The candlelight inside the wooden cabin was dim.
An awkward silence settled over the room.
The Uchiha really wanted to explain that they were not familiar with the guy lying on the floor.
But Tamao felt great and continued rambling on.
Yinyue calmly sipped his tea.
He was already used to this sort of thing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Mikoto and noticed her staring fixedly at the swaddled baby in Jaeger's wife's arms.
"This lord sure knows how to joke," Jaeger laughed awkwardly, breaking the tension.
Izumi's eyes suddenly lit up. She jumped to her feet, hurried to Jaeger's wife, and asked excitedly,
"Can I hold the baby?"
Jaeger's wife looked at her husband.
Jaeger smiled and nodded.
Only then did she carefully pass the baby into the arms of the beautiful young woman with the tear mole beneath her eye.
Izumi took the child, her face blooming with joy. Her eyes sparkled as she gently rocked the baby, doing her best to soothe the loudly crying, porcelain-like infant.
Izumi's parents had been ordinary Uchiha civilians who died during the Nine-Tails' rampage.
Ever since then, she had loved children. She believed newborns possessed the purest souls in the world, which made her feel especially close to them.
"Waa—!"
Unfortunately, the baby was unimpressed. No matter how long Izumi tried to comfort him, he only cried harder.
Izumi's brows knit together as she panicked, unsure what to do.
The baby clearly didn't like her.
The scene felt eerily familiar, stirring a sense of frustration in her heart. Instinctively, she looked toward Yinyue—but his expression remained calm, indifferent to the crying.
Izumi was instantly stuck in an awkward position.
"I'll take him."
Mikoto took the swaddled infant from Izumi's arms. Izumi didn't refuse—she was more than happy to step down gracefully.
Everyone turned to look at Mikoto.
The beautiful clan leader's wife, guided by maternal instinct, began carefully checking the baby, massaging his tiny body with practiced, gentle movements.
The baby's cries noticeably softened.
The Uchiha couldn't help but think—
Compared to Izumi's clumsy rocking, Mikoto looked completely natural holding a baby, as though she had been born to be a kind and gentle mother.
Izumi pouted, feeling wronged.
After a while, the baby was still crying, which struck Mikoto as strange.
Jaeger's wife frowned, worry creasing her brow, fearing something might be wrong.
Izumi, on the other hand, smiled faintly to herself.
Mikoto pressed her lips together and carried the baby back to her seat, planning to use the special trick she once used to lull Sasuke to sleep.
But the moment she sat down—
The cabin suddenly fell silent.
The baby's crying vanished, as though it had never existed.
Everyone stared at Mikoto.
They silently marveled—as expected of the clan leader's wife!
Mikoto looked stunned. She lowered her gaze to the baby, her rosy lips parting slightly as her brows furrowed.
Yinyue was staring at the infant in her arms.
At that exact moment, the baby sensed someone watching him, opened his bean-sized eyes, and stuck out his tongue.
Big eyes met small ones.
"Mm—"
The baby suddenly squinted, broke into a grin, and happily waved his chubby little hands, performing an instant face-change for everyone in the room.
The child was asking Yinyue to hold him.
"What's going on…?"
The Uchiha exchanged bewildered looks.
Mikoto froze for a moment, her brows lifting slightly as emotion flickered through her eyes. She couldn't understand how her tried-and-true baby-soothing techniques were inferior to a single look from Yinyue.
She was a mother of two, after all.
She could tell the baby wasn't hungry, wasn't uncomfortable, and hadn't been frightened.
He was just being fussy.
"This…"
Jaeger and his wife were equally puzzled, yet somehow they could sense that—compared to the tear-mole girl and the elegant noblewoman—their child seemed especially eager to be close to Yinyue.
Izumi's lips parted as she recalled something and murmured,
"Grandma once said… babies instinctively feel closer to people who are gentle, kind, and pure of heart…"
The moment she said that—
Every Uchiha in the room wore strange expressions.
If you said Captain Yinyue used to be gentle and kind, sure—but pure of heart?
Not to mention the life-for-life sacrifice he made.
Though they had all benefited from it.
Some Uchiha nearly asked aloud:
"Can someone who covets a widow really be pure-hearted?"
Mikoto frowned slightly and passed the swaddled baby toward Yinyue.
Yinyue hesitated for a moment before reaching out and taking him.
This was his second life.
And his first time holding a baby.
He felt a bit awkward, afraid of using too much force and making the child uncomfortable. But he quickly found the right balance.
He didn't notice that Mikoto's gaze softened as she watched him.
"Mmm—"
The baby seemed as though he had returned to a warm bed, wrapped in a sense of security. He lay quietly in Yinyue's arms, closed his eyes, and fell fast asleep.
The crowd watched Yinyue—gentle as water—holding the child, then recalled the ferocious image of him killing Danzō.
The contrast was…
Staggering.
Mikoto was half-convinced by Izumi's words, but regardless, she added another label to Yinyue in her heart:
"Loved by babies."
Yinyue's gaze gradually softened as well. He held the sleeping infant quietly, waiting with the others for Nanpū and the rest to return.
During that time, Jaeger tried again to persuade Yinyue to stay the night, but Yinyue refused.
About an hour later—
Bang!
The cabin door burst open.
"Captain Yinyue, we're ba—"
Nanpū returned with two teammates. One foot barely crossed the threshold when he scanned the room and was struck by a bolt of lightning.
He froze, eyes wide, jaw slack.
At the table—
Yinyue was holding a baby.
Mikoto sat beside him.
The scene was peaceful, warm, and oddly domestic.
"Wait—no—I—I was only gone for a bit! How—how do you already have a kid?!"
Nanpū's scalp tingled. He pushed up his glasses, stammering, staring at Yinyue and Mikoto as if demanding an explanation.
The three of them were genuinely afraid Mikoto might smile sweetly and say:
"Yes. We have a child."
That would have shattered all common sense.
Yinyue and Mikoto turned toward the door at the same time.
Nanpū and the others were holding a rope.
At the other end was a middle-aged man wearing only red underpants, his leg hair thicker than a receding hairline.
The man avoided eye contact, face bruised and swollen, trembling as he hid behind Nanpū.
Yinyue looked puzzled.
The other Uchiha—including Jaeger—wore expressions so strange they bordered on painful. Jaeger clearly recognized the man, but this was not the time to claim familiarity.
"What's going on?"
Izumi asked, shielding her eyes from the visual assault.
Nanpū snapped back to attention and replied,
"This is the most famous doctor in Kikyo City. When we found him, he was… treating someone."
No one felt reassured.
"What kind of doctor treats people with his pants off?"
Izumi said scornfully.
Nanpū answered bluntly,
"Oh, he was in the VIP room of the red-light district. There were lots of women inside.
When we asked him to come with us, he refused.
So we beat him up and asked what he was doing there. He said he was saving those poor women."
Yinyue, hearing this, returned the sleeping baby to Jaeger's wife.
"Go back to the bedroom. This isn't suitable for children."
Blushing, Jaeger's wife rolled her eyes at the indecent doctor outside and hurried away.
Mikoto's face flushed red with embarrassment. She sighed inwardly—how could Nanpū bring someone like this back?
Yinyue walked up to the disheveled man, seeing through him at once, and said coldly,
"A medical ninja?"
The balding man nodded weakly.
"I participated in the Third Great Ninja War. Assigned by Konoha Hospital to the border."
Yinyue grabbed him by the canvas collar and lifted him like a chicken, carrying him over to the bandaged Tamao.
"Do everything you can to treat him," Yinyue said calmly.
The doctor glanced up at Yinyue. The fear in his eyes looked as though it were being pierced by senbon needles—he couldn't bear to meet the young man's gaze.
"O-okay, I'll save him—but you have to promise to let me go afterward!"
The doctor tested the waters.
He had been hired by rogue ninja before, but they were always polite.
This was the first time, in all his years as a medical ninja, that he'd encountered such crude and overbearing people.
"Mm."
Yinyue tossed him beside Tamao and said nothing more.
Tamao weakly opened his eyes, glared at the doctor, and scoffed.
"Brother, this guy looks like he's in late-stage kidney deficiency. Doesn't seem reliable."
The doctor, surprisingly easygoing now that he had Yinyue's promise, squatted down and laughed cheerfully.
"A healer cannot heal himself."
(End of Chapter 18)