And - 

He's born.

His eyes don't really work yet, not at any distance, but a woman with pale white-blue hair leans close enough to him that he can make out a face, and she smiles and says a name ("Kouji"), and then laughs weakly a bit, and there's people talking, but it's tiring, his body hardly has any energy - 

He screams as he is torn out of the warmth and into the cold cold air, weak eyes struggling to focus on anything. AH! A GIANT LADY! this is terrifying!

Then Alexander realises that the screaming voice is that of a baby, his limbs are that of a baby, he is a baby.
The Laughing lady was probably his mother...what is going on here? why is he a newborn? these questions will have to wait until after he's slept because he feels suddenly very tired...

And the newly dubbed Kouji the baby has the first of many naps.

Naptime is a common feature of being a baby! Giant lady singing, and moving colorful things in front of him, and cooing, is also a common feature! The food, once he's weaned, is mushy and colorful and probably fifty kinds of fruit and vegetable! The lady doesn't seem to have many friends and spends a lot of time reading, but there's also a man who plays with him too, and he has many friends and contacts, who're polite enough to the lady.

There's a shop, too! It sells farmer's market type stuff. The lady mans the counter a lot, and takes him with her, and the customers sometimes are cold to her until they see the adorable baby, when they warm up a bit.

Kouji glares adorably grumpy baby glares at pretty much everyone who isn't his mother and sometimes rarely doesn't glare at his father, everyone glared at finds this adorable or funny to the everlasting frustration of young Kouji.
Remembering being an adult and eating real food and sleeping when he wanted to he usually puts up a bit of a fuss when he has to eat baby food or during naptime, until his mother comes and calms him down.

Being a baby is terrible, but Alexander/Kouji never had a mother figure before...its nice...he thinks he loves his mom, and his dad seems nice enough.

Baby food is still disgusting and naptime is still tyranny though.

It's a very pleasant family scene indeed!

Be a shame if something were to happen to it.

Oh.

Look.

Something's happening to it.

Sirens go off, while his mother's home alone with him, and there's a feeling on the air, like liquid fear, like fire forcing its way into his lungs and choking him - 

His mother cries. She puts on clothes he's never seen before. Takes a sword out of the closet.

She gives him to a neighbor, who also cries, but who takes him away, to the shelters being watched over and guarded by crimson eyed, serious adults - 

A sword?! why would mom need a sword? are we being invaded? is it a war? he starts to cry his little baby lungs out as mom leaves him to presumably go fight. This oppressive feeling of fear, fire, and the ice cold of despair filling him, his years of experience make it easier to push back against the feelings but it still leaves him fearful.

This is all very scary! And he wants his mommy!

He quiets down a bit when one of the adults with red eyes looks at him, it's very spooky.

The feeling's a bit less, in the shelter, though there's a lot of scared adults and kids here. A lot of crying. The woman holding him tries to soothe him, but, well - she's clearly terrified, too.

It calms down, eventually. The feeling goes away. The sirens stop, though they aren't let out of the shelter just yet. One of the red-eyed women outside does come in, though, and explain something calmly and clearly that has a lot of people nodding.

it's at times like these that he wishes he could just have been born somewhere they spoke English, baby Kouji wasn't that great at picking out sounds either, being undeveloped was terrible!

Everything seems to have calmed down at least. whatever was going on didn't last long enough for it to be some sort of invasion probably. He sure hopes his mom is okay...his dad too but especially his mom...

They're eventually let go. Neighbor lady carries him to her house, after checking on his house and discovering no one home.

Neither of his parents come back in the night. Neighbor lady frets, gets Kouji's things from the house.

They don't come back the next day, either. Neighbor lady starts having serious conversations with her probably-husband.

Then a harried looking man stops at their door, comes in to talk. Neighbor lady starts crying. Says something.

The harried man leaves, and it's apparently time for The Most Serious Conversation between neighbor lady and her husband.

Where is his mom? He wants his family, baby Kouji cries a lot of the time in the first two days.
But he realises deep down they probably aren't coming back what with having been gone so long and the cues he is picking up from the neighbour's actions... He is convinced his parents are dead now.

Suddenly he stops putting up a fuss during mealtimes, he doesn't complain about naptime, in fact, he's perfectly behaved...

Because he stops emotionally reacting to people altogether. he doesn't smile at them, he doesn't make any faces at them when annoyed, he stops fussing during naptime or when the food is gross, he refuses to cry or react emotionally if anyone is in the room.  

He just sits there quiet and stone-faced all day and only when he thinks he is alone does he let himself cry.

It is very unsettling for the neighbours to deal with.

They're a young couple, with poor jobs - and they agreed on their second date they'd never, ever have kids, she had an uphill battle to get her tubes tied - and they want to do their best by Kouji, they do, but their house doesn't even have a second bedroom and they can't afford to move...

They keep him until things settle down a bit, they fight to get his family's assets sealed away for him, until the many, many dead have been sorted and the funerals have been held, and then they take him and everything that they're allowed to bring along to the orphanage.

Yakushi Nono is supposed to be a kind woman, at least.

Kouji continues to be emotionally unreactive as he is taken to the orphanage. He is just staring around blankly as the neighbour couple bring him inside. There is a throng of children of ages from infant to about 8 years old inside. A few look very sad and Kouji guesses that they are newly orphaned like him, what happened that night? how many people died?.

Here comes who he assumes is who is running the orphanage now. On the outside, he keeps his blank expression going but on the inside misses his mother and doesn't want to be here.

The woman is probably in her late twenties, early thirties, and looks thoroughly exhausted. She talks to the neighbor couple for a while, then takes him, bouncing him and cooing. She asks the neighbor couple a bunch of questions, has an even younger assistant get his stuff from them, then takes him into what looks like a very pleasant little clinic. Posters hang on the wall with cute cartoon characters explaining basic health concepts with as few words as possible. There's colorful bubbles painted on the creamy walls. An older man works there, and his hands glow slightly when he brushes Kouji's hand. An odd tingling goes through the baby, and the man smiles and says something apparently relieving to the orphanage woman.

She keeps him with her for a little bit - there's apparently a lot of intake stuff, his weight is taken and his temperature recorded... 

Right when he'll be starting to get exhausted the orphanage woman puts him in a crib - it seems to be the one from his house, with his blanket and his toys and mobile - and says something cheerily to another girl, who's maybe a teenager.

His isn't the only crib - there's a total of three others in the room. One's undecorated and empty. One has a blue blanket with white cartoon rabbits and a mobile with stars and moons. It's empty of any kids. One has an orange blanket with blue spirals, and a newborn with a fine crown of bright blond hair who starts to fuss when the people enter. The teenager hesitates, but after a sharp word from the older woman she goes to pick up the other baby and see what he needs.

There's some getting him settled, and a third child is brought in and put in the rabbit crib, but after a bit some calming white noise music is put on and both women leave, turning the lights on low.

Kouji looks at the posters trying to identify the words, well that doesn't look like any alphabet he knows...more like Chinese logograms, was he in Asia?. He actually reacts when the old man's HAND GLOWS!, Did he imagine that? peoples hands do not suddenly glow!. a look of shock appearing on his little chubby face breaking the statue impression he had had going on since he realised his family was dead.

He goes back to being nonreactive when he is handed back to the woman and gotten over his shock of seeing glowing limbs.

He feels sad at being placed in his crib from home...it reminds him of his mother. He spends the rest of the day using what he now realises is much better memory than he had as Alexander to remember her face and the way she acted and just small loving moments with her until he falls asleep.

He spends a lot of time in the orphanage waiting to grow a useful body that can move itself just remembering his family or his past life, "watching" movies and TV shows he remembers, "listening" to music he had heard.

He's allowed to play with blocks a lot, and usually put in a room with other babies during the day, watching over generally by the orphanage lady (who's probably named Nono? A lot of people call her Nono-san or Nono-chan, it's unclear if the -san or -chan is actually part of her name), who's followed around a lot by a very serious six year old named Kabuto-kun, even when she's doing boring stuff like playing with babies.

No one seems to think much of his seriousness or reluctance to play with other kids - the other babies are hardly interested in him, either - though by the time he's been there a year there's a lot of concern that he's not really engaging in group play, or talking, or showing age-typical understanding of words.

Kabuto-kun, now eight, sits down with him when he's very almost two with a cloth picture book and a serious expression, points to the book, says a word very seriously, then starts going, word by word, through the pictures. (This kid isn't picking up language just by listening, so Kabuto's decided to do this methodologically. One word at a time.) A lot of the words have little words under them, which seem to represent individual syllables. A dog is i-nu. A cat is ne-ko. A ball is ta-ma...

Kouji very much appreciates actually being taught to read! Kabuto-kun is now his new favourite person and will go up to him holding the book when he doesn't look too busy and point to it meaningfully. He reviews what he learns mentally during naptime using his memory to better place the words and pictures together in his mind. He is taught the word for book, he uses this word a lot around Kabuto-kun or any other older kids who have the patience to deal with him.

He still does not talk very much or use very many words when he does, self-conscious about his lack of skill he just avoids it and uses hand gestures where possible. And his expression rarely changes at all even when he does talk to someone, he just looks blank and unemotional at them. He rarely interacts with the kids his own age. This probably worries the adults quite a bit.

When he isn't going through picture books practising the words, he is doing laps of the room working out his legs because walking is so underrated! you do not miss walking until you cannot do it. He isn't running around joyfully as a child might, he is doing laps, being serious and exercising.

Oh how cute he wants to be a shinobi, is the general consensus. (Nono is worried. She doesn't really approve of children being shinobi...)

And Kouji is apparently a certain toddler's favorite person too! His roommate, Naruto, is a cheerful, friendly child, who follows Kouji around repeating words. He's good at this spoken language thing! And he'll gladly take over the talking to people! Once he figures out the book is important to Kouji, he somehow cajoles an older girl into joining the reading-teaching rotation (which Naruto doesn't sit still for. There's people to talk to! Places to run! Chaos to cause!).

Kouji tolerates the blonde child following him around, Which is more than he does for anyone else, actually slowly talking back to Naruto when talked to. When he notices Naruto talk to one of the older girls and she starts reading him more picture books he puts two and two together.

He toddles up to Naruto and does an adorable little bow "thank...you..." and gives him a quick hug, literally the only child he has hugged at the orphanage. Learning the language is very important to Kouji and this is a big favour Naruto did for him.

Kouji now interacts with two people now, and one his own age even! Nono-san has less to worry about now, but the people who don't like naruto probably worry even more.

Kouji spends his days walking laps and reading and just sort of being near Naruto when he's around, He hasn't made the connection that this Naruto is THE Naruto, a real-life blond toddler doesn't look anything like the manga.

Friend hugs!

It's okay that Kouji doesn't make friends easily! Naruto will make all the friends for him!

Kouji prefers just having Naruto as a friend really, Naruto is...A lot, he uses all his social energy just dealing with Naruto anyone more would be exhausting.

He is technically 19-ish now, it is really hard to be interested in what toddlers are doing. But Naruto did something nice for him so he puts in the effort.

Socializing slowly improves, he gains a bit more confidence in some words if he takes his time, Kouji makes sure to thank every older kid who reads to him.

Kouji has gotten very good at walking! He will now try climbing things for practice, maybe Naruto would have fun climbing furniture with him?.

Naruto's in general an excitable kid who bounces back easily from problems.

But then as kids get adopted, the temporary staff leave, and that's sad - 

And when they're three Miss Nono quits. She doesn't say why. Her expression's stony as she packs, and Kabuto spends the whole month upset, even though she tells him he shouldn't be.

And sometime between three and five, kids start noticing that the adults don't really like Naruto. That the kids at the playgrounds outside the orphanage are told by their parents not to trust Naruto. That, really, Naruto's charming, but people don't like him - 

Their friend circle gets a lot smaller, very quickly. Most of the older kids keep helping them, though a few will be entering apprenticeships or graduating the Academy soon...

Once the other kids stop playing with Naruto and Kouji hears about how parents would tell kids to stay away...this all seems very familiar to him...if not for his perfect recall of his past life he might not even have picked up on it.

Even if the other kids tell him to stay away he continues to hang out with Naruto and his suspicion of Naruto's identity grows, the coincidences keep piling on.

When Kouji is four and a half years old and Naruto is four years old he goes up to Naruto and very carefully asks him "Naruto what is your family name?" though he already suspects the answer, even if it feels crazy to believe that his friend Naruto might be THE Naruto Uzumaki.

"Uzumaki!" Naruto says. "I don't know any others, but it's a fun name!"

Kouji sits there stunned, he was reborn into a fictional universe, just in time for the main character to become his friend. it takes a few minutes for him to process this, though Kouji taking a few minutes in the middle of a conversation is not out of character.

This is Naruto, the hero of Konoha, the saviour of the ninja world. it is hard to reconcile this with Naruto the silly giggling child who pushes him to socialize and who he shares his afternoon snacks with and who is his best and only friend.

"Naruto...people are...be mean to you...and be more mean after" struggling to find the words and taking his time to find the right ones to say. "Is not because you have ever be anything bad or that you deserve it, And I not stop being your friend like the other did".

The isolation of Naruto isn't too bad right now, but Kouji knows it will get much worse and he can't do anything to stop it as just a kid.

Hugs for his friend and more emotion on his face than he's ever shown him before.