Naruto exhales loudly and slumps against a tree. He gasps for breath and slides down to the ground.
“Question,” Tsuyu says from a tree branch on which she is resting comfortably and eating chocolate, “Why do you try to get as close to killing yourself as possible…or what? Because I’m confused.”
Naruto rolls his eyes, “It’s training! Training!” He gets up and stretches, gulping down water from his canteen.
“Training for what?” she asks archly.
Naruto opens his mouth and then closes it. Hmmm…
“Just training, you know,” he says shrugging, unable to find words to explain his feelings.
“That’s stupid,” she mutters.
Naruto glares at the seventeen year old and crosses his arms defiantly.
“Ha! Just you watch! I’m going to become the strongest ninja in the world and then you’ll be sorry!”
“Oh, really?” she says challengingly, jumping to the ground.
“Uh huh!”
She smirks and ties up her hair, “Unfortunately,” she drawls, “There’s are things you’ll never obtain by your so-called ‘training.’”
Naruto scowls, “And those are?”
She tilts her head to the side, smiling, “Brains.”
Naruto utters a war cry and charges forward, forming Kage Bushin as he goes.
Tsuyu wins, of course, but only by a little. She has the most control over the demon inside her out of all of them, second only to Yugito. The near-lose irritates her and spurs them both to train more and pester Yugito, their resident ex-Jounin, for more jutsu.
Naruto discovers his affinity for the Wind element and Tsuyu gains control over Earth. For a while, it almost feels like the rivalry Naruto had with Sasuke three years before, but there are differences and Naruto tries not to think on it. Things do not get better when he first hears the news of the murder of Orochimaru.
But Naruto has never been weak and he forces himself to move on even though part of him wants to live in the past and never grow up. The circumstances get worse everyday, with Akatsuki and the new pact between the all the main countries to kill jinchuuriki on sight. Naruto runs into Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame two more times and nearly dies on both occasions.
“Fuck!” he screams in frustration several months later. He slams his hands against a tree, nearly shattering it.
“Take a break, Naruto,” Yugito intones, “You’re almost out of chakra. There’s no point in trying anything until you’ve recovered your strength.”
“Just…” he pants, “One…more try…”
She shrugs and turns back to her book, “Suit yourself.”
Naruto finally manages the technique several weeks later with the help of many Kage Bushin. He practices in an abandoned quarry and wipes it off the map. Even Gaara is impressed at his strength and Naruto feels so happy he could explode.
His feelings on the matter change quite suddenly, however, the first time he uses it on a person. A team of Grass nin pursuing them through a forest get a blast of the raw energy and all are horribly injured. The body of the one that died by his hand directly, becoming the first person he ever killed, is unrecognizable. Naruto cannot even tell if it was a man or a woman. Their face and chest cavity had been completely shattered, their blood fanning out around them like nothing he had ever seen before. Neither Tsuyu, Gaara, nor Yugito understand when he does not speak for a week.
And still, things do not get better. Right after his sixteenth birthday, they hear rumors that the fifth and final jinchuuriki is still alive.
“He’ll be really young, though,” Tsuyu says as they pack, “About eight or nine, I think.”
They take a ferry to the Water Country, and in a small village near the Village of the Hidden Mist, they find him.
“What the hell is this?” Naruto chokes, “What-”
“Be quiet,” Tsuyu says. Her voice is emotionless.
She reaches down and slashes the chains binding the boy to a statue in the town square. He falls to the ground without a sound. She pick him up and cradles him to her chest. The small black-haired boy gives a whimper, but does not open his eyes.
“Yugito,” Tsuyu says softly, “Can you do me a favor?”
Naruto scrubs his eyes and turns to see the disgusted look on both Yugito and Gaara’s faces.
“What do you want me to do?” Yugito asks, with uncharacteristic politeness. Yugito, being so much older than the rest of them, had always been slightly annoyed by them in her late teenage years. It is a mark of how angry she is, Naruto realizes, that she will do what Tsuyu says.
“Burn the village down.”
“Aaa.”
Naruto watches as Tsuyu brushes the small boy’s hair out of his eyes and pulls bandages out of her pack. The boys cries out as she pulls up his tattered shirt and begins to bind his bruised and bleeding abdomen.
Yugito returns several minutes later, and with her comes the smell of smoke. Naruto watches as one by one the straw roofs catch fire and then the entire village is up in flames. People run screaming out of their houses and Naruto can honestly say that he doesn’t give a damn.
“Yo-You bastards!” an old man coughs out, clutching his burnt side, “Why would you do such a thi-”
“No,” Naruto hisses, beginning to tremble, “How could you do such a thing!”
He points vehemently at the little boy Tsuyu is holding.
“He’s a monster!” a young woman cries out angrily, “An abomination!”
“HE’S A LITTLE KID!” Naruto bellows. His hands are shaking and it is becoming hard to think straight, “You, yes you, are the monsters!”
Before he can say anymore, he senses chakra and whirls around to see a team of Mist Jounin.
“You‘re-” they snarl, eyes wide, “You’re jinchuuriki!”
Tsuyu does not even look at them. She stands up and holds the little boy tightly to her chest.
“Go ahead,” Naruto finds himself saying, “I’ll take care of this.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Gaara starts, “You can’t-”
But Naruto is beyond listening. The last thing he remembers is slitting the throat of one of the Jounin and then everything blends into a haze red and the Kyuubi’s chakra.
When he wakes up next, to a smoke filled sky and decimated village, he is told that he has killed yet again.
Chapter Twelve-
Naruto opens his eyes. He is lying in futon in a large room with tatami mats. He yawns and stretches, rubbing his eyes. After a few moments he realizes he doesn’t know where he is. The room is definitely not a hotel room, and even if it was Naruto doesn’t remember checking into one last nigh-
“You filthy little monster! We know you know where they are!”
“Tell us or we’ll make this a lot more painful!”
“Alright, you have two choices.”
“Now you listen to me!”
“You can either tell or I cut off your fingers. One. By. One.”
“Wrong answer.”
Naruto trembles and brings both hands up to cover his mouth. He feels the urge to throw up, but he pushes it away.
“Calm down,” he thinks hysterically, “Calm down, you’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…”
The feeling passes, and Naruto slumps, gasping for breath. He grasps his mutilated left hand and shakes. He stays that way for a while and then lifts his head.
No. He will not hide under the covers like a child. He is an adult now, whatever his age may be and he’ll stand up and deal with his problems like a man.
He finds there are a multitude of bandages on his chest under an unfamiliar yukata and braces himself for the pain as he stands up, letting the comforter fall to the ground. It comes, but it’s not as bad as he thought it would be. He gingerly wraps an arm around his stomach and that’s when he notices it. The blanket, which is a deep blue, is embroidered with Uchiha crests. A lot of Uchiha crests. Naruto rolls his eyes and smiles a bit. The smile disappears as he realizes that there are crests on his yukata as well. Okay, that’s a bit weird….
He rubs the back of his head and it surprised to find that his hair is wet. Naruto shrugs and limps painfully to the decorated screen door. He slides it open and a voice says, “You really shouldn’t be up, you know.”
Naruto starts and looks around for a person. When he finds none, he begins to get a bit creeped out.
“Over here, idiot.”
Naruto looks down to see a brown and white cat staring up at him. It’s slightly overweight, has a strange scar on its forehead and appears to be wearing a haori.
“Who the hell are you?” Naruto says rudely after a while, “And what kind of drugs am I on?”
“Hmph,” the cat says, in a way that Naruto supposes to be in irritation, “So that’s what I get for going out of my way to be nice.”
And with that it turns around and saunters off in the opposite direction.
“He-Hey, kitty!” Naruto winces and limps after it, “Where are you going?”
He follows the cat down another hallway and through a door, after which the traditional decorating ends and there is only barren hallways full of pipes that smells weird.
Naruto says, “I have a question.”
“Stop following me,” it replies.
“Why exactly are you wearing a haori? I mean, sure talking animals is one thing, but wearing clothes?”
The cat stop and stares at him, “That’s your first question? Not “where am I?” or “what happened?””
He scowls, “Stop talking to me like an idiot, because I‘m…wait a cat just reprimanded me. This is the trippiest dream ever.”
The cat snorts and begins to run.
“Wait, kitty!” Naruto moans and, feeling rather like he is in a fairytale, he limps after it, “Dammit, why does this always happen to me!”
The cat leads him to larger room, which is occupied by a woman who brings a whole new meaning to the term “crazy cat lady.”
He gapes at her for a few seconds, and then, “Okay, what the fuck is going on?!”
She blows smoke out of her pipe and shakes her crazy hairdo. Naruto can’t figure out if he thinks it’s cool or just plain creepy.
“Wait here,” she says grumpily, petting on of the many cats surrounding her, “Sasuke-chan should be back soon. He went to out a few hours ago.”
She shifts and grumbles about this not being a hotel service.
“Oh,” Naruto says, feeling relieved that he had not just been abandoned, “That’s goo-” He pauses, “Wait, did you just call him Sasuke-chan?”
“Yes…” she says frowning defensively.
“You say that to his face?”
“Yes…”
“And you’re still alive!? You‘re my hero!”
She gives him a strange look and then ignores him for the next half an hour.
Naruto amuses himself baiting the cats and then after a while they just all crowd around and sit on him, to the horror of the old woman who introduced herself as “Neko-baa.”
“Ow…” Naruto hisses and glares at the cream-colored cat. He pulls his injured hand away, “Evil kitty.”
“You should take care better of your paws,” the old woman chides snottily, apparently taking offense that her cats are all over him instead of her.
“It’s fine,” Naruto grumbles, putting his left hand behind his back, “It just needs to heal.”
The woman opens her mouth to retaliate, but she is cut off by a pretty blonde woman who strolls into the room.
“She just won’t eat, Baa-chan! I’ve tried everything, but she just ignores me and doesn‘t even sa…” she trails off, staring at Naruto.
“Er…hey…” Naruto says, teasing a cat with the end of his obi.
“What-”
“Don’t ask,” Naruto advises her.
She gives him disturbed look and resumes talking.
“I don’t know what to do,” she says making herself a cup of tea in the kitchenette, “It’s nearly been two days…”
Naruto spaces out, supposing she is talking about some old cat and falls asleep right there, using a particularly fat cat as a pillow while the talking kitty watches him in disgust.
“Wake up, Naruto!” Someone is shaking him, “Naruto!”
Naruto groans and lifts his head. Sasuke’s face is blaringly close and it gives Naruto a start.
“Mrgh?” he says intelligently.
“What the hell,” Sasuke says furiously, “are you doing here?”
Naruto sits up and dislodges a cat from his chest, “Uhh…sleeping…?”
“I meant why are you sleeping here!”
Naruto regards Sasuke warily. He is wearing a cloak and is soaking wet. Maybe it’s raining outside.
“I just fell asleep here,” Naruto says, starting to get annoyed, “It’s not like I planned it or anything. What‘s the big deal?”
“Hmm…” Sasuke says sarcastically, “let me think. Maybe because you’re fucking injured, and lying out in the middle of the floor after your chest has been reduced to a bloody mess and your fingers cut off isn’t a good idea!!”
Gah…scary Sasuke.
“O-Oi…” Naruto says, indignant and intimidated at the same time, “I-I can take care of myself you know. Besides, lying on the floor isn’t a big deal. What’s supposed to happen to me, get my eyes clawed out by these nefarious kitties?”
The talking cat and another cat beside it with a haori and forehead markings smirk at him. Hmm…maybe that scenario isn’t as implausible as he made it sound.
“How about getting sick, dumbass!” Sasuke retaliates.
“Hello?” Naruto retaliated, “The Kyuubi’s power and all that shit. Geez, I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
There is a gasp of shock and Naruto looks up to see the blonde girl staring at him again.
“Oh, whoops,” Naruto says, “Said too much, I suppose.”
“No, really?” Sasuke mutters and the girl flees.
Naruto frowns and bites his lip. “She’s scared of me now, isn’t she?”
“That makes two of us,” Sasuke says, dragging Naruto to his feet, “She’s been terrified of me every since I turned fifteen.”
“Really?” Naruto asks as he is pulled away, “I thought she’d have a crush on you. Like every other girl on the planet.”
Sasuke frowns, “No. And Sakura doesn’t.”
“Sakura-chan’s not a girl. She’s Sakura-chan. Er…where is she anyway?”
Sasuke doesn’t say anything for a long time and Naruto clicks his tongue impatiently as they walked down the hallway full of pipes.
“C’mon,” Sasuke mutters finally, and changes direction, “You have to see this for yourself.”
Naruto doesn’t like the sound of that.
--
Sakura has an acute feeling of how prisoners feel. Except she is not trapped in a room, she is trapped in her mind. Reliving the same scene over and over and over again until she could scream.
There is Sasuke, filled with furious indignation. Then Naruto, half-dead, but determined never to betray his friends. Tenten and Shikamaru swim before her eyes briefly before disappearing in a cloud of dust. Then, Lee with sad eyes and confusion. Danzou comes next, with a splatter of warm blood. Things get bleary after that.
An odd man who called himself Sai and then Ino, staring at her bloodstained form in horror. And then what seemed like the whole world staring at her. Damning her.
Sakura desperately wants to be damned.
But she also wants Naruto and Sasuke. She wants her parents, and Ino and all her old friends. She wants Tsunade-sama and Lee most of all, but those are two things, Sakura has learned, that she will never have again. Because Tsunade-sama is dead and if Lee hadn’t hated her before, he’ll definitely hate her now.
Sakura doesn’t know how much time goes past. Both Sasuke and an unknown blonde woman come in several times to try and persuade her to eat, but Sakura ignores them.
The door slides opens again, and Naruto is there. He grabs the collar of the yukata she is wearing and hauls her up angrily.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” he growls.
“Let go,” she says calmly, her voice dry from disuse.
He ignores her, “What the hell are you mopping about for?!” He slams his hand against the tatami loudly, “You haven’t been eating, haven’t moved, haven’t spoke! Are you giving up! Huh!? Answer me!”
“Go to hell,” she says, quite calmly.
“Don’t give me that,” he hisses, “Don’t you dare! Stand up, Sakura-chan, because believe me lying down and taking it makes you nothing better than trash.”
It is not really Naruto’s words that open her eyes. It is what he doesn’t say. He does not say, “How dare you! I was the one who was tortured. I was the one who was hurt the most!”
He does not talk about himself at all. Sakura suspects that he does not even think of himself. He thinks about her and Sasuke and every other fucking human being on the planet.
She lets her head drop and looks does not look at him.
“Don’t think I don’t see you,” Naruto says, still looking furious, “And I’m not going let you sit here, because, fuck, you should know by now that I’m damn persistent.”
“I tried so hard,” she whispers after a moment, staring at the intricate patterns of the tatami, “I told myself, two and a half years ago, that I would not kill him.”
Her hands shake (they’ve been doing that a lot lately) and she tries to swallow back her tears.
“I swore it,” she sobs out, “I swore that I would try, try, to take the higher road. That’s why I left. But I couldn’t…do even that one small thing,” she whispers.
She grips the bedding hard until she can no longer feel her fingers. She wishes the sensation would spread throughout her body, so she wouldn’t be able to feel anything, anything at all.
“You tried, Sakura-chan,” Naruto says, dropping her collar and squeezing her arm reassuringly.
“Don’t,” she says, “tell me it’s the thought that counts. Because it doesn’t. The only difference it made was that that bastard got two and a half more years to ruin people’s lives.”
There is a pregnant pause. Sakura looks at his bandaged left hand and tries not to cry.
“I was going to say that you tried your hardest,” Naruto says, softly, “And that’s all that you can do. You‘re better than me you know.”
He has a strange look on his face. A sort of look that she isn’t used to seeing. It makes him look older and wiser than she ever thought he could look. It is then that she begins to understand who Naruto truly is.
“I didn’t even try to stop it,“ he continues, “I…Sakura-chan, the last time a person, not even a friend of mine, was hurt, I burned down a village and killed two people.”
Sasuke jerks up and looks at Naruto suspiciously.
Sakura says nothing, but merely takes Naruto’s hand and pulls off the bandages. Naruto winces as his mutilated hand is brought into view. She looks at the open tissue and bone sadly, and begins to heal them. She doesn’t do anything but sit there, and try and fix Naruto’s fingers for a long time. Slowly but surely, skin begins to creep up and cover the damaged tissue.
“Wow,” Naruto says, impressed, inspecting the stumps where fingers had been, “Thanks, Sakura-chan.”
She stands and pulls the yukata tighter around herself
“Is there a shower anywhere, Sasuke?”
“Down two flights in the third door on the left,” he says, eyeing her warily.
“Sakura-chan…” Naruto starts, but then pauses.
“I need to take a shower, Naruto,” she says wearily.
The last thing she sees before she leaves the room is the confused frown on Sasuke’s face, meaning he doesn’t understand anything she tried to tell him.
She showers, washing herself for the first time in days. After a while, she turns off the water and gets out of the rather spacious shower, drying herself off and wrapping a towel around her waist. There is a large mirror above the sink, contrasting with the traditional dcor and Sakura looks at her reflection sadly.
There was a time where she would spend hours getting ready in front of mirrors like this. Now she doesn’t even care about the gaping scars all over her body. She feels old, looking into the mirror. It depresses her, for some reason, thinking she has changed so much. She feels like she is drowning with no hope of rescue, is falling down a deep, dark, hole.
“I think,” she whispers to the sound of water droplets falling from the showerhead, “I’m may be going crazy.”
And at the same time, Sakura begins to realize…
“So this is what it feels like,” she murmurs, applying the acid solution to her scars, “to be digging your own grave.”
--
Naruto, Sasuke knows, is hurt a lot more than he lets on. He looks worried and troubled after Sakura leaves, but falls asleep soon again.
Using his lap. Sasuke supposes it is better than some flea-bitten cat, but that doesn’t make him feel any better about the contact. He shifts around awkwardly and ends up pressed against one of the screen doors.
Sasuke is just self-aware enough to know this is probably not a good sign.
He wishes Naruto would wake up, but figures he probably needs the rest.
Naruto murmurs things in his sleep. Things like “stop” or “leave me alone.” “I won’t betray my friends” comes next and Sasuke weaves a hand into that stupid blond mop and attempts to comfort him, with little success.
“Stop it, idiot,” Sasuke says, shaking him, “It’s just a dream.”
Naruto trembles and curls into himself. Sasuke does not know what to do. He’s never been good at emotions or being sentimental. He doesn’t know how to solve his problems without a fight. He has already killed those who did this to him, but it isn’t better. Why isn’t it better?
“I didn’t even try to stop it,” Naruto had said. But what did that mean? Stop what? And why? Sasuke trusts Naruto enough to believe that those he killed deserved it. (Sakura…not so much.)
But then, why did he sound so regretful?
On the other hand, maybe Sasuke doesn’t know who Naruto is. He thought he did. He thought Naruto was good-natured and optimistic, almost to the point of naivety.
But with the combination of that powerful jutsu and murders, Sasuke isn’t sure he knows anything anymore. Certainly, Naruto is hiding things, and Sasuke is determined to find out what.
But for some reason, he is hesitant to ask. Naruto sleeps on and off over the course of the next few days and Sakura walks around like a zombie through the endless halls of the complex.
With everything going on, Sasuke hardly thinks of the seven ANBU back in Konoha, dead by his hand. He knows he should probably be worried about what this means, but he doesn’t have the energy.
Nearly a week after Konoha, Sasuke slides open the door of the room Naruto has been sleeping in. To his surprise, Naruto is right before him, hand outstretched, about to perform the same motion.
Naruto frowns at him, to his surprise.
“I was just about to come and find you,” he says, “Where are my clothes?”
He tugs on the yukata in obvious irritation, “I’m sick of wearing this thing.”
“Your shirt was saved. Your pants and other garments…were not,” Sasuke replies. He does not mention that the only reason he didn’t burn the shirt is because he knows how much Naruto likes it.
Naruto scoffs and mutters the word ‘garments’ under his breath mockingly. Sasuke narrows his eyes. Naruto is faking, deliberately acting like he usually does.
“Soo…” Naruto says impatiently, putting his hands on his hips, “Where are they? I mean, I know you like pretending that me and Sakura-chan are part of your harem or something, but-”
“Excuse me?” Sasuke interjects icily.
Naruto rolls his eyes, “The fans, bastard, the fans! They’re fucking everywhere! On the sheets, on the comforter, the pillow cases, this yukata!” He crosses his arms and huffs, “I mean seriously, you Uchiha, why don’t you just tattoo it on your asses and be done with it!”
“Stop it,” Sasuke says, unable to keep the words from bursting out.
“Stop what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
The blond frowns, “What are you-”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Naruto pauses and his face falls. It morphs into the same expression he wore when talking to Sakura, days before. His shoulders seem to shrink and he slumps.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I just…it’s easier, you know, dealing with everything.”
Sasuke doesn’t know what to say to this, because he’s never pretended to be happy when he’s not. He’s never felt the need to.
“Naruto-” he starts, not sure exactly what he’s going to say, but Naruto cuts him off by throwing his arms around him.
“Naruto…” he says uncomfortably, “What-”
“Just don’t,” Naruto whispers, “Just…for right now…” he turns and kisses Sasuke right on the mouth, sliding his hands down his waist, “Please just…”
“No,” Sasuke hisses, as Naruto kisses down his jaw line, “You’re not…you shouldn’t…”
But Naruto isn’t listening and pushes the folds of his haori aside, pressing warm hands to his chest.
“Naruto!” Sasuke says firmly, “Don’t do-”
“Please,” Naruto whispers, “I just want you to…”
And he sounds so heartbroken that Sasuke allows himself to be dragged into the room and into Naruto’s bed.
“This isn’t right,” he thinks, but knows that there is nothing he can do about it.
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Chapter notes: Note: the title of this chapter means “God is dead” in German (A reference to Nietzsche, a German philosopher, who proclaimed that humanity had killed God with their hypocrisies.)
Chapter end notes: Annnnngsty…Oh, angst, what would my fics be without you? Not much, I can tell you that right now.
Anyway, on a lighter note, last chapter was a record for reviews! Hooray!
So, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review! (Also, many thanks to Sleeping Soundly!)