A Doctor Cannot Heal Himself

The candlelight in the wooden house was dim.

The atmosphere turned awkward.

The Uchihas really wanted to explain that they weren't familiar with the guy on the floor.

Tamao, feeling good, continued to ramble.

Ingetsu calmly drank his tea.

He wasn't surprised by this.

He glanced sideways at Mikoto and saw her staring fixedly at the baby in Jaeger's wife's arms.

"This lord really knows how to joke." Jaeger laughed awkwardly, breaking the stalemate.

Izumi's eyes lit up. She suddenly stood and went over to Jaeger's wife, saying excitedly:

"Can I hold the baby?"

Jaeger's wife looked at her husband.

Jaeger smiled and nodded.

Only then did she carefully place the baby into the arms of the pretty girl with a beauty mark beneath her eye.

Izumi took the baby and broke into a radiant smile. Her eyes sparkled as she gently rocked the baby, doing her best to soothe the adorable, exquisitely crafted infant, who was bawling at the top of its lungs.

Izumi's parents were civilian members of the Uchiha Clan, and they had perished during the Nine-Tailed Fox Disturbance.

Ever since then,

Izumi had liked children very much. She felt that newborn babies possessed the purest souls in the world, which made her feel especially close to them.

"Waaah—!"

Unfortunately, the baby wasn't having it. After Izumi soothed it for a long while, it cried even more fiercely.

Izumi's willow brows furrowed slightly, and she was at a loss.

The baby seemed not to like her.

This scene felt oddly familiar, leaving Izumi frustrated. She instinctively looked toward Ingetsu, but his expression was calm, and he didn't care about the baby's cries.

Izumi was suddenly stuck in an awkward position.

"Let me!"

Mikoto took the baby from Izumi's arms. Izumi didn't refuse, taking the opportunity to step down gracefully.

Everyone else looked at Mikoto.

The beautiful and charming clan head's wife, driven by her maternal instincts, began examining the baby. She massaged every part of its body with practiced, patient, and meticulous movements.

The baby's cries really did grow much softer.

All the Uchihas felt that

Compared with Izumi's unskilled rocking, Mikoto looked much more natural while holding the baby, as if she were meant to be such a gentle and virtuous mother.

Izumi pouted, feeling aggrieved.

After a while,

The baby was still crying, and Mikoto found it strange.

Jaeger's wife furrowed her brows, a hint of worry appearing between them as she feared that something bad had happened.

Izumi, however, gave an unobtrusive little smile.

Mikoto pursed her lips.

She carried the baby back to her seat, intending to use her special technique for getting Sasuke to sleep.

But the moment she returned to her seat,

The wooden house suddenly fell silent.

The baby's cries seemed to have been nothing more than everyone's hallucination.

Everyone looked at Mikoto.

They couldn't help sighing inwardly. As expected of the clan head's wife!

Mikoto looked astonished. She lowered her head to look at the baby, her rosy lips falling open as her brows drew tightly together.

She saw Ingetsu staring at the bawling baby in the swaddling clothes. As it happened, the baby sensed someone's gaze, opened its beady little eyes, and stuck out its tongue.

Big eyes met little eyes.

"Mm—"

The baby suddenly narrowed its eyes and grinned, then began laughing. It happily waved its chubby little hands, putting on a face-changing performance for everyone in the room.

This child was asking Ingetsu to hold it!

"What is going on...?"

The Uchihas looked at one another.

Mikoto froze for a moment, her delicate brows lifting slightly as her eyes shifted. She couldn't understand how her usual technique for coaxing babies to sleep had lost to a single look from Ingetsu.

She was the mother of two children.

She could tell that the baby wasn't hungry, that its stomach wasn't uncomfortable, and that it hadn't been frightened.

It was simply being fussy.

"This..."

Jaeger and his wife didn't quite understand either, but somehow, they could sense that compared with the girl with the beauty mark and the elegant, dignified woman, their child seemed much more willing to get close to Ingetsu.

Izumi's lips parted. Thinking of something, she murmured, "Grandmother once said that babies instinctively grow closer to people who are gentle, kind, and pure of heart..."

The moment she said this,

All the Uchihas present developed strange expressions. If she said that Captain Ingetsu used to be gentle and kind, that was true. But if she said that Captain Ingetsu was pure of heart...

Not to mention the matter of Captain Ingetsu exchanging his life for theirs.

After all, they had benefited from it too.

Some Uchiha really wanted to ask:

"Can a man who has his eye on a widow have a pure heart?"

Mikoto furrowed her brows slightly and held the swaddled baby out toward Ingetsu. Ingetsu was stunned for a moment, hesitated briefly, and then reached out to take the baby.

This was his second life.

It was his first time holding a child.

He was somewhat at a loss.

He was afraid that using too much force would make the baby uncomfortable. However, Ingetsu quickly found the right amount of strength. He didn't notice that the look in Mikoto's eyes as she watched him hold the baby was gradually becoming gentler.

"Mm—"

The baby seemed to have returned to its bed, wrapped in a sense of security. It lay quietly in Ingetsu's arms without moving at all, closed its eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

Everyone watched Ingetsu holding the baby, his manner as gentle as water, then recalled the scene of his face contorted savagely as he killed Danzo.

They couldn't help feeling...

The contrast was enormous.

Mikoto only half-believed what Izumi had said, but that didn't stop her from adding another label to Ingetsu in her heart:

Popular with babies!

Ingetsu's gaze gradually softened as well. He quietly held the baby and waited with everyone else for Nanfeng and the others to return.

During that time, Jaeger tried again to persuade Ingetsu to stay the night, but Ingetsu refused every time.

About an hour later,

Bang—

The door of the wooden house opened.

"Captain Ingetsu, we're ba..."

Nanfeng returned with two team members. The instant he entered, one foot crossing the threshold, he swept his gaze across the room and was struck by a bolt from the blue. He stood there dumbfounded.

By the table in the wooden house,

Ingetsu held the baby, with Mikoto sitting beside him. The scene was relaxed and peaceful, warm and happy.

"Wait... I... I was only gone for a little while. How, how do you already have a child?"

Nanfeng's scalp prickled. Adjusting his glasses, he couldn't even speak coherently. He stared blankly at Ingetsu and Mikoto, honestly hoping to get an explanation from the two of them.

The three of them were a little afraid that Mikoto would smile sweetly and say, "That's right, we have a child!"

What an earth-shattering blow to their worldview that would be!

Ingetsu and Mikoto simultaneously looked toward the door.

Nanfeng and the other two were pulling a rope. Tied to the end was a middle-aged man wearing nothing but a pair of red underpants, with leg hair thicker than a Mediterranean man's bald patch.

The middle-aged man darted his eyes around. His face was bruised and swollen, and he huddled timidly with his head lowered, afraid to face anyone. He hid behind Nanfeng, trembling.

Ingetsu looked puzzled.

The other Uchihas, including Jaeger, wore expressions as strange as could be. Jaeger seemed to know the man, but considering the current situation, it was better not to know him.

"What happened?"

Unable to bear looking at the eyesore, Izumi quickly asked.

Nanfeng came to his senses and replied, "This is the most famous doctor in Kikyo Castle. When we found him, he was saving someone."

Everyone immediately felt that this didn't sound reliable.

"Who takes off his pants when saving someone?"

Izumi said disdainfully.

Nanfeng answered bluntly:

"Oh, at the time, he was in a private room in Kabukicho, and there were lots of women inside.

When we found him,

He refused to come with us.

So we beat him up and asked what he was doing there. He said he was saving those poor women!"

Upon hearing this, Ingetsu handed the sleeping baby in his arms back to Jaeger's wife. "Go back to the bedroom. This isn't suitable for children."

Jaeger's wife blushed, rolled her eyes at the indecent doctor outside the door, and hurried back to the room.

Mikoto's face instantly flushed with embarrassment. At the same time, she sighed inwardly. How could Nanfeng and the others bring someone like this back?

Ingetsu came before the lecherous doctor. Seeing through the situation, he asked coldly, "A Medical Ninja?"

The Mediterranean man nodded and replied weakly, his voice lacking strength, "I participated in the Third Shinobi World War. The Konoha Hospital assigned me to the border."

Ingetsu extended his right hand, grabbed the canvas collar of his clothes, and lifted him like a chick to Tamao, the "mummy," then said calmly:

"Treat him to the best of your ability."

The seemingly lecherous doctor looked up at Ingetsu. His timid gaze seemed to have been pierced by Senbon, and he didn't dare meet the sharp-eyed young man's eyes.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll help save him, but you have to promise to let me leave once he's healed!"

The doctor tested the waters.

He had been invited by rogue ninja to save people before, but those rogue ninja had always treated him courteously.

Since becoming a Medical Ninja, he had never encountered such a crude and overbearing group.

"Mm." Ingetsu threw the doctor beside Tamao and said no more.

Tamao weakly opened his eyes, glared at the doctor, and said disdainfully, "Big brother, this doctor looks like he's in the late stages of kidney deficiency. He doesn't seem reliable!"

This doctor was rather carefree by nature. After receiving Ingetsu's promise, he squatted beside Tamao and cheerfully said:

"A doctor cannot heal himself!"