Naruto: The Medical Ninja

Chapter 251: Chapter 248: Cruel Awakening

Rina gasped, a raw, choked sound of pure joy. Her wheelchair creaking, she leaned forward, wrapping trembling arms around Souji’s unmoving body. ”Oh, Souji,” she whispered, her voice a fragile bridge between despair and rekindled hope.

Ryu, with a flick of his wrist and a perfectly timed question, had not only proven the boy alive but also allowed Souji to deliver a silent, profoundly eloquent piece of his mind to Doctor Hoshino, a humiliation that still burnt on her face.

The medical professionals were shaken by the unconventional lesson, which demonstrated how healing can be flexible and broke down barriers. Tsunade leaned forward, her golden eyes glazed with awe and frustration. Ok, Ryu. How will you treat him?”

Ryu remained calm. His steady gaze met Tsunade’s and then Rina’s. He looked at her tear-streaked face and raw hope in her eyes, then subtly moved to her empty pant legs and wheelchair. He silently asked her about her condition after looking at Souji. ”What happened to you?” Ryu asked softly, without judgement, but with concern.

Rina wiping her eyes, her gaze fixed on Souji, as if his silent presence could anchor her. As painful memories came flooding back, her voice became thin, almost like a whisper. She was taken back to a time before the pain and the silence.

#Flashback#

They were Genin from Hidden Valley, a speck of a village barely more than a whisper. A team of four orphans, tethered by shared fate and thin resources: their grim leader Jiro, Souji—the quiet anchor who thought three steps ahead—and a boy named Saburo, quick to laugh, quicker to charge.

Their first mission: a low-grade bandit-clearing. Textbook stuff. Or so they thought. A simple ’smash and grab’ for a group of rookies.

”Souji, can you focus? Still debating the optimal angle to throw a kunai, or are we going to start this mission?” Rina muttered, impatience lacing her voice as she watched Souji meticulously check his kunai, his brow furrowed.

Souji barely glanced up, adjusting a weighted pouch. ”Rina, your impulsiveness will get us killed. Better slow and precise than fast and dead.” His words, delivered with calm certainty, always seemed to prickle Rina, mostly because they were usually right.

Team leader Jiro, without even turning, cut through their banter like a kunai through silk. ”Quiet, children. This isn’t a picnic. This is your first real mission. Mess it up, and our village starves for contracts. Failures don’t get second chances.” His words were cold and pragmatic, a constant reminder of their world’s harsh realities.

They laid out the ambush. Simple. Efficient. Rina, her kicks lightning-fast, would clear the entrance. Souji’s earth walls would herd them into Jiro’s kill zone. Saburo would provide covering fire with shuriken. Everyone understood. Everyone nodded. They knew their parts.

With reckless confidence, they charged. Using sweeping taijutsu, Rina entered the hideout. When Saburo’s shuriken hit, Souji’s earth walls rose, groaning under his command. Crude bandits fell quickly, shouting.

Then their rookie smiles faded. Cold dread filled the air. Shadows replaced crude bandits, faster and deadlier. Missing Ninjas surrounded them, their chakra radiating evil and their movements honed by years of violence.

The ’bandit leader’ was bait for their well-planned ambush. Now he was dead. He was earlier ambushed and replaced by a new leader who let him act as a leader and rob people.

Chiru, a notorious Jonin criminal, appeared. He was cold and efficient, with a seasoned killer’s eye. His lieutenant, known as ’Face-Slasher’ for his enjoyment of scarring handsome men, smiled beside him, promising pain.

When Jiro saw that the threat had changed, he moved right away to fight Chiru, which took the leader’s attention off of the Genin. ”Go! Run!” he yelled, his voice ragged, as he charged the Jonin’s attack head-on. It was a last-ditch, brave stand. The clash of steel and chakra echoed, a harsh symphony that let them know what their real situation was.

Rina, Souji, and Saburo found themselves facing Face-Slasher and his immediate subordinates. They realised escape was impossible. Fight, or die. Rina moved like a furious dance, a whirlwind of precise taijutsu and lethal kicks. Her short legs flashed, a silver blur, each swing a deadly arc, every bit the deadly grace of a black widow. She was a close combat specialist who specialised in taijutsu.

Face-Slasher, the lieutenant, charged. Rina’s heel snapped out, a blur of motion, a whip-crack of force, connecting squarely with his jaw. He reeled, spitting blood, his arrogant smirk twisting into a snarl of pure rage as he touched his swelling jaw, eyes narrowing.

”Rabbit,” he drawled, his voice tight with sudden fury, ”you’re a jumper, aren’t you?” His face was marred, a blossoming bruise darkening his handsome features, and he seethed, his vanity wounded more than his flesh.

A storm was started by Souji. Because of his unusual Genin trait—a dual affinity for Earth and Air—he could swiftly shift the tide of battle. Suddenly, chakra-shimmering rock walls erupted from the ground, engulfing their enemies. Enemy strength was exposed as the ground was ripped apart by fierce winds. A dynamic shield and a budding tactician, Souji was constantly looking for ways to gain an advantage.

While this was going on, Saburo fought with all his might, but he was no match for them. One of Face-Slasher’s men moved quickly and quietly, and there was a flash of steel. Saburo fell to the ground, and his life force left him.

Desperation was all they had going. In a faraway part of the cave, Jiro, the leader of the team, gave one last, defiant cry and then fell, defeated by Chiru’s cruel efficiency.

Souji, seeing a desperate opening aimed squarely at Rina, shoved her hard from an incoming kunai barrage, taking a brutal impact to the head himself. He crumbled, blood blooming on the ground like a dark, morbid flower.

”Run!” Souji managed, his voice slurred, before darkness claimed him.

Rina ran. She didn’t look back, couldn’t. Her legs burnt, each stride a desperate prayer for escape. But she wasn’t fast enough.

Face-Slasher, his previous injury fuelling his vindictive pursuit, intercepted her. His bloodshot eyes promised a slow, agonising end.

Rina snarled, unleashing a final, desperate flurry of kicks, one connecting squarely with Face-Slasher’s bruised face, the impact enough to crack his nose, a sickening crunch echoing in the cavern.

As he wiped blood from his nose, Face-Slasher let out a laugh. ”You like to kick... you little rabbit.” A frigid line sliced through the air as his blade flashed. She was engulfed by a blinding, blazing wave of pain. Rina screamed as both of her feet below the knees were severed with horrifying precision, and the world spun in agony.

Just then, A kunai, hurled by his own leader from outside the cave, whizzed past Face-Slasher’s cheek, its razor edge just grazing him. It embedded itself with a soft thud in the rock behind him. He jerked back, startled. As he recoiled, a jagged, crimson line bloomed on his cheek from temple to jawline.

Face-slasher screamed, clutching his face, as the horrifying realisation dawned. The irony was exquisite. From this day onwards, Faceslasher would now be known as Scarface. A tense silence fell over the remaining bandits.

”I told you to not damage the goods,” Chiru’s voice, cold and detached, echoed from the cave entrance, cutting through Face-Slasher’s rage like ice.

Scarface glared at his boss, who glared back. Scarface knows better than to make his boss any more angry..

”Stop the bleeding. Take her to the hideout.’ Chiru said to his subordinates.

His subordinates moved to obey. They had won, or so they thought, a brief, grim celebration beginning with low cheers in their cave. But their triumph was short-lived. Barely ten minutes later, a new whistle cut through the air, followed by the thud of multiple kunai.

The hideout was ambushed again. A swift, coordinated strike. Valley Ninjas, eyes grim, focused on casualty retrieval. Konoha ninjas vanished into the trees in pursuit of the fleeing bandits. The Valley Ninjas, joined by the Konoha medical team, tended to the Genin. Souji was barely breathing, his chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate gasps. Rina’s feet were gone, the stumps bandaged, a lost cause in the eyes of conventional medicine.

Rina awoke with a jolt. Searing pain assaulted her senses, a relentless drumbeat in her throbbing head. The world spun, a dizzying kaleidoscope of white walls and hushed voices. Then came the devastating news: Souji’s unresponsive state. Her own lost limbs. The cold, unfeeling confirmation of a second, unseen blow to her head, a silent, internal injury mirroring her external wounds. It was a cruel awakening to a shattered reality, a world irrevocably broken.

#Flashback ended#

Rina finished, her voice raw, stripped bare by the painful retelling, fresh tears cutting paths down her face, her shoulders trembling with the lingering echoes of the past. ”He loved me. He saved me.” Her gaze, pleading and desperate, locked onto Ryu, clinging to the fragile hope he offered like a lifeline. ”Can you... can you truly make Souji better? Can you pull him back from that suffocating silence?”

##PoWeR StOnEs##

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