Hello! I've got another story here for you. this is to celabrate the wonderful anime series Naruto Shippuden. This is very loosely based on the ending theam for the series except with alot more angst.

To everyone that has read my other story "Human Error" I apologize for the lack of updates. I have had to stay at school every day till five and we had the FCAT math test today. I'm working on it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
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Stardust chapter one:

Shooting star

Naruto walked down the concrete sidewalk with an angry scowl etched into his usually smiling face. The streets of the town were void of people at that hour and Naruto was was glad of that fact. He didn't think he could take any more right now. It was becoming too much for even him. Angrily he kicked a can and smirked slightly as the can flew feet in the air and hit the wall with a clear clanging sound that echoed off of the buildings. After that there was silence. The smirk fell from his face. With the silence came the realization of how truly alone he really was.

Sixteen year old Uzumaki Naruto sighed as he looked up at the deep red sun as it slowly began to disappear beyond the the tall, imposing slate gray walls of the city, the walls that had trapped him here. He had been kept here for all of his short life. Trapped in a world that didn't want him and mercilessly ostracized for it. It wasn't even his fault, it was the fault of his father, Kazama Arashi.

In the early days of his father's life he had been a respectable general of the Konoha army or so he had heard from the tales the elders told and the whispers words that the thought did not reach his ears. He had married at the age of twenty four to one of the villages most attractive women and they had a child together, a beautiful blond boy. The world was looking good for him and he was greeted with nothing but smiles from the people he saw on the street. It only took one discovery to change this, one single discovery turned the man's once bright world upside down and spiraling into chaos.

It had been a warm July morning when they had found them. Arashi and his best friend lying in the same bed. They had broken one of the most sacred laws of the land. Both of them were to be executed. Files were dug through and secrets told. When it was found that the wife, Uzumaki Kimiko, had known about the affair all along she too had been killed in the same fashion. This left only the son, Uzumaki Naruto. The boy had been left in a cold world were everyone hated him. Naruto had only been eight years old at the time.

Naruto continued walking. It wasn't good to think about such things. They called his father an abomination so rightly it must be so. It didn't matter that he might be one too. No, that didn't matter to Naruto at all. It was all going to end soon anyway, the pain, the suffering.

The villagers had seen him as something, something not someone for, to them, he never really had been human, that could be trained or molded. Though Naruto suspected that the only thing stopping them from killing him too was the law that stated that you could not kill children. You became an adult at seventeen. For Naruto that day was a week away.

When the town had "saved" Naruto, as the liked to put it, Naruto thought that they were just trying to make them selves sound better, they had tortured him relentlessly to try to purify him and eliminate the abomination inside of him. The torture had caused him to forget things, oh so many things. Because of them Naruto had lost eight precious years of his life, the only years where he had felt any sort of freedom. He no longer had memories of his father's comforting hugs of his mother's warm smiles. All of that had dissapeared in an instant. They had been taken from him.

Naruto neared his destination. He hadn't really meant to come here but it seemed that his feet had taken him here. As if pulled by invisible threads. He was at the park. Once it had been full of greenery and people but now it had, just like his life, fallen into ruin. No one came here anymore. It had long since been abandoned by the people that had created it.

It was a sad thing really. Naruto gazed at the rusted benches, the dry brown grass that was over grown with weeds, and the dark green scum covered lake, which must have been a very beautiful thing to behold when it was maintained by the people. Now though not even the birds would visit the lake and swim in its murky, glass green waters.

The sun was now but a sliver in the sky, barely illuminating the world through the thick layer of fog that had settled over the walled city as night grew near. Naruto slowly walked to the other side of the park. His eyes saw everything for what it was and reflected in them was an emotion very much akin to pity.

Of all the places in the park there was one that made him feel at ease above all others. It was the playground. All of his childhood memories had been lost to him so maybe he was making up for it all. He did not know, nor did he care. He did not need a reason or to justify anything. It was the only place where he could truly be himself. Only on that faded blue slide and that rusted, worn out swing set could he truly be Uzumaki Naruto.

The sun was only a speck of ember in the sky right now but, that didn't matter. The sun sets when seen at the top of that slide were breathtakingly beautiful. Naruto sat up at the top of that slide for a while even after the sun had set and the fog cleared. He just sat and gazed at the sky.

The stars, he thought, had always reminded him of a crowd of people. Each one was different, each special in a different way. The stars were so unlike the people here, with their bland and boring attitudes and their lack of love. The stars seemed so much more friendly. They seemed to be embracing even though he knew that they were light years apart. It seemed as though even the stars had found someone.

Naruto wanted to be like the stars. For once he just wanted to shine with all the light in his heart. He wanted to find someone that would love him. He wanted to find someone that he could love. He wanted to be free of it all. Of the chains that bound him, of the walls that trapped him, of the threat of death looming over his shoulders.

He did not want to die. He had always just gone with it all but now he saw. He didn't want to die. He had always thought that that was the way it should be but now nothing made sense any more. His father may have been a horrible person but that did not make him one. He was himself.

"it's sad, little star." Naruto said quietly into the wind "Why is it only now that I realize this? Why only now when hope is useless."

His eyes, which had never left the sky all the while he was thinking, then saw a beautiful thing, a shooting star. He had never seen one for all the time he had been living in that city and its beauty, though fleeting, made his breath catch in his throat.

He had heard stories told about the power of shooting stars, that they had the ability to grant wishes. He had never believed any of that. Now, though, it seemed his only hope. This might be his last chance, Naruto realized. This might be the chance he was hoping for even if it sounded stupid.

Naruto's deep blue eyes closed.

"Well, little star, this is it. I entrust all of my dreams to you."

It was getting late, Naruto saw as he looked down at the glowing green numbers on his watch. Twelve forty-seven it read. Naruto stood up and dusted his pants off. Positioning himself at the edge of the slides tall platform he jumped off and landed with a dull thud on the dry earth, the brown grass crunching under his feet.

He started to walk back the way he came, passing all the familiar landmarks when he saw something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Over by the lake, near one of the dead trees, something was glowing. He was too far away to what it was clearly so, slowly, he inched closer to the source of the light.

The nearer he got the more he realized that it wasn't a thing at all, but a boy around his age. He was surrounded by glowing lights that reminded Naruto of the stars in the sky. He was wearing a pale silvery white kimono that matched his pale complexion and contrasted sharply with his raven black hair and charcoal eyes.

The boy looked up suddenly, a glare on his face, as he heard the crunching of the grass under Naruto's feet. When he saw the boy his expression softened considerably and he smiled. Naruto had only a second to blink before the boy was right beside him and he was held tightly by two strong arms.

"Naruto... I missed you." he said pulling the blond even closer.

The action had surprised him and it took a while for him to come to realize what was going on but when he did Naruto roughly pushed the other, slightly taller, boy away with enough force to send him back a few feet.

"What do you think you're doing!" Naruto growled.

A look of hurt passed through those eyes that were the color of the night sky.

"But, don't you remember me, Naruto?" and, though he tried his best to hide it, his voice was shaking slightly.

"What are you talking about? I've never seen you before in my life!" Naruto said angrily.

"W-what? What do you mean Naruto? What about our promise? Didn't you tell me you loved me?" the dark haired boy seemed visibly shaken by the reaction he was getting from the blond.

"Loved you? Why would I ever have loved you. It was you freaks that ruined my life!" he yelled running back to his house.

The boy just stood there his eyes on the sky.

"Why? Why don't you remember me, Naruto?" the tears that streaked down his cheeks seemed to be made of starlight. Even though the ground at his feet was dirty his white robe was still immaculately clean. The boy reached a hand up try to stop the tears but found that it was useless.

A gust of wind blew through the now empty park. The only thing left of the boy was stardust.

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Read and review. If anyone can guess what is with Sasuke they can have a cookie.