In a brightly lit room, wide ceiling panels poured light onto spotless white tiles. The tiles caught the glow and sent it skipping into every corner, so even the shadow under the steel table seemed rinsed clean. The air held the faint bite of antiseptic and the steady hum of the hospital ventilation, and it was thick with soft, relieved breaths and shaky little sighs.
A beautiful woman in her prime - easily outshining plenty of girls half her age - wore every feeling openly across a flushed face. Even her almost crystal-clear white eyes, which ought to give nothing away, were faintly clouded. Her chest rose and fell in time with the firm, practiced movements of her hands. Both participants in this small ritual were breathing deep and uneven, each for their own reasons.
"Hayana... no one compares to you," Akira breathed, his exhale warm and unguarded with pleasure.
The words struck Hayana like a little jolt, but she didn't stop. If anything, she arched her lower back a touch and worked even harder, not even noticing how she'd started breathing through her half-open mouth.
Despite the room's deliberate chill - the hospital's fussy ventilation kept it that way - sweat beaded at her temples. It trickled down the slender column of her neck and vanished into the hollow between the soft curves hidden beneath her white shirt.
*What kind of shameless things is he saying? It's just a massage!* Hayana scolded herself, digging her palms and fingers into the extensor muscles along his spine. The muscle warmed under her chakra, softened, lengthened. She pressed deeper.
This was exactly what she'd feared most - the return of her daily sessions with this young, attractive, infuriatingly bold man.
Over the past week, she had almost managed to forget about the one dark stain in her life, the choice that had led her to do what no wife of the Hyuga clan head should ever do. And now here she was again - Hayana Hyuga, touching a half-naked man who was definitely not her husband, doing it in secret in a private operating room.
Yes, it was a sports massage with a steady thread of medical chakra, strictly therapeutic and entirely clinical. But the way it looked from the outside was enough to keep her thoughts in turmoil.
And the things Akira kept saying, always with that infuriating double meaning, didn't help. Her mind kept trying to peel away from what her hands were doing.
"Oh, that's good, I can feel my back muscles completely relaxing."
At that, Hayana let out a quiet breath of relief... only to tense right back up at his next line.
"Could you work on my abs too? I think I pulled something today." Akira propped himself on his elbows and turned his head to look at her.
"No." The answer reached her lips before her brain caught up, and even then she had zero intention of agreeing. "Neck, back, arms, and legs - that's our deal." *And besides, I can't work while looking you in the face.*
"What if I promise to talk less during our sessions?" Akira offered, the temptation in his tone inconveniently genuine.
Hayana didn't have much practice bargaining, but she decided to squeeze a bit more out of this. "And you'll stop making those... embarrassing noises out loud." In her mind, a sports massage that flushed out lactic acid could feel good, sure, but Akira was absolutely overdoing it.
*Even on my wedding night, I made less noise - I was practically silent compared to whatever that was for the last ten minutes,* Hayana fumed inwardly, glaring at the man who'd cornered her into such a compromising arrangement.
"All right, I'll try, but I can't promise anything. At the very least, I'll keep my mouth shut when I have nothing to say."
The verbal contract - vague terms, crooked obligations - was sealed with a brisk nod from Hayana. Without wasting more time, Akira rolled onto his back, giving her an unhurried view of his torso. Everything between waist and knees was only loosely covered by a towel, but even if it slipped, he wouldn't embarrass her - everything else was safely hidden by his boxer briefs.
This was his eighth visit, and by now Hayana had thoroughly studied the size and firmness of his back muscles, and the lines of his biceps, triceps, quads, and calves. When Akira undressed, she tried not to look until he was on the table, which meant she'd never truly taken inventory of the more prominent planes of his torso.
*It's like staring at an anatomy illustration, only wrapped in living skin.* Akira wasn't skinny - far from it. His muscles stood out where they should, in the right proportions and sizes. The collarbones sat clean above a solid sternum; the obliques framed a firm abdomen.
She was fascinated by everything about human anatomy: skin, bones, muscles, organs, nerves. To Hayana, they were a treasure box of secrets she loved to open. That's why she'd chosen surgery. Sometimes, when she was working out how best to treat a problem, the rest of the world simply fell away, the way sound drops out underwater.
She didn't have Tsunade's monstrous talent, and she didn't chase the finest lacework of advanced medical chakra. Medicine was her passion - unfortunately, her only passion.
And Akira's body awakened that passion. It was rare for her to see such a clean, beautifully kept organism. As silly as it sounded, Hayana valued a person's inner beauty first - literally - and only then everything else.
A person's inner world told her more than their own mother could: what they ate, whether they lived cleanly, how they slept, where they'd broken and where they'd mended, how often illness passed through them.
With her Byakugan, she could even tell when a certain channel had last... released its seed, and by the wear on the organ... well, give Hayana an hour with a body on a table and she could learn almost everything there was to learn.
Because of those gifts, the Hokage had once offered her a post in ANBU as a forensic expert. Hayana refused - corpses stirred no passion in her.
Now, for the first time in fourteen years as a medical-nin, she stood over a body she wouldn't hesitate to call ideal. Sometimes she even thought that if anyone ever ruined that body, she'd personally find the culprit and sew their head to their ass. If the Hokage suddenly suggested preserving Akira's body in epoxy, Hayana would be first in line, hoping to claim the specimen for herself.
*There I go again with those stupid thoughts... Good thing he's lying there with his eyes closed. I couldn't do this massage if he were looking at me,* Hayana scolded herself, biting her tongue as she got back to work.
****
A sexy woman isn't touching me. A sexy, pale-skinned, gorgeous woman is absolutely not touching me. Damn, this self-hypnosis is barely working. If I get hard now, I can kiss all my agreements with Hayana goodbye.
The first time, she nearly fainted just seeing me half-naked - I doubt she'd survive a full-on physiological reaction. That would be the end of our sessions, and finding someone else I could trust with my chakra system would be almost impossible.
And let's be honest, it's a lot more pleasant to deal with an attractive woman, and her status... well, that's a dash of spice that makes these sessions even sweeter. Once she finally gets used to seeing me half-naked from every angle, maybe I won't have to keep my hormones on such a tight leash. Classic "don't think about the green elephant" routine.
Right now I have to not think about who's touching me and where. My body, however, is craving it. After all that time in Tanzaku, it's been missing a natural release - one I'd been avoiding because of the shinobi I hired to keep an eye on me.
"Hayana-san, is it true that applications for the medical-nin course start tomorrow?" I decide to distract myself with conversation. It's a legitimate question, so technically I'm not breaking our deal. Funny how I keep slipping between formal and informal with her - she probably has no idea why, but she never calls me on it.
"Yes, in office A-101, first floor. Yakutsaki-san will be accepting applications from anyone interested for the next five days," she answers calmly.
Perfect. So I was right.
"Can I ask - is three months really enough to learn anything useful?" I keep my eyes closed.
"Mm, not really. Those three months are mainly to see if someone has the potential to become a medical-nin. The most important requirement is mastering the Mystical Palm Technique. The second is the ability to learn quickly, which is tested at the end of the three months with a written exam. After the course, they decide if someone can become a medical-nin, and if so, they're assigned to a senior C-rank medical-nin who oversees their further training. Once the senior is satisfied, they prepare a new exam, and if the student passes, they're awarded the D-rank medical-nin title and the corresponding salary." Hayana lays it all out in one smooth breath.
"Hm..." I muse.
Honestly, I can't picture myself in a white coat. Not at all. I've always respected doctors. To be a doctor, you need real passion or a strong desire to help people, and I never had that in me.
But the knowledge I'd get - that's another story. If I became a good medical-nin, I could patch myself up when it counts. And maybe, just maybe, I could combine medical skills with fuinjutsu. Look at Tsunade - she's got that seal on her forehead that, in exchange for life force, makes her almost unkillable.
If I could use sen-chakra instead of life force, I'd basically be Deadpool on easy mode. Of course... I'm getting way ahead of myself. In fuinjutsu, I'm not even a junior; my medical knowledge is whatever we crammed in school anatomy; and as for sen-chakra - forget it. My plan to send clones out to find a summoning animal still hasn't worked.
I'm starting to wonder if I should keep trying now that I'm back in Konoha. It'd be useful if it worked, sure, but there have been zero results. Maybe I should put my clones to better use... but whatever, I can spare one for these almost hopeless attempts.
"So, do you want to become a medical-nin?" Hayana cuts into my thoughts, asking a question herself - something she rarely does.
"I'm thinking about it. Being able to heal people is a really useful skill. Honestly, I think every shinobi should at least know basic first aid, and ideally, every team should have a medical-nin."
"Heh, that's not a new idea. Many medical-nin have tried to convince the Hokage to make it standard - one medical-nin for every three-man team - but no luck. Even his own student, Lady Tsunade, couldn't talk him into it." The way she says Tsunade's name carries a quiet thread of admiration.
Of course. For medical-nin, Tsunade is what Einstein or Tesla is for physicists - a veteran of two shinobi world wars, one of the legendary Sannin, student of the Third Hokage, the most gifted healer in the great nations. And I'd slept with her when I was basically a homeless nobody. Heh. Not bad.
"So why does the Hokage refuse?" I ask.
"Medical-nin have a high mortality rate on combat missions. They're always the enemy's first target, both in war and in peacetime. And it's harder to train a good medical-nin than a few dozen regular shinobi," Hayana finishes with a small snort at her own thoughts.
Yeah, from that angle, I get where the Third is coming from - regular soldiers are expendable; valuable specialists aren't. Still, they could at least make basic first aid mandatory. How to bandage and disinfect properly, for example. Or maybe nobody wants to tinker with the training system laid down by the Second Hokage.
🔥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🔥
Dear readers, if you're enjoying the novel, don't forget to support it with Power Stones! The more stones — the more chapters! For every 50 Power Stones, I'll release an extra chapter!