May be a one shot, maybe not.. The rapid turn around of the way the village reacted after Naruto won against Pain, and Hinata's confession, bothered me for a long time. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I wanted to get it out. I see Naruto as smarter than people see him as, but hiding it to prevent people from holding that against him, and more emotionally unstable and wounded than he lets on.

Don't own Naruto, characters, blah blah, Kishmoto owns it all, blah blah, Godtrees.

The last filtering rays of sunlight speared through clouds on the horizon, casting the forest edge into a cascading panorama of golds and reds. The wind shuffled through the leaves, a calming intermixture of sound and motion that felt right to the young man sitting on the rough, broken surface of a piece of rubble.

The Hidden Village in the Leaves was a wreck, a vast ring of debris and shattered housing smashed up against it's once mighty walls. Only the outer estates – Uchiha , Hyuga, Senju – and some of the outlying industrial facilities were intact. The rebuilding had been going on for almost two weeks now, aided by returning shinobi and Yamato-sensei's incredible mokuton wood-crafting, but progress was slow.

Tired after spending hours with hundreds of kage bushin to help with repairs, Naruto Uzumaki had withdrawn to the edge of Kohona, to think, to rest, to consider the path of his life.

For many, he would seem to be doing 'better'. After years of cold neglect, of accusation and hatred and fear, he was now the Hero of Kohona. He had defeated Pain, the leader of Atasuki, and ensured that everyone killed in the attacks was returned to life. He'd discovered his father was the Fourth Hokage, that his father had faith in him.

He'd discovered that a beautiful Hyuga princess loved him enough to die for him.

And yet, the young man – no longer a boy – was bitter and almost depressed. His smile was wry as he flipped over the battered book in his hand – Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi – and the smile slowly turned into a sneer.

Propaganda. Live for your village. Die for your village. Don't ask why. He'd lived his whole live by these rules, this nindo. Never giving up. Always following your word. Never surrender.

Yet, these rules had cost his father and mother their lives. It had claimed the live of Jiraya, the man Naruto looked up as a father. It had resulted in war and death for centuries. Nagato's words echoed strongly in his head.

"Dying like trash… never ending hatred… pain that never heals… that is war… Naruto… this… is what you must face… The book… and you… It's like… someone… set this all up…"

A life spent in scorn and loneliness , shielded only by fake smiles and truly cared for by only a few, had given Naruto a sense of … hesitance. His experiences with how hiss own village had used him in the Blood Prison incident, in how they'd hidden the truth of his linage, of how quickly they moved past the fall of Uzu...

Naruto rubbed his eyes. He had finally gotten his acknowledgment from the village...and it felt hollow now. The man he looked at as his brother was still gone. The girl he wanted to see him for who he was saw him as a silly brotherly figure.

And Hinata... he was angry, most of all, at her.

Even as he thought of her, there was a rustle in the brush behind him, and Naruto stood, casually letting a hand fall to his side near his kunai pouch. A moment later his eyes widened as the figure who emerged. "Hello, Shino."

The other teenager stood , quietly, his black coat soaking up the fading sunlight, eyes hidden behind dark black shades, the high brim of the coat concealing his face. "You have been a hard person to find, Naruto-san. Why am I looking for you, you ask? Because Hinata-sama has been out of the hospital two days, and yet you have not seen fit to communicate with her."

Naruto's cerulean eyes narrowed before he gave a laugh and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Ano, well I've been busy helpin' out Yamato-sensei with my kage bushin! And doing d-ranks for baa-chan to -"

Shino gave an exasperated sigh, the most emotional sound Naruto had ever heard from the pale Aburame. "Please, Naruto-san. I do not have time for your facade of well-meaning bumbling. My insects can smell actual pheromones and electrical fields. You are not capable of fooling me the way you have my peers. You are angry. I wish to know why."

Naruto's face went suddenly , terrifyingly blank. "Why should I tell you? You've never been concerned before. You've never cared to ask before. You wouldn't be asking now if it weren't for Hinata."

Shino paused before nodding. "I acknowledge that. That does not invalidate my question or my intent to determine an answer, but to accede to your request … I wish to know because Hinata-sama is distraught at your .. lack of response." He paused. "More than a few people saw her bravery in attempting to stop Pain. They saw her struck down."

Naruto said nothing , so Shino continued. "I do not believe that you were blind to her feeling for you, Naruto-san, and so I ask again – why have you not communicated with her?"

Naruto fixed Shino with a hard look. "By now, I expect the whole village saw what I .. turned into. And what I am."

Shino nodded calmly in return. "You are the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. This explains why you were treated with such caution in your youth -" Shino broke off as Naruto threw back his head in bitter laughter.

"Caution? Caution! HAHAHA. Oh, that's just rich, bug-boy. I was ostracized every since I was born, Shino. Thrown out of stores. Sold expired food. Ignored when I walked down the street. The instructors at the Academy didn't want to teach me anything. I had to teach myself to read and write, to cook, to fend for myself!" The voice grew hard, cold. "I no one to believe in me. My genin team? My teacher Kakashi taught me nothing but the basics of tree-walking, and then complained with Jiraya taught me new skills. I stopped Gaara, beat Neji, beat Kiba – and I wasn't promoted to chunnin. I fought as hard as I could to please this village and they did nothing!"

Shino stood unmoved. "They have seen that they were wrong, surely. They now hail you as a hero -"

Naruto's voice grew flintier. "Shino, am I really supposed to be grateful that , after defeating singlehandedly a nin who handed the entire village their ass AND getting everyone to come back to life , that they finally think I'm an actual human being and not a monster? Have I been promoted? Have I been offered training? No. I'm told to go slave away at repairing the village... and then, I suspect, they'll just try to lock me up somewhere."

Naruto shook his head in disgust. "As for Hinata... I was alone my whole life. Never hearing the words other people get, about people believing in them. Never being told I matter. Never knowing someone cared, or loved, or even thought about me. She claimed she watched me all these years, and I knew that. She claimed she loved me. Yet she was perfectly content to just watch me and take some kind of sick inspiration from watch me struggle and not even be decent enough to tell me what she felt?"

Naruto spat. "As cruel as Sakura-chan can be, as blind as she can be, at least I know she actually cares about me and told me the truth about how she felt. As heartless as Sasuke was, I know now that he was willing to give up a very important power by leaving me alive when we last met, rather than kill his friend. Hinata is worse than a coward, she's willing to let me suffer and think I'm alone while proclaiming she loves me."

Shino said nothing for a long moment. "Your words are bitter, but not rational. The village may have committed it's sins, but we Aburame are familiar with being seen as something less than human. That is merely life. You have proven you are not a dead-last, or a monster. Can you simply not accept their acknowledgement and move on from whatever bitterness you feel? You say you have never been loved. Is it not better to reach out for that than spurn it?"

Naruto shook his head. "I learned something in my battle with Pain that , maybe, I was better off not knowing. If I'd never figured it out, I'd probably be happy with how things turned out. But I'm not a pawn for Fate,just like I told Neji." Naruto glanced up at the bug-user.

"If Hinata wants me to talk to her, she needs to have enough fucking spine to actually come to me face to face. People I thought I could trust and admire have lied to me all my life, hidden things from me all my life, and their excuses are shit. Pain had some twisted ideals about killing and suffering, but he had one thing right – we're never going to find peace when the entire fabric of society is built around ninja villages and killing and warfare."

Naruto turned his back on Shino. "Tell her whatever you like. I have way more important things on my mind right now than silly girls with a crush."

Shino stood there silently for several seconds before leaving as silently as he came, leaving the clearing empty except for Naruto, watching the last light in the sky slowly fade into twilight.