Okay my lovely, loyal followers, this is the first chapter in the sequel to 'When One Betrays'!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (because if I did this is how fucked up it would be)

Time-Skip: 10 years after the war ended.

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Because I Betrayed

Chapter 1: Prolog

My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I am the child of prophecy. Tomorrow is my twenty-seventh birthday, the anniversary of the Kyuubi's attack on the Leaf Village. From the moment of my birth, chaos followed me.

My parents, Kushina and Minato gave their lives to seal the demon away within me, starting an unavoidable ripple of consequences. I was scorned and beaten as a child; despised by the very villagers that my presence was supposed to protect.

I was a dead last. A nuisance with no real significance to anyone or anything with no natural talent for the career I chose. But I was determined and swore to become Hokage so that I would be acknowledged for who I was, and not what I held. I promised that I would never be disloyal to Konoha, or the people who lived here.

But everything changed when Itachi Uchiha came and assaulted me. Over the span of three years, he wore down my resolve. My staunch opposition to betraying the people and place I held most dear weakened, and I fell in love with him, knowing that he was an enemy.

With one simple emotion, I betrayed Konoha, the citizens of the village, my friends and myself.

My first true act of betrayal occurred when Itachi brought me back to Mangekyo Sharingan world after we'd shared a passionate night of abandon. I'd given into my desires already, yes, but I'd not given in to my feelings to him until that point.

Then again, I fought against my lover's destiny to die and brought him back, not knowing or caring why he'd slaughtered his clan and gone rogue. It didn't matter to me that he was with an organization formed to capture and kill those who housed the tailed beasts. The only thing that was important was that he loved me, and I loved him.

During the war, he was invaluable. He helped to save me from a revived Nagato and then stopped the dreaded reanimation jutsu with his visual prowess, and I was able to restore his eyes once again with the power the Sage of Six Paths gave me.

In my final battle with Sasuke, I wanted to win for many reasons. To save him just as I had promised Sakura and Itachi, to protect the world from his intense hatred, and to prove myself as not just his equal but superior. But my main reason was so that I would live to see my lover again, and feel his presence around and within me.

It was my opinion that his efforts in the war and the truth behind his defection would be enough to absolve him of any ill will that the world held against him. However, he did not agree and refused to allow the Uchiha name to be tarnished. He told me that he didn't want me to betray everything that I'd worked for and lose it all just for him.

When Itachi held me in his arms, all the troubles of the world and all my suffering faded away. I wondered how I could be betraying so much when it seemed like we were destined to be together if I had believed in such a thing at the time.

But just as my parent's deaths set in motion plans that had long been prophesized, that first act of betrayal spurred a whole new path of heart ache and suffering for me. I don't know what is yet to come in this uphill battle I continue to face, but I know that because my foolish, seventeen-year-old self betrayed everything in that one moment, I made my climb steeper than I might be able to handle.

I thought that fate didn't exist. That it was just a term used by people who were unwilling to take hold of their own destiny and fight for a new one. But now I'm not so sure. Perhaps it is fluid and can change, but maybe it is set in stone like the great faces of the past Hokage, immortalized for all to bear witness to.

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Okay so I realize that this was an extremely short chapter, but I felt like it was necessary so, sorry!

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