A while ago, when Kinoe first placed his hand on Hotaru's forehead and used the jutsu to knock him out, the jutsu worked effectively. However, it also triggered the system, resulting in a—
[Ding!]
The clear, sweet chime echoed in his mind, but it fell on deaf ears.
Hotaru was too exhausted and too deep in sleep to respond to the first chime—which rang only once.
A short while later, when Kinoe used the Mystical Palm Jutsu to heal the tiny puncture wounds left behind by the needle, the jutsu perfectly. However, the system activated once again, resulting in a—
[Ding!]
This time, the system didn't chime in vain. This annoying, stupid sound effect—that could have been turned off if Hotaru had wanted to, but did not because he was too tired to ask the system—finally came in clutch.
The sound pulled Hotaru out of his deep sleep.
Hotaru was confused by the sudden system sound. 'What the f*ck is going on?'
It took him a few seconds to regain his bearings. He understood that the sound that unceremoniously woke him up came from the system.
'I knew I should have turned that off. This useless—' Hotaru was about to curse the system but stopped. 'Wait. For the system to do anything at all, it needs chakra, which I can't yet produce. That means—'
Hotaru felt a surge of happiness bubble up inside him. 'Of course, who else could it be except Mikoto? She's doing this because of yesterday.'
Hotaru was about to open his eyes, but something stopped him. 'Wait. Something's off here. Let me…'
He opened his eyes a fraction of an inch to surreptitiously survey his surroundings. Though it was early morning, there was still not enough light to see clearly. He could vaguely make out a figure standing beside his bed with its hand pressed against his collarbone, but he couldn't tell who it was.
'If it were Mikoto, she would have used the jutsu on my eyes or head; given how long she used it yesterday, I am sure I can tell whether the hand on me belongs to her.'
Then he noticed a few small glittering objects and, upon observing it for sometime, saw they contained something red inside and—
BAM!
—suddenly, everything clicked into place. This was definitely someone who was here doing what the system had told me was happening to me. No doubt about it.
Hotaru felt a surge of anger at the thought of being taken advantage of and had to restrain himself from punching the person's face—not that he would have succeeded if he really went ahead with it.
With anger welling up inside him, Hotaru thought his body would betray him by shaking a little or his eyelids fluttering involuntarily. However, at this moment the person removed his hand from Hotaru.
Hotaru let out a secret sigh of relief. That was close. He shifted his focus to the System Overview and his attention was drawn to one of the stats that was glowing red intermittently, like a star blinking in and out.
With alarm bells ringing in his head, Hotaru zeroed in on the stat that was pulsing red, and noticed that—
[HP: 1/10]
—his HP was dangerously close to 0. He focused on this this stat and saw this: [Host is dangerously close to being incapacitated. Host is suggested to withdraw from the situation and recover his condition. Further conflict is ill-advised.]
'You dumb system. I can neither withdraw nor recover.' he thought while panic welled up in him thinking of how close he was to hitting 0. Luckily, that didn't happen, and he woke up just in time to notice what was happening.
Just then, he had another scary thought, 'What if this person continues this, and it hits 0? How long will it take for me to wake up?' But, even as he thought this, he felt it was unlikely to continue. 'No. This person had just healed me; that probably means they were done extracting my blood essence.'
Thinking so, he felt safe—as safe as he could possibly feel under these circumstances. Soon, Hotaru heard rustling sounds from the person. Feeling more comfortable, he cracked open his eyes a little more and noticed that the person—who had short brown hair and a face covered by some kind of mask—was hunched over a scroll spread across the bed, looking intently into it. Hotaru was fairly sure this person was a man; he also looked as if he was almost done with whatever he was here to do.
Hotaru now focused on the various items placed on his bed—presumably—by this man.
Between his body and the scroll lay several items within arm's reach, including the glass vials containing his blood. As he looked at them, a particular thought crossed his mind. 'What if I snatch one of them?'
Hotaru immediately put his thought into action. However, the moment he moved his left hand, which was covered by sheets, toward the pile of items, the man drew a kunai and got into an attacking posture in an instant.
Hotaru was shocked and nearly jumped with a start. He was worried that he had been discovered, and because of that, the man was about to silence him.
But this worry turned out to be unfounded. A few seconds later, when the kunai had not yet descended, Hotaru noticed that the man's eyes roaming around the room, searching for something. His posture gradually shifted to a defensive stance, as if were anticipating an attack.
Hotaru understood that while the man had noticed something, he didn't suspect that Hotaru could be awake.
'Lucky me,' thought Hotaru, but it didn't end there. Just a moment later—much to his pleasant surprise—things got even better.
The man suddenly looked outside the window in shock and disbelief—like a top-grade r*tard who had just discovered that the sky is blue and still couldn't get himself to believe it—and Hotaru seized the unexpected opportunity. 'I don't know what this man is so astonished by, but it's now or never.'
With that thought, Hotaru quickly poked his left hand out from underneath the sheets, grabbed the first thing he touched, and pulled his hand back in, hoping he had managed to get something useful.
At almost the exact moment, the man turned to the items on the bed and began gathering them.
'Hoo! That was way too close!' thought Hotaru as he calmly closed his eyes and kept them shut for a while, trying to maintain his composure.
When he heard the soft—almost inaudible—footsteps of the man fading away, he once again opened his eyes a fraction of an inch and observed him.
The man walked toward the window and stopped once he was there. He turned to look at Hotaru one last time before disappearing.
Once the man vanished, Hotaru realized just how much tension his body had been holding.
Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself a moment to process everything, feeling the weight of anxiety slowly lift from his shoulders.
Then his thoughts turned to how he had robbed the man right under his nose, and he started to laugh with his hands pressed against his mouth to supress it.
He sneered, recalling the man's actions. "What an idiot. Ha ha!"
Then he resumed laughing—this time without holding back.
Hotaru felt quite pleased with himself for pulling a fast one on this masked man—presumably an ANBU—while he was practically crippled.
Yet, he was also reminded of the fact that his life was practically at the mercy of this intruder, and the only thing he could do was pretend to be asleep and steal something.
Hotaru was acutely aware that his accomplishment was only possible because the man never even considered him a threat; but he would take it. He was impressed with himself for not losing his cool in the heat of the moment and for doing as much as the situation allowed him—if not more.
Rather than wallow in self-pity due to his circumstances, he decided to take pride in what he had achieved after being awake for only one day.
He took a deep breath and promised himself, "I will get stronger so that I never have to be at the mercy of others ever again."
He paused for a moment. "I know I have to take baby steps to reach that goal, but one day, I will definitely get there. One day, people will have to think twice before crossing me."
Of course, he didn't forget the thing that started this little adventure of his—the system's chime that woke him up. He murmured a quiet 'Thank you' to the system with a slight smile. He decided he was not going to turn off the system's sound.
'After all, who would expect coming into contact with chakra would wake someone up? Heh. This is a broken ability—and it's not even an ability. Ha ha!' laughed Hotaru, feeling quite satisfied with the system.
Hotaru sat up and rested with his back against the headboard of the bed. He then thought of taking a look at his spoils; he didn't even know what he managed to nick.
He slipped his hand underneath the sheets and felt for the, umm… whatever thing that he had hidden there. Not even a second later, he felt a sharp pain in his finger and let out a yelp.
'OUCH!'
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