'Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.' - Winnie the Pooh

Okaa-san had to have a check-up at the hospital today and she decided to take me with her.

This isn't the first time she's had one, but this is the first time she's taken me with her; usually she just leaves me with Slave, who I've recently found out, through the powers of deductive reasoning and shameless false advertising, is related to me. And when he's not available, one of our numerous relatives.

It helps that I have good face-name recognition because there are a lot of them and heaven forbid a two year old forgets the uncle seven times removed that she's only ever met once in a large setting of people.

Yes, pride is a very conceivable downfall here. Wounded prides are not something I want to have to deal with.

Anyway, this is the first time, so I'm excited!

I practically grew up around hospitals in my old life, not because I or anyone close to me was chronically sick, but because mum and dad were both doctors. Nurses used to babysit me when I was a baby the first time around and the maternity ward used to be my favourite place to go.

It was a bit like going home.

The Konoha Byōin was a large white building with burnt orange balconies, the kanji for healing, 'ishi', decorating the top entrance. The roof was a cerulean blue, as was the road leading to it. It was strangely self-conscious, in that it stood stark white against a volley of bright colours and noises.

There were scores of people to bump into as Okaa-san expertly weaved through the throng, and I was so focused on not touching any potentially infectious people that I walked straight into projectile blood, coughed out of a dying young man of twenty.

"Kaso-kun!" a pretty young girl wailed, her arm bent at an odd angle as she clutched at his shudder-wracked body, grey eyes wide with helpless anger.

"Someone," a murmuring voice called somewhere to my left, "someone, please, I…my wife's alone…she's…"

"MIRAI!"

Hacking coughs and crying children, blood splattering my clothes and vomit covering the sun-dappled grass, scabs and metal-wedged torsos, rashes and skin lesions erupting as I stood and watched…

And that was just the outside.

As we went into the front lobby, it became pretty clear that they were severely understaffed.

Several patients haven't been checked in, many of them are being treated at the front entrance—do they not have to worry about hygiene, sanitation and the risk of passing on infections? I doubt chakra is that much of a hack. But then, no one in the series had an infectious disease that I can recall…but then, a very limited sample of people was on display in the manga and I doubt it would've been dealt with on screen anyway.

The look of utter sleep deprivation on several nurses and doctors alike (though I suppose they're called medics here aren't they?) and the basic unorganised chaos seemed to be wonderful indications that there was, in fact, a war going on and many of the medics are probably out there, and many of the sick and dying are also over here.

The rest of Konoha, barring the assumed lack of high level shinobi (in my two years, the war has been going on so I can't really tell whether it's always like this or not. I mean, how much do the shinobi and civilians interact anyway? I know that D-ranks are supposed to have the added bonus of making the civilians feel comfortable with the little kid soldiers they help fund the training for, but beyond that, shopping for groceries seems to be the only other way) seems to be pretty normal, in a state of calm and assured safety. Sure, there seems to be some sort of hidden tension, but I rarely ever feel overwhelmed by it.

Maybe there is something to be said about blissful ignorance.

So is that why Okaa-san brought me here? To see the twelve year old with half his face burned off and the kunoichi in her mid-twenties coughing up purple clots of congealed blood? The horrific forced and unprofessional amputations, the severed arteries just merrily spraying blood like a fountain while the medic tries to staunch it unsuccessfully, the moaning and sobbing from the younger and less trained in the art of stoic apathy, the stretchers being rushed in and out of the front reception as beds are presumably freed as quickly as they're filled?

If she brought me here to see the brutality, then I don't know whether she wanted me to see what the messy results of being a shinobi entailed, or if this was another brilliant example of bad parenting.

I think I'm going to go with the latter. She didn't even glance at the wounded, simply pushing through the throng to the left corridor. I quickly ran to catch up with her.

I guess it makes a difference that I worked at a hospice before my tragically ridiculous end, and that the hospital was like a second home; I barely flinch at the sight of gruesome wounds and butchered body parts. I wonder how my new parents will take this apathy…

Okaa-san probably won't notice it's abnormal for a two year old. She's hopeless like that.

No wonder both Uchiha brothers grew up to be so emotionally stunted. I guess this also explains why Sasuke was so attached to Itachi in the first place; he was probably the only one who truly treated him like he was a kid.

Otou-san though, I guess I haven't spent enough time with him to really be able to make a judgement call. Oh well, I probably only have to wait a couple more years till he's around more often anyway.

"Don't fall behind, Akito-chan," Okaa-san called, presumably realising that I'd slowed down as I peered curiously into one of the rooms, seeing a woman in her thirties slumped tiredly on her bed.

"Coming!" I replied, instead going into the room and sitting next to the old woman.

She looked at me, some of the blankness in her eyes fading as I smiled brightly at her. "Good afternoon, obaa-san! How're you doin' today?"

Dratted lisp! Must fix!

She didn't seem to know what to make of me, but that's alright—not many people do.

"I'm dying," she said slowly, both as if to confirm for herself the truth of her words, and because she thought I was crazy.

"Everyone's dying," I replied, nodding sagely. "But you're alive now, ne?"

The woman looked at me wearily, sighing. "I wish I'd died out there. This waiting game isn't my style."

My smile saddened, but I still kept it up.

Isn't it strange that, even though this world and my world are nothing alike, the dying are still fed up with being alive?

I guess it isn't so strange, but to have death, something that I figured would be the one thing that was different, if nothing else, be the same, it just makes you realise all over again that we're all human, chakra or not.

It made living here more bearable, that much I can tell you.

"Hang in there," I said, holding her weathered hand. It was a mark of how done she was, how spent she was, that she didn't even flinch as I invaded her personal space. "Whatever happens, happens."

I don't know who I was comforting when I said that, her or me. I guess I wanted to believe that living matters.

She grumbled, but didn't pull her hand away from mine.

I'd later find out that she died alone.

I hope I don't die alone.

(I hope I don't stop believing that living matters.)

After Okaa-san collected me from my detour with an exasperated fond tilt of her head, realised that I was splattered with someone's coughed up blood and proceeded to wash me up in the hospital toilets, and we were fifteen minutes late for the appointment, we speed-walked down the correct corridor.

There were several unlabelled doors, many of them closed firmly and very few slightly ajar. There was an overwhelming scent of antiseptic and lemons (the cleaning products used probably have a lemon scent) but even more overpowering was the Green Warmth humming everywhere.

I'd always thought chakra, if I could feel it, would be either itchy or unyielding; uncomfortable because I was used to not having it and something unknown, therefore scary. But if I think about it logically, it makes sense that I barely noticed it at all and unconsciously began using it. The chakra coils develop right from when the baby is still in the womb, which is the earliest I remember feeling the warmth. It's everywhere, all over the place, including inside me. It's warm and it's mine.

Why wouldn't I find comfort in its presence?

The Green Chakra though, it's special. It was the first tangible comfort I'd ever had here. It had gotten rid of the hurt and it had helped me escape the Walls, so to feel it thrumming everywhere was brilliant.

Also, I guess the antiseptic smell reminds me of Home. It was I think then that I decided I was going to become a medic-nin.

Okaa-san pushed through the gynaecologist reception area and was being led by a blue-clothed medic to a room with a plaque reading 'Hagane Mitabi'. That last name seems somewhat familiar…isn't that one of the gate guards or something?

"Uchiha-sama," he greeted with a bow. "We've been a bit bogged down, but please, come in and we'll get your check-up done."

He had dark green hair and light purple narrowed eyes, pale skin and a very firm mouth. Strict, professional and with the common resting bitch face that seems to transcend worlds in the healthcare profession.

I smiled at him and he twitched his lips upwards a bit, and his whole face value improved.

"Thank you for your time Hagane-sensei," Okaa-san said cordially, deigning not to acknowledge that we were late. "I hope you don't mind my daughter's presence. She has been very anxious about the baby and I thought she could benefit from this experience."

"Not at all Uchiha-sama," he replied, taking a cursory glance at me and dismissing me as a non-threat.

Okay, so maybe I'd been asking far more questions than was strictly appropriate about her nutritional intake and how it would affect baby Itachi, and so maybe I was being extremely invasive when asking about how often she'd be around for the baby, whether she'd simply hire another string of babysitters, if she'd thought about how that would negatively impact my little brother, about baby-proofing the house, how exactly one went about taking care of a baby, the nutritional intake of the baby for its formative years and…

So I was concerned. Big deal!

But I can see why she brought me here after I spent a kanji session arguing about the pros and cons of boy vs girl in terms of the baby's gender.

Hagane-sensei rubbed lubricating gel on Okaa-san's uncovered bump and then used a device that should have been a sonogram but was decidedly not. It emitted different frequencies, not of sound but of chakra. There was no monitor on which the baby was displayed, free for the mother to watch it and wonder what on earth she'd gotten herself into. Instead, the expecting parent had to wholly and solely trust the medic to tell the truth, trust them to not irreparably damage the baby, and trust them to not hurt them.

I'd always thought shinobi were untrusting trained assassins, so either they actually aren't and that's just a misconception I had, or medics are a lot more trusted than I thought.

I'd always wondered why it was so easy for Tsunade to reintegrate herself into the village easily enough to become Hokage after abandoning the village for more than a decade, and I figured there would've been a lot of off-screen politicking, bribery, blackmail and old-fashioned threats of castration involved. But maybe another facet was that she was a medic.

"Well Uchiha-sama, it seems everything is in order," he said with a perfunctory smile that looked so unnatural on his face. "The baby is progressing nicely and there don't seem to be any obvious complications. All in all, a much smoother pregnancy than last time."

"Thank you Hagane-sensei," Okaa-san nodded politely, gathering her things and standing up. "Let's go Akito-chan."

I got off the stool I'd been given, but while leaving I saw Hagane-sensei giving me a contemplating look. So I rose to the occasion.

"Did the device you used have any side-effects? Chakra can be used to both kill and heal, and probing a defenceless baby before it's even completely formed has to be unsafe. How much chakra is considered a safe amount to use? Also, if you had to use different frequencies—"

But he looked a bit insulted that I was questioning his credibility. Time to backtrack.

"—then you must know what you're doing. I was just wondering how you did it. It looks really difficult," I said with a disarming smile.

His face lightened a bit, not too much obviously, but enough that I didn't feel like I was insulting his very fabric of existence.

"The device isn't known to have any side-effects that have become apparent since its use. It does take a very precise amount of chakra, and it isn't different frequencies we use. Frequencies only apply to light and sound, not chakra. If you want, I could recommend a few books that discuss it."

"That'd be awesome, thank you!" I grinned cheerfully.

Okaa-san kept silent through the conversation that ensued about the exact nature of chakra ('I think this book would explain it better than I could.') and the list of book recommendations he seemed to think a nearly-two year old would somehow miraculously retain—seriously, are kids just insanely smart in this world or do they really not know the intelligence levels of toddlers?

It's lucky I'm nearly twenty, because otherwise I don't know how I'd deal with this insanity.

We departed with a thank you and a bow each. Okaa-san simply glided away and I stumbled and ran to keep up. On the way out, I met Purple Tattoos.

"Akito-chan!" she called out in surprise. "What are you doing at the hospital?"

"Good morning Oku-san!" I said with a bow that nearly toppled me over. "Okaa-san had to go to the hospital for a check-up and I got to come along and play bodyguard."

She giggled. Oku-san is what I call her because I don't know what her name is (although she looks very familiar) and it's a title for another person's wife. It sort of stuck because I not only needed to call them something, but Slave and Purple Tattoos argue like a married couple.

They blushed a lot in the beginning, but I think they secretly like it.

"How's Danna-san?" I asked, having not seen Slave in over a week now.

"Doing as well as can be expected," she said, with a fond look of long-suffering. "We're preparing for our genin exams so I'm trying to get a few extra hours in at the hospital."

"Wait, you're not genin yet?" I asked in surprise.

She giggled good-naturedly at my confusion, but I think it was a legitimate concern. I thought babysitting was for genin. Doesn't it class as a D-rank? But they'd been babysitting me ever since I was one. Although I suppose that explains why I didn't figure out this was Konoha sooner—they, none of them, wore hitai-ate.

I said as much.

She hummed in thought, tapping her cheek in contemplation. "I guess it was like that during peace time, but ever since the war started picking up, the genin have to go into intensive training straight after promotion, so we academy students do the D-rank missions. They're good experience and they're relatively safe as well."

That makes a lot of sense.

Never would've thought of it myself, but still, logical.

"Awesome!" I said with a thumbs up, grinning. "I hope you lots of fun cutting up nearly dead people and rearranging their insides!"

"…I'd forgotten you had a demented sense of humour," she sweatdropped.

"I learned from the best!"

She smiled, bid me a good day, I hugged her and I went my merry way.

Okaa-san, of course, hadn't bothered to slow down for me.

I would have abandonment issues if I wasn't so well adjusted.

When we got home, a masked man—ANBU, and now that I think about it, what is the full form?—was waiting outside. Okaa-san stood to attention, gestured for me to go inside, and began fiddling her fingers in intricate patterns.

I walked into the house and, not two minutes later, Okaa-san swept in. She didn't even glance at me, just waltzed upstairs and began banging around. The masked man, when I checked, had vanished. She eventually came downstairs, in full battle gear (six months pregnant and heavily showing), lugging a backpack with graceful haste.

"Where are you going Okaa-san?" I asked, in a voice that was more nonchalant than I expected.

She started, as if she'd forgotten I was even there. Terrible parenting.

"They need a genjutsu expert out there," she explained without really giving me any context. "I've been called out."

I scrunched my eyebrows in worry but tried not to let it show in my voice. "Don't take unnecessary risks. I want my baby brother fully intact."

Her lips twitched in amusement.

"Will do," she said, with a playful bow. "By your leave, Akito-chama?"

I waved her off regally, and held a standoffish expression long enough that she smiled. Then I hugged her tightly.

"Good luck!" I said with a cheerful grin, wondering why it was so easy not to worry. I guess there might be something wrong with my empathy settings.

She chuckled, detached me, and swept a hand through my hair before leaving. I watched her back steadily until she disappeared into the crowd.

I didn't ask how long she'd be gone for.

I don't think I could have taken it.

The concept of war never really touched me. Injuries, fatal or otherwise, never really registered as actual danger that could reach me. Even when Slave and Purple Tattoos babysat me for the last time before they graduated, it didn't really register that they were going to go out there and fight, kill and bleed.

On a more uplifting note, when the babysitting guard shifted and I waved goodbye to Uchiha Jiro and Utatane Haruki, Slave and Purple Tattoos came in walking closer together than was strictly necessary.

"Hoho!" I cackled dramatically. "Oku-san and Danna-san have finally succumbed to the love in the air?" I mwahaha-ed. "The Lovinator 3000 is working perfectly!"

Instead of stuttering, blushing and vehemently denying any such aspersions on their innocence, they blushed, smiled, and Slave nodded happily.

I squealed really really loudly because they were so adorable! "Really?! Since when? Tell me everything!"

"Ah well," Slave self-consciously scratched the back of his neck. "We both started talking, and well, we thought that ummm, we should, you know, give it a try and—"

Purple Tattoos gently swatted the back of Slave's head and turned to me.

"Actually Akito-chan," she said with an embarrassed smile. "It was all because of you. You embarrassed us enough with your nicknames that Obito-kun found it a lot less embarrassing to ask me out than to deal with telling everyone that there wasn't any relationship like that between us."

"Yeah!" he nodded rapidly. "Well, I also really like Rin-chan, and it wasn't until she said she didn't mind being Oku-san if I was her Danna-san that I got the guts to ask her to be my, my girl…friend."

He blushed and she smiled at him with a lot of affection. It was cute, and I would have been making a really teasing comment, except my mind was currently trying to get over the shock of 'Oh Kami-sama this is Uchiha Obitobi – crazy MinaKushi murdering, Eyes in the moon and genjutsu-ing Kages and murdering Gaara and—and that's Nohara Rin —the reason he goes utterly bonkers in the first place!'

"Akito-chan, are you okay?"

"Do you think we broke her?"

But he's still the closest thing I have to a big brother I've always wanted but never had, and she's like the sister I never asked for.

I snapped out of it.

Wait, were Obito and Rin together before Kannabi Bridge? I don't think so. Wasn't one of his main regrets not confessing his love to her? And I distinctly remember Rin being a very mild Kakashi fangirl.

But if they aren't genin yet, they must not have met Kakashi yet. And so no complications. They got over the love triangle before it was even formed.

Wow. Just, wow.

"Congratulations!" I grinned, shoving the questions back for later perusal. "This is so super special awesome!"

And then, a bit more seriously.

"Never let anyone get in between you two. And don't ever argue and then not apologise. Okay?"

Because of my solemnness, they replied seriously as well.

"Don't worry Akito-chan," Rin-chan said.

"We will," Obito-kun said with a thumbs-up and a cheesy grin.

I nodded. Then I hugged them both, because Obito wasn't Tobi and Rin wasn't Flambé à la Chidori. They were in love, there weren't any regrets, and maybe that would make everything a lot simpler.

Or everything excessively more complicated.

I hope I haven't destroyed the entire space-continuum already. I was just getting used to the insanely bad parenting and the quite-disconcerting number of extended relatives.

I mean, I've learned nearly the entire family tree, how convolutedly we're all somewhat related, and all before I can read properly. I deserve a Nobel Prize for dealing with prissy nerds with attitude adjustment issues on a regular basis, and a spontaneously combusting Milky Way is not the way to thank me.

Suddenly, war felt real. Because one of them might die. One of them has died, and I know her now. She's my, as Naruto put it, precious person and she died.

Oh God.

I hugged her again and, confused, she hugged me back.

"Love you two," I mumbled into her shirt.

She hugged me tighter. Obito/Slave/Danna-san ruffled my hair and told me a really lame joke to cheer me up.

I giggled just for him.

I have seen neither hide nor hair of my godmother or Minato-sama or Okaa-san or Obito-kun or Rin-chan in the last two months. But I have seen Absolutely Smashed, who has once again become my semi-regular babysitter.

Absolutely Smashed is actually Uchiha Teyaki, and he's Otou-san's first cousin, but they're both really close apparently, so really they're like brothers. In essence, he's my closest uncle. He owns a bakery and is in charge of my food intake when Okaa-san isn't home. Meaning, you know, pretty much all the time.

He isn't an angry drunk or a giggly drunk, and quite frankly it might just be his personality, but he's obscenely happy for an Uchiha. Making him my favourite uncle. I'm also pretty sure he's my godfather, but I haven't been made privy to such clearly unimportant information. Seriously, why would I need to know about these sorts of ostensibly unnecessary things?

"Oji-san, why does no one remark on my extremely complex vocabulary?"

"You're an Uchiha."

"Oh."

"Oji-san, who are we fighting the war against?"

"No idea Aki-chan. I'm a baker. So long as they don't interfere with my shop, I'm not going to force myself to care."

"Oh."

"Oji-san, are you married?"

"No. Now scram! My head hurts and you're being loud."

"OKAY!"

"Brat!"

"Oji-san, why did you decide not to be a shinobi?"

"Someone had to run the shop."

"Oh."

"Oji-san, do you think it's possible to affect something without meaning to?"

"Obviously. Sometimes my cakes are delicious, so I add something to make them more delicious, and they taste blergh. But I didn't mean for them to."

"Not quite what I meant, but that's as good an analogy as any."

Over the months, these sorts of conversations became commonplace, and he took all my odd questions in stride. He read books to me and, when I realised they were really interesting and that others would enjoy hearing them but likely didn't have a layabout uncle to read for them, I got together all the kids in the district, majority of them Uchiha but a significant portion not, and we had what Teyaki-ji-san began referring to as 'Story time for Brats'.

He loves it really.

We discussed the stories, short as they were, and a lot of arguments erupted from differing views, and little kids with serious expressions are so funny! I laugh so hard every time they have a shouting match over their favourite character and whether the bunny is better than the cat from the story of The Bunny Diaries: Murder of Kirua the Cat.

When it gets too bad, I diffuse the situation with sharp, imperious and often too-garbled-for-them-to-understand taunts, or a giggle and a unanimously accepted opinion. I would make a brilliant politician. Honestly.

It's so much like Home. My brothers used to fight all the time too, and I always got them to stop, even when mum couldn't.

Consequently, now whenever anyone in the district has a fight, I get to judge who lives and who dies. Metaphorically obviously.

Also, when the kids do anything wrong that the adults will kill them for, they come to me for cover, excuses, alibis and just plain 'please tell Okaa-san we're sorry! She likes you.'

I now have a cult following of ducklings that are at my beck and call.

It's a good thing I'm not a two year old or this would've made me an arrogant bitch.

As it stands, I just feel like practically everyone's elder sister.

I really miss my brothers.

Among my new minions is Uchiha Shisui, who's a couple of months older than me. He's absolutely adorable and has this cute habit of tilting his head to the side whenever he asks me a question.

He seems to think I know all the answers of the universe.

So cute!

"Aki-senpai," he asked, his cute voice bubbling with curiosity. "Why is the sky blue?"

Well, seeing as he's two and physics is something that's likely to go over his head…"Because there are tiny fairies in the sky that really like the colour blue so they share it with us. They take all the rest of the colours and let us see their favourite colour. By the time it's sunset though, they get tired so the sky becomes red and yellow instead."

He scrunched his eyebrows together in contemplation, pouting ever so slightly. "Are the fairies naturally red and yellow?"

"Sometimes they're pink and grey as well. Tell you what, we'll watch a sunset together and you can tell me which colour fairies you see alright?"

He grinned brightly. "Okay!"

He really is such a cute kid. He has a really vivid imagination, and he loves hearing the stories I come up with. It helps that I am well-gifted in the powers of child-friendly bullshit, or I'd never get through half our conversations intact.

On one memorable occasion, Shisui-chan puppy-dog-eyed his aunt into visiting me just before sunset so that we could sneak out and watch it together. I had absolutely no qualms about this sort of manipulation, so I fully endorsed his plan.

The best thing about Konoha, and indeed the Elemental Nations, is that there is absolutely no overt pollution. The skies are as clear as crystal, and rainbows are a common sight after a shower, so seeing a sunset would be a brilliant experience, just like the diamond-sequined night sky.

The best place to see the sunset, I felt, would be near the Naka River. So guess where we went?

Okaa-san had taken me there around the first week of her maternity leave. It'd been a pit stop on the way to Noeki-baa-san's house, and it was beautiful. I knew the way there, and Shisui-chan would believe absolutely anything I said (I told him I was actually a penguin from Madagascar. He just asked me what penguins looked like and whether it was fun there. So cute!) so when I took his hand after a brilliant display of devious toddler intellect, (he began wailing about how he'd hurt his foot and I'd snuck into the kitchen and swept the pots and pans out of the cupboards and started banging them together, then bid a hasty retreat. When his aunt and my babysitter came to see what was going on, I was already out the door with Shisui-chan not too far behind) he didn't protest.

We ran, hopped and occasionally skipped all the way to the Naka River, laughing like we were high on Magic Mushrooms all the way. Or whatever drug little babies seem to constantly be smoking when no one's watching.

Out of breath and huffing out puffs of air, we cleared the small hill with our toddler stubby legs and looked below at the most beautiful sight I'd seen since coming to this world. Shisui-chan's breath caught in his throat and I inhaled a deep breath of air in awe.

The sun was like a thumb-crescent, a little burning ember you find at the bottom of a fire pit after you've stoked the flames. The rays of different colours pierced the water's glittering surface and the Naka River looked like a swathe of heaven. Molten red and burnt umber, shades of deep and light yellow, a hint of grey right at the wispy edges and a fluffy pink interspersed like afterthoughts in the blend. Hints of desperate and deep blue, indigo and violet creeping onto the horizon, flashes of white dissipating as the fire of crimson and ochre flickered and swallowed it whole.

And darkness crept onto the skies, the first shimmering stars twinkling, before we managed to wrench ourselves away from the sight. Shisui-chan looked at me, and we both smiled a smile that held the secrets of the entire universe in its curves.

We watched the sun set every day we could after that. Sometimes, we couldn't sneak away in time, sometimes we just missed it, on occasion we had to enlist my other minions' help (call something shinobi training and they'll literally do anything. It's no wonder Naruto instantly believed Mizuki) and other times, we were too closely guarded.

It was fun, and he became my closest friend. My first friend in this world. Seems like another milestone! Quest complete: trophy unlocked.

Heh.

I was two years and two months old when Okaa-san and Otou-san came back home. There were a lot more high-level shinobi around the village as well (i.e. not fresh-out-of-the-academy genin and paper pushers only) so either the war was over (definitely not), a diplomatic ceasefire had been called (maybe) or we're at a stalemate (ergo, a ceasefire).

I'll assume the latter until further information is divulged to a toddler-minion-master.

But anyway, as luck would have it, Okaa-san literally stepped into the house, literally one foot through the doorstep, and her water broke.

Her. Water. Broke.

Otou-san began panicking, and forever shattered my tentatively-forming character study of him, while I remained the calm one in the situation.

"Kami-sama, get a grip Otou-san! We need to get her to the hospital!" I said, grabbing both his hands and focusing his attention on my instructions.

"Right." He blinked, before sweeping Okaa-san off her feet and frog marching with a panicked look out the door.

Okaa-san was blushing through the pain.

This was so completely uncharacteristic that if I hadn't had a previous life outside the Uchiha Clan, I would have been blushing and thinking of this display of public affection with disdain. As it stood, it was just adorable.

"I'm alright you know," she said, gritting her teeth and looking unconvincingly relaxed. "You really don't have to carry me all the way, shujin-sama. I can get there myself."

"Okaa-san, no," I said firmly as she tried to wriggle out of his grip.

"What she said," Otou-san nodded stoically, still panicking. "We can't let you injure yourself at such a critical juncture." His eyes were unnaturally trained in the direction of the hospital, even though he can't actually see the hospital from where we were.

"…so that's where she gets her vocabulary from," Okaa-san mumbled.

We rushed into the hospital, and I'd tripped six times on the way (curse toddler clumsiness!) while Okaa-san's breathing had become increasingly more and more haggard.

"Oh dear. It seems the contractions have started," Okaa-san said through a forced calm.

"NO!" Otou-san yelled stoically. "EVERYBODY PANIC!"

I put a placating hand on his knee (which was as high as I could reach) and said reassuringly, "Otou-san, calm down. Okaa-san, breathe to a beat. In, pause, out. In, pause, out. That's it, you're doing great."

We got to the front reception and one of the familiar nurses intercepted Otou-san's panicked stoic rushing.

"Can we help you sir?" he asked by way of greeting.

Otou-san just looked at him with unadulterated stoic panic and I decided he was in no shape to speak, so I spoke for him.

"What Otou-san is trying to say is that Okaa-san's water just broke and she's going into labour. Her contractions have also started," I informed him, and I absentmindedly registered that I sounded like I was debriefing him.

"I see," he said, turning to Otou-san. "Please remain calm and follow me sir."

"In…out…in…out," muttered Okaa-san under her breath.

"Ah Uchiha-sama," greeted Hagane-sensei, with an unnatural pleasant smile on his face. "Right on schedule. Lay her on the bed sir."

"Do you have anything for shock? Otou-san's looking a little pale," I asked the nurse who'd guided us here calmly.

"I have just the thing. Let's leave Hagane-sensei to do his job, alright?" he replied, taking the two of us to a waiting room after Otou-san had put Okaa-san down on the hospital bed.

"Leave your little sibling and Okaa-san to me, Akito-hime," Hagane-sensei said, ruffling my hair before turning around and shutting the door behind him.

I nodded, though off-task, my brain kept on replacing him with Ka going 'trust in me'. "Keep breathing Okaa-san!" I called out.

"Let's go Akito-hime," said the nurse briskly.

The nurse poured something into Otou-san's mouth when we got to the waiting room and he blinked in confusion before gulping down some more of the strong smelling liquid.

"I see the medication's working. Don't worry, your wife will be fine Uchiha-sama," said the nurse as Otou-san looked towards Okaa-san's hospital room door in unbridled panic.

"That's not medicine. That's saké," I said, going over to sniff the liquid and identifying it with a scrunch of my nose.

"And what a wonderful medicine it is," said the blue-haired nurse with a laugh.

"As a healthcare professional, are you supposed to be advocating the use of harmful substances as medicinal substitutes?"

"…Shut up kid," he grumped.

"Are you aware of who exactly it is you're reprimanding Medic-san?" asked Otou-san dangerously, finally acting like himself again. Trust him to pull his shit together when the Uchiha Pride was threatened.

"It's okay Otou-san. Sorry Medic-san, we're all a bit stressed," I said, trying to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand.

"Understandable," sniffed the offended nurse before leaving us.

Otou-san's yes were trained on the hospital door for the next five hours, and I was just as calm as I'd ever been.

Baby Itachi was going to be born, and I had no idea how to react.

Oh well. Whatever happens, I'll just go with the flow.

"Uchiha-sama? Akito-hime?"

"Hagane-sensei."

"It's done. Would you like to see your Otouto?"

"It's a boy?"

"Yes Uchiha-sama. Congratulations. There were some complications during the birthing process, but nothing that, due to this fortunate stalemate, she can't recover from with plenty of rest."

"I see."

"Come Akito-hime. Let's go see him ne?"

"Ah, Shujin-sama, Akito-chan. You were right, it was a boy."

"I'm always right Okaa-san. At least about my brothers."

"…brothers?"

"Is this him then?"

"He's so cute!"

"Have you decided on a name, shujin-sama?"

"I have veto power."

"…Uchiha Itachi."

"A good name."

"Acceptable."

"Good evening Itachi-touto! I'm your Aneki and I'll love you till the day we die!"

"…morbid."

"Indeed."

"She'll make a good sister."

He blinked sleepily at me. I proffered one of my fingers to him and he slowly curled his tiny fingers around it.

I melted.

OMAKE

Uchiha Shisui had never met anyone quite like his half-aunt four times removed, but then again, he wasn't the only one.

At a grand total of two years, he had learned every bit as much about life as the next toddler. But Aki-senpai was different.

She knew things he knew she had no business knowing, talked like an adult and not like a child trying to act like an adult (there was a huge difference. Several of his cousins were a testament to that) and she looked at him the way a proper aunt would, not like an aunt that really in all honesty shouldn't be referred to as such.

His Okaa-san said it was adorable how he trailed after her all the time but, besides being slightly (read: severely) mortified, he didn't mind. Even though he was a big boy and this just made him look like a little boy, he didn't mind.

Aki-senpai was his friend.

He managed to catch the kunai his Otou-san threw at him just before it stabbed him in the eye. Uchiha training, got to love it right?

Also, he knew that Aki-senpai would never attack him without warning. Ever.

In a world filled with crazy shinobi and even crazier training tactics, it meant a lot that he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would never punish him for letting his guard down around her.

Aki-senpai was his best friend.

He dodged the kick aimed for his head but didn't raise his arms fast enough to block his Otou-san's punch. "Focus Shisui! In a battle, you would have been killed! Do you want to be dead?!"

He shook his head because he was too out of breath to verbally answer. They retook their stances and Otou-san beckoned him forward.

Aki-senpai deserved the perfect best friend.

This time, he dodged the kick and blocked the punch as well as the ninja wire rigged to trip him to activate the bombardment of kunai and shuriken, the ones he'd sharpened just that morning in the armoury.

He would be the bestest friend to Aki-senpai in the world. Lifetime promise.

His Otou-san landed a punch in the time it took him to get out of the roll he'd used to dodge the tripwire.

"Focus Shisui! Blood does not come easily out of clothes!"

"Hai!"

(A/N: Shorter chapter, but I felt that it should have ended right there. Any questions so far? Any characters you want adding? Leave them in the reviews.)

Edited 17.01.2017