"Hayana-san, are you in?" I knocked on her office door and slowly opened it, only to find the poor woman sitting at her desk, looking like she was sitting on pins and needles.
"Huh? Do you have an appointment?" Hayana stared at me in confusion, then immediately started flipping through her schedule to check.
"Come on, granddaughter, I may be old, but my memory's better than most youngsters. I'm sure I booked seven procedures yesterday. Keh-keh." Hunching over even more, I shuffled over to the examination table and sat down.
Hayana looked lost, glancing back and forth between me and her appointment book.
"Ah." Finally catching on, she activated her Byakugan. "Akira-san… is that you?" she asked uncertainly.
"Who, me? I'm just a regular old granny. What, your eyes can't see through a henge?" I replied in my own voice. Mimicking an old lady's voice wasn't that hard - just strain your vocal cords and raise the pitch. I'm sure any shinobi could copy anyone's voice if they wanted.
Once Hayana was sure she hadn't mixed up her appointments, she relaxed for a moment, only to start getting nervous again a few seconds later. She didn't have any nails, but the tapping of her finger on the desk was loud and clear.
I might be a confident guy, but I'm not an idiot. Visiting the wife of the Hyuga clan head every day in my real appearance would be nothing short of idiotic. There were other Hyuga med-nin working in this hospital, mostly young people gaining experience, and they could easily check in on what the clan head's wife was up to at any time. Maybe on their own, maybe on Hiashi's orders - either way, I couldn't rule it out.
The most experienced med-nin, those over forty, the Hyuga kept inside their own compound. To see them, you had to shell out a lot of cash or be an ally of the clan. Here in the hospital, there was only one elder Hyuga med-nin, sent as a gesture of goodwill.
So, the henge was a good idea - no one would care if Hayana saw different people for appointments. But if it was the same young, handsome me showing up every day, people would start asking questions, rumors would spread. And then, I'd get to know the Hyuga's perfected Jūken up close and personal.
But apparently, henge alone wasn't enough.
"From the chakra around you, I can tell you're using the Transformation Technique. But that chakra makes it hard to see the real person underneath."
So, the Hyuga's miracle eyes aren't all-powerful after all. Chakra gets in the way, huh?
"Ahem, got it. Let's go upgrade your operating room." Still in my henge, I headed for the glassed-in part of the room.
"What do you mean?" she hurried after me.
Sigh, she just won't stop using formal speech. Oh well, it makes our conversations more interesting.
"Hmm, ceiling's about… 2.4 meters. Got it." From the outside, me pulling a storage scroll out of my pocket probably looked like a granny conjuring it out of thin air. After all, henge is just a non-physical shell. If someone ran their hand over the old lady's head - which is what I looked like right now - they'd hit my actual torso.
Seeing the storage scroll, Hayana tensed up. But I ignored her and started pulling out seals.
Four chakra papers with fūin formulas. Just like Kushina said, copying the four-corner barrier was no trouble. I couldn't carve fūin directly into the operating room walls, so I'd prepped these papers. A portable barrier, basically, that just needed a few minutes to set up and calibrate.
"You know fūinjutsu?" Her voice was equal parts curiosity and surprise.
"Yeah, I dabble now and then." I answered, dipping a brush in ink and marking the final coordinates for the corners of the room.
To fit each fūin on a sheet, I had to pluck out most of the brush's bristles.
Kushina probably didn't want me tossing these seals around, so I'd spent ages figuring out how to encrypt the fūin on these papers. I racked my brain for a long time, but in the end, I came up with a simple, kind of genius solution - just stick another sheet of non-wood pulp paper over the fūin.
The only catch was, you had to let the ink dry first, so it wouldn't smudge with the glue and paper, but that only took a couple of minutes, or half a minute if you blew on it. You couldn't peel off that top sheet without ruining the kanji underneath, even with an iron.
"There, last touch. Hayana-san, step out of the operating room and tell me if you can see through the barrier." I said, putting my writing tools back in the scroll. On the top sheet, I drew the kanji for "luck." No real reason - I just wrote it on every sheet, just because.
If you think about it, what kind of barrier is this? With the settings I used, the chakra screen let everyone through.
Hayana eagerly followed my instructions. She wanted our procedures to stay private as much as I did. She could have just refused, or killed me, or threatened me.
If I were dead, I'd never tell anyone what I saw in her office. But unfortunately for her, she was too kind-hearted. People who find it easy to kill don't usually become doctors - or med-nin, for that matter.
Though, this world is different. Med-nin probably aren't forced to swear the Hippocratic Oath. Even so, Hayana could have made sure I'd keep my mouth shut just by threatening me, but she didn't even do that.
"The chakra completely hides everything in this room," she said, a little uncertain, after stepping into her own operating room.
"Perfect, then lock the door." Dropping the henge and stripping down to my underwear, I sprawled out on the operating table.
Instead of the click of a lock, I heard a heavy thud. I sat up to see what was going on.
"Oh, come on…" I sighed, looking at Hayana, who had fainted on the floor.
…
"See? You were worried for nothing. Nothing bad happened, right?" I asked Hayana as I got dressed again.
"Mmm, no, I guess not," she replied for the first time since our sessions began.
"See, you just helped me get rid of some lactic acid buildup in my muscles." Though honestly, I wasn't sure - she worked so carefully, like she was afraid to touch me for even a second too long. Oh well, she'll get bolder with time. As for any "special" massage… for now, that's just a dream.
****
A knock at the door pulled me away from my hastily made scrambled eggs. I knew who it was, but I was too lazy to get up, so I just yelled,
"It's open." A few seconds later, Ayumi appeared in the kitchen, dressed for battle. Shinobi gear, though not the standard kind - she didn't have a chūnin vest, which jōnin wore too.
"Good morning, Akira-san. The team's ready, a few people are already waiting."
"Morning. Hmm, why are you dressed like that? My security detail can handle things - you just need to accompany me." I gave my secretary's outfit another once-over. Her pants looked nothing like the short, tight skirt and stockings I'd imagined when I hired her as my secretary, not infiltration gear. She wasn't a shinobi anymore, so why dress like one?
"I still think it's best to provide you with extra protection myself," she reported, standing up straight.
A week was enough for her to move all her things into her new house. So far, her first and most important assignment from me was to bring me a few fresh-baked rolls every day by ten. Probably not what she pictured when she took the job, but I didn't have any real tasks for her yet.
So I figured I'd at least give her something to do, to justify her high salary. She, on the other hand, seemed to think she was obligated to provide security. Well, whatever - even without chakra, she was still a former shinobi. She could deflect shuriken, no problem.
"All right, if that's what you want. Have you had breakfast?" Ayumi nodded quickly. "Then pour yourself some tea. Once I'm done, we'll head to the gates."
Yeah, the week went by pretty fast. Since the last party, I hadn't really bothered Kushina or Mikoto. I wanted to give them some time to stew in their own thoughts. As for making any new moves, Aika and I had decided by unanimous vote to wait until after the trip to Tanzaku.
As for Hayana, it took all seven sessions for her to finally start doing what I was paying her good money for. Oh, and the look of pure joy on her face when I said I wanted to pause our sessions - priceless. I had to let her down, though, telling her it was just because I'd be away on business for a while.
****
All right, I see the carriage, five chūnin and one tokubetsu as well. Where's… ah, there he is, standing off to the side in his ANBU mask.
"Hello, you must be Akira-san." The tokubetsu jōnin came over - I guess they'd decided he'd be the team leader.
"That's me. And you are, shinobi-san?" The guy looked like he'd eaten plenty of rice as a kid - he was almost as tall as me.
"Just call me Hirose. Let me introduce you to the others."
Why so many escorts? No, I haven't caught Danzo's paranoia. One jōnin would have been enough for security. The reason I hired these chūnin and this particular tokubetsu jōnin was simple - they all specialized in earth-style ninjutsu.
I needed to expand my business in Tanzaku, and while earth is earth, a shinobi can use chakra to compact and shape it to the strength of concrete. Sure, it burns more chakra, but I didn't hire six pros for nothing. Working together, they could build an entire house in half a day.
After meeting the chūnin, it was time to meet the ANBU member.
"Tenzō," he introduced himself, short and to the point.
Heh, you're probably grinning under that mask at the thought of making easy money. Not so fast, Yamato - you're going to earn every ryo with your Mokuton. If I have to, I'll make you carve wooden spoons.
****
Riding in a carriage isn't the same as sitting on sacks in a wagon, but the comfort level still doesn't come close to even a Soviet car. Sigh, Aika's probably sleeping soundly at Kushina's place right now - I'm a little jealous.
The coachman quoted me a price of fifteen hundred ryo for the "luxury" ride to Tanzaku. I'm sure if I'd asked in regular clothes, it would've been no more than a thousand. But haggling over such a small thing just wasn't worth my time.
"Ayumi, stop pretending to be a statue. Let's talk about something normal," I said to my secretary, who, unlike me, didn't seem bothered at all by the bumps in the road.
"I don't mind," she nodded.
"So, what should we talk about… Oh, do you have a dream?" I asked, looking at her expectantly. Not the most original question, but nothing else came to mind.
She rolled her eyes, thinking, then started,
"Mmm, when I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a samurai." A small smile appeared on her face, and she shifted in her seat to get more comfortable. "My father was always fascinated by stories of brave followers of the sword, and after a short bedtime story from my mother, he'd share his favorite philosophies with me in vivid detail. After the first story, I just fell in love with the idea of being a samurai. I wanted to be like them, but pretty soon my mom told me women couldn't be samurai.
Then my father told me about someone brave and strong who I quickly came to admire. Lady Tsunade, one of the Sannin. She's not a samurai, but a shinobi, and luckily, shinobi don't care about gender - only strength. So I decided I wanted to be a shinobi. I wasn't lacking in potential, so by the time I was eight, I was accepted into the Academy. That's when I learned that all shinobi specialize in something, and when I found out there was a path of the blade for shinobi too, I decided I'd become the best kenjutsu master there was."
"Ahem, sorry to interrupt, but are you actually good with a sword?" I had to ask.
"Yes, if we're talking about Konoha, I was one of the best sword masters," she nodded.
Damn! You couldn't have mentioned that earlier? My wakizashi's been gathering dust for three years!
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