Chapter 3

The sensation of falling through endless nothing. Weightless, yet always moving. There was no wind whistling past my face, but I feel motion. Falling, falling, falling...

I feel myself melting away. My fingers disintegrate before my eyes becoming specks of dust floating above me. Everything melts away as I continue falling...

I take a deep breath as a break the surface of water, as if I've never breathed before in my entire life. It's incredibly bright, so I blink a few times and try to take in my surroundings. A woman looms over me, looking both joyful and afraid. Then she passes me off to a younger girl who clutches me close to her small frame and tries to check if I'm okay. Why does she look so much bigger than me?

Voices are yelling all around me. There's definitely something wrong going on. I try to turn my head, but my body won't listen. It feels like none of my muscles work no matter how hard I try to move. I squirm until I can see the other woman from before, who I take to be a doctor of some kind, and see a bunch of folks in white robes standing around what seems like a woman lying on a bed and writhing in pain. She's calling something out, but I can't make out the words. Can I even understand what she's saying?

As if things suddenly clicked into place, I can hear her calling out: "My baby!" over and over again. I feel the arms around me clutch me tighter as the woman calls out. Baby? Is there a baby in the room?

Oh. It hits me. I'm the baby, and that's my mother. She's in pain right now and...oh no she's turning blue. Is she dying? But she just gave birth to me, I can't lose her already.

"Shit!" the doctor called out. "Her heart's not beating. Healers!" The group of people in the white robes, looking incredibly exhausted, stepped forward and held their hands out. A soft, yellowish light began to glow from their hands and I felt a warmth in the room spreading towards my mother. However, she didn't move nor make a sound. Whatever they were doing wasn't helping. I have to do something.

"Mom!" I try to yell, but it comes out like a baby's cry. I try to call out to her, but nothing seems to help. Not whatever the doctor's doing, not the healers, and certainly not me. I reach out to her, trying to help however I can--I can't just watch someone die in front of me. How would I ever be a doctor myself if I can't even help my mom dying in front of me. Even if I'm a baby, I have to help. I have to!

Warmth explodes deep in my chest, and I feel it course through my veins so fast it's like a tidal wave of heat surging out of my hands. I reach out, and the warmth expands outward from my hand and into the room, moving towards my mother. My eyes feel like they're on fire, my hands on fire, everything on fire, but it's a good heat. It's comforting. I know it can help me, and I want it to help my mom.

The light responds to my will and moves towards my mother, wrapping her in its soft embrace until it forms a cocoon around her body. I will it to heal, to mend her wounds and bring her back. She can't die--not until I've really met her and had a chance to even learn my name. I won't let her die. Even if I'm no longer Takuya, I still want to help others. I was going to be a doctor, I can't just watch someone die in front of me, and if I have the power to help I'm going to. This is my second chance at life--I won't have any regrets.

I can feel that whatever the light is has worked its magic, and so I release whatever hold I had over it and watch the light float away into the air. The room is silent, everyone staring at me and at my mother. I hope that whatever I did helped, but I can't see my mother to know.

"My baby," a voice whispers, beautiful but raspy. "My baby." It's my mom calling for me. I can feel the tears start to well up, and I try to reach out for her and get to her.

"Right here, my lady," the girl holding me answers as she walks over to her. "He's right here."

"My baby," she repeats and pulls me from the girl's arms. "My sweet, sweet baby boy," she coos and tickles my cheek, causing me to laugh a laugh that sounds unfortunately like a giggle. I guess I really was a baby after all, but this wasn't so bad. Being held by my mother again felt nice. So nice in fact, that...I feel really...sleepy....

I don't know how long I was asleep, but when I wake up I find that I'm covered by a warm blanket and facing the ceiling in a dark room. A mobile with some animals dangling from it blocks my view of the incredibly ornate ceiling, but even from a distance I can tell that it's gorgeously painted with gold around the edges glimmering in the moonlight from outside the window. The crib surrounding me is sturdy and clean and even the cloth on me feels softer than any silk I'd ever touched on Earth. My parents must be incredibly rich to afford all of this.

I try to move my head around to see more of the room, but it seems my body won't listen to me yet. I let out a sigh, reminding myself that I'm a baby and this was only natural. It's incredibly frustrating, but I'll have to put up with it until I have the muscle control needed to move more. I can at least move my arms and legs a bit, but it's not enough to roll over or move. I guess I'll be dependent on help for awhile now.

How inconvenient that I'd be reborn, keep my wits, and be trapped in the body of a baby. It must've completely slipped my mind that this would of course be the first part of my new life, but still! Being a baby is hard! I can't talk, can't walk, can't do anything on my own. Going from the prime of my life, about to enter med school and start dating guys to being a newborn baby in what felt like less than a day was a wild adjustment and it would definitely take some time. However, this body was definitely mine, and at least I didn't feel like a stranger inhabiting someone else's baby. That would've been awful, but Inana did say that I wasn't shoving another soul out of this body so I'll take her at her word.

Also, just to complain, but being a baby is SO BORING. Someone, please come into the room and entertain me or something I'm going to go crazy!

As if in answer to my silent cries, I hear the sound of glass breaking somewhere in the room. It wasn't very loud, but I definitely heard it. I can't move to see what happened, and suddenly I feel incredibly vulnerable. I'm just a baby, so if someone's breaking in I can't exactly DO anything about it. A chill goes up my spine, and I start saying a silent prayer that it was maybe a bird that crashed into the window and not an intruder.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. A shadow looms over my bed, and in the dark I can make out the facial features of a heavily scarred man. He smiles, and while his face would normally be considered attractive, the smile was so soulless it was truly terrifying. He looked at me like I was prey caught in a trap. His smile twisted into something horrific and I let out a whimper. I couldn't do anything, let alone cry.

"So, they were right," he whispers, his smile turning into something like that one clown villain people love for some reason. "You'll definitely be a problem." I shudder, the room cold as ice all of a sudden. I can't move as his hand reaches out to touch my face, the calluses on his fingers rough as they scratch against my skin. "Wow babies really are soft. Such a shame you have to die." I can't move, I can't speak--my life can't be over yet. Not like this. I watch, unable to move, as he pulls a knife from his belt, raises it up, and slowly brings it to my neck. "I wonder what sounds you'll make...I've never killed a baby before."

Before I could even cry, the knife flashed through the air, I shut my eyes and waited for it to plunge into my stomach. However, nothing happened, so I opened my eyes to look and the man was gone from my field of vision. He was now across the room, nursing a scratch on his cheek. I have no idea what just happened, but it looks like I'm safe for now.

I have to see what's going on, so I manage to wiggle over towards the edge of the crib to see, and standing in the doorway is the young girl who held me right after I was born. In her hand is what looks to be a butter knife, and in the other I can see what might be yarn extending from her fingers like a spider's thread. She was locking eyes with the man on the opposite side of the room, watching him intently. She must've been the one who saved me, but what was a young girl going to do against a trained assassin?

If you guessed that she'd fight like she was in an anime, you'd be right! She leapt right at the man and in a blinding flurry of motion their knives clanged against each other, each clash ringing out in the room. I couldn't keep up with what was happening they were moving so fast. Apparently, I was reborn into a world where maids were skilled warriors and assassins just broke into rooms to kill babies.

What have I gotten into?