_________ POV Narration _________

Ken took the scenic route back home.

He decided to take his time and get accustomed to his new summons, the Bats.

They were all seemingly capable of human speech, at least the ones he had summoned.

They seemed more than eager to help him out too, unlike the turtles.

They asked for nothing in return. They seemingly instantly bonded with Ken due to the similarities they shared.

Ken at one point even grew wings and flew amongst them, surveying his surroundings from high up into the sky, feeling the wind directly on his skin... Not that it made that big a difference to him or even the Bats.

They were both as blind as well... Bats.

But it was nice to have idle conversations while in mid-flight. Of course, he had to slow himself down to match their speed, but it was otherwise just relaxing.

At some point, Ken even stopped flapping his wings and the swarm of bats he had summoned just carried him forward, as it was more convenient for them too.

The leader of the bats was called 'Blitz'. He was significantly larger than a regular bat, his body being almost the size of Ken with his wingspan only falling a bit short.

He could apparently fly three times faster than the others, which was surprisingly quick even by Ken' standards.

Of course, Ken and even the deceased 7 Tail Jinchuriki were faster, but it was still impressive, certainly faster than Onoki's flight speed.

As he was taking his time getting to know the various bats that were now to become their messengers, some news started spreading around in the Shinobi world.

It seemed that the Raikage decided not to keep Ken's age a secret.

The Cloud Village leader had likely figured out that Ken had told him the truth for him to spread it to the rest of the shinobi world as well.

At the very least, he figured Ken didn't care about hiding it. And he wanted the world to find out just how talented the Red Dot actually was, just how much potential he had.

At first, no one really wanted to believe the Raikage's report.

They thought that it was a preposterous notion. For a child to be so overwhelmingly powerful, it was simply unheard of, and they thought that the Raikage was just planning something and misleading them.

They had no way of knowing what exactly the Raikage was gaining from spreading such misinformation though... Hell, they had no reason to believe Ken himself was gaining anything either.

But after a day of the news being out, Konoha and the Hokage by extension, also put the pieces together and realized that his age matched a lot with his growth that had been observed throughout the years.

And when the two villages that were enemies agreed on that thing, everyone else in the world had no choice but to come to the conclusion that Ken was actually only 13.

This immediately brought even greater shame to the Grass Village, now that it was a well-known fact that they had been almost dismantled by an 11-year-old child.

But the Grass weren't the only ones ashamed. Just about every village that had been aiming for Ken and had failed in doing so felt the same.

People like Danzo immediately thought about ways they could try and indoctrinate him. His age indicated that it maybe wasn't too late.

But in reality, most also realised that he was far too mature for that to even be a possibility.

He was essentially an adult. Cold Blooded, callous, powerful and even was reported taking care of other children within his organization...

So in the end, not much had changed regarding the stances others took towards Ken and his organization... But it did earn him a new title.

It was about time. By now his monstrous scales and appearance were all but infamous to the entire world.

And the writers of the bingo book had already been cooking up a new nickname for Ken.

His titular 'Red Dot' title was already known worldwide, but his monstrous feats and appearance deserved more in their eyes.

'The Dragon Cub.'

It was doubtful for the new nickname to catch on too quickly, however, as the name of the Red Dot was already etched into the mind of both the Shinobi and the Mundane worlds.

Regardless, this reveal managed to send some of the people Ken had interacted with on a rather wild spiral.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Especially Mifune and Yuichi, the news got to them last, as they were stuck dealing with training the youth and paperwork respectively.

At first, neither of them could wrap their head around the fact that Ken was even younger than Yue.

Hell, Mifune had thought that he was likely older than Yuichi, as he had been able to give them the advice that saved his future relationship with his daughter.

He helped Yuichi accept her newfound talents and bloodthirsty nature and helped him understand that only by doing so would he be able to keep being a Father to Yue.

Without his advice, Mifune was sure that Yuichi would have become a jailor for Yue more so than a father.

Especially if she did as Ken predicted she would, and spiralled out, taking her frustrations out on servants or animals.

At that moment, in helping the Daimyō, he had become a trusted advisor of his.

From that moment on, Yuichi had essentially become a shield for Ken within the Land of Iron and even beyond.

And Mifune was all for it.

While he didn't know if he could ever fully trust Ken, he at least believed him to be a great man with an impressive amount of life experience and sound judgement.

A shady character, but also helpful when he needed to be.

He had also treated Yue very well from all of her reports to the point where she had found a second home within his organization.

But no. He was no 'great man'. That advice was unironically given by Ken, who was likely around 12 years old at the time.

Yue's training and conditioning were personally handled by someone younger than even her. Who, technically, should've had less life experience than even her...

It simply didn't make sense...

At least it didn't until they finally forced themselves to come to the realization that Ken most likely never had a childhood, to begin with.

His understanding and being able to train Yue spoke levels of his maturity. But the experience was personal.

Mifune now finally remembered the Assassin claiming that Yue was a natural sadist. Exactly like he was...

So, in the end. They reached the conclusion that Ken was most likely raised in an extremely dangerous environment with little to no room for humanity.

But he had developed afterwards, either with the help of someone or by himself, into a respectable human being as he grew older.

He was still a child, and by that consensus, he had still gone through a lot. But there was really no other way for them to think of the situation.

That made them feel quite conflicted. For one, a child was sacred and treasured in their culture. But they had been plotting against a child in the past.

And Mifune had even drawn his sword at the said child... It felt almost insulting.

The conflicting part was that thinking of the Blind Assassin as a child was almost impossible. Even when he knew that Ken was a child...

It was the same for Yuichi. Neither of the leaders of the Land of Iron were able to get much sleep that night.

But one thing was for sure.

'We need to have a talk with him...'

By the time the Blind Assassin reached his compound, the news had already reached every corner of the known world.

Even the Mizukage, wasn't even fazed by that information.

To him, it made no difference what age Ken was. He just wanted nothing to do with him for the rest of his life, however long that may be.

It didn't matter if others were to try and mock him for losing to a child. At the end of the day, no one would've done any better than he did against Ken.

Except maybe Hiruzen, the God of Shinobi, the Raikage and the Tsuchikage.

But if only 3 people in the whole world came to mind, then he did pretty god damn well in his opinion.

And that was really all that mattered.

He was likely the only hidden village leader that was completely unfazed by the news.

For now, the rest of the world was still trying to wrap its heads around the existence of Ken.

Many were now hoping to find more about his past, anything really that could give them an indication of where he popped up from and why he did what he did.

As for the Blind Assassin himself... He just observed from the side.

Tosho and Akira both made sure to inform Ken of the messages they got and the reactions from the world.

It had only taken Ken 3 days, yet the Dark Brotherhood had already received a lot of invitations from several shady characters.

Included but not limited to, a few of the nobles in the Land of Iron, a lot of Hidden Villages and even some other Bounty Hunting groups that had sprouted up in other Lands that mimicked the Dark Brotherhood's modus operandi.

They all asked for formal meetings with the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, maybe in hopes of taking advantage of Ken's age in some way.

Maybe they thought that Ken was just playing around as the leader of a group out of fun.

'... I somewhat expected this to happen, but I guess they really are taking me for a fool...'

One thing was for sure... The people messaging him surely were bold.

They seemed to have balls of steel. All of them seemed to conveniently forget that Ken hadn't only crushed a Hidden Village at 11 years of age. But that he had also just recently crushed the Mizukage and murdered the Jinchuriki of the 7 Tails.

Well, it was unlikely that they forgot, his reputation was still just as frightful. People were likely just hoping to take advantage of the Dark Brotherhood's perceived neutrality.

They likely felt safe in their attempts as they knew that the Dark Brotherhood wouldn't act out against all of them...

'It's almost as if someone is pulling the strings here... I doubt so many invitations coming in at once is a coincidence.'

The Blind Assassin scoffed as he rested his tired legs on the desk in front of him.

A bat came inside from the small window behind him, it flapped its wings before landing on his legs.

"K-Ken! More messages for you, insistent humans, Land of Iron!"

It was a small bat that went by the name of Fidget. It had a constant stutter and had some trouble making full sentences at times.

He also happened to be the direct son of Blitz, which was why Ken decided to keep him around for now as he seemed to be faster than a normal bat while being just as small.

Good genetics seemed to play a big part, but he was also extremely skilled in flight. It was an inborn ability for all of them, but Fidget seemed to be able to take mid-air manoeuvring to a new level.

It went to the point where Ken considered asking the small bat to train him.

But for now, he had essentially become Ken's companion only.

"Fidget... Did they send a delegation or just a message..."

The small bat wasn't carrying anything, so it had likely just observed some interactions at the gates and overheard some things before coming to report to him.

It wasn't like he needed to. Ken only needed to concentrate for a second to tell what was happening beyond the walls of his compound.

He kept his senses to only his compound to avoid overstimulating himself needlessly.

They already had formations set up for intruders as soon as they stepped into the mountain range, so he didn't need to be as hung up on that anymore.

Well, unless he was looking for something specific, like right now.

And as soon as his senses expanded, he immediately turned his head towards the gate and tilted it.

'Mifune and the Daimyō are visiting personally?'