Chapter 3: Interlude or what to do with baby souls?

Summary: In which Calla struggles trying to figure out this stupid reincarnation thing and why is there not a manual on what do when you are surrounded by tiny baby souls? Or in which Calla is single-handedly responsible for a baby boom across the entire Elemental Nations because that's just how she rolls. And no, that's not interference, shut up Hermione!

The Fourth Hokage was dead. He had spent a bare few moments with her, but she had cradled his soul in her hand. Calla doubted the man would be anything but Minato to her. The adorable ten-year-old who worked himself to exhaustion to get better, tried so hard. The child who blushed whenever the red-haired prankster turned her eyes on him.

The teenager who, abandoned by his own teacher and left behind, still took on his own child apprentice and tried his best to teach him how to live and be more than just a soldier.

And Calla was in an orphanage. And surrounded by souls.

Yeah, she was going to have to figure this one out.

Most souls just moved on to the afterlife (so, so many questions) but the baby ones (and toddlers) had never had a chance to develop. No way. She was going to give them another life right now. This was her world, and she would not allow them to just disperse. There wasn't enough personality development and self-awareness to hold them together if they died to young.

So, the solution was simple – reincarnation. The concept had existed on earth as well. The question now was how.

Gently cradling one of the tiny colourful blobs of emotion and thought she lifted it carefully and opened her hand.

"Reincarnate"

…

The blob was still there. It wiggled slightly sideways and then kind of spread out like jello before reforming into a sphere.

Calla sighed.

Okay, so that didn't work.

She was so, so glad she had hidden herself away under the invisibility cloak and that no one could hear her under her spellwork, but this was still so, so embarrassing. Where was the manual for this? Maybe a Death powers for Dummies?

Pulling on the power inside of her which had helped her transport across dimensions, Calla tried again. "Death Magic: Reincarnate?"

Did Death Magic work in latin? Maybe she should try that? When she'd crossed dimensions she hadn't needed any spellwork. Just intent. So maybe thinking really hard worked?

Another half hour passed. Still no results.

The soul in her hand was just enjoying the contact, it appeared, luckily. Because so far, Calla had squat.

Was there a reincarnation wheel? If so, how did one go about accessing it? Did she have to create it? How does she do that?

Scratching her head in thought, Calla stretched herself before remembering something. Hold on, what about giving the souls away? Implanting them? Weren't there always couples who couldn't have children?

Hell yes, this was going to be so awesome. She was going to help and solve this all one go! Ha! Take that Fate! People would have kids and Calla for the win again

…

Although didn't fate technically win since she kinda-sorta did exactly what the prophecy demanded…? Wouldn't that mean it was now 1:1?

Boo! Did that mean you couldn't win as a mortal normal person? You had to be an immortal… errr… concept? Being? Demi-god? Human?

Or did that mean she could've won if the other people aware and or involved in the prophecy weren't so gung-ho about making it come true?

Another sigh. Another tangent, boy it's hard to keep on task. This world – and the Wizarding World – were all so complicated when they didn't need to be.

Oh well, Calla would just step in where they fell short and sort it out. Without intervening of course. This was just… helping things along. She was sure all of the couples she would help would've had babies eventually. Almost certainly. Definitely. Yep. This was not intervening at all.

…

And if it was, there was no one here to tell her otherwise. Take that, Hermione.

She took away their pain, suffering and sorrow. Took away the memories and then she did something she probably wasn't supposed to. Calla was Death, she wasn't life, but, well… this was the right thing to do. That's what she believed anyway.

So, still covered in the invisibility cloak, she sought out the hospital and then the children's ward. In Konoha, pregnancy and everything up until the age of 10 was handled at the children's ward. As were the couples trying and failing to get pregnant – and those were the ones she was seeking out. The hospital was filled to the brim at the moment, which was only more beneficial for her as the files were completely unprotected with all staff required to work on patients.

A quick spell duplicated the files she had sought out and she spent the next few nights picking out couples across the elemental nations and surveying them. Due to chaos in Konoha, the staff at the orphanages wasn't running their nightly checks at the moment; everyone slept when and where they could. Even though the orphanage she was at was designated for ages 4 and up, they currently had 3 babies and 5 toddlers to contend with until places and orphanages were sorted out. Some kids were picked up by relatives or adopted by friends of the families over the coming days.

But she had more babies than couples trying for babies in Konoha, so she also went to Suna, Kiri, Iwa and Ame and small villages in between. Essentially, anywhere she could hope to find a couple looking to start a family. And there were so many of them, everywhere. A noble man's wife desperate to produce an heir; a farming family desperately in love wanting to share it with a child; a geisha who had left the business to create a family with one of her lovers; a clan wife wanting to have a child to ensure her legacy lives on, a man wanting a living remainder if his kunoichi wife dies; so many, all of them desperate in different ways and many more besides.

Then it got more complicated. First, she vetted the family – no need for another Dursley family; she was neither Dumbledore nor McGonagall, she was going to do her very best to cover every angle and make sure the babies were left in good hands for their second start at life. Then it had to not be a biological issue – or at least a mild one she could actually help with, with magic. Calla could not just implant a soul inside a stomach (is that where Minato got this idea from?); they needed to be able to get pregnant and she could help with the last steps – making sure the baby took and got carried to term. Making sure it was healthy.

And then more souls appeared in the coming days, dying from the aftereffects of the Kyubi attack and for other reasons. Calla didn't read them or their memories, she stripped them off it all and sent them back out in the world whenever she could.

Calla knew reincarnation was already happening on this world, but she still didn't know how. Maybe in the future she'd put more effort into figuring out how – for now, she was pretty happy with the process.

Now… how does she go about entering the afterlife? Is there a good place and a bad place? Does she have to sort people? Where would that be? So far, everyone just seemed to move straight onto the afterlife without any intermediary.

Meh.

Problem for another day.

For now, it was past bedtime for tiny eight year old children, and she counted herself among that group for the moment.