Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Monster Inside ❯ The Monster Inside ( One-Shot )

Disclaimer - I do not own Naruto.

 

A/N - Well, I have come to the conclusion that I am pretty good at coming up with these darker fic ideas than anything else. I guess I just have to write how the muse tells me and this is what I came up with this time. This fic deals with character death so if you don't like that kind of stuff, find something else. Read, review, you know the drill.

 

 

 

 

`How does he still do this after five years?' Sakura wondered for the tenth time as she followed her teammate through the woods on their latest mission. `He should have given up years ago and come crawling back begging me for forgiveness.'

 

Sakura and Naruto were on another scouting mission into the Sound territory. It had become standard procedure to send them ahead of any strategically important assault force since it seemed that they were the only scouting team that had any real success in staying alive in anything less than a group of five. Over the last seven years of the war Sakura's book smarts and enhanced strength along with Naruto's insane chakra limit and uncanny battlefield genius had made the duo a perfect scouting and strike force. Their prowess had even earned them a reputation around all of the nations and villages as `Flower's Fang', the most lethal pair of shinobi since Akatsuki.

 

Sakura glared at her teammates back as they continued to move among the trees at a pace that most jounin would have found hard to keep up with. `What the hell is wrong with you Naruto? Why do you have to be so stubborn?' she berated silently. She had started this whole thing five years ago so that her plans for the future would go exactly right, and he wasn't cooperating. “Fang,” she called ahead with his code name so as not to watch him cringe like he always did if she used his name, “we just passed bravo point. We need to head east now before turning back to heard that group to AF5.”

 

Naruto changed directions as he heard the call from his `partner' and tried to focus on the mission instead of his own feelings. Things had been like this for the last five years and he didn't know how much longer he would be able to handle the gnawing feeling in his stomach. `Just focus on those Sound bastards and worry later; Kami knows it is all I think about when I'm not on a mission.' He thought as he began the slight curve back the way they had come.

 

***************

 

“Haven't you been able to make him talk yet?” the woman asked as she looked at the folder on her desk with the same information showing as all the times before. “This has gone on long enough; I want him in here in the next five minutes or I am going to…” she was yelling until he walked in the door and interrupted her.

 

“You wanted to see me Hokage-sama.” Naruto said as a statement and not a question.

 

Tsunade just looked at Takeru all he sterner as she pointed at Naruto and spat, “See what I mean? I don't know what it is but for the last five years all I get is that.”

 

Takeru couldn't understand why the Hokage of the village thought that Naruto's entrance was wrong, but it apparently made her mad about something. “Hokage-sama, I don't see what the problem is with that. He came in and acknowledged you ju…”

 

“He didn't call me Baa-chan you dolt. For six years he would always call me Baa-chan and then all of a sudden I get `that' with nothing but an unexplained depression as a reason for it. Now I don't care if your professional opinion is that I shouldn't get involved, but I don't give a crap any longer.” Tsunade yelled before turning her gaze on the still passive and blank Naruto. “Naruto, you are going to tell me what has you so depressed right now; and that is an order.”

 

Naruto stared at Tsunade with the blank stare he had been keeping constantly unless he was asleep or in battle for the last five years as he tried to think of a way to get out of telling the truth and having another person he cared for hate him. “The short version is that I'm a monster, and I hurt somebody because of it. Can I go now?” he said with hopes that Tsunade would just let him go and sulk in his apartment until he was summoned for another mission.

 

Tsunade glared at the man in front of her. “Not good enough; I want the whole story now.” she hissed in response to his lame excuse.

 

Naruto hung his head as he felt his fate being sealed with Tsunade's stubborn attitude. `I guess preparing for this was a smart thing after all. If I'm lucky I can make this work without a hitch.' he thought as he reached into his coat for the folded envelope he carried with him at all times. “This will explain everything Hokage-sama, and I'm sorry.” Naruto said in a voice that nearly broke Tsunade's heart as it came from his lips.

 

Tsunade blinked as Naruto poofed out of her office while leaving the envelope on her desk. Opening the small package and reading the one page of hand-written note Tsunade felt her heart stop. With a fast flash of chakra Tsunade watched all of her ANBU guards appear in the room looking as though they were ready for a fight. “Find Naruto now!” she yelled to the masked ninja before leaping through her window to follow her own order along with everybody else that had been in her office.

 

***************

 

Naruto watched the glint of the blade as he brought it up to gain momentum before beginning his stab.

 

*Flashback*

 

Sakura had figured that if Naruto was going to keep being such an idiot as to ask her out all the time then she would just scare him into stopping with the only thing she knew would scare him enough. “Naruto, we need to talk, and you had better drop that stupid smile before I wipe it off your face instead.”

 

Naruto was frowning in concern for the love of his life as she sounded mad. “Sakura-chan, what happened?” he asked only o receive a slap to the face.

 

“How dare you act innocent after what you did to me you pervert.” Sakura accused as her puzzle pieces fell into place. “You have no right to act so friendly after what happened last night and you know it. I don't know what you thought you were doing, but you need to seriously rethink your ideas if you thought you were being clever.”

 

Naruto listened to her tirade with nothing but confusion. `She thinks I did something? What did I do that was so bad?' he thought as he recalled every instance he had been with her for the last three months. “Sakura-chan, I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry if I did something wrong. If you tell me what I did I promise I won't do it again.”

 

Sakura almost grinned in triumph as Naruto fell for her ploy hook-line-and-sinker but managed to keep her scowl in place with her fists balled on her hips. “How could you not think trying to rape me after the party last night wasn't anything wrong?”

 

Naruto's life froze at the word rape. `I tried to rape Sakura-chan? After the party… I remember a lot of drinking… I think I was with Sakura after on the way home…' his mind churned as he tried to recall what happened. `Why can't I remember? I know I was pretty drink but I should remember if I did something like that.' he thought as his creaking mind drew nothing but blank walls for him to see. “I don't remember trying to… I was really drunk Sakura-chan and I…”

 

Sakura didn't give him a chance to finish as her inner self cheered for the perfect plan working perfectly. “Don't you dare try to give me such a lame excuse Naruto; you didn't seem that drunk when you tried to force yourself on me. How could I ever trust you again Naruto? How could I ever trust you knowing that you tried to rape me and that you tried to claim to be to drunk to remember?” Sakura said as she turned away so she could smile in excitement at the begging that was to come.

 

Naruto felt his heart and will shatter as Sakura denounced the only thing he had ever gained from her: trust. `I tried to rape Sakura-chan. I tried to rape Sakura-chan.' He repeated in his head as he attempted to force it from his mind to only feel the self-loathing repeat it more and more. `I'm just some kind of sick monster. She can't even trust me; I don't deserve to be near her after that.' He decided with an odd finality. “Sakura-chan,” he began as Sakura tensed.

 

Sakura was almost giddy as she heard Naruto finally begin his groveling; at least until she heard what he was actually saying.

 

“I could never apologize enough for what I did to you and I promise, for as much as you could possibly believe it, that it or anything like it will never happen again. I lost your trust Sakura and it was the only thing I could ever seem to have with you so now there is nothing I can do to keep you as my friend. I am going to make you a new life promise Sakura-chan and I can hope you will believe me and give me a chance to prove it to you before you think I am lying. Since you can't trust me any more I promise that unless it is required, there will be no need to trust me because you won't have to worry about me being in your life. I promise to disappear from your life as much as possible.”

 

Sakura stared ahead in confusion as she waited for him to continue but soon realized that he was done. `What the hell does that mean?' she asked herself as his words sunk in. Spinning on her heal to look and ask him what he was talking about, Sakura was left looking down a street with no Naruto in sight.

 

*End Flashback*

 

Naruto's arm swept down in a wide arc before plunging into his heart and beginning the large formation of blood on his clothes. He was a bit surprised at the lack of pain as he felt his body growing cold from the stab outward. He looked up to the last message he could hope to convey as the light of life left his eyes and his body fell back. On the wall of his room were the words `I'm sorry for being such a monster' written in Naruto's best handwriting.

 

Tsunade burst through to door to see Naruto's body in a heap on the floor with the kunai in his chest. She rushed forward hoping that it wasn't too late to save him but quickly realized that he had planned this to well for her to have stopped him; he was dead.

 

***************

 

Sakura stared at the paper she had found on Tsunade's desk with her hands shaking in fear and disgust. She had gone to the Hokage tower to turn in her last mission report when she had felt Tsunade flare her chakra and then seem to fly out of her office at top speed with every ANBU in the building on her tail. She had gone to Tsunade's office to see if she could find out what was going on and had looked at the paper to notice Naruto's handwriting.

 

*Naruto's Letter*

 

Tsunade-sama,

 

If you are reading this then you finally made me tell you the truth about what happened. I hoped that this day would never come, but I guess I was wrong to hope that you would not be you. I had very few people I didn't want to disappoint in my life and after that battle all those years ago, you and Sakura-chan were the only ones left that truly mattered to me. I already lost Sakura's faith in me and I wouldn't be able to stand watching you loose faith in me when I told you the truth so I came up with this letter.

 

It was the day of your birthday party five years ago that I became the monster I can't stand to have in me. At the party there was a lot of drinking and I honestly don't remember after the party, but I guess Sakura and I left together to go home. She told me the next day what happened on that walk and she told me I tried to rape her. She told me that I almost forced myself on her and that she could never trust me again.

 

As soon as I realized that I was such a pathetic monster I made her a promise to never give her reason to worry about trusting me again unless it was required for a mission. I kept my promise to her and made sure that unless we were on a mission she never saw anything more than a ghost of what she might think was me. I even made sure to only use her codename while on missions so that I might be less threatening to her and I guess it worked because she did it too.

 

Even after all these years I can't remember what happened and I can't remember how I thought I could get away with trying to rape Sakura-chan. I do know that I lost her faith and trust and because of that I felt so dead from the break my heart held as my monster destroyed the only woman I ever loved in that way. Now, my monster is going to destroy the only woman that ever loved me and I thought of as some kind of mother, and I already know I could never survive to see you so disappointed in me. At last this way my monster will never be able to do something so vile again. I'm sorry for failing you and especially sorry for failing Sakura-chan.

 

Goodbye forever,

Uzumaki Naruto

 

*End Naruto's Letter*

 

Sakura had only finished the last line of the letter before she was flying across the village for Naruto's apartment. The implied meaning behind the letter she still clutched in her hand was staggering. As she arrived at Naruto's apartment for the first time in over five years she knew the truth as she heard Tsunade crying from inside the pulverized doorway. Sakura walked inside like a zombie as she looked at the bloody corpse Tsunade was hugging to her chest. She walked over and fell to her knees next to her mentor as the tears fell from her eyes.

 

Tsunade had heard Sakura enter the room and looked up to glare at the girl that had brought such sadness. “Why would you tell him such a horrifying lie Sakura? You know that he was drunk that night and that we both walked him home. How could you tell him something so evil and not set things right when he became so crushed?” Tsunade asked the kunoichi in front of her.

 

Sakura wasn't thinking as she watched Naruto's body rocking with Tsunade's. “I was just trying to scare him into not asking me out any more because it was so annoying and he wouldn't listen when I told him to just quit asking.” Sakura said in a monotone voice without the slightest idea of trying to find a better excuse.

 

Tsunade stared at the girl in front of her and could see that Naruto had already given the perfect punishment to her on a kunai and a wall. “He was right and wrong about this whole thing Sakura. He was right that a monster was born, he was just wrong to think that the monster was him.”