That of Foxes and Wolves [ADOPTED]

7. Bandages

TAKE IT

"I'm fine, Jiji." I smiled at him through my bandages in hopes of reassuring him, and he smiled slightly back at me. He then looked over at Kakashi-sensei, who I noticed was sweating and continued avoiding my Jiji's eyes. Finally, Jiji turned back to me and asked me what I'm pretty sure had been on his mind the entire time.

"Would you mind telling me why you're in the hospital, covered in bandages head-to-toe, Naruto-kun?" I saw Kakashi-sensei seize any movement and I couldn't help but laugh slightly before turning back to Jiji and answering him.

"Well Kakashi-sensei and I were fighting. He had us do this bell test thing, we needed to get two bells from him. The team had already come up with a plan, and for it to work I needed to unlock my kekkei genkai. Now obviously I couldn't just let him beat me, that'd be too suspicious plus I wanted to at least put up a fight.

"Eventually my condition got bad enough that I unlocked my kekkei genkai, and I used my chakra chains to hold Kakashi-sensei in place while Sasukra-chan and Sasuke grabbed both of the bells. I was happy and all, but the blood loss finally got to me and I collapsed. Now we're here." I saw Jiji glare at Kakashi-sensei, but he was conveniently distracted by the view outside the window.

I was out of breath but the situation was too funny to not laugh at. I instantly regretted it though, as my laughs quickly turned into dry coughs. The lack of moisture made it feel as if my throat was being scratched, and it hurt tremendously. I felt a hand rubbing soothing circles on my back, and it was enough to distract me from the pain of my coughing fit but it still wouldn't stop.

I could feel tears begin to form in the corner of my eyes, and when I looked up at Jiji he was watching me with horror. I was confused by his expression, I mean yes I'm coughing so hard my lungs are rattling, but it's not that scary. When I pulled my hand away from my mouth though, I saw what had caused his expression.

There was blood on my hand, no doubt from my mouth. At this point my coughing finally stopped, and I saw Kakashi-sensei move away and then return with a glass of cold water. I gratefully drank the entire thing at once, then listened curiously as Kakashi-sensei explained why I was coughing up blood.

Apparently during our fight, Kakashi-sensei had managed to break a few of my ribs, and one of them ended up puncturing my left lung. I was a little surprised to hear that. I could tell I may have broken a few ribs, but I never noticed that one might've punctured my lung.

After everything I was still able to train, just not so much to the point that it will hurt me further. After they did a check-up and confirmed I was okay they told me I was able to leave. I instantly went and changed into my normal clothes, I wasn't exactly comfortable being surrounded by this many strangers all the time.

I left along with Kakashi-sensei and Jiji, bidding the nurse at the front desk a good day before continuing on. Kakashi-sensei had left plenty of good marks on me, and even though I wanted to repay him I knew I couldn't. My tail twitched out of annoyance and to my surprise it hurt slightly, even my tail got hurt! I looked at it to see that it too was covered in bandages, so much so to the point where you could barely see any of the red! I laid my ears flat against my head and growled up at Kakashi-sensei, who quickly understood why I was angry and chuckled nervously.

When we got to the training grounds Sakura and Sasuke were both there, they were so distracted it didn't even look like they'd noticed my presence. They ran over to Kakashi-sensei and instantly started questioning him. "How is Naruto?"

I was shocked that they had been so busy that they hadn't even noticed me yet. Finally Sasuke looked over and saw me and Jiji. He bowed at Jiji but stood still for a moment to simply stare at me. After a while he looked at Kakashi-sensei. "Who's this guy?"