Prologue

I live in a ninja world where memories are the only form of currency. Everything I need to keep my family alive. Everything I give to them, it takes a part of myself with it, my memories...

My alarm was ringing marking the beginning of a long day. I got up and went to the kitchen to turn on the cooker getting the pan ready to make my kids breakfast. I have two kids, there the best part of my life. Ever since their mother left it has been so hard on them. She left when they were so young and now they don`t really remember her. I guess it's a good thing, when I married her It was pure bliss, but soon after she gave birth to our first child she started coming home late.

She had gone out every night wasting memories that we needed to save up for our upcoming child. I guess I should have sensed that something was wrong to start with, she was starting to forget our early memories. The first time I realised that she was wasting memories was when she couldn't remember our first date. I thought it was because she was working late, but I soon found out that she had started gambling again.

We were already barely scraping by, barely making monthly utility payments. Each day she would come back later and later, and then one night she didn't come back at all. I wasnt surprised, I knew it was inevitable. I was angry at first, but she did give me the two most precious gift,s my children and for that I am great full to have met her.

I have learned how to live without her now.

I turned the bacon around in the pan to make sure it was cooked through and turned off the hob. I saw two tired faces dragging there teddy and duvet beside them to the kitchen.

"Take a seat you to, I made your favourite, bacon for breakfast!" A mumbled thank you came out of the tired mouths."Right you guys eat up while I take a shower".

As I was about to leave the room my youngest said "You can't remember dad we didn't pay our water bill this month, so we could have the gas."

"Oh yes,so your right, well I guess I could pop by the shenun on the way to work." The shenun was the equivalent of a homeless people home and charity shop rolled into one. Those who were low on memories and so couldn't afford things such as water could take a shower for free.

I kissed the kids on the heads and headed for the door. On the way down I ran into the lady who lived next door to us with her husband, she had beautiful long red hair that seemed to flow around her body as she walked.

"there just finishing up breakfast, do you mind poking your head in at about eight and tell them to get their butts to the ninja academy?"

"sure thing, have a good day!" she replied

I ran down the long stairs that stood parallel to our apartment and started walking to the shenun.

As I stood in the shower I went over what I was going to say to the governor. He was in charge of all promotions and today was the day that I was going to finally ask for one. Today`s going to be a good day, I`m going to ask for that promotion to jounin! you better believe it!

I wandered out into the street and looked up at the hokage rock, this is going to be a good day, I can feel it!

I walked into the practical field to find the governor in the middle. I called out to him, and he turned around with a displeased look on his face. The governor was not the happiest looking fellow, in fact you could even say that he looked like a miserable so-on-so pretty much 24/7! He wore a long red robe with a thick rope that was so tightly arranged around his torso that you could see the outline of his undergarments.

"Hiya governor, could I...um...talk to you about ya-know...something?" I stumbled over my words, cursing myself for being so obviously weak.

"As long as its quick" the governor started to walk towards me. He soon reached me and I quickly blurted out what I wanted to say.

"Can I have that promotion you were talking about last week?"

The Governor scoffed. "Are you serious? you barely made it to chunin! I was just joking last week when I said that!"

"Well I just thought as I have been putting in extra hours recently you might want to suggest me to the hokage for a promotion?"

"That would be impossible." retorted the governor. "You see, this is the problem with your `kind`. you don't seem to understand that you will never be promoted, because frankly you are not worth the investment. People like your `kind` the poorer you are, the lower quality memories you have, so you never get out of this...trap"

I remained silent, unsure whether I was surprised or not.

"Just because you asked I'm going to reduce your pay, that makes it... " the governor paused counting on his fingers. "oh yes... you owe me a med-high quality memory"

I stepped back, "I cant afford that right now, why should I pay you? All I asked for is the promotion I deserve" i realised I had said the wrong thing when I saw the governors expression on his face.

"Dont you get snappy with me young man, I knew hiring your `kind` was a mistake! Im making oyu owe me ahigh quality memory now, just for your rudeness. Letico."

A beefy man with bright blonde hair approached the governor. "Ah yes Letico. Go and take a high quality memory from this man here." Letico opened his mouth to speak "No. Dont argue just do it. Or do you want your pay docked too today?" Letico shook his head and grabbed me by my arm draggin me away from the governor.

He dragged me around the corner and sat me down on the cold ground.

"Im sorry,I have no choice, I have a wife shes pregnant, we need as many memories as we can get!" Letico spoke very fast.

I shook my head trying to escape from his tight grasp. It was impossible to escape from this.

Letico showed placed his thumb between my eyebrows and took the memory that mattered to me most. My children.

That was my story.

But that was 16 years ago, when I had nothing. You may ask, how do you know this? how can you recall all these memories if they were ` taken` from you? Well there is one simple answer to that. There is someone restoring memories. Someones cracked the system and is restoring every ones memories. And his name is... Uzumaki Naruto, and he is changing the entire ninja world.