They were all gone. Pervy Sage, Granny Tsunade, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, old man Hokage. His friends...
He was that boy again. The boy that everyone avoided and hated. The boy that was constantly alone, learning from an early age how to rely on only yourself.
He no longer had friends. The ones who really cared were dead. The ones who tried to care failed. They couldn't take the kyuubi boy, not his grief, his distress, that made death seem all too real.
I can live through this, he tried to tell himself. I've done it once, I'll do again.
But, over the years, Naruto had let himself relax and to take comfort from the presence of other people, people called friends. It was harder now, now that he has had a taste of what he could never have again.
No one was expecting the ambush. Ninja without headbands assaulted the Konoha Eleven on one of their rare mission-less days together.
It took only a few seconds for the chunin and jounin level shinobi from Konoha to be battle ready.
But for shinobi, those few seconds are always a few seconds too many.
The Ino, Shikamaru and Choji had been the first to go. The enemy analyzed their Ino-Shika-Cho formation and easily neutralized it. No amount of strategies and plans from Shikamaru could counter impossible odds, especially once his way of thinking had been figured out and when there was no time to think during battle.
Unsurprisingly, Kiba and Akamaru had been taken out next. The enemy fought with precision and complex strategies. The duo used brute strength and an exorbitant amount of chakra, it didn't take long before they were pummeled into the ground, exhausted.
Lee had fallen, not cut down by enemy swords, but defeated by his own jutsu. In his futile attempt to save Sakura, Lee had opened all his gates. True it had taken down possibly more than all of the others put together, but Lee could only go on for so long and the enemies were both skilled and numerous.
Shino had been overwhelmed by five water users. They attacked his bugs mercilessly before using their superior taijutsu. It was a long and costly fight. Shino, always the cool and collected one, had lived up to his reputation. While keeping enough bugs within him to defend himself, he had sent various insects to other parts of the battlefield attack the enemies from behind. When he died, those he had already killed thirty others with his bugs alone, a testimony to his skill.
Tenten's rain of metal brought many men to their end. Yet, as with Lee, she was defeated by time. Her arsenal was not infinite, nor was her chakra. When she met a wind user in her already exhausted state, she knew it was over. Rather than suffer a slow death at the hands of her enemy, she used the fireball jutsu, amplified and rebounded by her opponents wind and waited for it to reach her.
Neji had performed rotation after rotation, digging craters into the blood stained ground. He perished as he threw himself into Hinata's blind spot effectively blocking a multitude of poisoned kunai. He perished even as he screamed for Tenten as he watched her engulfed in her own fireball.
Hinata, without Neji to help her perform deadly gentle fist combinations, faltered quickly. Her multiple injuries draining her of blood as fast as her jutsu drained her of chakra. She collapsed with a scream, alerting Sakura, as she tried numbly to stand, to keep fighting, if not for herself, then for Naruto. But sometimes, will is not enough, too much of her life blood had already been sucked away into the earth and Hinata was left twitching on the ground.
Sakura was the last to be cut down by the enemy. She was cut down as she crouched over Naruto, chewing on food pills as she pushed herself further. Her mantra, just a bit further, pushing her on. Just a bit further, I only need a bit more chakra to heal this wound. Just a bit further, I just have to remove the poison from his body, I have enough chakra for that.
It was that last death that pulled Naruto over the edge he had been stepping closer and closer to. Every time he saw his comrade collapse in an unmoving heap, something nudged him closer and closer to the precipice.
When he saw Sakura fall across his body, blood trickling from her mouth, something inside him snapped. The kyuubi emerged, delighted at being set free. It's bloodlust fueled by Naruto's hate. The enemy never knew what hit them. Never knew what decimated their forces. Only a flash of red before their vision faded and they were lost in oblivion.
The Konoha Eleven, they had been called, he reflected with a strange bitterness. The name implied unity, but what kind of unity was this? All of them had deserted him, they had died and left him here. Left him here to suffer.
He could still remember the looks of shock and horror on the faces of the ninja from konoha. Two chunin who had come running from their post at the gate to investigate the commotion.
He would never forget as he watched family and friends alike collapse into tears at the sight of the dead bodies in the hospital. But they meant nothing to him. Each tear they cried just a drop in the sea of grief. One face blurred with the next. He could no longer distinguish between sensei or father, between sister and friend. His own tears clouded his eyes. Drops in the sea of grief.
He could never forget the screams of anger, at him and at the deceased, as people wondered why he had survived and how their loved one did not.
The sight of Temari shaking on her knees when she received the news, Hanabi beating up training posts until they snapped, the parents of Ino, Shikamaru and Choji staring in disbelief, Guy-sensei with tears pouring from his eyes and Kakashi standing next to him, trying to comfort him amidst his own grief. It was too much.
So he ran. Not caring where he was going. Not caring about the people who ran after him, who called for him, who said they were sorry, who claimed they could understand...
Kakashi-sensei died not long after that day, on a mission to investigate the murderers. Iruka-sensei died on his turn at the gate, not noticing the infiltrating enemy-nin until it was too late. Granny Tsunade and Pervy Sage died together, each fighting their hardest to protect the thing precious to them.
One after another the ones that mattered to Naruto died. One by one, the ones who kept him sane, who gave him the will to live, perished. As each brick from Naruto's wall fell, he felt himself growing weaker and weaker.
The last brick crumbled into dust as he watched Konoha burn, as his home vanished into nothing.
He moved with the rest of the survivors to other parts of the fire country where he was treated as a tragic hero. But he didn't want their false sympathy and fake smiles. A girl had approached him once and asked him to confide in her, tell her about the horrors he had seen, let her in on the pain he was feeling. He was naive then, he did, he told her then about his inner most secrets and thoughts. What did she do? She ran off screaming and never approached him again.
Villagers had avoided him after that.
They were all gone. The ones who really cared were dead. The ones who tried to care failed. They couldn't take the kyuubi boy, not his grief, his distress, that made everything seem all too real.
So, if you haven't realized, this is really AU. I hope you enjoyed this story :) Please leave a review! I love hearing from you guys!
Don't own Naruto (Yes I put disclaimers down here)