Some of the lightly injured who had received treatment were once again dispatched to the front lines under orders from their superiors.
As soon as the rain stopped, new patients began arriving. Uchiha Kin treated a fellow clansman whose eyes had been gravely injured — one eyeball had ruptured, while the other was reduced to a gory, mangled socket. It was a horrific sight.
Uchiha Kin transplanted a pair of eyes taken from a captured Grass ninja.
When the patient awoke, the foreign eyes felt extremely uncomfortable. He struggled to activate them — to "awaken" them — but there was no reaction. With parched lips, he managed to croak out, "I…"
"You're awake? Good. Just focus on resting," Uchiha Kin nodded calmly, relieved to see the patient regain consciousness.
But the patient was not grateful. "Stop right there, you bastard! What did you do to me?!"
Kin didn't respond. He simply turned to leave.
"I'm busy. I don't have time to entertain your pointless tantrums. Also, this is a Konoha battlefield medical station — please maintain your composure and do not cause a disturbance." With that, he stepped outside and addressed two other Uchiha who were waiting. "The operation is complete. You may escort him out now."
Kin gave a curt nod and walked off...
He had never had a good relationship with these — no, with most of the Uchiha who had activated their three-tomoe Sharingan.
Among the Uchiha clan, there was an unspoken rule: only those who had awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan would be officially recorded in the clan registry. Only those were acknowledged by name as true "clansmen," qualified to attend ancestral rites and clan meetings.
Though Uchiha Kin carried the Uchiha name and bloodline, he had never awakened his Sharingan — not even a single tomoe. Despite being a celebrated shinobi, his name did not appear in the clan records.
His status was no different from that of ordinary Uchiha civilians — vendors, laborers, the nameless many. He bore the surname Uchiha, but in the clan's eyes, he was not one of them.
Worse still, Kin had distinguished himself not with the Sharingan, but with his own secret medical techniques. He had surpassed even Tsunade-sama in talent, and during this war, he had become a medical ninja of unparalleled skill. That only made the "clansmen" look down on him all the more.
Kin's record was too "rebellious" for the Uchiha: a member of the clan famed not for the Sharingan, but for his medical ninjutsu.
Naturally, their relationship was strained. Kin often endured their scorn and cold glares.
But he never had time to care. He returned their disdain with cold indifference.
After Kin left, the two Uchiha entered the tent. It was only then that the recently operated patient, named Yunmi, learned what had happened.
He had been ambushed during a raid the night before — his eyes forcibly gouged out. He'd only just regained consciousness after the surgery.
"So… these eyes… they're just ordinary eyes now?" He couldn't accept the truth. His voice broke in despair. "Damn it! I'm an Uchiha! How can I use a regular person's eyes?! Damn it all…"
He staggered off the operating table, demanding to confront Kin. After getting directions, he stormed off.
Kin was in the middle of another operation when Yunmi barged in and shouted, "Uchiha Kin, you bastard! How could you give me ordinary eyes?! That's a desecration of the Sharingan!"
Kin turned his head, unbothered. "And who exactly do you expect to donate their eyes to you?" His gaze swept toward the three Uchiha in the tent. He casually pointed with his scalpel. "Him? Or him?"
"You—!"
Kin's tone turned cold. "Get out." He didn't look at them again. "Don't interrupt my surgery."
On the table lay a patient with an open chest. A newly transplanted lung was expanding and contracting with each breath. Kin's chakra threads — as fine as roots — worked to suture the wound, weaving nerves and tissue together with precision.
The three left the tent. After a moment, Yunmi muttered bitterly, "That failure of an Uchiha dared to tell me to get out."
One of his companions frowned. "He was in the middle of surgery, Yunmi. Regardless of what you think, he saved your life. Without him, you'd be dead."
"I'd rather be dead than live with these eyes…"
The two were at a loss for words.
Yunmi's obsession with Uchiha pride bordered on pathological. Many who had awakened the Sharingan were the same. These two shared some of that sentiment — though not nearly as extreme.
Still, this hostility toward Kin didn't sit right with them.
One said, "Yunmi, it's not Kin's fault that he hasn't awakened the Sharingan. The clan has many civilians and ninja without it. Why target him specifically?"
He truly didn't understand. Kin had worked so hard — the only thing he lacked was talent in the Sharingan. His medical ninjutsu was top-tier, and in terms of combat ability, he wasn't inferior at all — he might even surpass some of their own three-tomoe elites.
His technique with kunai, shuriken, and steel wires was an advanced evolution of traditional Uchiha fighting styles — refined into something astonishing.
Uchiha Kin was strong.
Yunmi stiffened his neck stubbornly. "Even without the Sharingan, he should have trained harder to awaken it, not wasted his time on medical ninjutsu. An Uchiha should dance on the battlefield — not play nurse on the operating table!"
"Hey, you bastard!"
A fist suddenly slammed into the back of Yunmi's head, making him stumble forward.
The attacker wore goggles and had spiky hair that bristled with fury. "I don't like that guy either, but he saved your damn life — don't you dare disrespect him!"
It was Obito.
He followed with two more punches, knocking Yunmi to the ground and pinning him down as he let loose a flurry of blows.
The other two rushed in to pull him off.
"Obito!" Rin Nohara came running from a distance and tried to restrain him — but not before discreetly kicking Yunmi twice herself. Serves you right for talking nonsense, she thought. Senior Kin is such a good person. He saved your life, and you insult him?
Kakashi arrived a bit later. He stepped between the Uchiha and raised his hand to stop them from helping Yunmi.
"Obito has a temper, don't mind him. He's just messing with Yunmi," he said calmly.
"But wasn't Yunmi just joking about Kin too?"
Kakashi wasn't fond of some aspects of Kin's personality either, but he respected the man.
Uchiha Kin was a good man — a reliable comrade, a healer who saved lives.
On this war-torn battlefield, most shinobi owed him a debt.
He stood on the front lines of medicine — a hero of Konoha. While other ninja earned glory by killing enemies, Kin earned it by saving the lives of jonin, chunin, and genin alike.
Uchiha Kin should not be treated this way.