Sword and Shield [Chapter 2: Fateful Encounters]
Title: Sword and Shield
Series: Naruto and Hunter x Hunter crossover
Pairing: Eventual Sasuke/Kurapika
Rating: 18+ overall; this chapter 16+
Warnings For This Chapter: Same creepy OC guy from earlier being even creepier, Sasuke being an entitled, taser-happy jackass.
Sasuke heard the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush, and the rustle of multiple pursuers. He immediately took to the trees, and, both curious and utterly confident, headed towards the noise. It took minimal effort to get ahead of them - whomever was being chased was fast. . . compared to somebody who wasn't Sasuke - and it was only a few seconds before a blond ran into view, eyes wide and. . . glowing red?
That detail alone was enough to make Sasuke want to get a closer look. He timed his jump carefully; he landed in front of the blond just a moment too late for them to avoid colliding with his chest, and, with less time than it would take to blink, spirited them back up into the tree he'd been perched in, to examine those interesting red eyes without being interrupted by a hunting party.
Easier said than done, since the blond recovered from the shock surprisingly quickly, and started fighting back nearly as soon as Sasuke's feet made contact with the wide tree limb. Almost automatically, Sasuke buried a hand in the person's hair and jerked their head back so he could force eye contact. This was the point where he first noticed that something was wrong.
"Let me go!" the blond shouted, noticeably not paralysed by the genjutsu Sasuke had attempted to use, and reached back to grab Sasuke's wrist.
Sasuke responded by giving the blond a good shake and a small zap of electricity to stun them. "Shut up. Do you want them to find you?"
"You're. . . you're not with them?" they asked, looking him dead in the eye, and it registered in Sasuke's head this time that he was staring into the most beautiful shade of red he'd ever seen.
It was a second later that Sasuke realised that it was, in fact, a very familiar hue - he'd seen it in fire many times before - but there was something about those eyes that rendered looking at them more appealing than the colour itself could account for. Was it part of the blond's aura? They didn't seem to have any chakra coils or analogous internal stores of energy, but bits of the external aura that was visible seemed to curl and twist and very slightly wilt, almost like it was ablaze with some sort of great fire that even the Sharingan couldn't see directly. There had been little skin contact while Sasuke manhandled the blond, since no part of them from the neck down but hands and ankles was exposed, but Sasuke wouldn't be surprised if their entire body felt like it was burning with fever, rather than only the back of their neck.
Either this was some sort of bloodline limit, or Sasuke had caught an elemental avatar of fire. He wasn't sure which.
"Well?" the blond asked again, growing impatient. Something about their eyes changed; not only were they bizarrely beautiful, but now there was a tiny inkling of terror scrabbling around at the back of Sasuke's mind, although it was easily squashed. "Answer me."
"I'm not with the group that's chasing you," Sasuke said honestly.
"You're telling the truth. . ." the blond murmured, almost to themselves, and their eyes softened. The little itching terror faded.
"Why are they chasing you?" Sasuke asked.
The blond looked upset. "The Hunters' Association betrayed me. They decided my eyes are more important to them than my membership."
That hit a chord with Sasuke, although he didn't know what the Hunters' Association was. "I know what it's like to have special eyes."
"Then you should know why he isn't safe," a third voice called up from below them. Sasuke glanced down, and saw a greasy-looking man - a greasy-looking, definitively human man, who nonetheless also seemed to lack chakra coils - standing under the tree, holding some sort of collar. He was followed by a man and a woman, both glassy-eyed and looking like they were waiting for orders. "Rare and precious creatures like him are always under threat by poachers. It took me nearly two years, but I've finally received authorisation to take the last known Kuruta into my protective custody."
"I can take care of myself!" the blond yelled back.
The greasy man only laughed. "They all say that at first." He idly ran his fingers over the collar's edge. Sasuke noted that the object was charged with the man's chakra, and that the two people with him were wearing identical collars, similarly charged. "I'm sure you'll change your mind. They always do. Soon you'll even be eating out of my hand."
Bile rose in Sasuke's throat, and he subconsciously tried to pull the blond closer, but he wouldn't budge an inch. "You'll have to go through me, first."
A vile smirk twisted its way onto the greasy man's face. "I wasn't expecting a two-for-one deal, but I'm sure I can accommodate." The two collared people started slowly moving towards the tree Sasuke was in.
"If he gets the collar on you, it's all over," the blond whispered.
Sasuke nodded, but he didn't intend to let the greasy man get close enough to have a chance. He caught the man's gaze, just for a moment.
Then it really was all over. The two collared people collapsed, and the greasy man himself stood perfectly still. . . at least until Sasuke sent 1,500 amperes of electricity straight through his heart.
"Is. . . is he dead?" the blond asked, eyeing the charring body warily.
"Only one way to be sure," Sasuke answered, and flitted down to the ground long enough to slit the man's throat from ear to ear. He flicked the blood off his sword and sheathed it before walking over to the fallen woman and nudging her with his foot. There was no response. He knelt down and, very carefully, used the end of a kunai to unbuckle and then remove the collar without having to actually touch it.
Almost immediately, the woman's eyes lit up as if she'd woken from a trance, and she blinked up at him in confusion. "What. . . ?"
"You're free now," Sasuke told her.
"Wh-what about the others?" she mumbled, slowly dragging herself into a sitting position and holding her head.
Sasuke shrugged and got to his feet. "I don't know, but the man that was controlling you is dead. If you're worried, you should probably go back and free them on your own."
The woman nodded, gingerly got to her feet, and hurried over to get the collar off of her comrade. A relieved smile crossed her face as he rejoined the world of the waking. She looked over her shoulder at Sasuke. "Thank you."
Sasuke didn't answer; he just flit back up to the branch he'd previously been on. Almost as soon as he did so, the blond's fist came hurtling into his face. He leapt backwards just in time to avoid a broken nose, landing in the next tree over. "Ow! What the hell was that for?"
"That was completely reckless!" the blond snapped at him. "Killing that man could have done the same to all of the potentially innocent people he had under his control, or sent them into permanent comas, which is just as bad. It was pure luck that you're only responsible for one death here."
"And that's a reason to punch me in the face?" Sasuke asked, incredulous. Both of those possibilities seemed incredibly unlikely to him.
"Yes!"
"Look, even if they had died, my killing that guy was in defense of myself and you. You could at least act grateful."
The blond stopped meeting his eyes, and shifted uncomfortably. "My safety's not worth that much."
"If you say so. . . ." Sasuke decided to start asking questions. "What's a Kuruta?"
The blond glanced up nervously. "It's the name of my clan. Why?"
"He mentioned that you're the last one, as well as something about poachers," Sasuke pointed out, but the word "poachers" only succeeded in setting the blond more on-edge. ". . . Look, I know you probably won't believe this -"
"I'll decide what I do or do not believe," the blond interrupted, suddenly looking him in the eye again, "so just say it."
Sasuke was unused to people deliberately making eye contact with him, but continued. ". . . I'm the last of my clan, too."
"That's very close to the truth. . . but you're still lying," the blond said. "Who are the others?"
The accuracy of the blond's assessment made Sasuke grit his teeth. Was this also part of a bloodline limit? If it was, it'd be better to just come clean. "One of them is my brother. The other might or might not exist. They're the ones who slaughtered the rest of us, and I plan to kill them for it."
That last sentence seemed to have an unusual effect on the blond. "We're. . . more alike than I thought, although my clan's butchers were outsiders. I've. . . already killed two of them. . . but there are potentially eleven more to go."
Sasuke noted the pained expression on the blond's face as he admitted to having killed two people, even though they'd surely deserved it. This person was obviously not cut out to be a killer at all, but had the potential to be quite useful despite that. "Eleven, huh? You sound like you could use some help."
"I don't need your charity," the blond said through grit teeth.
"I don't give charity," Sasuke replied, "but you obviously have some skills, even if you're squeamish about finishing the job. If you can be useful to me, I'd be willing to be useful to you."
"How will you determine if I 'can be useful to' y-" the blond suddenly had to move quickly to dodge a punch. The followup kick landed, but it felt to Sasuke like he might as well have just kicked a steel bar rather than another person's leg; his own shin was now throbbing painfully, and the blond's hadn't budged at all.
Sasuke ducked as a chain with a round weight on the end suddenly appeared from the blond's sleeve and swung at him. He aimed two shuriken around the chain - one going above, one below - but rather than being forced to try blocking one or the other, the chain moved like it was something alive, tangling both projectiles in midair between its links before letting them fall harmlessly to the ground.
"You'll have to be faster than that," the blond said, lunging forward and flicking his wrist to send the chain flying at him again.
Sasuke dodged to the side, and should have cleared the chain by a few centimetres, but, somehow, it struck him anyway, and with enough force to crack at least one rib. He grabbed the chain with one hand while he still had the chance, though, and sent a jolt of electricity up it. The reaction was not what he'd expected: There was a hiss of pain, sure, but a split-second later the chain literally vanished from between his fingers, and a second, identical one sprung forward. That was when Sasuke realised what the chain actually was. "That thing's made of your chakra, isn't it?"
"Chakra, huh?" the blond asked, swinging the chain again. "Is that what they call it here?"
Sasuke ducked under it this time, and threw three kunai back. "What do they call it where you're from?"
"Nen," the blond answered, dodging two, but getting hit on the arm by the third. The damage was completely superficial, though; not only did he catch the kunai as it fell away from the tiny hole it had made in his sleeve without drawing blood, but he threw it back at Sasuke easily.
As Sasuke moved out of the way of the counterattack, he contemplated two things: First, the blond's "nen" had shifted automatically to gather where the kunai would hit, somehow cushioning the impact down to almost nothing, and, secondly, his eyes had turned an ordinary shade of blue, which had brought with it a drastic stabilisation of his aura. The only thing left of the fiery wraith he'd initially met was the persistent lack of an apparent internal chakra/"nen" structure.
The sudden probability that this person was human was a relief, but the shifting aura shield would nonetheless hamper any attempt to deal physical damage. He'd proven twice that lightning could get past it, but he wondered if maybe he could outrun it, too. "I don't think I caught your name. I'm Sasuke Uchiha." He drew a kunai and lunged.
The blond twisted out of the way, and delivered a kick across Sasuke's back that sent him flying down towards another branch, which caught him in the gut before he had a chance to register anything but pain. "My name is Kurapika. I'm of the Kuruta clan, but have no particular surname. Why aren't you guarding yourself? That kick could have left you paralysed for life if I hadn't noticed and held back at the last second!"
"Well, Kurapika of Kuruta," Sasuke wheezed once he could suck in enough air to talk again. "How do you propose I do that? It's not like I can train my spine to be tougher."
". . . You don't know how to use gyou?" Kurapika asked, puzzled.
Sasuke carefully, gingerly pulled himself up onto the branch he was hanging from and sat down, gritting his teeth at the jolt of pain that shot up his spine from the action. Needless to say, he did not want to repeat the experience of being nearly snapped in half twice in quick succession. "How to use what?"
"Gyou. You know, when you focus your. . . aura, I suppose. . . around a certain part of your body to make it stronger."
"Even with expert chakra control, it can't make that much difference," Sasuke said, still trying to catch his breath and clutching his abdomen in pain. He was probably bleeding internally. This suspicion was confirmed when he coughed and a good deal of blood came out of his mouth.
Suddenly Kurapika's eyes and aura were ablaze again, and a different chain appeared: the weight on the end was cross-shaped, and it was attached to the ring on his thumb rather than the one on his ring finger. It was surrounded by a soft, blue-green glow, seeming almost entirely separate from the smouldering purple-pink it had been borne from. "Here, let me heal you." Kurapika jumped down to a branch that was about level with the one Sasuke was on. "Hold still."
Sasuke watched in fascination as the chain, moving on its own, slithered over to him and the strange metal cross hovered parallel to his skin. The strange sensation of blood being pulled back into ruptured vessels, of flesh and organs pulling themselves back together, and of bone fragments setting themselves washed over him, as what would have been weeks or months of healing were compressed into only a few seconds. "Even Naruto doesn't heal this fast. . ." he murmured, pain already fading.
"Who's Naruto?" Kurapika asked.
". . . Someone who used to be my friend," Sasuke said eventually. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Then I won't ask further." The cross moved behind Sasuke to heal his cracked spine and shattered ribs, then to his side to heal his cracked rib from earlier, and then retreated far enough to be able to go and heal his bruising shin, too.
"I'm starting to think that nen and chakra might not be as similar as we thought," Sasuke said when Kurapika was done, stretching a little and finding that he was completely healed. He was used to there being at least some downtime to recover from such serious injuries.
It was a second later that he had to dive to catch Kurapika, who had suddenly keeled over in a dead faint.
Series: Naruto and Hunter x Hunter crossover
Pairing: Eventual Sasuke/Kurapika
Rating: 18+ overall; this chapter 16+
Warnings For This Chapter: Same creepy OC guy from earlier being even creepier, Sasuke being an entitled, taser-happy jackass.
Sasuke heard the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush, and the rustle of multiple pursuers. He immediately took to the trees, and, both curious and utterly confident, headed towards the noise. It took minimal effort to get ahead of them - whomever was being chased was fast. . . compared to somebody who wasn't Sasuke - and it was only a few seconds before a blond ran into view, eyes wide and. . . glowing red?
That detail alone was enough to make Sasuke want to get a closer look. He timed his jump carefully; he landed in front of the blond just a moment too late for them to avoid colliding with his chest, and, with less time than it would take to blink, spirited them back up into the tree he'd been perched in, to examine those interesting red eyes without being interrupted by a hunting party.
Easier said than done, since the blond recovered from the shock surprisingly quickly, and started fighting back nearly as soon as Sasuke's feet made contact with the wide tree limb. Almost automatically, Sasuke buried a hand in the person's hair and jerked their head back so he could force eye contact. This was the point where he first noticed that something was wrong.
"Let me go!" the blond shouted, noticeably not paralysed by the genjutsu Sasuke had attempted to use, and reached back to grab Sasuke's wrist.
Sasuke responded by giving the blond a good shake and a small zap of electricity to stun them. "Shut up. Do you want them to find you?"
"You're. . . you're not with them?" they asked, looking him dead in the eye, and it registered in Sasuke's head this time that he was staring into the most beautiful shade of red he'd ever seen.
It was a second later that Sasuke realised that it was, in fact, a very familiar hue - he'd seen it in fire many times before - but there was something about those eyes that rendered looking at them more appealing than the colour itself could account for. Was it part of the blond's aura? They didn't seem to have any chakra coils or analogous internal stores of energy, but bits of the external aura that was visible seemed to curl and twist and very slightly wilt, almost like it was ablaze with some sort of great fire that even the Sharingan couldn't see directly. There had been little skin contact while Sasuke manhandled the blond, since no part of them from the neck down but hands and ankles was exposed, but Sasuke wouldn't be surprised if their entire body felt like it was burning with fever, rather than only the back of their neck.
Either this was some sort of bloodline limit, or Sasuke had caught an elemental avatar of fire. He wasn't sure which.
"Well?" the blond asked again, growing impatient. Something about their eyes changed; not only were they bizarrely beautiful, but now there was a tiny inkling of terror scrabbling around at the back of Sasuke's mind, although it was easily squashed. "Answer me."
"I'm not with the group that's chasing you," Sasuke said honestly.
"You're telling the truth. . ." the blond murmured, almost to themselves, and their eyes softened. The little itching terror faded.
"Why are they chasing you?" Sasuke asked.
The blond looked upset. "The Hunters' Association betrayed me. They decided my eyes are more important to them than my membership."
That hit a chord with Sasuke, although he didn't know what the Hunters' Association was. "I know what it's like to have special eyes."
"Then you should know why he isn't safe," a third voice called up from below them. Sasuke glanced down, and saw a greasy-looking man - a greasy-looking, definitively human man, who nonetheless also seemed to lack chakra coils - standing under the tree, holding some sort of collar. He was followed by a man and a woman, both glassy-eyed and looking like they were waiting for orders. "Rare and precious creatures like him are always under threat by poachers. It took me nearly two years, but I've finally received authorisation to take the last known Kuruta into my protective custody."
"I can take care of myself!" the blond yelled back.
The greasy man only laughed. "They all say that at first." He idly ran his fingers over the collar's edge. Sasuke noted that the object was charged with the man's chakra, and that the two people with him were wearing identical collars, similarly charged. "I'm sure you'll change your mind. They always do. Soon you'll even be eating out of my hand."
Bile rose in Sasuke's throat, and he subconsciously tried to pull the blond closer, but he wouldn't budge an inch. "You'll have to go through me, first."
A vile smirk twisted its way onto the greasy man's face. "I wasn't expecting a two-for-one deal, but I'm sure I can accommodate." The two collared people started slowly moving towards the tree Sasuke was in.
"If he gets the collar on you, it's all over," the blond whispered.
Sasuke nodded, but he didn't intend to let the greasy man get close enough to have a chance. He caught the man's gaze, just for a moment.
Then it really was all over. The two collared people collapsed, and the greasy man himself stood perfectly still. . . at least until Sasuke sent 1,500 amperes of electricity straight through his heart.
"Is. . . is he dead?" the blond asked, eyeing the charring body warily.
"Only one way to be sure," Sasuke answered, and flitted down to the ground long enough to slit the man's throat from ear to ear. He flicked the blood off his sword and sheathed it before walking over to the fallen woman and nudging her with his foot. There was no response. He knelt down and, very carefully, used the end of a kunai to unbuckle and then remove the collar without having to actually touch it.
Almost immediately, the woman's eyes lit up as if she'd woken from a trance, and she blinked up at him in confusion. "What. . . ?"
"You're free now," Sasuke told her.
"Wh-what about the others?" she mumbled, slowly dragging herself into a sitting position and holding her head.
Sasuke shrugged and got to his feet. "I don't know, but the man that was controlling you is dead. If you're worried, you should probably go back and free them on your own."
The woman nodded, gingerly got to her feet, and hurried over to get the collar off of her comrade. A relieved smile crossed her face as he rejoined the world of the waking. She looked over her shoulder at Sasuke. "Thank you."
Sasuke didn't answer; he just flit back up to the branch he'd previously been on. Almost as soon as he did so, the blond's fist came hurtling into his face. He leapt backwards just in time to avoid a broken nose, landing in the next tree over. "Ow! What the hell was that for?"
"That was completely reckless!" the blond snapped at him. "Killing that man could have done the same to all of the potentially innocent people he had under his control, or sent them into permanent comas, which is just as bad. It was pure luck that you're only responsible for one death here."
"And that's a reason to punch me in the face?" Sasuke asked, incredulous. Both of those possibilities seemed incredibly unlikely to him.
"Yes!"
"Look, even if they had died, my killing that guy was in defense of myself and you. You could at least act grateful."
The blond stopped meeting his eyes, and shifted uncomfortably. "My safety's not worth that much."
"If you say so. . . ." Sasuke decided to start asking questions. "What's a Kuruta?"
The blond glanced up nervously. "It's the name of my clan. Why?"
"He mentioned that you're the last one, as well as something about poachers," Sasuke pointed out, but the word "poachers" only succeeded in setting the blond more on-edge. ". . . Look, I know you probably won't believe this -"
"I'll decide what I do or do not believe," the blond interrupted, suddenly looking him in the eye again, "so just say it."
Sasuke was unused to people deliberately making eye contact with him, but continued. ". . . I'm the last of my clan, too."
"That's very close to the truth. . . but you're still lying," the blond said. "Who are the others?"
The accuracy of the blond's assessment made Sasuke grit his teeth. Was this also part of a bloodline limit? If it was, it'd be better to just come clean. "One of them is my brother. The other might or might not exist. They're the ones who slaughtered the rest of us, and I plan to kill them for it."
That last sentence seemed to have an unusual effect on the blond. "We're. . . more alike than I thought, although my clan's butchers were outsiders. I've. . . already killed two of them. . . but there are potentially eleven more to go."
Sasuke noted the pained expression on the blond's face as he admitted to having killed two people, even though they'd surely deserved it. This person was obviously not cut out to be a killer at all, but had the potential to be quite useful despite that. "Eleven, huh? You sound like you could use some help."
"I don't need your charity," the blond said through grit teeth.
"I don't give charity," Sasuke replied, "but you obviously have some skills, even if you're squeamish about finishing the job. If you can be useful to me, I'd be willing to be useful to you."
"How will you determine if I 'can be useful to' y-" the blond suddenly had to move quickly to dodge a punch. The followup kick landed, but it felt to Sasuke like he might as well have just kicked a steel bar rather than another person's leg; his own shin was now throbbing painfully, and the blond's hadn't budged at all.
Sasuke ducked as a chain with a round weight on the end suddenly appeared from the blond's sleeve and swung at him. He aimed two shuriken around the chain - one going above, one below - but rather than being forced to try blocking one or the other, the chain moved like it was something alive, tangling both projectiles in midair between its links before letting them fall harmlessly to the ground.
"You'll have to be faster than that," the blond said, lunging forward and flicking his wrist to send the chain flying at him again.
Sasuke dodged to the side, and should have cleared the chain by a few centimetres, but, somehow, it struck him anyway, and with enough force to crack at least one rib. He grabbed the chain with one hand while he still had the chance, though, and sent a jolt of electricity up it. The reaction was not what he'd expected: There was a hiss of pain, sure, but a split-second later the chain literally vanished from between his fingers, and a second, identical one sprung forward. That was when Sasuke realised what the chain actually was. "That thing's made of your chakra, isn't it?"
"Chakra, huh?" the blond asked, swinging the chain again. "Is that what they call it here?"
Sasuke ducked under it this time, and threw three kunai back. "What do they call it where you're from?"
"Nen," the blond answered, dodging two, but getting hit on the arm by the third. The damage was completely superficial, though; not only did he catch the kunai as it fell away from the tiny hole it had made in his sleeve without drawing blood, but he threw it back at Sasuke easily.
As Sasuke moved out of the way of the counterattack, he contemplated two things: First, the blond's "nen" had shifted automatically to gather where the kunai would hit, somehow cushioning the impact down to almost nothing, and, secondly, his eyes had turned an ordinary shade of blue, which had brought with it a drastic stabilisation of his aura. The only thing left of the fiery wraith he'd initially met was the persistent lack of an apparent internal chakra/"nen" structure.
The sudden probability that this person was human was a relief, but the shifting aura shield would nonetheless hamper any attempt to deal physical damage. He'd proven twice that lightning could get past it, but he wondered if maybe he could outrun it, too. "I don't think I caught your name. I'm Sasuke Uchiha." He drew a kunai and lunged.
The blond twisted out of the way, and delivered a kick across Sasuke's back that sent him flying down towards another branch, which caught him in the gut before he had a chance to register anything but pain. "My name is Kurapika. I'm of the Kuruta clan, but have no particular surname. Why aren't you guarding yourself? That kick could have left you paralysed for life if I hadn't noticed and held back at the last second!"
"Well, Kurapika of Kuruta," Sasuke wheezed once he could suck in enough air to talk again. "How do you propose I do that? It's not like I can train my spine to be tougher."
". . . You don't know how to use gyou?" Kurapika asked, puzzled.
Sasuke carefully, gingerly pulled himself up onto the branch he was hanging from and sat down, gritting his teeth at the jolt of pain that shot up his spine from the action. Needless to say, he did not want to repeat the experience of being nearly snapped in half twice in quick succession. "How to use what?"
"Gyou. You know, when you focus your. . . aura, I suppose. . . around a certain part of your body to make it stronger."
"Even with expert chakra control, it can't make that much difference," Sasuke said, still trying to catch his breath and clutching his abdomen in pain. He was probably bleeding internally. This suspicion was confirmed when he coughed and a good deal of blood came out of his mouth.
Suddenly Kurapika's eyes and aura were ablaze again, and a different chain appeared: the weight on the end was cross-shaped, and it was attached to the ring on his thumb rather than the one on his ring finger. It was surrounded by a soft, blue-green glow, seeming almost entirely separate from the smouldering purple-pink it had been borne from. "Here, let me heal you." Kurapika jumped down to a branch that was about level with the one Sasuke was on. "Hold still."
Sasuke watched in fascination as the chain, moving on its own, slithered over to him and the strange metal cross hovered parallel to his skin. The strange sensation of blood being pulled back into ruptured vessels, of flesh and organs pulling themselves back together, and of bone fragments setting themselves washed over him, as what would have been weeks or months of healing were compressed into only a few seconds. "Even Naruto doesn't heal this fast. . ." he murmured, pain already fading.
"Who's Naruto?" Kurapika asked.
". . . Someone who used to be my friend," Sasuke said eventually. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Then I won't ask further." The cross moved behind Sasuke to heal his cracked spine and shattered ribs, then to his side to heal his cracked rib from earlier, and then retreated far enough to be able to go and heal his bruising shin, too.
"I'm starting to think that nen and chakra might not be as similar as we thought," Sasuke said when Kurapika was done, stretching a little and finding that he was completely healed. He was used to there being at least some downtime to recover from such serious injuries.
It was a second later that he had to dive to catch Kurapika, who had suddenly keeled over in a dead faint.