"Thank you for letting us stay in your house for these few days."
"Oh, it's nothing. You protected me on the way here. There might still be strong enemies ahead, so I'll need you around until the bridge is completed."
"Haha, no problem..." Kakashi, still injured, lay on the bed and said with a forced smile to Tazuna. The initial 'pitiful' client, Tazuna, seemed to emphasize the latter part of his sentence!
A gentle breeze blew through this small, water-surrounded country, making the dried fish hanging under the eaves sway in the sunlight.
This was a row of seaside houses, their wooden structures glistening from exposure to the elements. A shallow dock was nearby, with a few small fishing boats tied to stakes. Opening the back door of the house revealed an endless expanse of black-and-white water.
When Naruto first arrived, he had marveled at this sight for a long time as he had never seen such scene before.
Team 7, who had just set foot on the Land of Waves the day before yesterday, had encountered fierce resistance from Zabuza and two members of the old Seven Ninja Swordsmen. After a hard-fought battle, they successfully escorted Tazuna near the bridge construction site and naturally stayed there temporarily.
"Naruto, you didn't sleep well again?" Sakura was helping Tazuna's daughter wash vegetables by the pond in front of the house. When she saw Naruto slumping out of the house with a sleepy look on his face, Sakura couldn't help but said.
"Yeah, Sakura, the sound of the waves at night is so noisy." Naruto responded wearily. When they slept here, he can hear the sound of the sea water ebbing every night. However, although his tone was weak, Naruto's injuries from the fight with Zabuza had completely healed.
"Where's Sasuke?" Naruto turned his head and asked casually.
"He should be checking on Hattori-sensei." This time, it was Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami who answered. This beatiful mother, who was almost thirty, smiled kindly, "But... both of your teachers are quite injured. Thank you for protecting my father."
Receiving the praise, Naruto put on an indifferent but obviously pleased expression, "This is what we should do. After all, I am a Ninja from the Konoha Village!"
Sakura's movements paused for a moment, 'This Naruto...'
Naruto was always so cheerful. He laughed and exaggerated the battle they just experienced with Tsunami.
Sakura glanced at another room. There were five people in their team, so they took up a lot of space in the house. She couldn't help but think back to the battle a few days ago.
'Hattori-sensei, who usually looked lazy like Kakashi-sensei, got injured after fighting hard against a strong enemy.'
There are lingering fears in her heart, 'Fortunately, everyone is alright.'
In the brightly lit room, Kakashi clenched his fist and thought, 'My injury should be healed within a week'.
Kakashi's injuries are not serious. The main issue was the overuse of his Sharingan in the fight with Zabuza, leaving him physically exhausted. Meanwhile, Logan, whom Sasuke had retrieved later, looked much worse.
Time passed leisurely in the sea breeze. Having just finished a battle, daily life seemed precious and peacefully maintained. Apart from Tazuna's young grandson being somewhat unfriendly to outsiders like Team 7, everything was fine.
In the afternoon, Kakashi was already able to walk with a cane. Naruto, who was idle and bored, returned from wandering outside and asked when Logan would recover.
Kakashi, who was bandaged and leaning on a cane, tried his best to touch his chin without causing any discomfort and said thoughtfully, "Well, it won't be within a week. It's likely that he might still be recovering by the time we finish this mission."
…
His vision was dark, and after an unknown amount of time, his eyelids moved heavily, and Logan's consciousness slowly became clear.
"I'm awake..." Logan opened his eyes and saw the wooden beams of the ceiling above him. At this moment, memories of the past few days, awkward yet vivid, flooded back to him, 'Wait, I was awake earlier.'
It was a new day. Sunlight streamed through the door, casting slanting shadows. Logan tried to move, but pain shot through his body, causing him to groan and then smile bitterly.
'That damned explosive sword... and this damn crossing...'
"Hattori-sensei, you're awake." Sasuke, who was leaning outside the door to look at the scenery, immediately came in upon hearing the noise.
"Yes." Logan nodded, looked at the white bandages all over his body, and sighed as the smell of ointment filled half of the room.
In the battle with the two members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Logan had maintained a strong advantage but became careless near the end, almost losing his life.
Jinpachi's explosive sword, Shibuki, was originally a large sword that was half composed of strange explosive scroll. The power of the explosion from time to time during the battle was no less than the explosion of the Explosive Tags.
After Logan put the opponent in a desperate situation, Jinpachi directly and ruthlessly activated the sword's self-destruction technique, hoping to perish together with Logan. The clash between Logan's short sword and Kushimaru's long sword gave Jinpachi the opportunity.
At the critical moment, Logan saw [To Be Continued…] appearing. The high-level fonts stood quietly in the spreading flames, looking extremely cordial in life and death. At that time, he couldn't help but think, 'Sure enough, the chapter would end after every explosion....'
However, things didn't go as smoothly afterward.
Later, Logan dragged his injured body back to his room in the modern world. He was relieved to have survived yet another mysterious crossing.
However, the aftermath of the battle brought him immediate trouble. The peaceful atmosphere in his bedroom, the quiet living room downstairs, and the tranquil neighborhood outside, it would have been better if Logan hadn't been covered in blood and exuding a murderous aura.
Handling the aftermath was challenging. Fortunately, although he was seriously injured, he still had Chakra remained. Logan then created a shadow clone and began his somewhat embarrassing cross over experience.
In this way, the shadow clone maintained his appearances at the public, while the main body focused on healing. For a week, Logan's shadow clone kept up the facade while his real body recovered.
Just when he thought he had found a cheat to survive any catastrophic attack with a timely [To Be Continued], things took a turn.
The sensation of being pulled through time and space hit him again, and found himself back in the forest of the Land of Waves, and then...
Boom!
The explosion continued, with flames flickering in the final embers. The unprepared Logan was thrown far away by the shock wave, and fell to the ground with a thud.
"Fuck..."
Lying on the bed, Logan wanted to cover his face with his hands to cover his embarrassment, but he couldn't even do this. The injuries he sustained was so painful that it felt like needles were being driven into his flesh.
"Hiss." Logan winced in pain, catching Sasuke's concerned gaze, "What's wrong, Hattori-sensei!"
'I need to stop moving unnecessarily.' Logan quickly reassured the worried Sasuke, "It's nothing, just a bit of pain from the wounds."
Alas, he never expected that the power of the impact was still there, and he was blown up again. At that time, he coughed up blood and fainted from the severity of both new and old injuries.
'But at least, I'm not in any mortal danger.' Logan thought as he stared at the ceiling, wondering how long his recovery would take. The injuries, which could have been avoided, were severe even by the high-risk standards of his experiences in ANBU.
'And...' Logan's thoughts drifted to Kakashi, who is lying in the next room.
'Just like in the original work, they had been tricked by Haku, who is disguised as a member of the Kirigakure's assassination unit. He still took away the supposedly dead Zabuza.'
'But Zabuza shouldn't dare come back, right?' Logan secretly thought. After all, his seniors, two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen and their swords, were lost forever in the explosion in the forest.
Logan believed that the deaths of the Heartless Pair would serve as a significant deterrent.
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