In the vein of Silver Queen and Lang Noi, I offer a SI-OC fic of my own. Enjoy!

Socrates: So it appears that when death comes to a man, the mortal part of him dies, but the immortal part retires at the approach of death and escapes unharmed and indestructible.

-Plato, The Phaedo

Chapter One: Metempsychosis

There was a line of shinobi that went from the top of the Hokage tower to the very bottom, even trailing out into the street. Genin, chuunin, and jounin, men and women, and the young and the old comprised the never ending stream of bodies and each waited impatiently for an audience with the Hokage. Most wanted missions for the money they needed to sustain themselves and their families. A small minority sought missions for the sake of relieving the agitating itch that had settled in upon the war's end. These were young ninja who had lost their loved ones during the war and wandered around Konoha restlessly, looking for and finding nothing to anchor them. And finally, there were the multitudes of single mothers and disabled veterans who had come here as a last resort to beg some kind of welfare or loan from the state.

Begging was strictly frowned upon if you were anyone but a wandering monk. In Konoha, every merit, every ryo, every possession was earned. The great clans of Konoha remained great because they adhered to the philosophy that man makes himself. Autonomy and self-sufficiency were sources of pride and one had to have forsaken all attachments like the monks in order to have plausible reason to beg. But these single mothers and disabled veterans couldn't work or even find any jobs that welcomed their deficiencies. They had been denied at the banks, turned away from the overflowing community centers, and had exhausted the minimal support they could receive from their friends and families. This was their last lifeline and it was being tugged out of their hands by others in the same boat.

No one dared to step out of line. A few had tried to replace themselves with bunshin to sneak away and relieve themselves and find food. But they were in the company of ninja. Deception and trickery were their trade and these foolish few had been booted out unceremoniously. The more experienced had brought rations with them and drank from their water bottles sparingly so as to avoid the need to urinate. No one talked and no one complained despite the fact that it was nearing closing hours and that many had been here since the crack of dawn. There was a stifling tension in the building that had everyone on edge and maintained the still silence. They all knew that there was an extreme scarcity of missions and funds to be handed out. So, there was a sea of nervous eyes that flitted around in an attempt to gauge the competition.

As yet another disabled veteran was turned away and left the room dejectedly, Hiruzen took the opportunity to glance out the window behind him. The sun was just starting to set and there was a vibrant aura highlighting the features of the three faces on the Hokage Mountain. His gaze lingered on the face in the middle and for the millionth time, Hiruzen wondered if the Nidaime had been wise in granting the Uchiha exclusive membership in the Military Police. He had butted heads furiously with the Uchiha over these past 5 years in a fruitless attempt to create more job openings in the dwindling market. But the Uchiha clan remained resolute and kept an iron fist on the proceedings of the Military Police.

Another set of footsteps tapped forward and still another person emerged from that inexhaustible line. Hiruzen turned away from the window to face his next visitor. This one was missing an arm and pleaded his case with a well-practiced elocution. But Hiruzen was already mentally dismissing the man even before he ended his speech with an admirable ethos. There was simply nothing Hiruzen could do, even as the Hokage. Few realized that he was subject to the whims of the Daimyo and that he bore the heavy responsibility of governing the entire village of Konoha. The villagers might have known the duties of the Hokage, but they didn't understand what was required to keep the village running. He couldn't simply make allowances for every individual, no matter how compelling their stories were. So many veterans had returned from the war to find no jobs, no prospects, no families and friends. But he could do nothing for them, short of waging another war and that was to be avoided at all possible cost. If that cost was the neglect of the large population of disabled veterans, then so be it. It was for the greater good.

Off in the distance, the bells in the clock tower finally tolled, signaling the end of another harrowing day. The next person in line grimaced and clenched his teeth painfully. But, he would only hurt his case in throwing a fit. Obediently, the people in the line turned around in a synchronized movement and began to exit the Hokage Tower.

Tomorrow, they would be back at the crack of dawn.

Akira swallowed down a decidedly un-masculine whimper as his wife did her best to pulverize all the bones in his right hand when the next contraction came. With his free hand, he slid her sweaty hair out of her face to distract himself from looking down at all the… interesting things that were happening down below. He had made the mistake of looking down a few hours ago when the doctor had made a distressed tutting noise, and then made the further mistake of grimacing when he saw firsthand the various bodily products that accompany the miracle of childbirth. Kotone hadn't taken too kindly to his expression and had sworn on her mother's grave that she would remove his loins from his person once their fruit had been expelled from her own body. At this rate, his daughter would just have to grow up with a one-armed eunuch as a father.

But, he was glad that Kotone was putting up such a fight—even if it seemed her beef was entirely with him. They had been in the hospital for about 20 hours now with nothing to show for it but a few crushed bones. He wasn't comforted in the slightest by the fact that there were many other prospective fathers in the same predicament throughout the maternity ward. Most were mainly ushered to a waiting room and he was one of the few who had accompanied their wives during labor. This wasn't because he was particularly brave or resilient to the kind of horrors he witnessed. No, quite the contrary. He was there because Kotone was a very special kind of woman who refused to pussyfoot around simply because some crotchety elders had declared a man's presence in childbirth improper. In a manner of speaking, she didn't give a shit and had bullied him into coming with her into the delivery room. She was a kunoichi and from what he understood, she was around mid-rank. At times (honestly, most of the time), he was terrified of his wife's ninja abilities and he shuddered to think of what more powerful kunoichi like Tsunade-sama could do to a man's bones during childbirth.

Civilians weren't often privy to the happenings of their fellow shinobi citizens, but some things inevitably trickled down into the civilian rumor mill—such as rumors of Tsunade-sama's monstrous strength. These juicy tidbits were savored and hoarded by inquisitive civilians, most of whom reserved a fearful but exasperated attitude towards those powerful men and women who admittedly kept them safe but terrorized their rooftops. The civilian gossip mill was fueled by civilians clueless about the finer details of chakra and the shinobi lifestyle and their overzealous imaginations turned even the slightest of whispers into poems and novels. For a figure as famed and remarkable as Tsunade-sama (whose figure was indeed remarkable in many ways), there were entire sagas written and epithets galore, as it was rumored that she could cause natural disasters with a flick of a finger and heal from any wound, no matter how severe. Her anger was legendary in its own right. From these, it could easily be inferred that a Tsunade-sama in labor could probably erase a man from existence entirely and reduce all of Konoha to subatomic particles in the process.

So while he knew that men were stationed in a waiting area more for propriety's sake, he couldn't help but think that part of the reason was to ensure the man's bodily integrity. And when he took a few trips to the bathroom and went outside to smoke, he enviously regarded the physically uninjured men who had avoided his fate. He actually made a few acquaintances out of other uneasy men who bummed cigarettes off of him. But it was clear that they wouldn't escape completely unscathed; there were clear signs of psychological damage. There were some who put on flamboyant airs of machismo, and still others who pretended that they were above it all. But none was immune to the palpable anxiety permeating through the air.

He whipped his head towards the door just as the doctor ploughed through. She examined Kotone unflinchingly despite all the horrors that had accumulated on the birthing table and nodded to herself smartly before glancing up and barking out tersely, "She's crowning! Just a little more!"

This inspired another bout of bone-crushing strength from Kotone as she screamed. And then finally, the nurse was fussing over this tiny pink thing and the doctor was motioning Akira over with impatient head jerks. Akira hesitantly stepped away from Kotone, who had relented her grip on his hand, and grabbed the scissors the doctor pointed to. This time, he swallowed down a wave of nausea as he cut the cord connected to the slimy pink rat. The doctor inspected it briefly before instructing the midwife to submerge it in a tub of water and wash off the slime. Akira retreated to Kotone's side and smoothed her stress lines away with the pad of his thumb. He kissed her forehead and concentrated on the strong throbbing in her temple to reassure himself that she was still there. Distantly, he heard the doctor instructing Kotone to give a last few pushes for the placenta and he decided that he'd content himself with not looking.

The doctor and nurse continued to fuss over the newborn infant, subjecting it to the cold scrutiny of steel instruments. Then Kotone was pushing him aside with that startling strength of hers to accept the bundle of rat from the midwife.

"Here she is", the doctor said. "She's a fine girl-7.93 pounds and 20.12 inches, very healthy."

He mumbled some vague expression of thanks to the doctor, who left as abruptly as she had entered, before turning curiously to the fruit of his loins. Suddenly, he felt all the tension abate from his shoulders and started to coo at his daughter before he noticed Kotone's strange expression.

"What is it?" he asked timidly.

His wife eyed their newborn daughter suspiciously. "She's not screaming. Isn't she supposed to cry or something?"

Kotone spoke too soon and would later deeply regret her words as their daughter opened her eyes with startling focus, looked around, and screamed.

And kept screaming, screaming, screaming as if the world had dealt her some permanent grievance in simply being there. She refused her mother's breast and any other condolences offered. The newest addition to their family had taken a long time coming and it seemed she maintained her singlehanded determination to keep testing their patience.

They named her Nezumi—Rat. Kotone didn't require much persuading after 48 hours of nonstop torture even though it was nowhere near their list of potential baby names.

After her initial crying bout, Nezumi remained quiet and serious much to the consternation of Akira and Kotone. She kept her unnervingly focused stare and constantly regarded her environment with the utmost suspicion. They did their best reorient their baby's focus so that she could latch on to Kotone and start feeding, but she refused with a peculiar obstinacy. They couldn't have known that their new daughter was in fact, an adult woman who was currently undergoing the first of the five stages of loss—denial.

Overall, she was quite put out by the hallucinations conjured up by her subconscious. As far as she knew, she had woken up in a hospital with a strange lack of ability to move or speak. When she opened her eyes, she was immediately overwhelmed and disoriented by the sheer influx of sense data. That was probably to be expected. After all, she had just spent an indeterminate amount of time unconscious, presumably in a coma. But when she had acclimated a bit, she noticed how poor her vision had become. Moreover, it seemed that her muscles had atrophied away into nothing. Her body felt boneless and her tongue was stiff and unyielding. Her five senses were just as useless as the rest of her body. And on top of that, she felt like she had accidentally stepped into Willy Wonka's shrinking television because she felt so tiny. She couldn't quite grasp or identify the objects in her visual field, and she could only see large shapes looming over her as she was manhandled and passed from place to place. She was currently diagnosing herself with an acute case of body dysmorphia and trauma-induced mutism.

Her only mode of communication was screaming and so she tried her best to convey her discomfort and growing panic at her situation. No one took the hint and noticed that something was out of the ordinary. She screamed and screamed as her claustrophobia overcame her. She screamed and screamed because she didn't have the finer motor skills necessary to form the words "Help me! Save me!" She screamed and screamed hoping that someone or something would finally take notice that she was a prisoner in her own body. No one came to save her.