The Book of Two
Summary: A book that wrote back… it was weird, but it was a friend. One that they desperately needed.
Chapter 1: Naruto 1
Books are amazing things. They can hold within them memories, facts, discoveries, and dreams. Within them can be found the hopes of the writer, or the hopes of the reader. They can tell the stories of worlds that never existed. They can bring the words of the dead into a place where they can be discovered again. Their messages could be spread all across a planet while the creator doesn't even have to leave their house.
That's probably why I'd always liked writing. From the time I figured out how to write. It was almost cathartic to me.
You see, books have something else that I love about them. They only forget when they are forced to forget. Even then, there is always evidence that a page was removed or a mark was erased and that… that was something I always shared with books.
I suppose not everyone knows what that feels like. I knew I was different. I'd heard people's complaints about not being able to remember what happened while walking through my neighborhood in the morning. I'd heard couples complaining about forgotten anniversaries and other such things. I'd even heard the old man complain about his memory not being as sharp as it once was.
I can remember every single time I even heard a whisper. I can remember everything.
I can't forget.
Anything.
The first thing I remember is a bright light. My mother's smile. Then the look of horror on her face. Three dead bodies in the room. The smell of Iron. The feeling of their chakra leaving their bodies. My mother's chakra, almost boiling with the rage inside of her. My father's, almost calm with an icy stillness that exploded into motion a second later.
Then there was that man. That white and black mask. That chakra that was… twisted -inhuman in a manner that I hadn't seen since- but also had a very human sense of glee to it.
That night - October 10th, 64- is a thing I sometimes want to forget.
But then, I'm afraid I'd forget their faces.
I guessed that's why I started remembering everything. After all, the oldest memories are the first to go… at least, that's what I thought at the time
… I still didn't see why I had to remember everything else. And I do mean everything. For example, by my fifth birthday, I'd eaten 536 soft boiled eggs, as well as 8 eggs that I had left in too long and the yolk got a bit solid... Why do I need to know that!
Personal grousing about what was, in hindsight, a giant boon for me aside, I really liked writing. From an abnormally young age.
The problem was, at that time. It was extremely hard for me to find anything to write on. People didn't exactly care to have me in their shops, a product of that crappy night. As a result, it wasn't as simple as going to the local store and picking up a few notebooks. I had to scavenge for anything I could get, mostly out of the trash. Old receipts were usually what I'd managed to use. The backs were usually blank and the paper was sturdy enough to be written on, unlike napkins that tore the second I touched the pencil lead to them. And the best part was that people threw receipts away constantly.
Which is why, on the evening of the 6th of May 70, I was looking through the trash cans between the Yamanaka flower shop and the Harunos' residence. It was there that I found what would be my greatest treasure: a book bound in scarlet leather with black trimmings, about the size of one of those composite notebooks that you could find in a store and -most importantly- full of blank pages. The moment I flipped it open was the most excited I had been in my life up until that point.
I then decided to flip through the book to see just how many pages there were.
I flipped, and I flipped, and I flipped. After five minutes of counting the pages as I flipped them, only to seem to not get any further into the book, I got impatient and decided to just run my finger across the corners of the page. I did that for a solid two minutes straight before realizing something very amazing: This book had a seemingly infinite number of blank pages in it. I barely resisted the urge to start screaming and shouting as I clutched the book to my chest and ran all the way back to my apartment.
I barely spent the time to lock my door before I had all but jumped on the box that had all my writings and pencils in it. To an outsider it probably would have seemed like a pencil had teleported into my hand and the book had teleported onto my little table, that's how quickly I was moving from the excitement.
At first, I transcribed everything I had ever written before. All of the old receipts, along with the other occasional scraps of paper I'd found, added together to about five hours of writing and 43 pages of this notebook. When I had it all down… it just made me want to write more. Before I had written poems and stories on those scraps of paper, but since no new ones were coming to my brain at the time, I decided to just write about everything.
I started by writing about the little apartment that the old man gave me on my fifth birthday. The old chairs, the worn couch, the coffee table that didn't sit flat on the floor because I broke one of the leveling feet when I dragged it across the floor four nights prior and I hadn't fixed it yet, the bed that was one of the most wonderful things in my life… I even wrote about my toilet's propensity to just flush itself in the middle of the night.
After that, I wrote about the old man who cared so much for me, about how he would always use clones to finish up his work while he would personally come with me for ramen or to help me get groceries, about how he was one of the strongest ninja to ever live, and how he could probably beat whatever animal masked ninja he always has hanging in the corner of his office. I wrote about how he was the one most responsible for every other person in all of Konoha…
And then I wrote about the people of Konoha. I understand- understood that the people really did have every reason to hate me, even though it was clear to anyone with any education on seals that I wasn't the tailed beast itself. That fact didn't matter. I still reminded them of everything that happened that night. The beast that destroyed so much of their… everything, was within me. And I also dared to have a face so similar to the man who was their beloved leader.
Their anger was useless and pitiable, almost, but it was also perfectly understandable. I also wrote all of that at the time.
I then switched gears to talk about the damned fox that I still couldn't reach. I mean, really? Was it mad that it was in me? Did it just not know how to reach out to me? Did I not know how to reach out to him? I mean obviously I didn't, but did that duty fall on me?
I really wanted to see that old fox. It was just as much of a victim of that night as the rest of us. Unless it was secretly an Uchiha that had learned how to use the Mangekyo Sharingan, but that thought seemed a little absurd even to my 5-year-old brain. That same brain thought that the (100 story tall) Kyuubi could really use a hug.
I'd written like this throughout the night and for the majority of the next day, only stopping for food and bathroom breaks. By about 19:00 on the 7th, I was getting too tired to even pick up my pencil from the page. I was about to go to sleep, but I had one last thing to ponder, "I wonder who this book belonged to." To my shock, the book seemed to have understood me since it flipped back a single page all by itself. When it did this, though, it was suddenly on the first page inside of the cover. There, it simply said one thing:
"Property of Uzumaki Karin & Mebuki"
I grew a large grin at this. Whoever this book belonged to, they were kin to me. My regrets about seemingly stealing such a wonderful artifact faded, and I decided to write one last thing on that page "& Naruto".
I went to bed with the book in my arms, with it warmly lulling me with faint vibrations.
Author's Notes:
So, in case you couldn't tell, the plans I have for this story will diverge quite heavily from the canon of both of these universes. I'll admit, I will be taking this story in a few outlandish directions, but I hope I might be able to make them work.
The story will be told through the perspectives of various characters, but each chapter will only have one character's perspective. This will be shown in the title of each chapter.
This story was inspired by one I read a few years ago (that seemed to have been abandoned) that I really liked the concept of (though I slightly disagreed with the execution, as I'm sure some will do with my own take on it). This story was written as "Connected Fates" by MickeyMooseCaramel on ff and as "The Two of Us" by mickeycmick on AO3.
This story will be posted on both platforms, and my posting schedule will probably be… sporadic to say the least. But, I'll try to not abandon the story.
As for the lengths of the chapters, all I have to offer is a shrug. They'll probably get longer, but I can't guarantee that.