Chapter 53: With Such Fighting Spirit, He's a True Heaven-Sent Warrior!
Land of Hot Water, at the base of the cliffs outside the Jashin Cult headquarters.
The cliff face was now covered in scars—a spiderweb of cracks dotting the rock. Jagged boulders clung precariously to the surface, threatening to collapse at any moment.
Mei Terumi cradled the battered Tsukasa, staring anxiously at Shinnō who was examining him.
"How is he?"
Shinnō frowned, his fingers glowing with blue chakra shaped into a scalpel as he probed the meridian points of Tsukasa's body. It looked more like he was dissecting a specimen than treating a patient.
After a moment, he clicked his tongue, his frown deepening.
"Well? Can he be saved?" Mei Terumi asked anxiously.
Shinnō took a deep breath, raised his head with irritation, and said calmly:
"As you can see, he's already dead."
"How... how could this be?" Mei Terumi's heart sank at those words.
"What? Isn't it normal for people to die in the shinobi world? Is there something special about him?" Shinnō glanced at Mei Terumi's expression and asked with a sneer.
"As I recall, you've known each other for less than a day, right?"
Mei Terumi bit her lip, her eyes flickering as she gazed at the boy's face.
Shinnō was right. Before yesterday, she had never met this boy. She didn't know his name, his appearance, his personality, or his ambitious ideals.
But this boy—the one who had torn apart sacred bonds and fought to the death out of righteous fury, the one who had pledged under moonlight to walk his ninja way as proof of his conviction, and the figure who in that pre-dawn blaze had leaped and slashed with that Flowing Flame Greatsword—
Graceful as a startled swan, magnificent as a soaring dragon!
These images had etched themselves deeply into the girl's heart—images she couldn't let go of.
Uchiha Tsukasa!
She found it hard to accept that such a brilliant person had ended up like this.
In her mind, he should have marched ever onward, bathed in dawn's light, until they finally met again on the battlefield.
But was this truly the end?
Mei Terumi felt a sharp pang in her chest.
"Tsk, stop looking so miserable," Shinnō shook his head and suddenly said:
"He can still be saved."
Mei Terumi looked up in surprise, her eyebrows raising. "Didn't you just say he was dead?"
"I said he was dead, not that I couldn't save him." Shinnō crouched down and moved forward, a chakra scalpel flashing between his fingers.
Then, as Mei Terumi watched in stunned disbelief, he sliced open Tsukasa's chest, revealing a heart—charred black like coal yet still somehow beating.
"Look at this kid—what a freak!"
Shinnō marveled, pointing at the twitching, pulsing tissue at the cross-section.
"I've never seen anyone with such an intense will to survive and fight."
"Even though he's clinically dead, his body still craves battle! And it's constantly maintaining my Forbidden Technique: Physical Regeneration on autopilot."
"What an absolute monster!"
"And this—"
Shinnō pinched a vibrantly pulsing black thread from the blood-spurting wound.
"This is Takigakure's secret technique—Earth Grudge Fear Stitching. It's perfectly suturing his blood vessels, preventing fatal blood loss."
"Combined with Physical Regeneration constantly producing and replacing blood..."
"These two techniques, driven purely by his body's survival instincts, are temporarily replacing his heart's function."
"This is insane! How did this kid with only a single-tomoe Sharingan manage to learn and utilize these two forbidden techniques simultaneously?"
Shinnō, utterly baffled, could only shake his head and offer a treatment plan.
"Just give him a new heart."
"He should survive."
Mei Terumi's face paled. Even though she was accustomed to the brutal combat of Kirigakure, she still felt her scalp tingle watching Shinnō casually discussing treatment while her comrade's chest lay open.
She suppressed her discomfort and asked:
"But given our current situation, where can we possibly get a compatible heart?"
Shinnō thought for a moment, stood up, and rummaged through the nearby rubble. He tossed massive boulders around like toys, and soon dragged out a creature covered in black threads.
It was the Earth Release masked entity—the Earth Grudge Fear construct that Tsukasa had driven into the cliff face and left behind.
Shinnō crushed the mask with his bare hands and extracted a heart wrapped in black threads.
"We have one right here."
When Tsukasa had shattered the Wind Release mask earlier, Shinnō had noticed a beating heart underneath.
This meant that the Takigakure missing-nin Kakuzu had a heart inside each of his masks that could be removed without killing him.
Plus, this kid already had these black threads in his body.
If I install it, he probably won't die, right?
So thought Shinnō, the wandering doctor of the shinobi world.
Although he was highly educated and the Sky Ninja Village had been decades ahead in technology—even capable of producing flying aircraft carriers—he had never encountered anything as bizarre as Tsukasa's condition.
With a "might as well try" mentality, Shinnō inserted the heart into Tsukasa's chest cavity, then activated the Mystical Palm Technique, his hands emitting green healing chakra.
Then he looked at Mei Terumi with an expressionless face:
"I can save him, but I need your assistance."
"Huh?" Mei Terumi's expression froze as she pointed at herself. "Me? What can I do?"
"I don't know medical ninjutsu, I—"
Shinnō looked bored and cut off Mei Terumi with an indifferent expression, asking matter-of-factly:
"Can you blow air?"
Mei Terumi nodded blankly.
"Can you pinch someone's nose?"
Mei Terumi nodded again.
Shinnō hummed with satisfaction, then asked:
"Can you perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?"
Mei Terumi nodded subconsciously—but soon her fair face turned bright red, steam practically rising from her head.
She clenched her fists incoherently and stammered: "Y-you, what did you say? What mouth-to-mouth? I have no idea what that means!"
Shinnō looked at her expressionlessly. "Seems like you understand perfectly."
"Good. Then you've grasped the concept of artificial respiration."
"Tilt the boy's head back, pinch his nose shut, then take a deep breath, seal your mouth over his, and blow."
"Two breaths, each lasting 1 to 1.5 seconds. Exhale about one-third of your lung capacity until his chest rises, then stop and release his nose."
"Lift your head, take a deep breath, and prepare for the next cycle."
"Maintain a steady rhythm—approximately twenty breaths per minute."
Mei Terumi was stunned. "What are you talking about? Once isn't enough? Twenty times a minute?"
She swallowed hard and looked at Tsukasa's profile as he lay unconscious on the ground. Her pupils trembled involuntarily, and her face flushed instantly—like rosy clouds at dawn.
Birds flew overhead as morning approached.
Under those rosy clouds, the cold wind of early spring seemed somehow less chilly.
Shinnō tilted his head: "Is there a problem? Moreover, this rhythm must be maintained for at least half an hour. Given this kid's unique condition, it might take up to an hour."
"Can you do it? If not, we'll just leave him here to fate."
Mei Terumi jolted, bit her lip, and raised her hand determinedly: "I'll do it!"
As she said this, she couldn't help but recall the scene when Tsukasa had jumped off the cliff while holding her protectively.
Since he could save her without hesitation, why couldn't she repay that debt?
Now it was her turn to save him!
But the voice in Mei Terumi's mind was flushed red with embarrassment, steam practically coming from her ears as she counted on her fingers:
"Twenty times per minute... half an hour is thirty minutes, that's 600 times. If it takes an hour, that's 60 minutes—a full 1,200 times!"
"I'm going to have to give him 1,200 rescue breaths?!"
Shinnō coughed, a hint of amusement flickering in his cold eyes before he asked sternly:
"Are you ready?"
"Begin!"
As soon as the words fell, his palms glowing with green chakra descended and pressed against Tsukasa's chest.
"What? Starting now?" Mei Terumi panicked. She quickly tucked the brown strand of hair behind her ear, raised her head anxiously, and took a deep breath.
Then, with slender pale fingers, she tilted Tsukasa's chin upward.
The red sun rose on the horizon.
Rosy light filtered through, illuminating her auburn hair and emerald eyes, making her appear almost angelic in the dawn glow.
She leaned down and pressed her lips to his.
"Hah..."
End of Chapter 53
If you enjoyed this chapter, leave a Power Stone or Review!
P@atreon/Soulforger (45+ advanced chapters)
Buy me coffee - ko-fi*com/soulforger01