I really like this story, so I hope you like it, too. Marie and Toby are my characters. Raze is a character of my friend's, and I don't own any Naruto characters. Please read and review!

Prologue

Marie stood at Naruto's bedside, relieved that the morphine the medical ninja gave him was going into effect. She stared at his bandaged body, thankful that he was still alive. 'Thank you, Naruto; you really saved me...'the 18 year old girl thought, looking at her own arm that was in a sling. Her eyes glanced over at the flowers and cards that were in their own corner of the room, all dedicated to the brave 16 year old boy with the kyuubi trapped inside of him. '...He was once hated, and I was the first to ever accept him..it was probably because I understood him in a sense, like we know the same pain...'she stroked the tufts of blonde hair that stuck out above the bandages on his forehead. "Why did this have to happen?"the brunette beauty asked aloud, feeling her eyes getting misty.

A drowsy groan was heard coming from the boy before he opened his blackened blue eyes, his pain being forgotten as he smiled boyishly at her. "Heheh; I got pretty banged up!"

Marie smiled softly, her hazel eyes sparkling with happiness. "Looks like it...thank you, Naruto."she kissed him on the cheek softly, worrying that his jaw might also be broken.

Naruto blushed, then his face turned serious. "Don't worry, I wouldn't have let that bastard hurt you more than you already were; if it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't have been able to finish that psycho off...I just go afraid when I saw you laying on the ground like that and I just went crazy."

She adverted her eyes to the waxed linoleum floor, "I'm sorry that I made all this happen; if I would've just--"

"--It's over now; what happened, happened, and there's nothing you can do about it now."He was distracted by a male figure coming into the room. Marie turned to see who it was also.

"Are you ok, Naruto-kun?"Toby asked, walking on crutches, his left leg in a cast

"Yeah, I'm alright; I do have the Kyuubi inside me after all; I can heal faster than most people."he explained, not wanting to go back into a somber mood.

"Toby,"Marie said, limping towards the platinum blonde 17 year old,"did Raze come back yet?"Worry laced her words, along with her facial features.

Toby shook his head, and looked over at Naruto, who was in shock "W-Why?? Why didn't he come back by now?"the younger boy asked, getting more urgent.

"Shizune-neechan and tsunade-sama were talking and I overheard them; they said that the medical ninjas on site were murdered and Raze's body wasn't there..."

"Oh, shit,"Marie said, her breathing becoming more shallow from panic,"Do they know where he is?"

"I don't think so, but they're scouring the area."

"T-T-This is bad!! We need to find Raze!"She cried out, obviously panicking more