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KONOHA'S MOTHERS' PROGRAM

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PROLOGUE

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''Aww!'' Shizune turned around to find Sakura melting as she stared at the incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit. There weren't many babies in the room that day, Shizune could think of only two. Well, three, actually.

Sakura spotted her friend with the corner of her eyes and quickly grabbed her arm and brought her closer to the window so they could watch the babies together:

''Aren't they suuuuper cute and adorable? My God, I just wanna bite them all, so cute they are!'' she gritted her teeth in excitement, her whole body shaking with the idea of getting inside the room and hugging the babies very tightly!

Shizune watched her for a moment before releasing a short laugh.

''Would you like to go have a closer look?'' she suggested, and Sakura quickly turned her head to the black-haired doctor with sparkling eyes, rushing inside the unit in a second. Sakura spent long minutes watching each of the two babies on one side of the room, but the last one somehow intrigued her more than the others.

''Whose son is this?'' she inquired, her eyebrows furrowed ''this baby looks perfectly fine to me, why is he in the ICU?''

When Sakura turned to look at Shizune, she found the other woman trying her best to conceal a smile, even though it was quite obvious by her face that she was having a lot of fun with all that situation - why, though, Sakura had no idea.

''What?'' she asked.

''Why don't you take the baby in your arms?'' she suggested, crossing her arms and pointing to the young boy with her head.

Sakura found all that situation quite weird, but decided against questioning her. She found the baby quite healthy, just like all babies should be. Very cute too.

''It's a very cute and healthy baby, the way I see it'' she said aloud when she realized Shizune was waiting for her to say something ''what is he called?''

''Experiment 542'' the medic replied, giving her a small smile.

Sakura looked at her friend in astonishment.

''What do you mean?'' she inquired

''That this baby is an experiment, it's not a real baby''

Sakura's eyes widened in shock and she looked back at the baby in her arms. It looked exactly like a normal baby.

''How is this possible?''

Shizune turned around and started to walk towards a room in another area of the hospital. Sakura followed her with quick steps, holding the baby with extra care, as if it could explode at any second. They stopped in front of a very secure door and Shizune instructed that they changed their clothes to sterile scrubs before going inside.

What they saw in the room made Sakura's jaw drop.

There were many scientists working with potions and other chemical substances, some modulating chakra and concentrating them in small stones in the shape of hearts. There were parts of babies bodies, like dolls, in some parts, and people were carefully tending to each part separately with extreme care.

''Oh my God what kind of macabre activity are you all performing here?!'' she shouted, her eyes widened in horror.

Shizune rolled her eyes.

''Don't be so loud, Sakura, there's nothing macabre here.''

''But the babies!'' she retorted, evidently horrified with all that was going on.

''This is the Konoha's Mothers' Program, KMP'' Shizune explained, heading to a small bench on one side of the laboratory and sitting down, asking Sakura to do the same ''working at the hospital too, you must have realized how unprepared mothers in Konoha have shown themselves to be. Every day, mothers come to the hospital because their babies are unwell, and in at least 80% of the cases the accident is completely avoidable! Not only that, but we're facing a major problem in the fire country: women are just not getting pregnant! Especially when it comes to kunoichi.'' Shizune let out a long sigh ''kunoichi not only normally don't have children, but also when they do they show themselves to be terrible mothers, totally incapable of taking care of babies''

''That's ridiculous!'' Sakura retorted, finding all of that completely preposterous ''I'm completely capable of taking care of children, they love me!''

Shizune raised an eyebrow and pointed to the baby in her arms, the head hanging from her lap as she held it only by the left arm. Had it been a real baby, Shizune thought to herself, it would totally be dead by now in Sakura's care. Good thing that baby wasn't activated yet.

Sakura noticed the baby's awkward position and quickly pulled it back to her lap, patting it on the head as if saying sorry. The baby's neck was in a position that told Sakura it probably broke its neck, but she pretended not to have noticed it.

''As I was saying'' she continued ''Tsunade-sama and I noticed this growing problem in the population, and this has been causing catastrophic consequences to the Village. Therefore, we came up with the KMP, aiming to make mothers and moms-to-be better prepared to take care of children. Hopefully, even give an incentive so more kunoichi decide to have their own children''

''So you decided to produce babies so they can use them as experiments?'' Sakura raised an eyebrow in confusion.

''You make it sound horrible, it's not like that!'' Shizune reprimanded ''they are not real babies, they are dolls whose purpose is to teach the women in Konoha how to become good mothers, because they will behave just like real babies''

''They do look like real babies'' Sakura admitted ''do they work?''

Shizune gave her an evil look.

''Well, we're going to find out now, you will be our first test!''

Sakura blinked twice.

''WHAT?''

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This is just some weird idea I came up with when I saw a child with her Baby Reborn doll a few weeks ago, and I thought maybe I could write a comedy out of this idea hahahahah

Thank you very much for reading the prologue!

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Blackfan Diamond