Chapter 219: A Condition for Coming to My House (Bonus Chapter)
The hospital room door clicked open, revealing Sakumo Hatake. Gone was his usual grease-stained chef's uniform with its frayed cuffs. In its place, he wore a set of crisp, light blue loungewear that draped neatly over his broad shoulders. He had shaved his scruffy beard and trimmed his unruly silver hair, carefully grooming himself until he looked like an entirely different person—a shrewd, capable, and striking middle-aged man.
As his dark eyes met Stelle's, Sakumo's pupils contracted by a fraction of a millimeter. Hiruzen Sarutobi had already briefed him on her appearance, warning him of the uncanny resemblance, but seeing that familiar face in the flesh still sent a jolt of shock straight through his chest.
He masked the reaction flawlessly. His expression smoothed into a warm, sincere smile as he strode over to her bedside.
"Although this isn't exactly our first meeting, it is our first formal one," he said, his voice a soothing, rich baritone. "Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Sakumo Hatake, Kakashi's father, and the owner of the Mirakutei Ramen shop. Please take care of me in the days to come."
Just like that, under the Third Hokage's careful arrangement, Stelle officially became Sakumo's adopted daughter.
Initially, Sakumo had planned to whisk her straight out of the sterile hospital environment, take her shopping for new clothes and daily necessities, and head straight home. But Chief Medical Ninja Senju Tetsuya immediately vetoed the idea, insisting on a final, agonizingly thorough round of examinations.
Tetsuya was particularly ruthless about her physical recovery. He prescribed a mountain of bitter herbal medicine, instructing Sakumo to brew a fresh, foul-smelling bowl for her to choke down with every single meal.
Hearing that her days of drinking literal sludge were far from over, Stelle's eye twitched. She lay flat on the medical trolley, her face a mask of utter, soul-crushing resignation as the nurses wheeled her into the specialized examination room for yet another round of Rinnegan checks.
What is there even left to check? she grumbled internally. It's a Rinnegan. It works fine. I take excellent care of my eye-hax.
The rhythmic humming of the medical ninjutsu and the sheer, mind-numbing boredom of the procedure quickly took their toll. Within minutes, Stelle's eyelids drooped, and she fell fast asleep.
Drifting in the hazy space between consciousness and slumber, she casually ordered the System to play a horror movie in her mind to pass the time.
The System happily obliged, instantly weaving a hyper-realistic dreamscape.
The scenery shifted. Stelle found herself dumped right back into the brutal Sengoku Period, right at the exact moment she had first transmigrated. Because she hadn't yet unlocked her loan projects and knew absolutely nothing about this blood-soaked era, the second her novice protection barrier shattered, a shinobi hidden in the canopy mistook her for an enemy spy. Cold steel flashed. Her throat was slit before she could even blink.
What followed was a relentless, looping montage of a hundred gruesome deaths from her early days. She was mauled to pieces by mutated wild beasts. She was beaten into a bloody pulp by a patrol from the Hagoromo Clan. She was caught in the crossfire of a massive clan melee and blown to ash. She slipped and plummeted off a jagged cliff. She died frothing at the mouth after eating a toxic berry. And, perhaps most humiliatingly, she drowned in a shallow river after tripping over a rock.
The sheer visceral trauma of the looping death-reel snapped Stelle awake. She bolted upright on the hospital bed, her chest heaving as she gasped for air. Cold sweat clung to her skin, her eyes wide with genuine, unadulterated terror.
[System, are you trying to stage a rebellion?!] she shrieked in her mind. [Why the hell would you show me that?!]
[Did you not explicitly state that you were bored and requested a horror movie for stimulation?] the System replied, its mechanical tone dripping with artificial innocence. [I calculated that you have not truly feared anything in years, save for your initial arrival in this world. Ergo, maximum stimulation achieved.]
She just wanted to watch a cheesy slasher flick, not star in a VR torture simulator! Stelle ground her teeth, entirely convinced this garbage System was deliberately trolling her. She wiped her forehead, her hand coming away slick with cold sweat.
"Had a nightmare?" a gentle voice asked. "It's alright. Dreams aren't real."
Sakumo, who had been sitting patiently by her bedside the entire time, leaned forward. He pulled a clean tissue from the box on the nightstand and carefully dabbed the beads of sweat from her brow. His large, calloused hand moved to her back, patting her in a slow, rhythmic motion. The soothing gesture was surprisingly practiced, revealing a man who was unexpectedly good at taking care of children.
A sharp knock interrupted the quiet atmosphere, and the door swung open. Kakashi marched into the room, clutching a bouquet of pink carnations. His masked face was set in a stern, expressionless line, but his entire posture practically radiated dark, stormy displeasure.
He stomped toward the bed, ready to fulfill his forced familial duty, but froze the moment he got a clear look at the patient. A confused, uncertain sound slipped past his mask.
Those familiar dark eyes. That choppy, rough-cut short hair. And the immediate, instinctual reaction of shrinking back and lowering her head the second she saw him—who else could it possibly be but his infuriatingly timid desk-mate?
Except... she wasn't wearing her usual heavy scarf. And the horrific burn scars that supposedly covered the lower half of her face were completely gone. Without the disfigurement, her features were delicate, cute, and undeniably pretty. The drastic change threw his brain into a temporary short-circuit.
Kakashi stared, his visible eye scanning her face several times before he finally found his voice. "A-Mu? Your face... it's healed?"
"Mm! The Uncle Director healed me," Stelle replied, tilting her head and offering him a bright, eye-crinkling smile.
Kakashi immediately snapped his head away, staring very hard at the blank hospital wall. A sudden, traitorous heat crept up the back of his neck and settled in his cheeks. He cleared his throat loudly, stepped up to the bed, and shoved the bouquet of carnations into her hands.
Though his face remained mostly hidden and stoic, the dark cloud of annoyance that had followed him into the room had completely evaporated.
Once Stelle took the flowers, Kakashi whirled on his father. "The person you're bringing home is A-Mu? Why didn't you just tell me that beforehand?!"
Sakumo threw his head back and laughed heartily. "Because I wanted to give you a surprise, Kakashi!"
Surprise my foot, Stelle thought, deadpan.
She seriously questioned the White Fang's parenting logic. What kid would actually be thrilled if their parent suddenly dragged a random orphan home without warning? That wasn't a surprise; that was a jump scare.
Kakashi rolled his signature dead-fish eye.
Just yesterday after school, his dad had casually dropped the bomb that he was bringing a little girl home to develop, and that Kakashi was expected to look after her. At the time, Kakashi had been utterly baffled. Why would his dad, a man who seemingly only cared about perfecting his ramen broth and running his shop, suddenly decide to adopt a daughter?
Worse, Sakumo hadn't even discussed it with him. It was an executive order. Kakashi hated the idea of a complete stranger intruding on their quiet, structured life. He had voiced his objections, but Sakumo had completely ignored him, humming happily while deep-cleaning the entire house.
Kakashi had been furious. He had given his dad the silent treatment all night. And today after school, Sakumo had pulled an even more outrageous stunt: having a shop employee ambush Kakashi with a bouquet of flowers and an order to go to the hospital to "pick up his new sister."
Sakumo had even anticipated Kakashi's stubborn refusal, bribing him by promising that if he just went to the hospital, he would take him to see A-Mu so they could work on those impossibly difficult practice sheets together.
Kakashi had never expected the new sister and A-Mu to be the exact same person.
His gaze drifted back to the girl sitting on the bed.
If it's her... I guess it's not so bad, he reasoned internally. At least it'll be way more convenient to force her to explain those bizarre math formulas Dad keeps giving me.
He cleared his throat again, adopting an authoritative stance. "I don't have any objections to Dad bringing you home. But there is one condition you must agree to."
"Kakashi!" Sakumo scolded, his tone laced with parental disapproval.
"Dad, don't interfere," Kakashi shot back without looking away. He leaned closer to the bed, his visible eye locking onto Stelle's with intense seriousness. "The condition is this: when you talk to me from now on, stop staring at the floor like I'm some kind of monster about to eat you."
Stelle kept her chin tucked against her chest. "I understand."
She said she understood, but her posture didn't change a single millimeter.
Kakashi sighed, exasperated. "I literally just told you not to look down. Lift your head."
Following orders a little too literally, Stelle snapped her head up.
Because Kakashi was leaning in so closely to make his point, the sudden upward trajectory of her skull resulted in a vicious, bone-rattling CRACK. The crown of her head collided directly with the point of his chin.
Both of them hissed in sharp breaths of cold air. Kakashi stumbled back, clutching his throbbing jaw, while Stelle grabbed the top of her head, her eyes watering.
"Seriously?!" Kakashi groaned, rubbing his chin. "Don't just jerk your head up like that! Are you completely dense in every single aspect of life that doesn't involve a practice sheet?"
Stelle rubbed her bruised scalp and mumbled softly, perfectly playing the part of the timid victim. "But... the book says that people who don't use their brains and only use their fists are simple-minded and physically overdeveloped."
Kakashi froze, his brain stalling for a few seconds as the insult registered. He glared at her. "You should be saying that to Uchiha Obito, not me."
Hey, hey, Stelle snickered internally. Keep talking trash like that, and Obito might just Kamui into your bedroom in the middle of the night to beat you up.
Outwardly, she blinked her large, innocent eyes. "Kakashi, you shouldn't talk about Obito like that."
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