Chapter 218: A-Mu the Jinx
Stelle remained confined to the sterile white walls of the Konoha hospital for a full half-month.
Once the superficial bruising on her face finally faded, Senju Tetsuya switched her treatment to an internal regulation regimen. This meant boiling down raw herbs into three massive bowls of pitch-black sludge for her to consume every single day.
The medicinal juice was so aggressively bitter that Stelle questioned her very existence the second it touched her tongue. Yet, she had no room to refuse. Drinking that toxic sludge daily made her feel more dead than alive.
Seriously, couldn't they just compress this nightmare into a pill? It wasn't like the medical technology didn't exist in this village. Even if the medicinal efficacy dropped slightly, it wasn't a life-or-death emergency anymore.
When Tetsuya approached the bed with yet another bowl of dark, viscous, bubbling misery, Stelle's gaze lingered longingly on the open window. She briefly calculated the fall damage before pinching her nose shut and forcefully gulping the sludge down her throat.
"Here, a milk candy."
Tetsuya opened his palm, revealing a perfectly square, snow-white cube wrapped in clear plastic.
"Thank you!"
Stelle didn't dare act polite. If she delayed even a second longer, she was going to violently empty her stomach across the pristine bedsheets.
Just as tears of pure, unadulterated bitterness welled up in her eyes, the ward door slid open. Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura stepped inside.
Hiruzen, currently in his prime, already radiated that warm, grandfatherly aura he would carry into his twilight years. He looked kind, approachable, and entirely harmless.
As for Danzo... well. He hadn't quite fully evolved into the utterly sinister leader of Root just yet, but with his spiky hair and stiff, elevated chin, he carried an aura that could make a toddler burst into tears on sight. He actually attempted to force a gentle smile onto the corner of his mouth. It would have been infinitely better if he hadn't. The strained upward twitch of his facial muscles made him look like a predator baring its teeth.
Seeing the little girl physically recoil in sheer terror at his 'smile', Danzo let out a sharp 'tche' and reluctantly retreated to stand by the window, keeping his distance.
Hiruzen, on the other hand, played the role of the friendly neighborhood uncle to perfection. He casually chatted with Stelle about the hospital food over the past few days, pulling out a small tin of colorful candies. He popped the lid open and offered it to her, clearly well-versed in the ancient art of coaxing children. Through casual chatter about snacks and sweets, he effortlessly lowered her guard.
"You're getting along well with your classmates at the academy, right?" Hiruzen asked, his eyes crinkling warmly. "That boy named Obito has been terribly worried about you. These past few days, he's been constantly wandering around the hospital grounds. He even scaled the outer walls a few times. In the middle of the night, he gave several patients quite a fright."
Stelle's eye twitched. That was absolutely something Obito would do.
She shrank back slightly, asking in a timid, wavering voice, "Then... is he alright?"
"Oh, he's full of boundless energy every single day. He's nearly turned every ward upside down searching for you, giving the doctors and nurses quite a headache."
Hiruzen's gaze swept over her pale face, calculating and observing. He reached into the tin, picked out a candy wrapped in shiny foil, and gently pressed it into her small palm.
"Although there are some unpleasant things in Konoha, there are still many beautiful things waiting for us to discover. Speaking of which, you and Kakashi Hatake share a desk, don't you? Are you two getting along?"
Stelle toyed with the crinkling foil wrapper, keeping her head lowered. She offered a small nod. "Classmate Kakashi looks really fierce, but he's actually a very gentle person."
Those words gave Hiruzen absolute confidence in his next move.
"I have arranged a new family to take care of you," the Hokage announced softly. "From now on, you will have a warm home. I'm sure you will get along wonderfully."
The little girl froze. Silence stretched across the hospital room, thick and heavy.
"Adopted... again..."
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her small shoulders trembling as if gathering a massive amount of courage just to speak.
"Can I... can I just live by myself? I can take care of myself. And Kikushi, too. As long as I can manage the living allowance on my own. Once I've saved up enough money, I can even take Kikushi to see a real doctor."
The moment those words left her lips, the atmosphere in the room shifted. The gazes of the adults flickered. A deep, heavy pity surfaced in their eyes, and a fresh wave of emotional value points began pouring into Stelle's system interface.
Stelle noticed the influx immediately. Her mind raced, quickly identifying the root cause of this sudden overwhelming sympathy.
[System, when Inoichi Yamanaka read the memories in my brain, what exactly did you show him?]
[Playing fabricated memory log...]
The system projected the fake memories directly into Stelle's mind on the spot.
In this blurred, tragic montage, the little girl originally had a wonderfully happy home. Then, one sunny day, she went out to play and accidentally stumbled across two rival factions of shinobi engaged in a brutal skirmish. The fighting spilled back to her house. Her parents were crushed by the collateral damage of a stray ninjutsu while desperately trying to shield her. If they hadn't covered her with their own bodies, she would have been reduced to ash.
From that day on, the orphaned girl wandered the rain-soaked wastelands of the Land of Rain.
One day, a seemingly kind stranger offered her a warm steamed bun, only to immediately drug her and sell her off to the Jashin Cult for human experimentation. For two agonizing years, she was repeatedly drained of her blood for their rituals.
Fortunately, she met a boy slightly older than her within the cult's dungeons who shielded her from the worst of the abuse, keeping her barely alive. Later, when the Jashin Cult erupted into violent internal strife, that boy took advantage of the bloody chaos to lead her out. He died a gruesome death covering her retreat, buying her the precious seconds needed to escape.
She then wandered all the way to the Land of Water. There, she stumbled upon a critically injured rogue ninja and nursed him back to health. The moment the rogue awoke and noticed how pretty she looked after washing the grime from her face, he dragged her to the Red Light District and sold her for a quick payday.
But as luck would have it, a kind-hearted courtesan in the district took pity on her and took her in. Sometime later, a fleeing shinobi used a Transformation Jutsu to disguise himself as one of the district girls, hiding in their specific brothel to evade hunter-nin.
The pursuit squad inevitably tracked him down. A catastrophic battle broke out right in the middle of the Red Light District, completely obliterating the building. At the critical moment, the kind courtesan shoved her out of the way of a collapsing support beam. The little girl survived, but the courtesan was crushed to death before her very eyes.
Afterward, the traumatized girl clung to the undercarriage of a merchant's wagon, fleeing the village when it rolled out. The driver, a genuinely good man, eventually discovered her hiding spot. Instead of throwing her out, he brought her all the way to the Land of Fire, promising her that there were many orphanages there where she could finally live in peace.
Naturally, they were immediately ambushed by bloodthirsty bandits. Through a series of chaotic coincidences, she was finally 'rescued' and adopted by Kobayashi Isamu—a scum-of-the-earth genin who only wanted to exploit Konoha's subsidy system.
The system played this entire sequence for Stelle like a high-budget tragic movie, even overlaying a devastatingly sorrowful violin soundtrack in the background. It was a masterpiece of misery—a story guaranteed to make listeners weep and observers break down in despair.
Stelle:...
Suddenly, she didn't want to speak anymore. She hugged her knees, buried her face in her pillow, and shrank into the furthest corner of the hospital bed. She desperately wanted to find a crack in the floorboards and crawl inside.
This is way, way, way too melodramatic!
The system hadn't just made her a victim; it had turned her into a literal jinx. The kind of walking disaster where anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness died a horrific death. The word 'tragic' didn't even begin to cover this absolute circus of a backstory!
However, in the eyes of the adults, her silent, shrinking posture took on an entirely different, heartbreaking meaning. She was terrified of cursing another family.
Hiruzen and Danzo exchanged a complex glance. When the Hokage spoke again, his tone was softer than a gentle breeze.
"Don't worry. You've already met the family I found for you this time. It's Kakashi's father. He's not a ninja, just an ordinary cook. He's a very gentle man, and his cooking is absolutely delicious. I know you two will get along wonderfully."
"Kakashi's father?" Stelle peeked out from behind her pillow, her previous resistance evaporating.
"That's right. Sakumo-kun is also very much looking forward to having a daughter."
Hiruzen was being exceptionally patient, perhaps subconsciously influenced by the girl's face. His tone had naturally shifted into the same endless, fretting warmth he used to reserve for the Fourth Hokage—a nostalgic change he hadn't even realized himself.
"Then... what about Kikushi?" she asked softly.
"Rest assured, I will arrange for a specialist to treat her, and then find her a suitable, safe job. You will have plenty of opportunities to see each other in the future." Hiruzen smiled warmly. "What do you think?"
Stelle hesitated for a long moment, her fingers gripping the bedsheets, before giving a tiny, hesitant nod. "Then... can I learn how to make ramen with Uncle Hatake? Once I learn, I can just make ramen to support myself when I grow up."
"That's perfectly fine, but..." Hiruzen blinked, momentarily derailed by the little girl's sudden career pivot. "Doesn't A-Mu want to become an excellent ninja in the future? I remember your good friend Obito loudly declaring his dream to become Hokage."
Stelle shook her head, her tone deadpan and utterly solemn. "No. I want to live a simple life."
What an absolute joke, Hiruzen thought to himself. A Rinnegan wielder who possesses the raw power to obliterate Konoha in a single move claims she doesn't want to be a ninja.
Despite the sheer absurdity of the situation, Hiruzen's expression remained perfectly unchanged, his smile as kind and grandfatherly as ever.
Some things needed to be approached slowly. There was no need to rush. Tying her down with reliable, loving bonds in Konoha was the absolute highest priority right now.
Standing by the window, Danzo felt the urge to interject, but remembering the strict warning Hiruzen had given him before they entered, he swallowed his words.
Forget it, Danzo thought, his jaw tightening. I handle the village's finances, Hiruzen handles the village's heart. Better to save myself the headache and let him deal with this walking time bomb himself.
"The future is still very far away," Hiruzen said smoothly, patting her blanket. "A-Mu is still just a child. There's no need to think so heavily about such things. You just need to focus on growing up happily."
Turning toward the sliding door, Hiruzen called out, "Sakumo, please come in."
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