AN: Hello! This is Caroline and this is my first (soon to be) multichapter fic. This first chapter doesn't really qualify as a chapter, but rather a prologue. I took the idea and a few finer details that'll be added later from tumblr user jam-art and another tumblr user sasukeapologist (he changed his url but i think his blog is password protected, so idk what to do about that, but if you want to contact him I was able to through tumblr user blackstar) Anyways plase leave a like and comment if you wan't me to continue this story!

Gone.

He was really gone and he wasn't coming back.

He had wanted to leave.

Why had he left? Why was everybody always leaving him?

(Why didn't he kill me?)

He knew why he hadn't of course. (He had cared about me enough to not kill me. Despite everything… despite all the things we've done to each other he still cared about me enough that he couldn't kill me.) Even when he was like that. Wasn't it supposed to be impossible to get him out of that form without some insane sealing jutsu?

Yet here he was.

Alive.

(And lonely) A voice in his head said.

Right. Alive and lonely again.

He didn't know if he should laugh at the cruelty of the world or cry.

-oOo-

Free.

He was finally free! (Free from what? What was stopping me before?) Free to go wherever he wanted. Wherever he wanted other than back. Back to his so called home, back to him.

He sighed. Him. The only one who hadn't been his friend due to some prophecy or his family's fame. The only one who seemed to maybe understand even a semblance of the pain his life had been.

But he couldn't go back. Even if he wanted to he could never go back there. (Never. Never never never.) Not to a place that had worked so hard to ruin his life, not back to a place that had only seeked to use him.

Not back to him because now he was sure he'd only ever spoken to him out of courtesy and the only reason he'd tried to get him to come back was because of his quest to gain the approval of the village. All that "friend" shit had been a lie to trick him into returning. He was sure of it. (Absolutely, completely, sure of it.)

He was sure he hadn't made a mistake and he was not going back. The only question was where was he supposed to go now?

(Somewhere Sasuke won't find me, won't change my mind, won't bring me back.)

And with that thought fresh in his mind, Naruto began (When had he stopped?) to run again, towards a world he knew nothing about.