The next day.
"...The situation is complicated, but in short, Kousei's father is me!"
Naruto announced loudly to the group, the slightly shy little girl perched on his shoulder.
Among them, Haku and Zabuza, the caretaker duo, weren't too surprised as they already knew.
If anything was unexpected, it was how easily Naruto had accepted such a 'fantastical' explanation.
In contrast, the shock on everyone else's faces was much more pronounced.
"What what!? Naruto, you bastard, you fool! You already have a daughter!?"
B, who had once wanted to form a rap duo with Naruto, shouted.
Sasuke's eyes also held disbelief.
'Seriously, man? We graduated from the academy at the same time. How do you already have a kid?'
The breakfast in his hand was halfway to his mouth, but he'd forgotten to open it.
Roshi, Yugito, and Fu, the three team members who didn't know Naruto very well, were actually the most accepting.
After all, when they voluntarily (were forced to) joined the team, Naruto already looked like a young man in his twenties.
In the Ninja World, starting a family at that age wasn't strange at all.
Gaara's expression wasn't as shocked as Sasuke's, but his eyes still scanned back and forth between Naruto and Kousei several times.
He had actually planned to help the little girl find her biological father once he returned to the Land of Wind.
He never imagined that Kousei's so-called father was far away in the ends of the earth, yet right before his eyes.
'Looking at it now, there was indeed some resemblance between the two...'
Jiraiya's gaze was complex.
He could accept this.
After all, even something as unbelievable as 'crossing worlds' had happened to Naruto. A daughter who could travel through time to find her father wasn't that much stranger.
'Minato, Kushina... if only you could see this...'
In the heart of this Toad Sage, who is past fifty and still single, Minato was not just his student, but more like a son to him.
And Naruto was like a grandson and disciple combined.
To think he himself was still unmarried, while his grandson-figure already had a daughter.
'Sigh...'
At this thought, he couldn't help but think of his own unrequited love… Tsunade, whose whereabouts were currently unknown.
'Ah... should I try confessing one more time?'
Leaving aside the great literary master contemplating a sunset romance, let's focus on the most shocked and least accepting person in the group.
Karin.
'Her world came crashing down' perfectly described Karin's expression at this moment.
So stunned, Karin was frozen in place.
Her hands covered the sides of her face, her mouth formed into a perfect [O], as if she had stepped right out of the painting [The Scream].
Karin had crashed.
"NOoooo.... Waaaaaah..."
Karin knelt down internally, howling at the sky, like the Tidehunter reincarnated.
...
Throughout the rest of the day, while everyone was shocked, they weren't that unable to accept reality.
Watching Naruto and Kousei interact just like before, everyone grew accustomed to it.
Not much had changed, really.
The only difference…
Thump!
Yugito watched as Karin, for who-knows-what-time, walked head-first straight into a tree trunk, and pulled her back with a sigh.
She understood the young girl's feelings perfectly.
Faced with the fact that her crush already had a child, what was even harder for Karin to accept was that the child's mother wasn't her.
Even after the little girl explained she was from the future, meaning Naruot's child who hadn't been born yet, Karin was still on the verge of collapse.
Because the little girl clearly told everyone her mother was an Empress, ruling a country called 'Kuja'.
Obviously, Karin didn't fit any part of that description.
She even considered setting sail immediately to start her own path to domination, but the little girl had also mentioned her mother's name.
Boa Hancock.
A name that sounded completely different from the naming conventions of the Ninja World.
'Ahhhhhhh!!!'
'It makes no sense!'
'Why isn't Naruto-san's wife me!!'
Contrary to her dazed actions, a war was raging inside the girl's head.
The chaotic thoughts made her expression wilt. She seemed drained of her soul, listless and disoriented.
Even Sasuke, who usually didn't get along with Karin, felt a pang of sympathy.
He sneaked over to Naruto and poked him while he was still interacting with his daughter.
"Hey… Aren't you going to do something about Karin?"
Hearing this, Naruto's expression didn't change. He very naturally covered the little girl's ears with his hands, then turned to look at Sasuke.
"Sasuke... you really don't understand a girl's heart."
"???"
'Wait, isn't this your problem? How did this get turned back on me?'
Being told this actually made Sasuke a little less confident.
"You... sort out your own thing with Sakura before meddling in this. You wouldn't understand a young girl's feelings."
"What does this have to do with Sakura?!"
Naruto didn't elaborate further on the topic, simply turning back to continue feeding snacks to his daughter.
Now that he knew Kousei shared his bloodline, her appetite didn't seem strange to him at all.
She could eat!
And that was a good thing!
As for Karin-
It was the same as before. In Naruto's eyes, Karin was always just a little sister.
Although this body's biological age was only in its teens, Naruto had genuinely lived for over thirty years.
How could a middle-aged man in his thirties develop feelings for a little girl in her teens, not even an adult yet?
Wouldn't that make him a pervert?
So, from beginning to end, Naruto only treated Karin as a junior from the same clan, never developing even a hint of romantic feeling.
The girl's admiration for him would, in his view, inevitably fade with time.
What he needed to do was refuse clearly and unambiguously, without giving the girl any unrealistic fantasies.
That was what a mature man should do.
Besides... wasn't the emotional baggage he carried already complicated enough?
Although Kousei hadn't mentioned it, Stussy certainly wouldn't give up either.
He wondered if a clone could get pregnant...
Naruto thought that if she couldn't, given Stussy's personality, she might very well take his 'genetic material' to Vegapunk for artificial cultivation of an heir.
Thinking this, his sense of urgency grew stronger.
'I needed to resolve the current situation quickly and return to the pirates world.'
But when his eyes fell on Kousei, they shifted uncertainly.
'What should I do about Kousei?'
'Should he take her directly back to the pirates world? Or find a way to send her back to her own time.'
'That time when 'I' had disappeared.'
Just as Naruto was tangled, a commotion arose in the distance.
He instinctively released his Observation Haki. When he 'saw' the faces causing the disturbance, the corner of his mouth twitched into a slight grin.
'How... coincidental.'