Yuta's blurred vision gradually cleared.
The first thing he saw was that familiar roof beam.
It was the very one beside the hole that he had stared at just before losing consciousness.
His body felt as heavy as if it had been buried deep in solid rock. Every bone and every muscle groaned with soreness.
Yet strangely, the agonizing pain of dying had vanished, replaced by a dull, feeble ache and a kind of...
Warm, vigorous vitality slowly flowing through his body.
Medical Ninjutsu?
Exceptionally advanced Medical Ninjutsu.
Yuta struggled to move his eyes.
Then he saw the boy.
His golden hair looked less glaring in the daylight streaming through the hole. His blue eyes held none of the sharpness or indifference they had shown on the battlefield. Instead, there was a gentle smile in them.
He was crouching beside Yuta. One hand seemed to have just moved away from Yuta's chest, and a faint, soothing green glow of chakra still lingered around his fingertips.
You could barely breathe.
It wasn't fear, but the bewilderment of having everything you knew turned upside down.
The person who had nearly killed you with one casual palm strike was now treating you like an Iwagakure medical ninja?
"Hey, you're awake, old guy from Iwagakure."
He spoke in a cheerful voice that felt utterly out of place amid the ruins.
"Sorry, sorry. I got a little carried away back there and didn't hold back enough."
Carried away?
Didn't hold back enough?
Rasping sounds escaped Yuta's throat, but he couldn't get a single word out.
"Don't move around."
The boy-or rather, Naruto Uzumaki.
That name, along with his earlier declaration and that terrifying Flying Thunder God Technique, had already been carved into your mind.
He scratched his head and gave a slightly sheepish smile.
"You