Chapter 2
Changing Fate
"Um…Naruto, right?" Nagato asked, trying to make his so-called 'amnesia' more believable.
"Yeah?" The blonde responded sweetly, it almost made Nagato miss that sweet tone his mother always spoke to him in.
"Shouldn't you and…Sasuke? Be going home now? I'm sure you both have a busy day tomorrow."
"I think I deserve a few more minutes of sleep in the morning." Naruto scoffed. "Kakashi-sensei would still be later!"
"Dobe, visiting hours will be over in five minutes." Sasuke informed, standing near the door. Sakura and Kakashi left hours ago, why did he have to wait for Naruto? Or, better yet, why was Naruto spending so much time with this guy? She barely knew him!
"Whatever, teme." Naruto rolled her eyes, but didn't budge from her seat next to Nagato's hospital bed. Sasuke shrugged and left, closing the door behind him. Naruto turned back to the more favorable raven.
"Yeah, as I was saying-"
"Hey, Naruto?" Nagato cut in. "Just a question, what is…going on between you and Sasuke?"
"Eh? What is going on between me and the bastard? We're just rivals, nothing else."
"It's just my opinion but…I think you two make a cute couple." Nagato had no idea where he was going with this but he was always a little curious about his parent's relationship.
"Me and the teme? Get real!" Naruto snorted. "I'm pretty sure no couple fights with each other like we do."
"You might be a unique case…" The raven muttered.
"Excuse me," a nurse cut in as she opened the door "visiting hours over now. I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The nurse somehow managed to pull off an obvious fake smile while glaring slightly at the blonde ninja. Naruto, unfazed by the nurse's pitiful attempt to intimidate her, complied and got up to leave, muttering an almost unheard "Someone like Sasuke would never fall in love with a demon like me anyways."
"By the way, thanks for visiting me, even though you don't know who I am." Nagato called out as Naruto walked out. The blonde smiled in reply, and Nagato saw his true mother in her. She always held the brightest smile on her face, yet hid the darkest sadness in her soul. He knew the tone the nurse spoke to her to, it was the same tone many people used on him back in the present. It was ironic how, back then, everyone adored his mother yet detested him and, now, everyone hated his mother and…treated him like an equal individual.
Nagato lay back on his bed, his train of thoughts leading back to jutsus or methods that could possibly counter a mind-reading, most likely done by a Yamanaka. His head throbbed with a sudden headache; it must be the head injury he received earlier. The nurse switched the lights off, leaving the dark-haired boy in darkness. Before the boy could think of anything more, he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
…
Sasuke couldn't sleep. In a way, he was glad for it. Each night he slept, there was a chance he would dream. And every single time he dreamt, his mind would always be haunted by nightmares exaggerating the death of his clan, and he would wake up covered in sweat and shivering uncontrollably in fear of his eyes. He'd mentally chant the words 'Revenge' and 'Kill Itachi' like a mantra as he went about his morning routine, until he reached the training grounds for a team meeting. From there on, his thoughts would be of Naruto and only Naruto, no Sakura and no Kakashi. This mystified even Sasuke, but he only presumed it was because they were rivals. Until that boy with shoulder-length black hair and hidden eyes came along.
Sasuke didn't like the way Naruto was so attached to…what's-his-name? Nagato. He blamed Sakura; it was her who noticed that the whisker marks on Nagato's cheeks were awfully similar to Naruto's and pointed it out to her. And Naruto, being Naruto, got overly excited and came to the conclusion that they must be related. You don't see a lot of people with whisker-like birthmarks like hers.
It was awfully suspicious how Nagato just fell out of the sky and just happened to get amnesia. There was a chance he could've just been a spy in the disguise of a seemingly innocent little boy. Kakashi seemed to think so too, thus the need to call in the Hokage on this. Well, they would know in the morning. Sasuke turned over on his bed, hoping to get some sleep, preferably dreamless ones.
…
When Nagato woke up to the Third Hokage entering his hospital room with another man with long auburn hair tied in a ponytail and somewhat slanted eyes, only one thought ran through his head.
'Oh shit!' Nagato had seconds, mere seconds, to come up with an idea to counter a mind-reading jutsu! Sitting up, he alerted the two older men that he was awake.
"Good morning, Nagato." The Hokage greeted. He gestured to the man nearby and introduced him. "This, here is Santa Yamanaka. He will search your mind and pull out your memories so you can remember again. Are you ready?" Nagato's head nodded automatically when, in fact, he was so not ready at all! The Hokage nodded to the auburn-haired ninja. "Then you may start, Santa."
Nagato closed his eyes and waited with bated breath as the Yamanaka placed his hand upon the boy's head. The man closed his eyes as his mind dived deep into Nagato's sub-conscious. Minutes passed by, the Rinnegan-bearer and the Yamanaka deep in Nagato's mind and the Hokage waiting patiently for the results. After a grand total of fifteen minutes, Santa snapped his eyelids open and extracted his hand from Nagato's head. He stood up and bowed before the Hokage. Nagato's eyes opened as well and he took a deep breath, waiting for the ugly truth to come out.
"Well…?" Hiruzen asked, waiting to hear the answer.
"Hokage-sama, I apologize, but there were some complications." Santa reported with remorse. Nagato's eyes widened from under his bangs while the Hokage quirked an eyebrow.
"I'm listening." Hiruzen said, implying that he wanted the shinobi to elaborate.
"The boy has his memories. However, he is unable to remember because those memories are inaccessible, and the memories are inaccessible because they are distorted and hard to make out. Pulling them out would be a bad idea, the memories are unstable and their movement would cause permanent brain damage. There were a few coherent memories, but they were created after his injury, so they're useless in helping us find out about his background. However, with time, the memories will probably become stable enough to read. The time given would be at least around a month or two." Both the Hokage and Nagato stared at Santa in surprise and confusion.
"I see." Hiruzen nodded in understanding. "In that case, Nagato will need another appointment with you in two months. Until then, you're dismissed. Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Yamanaka." Santa nodded, bowing before body flickering out of the hospital. The Hokage turned to a shell-shocked Nagato.
"You'll be released from the hospital later today, since your injury seems to have healed up a little. I've arranged for you to temporarily stay with Naruto Uzumaki since you two have recently been a little…close." Nagato blushed at that while Hiruzen smirked inwardly. "But you'll be having someone watch on you for a while. It is standard procedure for foreign ninja to the village, I'm sure you'll understand. You won't even notice he's there. With that said," Hiruzen tipped his Hokage hat and proceeded to walk out the door.
"Thank you…Hokage-sama." Nagato called out, like he had with Naruto. Hiruzen smiled and waved goodbye, closing the hospital door behind him.
Nagato flopped back down on the bed in frustration. Thinking back…he found he couldn't think back at all! Sifting through his memories, Nagato couldn't put a picture or sound into them. Faces were becoming undistinguishable and his memories were incoherent. He couldn't remember the old woman that was his mother. The only blonde he could remember was Naruto from now. For some reason, his goals stayed with him and managed to go undetected by the interrogator, change the future and change Naruto's fate. Drowsiness crept onto Nagato and the raven submitted to sleep.
Nagato slipped into the deep sub-conscious of his mindscape. He landed in a totally white and blank space. It seemed never-ending; there was no horizon and no limit to the space above. No color besides white tainted the milky landscape, except…
"Hey kid, miss me?" A deep ominous voice resounded throughout the area. Nagato turned his head to face a large grey humanoid beast with one eye that took up the most area of its head and ten tails.
"Wha-! Who are you?!" Nagato screamed, horrified at the intimidating beast before him.
"Already forgotten me? I'm hurt." The beast drawled sarcastically. "Oh wait, that's just your almost non-existent memories."
"My…memories? You know what happened to me? Tell me!" the beast rubbed the area above its eyes with its large fingers in frustration.
"I'll just show you." A tentacle with the thickness of Nagato's whole body morphed from one of the ten-tailed beast's fingers and plopped down on the boy's head. Almost immediately, Nagato remembered his life, but from the Jubi's point of view. It was till his life nonetheless. When the Jubi finished showing Nagato its memories, the tentacle appendage released its hold of the boy and submerged back into its finger.
"J-Jubi." Nagato whispered in realization. "W-Wait, didn't you go to the past as well? Well, further back?"
"Yeah, about that, remind me to go back at the time of your death. You'll understand, time stuff and all."
"But why are you here? What happened to my memories?" the beast sighed, knowing it was about to launch a confusing, but not too long, explanation.
"It's a paradox. I'm not sure what you did while you were here but, whatever you did, it altered the future. You changed your fate, brat."
"But…how? If this is a paradox, shouldn't I…disappear or something?"
"Remember how you were cloned from two different human's blood samples? Well, now it's…I'm not sure how humans usually explain it but I think it starts with 'When a man and woman love each otherverymuch…' or something like that."
"…So you're saying that, instead of being biogenetically engineered, I was actually born?"
"When you put it that way…"
"That doesn't explain what happened to my memories though."
"Were you born this stupid, or did you practice? Your life played out differently; therefore your memories are being rewritten right now. The longer you keep altering the past, the longer your memories will be kept at bay from you. If you're not careful, you may do something that may prevent your parents from procreating and you will cease to exist."
"So what do I do now?"
"Play along with things for now. The future is altered, but not the world's fate. Just act natural, don't do anything stupid ortryto make things happen, go with the flow."
"Go with the flow…got it." Nagato furrowed his eyebrows in determination.
"Great, now that I hammered it into your thick skull, get out of here." And with that, Nagato woke up to two shining blue eyes set in a tanned face. Blinking away his sleep, he realized that he was seeing the face of his moth- Naruto! He needed to recognize her as Naruto and not his mother, in case he slipped up.
"You sure sleep like a rock! I was worried you died or something." Naruto commented as the Rinnegan-bearer sat up in his bed.
"Dobe, people don't still breathe when they die. At most, they'd be in a coma." Which was exactly what Sasuke had hoped Nagato would be in as he said that. Better yet, he should just die! Naruto stuck her tongue out at the raven. Nagato stared at the two until the realization hit him that since he shared both of their genes then, in the future, these two…would make him. Wow, that was hard to take in. Would he be Nagato Uzumaki or Nagato Uchiha? But back to the main topic…
"Since you're awake now, let's go home!" Naruto demanded enthusiastically as she tugged on Nagato's arm.
"Eh?" was Nagato's rather intelligent reply.
"Jiji said that you'd be staying with me! How fun is that?" Oh right, the Hokage did mention that he's be staying with Naruto. Sasuke's eye twitched slightly at that. He came with Naruto after she was called in alone to the Hokage's office to find that this whole arrangement was what they were discussing. No wonder Naruto looked so happy when she skipped out of the Hokage tower. Sakura had gone home and Kakashi was…somewhere. Sasuke now had more reasons to hate Nagato. Living with his dobe, the two were bound to get closer, ruining the young Uchiha's chance of getting close to the blonde he deserved.
…Hold on…HIS dobe?! Where did that thought come from?! Why was he suddenly competitive, not in a fight against Naruto this time, but in a fight for Naruto? Where were these feelings springing out from? Mentally shaking his head, Sasuke trudged after the blonde and black duo as they made their way to the receptionist to check Nagato out, now that Nagato was fully dressed in the ninja garments he wore when arriving here.
Nagato was similarly dressed to Sasuke, though the Uchiha didn't realize it. His dark blue shirt had a chin-length collar and orange edges. He wore black shorts that ended a few inches above his knee, exposing bandaged legs from strenuous taijutsu training. He walked in dark blue ninja sandals and a shuriken holster around his right thigh, like most other genins. If anyone had bothered to look very carefully, they would see the tiny symbol of the Uzumaki clan on the back of his collar. However, Kakashi had noticed that symbol, and reported it to the Hokage, when he took Nagato to the hospital. But it didn't mean much, unless they got more information about him.
Sasuke had to grudgingly separate from his favorite blonde and hated brunette when he came to a path that led to his home. He waved goodbye to the two, not expecting a reply. However, it was the hated brunette that waved goodbye back at him, smiling. And the favorite blonde, seeing his actions, flipped Sasuke with a stuck-out tongue and a "Bye, bastard!"
And Naruto continued dragging Nagato to her favorite ramen stand, talking about all the merits of ramen. Personally, Nagato loved ramen, as it was a treat his mother gave him when he did something good in her eyes, but he mostly preferred onigiris or tomatoes whenever he was in the mood for more healthy foods. He could consider this ramen session as a treat from his mother, albeit a much younger mother. Hold on… This was Naruto here…N-A-R-U-T-O. Not his mother, Naruto.
Nagato looked around, remembering the Hokage mentioning a ninja keeping an eye on him as well. Well, whoever he was, he was doing a good job. Nagato could neither see nor sense anyone following him.
Walking down the streets casually with Naruto while half-heartedly listening to her banter made Nagato question what would the Hokage plan for him tomorrow. Nagato Uzumaki liked to hone his ninja skills just as enthusiastically as Naruto Uzumaki did.
…
AN
I would've updated sooner, but my last work got deleted when I couldn't open it as it was corrupted. So I had to rewrite this again. -_-
Constructive criticism is appreciated, so please review! :3
Dragonoiya
