The Memory Keeper (Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter Two (Part One)- The Kioku Clan

Here's chapter two. Sorry it's kinda short): I just gotta push through until after the "C" mission with Tazuna then I'm probably gonna let my imagination go wild at the Chunin exams and the chapters'll get longer! xD I have to stick relatively close to the story line till then, and I'm kinda bored writing this part. The start always requires the greatest effort, yeah?

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   Yet another restless night full of nightmares. To describe it better, memories twisted into nightmares. I won't go through the trouble of telling you. It's too much for me to even experience them, much less replay them. Maybe later.

   Let me explain a few things, though. I'm a memory keeper, part of the Kioku clan. I began remembering things at around 7 months old. The memories fell in patches and chunks from then until I was about 1 and a half, at which I began remembering literally every waking moment. It has become nearly impossible to get any sort of silence mentally.

   Now imagine this- complete silence is never achieved. You're constantly plagued by every single memory of every single time that you felt sad, depressed, angry, embarrassed- every negative mood. This creates a mixture of emotions, none of them good. As a lovely side effect of being a 'memory keeper', a title most would love to have (ha. It's certainly not all it's cracked up to be, because it fucking sucks) , if you don't perform a special jutsu specific to the Kioku clan, you'll go insane. Your state of health nose dives, and it becomes near impossible to eat anything without almost immediately vomiting it right back up. If you don't commit suicide from being completely miserable all the time, you'll starve to death.

   Since I began remembering everything earlier than anybody else, I have a shorter life span if I don't perform the jutsu. I give myself until I'm almost 15, at best. The worst thing about this situation?

   I never learned how to perform the jutsu.

   The reason for that is simple- the members of the Kioku clan don't learn the jutsu until they are fifteen or fourteen, and since my whole clan (besides Kazuo, who was missing) was dead, I had no one to teach me. I'm only twelve and a half now. So, unless I track Kazuo down or find someone else who knows the jutsu (there's about a .00000001 percent of that happening, so I'm definitely not counting on it), I'll be dead within two and a half years. That's definitely not something I want to think about, however likely.

   Despite the impression you might be getting from me right now, I am emotional. I just rarely show it, for reasons that are my own. The time I am sure to be set off is when someone questions why I see the whole 'memory keeper' thing as a burden. That enraged me beyond all belief. I had a feeling that the three boys on my new team- Naruto, Sasuke (emo that he is) and Kakashi- would be the ones to draw the emotion out of me. That thought made me happy, but I didn't smile

   I get out of my bed with a bit of bitterness- I had gotten about two hours of sleep. I walk quietly to my kitchen, sparing a glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was four in the morning. I ignore Kakashi's warning to not eat anything. I knew I was getting too thin. I put two pieces of bread in the toaster. As I'm waiting for them to finish, I take a plate from the cupboard above the sink and grab the butter from my refridgerator. It, like my cupboards, was near bare. I needed to go grocery shopping.

   When I finished eating, it was 4:15. I decide to take a quick shower, as I hadn't had enough time or energy to do it yesterday. When I make it out, it's 4:30. I dress rapidly-it would take me twenty minutes to walk to our meeting place, so I needed to hurry. I make sure to pack my weapons pack- I didn't know what we'd be doing today, but I'd surely need it.

   I'm second to arrive, after Sasuke. He does nothing but spare me a glance. The wind blows through the trees, and I savor the relative silence. There were a few whispers in my head, but it was ignorable (AN: is that a word?) enough to make me happy. We stand there, together, in silence. Until Naruto shows up. He's quiet, at first, but soon starts babbling. I don't mind as much as I thought I would. Something about him put me at ease.

   We sit there, waiting, for at least four hours.