Inkheart/Naruto
Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own Inkheart or Naruto.
Meggie anxiously read through her story for what felt like the hundredth time. She still wasn't quite satisfied with it, though she wasn't sure if her unease was a result of nerves or poor writing. The voices of her classmates droned on in the background. She felt a bit guilty about tuning them out, but it was hard to stay focused on their presentations when she was so nervous about her own.
This was her first time reading her own work aloud, her first chance to read without purposefully stuttering and stumbling along, purposefully mangling words to protect the class from her dangerous tongue. Everything had finally settled down in the aftermath of the Capricorn disaster, her family reunited and living happily at Eleanor's house. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she accidentally threw their lives back into turmoil.
Meggie was pulled out of her abstraction by the call of her teacher. It was time. Her chair screeched loudly across the tile as she stood to walk to the front of the class. Heart pounding, face red, she reassured herself again; it was just an assignment, not even a completely original work. In a ploy to remain within their "Modern Japanese Culture" theme their teacher had instructed them to base their story off of Naruto, their assigned reading.
This story didn't belong to her, never could, it wasn't an honest reflection of her abilities. Unsurprisingly, these thoughts didn't make her feel any better. Too late for any last minute corrections though, because she was before the class, capturing their somewhat divided attention.
Easing her tense grip on her papers, Meggie bowed her head and began to read.
Sasuke Uchiha was by far the most famous orphan of Konoha. Between the dramatic death of his family in a time of relative peace and the infamous Sharingan bloodline his notoriety was inevitable. However, he was not the only one. The third shinobi war decimated the clans and smaller families of Konoha. The kyuubi attack years later picked off many more, and as the casualties mounted, a silent struggle between the Hokage and Danzo began.
With no family or identity, most children were ripe for recruitment into Root, practically begging to be honed into weapons for the good of Konoha. The Hokage was able to protect some; Tenten, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto escaped Root's clutches, but most were not so fortunate.
Meggie Silvertongue was one of Danzo's finest catches, the last member of a powerful and secretive bloodline. The Silvertongues had been a peaceful civilian clan for most of history, abstaining from the ninja arts, instead acting as maintainers of knowledge; peaceful writers, book binders, and librarians. They possessed the gift, or perhaps curse, to speak life into words, but agreed that the consequences of their power were too great for casual use, and each took a vow to never read aloud.
This changed during the third shinobi war when the clan came forward to protect Konoha. Though crucial to many victories, they were quickly picked off due to their inexperience until only two remained, husband and wife Mortimer and Teresa Silvertongue, familiarly known as Mo and Resa. They too died in the Kyuubi attack, leaving their two month old daughter Meggie beind.
Thanks to her bloodline, Meggie had access to something none of the other Root orphans were allowed: stories. When she wasn't training in the ordinary ninja arts she was reading. Myths, legends, and novels became her only solace, and though she didn't have a family, was surrounded by emotionless faces and unyielding orders, her books lit a dim path apart from the rest of Root.
So when Danzo arranged for her rotation among the new genin teams and made it clear she was to make regular reports on the potential of the rookie nine she bowed like an obedient little weapon, and allowed herself to hope.
The words flowed smoothly across her lips, weaving a creeping design through the air, invading the imagination. Actually, it was almost too smooth, but Meggie dismissed her faint misgivings. Hadn't Mo read his own versions of children stories to keep her safe, wasn't it an ironclad rule that you couldn't evoke life from your own writing?
So the moment to turn back came and went, and as the last syllables of the final sentence swept through the class, Meggie disappeared, leaving her papers to scatter on a breeze threaded with leaves.
Disorientation swept through Meggie, and next thing she knew her head was bowed towards the ground subserviently, one knee gently aching with cold thanks to her half kneel on a desolate stone bridge, story still trembling upon hesitant lips.
Hope. She felt hope for the future, hope that the class would accept her meager abilities. Wait. No. That wasn't right. She had just been assigned to monitor the new genin teams and thought that perhaps... but that couldn't be right either. She was a bookworm... a fighter... a daughter... an orphan... a student... a ninja.
Instincts from... somewhere... urged her to speak. The silence was expectant, and she was not alone. Meggie wanted to scream, to cry, to clutch her head in confusion. It was all wrong! Instead she obediently murmured "Yes Danzo-sama," and stretched out her hand to accept the mission scroll from her commander. Then, moving with such speed that her body blurred out of sight, she leapt away, ostensibly to begin her duties.
The same ironclad instincts prevented her from running across the rooftops clutching her head and screaming, and instead brought her to a tiny apartment. She assessed her surroundings; definitely under surveillance. Possibly not by Root, but definitely by ANBU; after all, she was in the same run down complex as the Jinchuuriki. Naruto; her mind supplied, not a sacrifice or a sneaky demon, but a human.
Brushing past the unfamiliar distinction, Meggie continued her evaluation and settled on safe but not secure. Unfamiliar in every sense of the word; this was not the Root complex or Eleanor's house. However, no one would wonder at a 12 year old girl sitting down to stare intently at the mirror. After casually depositing the mission scroll on the kitchen table, Meggie strode into the adjoining bedroom.
The walls lined with a combination of books and scrolls gave her momentary pause. It was almost like being back in Eleanor's house, though not quite. Eleanor's house didn't have a desk neatly laid out with mirror, paper, and a sparkling set of senbon needles, nor did she have the rolls and rolls of bandages and poison antidotes Meggie knew could be found one of the kitchen cupboards. Shaking off her disorientation, she settled in front of the mirror.
Meggie hesitantly touched her temple. Those were her blue eyes, unremarkable mouth, ears, nose, and dark blonde hair woven into a loose braid stretching down her back, but this wasn't her mind, her life, her feelings. It was as if there was a disconnect... she thought one thing, but did another; acted with precision and thought amidst a fog. This wasn't her story.
Suddenly it clicked; the writing assignment, class, stupidly reading aloud, ignoring the warning signs, plowing ahead until what should have been fiction became reality. Meggie couldn't look at herself any more. That face had sacrificed a family, love, peace, home, all because of a silly bit of homework and overinflated pride. She'd betrayed not only herself, but also Mo, Resa, Eleanor, even Darius, and self loathing invaded her entire being.
Meggie couldn't let herself be overcome by despair for long though. Her Root training wouldn't allow it, and her natural determination rebelled against it. Surely what had been said could be reversed; if it was possible to write yourself into another world, why not conjure up a way out.
Swiftly she grabbed a few sheets of paper, yanked a brush out of the holster on her thigh, and flipped open the inkwell disguised as armor on her right hand. Pushing aside the rather unnerved section of her brain that realized she was going through the motions of preparing for battle, Meggie threw words down on the page, her agitation resulting in messy splatters of ink.
'Meggie returned home.' She stopped, stared at the scrawl. Definitely not her most eloquent work, and probably not enough to actually accomplish anything. No harm in trying though. "Meggie returned home." No, three words definitely weren't enough. After all, her story had stretched across a couple pages, never mind the inner landscape mapped out into an indefinite future.
Meggie knew with absolute certainty, with complete faith, that her home was elsewhere, in a house lined with books and filled with family. She simply needed to capture her universe on page.
Desperately, she resumed her writing. She filled the pages with her thoughts and the hours with her voice. Day melted into night, and as her writing became indecipherable in the darkness, and a small voice warned her that Danzo would not be pleased with her failure to start collecting data on the new genin, Meggie stopped.
She stood, automatically stretching her kinked muscles as she went, and turned to flick the switch on the wall. Irritation jarred her movements as she walked back into the kitchen to pour out a much needed glass of water. It just wasn't working.
Meggie didn't know why. Perhaps her writing wasn't eloquent enough, or her voice strong enough, but none of her attempts were remotely successful. There wasn't even a spark, a hint of success, and the rational part of her, the part that would prefer to stay alive, knew that if she kept this suspicious behavior up and blatantly ignored Danzo's orders it wouldn't be long before she found herself rotting in a high security Root prison.
Danzo knew all her tricks, he'd been the one to make her dangerous in the first place, and he wouldn't hesitate to cut out her tongue if she proved herself disloyal or useless. There was nothing for it, she'd have to play by the rules, follow the plot, complete the mission and life she'd made for herself.
Meggie glared at the scroll still lying innocently on the kitchen table. Why did she have to write herself in as Danzo's pawn? What a ridiculous plot, although... Meggie thought back. That hadn't exactly been the plan.
The last living member of the Silvertongue clan wasn't meant to continue on under Danzo's thumb. She was destined to befriend the genin of Konoha and use her unique situation as the only Root member without a seal on her tongue guaranteeing secrecy to betray Danzo.
Meggie realized with equal parts glee and horror that she'd made herself a heroine in a painfully lethal and deceptive world.
The possibilities were terrifying. Meggie had meshed herself with another author's story. She wasn't the same as Fenoglio, intimately acquainted with every character, omniscient and powerful. She only knew that she, Meggie Silvertongue, could betray Danzo and that the Hokage would listen to her.
Her familiarity with Kishimoto's story was spotty at best, and may have been made obsolete thanks to her meddling. Orochimaru might invade the Chunin exams, Itachi might not be a heartless murderer, and Akatsuki could be trying to take over the world, but who knew.
Meggie's shaking knees told her it was time to sit down and she obeyed, collapsing onto the closest kitchen chair, still clutching her glass of water. She shoved on the brakes, forcing her mind to a screeching halt. The future was still uncertain, nothing terribly new. Of course if she'd been more careful in her planning of a backs-story and research of the Naruto series this wouldn't be as frightening, but! There was no use crying over spilt milk. No use at all.
Perhaps she'd become a tragic hero, perhaps she'd die trying to save to world, but perhaps dying here would send her back to her parents. Hmm, highly unlikely. No, her best and only option was to live this story out, and her predicament only proved how important it was that she never stop writing of home. In a way it was inevitable that her first attempts would fail, after all she had to capture a lifetime. It should span across an entire series of books, not a hastily written stack of paper. Every day, no matter what, she had to try and send herself back.
In the meantime though, she'd more than filled up her quota for the day, and what Meggie reluctantly acknowledged as the real world awaited.
Tomorrow she would make the first step towards freeing herself from Danzo. Tonight it was time to finally look through that mission scroll.
Danzo had a number of methods for going behind the Hokage's back. After all, an underground organization like Root couldn't survive on luck alone when you were dealing with a leader legendary for his intelligence. There was going through the council, sneaking innocent looking ordinances into completely unrelated rulings, lacing the ANBU ranks with Root members, and various other schemes and subterfuge.
Sometimes though, the direct route was the best, especially when the secrets were so large that they couldn't be completely hidden. After all, who is going to suspect something that is right under their nose? And even if the suspicion is there, what can you do when all appears legal and straight forward? Nothing of course.
Thus the third Hokage found himself faced with the last remnant of the Silvertongue clan—an obvious plant from Danzo—but was powerless to do anything about it. The paperwork was unquestionable. Adopted by a pair of retired ninja, Meggie never attended the academy because she was homeschooled so as to accommodate her unique gifts. Thus, she'd missed placement into a genin team, and after being tested for competence in the shinobi arts, the council had voted in favor of rotating her among the rookie genin on a probationary basis.
It was all a bunch of bunk, but the most Sarutobi could do was meet with the girl before she was sent off to no doubt monitor the progress of their latest unusually interesting batch of genin, and fish for a miracle.
So far no miracles were forthcoming, though the girl was behaving... oddly. One moment she seemed like any other genin, too inexperienced to hide the direction of her darting eyes or disguise her nerves in front of Leaf's leader, but then she'd clamp down. Eyes would become distant, stance sharp and professional. It wasn't an unfamiliar dichotomy, but it didn't make sense in a Root agent. Was she truly this laxly trained, still caught by the newbie anxiety of an inexperienced genin, or was it a flawless act?
Then there was the problem of her attire. The inkwell attached to her hand was worrying enough; it would appear this Silvertongue had no compunction using her clan's powers as a weapon. It was difficult to say much more about her capabilities thanks to the coat reaching all the way down to her knees. The outfit was highly reminiscent of Mitarashi Anko's attire—though nowhere near as revealing, it was closed from neck to waist—and Sarutobi was forced to wonder why Danzo would allow one of his people to imitate the style of Orochimaru's ex-apprentice.
The strangest part though, was her shoes. Thanks to the monopoly on ninja footwear, there wasn't much variation on the toeless shoes from village to village never mind person to person. Yet this girl was wearing very sturdy looking boots reinforced with straps and metal bits. Sarutobi prayed that the ANBU on surveillance around his office were professional enough to only take passing notice of her footwear, and focus on the larger picture. After all, ninja sandals had caused an undercurrent of discontent within the populace for years, decades even.
Altogether, Sarutobi was forced to conclude that the Silvertongue's appearance and attitude had been carefully crafted to draw attention away from her mission. With such odd dichotomies of behavior and appearance, ninja would be distracted from her true purpose; information gathering and infiltration. Most would be too busy trying to wheedle the name of her shoe manufacturer out of her, or wondering how Anko would react to someone stealing her wardrobe style to stay on alert for betrayal.
While Sarutobi hid his puzzlement behind a serene facade, Meggie silently cursed her poor plan making and inexperience. Root agent training had filled in a lot of blanks in this universe. She could hurl a weapon with dead on accuracy, leap across buildings, and infiltrate underground laboratories, but they certainly didn't tell you how to turn traitor to a secret organization. An idiot's guide to switching political sides would be great right now.
After all, she could hardly blurt out to the Hokage, "Hey Sarutobi, I've had a sudden change of heart, simply meeting you for the very first time is enough to convert me to the Will of Fire. Let me help you bring down Root, and by the way this definitely isn't some sort of double cross spy mission. I've just been blown away by your powerful and sympathetic demeanor! Truly! Would now be a good time to mention that I'm from another dimension and may have multiple personality disorder?"
A/N: I love Inkheart. If you have not read it, you should. Right now. Chances are you can find it at most local libraries. If you've seen the movie... there's no comparison. It's a beautiful, lyrical, and magical story. The audio book is also quite pleasant, the first one... I'm not fond of the reader for the 2nd and 3rd books... In fact I'm not as fond of the 2nd and 3rd books overall, hence the reason I set this immediately after the first one.
I would really like to finish this story. I even asked my amazingly artistic and talented (yes, I'm jealous) younger sister to draw up a sketch of Meggie's ninja outfit, and promptly fell in love with it. There are nowhere near enough awesome Inkheart crossovers, especially considering all the possibilities, but I do need to finish the fanfics I've already started, and the problems I encountered when mentally sketching this out were so complicated that I'd want to focus my sole attention to it.
Some of the questions I'd still need to answer are: How powerful is Meggie? Can she alter the fate of Narutoverse, write up her own version of a happy ending, read it aloud, and fix things just like that? How would her reading abilities be incorporated into a fighting style? Where the heck am I going to find quotes for her to read in battle? What's going on with her parents back home? Did she completely write herself out of existence in her own world, in other words, does anyone even notice she is gone? Would Orochimaru try to give her a curse hickey? etc... etc...etc... Basically I really liked the idea of a Naruto/Inkheart crossover, but realized I had no idea where to take it...
