Forty-three favorites and Seventy followers in Five days?! I don't think I had that many the first time around! You humble me.
Fair warning: most of this chapter is flashbacks. Hopefully, this clears up a good chunk of potential confusion before it starts.
Oh! And some pretty strong language at one point. Apologies in advance.
It's dark when he finally wakes up, and the first thing he does is panic.
Because he should not have woken up at all.
He'd just been crushed by a bridge, for fuck's sake! How the fuck was he alive?! You don't just wake up from having your entire right side flattened! (Certain shenanigans of one Japanese manga writer notwithstanding; fiction didn't count.)
His panic attack vocalized itself as loud wailing through the cavern-like room he found himself in. This is just too fucking much, too fucking fast for him to deal with; he feels like he's going to snap and just explode with the sheer fucking unfairness of everything when he feels Her.
She feels like a magnet, and She smells familiar and safe and family. She picks him up and makes a gentle shushing noise as he clings to Her desperately, instinctively. He cries because he's lost and confused, because he doesn't know anymore and he hates not knowing, because everything he knew is gone.
Slowly, he calms; the tears eventually stop. His eyes get harder and harder to keep open, and She just keeps humming and supporting him as he slips back into slumber…
She is the first thing he sees when he wakes up again hours later. Long dark blue hair lays messily about Her fair, sculpted face, yellow eyes smiling as She runs a finger down the side of his face.
"You gave Kaa-san quite a scare," She says softly, the words for the most part meaningless syllables that go right over his head, save for one.
Kaa-san. He knows that word. The younger part of him associates it with the woman lying there beside him, and loves Her without reservation. The older part of him is torn. He wants to love Her just as easily, if for no other reason than because She's earned his love by loving him first; but…She's not his mother.
It's as he awkwardly grasps at her finger with his clumsy, uncooperative fists that he realizes he is quite a bit smaller than her. He's been completely reborn. And as he can't help but return Her smile that could outshine the sun, he comes to a realization. She isn't Matthew's mother…but he's not Matthew anymore.
Shortly after this, She realizes his outburst is because he's teething (only in part; She doesn't know). He is five and a half months old.
"Daredevil. Yo, Daredevil! Murdock!"
He looks up from his computer with only mild irritation. "What?"
Werdin's grinning like a loon as he looks over from behind Donovan's workstation, the Irish-American staring over at him as well. "Who's hotter, Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba?"
It takes him a moment to try and recognize those names to no avail, and he blinks. They're actresses, but that's about all he knows. "Who?"
"Black Widow or the Invisible Woman from the 2005 Fantastic Four," Umber intones from the next row back, his gaze never leaving his own screen.
"Oh." He falls silent for a few moments to think about it now that he has faces to go with the names. "Who's the actress who plays Kate Beckett?"
At this, Umber glances over, the tiniest of smirks on his face. "From Castle? Stana Katic."
Pointing at his nominal superior (billet over rank), he nods to the previously arguing Lance Corporals. "Her."
"No, Daredevil, you don't get it-" the black-haired Marine begins, trying to cajole his shift partner.
Werdin chooses that moment to yank all the cords out of his peer's monitor, causing it to flare once and switch off.
Donovan leaps to his feet, swiping at the cackling leatherneck. "Oi! A bhastaird bhreallghnúsigh! Gabh trasna-"
"English, Donovan;" Umber reprimands with a wry smirk, "you're in uniform."
"Go fuck yourself sideways, you dickheaded son of a triple-cunted bitch."
"You'd better be directing that vitriol at Werdin, Donovan."
"Yes, Corporal."
His name is Kohaku now. He has no idea what it means, but he doesn't really care right now. He can always find out later, when he learns how to read. Right now, he's having too much fun stacking blocks and then destroying the resulting 'tower'. He always liked tearing things apart, and now he can do it without getting weird looks for enjoying it.
Kaa-san seems to be enjoying watching him play Human Artillery, too, because she's just sitting there with a laugh sitting on her lips. The peaceful family moment is interrupted when a door he hadn't noticed set deep into the wall opens, and someone walks in.
Someone with almost paper-white skin, purple markings around golden eyes with pupils like slits, and straight waist-length black hair.
Seeing the door open, Kaa-san scrambles to her feet. The instant she recognizes who walks in, he watches as she bows deeply to the creepy snake-man in their room. "Welcome back, Orochimaru-sama."
His older mind registers Kaa-san's undertone as an 'I-respect-your-rank-I-don't-respect-you' tone he's heard from uppity boots, but he just stares up opened-mouthed as they chatter incomprehensibly over his head. Because that is still Orochi-fucking-maru his kaa-san is bowing to.
Given he's just recently discovered his reincarnation, he belatedly admits to himself he's not all that surprised. His next thought is that he's finally figured out why the striped pattern of the walls feels familiar.
He is six months old. It is the first time he sees that goddamn pedo-snake.
And praise the fuck-mothering Sun, because it is the only time he ever sees him.
"What's going on?" The ever-lovely Eira Rees pipes up as she walks up beside the Liaison's workstation.
Sweeping a hand to encompass the entire lower row, Umber summarizes the argument his relief just missed. "They seem to be under the impression I'm this universe's Leonard Snart."
"No, you don't have access to a cold gun," she mutters audibly as she peruses Umber's end-of-shift SITREP. Her head snaps up as she blinks rapidly, realizing what just came out of her mouth. "Ah, fucking son of a-"
He can't help laughing at the look of terror on her face at being outed as a nerd. "Too late now, Rees! We know you're one of us!"
She looks really cute when she's blushing, he decides. "Fuck you, Murdock!"
He can feel the grin creeping across his face. "Anytime you want, dear; just not at work."
Even Umber is smiling, for once in his life. "You left yourself wide open for that one."
"Both of you; stop talking."
He's all alone.
Kaa-san went hunting. That was three days ago.
He is now eighteen months old, and he knows Kaa-san is not coming back.
He sometimes wonders why he keeps getting up. He's always hungry, always thirsty, always hurting; and yet he keeps getting up, keeps scrounging for anything to eat, keeps looking for any sign of a way out. He hates how easy it is to get lost down here.
Oh, that's right; he's too obstinate to just lay down and die. He survived getting crushed by a bridge, goddammit, he's not about to die here!
Logic helpfully points out that he didn't technically survive the bridge, he was reincarnated. He tells Logic to kindly go fuck itself, this is Naruto. Let him have his fantasies. (They're the only thing he has left, at this point.)
He's not denying that a not-so-small part of him is hoping that if he can escape this place, he can find Kaa-san again, and everything can go back to the way it was. He's even been practicing the little Japanese he's managed to pick up (all fucking ten words of it he knows…) so he can prove he's not a complete fucking savage after being alone for so long.
It's not the first time he's lied to himself to keep moving. Boot camp was worse than this, indeed. At least he knew when that was going to be over with.
He was never good at keeping track of time even when he had the tools to do so, but he just turned three years old.
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.
While he certainly knows his name, he doesn't have a rank anymore, so that one's a bit of a moot point.
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.
He never could remember the damn thing anyway, not that it'd be in anyway applicable here. One-four-six-eight…two-zero-seven? Or was it seven-zero-two? He can't bring himself to care.
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.
He…actually isn't sure when his birthday is. He thinks it's still in the fall, but later than it was before. Like...only-a-couple-of-days-before-Halloween later. But he hasn't been paying attention the last few years. His old birthday is September 15th, though; he remembers that. He can't remember why that's important, unfortunately.
He very carefully cracks one eye open as the non-asshole-non-leader-guy on watch gets up and moves out of sight. If he focuses, he can hear him adjusting his pants to go piss. Now's his chance.
If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape.
He's had lots of practice ignoring pain; he's gotten pretty good at it. Dislocating his thumb to get out of the binds on his wrist takes more effort than he thought it would, but he doesn't flinch (much) when it finally goes. Clutching his hand to his chest to try and keep his injured thumb from moving, he races off into the woods as quietly as possible.
He can hear the shouting almost as soon as he's started to really haul ass.
Fuck.
Closing the door behind the sleeping five-year-old, Yamanaka Inoichi turned to the medic who'd apparently requested his services. Not his, specifically, but the Yamanaka clan's. He'd just been interested enough to give it a look (and needed a break from his regular work).
"I was able to get a name, Kuroyama-san," he opened with, "Kohaku. No family name, from what I could find."
Kuroyama Duelo nodded thoughtfully. "I have some tests I'd like to run for confirmation, but I have a pretty good guess of what his family name should be."
Inoichi very carefully kept his reaction to the young medic's statement hidden. He didn't disagree with the younger man, but he felt the doctor should've found another way to put it that didn't sound so...self-assured. But yes, that silver hair was rather uniquely distinctive.
"Moving onto your second concern, Kohaku-kun's been entirely on his own since he was one and a half," Inoichi continued, "If the very fact he's even sitting here for you to worry about his mental state doesn't convince you he's a prodigy and a fast learner, I'm not sure what else will."
The young medic bowed slightly. "I understand, Yamanaka-sama," he replied, ignoring the mind-reader's almost imperceptible twitch at the honorific, "We were just concerned; Kohaku-kun hasn't moved much at all from when he was admitted; he seemed almost resigned to his stay here. Most children his age, in his place, even without…that level of isolation, would be terrified to the point of escape." A soft grin spread appeared on the medic's face. "Not that he'd get all that far."
Inoichi had to chuckle in agreement. "The most likely reasoning for that is he's adopting a wait-and-see approach before deciding how to react," he lied easily, "trying to feel out his new environment. I'd prefer it if you could keep the amount of different people he's exposed to down for now; we don't know what might trigger a reaction like that."
"Of course, Yamanaka-sama."
Inoichi made his exit from the hospital shortly after that, his mind spinning as he went over what he'd seen in the golden-eyed boy's head. Entering the Nara compound, he made his way up to the clan head's house and knocked.
When the door opened to reveal the clan Lady, Inoichi smiled. Just the person he'd been looking for. "Natsumi, can I ask you a question?"
Nara Natsumi smirked at his expression as he realized what he just said. "You just did, but go ahead."
"What's a…" he grimaced like he knew he was about to absolutely butcher what he tried to say next, "…Devil Dog?"
The soldier-turned-assassin blinked in confusion for a moment, before comprehension flashed through her eyes and her face froze. "I think you'd better come inside."
Apparently, I am incapable of meeting even my own deadlines, which is a little embarrassing. However, the original The Best Medicine has now been taken down from this site, and the title of this rewrite changed to reflect that this is the only version still up.
If you don't get the joke surrounding Kohaku's old name, shame on you. I'm not explaining it.
In the original, the honorable A .Himawari (I remove the space and FFnet flips its shit) let me use their OC, which I still intend to do further down the line, if they're amenable. Hopefully, they'll let me get away with using said OC's young-and-very-recently-made-medic otou-san in this chapter, because I forgot to ask before writing it.
Final note; please do not expect future updates to be anywhere near as fast as this. With my job, real life, and other ongoing writing projects, I don't have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to. I apologize in advance.
PFCDontKnow, Out.
