I urge my readers to read this AN, and I in turn will promise to try and keep it short.
The truth is, I really had no intention of continuing this story, at least not for a long while to come. The flattery and response I have been getting from everyone has been both invigorating and ever so debilitating to me, because I would like to continue to produce such works as are up to the standards I have set, but fear I may not be able to.
The uniqueness of my concept (if I dare use that term, for there are no new stories), I have elevated to an almost holy status in my mind, and I feel like anything I tack on to the end without being first divinely inspired to do so is nothing short of sacrilege.
So I pose you this question, my loyal and vacillating readers: I have a couple of trial chapters to continue this story which I am not entirely satisfied with. To me, they don't quite fit in the same vein as the prologue/ once shot, and frankly don't quite live up to that standard in my opinion. But because I have been spurred to write more because of my loving audience, the decision is up to you. Do they work for you? Or would you prefer me to tumble my thoughts around a little more in my head until I produce a polished gem?
…
Dear diary,
Hi! How are you? My name is Ruby Rose, and I am ten years old. My dad says I should try to write to you every day, even though he wants me to try and make 'real' friends as well, which is weird because I know you are real, but he doesn't seem to think that counts. Anyway, I hope you don't mind then if I tell you a little about myself. My name is Ruby Rose, and I am ten years old… and I already said that. Today is October 31st, and it is my birthday. It's the same day as Halloween, how cool is that?! I like strawberries, puppies, spending time with my dad and my sister and the stories that he and my mom used to tell us. I don't like mean people, vegetables, and Grimm, because they took my mom away. But I guess that I don't hate them, because I don't like to hate anything. But they are why my dream is to become a strong huntress, just like my mom! I want to make the world a better place for everyone, so that one day we can all live happily ever after, just like in her stories.
….
There was that lurch in his stomach, you know the one where you feel like you're climbing a staircase and miss that final step and feel like you're going to fall forever in a pit of dizzying blackness. As he missed the next step and fell away into nothing, he went from sleeping to wide awake as he tumbled out of bed into a disorganized pile of blankets and sweat. His twig-like arms were glistening even though he was chattering with cold, and though the adrenaline coursed through his veins like a freight train, his heightened focus was directed inward to the nonexistence of his heartbeat.
He gasped a rattling breath. One, two, three… but lost count each time he wondered how he was still alive without a pulse in his chest.
But then it returned, faint and unhurried, not pumping enough blood to his swimming head, and he felt like he was going to black out again.
This time he did not dream.
….
What…was that?
He pushed himself off the wood floor, worn smooth from use and blinked in the bright light of day. It was morning, again.
He looked at his hands, and realized that those pudgy little starfish had not been the ones holding the pen. These were his hands, and the others were… what, exactly?
A ghost? A dream? His dream?
His dream was to become the Hokage, so that everyone in the village would be forced to acknowledge his existence, and he would one day have friends, and a family, and a father and a sister whom he would protect from the beasts-
No. That was not his dream.
This was the first deviation. The first time he recognized a difference between the slender being of his thoughts and the robust one tied to the mundane world around him. When the pen went one way, and his heart the other.
Every time before this was like riding in a train car, surrounded by the luxurious décor and staring outwards at the scenery passing by. Suddenly it went around a curve, and he did not follow, realizing for the first time he had only ever been a ghost.
He questioned, whether that person known as Ruby Rose, was in fact someone else, separate from him and his problems. Someone else who had a father and a sister and a dog and home and dreams which diverged from his own. And that this, this lonely squalor was his only reality.
He picked himself off the floor and tossed the coverlet back on his bed, uncaring how it fell crooked. He padded his way into the kitchen nook and started to boil himself some water automatically.
But it was so real.
It had always been real, this incident hadn't made it less real. It just made it… different.
He clutched his heart as it skipped another beat, turned up the tiny blue flame to ward off the cold.
Separate. Apart. Alone. Those happy faces were never meant for him.
He shook his raggedy blond locks, dispelling the dream from his head. Today was his first chance to pass the Genin exam, after all. He needed to focus on the important things.
He hopped on his tippy toes and swiped a Styrofoam container from the cabinet as the kettle began to boil. Piercing whistle announcing the departure of the train from the station.
…..
He felt like he should try to make friends. He felt like he should try to make real friends. Even though it was his last day in the academy, he never wanted to stop trying, a biological compulsion driving him to step up to the plate and swing at the curveball life threw at him.
He could have been like Sasuke. Could have been famous for something bad, being bad, being dark and cold and otherworldly.
But that wasn't him. He knew that much.
So when he was rebuffed yet again, he took it in stride. He didn't even remember what he said, or what they said, or even who they were. He was going through the motions because that's what it felt like he should do. Because that was who he was.
When he failed the exam again, he warded off disappointment with a wooden smile. But this time, he could not help but let some of the rain in when he shut the door to that less than perfect world.
He retreated into his comfortable cubbyhole to ward off the real pain. His dreary, cold and lonely reality. He wanted to withdrawal into that seclusion, close his eyes and wait in patience for his family to show up. And they would go outside together into the sunshine of the forest and laugh and play and get stronger and more resilient to the evil things which lurked outside that paradise.
But a thought struck him. Could he even go back, again? It was, after all, just a dream.
"Naruto?"
He lifted his head from where it rested on the rough hemp rope swing. A smiling brown pineapple eclipsed the sun.
Another dream.
"Maa, Naruto, you know you'd probably pass the exam if you studied a little harder."
"I'll try harder next time, Iruka-sensei."
The perpetual chunin frowned at the listless response. He could tell his student was elsewhere.
"I'm serious Naruto. Listen to me, you could be a great ninja if you just put a little bit more effort into your studies."
"I don't want to be a great ninja, I'm going to be the best- Dattebayo!" For a brief moment there was a spark as the unflappable brat he knew reanimated that lifeless corpse.
Iruka sighed. "And how are you going to do that if you don't pass the exit exam first?" But it was too late, and Naruto had already doubled back to seek solace in that room of painted pictures.
The instructor whistled a sigh at the rebuff but could not just let it go at that. That wasn't the type of person he was.
He crouched down on his knee and placed a gentle hand on the boy's all-too-thin shoulder. Naruto flinched and blinked, pupils dialing back into focus.
"Naruto, this is your dream, right?"
"Huh?"
"To become the Hokage, that's your dream, your goal." He gave a lopsided grin. "Or have you changed your mind in the last 30 minutes?"
"No way!" This time the pale blond was genuinely taken aback.
"You see those men?" He pointed to the four faces set in stone which overlooked the whole village. Idyllic statues that were more than reality, less than truth. "Do you think they got to where they were by just talking about being the best?"
"No." Naruto looked down, wishing he could walk away into that dark room and wait for the light to come back.
"No." Iruka frowned, still trying to get the boy to look him in the eye. He gave him a little shake and the clouds lifted from the azure skies staring back at him. "They worked hard for it. They kept their focus on their goals, but also on their fellow ninja as well as each and every villager who they considered family."
Naruto looked troubled. He had heard this speech before, but now he knew what family really meant.
"If they're supposed to be my family," Iruka caught his tongue as the boy spoke. "if they're all supposed to be family, why do they always treat me so bad?"
The older man bit his tongue. He had expected obstinance, a resentful acknowledgment that he needed to work harder. He should have expected this question but knew that he didn't want to ask it himself, either. But he quickly found his stride again.
"Well, families… not all families get along. Not everyone understands what it means to be part of a family."
"What it means?"
"Yeah, like, they expect that their family should love them unconditionally, no matter what they do."
Naruto was confused, as everything he had grown up knowing about family seemed so perfect and complete. It came so effortlessly and free, and if you didn't have to begin with you never would. But…then again… wasn't that all just a lie…?
"But the truth is that no love is unconditional. Love is both ways, and love requires work. And you can't just expect someone to give you love for free."
"Then why should I-"
"Because they are still part of your family, even if they don't know it. You shouldn't stop trying to care for them, and one day, they will finally return that affection." Iruka smiled sadly. "But there will be some who won't see it that way, and you have to prepare yourself for the fact that there are some battles you just can't win. But you never stop fighting, never give up."
He placed both hands on the young man's shoulders and looked into his fathomless blue eyes, wide with both fear and understanding. A child's eyes which bore a whole new world beyond their horizons.
"But you will win more than you will lose- that I promise you. Because people will always choose love over hate. And so should you. Choose victory over defeat. Choose happiness over despair. You just have to keep working at it, chipping away at everything just like the rock for the face you want up there."
Naruto thought about a raven-haired woman, a raven-haired boy. One who was so far away and yet still family, one who was so close to kin but so far away. He thought on all the bitter and hurt feelings surrounding these two individuals- or where they one and the same? Either way, was that not a wasted love, the years spent pining after a bond which might never be forged?
Iruka didn't seem to think so, and he had never steered him wrong before. For the first time, though, it felt like he could really see it and understand it. Believe it.
"So, do you know what you should do now?"
"Huh? Umm…"
He thought about it. He really did, he realized, instead of just screwing up his face and looking like he was in order to satisfy the scar-faced man.
"Naruto," He resisted the urge to sigh, aware of the potentially fundamental moment he was having with the impressionable youth. "you need to focus on the here and now."
"Oh, right." His face heated up with a dusting of pink which reminded him of cotton candy. "I need to keep working, to keep trying to get better and to be better." He looked up at the stone faces, suddenly aware of their permanence. "I can't stop because it is worth it. Because this is my world, my home, and someday they will be my people…" His heart grew wings and sailed upward on a thermal. "…Because I can't give up. Because I'm going to be Hokage!
…..
Ruby blinked the pixie dust from her eyes as the excess floated lazily in the beam of warm sunlight tumbling through her bedroom window.
She flopped back onto her pillow with a groan, realizing that it was a school day, and she had another test. And not just any test. But the test which would determine if she was fit for the huntsman fast track, or if she would spend another two and half years studying science and grammar and other boring stuff.
She had failed the practice test her dad had given her two weeks before. She had studied religiously since then, of course… hadn't she?
The half groan, half whimper was muffled by her heavily feathered pillow as she rolled over and buried her face in it. Suddenly her whole day just felt so insurmountable, just hanging up on that one thought which loomed like a big, stony bust of her father glaring down with disappointment.
"Hey Ruby! It's time to get up!" The voice of her sister was a chipper and bright as the larks singing outside her window, and she wanted to chuck the pillow at both of them. "Today's the day my little sister gets to become a huntress!"
Ruby wanted to point out that this was just the first of many, many steps to achieving their parallel goals. And she wanted to complain and bemoan her unpreparedness to wrench free some pity from her sister.
But she didn't.
There would be other chances, she knew. And this test wasn't the be all, end all. Her family would still love her at the end of the day and her self confidence would recover in time should the worst come to pass.
But that consoling thought wasn't what made her wrench herself out of bed.
It was something she couldn't quantify. A confidence, a surety that she hadn't felt when she closed her eyes the previous night. The feeling was so unshakable and so real that she couldn't help but let it spread through her body like caffeine and perk her up out of her fatigued lamentations.
Not that she would succeed, but that she would try.
It came to her that she wouldn't know the results, good or bad, unless she took it. And she couldn't do that if she hadn't even gotten out of bed. Her foot peaked out from underneath the covers and onto the chilly early morning floor.
Then Yang ripped off the covers and ran away giggling maniacally, with a crimson streak hot on her pigtails.
The story hadn't been written yet. It hadn't even begun.