I've written a book!

It's called"The Dreg of Bellmead", and it's a Dark Fantasy novel! It's part of a large series I am naming "Conduit".

Here's the description!

Description: Finding out there was a world of magic lurking right under his nose sounded like fun— until he made contact. Instead, Nevan has to fight for his survival in a world of monsters, blood sacrifice and death, as well as maintain his sanity when the voices of the souls he'd consumed begin to speak to him.

I've released it on amazon,com/dp/B07XRVXXPB (replace the comma with a period, obviously)

Make sure to review it on Amazon and Goodreads!

You can also access it on my website: samirka,xyz (replace the comma with a period again, haha)

Thank you so much! Now, on to the story!

I've always wondered how Sasuke would fare against the likes of Alexandria, Eidolon, or the Endbringers.

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Hit The Ground Running
A Naruto/Worm Crossover
By Zero Rewind
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It was a monumental battle.

Kaguya Ōtsutsuki was everything Hagoromo purported her to be. She was more powerful than anything Naruto and I had ever faced— combined. Stronger than Obito, by far. Stronger than even Madara, whose body she was using to enact her plan to dominate the Elemental Nations through her worldwide Genjutsu, the Moon's Eye.

Between the ability to impair our movements, teleport us to different dimensions, use Six Paths Sage Chakra, manipulate her All-Killing Ash Bones and her Rinnegan, it was a wonder we'd even managed to tag her at all with the old man's Six Paths – Chibaku Tensei.

It was all thanks to Sakura— the girl who Kaguya underestimated; a "lowly" human.

But even in victory, nothing would ever happen so simply.

I felt a jarring pull on my body, and then, pure darkness.

No, it wasn't darkness, per se. I could still see myself, but the background was dark. At the same time, it wasn't. It made no sense, whatsoever.

Then came the pain.

It started out as a slight pressure converging all around me. It wasn't much stronger than a cool summer's breeze at first, but it started increasing. The breeze turned into a strong wind. The wind turned cutting.

Then, it became suffocating, squeezing me from all sides.

Unrelenting.

Always escalating.

The pain kept coming and coming. I hadn't taken a breath in the time I came to this strange, hostile realm, but I was somehow still alive. My body kept going, though it kept hurting. I faintly realized I was subsisting on Chakra alone, at this point.

How much longer would I have to deal with this? How long would I even survive?

That's when I saw them.

Two humongous, dark, worm-like creatures; they were circling me curiously. I could do nothing but stare at them. They were larger beyond anything I'd ever imagined. They made the Ten Tails look like an ant.

[ODDITY]

[AGREEMENT]

I couldn't hear them, not really. If I had to explain it, it would be more along the lines of a pressure created through extreme forces that resembled words. The pain increased tenfold as they began to focus a more-than-minuscule attention on me. Faintly, I realized the pain was coming from them. They were squeezing me, trying to kill me.

But, my body wouldn't give them a single inch. They could not overcome my Chakra.

[RESILIENT]

[AGREEMENT]

[STUDY]

[QUERY]

[ABSORPTION]

[AGREEMENT]

Anger coursed through me; they were just like Kaguya, then. I closed my left eye, gathering as much Chakra as I could to it. I realized these beings were made of Chakra, as well. Yet, they weren't absorbing my own.

Perhaps I was giving them too much credit, comparing them to the strongest being I'd faced up to this point. I began to absorb their own power, pulling in as much as I could manage— they were like endless wells, brimming with Nature Energy.

How long had they been alive?

[CONFUSION]

[POWERFUL]

[AGREEMENT]

[ALARM]

[TOO STRONG]

[TERMINATE]

[AGREEMENT]

I looked up as a large crystalline spear— twice as big as the mountains in which the Hidden Cloud Village lay— came down on me.

"Please work!" I found myself thinking as I opened my Rinnegan, unleashing all of the Chakra I'd restored in one strike.

Space bent. Dimensions shattered like so much glass. I closed my eyes.

Light began to fill the blackness, and I took in a sharp, delicious breath, faintly realizing there was air to breathe, now. I still felt weightless, though.

My left eye wouldn't open— understandable with all the Chakra I had used— though my right did, widening as it did so.

It was a city, easily bigger than anything I'd ever seen in my life, surrounded by mountains and hills from one side, and the sea on the other.

And I was falling right towards the water. Mind working quickly, I adjusted my body to minimize the damage, using what little Chakra I had left to strengthen my arms, chest and face. I took a deep breath.

The impact was strong enough to crack stone, but my limbs easily weathered the blow, enhanced with Chakra as they were. Twisting underwater so as to avoid the rocky bottom, I used the momentum to quickly propel myself upwards, reaching the surface in a few seconds.

I began to take stock of the situation.

What the hell had just happened?

One second, Naruto and I had finally used the Sealing technique on Kaguya, and the next, I was thrown somewhere else. Another dimension, it had to be.

Those creatures were nothing like I'd ever experienced, before.

Was it related to Kaguya? I kept floating in the water, thinking furiously, but not receiving any answers.

I couldn't be in the Elemental Nations. I spun around, realizing that I was floating in the midst of wrecked boats— huge metal things larger than any building I'd seen home. I rubbed at my neck, only to realize my shirt was gone.

I examined myself further. Riddled with the scratches and bruises from the fight against Kaguya, the rest of my clothes hadn't fared well, either. One of my sandals was gone, and the other was hanging by a single strap. My pants were torn in so many spots that it was a miracle it stayed on.

"I need to get to the shore." I muttered to myself and began to swim, not having enough Chakra to even stand atop the water, anymore. A minute later, I was on dry land.

I gingerly pulled my pants off, wringing all the water I could out of it.

"What's this, boys?" I heard voices coming from the warehouse before me as I was putting my pants back on. "Looks like we have a visitor."

I took a short breath and turned to the source of the sound.

It was a group of thugs. The warehouse they'd just come out of looked like a complete wreck— obviously long abandoned.

Ah, the city's criminal element, then.

They went to work quickly, didn't they? I'd barely gotten here.

"Think he's ABB?" One of them said, smacking a pipe against his hand in anticipation.

"Probably was." Another said, giving me a malicious grin. "Look at him. Probably couldn't follow orders, so they roughed him up and dumped him here with nothing on him."

The others laughed. I kept staring, their language was familiar to me, but it was not the spoken tongue of the Elemental Nations. Sometimes, foreign travelers came from the far north to the Land of Sound to trade with Orochimaru, and they spoke this tongue.

It was only natural that Orochimaru had me learn it. Though, I could already tell, there were plenty of nuances in their speech. I wasn't sure what "ABB" was, but it didn't take much to figure out that it was most likely a gang of some sort.

"Well, who are we to refuse such a gift?" The man in the center of the group stepped forward. His stench had hit me long before he began to speak— an odd smell of rot and alcohol.

I suppressed a twitch, and merely kept staring at them.

"Can this moron even understand a word we said?" The leftmost thug said, also approaching, giving me a condescending.

"Hey, chinky!" He slurred, extending a hand to grab my shoulder. "I'll say it real nice and slow so even a retard like you can understand. Tonight's not gonna be a nice night for y—GURK!"

Snap!

The man screamed as he scrambled away from me, holding his broken wrist and falling over himself, into his friends. My hands went back to my side, and I stared at them again.

The one on the right took a step back, probably readying to leave.

"Surround him." The leader ordered. "Let's teach this punk a lesson. Six on one, he doesn't have a chance."

I wanted to sigh. Some people never learn.

Two of them went to my right, two went for my left, and the final two stayed in the center. The one with the broken wrist was already bolting as the other six lunged at me at the same time.

'Pathetic, I don't even need Sharingan for the likes of them', I thought as I easily wove my way around the first one's strike, grabbing his arm and pulling, sending him stumbling to the two on my right, which also had the added effect of closing the path to the two in the middle.

Which left the second poor sap to my left.

It took a single fist to the stomach, barely a love tap by my standards. The man went down, holding his stomach and trying, but failing, to take a breath. He passed out as the leader finally pushed his grunt out of the way, swinging a metal bat at my head.

I ducked underneath, grabbing his wrist and snapping it all the while. The man went down on his knees with a pained yell, trying to get my hand off with no luck.

The rest froze and stared.

I lifted the man slightly by the wrist, resting my other hand at his elbow. "Would you like for me to break this, as well?"

He said nothing, glaring at me hatefully.

"And perhaps, I'll go for your other arm, next." I gave a mirthless smile, before looking at the rest. "Scram."

They ran like the roaches they were, going back into the darkness of the abandoned warehouse, leaving me alone with the leader.

"Well, well." I looked back down at the nuisance. "What do I do with you?"

He looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

'I would hypnotize him with my Sharingan if I had the Chakra for it.' I mused as he began to quail under my emotionless gaze. 'Those beings were powerful; it took all I had to get away from them. I need to find somewhere to rest, and recuperate.'

I considered my options as the man began to beg for his life, having finally broken under my implacable aura. I could stay under the radar, robbing people and acquiring food and shelter, but that would be no way to regain my strength.

There was another way; it would be a bit more cumbersome, but I would be guaranteed a roof over my head, and food. Going to the police had its own set of problems, like "you just appeared out of thin air, who are you?"

I looked around, analyzing everything around me. I saw the homeless, hiding in whatever meager shelters they could find. The gangsters immediately accosting me spoke of a certain air of relaxation the criminal element maintained in this region.

This meant the police had their work cut out for them.

It also meant an unknown boy with no papers could likely easily slip through into their system. All I had to do was claim amnesia. It would be a hard sell, but I learned under Orochimaru, the master of infiltration, himself.

Kabuto, damn that man, was also forthcoming with a few of his skills during my training; half-truths, evasions, misdirection, and the like. He was able to go in every single village, almost completely undetected, for over a decade.

He was a shinobi worth the name, no matter how much I disliked him for daring to pull my brother from the Pure World.

I stared down at the man, my mind made up.

"Where's the nearest police station?" I asked, watching him pale significantly.

"No, not the cops!" He swore, trying to pull himself out of my grasp. "Anything but them!"

"I'm not turning you in." I said, staring at him and activating the Sharingan for the barest of moments. "You will lead me there."

Fuck, it was a heavy drain on what little reserves I had left, but it was necessary.

He slackened in my grip, nodding. I let go and watched him get to his feet. His stench was starting to become too much to bear, so I gestured for him to walk, waiting a few seconds before trailing after him.

That would get rid of most of it— unless a breeze carried his smell over.

I hoped it didn't.

The walk took almost two hours— my surroundings barely improved in appearance. The streets were empty, the moon overhead telling me that it was midnight. I glanced at it again, a few times.

The moon was smaller here, how odd. Another odd thing I noted was the abundance of vehicles. I'd seen a few, back home, but they were few, and far between.

There was no point, considering Ninja were much faster than their engines could ever hope to be.

I shook off these thoughts when the man finally stopped, pointing off to the side. It was a series of buildings with a few large driveways, with a few odd looking vehicles parked. It all looked very official, so I figured I was in the right place.

Problem was, the letters looked different than the language I had learned at the hands of Orochimaru.

I nodded to myself; this was the right move, after all. Judging by my age, I would likely be sent to civilian school, where I would have access to books and the like, which would allow me to learn the written language.

Besides, this would give the "amnesia" excuse plenty of credence.

"What does the sign say?" I ordered the man, still under my spell.

"Brockton Bay Police Department." He said monotonously.

Brockton Bay, so that's where I'd ended up. The name had no meaning to me, but I filed the words in for later anyway.

"You may go back to where we first met." I said, walking towards the station without giving him a second glance. "Goodbye."

He walked away, judging from the sound of his footsteps. I wondered when he would break out of the hypnosis— not that he'd remember a thing, of course. I'd become proficient with my eyes over the years, and the past day had taken me to a whole new level.

I sighed, pulled back to reality by my current situation.

I had very little Chakra left; enough for a single trick, perhaps. I dared to open my left eye.

No enhanced vision; it was deactivated, for now. It would make things easier for me, I thought as I pushed my way inside. The view that greeted me was familiar; a man wearing a blue uniform sat behind a counter, going through a large pile of paperwork.

I faintly remembered my father complaining about the endless bureaucracy of the Konoha Police Force, before pushing it to the side. Memories of an age long past would not help me here. There was a pale boy with a shaved head sitting on one of the many benches in this room, his parents hovering over him, scolding him in some way or the other.

He glared as I walked past.

How strange.

"Can I help you?" The police officer finally looked up tiredly from his paperwork, seeing the cuts, and bruises over my upper body, as well as the lack of shirt.

He got up abruptly, moving around his counter to get a better look.

"What the hell happened to you, kid?" He asked incredulously. "You look like you've been through hell and back."

You have no idea, I thought in amusement, before addressing the man.

"I don't know." I said, dipping my head and shaking in a textbook frightened pose. "I can't remember."

"You can't remember." He said, sounding dubious.

"No, I can't." I confirmed to him, forcing myself to babble like a crying baby. I hated every moment of it. "There were some criminals, and they kept hitting me, and I was so scared! I— I—"

"That's all right, son." Another police officer came in the lobby, having overheard us. "Come on, now. Let's get you settled in, see if we can make sense of what happened, yeah? I've got this one, Jones."

The receptionist-officer— Jones— nodded. "All right, sounds good Blakesley. Let me know if you need anything."

I nodded, faking a look of relief, and allowing the man to lead me inside. I followed him through the twists and turns, into a small room with a small table and a bottle of water standing at its center.

"Why don't you take a seat?" The officer— Blakesley— suggested kindly. "I'll have some food and a change of clothes for you in a bit. Does that sound good?"

"I— Yes." I maintained a hesitant look. It was even slightly true this time, as my cautious nature kept telling me whatever food they might have brought would be full of poison.

Years under Orochimaru tended to do that to you.

Trust was something you handed out very, very carefully.

"I'll be back in a bit, then." He said, giving me a smile. "Make yourself comfortable."

The officer gave me one final nod, as if to stress the importance of me staying here, before exiting the small room and closing the door behind him. I waited, using the time to assess what little Chakra I infused on the way to the Station.

I would likely have to use it again, depending on what sort of questions I would be asked. I took note of everything in the room, as stealthily as I could manage.

There was a security camera; I frowned.

The hypnosis would easily been seen, and at my current Chakra levels, there was no way I would be able to do anything overly complex. I stifled another sigh.

Minutes later, Blakesley came back, holding a tray full of food, and what looked to be gray pajamas under his arm. My nose twitched at the smell instant ramen; Naruto would like this.

I crushed any thoughts of my rival. Now was not the time.

I watched as he placed the food on one side of the table, before handing me the change of clothes.

"I'll give you a few moments to change, son." The man said, causing me to snort and glance at the camera in the corner.

"That thing doesn't work anyway." He said, scratching the back of his head. "We don't really use this room anymore; upper management doesn't want to fork over the money to repair it, and, well—" Blakesley grinned and stopped from saying anything further. "Not that you're interested in the tedium of the workplace, anyway."

I smirked at the man's humor, nodding in thanks for the clothes as he exited the room.

'So hypnosis might be an option, then,' I thought as I pulled my sandal off, as well as my torn pants. The new clothes were thankfully fresh, and clean, but were a size or two too big— better than nothing.

I called out for him, and he came back in, taking the seat opposite of mine. He pushed the tray forward, urging me to eat.

"This is technically against the rules," He started, smiling. "But you were hurt, so consider it my treat, yeah? Just don't tell anyone."

"Tell them what?" I asked flatly as I began to eat.

"That's the spirit." He grinned and took his hat off, revealing a receding hairline. "So, you don't remember anything? Nothing at all?"

I swallowed the noodles, relishing the food despite my dislike for it— I supposed I was that hungry.

"I can remember my name." I said, closing my eyes in 'thought'. "And what happened tonight. But I'm drawing blanks for anything before that. I have no idea what happened, sir."

"What's your name, son?" He pulled out a pen and paper to write it down.

"Sasuke." I said. "Sasuke Uchiha."

He started to scribble, but stopped midway, handing me the pen and notepad. "Could you spell that for me? I don't want to get it wrong."

I blinked, before looking down.

"I can't." I said, affecting a look of alarm as I stared down at his illegible notes. "What the hell? What the fuck happened to me!?"

The man in front of me reached forward and put his hand on my shoulder. "Calm down, son— Sasuke. We'll figure this out. I promise. I'm going to call this in now, so we can figure out what to do. You good to stay here a while longer?"

I made a show of calming down, giving him a nod as he left the room again. I had two bowls of instant ramen before sitting back and taking a deep breath.

This sort of deceit is something I hated to do, but was necessary. It was obvious that Officer Blakesley had a soft spot for kids out on the street, and I was making full use of it to further my own goals.

I decided then that I wasn't going to use the Sharingan on him. He did not deserve it.

I tried to think about what would happen, now. It was likely they'd call in some sort of specialist to figure out the extent of the 'amnesia'.

Half an hour passed, with nothing happening. I shifted in my seat every few minutes, beating down feelings of doubt, and whatnot.

It was after another half hour that the door opened again, revealing Officer Blakesley and two other people. One was a short, pale, pudgy woman in her late forties wearing a formal looking dress, holding a leather briefcase; while the other was a dark skinned, casually dressed man in his twenties— looked like he'd gotten dressed in a hurry.

"Mr. Uchiha." Officer Blakesley said, taking a seat in front of me, while the two others sat beside him. "I'm sorry it took so long, but seeing as it's the middle of the night…"

Ah, that's why the second man looked so disheveled; I'd interrupted his sleep.

I gave short bow in apology. "I'm sorry you had your sleep ruined, sir."

"Oh, oh," His disheveled and slightly annoyed look softened. "It's all right… Sasuke, that's your name, correct?"

"Yes." I confirmed, taking a deep breath and looking to the policeman.

"I've already told them everything you've told me." Officer Blakesley said, gesturing to the two. "This man is Doctor Blake Silverman; he's one of the doctors contracted to us. And, this is Ms. Jessica Hearsum; she works with CPS— Child Protective Services, pretty self-explanatory, yeah?"

"Hello." I said, giving a nervous look to the two.

"Hello, Mr. Uchiha." The Doctor said. "Or, should I call you Sasuke? Which do you prefer?"

I figured the 'Mr.', 'Doctor' and 'Ms.' were some sort of honorifics in this world.

"Sasuke is fine." I shrugged. "You think you can figure out what's wrong with me?"

"Well, that's what I'm here for, Sasuke." He grinned, making a show of relaxing in his seat. I saw right through it, of course; this was basic manipulation of the mood in the room; a method to take out the tension.

I gave a fake half-smile back; genuine to their eyes.

"I thought about it while I was waiting." I said slowly, looking down slightly, brows furrowed. "I can't remember how to read, or write. I tried thinking of any words I could write, but nothing came to mind. I didn't even know where to start."

Doctor Silverman frowned, pulling out a small booklet and writing into it, before looking back at me. "Tell me, what do you remember?"

"My name, like I said." He nodded, urging me to continue. "I remember what happened tonight, but nothing before that."

"I see." He wrote some more, before placing his booklet on the table, and steepling his fingers. "Could you tell us what happened tonight?"

I nodded nervously. "All right." I took a breath. "The first thing I remember was getting water dunked on me. I was in somewhere dark and nasty. It smelled so awful."

My voice became a monotone. "The men that held me there were talking about beating me and then cutting my legs off." The woman gasped at the gruesome detail of the story I'd rehearsed in my head on the way there. "They were going to let me try and escape while my legs were chopped off before sending dogs after me."

My audience looked a mix of startled, disgusted and horrified. I stifled an amused smirk, and kept the tale up. "I don't know what came over me, but as soon as they loosened my bindings, I smashed one of them as I hard as I could."

I showed them my bruised right fist.

"Then I hit the next one, and the next, and I managed to escape." I said vaguely, before indicating all over myself. "But they got some hits in too."

"Better sight than having your legs cut off." Blakesley blurted before he could stop himself. The two others glared at him. He winced, before pulling his notepad out.

"These men, can you describe them for me?" Blakesley asked, attempting to sound professional. "If we can match their descriptions, we might be able to find out who did it."

I looked down, affecting a look of shame, before implementing the next part of my story. I'd seen the look of hatred the boy with the shaved head had given me, and the dressing down his parents had given him. They kept talking about something called Empire 88 and racism. "They all had shaved heads, and a strange tattoo on their chests."

"A tattoo, you say?" Blakesley drew something on his notepad before showing it to me. It was the same symbol I'd seen on the boy in the lounge. It was an image of two juxtaposed, elaborate crosses.

"Yes, that one." I said, looking surprised. "Do you know them?"

The three were giving me a look of pity as Blakesley replied. "Unfortunately; they're a group of the worst human beings on the planet, called Empire Eighty-Eight. They are white supremacists who hate any of the other races."

"Oh, I see…" I looked down at my hands.

"I can assume that it was probably them who somehow made you forget everything." The doctor interjected, before moving to me. "May I?"

I nodded, letting the doctor run his fingers over my scalps, feeling a few bruises I'd made sure to inflict upon myself while waiting for Blakesley to come back. I made a deep wince as his fingers brushed over the location he was looking for.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke." The man apologized, before looking to the other two. "I'll need an MRI to confirm, but there is significant bruising, certainly enough to cause amnesia— not that I was doubting your story, my boy. It's procedure."

I gave the man a curt nod, pretending to be offended. The doctor sat down with the officer and the CPS worker, exchanging quick conversation with them.

"What's going to happen to me?" I cut them off, injecting a hint of alarm and fear into my voice. I shook myself slightly.

Officer Blakesley moved over to me and put his hand on my shoulder once more.

"Don't worry, son." He said, gripping my shoulder firmly. "We'll get everything sorted out, even if I have to take you in myself."

He really had a soft spot for kids, didn't he? To open your home to someone you'd just met… I couldn't even imagine it.

"It won't come to that." Ms. Jessica interjected, giving the officer a frosty glare. "I'm sure we can find somewhere for him to stay that isn't highly irregular, Officer Blakesley."

Blakesley winced, but nodded.

I dipped my head. "Thank you."

The next few hours were spent talking things over with Silverman, Blakesley and Hearsum, hashing out all of the details of my injury, moving on to where I would live and how my schooling would have to progress. The CPS worker had left the room for a few dozen minutes, coming back and asking me to sign a stack of papers, before sputtering in embarrassment and hurriedly apologizing.

I assuaged her worries and signed the kanji for fire, the element my clan was known for.

"Perfect." She looked over everything one last time, before nodding and getting up, looking at me expectantly. "Shall we, Mr. Uchiha?"

I nodded and got up as well, wincing slightly at the soreness felt in my calves. I would certainly feel that in the morning. "Are we going to the hospital?" I asked her as she put her things away.

"Not tonight." She said. "We're going to have you checked out tomorrow— a more in depth examination than the one your received tonight, maybe an MRI, if we can squeeze it in." She looked towards the doctor, who nodded in the affirmative.

"For now, I'll take you to your new home. It's a bit short notice, so you may not have a room of your own, just yet, but the man we have on file has accepted."

"What's his name?" I asked curiously.

"Ah, a Mr. Danny Hebert." She said, briefly pulling out the file and reading it over. "He has a daughter, around your age."

"I see." I frowned, staring at her hopeful face. "How bad was the alternative?"

She winced, but said nothing.

That bad, huh?

I knew a thing or two about the child protection system in Konoha— or lack thereof. Naruto, in particular, had suffered tremendously under it. No parent would take him. My problem was different. No parent was allowed to take me, as they would gain notoriety simply by being my guardians, which would likely lead to a whole can of worms, politically speaking.

"I'll go." I gave her a nod, before turning to the police officer and extending my hand. "Thank you, Officer Blakesley. I won't forget this kindness."

"Think nothing of it, son." The man smiled, taking it and shaking firmly. "Helping kids in need out is part of the job description."

A true smile spread over my face, and I ducked my head.

"Come on, I'll see you off." Blakesley said and led us all outside.

"Tomorrow at 4 PM." The doctor said, shaking my hand. "I'll be expecting you at the hospital."

"All right." I gave a nod as the man turned and entered his car, turning it on and driving away. I heard the roar of a second engine— ah, Ms. Jessica was waving for me to get in.

I turned to the police officer, who gave me a nod and said, "If you need anything, you know where to find me, kid. I'm here every night."

"I'll keep that in mind." I promised, entering the car and giving the man one last look. "Goodbye."

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Let me know what you thought. :)