The dim candlelight flickered in the wooden cabin.
The atmosphere grew awkward.
The Uchiha members were tempted to clarify that they didn't know the man lying on the ground very well.
Tamao, feeling fine, kept rambling.
Kuroki calmly sipped his tea.
This was nothing out of the ordinary for him.
He glanced at Mikoto, noticing she was staring intently at the baby in the arms of Jaeger's wife.
"You're quite the joker, sir," Jaeger said with an awkward smile, breaking the tension.
Izumi's eyes sparkled as she suddenly stood up and approached Jaeger's wife, excitedly asking,
"May I hold the baby?"
Jaeger's wife looked to her husband.
He smiled and nodded.
Only then did she cautiously hand over the baby to the beautiful young woman with the tear mole.
Izumi took the baby, her face lighting up with a smile, eyes gleaming as she gently rocked the crying, adorable baby, who looked as though they were carved from jade, trying her best to soothe it.
Izumi's parents, both commoners from the Uchiha clan, had died in the Nine-Tails' attack.
Since then...
Izumi had developed a fondness for children. She believed newborns had the purest souls in the world, making her feel especially close to them.
"Waah—!"
But the baby wasn't having it. Despite Izumi's soothing, the baby cried even harder.
Izumi's eyebrows furrowed, and she became flustered.
It seemed the baby didn't like her.
The scene felt familiar, and Izumi felt a sense of frustration. She instinctively looked at Kuroki , but his face remained calm, seemingly unbothered by the baby's cries.
Izumi felt stuck.
"Let me try!"
Mikoto took the baby from Izumi's arms, and Izumi didn't refuse, gladly stepping down from her attempt.
Everyone else turned their attention to Mikoto.
The clan leader's beautiful wife, driven by maternal instincts, began checking the baby, massaging its body with skillful, patient hands.
The baby's cries immediately lessened.
The Uchiha all silently agreed.
Compared to Izumi's inexperienced attempts, Mikoto holding the baby seemed far more natural, as though she was meant to be a gentle and caring mother.
Izumi pouted, feeling a bit wronged.
After a while...
The baby was still crying, which puzzled Mikoto.
Jaeger's wife furrowed her brows, worry flashing across her face, as if fearing something bad might happen.
Izumi, on the other hand, gave a subtle smile.
Mikoto pursed her lips.
She returned to her seat with the baby, intending to use her special technique that had always worked to lull baby Sasuke to sleep.
But just as she sat down…
The cabin suddenly fell silent.
It was as if the baby's cries had been a mere illusion to everyone.
Everyone looked at Mikoto.
They couldn't help but silently praise her — no wonder she was the clan leader's wife!
Mikoto, however, was surprised. She glanced down at the baby, her lips parting slightly as she furrowed her brows.
She saw Kuroki gazing at the baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, and at that moment, the baby sensed someone watching, opened his tiny eyes, and stuck out his tongue.
Big eyes met small ones.
"Hmm—"
The baby suddenly squinted, grinned, and began happily waving its chubby little hands, putting on a show of expressions for everyone in the room.
The baby was asking Kuroki to hold them!
"What… is happening?"
The Uchiha members exchanged bewildered glances.
Mikoto was stunned, raising her delicate eyebrows, her eyes filled with curiosity. She couldn't understand how her tried-and-true method for soothing babies could be outdone by a mere glance from Kuroki .
She was a mother of two, after all.
She could tell the baby wasn't hungry, its stomach wasn't upset, and it hadn't been frightened.
The baby was simply fussy.
"This…"
Jaeger and his wife didn't understand either, but deep down, they could sense that their baby seemed far more willing to be close to Kuroki than to the tear-moled girl or the elegant woman.
Izumi's lips parted as she mumbled, "Grandma used to say that babies instinctively are more drawn to those who are gentle, kind, and pure-hearted…"
With those words...
All the Uchiha present started to show strange expressions. If you were to say Captain Kuroki was once gentle and kind, that would be true, but if you were to say his heart was pure...
Let's not even talk about Captain Kuroki trading his life for others. After all, they were beneficiaries too.
One Uchiha couldn't help but want to ask:
"Someone who thinks about widows—can his heart really be pure?"
Mikoto frowned slightly and handed the baby in the swaddle to Kuroki . Kuroki was stunned, hesitated for a moment, then chose to reach out and take the baby.
This was his second life.
The first time holding a child.
He felt a bit clumsy.
Afraid that if he used too much strength, he would make the baby uncomfortable. But Kuroki quickly got the hang of it. He didn't notice that Mikoto's gaze became softer as she watched him hold the baby.
"Hmm—"
The baby, as if back in a cozy bed, wrapped in a sense of security, quietly lay in Kuroki 's arms, unmoving, closing its eyes, and drifting into a deep sleep.
Everyone stared at Kuroki , holding the baby, calm and gentle like water. They then thought back to his savage face when he killed Danzo.
It just felt like...
Such a sharp contrast.
Mikoto was half-skeptical about what Izumi had said, but it didn't stop her from mentally giving Kuroki another label: "Good with babies!"
Kuroki 's expression also gradually softened as he held the baby quietly, waiting with everyone for Naruki and the others to return.
During this time, Jaeger tried again to get Kuroki to stay the night, but Kuroki refused every time.
About an hour later...
Bang—
The door to the cabin opened.
"Captain Kuroki , we're back..."
Naruki entered with two teammates. As soon as he stepped through the door and glanced around the room, he was struck by a bolt from the blue, stunned beyond words.
By the table in the cabin—
Kuroki was holding the baby, and Mikoto sat next to him. The scene was peaceful, calm, happy, and warm.
"Wait... I was only gone for a little while, how... how do you already have a child now?"
Naruki felt his scalp tingle, adjusting his glasses, stammering as he stared at Kuroki and Mikoto, clearly hoping for some sort of explanation.
The three of them were scared that Mikoto would suddenly smile and say, "Yes, we have a baby!"
What an earth-shattering event that would be!
Both Kuroki and Mikoto looked toward the door.
Naruki and his team were holding a rope, with the end tied around a middle-aged man wearing red shorts, whose leg hair was thicker than someone from the Mediterranean.
The middle-aged man's gaze was evasive, his face bruised and swollen. He kept his head down, trembling, hiding behind Naruki, too scared to show himself.
Kuroki looked puzzled.
The rest of the Uchiha, including Jaeger, all had strange expressions. It seemed Jaeger recognized the man, but given the current situation, it was better to pretend not to know him.
"What's going on?"
Izumi, unable to bear the awkwardness, quickly asked.
Naruki snapped out of it and replied, "This is the most famous doctor in Kikyogyo City. When we found him, he was saving lives."
Everyone immediately felt suspicious.
"Who saves lives without pants on?" Izumi scoffed.
Naruki bluntly explained:
"Oh, he was in the VIP room of a club in Kabukicho. There were lots of women inside.
When we found him,
he didn't want to come with us.
So, we beat him up. When we asked what he was doing there, he said he was saving those poor women!"
Upon hearing this, Kuroki handed the sleeping baby back to Jaeger's wife. "Take the baby to the bedroom. This isn't appropriate for children."
Jaeger's wife blushed, rolling her eyes at the indecent doctor outside the door before quickly heading back to her room.
Mikoto's face flushed immediately with embarrassment. She felt ashamed, silently cursing Naruki and his group for bringing such a person back.
Kuroki walked over to the sleazy doctor, noticed something, and coldly said, "A medical ninja?"
The Mediterranean-looking man nodded weakly, barely able to muster up any strength. "I fought in the Third Shinobi War. I was assigned to Konoha Hospital near the border."
Kuroki reached out with his right hand, grabbed the man's canvas collar, and lifted him up like a chick, carrying him over to the 'mummy' Tamao, saying calmly:
"Do your best to heal him."
The sleazy doctor glanced at Kuroki , his cowering gaze pierced as if by a thousand needles, too scared to look directly at the sharp-eyed young man.
"Okay, okay, I'll help. But you have to promise that once I heal him, you'll let me go!"
The doctor cautiously asked.
He had been forced by rogue ninjas to heal people before, but those ninjas were always polite to him.
Ever since becoming a medical ninja, he had never encountered such a crude and domineering group.
"Fine," Kuroki replied, tossing the doctor down beside Tamao, saying nothing more.
Tamao weakly opened his eyes, glaring at the doctor with disdain. "Dude, this doctor looks like he's in the final stages of kidney failure. He doesn't seem reliable!"
The doctor, despite his sleazy appearance, had a laid-back personality. After getting Kuroki 's promise, he squatted beside Tamao, chuckling:
"A doctor can't heal himself!"
(End of chapter)