Healing Naruto

The Eight Trigrams Sealing Style was undone.

Golden chakra surged out of Minato's body, pouring outward like floodwaters bursting through a broken dam. It did not flow from his palms, but erupted simultaneously from every pore, every cell, every bone in his body. Golden light enveloped him, then peeled away from him like a garment being removed. The chakra gathered, compressed, and spun in midair before finally turning into a dazzling pillar of light that poured into Naruto's chest.

Naruto's body suddenly arched.

He had not moved on his own—it was the Nine-Tails' chakra explosively spreading through his body, forcing an instinctive reaction from him. In that instant, his heart began beating again with a boom, like a war drum struck by a heavy hammer. Then came a second beat, a third, a fourth—faster and stronger each time, like a runaway train accelerating out of control. His bluish-purple skin regained its rosy color, his pale lips turned pink, and his unfocused pupils began to sharpen—even though his eyes had not opened yet, his eyeballs were already moving rapidly beneath his eyelids, like someone struggling to awaken from a nightmare.

Sakura removed the hand pressed against Naruto's chest. Her Mystical Palm Technique was no longer needed—the Nine-Tails' chakra was repairing Naruto's body at a speed beyond anything she could achieve. Ruptured blood vessels reconnected, necrotic cells regenerated, and the dried-up chakra pathways were filled once more. Naruto's breathing returned, the rise and fall of his chest growing steadily stronger, like a restarted engine gradually returning to its normal speed.

"Naruto..." Sakura's tears finally fell, drop after drop striking the shattered stones with faint sounds like rain pattering against banana leaves.

Minato's right hand slipped from Naruto's forehead.

His hand lingered in the air for a moment, then fell limply to the