1: First Steps to Living

Finding out I was in a fictional world of unhappy children, ninjutsu magic, and rabbit goddesses probably would have been more distressing if I hadn't realized several very key things in quick succession.

One, despite my grandfather's place as a retired shinobi, my Kaa-chan was most definitely not a kunoichi, retired or otherwise. Which meant my mother's side of the family would likely offer no pressures to follow in Jiji's footsteps. Even if they did I had two civilian parents who seemed happy as they were to back me up.

Two, that terrifying night that had finally woken me up had to be the Kyuubi attacking. Which put me somewhere in the Konoha 11's age group. That was good because it meant most of the wars had already passed and I was most familiar with this timeline.

Three, I was in Konoha, which was the "friendly village". They seemed to treat their civilians nicely and liked to keep up a good face. As long as I didn't stand out no one would pay me any attention. It wasn't like I had ended up in a situation that would require learning. I was no Uchiha desperate to survive a massacre or a prophecy child who would have it forced upon them. There were benefits to being a civilian. I didn't have any ties to the village or any valuable information, which meant I could leave and take my family with me when I did. I knew key events to avoid and had at least a decade to start figuring out how to do it too.

Even if I couldn't completely avoid the Chunin Exams, I could make sure we were close to the shelters in Hokage Mountain for safety. For Pain, I had until puberty to convince them to go on a vacation.

Four, being the selfish and admittedly cowardly person that I was I had no intention of changing the plot. I could sugarcoat it with some truths. I, at approximately eight or nine, would be able to do nothing about the Uchiha Massacre. That alternate universe timeline had shown it required Minato to avoid. And I was far from the Fourth Hokage. There was also the sheer threat of Danzo or Zetsu learning the future to consider when deciding to not bring attention to me. That would end in disaster that didn't bear thinking about. Plus there were differences between the anime and manga, so I could misjudge a situation easily.

But I was also self-aware enough to recognize I wasn't sure I had enough self-sacrifice in myself to dedicate my life to changing this world. To choose a job that would almost assure I would become a killer. All for some distant notion of justice and bettering the world. It was not that I approved of the suffering people went through or the deaths, but what could I really do. Even if I was altruistic enough to try and change it there was no guarantee it would be for the better. Or even that I would be able to change anything. I was not arrogant enough to try and play god, confident enough in my successes, or invested enough in the lives of those who were still fictional to me to try for it.

I was in the good position to change nothing and let fate and prophecy run its course. Perhaps it would have been a better position if we lived elsewhere, but I could deal with what I had been dealt. Besides I was barely a year old, I had plenty of time to make big decisions.

. . .

If I had been asked before my sudden rebirth to be able to make one request it would have been to skip being an infant altogether.

A child at least can walk. A child can talk. A child has some form of control over their body and can interact with the world.

A toddler has to learn all of these.

Learning to do those again may have given me something to do in the tedious hours that my life was filled with, but it was far from pleasant. Taro was company and keeping him occupied was one thing I did to try and make up for the awful months I had given my parents. But he was only a thirteen month old and not able to exactly connect on the same level as me.

Eventually, I started to give myself projects.

Project One: Learn How to Talk.

I had enough control to curse, so I started systematically practicing my vowels and consonants after being put to bed and carefully repeating every sound my parents made, even if it was a little garbled. The goal was to be able to have some memorable first words, like those stories about children who had first sentences instead. Taro would join in and soon our nighttime routine included at least an hour of babbling back and forth together in English, which I refused to forget, and Japanese. He began to treat it like a game and we babbled in our free time as well.

He followed my cues and our first words were muttered out quite by accident.

Taro, I was proud to say was a smart baby on top of being adorable. He noticed I would listen and say any unfamiliar words and began to listen for new ones to say to me first. He became so excited one night at hearing an unfamiliar word he happily turned to me and blurted out, a clear and only slightly off "yūjo". As he had already said it I decided to follow up with a smile and the other unfamiliar word in the sentence "usotsuki".

There was a long moment of silence following these words and it was clear from my Kaa-chan's horrified expression that whatever we had repeated was not something as innocuous as a dinner talk. She turned on my stunned father with one quick flash utter fury that was hidden, she started talking to him in a calm voice. But there was clearly a threat in her smile, hidden so we wouldn't notice she was upset.

I was proud to pick up a few words beyond articles and names. Almost every other word was recognizable.

"Kaito if you ever talk about your work at supper again I will take you outside and drown you in the river." It was all spoken in a perfectly sweet voice, but Kaa-chan's brown eyes burned.

Tou-chan looked up at her through his bangs and his shoulders curled in close.

"I didn't know they would repeat everything Fumi-chan!" Tou-chan protested but shut his mouth with a quelling look from Kaa-chan and a slightly more tense interruption from the small woman.

"Their first words!"

Tou-chan was unable to argue with this.

Taro, meanwhile, was confused on why he wasn't being praised and his face began to scrunch up eyes watering. I focused back on him ignoring my parents and started to coo at him, babbling some English children's songs my parents didn't understand but he adored.

"Little bunny foo foo," I began and Taro focused on me his face stretching into a gummy smile that made my heart melt. He was the cutest baby ever.

He began singing with me.

"Lil bunny foo foo, hoppin' drew de fores'."

. . .

Later I learned the actual meaning of those words. Taro's first word had been "prostitute", while mine had been "liar".

. . .

Eventually, our parents calmed down and Kaa-chan was mollified by our second words being "kaachan" and third ones "touchan". After this goal had been reached we continued our game and the language just seeped in, in a way no foreign language I had learned in my first life ever had. It was amazing and even better finally let me understand what was going on around me.

Most importantly the people, my parents Yamada Fumie and Yamada Kaito.

Fumie, was as I had guessed, a housewife and from the stories and songs, she would tell us throughout the day happy about this. Jiji and Baba were her parents I also learned and Tou-chan had taken her name because she didn't want her family line to die with her. She had grown up in Konoha and met Tou-chan when he moved to our original country house I had vague memories of. We had moved closer to Konoha Proper after the Kyuubi destroyed it during the attack.

Kaito was harder to figure out. He would go off on tangents when he spent time with us just settling us around him to play and filling to air with information on the oddest topics. From carpentry to tea ceremony to locked room murders. I was sure the last one was not something Kaa-chan would not approve of, but it and seeing him scribbling notes helped me figure out the last piece of the puzzle. Tou-chan was a writer and what's more, he wrote mysteries. Murder mysteries, if I understood correctly.

They were complete opposites. Physically as well as mentally. Tou-chan was loud, Kaa-chan was quiet. Tou-chan was tall, Kaa-chan was short. Tou-chan was educated by some university in the capital, Kaa-chan had quit her education as soon as possible. Tou-chan had long light colored hair and narrow eyes, Kaa-chan had a smooth cap of black hair and large deep brown eyes.

The only thing they seemed to have in common was their love for stories, each other, and us.

This new ability to understand my parents and better tell them what I wanted came with more advantages than just closeness. I got to request stories, which meant books. Lord, I had missed books. I insisted that Taro and I got to see the book the entire time they were reading it to us. I was desperate to learn to read again and building associations early wouldn't hurt Taro. Hiragana came back grudgingly, but katakana and kanji were struggling along.

Thankfully, my parents were more than willing to encourage this and quickly supplied blocks with hiragana on them to entertain myself with. Taro was not much interested in them beyond their softness, chewability (we were teething), and how well he could aim with them. For me, they were the first step to one of my goals and gave me a more stimulating way to spend my time.

. . .

After getting my goal of talking down, smoothing my walking abilities was the next step. I was already becoming proficient at crawling and soon began pulling myself up to stand at any opportunity to get used to my new balance and build up my muscles. Taro seemed uninterested in this development and his preferred method was to forgo crawling and simply get Tou-chan to bring him to what he wanted or bring what he wanted to him. I doubt my falling helped give him much enthusiasm for the subject either.

When I finally did walk, it went about as successfully as my plan to have my first word be something good did.

I had been practicing but was saving my "first" steps for the maximum point of drama. I figured I owed my parents at least some good stories to tell other people. I finally settled on doing it on the rare days all four of us visited our grandparents.

Tou-chan almost never came on those visits and was usually writing frantically in the den or meeting with some official looking people over tea.

I figured seeing as the whole family would be assembled now was as good a time as any. But still I waited through the small talk and me and Taro being passed around and fussed over. Jiji and Baba spoiled us shamelessly and we could never get away without some kind of sweet or toy or knitted blanket or clothes being pushed towards us. Baba seemed to spend most of the time knitting something new while talking to Kaa-chan. Jiji would quickly claim us and drag us off to the corner to brag to his customers about his "adorable grandchildren" or play with us without tiring for hours.

With Tou-chan there things were slightly off somehow and Jiji quieter than normal, looking up at Tou-chan with a narrowed eyes every time he would speak. It was a far different picture than the grinning, goofy old man I was used to. Even our soft, gentle Baba turned hostile when Tou-chan was there. Never rude, she was a hostess after all, but her smile was colder and she seemed to deliberately allow Tou-chan to fall into awkward silences.

Subtle they were not and honestly, it was probably Taro and my presence that stopped things from getting out of hand.

I tried my best to cause distractions when things got too bad and was definitely playing up the "I-am-an-adorable-baby" thing to get Jiji to soften back up again. Demanding "games" and "sweets" were usually enough to distract them from glaring too many holes into Tou-chan.

I decided walking then would be both a good dramatic moment and useful for cutting the tension.

I had spent the evening pulling myself up to standing using Jiji's knee as a prop or occasionally one of their lower tables that they kept on the family side of the restaurant. Every time I did Jiji would coo and open his arms to try and encourage me to walk towards him. He was summarily ignored and eventually gave up keeping a close eye on me instead.

I bided my time until everyone was seated in the room. Tou-chan and Baba had fallen into a rare civil conversation as he interviewed her about cooking with his serious "Work Face" on taking notes. Kaa-chan was distracting Jiji by talking about arranging for a "shashin" of Taro and I for our next birthday and Jiji was wearing his besotted expression that meant he was imagining us doing something cute.

Taro was the only one really focused on me. His black eyes watched me as I pushed up from the table and released it to measure my sense of balance. He blinked at that and took out the soft ta block from his mouth to question me.

"Nee?" he said face scrunching up and watching as I took a step away from the table. I gave him a smile which he returned on instinct, but he still looked concerned as I began my shaky steps away from Jiji and toward where Tou-san sat.

"Nee!" Taro protested behind me and conversation ceased suddenly.

I didn't look back focused solely on my goal. I rounded the table slowly, looking only at the wide-eyed expression on my Tou-chan's face and the way it faded into something softer, affectionate. His hands lowered palms out when he realized what I was aiming for. I knew everyone was focused on me now and was rather proud of something going right for once.

Then I heard a sharp hiss of breath and felt stubby baby fingers grab the back of my shirt and a teeny body hit me. I lost my balance and only heard a cheerful "Nee" beside my ear before I tipped forward forehead hitting the edge of the table.

Pain exploded behind my eyes and I wailed. An answering wail came from on top of me in response.

The room exploded into chaos as everyone was talking and I was grabbed with Taro. I just cried and sobbed through the pain, until a soft minty touch began tickling my forehead making the pain recede.

Still sniffling, I looked up through wet tears to see green coming from Baba's hand as she frowned at me. I could hear Taro crying behind, sharp and making my heart feel like it was ripping even as I processed this new knowledge. Baba was or had been a kunoichi.

Blinking away the tears I turned in Baba's arms to find Taro close up hiccuping with huge tears going down his face from where he sat in Kaa-chan's arms leaning up towards me. I wiggled until I was lowered closer and reached out to pat his cheeks.

"Toto," I said and he quieted but kept sniffling, not quite quitting his crying. I crawled closer using the women's knees as leverage to switch laps and instantly Taro snuggled up beside me.

"Nee," he whined wrapping his chubby arms around me. I would dare anyone not to coo and melt at the sheer adorableness that is a chubby-cheeked Taro.

I returned the hug and we comforted each other, even as my mind went back to the tickling sensation of chakra touching me for the first time. As little as I wanted to be a ninja, the chakra was interesting and even though I had seen Jiji use it I had never felt it like that before. It made me curious about how my own chakra would feel.

Was it like a separate thing inside of me? Or was it like a heartbeat, unnoticed unless brought to your attention?

. . .

My third birthday answered those questions. Chakra definitely stood out to me. And worst of all, chakra didn't feel mystical or like a part of me. Chakra felt itchy.

AN: I am so happy there has been a good response to this! Thanks to everyone who has favorited and reviewed. I'm trying not to linger too long in infanthood, so there will probably be a few time skips. I have a rough outline of at least the first part of the story ready but will see how close it will stick to that.