Dull blue eyes stared out the dirty pane of glass, down at the busy streets of Konoha. He wondered how everyone could continue with their lives when there were people around them, that were hurting, desperate with no way out. Of course, most people would say that Naruto's current situation wasn't that bad, in fact most would say that he just needed to suck it up because there were people who were worse off then he was. Naruto knew there were probably people who thought that he didn't deserve to be feeling the way he did, like he wasn't human and didn't have feelings. Naruto never said anything, he tended to ignore anyone, because most people didn't want anything to do with the son of the most notorious serial killer that Konoha had ever seen. No one cared that after his father's arrest, Naruto was placed into the foster care system, but no one kept him long because no one wanted Naruto to rub off on their family. It was almost like they thought that just because his father had been a murderer that they expected Naruto to be one as well. Naruto moved a lot until he got stuck with a family that for all appearances seemed like they were nice and loving. Soon they proved to be worse than any other family that Naruto had been placed with. The father was a closet drunk and liked to beat Naruto until he was unconscious, sometimes, he even forced drugs into Naruto's veins while he was unconscious, forcing the boy to grow addicted and he didn't understand why. Naruto tried to tell the social workers when they came for their monthly visit that he was getting beaten but once again because he was the son of a killer they didn't care. After that worker had left, Naruto had gotten the worst beating of his life, in fact, Naruto nearly died of a drug overdose because the man had purposely given him too much while he had been unconscious. After Naruto had been released back into Orochimaru's custody, Naruto ran away, which is how he came to be living in the park in the middle of the city. Eventually though, his living spot had been discovered and the police forced Naruto to go somewhere else, which is how Naruto ended up in the abandoned factory. Naruto didn't think anyone would bother to come find him here. Not that anyone would want to know where he was anyways, no one cared about him.
During the winter, Naruto struggled with his hunger, as he started rapidly losing weight from not having enough to eat, he was also struggling with withdrawals, needing the drugs that Orochimaru had forced into his veins. As Naruto sat out on the streets, an empty can sitting beside him. He couldn't stop the trembling that was working its way through his body, he was both hungry and nauseous at the same time, and he couldn't help but wonder if the people of Konoha would really allow him to starve to death because of what his father had done. Didn't anyone understand that just because he had his father's blood running through his veins, it didn't make them the same person.
Tears filled Naruto's eyes as he felt someone kick him roughly in his ribs, he hated his existence at that moment, he hated the loneliness he felt, while watching families walking past him, always walking a little faster when it came to passing him.
By the end of the day, Naruto's can remained empty, the heartless citizens of Konoha, not caring that they were slowly causing one of their own to starve to death, in fact most wished he would die already. They didn't want anymore of his "kind" around them anymore.
That night, Naruto made his way back to the the abandoned factory, refusing to meet the dark eyes of the dark haired boy whom he passed on the sidewalk.
"Naruto?" he heard someone ask quietly, Naruto raised his head at the mention of his name. No one even called him by his name, so it was strange when someone spoke it where he could hear.
"It is you" the dark haired boy said scowling at Naruto's appearance. Sasuke had been in Naruto's class for years, until Naruto had been placed into the foster care system. While the two boys hadn't exactly gotten along, Sasuke was one of the rare people that didn't care about what Naruto's father had done. Sasuke didn't like Naruto because Naruto was loud and annoying. But seeing Naruto now, seeing the condition his rival was in, made Sasuke wonder about the condition of foster parents homes where Naruto lived.
"Sasuke" Naruto murmured his voice hoarse from disuse "I didn't know you had moved back to Konoha."
"Itachi and I have been back for less than a week." Sasuke said, his eyes narrowing on Naruto's trembling form. Something wasn't right about Naruto, and Sasuke didn't think it was just the blonds sickly thin form.
"It was good to see you" Naruto murmured as he heard an annoying voice from behind him approaching rapidly.
"Sasuke, your back" Sakura said as she roughly shoved passed Naruto, not caring that she has pushed him down to the ground. While Sakura and Sasuke talked, Naruto gathered himself and started moving towards the abandoned factory, ignoring the eyes he could feel on his back, fighting against his nausea, as his body craved the one thing that Naruto refused to give it. It was while he was walked that the idea came to Naruto. No one in Konoha wanted him here, so why stay? Why force himself on others that didn't care if he lived or died. As he approached the factory, Naruto knew exactly what he was going to do. No one would come looking for him if Naruto didn't show up, so Naruto didn't expect anyone to come save him.
Entering the factory, Naruto grabbed a rope that had been left, and made it into a noose. If Konoha wanted him dead so bad he would give them what they wanted, it would be better than starving to death anyways, which Naruto figured would be happening sooner rather than later, because he could feel how tightly his skin was stretching over his ribs, he couldn't afford to lose much more weight, his body had completely eaten any fat that had once been on him. Placing his hand over his stomach, Naruto thought it was weird that the hunger pains didn't even bother him anymore, the only thing he really struggled with was his body's craving of the drugs that had been forced into his veins.
As Naruto made a noose, he wondered what it would be like for him to finally live in some peace. Would the afterlife be better than anything that had happened to Naruto in real life? He hoped so, Naruto didn't think he could handle an afterlife filled with more hell than his real life had been. Naruto supposed he should be sad that he had been forced to make this choice, now Naruto had no choice. He could feel himself growing weaker, he wouldn't be able to defend himself from the many attacks, that would leave Naruto bruised for weeks. Naruto knew he was dying, so this choice he was making, as he threw the rope over one of the beams, this choice was about to permanently end his suffering. Once the noose had been hung, Naruto stacked several concrete blocks up. Once that was finished, Naruto climbed on top of the bricks, and placed the noose around his neck, tightening around his throat.
"Goodbye world" Naruto mumbled as he closed his eyes, ignoring the feeling that someone was watching him. Taking a deep breath, Naruto opened his eyes and stepped off the blocks. Naruto's neck didn't break immediately because his jump had been too small, so Naruto's body was left swinging as the noose slowly strangled the life from him.
As consciousness left him, he didn't see Sasuke rushing towards the dangling body, Sasuke's older brother behind him.
"Cut him down!" Itachi yelled as he pushed up on Naruto's legs trying to relieve some of the pressure on Naruto's neck. Sasuke nodded and climbed the latter to and onto the beams and rushed to where Naruto was dangling. Sasuke wondered what could have driven his former classmate to do something like this, although just looking around the place, it looked like Naruto had been living here for some time. Not that the filthy blonde had much to call his own, the citizens of Konoha seemed to make sure of that. Sasuke didn't understand why they blamed Naruto for what his father done, quite frankly, it wasn't fair to Naruto that they done that. Upon reaching the rope, Sasuke pulled his knife out and began sawing away at the rope, once the rope broke away, Sasuke leaned over and watched as Itachi lay Naruto's limp body down on the floor.
"Call 911" Itachi yelled before proceeding to attempt CPR. Itachi had always liked Naruto and had hated that the town blamed Naruto for his father's actions, after hearing that the spirited boy had been sent to foster care, Itachi had tried to get his parents to take him in, unforutnately his parents were of the same mindset as everyone else and refused. However, a couple months ago both of the Older Uchiha's had been killed in an accident leaving Sasuke and Itachi orphans. Itachi had decided that it would be best for them to move back to Konoha where he had every intention of getting Naruto out of foster care. To his surprise though when he arrived he found out that Naruto no longer lived with his foster family, he had taken to the streets to survive. Itachi couldn't imagine how bad the home must have been for Naruto to set out on his own. And if it was one thing that Itachi knew it was that no one would care that he went missing, it would be one less mouth to feed for that particular home. Still it hurt Itachi that Konoha would feed the other homeless people, but Naruto wasn't welcome at any of the shelters. Itachi wondered if it would be worth it to save Naruto, only for the boy to have to suffer even more. It wasn't fair, but at the same time Itachi believed that Sasuke and Naruto could be good for one another. If they didn't end up killing each other first.
"The medics are on the way." Sasuke said as he dropped to his knees beside Itachi to help perform CPR. "How do we know that they won't refuse him?" Sasuke asked softly, not liking how blue Naruto's lips were or the fact that his chest only rose with his each forced breath into his lungs.
"If they don't I will make sure they don't have a job anymore." Itachi replied "I think it's high time that Naruto starts being treated better by all those around him." Sasuke frowned and continued doing chest compression's while Itachi breathed for him.
"Did we get here too late?" Sasuke wondered the longer Naruto went without breathing for himself.
"I won't let him die" Itachi hissed lowly "he's suffered too much to die now."
"Maybe it would be better to just let him go" Sasuke said softly as he looked down at Naruto's extremely emaciated form, "he didn't look like he was going to last much longer anyways."
"Maybe it would be better" Itachi said "That doesn't mean that I am going to allow him to die. He needs to know that there is someone out there that care about what happens to him." Sasuke couldn't argue with that, but he really didn't like how sunken in Naruto's chest felt. He could Konoha allow this to happen, it was too cruel.
"Hang on Naruto" Itachi whispered as he heard the sound of sirens pulling in. A few minutes later, a silver haired man wearing a mask, and a man with a scar across his nose entered the building.
"If you refuse to treat him, I will have your jobs" Itachi hissed, glaring at the two.
"What happened to this kid?" Iruka, the man with the scar asked as he knelt beside, Kakashi, the one with silver hair.
"This is the result of Konoha not giving a shit about whether you live or die" Itachi replied as he watched the two medics take over CPR.
"How long as he been like this?" Kakashi asked, looking up at Itachi.
"We found him about ten minutes ago" Itachi replied "I wasn't able to get him breathing on his own."
"That doesn't sound good." Iruka murmured as they got the filthy blond haired boy loaded onto a gurney. "how could the government even allow him to live in this condition?"
"I think they just wanted him to die" Itachi replied "so that they wouldn't have to put up with the son of a murderer." Iruka snorted.
"So much for the whole innocent until proven guilty crap, not that this has ever been guilty of anything."
A few minutes later, Naruto had been loaded into an ambulance and was on his way to Konoha general. Sasuke and Itachi following closely behind in Itachi's car. Sasuke couldn't get the image of Naruto's body just hanging there, slowly strangling the life out of him. He knew without a doubt he would be having nightmares for a while.
"None of this was fair." Sasuke said "I should have know when Sakura pushed him away that things had only gotten worse for him instead of getting better. I seen the hatred in her eyes, she knew what she was doing." Sasuke swallowed hard as he glared down the floor. "I remember Naruto being loud and happy, he was super annoying but he was happy. I can't believe that he's changed so much that he would try to end his own life."
"You saw him, he would probably only lasted another week or so." Itachi said "his condition is that serious, if he survives I don't see him getting out of the hospital anytime soon." Sasuke sighed as they pulled into the ER. He was half expecting Naruto to be thrown out on the curb, he didn't know if anyone would treat him.
Barely waiting for Itachi to park, Sasuke threw open the door, and rushed into the ER. He found himself rushing past the nurses to find where Naruto was being worked on.
"Hey" A doctor called past as Sasuke went past another empty trauma room. "Your not supposed to be here."
"Where is Naruto Uzumaki?" Sasuke demanded turning towards the blonde haired lady. "he was brought in a few minutes ago, you better not tell me that he was thrown out."
"No" the doctor answered, nodding towards the next room "He's in there. I won't allow him to get thrown out, not in his condition." Sasuke nodded and entered the room, not noticing the small smile on the doctors face. She almost seemed relieved that Naruto had someone there for him.
"Where did Sasuke go?" Itachi asked a few minutes later, and Tsunade nodded towards the room.
"Are you going to be taking care of Naruto?" she asked.
"Since no one else will, yes," Itachi replied, eyes narrowing, wondering if he was going to have to fight for custody over the boy.
"Good, he needs someone. Its a miracle he isn't already dead after the amount of drugs that have been forced in his system."
"Drugs?" Itachi asked "what are you talking about?"
"His foster father would beat him unconscious, you can say that's why Naruto is more of an idiot these days because of that, anyways once Naruto was unconscious, Orochimaru would fill his veins with whatever drug he had lying around, he overdosed Naruto a few times."
"And Konoha allowed him to remain there?" Itachi asked fury filling his voice. "Why didn't the doctors report the abuse?"
"I wasn't working here at the time, otherwise I would have. That boy in that room fighting for his life, is as innocent as they come." Tsunade said "Its too bad about the brain damage though, I doubt anyone will look past what his father done in order to give him a chance."
"Is he going to live?" Itachi asked as he followed the doctor into the room.
"I'm not sure, he's on life support right now, and I don't think I need to tell you that he needs a feeding tube put in to get some nutrition into him." she answered as she walked over to the boy and ignoring the dirt in his hair, gently rain her fingers through the locks. "He's been through so much, what with getting the brain damage from all the beatings he took, its no wonder he decided to end things like this."
"It's not fair" Sasuke said softly finally meeting Tsunade's eyes, she could tell the sight of the nearly naked boy was hard for Sasuke to see. Naruto was only a few months younger than Sasuke but because of the malnutrition, Naruto was a foot or so shorter than Sasuke. "I wished we had never left" Sasuke muttered "Maybe we could have prevented this." his eyes returned to the machine that was forcing air into Naruto's lungs. He just hoped that it wasn't too late to show Naruto that there were people out there that didn't want to hurt him.
TBC?
I know I said that I was going to update the sound of madness next, however this idea popped into my head. I also have another idea where Naruto is popular but no one knows anything about his life, and one day he ends up trying to hang himself and Sasuke finds him and tries to save him? Do you think I should write that one or do I have too many projects lol. Thanks for reading. Liz
