Stuck Between Slugs and Toads

A reincarnated soul finds itself stuck between a short-tempered Senju princess and a perverted Dead Last—all while stuck in the mind of the series's infamous, sociopathic snake. Foreknowledge barely means anything when the pieces of the plot have yet to begun. Reborn!OC


nine: family

orochimaru: three years

years to second war: twenty-one years


Tokonoma slides the papers to her husband, saying, "You write. It's pretty."

I sit in the middle of the two, enjoying their warmth.

"Alright, first thing's first! A name for our little one."

"Should we just make up one?"

Hazuo doesn't reply. Is that question intended for me? I take the brush from him and write very carefully Orochimaru. I write the five characters used to pronounce my name.

"Orochimaru," Tokonoma says and I enjoy hearing my name come from her voice. "Huh. That's a mouthful. I like 'boy' better. Can't 'boy' be his name?"

"That... may not be legal calling a child every noun in existence. I would not want to be a child named This or Goodbye."

"Humph. Just suggestion. Whatever. His name is nice for what it means."

I am happy.

"He's about three, I bet. Write your birthday—October twenty-seventh? So you're a fall baby! Oh-ho, if you were in your mother's gut for nine months, I know what day they—"

"Hush, love. He's a child."

"Meh..."

We complete the papers together. It's very selfish of me to continue fooling them I will be their son for a long time. But I can't stop. Hope is such a great force to defeat.

The next day, we clean the house for the arrival of their daughter. Hazuo straightens her room while Tokonoma and I do the bottom floor. I go to my room just to enjoy it while I wait.

A very quick rasp on the door breaks the house's quiet. Hazuo is the one to open the door and a very girly voice can be heard shouting: "Poppaaaa!"

I can hear her running through the home, yelling all the while.

"Who in home? New brother? Really, really? Who? I see him! I see him now! Where brother? Where?"

She is racing up the steps while Tokonoma shouts just as loud, "Do not run, girl! You're going to fall down them steps! Don't scare the poor boy!"

Her daughter opens and slams doors until the sound is right next door. I am already flinching as she opens my door and pauses.

She truly is their child.

Their child I have seen before.

Blond pigtails, a round face with bright red cheeks, Hazuo's deep brown eyes, Tokonoma's eyelashes and temper. Resting on her pale neck, the First Hokage's necklace.

It is unmistakably Tsunade Senju.

end