Naturally, Orion had no idea what the Nine-Tails said after he left Naruto's seal space.
Once his consciousness returned to his body, Orion finally lowered his hand.
The tailed beast cloak surrounding Naruto also disappeared.
However, Naruto had already fainted.
On Naruto's abdomen, the original seal pattern had changed.
It had now become a black-and-gold Eight Trigrams Seal formula.
Earlier, when Orion's chakra had been completely drained, his face had turned pale and bloodless.
But now, his complexion had already fully recovered.
Ordinary shinobi might need an entire day to recover their chakra. They would need sleep and large amounts of food.
But Orion only needed at most ten minutes.
And he didn't even require food to restore his stamina.
He directly absorbed natural energy from the outside world. Part of that natural energy transformed into his own chakra, while another portion nourished his body and repaired his injuries.
The Nine-Tails comparing Orion to Hashirama Senju was not without reason.
Orion himself simply didn't realize it because, aside from being struck by the Nine-Tails earlier, he had almost never been injured before.
In reality, Orion's physical recovery ability was already terrifyingly strong, nearly approaching Hashirama's level.
The difference was that Hashirama still needed to consume his own chakra to heal.
Orion, meanwhile, directly absorbed natural energy from the outside world to recover.
In theory, as long as Orion wasn't killed outright, no matter how severe his injuries were, he would recover very quickly.
Of course, it wasn't completely absurd. If the injuries were too severe, recovery would still take a long time.
That was why the previously pale and chakra-depleted Orion had already returned to normal, with abundant chakra flowing through his body once more.
After settling Naruto down properly, Orion walked onto the balcony and stretched his body.
Then he looked toward Kakashi and the others standing several hundred meters away from the house.
Smiling, Orion waved at them.
"Kakashi-sensei, everything's fine now. You can come back."
Under the moonlight, Kakashi and the others looked toward Orion standing on the balcony.
Kakashi let out a sigh of relief.
"I knew he'd be fine. As expected of my disciple."
The originally relieved Sakura and Sasuke instantly darkened their expressions after hearing those words.
Sasuke suddenly remembered how he had once fought desperately for his father's acknowledgment against his older brother.
Even though he no longer held much resentment toward Orion, hearing Kakashi say this still made him uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, Sakura spoke bluntly.
"Hey, hey, Kakashi-sensei, we're your students too, you know! Your attention is always focused on Orion."
"You should pay attention to us sometimes too!"
Sakura sounded somewhat jealous.
Of course, she had no complaints toward Orion himself.
In fact, because Orion had saved her several times already, his position in her heart was almost on the same level as Sasuke's.
Still, children naturally became jealous whenever adults—especially their teacher—constantly praised another classmate.
Kakashi awkwardly scratched his head.
"Hahaha, Sakura, don't say that. I care about all of you too."
Sakura turned her head away with a huff.
"Hmph. Your eyes are always glued to Orion all day long. How could you possibly have time for us?"
Kakashi himself felt rather helpless.
Still, Orion truly occupied a higher position in his heart.
After all, Orion was someone Kakashi had personally taken from Kimoto Dōichi's team, and Kakashi regarded him as his true direct disciple.
Although he also valued Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura, they were ultimately more of an assignment given by the Third Hokage.
In fact, before ever meeting the three of them, Kakashi hadn't even wanted to take the team.
Even after accepting them, he initially only regarded himself as their jonin captain and saw the three more as subordinates under his command.
Fresh out of the ANBU, Kakashi had still cared greatly about hierarchy and rank.
At the beginning, viewing Team 7 as subordinates wasn't really wrong.
That was normally the relationship between a jonin leader and their genin squad.
Only after Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura passed the bell test did Kakashi truly begin seeing them as his students.
Still, there remained some difference compared to Orion.
Of course, after spending time together recently, Kakashi also felt that interacting with Orion was far easier.
Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura all had completely different personalities, and Kakashi honestly found dealing with them rather exhausting.
Several times already, if Orion hadn't stepped in to help smooth things over, Kakashi genuinely wouldn't have known how to handle the situation.
Most likely, he would've had no choice but to pressure them using his authority as their teacher, but that obviously wouldn't have produced good results.
Now that Sakura pointed it out, Kakashi also realized he really had been paying too much attention to Orion.
At this point, Orion no longer needed constant supervision or protection from him.
Or rather, Kakashi no longer needed to keep watching him to prevent accidents.
Now, aside from life experience and experience as a shinobi, Kakashi barely had anything left he could still teach Orion.
Thinking about it now, Kakashi honestly felt as if everything had been a dream.
"Just a little over a month… and that child has already grown to this level. He really is just like the Fourth Hokage. A genius who barely needs his teacher to worry about him."
Jiraiya had once told Kakashi some stories about Minato Namikaze.
Back when Jiraiya trained Minato, it had practically been free-range teaching. If Minato hadn't possessed incredible talent and a strong willingness to learn, he probably would've ended up just as ordinary as his two teammates.
Kakashi sighed inwardly.
"Lord Jiraiya could teach the Fourth Hokage Mount Myōboku's techniques and provide him with many useful jutsu. But me… aside from Chidori, I don't really have anything left to teach Orion."
"He's not interested in my summoning beasts either. This is really troublesome."
"Looks like I'll have to start gathering information about the Three Great Sage Regions. With Orion's current strength, only the summon beasts from those places can still help him."
If Sakura and Sasuke knew what Kakashi was thinking right now, they would probably feel like dying.
Sakura had just accused Kakashi of favoritism, yet Kakashi was already thinking about finding one of the Three Great Sage Regions for Orion.
If Orion didn't look nothing like Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke would probably suspect the two were father and son.
Honestly, even most fathers wouldn't spoil their child to this extent.
Regardless, Kakashi had already decided to search for information regarding the Three Great Sage Regions and planned to give it to Orion as a birthday gift next time.
Of course, Kakashi thought this way not only because Orion was the disciple he personally acknowledged, but also because Orion was powerful enough and posed no threat whatsoever to Konoha.
In Kakashi's eyes, Orion would definitely grow into a hero of Konoha like Minato Namikaze one day.
Of course, he didn't mean becoming someone who died sealing the Nine-Tails like the Fourth Hokage.
Rather, he hoped Orion would become Konoha's protector and pillar.
From the very beginning, Kakashi had always held extremely high expectations for Orion.
In just a brief moment, countless thoughts flashed through Kakashi's mind.
Looking at Orion waving at them from the distance, Kakashi smiled.
"Let's go. We should see how well Orion repaired Naruto's seal."
After saying that, he completely ignored Sakura and Sasuke's helpless expressions and vanished instantly.
He truly was eager to see just how well Orion had repaired Naruto's seal.
Sakura looked at the now-empty spot where Kakashi had been standing and sighed helplessly.
"Kakashi-sensei seriously only cares about Orion. We're his students too, you know. Orion isn't even part of our squad."
Sasuke remained silent, but he also felt somewhat displeased by Kakashi's behavior.
Of course, it was only mild dissatisfaction.
In truth, Sasuke actually held a fairly favorable impression of Orion.
After all, for all these years, Orion had been the only person willing to patiently explain so many things to him that he had never understood before.
Still, no matter how favorable his opinion of Orion was, Sasuke was still just a teenager.
And teenagers naturally felt unhappy sometimes.
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus (NR)Chapters for every 10 reviews. comment
◇ One bonus (NR)Chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read 60 (NR)Chapter ahead on P@treon if you're interested: patreon.com/SwipeSage