"You saw everything?" Kushina's voice wasn't loud, but Saiki could feel that she had used every ounce of her strength just to squeeze the words out.
Panic, mortification, and an overwhelming, helpless confusion swirled in her tear-filled emerald eyes. She stared at Saiki, asking a question to which she didn't even know what answer she wanted.
Her fingers were still pointlessly wrestling with the bunched fabric at the back of her knees, her body trembling slightly from the intense emotional and physical outburst.
"I-I'm sorry! Sensei Kushina!"
Faced with Kushina's near-total mental collapse, Saiki also began to panic.
What do I do? She's genuinely furious. What if she stops talking to me forever? Thoughts he normally wouldn't entertain began to breed frantically in his mind.
Apologize first, then explain, Saiki thought desperately.
He hurriedly turned his back to her, speaking clearly and earnestly. "I am so sorry, Sensei Kushina. Please don't panic. Let me explain. The situation was critical. The core of the seal was exactly where your pants were covering. I needed to confirm the state of the runes, so in the heat of the moment..."
Saiki's explanation was cut off.
Kushina wasn't listening to a word he was saying. Or rather, words like "seal," "runes," and "critical" couldn't even make a ripple in a mind currently being incinerated by pure shame.
She only registered the core, devastating truth: He saw it!
He had definitely seen it!
Completely, entirely, and with perfect clarity!
"Shut up! I don't want to hear your excuses!" She started screaming again, her voice cracking from the strain, turning into a hoarse, sobbing wail.
She finally managed to yank her pants back up to her waist. Her fingers trembled so violently she could barely tie the knot. She just gripped the waistband with a white-knuckled intensity, as if it were her last remaining shred of dignity.
The skin that had been exposed to the air—the skin bearing the seal—seemed to still feel the chill of the room, and worse, the scorching phantom sensation of his fingertips. The conflicting sensations drove her absolutely crazy.
However, gripping her waistband did provide a tiny sliver of comfort.
As a ninja, anything could happen on the battlefield. Most of the time, the strict boundaries between men and women had to be ignored. The vast majority of female ninja even received "seduction training," preparing them to sacrifice their bodies for a mission.
Kushina's reaction was undeniably extreme. Even considering their teacher-student dynamic, she shouldn't have been this devastated. Perhaps, over the course of their relationship, Saiki's position in her heart had shifted to something entirely different.
"Sensei Kushina, I swear, I didn't do it on purpose," Saiki tried again, making his voice as gentle as possible.
With her pants back on, Kushina had calmed down slightly. Seeing Saiki with his back turned, looking anxious and helpless, made her feel that perhaps it wasn't the end of the world.
She took a massive, shuddering breath, her chest heaving as she tried to use volume to mask her internal panic. "W-who asked you to apologize?! Idiot! Do you think... do you think something like this can just be brushed off with an apology?!"
Her voice spiked, carrying a faint tremor. Even she didn't realize that beneath the overwhelming shame, there was a strange, inexplicable sense of grievance... and a chaotic flutter in her heart that she dared not examine.
"Uh, well..." Saiki tried to explain further, his voice full of genuine regret and a trace of helplessness.
"No 'well' about it!" Kushina cut him off reflexively. Her emerald eyes were wide and perfectly round, like a startled cat with its fur standing on end. The blush on her cheeks had already spread down her neck and behind her ears.
She gripped her waistband tighter, as if it were an impenetrable shield. Her lips moved silently for a moment. Her mind was a complete mess; she just wanted this humiliating, paralyzing situation to end.
Without thinking, desperate to find a reason to justify her overreaction—to find an excuse that would make them "even" so they could forget this ever happened—a deeply buried secret blurted out of her mouth:
"I... I saw you too! That night... after you passed out... So we're even..."
The moment the words left her lips, Kushina wanted to bite her own tongue off!
Oh God!
What am I saying?!
Isn't this just pouring gasoline on the fire?!
The air in the room instantly solidified.
Saiki froze. The anxiety and apology on his face were instantly replaced by pure shock. He whipped his head around, his eyes wide. He clearly hadn't expected to hear that.
"...Huh?" A short, single syllable, dripping with disbelief.
Kushina's face instantly turned so red it looked ready to bleed. Her brain completely flatlined.
I'm dead!
What did I just say?!
A tsunami of shame and regret swallowed her whole. She even forgot to keep holding her pants, unconsciously slapping a hand over her burning cheek, wishing the floor would swallow her up.
She frantically averted her gaze, terrified to look at Saiki. Her voice shrank to a tiny, nasal whisper, laced with total defeat, almost muttering to herself: "It's not like that... no... S-so... we're even... Y-you saw me, and... we... we cancel each other out..."
The last few words were as quiet as a mosquito's hum. All of her previous sharpness and intimidation were gone, replaced entirely by a desperate desire to simply cease existing.
She even snuck a quick, terrified glance at Saiki out of the corner of her eye, before snapping her gaze back like she'd been burned. She stood rigidly, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her shirt, waiting for his reaction.
In the frozen silence, Kushina's heartbeat echoed like a war drum in the dead space. Every thump felt like a judgment on her slip of the tongue.
She could literally hear the roar of blood rushing through her ears.
Time stretched into an agonizing eternity. Every second felt like a century.
She stood stiffly, her fingers twisting her shirt so hard her knuckles turned white, the fabric digging deep into her skin.
She didn't dare lift her head. Her eyes were glued to a tiny, insignificant loose thread on the sofa, treating it like her sole lifeline in a stormy sea.
Saiki had indeed been startled by her confession, but he recovered quickly.
He knew what happened the night he passed out; he had already asked Tsume Inuzuka. He wasn't surprised that Kushina had seen him completely naked. What amused him was her reaction now.
Saiki watched Kushina. She looked like she wanted to curl into a ball and evaporate. The agonizing blush of total mortification had spread from her cheeks down her neck, disappearing past her collar.
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly in a barely perceptible smirk. He deliberately chose not to answer immediately. He let the suffocating silence stretch for a few more seconds, clearly hearing Kushina's breathing turn frantic, bordering on a panicked sob.
This brief, intentional pause pushed Kushina's nerves to the absolute limit. Every second felt like a thousand cuts.
She was starting to violently regret saying anything at all. Why did I mention being 'even'?!
Finally, Saiki's voice broke the silence. He spoke with a slow, deliberate, probing tone, carrying a trace of amusement he didn't quite manage to hide: "Oh? That night... after I passed out? You already took a look, Sensei?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it struck Kushina's ears like a thunderclap.
"Ugh..." Kushina let out a short, pathetic whimper that sounded close to tears. She ducked her head even lower and hunched her shoulders, wishing she could transform into an ostrich.
She couldn't look at Saiki. Her face felt hot enough to fry an egg.
Suddenly, she whipped her head up and protested fiercely, "No! Nothing happened!"
Her voice was sharp and frantic, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. But the moment her eyes met Saiki's—eyes filled with an irritating, knowing amusement—her sudden burst of confidence deflated like a popped balloon.
She instantly ducked her head again like a startled rabbit. Her voice plummeted back to a nasal, defeated mumble. "...I just... I just went over to make sure you weren't going to die... T-that's all!"
"Make sure I wasn't going to die..." Saiki repeated, the amusement in his voice thickening. "Did that require... taking such a 'detailed' look?" He deliberately emphasized the word 'look'.
"I didn't look closely! Who wants to look closely at you?! Idiot! Moron! Perverted student!" Kushina went completely ballistic, shouting incoherently in an attempt to use volume to drown out her guilt and shame.
She waved her small fists, but her lack of conviction made it look more like empty bluster. "Don't ever mention it again! This... this is over! We're even! We're squared away! Nobody owes anybody anything! Do you hear me?!"
She finished her rant in one breath, her chest heaving. Her emerald eyes were abnormally bright, shining with a mix of indignation and a thin layer of unshed tears. She didn't dare look at Saiki, opting to glare murderously at the innocent armrest of the sofa.
Watching this fiery, red-haired pepper completely lose her mind, desperately trying to look tough, Saiki felt the lingering fatigue from the tense seal-repair fade away.
The amusement in his eyes deepened, but he put on an expression of "reluctant acceptance." He sighed softly, mixing a bit of helplessness with an indulgent "Fine, have it your way" tone. "Alright, Sensei Kushina. If you insist... we're 'even'."
He deliberately paused on the word 'even', as if highlighting the massive, glaring holes in their mutually understood, deeply flawed agreement.
Hearing his concession, Kushina's hyper-tense nerves finally relaxed a fraction. But the relief was immediately followed by a deeper, unventable frustration.
She let out a heavy "Hmph!" and aggressively turned her back on him. She presented him with a puffed-up, angry back of the head and slightly trembling shoulders, using her entire body language to declare an absolute, "I don't want to talk to you ever again" stance.
The room fell quiet once more. But this time, it wasn't the suffocating, dead silence of before. The air was thick with a strange, indescribable, awkward intimacy.
The exhaustion of surviving the Nine-Tails' attack, the physical drain of the seal repair, and the emotional whiplash of the exposure—violently capped off by their forced "we're even" agreement—crashed over Kushina all at once like a tidal wave.
Her body felt entirely weak. Even sitting upright felt exhausting. She just wanted to find an empty corner, bury herself, and forget everything.