New Life
Wah. Wah. The infant's eyes shot open.
Where… was he?
Harsh, unfiltered light bled through his blurry vision. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus. The ceiling above him was off-white, almost yellowed with age. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic—and something else, a subtle, earthy scent. Wood?
Was this… a hospital? A really old one?
He tried to sit up, but his body refused to cooperate. It felt heavy. Sluggish. No—small. His limbs felt unresponsive, almost alien, his head lolling to the side as if it weighed more than the rest of him.
Wah. Wah.
That incessant crying again. He turned his head—a monumental effort—and saw them.
Babies.
Dozens of them, tucked into what looked like antique wooden cribs lining the walls. Some slept peacefully, tiny fists clenched. Others squirmed, their cries a chaotic symphony. One, the source of the incessant wailing, was being cradled by a nurse in oddly old-fashioned attire—nothing like the crisp, modern scrubs he remembered.
A cold chill slid down his spine, a premonition of something deeply unsettling.
He raised his hand instinctively, a gesture he'd performed a million times, then froze.
No. No, no, no.
It was tiny. Soft. Chubby.
That wasn't his hand. That was the hand of a baby.
Fuck.
His mind raced, a torrent of frantic, disbelieving thoughts. What was this? Why was this happening? It wasn't just absurd—it was utterly impossible. Panic surged, his inner monologue devolving into a mental string of sailor-grade profanity. He, Yu Korima, the epitome of precision and control, reduced to this helpless, squalling form?
Eventually, the initial surge of panic subsided, replaced by a cold, sharp rationality. He stopped. Breathed.
At least I'm alive.
It wasn't much, but it kept him grounded. He had no idea how he ended up here. Reborn? Reincarnated? Kidnapped by some twisted isekai god for laughs, a cruel cosmic joke? Nothing made a lick of sense.
As he wrestled with the surreal situation, the nurse, having calmed the other infant, began walking toward him.
No. Don't touch me.
His deeply ingrained Obsessive Compulsive Disorder screamed in alarm. He could practically feel the invisible grime, the microscopic imperfections on her hands, even though he knew they were likely sanitized. The very thought of her unwelcome touch made his skin crawl.
"Don't," he tried to say, to warn her off.
What came out instead was a frustrated, incoherent:
"Gah! Guh!"
Useless. He thrashed weakly, his tiny limbs flailing, driven by sheer instinct and disgust. The moment her hand brushed his arm, a spark of intolerable contamination, he let out the loudest, most furious baby scream he could possibly muster, a primal shriek of utter refusal.
The nurse recoiled, startled, as if burned by his sudden, violent outburst.
Good.
He narrowed his eyes—or at least, tried to, his infant eyelids struggling to cooperate. The nurse hesitated, clearly unsure how to proceed. She glanced around for help. When none came, she turned back toward him, wary but curious.
Each tentative step she took made his tiny heart pound faster. Badump. Badump.
He squeaked warning noises—grunts and shrill shrieks of escalating intensity. Every time she reached for him, even with the slightest movement, he screamed again, a raw, furious sound. Eventually, she got the message. Her eyes widened slightly in understanding, and without a word, she turned and left the room, leaving him in blessed, pristine isolation.
He exhaled shakily, his tiny chest rising and falling with the effort.
Thank God.
Silence returned, absolute and pristine. He used the moment to scan the room properly. Stone walls, rough and unpainted. Scuffed wooden floors, worn smooth by countless footsteps. No beeping monitors, no bright LEDs, no sterile plastic bassinets—just more of those dark, carved wooden cribs with simple, almost archaic patterns.
This wasn't a modern hospital at all. It was… old. Medieval, almost.
Creak… creak…
His head turned sluggishly at the sound of a heavy door opening. Four figures entered the nursery.
Two wore white doctor coats, their faces largely unreadable behind spectacles and stiff, professional expressions. A third man, however, stood out dramatically—tall, thin, robed in crimson-lined cloth with a conical hat perched atop his head and a long, ceremonial pipe hanging from his lips.
He looked exactly like the Third Hokage from Naruto—Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Trailing behind them was the same nurse from before, her eyes flicking to the child's crib with palpable caution.
They approached, a strange procession in this ancient-looking room.
He stared back at them, wary and defiant. When the first doctor leaned in to touch him, a shadow falling over his crib, he screamed.
The man jolted in surprise, his glasses almost falling off.
Another tried, a second doctor extending a hand. Yu responded with louder, more furious screams.
And again.
No matter who reached for him, no matter how gentle or tentative their approach, the response was the same—an ear-piercing, fury-laced refusal that echoed through the quiet nursery. His tiny baby body trembled with the sheer effort of resisting. Whether it was deep-seated trauma, primal instinct, or stubbornness born of his unique condition, he didn't care.
They weren't touching him.
Eventually, the relentless strain wore him down. His stomach twisted in protest, a sharp, unfamiliar pang. He was hungry. Crying had drained what little energy his infant body possessed.
The nurse seemed to notice. She disappeared briefly and returned minutes later with a bottle of warm, white milk.
She approached carefully, bottle in hand, hovering it near his mouth.
He eyed it suspiciously. Probably clean enough, he decided. Maybe safe. But survival trumped suspicion. He had to eat.
He latched on, sucking greedily.
Warmth spread through him, a comforting, vital flow. With each swallow, his tiny muscles unclenched, and his baby body relaxed, the frantic energy slowly ebbing away. The others watched in silence, a collective breath held. One of the doctors—encouraged by his momentary calm—tried once more to check his forehead, a hesitant finger reaching out.
The baby narrowed his eyes, a tiny, furious glare that belied his size, and sucked harder on the bottle, glaring at the man like a furious gremlin. It was a silent, unmistakable threat.
The doctor sweat-dropped, a bead of perspiration rolling down his temple, and immediately retreated.
Satisfied, the child slowed his feeding, the initial hunger pangs quelled. His limbs grew heavier, and drowsiness crept in like a warm, enveloping fog. He drifted into sleep, their hushed voices fading to a dull murmur, the strange new reality settling in around him.
The Nine-Tails attacked just yesterday. The raw, open wound of it still throbbed in the heart of Konoha.
Minato… Kushina…
Gone. Sacrificed for the village they loved, for their newborn son. Even now, the terrifying image of the colossal beast tearing through Konoha clung to his mind, a nightmare made real.
"Sigh… why did you have to go so soon…" Hiruzen murmured under his breath, his voice heavy with grief and the crushing weight of renewed responsibility.
He walked through the battered, scarred streets of the village. Burned homes lay in skeletal ruins. Shattered walls stood as stark monuments to destruction. Blood, long since dried into dark, indelible stains, marred the once-vibrant pathways. Just after surviving the devastating Third Great Ninja War… and now this.
Konoha needed peace. It deserved peace.
He reached the hospital, one of the few buildings still structurally intact, a beacon of hope in the desolation. Inside, the air hummed with quiet pain, as shinobi and civilians alike filled the halls, tending to their wounds and their sorrow.
Perhaps I should visit Naruto, he thought, a faint, melancholic smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Minato's legacy. The boy who would grow up alone, bearing a terrible burden, in a world his parents had died to protect.
He entered the hospital's main ward—and paused.
Up ahead, a nurse spoke urgently into a receiver, her voice tense, strained.
Hiruzen approached, his steps soft. "What's going on?"
The nurse turned sharply, her eyes wide with surprise. "Hokage-sama!" she bowed deeply, her voice a little too loud. "There's… something strange with a newborn."
His brow furrowed with concern. "Is the child injured?"
"No, not physically. He's perfectly healthy, as far as we can tell."
"Then what's the issue?"
She hesitated, glancing nervously at the other staff. "He… reacts violently to touch. He screams whenever anyone tries to lay a hand on him. We can't even examine him properly."
Before he could question further, a doctor arrived, looking flustered, and exchanged hurried, whispered words with the nurse. She then turned back to Hiruzen, her expression a mix of bewilderment and apprehension.
"I'd like to see him," the Hokage said, his tone firm. "Take me there."
They led him down the corridor to a quiet nursery, a small pocket of relative calm amidst the hospital's chaos. Inside, the air was still, save for the occasional soft coo or whimper. The nurse approached one of the cribs and gestured silently.
Hiruzen stepped forward, his gaze falling upon the infant.
The baby lay swaddled, small, yet unnervingly alert. His dark eyes, intelligent and piercing, locked with the Hokage's, holding an intensity far beyond his apparent age. There was something wrong—or rather, something too right. An awareness. Sharp and deliberate. That baby wasn't confused.
He was watching them. Assessing.
The doctors, still perplexed, leaned in again. A hand, tentative, reached forward.
The infant screamed—a sound so sharp, so unexpected, that it made Hiruzen flinch despite his years of battlefield experience. Again and again, they tried to approach. Again and again, he refused their touch with ear-piercing shrieks. It wasn't out of fear or pain. He was actively rejecting them, every fiber of his tiny being recoiling from contact.
The nurse, remembering the baby's earlier hunger, brought a bottle of milk.
Hiruzen observed in silence, his keen mind working, connecting the dots.
The boy eyed it cautiously, his tiny nose twitching, then took it with surprising precision. The raw tension that had gripped his small body visibly melted away with every swallow. Smart. He knew he needed it to survive. An instinct for self-preservation that was remarkably strong.
One of the doctors, emboldened by the child's momentary calm, reached out again—this time, more confidently, to check for a fever.
The baby's glare sharpened, a distinct narrowing of his eyes. He sucked harder on the bottle, a low, guttural growl escaping his throat. It was a clear, unmistakable threat, delivered with the fury of a pint-sized gremlin.
The doctor paled, a visible bead of perspiration rolling down his temple, and quickly backed off.
A low chuckle escaped Hiruzen's lips, a rare sound in these somber times. "Looks like we have a willful one on our hands." His gaze lingered on the sleeping infant, a flicker of something akin to intrigue in his ancient eyes. This was no ordinary child. Not just a survivor of the Nine-Tails, but a spirit utterly unwilling to be touched. An interesting complication in a village that needed all the strength it could muster.