Boom!
The heavy solid wooden door, metal frame and all, was instantly ripped apart by an overwhelmingly brutal force.
Sharp splinters and chunks of stone flew through the ward like buckshot. Baishi instinctively turned his head and raised his uninjured right hand to shield his face.
The pull on the stitches in his abdomen sent a piercing tearing pain through him, making him suck in a sharp breath.
Before he could recover, a scorching, violent red blast of air carrying the thick stench of sulfur and blood poured directly into the ward. The pungent disinfectant smell vanished in an instant, and the temperature soared. Even the metal IV stand beside the bed gave a faint groan of warping under the strain.
Baishi narrowed his eyes and looked through the gaps between his fingers.
Amid the wreckage covering the floor, Kushina stepped in over the shattered door.
Her signature red hair completely defied gravity, whipping wildly in the raging currents of red chakra. Her once-clear eyes had transformed into the dark golden vertical pupils of a beast, with several bewitching fox-like markings spreading from the corners of her eyes.
"L-Lady Kushina?"
Suppressing the frantic pounding in his chest, Baishi tightened his voice perfectly, portraying the utter terror of a low-ranking ANBU agent facing the sudden wrath of a superior's fiancée.
His body involuntarily shrank farther toward the headboard, drawing out several weak coughs. "Y-You... what is this...?"
Crazy woman!
Baishi cursed wildly in his heart.
I just flawlessly sold the image of a loyal sacrificial pawn in front of the Third Hokage and Minato. Danzo's Root is probably watching this ward with a magnifying glass from the shadows! And you burst in here with Nine-Tails Chakra now? Are you trying to make sure I don't die fast enough?!
Kushina paid no attention to Baishi's act.
Those vertical pupils were fixed firmly on Baishi—or rather, on the blood-seeping bandages near his collarbone and the long stitched wound across his abdomen.
"Get out."
Kushina suddenly spoke. Her voice was not loud, yet it carried an absolute dominance that allowed no disobedience.
Baishi froze, wondering how a severely injured man was supposed to roll out, when he realized Kushina was not speaking to him at all.
Whoosh—!
Three golden chakra chains as thick as wrists burst out from behind Kushina without warning.
Adamantine Sealing Chains!
One chain shot out like a venomous snake, plunging directly into the ventilation duct overhead. Along with a heavily suppressed groan, large chunks of ceiling plaster mixed with blood came crashing down. The Root ninja hidden in the duct for "Class-A surveillance" did not even have time to use the Substitution Technique before the chain wrapped tightly around his neck and flung him out into the corridor like a rag sack.
Immediately afterward, the other two chains lashed violently toward the window.
Crack!
The thick branch of a century-old locust tree was snapped cleanly in half. Another Root watcher hidden in the canopy scrambled and tumbled toward a distant rooftop, looking utterly pathetic.
No hand seals. No pointless words.
Absolute power crushed everything.
Cries of alarm came from hospital guards and medical ninja in the corridor, but the suffocating pressure of the Nine-Tails Chakra forced the sounds back down their throats. All that remained were the chaotic footsteps of people retreating.
The area had been cleared.
With a flick of her hand, Kushina wove several Adamantine Sealing Chains into an impenetrable golden net over the doorway and windows, sealing the entire ward shut.
It cut off every sight and sound.
Within the cramped room, only Baishi's heavy breathing remained, along with Kushina's weighty footsteps as she approached step by step.
"Beep... beep... beep..."
The surviving heart monitor beside the bed let out a rapid alarm, exposing Baishi's far-from-calm heartbeat.
"Lady Kushina!" Baishi swallowed, his back pressed tightly against the icy wall, his face pale as paper. "This is the intensive care ward... Lord Minato only just left. If you have any instructions, you can wait..."
He deliberately invoked Namikaze Minato's name, trying to use the identity of her fiancé to restore this madwoman's reason.
Yet upon hearing the name "Minato," the bloodshot veins in Kushina's eyes only grew more pronounced.
She walked to the bedside.
She looked down at Baishi from above.
The heat scorched Baishi's skin, while the pressure of the Nine-Tails Chakra made it feel as though a massive boulder was crushing his chest, rendering even breathing immensely difficult. But he did not dare circulate even a trace of Lightning Release chakra to resist. He could only endure it.
"How long are you going to keep pretending?"
Kushina's voice was terribly hoarse, as if she had a mouthful of coarse sand in her throat.
Baishi widened his eyes blankly, his lips trembling. "I... I don't understand what you mean. I'm only a Genin who barely escaped death at the border. Is there some misunderstanding...?"
"A misunderstanding?"
Kushina suddenly laughed, and her laugh looked even uglier than crying.
She abruptly bent down, bracing both hands against the bed on either side of Baishi's thighs, closing the distance between them to less than ten centimeters.
A woman's scent mixed with the frenzied aura of Nine-Tails Chakra instantly enveloped Baishi completely. He could even clearly see the tiny droplets clinging to Kushina's long eyelashes.
"The border purge? The bait mission?"
Gritting her teeth, Kushina's eyes were so red they seemed ready to bleed. "If I hadn't stopped you at Ichiraku Ramen this morning, if I hadn't seen that determination in your eyes to march toward your death... were you planning to die outside without a sound?!"
Baishi's heart clenched violently.
That morning, in order to avoid exposing his strength, he had indeed ignored her distress signal with the demeanor of a cannon fodder who had accepted his fate. He never expected that this would instead become irrefutable proof in Kushina's mind that he was selflessly sacrificing himself for others!
"I... I did it for Konoha's mission..." Baishi stubbornly continued reciting the Will of Fire. "As ANBU, being prepared to sacrifice oneself at any time is..."
"Shut up!"
Kushina suddenly erupted in a hysterical roar.
The roar carried the Nine-Tails' own howl, making Baishi's eardrums buzz. Even the fluorescent tube overhead exploded with a sharp pop.
The ward fell into darkness, with only the red glow radiating from Kushina illuminating the small space around them.
"For Konoha? For the mission?" Kushina's tears finally burst free, falling in large drops down her cheeks and striking the white blanket covering Baishi, spreading into patches of dampness.
She stared fixedly at the blood-seeping bandages over Baishi's left collarbone.
In her dream, in those "memories" forcibly implanted by the system, the masked man had also been pierced through by a Black Receiver, standing firmly before her weakened self.
"You're always like this... You were like this in the dream, and you're like this in reality!"
Kushina's breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling violently. Her voice held a heartbreaking despair and obsession. "You think that if you give all the credit to Minato, if you deliberately pretend not to know me and accept missions that are certain death, I'll peacefully become the Hokage's wife?!"
Baishi's breathing stopped for an instant.
This is bad.
This woman's imagination has welded the entire chain of logic shut!
She believed that Baishi disguised himself as low-ranking cannon fodder and treated her coldly entirely out of "love" and a desire to fulfill her!
"Lady Kushina, you truly have the wrong person..." Baishi refused to budge, attempting one final struggle.
"The wrong person?"
Kushina abruptly straightened, a flash of madness passing through her eyes.
The next second, she directly knelt onto the bed on one knee, swung her other leg over Baishi's body, and used an intensely oppressive yet suggestive posture to completely trap Baishi between the headboard and her body.
"You..." Baishi was genuinely shocked this time, even forgetting his pretended stutter.
Kushina said nothing. Her hand, its knuckles white from exertion, suddenly seized the collar of Baishi's hospital gown.
With a piercing rip of tearing fabric—
The thin hospital gown was violently torn open. Buttons flew off and struck the wall with crisp clatters.
Baishi's lean, muscular upper body was fully exposed to the air.
The savage stitched wound across his abdomen, along with the bloody hole left by the Poison Blade through his collarbone, were laid bare before Kushina without reservation.
Kushina's breathing completely fell apart.
Trembling, she extended a hand. Her fingertips hovered over the fatal wound at Baishi's collarbone, separated only by the bandages, yet she could not bring herself to lower them.
"Just a little more... just a little more..."
Her voice shook beyond recognition. Tears fell like severed beads onto Baishi's bare chest, frighteningly hot.
Baishi looked at the Red-Haired Witch so close before him, feeling the astonishing heat on either side of his thighs. His mind raced as he tried to find a way out.
At that moment, Kushina's fingertips suddenly crossed the final distance and lightly pressed against the blood-seeping bandages.
"Baishi."
Kushina lowered her head, her warm breath falling against Baishi's neck. Her tone carried a morbid determination that made his scalp prickle.
"Since you're not even afraid of dying..."
She abruptly raised her head, those dark golden vertical pupils staring deep into Baishi's eyes.