Cold Toxic Gas? Then Purify It with High Temperatures

A blood-reeking wind rushed at them.

The out-of-control Red Bean shot forward like a black bolt of lightning, crossing ten meters in an instant. She opened her mouth and, without hesitation, bit down on Yan's right arm.

Empowered by the Cursed Seal, her teeth had become sharper than a beast's fangs.

"Crunch."

Her teeth pierced through the standard ANBU uniform and sank deep into flesh.

The three cat-masked figures' pupils contracted.

He got bitten?!

With the reaction speed "Lava" had displayed during the graduation exam and the previous mission, how could he possibly have failed to evade the pounce of a ten-year-old girl?

He did it on purpose!

The next second, the smell of scorched protein spread through the empty laboratory, accompanied by a sizzling sound.

Thin wisps of white smoke rose from Red Bean's mouth as she clamped down on Yan's arm.

The moment the inside of her mouth touched Yan's skin, it was seared by that terrifying heat. Her gums, tongue, upper palate... every inch of flesh was being mercilessly roasted.

That pain would have made anyone in their right mind release their bite at once.

But Red Bean did not.

Her eyes held nothing but madness and savagery. The agonizing pain and murderous urge brought by the Cursed Seal had completely overwhelmed her body's pain. Not only did she refuse to let go, she used all her strength to bite down even deeper, as though she wanted to tear apart the source of that searing pain completely.

"..."

Yan lowered his head and looked at the small body hanging from his arm, snarling and struggling without pause.

No one could see his expression behind the pitch-black mask.

Starting from where he had been bitten, the blood vessels beneath the skin of his right arm glowed a dark red. The glow spread upward along his veins, while the temperature of his entire arm slowly rose at an extremely restrained pace.

She's got some resolve, he assessed.

Then he raised his left hand.

He was not about to push Red Bean away, nor was he attacking her.

His left hand gently—one could even call it tenderly—rested on Red Bean's messy short purple hair.

Once, then twice.

As if he were soothing a frightened kitten that was biting wildly.

The three cat-masked figures behind him, prepared to provide support at any moment, were dumbfounded by the sight.

What was going on?

The enemy was already biting him, and he was still patting her head?

Yet Yan's next move completely shattered everything they thought they knew.

Yan spread the fingers of his left hand atop Red Bean's head, palm facing downward. An invisible, overwhelming pressure poured from his palm.

Red Bean's body, which had been struggling relentlessly in pain and madness, was forcibly pinned down by that pressure, unable to move.

At the same time, the temperature of his right arm—the arm she was biting down on—suddenly soared!

It was not an explosive increase, but precise control as sharp as a scalpel.

The power of forty-thousand-degree magma did not erupt outward. Instead, he compressed and contained it, forming a pure stream of heat that flowed in reverse through the point where Red Bean's teeth met his flesh—straight into her!

"Sizzle—!!!"

A blast of steam, a hundred times more violent than before, exploded from Red Bean's mouth!

The Heaven's Cursed Seal was essentially senjutsu chakra extracted by Orochimaru from the Jugo Clan, then altered by mixing in his own snake genes and Yin Release power. Its nature was Yin, coldness, and poison.

Yan's Magma-Magma Fruit, meanwhile, was pure, tyrannical, destructive heat and fire.

When these two utterly opposing forces collided head-on within the body of a ten-year-old girl—

"Aaaahhhhh—!!!"

A shriek so agonized it barely sounded human erupted from the depths of Red Bean's throat.

The black Cursed Seal markings across her skin boiled and churned violently, as though acid had been poured over them. Black chakra vapor erupted madly from her pores, only to ignite the instant it touched the superheated air around Yan's body, turning into clusters of black flames before vanishing.

Purification.

Using the most violent heat to burn away the coldest poison.

Yan's Observation Haki had completely locked onto the flow of chakra within Red Bean's body. He could "see" Orochimaru's cold Yin chakra scrambling about like a nest of startled venomous snakes, fleeing and wailing beneath the assault of his heat. It tried to resist, tried to corrode, but every contact was directly vaporized by that absolute heat.

A silent war was unfolding within her body.

Not enough.

Yan increased the pressure of his left hand, and the temperature of his right arm rose again.

He did not merely want to suppress the Cursed Seal. He wanted to—brand it.

He wanted to carve his own name into this "gift" from Orochimaru.

The stream of heat gathered into a single beam. No longer attacking broadly, it precisely traced the source of the Cursed Seal's power—the three-tomoe mark on her neck.

"Boom!"

A muffled explosion sounded from inside Red Bean's body.

The core of the Cursed Seal at her neck was fiercely branded by Yan's magma power.

A ring of dark-red scorch marks, like solidified lava, appeared around the edges of the black three-tomoe pattern.

That savage, frenzied chakra rapidly receded like a flood cut off from its source.

The black markings that had spread over Red Bean's entire body retreated like the tide, flowing back into the Cursed Seal on her neck.

The orange-yellow vertical pupils in her eyes slowly returned to their original black.

The madness faded, leaving behind only boundless weakness and pain.

Red Bean's body went limp. Her teeth finally released Yan's arm, and she collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Yan caught her with his left hand.

The girl's body was as light as a feather, burning hot all over, her skin covered in red marks from the steam burns. She had completely lost consciousness.

Yan lowered his head and glanced at his right arm.

A row of deep bite marks had torn the flesh to a bloody mess. Yet within the few seconds he watched, the muscle fibers at the wound rapidly regenerated and healed under the heat, leaving not even the slightest scar.

Then he looked down at Red Bean in his arms.

The black three-tomoe Cursed Seal on her neck remained, but a permanent dark-red brand had appeared around it, as though it shone out from the depths of her flesh.

It was like placing a scalding shackle around the mark of a venomous snake.

From this day onward, half of this Cursed Seal belonged to Orochimaru, and the other half belonged to him.

The laboratory fell deathly silent.

The three cat-masked figures had witnessed the entire "treatment," one that could only be described as torture.

Their minds were completely incapable of processing the information before them.

Melting someone's head with a palm was terrifying, but they could understand it as a powerful offensive bloodline limit.

But now, this youth codenamed "Lava" had used power capable of melting steel to precisely "sear" the evil chakra inside another person's body like the finest medical ninja—and had even given the other person's Cursed Seal some "secondary modifications" along the way?

This had already surpassed the realm of ninjutsu.

This was... a miracle.

Or rather, a demonic miracle.

"What are you standing around for?"

Holding the unconscious Red Bean, Yan turned around, his voice breaking the dead silence.

"Take her to Konoha Hospital, to the highest-level isolation ward. Notify the medical unit and tell them she has been struck by a special composite ninjutsu involving Fire Release and poison, and requires emergency treatment." He paused, then added, "In my name. Shadow Guard, codename Lava."

The cat-masked figure jolted, instinctively replying, "Yes."

"One more thing." Yan's gaze swept over the three of them through his mask. "Other than what must be reported to Lord Hokage, I do not want to hear anything that happened here today mentioned anywhere else."

His tone was calm.

But behind that calmness lay a threat powerful enough to burn people to ash.

"Understood," the three cat-masked figures replied in unison.

Before absolute power, all doubts and discussions were superfluous.