Chapter 64 (Patreon)

The celebration came to an end, and morning soon arrived.

By dawn, the heavy snowfall had stopped.

A thick blanket of snow covered Konoha, painting the entire village white. People walked through the streets bundled in warm clothes, while groups of children laughed and worked together to build snowmen.

Even the freezing weather couldn’t quiet the village.

Inside Mihawk’s house, the curtains slowly opened.

Mihawk stood by the window and looked out at the snow-covered streets. After a moment, he turned toward the bed.

Hinata and Hanabi were still asleep beneath the thick quilt, with only their heads peeking out. Their long dark-blue and brown hair spread across the pillow, and the bows they had worn the night before were now slightly crooked.

Mihawk looked around the room.

Paper decorations covered the floor. The chairs had been pushed out of place, and bits of cake were stuck to the table and even the walls.

Remembering what had happened the night before, a faint smile appeared on his face.

The surprise he had prepared had worked far better than expected.

Even Hinata, who was usually quiet and shy, had eventually been dragged into Hanabi’s games. By the end of the night, the three of them had made a complete mess of the house.

The games themselves had been simple.

They passed pieces of paper using chopsticks, and whoever dropped one had to accept a punishment. Most of the punishments involved feeding someone cake or holding a cup for them while they drank.

If Mihawk had asked Hinata to play something like that with him, she probably would have agreed after only a little teasing.

Hinata had always found it difficult to refuse him.

But Hanabi had been there as well.

Once the mood picked up, she naturally forced her way into every game.

Remembering how late they had kept her awake, Mihawk felt slightly guilty.

She was only seven years old.

No—her birthday was March twenty-seventh.

She was already eight.

Mihawk shook his head and pushed the thought aside.

After washing up, he returned to the room and began cleaning.

Children in the shinobi world were forced to grow up quickly, but Hanabi was still only eight.

They had kept her awake far too late.

The cake from the night before had barely been eaten. Most of it had ended up on the floor, the furniture, or the walls.

Even Hinata had been too tired to clean before falling asleep.

Mihawk fetched several buckets of water from the bathroom. Wearing a robe with an apron tied around his waist, he began putting the house back in order.

He swept the scraps of paper and cake crumbs from the floor first.

Then he soaked a towel and wiped the cake from the walls, table, and chairs.

Cleaning everything was troublesome, but Mihawk didn’t mind.

Strangely enough, he enjoyed moments like this.

Some people dreamed of becoming Hokage.

Others wanted fame, power, or peace for the entire shinobi world.

Mihawk didn’t care about any of that.

He only wanted enough strength to protect himself and the people close to him. If he could spend his days living peacefully with Hinata, that was enough.

Unfortunately, he knew peace wouldn’t last forever.

The shinobi world would fall into chaos again in only a few years. Beyond that, there was also the threat of the Ōtsutsuki clan.

With his current strength, Mihawk still couldn’t guarantee that he would survive everything waiting ahead.

He couldn’t afford to slack off.

Once the house was clean, Mihawk entered the dojo and began training.

Weighted push-ups.

Weighted frog jumps.

Weighted pull-ups.

He continued without stopping for two hours.

After that, he left the house and began running around the village while carrying the same weights.

His current training was much harder than before.

The weights alone were several times heavier.

For the past two months, Mihawk had spent nearly half of every day strengthening his body.

He had even stopped practicing the Body Flicker Technique.

There was a reason for that.

There were several kinds of shinobi in this world who could threaten him—powerful taijutsu users, shinobi who knew space–time ninjutsu, senjutsu users, and those who possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Aside from enemies like that, Mihawk had little reason to fear most shinobi.

Even skilled jōnin such as Kurenai Yūhi, Asuma Sarutobi, Zabuza Momochi, and Kakashi Hatake didn’t have any way to defeat him.

But his battle with Kimimaro had revealed a weakness he could no longer ignore.

Kimimaro had never truly forced Mihawk to fight with everything he possessed.

Even so, the Dance of the Seedling Fern had placed him in a dangerous position.

The problem had not been Kimimaro’s strength alone.

It was the nature of the technique itself.

The bone forest had erupted across such a wide area that ordinary speed was not enough to escape it. Even if Mihawk had been faster, there was still a limit to how quickly he could move across the ground when every path around him had been swallowed by bones.

In the anime he remembered, Gaara had avoided the technique by lifting himself above the battlefield on a platform of sand.

Mihawk had no similar ability.

That was the real weakness Kimimaro had exposed.

Mihawk could move quickly, but he could not move through the air.

There was also someone in the Akatsuki whose fighting style would be especially dangerous for him.

That person was neither Uchiha Itachi nor the Six Paths of Pain. It was not even Konan.

It was Deidara.

Mihawk still hadn’t tested his chakra nature, nor had he learned any nature transformation.

Unless he killed Deidara before the latter could take to the sky, Mihawk would have no reliable method of dealing with attacks such as C4 Karura or Deidara’s final C0 self-destruction.

If either technique caught him directly, he would almost certainly die.

That was why he had stopped focusing on the Body Flicker Technique.

Instead, he would train Soru and Geppo.

Geppo was one of the Marines’ Six Powers. By kicking the air with enough force, the user could remain in the sky and move through the air.

But before Mihawk could learn Geppo, he first needed to master Soru.

And to master Soru, he needed a much stronger body.

The only person in the shinobi world who had shown movement remotely similar to Geppo was Might Guy after opening the Eight Gates Released Formation.

Learning both techniques wouldn’t be easy.

Mihawk would need to push his body far beyond its current limits.

For the next three years, strengthening his body would be his main goal.

After running around Konoha for three hours, Mihawk finally returned home, covered in sweat and breathing heavily.

Hinata and Hanabi were already awake.

The two sisters were sitting together on the sofa when he walked into the living room.

The moment Hinata saw him, she stood and hurried over. She raised the sleeve of her pajamas and tried to wipe the sweat from his face.

Mihawk gently caught her wrist.

“Don’t bother,” he said with a small smile. “I’m done training for today. I’ll take a bath.”

“Okay.”

Hinata nodded.

Her cheeks were slightly red.

She had clearly remembered the games they played the night before.

Hanabi was unusually quiet as well.

Instead of jumping at Mihawk like she normally did, she sat on the sofa with her head lowered and her face burning red.

She looked as though she wanted to hide inside her own clothes.

Usually, Hanabi didn’t care how sweaty Mihawk was after training. She would still run over and throw herself at him without hesitation.

But today, even the normally fearless Hanabi was too embarrassed to look at him.