Unleashed Insanity

Chapter 1: Breaking point

Naruto - Four months old

A few months had passed after the Kyuubi had attacked the great shinobi village of Konoha, and a baby lay deathly silent in its crib. It was hungry as its rumbling stomach would attest to but still it did not cry out. The child was freezing a slight blue tint to its lips and its skin, but still it made not a sound. The child was not dead though, that was certain by the shining blue eyes that gazed up at the passing nurse. He had learned that urge to cry brought people, and those people would not feed him. All they brought him was pain.

As the nurse passed by the child lifted his arms towards her in a weak attempt to be fed but she walked by, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the helpless child. This was a common occurrence and the child simply registered it would have to wait longer to be fed. It continued to wait for several more days.

Naruto - Eleven months

The child was nearing his first birthday, an occasion that many celebrated. The child had learned to walk quickly as he had found crawling left him open to being kicked out of the way. He had been a quick study in escaping and pain had been his teacher. He was now using its knowledge of how to walk in an attempt to hide as the orphanage workers grew more angry, and often, more violent towards him. It wasn't long before the other kids had learned picking on him was rewarded and praised.

It wasn't long after that he learned to avoid everyone he could. People brought pain, but when he was hiding he was safe.

"Here he is!" The child started to tremble. He hadn't hid well enough today...

Naruto - Year and a half

The boy was currently playing with a ball he would bounce against the wall. He was alone, so he felt safe enough to play and smile. That changed quickly as he heard the voices of some of the other kids getting closer. Abandoning the ball, he jumped to his feet and began running. Running was faster, faster to find a place to hide, faster to be safe. Almost stumbling by a storage closet, he made a gamble and stretched on his toes to open the door, quickly moving inside to the very back.

Was he safe? Would the voices find him? He hugged his knees as he waited, the voices drawing near before stopping outside of his door. Hearing the bounce of a ball, he realized he had made a mistake. They were looking now, and when they looked, it meant they found. Trembling as the voices didn't move he started crying silently. Please... Go away...

The door opened and Naruto immediately identified the four boys, and the worker standing behind them. The worker was one that never actually beat him, so he wouldn't be hurt too badly, but he was more than happy to turn a blind eye. Such as when the boys stepped inside and began advancing on the cowering boy. A closed door does wonders for soundproofing apparently.

"Please... Don't..." The boy feebly begged his soon to be attackers but they ignored his words. They hadn't been the first, nor where they the last.

Laying on the ground, blood flowing from his split lip and bruises already forming on his arms where he had protected his face, he noticed that the boys were smiling. He lay crumpled and bleeding on the ground, but still he saw their happy faces. His pain made them happy.

Would theirs make him happy?

Naruto - Three years old

He was getting better at hiding. Nobody had found him on his birthday this time. As the boy gingerly set down a cupcake he had stolen from the festival he pulled out a small candle he had also stolen that day. One of many he had seen in a drawer along with a box of matches. Taking one out, he attempted to light the match, only succeeding in burning himself on the first few attempts. Finally with one of the last few matches left in the box he got the candle lit.

"Happy Birthday..." How did the song go? He had heard the other kids sing it... But usually he was chased away before he heard the whole thing. "Happy Birthday to me." Simply forgetting the song he blew out the candle and he made his wish.

Please don't let them hurt me.

Kami had other plans as Naruto heard the familiar words that made his blood run cold. "Here he is!"

Naruto - A month after turning Five

The boy had grown from a scrawny baby, to a malnourished toddler, to a starving renter. He had been kicked out of the orphanage at five but for some reason the Hokage himself had soon found the boy and offered him his own apartment and a little money to buy groceries. It wasn't much but Naruto finally had a place he wasn't scared to stay in. It had cost most of the money the Hokage gave him as an allowance but Naruto had been ecstatic to finally have somewhere that was his own.

"I'm telling you, he lives in here!" Naruto froze as he stepped out of his bedroom. He had somewhere that was his... The door being kicked in and a number of people rushing in made it clear that there were other costs as well to having his own apartment.

One such cost being his introduction to torture. Once everyone else had gone a lone man moved from the bedroom to the curled up ball that was Naruto. "So you're still fine huh monster?" Monster? What I ever done to be a monster? All you people ever do is hurt me! You're monsters!

Taking out a kitchen knife the man introduced Naruto first hand to the sensation of skinning.

It took three days in the hospital for Naruto to finally wake up.

Naruto - Almost Six years old

Naruto was finally being aloud out of the hospital once again. Another beating he couldn't feel had left him with stab wounds, a variety of blunt force trauma injuries, a concussion and a new set of broken bones. Starting his way back to the apartment he knew had been broken into to see how much it would cost to replace his furniture, he smelled something amazing coming from a small shop with only a curtain for a door and a few chairs to sit at a counter to be served. Deciding to take a chance Naruto walked inside and was introduced to Ichiraku Ramen.

He soon overwhelmingly bought his meals from there as he was not cheated, poisoned, beaten, attacked, or abused. Quickly Teuchi and Ayame gave him the title of number one customer and Naru-kun respectively.

They even went so far as on his birthday to take him six bowls of ramen. It truly was Naruto's best birthday ever.

A few months later

It was a crisp morning when Naruto walked out of his apartment towards his now favorite food place, Ichiraku Ramen. Teuchi and Ayame had made it abundantly clear that he was always welcome and that he was a pleasure to have. He wasn't sure why they so kind to him but it was something special to him. Every other shop had cheated or slighted him in some way yet a simple home run stand seemed so accepting of him. It was a place he felt he could truly be happy inside of.

Jogging towards the stand he made it in record time jumping onto a seat ordering two of his usual loaded ramen bowls before he had even finished sitting. Ayame giggled at his antics but relayed the message to her father who started up on Naruto's special. "So Naru-kun, how are you? Having fun running around and playing?"

"Ya the playground is pretty fun, I like the swing." No one else needs to play for a swing to be fun... Smiling brightly Naruto exclaimed, "But I like here even better! You have ramen!" Enthusiastically digging into the ramen he expertly changed the subject and continued to dig into the ramen. He was even going to order another bowl when two civilians walked into the shop and spotted Naruto getting up to leave.

"You serve HIM? What kind of establishment is this?" One of the men angrily added to his friends comment. "This is an insult you would allow something like IT in here!" Naruto made to move past them to keep Teuchi and Ayame from losing business but was stunned into stopping when Teuchi spoke.

"You're right... It is an insult." Naruto's eyes blurred with tears as one of only three people that had ever showed him an ounce of kindness insulted him. Then his eyes went wide with amazement. "You two, get the hell out. I don't serve rude fools. Naruto, two free bowls for putting up with them, come and sit." Turning around he saw shock in the two civilians faces and a happy grin and a devious smirk from Ayame and Teuchi.

"You... You can't treat us like this! We are COUNCIL members! How DARE you speak to us like that!" One of the men made to move forward before Teuchi's next words stunned them even more than the first had.

"I don't care who you are. Insult my number one customer and you can get the hell out of my shop. I don't have time for your stupidity. Naruto, would you like pork or chicken?" His angry glare turned into a kind smile the second his eyes fell on Naruto and the boy couldn't help but start crying in happiness.

"One of each please Teuchi-jiji." Wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his t-shirt he saw that the council members had left slack-jawed and stunned the ramen chef had been so disrespectful to them.

"Coming right up. Ayame get Naruto some water, it looks like he would like a cup." Smiling gently at the boy, he reached out and ruffled the boys hair before heading into the kitchen.

Naruto had trouble wiping the grin off his face the rest of the day.

As Naruto started spending all of his free time inside the small shop more and more civilians were alienated in the same way the council members were. Anyone that insulted Naruto in the shop, regardless of whether he was there was told to leave and not return until they had learned etiquette. Instead of losing business though, word got around that the Hokage himself favored the little ramen stand above every other restaurant in Konoha and it quickly developed into a shinobi eatery specifically open late with even mission boxes for shinobi that had to leave with little to no time to step and get food.

Naruto couldn't believe Ayame and Teuchi had gone to all the trouble of defending him but it made a special impression on him. There were now three people he truly cared about. Ayame, Teuchi-jiji, and Hokage-jiji.

Naruto's Seventh Birthday - Night of the Kyuubi Slaying Festival

"...Aaaaaaand haaaaaaapppy biiiiiiiiiiiiiirthdaaaaaaaay toooooo yooouuuuu!" Ayame and Teuchi had seven bowls of the Uzamaki Birthday Special ramen in front of them and a giddily happy and crying boy. Naruto couldn't stop crying in happiness at the bowls in front of him. They had been made by mixing all of his favorite ingredients from each ramen bowl into one massive combination each with a sparkler lit on the counter behind them instead of candles.

His sixth birthday had been special just from the gift of the ramen but this time they had not only convinced him to come to the stand, they had emptied it out to throw up banners that proudly proclaimed, "Naruto! Our 1# Customer and Birthday Boy!" The entire shop was decorated for his birthday. He had broken down the second he had seen all the colors, hugging the two people responsible for such a fantastic surprise.

Through the song he had barely held his composure as it was the first time someone had sung it to him instead of singing it alone hidden somewhere around the village. His last birthday had been the best one he had ever had, but this one easily topped it. Nothing could change this day for the child...

Nothing tends to be a very limited idea...

"Hey, I think the brat is in there!" Naruto's blood ran cold as he identified the voices of sober men. Sober and very angry men. "Ya I see him! He's in that damn ramen shop. The one that thinks it's too GOOD to sell to us civilians. The one's that sided with IT instead of us HUMANS!" That last word brought a question to Naruto's mind. It...? Am... am I... Am I NOT a human? But then, what am I?

"Naruto, ignore them. I'll go get rid of them, so finish the rest of your ramen." Teuchi gave the boy a kind smile, one that eased all of his fears. Teuchi then proceeded out into the street that had gathered a small number of angry civilians leaving Naruto to his fifth bowl. He had just managed to finish the sixth when the voices got heated and he heard the dull thud of something hard hitting flesh, followed by the heavier thud of a body hitting the ground. Naruto was out of the shop at the sound of the hit in time to see Teuchi go down in a pile at the feet of what looked like the leader of the now sizable group of civilians.

No... Teuchi-jiji? There was blood coming from his ear. Blood means... They hurt him. He might be... is he dead? The thought filled Naruto with more dread than he thought was possible. Running under the legs of the crowd before they could start kicking the downed man, Naruto was cradling his head. "Teuchi-jiji, wake up... Please wake up... Don't be hurt, please be okay. Please be okay, please be okay, please, please, please..." It became a chant that was faster and more frantic by the second as Teuchi didn't even so much as give a deep breath.

"Look what we got here, the brat himself worried his meat shield went down so quick!" Something came down hard on Naruto's back, something blunt and made of metal. The pain stopped Naruto from hyperventilating by driving the breath from him. He felt someone grab him by his throat and threw him off Teuchi, were he began to be kicked, punched, and hit with whatever the villagers had in their possession from bottles to lumber, and even pipes. Naruto didn't care though. He had long since stopped being able to feel the villagers attempts to harm him, in fact even their torture had stopped holding the same pain they thought would satisfy them.

Teuchi-jiji is... dead. That one thought echoed in Naruto's head as he felt the pressure from the blows but he was numb to the world as his mind tried to shut down. He's... Dead. It echoed and with each echo, Naruto's mind struggled to shut his sanity away. It stopped it's struggle when he heard the scream of a lone girl's voice. "Stop! Leave Naru-kun ALONE!" The blows paused for a moment, and Naruto felt two weak arms wrap around him and tears falling onto his face. His eyes were too unfocused to really identify Ayame over him but he knew here voice.

"Ayame... Go... Please..." She has to stay safe. She needs to leave, she needs to go, she... His eyes finally focusing revealed why the beating had stopped so suddenly. Tears were falling from her eyes, but so was blood. Following the trail of red, Naruto saw there was a knife in her neck. A knife she had taken to keep it from killing Naruto. She's... Her arms grew even weaker and her eyes grew cloudy. She's... She was no longer holding herself up, she was falling to the side of Naruto, her eyes unseeing. She's... With a small thud as she hit the ground beside Naruto, a pool of blood was quickly forming a halo of red around her head.

She's dead. It was like a switch had been thrown in Naruto's mind as he stared at her the blood slowing as she became more pale. Everyone stared in open shock, the demon was the one that was supposed to be lying dead, not an innocent twelve year old girl. But for Naruto the switch had been flipped... or more like a floodgate had been opened.

They call me a monster... Monsters kill. Monsters hurt... Monsters take precious people... They call me a monster... I'm not human. They call ME monster... I see monsters... I want to hurt the monsters... I want to kill the monsters... Monsters take precious people... Monsters took my precious people. Reaching down, Naruto gently laid his hand on Ayame's cheek but he did not cry. He was on his knees beside his now deceased friend, his deceased family, but still he didn't cry. "Who?" It was a simple question, one that snapped the civilians back to the boy.

"I did it! And next it's your..." The boy had rested a hand on her cheek not to comfort herself. The dagger was closer that way. The man who had been speaking found that Naruto had suddenly moved to his chest, slitting his throat. In the blink of an eye, the boy had moved and everyone saw something that brought fear into their hearts. Instead of the blue eyes the child was renowned for, eyes as red as blood with an abyss slit through them were glaring out at them.

"Who hit Teuchi?" It was not a question anymore. It was a death sentence for the one outed. The guilty man turned to run and once again the boy blinked out of existence to the terrified villagers. Their fears were answered as they heard the man hit the floor, wet gasps escaping his lips as he tried to form words through his severed windpipe.

"Who's next?" Suddenly the group thought that it wasn't a good idea to be there anymore. They ran. Naruto ran faster.

Hokage Chambers - Seventh Annual Kyuubi Slaying Festival

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the man known as the Professor sat at his desk facing the most formidable foe he had ever faced and let out a deep sigh. It was always such a one sided battle but somehow he managed to come out on top, if just barely. Gazing at the paperwork stacked high upon his desk, the Third Hokage uttered yet another sigh. Please give me something to get away from this damnable paperwork! He had been asking in a silent prayer as more of a joke, so he was completely and utterly surprised when one of the ANBU that were usually assigned to guard Naruto on this specific night burst into his office.

"Hokage-sama... He's lost it." With that the ANBU righted himself attempting to relay the situation as fast as possible. "Naruto Uzamaki is killing..." The ANBU hadn't even managed to finish a portion of his second sentence before the older man had shushined away.

Naruto, what's happened? How? God help us all if 'IT' got loose... Turning to look around the apartment Naruto rented, he saw no boy, and no bodies so he went to the only other logical choice. Appearing before Ichiraku Ramen, Sarutobi was greeted with a gruesome spectacle. More then a half dozen bodies were littered about the ground their throat's slit or various lethal stab wounds in them. But what was utterly terrifying was Naruto was in the center covered in blood from head to toe, a knife layered in blood beside him as he stroked the hair of a dead Ayame whose head was sitting on his lap.

"Naruto?" The Hokage was almost afraid to stir the boy, afraid he actually was the one responsible for the slaughter.

"Hi Jiji. Shhhh, you'll wake up Ayame-chan. She's sleeping..." The tears that stained his face as he stared at the Hokage with dead eyes disturbed the older shinobi. He had seen men that had faced war had eye more alive than what he saw in Naruto. His blue eyes had lost their shine, and instead were glazed over and hazy.

"Naruto, you... You should let Ayame-chan rest... Come over here and you can have a hug." The Hokage was shocked to see that Naruto gently complied moving her head from his lap before walking up to the Hokage, his eyes not losing the slightest trace of wrongness that the Hokage could see. Embracing the boy when he stood before him, his Hokage robes slowly turned red but Sarutobi was beyond caring. Naruto felt dead in his arms and hardly reacted at all to the embrace.

Dear god Naruto... What happened to you?

"I got rid of the monsters Jiji. I got rid of so many monsters today." Stiffening at the happiness the boy was suddenly exuding he moved Naruto to arms length and was shocked at the sudden... Life... that had seemed to come to the boy. It was as if he was back to who he was before... Whatever this was... "Are you proud of me Jiji?"

"Naruto... What did you do to get rid of the... the monsters?" He was afraid to admit he already had his assumptions but he prayed they were wrong. Kami was not answering prayers this night though.

"I killed them Jiji. They hurt Teuchi-jiji, then Ayame-chan went to sleep. Then I killed them. The other monsters are gone now. I'm the only monster left. Aren't you happy? I'm the last monster!" Instead of the usual laugh the Hokage had heard from the boy and grown to enjoy, an insane cackle began before the boy cut off and looked back at Ayame on the floor. Putting his finger up to his lips he let out a low shhhh, before erupting into more insane giggles, ones that didn't stop as he was once again in the tight embrace of the Hokage.

The Professor was not a weak man, but on this night all who saw him could see the tears he shed.

AN: Alright I feel kinda guilty for doing this to anyone eagerly waiting for an update to The Snake's Charm and the Fox's Tale, but I've been trying to write ahead for a bit so I can make more regular updates, and figure out some plot points. This is not replacing my other story it's just one I've been kicking around for so long I couldn't keep from writing bits and pieces until eventually... Had a whole chapter going. My other story is not ended or on Hiatus, I'm just very slow, so I need to apologize for that. This story will come together as a side project as I write Fox's Tale, so hopefully, the update schedule will be that one several times more often than this one.