From the Archive
Scroll 1; Memory N1
Category: Life
I think now on creation.
The world was formed of the Five, the elements. Life mirrors this.
Earth provides the form, a body. Fire provides the heart, homeostasis. Water provides the cradle, reproduction. Lightning provides the spark, consciousness. Wind provides the breath, facilitation.
Together, they are life. Remove one, and the rest crumbles. Remove one, and the whole becomes lifeless.
What I speak of are the core functions allowed by each of the Five. From these functions and their countless interactions, all life grows. But not all life is equal.
The ratios of elemental presence – presence of each element in a living being – change from species to species, but all must be present. In order to live, and to continue to live, one must possess a shard of each of the Five, arrayed in some manner of stability. This composes the soul, and the soul must be composed of the Five.
But there are exceptions to this rule. Only five can exist at any given time, one for each of the elements. These exceptions possess one shard greater than all others, the precarious balance of the soul supplanted only by each shard's absolute power.
In effect, these exceptions speak with the Five. One reads the endless bones of Earth. One lives with the beating heart of Fire. One rests within the tender cradle of Water. One gazes with the sacred spark of Lightning. One listens to the wandering breath of Wind.
These exceptions are called the Chosen, and they are the Chosen of the Five.
"Hello, Kaze."
As he stood in a quiet place with expectant eyes, devoid of human noise and manmade things, he spoke, and then listened. A gentle flutter of wind swept through midnight leaves, and brown branches bent just a little in the ambient dark. Kaze was saying hello, in its own way.
A boy of six with blond hair and blue-grey eyes smiled. He had some news for his friend.
"I'm getting a place of my own, finally. I'm getting out of the orphanage."
A new breeze whistled across the grass, making little shimmering trails in the knee-high green blades.
The boy cocked his head to the side. "Why? Because I'm joining the Academy. The old man with the white hat told me I could."
Concern travelled along zephyrs above the trees, making the leaves right at the top dance up and down and back and forth.
He sighed and nodded. "I know it'll be different, and there'll be new people, but I... I still want to try."
Long, slow gusts dragged specks of dirt through the chilly air.
"If I don't try, then what do I do? I can't stay at the orphanage," he said.
The wind moved left through the low, rustling leaves, and then right through the treetops.
He sat down in the cool grass, folding his legs in the special way his friend had taught him to and placing his head in his hands. "They don't like me. No one there does."
The wavelength of the breeze shifted up and down across his clothing, placing invisible fingers atop his head and patting gently, up and down, side to side. Kaze was always nice to him.
Reassured a little, he kept talking. "But... people at the Academy might like me, even just a little."
The pats on his head subsided, and the wind became a slow running stream across the clearing.
"They might not like me, but I have to try and find out," he said, bringing his eyes up to the night sky.
A brief swirl in the unseeable stream in the clearing made itself known to him, spiky hair rustled with another calming pat on the head.
"It'll be hard," he admitted, looking back down to the grass and the shimmering flickers of moonlight running rampant in the partial dark. "It might hurt. It might hurt a lot."
Whirling, a breeze made his clothes shift and waver, his old green shirt moving loosely on his diminutive frame. He moved his thin, weedy arms close to his body, hugging them to his chest to no avail. He shivered just a little. The wind died down.
"You're right, Kaze," he agreed, nodding slowly, almost dejected. "It will hurt."
Kaze was right about so many things. Kaze knew so much that so many did not. It was sad that other people couldn't hear Kaze. Sometimes, he wanted to tell people the things that Kaze said to him. But then Kaze told him that they wouldn't understand, so he didn't say anything.
"It will hurt," he repeated, "but I'll live."
He could hear the approval in the whistle of wind that blew through the night-time grass. Kaze's support made him smile just a little.
He was going to be on his own more often, in a place that wasn't the orphanage. The orphanage was alive with small people full of hope, but dead with sad, stale air that hung around the old and taller caretakers. It was filled with a strange mix of aspiration and resignation. He was used to all that. And now, he was going somewhere else. The change was scary.
A sudden gust blew through the clearing, and trees shook with a moment of motion and noise. Little pieces of memory rose up inside him, times when that gust of wind had arrived. Kaze was reminding him.
It came when he needed help, when he felt frightened and alone, or when he was just hot and sweaty on a warm day as he sat in a tree and watched everything from a distance. Kaze was always there for him, even for the littlest things. When no one would hold his hand and show him the way through the fields, Kaze pushed the grass down and made a path for him. When people pointed at him, whispered to each other in hushed tones he couldn't help but hear, and made gestures with their hands that he didn't understand, Kaze grew loud and took the attention away from him. When the people stood and stared at him, made him uncomfortable and uneasy, made him afraid of what they might be thinking or about to do, Kaze made all the bad feelings go away when he felt the hand he couldn't see pat his head. And when he couldn't sleep late at night because of his uncomfortable bed near a wide-open window, Kaze would tell him stories to guide him off to sleep, stories about people who lived in a place full of sand and sun, where wind roamed freely across the dunes, and where people could hear the wind speak. He understood what Kaze was trying to tell him with memory, and he smiled again.
He had Kaze, and he would live with the change.
"You're my friend, Kaze," he said to his only one, looking up to the sky with his eyes closed. "You'll always be there for me."
And Kaze always was. As far back as his memory could stretch, the wind was always with him. It was always moving around him, encircling him in constant breeze, gentle but strong. It was always by his side, in the trees, in the grass, in the sky, in all of nature. Wherever he went, the wind followed him, walking by his side. Whenever he stopped, the wind stopped with him, standing at his back. When he laid on his back in the grass and reached his hand for the sky, wondering why he was always by himself, kept alone and away from all the others by cold glances from adults and upsetting taunts from children, the wind reached with him.
When the wind placed a hand on his head and rubbed gently, Naruto knew Kaze was smiling.
Naruto stood up. It was nearly morning, and his first day at the Academy was nearly upon him. At least he was ready.