Trickster Till The Very End
Summary: Tsunade, Jiraiya, Kakashi and Iruka find Naruto's diary when they look for him after he goes missing. Character death; set after valley of the end.
"Speaking"
Thoughts
Notes/entries
"Kyuubi"
flash back or change scene
When Uzumaki Naruto, number one most surprising hyperactive ninja, had been discovered missing from his hospital room by the fifth hokage, Tsunade, there had been hell. All shinobi who did not hate the boy and feared (with good right) Tsunade had pitied him, everyone knew that when the blonde was found he would pay. The only person out of the rookie nine who did not care about the blonde's disappearance was surprisingly Haruno Sakura. The girl was too busy morning the loss of her 'Sasuke-kun' to care about boy who had almost given his life to bring the snake back.
Flash Back
"Sakura-chan, I'm sorry I didn't bring Sasuke back, but don't worry! The minute I'm healed I'll get to training and I'll bring him back!" Naruto said from his hospital bed where he was wrapped in bandages making him look like some sort of mummy.
"Sorry? You're sorry? It doesn't change the fact that he left" Sakura mumbled, not even looking at the blonde, "He was right all we did was drag him down, but I trained, couldn't he see that? Did you even try Naruto? Did you really even try to bring him back??" She stepped closer to him with sadness on her face.
"Sakura-chan, of course-"
"Don't, don't say Sakura-chan, and definitely don't say of course you tried to bring him back, because I know you didn't!! I know Naruto! YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN JELOUSE AND THIS IS YOU JUST GETTING BACK AT HIM." She finally yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks as she took all her anger out on Naruto, the blonde flinched and Sakura thought she saw a destroyed look on Naruto's face but it passed too quickly. Now acting on her anger and instincts she pulled out a kunai and held it to Naruto's heart. She looked up to his face and was shocked to see that clear blue eyes that had once been so warm and full of happiness had become hard and cold, with a swift movement he moved the kunai away.
"Get out, Haruno" Naruto ordered in an ice cold voice that chilled Sakura to the bone, she still however huffed and walk out quickly.
End
Right now Umino Iruka was heading to Naruto's apartment with Hitake Kakashi to see if there was any evidence of where Naruto was. They reached the run down place in no time and came across the relatively clean apartment of Naruto's. Kakashi went to the window and discovered the window was opened with a small not that read:
USE THE DOOR!!
Kakashi chuckled, and moved the note aside; as he moved it he noticed that it was slightly damp meaning it had been there a while, his visible eye narrowed.
"Iruka?" He asked as he entered through the window which led to the kitchen.
"Everything's still in the living room and the bathroom is fully stocked."
"Bedroom?" Iruka shook his head and they both headed to the bedroom. Kakashi paused before opening the door, he had a bad feeling. It felt like he wouldn't like what was behind the door, so with a silent agreement between them they called Tsunade and Jiraiya. When the two got there they opened the door. Naruto's room was painted a light yellow with an orange on bottom. The light blue curtains were open to the sunlight, the same light that lit on a teenagers face, giving the boy an angelic appearance. Had it not been for the fact that his chest was not moving underneath the orange and blue jacket Tsunade would have said that her younger brother was merely sleeping. She stepped forward lightly as if not trying to disturb him and checked the slightly warm body for any sign that he was still with them. When no heart thudded powerfully against her finger and no oxygen was taken in she finally gave in to the truth and collapsed, warm tears slid down her cheeks and on to the boys whiskered face.
"Tsunade, look at this" Jiraiya's voice called her to look away from her brother, something that seemed to rip her heat to shreds. Turning she saw something that made her smile despite the tears still falling. On a wall seemingly cleared just for this purpose were small drawings in different colours and sizes. There was a childish drawing of an old man with a fire hat and written beside it in neat scribble, old man. Then there was a large painting, well drawn too, of team seven, a better picture of the third, the rookie nine, team Gai, the sand sibs, all with sensei's then there was Iruka the Konohamaru corps, and other people such as Anko and Ibiki and lastly there was Tsunade and Jiraiya. Scrawled above it in much neater writing that before was: my special People. What shocked most of them though was that it was surrounded by nine well drawn tails of the Kyuubi.
"A diary?" came the surprised voice of Iruka from the bedside; he had a plain medium size navy book. He opened the page and read aloud "Uzumaki Naruto (future hokage, believe it!) The life of a trickster." Tsunade took the book and sat beside Naruto's body, she took his hand and opened to the first entry.
Hello, as I'm sure you know my name is Uzumaki Naruto, I am 5 years old right now and have been living on my own for 2 days. The old man gave me this book when I said I wanted to learn to read and write. He knows that I mean from Kyuubi. You know Kyuubi, the massive giant fox that has nine tails and apparently attacked Konoha. Personally I think we should have all listened to her like the fourth did. If they had then they would have heard that Kyuubi also holds a demon at bay, yes it's the 10n tailed, Kyu holds 9 of the tails and Shikaku holds one of the tails of power. Like anyone holding a demon at bay there are times when the demon slips forward and takes control. This is what happened to make Kyu attack Konoha. Do you get it now? Well whatever, so kyuubi's teaching me everything. I think that's good enough for my first entry.
She flicked to another entry and started to read again.
Hmm, my arms broken again, damn. That means it's going to hurt again when I practice my drawing and justu. Oh well, no worries, Right? It's nothing new really.
She chocked back a sob and found a newer entry.
We came back from wave today. That mission was harder than it should have been, turns out it was an A-rank instead of the C it should have been. During the mission we fought a girl/boy person called Haku, she worked with Zabuza. When we were fighting Sasuke jumped in front of me, I thought he was killed. With all the anger I felt I accidentally used some of Kyuu's chakra. I almost killed Haku but instead she slipped away and sacrificed herself to save Zabuza. Thinking back on it now I realise she was a tool until the very end.
Unable to read the rest about tools and the village Tsunade flicked through the book and found the very last entry.
I can't believe it, my ultimate promise, the promise of a lifetime, to bring Sasuke back for Sakura and I failed. I may not like the pink haired girl much but as it is part of my mask to love her, and I do think of Sasuke as my best friend, my rival. I think it was my fault that everyone got hurt on this mission. I know that Shikamaru blames himself and it saddens me that he thinks it was his fault that the mission was a failure when it was up to me to bring Sasuke back. Sasuke, I do blame him however for the chidori through my chest, yes Sasuke that was a VERY pleasant experience, yeah right. I am angry with myself also that when it came to the final part, where Sasuke achieved I failed. He really is a bastard; when it came to the end all I could do was scratch his headband, where as he could almost kill me. If it wasn't for kakashi I think I would have died, though we all know I was far from the perfect student and he liked Sasuke best. What I'm most surprised about is that with all of Kakashi's talk of underneath the underneath he never realised I was wearing a mask, and he never bothered to find out who his teacher's son was. Someone please free the man of his misery and explain to him that the only person who looks like a mini version of the Yondimane is me, thank you.
Tsunade gave a tear filled laugh earning worried looks from the others who were still looking around.
Well…I guess this is my end huh…please if your reading this ignore the blood stains…it's off whatever kind of poison this is…Kyuubi wants me to keep going…and really so do I…I wanted to go down in a fight…preferably with everyone watching…like a hokage…but poison it's a funny thing…something Kyuubi cant fix…sad really…maybe we could lie and pretend to go down in a fight…no one will know…well never mind…I just hope people don't think I committed suicide…I would hate that…my name, forever shamed…as if it isn't hard enough to be a demon container, oh sorry Kyu. It's harder to write now…Kyuubi knows what kind of poison it is…oh it's only paralyzing…easy prey huh.
Tsunade's eyes widened and she read over the last sentence three times before grabbing Kakashi shoving the book in his hands and turning to Naruto. Trembling she reached to his face and lifted an eye lid, his pupil contacted at the sudden light. His open eye moved from the ceiling to her face and she squealed in joy at the action. She opened the other eye and smiled as she saw relief flooding through the pools of blue.
"Jiraiya, get word to the hospital that we're coming in with an emergency patient, get Hinata and Ino waiting to help. DON'T LET SAKURA." The man nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke, Kakashi and Iruka stood watching as she mumbled animatedly to Naruto, she was obviously overjoyed that he was awake. However this talking stopped when they felt his chakra levels start to drop. They realised then that it had been happening all along but now it was low enough to notice. The potion was paralysing and chakra eating. Tsunade started to work faster. Soon Naruto was movable and they transported to the hospital in poufs of smoke. They appeared in the emergency room where Jiraiya, Hinata and Ino were waiting. They started extracting the poison straight away, all three doctors working quickly and getting the three ninja's to help out getting equipment and other things as more nurses arrived. They soon has his heart working at a healthy pace rather than the barely beating it had been before; an oxygen mask was attached to his face to help him get more oxygen. The three ninja were shoved outside just as the rookie nine rounded the corner. Sakura was complaining very loudly that she hadn't been allowed into an emergency operation while Ino and Hinata were. Deciding to torment the banshee Kakashi talked over her,
"Sakura, do you mid, there's an emergency operation going on in here and your voice surely isn't helping." The girl had the decency to blush, while Shikamaru quietly asked,
"Who's in there?"
"Who's missing?" Iruka countered, they looked around and unsurprisingly Shikamaru answered.
"Naruto" Jiraiya nodded,
"What happened?" Kiba asked, worry covering his features. Sakura scoffed.
"He probably over trained or something stupid, just like him, I bet if Sasu-"
"SHUT UP SAKURA" Tenten yelled, everyone turned to see team Gai behind them; Neji had a bandage on his shoulder where he was still recovering from the fight. The pink haired girl looked shocked, whilst Tenten looked mad. "Are you really that shallow to think he is in an EMERGENCY room because of some simple training accident?" she said stressing emergency. The pink girl scowled.
"Sakura, Naruto's been poisoned" kakashi said quietly. Everyone stared at the three older ninja.
"No way" Shino said, everyone then directed their stares to Shino. Sakura stood still,
"By who?" She asked (for once quietly), the older ninja shook their heads, they didn't know.
three hours later
They had been sitting outside in total silence for three hours when the emergency light finally went out, Tsunade came out. Her hair was a mess and she was crying. Any hope they had had was squashed right then.
"W-we got the poison out but…but, the chidori wound." Everyone who had been on the retrieve Sasuke mission had a dark look, "It re-opened…we had to go into surgery and we found… we found…it" she stopped as she finally properly broke down and collapsed on her knees. Jiraiya comforted her and Ino and Hinata who had been behind her all along stepped forward.
"The chidori wound had caught his heart, that and the poison had put too much strain on it, then after making it return to normal beating rate, his body couldn't handle it." Ino's voice had wavered and her tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Even with Kyuubi-sama's help" Hinata added, everyone was silent as they tried to take in the fact that he was dead. The loud mouth orange wearing ninja was…dead.
5 days later
Tsunade had, through a stroke of luck, heard a villager bragging to his friends how he had poisoned the 'demon brat'. The villager was never seen again. Today was the day of Naruto's funeral; it was the day after she had called the village together, stopped all missions for the day, closed all shops and read out to the entire village, through loudspeakers, Naruto's life from his point of view. The sand siblings had even came with a few shinobi and listened. Those few sand Nins that had come had realised how hard Naruto and Gaara's life had been. What shocked everyone though was the fact that the Naruto everyone knew, the stupid, loudmouth, happy-go-lucky boy was a mask. When everyone talked about the mask and that question of why he wore it, it was Gaara that answered.
"You do not understand" all eyes turned to Gaara, "It was not why did he wear it? It was the simple fact that he needed to. If he had not had that mask he would have become like me, killing everyone to prove that you are there. Loneliness, it is the worst kind of torture, and living your life with it, it destroys a person. Do you understand?" everyone knew that the last part was simple mockery to make up for the amount of words he had spoken.
Now a day later it was raining as everyone, dressed in black, headed to the monument for the fallen, the field where team 7 had their first test. Everyone stood silent as Tsunade talked.
"Today we have a funeral for a misunderstood boy, a brave teenager, and one of the best candidates for Hokage. Today I want to say, you are looking at the boy who would have taken the mantle as hokage and kept this village the best village. I want to ask for something that has never been done before; I wish to ask for Naruto's head to be carved into the hokage monument, and for him to be buried as the sixth hokage, legacy of the fourth and holder of the Kyuubi no Kitsune." There was one person in the whole village who disagreed, it was Sakura.
"No, Naruto was never going to be Hokage it was always Sasuke-kun!" everyone turned and glared at the pink haired bitch. Tsunade was about to stab the witch when a katana sliced her in half. There standing in all his glory was Sasuke Uchia.
"Shut up" he said to the halved corpse. ANBU tensed, and Sasuke wiped his katana before putting it away and raising his hands in a peace motion, "I'm here to pay my respects"
"You killed him" Tsunade snarled,
"NO!" Sasuke yelled, his voice wavering as tears spilled down his cheeks, "no, the curse mark, Orochimaru tampered with it to make it a mind controlling mark, please I would never kill Naruto, he was my best friend and I…I…I loved him" Jiraiya stepped forward and stood beside Sasuke, he studied the seal for 2 long seconds before he looked up to Tsunade and said.
"He's telling the truth" Tsunade nodded and carried on with the funeral. As Naruto, the sixth hokage's body was lowered into his grave; Neji said a statement that would live with the Rookie and sand sibs forever.
"He was a trickster till the very end"
And… I cry!
Well was that good? It's my first piece of yaoi and I know it hasn't got much in but this whole story was just something I had in my head. Please tell me if it's good or not, thanx!
