Problem Child 1

By the time Aiko was 6, she was more of a human person and less of a small sack full of screaming id and ego.

Luckily, she did not get rid of her twin. She was older and wiser and now very confident that Mommy did not want him gone, she just didn't want him squashed by a car. 

At this point, Aiko was pretty sure she was stranded in some stupid world that was terrible and boring. It couldn't be a normal reincarnation in the same place, because no one here knew about chakra. She still had some, but she didn’t know if it was a lot or a little. She didn't remember being six the first time well enough to say if it was normal for her age. It wasn't like there was any medical expert to consult with, so she had just better be fine.

She practiced her techniques dry in front of the tv when they were watching cartoon fight scenes. Mommy and Daddy didn't think anything of it. Which was honestly kind of insulting. They should have noticed that she was super graceful and cool.

It was hard to know if she could actually do things as well now, in this new body. Aiko was dying to try it out. But there just never seemed to be a good opportunity! If she was a little more impulsive, then sure, maybe she could have seen how flammable her elementary homeroom was. But there were cameras everywhere in this new world and the thought of being caught in action made her itch. 

To be fair to this world, it had something to make up for the lack of chakra. It had a few people with like, superpowers. They got to act like extra governmental agents, doing whatever they wanted without oversight, often anonymously. Aiko was a big fan of the concept. She told her parents it was her career plan every time they asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.

The city center’s 5 o’clock chimes started to go off. Aiko hummed along with them, kicking her feet where they hung over a kitchen chair. Mom was putting away her play doh art. They made donuts today. 

Her ears pricked. She heard the sound of a familiar car engine approaching. Aiko squirmed in anticipation. 

The car turned off. The door shut. Step, step, step. Then the kitchen door opened and it was safe to react. 

“Daddy!” Aiko shrieked. Mom winced and covered her ears.

“Look what I got for my girl,” Dad sang.

Aiko ran to the door. “What is it, what is it!” She demanded, pulling at his pants. “Show me!”

He opened the little plastic shopping bag and gravely withdrew a sheet of stickers depicting her favorite hero. Aiko took them with both hands, struck speechless by their beauty. They had a holographic effect when she tilted them.

“There we go,” Dad said to Mom in an undertone. 

They probably said more stuff, but Aiko was busy stuffing her feet into her jelly shoes. 

“Stay in the yard!” Mom hollered after her.

“I will obey!” Aiko shouted over her shoulder, and then she ran to her beautiful new purple bike that she got for her birthday, because she was a very good girl. It had squishy glitter handles and shiny streamers from the handles. She was customizing it. Aiko stuck her tongue to the side of her mouth to help her concentrate on where, exactly, she should apply which sticker. 

When she was done decorating she dragged open the playbox and took out her plastic sword. It was actually a pirate sword and Nathan had a matching one. But it was more productive for her to run drills when she was alone. After a bit of that, she got out hacky sacks and pounded them through the holes in the big wooden princess castle cutout that Mom had painted for her. 

“I need knives,” she said, and threw the last ones in. Her accuracy was perfect. So it was time to back up to the next point and throw again. She imagined she was throwing shuriken at the enemy's faces. Bam! Pow!

“Aiko!” 

Dad shrieked from inside the house. 

She blinked and dropped her hacky sacks where she was. He sounded scared. “Coming!” She ran back to the house and met him in the TV room. Nathan was whining and trying to turn the TV back on.

Dad looked scared. Something was wrong. “We have to go now, don't worry about your stuff.”

Aiko balked. What was happening? Should she be ready to fight?

“To the car, let's go.” Dad grabbed a twin under each arm and barreled them outside. The front door smacked off the frame and then swung back open behind them. Aiko's legs swung in the air as Dad ran.

“You didn't shut the door!” shouted Nathan, because he didn't understand mortality. The car door clicked and Dad put them both in the backseat with shaking hands.

“It's okay. The door is fine. Let's go visit Auntie Karen! Won't that be fun?” His voice went really high. 

Mom ran out of the house with the safebox of their important documents and sprinted for the driver's seat. They all buckled in, the engine turned, and they drove until the end of the block where they got stuck behind a van.

“Fuck!” Mom yelled. She hit the steering wheel. “Just- go, stupid!”

Dad turned around to look at them. He silently communicated with his big sad blue eyes that those were bad words that they shouldn't say.

“We know,” Nathan said, bored. Aiko shrugged.

And then the superhero fight blasted into their neighborhood via the community center. 

Oh. Okay. That was why they were running for their lives.

The first thing they could see was an explosion of broken glass and rubble through the community center. A red and blue figure blasted out, bounced off the ground, and shook his head to fly back up to meet the two story tall robot that came lurching after it.

“Honey,” Mom said faintly.

“Yeah.” Dad reached over to hold her hand.

Superman hit the robot really hard, sending it nearly teetering back. It lurched away from the hit and one leg flew up in the air.

“Honey, do you think the trajectory -”

“Yes,” Dad answered, staring in horror as the robot began to fall.

The whole family watched from inside their sedan as the robot wheeled its arms to try to catch its balance. They watched as it failed. They watched as it fumbled and brought one foot down on Aiko's purple bike, crushing it entirely.

“That's not good,” Nathan said.

Aiko was frozen.

The robot continued to fall. Daddy made a sound like the air had been punched out of him as the robot landed butt-first on their home.

My bike.

“Our homeowner's insurance probably covers that.” Mom's voice was small. “Let's go.”  

My bike.

Mom revved the engine and drove them up and over the neighbor's lawn around the van. 

Unacceptable. Aiko calculated the situation. 

The child locks were engaged. If she crawled into the front seat to leave by the passenger seat, Dad would grab her. 

Okay. 

Aiko puffed her cheeks up with air and spat out a fire hydrant of furious water. It was louder than she remembered. It was so loud she barely heard the window shattering and falling out. She scrambled out the window and broke her fall with a roll. 

Her ears were ringing. Her parents were both screaming. She didn't have time for that. 

“My birthday bike!” Aiko roared, and did her level best to kill both the robot and Superman with fire. Superman was too high so she focused on the horrible bike-killing robot. 

“Get back!” shouted Superman, sounding distressed.

“I'll kill you!” Aiko howled back, and then tried ice and fire in rapid succession to prime the robot to shatter. She hit it hard with doton and the leg broke in a very satisfying way. The robot balanced on its remaining leg and tried to balance with its arms. 

She gathered up shards of metal wreckage and started flinging them at Superman, howling the whole time. He dodged in a flash of cape.

“Thank you, but it's handled!” Superman tried.

“You will pay!” Aiko spat fire up, but she couldn't get anywhere near him. 

Then she was tackled from behind and swept up into the air. “Let me gooooo!” Aiko squirmed and kicked at Mom. “I need to kill them! My bike! Look at it!” 

“Don't mind us!” Mom yelled to the robot and Superman in a weird shrill voice, and rushed them both back to the car. Aiko screamed and fought the whole way as hard as she could without hurting her mother, apoplectic with fury that she could simply be picked up and taken away. 

Horrible! Unfair!