I don't own Naruto, nor do I own 'Concrete Angel' by Ms. Mcbride.
Concrete Angel
Four years after Kyuubi…
The child ran. It was all the four year old could do against the adults who wanted nothing more than to hurt him, for what, he didn't know. He ran harder than any four year old should be able to and finally managed to lose his pursuers down a dark, dank alley by hiding behind a pile of soggy cardboard boxes. The golden haired child curled his knees to meet his chest and gripped his elbows, tears running down his tiny whiskered face.
"Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me…"
He walks to school with a lunch he packed
Nobody knows what he's holdin' back
Wearing the same clothes as yesterday
He hides the bruises with a smile on his face
Oh oh.
Ten years after Kyuubi…
"Damn demon."
"He shouldn't be allowed here! The Sandaime should have killed him."
Naruto tried to ignore the hurtful words, but he could still hear them all too clearly. He didn't see the worried gaze of a boy with a long black braid as the small child swung alone on the playground behind the academy. The gaze became even more concerned when a tear, glowing softly in the sunshine, slid down the lonely boy's face to splash unnoticed to the ground.
The teacher wonders, but he doesn't ask
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes he wishes he was never born
Umino Iruka didn't like the Kyuubi child. He had never even thought about the child before he was placed in the chuunin's class. The boy was always disheveled and dirty, as though he didn't know how to take a proper bath, and he was the dumbest student Iruka had ever had to teach. The chuunin picked on the student though, his own form of punishment for what he thought the boy was, and allowed bullying to occur; turning away when the other students began taunting the boy about this or that. Until one day, all that changed.
Naruto was late for class and Iruka was becoming increasingly angry at the boy for it, so when Naruto finally showed up the teacher was not in the mood to be forgiving. He yelled at the child, terrible things that if he had thought about it would have appalled the teacher. The other students were shocked at the cruelty of the words, but no one said a word. Naruto, however…Naruto just smiled and apologized for his tardiness, though he gave no excuse and quietly walked to his seat, shocking the teacher, who finally looked at his youngest student. He finally noticed the tears in the boy's overly bright clothing, the blood staining it and the cuts and bruises that peeked out from the multitude of tears. He noticed the darkening bruise around the boy's eye and the handprint on his throat. He noticed, but he decided that it really wasn't any of his concern and left it be.
It was a decision that he would regret.
Through the wind and the rain
He stands hard as a stone
In a world that he can't rise above
But his dreams give her wings
And he'll fly to a place where he's loved
Concrete Angel
The blonde boy shuffled home after another hellish day of school, trying not to wince as his clothing brushes against his skin and the taunting words of his fellow villagers sting his ears. He passed the park where he knew his classmates congregated after school and walks through it, stopping beside a tree and slumping at its roots.
"Hey Ino, isn't that the boy that my mom told me to stay away from"
"Yeah, my mom told me the same thing."
"You guys too? Wow, I wonder what he did? What do you think Shika?"
"It's too troublesome to think about, let's get away from him though. My mother is way too troublesome when she thinks he's near."
Naruto held back a small sob at the words of his classmates, knowing that there was no chance for friendship.
"What is wrong Naruto-kun?"
Naruto looked up to see the Old Man standing in front of him with a gentle smile.
"Nothing Ji-san. Nothing at all."
The Old Man didn't believe the child because of the tears he'd seen shed, but decided to let it go.
"Would you care to accompany me back to the office? I have something to show you."
Naruto nodded slightly and followed the Old Man back to the Hokage tower, not seeing yet another pair of concerned eyes, this one wide and pale lavender, looking on after him.
Oh Naruto-kun. Why are you so sad?
Eleven years after Kyuubi…
It was the final year of the Academy for Iruka's class and he was proud of all of them. Except one. The teacher looked at the blonde boy, sleeping on his desk, with an exasperated look. His dislike of the child had faded, but he still didn't like the boy and now ignored him to the best of his ability, trying to forget that he even existed. To Naruto, this was even worse than being hated. He would rather be hated than ignored. The boy, feigning sleep, thought back to that day one year before, when the Hokage had taken him to his office with something to show him.
Flashback
The Hokage smiled as Naruto looked around the medical wing of the tower in wonder. The boy had never been allowed in the hospital, no matter how severe his wounds, and so had never seen anything like this. The Old Man led him into a totally white room, the only bit of color being a smudge of dark blue in the bed across the room from the door. Naruto's curiosity was getting the better of him, so he crept closer, after looking for permission for the Old Man and receiving it, and stopped just short of the bed. There was a woman lying in the bed looking sicker than anyone Naruto had ever seen before. She was as pale as the sheets surrounding her, her hair long and allowed to flow down the pillow to pool at its base on the bed. Her breathing was even, her eyes closed in what looked like a peaceful sleep. The blonde child thought that she was beautiful.
"Who is she Ji-san?"
The Old Man sidled up beside the boy he thought of as a grandson and placed a hand on his shoulder, doing his best to ignore the instinctive flinch.
"Her name is Hyuuga Hitomi. She is the wife of Hyuuga Hiashi and your classmate Hinata's mother."
"What happened to her? Why is she here?"
The Old Man sighed and shook his head.
"When she gave birth to Hinata's younger sister Hanabi her body was greatly weakened. She fell into a coma and after the attempted kidnapping of Hinata four years later… Hiashi decided that it was more secure here and thus, asked for permission for her to remain here. I approved."
"Why are you showing me this Old Man?"
The Old Man sighed.
"Naruto-kun, I know that sometimes it is hard to keep going through the cruelties that life throws at you. I know that not having many to support you is difficult, but…there is nothing wrong with Hitomi anymore Naruto-kun. She remains asleep because she does not want to wake…and that is selfish of her. Remember Naruto-kun, that no matter how nice the darkness may seem, there will always be someone to miss you in the light."
End Flashback
That had been the day that Naruto had decided that he wouldn't give up, no matter what. He would never fall into that darkness so selfishly and leave those who cared wondering and hoping.
"Naruto! Are you listening?!"
He raised his head and nodded, but he answered the following question incorrectly, which prompted his classmates to laugh at him. Again.
Jjjjjjjjj
The day ended on a similar note, the exam given just after the lecture had been terribly hard for the blond, not knowing that his version was much more advanced than that of his classmates, and thus, he had failed another test. He was running home, ready to hide for the rest of the night since it was his birthday again and he didn't want to be caught unawares by the villagers. He just barely made it home, taking back alleys and rooftops so as not to be caught and beaten again like he was the year before and resigned himself to listening to the festival from his shabby apartment alone.
He wasn't that lucky this year.
The only warning he got was his front door being smashed and the sight of his silver haired academy sensei doing handseals before the world darkened and all he knew was pain.
Somebody cries in the middle of the night
The neighbors hear, but they turn out the light
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate
When morning comes, it'll be too late.
That night, many of the residents of Konoha celebrated. The academy students laughed and played games while their parents watched proudly, all of them forgetting the existence of one child who should have been celebrating the day of his birth and who instead was slowly being beaten to death. The tenants in the rat hole where the boy lived, the ones who skipped the festival, ignored the cries of pain and anguish coming from apartment 9c. Some turned up their televisions while others merely tuned out, striving to sooth their panging hearts with the thought that the boy was getting what he deserved for being a demon.
In apartment 9c a child cried out for help, but no one would ever come.
By the next morning when the revelers had all stumbled home and the children were sleeping off sweets and laughter, Uzumaki Naruto would lie on the stained floor of his apartment, the blood slowly trickling from wounds too old to bleed freely, his body broken in more ways than one; his soul slowly retreating from the pain of the world of the light.
Through the wind and the rain
He stands hard as a stone
In a world that he can't rise above
But his dreams give him wings
And he flies to a place where he's loved
Concrete angel
It was nearly noon when Hyuuga Hinata and the Hokage found Naruto.
She had asked the Hokage where Naruto lived so that she might wish him a happy birthday and the Old Man had been only too happy to tell the kind Hyuuga and accompany her to the shabby apartment. The sight they found was appalling and nearly made Hinata ill. The door was little more than splinters hanging on broken hinges and there was blood covering every wall that they could see. However, the worst was when they found the boy himself. He was lying on the floor of the main part of the apartment and it was obvious that he was hanging on by a fraying thread. Both his legs were broken, the bones poking out of the skin and moving ever so slightly with the pumping of the heart. His arms were pinned by a kunai through their centers over his head so that he couldn't move and his eyes had been cruelly slashed, making them ooze and bleed, useless. His ribs were exposed to the open air, his shirt and the skin of his chest little more than a memory and his hips were obviously in the wrong place. The Sandaime was horrified at the fact that the child still clung to life, rasping breaths being the only thing audible in the wrecked apartment.
"ANBU!!"
A statue stands in a shaded place
An angel smiling with an upturned face
His name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot
The Hokage wept bitterly as the casket was lowered into the ground, the inhabitant far too young to have died so needlessly. He was only one of four people who attended the funeral, the other two being his son Asuma and the young Hyuuga Hinata, a branch member hanging back near the cemetery's entrance. The fourth was a strange boy by the name of Rock Lee, who had told the Hokage of his worry for the young blond when he'd been able to see him at school. The doctors at the hospital hadn't tried exceedingly hard to save the child and he had slipped into a coma. Only three hours later the child, who had sacrificed everything for an ungrateful village, passed away quietly, alone in the night. No one would know that the moment he died the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the healing fox of the spirit realm, had departed the dying body, mourning for the container that she could not help. It wouldn't be known for years, until the nine were released by the folly of the Akatsuki and Konoha discovered that they had killed a healer that could have saved people who had just barely crossed the brink of death; that they had killed the only child of their beloved Yondaime.
Through the wind and the rain
He stands hard as a stone
In a world that he can't rise above
But his dreams give him wings
And he flies to a place where he's loved
Concrete angel.
Naruto felt himself leave his broken body behind, his broken soul crying out as he did so. He mourned the fact that he could not say goodbye to his Ji-san, but he figured that he'd see the Old Man soon enough and smiled softly as the light warmed and healed his soul.
"Naru-chan? Is that you my Naru-chan?"
He looked up and his smile widened at the sight of the beautiful red haired woman waiting for him with her arms wide open, a very familiar smile on her face and a man he would recognize in his sleep standing beside her, a proud smile on his own face.
"Kaa-san! Tou-san!"