This is my first attempt at publishing a fanfic, so I'm a little nervous how good it is. Introspectives like this aren't my thing normally, anyway.
Anywho...Don't own Naruto and never will if my current payslips and bank statements are anything to go by.
No one in Konoha ever realised how easily they could've pushed Naruto to breaking point and beyond with their thinly veiled hatred. None of them realised that the only thing standing between them and total destruction were people living and dead who anchored, in one way or another, the nine tails that Kyuubi had once used to flatten the land and raise the seas.
Iruka and Sandaime were the first to openly, positively, acknowledge Naruto's existence. For that he would be eternally grateful. In them, he found his first precious people. He has no need for parents or the other trappings of a family, because his 'brother' and 'grandfather' were family enough for him. Together, they are what tied him to reality in his early years and will hold Kyuubi's first tail forever.
Although they met only briefly, Yondaime was Naruto's role model for years. It was ironic, really, that the man Naruto idolised was the father he had never known. Those who knew the truth agreed in secret that it was almost instinct for the son to wish to surpass the father, although some thought he had already had. Yondaime died to protect Konoha one night. Naruto lived to protect it every day. Kyuubi's second tail is held by the ghostly hand of the man who sealed him within his own son to save the people he had sworn to protect. If there is a female hand helping him, no one would be entirely surprised.
As far as teams went, Naruto's Team Seven was probably destined to fall apart most people said. They were three very strong-willed twelve year olds, after all, and their sensei was one of the laziest living ninjas around. Few expected the team to bond at all let alone as strongly as they did. Most people credit this to Naruto's hyperactive enthusiasm and inexplicable ability to pull people together, but Naruto credits it to a group of four people who were each isolated in their own way wanting to create a family. When Sasuke left, he didn't just hurt his genin teammates and his cyclopean sensei: he also hurt himself by doing metaphorically to his team what his brother had done to his family. The reason Naruto works so hard to get Sasuke back isn't just because of his promise to Sakura: it's because without him their family is incomplete. Sai knows he can never replace Sasuke, but in some strange way finds himself added to the bizarre little group that silently calls themselves a family. Although their grasp on the third tail may seem tenuous at best, Team Seven is stubborn enough that even if they lose their grip on the tail they'll grab it again.
Few could understand why Naruto all but got away with calling the Godaime Hokage 'Obaa-chan', or why Jiraiya has yet to do serious harm to the boy for his 'Ero-sennin' nickname, and fewer still dared to speculate. No one would have realised that Naruto called the Hokage Obaa-chan because that was what he wanted her to be, and that he called Jiraiya by that nickname not because he was trying to annoy the man but because he couldn't call him 'sensei' since that didn't explain the relationship between the white-haired man and the blonde boy. The only reason he was still alive, probably, was because the two Sannin realised it. Although they probably bicker about the best way to do the job, Kyuubi's fourth tail is held down by two people Naruto would dearly have loved to call family.
While Moegi and Udon are the kids Naruto never was, the blonde ninja sees so many parallels between himself and Konohamaru that it's scary: both striving for attention, both dreaming of becoming Hokage, both all but alone from early on. He never asked what happened to the boy's parents, he simply couldn't bring it up, but Naruto knows that Konohamaru is in good hands with friends like Moegi and Udon to back him up. While Naruto often wonders what life would've been like for him if he had a Moegi and an Udon, he is glad that Konohamaru will never suffer the hatred and scorn he suffers every day. As the unofficial leader/teacher of the Konohamaru Corps, Naruto has a reason to do the things he couldn't as a kid. Even now that the three are genin, they still drag him along to the arcade and the ice cream shop every now and again 'for old times', although everyone else knows it's because the three younger ones have realised that Naruto never got to do those things as a kid and they're making up for lost time. In their small hands, they hold the fifth tail.
In Gaara, Naruto sees parallels to what he could've been and what he will be. In the chunin exam Gaara, he sees who he could've been if not for Sandaime and Iruka: a bitter child who hated everyone because everyone hated him. In the Kazekage Gaara, he sees the man he will become: a good leader who treats everyone fairly no matter what they have done or who they are. When Gaara first sees Naruto after his travels with Jiraiya, he begins to wonder if the whisperings of traders about the Yondaime Hokage coming back could have some truth behind them. He can see the similarities, even if many people refuse to see them. He can only hope that the people of Konoha will see that Naruto can be as good a leader as the man he resembles. Alone or with Shukaku, he holds Kyuubi's sixth tail as firmly as if he held it with his sand.
Although they knew each other scant days, Naruto still lives by the androgynous ninja's words. He will always have someone to protect, even if protecting them means giving his life the way Haku gave his for Zabuza. It is in his ice-coated hands that the ghost that was once Haku holds the seventh tail of Kyuubi.
In fellow 'dead-last' Lee, Naruto sees a person to emulate. Not the green spandex and the haircut, of course, but his ideals are to be admired and duplicated. Neither one recognises the words 'give up', 'enough', 'beaten' or 'never', and both have strived to be acknowledged for what they can do rather than what they can't. Naruto takes pride in performing powerful or personally designed jutsu with ease despite not being able to do basic Academy techniques, and Lee finds solace in the kicks and punches his green-clad sensei teaches him and draws power from knowing that he can take out his enemies faster than they can make hand seals, because both of them know that hard work can outdo talent any day. Talent has its limits…Hard work doesn't. It is what Lee stands for, rather than the boy himself, that ties Kyuubi's eighth tail down as strongly as if Lee tied his orange weights to it.
Naruto never knew that one person his age always acknowledged him despite everyone around them. He never realised that there was a girl who would love him for who he was, not who he tried to be. He never realised that a single pair of eyes watched his every move, taking in his every action. Like the moon reflecting the light of the sun, those eyes reflected the light Naruto gave off and projected it into an otherwise dark world. One day, maybe, Naruto would turn and see that Kyuubi's last tail has always been held down for a long time not by the girl he wanted to love, but by the girl who has always loved him.
Like? Hate? Needs work? If you want to, please tell me what you think. I appreciate constructive criticism, but even flames will be taken into account if they have substance.