"Officer Tom, here's the thing — my boy's been out there giving me headaches. Turns out he was playing some kind of S&M game. Yeah, yeah, everything those tourists said was true... My apologies. I'll make sure to keep a tighter leash on him from now on..."
Madam President exhaled slowly. In that moment, her gaze was sharp and knowing — nothing at all like the wide-eyed innocent she'd played in front of Lucius.
Maya's perception had never let up. The instant Lucius dialed that phone, her focus had ratcheted to a razor's edge. If Lucius had actually broken his promise, the gray thread she'd wound into his shadow would have staged a little production she liked to call "Sleeping Lucius."
Just as Maya relaxed, thinking the matter was settled, Lucius dialed another number.
"Bunkie. It's me. Lucius." His voice had dropped an octave — no trace of the breezy charm he'd just used on Officer Tom.
"Lucius, what do you need?"
"Bunkie, something happened to Andrew. I need you to put a few guys on someone. She's one of Andrew's classmates — name's Liz Black. Fuck, you don't know where she lives? Then send a couple of your guys to pump some eighth-graders for info. How hard is that? Do I really need to spell it out? No, don't do anything yet. Just watch her family. I'm waiting on Andrew's recovery status. They shouldn't run... but if they do, you send the whole family on their way. Permanently."
...
So that's how it is. Nobody who came out of Hell's Kitchen was simple, and Lucius was no exception — the moment he moved, he wanted the whole family "taken care of." The man had literally just promised her, and she'd actually believed he was stringing along the cops. For fuck's sake — he's playing an even dirtier game.
But even knowing Lucius had his own plans in motion, President Maya retracted her shadow, because her actual objective had already been achieved.
Maya had never thought Lucius was a good man. Same way she'd always known her old man Tom was a piece of work. Lucius's musical talent and his ruthlessness weren't remotely in conflict. His wife Cookie was a drug dealer — was anyone really going to pretend Lucius had nothing to do with that?
The deal Maya had made with Lucius was premised on her certainty that Andrew would be fine. Not because she trusted some miracle doctor to save the day — she trusted her own abilities.
"System — show me my Influence Points and inventory."
Influence Points: 58,906
+1,332 — Talent Show (Ch. 117)
+2,369 — Stopping Andrew's bleeding (Ch. 119)
Inventory:
Bronze Lv. 5 — Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu
Silver Lv. 3 — Water Style: Hidden Mist Jutsu (skill card ×1)
Silver-tier Designated Refresh Card ×1
Gold-tier Designated Refresh Card ×1
"Refresh the Black Shop!"
A low hum, and from the vortex emerged... a Konoha forehead protector.
"Pass. Now — use the Gold-tier Designated Refresh Card!"
"Please select target category."
"Medical ninjutsu. I want an exclusive medical ninjutsu skill card!"
Maya put deliberate emphasis on the word exclusive. The key difference between an exclusive skill card and a standard one was simple: an exclusive card transmitted not just the hand seals but the personal experience, theories, and insights of a specific ninja. A standard card, more often than not, gave you nothing beyond the seal sequence.
A quick clarification here: exclusive skill cards weren't necessarily stronger than standard ones. A standard card paired with a high-level experience package would unlock the fundamental principles behind the technique, letting you develop your own personalized version. An exclusive card only conveyed that particular ninja's understanding — heavily stamped with their personal style, and not necessarily a perfect fit for everyone.
The reason Maya chose an exclusive medical skill card was to save the cost of buying a separate experience package. After all, she only had one Silver-tier Designated Refresh Card left.
And of course, Madam President was blessed with natural beauty and grace — wait, no, natural intelligence and brilliance. Even if someone else's personal theory didn't perfectly suit her, she could always reverse-engineer it into a new Hansen-style ninjutsu.
The moment she spoke, the golden card in Maya's mind shattered into glittering fragments and dissolved into nothing.
At the same time, the Black Shop vortex began to spin. Silhouettes flashed through it — Tsunade, Sakura, Ino, medical ninja from other villages. The figures cycled faster, then gradually slowed. Hashirama flashed past. Tobirama flashed past. Lady Chiyo flashed past. Uh, even Danzō made a cameo. Orochimaru drifted by...
Finally, the silhouette locked onto the silver-haired, smiling face of Yakushi Kabuto.
.
.
.
.
.
.
's mother, Nonō Yakushi.
OK, to be fair, Nonō wasn't technically Kabuto's mother. Young Kabuto had been a war orphan. Nonō found him during a mission, took him in, and gave him the name "Kabuto." He'd always regarded her as his mother.
"Congratulations, Host! The Black Shop has refreshed: Nonō Yakushi's Exclusive Medical Skill. Silver-tier, Lv. 9. Price: 9,800 Influence Points. Would you like to purchase?"
"Purchase! Nonō Yakushi isn't bad at all. She was a full-time medical ninja — sure, she didn't have any flashy signature techniques, but all I need is the foundational theory. Besides, I would've liked to roll Tsunade, but I just burned my only Gold-tier Refresh Card. Beggars can't be choosers."
Thinking this, Maya activated the exclusive medical skill card without further hesitation.
Ding! Congratulations, Host — you have obtained Silver Lv. 7: Healing Jutsu!
A torrent of information flooded into President Maya's brain. Less than three minutes later, she surfaced with a decidedly strange expression.
"Bit of a downgrade spiral there. Used a Gold-tier Refresh Card, got a Silver Lv. 9 Nonō Yakushi card. The Silver Lv. 9 card yielded... a Silver Lv. 7 Healing Jutsu."
"But the theory's interesting. The basic principle is using chakra to stimulate cellular activity, accelerating wound recovery. Setting everything else aside, the method for stimulating cells is genuinely clever — it demands extremely precise chakra control."
"The problem is, in the Marvel world, this might not work the same way. Normal people don't have chakra in their bodies. Pumping my own chakra into someone else might not do anything."
"Stimulating cellular activity... that's really just accelerating the work of mitochondria, the Golgi apparatus, and other organelles. I could combine my perception with chakra to directly control the metabolic processes inside individual cells, force-accelerating cell division and growth."
In Naruto, the Healing Jutsu worked by converting chakra into a gentle form of energy that stimulated cellular regeneration in the patient's body, allowing wounds to close. In other words, the chakra served dual purposes: it triggered the cells and provided the recovery energy.
But Madam President, armed with her Super Senses, took a different approach entirely. She could apply chakra directly to individual organelles within cells. Take the mitochondria, for instance — their normal function was to oxidize nutrients and generate energy for cellular processes. Stimulated and accelerated by chakra, and as long as there was sufficient glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids in the cytoplasm, they would produce a continuous stream of energy. Apply the same principle to the Golgi apparatus — the cell's internal transport and processing system — and you'd have a flood of nutrients being shuttled where they needed to go. With the Golgi apparatus delivering raw materials and the mitochondria churning out energy, every other organelle could put that energy to work. The entire cell's metabolic rate would skyrocket, ultimately accelerating wound healing.
What Maya didn't realize was that her approach had already transcended the basic Healing Jutsu. It wasn't even the Healing Jutsu's advanced form — the Mystical Palm Technique. This was a step beyond even the Mystical Palm. The Healing Jutsu's precision demands had a floor but no ceiling: the finer your chakra control, the higher the technique's effective level.
One more thing worth noting: in Naruto, Karin's Mind's Eye of the Kagura was on the same tier as Maya's Super Senses. And it was precisely because of her absurdly overpowered sensory ability that Karin had become a formidable medical ninja. Sure, Karin's blood could heal others, but what truly made her a medical ninja was the Mind's Eye — her special Uzumaki clan constitution was really just a wonder drug on the side, nothing more.