Morning sunlight streamed through the windows of Konoha Hospital, but the primary recovery ward remained subdued until its door swung open.
Kenji entered wearing a large, handwritten cardboard placard around his neck. A piece of twine held it against his chest.
TEMPORARY JUTSU MALFUNCTION
DO NOT TOUCH
He had around twelve hours remaining on the penalty. Doom had followed him as far as the hospital entrance, where three nurses had firmly refused to let a massive hellhound enter the recovery wing. The beast had seemed far too pleased to remain outside after the previous night's courtyard incident.
Naruto, sitting up in his bed with his shoulder freshly bandaged, squinted at the sign. "What kind of jutsu malfunction?"
Kenji stopped near the foot of the bed and answered with complete, unshakeable confidence. "An experimental sensory-countermeasure technique."
Sakura, who was organizing medical supplies on a nearby tray, paused and gave him a highly suspicious look. "What does it counter?"
"Unwanted physical contact."
Sasuke lay in the bed across the aisle, a thick compression wrap tight around his ribs. He turned his head slightly to glance at the warning sign. "It appears to be failing."
Naruto immediately leaned forward, entirely ignoring his shoulder. "What happens when somebody touches you?"
Kenji carefully avoided the question, keeping his posture rigid. "The prototype releases excess chakra through an involuntary vocal response."
There was a brief silence in the ward.
Naruto slowly began to grin. "You scream?"
"No."
"Cry?"
"No."
"Beg?"
"Absolutely not."
Sakura rolled her eyes and reached for Kenji's wrist before he could step out of range. The moment her fingers closed firmly around it, the penalty activated.
"Aahhn—!"
The breathy, high-pitched feminine moan rang clearly through the quiet hospital ward.
Sakura jerked her hand backward as if she had touched a live wire.
Naruto stared in absolute shock for exactly one second before falling back against his pillow in a fit of hysterical laughter. He laughed so hard he had to grab his injured shoulder, gasping for air.
Across the room, Sasuke's mouth twitched.
Kenji straightened his sleeve with intense dignity, acting as though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. "Involuntary vocal response."
Sasuke finally smiled. It was a small, unmistakable smile, breaking the cold tension he had carried since the barrel—the first genuinely relaxed reaction from him since the abduction.
Naturally, the room immediately demanded to know exactly what kind of jutsu produced that specific response.
Kenji calmly claimed that he had been in the advanced stages of developing a countermeasure against Torture and Interrogation techniques that utilized physical touch to disrupt a shinobi's concentration.
Sakura placed her hands on her hips. "And your brilliant solution to torture was to moan?"
Kenji insisted that the sound was a completely unintended side effect caused by a violent reversal of chakra polarity.
Naruto stopped laughing just long enough to look thoughtful. "Wait. Were you trying to create something that could compete with my Sexy Jutsu?"
Kenji looked deeply offended. "Your Sexy Jutsu is crude visual deception. Mine was advanced sensory warfare."
Sasuke stared at the ceiling. "You lost the war."
The door opened again, and Hinata stepped quietly into the ward carrying a tray of medicine and a small bowl of proper food for Naruto. She took one look at Kenji's sign, processed the conversation, and quickly covered her mouth, though a soft, quiet laugh still escaped her lips.
Kenji noticed instantly. "Even you, Hinata?"
Hinata quickly apologized, bowing her head, though her shoulders were still shaking with a suppressed smile.
Sakura moved closer, her medical training overriding her amusement as she noticed the dark purple bruising spreading across Kenji's exposed side beneath his open jacket. "Why are your ribs bruised?"
Kenji adjusted his collar. "The experimental jutsu suffered a violent laboratory accident."
Out in the corridor, Tsunade walked briskly past the open door, flanked by medical staff. She answered without stopping or even looking into the room.
"He licked my chair."
The entire ward went dead silent.
Kenji immediately pointed a finger at the empty doorway. "That information was classified."
Shizune hurried past a moment later, carrying a towering stack of patient charts. "He licked the sweat mark."
Naruto began laughing so hard he genuinely hurt his shoulder, tears streaming down his face as he kicked his good leg against the mattress. Sakura looked back and forth between Kenji and the empty corridor in utter disbelief, her mouth hanging open.
Sasuke closed his eyes and let his head fall back against his pillow. "Orochimaru's barrel was less humiliating than this room."
The quiet of the hospital was shattered again a few minutes later when Team Guy arrived to check on Sasuke, Naruto, and Hinata after hearing rumors of the Sound attack.
Guy burst through the door loudly, carrying a massive bouquet of brightly colored flowers, and immediately declared that surviving a forced abduction attempt was undeniable proof of their blazing youth. Lee followed right behind him, carrying a basket of fruit, three sets of training weights, and a heavily detailed, handmade physical recovery schedule.
Sakura confiscated the schedule the moment Lee set it down because the first day recommended one thousand squats immediately following hospital discharge.
Neji stepped quietly past the chaos and spoke with Hinata near Naruto's bed. He asked serious questions about her Byakugan strain, nodding approvingly when he realized her tracking was the only reason Sasuke had not been lost in the forest.
Tenten, however, stopped dead in the middle of the room when she noticed Kenji's warning sign. She read the handwritten cardboard twice.
"Temporary jutsu malfunction?" Tenten asked, raising an eyebrow.
Naruto eagerly explained the situation before Kenji could even raise a hand to stop him. "Touch him. He moans like a girl."
Kenji pointed a threatening finger at the blonde genin. "There will be consequences."
Tenten's brown eyes instantly brightened with the pure, blazing light of remembered vengeance. "Good."
Kenji began backing away toward the door.
Tenten closed the distance in two steps, cornered him against the wall, and pressed one firm finger directly into the center of his chest.
"This is for stealing my safety shorts," Tenten said sweetly.
"Nnnh—ah!"
The breathy sound slipped out perfectly. Tenten pulled her finger back, looking deeply, profoundly satisfied.
"That barely covers the interest," she noted.
Neji looked over from Hinata's bedside and stared at Kenji without a single ounce of sympathy. "Destiny has finally developed a sense of justice."
Kenji immediately pointed his finger at the Hyuga prodigy. "I can still tell everyone what you did with the Byakugan."
Tenten slowly turned her head to look at Neji.
Neji immediately looked away, suddenly very interested in the blank hospital wall. "Do not involve me in this again."
Guy, overhearing the commotion, strode over with deep concern etched into his features. He worried aloud that Kenji had severely injured his internal chakra network.
Kenji quickly assured him that the problem was entirely superficial and would dissipate naturally by the evening.
Guy nodded solemnly, deciding instantly that Kenji required intense emotional support to survive the day.
Kenji saw the hug coming a second too late.
"Guy, no."
Guy spread his arms wide, tears shining in his eyes. "A true comrade does not abandon another during a humiliating jutsu backlash!"
"Guy."
"Accept the warmth of youth!"
Guy surged forward and trapped Kenji in a crushing, inescapable bear hug.
"AAAHHNN—GUY!"
The loud, distinctly feminine cry echoed out of the room and all the way down the hospital corridor. Several nurses passing by stopped walking entirely, staring at the doorway in shock.
Lee clenched both fists against his chest as tears filled his eyes. "Sensei! His youthful spirit is singing!"
Kenji struggled helplessly against the Jonin's iron grip. "Put me down!"
The contrast of his normal, flat male voice immediately following the high-pitched moan somehow made the entire situation much, much worse.
Even Sasuke laughed this time. It was an actual, short laugh that escaped before his cracked ribs flared with pain and Shizune, who had just stepped back into the room, sharply ordered him to stop moving.
Kenji froze in Guy's arms. "Did Sasuke just laugh?"
Sasuke's expression instantly snapped back to normal. "No."
Naruto pointed an accusing finger across the room. "He did! The bastard can laugh!"
Sasuke turned his head toward the window and absolutely refused to participate further.
Team 10 arrived next, having checked in at the village gates. Asuma had remained downstairs to officially transfer a captured Sound courier over to village custody, leaving Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji to come upstairs and check on their injured classmates.
Ino entered the room first. She initially took two quick steps toward Sasuke out of sheer old habit, but immediately slowed down when she took in the scene: Sasuke was stable and resting, Sakura was already hovering near his treatment bay, Kenji was currently being tormented by Team Guy, and, most importantly, Kenji was apparently making a highly feminine sound whenever someone made physical contact with him.
Her priorities shifted in a heartbeat.
"What happened to him?" Ino asked, dropping her flowers on a side table.
Naruto happily provided a heavily simplified explanation from his bed. "He licked Tsunade's ass sweat and broke his jutsu."
Kenji glared fiercely at him. "That sentence combines two entirely unrelated events."
Ino circled Kenji with a look of open, predatory fascination. "So any touch works?"
"No more experiments." Kenji tried to walk toward the door.
Shikamaru sighed, pulled his hands from his pockets, and formed the rat seal. His shadow stretched across the linoleum floor and connected with Kenji's.
Kenji stopped in the middle of his next step.
"Shikamaru."
The Nara gave him a lazy, unapologetic look. "You're making more noise than the actual hospital patients. It's troublesome."
Kenji tried to move away, but the Shadow Possession held his body in place.
Ino approached with a wicked smile and gave his left cheek a gentle, patronizing pat.
"Mmh—ah!"
She immediately patted the right cheek.
"Ahn!"
Kenji glared daggers at Shikamaru. "Release me."
Shikamaru's mouth curved into a faint, lazy smile. "I'm gathering intelligence about an unknown jutsu malfunction."
Choji, feeling slightly bad for the trapped shinobi, stepped forward and offered Kenji a sympathetic potato chip from his bag.
Kenji leaned forward to reach for it with his teeth. Choji placed the chip directly between Kenji's lips, but his thick fingers accidentally brushed against them in the process.
"Nnnh!"
Choji withdrew his hand in absolute horror, dropping the bag. "Sorry."
Naruto nearly fell out of his hospital bed a second time.
Shikamaru only released the Shadow Possession technique after Sakura finally marched over and threatened to physically throw all of them out of the medical ward so her patients could actually rest.
Amid the lingering laughter, Sakura's eyes narrowed as she noticed that Kenji's side was still deeply bruised from the Hokage's kick.
She pointed to an empty examination stool. "Sit down and allow Shizune to examine that."
Kenji immediately refused, knowing exactly what a physical medical examination was going to sound like in a room filled with every single one of his peers.
Sakura didn't yell. She looked at him steadily. She pointed out that he had followed her orders perfectly during Naruto's emergency field treatment without mocking her or making the situation difficult. Now, in a real hospital, she expected exactly the same level of professional cooperation.
Kenji studied her expression for a moment, then stopped arguing and sat on the examination stool.
Sakura pulled the medical tray closer. She had expected another argument or crude joke, but Kenji simply opened his jacket and waited for Shizune to begin.
Shizune stepped over and performed most of the diagnostic check hovering her hands over his skin using medical chakra, but to confirm the structural integrity of the bone, she had to press her fingers firmly along the darkest edge of the bruised rib.
Kenji gripped the edge of the metal stool tightly.
"A-ahhn…"
The ward became unusually quiet for a moment because this particular sound was softer, strained by actual pain, and sounded genuinely involuntary rather than exaggerated by comedy.
Sakura's face heated up instantly. She looked away, but she did it a second too slowly.
Ino, leaning against the wall nearby, caught Sakura's delayed reaction.
Her amused smile faded into a thoughtful look as she glanced from Sakura's flushed face to the shirtless Kenji. She said nothing, but her eyes remained on Sakura long enough to make it clear that she had noticed.
Shizune stepped back and nodded. "Heavy bruising. Avoid direct impact for two days."
Guy immediately raised his hand and officially cancelled the intense morning spar he had already been planning for Kenji.
Kenji frowned, pulling his shirt back on. "Why was there a morning spar planned while I was visiting injured people in the hospital?"
Guy offered a gleaming thumbs-up. "Youth waits for no discharge form!"
Eventually, the medical staff began clearing the crowded ward so the patients could rest. Shizune firmly escorted Guy into the corridor before he could begin what he called an "early rehabilitation circuit." Tenten and Lee went downstairs to find proper food, while Neji left with Kurenai to discuss Hinata's recovery.
Ino and Shikamaru were called downstairs by Asuma to assist with the captured courier's preliminary report. Kenji wisely retreated toward the far end of the corridor, putting as much distance as possible between himself and anyone curious enough to touch him again.
Hinata remained beside Naruto's bed. She placed a small container of food on the table and handed Sakura the medicine schedule she had prepared.
Sakura quickly checked the doses and timings before passing it to Naruto.
Naruto glanced over the neat instructions. "You really wrote down all of this?"
"You forgot the time of your last dose when Sakura asked," Hinata reminded him.
"I was distracted."
Sakura looked toward the crowded corridor. "By what?"
A loud feminine moan echoed from outside, followed by Kenji shouting at someone to keep their hands to themselves.
Naruto pointed toward the door. "That."
Hinata covered a quiet laugh.
Naruto's expression softened when he looked back at her. "Thanks. For the medicine too, but mostly for yesterday."
Hinata grew still.
"I would've followed the wrong trail without you," Naruto continued. "And I probably would've broken the barrel with Sasuke still sealed inside."
From the next bed, Sasuke spoke without opening his eyes. "Probably?"
Naruto ignored him. "You saw everything I missed. I just ran where you told me."
Hinata looked down at the edge of Naruto's blanket. "You trusted me immediately."
"You knew where you were going."
"I was frightened too."
Naruto was quiet for a moment. "You didn't look frightened."
Hinata raised her eyes toward him. "Neither did you."
They held each other's gaze until Naruto became aware that Sakura was standing only a few steps away pretending to organize the same three bandages repeatedly.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Once they let me out of here, do you want to go somewhere that doesn't smell like medicine?"
Hinata's smile was small but immediate. "Yes."
Before Naruto could suggest a place, Sakura finished checking his chart and allowed him one short walk through the hospital's open-air recovery garden. No running, no clones, no training, and absolutely no Rasengan.
Naruto looked at Hinata. "Want to make sure I don't escape?"
"You were already putting your feet on the floor when Lady Tsunade told you to stay in bed," Hinata reminded him.
"That wasn't escaping. I was checking whether my legs still worked."
Sakura pointed toward the door. "Five minutes. Before I change my mind."
Hinata walked beside Naruto through the covered corridor, matching her pace to his. They eventually reached the small recovery garden overlooking the village. The sounds of the ward faded behind them, though Kenji's distant voice occasionally carried through an open window.
"Stop surrounding me! This is a medical condition!"
A soft feminine moan followed, accompanied by several people laughing.
Naruto leaned against the railing with his good shoulder. "He's never going to recover from this."
Hinata covered a smile. "The jutsu will apparently wear off tonight."
"I meant his reputation."
Her laugh came more easily this time. Naruto watched her for a moment before looking out across the village.
"There's a quiet path beside the river," Hinata said after the silence settled. "I sometimes walk there when the training grounds become crowded."
Naruto turned toward her. "You never showed me that place."
"You never asked."
"Then show me after they let me out of here."
Hinata held his gaze for a moment before nodding. "All right."
Naruto's hand rested on the railing beside hers. Their fingers came close whenever either of them shifted, but neither closed the remaining distance.
They stayed there until Sakura appeared in the corridor and held up Naruto's medicine with a pointed expression.
"Five minutes are over."
Naruto sighed and pushed himself away from the railing. Hinata remained beside him as they walked back into the ward.
Kenji returned to the main ward several minutes later to check the time. He stopped at the foot of Naruto's bed and looked from Naruto to Hinata. They were sitting closer than they had been earlier, and Naruto was trying far too hard to appear casual.
Sakura returned with fresh supplies at the same time. Ino followed her into the ward, with Shikamaru trailing several steps behind them after completing the courier report.
Kenji studied Naruto's expression. "You finally asked her somewhere?"
Naruto's face reddened. "Mind your business."
Hinata turned toward the window, though the small smile on her face answered the question.
Kenji raised his right hand. "Progress."
Naruto, running entirely on instinct and good mood, slapped it.
"AAHN—NARUTO!"
The feminine cry traveled loudly through the ward.
Naruto recoiled in horror, wiping his hand on his blanket. "Stop saying my name like that!"
Kenji looked at his own hand in annoyance. "I forgot."
Tenten walked through the door carrying a tray of cafeteria food. She took one look at Kenji. "Do it again."
"No."
Across the room, Shikamaru's shadow began creeping ominously across the floor again.
Kenji saw the dark line moving and immediately jumped onto the deep windowsill, pressing his back against the glass. "Stay away from me, you lazy bastard."
Shikamaru sighed and stopped the shadow. "Too troublesome."
Ino laughed, stepped into the center of the aisle, and deliberately blew Kenji an exaggerated, dramatic kiss without touching him.
Kenji braced himself, gripping the window frame.
Nothing happened.
Ino grinned triumphantly. "Found the weakness. I can tease you without triggering it."
Sakura rolled her eyes at the display, but as she organized the bandages, she was clearly paying close attention to the interaction.
Asuma entered the ward with a serious expression and placed a heavily carved wooden token on the center table.
The distinct Sound symbol carved into the wood silenced the room immediately.
Asuma explained quickly. Team 10 had intercepted and captured a courier moving quickly along the western Fire Country Road during their return journey. The man had been carrying the Sound token, an incomplete, encoded route map, a set of delivery instructions, and the general location of an eastern border storehouse. Most concerningly, several pages had already been removed from the courier's route packet before Team 10 intercepted him. Either he had completed part of his delivery, or another party had searched him first.
Ino stepped forward, her teasing demeanor entirely gone. She had used the Mind Body Switch during the capture, but the courier had been trained to resist mental intrusion. His thoughts collapsed into rehearsed phrases and meaningless route numbers, forcing her out after only a few seconds.
Before losing control, however, she had seen flashes of heavy medical crates marked with containment scripts similar to those used inside Sasuke's barrel.
Tsunade appeared at the doorway, her Hokage coat draped over her shoulders.
"Asuma, Team Ten, and Kenji—downstairs," Tsunade ordered. "Sakura, bring your field notes and the web fragments you removed from Naruto. Kakashi and Shizune will meet us there."
Her eyes moved over the remaining visitors. "The patients stay in bed. Everyone else either clears the ward or keeps quiet."
Naruto immediately started lowering his feet toward the floor.
Tsunade pointed directly at him. "You are a patient."
Naruto grumbled and pulled his legs back onto the bed.
Kenji stepped down from the windowsill, ready to follow Asuma downstairs.
As he passed by, Tenten gave the center of his back one final, incredibly quick tap.
"Interest payment."
"Mmh—!"
Tenten walked out the door, smiling brightly.
Kenji stared after her, rubbing his back. "I am stealing those shorts again."
Tenten stopped in the hallway and turned around slowly, reaching for the weapons scroll at her hip.
Kenji immediately turned around and climbed out the hospital window rather than wait to see what she was going to summon.
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