The Love That Pain Can Bring

Author Note: The story takes place right after Sasuke left the village. Sakura is pissed off that Naruto could not bring him back and thinks of Naruto as worthless. To make it worse, it's THAT time of the month for her so instead of being annoyed and hitting him, her reaction is much, MUCH worse.

Take all of these elements and put them into a situation where Sakura thinks Naruto is stalking her and you got a hell of a birthday greeting. :) This story is rated M for character death, swearing and rape (don't worry, the rape is not detailed much. I just say the person is raped, I barely describe it). I don't know when in the timeline the Sasuke mission actually takes place, but for the purpose of the story, it'll take place a week before this story starts (Naruto's thirteenth birthday).

This is my third attempt at this story. I wrote the first three chapters when I was fourteen, and redid those and wrote chapters 4-17 when I was sixteen. I'm currently nineteen, so I've had this story in my head for a solid 5-6 years. I apologize to those that waited for this story's continuation but I plan to redo this story (most details will stay the same, just more will be added to it and I'll rework wonky dialogue and such). Chapters will be longer as well, while some may be combined, at least 2k words per chapter. I deleted the original story so this redo can be reviewed and viewed as a much more polished version. Anyway, enough talking, on with the show!

Also, Naruto is not my show. I own a few cards, games, and a movie. Besides that merchandise, I don't own Naruto in any way, shape, or form.

This section is a legend for the story that will only appear in this chapter.

"Talking" (quotes = someone talking)

'Thinking' (italicized dialogue with apostrophes = thoughts)

'Quoting' (underlines = someone quoting someone else, or air quotes)

'Kyuubi Thinking' (bolded and italicized = Kyuubi when he's talking to Naruto through thought)

"Demonic Talking" (speech that's bolded = Naruto talking with Kyuubi chakra running through him or when Kyuubi is talking)

The Next Day (bold with no quotation marks or italics = a transition, such as the next day, two hours later, etc.)

Fire Style: Some Attack [1] (I use this when I have an AN at the bottom explaining something, usually a jutsu I made up or a destination)

{Last Chapter} (I always start the next chapter of the story with the last paragraph or so of the previous chapter)

Chapter One: The Final Straw

Today was his birthday, but nobody cared. In fact, all of his friends forgot. All accept one. A certain Hyuga girl...

Naruto walked home after finishing his latest mission. As he walked, he noticed the festival going on. What festival you may ask? The celebration of the death of the Kyuubi of course. The celebration of the day where the famous Fourth Hokage saved all of Konoha by killing the evil Nine-Tailed Fox, at the cost of his own life. This of course was a lie, and every adult knew the truth of the matter. The fox wasn't killed by the Fourth, it couldn't be done. Plan B, sealing the beast into an orphan infant, was what actually happened. Every year, in honor of the day, he was beaten, neglected, stabbed, and hospitalized. This year, however, he was a ninja and there was a law that prevented harming a fellow ninja. Not that it would have stopped them before, but after the Neji fight, people backed off as he proved his strength.

So instead, he got the death glares, the public booing, and even a empty whiskey bottle that was badly thrown by a drunk civilian. All he wanted to do was fall asleep and forget about this whole day, but fate had other plans. When Naruto arrived at his home, it was on fire. The young ninja tried to put out the fire with water from the neighbors' well. This didn't help much as Naruto's house, unfortunately, was burnt pretty bad in the process. The bedroom, which seemed to be the start of the fire, was burnt to ashes, with the neighboring rooms slightly charred. He cursed himself for not leaving any clone to guard his home.

He should have seen this coming.

The blonde sighed sadly. 'At least the rest of the house isn't too badly burnt' he thought, trying to stay on the positive side of things. Naruto, instead of moping around, decided to go shopping for furniture while his clones repaired the house. As he walked to the marketplace, his temper started getting the better of him. It had been rising as the day progressed and Naruto was reminded why he hated his birthday so much.

Naruto was on the verge of a breakdown when he saw Hinata walking up to him. Feelings of anger and depression faded away as he looked at the girl questionably. "Hey Hinata, what's up?" Hinata looked at Naruto, blushed, and held out a box with a little red bow on it. Hinata said "H-here." Naruto took it and asked "What's this for?" Hinata looked at her crush, then quickly to the ground as she stuttered out "I-isn't it y-your birthday? Don't t-tell me you forgot." Naruto opened the gift to reveal a red fox plushy with the name *Naruto* stitched into the stomach.

Now normally, Hinata didn't have the courage to look at Naruto, much less give him a gift. This day was different though. While talking to Kiba in the hospital, she found out about the failed mission to retrieve Sasuke and knew how devastated her crush must have been. Coupled by the fact that she knew how lonely he was on his birthday, and had seen bits and pieces of how cruel the villagers were to him on this day, she worked up enough courage to give it to him. She was actually going to just leave it at the front door of his home before she saw him walking towards her. Seeing his face in such pain, she decided to give the gift directly to him. Anything to help ease whatever was troubling him.

Naruto looked at Hinata while holding back tears, which she mistook as sadness. 'He doesn't like it. Way to go Hinata, why would he like some stupid toy? God, he's gonna hate me...' "Thanks Hinata, that was really nice of you to go to all of that trouble. You're a great friend." This snapped Hinata out of her train of thought. She blushed a crimson shade at the appraisal. Shaking her head, she assured him "It w-was no tr-trouble at all." Seeing how dark it was getting in the village, Hinata knew that she'd have to cut this meeting short. "Listen, I h-have to go h-home. Happy bir-birthday Naruto, s-see ya l-later." Naruto, dense as always, didn't catch on to the reason why she blushed and simply said "Ok, goodbye Hinata. Thanks again."

Naruto put the fox into his pocket and continued to the shop, leaving Hinata standing there. Just that little bit of interaction had her shaking and breathing heavily. She sat down at a nearby bench, letting her heart rate slow to it's normal state. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a stuffed fox plushy, identical to the one she gifted to Naruto. She even had his name stitched into the cute little guy. She was glad that he responded so well to her gift, and almost wished that she didn't have to go home. That she could keep talking to him. But the Hyuuga heir knew that her father would berate her for being out this late. He always made sure to celebrate the 'Kyuubi Festival' at the Hyuuga compound. The only time he ever seemed genuinely happy, in fact. 'Oh well, I probably would have passed out had I kept talking to him.' Hinata looked down at the stuffed animal one last time, a small smile creeping upon her face as she did so.

Our protagonist was still in a gloomy mood when he arrived to his destination, but less after his exchange with Hinata. He liked her. She was nice to him, even when he clearly didn't deserve it.

'If only more people acted like that...'

He entered the shop, looking around for various things to help refurnish his house. He asked the clerk if he had any Queen size beds. Most clerks hate Naruto, but this guy moved to the village three years ago. One day, Naruto saved his life from a thief and since then the guy has been grateful to the boy. The other clerks told him about the 'demon child', but he didn't believe them. He saw the good in Naruto. Jeff the clerk turned to our lovable knucklehead and, seeing he was stressed, responded warmly "Of course we do Naruto. Let me go get it out of the back." While Jeff the clerk went to get the bed, Naruto aimlessly looked around the shop, his eyes catching something pink in a group of blue. It was his teammate Sakura, who was looking at curtains. Now our special pink kunoichi was more irritable than usual because today was her time of the month. Sadly, our emotionally stressed Uzumaki had no clue to this as he approached her. After his failed attempt at rescuing Sasuke, he tried to avoid talking to Sakura, but he knew that at some point he'd have to confront her. Regardless, he would have to get past her to get to the front counter anyway, so better to get it out of the way now.

Sakura stared intensely at the curtains in front of her. They were blue. 'The same blue as he wore...' she thought somberly, as the night of her love's departure played in her mind again. Upon hearing Jeff the clerk walk past her, she snapped out of her trance. Looking around, wondering how long she had been looking at the curtains in front of her, Sakura noticed Naruto slowly walking her way.

He audibly gulped as their eyes met.

The two blue orbs looking at her, unusually glazed over with sadness. But she wasn't thinking about that, nor would she care even if she was. Seeing those eyes, that face... it unreasonably pissed her off. He promised her that he'd get Sasuke back, and he failed. But of course he couldn't beat Sasuke.

After all, he was an annoying idiot. What could he possibly accomplish?

The pink haired teen's anger kept boiling with every step he took towards her. He finally got within normal talking distance and, before he could even say hi, she hit him upside the head. Sakura had two major feelings whenever she was PMSing: anger and paranoia which, as anyone with a brain could tell you, was a dangerous combination. She had felt that something was following her all day but she couldn't find out who it was. In truth, it was just the paranoia, but good luck telling her that. Thinking it had been Naruto this whole time, she yelled out "You need to stop stalking me. I WILL NEVER LIKE YOU!" Naruto was taken aback. "I wasn't stalking you, I was just buying some furniture for my house." Obviously Sakura wasn't buying this as she continued her rant. "LIAR! You told me you could bring back Sasuke, but that was a lie too!" Naruto looked down at the floor in regret and disappointment at himself. Naruto uttered, at barely a whisper "I tried..." Her rage hit a point that she never thought it could reach. How dare he try and make her feel bad for him. "So what? Did you want a trophy for your effort? Am I suppose to pretend that you didn't fail? I'm not gonna be nice just because it's your fucking birthday!" Each word, every syllable leaving her mouth filled her with some sick pleasure. This had been a long time coming.

"I HATE YOU!"

Naruto stood there in shock. Sakura wasn't a saint, but she had never been so vicious in her words. This was due to Sasuke departure. Her only shred left on humanity was Naruto's promise of bringing the Uchiha back and since that didn't happen, she became volatile with those around her. Naruto ran out of the shop with tears in his eyes. Cue in our awesome clerk, who kicked Sakura out and banned her for life. As Naruto walked home, he felt a spike of chakra in the direction of his house. His clones had finished rebuilding about half an hour ago so he had no idea what was waiting for him.

He ran home only to find five men standing near the entrance of his slightly burnt house. One quick look at them and he knew they were foreign ninja. One in particular he recognized as an S-rank ninja in the bingo book. He remembered trying to memorize all of the S-rank ninja when he first became a Genin, as he wanted to beat them all someday to prove himself. The teen quickly hid in a nearby bush, only to find that the ninja were gone. There was something he read about the one that was standing in the middle. It was unique to the other descriptions of S-rank ninja in the book. 'I know that he did something that was really bad, but what was it? It wasn't for killing or stealing...' Then he remembered why. His eyes grew wide and he said in fear "Oh no." He was...

AN: And that is the power of a cliffhanger. Review and tell me if I hit a homerun or struck out.

FoxFang7 out.