The Venomous Tongue of Disguised Altruism and the Resolute Push-Away

"Snap."

Baishi's palm clamped firmly onto Kushina's shoulder.

The contact was scorching. The Nine-Tails' violent chakra surged into his palm like countless red-hot steel needles, drilling madly into his meridians. Had this been any ordinary genin, their entire arm would have been rendered useless.

But Baishi didn't even furrow his brow. The momentary confusion and fluctuation in his eyes were instantly strangled by a sense of absolute coldness and rationality.

"You..." Kushina's movements were forced to a halt. Her lips parted slightly, her warm breath hitting the back of Baishi's hand, and a flicker of astonishment flashed through her dark-gold vertical pupils.

"Enough."

Baishi's voice was not loud, yet it carried a chill that made one feel as if they had fallen into an ice cellar.

Before Kushina could react, he exerted a sudden, sharp force with his wrist.

"Bang!"

Kushina was pushed by the sudden force, stumbling back to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. Her long red hair spilled across the floor, and the field of energy condensed from the Nine-Tails' chakra wavered violently.

Baishi ignored his bursting wounds. Two more stitches on his abdomen snapped, and warm blood quickly soaked through the white sheets. He casually grabbed the torn hospital gown, draped it haphazardly over his shoulders, and covered the glaring, bloody hole near his collarbone.

He leaned against the cold wall, looking down at the woman sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Lady Kushina, your sympathy is overflowing in the wrong place." Baishi curled his lips into a sneer of extreme mockery.

The temperature in the ward seemed to plummet by a dozen degrees.

Kushina stared at him blankly, the tear tracks on her cheeks still wet. She seemed completely unable to comprehend why the man before her had suddenly changed his face.

"You... what did you say?"

"I said, stop being so self-righteous." Baishi let out a cold laugh, his tone filled with undisguised opportunism and contempt. "All that talk in your head about 'sacrificing yourself to save others' and 'silent protection' is ridiculous to the extreme. Do you really think I would die for a woman I've only met a few times?"

Every word he spoke was like a rusted kunai, driven ruthlessly into Kushina's heart, with a vicious twist for good measure.

"I am ANBU." Baishi pointed to the blood-stained Fox Mask on the nightstand. "The first rule of the ANBU is to complete the mission. What is your status? You are Konoha's Nine-Tails jinchuriki, the village's core weapon of war. Saving you was only because your body has immense utility value to Konoha!"

"If it were a ninja beast useful to the higher-ups that encountered danger, I would have stepped in to block the blade without hesitation. This is called an investment; this is called fulfilling my duty. Understand?"

Baishi's gaze was that of someone looking at a piece of merchandise with a price tag.

He had to make his words absolute.

Namikaze Minato, that smiling tiger, could return at any moment, and Danzo's dogs were watching from outside. If he let this crazy woman continue to pester him, this "account" he had just begun to build would surely be ground into dust by the meat grinder that was Konoha!

Love? Bonds?

Those were luxuries only protagonists could afford. As a piece of cannon fodder, all he wanted was to survive, to gain chakra, and to drag everyone who stepped on him off their pedestals!

"You're lying..." Kushina's face turned deathly pale. She gripped the edge of the bed so hard her nails left deep gouges in the wood. "If it was just for the mission, why did you give the credit to Minato? Why would you stay in the ANBU as a low-level operative who could be used as bait at any moment?!"

"Because he, Namikaze Minato, is a candidate for Hokage!"

Baishi interrupted her without hesitation, his voice rising an octave, laced with a near-manic greed. "Giving him the massive credit for saving the jinchuriki makes him owe me a massive favor. Once he becomes Hokage, the rewards I can reap will be a hundred times greater than a mere jonin title!"

"As for being bait at the border..." Baishi paused deliberately, his eyes turning icy cold. "Wealth is sought in danger. If I don't push myself to the brink, how can I prove to the higher-ups that I am a useful dog? How can I trade for more ninjutsu and resources?"

The ward fell into total silence.

Only the monotonous "beep... beep..." of the heart monitor remained.

Baishi watched Kushina. He knew he had etched the image of a petty, selfish villain who would stop at nothing to climb the ladder deep into his bones.

Any normal woman, upon hearing her cherished feelings trampled in such a way, upon hearing that she was merely a "weapon" or a "bargaining chip for power" in someone else's eyes, would feel disgust, despair, and eventually, complete resignation.

Get lost.

Go back to that perfect Yellow Flash. I still need to keep this life to turn the ninja world upside down.

Baishi thought coldly to himself.

However, the next second, the sneer on his face froze.

Kushina did not rush out the door, nor did she slap him.

She kept her head down, her red hair obscuring her face. Her shoulders were trembling slightly.

"Heh... hehe..."

A low, almost neurotic laugh escaped her lips.

Baishi's brow twitched violently. This script was wrong!

Kushina slowly raised her head. In those dark-gold vertical pupils, there was no anger, no disgust—only a heartache and obsession so intense it was suffocating.

"Baishi, your ability to lie is truly terrible."

Kushina stood up and stepped toward the bedside once more. The Nine-Tails' chakra fluctuated violently with her emotions, twisting the surrounding air into waves of red heat.

"Do you think I'll believe you just because you call yourself a despicable villain?"

She reached out with trembling hands and grabbed the clothes Baishi had just draped over his shoulders, pulling him forcefully toward her.

"If you were truly doing it for Minato's favor, you wouldn't have rejected my plea for help with such a cold look at Ichiraku Ramen this morning!"

"If you were truly doing it to climb the ladder, you wouldn't have disguised yourself as a waste who couldn't even control his chakra when facing Danzo and the Third Hokage in the interrogation room just now!"

Kushina's breathing was ragged, and tears spilled from her eyes once more. But this time, there was a certainty in her gaze that saw through everything.

"You're afraid... aren't you?"

She leaned into Baishi's ear, her voice as light as a sigh, yet every word struck his nerves like a hammer.

"You're afraid that Minato will discover the truth, and you're afraid that the higher-ups will view you as a threat. That's why you'd rather hide in the shadows, take on suicide missions, and use such vicious words to wound me..."

"Do you think that by covering yourself in filth, you can push me toward the clean light?"

She was insane.

This woman had completely lost her mind!

A storm raged within Baishi. He never imagined that his supposedly perfect "self-sabotage" would not only fail to push Kushina away, but would instead perfectly fit into the logical loop she had constructed in her own mind!

In her eyes, the more heartless and self-defiling he acted, the more it proved the depth of his love, proving that he was enduring humiliation and burden for the sake of protecting her!

"Let go..." Baishi finally felt a flicker of genuine panic. He tried to break free from Kushina's restraint, but his severely injured body, suppressed by the Nine-Tails' chakra, couldn't muster any strength.

"I won't!"

Like a crazed lioness, Kushina slammed Baishi down onto the hospital bed.

Her eyes were bloodshot, the paranoia in their depths burning at its peak.

"Since you don't dare to claim this credit, and don't dare to admit what you've done..."

Kushina grabbed Baishi's blood-stained right hand and pressed it firmly against her own heaving chest.

Through the thin fabric, Baishi could clearly feel the frantic rhythm of her heart, along with its astonishing softness and heat.

"Then I'll use my own way to make sure you never forget!"

Kushina suddenly lowered her head, opened her mouth, and bit down hard onto Baishi's uninjured right shoulder.

Just as her teeth were about to pierce his skin:

Hum—

From the corridor outside the ward, which had been completely sealed off by the Adamantine Sealing Chains, there came a sudden, piercing surge of chakra that tore through the space.

Immediately following it, a voice came from outside the door—gentle, yet laced with a cold, murderous intent suppressed to the extreme.

"Kushina, open the barrier."

The doorknob emitted a harsh, metallic screech of twisting steel.