Chapter 19: My Name is Stelle
Inside the Hokage's office, the air was thick with scrutiny.
Four grown men—legends in their own right—fixed their gazes on Stelle, sizing her up as if she were a puzzle to be solved. Their stares were like interrogator's lamps, each projecting a different emotion: sharp suspicion, a disquieting nostalgia, and outright surprise.
Stelle stood poised in the center of the room, allowing them to examine her. Her persona was a fortress, carefully constructed and utterly flawless. They could investigate all they wanted; she felt not a single flicker of nervousness.
"Brat," a deep voice cut through the silence. "What is your name?"
Uchiha Madara's brow was furrowed, the sight of a face so achingly similar to his deceased friend's stirring a deep-seated irritation within him. He couldn't help but wonder if the Daimyo's court had uncovered something and was now playing some clandestine trick.
Stelle tilted her head as if in thought, then answered his question with a serious, childlike gravity.
"The servant who brought me to Konoha… before he died, he told me to forget everything from the past. He said I should stay here, in Konoha, with a new identity. But the matron at the orphanage is very busy, so she hasn't given me a name yet." She offered a small, placating smile. "You can call me whatever you want. 'Brat' is fine."
She wasn't lying. The relationship between Konoha's leadership and the old nobility was fraught with tension. Arriving as a noble orphan would do her no favors in the long run. The last words of that dying servant had been a frantic, repeated warning: forget the past, forget you were ever a noble.
Senju Tobirama's sharp eyes carefully scanned the young girl. Her skin was fair, her fingers slender and smooth, her face still holding the soft roundness of a well-fed child. Though she wore the standard, drab clothes issued by the orphanage, she looked nothing like an orphan. The possibility of her being a spy could not be dismissed.
He made a subtle gesture toward the corner of the room. In a flicker of movement, a shinobi guard materialized in the office. Tobirama ordered him to retrieve the girl's records from the orphanage.
The guard vanished. After a short while, he reappeared with a file in hand.
The document was passed between the four men. They reviewed it carefully, but found no discrepancies with the girl's identity. The name 'Date' was indeed a well-known noble surname in the Land of Fire. A quick cross-reference confirmed it; her background was not something that could be easily faked.
Konoha had been the one to handle the aftermath when two major noble families had engaged in a bloody, self-destructive feud. The inheritance issues, the territorial disputes—all had been settled by the village. The Date family's lucrative gold mines had, in fact, already been absorbed into Konoha's treasury.
The four men looked back at Stelle, their expressions now a complex mixture of thoughts they kept to themselves.
Senju Hashirama noticed the strange looks on his brothers' faces and felt a pang of regret. Perhaps he had been a bit reckless. He had simply been excited to see a child who so closely resembled his dear friend and had wanted to share the discovery, but it seemed he had only dragged his brothers into a somber reminiscence.
Still, the resemblance was uncanny.
"How about I take her as my apprentice?" Hashirama declared, his protective instincts surging. The girl was even younger than his cousin had been. The idea felt right, a way to honor a memory.
"Absolutely not!"
Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Izuna shot down the proposal in perfect, unhesitating unison. Hashirama was a hopeless gambling addict. If he were allowed to take her in, the girl would undoubtedly be led astray.
The mere thought of a child with Senju Stelle's face holding a set of dice in one hand and a deck of cards in the other, a shark's grin on her face as she dominated a gambling den, was too much for even Uchiha Madara to bear.
He simply waved a dismissive hand, and the guard was instructed to escort Stelle back to the orphanage.
Stelle assumed the matter was concluded and settled in to wait peacefully for the school term to begin. To her surprise, however, her face had left a far deeper impression than she'd anticipated.
They had actually assigned shinobi to stake out the orphanage, monitoring her every move, day and night.
It didn't take a genius to figure out who was behind it. This had Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Izuna's careful paranoia written all over it. The sudden appearance of a face mirroring an old friend was a coincidence too great for their cautious minds to accept. It was almost as if she had been sent to target the four of them specifically.
Stelle sighed internally. She had been a bit rash. Being watched like this was a terrible feeling. It forced her to maintain her act around the clock, playing the part of a naive, innocent child who did little more than trail after the orphanage staff all day.
A few days later, the matron finally remembered the nameless girl under her care and decided it was time to give her one.
Stelle, considering her current identity and the game she was playing, flashed a sweet, guileless smile. "How about Stelle? I think it's a very nice name."
For a daughter raised with a noble's education, it was a perfectly logical move. Recognizing a potential advantage and choosing a name linked to the upper echelons to curry favor and secure a better future was a sign of shrewdness. In this era of constant war, children matured quickly and became experts at handling the currents of power.
It fit her persona perfectly and, conveniently, allowed her to use her real name—killing two birds with one stone.
Besides, she reasoned, if she were truly a spy, why would she keep walking directly into the line of fire? That would just be asking for a short and unpleasant life.
The observing shinobi reported the news back to the men in the Hokage's office.
Senju Hashirama was growing quite dissatisfied with his brother's investigation of a mere child.
"See? I told you she was fine. Tobirama, you're far too cautious. Now, can I take her as my apprentice?"
"Don't even think about it."
Clearly, Hashirama had no intention of giving up. He began inventing excuses to slip out of the Hokage Building, but Tobirama, seeing right through him, intercepted him every time. Yet the First Hokage remained undeterred, his thoughts drifting to the orphanage all day.
To prevent his older brother from sneaking off, taking the girl as an apprentice behind their backs, and promptly infecting her with his gambling habits, Senju Tobirama decided to make a preemptive strike. He would take her as his own student.
What he would teach her was secondary. The primary goal was to ensure she never, ever got involved with gambling.
Stelle saw the ANBU observers withdraw and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was finally settled. To her astonishment, the very next day, a shinobi guard escorted her right back to the Hokage Building.
This time, both Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Izuna had declared their intention to take her as an apprentice.
This was a development Stelle had not anticipated in the slightest.
"Hey, hey! You two wouldn't let me take an apprentice, but now you're fighting over her yourselves? No way! I found her first!" Hashirama protested.
"Your ninjutsu are all Wood Release; who could possibly learn them?" Senju Tobirama countered coolly. "I, on the other hand, have mastered a vast array of ninjutsu. I am most suited to be a teacher." He still harbored suspicions and wanted to keep her close to observe her properly.
Uchiha Izuna spoke in a calm, unhurried tone. "You look far too serious. You will definitely lack the patience required to teach a child. I am the more suitable choice."
The three of them immediately began to argue. Hashirama's reasoning was simple: he saw someone who looked like his cousin and felt a duty to look after her. Tobirama and Izuna, meanwhile, were driven by a mixture of suspicion and a competitive streak, triggered by the coincidental resemblance to their old friend. Neither was willing to back down.
Stelle stood off to the side, an eyelid twitching. They had been so guarded just a few days ago. Why were they suddenly fighting to take her as an apprentice just because she had chosen her original name? Had something happened that she wasn't aware of?
Her plan this time had been to blend in with the new generation, not to get entangled with the middle-aged-and-angsty group again. They were far too familiar with her other personas; it would be dangerously easy for things to go wrong. One slight slip-up and her entire cover would be blown.
It was much safer to stay quietly at the orphanage and find a way to enroll in the Ninja Academy when it opened in a few days.
She timidly raised her hand. "Can I… choose for myself?"
"You choose?"
All three men stopped and looked at her, seemingly surprised that a child would be so bold in their formidable presence.
"Who do you want as your master? Is it me?" Senju Hashirama leaned in, his face alight with an expectant, hopeful smile.
Stelle shook her head vigorously. She turned, her eyes sparkling with manufactured admiration, and pointed at the fourth man who had remained silent throughout the entire debate—the one clad in the deep blue, high-collared attire of the Uchiha clan.
"I want him to be my master."
This was the result of her careful deliberation. Uchiha Madara was completely different from the other three. With his innate pride and cold demeanor, he would never indulge a child simply because she resembled an old acquaintance. A man as aloof and arrogant as him would surely find being pestered by a little girl unbearable.
Eventually, he would get tired of her and send her right back to the orphanage.
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