Chapter Text
"Babababa" spoke the baby in the Great Imperial Theater's parlor. Over a year ago they had been born into the world. Their father was the commander of the Flower Division, Ichiro Ogami. Their mother also lived in the Great Imperial Theater and was an irreplaceable part of the Flower Division. Because both of their parts lived in the the theater, the baby was looked after by the entire Flower Division. In a way they were all the baby's parents, for better or worse.
"Okay, now just stay still" Kohran tried to reason with the baby sitting on the table. She had been spending the past five minutes trying to put a strange looking helmet on the baby's head.
Once the helmet was secured safely on the baby's head, Kohran pulled out a strange looking remote and began to press buttons on it. Before Kohran could finish inputting whatever she was doing however, another voice called down from the hallway "No no no no no!"
In the blank of an eye, Kohran was tackled by the owner of the voice: Sakura. The remote was knocked out of Kohran's hand an onto the floor. "Kohran! We agreed! No testing stuff on the baby!"
In response, Kohran pushed her glasses up "But this isn't a test! It's a fully completed invention! My brand new translator-kun will turn the complete gibberish that comes out of a baby's mouth into perfectly understandable Japanese!" She said with confidence. "I'm 99.9% confident that it'll work perfectly! I just need to try it out on-"
"Absolutely not! No putting stuff that can explode on babies!" Sakura gave a stern no to the very idea of trying it.
"Oh come on, Sakura! It won't expl-" Kohran's insisting was interrupted as she noticed something, or rather noticed nothing. The baby was gone! The helmet had been left on the table but the child wasn't anywhere to be seen!
"Where'd she go?!" Sakura yelled out as she and Kohran began to run around the theater parlor like headless chickens, hoping the find the baby sitting somewhere.
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Skipping down the theater hallway with the baby in her arms was Iris. Iris was in her mid teens now and was by no definition a kid anymore. Despite that she hadn't changed much as she grew up. She had developed a newfound interest in fashion, but In many ways she was the same old Iris. Because of this she was overjoyed when the baby came around and she got to play with with it. She was currently taking the child to their favorite location in the theater: the costume room.
"I just need to grab a few things from my room. You wait here with uncle Reni, okay?" Iris booped the baby on the nose, placed it on the floor, and skipped out of the room.
"..." said Reni, who was sitting on the floor parallel from the baby.
"..." the baby stared back, mouth agape and drooling.
"..." Reni continued to stare.
"..." the baby responded.
"..." Reni wasn't even blinking by this point in their interaction.
The baby would have responded with a similar silence, but that plan fell through when they instead fell to their side and began to slightly roll. Reni's silence was broken in turn as he began to let out a laugh at the entire situation.
"I'm baaack!" Iris called out as she entered the room again. The next few minutes of Iris and Reni's lives were spent trying to make the baby stay still as they dressed them up in the outfit Iris had picked out: A yellow, white, and purple dress filled with frills. The shade of yellow was similar to what Iris used to wear when she was younger.
"Look! It's you!" Iris spoke to the baby as she held it up in front of a mirror. The baby responded with a simple "Aooouuu" and giggled over being carried up into the air. Even if it was unrelated, Iris smiled and said "I knew you'd love it." Before she placed the baby on the ground "Reni, help me pick out another outfit for them!"
As Reni helped Iris look through the outfits she has picked out for the baby, neither of them noticed the child crawling away and out the costume room door.
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"Bababababa" the baby made noises as its small hands hit the theater floor. Before the baby could crawl somewhere potentially dangerous though, a door opened and it crawled into the leg of the currently most responsible person in the theater: Kaede Fujieda. "Not again." Kaede sighed as she brought the baby into her office.
"Now stay there." Kaede said as she put the baby on her desk, right next to a stack of paperwork. With the Wind Division currently absent, most of the Theater's duties fell into Kaede's hands and she barely had a moment to spare looking after the baby, not that she didn't want to.
As Kaede worked through the paperwork in front of her, the baby tried to imitate her by picking up a piece of paper and holding it upright. Unfortunately the baby soon got bored of this and began to stick the paper in its mouth.
"No no!" Kaede was attentive enough to try and stop the baby, unfortunately they wanted to keep their new snack and held onto the paper tightly. By the time Kaede had pulled the baby out of their hands, the baby had been pulling with enough force to fall backwards. Once they had, they fell right on Kaede's pile of paperwork, sending it flying from the desk and onto the ground.
"Oh no no no." Kaede scrambled to pick up her papers, once she was on the floor the baby proceeded to fall off the desk and onto Kaede's back, knocking the poor woman closer to the floor before the baby proceeded to crawl out of the office.
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Once again the baby had gotten extremely close to crawling to a part of the theater too dangerous for a small child, thankfully it was once again stopped as it was picked up by yet another member of the Flower Division "Woah there!" Kanna said as she picked the baby up "A little adventurer, huh? Maybe we're raising you right!" She laughed.
Taking the baby out to the theater courtyard where it could hopefully crawl around in peace, Kanna grimaced as she saw someone was already waiting there: Sumire!
"And what do you think you're doing?" Sumire crossed her arms as she stared at Kanna.
Kanna placed the baby down before the inevitable argument began. "Just letting the baby play around out here. This little one is gonna grow up to be strong, I tell ya!"
Sumire scoffed "The last thing the theater needs is another gorilla like you running around. I'll make sure that child grows up with at least a fraction of my elegance."
"Now I ain't the best at math, but I'm pretty sure a fraction of 0 is stil 0." Kanna snarked, causing Sumire's face to turn red from a mix of embarrassment and anger.
As the two began to shout at each other, the baby began to crawl away fast from the noise. Unfortunately for the two of them, Kanna hadn't closed the door to the courtyard and the baby once again had free reign to walk all around the theater's interior.
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Making its way to the theater kitchen, the baby was now in actual potential danger. At least it would have been if Maria Tachibana hadn't been in the kitchen. "Oh? How did you get here?" Maria said as she picked the baby up off the floor and placed it in a high chair, finally securing the baby in place.
Maria had actually planned to go and retrieve the baby in a few minutes, it was almost mealtime. Being the closest thing to a capable chef in the theater, Maria had been experimenting with types of healthy food to feed the baby. Today she had prepared some good baby food with green bell peppers being its primary ingredient. "Now open up..." Maria said as she stuck a spoon in the baby's mouth.
Unfortunately, Maria's kindness was returned with the baby spitting the peppery food back at her. Disgusted but not discouraged, Maria was determined to try again...after she put on an apron to prevent another spit-up incident.
Unlike everyone else in the theater, the baby was unable to escape from Maria as she had safely secured it in the high chair. Just in time for the baby's father to walk on by.
Ogami's face was one of pure exhaustion. Being the commander had left him with a lot of duties. He needed to organize the plays and prepare battle training session in addition to normal duties such as getting groceries for the theater and helping any Flower Division member with whatever they needed. He wasn't unhappy though, he was glad to help! He was just tired.
"Baba! Baba!" The baby reached its arms out, gaining Ogami's attention and bringing a smile to his face.
Ogami patted the baby's head and ruffled the little hair it had. "Hey little guy. You have a good day with the Flower Division?"
The baby let out several noises of gibberish in response. Little did Ogami know that each member of the team except Maria was currently running around worried that they lost the baby. Ogami looked at his watch, his day had only just begun and he needed to get more work done. "Alright. Don't cause too much trouble for everyone, Azami. Daddy will be right back in just a bit."
As Ogami walked away, he was contempt with his current life at the theater. It may have left him with little free time for himself, but it was a happy life. Little did he know that on a few years, everything would be flipped upside down.