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Chapter 91 - The Best Kind of Complication
🕑 Added 2025-08-17 11:04:00 +0000 UTCShiho made a small, meek humming sound and nodded, her head bowed so low I could barely see her face behind the curtain of pale hair that ha
Shiho made a small, meek humming sound and nodded, her head bowed so low I could barely see her face behind the curtain of pale hair that had fallen forward.
I blinked. Then blinked again. My body moved on its own, pushing myself up to a sitting position despite the immediate protest from every muscle fiber in my torso. The pain registered somewhere in the back of my mind, but it felt distant, unimportant. My mouth opened—pure reflex—but no words came out.
My brain had apparently decided to take an extended vacation right when I needed it most, leaving me staring at this brilliant, terrified woman while explosions of emotion detonated in my chest one after another.
I'd always thought, dreamed about a day like this in my previous life. Back when things started getting stable, when I was finally earning enough to not skip meals or choose between rent and food. But something always got in the way. Life had never been easy, never gotten comfortable, just occasionally graduated from 'completely unbearable' to 'barely tolerable.'
So that thought, that dream, remained just that.
This life, as absolutely fucking insane as it sounded, was less harsh in some ways. Sure, everything here revolved around death—kill or be killed, survive or become a statistic in someone else's mission report. No matter how hard you trained, how many godly powers you accumulated, you were still flesh and blood wrapped around a fragile collection of vital organs. Drop your guard once, and even a fresh-out-of-the-Academy genin could end your legend with a lucky kunai throw.
But that was human, wasn’t it? I'd never felt human in my previous life—just a burden to parents who'd made it clear they wanted nothing to do with me, and a social reject that society chewed up and spat out with mechanical indifference.
What an odd feeling, that was….. not the two gruesome fights where I'd expected to die, but it was this news—the news that I was going to be a father— that made me reflect on what living actually meant.
Father. Dad.
The word triggered another explosion in my chest, this one bigger than all the rest combined.
It was beyond me, but staying silent was not considerate of my part. A shitty move. The silence stretched, and Shiho's shoulders started to shake.
"I—I know this wasn't planned," she began, her hands twisting the hem of her lab coat so tightly her knuckles were white. "I know you have... other commitments, other people who are far more suited to... to this kind of responsibility. I've documented the biological markers and confirmed the results multiple times, but I understand if you think this complicates things unnecessarily."
Her voice was getting smaller with each word, like she was trying to disappear entirely. "I'm aware that my skill set is primarily analytical rather than... maternal. And I know I'm not exactly the kind of woman who—who fits into traditional relationship structures. You have Anko-san, and probably others who are more—more everything than I could ever be."
She was starting to shake now, the tremor in her voice becoming more pronounced. "I've run probability calculations, and statistically speaking, a woman like me—someone who spends most of her time buried in code books and intelligence reports—isn't the optimal choice for bearing and raising offspring. I understand that maintaining our current arrangement might not be feasible with these... complications."
Her voice cracked, and I could see tears starting to form behind her glasses. "I know you probably expected me to be more careful, to implement proper contraceptive measures, and I failed in that basic responsibility. I should have been more analytically rigorous about biological probability and prevention methodologies, but I—I got distracted by other variables, and now—"
"You probably think it’s… irresponsible.” Her voice speeds up, slurring her words. “Or… or selfish. I know you have… other women. I’m not— I mean, I’ve never thought I was better than them. They’re beautiful, and… confident, and I’m… just me. A… desk girl with bad eyesight and an embarrassingly detailed filing system for… for everything."
"I don’t— I don’t want you to think I’m trying to… trap you, or… or make you choose. I would never… I’m happy just—just to… be here when you let me. Even if it’s only sometimes. Even if you leave and… I haven’t seen you for weeks. I… I don’t mind. I’ve always been… happy, when you’re… with me. That’s enough."
"I know you might be angry. I know this could ruin things. And if you… If you told me to… I would—" she swallowed a sob, shaking her head quickly, "No. No, I— I can’t say that. Because I… I’ve been thinking about it since I… since I found out, and it’s… it’s yours. And I—" her voice drops, soft and breathy, "—I want to keep it. Even if it means you… don’t want me anymore."
Her hands twisted in the hem of her coat, gaze fixed somewhere near my chest as tears streamed down her cheeks. "I don’t know if that’s… brave, or stupid, or just… selfish in a different way. But I… I want this. Even if I’m… not the one you’d choose to… to have this with."
I launched myself out of that hospital bed like it was on fire.
The movement sent lightning bolts of agony through my ribs, but I didn't give a damn. I wrapped one arm around her shoulders, the other around her waist, and pulled her against me until there was no space left between our bodies, until I could feel her heartbeat hammering against my chest.
She let out a startled little yelp—a sound that was pure Shiho, surprised and breathy and completely adorable—before I silenced whatever idiotic nonsense she was about to spout by crashing my lips against hers.
This wasn't like the earlier kiss. This one was fierce, greedy, full of gratitude and possession. I wasn't just kissing my brilliant, neurotic nerd—the woman I'd been thoroughly corrupting since our Academy days. I was kissing the future mother of my child. No, children, because there was no way in hell I was stopping at one. I wanted a big family, the biggest, loudest, most chaotic collection of little humans that had ever existed.
The kiss was wet and messy and perfect, all tongues and teeth and the salt of her tears mixing with something sweeter. When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, and Shiho looked like she'd been hit by a hurricane. Her hair was sticking up at impossible angles, her glasses were completely crooked and fogged beyond any hope of usefulness, and there were tear tracks cutting through the flush on her cheeks. Snot glistened under her nose, and her lips were swollen and red from the intensity of the kiss.
She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"Are—are you—is the baby—do you think—" she stammered through harsh breaths, her eyes wide and searching behind those useless glasses, trying to gauge my reaction, looking for any sign of rejection or anger or disappointment.
I smiled—couldn't help it, couldn't stop it even if I'd wanted to. "Silly girl," I murmured, and kissed her again, softer this time but no less thorough.
When we broke apart the second time, I kept smiling at her, letting all of my amusement and affection, and bone-deep satisfaction show on my face. "What do you think?"
Shiho stared at me through her completely askew glasses for a long moment, her brilliant mind probably running through a thousand different analytical frameworks to process what she was seeing. Then she started giggling—not her usual soft laugh, but these quirky, hiccupping giggles that sounded like she was losing her mind in the best possible way.
The giggles turned into sniffles, which turned into full-blown crying again, but she was laughing through the tears now, clutching at my hospital gown like I might disappear if she let go. "I—I thought—the probability matrices suggested—but you're—you're actually—" She could barely even finish sentences anymore, just kept laughing and crying and pressing closer like she couldn't believe this was real.
I merely smiled, “Silly, silly girl,“ and started kissing and patting her head, smoothing down those unruly strands of hair that were still sticking up everywhere, letting her work through whatever complex emotional algorithm was running in that beautiful, overthinking brain of hers.
"Oh," I said, my voice suddenly flat.
“W-what?“ Shiho looked up at me through her tears and snot, slightly in panic. "What is it? Did you—do you not—"
I smiled down at her, but I could feel my expression turning strained around the edges. "I didn't know before, but it seems…. I have a broken leg."
“What—?” she started, but it bled into a little yelp as I lost the fight with gravity and fell back onto the bed, taking her with me.
The weight of her on my chest was warm. The throbbing in my leg was not. A groan ripped out of my throat. I couldn’t help it.
"Eishin! You shouldn't have—the doctors specifically said you needed to avoid sudden movements!" Shiho immediately started her fussings again, wiping her own tears and snot away with the back of her hand. “You have to be careful! Careful! That’s not careful! You’ll make it worse, you can’t—oh, I’m so stupid, I shouldn’t have—”
She started to pull away, probably to go find a nurse or a doctor or someone who actually knew what they were doing. I laughed and pulled her back into my arms before she could scurry off.
"You need proper medical attention, and I'm probably applying pressure to areas that could be compromised—"
She made a muffled protest, twisting to stand again, so I gave her one firm slap across the perfect curve of her ass. Just like that. Didn’t have to say a word. She froze, went still, and my obedient little nerd melted back against my chest with a meek little breath.
I reached down and carefully removed her crooked glasses, setting them aside before wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks with my thumb. Then I pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head, breathing in her scent of her shampoo mixed with the lingering smell of the oranges she'd been working with earlier.
We lay like that in the quiet of the hospital room, Shiho's breathing gradually slowing as she calmed down against my chest.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence. "So, uh, is it too early to start thinking about names? Because it's probably not too early, right? We should definitely think about names." The words came out a little faster than I'd intended, but I kept my voice casual. "Fair warning, though—I'm absolute shit at naming things. Every jutsu I've ever created is just named after what it does. Very creative, I know."
Shiho sniffed softly and shifted, tilting her head to look up. "I don't think I'm much better at nomenclature," she admitted quietly. "But maybe... if it's a boy, we could consider something like Ango? Since that's how we met, working on codes... Or if it's a girl..." She hesitated, biting her lower lip. "Maybe Nazo? Because she'd be our little mystery to solve?"
Cipher and Puzzle?
I blinked at her. “…You’re worse than me.” I chuckled, “Guess we’ll need to… I don’t know, spend a lot of time on this before we ruin the kid forever.”
She craned her head up and pouted, her expression adorably indignant. "They're perfectly functional names with appropriate etymological foundations!"
I grinned and pressed my finger against her pouty cheek, watching them deflate under the pressure. Then I let my hand rest on her cheek, caressing the soft skin before stretching it slightly and giving it a gentle pinch. It never got old, how cute she was. Even better without those ridiculous dinner-plate glasses in the way.
Shiho didn't protest the casual abuse of her cheek; she'd gotten used to my particular brand of affection over the years. "Do you have a preference?" she asked, her words slightly distorted by my fingers. "Boy or girl?"
I hummed, still tugging her cheek like it was a stress ball, letting the question sit.
“I think…” she said slowly, “if it’s a boy, I hope he’s smart like you. And if it’s a girl… I hope she’s smart too, but… maybe not too much like me. I… I think I’d worry more.”
My smile turned distinctly predatory, and Shiho made a small squeaking sound like a mouse that had just spotted a cat. "I don’t consider myself an indecisive man," I said, my voice dropping, "but in this case, I don't really want to choose."
"Oh," Shiho said quickly, as if she'd committed some social error. "I mean, I don't really mind either way, boy or girl. I'll love them no matter what, and—"
“I don’t doubt it.” My grin stayed put. “But that’s not what I meant.” She blinked up at me, all big-eyed and puzzled. “What do you think about… twins?”
Shiho blinked at me with innocent confusion. "It's far too early in the gestational period to determine multiple births, and statistically speaking, the probability of twin conception is only about 1 in 250 pregnancies—" She stopped mid-sentence, her head popping up from my chest as understanding dawned. She knows me well. "No! That's not how it works!"
"How would you know?" I asked, ignoring the sharp protest from my ribs as I lifted her body until she was straddling me properly.
"This—this isn’t how it works! You can't get pregnant while you're already pregnant! That's not—!" she protested, even as she settled into the position. "And you're injured! Your sutures could open, or you could aggravate the soft tissue damage, or—"
I put my hands on her hips, about to explain exactly how we were going to test her hypothesis, when a sharp knock on the door cut me off.
Shiho jerked like she'd been electrocuted, her head whipping toward the door. I tightened my grip on her before she could climb off, giving her a look. She wilted instantly and stilled in place. I stroked her thigh as a reward.
“Come back later!” I called toward the door. “We’re busy—making twins here!”
When no one answered, I nodded in satisfaction and turned my attention back to my little nerd. I reached for the sash around her waist, but another knock stopped my hand mid-motion.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance. "Can't a man get some privacy in his own hospital room—"
I didn't get to finish that sentence, because the sliding door didn't just open—it exploded inward as someone kicked it clean off its tracks.
“YOUTHFUL PASSION SHOULD NEVER BE INTERRUPTED!” roared a familiar voice. Guy-sensei stood in the wreckage, beaming. “But the flame of RESPECT burns just as bright! Have I taught you nothing about honoring your superiors and elders, my youthful friend? Leaving the Hokage to wait in the hall—unthinkable!”
He seemed completely unbothered by the fact that I currently had a woman straddling me in what was obviously a compromising position.
Behind the Green Beast of Konoha, Minato stood with one hand covering his face, looking like he was seriously reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment.
Oh, damn… That was when I remembered that before my fight with the Mizukage, I had tied the man’s wife’s panties to my wrist.
Damn, indeed.
Comments
Istan T
Tftc, I need more now 🍪
