Chapter Text
There were no favors for Shikako in this new life. She had gotten so, so lucky so many times through her reincarnations. This wasn't one of those times.
There was poop in her diaper that hadn’t been changed in a week. She’d peed several times since soiling herself and the resulting mixture was oozing out of its confines, coating the insides of her legs and creeping up her back. It stung, left her skin raw and nerves strung out, but itched horribly at the same time.
"Mbaaa ahhhhh!” the other baby cried, tiny voice cracked and ruined. “WHAAAAAAHHH!”
Shikako hadn’t been fed since yesterday, her filthy skin was on fire, and it hurt to breathe. None of that mattered. She was three months at the oldest, separated from the other baby by half a meter and the walls of the kitchen drawer pretending to be a crib. Most babies couldn’t even crawl until six months. She could barely hold herself upright when seated, and couldn't get herself upright on her own.
That mattered even less.
If Nara Shikako had learned one thing in her confusing, terrifying, blood-soaked, weird second life as a ninja, it was this:
Willpower was everything.
And she needed to get to that baby. Shikako rocked side to side on her dish towel bed, building momentum to tip over on her belly. She turned her head as far as it would go, swung all four limbs, and strained her core. She’d deliberately not kept track of the number of her attempts, but some quiet corner of her mind (which she feared yet hoped would forever remain a shinobi) told her that she’d succeeded on day two, attempt sixteen.
Yosh! she thought to herself. I will crawl eighteen inches across the dirty linoleum to comfort my distressed fellow infant inmate or run a hundred laps around Konoha on my hands!
Shikako wheezed what might have been a giggle if her diaphragm wasn’t in imminent danger of collapse. She gave herself a generous thirty seconds to breathe and relax and appreciate how her diaper rash from hell throbbed in new and excruciating ways. A ninja needed to be familiar with her limits to know when to push past them and when to respect her fragile mortal body.
The current situation, she judged, required a mix of both.
Shikako knew her stubby little arms and legs were worse than useless as a driving force. She used her bare, sticky hands and forearms as anchors, suctioning herself to the floor and slowly, painstakingly wriggling herself forward. The knees and feet of her pajamas had no grip, leaving her with just torso and hips to inchworm towards the broken wailing.
It took an eternity.
By the time Shikako made it to the drawer-crib, the tornado siren noises had faded into gut wrenching whisper-sobs.
I’m almost there, she wanted to scream. You’re not alone. I’m coming. Just hold on!
The lip of the drawer was only three and a half inches high at the sides. Shikako came as close as she could and rocked to either side, managing to trap both arms under her chest. She shifted as much of her weight forward as possible, and was able to scooch her legs under her torso as well, making a baby loaf and thereby maximizing her height. She wiggled her toes into a conveniently placed crack in the flooring to brace herself. Once again she began to rock, to the front and back this time.
Shikako heaved forward with all her momentum, straining to lift her head high and pushing off with all four noodle limbs for good measure. Her head, chin and the tops of her shoulders cleared the edge. Her collarbone did not, but baby bones were made of rubber and Shikako had run harder missions with worse injuries. She shoved with her legs, engaging buttocks and thighs and core. Her breastbone and right arm made it. Shikako hooked her chin over the edge, sandwiched it between her sternum and arm, and squirmed frantically until her center of gravity changed.
She tipped into the drawer right on top of her fellow inmate. The baby stopped crying out of sheer surprise. Shikako beamed. Her chest hurt, her breath came in uneven hiccups, and she could tell where her delicate baby skin had torn from the diaper rash plus exertion.
Thank God, she thought as blood trickled down her hips. It almost felt nice, the blood diluting the acid of urine and feces. I made it in time.
The baby latched onto her. Shikako didn’t have the strength to cling back, but she had fallen bodily atop it, her cheek on a chubby upper arm at an angle sufficient to see a little brown face with curly hair fit for a Pampers commercial.
The baby gurgled. Shikako crooned back, the only thing she could do. Her numb extremities twitched uselessly with the desire to hug and hold, to comfort and soothe. Her tiny lungs heaved and stuttered.
I made it in time, she reminded herself. We might not survive, but we won't be alone when we die. That means something.
The other baby's breaths were gaining strength now that it's howls had ceased. In contrast, Shikako's were stuttering to a halt. She was familiar with the sensation of her heart giving out by now. She forced herself to keep her eyes open as it slowed and then stopped altogether.
See you in a minute, she thought, bittersweet. Everything faded to black...for, oh, the next seven minutes or so.
Shikako jerked back to awareness of a flood of pain, fear and confusion. Air ballooned in her lungs, too much too fast, and she began to wail instinctively.
"Oh God," a hoarse male voice cried. "Oh God."
Shikako continued to howl as she was lifted into careful, shaking arms. "My baby. Oh God- my baby, oh God, thank you."
She couldn't see what was happening. But she could hear the other baby's cries over the frantic babbling of the male voice—her father?—and her own thin squalling, amid a cacophony of sirens.
Looks like somebody showed up just in time, Shikako thought sourly. Ten minutes sooner and she wouldn't have sent herself into cardiac arrest to keep poor other baby from dying all alone. Jerk.
The man holding Shikako touched her forehead with his stupid, giant finger. Peeved whether it was fair or not, she shrieked at the top of her lungs. He snatched his hand away and Shikako fell silent. Or, fell back into wobbly breathing. She was upset, okay? She'd seen a lot of terrible things, but the ones involving children were always the worst.
"I'm so sorry," the guy whispered. He shifted Shikako in his arms so his heart was under her ear. She was soothed despite herself. "I'm so sorry, baby. You're safe now. I'll keep you safe, I swear."
Doors closed and sirens started up again. She felt the momentum of a rapidly accelerating vehicle but the man didn't sway an inch. Just curled her closer to his chest and began humming, rough at first but increasingly melodic. He started to sing as Shikako felt herself drifting to sleep.
"She'll fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young woman on the flying trapeze..."