Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, just wanted to write a sad fic and this was the best I could come up with.
This story is a deathfic incase you didn't see it in the summary, and it's also a songfic written to the song 'This Time Imperfect' by AFI. That means that the song isn't mine either. Nothing is really, not even the computer I wrote this story on is mine.
Story had been edited again and again, so hopefully I've gotten all the spelling mistakes out. I have also added just a few sentances here and there, just to add more understanding and depth to the story. Plus a disclaimer, cause I forgot to last time, I hope no one noticed.
Look to the bottom to see more info about a sequel to this story.
This Time Imperfect
He feet crunshed against the newly fallen snow, marking he's trail as he lurched through the forest. He's breath came out it short burts of air, tainting the clear air and turning it a pale white, arms pumping forward and backwards, speeding his already spent limbs up. Every now and then he would slow down to miss a tree or rock, but most of the small branches were flicked against his body, as he ran so fast that they couldn't be seen by his eye. He was covered in leaves and twigs that had broken off when they came into contact with his body, some covering or sticking into the cuts along his arms and legs. Snow that had fallen onto him soon melted and drenched his already shivering body. None of this mattered to him though, all he could think about was getting away.
Running was all he could do, and he had learnt to do it well, so why was it so hard now to increase the distance between him and the horrors that constantly chased him.
The nightmares, that had long ago plagued his mind came back, taunting him into submission and then trampling over his broken soul.
The voiceless hands grabbed at his child-like inocence, and he watched as the small boy was ripped, voilated, and mutated beyond reconigtion by the hands.
The faces would swap between laughing and sneering at the boy, the hollow sockets where their eyes should be were highlighted by the red light that surrounded all. The lips curling up to show blooded, pointed teeth, mostly likely used to tear flesh off the bone.
The horrendous visions that ran through his head were soon dispelled as the boy tripped over a fallen tree branch and went crashing to the groud. Some ninja he was, couldn't even see the where he put his feet.
Lying on his stomach, face filled with snow, he tried to calm his racing heart and thoughts into a more stable pace. Once they slowed down a fraction, he slowly rolled his body over to stare at the night sky.
Looking at the sky made him remember Shikamaru, and he quickly closed his eyes to shut out the memory of the boy and everything that came with it.
He had to leave, he couldn't stay in that village any longer. But he knew, that if he left, they could hate him all the more, label him as a traitor and send people to come kill him. It wasn't as simple as that though. While he knew he could not leave he also knew that he could not stay. To do so would drive him insane, which he could not allow to happen, it would give the fox an open invertation to take over his body and destory eveything that surrounded him.
He so despertly wanted to tell some what he was feeling, he had even written letters that now lay in a draw back at his house to Iruka, Kakashi, Sakura and even Sasuke, telling them eveything he felt. He knew exactly what he would say to each of them and how they would respond, back firmly planted into his brain. As he lay there, with his eyes screwed shut, he sliently went overeach of the conversations he would have with them, evey now and then, his lips would move in sync with the words in his head.
His 'loved' ones would be understanding and they wouldn't care about how dirty the boy was, they would only love him unconditionaly.
Going through Sakura's conversation with him, his placid face soon turned into a frown. Soon to be replaced with a scowl when it became Sasake's turn. How could he forget about what had happened today, the reason he was at the forest.
He hadn't meant to make anyone angry with him, he thought they they would be used to his façade by now, and know that he was only trying to help.
When he had gone over to Sakura's house to see if she wanted to have lunch with him, the door was opened by a puffy-eyed Sakura, who took one look at him then slammed the door in his face, hitting his nose with the door. Once he had finished tendering to his sore nose he knocked on the door again, calling out to Sakura in a worried tone.
"Come on Sakura-Chan, open the door, please. Tell me what's wrong." After a few more tries he was about to give up when the door knob slowly turned and a glaring Sakura was revealed.
"You wanna know what's wrong Naruto, then I'll tell you want's wrong. You're not the one who is surpossed to be here, Sasuke his, so he can apologise for what he said to me. Get lost, I don't want to have to deal with the likes of you at the moment. I'm sick of you always hanging around me, you're the sole reason that Sasuke won't go out with me, he even said it himself, 'if your that desperate to date someone, date Naruto, he's always hanging around you,' and he's right I don't want you coming here anymore and making yourself a thorn in my perfect life." Sakura continued to rant on and on about how much she hated him, but his heart could only take so many stabs, before he started to slowly back away from the door, taking a few more steps before doing a 180 and running away from the pretty family home with the yelling Sakura on the front door step.
"THAT'S RIGHT RUN, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT AND NEVER COME WITHIN A 20 METRE RADIUS OF ME AGAIN." Sakura's last comment vibrated throughout his body and his feet slaped through the puddles of slosh that littered the path way.
Once he was a good distance away from the house and could not longer hear the yelling, he stopped to get his breath back and noticed that he was not to far from a shortcut to Sasuke's house. Thinking that if he got Sasuke to apologise to Sakura she would like him again, and that he could also find out what happened between the two of them, he went off in search of Sasuke's house.
Making his way over to his next destination he tried his best to block out the whispered voices of the villagers, who thought he couldn't hear them, from his mind as he passed them, chanting in his head that it wasn't true.
'Look there goes the demon… you think the Hokage would do something about it… Just put the miserable thing down, I say.'
However, with the verbal bashing he had gotten from Sakura earlier, it was very hard to believe his mantra.
No one seemed to care for him.
No one seemed to care at all
Standing at the front of Sasuke's door, he was in the middle of comtemplating if he should knock or just start yelling, when the door was pulled open with such increadable force it created a draft strong enough to pull him a few steps forward and into the chest of the owner of the house.
"What do you want dobe?" Sasuke glared down at him, with much more hate filled eyes then he was used to seeing in the dark, abyss-like eyes of the boy infront of him. He decided to just get it over and done with in true 'Naruto-fashion'.
"What did you do to Sakura-Chan? I went over there to see if she would go to lunch with me to see her crying about you, Sasuke-bastard. So what did you say to her? I know you said something mean and I'm gonna kick your ass for it." He pulled is face into a scowl and stared back at the teen in front of him, hands on both his hips. As they both continued to stare intently, the atmosphere soon became so high that Sasuke did something very unlike himself, he blew up at Naruto.
"Get out of my sight, I don't have to say anything to you and I don't have to say sorry to that nuisance of a team mate, Sakura. This has nothing to do with you, so mind your own fucking buisness, loser. You really are worthless, no wonder no one likes you, you never leave anyone alone. Your not worth my time. Now move." Sasuke attempted to close the door but he stood fast and wouldn't let the door budge.
"What did you say to her?" He gritted his teeth together, almost looking intimidating, if it was someone else he was talking to.
"You really want to know? Fine. I told her that she was an obsticale to me, a useless ninja and where she could stuff her 'love' for me. There you happy now? So go on, run back to your precious little Sakura, and tell her that I'm through with team 7. I no longer want to be on a team with a cry-baby child like her and you, who has even less worth then the dog shit on my shoe." Giving him a shove, Sasuke closed the door on him, and once again his nose was hit by a door. Feeling down in the dumps, he decided that he would go to Iruka sensei's house and beg for some ramen to lift his spirits.
After about five minutes of alternating between knocking on the door and calling out to Iruka in a whiny voice, and getting some terrible looks from the neighbours, the door was opened by Kakashi. Looking pretty pissed off and only wearing a pair of low-ride pants that showed he was wearing no underwear.
"What do you want Naruto?" Kakashi drawled out leaning against the door frame. He pushed past Kakashi, once again calling out Iruka's name, and into the kitchen where he plonked his ass onto a seat and looked around.
"Oi, where's Iruka?" he commented, once he noted that Iruka wasn't in the kitchen where he normally was. Looking over at Kakashi with a confused look, he didn't notice until too late, that Iruka had him by the scruf of the neck and was dragging him towards the door.
"Oi, what are you doing Iruka sensei? Hey, what did I do wrong? Stop, Oi, what…" and for the third time that day, a door was slamed in his face.
"I'm gonna end up with a broken nose," he muttered to himself, looking up at the door with bedazzled look. Iruka had never kicked him out of his house before, and he was so shocked that he sat there for ten minutes before getting up and slowly walking away, covered in the snow that had been falling for the past two hours.
Being thrown out of Iruka's house was almost like Iruka saying that he hated the boy, but the action hit home faster then any words. Kakashi hadn't even tried to stop him and that is what hurt the most as well. No one was willing to stand up for him, even when he hadn't done anything. Deciding that talking to anyone today was a lost cause, his slowly made his way home.
Once he got nearer to his apartment, he started to feel a tingle down his spine, this normally meant that something was wrong, he picked up the pace until he was on his door step.
Slowly pushing the door, that he noticed had been forced open recently, he looked around in horror at his living space. His furniture had been ripped apart, and some were just splinters of wood, hardly recognisable. The sink, bath and shower's taps were all tuned on full blast with the plugs in, and had long since been soaking the carpet and wood. The random plants that he had around his house, had their leaves picked off, which now lay scattered around the room along with the dirt from the pot they were in. His personal belongings, like toothbrush and underwear were all halfway flushed down the toliet, plugging up the drain. His clothes where ripped and painted a red colour, just like the words on the walls.
'MONSTER, UNWANTED, MURDERER, DEMON, FILTH, HOME WRECKER1, BASTARD CHILD, DESTROYER, EVIL, HELL SPAWN.' the words were scrawled around the room, all surrounding the one big message.
'Just die already. You're unwanted here. Crawl back to the hell that spawned you, child of evil.' Collapsing onto the trash-littered floor, he tired to not let the words seep into his brain. A part of him screamed out that the wasn't what he was, while and other part told him to take a good look at those words, because that is exactly what he was. Trying to slavage anything would be a hopless cause.
Stumbling out of his house, not even bothering to close the door; he had nothing worth stealing anyway and they had already trashed the place, he made his way towards the Hokage Tower to ask Tsunade if he could get a new place to stay. With his head lowered to the ground, he would look up every now and then, when he bumped into a person, mutter and apology and continue on.
Finally after what seemed like 5 hours, which was only half and hour and 10 people, later, he found him self staring at the doors that lead to where the Hokage spent her days. Feeling a bit weary because of the size and weight of the doors, he unconsciously rubbed his nose. He slowly gathered his remaining strength and burst through the doors, ready to act like the fool again.
"Tsunade-baba I want a new place to live, cause my old one has been trashed." he was sure that she would give him a new place now. How wrong he was.
"No. Don't overreact brat. It can't been that bad that you have to move, all it needs is a new paint job. Now get lost. I have lots of papers to do." Just looking her you could see the trail of drool running down her mouth, which proved that she had been sleeping, it also didn't help that one of the scrolls edges was stuck to her face, and that she had a pen stuck in her hair.
"But I neeeed a new place, I've got no furniture, like I said, it was all trashed." Hoping that this would work, he crawled up to the desk and started shaking2 it, knocking off all the scrolls and hiting the Hokage's head every now and then.
"No. For the last time No. you don't need a new place. Don't be such a drama queen brat. Now scram, don't make me call the guards in here to drag you away." Tsunade loomed over the 17 year old, glaring down at him and pointing at the door. Giving up he made his way towards the door, muttering about how unfair she was.
Catching the last bit of his muttering, Tsunade picked up a near by stool and threw it at the door, electively closing it on the blondes backside.
It was starting to get dark and soon he would have to find a safe place to sleep. Even if he was a ninja, he knew that it was bad news if he hung out at certain areas after dark3.
Next he went to Shikamaru's to see if he could maybe sleep over for the night but found that the boy was away on a mission. He tried everyone else that could think of but none seemed very willing to let him stay over, that their parents weren't willing, or they weren't in the village at the time.
He had no place left to go, with nothing but the clothes on his back, he started to make his way towards the forest. Getting about 20ft way from the first tree he was stopped by someone calling out his name. Turning around he saw Sakura running towards him.
As soon as she stood face to face with him, she slapped him hard across the face, and spewed forth all her anger on him.
"You asshole. You diry, rotten, fucking, son of a bitch. How dare you do that, how dare you. You do you think you are? God? The friggen bloodly ruler of the universe? I didn't think you would stoop so low, but I was wrong. May you rot in hell. I can't believe you went and confronted Sasuke on my behalf. Did I ask you to? NO I DID NOT. But you went anyway. I wanted him to say he was sorry on his own, not because he was told to." Pausing in her rant, her blood-shoot eyes bore into his own, turning his soul to stone with their hateful gaze. Trying to comfort the poor distraught girl in front of him, he put a hand on her shoulder. This was not the best move, for she violently shook his hand off her shoulder and continued to screech like a banchee at him.
"Don't touch me. You have no right to touch me, I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again. Stay away from me and don't touch me. Can't you understand Japanese4, I know you can't read, but I didn't know you were this retarded. No wonder you don't have any family, they knew you would turn out like this and they left you to die. No one likes you, can't you get that through your head. I still can't believe that you think that you can compare to Sasuke in anyway. You are the lowest of the low, and dumb to boot, even the dodo's had more brains then you." She stopped again to catch her breath, looking down at the ground she didn't see the change in the young man infont of her.
"Are you done?" he's voice came out clam, steady and clear even though his head was lowered.
"Huh?" Sakura was shocked that he would say something so… Sasukeish, normally he would try to deny what she had said and attempt to make it better. She would secretly laugh at his antics, and he would brush off the hurtful words she said and laugh at his own stupidity. Now though, he wasn't playing by the same rules.
"I said are you done abusing me, I need to go." The same toneless voice that he had used before slid out from his mouth. Rasing his head, Sakura could see the normally vibrant sky blue eyes had darkened to a foggy blue, and the lips that were always pulled into a smile had gone slack.
"Uh, yeah I'm done." she was baffled as to where the shining little boy she knew had gone.
"Good." And with that word he walked off, back to the direction that he had been heading to when she had stopped him.
Watching him walk away, she summed up his strange behaviour as nothing more then a hallucination in her head, and went home to cry herself to sleep.
As soon has he put one foot in the forest he ran as fast has he could, and he had been doing that until he had fallen on that branch.
Thinking over today's events he couldn't believe he was so blind as to not see it before. They all hated him, every last one of them. They had all made it quite clear what they thought of him through their words and actions. Their love was fake, just like him. Everything he held dear was all a lie, his real self knew this but his mask of blatant hope had made him forget. No one had ever seen the real him, and slowly the lie had become reality.
But it was a sick, twisted reality.
None of it was real, except for in his own little mind. His love starved mind. No one had ever wanted to see the real him either, they were happy to hate the trouble maker, and a part of him knew it was his own fault for making such a crappy mask to start of with. It was so two dimensional that it was almost like watching a D-grade movie, with him as the newbie actor, who had never acted a day in his life.
It made him pity himself, and that was the last thing he wanted. He hated pity from others, but detested it when it came from himself.
He slowly fading vision could make out the stars in the sky twinkling down at him, he swore he could see the belt of Orion grinning coldly down at him with those other stars around it for eyes5.
Allowing his cold eyelids to close shut, he found himself looking at black, which suited how he felt, empty. Empty of the will to live. No longer did he want to stay on this god forsaken planet with these cruel creatures called humans.
Kyuubi let out a low warning growl, feeling his depressing thoughts seep thoughout his host's body.
'Don't even think about it.' You could almost hear the bared teeth in a warning fashion coming from the large white teeth situated just behind the bars.
'Let me go, please, I can't take it anymore. Just let me go.' His own voice, compared to the kitsune's, was soft, dejected and hollow. Kyuubi faltered in his attempt to keep the boy alive.
'I don't want to go on, is it that hard to let go of life? Haven't you had enough of how they've treated us…you. They only look down on you now, do you really like that dead feeling in your heart? Please just let me go, I… I beg you.' It was a rare, and unexpected, answer that was given.
'Alright. Your free to go.' It was rare for a demon to show another demon a hint of compasion, but it was totally unheard of for one to show it to a human. He was stunned for a few moments before smiling up at the kitsune with unshead tears from the past and gratefulness for what Kyuubi had just allowed him to do.
'Thank you.' It was all that was needed to show the extent how how happy he was to finally be free. The smile that spread across his face, moved something in the pitch black heart of the heartless demon.
Giving his own, although kind of sinister, version of his host's smile, Kyuubi only needed to say the word.
'Go,' and he was gone.
Two days later they found his body covered in snow and half frost bitten. They realised that they had acted to late to save the teenager, and to tell him how they felt. Each was haunted by the last time they saw him and often they would wake up from the haunted memories of that fateful day.
No longer did Tsunade sleep on the job.
No longer did Sakura chase after Sasuke.
No longer did Sauske dream of his clan's murder.
No longer did Kakashi come late to any meeting.
No longer did Iruka smile.
I cannot leave here, I cannot stay
Forever haunted, more then afraid
Asphyxiate on words I would say
I'm drawn to a blackened sky as I turn blue
There are no flowers, no not this time
There'll be no angels gracing the lines
Just these stark words I find
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak
I'd share with you could I only speak
Just how much this hurts me
I cannot stay here, I cannot leave
Just like all I loved, I'm make believe
Imagine heart, I dissappear, seems
No one will appear here and make me real
There are no flowers, no not this time
There'll be no angels gracing the lines
Just these stark words I find
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak
I'd share with you could I only speak
Just how much this hurts me
I'll tell you how it haunts me
I'll tell you how it haunts me
Cuts through my day and sinks into my dreamsI'll tell you how it haunts me
Cuts through my day and sinks into my dreamsYou don't care that it haunts me
There are no flowers, no not this time
There'll be no angels gracing the lines
Just these stark words I find
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak
I'd share with you could I only speak
Just how much this hurts me
Just how much this hurts me
Just how much you…
1 when I say home wrecker I don't mean it in the 'affair' sense. I mean it as lots of family's were broken because of all the people that died while fighting against Kyuubi.
2 In chapter 5, book 2 of 'Fake' Dee shakes the chiefs table when he wants to get the same vacation time as Ryo, and that's what Naruto is doing. I find it really cute.
3 You probably already know that but places like the slums, bars, men's clubs (stripper joints), and so on. Where people get drunk or do drugs. It's a bad place out there.
4 I always picture the anime and manga as the characters speaking Japanese, even though I read/hear it in English. Don't know how many people do that so I thought I should put it in just to be safe, don't want to confuse anyone.
5 Has anypne ever noticed that Oriens belt makes a face with the other stars that surround it? Check itout next time, or if you can't find it/can't be bothered email me and I'll see if I can send a picture of it, otherwise I'll draw it for you. (I wonder if it's a Southern Hemisphere thing?)
It's done. I'm finished and it only took me 3 days. I'm surprised at my self. I never thought that I would finish it, let along get it done that quickly. The song inspired me to write this. One day I was on my bus/train home and I was listening to AFI's CD 'Sing the Sorrow' and their extra song popped up and I thought, 'hey this song really suits a morbid Naruto, what with how the people treat him and all.' So this is it. It was kind of hard to find a story line to go with the song, but I hope I did good, I started it like 5 times or something. I could just never find the right way to tell it. I'm still not quite sure about the last paragraph so if eveyone wants to tell me that part is crap I will take it off, but I like what I wrote about Iruka.
Well here your are, down the bottom, so that means you've read the story right?
As I said before, I've fixed up some of the mistakes that I had bypassed last time and added some more stuff as well.
I have thought about it and it has come to my interest, to write a few sequels on how each of the other characters deal with Naruto's death. At the moment I am switching between Sakura's piece and one of Sasuke's pieces.
Each character, again, has an AFI song that it will be sort of based along.
Here is the list I hope to have by the end of this epic:-
NarutoThis Time Imperfect
SasukeGod Called in Sick Today
SakuraThe Leaving Song
IrukaGirl's Not Grey
KakashiDeath of Seasons
TsunadeThe Leaving Song PtII
SasukeA Winter's Tale
If anyone has a better suggestion for what AFI songs I should use, or a story line I could use to fit the songs to the character, feel free to drop me a line