Danzo's Biological Son?

Konoha, Hokage's Office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi parted his lips slightly, disbelief in his eyes.

Across from him stood a ninja dressed as an Anbu, holding the hand of a small child.

The reason Hiruzen Sarutobi, the well-informed Third Hokage, wore such an expression was precisely this child before him.

The child looked three or four years old, short in stature, with thin arms exposed beyond his sleeves. His black hair hung loose over his shoulders in a particularly messy tangle, while his black eyes remained hidden beneath his bangs, impossible to read.

A child like this, one who looked like he could be found anywhere in the ninja world, should not normally have drawn the attention of someone as important as the Hokage.

Yet not only had he alarmed the Hokage, he had also brought in another figure whose status was second only to the Hokage's.

Bang.

With a muffled sound, the Hokage's Office doors were shoved open roughly, followed by a gloomy voice.

"Hiruzen, what could possibly be so urgent? Don't you know I—"

The voice cut off abruptly as Shimura Danzō narrowed his one eye and studied the Anbu-clad ninja.

"Douhu? Weren't you sent to Kirigakure on a mission? Why are you back so soon?"

As the head of the Anbu Training Department, Danzo naturally recognized the ninja before him, even if the man was under the Hokage's direct command.

"Lord Danzo." Douhu nodded politely, then turned his gaze toward Hiruzen.

"Mm, tell him, Douhu." The instant Danzo had pushed open the door, Hiruzen's expression had returned to the usual one he wore at work. When Douhu looked toward him, he even took out his pipe.

"Yes, Lord Hokage. This is what happened, Lord Danzo..."

Having received Hiruzen Sarutobi's approval, Douhu finally recounted everything that had happened to him in Kirigakure.

However, what he described was simply too shocking.

"What did you say?!" After hearing the account, Danzo went completely numb.

"You said this little thing is my son?!" Danzo no longer retained his usual composed and dignified bearing. He raised his bandage-wrapped right arm and pointed at the child clutching Douhu's leg, his face full of disbelief.

"Yes, that's right..." Douhu said stiffly.

"Bullshit! When did I ever—" Danzo no longer cared about appearances, even blurting out a curse as he swore to defend his innocence.

But before he could finish, he stopped arguing on his own.

Then, before everyone's eyes, Danzo lowered his arm and stared fixedly at the child, who had shrunk behind Douhu's leg in fear. The color on his face kept shifting.

"Hah." Just as no one knew what to do next, Danzo let out a long breath. His gaze softened, and his tone was no longer as firm as before. "Where is that thing?"

Danzo's words were baffling at first, but Douhu seemed prepared. He immediately took a kunai from his clothes and handed it to Danzo.

"This was something the child kept on him at all times, so..." As he handed over the kunai, Douhu did not forget to explain where it had come from.

"Mm..." Danzo merely answered faintly, then held the kunai and stared at it in silence.

"Ahem. You may leave for now. Douhu, take the child around the village. Oh, and remove your gear first," Hiruzen Sarutobi reminded him. An Anbu wandering around the village with a child would be far too conspicuous.

"Yes." After agreeing, Douhu took the child's hand and left the Hokage's Office.

They kept moving through the corridors until they finally reached a room resembling a changing room, where quite a few Anbu were changing their equipment.

"Ah, Senior, you're back. Long time no see." Several Anbu greeted Douhu familiarly.

"Mm, yes." As Douhu responded to each of them, he led the child to a covered walkway where several benches had been placed.

"Kazashiro, wait here for me. I'll be right back after I change." After settling him on a bench and receiving an answer, Douhu hurried into the changing room.

"Whew, damn, that scared me to death." Only after Douhu entered the room, with no idle people around—or at least none in plain sight—did the boy named Kazashiro finally let out a breath, his face still filled with lingering fear.

Kazashiro was not a native of the ninja world in the conventional sense. His soul had come from Blue Star. He did not know whether he had simply stumbled into incredible luck, but after closing and opening his eyes, he found himself in a new world, reborn as a newborn infant.

As time passed and he gradually came to understand the world before him, he was shocked to discover that he had been reincarnated into the world of Naruto.

Wasn't that just fucking great?

Taking stock of what he had, Kazashiro found a drafty little house, a mother in poor health, and a father whose whereabouts were unknown. He felt completely numb.

Naruto? The prerequisite was that you had to be a ninja! With his current circumstances, hadn't he been turned straight into a civilian of the Naruto world?!

And Naruto had ended many years ago. Aside from remembering that Naruto successfully brought Sasuke back and sealed the Ōtsutsuki in the finale, he could only recall the rest of the plot vaguely.

System, where was the system? Come out and save me already?!

Unfortunately, no matter how Kazashiro tried, he could not summon any system.

It seemed he could only accept reality and live as a civilian until he died of old age. Fortunately, he had been reborn in the Land of Water. So long as he did not become a ninja, whatever the Bloody Mist Village got up to had nothing to do with him.

Kazashiro had indeed thought so at the time.

Until, when he was three years old, his mother—worn down by years of overwork and on the verge of death—told him two things.

The first was that his mother came from the Ice Release Clan and had changed her name and hidden here for reasons everyone knew well.

The second was that his father was not dead. He was a Konoha ninja named Danzo, and she still had a token he had left behind.

"Mom, you—" After hearing all this, Kazashiro went completely numb.

Good grief. Either part of his background alone would have made it impossible for him to survive in the Land of Water, let alone both together.

It's over, it's over. This little mouse was really about to be scrubbed clean this time~

Looking at the kunai and training scroll his mother had given him, Kazashiro felt somewhat sad.

For his mother, and for himself as well.

"Have you been waiting long?" A familiar voice interrupted Kazashiro's memories. He looked up to see a somewhat familiar face before him.

"Mm, not really." Looking at the man's silver hair, Kazashiro felt as though he had overlooked something important.

"That's good. Let's go." With a gentle smile, Douhu held out his hand and expertly took Kazashiro's.

"Oh, and don't call me by my code name in the village. Just call me Uncle Sakumo. My son is about the same age as you, after all." As they walked, Sakumo instructed Kazashiro.

"Okay, Uncle Sakumo." Kazashiro nodded obediently.