"Oh?"
Tsunade went quiet for a while, processing everything Ren had just laid out.
After a long pause, her eyes widened in astonishment.
"I don't know what your brain's made of, but I'm pretty sure it's not normal," she said, half-amused, half-incredulous. "You really thought all that through on your own?"
"You've clearly been planning this for a while, haven't you?"
She nodded to herself. "The way you've structured this—it's clever. It protects our interests, secures our clans' stake in the future, and keeps the village and other clans relatively satisfied too."
"I'm in. We'll do it your way."
Tsunade saw serious potential.
And she had no doubt that with her skills, she'd easily become the dominant contributor in their research—raking in the lion's share of the benefits.
"Perfect! Then let's go over the details right away."
Ren's eyes lit up, and the two got back to work, diving deep into planning.
Over the next hour, the entire structure of the Research Institute and Pharmaceutical Corporation took shape—budget plans, logistics, division of labor, shareholder stakes, long-term strategy.
Finally, Tsunade leaned back with a stretch.
"Whew. That was more complicated than I thought."
Then, her eyes turned sly as she glanced over at Ren. "Now there's just one problem left… I'm broke. So what do you suggest?"
Ren immediately shot her a look. "Don't even think about hitting me up for cash."
"I'm probably gonna have to borrow from my own parents just to cover my share."
"The restaurant pulled in a little over a million this month, sure—but I've got my training expenses, daily living costs... And this is a serious investment, not some throw-it-away-on-dice nonsense."
He crossed his arms. "Why not ask Lady Mito? Just tell her the full plan. She'll definitely support it—this isn't just business. It's a way to revitalize the Senju legacy."
Tsunade blinked. "…Huh. Yeah, that makes sense."
She paused—then grimaced. "But I doubt Grandma's going to believe me."
"In that case," she added quickly, "you're coming with me. You'll help explain it to her. Sound fair?"
Ren sighed. "Fine."
"But seriously, Sensei—has your reputation with your grandmother really gotten that bad?"
Tsunade laughed awkwardly. "Hehe… let's not talk about it."
"Anyway, let's go! I'm feeling fired up now."
She jumped to her feet, grabbed the finalized plan off the desk, and dragged Ren out of the office with her.
"Wait—don't you have patients this morning?"
"Not today. Why do you think nobody came to interrupt us during our meeting?" she said smugly.
"C'mon. We've got an investor to convince."
The two of them exited the hospital and began heading toward the Senju district.
Halfway there, Tsunade glanced at Ren.
"By the way, you mentioned something before... a 'medical seal'? That'd require advanced sealing techniques, wouldn't it?"
Ren's heart skipped a beat—this was exactly the topic he'd wanted to bring up, but hadn't yet found a natural segue.
Now that Tsunade had brought it up herself, he quickly nodded, keeping his tone calm.
"Yes. My goal is to develop emergency-use medical talismans for the battlefield."
"Think about it—Konoha doesn't have enough medical-nin. The talented ones are even rarer."
"Assigning a medic to every team just isn't realistic—and most of them don't have any combat ability anyway. They're a liability in the field."
"But what if… we could seal healing jutsu like the Mystic Palm Technique or Regeneration into scrolls or tags?"
"When a shinobi is critically injured, they could activate the tag, and the jutsu would auto-cast, healing their wounds without needing a medic present."
"That kind of tool could save thousands of lives."
Tsunade's eyes lit up. "That… actually makes a lot of sense."
But her smile faded as she began to frown in thought.
"The problem is, the sealing process would be insanely complex."
"There's no precedent for storing healing jutsu like that—and without a medical-nin present to guide the release, the jutsu might not activate properly."
"Even if we solve that, how do we mass-produce them?"
"Advanced techniques like Mystic Palm or Cell Extraction require highly skilled users—and you expect them to just sit around all day filling scrolls?"
She crossed her arms, clearly skeptical. "Even if someone was willing, chakra output is limited. One person might be able to charge two tags a day—three, max."
Ren nodded slowly. "You're right. There are a lot of obstacles."
"But… that's why it needs to be researched."
"I've already spent a lot of time on this. I've gone through every sealing technique in the Uchiha archives—learned everything the clan had."
"Unfortunately, our sealing techniques are limited. Low-rank, scattered, mostly accumulated in just the past decade."
He paused, looked Tsunade in the eye.
"I've hit a wall."
"That's why I'm hoping you can teach me what you know. Or better yet—maybe we could learn directly from Lady Mito?"
He waited.
This was the real goal. If he could access Uzumaki-level sealing knowledge, everything would change.
Tsunade stared at him for a long moment.
She could see the ambition in his eyes.
But more importantly, she saw no greed—only purpose.