In that moment, Ibuki Mio understood — truly, viscerally understood — what it meant for misfortune to pile on top of misfortune.
All she had done was slip away to find something — anything — to fill her empty stomach.
And yet, of all things, the wild berries on this deserted island had to be poisonous. She'd barely swallowed them before her stomach turned against her completely.
But what made her want to scream — what stung worse than the cramps — was that this humiliating, wretched situation had to happen right in front of the one person she despised most.
Ibuki Mio pressed both hands hard against her abdomen.
When she heard Shikime Natsu's voice — that casually amused 'You okay?' — she ground her teeth so hard her jaw ached.
This bastard.
Was he blind? Could he not read her expression?
Obviously, Shikime Natsu could read it perfectly well.
Even without a mirror, Ibuki Mio knew exactly what her face looked like right now. It wasn't pretty.
He was doing this on purpose. Standing right there, savoring every second of her misery.
"Shut up...."
Choking back the rolling waves of nausea, Ibuki Mio forced her head up. Those blue-violet eyes, burning with fury and barely-contained pain, locked onto Shikime Natsu as she spat the words out.
"I don't need your fake concern!"
Having him — of all people — witness her like this sent Ibuki Mio into a quiet, simmering rage. At the same time, she turned that anger inward, cursing herself.
Too greedy. That was the problem.
She'd been running on empty since they'd landed on this island. When she'd spotted those brightly colored berries in the woods earlier, she'd known perfectly well there was a risk — and she'd eaten one anyway, just to take the edge off the hunger.
As for the food Class C had gathered together... Ibuki Mio hadn't been part of that. She was a lone wolf by nature. She didn't eat what others collected. Every scrap of food she'd had since arriving, she'd found herself.
Those berries had looked perfectly fine. Who could have known they'd hit this hard.
A miscalculation, in the end.
Ibuki Mio's gaze drifted back to Shikime Natsu, standing just a few steps away.
She'd already said her piece. She'd made her hostility unmistakably clear. She'd told him to get lost.
And yet this guy showed not the slightest intention of moving.
He just stood there in front of her, perfectly at ease — that fragrant, golden-brown grilled fish still dangling from one hand as if he hadn't a care in the world.
That handsome face of his still wore the same light, faintly rotten little smile.
He was so... punchable.
If she weren't in so much pain that she couldn't even stand up straight, Ibuki Mio swore she would have charged at him and kicked him in the shin.
Watching the girl's breathing grow quick and ragged with pain, Shikime Natsu let out a quiet, easy laugh.
"Ibuki-san."
Not only did he not leave — he actually stepped forward, his tone taking on a teasing, almost mischievous lilt.
"Looking at you right now, you can barely stay on your feet. You don't exactly seem like someone who doesn't need help. We're in the middle of nowhere — if you pass out here, that's a pretty serious situation, you know."
"I said I don't need it!"
Ibuki Mio repeated it through clenched teeth, her voice trembling faintly with the effort of holding herself together.
And then, in the very instant she forced those words out — a far more violent cramp tore through her stomach.
"Ngh!"
Ibuki Mio's face crumpled.
It was at exactly that moment that Shikime Natsu moved his free hand — quickly, deliberately — and pressed it against her.
Ibuki Mio had barely registered what was happening.
"What are you—"
By the time she did register it, Ibuki Mio's blue-violet eyes were blazing. This guy had just touched her — without permission — and in a situation like this, no less.
But then — in the next instant — she realized something.
The pain in her stomach was gone.
Ibuki Mio stared at Shikime Natsu with undisguised disbelief.
How was that possible?
He'd just casually pressed a few points on her body — and just like that, the roiling chaos inside her had... stopped?
That defied every basic principle of medicine she knew.
Ibuki Mio was more certain of this than anyone: there was absolutely no way her body had spontaneously healed itself.
That instantaneous disappearance of pain — it had to be because of those seemingly careless little presses Shikime Natsu had just applied.
Just what else was this guy hiding up his sleeve?
Shikime Natsu withdrew his hand.
He stayed where he was, watching Ibuki Mio with a half-smile, as she remained locked in a cautious, guarded posture.
"So?"
Shikime Natsu tilted his head slightly, his tone relaxed and conversational.
"My little intervention — not too bad, right?"
Faced with that blunt, direct question, the color that had just begun returning to Ibuki Mio's cheeks immediately gave way to a look of flustered embarrassment.
She bit her lip, eyes shifting away.
Every fiber of her being resisted the idea of bowing her head to this infuriating person. But...
Ibuki Mio was not, at the end of the day, the kind of person who couldn't tell right from wrong. She wasn't a white-eyed wolf who'd bite the hand that fed her.
If Shikime Natsu hadn't stepped in just now, she would have been in serious trouble. The Class C base camp was a long way from where she was standing. In the state she'd been in moments ago, she genuinely couldn't have guaranteed she'd make it back in one piece.
Those few light, understated movements of his had, in a very real and concrete sense, saved her — and preserved what remained of her dignity.
Ibuki Mio drew a slow breath, turned her face away, and spoke — her voice barely louder than a mosquito's hum.
"...Thanks."
Hearing that awkward, reluctant expression of gratitude, Shikime Natsu let out a soft chuckle.
A flicker of satisfaction passed through those pale golden eyes.
Good. Despite that volcanic temper of hers, Ibuki Mio was at least not the sort of person who'd receive a genuine helping hand and then turn around and give the helper a face full of attitude.
If she had come out with some brazen declaration that he'd been meddling where he wasn't wanted, right after he'd just fixed her... well. Shikime Natsu would have needed to have a rather thorough conversation with her.
Besides — what he'd done just now was only a temporary suppression. It would hold for roughly ten minutes. It hadn't fully resolved the underlying problem. What happened after that would depend entirely on Ibuki Mio's attitude.
At the very least... she'd had the grace to thank him sincerely. That, Shikime Natsu found quite satisfactory.
He bent down slightly and picked up something from the grass at his feet — one of the purple wild berries that had tumbled out of Ibuki Mio's arms earlier.
He gave it a light toss between his fingers, glanced at Ibuki Mio, and spoke with an air of gentle mockery.
"You really are something else, Ibuki-san."
"On a deserted island, you'll stuff completely unidentified berries into your mouth without so much as blinking."
The pointed jab landed. Ibuki Mio's face went slightly red.
She immediately clutched the remaining berries to her chest and shot him a vicious glare, scrambling to salvage some shred of dignity.
"None of your business! I was conducting a food safety test! Someone has to try these things first to figure out whether they're edible!"
Shikime Natsu didn't particularly care about her bluster. He just gave a quiet laugh.
"Is that right? The price of that safety test was rather steep, though."
He added, unhurried.
"If I hadn't happened to walk by just now and decided to be charitable, a certain brave poison-tester would have been rolling around in the dirt clutching her stomach, thoroughly disgraced."
Having it laid out so mercilessly and so accurately, Ibuki Mio felt as though the ground had shifted under her feet.
Her face cycled through several shades — pale, then flushed, then pale again — while her eyes said very clearly that she would have loved to poke several holes straight through him.
This guy.
Rotten to the core — an absolute bastard! Was leaving someone a single scrap of dignity completely beyond him?!
This time, though — even as she ground her teeth — Ibuki Mio swallowed every retort that rose to her lips and kept her mouth shut.
Because she'd just incurred an enormous debt to Shikime Natsu, moments ago.
You don't bite the hand that saves you. With a genuine life-debt between them, even her aggression had to be reined in — at least for now.
Watching Ibuki Mio simmer in that tight-lipped, swallowed-pride frustration of hers, Shikime Natsu found the whole thing quietly delightful.
"So, after everything that just happened..."
Shikime Natsu lifted his chin.
"Ibuki-san — are you still going to eat the berries you've got in your arms?"
The moment she heard that question, Ibuki Mio immediately straightened up, her expression shifting into one of absolute, unshakeable conviction.
"Obviously! Of course I will!"
She said it with total certainty.
In her head, though, she had already quietly made up her mind.
The second this plague of a person walked away, she was going to throw out every berry she didn't recognize and keep only the ones she'd already eaten without incident.
Shikime Natsu made no move to expose her private calculations. Instead, he gave his wrist a subtle turn — and slowly extended the grilled fish toward her. The one he'd been holding this whole time: golden-brown, perfectly crisped, still glistening with tempting fat.
"In that case..."
He watched her, his voice carrying a tone of almost devilish temptation.
"Would you like to try this instead, Ibuki-san?"
When Shikime Natsu had been standing a few steps away, the smell of the grilled fish had been intoxicating — but Ibuki Mio had been holding herself together through sheer willpower.
But now — the fish was right in front of her face.
Less than ten centimeters away.
The smell — that complex, layered aroma of fish fat and charred skin — surged straight into her nostrils and hit her brain like a wave.
Gulp.
In the quiet of the forest, a clear, unmistakable swallowing sound rang out once more.
Ibuki Mio's eyes went wide. Her gaze locked onto the fish and refused to let go.
But the last thin thread of her rational mind pulled her back.
She lurched half a step backward, forced her expression into something stern, and fixed Shikime Natsu with a look of deeply suspicious vigilance.
"Don't try that with me!"
Ibuki Mio's voice was cold and flat.
"Don't think I don't know what you're scheming. I'm telling you right now, Shiki — even if you hand me that fish, even if you try to win me over with it, I am not going to be bought. I won't tell you a single thing about Class C's situation. You think a grilled fish is going to buy my loyalty? Dream on."
Watching her stand there with the air of someone bracing for a high-stakes interrogation, Shikime Natsu blinked — and then, despite himself, shook his head with a quiet, helpless sort of amusement.
He drew the fish back, looked at Ibuki Mio, and spoke easily.
"Ibuki-san, your imagination is running a little wild, don't you think?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"If I genuinely wanted to know Class C's situation, I'd just go ask Hiyori. What possible reason would I have to go to all this trouble, come all the way out here, and try to buy you with a grilled fish?"
Ibuki Mio paused.
He had a point.
Shikime Natsu was right — Shiina Hiyori was a Class C member who knew Class C's situation from the inside. And she was Shikime Natsu's girlfriend.
But Ibuki Mio's mind was sharp, and it was already moving.
She caught the flaw immediately. Her eyes narrowed at Shikime Natsu as she gave a cool, short laugh.
"Nice try."
She identified the hole in his logic with surgical precision.
"Shiina is your girlfriend. I have no idea what she sees in you — but as her boyfriend, you obviously don't want to put her in the position of being torn between you and her own class, do you? If she sold out Class C, how would she ever face anyone in the class again? Or are you actually planning to —"
It had to be said.
The angle Ibuki Mio had picked was genuinely sharp.
A flicker of genuine appreciation passed through Shikime Natsu's eyes.
She looked like a delinquent girl whose only solution to any problem was violence — but every now and then, she showed a flash of real insight.
It was true. He had no intention of putting Shiina Hiyori in an uncomfortable position. Since the special exam had begun, he had never once proactively asked Hiyori anything about Class C's affairs.
Still — Ibuki Mio had only gotten half of it right.
If Shikime Natsu genuinely wanted to know who in Class C was holding the key card, he didn't need to ask anyone. He had a method that was far simpler than any of that.
He didn't bother refuting her reasoning.
Instead, he simply extended the grilled fish toward her again — looking at Ibuki Mio with a calm, warm smile.
"Looking at how hungry you were earlier — hungry enough to eat those poisonous berries — I imagine it's been a long time since you've had a proper meal."
He gave the skewer a gentle shake.
"This fish is free. No conditions attached. I'm not asking you to sell out any Class C intelligence."
He met those desperate, wanting eyes of hers, and asked quietly.
"So — do you want it?"
The word 'free.'
Ibuki Mio's face said she didn't believe it for a single second.
She looked him over from head to toe with the most suspicious gaze she could muster.
What was this guy's problem today? What had gotten into him? Why was he suddenly being so generous toward a stranger?
She knew what Shikime Natsu was like. When it came to Ryuuen Kakeru — the ruler of their class — this guy's treatment had been nothing short of ruthless. Brutal and efficient in everything he did.
And now he was walking up to her with a smile and a grilled fish?
There had to be a scheme behind this. There absolutely, definitely had to be some enormous plot.
But for the life of her, with the information and brainpower she had available right now, Ibuki Mio could not figure out what on earth Shikime Natsu could possibly be planning where she was concerned.
She stared hard into Shikime Natsu's eyes, and asked one final time, with full seriousness.
"...Was what you said just now true? Really no conditions at all?"
Shikime Natsu smiled — his gaze open and unclouded.
"Naturally. When Shikime Natsu says something, he means it."
And yet Ibuki Mio — who had spent so long surviving in the relentlessly calculating environment of Class C — still couldn't quite lower her guard.
She kept her eyes fixed warily on the fragrant fish, and then, in a sudden flash of inspiration, leveled a new accusation at him.
"Wait!"
"You didn't secretly... put a laxative or something in this fish, did you?!"
She stared at him, unblinking.
The reason 'laxative' was the most nefarious thing she could come up with was simple.
Ibuki Mio might have been a delinquent girl, but when it came to romance and the various underhanded tricks adults played between the sexes — she was a complete blank. Completely unversed in all of it.
Hearing that, Shikime Natsu couldn't hold back a genuine, caught-off-guard laugh.
He looked at her with the expression of someone watching a very earnest, very confused person make a spectacular leap of logic, and asked in return.
"Ibuki-san — do you honestly think I'd bother with that?"
He laid it out plainly, with crisp reasoning.
"If I actually wanted to watch you suffer, if I wanted to use some method like that to torment you — then in those few minutes just now, when you were doubled over in pain and couldn't even straighten up, all I had to do was stand aside and do absolutely nothing. Same result, zero effort on my part."
"Why would I go to the trouble of patching you up first, and then drug the fish, just to make you sick a second time? Do I look like I have nothing better to do?"
Ibuki Mio froze.
She rapidly ran back through everything that had just happened.
And thought: ...okay, when he puts it that way, that actually does make sense. If he wanted to hurt her, he could have just walked away earlier. There was no reason to complicate things.
She looked at the fish. She swallowed.
She asked one last confirming question.
"You swear — everything you just said is true? You really, genuinely don't need me to do anything for you — nothing that involves betraying my class, nothing underhanded?"
Shikime Natsu let out a small sigh and made a show of beginning to pull the fish back.
"If Ibuki-san trusts me so little — if you don't want it, that's fine. I'll just keep this for my own lunch. It's not going to waste."
"Wait!"
Watching a meal that was practically in her mouth about to disappear, Ibuki Mio finally moved.
He'd made his position perfectly clear at this point. She wasn't about to spite herself over this.
And besides — since landing on this wretched island, she'd eaten essentially nothing that could be called a real meal.
And now, right in front of her, was something that looked good, smelled good, and tasted good — and the guy had said himself it was completely, unconditionally free.
Free food was free food.
Ibuki Mio took a step forward without ceremony and snatched the fish skewer straight out of Shikime Natsu's hand.
She didn't waste a second worrying about dignity. She opened her mouth and took a massive, decisive bite.
The crispy skin and the tender fish inside hit her tongue at the same moment — an explosion of flavor that filled her entire mouth. Even slightly cooled, it had lost nothing.
Delicious...
The word rose unbidden and involuntary in her mind.
In no time at all — gone in a flash — Ibuki Mio cleaned the entire fish down to the bone without a shred of self-consciousness.
When she finished.
Ibuki Mio let out a small, satisfied burp, and much of the wariness that had been sitting on her face quietly receded.
She wiped the grease from the corner of her mouth and looked at Shikime Natsu, her expression complicated.
"...Thank you."
She thanked Shikime Natsu a second time.
"But let me be clear right now — this was your choice. You gave this to me freely. I didn't force you to grill me a fish."
Shikime Natsu smiled and gave a small nod, not bothering to argue the point.
Now that she was fed, Ibuki Mio had no intention of lingering.
She gathered up the scattered edible berries she'd dropped, tucked them away, and got to her feet, ready to leave.
And in the moment she turned to go —
Shikime Natsu's gaze settled on her retreating back, and he quietly reached out once more — activating Master Thief in combination with the Skill Card: God-Tier Massage Technique — and fully resolved the lingering toxin still working through her system.
Because Ibuki Mio had just finished eating the fish he'd grilled himself. If the residual poison flared up again in the next little while and sent her back to the ground writhing, she would probably be genuinely convinced he'd put a laxative in it.
And besides — Ibuki Mio had given him a CG today, along with a perfectly solid Skill Card. One grilled fish as payment was something Shikime Natsu was more than willing to part with.
She'd taken two steps when she stopped.
She didn't turn around. She just tilted her face slightly to the side, her voice carrying clearly through the trees.
"What happened today..."
Ibuki Mio's voice was still hard, still cool — but there was something genuine underneath it.
"Consider it a debt. I owe you one."
And with that —
Without looking back once, Ibuki Mio plunged straight into the bushes beside the path, giving Shikime Natsu no chance to say a single word in reply.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone