He honestly didn't know what had possessed him that evening when he'd seen the boy out of the corner of his eye. Instead of continuing towards his meeting with Itachi as he should have done, he had paused, turned back, and sat down on the empty swing next to the boy. The defiant smile that had said I'm happy dammit that had been plastered across the boy's face as he played alone in the park long after all of the other children had been called home to dinner was sickeningly familiar. A similar smile had once graced the face of a boy who had died long ago and only continued walking through the hell he was in because of the hope that there was a chance that he could fix everything and make things right.
Guilt coiled tight in his belly as he watched the child but, he pushed it aside out of habit. If he allowed himself to feel guilty over what he had done so far and what he would have to do in the future to destroy this hell and create a world of happiness, he would break long before the objective had been reached.
Soon after he'd seated himself on the swing, the boy who had been swinging with his eyes closed until now had sensed he wasn't alone, and half fearfully, half defiantly turned to face him.
"Who are you?" the boy asked, prepared to run if need be, since apparently, almost nobody over a certain age had approached the boy of their own volition.
That...That was a complicated question, and he had been tempted to run without answering. Despite it being a close call, he found that he could not refuse the child whose life he'd temporarily destroyed however. In the end, he had shown up to his meeting and training session with Itachi two hours late after having answered many questions he had rather not answer, and told a child who reminded him of himself at that age many things he had never told anybody else over the years. The excuse he gave to Itachi over the delay had caused the boy to stop and stare at him as if he'd never seen him before but, despite his fears over Itachi's suspicions about his identity, the boy continued to follow the plan.
Weeks later, after a night of slaughter in which he had helped destroy his traitorous former clan, he had been torn between screaming and sighing when he had caught sight of a blond mop trailing after him as he made his way out of his former village. He should have expected it though. The child was extremely starved for any sort of kindness, and he'd given the boy something that could be perceived as such. Because of this, getting rid of him until the time was right had become fiendishly difficult...
The pain was intense but, Naruto willingly suffered through it. People would wonder why he had been willing to make such a sacrifice for a world that had treated him so cruelly but, it had been because the world had treated him so cruelly that he made the sacrifice. Once the extraction process was finished, the Moon's Eye Plan would be complete and nobody would have to suffer through what he had been forced to endure. Iruka-sensei, Gaara, Kakashi-sensei, all of his precious people would be given a new world where there would be no winners and no losers, and nobody would have to suffer through losses like the ones they had previously lived through.
It wasn't like he wouldn't be rewarded for his part in this. Tobi had told him that he would be brought back into this new world along with everyone else he cared for and who cared for him that he'd lost. So, despite the fact that he would be dying in order to bring the world out of the hell it was in, it wouldn't be permanent.
For now though, he would grit his teeth and endure the pain that heralded the birth of the new world he was helping to create.