104 Naruto's Beastly Instincts

Jiraiya burst into hearty laughter, showing not a shred of shame. If anything, he was quite pleased with himself for coming up with such an apt metaphor for finding joy in misery.

Watching Jiraiya laugh like a child in his forties, Orochimaru's lips twitched. He suddenly recalled Kushina's final instructions to Naruto on her deathbed.

The Three Prohibitions of the Shinobi—alcohol, lust, and extravagance—and a fourth, additional taboo: Jiraiya.

Seeing Jiraiya's utterly irreverent manner now, Kushina had certainly not wronged him. If the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki were to be raised by Jiraiya, the boy would turn out to be a little pervert at the very least.

In truth, Orochimaru was worrying needlessly. Even without Jiraiya's influence, how could a great shinobi who, at the tender age of eleven or twelve, would invent the "Harem Jutsu" and use it to defeat Kage-level powerhouses on multiple occasions be summed up by a mere label like "little pervert"?

"..."

After his laughter subsided, Jiraiya, seeing that Orochimaru was not leaving immediately, welcomed him inside.

Orochimaru stepped through the door, glanced left and right, and nodded slightly.

The house was reasonably tidy. Although Jiraiya was an irreverent old rogue and rather unkempt, he had lived alone for so long that taking care of an infant was still within his capabilities.

However, it was barely that.

Faced with a baby's dirty diapers, even Jiraiya—one of the Legendary Sannin of Konoha and a top-tier powerhouse of the shinobi world—possessed no advantage over ordinary humans.

Lacking the gentleness of a woman, he was often careless, frequently causing little Naruto to burst into loud wails. To deal with such situations, Jiraiya could hardly unleash a "Sage Art: Big Ball Rasengan" to solve the problem once and for all; he could only pinch his nose and slowly adapt.

The phrase "finding joy in misery" was by no means an exaggeration.

Having led Orochimaru into the living room, Jiraiya quickly stepped over to little Naruto to resume his unfinished task.

Wiping, changing, washing... his movements were fluid and practiced.

Catching the foul odor in the room, Orochimaru frowned slightly. With a flick of his hand, he conjured a gentle breeze to sweep the smell out of the window.

On a battlefield or an operating table, such things were nothing; he had encountered far worse odors and witnessed much more horrific scenes. But in daily life, when there was no need to endure it, Orochimaru saw no reason to subject himself to such discomfort.

Jiraiya, who was in the middle of popping a bottle into Naruto's mouth, scratched his head at the sight. Truth be told, after staying here for so long, he had actually grown somewhat accustomed to the smell.

"The old man is really just letting you do this?" Orochimaru pulled up a chair and sat down, pouring himself a cup of tea. He shot a sidelong glance at Jiraiya. "Why not hire a nanny to look after the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?"

"Hire a nanny? Who would I hire?" Jiraiya sat down on another chair, cradling Naruto. He teased the baby, who was clutching the bottle, and gave a bitter smile. "Don't be fooled by how small this little guy is. His intuition is sharper than anyone's. He can spot malice in a person's heart instantly."

"I wouldn't feel safe trusting an ordinary person who knows nothing, and those who do know about the Nine-Tails sealed inside him..."

Jiraiya sighed. "Even Kakashi, when facing his teacher's child, harbors a certain wariness toward the Nine-Tails inside him due to his own perceived lack of strength, let alone anyone else."

"I even tried someone as simple-minded as Guy. He didn't make little Naruto cry, but expecting Guy to actually take care of him is nothing short of a pipe dream."

Jiraiya looked down at Naruto, who was greedily guzzling his milk, and let out a long sigh.

Seeing Jiraiya like this, Orochimaru's interest was piqued. "A beast-like intuition, is it? Let me try."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "You? I'd rather you didn't. Feeding time is when he's at his most peaceful, and I don't want to deal with him crying."

Jiraiya harbored no prejudice against Orochimaru. In fact, it was precisely because he had no illusions and knew exactly what kind of person Orochimaru was that he was so confident in his prediction.

"Heh..." Orochimaru narrowed his eyes slightly. "Then you should also know that even without touching him, I have ways to make him cry."

Jiraiya glared at him, though he knew such a look held no threat for Orochimaru. Realizing this, he grumbled, "A grown man, yet you still bicker like a child."

Even so, Jiraiya handed Naruto over. He knew Orochimaru's temperament; once the man set his mind to something, he wouldn't back down. Jiraiya simply resolved to mock him mercilessly the moment Naruto started to wail.

At first, things went exactly as Jiraiya had anticipated. The moment Orochimaru took him, Naruto stopped drinking his milk. He began to flail his arms and legs, struggling desperately.

"See? I told you so," Jiraiya said, standing up to take the baby back before the crying started. But in the next instant, his eyes widened.

"Orochimaru" shot a glance at Jiraiya, a gentle smile gracing his face. "It seems this intuition isn't so infallible after all. It can be deceived."

Sure enough, in his arms, Naruto stopped struggling. He opened his round, wide eyes, appearing even calmer than usual.

Jiraiya looked at Naruto, then at Orochimaru's saintly smile, completely dumbfounded. Compared to a moment ago, Orochimaru's aura had shifted so drastically that he seemed like an entirely different person—so much so that even his former teammate could barely recognize him.

Orochimaru—or rather, the Genie who had taken control of Orochimaru's body—smiled at Naruto, easily dissolving the infant's wariness. The little guy even began to show signs of affection toward him, making Jiraiya, who was watching from the side, feel a twinge of jealousy.

*I was the one who was here first!*

The Genie felt no pride in this. His copying ability could replicate even his host's skills, to say nothing of mere facial expressions and temperament. With Tanjiro's warm, sunny disposition, how hard could it be to win over an infant who relied solely on instinct? If anything, failing to do so would have been the real challenge.

In truth, once Naruto grew older, deceiving him wouldn't even require this much effort. In the original timeline, Mizuki had exploited Naruto's desperate need for affection to easily mislead him. Of course, one could also argue that in his yearning for love, Naruto chose to ignore his instinctual warnings, actively deceiving himself to avoid seeing the malice underneath. It was no different now.

The Genie licked his lips, pulled a syringe from his robes, and pricked the baby's shoulder to draw blood.

Jiraiya snapped out of his daze, his expression instantly hardening. He instinctively opened his mouth to roar, but checking himself out of concern for Naruto in Orochimaru's arms, he suppressed his rage and demanded in a low, tense voice, "Orochimaru, what do you think you're doing?"

"Don't be tense, I mean no harm," the Genie said with a smile. "Though he is small, he still carries the Uzumaki bloodline. Losing this tiny amount of blood won't do him any harm."

Jiraiya replied flatly, "Even so, absolutely not."

"Whether it's allowed is not for you alone to decide." The Genie tucked the blood-filled syringe back into his robes and smiled. "The little guy himself doesn't seem to mind, so why meddle on his behalf?"

Jiraiya looked down into Orochimaru's arms, only to find that little Naruto was merely staring up with his round, sapphire-blue eyes. He hadn't cried at all, as if the pain of the needle prick meant nothing to him.

This was truly bizarre!

With no outlet for his anger, Jiraiya felt a wave of frustration. He muttered gruffly, "He's still too young to understand anything. I'll let it go this once, but don't think you can ever use this as an excuse again."

The Genie smiled and nodded.