A Doctor Cannot Heal Themselves

The candlelight in the wooden house was dim.

The atmosphere turned awkward.

The Uchihas really wanted to explain that they were not familiar with the guy lying on the ground.

Tamao, feeling quite pleased with himself, continued rambling on.

Ingetsu calmly sipped his tea.

He was already used to such things.

He glanced sideways at Mikoto and saw her staring intently at the infant swaddled in Yager's wife's arms.

"This lord certainly knows how to joke." Yager broke the deadlock with an awkward smile.

Izumi's eyes lit up. She suddenly stood, walked over to Yager's wife, and said excitedly:

"May I hold the baby?"

Yager's wife looked at her husband.

Yager smiled and nodded.

Only then did she carefully place the child into the arms of the beautiful girl with the tear mole before her.

Izumi took the baby, her smile blossoming as her eyes shone. She gently rocked the child in her arms, doing her best to soothe the adorable, exquisitely delicate infant who was bawling his heart out.

Izumi's parents had been ordinary members of the Uchiha clan, and they had perished during the Nine-Tails' attack.

Ever since then.

Izumi had loved children. She felt that newborn babies possessed the purest souls in the world, making her feel especially close to them.

"Waah—!"

However, the infant was having none of it. After Izumi tried soothing him for ages, he only cried harder.

Izumi's delicate brows furrowed as she stood there at a loss.

The baby seemed not to like her.

The familiar scene filled Izumi with frustration. She instinctively looked at Ingetsu, but his expression remained calm, utterly unconcerned by the baby's crying.

Izumi was immediately left in an awkward position.

"Let me."

Mikoto took the swaddled infant from Izumi's arms. Izumi did not refuse, happy to take the way out.

Everyone else turned to look at Mikoto.

Driven by maternal instinct, the beautiful and captivating Clan Leader's Wife began examining the infant, massaging every part of his body with practiced, patient, and meticulous movements.

Sure enough, the baby's cries softened considerably.

All the Uchihas felt that.

Compared to Izumi's inexperienced rocking, Mikoto looked far more natural holding the baby, as though she was meant to be a gentle and virtuous mother.

Izumi pouted, feeling wronged inside.

After a while.

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

Yager's wife frowned, a trace of worry appearing between her brows as she feared something bad might have happened.

Izumi, meanwhile, smiled faintly to herself.

Mikoto pressed her lips together.

Holding the baby, she returned to her seat, intending to use the secret technique she had once used to put baby Sasuke to sleep.

But the moment she returned to her seat.

The wooden house suddenly fell silent.

The baby's cries seemed as though they had only been everyone's imagination.

Everyone looked at Mikoto.

They could not help but sigh inwardly. As expected of the Clan Leader's Wife!

Mikoto looked surprised. She lowered her head to look at the baby, her rosy lips parting slightly as her brows knitted tightly.

Ingetsu was staring at the baby wailing in the swaddling clothes. Just then, sensing someone's gaze upon him, the baby opened his tiny beady eyes and stuck out his tongue.

They stared at each other.

"Mm—"

The baby suddenly narrowed his eyes, broke into a grin, and started laughing. He happily waved his chubby little hands, putting on a face-changing performance for everyone in the room.

This child was asking Ingetsu to hold him!

"What's going on...?"

The Uchiha exchanged glances.

Mikoto froze for a moment, her delicate brows lifting as her eyes shifted. She could not understand how her usual method 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 child was not hungry, had no stomach discomfort, and had not been frightened.

He was simply being fussy.

"This..."

Yager and his wife did not quite understand either, but they could vaguely sense that, compared to the tear-mole girl and the elegant noblewoman, their child seemed much more willing to get close to Ingetsu.

Izumi parted her lips slightly, seemingly recalling something as she murmured, "Grandma once said that infants instinctively feel closer to people who are gentle, kind, and pure of heart..."

The moment she said that—

Every Uchiha present wore strange expressions. If she said Captain Ingetsu had once been gentle and kind, that was certainly true. But to say that the captain was pure of heart...

Setting aside the matter of Captain Ingetsu trading his life for another's.

After all, they had benefited from it as well.

One of the Uchiha dearly wanted to ask:

"Can someone who covets a widow really have a pure heart?"

Mikoto frowned slightly and held the swaddled baby out before Ingetsu. Ingetsu paused, hesitated for a moment, then reached out and took the infant.

This was his second life.

And the first time he had ever held a child.

He was a little at a loss.

He was afraid that gripping too hard would make the baby uncomfortable. However, Ingetsu quickly found the right amount of strength. He did not notice that Mikoto's gaze upon him gradually softened as she watched him hold the child.

"Mmm—"

It was as though the infant had returned to his blankets, wrapped in a sense of security. He lay quietly in Ingetsu's arms without moving, closed his eyes, and drifted into a deep sleep.

Everyone looked at Ingetsu, holding the infant with a gentle, refined air, then recalled the savage look on his face when he killed Danzo.

The contrast...

Was simply enormous.

Mikoto only half believed what Izumi had said, but that did not stop her from adding another label to Ingetsu in her heart:

"Popular with babies!"

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

During that time, Yager tried once more to persuade Ingetsu to stay the night, but Ingetsu refused again.

About an hour passed.

Bang—

The wooden house door opened.

"Captain Ingetsu, we're ba—"

Nanfeng returned with two team members. The instant he stepped inside, with only half a foot over the threshold, he swept his gaze across the room and was struck as if by a bolt from the blue, standing there dumbfounded.

By the table in the wooden house—

Ingetsu was holding a baby, while Mikoto sat beside him. The scene was peaceful, relaxed, happy, and warm.

"No... I... I was only gone for a little while. How... how do you already have a child?"

Nanfeng's scalp went numb. Holding his glasses, he could not even speak clearly as he stared blankly at Ingetsu and Mikoto, honestly hoping for an explanation from the two of them.

The three of them were somewhat afraid that Mikoto would smile sweetly and say, "Yes, we have a child!"

That would be utterly worldview-shattering!

Ingetsu and Mikoto looked toward the door at the same time.

Nanfeng and the other two were holding a rope, the end of which was tied to a middle-aged man wearing nothing but red briefs, with leg hair thicker than the hair on his balding head.

The middle-aged man's eyes darted about. His face was bruised and swollen, and he hunched timidly with his head lowered, too ashamed to face anyone. Hiding behind Nanfeng, he trembled uncontrollably.

Ingetsu looked puzzled.

The expressions of the other Uchiha, including Yager, could not have been stranger. Yager seemed to know the man, but in this situation, it was better to pretend they were strangers.

"What happened?"

Unable to bear the eye-searing sight, Izumi hurriedly asked.

Nanfeng snapped out of it and responded, "This is the most famous doctor in Kikyo City. When we found him, he was saving someone."

Everyone immediately found that unreliable.

"What kind of doctor takes off his pants to save someone?"

Izumi said disdainfully.

Nanfeng said bluntly:

"Oh, he was in a private room in the Kabuki District, with a lot 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 pitiful women!"

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

Yager's wife blushed, rolled her eyes at the improper doctor outside the door, and hurried back into the room.

Mikoto's face instantly flushed red. She felt utterly embarrassed, yet inwardly sighed. How could Nanfeng and the others have brought back someone like this?

Ingetsu walked up to the sleazy doctor, saw through him, and said coldly, "A Medical Ninja?"

The balding man nodded. Lacking confidence, he replied weakly, "I took part in the Third Shinobi World War. Konoha Hospital assigned me to the border."

Ingetsu reached out with his right hand, grabbed the man by his canvas collar, and lifted him like a chick before carrying him over to the "mummy," Tamao. He said calmly:

"Do everything you can to treat him."

The seemingly sleazy doctor looked up at Ingetsu. His timid gaze seemed to have been pierced by Senbon, and he did not dare meet the sharp-eyed young man's stare.

"Alright, alright, I'll help save him. But you have to promise to let me go once he's healed!"

the doctor said probing.

He had previously been invited by rogue ninja to treat people, but those rogue ninja had always treated him politely.

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

"Mm." Ingetsu tossed 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 terminal stages of kidney deficiency. He doesn't seem very reliable!"

This doctor was rather easygoing. Having received Ingetsu's promise, he crouched beside Tamao and said cheerfully:

"A healer can't heal himself!"