Chapter 2
Jiraiya didn’t speak again for a long time.
He sat there, sake cup untouched in his hand, thumb tracing the rim absently as if he could find answers in the curve of ceramic. The world around you began to stir again—the servers yelling, the gamblers jeering, the heavy clink of coins hitting wood—but none of it touched him. Or you. The noise existed around you both, but between you, there was only silence. And something that felt like a heartbeat.
You watched him.
Really watched him.
He wasn’t the man the world idolized. Not here. Not now. He looked tired—bone-deep tired. The lines on his face seemed deeper in this light, the kind of weariness that only came from surviving too much and healing too little. And yet… there was still fire behind his eyes. Wariness, yes. But also something else. A flicker of purpose. A crack in the armor.
You stood up slowly.
Jiraiya’s eyes followed you.
Wordless, you took his cup and set it aside. Then, as if daring him to stop you, you slipped into his lap.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t grab. Just looked at you, as if trying to decide whether this was real—or a trap laid too well for even him to see coming.
You cupped his cheek, your thumb brushing the silver stubble along his jaw. “You said I’d have to take all of you,” you whispered. “So let me.”
His breath caught.
And then he kissed you.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was hungry, raw, a clash of mouths and need that had no place in polite society. His hands found your waist, pulling you tighter against him, until your chest was flush to his, your knees straddling his thighs.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he rasped into your mouth.
“I do,” you whispered. “And I want it.”
You felt him harden beneath you, and a shudder passed through your body—part anticipation, part disbelief that the infamous Sannin, the toad sage himself, was here with you.
He pulled back just far enough to look at you, eyes sharp. “If we do this, it changes everything.”
“Good,” you said, reaching for the tie at his waist. “I want everything to change.”
**
You didn’t make it to a bed.
The private room upstairs was locked, and neither of you had the patience to wait.
Jiraiya’s back hit the wall of a storage room behind the teahouse, the door sliding shut behind you with a quiet click. Lantern light spilled in from the hallway, enough to cast long shadows across the crates and discarded cushions. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t ideal.
But gods, it was real.
His robe was loose in your hands within seconds, slipping from his shoulders to reveal the hard lines of a warrior’s body—scarred, solid, too beautiful in its rawness. You let your hands roam across him, fingers grazing old wounds, feeling the strength beneath the skin.
He made no move to hide from you.
He let you look.
“Your turn,” he said, voice husky.
You pulled your own robe open, letting it fall from your shoulders slowly, deliberately. His gaze followed it down your body, lingering over every inch. The reverence in his expression caught you off guard—like he hadn’t expected you to be real.
“You’re... dangerous,” he muttered. “You’re going to ruin me.”
You leaned in, pressing your bare chest to his. “Then let me.”
He groaned low in his throat as his lips met yours again, this time slower—deeper. One hand tangled in your hair, the other sliding down your back to grip your ass, pulling your hips against his. You rolled your hips, grinding against the thick length already straining against his sash. He grunted, the sound rough and real and needy.
He turned you with surprising speed, pinning you to the wall with his body. His hands were everywhere—your waist, your hips, sliding between your thighs to find how wet you already were.
“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing slow circles against your clit. “You're soaked.”
“For you,” you gasped. “Only you.”
He dropped to his knees, hands spreading your thighs, and kissed just above your mound, slow and warm. Then his tongue licked a deliberate line between your folds. You nearly buckled.
His hands kept you steady against the wall as he tasted you—long, deep strokes of his tongue, sucking gently at your clit, moaning like the flavor of you was something he’d been chasing his whole life. You tangled your fingers in his hair, grinding against his mouth, your cries echoing off the empty walls.
When you came, it was sharp, sudden, loud. He didn’t stop. Not until your legs were shaking and you were gasping his name like a prayer.
Then he rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and watching you with that unreadable gaze again.
“Still want this?” he asked, voice hoarse.
You nodded, breathless. “Please.”
He untied his sash, let the last of his clothes drop, and then he was there—thick, hot, already twitching against your thigh. He lifted you easily, one hand bracing your back, the other guiding himself to your entrance.
When he slid inside, you both groaned—your arms locked around his shoulders, your back pressed to the cold wall. He filled you completely, stretching you to the edge of pleasure and pain. You clenched around him instinctively, and he cursed, forehead pressing to yours.
“This... this is what you want?” he asked again, voice tight.
“This,” you whispered. “Always this.”
He thrust into you, slow and deep, setting a rhythm that was more intimate than frantic. The kind that meant something. His mouth moved over your throat, your shoulder, your lips, like he was trying to remember this—burn it into memory. Like this was a promise he hadn’t known how to make until now.
Every thrust hit deep, slow, deliberate. His body pressed against yours, skin to skin, breath to breath. And with every movement, something inside you melted. Something cracked open.
He was giving you everything. And you were taking it.
Your second orgasm built slower—grinding, aching, your body tightening as he kept whispering in your ear.
“You’ll be mine. Mine to protect. Mine to ruin.”
You came with a shudder, head falling back against the wall as you cried his name again.
That was all it took for him.
He buried himself deep, grunting as he came, spilling into you, his hips jerking as he held you against him. You felt every pulse of him, every tremble.
For a long time, neither of you moved.
Then he kissed your forehead, slower now, his voice a whisper in your ear.
“If you really want this,” he said, “then we do it together. From now on. You don’t run. You don’t hide. You carry my name—and everything that comes with it.”
You nodded, still wrapped around him. “I won’t run."
Jiraiya’s been gone twenty-one days. You count every one like a cut.
He left before dawn, all quiet promises and rough hands, kissing your shoulder like it meant something—and maybe it did. Maybe it still does. But this place doesn’t allow hope. Not for people like you.
So you tucked what he gave you away. Pressed it deep into the soft place under your ribs, where no one could touch it. Not Yoru. Not the girls. Not the men who still try to buy time with your skin.
But your body’s betraying you.
The sickness came first—sharp, unrelenting. Then the sore breasts. The missed bleeding. The quiet, pulsing heaviness in your belly like something growing, blooming. You didn’t need a medic to tell you. You already knew.
You were pregnant.
And it wasn’t an accident.
This was the plan.
You just didn’t think it’d come so fast.
You kept quiet. Ducked your head. Skipped the heavier shifts. Made excuses—drunken customers, split lip, bad cramps. Most of the girls didn’t question it. You had a reputation for getting away with things, anyway.
But Yoru noticed.
Of course he did.
It happens after breakfast. The girls are lounging between shifts, dabbing makeup, brushing hair, counting tips. You’re walking past the back hall toward the storage room—away from the crowd—when you hear your name barked behind you.
“You.”
You freeze.
Turn.
Yoru is standing there, arms crossed, squinting at you like you’re something foul under his shoe. His robe hangs off his thin shoulders, dusty and wrinkled. But his eyes? Sharp as ever. You can’t bluff that stare.
“You’ve missed four days this week,” he says.
“I’ve been sick.”
He steps closer. “You think I’m stupid?”
You say nothing.
“You’re not bleeding, are you?”
Your breath catches.
He grins, mean and yellow-toothed. “Thought so.”
You try to turn away, but he grabs your wrist, hard. You twist, but his grip is stronger than he looks. “You think carrying some shinobi’s spawn gets you a free ride?”
“Let me go,” you hiss.
He shoves you into the wall, just hard enough to daze you.
“You listen to me, girl,” he growls. “I’ve had whores try this before. Fake belly, cry to the noble types, say they’ve got a man waiting to save them. But no one saves girls like you. You don’t get out. You’re mine.”
You stare at him, heart pounding—not with fear, but rage.
“You don’t even know who it was, do you?”
“Oh, I know,” he snaps. “The white-haired freak. The pervert. I should’ve known when he started asking for you by name.”
Your silence confirms it.
Yoru lets out a bitter laugh. “He’s gone, girl. He’s not coming back. And even if he did—you think he’d want a knocked-up brothel girl hanging off his arm?”
You clench your fists. “He will.”
Yoru gets in your face. “You’re going back to work.”
“No.”
“I own you.”
“Not anymore.”
He slaps you.
It’s not hard enough to knock you down—but it’s loud. And it burns. Your cheek stings, and your vision blurs for half a second.
The hallway goes still.
You lift your head slowly, the taste of copper on your tongue. You don’t flinch. You don’t cry.
“You just hit the mother of a shinobi’s child,” you say, voice low.
He falters, just slightly.
“I don’t think he’d like that very much.”
Yoru grabs your arm again, tighter this time. “You’ll do what you’re told. You’ll smile. You’ll open your legs. And when that bastard leaves you, you’ll still be here. Just like the rest.”
Your voice shakes, but not from fear. From fury.
“I’d rather die on the street than take another man into my body while his child’s inside me.”
He lets go like you burned him.
You take a breath. Stand straighter.
“I’m done,” you say. “You touch me again, and I scream. You send a customer to my door, I kill him. And if you think for one second that Jiraiya won’t burn this entire place down when he finds out, you’re more senile than I thought.”
He says nothing.
Good.
You turn your back on him and walk away—your pace steady, your spine steel. Your cheek still burns.
The plan is working.
You have something he can’t take. Something he’ll never touch again.
And when Jiraiya comes back?
You’re leaving.
Weeks After Walking Out
You tried.
You really, really tried.
When you left Yoru’s brothel, you did it with your head held high and a belly full of righteous fire. You’d made your decision. You weren’t going to sell your body while carrying another human life inside it—his life, Jiraiya’s. You weren’t going to play the game anymore, dance for men who saw you as something to use, someone to forget. You told yourself you’d be okay. You had a plan. But plans sound different in your head than they do echoing off the alley walls at night.
That first week, you got by. Barely. You’d stashed away a few ryo under the floorboards before you left—tips you’d scraped together from clients too drunk to count, extra coins slipped to you by girls who owed you small favors. You sold a robe, the one with the stitched cranes that had once made you feel elegant. You parted with a silver hairpin that a samurai had given you during his brief obsession with your laugh. It stung to let it go, but sentiment didn’t feed you. You rented a single futon at a cramped inn above a noisy tavern and counted yourself lucky that the walls only shook when the drunkards got loud.
You lived on rice and dried squid and pickled daikon that burned your mouth and lingered on your breath. It was enough. Barely. The mornings were harder. You were sick before the sun came up, sick before your feet even hit the floor. Every dry heave reminded you that this wasn’t just hardship anymore—this was your body being turned inside out by something small and stubborn growing inside it. You kept a hand on your belly like that would help, like maybe the warmth of your palm could soften the edges of your fear.
By the second week, the money was running out. You stopped going to the inn and started sleeping on borrowed mats, floors that smelled like sweat and smoke. Sometimes you curled up behind kitchens, waiting for scraps. A barmaid from the tavern gave you the crusts from her rice balls. You wanted to cry, but you thanked her instead. You were hungry all the time. Not just stomach-hollow hungry, but bone-deep, mind-splintering hungry. Your body needed more than you could give it.
By the third week, you were desperate. You told yourself you wouldn’t go back to that life, and maybe you didn’t fully. Not yet. But you did what you said you wouldn’t. You let a man touch you. Just above the knee. You leaned in when he looked at you like you were still worth the price. You gave him a smile, warm and heavy-lidded, the kind that used to bring men to their knees. He thought he might get more, and you let him think it. He left you a few coins on the table, and you didn’t meet his eyes when he stood up to leave.
You hated yourself. The shame came in waves—hot, choking, slow to fade. You told yourself you did what you had to. You whispered that survival was a war, and wars demand sacrifices. But it didn’t feel like strength. It felt like slipping. Like losing something you hadn’t meant to give up.
After that, you avoided places you used to know. You kept to alleys, moved with your head down, your hand always resting on your belly like that would be enough to protect it from the world. You thought about going back to the brothel more than once. Not to work—never again for Yoru—but for a roof, for heat, for something other than the cold shoulder of the city.
You were sure the other girls would hate you. You imagined them laughing behind painted fans, whispering about how you’d played yourself. How you got out, got cocky, and then got knocked up. You pictured them hard-eyed and cruel, saying what Yoru never had to: you’re nothing without this place.
You were wrong.
You ran into Kiku in the market, and everything changed.
She was carrying a sack of vegetables over one shoulder, her sleeves rolled and hair pinned up like always. She looked like someone with a purpose. You froze when you saw her, but she didn’t freeze. She stopped in her tracks, eyes flicking to your face, then your belly. Her mouth parted like she wanted to say something but hadn’t prepared the words. Then she spoke, quiet and sharp.
“Is it true?” she asked, voice roughened by disbelief.
You said nothing.
Her brow creased as she stepped closer. “Is it his?”
You didn’t answer, but you didn’t have to. She knew.
She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath all month. “Shit.”
Then—before you could move, before you could speak—she reached out and pulled you into her arms. No hesitation. No drama. Just warmth. Just arms tight around your shoulders like she’d never expected to see you again but always hoped she would.
“I’ll get the others,” she murmured into your ear. “They’ll want to know.”
You stood there, stunned, arms limp at your sides, unsure whether to cry or run or fall to your knees.
But for the first time in weeks, you felt like you weren’t dying.
By sundown, you were back in the girl’s wing.
Not as a worker. Not as a piece of property. As something else. Something closer to family.
The space hadn’t changed. The paper walls still bore faint lipstick smudges. The curtains still fluttered too much in the breeze. But the air felt softer now. Like you were allowed to exist in it without selling a part of yourself.
Rei, the oldest, brewed tea laced with ginger and told you to drink it slow. She sat beside you on the mat and rubbed your back as you gagged through another wave of nausea. Suki, who barely tolerated anyone and once broke a man’s nose for calling her soft, shoved a rice ball into your hands with a scowl.
“Shut up and eat,” she said, voice low. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
You did eat. And cried, just a little, when no one was looking.
Mina found an extra futon. She fluffed the blanket herself, muttering about how you were going to catch cold sleeping out there like a damn dog. “You stay here now,” she said, not asking. “This kid’s not gonna freeze because of your pride.”
Even the quiet girls—ones who barely looked up during dinner—came close, offering towels, combs, little things that mattered more than gold. They didn’t treat you like a burden. They didn’t call you stupid. They didn’t judge you for leaving, or coming back, or carrying something that didn’t belong to Yoru.
They just... helped.
And it wasn’t safety, not really. But it felt like something close.
Something like peace.