Ghost Of Time [rating: K]

[wicked]

Disclaimer: Most certainly applies as I am making zilch off of this piece of fan fiction.

AN: This is something I began in summer of this past year and just finished on October 15. It's been posted a few other places but I decided to also put it here.

I still have plans on using this premise again but with a different point of view and a different scenario (which would then suggest that it?s wholly unrelated to this piece). When you get to the part of the main girl?s name, just know that she was named after her great, great-grandmother.

Thanks go out to Caliborn for giving this a once over and providing the title because I sure as hell couldn?t think of one.

<center>Ghost of Time
by Wicked Child</center>

She was four when she first saw him, the most beautiful boy in existence. He was older than she and so very unreachable. Even at such a young age as hers, she knew that if she tried to touch him he?d disappear and never return.

Captivated though she was, there were two things she didn?t understand. Why did he look so lonely and lost? And more importantly, why was he on her family?s property?

As she made her way back to the main house?it was dinner time after all and she didn?t want to be late?her great-grandmother was slowly pulling a sheet over her great-grandfather?s face. Later, when she was much older, the girl would wonder if she was more saddened by her great-grandfather?s death or the lack of smiles from her great-grandmother.

She was seven when saw him, the most infectious boy to have ever existed. He too was older than she, but not by too much. And he seemed to know the other boy. She would often see them together, either searching for something or just playing ninja. She had a difficult time differentiating between their rivalry and their friendship.

Had she paid attention, the girl would have noticed the day the infectious boy appeared was the day the Rokudaime Hokage passed away. It was also the same time her great-grandmother no longer felt the need to speak.

That is until she decided to tell her precious great-grandmother about the two ageless boys she always saw in their family?s sakura grove. Something came alive in the old woman then and she reached out toward the ten year old genin.

?Let me tell you a story child.?

And what a story it was! There was horror, friendship, love, determination, betrayal, intrigue, redemption, and so many other things it was hard to contain. And all of it surrounded three children, one of which was the apprentice of the legendary Jiraiya and had later achieved the title of Hokage. Another was the apprentice of the legendary Orochimaru and later re-established the Konoha Police Corps as well as his clan?s status. The third one, a girl, was the apprentice of the legendary Tsunade and had become an even greater medic-nin than her master, using her superior intelligence to make leaps and bounds within the medical field.

The girl was fascinated by all of this, a well known history in Konohagakure no Sato, but never had she heard one so detailed. Of course she knew who all these participants were as two of them were her great-grandmother and father and the third was a great-uncle of sorts. A mountain of pride began to swell inside the girl at not only having been able to know the true story but to know the people it detailed.

?Now child, remember that love transcends many things including death. But that is only possible if the people involved are strong enough to love with all their hearts and willing to accept a person for who he is without trying to change him. Love truly is unconditional. And it will be the greatest thing to ever happen to you. It will also be the worst. But the good always outweighs the bad.?

The girl nodded then and watched as her great-grandmother drifted off to sleep. Just before the old woman was completely lost to her afternoon slumber, the girl heard her say, ?After all, it?s time for a new set of legends to take form.?

For the longest time the girl stayed next to her great-grandmother, holding her hand as she let the true story of the legendary Team Seven swirl in her mind. But then she heard laughter, the sort that would come from two young boys playing ninja. She smiled and walked in the direction of the laughter, never noticing the young girl standing beside her great-grandmother. The further the girl walked away from her grandmother, the clearer the image of the young girl became.

By the time the girl, Uchiha Mikoto, located the boys that had trespassed on her family?s property for so long, she found they were joined by a third, a young girl with pink hair and bubbly personality. And she saw how the two boys adored her, even though one was rather open and obnoxious about it and the other was rather subdued. The pink haired girl laughed and took each boy by the hand and began to walk away, toward the setting sun.

It was then that it hit Mikoto. Running as fast as her ninja training and genes would allow, she made her way to home only to find her mother in tears. Men were carrying her great-grandmother away on a stretcher.

Throughout the coming years, she would see those children, laughing and playing in the forest around the Uchiha compound. Sometimes she would catch them in the forest surrounding the village. But she always found them together.

Uzumaki Naruto, as boisterous in death as he was in life.

Uchiha Sasuke, laughing and smiling in death as he could not in life.

Uchiha (Haruno) Sakura, loving both boys more than herself even in death.

Somehow, it gave the girl hope. She knew what to expect to a certain degree when a fellow genin team would be broken. She wouldn?t stop it and she wouldn?t encourage it. But she would hope and she would help in any way possible.

And she would most certainly love.