I sat on the hospital bed long after Shizune disappeared down the corridor, staring at the floating blue text that had just ruined whatever thin scrap of calm I had left.
[Quest 2/100 : Fuck Shizune]
[Time remaining : 50 hrs]
"It’s not fair," I told the system out loud, because talking to the empty air was still the only thing that felt like control. "You can’t just go from slapping her ass to fucking her. That’s not a progression. That’s a cliff."
No reply.
"Come on. What about kissing? Hugging? Anything in between? Or just let me go home. I already did the first one. I already crossed the line. Give me a break."
Still nothing. The window hovered in smug silence, the timer ticking somewhere behind the letters. I dragged both hands down my face and let out a long, shaky breath.
"Huhhh... now what do I do?"
The reality of it sat on my chest like a weight. Two days ago—my time, not this world’s—I had been terrified of speaking to the woman behind a convenience-store counter. My hands had shaken just handing over cash. High-school hallways and years of locked doors had trained that fear into bone. Now the same brain was supposed to figure out how to fuck someone. Not in a fantasy. Not behind a screen. In a real body, with real consequences, against a woman who could probably kill me with medical ninjutsu before I finished the sentence "I’m sorry."
Three days. That was the window the system had given me, or close enough. The timer had started the moment the quest appeared. Ten hour that passed without progress felt like another step closer to permanent death.
I looked at my reflection in the small mirror across the room. Naruto’s face stared back. Blond spikes. Whisker marks. The bright orange jacket folded on the chair. The man who ran around calling women "old hag" and somehow still had people who cared about him. Handsome? Maybe to some. To me he looked like the opposite of seduction. Loud. Obnoxious. The kind of personality that got away with things because the plot said so, not because anyone actually melted for him.
"How the hell is anyone supposed to be seduced by this?" I muttered. "Bright clothes. Loud mouth. Zero subtlety. And I’m supposed to make Shizune want me in under three days while she’s still deciding whether to report me for groping her."
But I had to do something while I was still stuck in the hospital. Once they cleared me and I walked out into the village, the chances of getting her alone like this would drop to almost nothing. Tsunade would keep her busy. Missions would pull her away. The thin cover of "patient who might still be affected by medicine" would vanish.
I spent the rest of that day and the following night turning the same useless plans over in my head. Direct approach? She’d kill me. Slow charm? I had the social skills of a rock and the face of a man who yelled at the Hokage for fun. Blackmail? I had nothing. The system stayed silent the entire time, offering no hints, no partial credit, no mercy.
After one full day, the door opened again.
Shizune stepped in carrying the usual tray. Her expression sat somewhere between professional duty and lingering irritation. She didn’t meet my eyes at first. Just set the medicine down and said, flatly, "Take it."
I already had the plan. It was desperate. It was stupid. It was the only thing my panic-addled brain could produce that didn’t involve chasing her down a hallway and getting myself executed.
If I have to die either way, I told myself, at least I want to touch a woman before it happens. At least once. For real.
I drank the medicine. The bitter taste spread across my tongue. Then I let my body go slack, eyes rolling back, and tipped sideways off the edge of the bed like the drug had hit me all at once.
"Naruto—!"
She moved fast. Her arms caught me before I fully hit the mattress, hauling my heavier frame back onto the bed with surprising strength. She kept asking if I was okay, voice tight with sudden worry, one hand supporting my shoulders while the other checked my forehead.
I let the collapse carry me into a full hug, arms wrapping around her waist as I sank back against the pillows. She stayed leaning over me, still holding on, clearly afraid something genuine had gone wrong with the medicine or the earlier head injury.
That was when my hands moved.
They slid down her back and settled on her ass, fingers spreading, gripping through the fabric. Soft. Warm. The same yielding curve I had only touched for a few seconds the day before. This time I didn’t pretend it was accidental drifting. I held on.
She made a small sound—"Ahhh"—half surprise, half something else, and immediately tried to pull away. I tightened my arms, keeping her against me, eyes still closed, breathing deliberately slow and even like a man who had simply pulled his caretaker down in a drugged haze.
Her face ended up directly above mine. Close enough that I could feel her breath. I tilted up and pressed my mouth to her cheek. Soft skin. A faint trace of whatever soap she used. She stiffened, then—slowly—her resistance lost some of its edge. The push against my chest weakened. I brought one hand up, laid a finger gently across her lips, and leaned in the rest of the way.
The kiss lasted more than ten seconds.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew the heat of her mouth, the way her breath hitched, the way her body stopped trying quite so hard to escape. My other hand left her ass and moved upward, cupping one breast through her clothes, feeling the soft weight of it against my palm.
That broke the spell.
She shoved hard against my chest and scrambled backward, nearly knocking the tray over. Her face was flushed deep red, lips slightly parted, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fury.
"What are you doing?!"
I gave her nothing. Kept my eyes closed. Kept the slow, heavy breathing of someone still under. Silence.
She stared for a long moment, chest rising and falling fast. Then, carefully, she edged closer again—but only a little, staying just out of easy reach.
"...Is he asleep?"
No answer, of course.
She hovered there, clearly torn between checking my condition properly and not wanting to get grabbed again. Finally she muttered, almost to herself, "I have to tell Lady Tsunade. There are side effects in the medicine."
She grabbed the tray and practically fled the room. The door shut harder than usual.
I opened my eyes the second she was gone.
"Shit."
My hands were still shaking. I lifted one and pressed my fingers to my own lips, feeling the lingering heat of the kiss. The shape of her mouth. The soft give of her breast under my palm. The small sound she had made when I first grabbed her.
"...It’s not bad."
The system window updated in the corner of my vision.
[Time remaining: 28 hours.]
I sat up slowly, heart still hammering, and stared at the closed door.
"I have to find some other ways."
Twenty-eight hours left. She was already running to Tsunade with a story about medicine side effects. The next time she walked into this room she would be guarded, suspicious, possibly with backup. The hospital cover was collapsing. And the quest still demanded the full act.
I looked at Naruto’s hands again—hands that had now touched a woman in ways Kael never had—and tried to force the panic back down.
One step at a time.
Even if every step felt like it was about to get me killed.
Give me power!!!