Naruto: The Chosen Undead

Read advance chapters of all my works or want to support me.

https/www.p.a.t.r.e.on/Adamo_Amet

Join us on discord:

https://di..scord.gg/h3kDw7ma

••••••••••••••••••

Chapter 117 Miracle at the Edge of Death

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The air was thick with the sharp, sterile tang of blood and burnt chakra. The single lantern in the corner gave off a soft, flickering glow, casting long shadows across the room. But it was the man in the center that froze them.

Kakashi Hatake was barely recognizable.

His body lay motionless on a futon, torso heavily bandaged and layered with blood-stained cloth. Seal-marked wrappings coiled around his chest like serpents, glowing faintly with unknown fuinjutsu. A wide gash across his abdomen had been stitched shut with thread. Half his ribcage looked sunken, and a surgical brace had been fastened to hold his sternum together.

His mask and headband were removed. His Sharingan covered by a reinforced seal-plate and gauze. Tubes led from his mouth to a water flask infused with medical paste, and his breath came in ragged, inconsistent pulls, like a dying bellows.

She's doing the surgery herself, Sakura realized. No med-nin would risk transporting a patient in this state. She's keeping him alive by hand.

Sakura staggered back, a hand clamped over her mouth. "How did it get like this…?"

Kurenai didn't turn. "Many of the body's organs intersect with the chakra network. When the chakra network is damaged, it ripples through the entire system. Kakashi overextended himself—shattered his reserves until his body began cannibalizing itself to keep going. Internal bleeding. Lung punctures. Burned nerves. His liver nearly collapsed. I've had to restart his heart twice already."

Sakura's eyes widened.

"It'll take months of effort just to help him stand," Kurenai added, her voice tight.

"But why?" Naruto asked quietly. "Why push himself that hard?"

Sasuke's voice answered, cool and low. "Because he had to. Zabuza might still be alive. Gato could bring more mercenaries. Your right arm, Naruto. Kakashi didn't know what it was or if it was curable. And Konoha was sending backup. As long as we were safe... I don't think he cared if it destroyed him."

Naruto's throat tightened. "…Nah," he said after a moment, forcing a bad joke. "He probably just did it to take time off and read his little orange book."

Sakura smiled faintly, wiping her eyes. "Then he'll be reading it again soon."

She reached for her kunai.

Sasuke didn't hesitate, electricity crackling as he launched a Lightning Senbon directly at Kurenai. She spun away just in time, surprised and angry. Sakura hurled her kunai into the wall, each one landing with sharp precision. With a swift clap of her hands, a wall-shaped, opaque chakra barrier surged to life, sealing off the space between Team 7 and Kurenai.

The kunoichi hit the barrier hard with a palm strike. The chakra rippled but held.

Naruto ran forward, Estus flask in hand then froze.

"What are you waiting for?!" Sasuke yelled. "Heal him!"

"Kakashi's Sharingan," he said slowly. "That's not his original eye, right?"

"What does that matter?!" Sasuke snapped.

Naruto's grip tightened. "Estus regenerates. It heals like turning back time. What if… it tries to restore his original eye and destroys the Sharingan instead?"

Sasuke paused.

"Would it work that way?" Sakura asked. "It's a transplanted organ. Could the body reject it if it regenerates the original tissue underneath?"

No one had an answer. Then, without hesitation, Naruto bit into his own fingers. Hard. Bone crunched. Blood sprayed. He spat the mangled fingers at Sasuke, who caught them instinctively.

Naruto didn't flinch even as blood poured freely from the exposed bone and torn skin, dripping onto the floor in steady plinks.

"You insane bastard," Sasuke muttered, already moving.

He took one of the severed fingers, aligned the pointer finger with Naruto's middle knuckle, and poured Estus over it. The glow was immediate. They watched in silence as flesh re-knit, sinew reformed, skin crawled over bone—and the finger flexed again, fully healed in moments.

"We have our answer," Sasuke said.

"Good," Naruto nodded, already pale from the blood loss. "Then do it. Sakura, keep the barrier up. I'll..."

Sakura's voice rang out. "Hurry! I can't hold her much longer!"

Kurenai had struck the barrier again, this time with a focused wave of chakra enhancement. It cracked.

Naruto yanked down Kakashi's tubes and carefully tilted it between Kakashi's lips. Golden liquid flowed into his throat, while Sasuke splashed the remaining Estus directly onto his ruined torso.

The room shook.

Kurenai's final strike shattered the barrier but she halted mid-step, because from the bed, blinding light poured outward like a sunburst. Kakashi's body arched, and then slowly, he sat up. No wounds. No bandages. No blood. Only silence.

"That was a good nap."

Kakashi slowly sat up, blinking against the soft glow still fading from the Estus' healing effect.

He felt... incredible.

His muscles didn't ache. His lungs expanded with ease. There was no tightness in his chest, no residual burn in his chakra network. And most shockingly of all... his eye didn't throb.

He reached up and carefully removed the metal brace covering his left eye. The seal tags Kurenai had laced into the brace unraveled, releasing a subtle pulse of chakra. He recognized the technique, an emergency fuinjutsu designed to keep his eye from being reabsorbed by the body in the event of systemic collapse.

He'd been warned about this years ago.

Obito's eye—his final gift—had never truly belonged to Kakashi's body.

While it had given him power, it came with a cost. He had received the eye when he was only thirteen, and back then, it was a direct transplant done in the chaos of war. No sedation. No nerve mapping. Just chakra thread and pressure sealing. The eye hadn't developed properly alongside his growing skull, leaving it physically undersized in the socket. Worse still, many of the ocular nerve endings hadn't healed cleanly.

Years of compensating for that damage meant he'd been forced to run a near-constant stream of chakra to maintain alignment between optic nerve, chakra conduit, and cognitive function.

The result: constant chakra strain. It was the reason why, despite being a prodigy, he couldn't fight for long with his Sharingan uncovered. Too much feedback. Too much loss.

And yet now, as he pressed a palm to his left eye and ran a basic diagnostic technique, he froze.

The eye responded perfectly. The optic nerve endings were fully integrated. The dimensions of the eye had adapted to fit his skull precisely. Even the flow of chakra was smooth and symmetrical, as if the eye had always been his. No artificial drain. No feedback. No degradation.

His Sharingan was… like his own eye.

"How?" he breathed.

He looked up, and the answer came easily. Naruto.

Kakashi's gaze lingered on the boy now trying to wipe blood off his shirt, his nose wrinkled in disgust. Of course. Sasuke had mentioned the flask—some strange healing item that Naruto had given to him during the fight against Zabuza.

Meanwhile, Kurenai stood frozen, the shattered remnants of the chakra barrier still humming faintly against the walls. "How?"

Kakashi smiled softly. "I ask myself that all the time around this team."

Despite Kakashi's subtle effort to shield Naruto from view, Kurenai's sharp eyes found him instantly. The flicker of realization in her gaze made it clear she already suspected the truth. Whatever this miracle was, Naruto had something to do with it.

Naruto, meanwhile, pinched his nose and grimaced. "Ugh, Kakashi-sensei, you reek. Go take a bath."

"I just woke up from near-death surgery."

"You still smell like blood, pus, and whatever they use to mop up intestines."

Kurenai choked on her breath.

"Alright, alright," Kakashi said, raising his hands in surrender. "I'll go. Not exactly how I imagined my triumphant recovery speech going…"

"How long was I out?" he asked, turning to Sasuke.

"Two days," Sasuke replied.

"Only two days? Tch. I was hoping to sleep through whatever disaster Naruto's bound to cause."

Naruto grinned from the corner. "Hey, I'm innocent. I've never caused any trouble in my life."

Immediately, Sakura, Sasuke, Kurenai, and even Kiba who stuck his head in through the door—cleared their throats in unison.

Naruto threw up his hands. "Oh, screw you guys. I'm innocent, right, Oscar?"

The little crystal lizard let out a chirp that was either an agreement or a laugh.

Kakashi allowed himself a chuckle, his chest warming at the sight of his team bickering like siblings. But beneath that warmth lingered a heavy truth. Naruto Uzumaki had barely begun to understand the kind of ripple he carried with him which at this point was just a constant of his life.

Kakashi could already feel it: the tide of the mission shifting.

He reached over to the tray beside his bed, picking up a scalpel with a steady hand. Holding it up, he focused his chakra and looked into the reflective metal.

His left eye—the Sharingan—stared back at him, tomoes swirling lazily within the crimson iris.

With a deep breath, he willed the chakra flow down, tried to suppress it.

The tomoes retracted… partially. The red glow dulled, but it didn't vanish. The eye never fully returned to its dormant state.

He set the scalpel down, the edge of his reflection now just a single red eye, faintly glowing in the dark. His body was healed. And yet, as he looked back toward his team toward Naruto, grinning like a spark that hadn't yet reached the powder.

The Wave was about to change. And Naruto Uzumaki was going to be the stone that shattered still water.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 57, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.

To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!