Cruel: [adjective] "Willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others."
Irony: [noun, plural] "An outcome of events contrary to what was expected."
Prologue:
A feral Naruto snarled as his claws tore at the earth below him. He wasn't aware of much except the screams of the people around him. Everything was tainted in red as if he were looking through a red stained-glass window.
He had given the Kyuubi an inch of freedom, and the Kyuubi had used that opportunity to completely and unstoppably dominate every fiber of Naruto's being. For the next hour, he would tear and rage against everything that he could see; the worst part being that he didn't even realize it.
He remembered waking up to the feeling of rain hitting his eyelids. He looked around and noted the pink water running down his arms and legs. He saw blood everywhere and grimaced; not knowing if it was his own or someone else's.
On shaky legs, he got up and looked around groggily, having no clue as to what had just happened. To his shock, he saw four thick slash marks marring the torso of a nameless shinobi lying dead at his feet.
"Did I...?" He thought in morbid disbelief.
He stumbled backwards, noting that the thing he tripped over was the torn body of another man whose eyes were set wide with terror, but void of any life. He looked around and saw the mangled bodies of severel missing-nin; all victims of the overkill of the world's most ruthless beast, the Nine-tailed demon fox.
He looked down at his trembling hands. He could see the dried blood under his fingernails and he could feel the flesh peeling off from where it had been burned by the Kyuubi's chakra. It was at this moment that Naruto understood what had happened and everything it implied.
He had lost control. Badly.
It resulted in the death of five men whom Naruto only meant to injure, and not mercilessly kill. The heavy, wet scent of blood fogged his senses.
It wasn't the people he killed that terrorized Naruto; it was the fact that he had completely destroyed them without ever even knowing he had. He may have known that these worthless missing-nin deserved death, but in the Kyuubi's eyes, death was fair and acceptable for anyone. To the Kyuubi, death knew no boundaries and it meant the same thing to everyone and everything. Naruto realized that these men might as well have been his friends. He would have never known.
"I-I have to go. This is...bad." He thought as he shakily stood up.
It was now that Naruto acknowledged that things would probably never be the same again. He knew that the life he desired was not even close to realistic so long as he was susceptible to this level of unconscious terror. If there were even a chance that he could inflict this much damage again, he didn't belong in a place of civility.
He tore himself away from the scene; mud and rain smacking him from all directions as he sprinted to his apartment. He caught a glimpse of the pink rain sloshing off of his fingers.
Soon, the bodies would be found, and the absolute carnage would scare even the most stoic ANBU. Word would spread rapidly, people would become frightened, and rumors would fly. He wouldn't be here when it happened.
He hurriedly jerked open the door of his apartment. Tearing wildly through the room, he tore open his shelves and cabinets and hoarded whatever he could find.
As he sloppily shoved a few things into a bag, he caught a glimpse of himself in his mirror. At first it was too dark to see anything but a shapeless black sillhouette. As the storm raged on outside, however, a quick flash of lightning highlighted his image only to reveal a completely different person. In that fraction of a second, Naruto saw that his normally-round pupils had taken on the splintered shape of a cat's eye. He had seen them before, but they had always returned to normal.
His normally-blonde hair had turned burgundy-red in patchy, uneven places. The dull fangs in his mouth were now slightly chiseled at the ends.
But out of all these new features, the one that scared him the most were the thick, darkened imprints of the whisker marks on his cheeks. These whisker marks were always with him, but they now implied more than they ever had before. As Naruto ran his fingers down the black whisker marks and across his fanged mouth, he realized that he no longer contained the Kyuubi: he was becoming the Kyuubi. He was sub-human. Animalistic.
"What am I?"
Not wanting to study himself any longer, Naruto grabbed his bag and darted out of the apartment. The door slammed behind him, and he ran as fast as he was capable to the Konoha gates.
As he approached the gates, the rain hit him from all directions and the thunder and lightning raged against him.
He abruptly stopped, however, when Sai appeared in front of his path. He was breathing heavily, which meant he had been following Naruto for a while.
Sai was too mild too question people for their behavior, but the wary look Sai sent him indicated that he wanted some kind of explanation.
Naruto, having no idea as to what he could say to Sai, felt the awkward tension rising between them. He had hoped he could leave the village with no questions asked. He didn't anticipate that some one would see him.
"You're appearance." Sai commented blankly.
"I know."
The rain replaced the intense silence after this. There were a thousand questions lingering in the air, and Naruto swore that time seemed to slow-down with every one he couldn't answer. Knowing he needed to leave, Naruto spoke up in the hope that Sai would understand the severity of the situation:
"Sai, I. . ." He struggled to find the words. "I have to leave the village for now. I can't explain this, so don't ask me to."
"I won't." Came the reply. Naruto faltered at the matter-of-fact reply. Sai never probed, and he was sincerely grateful for it.
"Thanks. Really."
Naruto brushed past him.
"When will you return?" He called.
Naruto stopped and turned, giving Sai a sympathetic look that he hoped Sai would understand. He didn't.
"I won't be, Sai."
Sai seemed to be unaffected by this announcement, and stood motionless, staring at Naruto. Naruto waited for some kind of response from Sai, but it never came.
He resumed his walk out of Konoha's gate.
"I'm going with you." Sai called after him. Naruto turned in disbelief at Sai's declaration.
"What?" He asked in exasperation.
"I'll go with you, Naruto-kun."
"Your joking, Sai. You have a good life here. Don't ruin it for something like this." Naruto tried desperately.
"My life in this village is quickly coming to an end, Naruto. Danzo San is already aware of my disassociation with him, so I know he is ready to kill me. I don't know your motivations for leaving the village, but I do know I can no longer sustain a normal life here either. If I don't leave, I will eventually be killed for abandoning ROOT."
As much as Naruto wanted to deny it, he knew Sai was being completely honest. Sai had abandoned everything he had been taught under Danzo and had verbally cut his ties with Danzo's organization. Naruto knew Sai had the odds against him, and as much as he hated it, he knew Sai's time in Konoha would eventually be scrutinized.
"Please, Naruto. I can help you."
"I can't, Sai..."
"If you wish to travel alone, then I won't follow you. However, my desire to leave will not vanish and I will still run from here whether if it is with you or not."
A once lifeless shell, Sai had grown to love the village and had forged many friendships in his time after Danzo's organization. Leaving Konoha would be hard for Sai as well, and there was nothing Sai could do to live peacefully as he wanted to. Both of their lives were completely incompatible with a life in the village: Sai having abandoned everything he had ever known only to eventually be punished for it, and Naruto losing control of the very thing he was cursed with.
They would have to leave behind everything. There was not a single part of Naruto's life that he could take with him other than memories. He would leave his friends, his goals; everything. He also knew that with this departure, he would have to leave behind his goal to redeem Sasuke. He couldn't bring any one home if he didn't have a home to bring them to.
Naruto saw the determined expression in Sai's onyx-polished eyes. Bringing Sai along would not be awful, and Naruto knew their chances for survival would be heightened. His only dilemma lied in the fact that he would have to warn Sai of his failure to control the Nine-Tailed fox. He couldn't bear to kill anyone else, especially not any of his close friends.
"Fine." He remarked in defeat.
Naruto noted the small smile appear on Sai's face. Before Sai could say anything, though, Naruto interrupted.
"But Sai, this...none of this will be easy. I...we can't come back."
"I know, Naruto-kun."
"And you have to promise me something." It sounded as desperate as it felt.
Naruto saw Sai's expression change as curiosity spread across his face.
"Yes, Naruto-kun. Anything."
"If I lose control of the Nine-Tailed fox, kill me."
For the first time, Sai seemed to show something like shock.
"I promise, Naruto –kun."
And with that, Naruto and Sai left the Village of Konoha to pursue the lives of rogues, leaving behind everyone and everything they had ever known. With his control of the Nine-Tailed fox chipping away every month, Naruto and Sai learn to deal with the power of the world's most ruthless demon. Despite the ability to survive, Naruto and Sai still cling to the memories of the days they spent in a village they didn't want to leave.
Little did they know, it would all change.
(END CHAPTER)
Hey guys! Before we continue, I need to explain something: the chapter you just read is actually a re-vision to the original chapter that I uploaded a while ago. I started this story many months ago, took a long hiatus, then started back again. As I went back and re-read it, I realized I had many spelling/grammatical mistakes and the start of this story didn't flow nearly as well as the later half. Basically, my writing style in the later half of this story changed too much to flow nicely with the first half, so I'm going back and revising the first chapters to better flow with the new onces. I'm not changing the plot at all, just making it a better read.
That being said, if you notice that the next few chapters after this one don't sound as polished or as believable as this one, it's most-likely because I have yet to go back and revise those too. I will get to it as soon as possible, because I want to make sure this story flows smoothly and believably. The last five or six chapters of this story have the estimated quality that I like, so forgive me if the chapters before that don't sound as good. If the chapter has already been revised, I'll write the word "REVISED" at the very beginning.
Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I hope you liked the first chapter! :D If there are any questions, comments, concerns, whatever, don't hesitate to e-mail me!
Pairings: SasuNaru (A little SaiSaku, and SaiNaru friendship)