Shinobi Isekai: Round Two

The Meat Of Things

Satan's name was Shuji.

It didn't suit him. Like, at all. Shuji was the kind of name given to a particularly loyal dog, not the Demon King.

Not that anyone ever asked Kyou's opinion on the matter. On any matter, really.

Babies weren't exactly fonts of knowledge, after all.

Normal babies, anyway. Which she wasn't. She sure as hell didn't have the self-restraint necessary to pretend, either. She'd consumed reincarnations comics with an avarice which negatively impacted her studies, filing her head with all sorts of fancies. Now, presented with an opportunity to be the world changing genius she'd so enjoyed reading about, she found herself discouraged.

The comics had always glazed over how long everything took.

Everyday, left alone beside her mother in a dimly lit home, she babbled. Babababa, mamamama, tatatata. That sort of thing. Anything to build up her lingual dexterity. Whenever her caretaker or Shuji the Demon King were home, she listened in perfect silence, grasping onto the few Japanese words she knew and slowly but surely growing her vocabulary. She wanted her genius debut to be spectacular. A full sentence, said with perfect diction! She'd settle for nothing less!

Well, publicly. If her babbled "kaachan" went unacknowledged by the woman by her side, well, no one had to know, right?

Physically, she was still abysmally weak. What were the baby milestones, again? Now she was wishing she'd paid attention during her cousin's baby rants, as off putting as they'd been. Tummy time! Wasn't tummy time a thing? Why wasn't she getting any tummy time? Did these weird Naruto wannabes not know about tummy time?

Even she knew about tummy time.

Kyou added basic stretches to her training regimen, trying valiantly to roll over, reach her toes, etcetera. The day she finally succeeded in pulling herself up into a sitting position using her mother as a support, she cackled with glee.

Soon, she'd wreak havoc on this weird nightmare Naruto world.

Soon.

😈😈😈

Shuji glared down at his one year old daughter. She glared back, his own scowl—once endearing—mirrored back at him.

"Kyou," he growled. "Speak."

That annoying twinkle entered her eyes again, and she turned her head away in a blatant rejection of his command, straight black hair swishing around her ears.

Rarely did Shuji have cause to be angry with his daughter. She was a model child, never crying or screaming like all other children her age. She took her first steps at six months of age, firmly establishing her place in the Clan as a genius. She could grasp wooden kunai, though she showed no interest in throwing them, and he knew she could understand what he was saying.

She just wouldn't speak. The silence he'd always been grateful for was now the bane of his existence. If one more person expressed their condolences for the 'poor boy'—.

No, no, he couldn't afford to lose his temper. This was only the first set back. Kyou was still so far beyond her peers in all other aspects, taking a little longer in this one skill would prove inconsequential in the long run.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, running a hand through his short black hair. He watched as Kyou used his leg to pull herself to her feet before tottering off to the other side of their home where she kept a small pile of stones. He'd learned a while back that they were off limits, the echoes of her first temper tantrum still fresh in his eardrums.