Chapter 10: The Ghost in the Search Bar
The library of the Sunrise Home for Children was a relic of a bygone era, smelling faintly of lemon polish and decaying paper. It was a room that most of the children avoided, preferring the loud, kinetic energy of the rec room or the playground. For Obito Uchiha, however, silence was a tactical asset.
It was Tuesday evening. The rain had returned, tapping a relentless, rhythmic code against the windowpane. Obito sat in the corner, illuminated only by the harsh, blue glow of a computer monitor.
He hated this machine.
He stared at the keyboard as if it were an explosive tag rigged to detonate. The keys were small, plastic squares of torment, arranged in a nonsensical order. Q-W-E-R-T-Y. Why were the letters not alphabetical? It was a chaotic system designed to frustrate the user.
"Input method... inefficient," Obito muttered, his voice barely a rasp in the quiet room.
He extended his left index finger. He hunted for the letter 'U'.
Tap.
Then 'C'.
Tap.
Then 'H'.
He was searching for ghosts. Since waking up in this world of Heroes and Quirks, he had been too focused on physical survival to gather proper intelligence. But a shinobi could not operate in the dark forever. He needed to know the history of this terrain. He needed to know if he truly was the last one.
He finished typing. UCHIHA CLAN.
He moved the mouse—a clumsy device that felt like holding a dead rat—and clicked 'Search'.
The screen loaded. A spinning circle of dots mocked him for three seconds.
0 results found.
Obito stared at the screen. The white light reflected in his single, dark eye.
Zero.
He tried again. Maybe the spelling was different here.
SHARINGAN.
Did you mean: "Sharing" or "Shari's Salon"?
Obito felt a cold hollowness expand in his chest, wider and deeper than the cave that had crushed him. It wasn't just that he was far from home. It was that home didn't exist. The Great Nations, the Hidden Villages, the Will of Fire... they weren't even myths here. They were nothing.
He was a soldier of a forgotten war, bearing the crest of a family that had never been born.
"I am a ghost," he whispered to the humming computer tower. "I am less than a ghost. I am a glitch."
He leaned back in the creaky chair, the plastic of his prosthetic arm clicking against the desk edge. He felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to smash the screen. To put his fist through the glass and silence the white noise.
But he didn't. He was a Chunin. Chunin did not throw tantrums. They adapted.
"If the past is gone," Obito murmured, forcing his hand back to the mouse. "Then I must analyze the present."
He cleared the search bar. He typed two words that he had seen on every billboard, every toy, every t-shirt in this city.
ALL MIGHT.
The screen exploded with results. Millions of them. Videos, articles, fan clubs, merchandise stores.
Obito clicked on the first video link. It was titled: "ALL MIGHT DEBUT - THE SYMBOL OF PEACE SAVES 100!"
The video was grainy, shaken footage from a disaster zone. A bus was hanging off a bridge. Fire was everywhere. People were screaming.
Then, a blur of yellow and blue. A man, massive and muscular, laughing.
"Do not fear!" the voice boomed from the computer speakers, distorted but powerful. "Why? Because I am here!"
Obito watched with analytical eyes. He ignored the flashy costume. He looked at the movement.
Speed: High. Strength: Immense. Technique: Crude but effective.
The man—All Might—carried the bus on his back while saving civilians with his free hand. He was smiling. A wide, blinding smile that never faltered, even as debris rained down on his shoulders.
Obito paused the video. He zoomed in on the smile.
"Why?" Obito asked the frozen image. "Why are you showing your teeth? It reveals your position. It wastes facial muscle energy. It masks your intent... or maybe..."
He narrowed his eye.
"...It is a Genjutsu."
Not a literal illusion, but a psychological one. The smile wasn't for the enemy. It was for the civilians. It was a signal that said, 'The battle is already won.'
"A psychological suppression technique," Obito deduced. "He breaks the enemy's will by refusing to acknowledge the threat."
It was arrogant. It was reckless. And yet... it worked. The people in the video stopped screaming. They started cheering.
Obito slumped in his chair. Minato-sensei was fast. The Yellow Flash. But Minato didn't smile like that. Minato was focused. Sharp. This "Hero" was something else. A force of nature wrapped in a cape.
"Watching cartoons, Uchiha?"
Obito jumped, his hand instinctively going for a kunai that wasn't there. He spun around in the chair.
Kyoka Jiro was leaning against a bookshelf, holding a stack of CDs. She wore her usual bored expression, but her eyes were curious.
"It is research," Obito said defensively, turning back to the screen. "I am analyzing the local warlord."
"Warlord?" Jiro snorted, walking over and pulling up a chair next to him. "That's All Might. The Number One Hero. He's basically the government's favorite uncle."
"He is powerful," Obito admitted. "But he lacks subtlety. A ninja who announces his arrival is a dead ninja."
"Well, he's not a ninja. He's a tank," Jiro said. She looked at the paused screen. "You know, most kids watch this video and get excited. You look like you're writing a safety inspection report."
"Safety is a priority," Obito muttered. "If he slips, those people die. If he drops the bus, they die. He is gambling with their lives for a performance."
Jiro looked at him. She plugged one of her earphone jacks into her MP3 player, leaving the other one dangling.
"You really don't trust anyone, do you?"
"Trust is earned," Obito said. "And in my experience, the people who smile the most are usually the ones hiding the biggest knives."
Jiro went quiet. She tapped her fingers on the desk. "Or maybe they smile because they're terrified, and if they stop smiling, they'll scream."
Obito looked at her then. He saw the way she slumped slightly, the way she hid behind her bangs.
"Is that why you play loud music?" Obito asked quietly. "To stop from screaming?"
Jiro flinched. She looked away, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. "You're too perceptive for a guy with one eye, you know that?"
She didn't deny it.
"Move over," she said, nudging his arm. "Enough of the bright colors and smiling giants. You're stressing me out."
"I am conducting research," Obito protested, though he moved his chair anyway.
"Research this," Jiro said. She minimized the browser window. She opened a music application. "If you want to understand this world, don't look at the heroes. Look at the art. Heroes save the body. Art saves the... whatever is left inside."
She scrolled through a list of songs. Classic Rock. Punk. Jazz. Classical.
"You said you came from a village," Jiro said. "Did you have music there?"
Obito thought back. He remembered the sound of flutes during festivals. The rhythmic beating of drums before a spar.
"Drums," Obito said. "And flutes. Simple instruments. Used for signaling or ceremony."
"Boring," Jiro declared. "Here. This is what civilization sounds like."
She handed him the spare earbud. Obito hesitated, looking at the small device. It was invasive. Putting something directly into his ear canal compromised his hearing of the environment.
"Just take it," Jiro sighed. "I promise not to blast your eardrum."
Obito took it. He placed it in his left ear.
Jiro pressed play.
It wasn't the aggressive punk rock she usually listened to. It was a piano piece. Slow, melancholic, but building into something stormy.
Moonlight Sonata.
Obito closed his eye. The notes were clear, crisp. They sounded like rain falling on stone. Like the quiet moments before a mission.
"It's... sad," Obito murmured.
"Yeah," Jiro whispered. "The guy who wrote this... Beethoven. He went deaf. He couldn't hear his own music. But he kept writing."
Obito opened his eye. He looked at Jiro. She was staring at the screen, lost in the melody.
Deaf composer, Obito thought. One-eyed ninja.
"He adapted," Obito said.
"He refused to be silenced," Jiro corrected. "That's what makes it heavy. You can hear the struggle in the notes."
They sat there for a long time, listening to the piano rise and fall. The blue light of the screen bathed them in an artificial twilight.
"I searched for my clan," Obito said suddenly. The words slipped out before he could stop them. The music had loosened something in his chest.
Jiro didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the visualizer bars bouncing on the screen. "And?"
"Nothing," Obito said. "Zero results. My name... Uchiha... it means nothing here. My ancestors, my history... it's all gone. It's like I never existed."
He gripped the edge of the desk with his left hand, his knuckles turning white. "If I have no past, Jiro... do I have a future?"
Jiro paused the music. The silence that rushed back into the room was deafening.
She turned her chair to face him. She reached out and touched his plastic arm. It was cold, but her hand was warm.
"You're looking at it wrong," she said softly.
"How?"
"If there are no results," Jiro said, "it means there's no expectations. No one expects you to be a villain. No one expects you to be a hero. You're a blank page, Obito."
She tapped his forehead, right on his headband protector—or where it used to be.
"You can write whatever you want now. You want to be a ninja? Be a ninja. You want to be a hero? Be a hero. You want to be a guy who just makes really good squeegee strokes on windows? Be that guy."
Obito stared at her. A blank page.
In the Ninja World, your destiny was written the moment you were born. Hyuga were destined for the branch or main house. Uchiha were destined for the police force and the curse of hatred. Uzumaki were destined to be vessels.
Here... he was just Obito.
"A blank page," he repeated.
"Yeah," Jiro smiled, a small, tired smile. "It's scary. But it's better than a tragedy."
She stood up, collecting her CDs. "I'm heading to bed. Don't stay up too late staring at All Might's teeth. You'll get nightmares."
"I don't get nightmares," Obito lied.
"Sure. Night, Ninja-boy."
She walked out, the soft scuff of her slippers fading down the hall.
Obito sat alone in the library. He looked at the computer screen. The search bar was empty.
He reached out. He typed one word.
MAP.
He needed to know the terrain. He needed to know where "UA High School" was. If he was a blank page, he needed to decide where the first chapter would take place.
The map loaded. A massive campus on a hill. A fortress of learning.
Obito traced the route from the orphanage to the school with his cursor. It was five miles.
"Running training," Obito decided. "Every morning. Starting tomorrow."
He turned off the monitor. The room plunged into darkness.
He stood up, his joints popping. He felt the weight of the silence, but for the first time, it didn't feel oppressive. It felt like a canvas.
He walked to the window and looked out at the rain-slicked street.
"Rin," he whispered to the reflection in the glass. "Kakashi. I can't go back to you. Not yet. But I won't forget you."
He touched his chest, over his heart.
"I will write a story you would be proud of."
He left the library, walking with a slightly lighter step. The ghosts were still there, hovering at the edges of his vision, but the music—the deaf man's defiance—was playing in his head, drowning out their whispers.
Tomorrow, he would run. Tomorrow, he would fill the blank page.
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