useless as ever" and then it turns out that now she can punch a mountain in half

[team7-headquarter]

The Classic was so clean in some explanations and I love how badass Tsunade looks in this arc.

[leportraitducadavre]

I think canon did the Yamanaka, and thus Ino, dirty by necessity tbh. I don't like it, but also the show is mostly focused on front line combat and training for it. Which is the opposite of Yamanaka strengths, as a clan focused on spying, interrogation, conversion, and (in more gritty/dark fanon) seduction and subtle poison. If a Yamanaka is in a position where their skill is compared to a front line assault ninja, they've already failed, yknow? Their targets shouldn't even comprehend they're near a ninja. And I get why the show didn't focus on that, it was NARUTO Shippuden not INO Shippuden. But on that basis alone it's an unfair and futile comparison to set Ino up as Sakura's long term rival. If anyone it should've been Shizune, or more realistically Kabuto (and she ISNT Kabuto's equal, imo)

Hi there, I’m not at the moment replying asks and this might be unfair to some people that send me questions that I haven’t replied before (apologies), but I wanted to tackle this specific subject (Ino), as I don’t get that many asks about her.

I think canon did the Yamanaka, and thus Ino, dirty by necessity tbh. I don't like it, but also the show is mostly focused on front line combat and training for it. Which is the opposite of Yamanaka strengths, as a clan focused on spying, interrogation, conversion, and (in more gritty/dark fanon) seduction and subtle poison.

I apologize, but I have to disagree with you, not on the fact that two-thirds of Team 7 focuses on frontal attacks (Naruto and Sakura -Sasuke, as Uchiha and a prodigy who also knows kenjutsu, can tackle pretty much any range of attack), and as the team with the most panel time they get pretty much highlighted throw out the series. Still, this manner of attack isn’t the story's primary focus.

The story in itself is about political warfare and the overall cruelties of the system, Sasuke -as an antagonist, it’s the main plot driver of the show (as are Obito, Nagato, and Orochimaru), and the main character that the narrative establishes as “the good ones” are reactors rather than causers.

Once this is established, I do agree that the show focuses mostly on front-line attacks as those are the ones the main duo (and some other fan favorites) possess, however, this manner of combat isn’t as relevant in the overall structure: Itachi and Nagato, for instance, rely on either genjutsu or upon their rinnegan and vast amount of chakra to control other people and perform their binding. Deidara fought against Sasuke while putting distance between them through his secret technique, and so on. 

The relevance of such a style of combat is well established during the Chünin Exams: this type of approach is the most “spectacle-friendly” as it allows viewers to witness true carnage and visible consequences, cementing before the audience the overall military power of a village or a character –which is similar, if not equal, of how a shönen works for its audience.

However, it’s constantly highlighted, albeit secretly (as this portion of the tests isn’t shown to the rest of the civilian population as it lacks the “thrill” that combats possess and I’ll say some readers skipped it as they, too, liked to see displayed raw physical power, as that’s how most mainstream heroes are depicted, not having to think around their power shall it be more complicated than a powerful punch); the relevance of Information gathering skills, having an entire test dedicated to it: such exam, Sakura failed, as she never realized what the test was actually for. Ino-Shika-Chö passes it because Ino was the only one out of the three of them shown to have understood it and has the perfect technique for it, here.

There are, however, other mentions of such specialty relevance during the second stage as well, here and here –of course, this specific portion of the “information gathering” skills are to be more rudimentary as they’re more focused upon the shinobi’s survival rather than sharpening their spy qualities, but they are necessary to guarantee the success of a mission.

Obito specifically targeted the Intelligence Division where Inoichi and Shukaku were to guarantee his success as they worked quickly with the information they received of the battlefield to send specific teams to different locations to warrant the enemy’s defeat (like when they sent Team 10 to support Kumo and fight the Gold and Silver Brothers, or how they also asked them to defeat Asuma); Hashirama specifically asked for a Yamanaka to spread amongst the shinobi forces the information he had and Shikamaru’s strategy. 

Sasuke and Naruto (or even Hashirama and Madara), are people whose strength isn’t the usual norm, as they’re particularly strong even amongst those considered “the strongest” in the military population (Kages), so them not having to rely on prior information to win a battle (despite them coming up with strategies all the time upon seeing how their enemies work –something Sakura isn’t shown doing, as she either relies on other people (Chiyo) or fails, as she did against Dosu) it’s an off the norm occurrence, only to be applied to them.

People's preference around which techniques are best or more "spectacle-friendly" -something necessary for a manga that relies on visual story-telling, doesn't dispute the overall value of Yamanaka clan's techniques inside the plot and structure Kishimoto established (they, after the UCM, became the clan with the most information-gathering relevance, as they were the only non-Sharingan users that could control their target and read their mind, and while the Saiko Denshin it's a T&I jutsu and not a Yamanaka one, it's clear by Ino's recollection of it that it's at least taught at its most basic form).

If a Yamanaka is in a position where their skill is compared to a front line assault ninja, they've already failed, yknow? Their targets shouldn't even comprehend they're near a ninja. And I get why the show didn't focus on that, it was NARUTO Shippuden not INO Shippuden. 

I agree that Ino isn’t a specialized combater, although she did fight Asuma while controlling two Zetsu (I speak a little about the possibility of it being a technique she came up with here), so her taijutsu is -at least, better than Shikamaru’s who stood back as support; her family’s technique and her medical training taught her to stay out of conflict (as she did when vs. Hidan and Kakuzu) in order to be able to attend those wounded (the only ones able to fight are those that mastered Mitrocondrial Regeneration, as they are able to heal without using signs and have more chakra to spare since they stored it, x and x), as medics are also main targets during combats (x).

[If you are more interested in Medical skills, here’s a little post about it: x]

However, I’ll say that, as a secondary character, she got more panel time and development than many other characters who were pushed aside shortly after their introduction (Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Kurenai -to name some of Konoha’s). She was able to help discern, albeit with her father and an ANBU, Nagato’s location when sharing information about her mind-body switch control, she also realized one of the Paths used a similar technique to Inoichi’s (Saiko Denshin) and was given a few very powerful moments during the war, which is more than other fandoms were given.

But on that basis alone it's an unfair and futile comparison to set Ino up as Sakura's long term rival. If anyone it should've been Shizune, or more realistically Kabuto (and she ISNT Kabuto's equal, imo) 

Do you mean, unfair for Ino to be Sakura's rival or the other way around? Kabuto is a far better medic than any of them, and Sakura, while impressive, didn’t surpass Tsunade at this stage –as she improved not Tsunade’s techniques, being solely able to master them prior in age to her mentor as Tsunade created them and had to experiment with her own body in order to use it and teach it afterward. Kabuto invented his own version of Mitochondrial Regeneration (x), which is the reason why Orochimaru chose him. He’s the only one who Tsunade considers surpassed her during her prime (x, x).

Sakura and Ino’s rivalry has less to do with their overall techniques and more to do with their attraction to Sasuke, which is the main focus Sakura puts upon their rivalry. Asuma claimed during his last speech to Ino that she mustn't lose either Ninjutsu or love, but the bars they both have about their techniques are completely different –Sakura, medical-wise, possesses a natural advantage that Ino doesn’t, which is natural delicate chakra control, something inherently necessary to learn the Yin Seal; while Ino’s medical skills (likely taught to her through Shizune), are rudimentary at best in order to do something else for her team while on a mission that doesn’t require her technique, in order to guarantee her safety.

Now, you might wonder, why does she have to be safe? Canonically speaking, besides collecting information, the team must guarantee at least one survivor who can pass on the knowledge (or, at least, a way to communicate the information). No other team is expected to ensure such a thing (x). 

In that sense, Team 7, Team 8, and Team Gai are mostly viewed as expendable** (I am aware that all of the soldiers are viewed in such light, I’m specifically referring to such an idea when already inside that “disposable spectrum”). Only those front-lines combateurs that have techniques with enough power to defy even shinobi standards (Naruto, Hashirama, Tobirama, and some others –and I’m not putting Uchiha there as they are able to cover multiple ranges), are highlighted and rewarded with the Hokage title, the rest are sent to die or to distract the enemy in order to open space for teams more specialized in gathering the enemy’s secrets or strategies.

[Minato, also considered amongst the best, relied on other front-liners to plant his special kunais upon his targets and to take care of a big portion of the enemies, as he killed the rest. Saving the small group of survivors.]

Being rivals has nothing to do with having similar techniques, but either opposed goals (Sasuke vs. Naruto) or the same goal (Sasuke’s love reciprocation when it comes to Sakura and Ino).

Inside the manga itself, the notion of rivalry is shown to be deeply intertwined with shinobi culture, as they encourage such a mindset so shinobi would push each other to new highs of their respective techniques in order to win their competitions as long as they don’t put Konoha’s stability in jeopardy: Madara/Hashirama, Danzo/Hiruzen, Kakashi/Obito, Naruto/Sasuke, Sakura/Ino.

[**Sakura, as a front-line fighter, is expendable, as a medic-nin, slightly less, as she is expected to die, if doing so, last of all. Not to return alive, as Team 10].

In case you’re interested, I have some other post regarding kunoichi:

The infinite “who’s strongest Kunoichi” debate and the sexist erasure/degradation of female characters and an addition

Yamanaka clan techniques

Posts of my Naruto re-read

[shinoposting]

I won't hijack someone else's post to respond to these tags but yes 100%. To add to this there are a lot of medical applications for insects. You may have heard of maggot therapy for wounds and using honey on burns but there are way more and we're discovering new uses all the time:

(This was the inspiration for Shima)

My personal headcanon for the reason we don't see any Aburame women is because most of them are in the Medical Corps. There are definitely visual similarities with known members so it could even be that the two entities are influencing each other.

...And additionally that all three remaining Noble Clans work together to find medical applications for their jutsu, which the Nara dutifully record.