Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

ALRIGHT. I AM ALIVE. I know, I know, you all thought I was dead or that I'd abandoned you. I will agree that some of you have more reason to think that than others, but I am alive! I was just exhausted from the last chapter and ended up writing a bajillion versions of this one. Shana saved you and also me, probably, so be appropriately grateful.

So this is a bit of a return to the norm for everybody.

SOME ADVICE: Last chapter was obviously the end of an important arc, so there were a high number of reviews, which I have steadfastly replied to. If you're uninterested, just stop reading at the next A/N or skip to the bottom once there's another chapter. No, seriously. It's a huge section and I am a little frightened of it, but I promised to reply.

Own nothing except original characters and plot. That should maybe be capitalised.


Immediately after Raiku's moment in the spotlight and the shattering of her father's worldview, the Genematrix resumed its machinations, which meant it had some catching up to do.

And for most of them, it wasn't really a big deal.

Mayuko stopped in the middle of writing some obs.,and frowned.

'Did you feel that?' she asked a co-worker, who was searching desperately for the pen Mayuko had just stolen from her.

'Feel what?' the junior nurse asked vaguely.

Mayuko frowned, tapping her stolen writing utensil against the desk. 'I'm not quite sure. Something like a ... rapid rush of air?' When you worked in a hospital in a hidden village, it paid to ask about even the most seemingly innocuous things.

'What? No,' the younger woman replied, almost scoffing. That was fine. She'd soon learn about deeply improbable things happening on a daily basis,and then Mayuko would be the one laughing.

But she was sure she'd felt something. 'I'm not sure how to describe it. Like the pressure in the room changed, all of a sudden.'

Giving up, the junior nurse leaned back in her chair and sighed. 'I'm sorry. I didn't feel anything.'

Not, Mayuko thought, like that meant much coming from someone who hadn't even noticed Mayuko taking her pen out of her front pocket.

But, still. It may just have been her imagination—wait a damned second. It was never just her imagination. Mayuko never just imagined things. That wouldn't even have occurred to her. Not naturally, anyway. Which meant only one thing.

She looked down the nearest hallway and noticed the lights beginning to flicker, the endlessly ringing phone at the nurse's station suddenly picking up in speed. The air felt strangely charged, and if she focused on it just right, it seemed to have black fragments swimming in and out of view.

Mayuko put the pen back in her pocket and braced herself. The Genematrix she could deal with, but she'd never get her hands on another working pen in a hospital.


And then, of course, there was Raiku.

Raiku woke up, which seemed an unlikely turn of events. She even woke up in her own bed, yet more improbably.

It was early; the light coming in through the window was weak, and the air was still. he didn't remember how she'd gotten home, didn't remember much past arriving in the hospital and Mayuko's interference afterwards.

Hospital?

Raiku frowned. She wasn't in hospital, though. Those were the scorch marks of her ceiling; this was the smell of her laundry powder on the blankets. They were familiar things, but she felt strangely as though she had missed them. An even stranger sense of relief welled up in her at the sight of them.

She felt fine.

Cautiously, she let her eyes flick over the room. No one was there. Still careful, she sat up.

Still fine.

Now, given the past few months, it was understandable that Raiku was immediately seized by paranoia at her sudden good health. She was slightly too warm, but that was basically the norm anyway, and she was otherwise… fine. She felt… fine. There were still remnants of that painful, gnawing hunger, but it was so faint that it could be easily ignored. It still seemed more mental than physical, but it was now as though it had been so intense a part of her that her mind just couldn't quite let it go yet. Almost like the afterimage from a painful flash of light, it seemed burned into her mind. Almost like it was a phantom there only because she felt like it should be, which was … different.

She no longer felt as though she didn't fit inside her skin anymore, as though she were stretching out past her body. She actually felt a little more settled than usual, a little less inclined to twitch and flee at a moment's notice. The hum of power through her nerves was comforting in its familiarity, even though she knew it shouldn't be there.

A sudden shaking jolted her out of her bewildered self-examination. She clutched reflexively at the bed for stability as the floor shook and tendrils of black Genematrix influence started oozing up from between the floorboards.

Raiku took in this new developmentwith her usual grace and poise, considering her options carefully before deciding on an appropriate response.

'Dad!' Raiku shrieked, flailing her way down the shaking hallway. Her legs were weak and unsteady, so it was more of a hasty wobble than a run, but she managed not to fall down the stairs on her way to grasp the kitchen doorway for balance. 'What's happening!?'

Her father looked up from the piece of white paper in front of him on the table, an ink brush in his hand. 'Raiku! It's so good to see you up and around!' he beamed. His hair was oddly brindled, blackened and shorter in places, while the rest of him bore occasional bandaging.

Raiku stared at him. A painting was knocked loose from the wall and crashed to the ground behind her.

He seemed to realize what she was upset about, and waved a bandaged hand at her vaguely. 'Don't worry. We're just experiencing some minor temporal adjustments. How are you feeling?'

'Adjustments!?' she demanded, ignoring his questions and almost braining herself on the kitchen counter when she made a break for it. 'What are—!'

The room spun and darkened, whirling around her until she managed to lurch free of the spin and onto stiller ground.

'Just relax,' her father advised sagely, patting her on the back as she threw up into the patchy flowerbeds outside their house. Or, what she thought were the flowerbeds outside their house. It was too dark to tell. 'Try to go with the flow.'

'What?' she croaked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked around, suddenly aware of their new location; surely they had been inside. They weren't anymore, seemed to be out around the side of their home and it was dark, the area lit only by the lights coming from nearby windows. She was growing more and more stressed with every new detail she absorbed. 'Why is it dark?! Why are we outside!? Wasn't it… just…' She paused as a terrible thought occurred. She went white. '…I'm not—'

'No,' he denied quickly. 'It's not you, Raiku, it's—'

She gripped her hair tightly, feeling as though she could drown in her rising terror.'I'm going insane again! I'm going to have to go back to hospital and then you're going to have to try and deal with Tsunade and I still don't know what—'

'Raiku!'

She yelped again, but she was fortunate enough to already be posed to cower, which saved her some time. Her father gripped her by the shoulders. 'Raiku, calm down! It's not you! Naruto's undergoing a long-term arc with no major plot developments that involve us!'

She stared at him, completely baffled by this unexpected update on Naruto's life. '…What!?'

He took a deep breath. She found herself automatically doing the same, calming slightly in the face of his utterly unfazed demeanor.

'We're undergoing a minor time-skip,' he said patiently. 'If you just relax and go with it, you won't even notice.'

Raiku was certainly not about to relax. 'A what? We're undergoing a what!?'

'A time-skip. We're on fast-forward so that the Genematrix can get Naruto where he needs to go without him managing to derail it. A time-skip,' he explained. 'It's how it manages to keep him on track so that certain key events definitely happen. This is just your perception of time failing to keep up.'

He smiled abruptly,obviously proud. 'You're resisting it! And right after you got out of your Plot, too.'

Raiku took a moment to try and process this, readjusting her worldview now that this immediate section of storyline didn't care about her anymore. 'My… Plot?' she managed at last.

She couldn't really remember it, and to suddenly find it gone was jarring. She knew that she had been in hospital, could almost smell 409 when she cast her mind back. But the rest was all flickers, snatches of conversations and sensations that felt like they'd happened to someone else. There'd been a… a box, that wasn't a box but a cage instead, and she'd been afraid and in pain and it had felt so out of control and then—

Raiku's stomach cramped immediately at the memory of that hunger. She couldn't remember, she couldn't remember. It existed in her mind only in flashes, memories of explosions and fear rushing to the forefront but still unable to surpass that profound, grasping emptiness. She instinctively curled in on herself as much as she could while still standing up, trying to force that memory down in her mind, to where it couldn't reach her any more. She had become hunger, trying to remedy a loss so profound that she still ached even now; ached when she could no longer even remember what had been missing.

She couldn't remember.

'Tsunade?' she asked, going for the worst-case scenario.

Her father smiled at her, but it seemed weary. 'The important thing is that you're awake, and you're back with us,' he told her firmly, hands tight on her shoulders to keep her in place, as though she had any intention of going anywhere. He hadn't answered her question. Or rather, he had, but not in a way that she found helpful. Tsunade knew something. Tsunade knew something and he was telling her that it wasn't important?

What had she forgotten?

What had she forgotten that had made the world rearrange itself like this?

Her father pulled her to his chest and hugged her tightly, bandaged fingers stroking through her hair. She tensed instinctively at the sudden move,but relaxed into the comforting hold when she realized he wasn't going to finally give in and strangle her for the Plot's failure. It must have failed.

He didn't seem angry, though.

Her father took a few more deep breaths before he spoke again, voice oddly tight. 'Don't worry about anything. Leave everything to me, okay?'

Raiku made a noise of agreement, face buried in his chest.

'I'll look after you,' he said more quietly, and she felt him nod. He swallowed, grip tightening briefly. 'Trust me. I promise.'

Raiku let her fingers tighten in his shirt uncertainly, feeling strangely lost. She had so many questions, but she felt as though it would be wrong to ask. Something was different. Something had happened and things weren't the same anymore.

After a few long moments, he pulled away and coughed slightly, giving her a brisk and manly pat on the back. 'Alright. Glad that's settled.'

He straightened his shirt in an uncharacteristically self-conscious move. 'So! The time-skip,' he said in a brighter voice, an obvious change of subject, and she nodded. 'The best thing you can do is to start doing something regularly, so you can use it to check in on your progress regularly. Like a diary, or something,' he explained, waving a hand. 'It'll keep the pace consistent, so you don't miss anything.'

Raiku frowned at him. 'That makes no sense.'

He gave her a reassuringly familiar look of weariness. 'Logically, no. Thematically, yes. Writing letters, keeping a diary, scheduling a highly regular meeting with someone you don't see otherwise,' he listed on his fingers, 'any of these will keep your time-skip pacing at a suitable speed for your mind to keep up with. You won't even notice; it'll feel totally normal.'

'I can't write a diary!' Raiku exclaimed. 'Ryuu will find it!'

Her father rolled his eyes. 'No he won't. Why would he ever be snooping through your room, Raiku?'

A sudden suspicion came over him.

'Why,' he slowly asked, almost glaring at her, 'would a boy be anywhere near your room, Raiku?'

Raiku blanched. There was no real way to explain Ryuu's aggressive and invasive form of friendship without her father going on a murderous rampage, even if what he was suddenly so paranoid about what physically impossible. So she deliberately relaxed when the world began to twist around the edges, screwing her eyes shut. 'Oh no!' she said with obvious relief. 'The time-skip!'

'Gairano Raiku, don't you dare even think about avoiding—!'


Raiku opened an eye cautiously, still braced for impact.

She couldn't tell what time it was, and didn't keep a calendar, so being taken back to her room wasn't as comforting as it was the first time. But it was still familiar territory, and at least she had some instructions this time. That was reassuring; she'd been adrift for so long that it felt good to have some concrete plans to deal with the Genematrix again.

She had a moment now to think about what she was going to do, and all she could think about was how she still felt off-balance. The last thing that she remembered was that things were spiraling out of control, and she suddenly woke up and everything was back to normal. It couldn't be that easy.

Why was her father so okay with the failure of her Plot? Had it failed at all? Why wasn't her ability gone, why was she the same? Why didn't she have to worry about Tsunade? How much did their Hokage know, how much did anybody know?

Why could she see Naruto in those fragmentary memories, when she was never supposed to see him at all?

A knot of dread and anxiety was growing in her stomach as she sat and brooded, until it occurred to her: she actually had a way to fast-forward past all her worrying, and right to the answers!

She scrambled off her bed and tripped into her desk chair, pulling some paper out of the top drawer.

Letter. Letter. She couldn't risk a diary and she didn't have any acquaintances that she didn't see on a regular basis already, except for foreigners, so it would have to be a letter.

Having escaped her father's protective instincts and faced with the prospect of a narrative device that would skip her past all her problems, Raiku located a pen and started to write to one of her very few out-of-town contacts.


Dear Gaara,

Raiku stared at the characters of his name. That she had just written. That she had just unthinkingly written at the top of a letter that she was intending to send to Gaara. She immediately screamed, scrunched the letter up into a ball and hurled it across the room in a panic.

It rebounded off the far wall harmlessly, as though it hadn't tried to send her to an early grave.

Alright. She could admit, with the incriminating letter a few safe feet away, that that had been extreme.

After taking a few moments to calm down while the failed letter sat on the floor and judged her, she pulled a new piece of paper out of her desk drawer. She started again, feeling oddly embarrassed by her outburst.


Dear Iwao,

How are you? I'm doing well

Raiku hesitated, pen hovering over the page.

If this was supposed to be keeping her time-skip pacing consistent, would it matter if she lied? Surely the mere act of writing a letter would be enough.

But what if it wasn't?

Well, it couldn't be that far off the truth, anyway.

After a few minutes of reminiscing, a look of horror on her face, Raiku reconsidered.


Dear Iwao,

How are you? I am fine. I hope your training is going well! Mine is going okay. How is your team? I hope you're doing well. Mine is horrible

Raiku once again paused.

She looked around guiltily.

There was a chance that Ryuu and Daisukenojo wouldn't find out that she'd written that. A chance.

She snorted. It was about the same chance she stood in a fight against Tsunade, so she scrunched up the letter and threw it in the bin by her desk.

She pulled out a new piece of paper and started again. She got to the end of the first few pleasantries before she started to fidget. She twitched. She could feel it there. Incriminating her. What if, through a bizarre and unlikely turn of events, it somehow got into someone's hands?

No, Raiku. That would be ridiculous, she told herself sternly.

Totally ridiculous.

Almost as ridiculous as her being a glorified static shock, that snide part of her mind commented.

Raiku lunged for the wastebasket.


Dear Iwao,

How are you? I am fine. I hope your training is going well! Mine is going okay. How is your team? I hope you're doing well. Ryuu and Daisukenojo are going alright, but they've been trying really hard to outdo each other. It's getting a little scary. Plus, Ryuu told me that if I ever got sick again, he would just kill me. I'm really not sure he was joking, though.

And here Raiku found herself stopping again. What was she supposed to write about? Their relationship was based on mutual grievous bodily harm and explosions. Much like her relationship with her team, really.

She hovered, wracked with indecision.

Letters were her only option. But she was discovering now, several failed attempts in, that she was as terrible at writing letters as she was at having a conversation. She had somehow managed to be as awkward on paper as she was in person. That obstacle was giving her enough time to rethink her impulsive decision, and it was rapidly looking less and less appealing. Her father had said that she didn't have to worry about Tsunade, and she assumed the same applied to her team, but there was still the minor issue of her not remembering the last chapter of her life. It made her understandably wary about going forward.

She hadn't had any time to process anything; would the time-skip address that?Would her memories return, and would her brain fill in the gaps that the Genematrix's fast-forwarding would create?

She absently started to chew on her thumbnail, beginning to feel anxious again as she stared at her appalling handwriting.

Did she really want to do this? Maybe she could fight the time-skip off.

But then again…

Raiku sighed.

Her father had said he'd look after her. He'd promised. He'd told her to trust him. He'd told her to trust him and she always had in the past, so why stop now?

She had to trust that everything would be okay if she let the Genematrix take the reins just this once.

She took a deep breath and nodded to herself, putting her pen to paper once again.

It ran the universe anyway; it could handle shepherding her and her family into the next arc just this once.

Raiku winced at the thought.

Right?


Dear Iwao,

How are you? I am fine. I hope your training is going well! Mine is going okay. How is your team? I hope you're doing okay. Ryuu and Daisukenojo are going alright, but they've been trying really hard to outdo each other. It's getting a little scary. Plus, Ryuu told me that if I ever got sick again, he would just kill me. I'm sure he was joking, though. I've been spending some more time with my dad, recently, which is nice. I've been pretty unwell since I got back, but everything seems to be better now. How is your new teacher? Who did they pick? Do your teammates like them? Yamada is relieved that I've recovered, I think, but it's hard to tell with him. I think he likes us okay. He wouldn't like to get a new team, probably, so he takes pretty good care of us. Please tell me if you don't want me to write anymore! I thought it would be nice to stay in touch but if you don't want to then that is also okay I mean it wasn't like we really talked that much or

Raiku managed to rip her hand free of her written babbling and let her head fall forward to hit the desk with a painful thud.

Oh god. This fast-forward was going to go really slowly.


A/N: And FINALLY. The time skip is ACTUALLY HAPPENING. Thank god. This has taken forever.

THIS NOW TAKES UP HALF OF THE WORD COUNT. THIS IS GETTING OUT OF HAND. Still, I think it's only because it was a super dramatic chapter. Maybe.