Naruto: The Medical God

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Natural Predator



The night air grew heavy with tension. Hiroshi's breath deepened, each inhale sharper, each exhale laced with embers. The flames that crackled with his breathing burned fiercer, hotter, coiling around him like a living entity.

His grip on his sword tightened, the metal beginning to glow faintly under the rising heat. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, locked onto the grotesque abomination before him.

Mizuki flexed his monstrous claws, his serpentine tail coiling beneath him, ready to strike. His slit-pupiled eyes gleamed with savage anticipation.

Then—

"Die, Ashen Blade!" Mizuki's distorted voice roared through the battlefield.

His massive body surged forward with terrifying speed, his long, scaled tail launching him with a force unlike anything before. The ground cracked beneath him from the sheer power of his movement.

His tiger-snake claw stretched forward, aimed directly at Hiroshi's face, gleaming with deadly intent.

Shin and Naruto barely had time to react—Mizuki was too fast.

But something changed.

The closer Mizuki came, the more Hiroshi's flames roared to life. They danced wildly, as if feeding off the intensity of the moment, growing higher, hotter, their crimson light bathing the battlefield in an eerie glow.

Mizuki's pupils shrank as he realized something—

The flames weren't just reacting.

They were waiting.

And then—

"Fire Release: Scorching Heat Slash."

Hiroshi whispered the words like a death sentence.

A flash of blinding red erupted between them.

Mizuki barely registered what had happened before an agonizing pain shot through him.

His world tilted.

A sharp, burning sensation tore through his arm, and before he could comprehend it—

His clawed hand was gone.

Severed.

It spun in the air, the edges of the wound already igniting with ravenous fire.

"A-Aaagghhhhh!" Mizuki howled, reeling backward, his monstrous form thrashing violently. The fire didn't just burn—it devoured. The wound where his hand once was bubbled and charred, the flames consuming his flesh like a starving beast.

The ground beneath them glowed from the sheer heat of Hiroshi's blade, faint embers still drifting from where he had struck.

Naruto and Shin could only watch, stunned, as Mizuki writhed in pain, his monstrous voice echoing into the night.

Hiroshi exhaled slowly, his breath still alight with flame. His sword, still raised, glowed ominously in the moonlight.

His eyes, unwavering, met Mizuki's.

"You're still standing?" he asked coldly.

"Y-You! You bastard! How are you so strong?!" Mizuki bellowed, his voice filled with pain and fury.

His mind raced.

"How the fuck did he manage to react that fast?! Even if he was waiting for me, at the speed I was going, nobody could have done anything! Orochimaru-sama said that in this form, nobody would have beaten me!"

His body quaked—not from fear, but from rage.

"No!" Mizuki snarled, his breathing ragged. His slitted pupils burned with madness.

With a brutal motion, he grabbed his own burning shoulder—

And tore his entire arm off.

The severed limb hit the ground with a sickening thud, flames immediately devouring it. Within seconds, it was nothing but charred remains.

"Orochimaru-sama is never wrong!" Mizuki roared, his voice dripping with fanaticism.

And then—

A sickening squelch echoed through the battlefield.

Flesh twisted. Bones snapped into place. Muscles stretched and reformed.

In less than a second—

A new arm sprouted from Mizuki's shoulder.

Hiroshi's eyes widened.

"Such regeneration speed..."

Even Naruto and Shin were left speechless.

Naruto took a step back, his hands clenched into fists. "That monster really gets more monstrous every time!" he muttered, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple.

But Shin—

Shin wasn't just shocked.

There was something else flickering in his eyes.

Intrigue.

"How did he do that? Regenerating a whole arm in a single instant... that's... that's something not even Medical Ninjutsu can do!"

Mizuki flexed his newly regenerated arm, the flesh still pulsing unnaturally as if savoring its rebirth. His elongated claws twitched, testing their sharpness.

A twisted grin stretched across his monstrous face.

"Ashen Blade..." he murmured, his voice an eerie mix of a growl and a hiss. "I underestimated you... I never thought you would be this strong."

The words slithered out with a venomous edge, but beneath them was a grudging acknowledgment.

His slit-pupiled eyes gleamed with renewed determination.

"But I won't make the same mistake twice!"

With a violent burst of motion, Mizuki launched himself forward.

The ground cracked beneath the force of his tail's propulsion, sending him surging toward Hiroshi like a violet blur of scales and claws.

Hiroshi's grip tightened around his sword, his jaw clenching.

"Tch!" He clicked his tongue in irritation.

Without hesitation, he charged forward.

The battlefield ignited with anticipation.

A monstrous hybrid of snake and tiger, fangs bared, claws extended—versus a man wreathed in fire, his blade glowing like molten death.

They streaked toward each other, the night swallowing their figures in a collision of raw power.

The moment they closed in, Hiroshi took a sharp breath, his lungs filling with scorching heat. His entire body tensed, his flames surging to their peak.

Then, with a fierce roar—

"Fire Release: Crimson Flame Wheel!"

His sword, already ablaze, erupted into a spiraling inferno.

Hiroshi leaped into the air, his entire body twisting as he brought his sword down in a massive, rotating arc. Like a blazing wheel, he spun, flames whipping outward in a fiery cyclone, the air itself crackling under the sheer intensity of his attack.

The roaring blaze expanded outward, forming a searing wheel of destruction. Trails of fire followed his sword's path, the heat distorting the very space around them.

Naruto and Shin instinctively shielded their faces from the overwhelming heat, their eyes widening at the sheer spectacle of it.

"That's insane..." Shin muttered, awed by the sheer scale of the attack. "I've seen father practice these kind of techniques before, but I never thought they were this strong!"

Naruto gulped. "That thing could incinerate an entire forest…"

But Mizuki only smiled.

"Fool."

At the last second, before the spiraling inferno could reach him, Mizuki lashed out—

His massive serpent tail, packed with monstrous strength, whipped to the side—

Slam!

The impact struck Hiroshi mid-spin, sending a shockwave through the air. The sheer force disrupted his rotation, halting the deadly momentum of his technique.

Whooosh!

The tail moved so fast that it tore through the air, creating a gust of violent wind.

And with it—

The flames faltered.

The instant the wind collided with them, the fire flickered—then extinguished.

One by one, the blazing trails of the Crimson Flame Wheel were snuffed out, swallowed by the sudden, overpowering rush of air.

Hiroshi's eyes widened in shock.

"What?!"

Before he could react, the force of the tail's impact sent him hurtling sideways, crashing into the dirt with a thunderous impact. The ground cracked beneath him as his body skidded several feet, dust and embers scattering into the night air.

Shin and Naruto watched in disbelief.

"He—he put out those flames?" Naruto stammered.

Shin's expression darkened. "Father!!"

Mizuki straightened, flicking his tail lazily. He looked down at Hiroshi with a triumphant smirk.

"Flames are strong…" he mused. "But wind—" he flexed his tail, the air around it still swirling from the sheer speed of his strike— "wind is their natural predator."

To be continued...

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I'm trying to develop Shin's father's techniques more and more and I have come up with beautiful names for the various jutsus/technique of the sword style, I just need a name for the style now.

Be sure to check out my original novel Hyperborea!

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