Disclaimer:
The characters, manga, and anime belong solely to Masashi Kishimoto and team, but this story and plotline belongs to me. I make no profit off this literature, unless you consider the lovely reviews from the readers as payment like I do. :3
Oh, and my introductions are always shorter than actual chapters. Normal chapters won't be so angsty like the intro, and they will be quite a bit longer. My chapters might not be the monstrous 14k of some of the far more experienced authors I have read, but they will be much better than my previous 1kers.
Rifts
Introduction
Paranoia
By Shimmerwind
Fear. Cold, hard fear. There were moments when he was free of the daunting feeling, yet he was normally quite stricken with it. It was sickening that such a young person – a child, in all honesty – was forced to live in such dread. This was no longer fear. This was paranoia in its purest form, and it was slowly consuming the boy. The teen had a right to this paralyzing feeling though. All his life – his entire 13 years – he had been hated and ridiculed. People would move away from him in the streets. Mother's would take their children home if he wandered into the park. Restaurants would empty if he came to the door, Kami forbid he come inside. He'd always assumed it was his fault, that he did something so horrible that he deserved this treatment. He thought that he had become so dark inside that he no longer even saw his wrongs, and that he completely deserved the title of Demon. It wasn't until he was 12 that he found out exactly why he was the scum of the village, and that was a major blow to the boy.
For as long as he could remember, he had hidden behind his 'happy mask' as he had come to think of it, true feelings locked away in the depths of his mind until he was alone. He lied to the ones who supposedly cared for him so the ones who didn't would never know. He faked the role of the happy-go-lucky attention seeker to hide the scared, lonely person underneath the wraps. Trapped by his own mind, the boy was locked away in a bleak, inescapable darkness – in more ways than one…
The genin never truly believed the words of his precious people. His teammates and his sensei – the three people most important in his life – were all liars in his mind. To him, they pretended they cared but never really did. Sometimes they were soft, but the genin could always hear the berating undertones in their voices. But it was nice to pretend, so he went along with it. The boy would trust them with his life, even going as far as giving up his own to save theirs, not that he expected the same from them. Kaka-sensei, Sakura-chan, and Sasuke. Those three names – those three people – were the only things keeping him going, not that they'd ever know. He didn't even care if they felt the same way about him; the boy still loved those three people with all his heart. But he never told them his secrets.
And he still loved Konoha. He'd long given up on his dream of being Hokage, but he constantly spoke about it in front of his 'friends'. He had to keep up appearances, after all. But even though that dream had died, his determination to protect his village had not. Even though they might have hated him, so much as to try and kill him themselves, he would still have given his life for theirs. Any of them, whether it be a newborn baby or a dying old man, civilian or ninja, he would gladly have died to save them. His drive was only strengthened by every insult, every swing of the fist. Why should he have continued living if no one cared? Well, if he was going to die, he might as well have saved someone in the process. Those thoughts were constantly in his mind, yet the thought of death scared him as well. It was not so much the dying part of death that scares him, but where he would go after he died. Where would he have gone?
That was not the only thing that scared him. He wasn't afraid to be judged; He hated it, but he didn't fear it. No, what he feared was how the villagers would express their judgments. He had lost count at how many times he was tripped while walking down the streets. They kicked him out of stores, saying he was disrupting the other customers. He had never even opened his mouth, so how could he have been bothersome? Often they 'forgot' to send his monthly orphan allowance, but the boy was smarter than most ever gave him credit for. He knew it was no accident. Sometimes, villagers or even ninja would get together and… beat him around a little. They never caused enough damage to really hurt him, nothing like a snapped leg or something. No, but they weren't afraid to cause pain. It was worst on his birthday… the day of the Kyuubi attack. Everyone always felt a little more rambunctious that day, leaving him to cope the day after. 'Friends' of his usually wrote his strange behavior off as laziness or, in Sasuke's case, a 'late night movie.' He knew because they would always tell him how he should go to bed earlier or stop using so much energy during the day. If only they knew.
But the boy couldn't tell them. Never. The web of lies he had worked so hard to spin… Even one small hole could completely unravel it. Not one person, not one secret, could escape. One single slip up and his entire world could come crumbling down, nothing even left to pretend of. He had to keep his happy mask on, else the tears underneath would show through. But… sometimes he wondered if taking off the mask, just once, would really hurt. Maybe if he just took it off around Sakura-chan, Sasuke, and Kaka-sensei… Maybe they would like the real face more than the mask that hid it. Maybe he'd show them one day… Maybe.
The boy was stronger than most would ever think. Iruka-sensei, Ero-Sannin, and Tsunade-baa-chan had seen potential in him, but they had never had really discovered how strong he was. He may have acted like a dead last, but that was a false identity as well. He faked weakness like he faked happiness – all the time and way too well. But, in reality, he had been training since before he joined the academy. He wasn't a dobe. He wasn't powerless. He wasn't feeble. He wasn't weak. No, he was strong. Easily stronger than Sakura. Quite a bit stronger than Sasuke. Actually, he figured he could hold his own very decently against his sensei. And he hated acting weak, hated getting called a dobe more than once a day by someone he could pound into the ground without breaking a sweat. Oh no, hate wasn't a strong enough word for this feeling. He didn't hate it. He loathedit. His unskillful demeanor was only brought up for self-preservation purposes. If the village knew he was so strong, at only genin rank, they would kill him in a heartbeat. You can't have the Kyuubi kid too strong, eh? The boy couldn't die yet; He couldn't die unless it was to protect someone else. That was his goal now – die defending a person he loves – not to become a Hokage and gain respect. He'd long learned that he'd never gain respect and, therefore, never become the leader. He lived only for the ones he loved.
Eccentric attention-seeking persona. Dead-last demeanor, skill-wise. Long-dead dreams brought to life during the day. Nightmares and scars hidden behind fraudulent words of late nights and spars. Fear masked by fearlessness. Hopelessness masked by hope. Tears lost in an illusion of smiles. His mask was finally complete… too complete. Nothing could be more perfect in his carefully woven web of lies, but perfection can't last forever. That's why Naruto Uzumaki was afraid.
Rifts were forming, both in his mask, and the bonds it was made to hide…
Full Story Warnings:
Dark!Naruto (Not Waterfall of Truth one), violence, angst, possible hints of romance (no true pairings in this, at least for now), hints of mental illness (like dabbled depression/paranoia and that kinda stuff). All for the sake of the story line, because this is not a 'beat up Naruto' fic.
Stuff that's NOT in this AT ALL, EVER:
Gore (blood and guts and describing violence/injury in extreme detail), slash, swearing, adult/mature situations, implications of adult/mature situations, strong romance, character bashing (just because it feels like I am, doesn't mean I am), unneeded violence
POV:
3rd person POV, Naruto's perspective unless specified otherwise, with paragraphs here and there describing the thoughts/feelings of other characters as I see fit
Setting:
Takes place when the Rookie Nine are around 13. Sasuke has not left yet; this is before the fight on the rooftop yet after Tsunade. Sasuke never challenged Naruto on the rooftop, and the Sound Four didn't come yet. Basically, the Sasuke Retrieval Ark has been removed. Therefore, Naruto still has not gained respect within the village, or rather, not enough to earn him better treatment. No one (meaning the Konoha 12) knows of the Kyuubi.
Note~This story is based off of the darker side of life before Naruto earned the respect of the village….. with a few twists. :] Ehe, some of these may be a bit shocking to you, but no no, no hints~ You'll have to stick around and see~ *snickers like she has a special little secret, because she does*However, I will be hinting at one of the bigger plot twists several times until the actual event, so a cookie to whoever catches the hints.
This won't be following the cannon story line, so if you have a problem with that, go ahead and scidattle. I roast marshmallows over flames, so please, lay em on me. .