"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

TWO

Trompe L'oeil

As Royce pondered the meaning of life over a virtual bottle of virtual baby milk formula, a memory came to mind unbidden - a memory of a song she'd heard once about a girl named Tennessee.

Because as much as Royce was now stuck in a newborn infant's body and had tons of time to ruminate more intellectual and philosophical concepts over bottle-feeding sessions and diaper changes, she still cannot get over the fact that she was almost a girl named Shit. Granted, the name was more Shito than it was Shit, and it wasn't like Shit meant anything in Japanese, but still. It sounded close enough. She was almost a girl named Shit. It was, simply put, unbelievable. It didn't help matters that the game was set to English and not Japanese, so it really would've seemed like her name was Shit whenever people (imaginary characters, she keeps reminding herself) spoke to her.

Royce vastly preferred being named Tennessee over being named Shit. In fact, now that she's at it, she wouldn't terribly mind being named Idaho. Or Ohio, come to think of it. Punny names were better than shitty ones.

Her musings would seem ridiculous to anyone else, she was sure - because what brand of idiot would think about virtual baby names, of all things, while stuck (very very stuck) in a virtual baby-body in a virtual world that almost certainly killed her not-virtual brother?

Surely there were more important things to think about. Like, oh, the fact that she was apparently stuck in the body of a baby that wasn't even real, and had been for months. Or the sheer creepiness of the sensation of bugs crawling just beneath her skin, weaving through her blood vessels and around muscles. Or the fact that entry into the game apparently involved the experience of being born into it — as in pushed-out-of-a-woman's-womb kind of born. Yeah, she could think about all those things.

But to be honest, she was done with the mentally taxing activity that was reliving the moment she was squeezed out of some woman's privates. Like, she was so done with it that it wasn't even funny. And the bugs were okay once she got used to them. Kind of cool, actually, in that weird hey-look-I've-got-a-moving-pimple-it-must-be-a-bug kind of way. Seeing her bugs form random lumps on her skin wasn't nearly as disturbing as being born into the game. Not that she thought about that experience much.

The novelty birth - of the horror and confusion and panic caused by being born into this virtual reality - wore off after a couple of days. It was difficult to not confront reality (or the bastardization thereof) when you very literally cannot crawl - much less run - away from it.

But she's getting ahead of herself.

In Aburame Shirayuki's very humble opinion, birth, as she was sure many other newborn babies would agree, was singularly the most horrifying event anyone ever had to experience - nevermind that nobody ever remembered being born - and she'd much rather die (again, sort of) than go through those choking, drowning, spinning, strangling hours once more. Add to that the fact that she would have been named after "shit" had she been a boy, then her opinion on rebirth in general became a resounding "I'd like to never come out of anyone's vagina ever again, thank you very much. On another note, I also dislike these shitty names I keep getting."

Admittedly, Royce was more of a badass name than Shito would have been (because seriously, who named their kids something that sounded like Shit?), but it was still a boy's name and therefore categorically shitty.

When the Aburame twins were born on the twenty-third of January, their parents already had names in mind. A few months before, the doctor had attested that Aburame Kaho was carrying twins, and after a following check up which "confirmed" that the twins were male (the doctor had in fact only checked for the gender of one twin), the couple quickly came up with names for them. So it was that the twins were to be named Shino and Shito. Or as the case may be, Shino and almost-Shito.

After a few gruelling hours of labor the first twin was born, and he was named Shino.

And when the second twin came out, the doctor gaped.

"It's... It's a girl," he sputtered uselessly. "An albino."

"I want..." Kaho said, her eyes glazed over, "I want..."

"Doctor, she's bleeding out!" said the doctor's assistant, her eyes wide and alarmed.

"Get me blood pills!" The doctor barked, snapping out of his momentary stupor. He handed the female infant over to Shibi and promptly began channeling his chakra into a blade at the tips of his fingers. "Hurry! And where are those blood bags I asked for ten minutes ago?"

"I'll get the blood pills," one nurse said hurriedly. "The blood bags are on the left wing. Blood bank. B-negative. Someone should get them." And she left, leaving behind another nurse whose face was pale and panicked.

"I will procure the blood bags," Aburame Shibi, Kaho's husband, volunteered. He gently squeezed Kaho's trembling hand, transferred his newborn daughter into the second nurse's hands, nodded to the doctor, and swiftly left the room.

"His name will be Shito," Kaho told the doctor. "My husband and I decided on his name before he was born."

"But the child is a-"

So there. Almost-Shito.

Months later, Shirayuki and her twin Shino would be told stories by their father about how their mother rather hilariously almost gave Shirayuki a boy's name. Shito, he'd tell them. Then he'd gently pat Shirayuki's snow-white locks. Your name would have been Shito.

Not that Shirayuki didn't know. Not that she would ever tell her father that she knew.

None of this shit was real, after all.

A/N: I thought this chapter's a bit short at first. Like, I kept getting the feeling that I should add more, but eventually I got the notion that it should end just the way I wrote it. With that note of bittersweet cynicism that I aim to make a trademark of Royce's personality. Also, I'm unsure if I should make use of a living Kaho to give an image of a family to the Aburame household, or if I should just, like, kill her, because that would ensure drama (not that Royce needs any more of that shit, the whole thing started with a downright tragedy). Maybe you guys (and girls) would help me decide?

And I am so sorry for the super late update. It's just... there are so many things I want to put in this fic that it all just got mushed up inside my head and I lost track of my plans for this story and then life happened and basically I had a bad case of writer's block with real-life-itis. Things just sucked all around. But I'm back! And I WILL try to be a more reliable author because OH MY GOD I SAW LIKE TEN MILLION AWESOME FANFICS THAT WERE UNDER INDEFINITE HIATUS AND I JUST DIED INSIDE LIKE TEN MILLION TIMES.

Anyway, tell me what you think!

PS: I NEED A BETA! If anyone is interested in being my beta, just PM me.