Everything That Remains – Chapter 1
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"All memory of your existence will be wiped from reality. You will die, and no one will mourn."
— Memnarch, Magic: The Gathering
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"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Th-this wasn't meant to- you weren't meant to become a part of- and now that you are -and I- I'm... I'm just... please. I didn't want this! Whatever you did- that- that red– it did something and now you're caught up in it too. I...I can't control it anymore."
The boy he's talking to is still crying, repeating 'don't leave me' over and over. As if there was any choice. The others have all fallen asleep. That's good. At least they'll be fine. Unaffected at the very least.
There was no way to stop it now. What just happened... it didn't just power up...
It mutated.
It was too late now though.. He could already feel himself... crumbling. All he could do was try to prepare the him for what he thought would happen next.
"Naruto, I need you to listen to me..."
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'Ughhh, this was such a drag'. He'd barely even started the academy and he already loathed it. It was work to prepare him for more work!
And, to top it all off their sensei was late, which meant registration was late, which meant if he went to sleep now, they might miss him and mark him down as absent. Which meant his parents (read: 'his mother') would be told. Which meant...
Better stay awake for now.
Finally, after entire minutes of agonisingly consciousness, their sensei arrived.
"Aburame!"
"Hai sensei," came a stoic, barely audible response.
"Akimichi!"
"Hmgmhh" came an adjacent noise as it answered through a full mouth.
"Ba-" Shikamaru phased out, idly wandering if Aburame sunglasses would make it easier to sleep through classes. Then again, hadn't someone already done something like-
"Nara!"
"Here" he answered. His work done for the day, he planted his face upon his desk. He didn't even bother listening until-
"Uzumaki!"
He cringed, waiting for the explosion of sound that he'd come to expect from-
His brow furrowed.
What was he expecting?
No answer came.
"Naruto Uzumaki?" Their sensei repeated, sounding... confused. Shikamaru looked up to see him reading the name over. "Does anyone here know a Naruto Uzumaki?" he asked.
Red Flag, Shikamaru decided. Daikoku-sensei had been teaching them for weeks. And you didn't just forget...
His brow furrowed.
Who again?
Responses came in nonchalant shrugs of indifference.
"Remain here for self-study" Daikoku-sensei announced, looking more irritated than worried as he left the room.
Conversations began sprouting up them moment the door slid shut.
'You ever hear that name?' 'Well I don't know him.' 'But he's, like, in our class right?' 'Maybe someone made one'a those clerical thingies, y'know?'
Probably just a paperwork thing, Shikamaru agreed. The student in question was probably a couple of classes over, wandering absently why his sensei hadn't called their name out. Yea. That was probably it.
But then again. Gears started turning.
Weeks since term started. A mistake that would've been picked up on within hours of it being made...
What was his name again?
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The smallest of sighs escaped the venerable Sarutobi Hiruzen as he mourned the loss of yet another good night's sleep. He was getting too old for this job. Well... technically he'd been too old for a while now. At this rate he was liable to end up like Ōnoki. Although, he supposed there was a small measure of amusement to be had at the thought of yet another Kage with perpetual back pain.
And now there was... this.
The Hokage took the opportunity to light pipe as he listened, considering the seven- no -eight most immediately apparent explanations, organising them in order of likelihood then rearranging them by their potential threat to the village. "Doesn't exist you say?"
The fairly large man, brown hair mostly covered by his forehead protector-turned-bandana began scratching at his goatee nervously with his free hand. "Right. We thought it was a clerical error at first..."
Here come the 'but'...
"But we have months of attendance records." He continued. "Grades, even report cards! Everything you'd get from actually being an academy student." Daikoku's eye's narrowed. "But, ask around..." He trailed off.
"And you find," Hiruzen interrupted, quite sure of where this was going. "That nobody even so much as knows their name?"
"Yes Hokage-sama."
A frown works its way across his face. A ghost within Konoha's ranks would be troubling to say the least. But a student? A child spy would be at a severe disadvantage. Not even classified as shinobi yet, academy students were essentially civilians, their access levels reflecting as much.
Perhaps somebody was in deep cover, fleeing Konoha in the belief that they'd been exposed? If so then they were wrong. We obviously hadn't a clue. Then again, that would hardly explain why the child was unknown. Last time I checked, the whole point of infiltration is to actually work one's way inside a community, not remain a stranger to it.
"The shinobi, the ones who wrote these reports" Hiruzen asked. "Do they not remember this..."
"Boy" Daikoku offered.
"Quite. Do they not remember him?" he asked.
Daikoku began scratching his goatee again. A nervous tick perhaps? "...No Hokage-sama. We've looked into everyone who's had a hand in his paper trail."
"And?"
"They all freely admit that the handwriting and signatures obviously belong to them, but they have no memory of the boy or their writings about him."
How... bizarre, although from...
Ah.
"There's more, isn't there?" Hiruzen asked.
"Y-yes Hokage-sama". Daikoku moved towards him, placing a small pile of files upon his desk.
Not that they actually provided any information of course. No, the world had never been that merciful. Every document with a few entirely useless exceptions were almost entirely blacked out. Profile picture, date of birth, linage and the vast majority of noted personal information had been covered by what appeared to be Konoha's own standard black out ink. Ink, that if tampered with, would simply destroy the document in question.
Alarm bells were indeed ringing.
Some of the only visible information was the boy's year of birth (yet, curiously, not the month or day), stating he was six-to-seven years old with his name...
'Naruto Uzumaki'
That name! That name was-
His brow furrowed.
-entirely unfamiliar.
'What a mess' Hiruzen thought, taking a drag from his pipe, flicking through pages of black, only spotting the odd word or two uncensored.
'Just who is this... Naruto Uzumaki?'
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Somewhere so very far away, a little blonde boy packed away a borrowed blanket into a knapsack. Stolen now, he guessed, glancing over at the old man who'd lent it to him, still fast asleep.
The merchant, who'd found him stowed away in his cart had been nicer than he'd had any right to expect, even if he was the same as the rest. For a little while he'd hoped that maybe. But...
Must've been in Konoha when it happened.
He'd already been forgetting he was there every few minutes, startled into recognition whenever he spoke. By morning, he wouldn't even remember the blonde boy's name. He'd forget that he even existed.
"Thanks old dude" he whispered, trying not to wake the geezer as he thanked him. After all, being woken by a total stranger in the middle of the night... heh, could give him a heart attack.
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Well, that joke fell flat. Damn, he was usually better at cheering himself up than this. Well, whatever he thought, tiptoeing away from camp with a level of grace that would reduce an Academy instructor to –not in a good way– tears. Lucky for him that the geezer was a heavy sleeper.
As he stumbled over some bushes –that totally weren't there before Dattebayo!– onto a beaten path where once again, the boy was forced to confront the fact that he'd never exactly been very good at navigation. It was an area –'one of many', he was told– in which he was 'severely lacking'. Still though, they'd been camped right beside the road –bad tactics, but hey – so he had the option of taking it 'not the way he came from'. Not that it really mattered anyway.
So.
With a deep breath.
With a smile that was a little harder these days.
And of course, with a Knapsack full of instant ramen.
He started walking.
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END
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A/N: Sooooo... this is new.
Sorry to all those who wanted me to continue with my previous fics. Still got a serious case of 'yea, cool premise and all but where am i going with this?' So i though I'd write a fic with a cool premise that-
-OH WAIT.
So... what happened to Naruto? Some of you probably already know. I dropped some heavy clues in there for cannon junkies that will be dead giveaways. Just know that I know who cast it, why, what the area of affect was and how it works. No making it up as I go. Nevertheless, the first person who guesses what happened and/or where this is going in the review section will get a PM from me saying "well done" or something. I may even look to you decide the pairings or something (I probably won't).
As to when this is taking place... well, you can easily figure it out but this is Young!Naruto so he doesn't have his trademark orange jumpsuit yet. I'm internally debating whether I can justify him getting it anyway. I changed his wardrobe in FCP and it just felt wrong to be honest, not to mention that its typically a red flag for a marty sue fic. Daikoku is cannon by the way. The story diverges before Iruka even becomes a teacher and replaces him in Naruto's class.
He doesn't have shadow clones either so don't ask.
Note: I'm writhing in UK English. Please keep in mind when pointing out spelling errors and stuff.
Hope you enjoyed the first chapter!
I've been thinking of writing a SI fic but I can't figure out how to do it with any kind of skill. Hmmm, maybe one day.