4 Strike

The next time Dix woke up he felt absolutely shit.

Instead of the constant trickle of energy coming from his stomach he could only feel it turning into a dark void, not unlike the Black Hole that god was holding in his hands. Even the sounds aligned, as it was rumbling and crackling as a heavy thunderstorm would that is about to sweep the world clean of all life. Yes, he was hungry as heck.

*What does a baby have to do to get some food around here?! I can't get it on my own!* His head was already reddening, but he absentmindedly slipped past the key defining feature of a child. Didn't take much time for him to break though, all of his instincts were out there to make him cry, but with a somewhat cool and mostly mature head he gave in only reluctantly.

*God damn it, still damn it! I did not want to do this, I'm more then 30 by now, I don't want to beg for food! But fuck it all, if this is what it takes, then I'll go on a protest! I'm going to make them listen to me! I'll fight for my rights! Right now I'm about to start... a hunger strike!* And with that thought, he just stopped bottling up and trying to fight against nature. He let them dams crack and soon crumble. Let the waterworks do its job.

He started crying so hard even the heavens were saddened and echoed back the hysterical hymn of the helpless. Or at least he thought. But in reality it took quite a few minutes for anyone to notice his actions and come to the rescue. Someone entered the room, but Dix could not tell who as he totally forgot he might be able to open his eyes and see something by now. Coming to this realization he stopped crying for a second and went hardcore on trying to tune his senses at the approaching... something. While opening his eyes was way easier then before, the sight was still blurry, not as much as after his rebirth, but still not quite there where he wants it to be. He could make out the shape of the human and that it is most likely a women, and not a young one at that. Her facial features were still hard to get a good feeling of, but he was optimistic. Right after training his eye, he could try out his ears, as the woman started speaking.

"Oh my, aren't you a strong voiced little boy? It's interesting how quiet you were all night, I was prepared for an all-nighter as I had to with every single little devil that were entrusted to me before. Well let's see, you must be hungry, aren't you? You should be, even though you stopped crying. That's unique as well. I hope there is nothing wrong with you, would be a ton of trouble for the both of us..."

At this point the woman held up the bottle of something she was holding, put some sort of cloth or rubber something on its hole and then showed it to the baby. Dix was supposed to suck on that something attached to the bottle so he could get to the sweet nectar inside. But he did not know this and the natural instincts of a baby were a bit dampened by his mature consciousness. His caretaker was dumbfounded at this, but didn't back off. She tried to force it into the child's mouth, as it was her responsibility to keep the child going until she gets other orders. It took a bit of effort on both ends, but soon Dix was drinking the most likely animal milk from the bottle.

*This is... This is torture, why do I have to suffer trough this? Are these the rights of a man? Kids these days are worth nothing? Their happiness? I just got born, and here I am without any parents, or family to speak of... Don't I deserve some respect?!* This and similar thoughts came up in his mind as he kept on chewing with a deeply unsatisfied look on his face.

"Aw, you look upset aren't you, maybe you are a little devil yourself, just a late bloomer. Haha, you are just as adorable as the others, it makes my heart melt." Her face livened up in a giddy smile, like the one kids would do in the winter in the protection of their home, sitting next to the heater, covered in blankets while sipping a good cup of tea and reading the Minecraft Bible.

"By the way, my name is Elma, probably you won't remember yet, but lets get used to each other, we will probably be together for quite a while~" she said as she stood up to leave.

Dix was finally full, all of his one problem since being born was solved, so he was leisurely lying around, trying to resist the encroaching sleepiness. There was a small hint though, an inkling that there is something wrong. He tried to concentrate on what exactly happened that made him upset, but it took quite a few moments to hit him. But then it hit hard.

*Holy shit, how could I not notice sooner?! I barely understood a few words of what she said! She was speaking Japanese for god's sake... no not that, rather, for fuck's sake! What am I going to do?! I only speak English and a bit of Japanese I pulled together in my years of watching anime and shit... Ahhhhhhhahahahah I'm dooooooomed...!* With that closing note he could not contain himself anymore. The dams that just got built up were about to be destroyed down again. He started uncontrollably crying as despair completely overcame his mind. He didn't stop even when Elma dropped by again to see whats the ruckus. He was still crying when his caretaker picked him out of his comfy bed, and started rocking him gently in her arms. Dix felt the sudden movement of his body, but didn't care much. He was too occupied by drowning himself in self-pity. But what followed he couldn't ignore anymore.

Elma started singing a lullaby in a soothing voice. Her voice was like a river flowing trough its bed. Calming, rhythmic, purposeful and strong. It was almost inspiring. Dix could not turn his head away or close his ears, so he had to 'suffer' the maternal affection he was subjected to. Soon his tears ran out and he was just lying in her arms enjoying the warmth. Mostly still, he was just admiring the comparatively huge face of Elma without thinking much of the overbearing problems he has to face. He was just relaxing.

After a few minutes the song ran out of words to sing, so Elma put the child back into the cradle after making sure the boy was fast asleep. This time she brought something again, which was a small bundle of clothes. It was supposed to act as a diaper, which she quickly applied on the baby before silently slipping out of the room. She had a ton of work to do and a lot of other children to care about, she couldn't afford to stop.

A few hours later Dix woke up from his mostly food induced coma, and with all of his bodily needs being met he could finally really start focusing on the bigger problems.

*I have to start planning. Without a system to help me remember stuff and to keep track of my progress I'll have to go hardcore on this one. I'll have to use every little thing I learned in my past life and squeeze every single drop of knowledge out of my memory of this world. Also I'll have to get a body-building plan so I get my foundations done before I enroll the Academy. I'll have to think about how my relationships will go too. For example if I were to gain Sasuke's friendship I could work around a ton of problems he causes later in the story. That treacherous mothafaka though... I never really liked him, but he is invaluable in the plot, for many, many reasons. Well, he is just a confused kid, so whatever. I wish I could've saved Minato or save Itachi in the future, but I can't help either situation whatsoever. I could try and revive Minato but... That's a ton of work and I'm sure he would not want to come back just because of the selfishness of his child. The dead should rest peacefully. I'll release his soul out of the Reaper Death Seal as soon as possible. As for Itachi, I can only promise him I'll take care of Sasuke for him, that's his only real desire next to defending the village. Yeah lets go with that... Now lets think about THE important task I can start working on right away.*

Meanwhile status report of Kurama:

His soul used to completely fill out the space in the seal, but now he tried to force himself together into a ball as small as possible, just so he might be able to get away from his connection with the baby. He shed a few tears as he kept lamenting about his cruel fate. He knew this will happen and could not suffer more. That damned crying. Like the Christmas Grinch he felt his mind breaking under the sound waves battering at his consciousness. Fortunately the caretaker stepped in fast enough, but Kurama knew there is more where that came from and was already anxious of whats to come in the following years.