Inside the dim hospital room, the fluorescent tube had already exploded.
The only source of light was the red Nine-Tails Chakra roiling around Kushina. That eerie red glow struck the mottled walls, stretching the two shadows into long, grotesquely twisted shapes.
Kushina knelt on one knee on the hospital bed, her other leg straddling Baishi's body, the inside of her thigh pressed tightly against Baishi's hipbone. It was an intensely oppressive posture, yet one filled with deadly allure.
Heat fermented in the cramped space. The smell of Lysol had long since evaporated, replaced by the thick scent of sulfur, blood, and the distinctive fragrance of Kushina's hair, like oranges beneath the sunlight.
Baishi's breathing grew ragged.
He was forced to lie on his back, his bare chest completely exposed to the air. The long sutured wound across his abdomen throbbed with pain every time he breathed hurriedly.
Kushina's fingertips finally came to rest on the bloodstained bandage over his left collarbone.
There was none of the Nine-Tails Chakra's imagined violence or scorching heat.
Her movements were incredibly gentle, as if she feared breaking a priceless porcelain vessel. Through the coarse gauze, her burning fingertips traced the outline of the wound bit by bit.
"It hurts, doesn't it..."
Kushina's hoarse voice carried a heavy sob.
A scalding tear fell, landing squarely on Baishi's chest. The temperature was frighteningly high, almost as if it would burn a brand into his skin.
"Lady Kushina..." Baishi's Adam's apple struggled to move as he tried to inch backward. "You really have mistaken me for someone else. I'm just an ordinary ANBU member. This wound was caused by an Iwagakure Earth Release ninja..."
"You're lying."
Kushina cut him off sharply.
Moisture filled her dark golden slit pupils, yet they held an obsession so intense it made one's scalp crawl.
"I saw it. In my dream, I saw everything." Kushina's fingers slowly slid down Baishi's collarbone, passing over his tense pectoral muscles before stopping where his heart beat.
"The man wearing the Fox Mask was pierced here by a black iron rod while protecting me." Her fingers suddenly clenched the sheet over Baishi's heart, her knuckles paling from the force. "When the Nine-Tails went berserk, when the barrier rose... it was you who used the last of your strength to push me out of the barrier."
Baishi's heart suddenly pounded wildly.
Damn Simulator!
At the time, he had only intercepted Namikaze Minato's ultimate fortune during the "Night of the Nine-Tails" to farm an S-Rank rating, so he had staged a tragic, extreme one-for-one exchange in the simulation.
Who could have imagined that the Simulator would stuff that gruesome memory, intact, into Kushina's mind in reality?!
"'Live on, along with my share...'" Kushina bit her lower lip, and bright red blood seeped out. "Do you think saying something like that means I'll obediently listen? Do you think pushing all the credit for saving me onto Minato, while hiding in some dark corner and playing a cannon fodder who could be sacrificed at any moment, was good for me?!"
Baishi's scalp prickled.
The logic had closed its loop.
In this madwoman's imagination, Baishi had become an "unparalleled devoted man" who, to fulfill the love between his beloved woman and a genius Hokage, was willing to conceal his identity and silently endure every hardship, even taking on missions he was certain to die on!
"I didn't..." Baishi opened his mouth, trying to explain.
"Shut up!"
Kushina suddenly bent down.
She gave Baishi no chance to retort and immediately spread her arms, hugging him tightly.
"Unh!"
Baishi let out a muffled groan.
Kushina's cheek pressed tightly against his chest, slick with cold sweat. Her long red hair spilled down like a waterfall, covering Baishi's neck and shoulders.
She held him so tightly that it seemed the slightest loosening of her grip would cause the man in her arms to turn to ashes and scatter into the roar of the Nine-Tails, just as he had in her dream.
"You bastard... you big idiot..." Kushina buried her face against Baishi's chest. Her voice was muffled, carrying a sob suppressed to its limit. "Do you know how frightened I was when I saw that look in your eyes at Ichiraku Ramen, the look of someone preparing to go to his death?"
"Do you know how much it hurt just to breathe when I heard that the ANBU vanguard squad had been ambushed by Iwagakure and wiped out to the last man?"
Her tears broke their dam completely.
Large tears mixed with the Nine-Tails Chakra's scorching heat, soaking through the bandage on Baishi's chest.
Baishi froze.
He was an extremely refined egoist.
In his worldview, the Shinobi World was a massive farm, and everyone in it was an NPC who could be exploited. Namikaze Minato was a tool for intercepting fortune, the Third Hokage and Danzo were vicious hounds to be guarded against, while Kushina... had originally been nothing more than a stepping stone he used to farm survival rewards.
He was accustomed to scheming, accustomed to watching other people's lives and deaths with an indifferent gaze. In the canyon, he had sold out his teammates without hesitation; in the swamp, he had blown Venom Fang's throat apart with an Explosive Tag. He had not even blinked.
But now.
This woman, known as the Red Hot Habanero of Konoha, the lofty Hokage's fiancée, the woman who had the strongest tailed beast sealed inside her, was crying desperately against his chest like a lost girl on the verge of losing the entire world.
That heavy emotion contained no impurities, no hypocrisy from the Will of Fire, and no scheming from the games between the higher-ups.
There was only pure, pathological obsession—an obsession that would let her oppose the entire world for his sake.
The heart in Baishi's chest, always wrapped in cold reason, suddenly skipped a beat against his will.
"Kushina..." Baishi's voice unconsciously softened.
At the sound of his call, Kushina's body suddenly trembled.
She slowly raised her head.
Less than three centimeters separated them.
Baishi could clearly see the blood vessels reddening her eyes, the tip of her nose slightly flushed from crying, and her soft lips, which had bled from being bitten so hard.
The Nine-Tails chakra intertwined around them, forming an absolutely sealed domain.
Within this domain, there were no undercurrents in Konoha and no gaze from Namikaze Minato. There was only the sound of their hurried breathing.
Ambiguous hormones collided violently in the air, burning.
Kushina's gaze gradually changed.
It was the madness of a drowning person grasping the last piece of driftwood, as well as a possessiveness that wanted to knead the other person completely into her flesh and bones.
She looked into Baishi's deep black eyes, her breathing growing heavier and heavier.
Then she slowly closed her eyes and slightly turned her head. Her warm lips trembled faintly as they moved bit by bit toward Baishi's.
The soft, sweet fragrance of a woman mixed with the saltiness of tears, instantly sealing away Baishi's senses.
The monitor at the head of the bed emitted a sharp "beep—" as Baishi's heart rate soared to its limit.
His right hand suddenly lifted from the bedsheet.
If he met her halfway, he could completely possess Konoha's most dazzling Red-Haired Witch and reduce that flawless Yellow Flash to a laughingstock.
But just as Kushina's lips were about to touch his—
The brief confusion in Baishi's eyes instantly vanished, replaced by absolute reason and coldness like an abyss.
His palm did not caress Kushina's back. Instead, it precisely wedged itself between them and seized Kushina's shoulder.