"I always used to cry and give up. I nearly went the wrong way… But you…"

Hinata…

"You showed me the right way. I was always chasing you… wanting to overtake you…"

Why are you doing this?

"I just wanted to walk with you... I wanted to be with you…"

You shouldn't be here! This is dangerous!

"You changed me! Your smile saved me!"

I-I changed you?

"So I'm not afraid to die protecting you…"

Hinata… What has made you change so much?

"Because… I love you…"

You… love me? Someone loves me? I-I've never felt like this before…

"Juho Soshiken!"

Hinata! You can't go after him yourself!

"Shinra Tensei."

"EEK!"

Hinata! No! You've gotta get out of here. Wh-what is Pain… No no no! Please! Don't kill her!

"STOP!"

No! He… he did it! He… he killed her!

"This is just like… how my parents were killed by Konoha ninjas, right before my eyes…"

You killed her! You fucking killed Hinata! Just when I was loved by somebody in this world, you fucking take her away from me!

"Love breeds sacrifice… which breeds hatred…"

You wanna see hatred? I am going to cut your fucking head off. I'm going to rip your fucking eyes out and piss in your god-damned eye sockets! Do you fucking hear me! Hinata! This fucker is going to die the most fucking painful death possible! I am going to tear him from limb-to-fucking-limb! He won't even be able to fuc-

Darkness.

'Dammit… shoulda seen that coming…'

You need to let me out more often.

'Yup, that's what I was afraid of.'

You should be more thankful. I got rid of that 'problem' for you.

'If you destroyed anything that wasn't an enemy, I swear I will rip off your tails and use them as Q-tips.'

You do not intimidate me, boy. I would have had a little more 'fun' if that damn test-tube baby hadn't sealed me back in this cage.
'Well, I hope you enjoyed your little excursion, cause that was your last.'

If you think you can keep me penned in this pathetic cage, you are mistaken.

'If you think you can harm me from inside that cage, you are mistaken.'

Do not toy with me, boy!

'Someone's a little worked up. Maybe I should make you a nice glass of warm milk and let you take a nap. Will that calm you down, little foxy?'

How about a tall glass your blood, with a side of your charred carcass?

'How about a tall glass of shut the fuck up?'

You keep that up, boy; when I get out of here, your death will be slow and painful. I will be enjoying every minute of it.

'Oh, I'm sorry. Were you monologuing again?'

You are beginning to irritate me, boy…

'No one said you had to stick around. Feel free to leave whenever you wa- Oh yea, the whole 'cage' thing. I forgot…'

I am done with your games. I am going to sleep. There's nothing else to do in here.

'What the hell do you want me to do about that, install cable?'

A disgruntled sound was all of the response that Naruto got. As he sat in the darkness, he began to think back through everything that had just happened.

'Damn... Why'd Hinata have to go and do something like that? She should have stayed away! Dammit, why does everyone always get hurt because of me? If I had been stronger, Hinata would still be…'

He couldn't bear to think about it. Everything always revolved around him and the Kyuubi. All of the recent events were; Jiraya's death, Pain's attack, and now Hinata's murder. It was all because of him. In the darkness, Naruto wallowed in his depression.

Time passed by slowly. Hours dragged on into days. Days dragged on into weeks. Weeks dragged on into months. Naruto was left in darkness for what seemed like years. He was neither floating nor standing on a solid surface. He could not tell if his eyes were opened or closed; both looked the same. The only sounds he heard were the ones emitting from his mind, which he knew were not even real. He hadn't moved in the entirety of his time there. Human needs did not exist in a place such as this. Not hunger, not thirst, not breathing. No, the only needs that existed were those of the mind. A normal human can only go for so long before going insane in complete and utter solitude. Naruto, however, was no normal human being. He was used to being alone, to not having anyone to talk to. He knew that he could not start talking to himself, or he would surely go crazy.

Eventually, even Naruto began to crack. He knew he had to get out of that hell. That was when he saw it. There was a faint light in the distance. He was unsure of whether it had just appeared, or if his eyes had been closed the entire time. Slowly, his body began to fill with energy as he stood on nothing and walked closer to the light. Was he walking, or floating? His mind had long grown weary of these games of what did and did not exist in the void of darkness he was trapped in. The warmth produced by the illumination warmed his body, and he smiled. He would finally be able to go to his resting place, where he belonged. He was tired; tired of living. This was for the best, he had decided; he would no longer be a burden, no longer bring pain to this world. He smiled as he entered the white portal to the other world.

Naruto's eyes cracked open slightly, squinting from the bright light.

"Oh my god, he's awake!"

"Quickly, make sure his vitals are stable!"

'Awake? Vitals? Don't tell me I…' He opened his eyes more to reveal the inside of a well-lit tent, illuminated by the sun's rays on the outside of the tarp. He was lying down on what he assumed to be a cot, and there were an assortment of tubes going into his arms and nodes placed all over his chest. 'Dammit…'

"Heart rate seems normal… breathing is shallow, but steady."

"Go ahead and replace that IV."

"Yes ma'am"

A face leaned over the edge of the cot, staring into his eyes.

"Naruto, are you ok?"

Naruto made no response.

"Naruto, can you hear me?"

He looked into the eyes of the face above his, making it jump back in shock. Suddenly, there was a loud noise as someone stumbled in breathlessly.

"Naruto! Naruto, thank god you're ok!"

The voice came nearer, but Naruto noticed out of the corner of his eye that the owner of the face from before had stopped the newcomer. They whispered some things to each other before the newcomer walked over to the bed. A woman leaned over this time, with distinctively pink hair.

"Naruto?"

Naruto shifted his eyes to the new woman. She too flinched slightly, but did not move away as the other one had.

"Naruto? Naruto, it's me! Sakura! Please tell me you remember!"

Naruto continued to stare at her with unyielding, unblinking eyes.

"Naruto, please! You have to remember! I was your teammate! Your friend! We went through so much together! You've gotta remember!"

Naruto looked at her eyes for a few more seconds before shifting his vision to the ceiling.

Sakura was saddened by his inability to remember her. 'I didn't know that he had taken so much damage…' She heard something and turned around to see Tsunade rushing into the room. "Tsunade-sama! He- he's worse than we thought!"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"He… doesn't remember me. He hasn't said a thing since he woke up. He's just been staring at us with a vacant look…"

Tsunade walked over to the bed and looked the young man whose gaze was fixed on an indefinite point on the ceiling above him. "Naruto? Are you ok?"

Naruto's eyes did not move.

"Naruto, look at me."

Again, he did nothing.

"Naruto!" Tsunade yelled, rotating his head with her hand to face hers. "Look at me!"

Naruto's eyes moved with his head and ended up looking at the Hokage with an unfocused gaze.

Tsunade looked deep into his glassy and glazed over stare. After a moment, she shuddered visibly and turned away. "I've never seen him like this. His eyes are always so bright, so lively. But now… Now, they're... dull…" She turned back around and placed her palms on his chest. She closed her eyes and began to pass her chakra through his body, analyzing the damages accumulated during his transformation and making mental notes in her head of what needed to be healed first.

"Stop…"

Tsunade's and Sakura's eyes widened as they heard Naruto's frail voice. "Naruto! You can talk!"

"Please… Stop…"

"Naruto, don't be silly. Tsunade-sama healing you so that you'll recover faster."

"I know… Please… Stop…"

Tsunade removed her hands from his chest and looked down at him. "Naruto, what are you saying? I'm here to help you."

"I… went the wrong way…"

"What are you- Are you talking about the Kyuubi? Naruto, don-"

"I… I headed towards the light…"

"You… headed towards… the light?" Naruto's eyes continued to stare blankly into space as he muttered his broken sentences.

"…towards the light… but… ended up… here…"

Sakura gasped as she put the pieces together. "So, while you were out, you saw a light and walked towards it?"

"…walked…towards it… ended… here…"

"Naruto, you're not supposed to walk towards the light. Sheesh, you're just lucky you came back here and not-"

"…ended… here… didn't want to…"

"You… you didn't want to… come here?"

"…walked… towards light… ended up… here… wrong way…"

"Naruto! Don't think that! You did the right thing coming back here, and don't ever think otherwise!" Sakura was worried that he had tried to walk towards the light knowing full well what it would have meant.

Tsunade had taken this time to prepare a sedative and commenced to insert yet another IV into his arm. Naruto did not even flinch as the needle pierced his skin and the tranquilizer began to slowly drip into his bloodstream. Naruto's eyes closed, almost as if he were giving in to the drug's effects. As he lay in his comatose state, Tsunade healed the rest of his body with no interruptions.

Sakura walked through the shinobi campgrounds, her mind still burdened by Naruto's actions from when he had awoken a few days ago. When she snapped her mind back to reality, she noticed that her body had decided to walk to the medical complex. Shrugging, she walked inside to see how Naruto was doing. When she opened the flap, she noticed that someone had pulled the sheets up over Naruto's head. At first, she found it to be humorous, until the possibility that he had died arose in her head. Slowly, she moved her way over to the cot where Naruto's body lay. Through the sheets, she could not see him chest rise and fall, and her heart skipped a beat. Her hand reluctantly traveled to the top of the sheets and pulled them down slowly. Sakura gasped at the sight of what was underneath the sheets, and immediately ran off to find Tsunade.

"What? How did this happen?" the Hokage yelled in anger, hastily rushing to the medical tent where Naruto's body was housed. When she and Sakura arrived, she proceeded to rip the sheets completely off the bed.

"I-I just came in to see how he was doing, and I noticed that his body wasn't moving," Sakura explained.

Tsunade kicked the cot over in a fit of anger. All of the sheets and pillows spilled over the ground. "So he put the pillows there as a decoy… We need to find where he went!"

"Hokage-sama!"

Tsunade turned around to see two medics rushing in with a young ninja on a stretcher. He had short brown hair and two red fang marks, one on each cheek. "Kiba? What happened?"

The medics set Kiba down on a nearby cot and began to dress his injuries. "We found him lying in the ground near the west gate," one of the medics reported.

"I-I saw…"

Sakura walked over to Kiba and placed her palms on his bare chest. She concentrated her chakra in the areas that were injured. "What did you see?" she asked.

"I saw… Naruto…"

"What? Was he by the west gate?"

"Yea… He was… trying to leave…"

"Trying to leave? Why would he do that?"

"He was rambling on about… how all he does is bring suffering… to those close to him…"

"He knows that's not true!"

"I… tried to stop him, but he…" Kiba stopped, unable to finish his sentence.

"You fought him? So that's where you got these injuries from…" Kiba merely nodded. "Tsunade, I need to go out and find him."

"You do that. You," she addressed a nearby ANBU, "go out and gather the other rookie ninjas, the ones that were his friends. Tell them where to meet. Also, pass this information on to some other ANBU. I hope we won't have to resort to using them, but you never know."

"Hai," the ANBU responded before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Following his lead, Sakura rushed out to gather her friends and go after Naruto.

'So this is how it all ends… I had always hoped that it wouldn't come to this but… I guess there's no choice…' Naruto stood on top of the remains of the wall and looked out of the giant crater before him, the land that he had once called home. Thanks to him, Konoha was reduced to a smoldering hole. 'This is the last time that something like this will happen because of me.'

"Naruto!"

He looked down and saw Sakura standing at the base of the wall. Naruto silently flipped down so that he was on the other side of the gate, staring in at her through the broken doors. In the distance, he saw the rest of the rookies running to her position.

"Naruto, don't do this!"

"Sakura… You don't understand."

"I know what you're thinking! It's not true at all!" At this time, the rest of the young ninjas had arrived at the scene, all standing before him on the other side of the de-hinged doors.

"How can you say that, Sakura?" Naruto asked calmly. "We all know the reason that Akatsuki came here; they want the Kyuubi. I am the Kyuubi."

"Naruto, you're not the-"

"The Kyuubi and I are one entity. Regarding matters like this, we are one in the same."

The other ninjas looked at him in disbelief. The hyperactive ninja, the one that always had a smile on his face, the one that never gave up; he was going to run away.

"Naruto-kun!" Lee called out to him. "Stay here, and we will all grow stronger together!"

Naruto merely looked at his teammate before looking over the rest of his friends. "I'm sorry, but this is for the best. This is the best way to protect you all from more harm."

Sakura couldn't take it any more. She ran to where Naruto was standing, tears flowing from her eyes. She looked up and saw Naruto pull out two kunai. Holding one in each hand, he pulled his arms back across his chest in preparation for a stabbing motion. Sakura stopped a few feet from where he stood, when he uncrossed his arms and stabbed the air behind him.

On either side of his body, a splatter of blood formed and fell on the ground. Two ANBU clutched their shoulders where they had just been stabbed and fell to their knees. Naruto left the kunai in their bodies knowing full well that pulling it back out would both increase the damage and place them in more pain. Turning around, he began to walk out down the path before him. Sakura regained her composure and ran after him again. As she grew closer, she felt a hand on her shoulder hold her fast. She struggled to break free, but could not escape its grasp. Turning around, she saw Naruto. Or rather, as she realized, a shadow clone.

"Sakura…" The shadow clone said to her, "I know this is tough, but you need to let me go."

"Naruto, you can't go! We need you here… I need you here…"

"Sakura, you can be strong by yourself. You were taught by Tsunade, the world's greatest medic. You will surpass her one day, if you haven't already."

"That's not what I mean! I need you because… I love you…"

"Sakura…" the clone started, his eyes brimming with sadness. "If you had said that a few weeks ago, I would have been thrilled… But now… Now, I must be alone. I would only bring you pain."

"Naruto-"

"Sakura, I have to go. I have brought enough suffering to the people of Konoha already."

"But where will you go?"

Naruto hesitated before speaking again. "I will pick up where Jiraya left off. I will always be moving. I am safe that way." He turned around and looked at the other ninja. Sakura saw that Naruto had made a clone for each of his friends, giving them each a final farewell. "Do not be sad. I will be fine."

"But… how will you become Hokage? Isn't that your dream?"

Naruto turned back around and looked at her again. "That was a fool's dream," he said bluntly, surprising her with his indifference to the very thing he had been pursuing from the beginning. "The title of Hokage belongs to someone who can actually bring peace to the world. That is not who I am." Sakura made to speak, but was stopped by Naruto's hand. "I must go now. Do not worry, Sakura. There is someone out there just for you. Just as there was for me…" With that, the shadow clone was dispelled in a puff of smoke. Sakura merely stood there, eyes glazed over as she ran his final words through her mind, taking note of the past tense of his last sentence. Disheartened, and with tears running down her face, she slowly made her way back to the village, helping the wounded ANBU recover from their injuries.

Naruto walked down the beaten path before him. The forest was silent. Dead silent. 'How fitting,' he thought to himself. He was surrounded by nothing but trees; no wildlife, no wind blowing, no companions. He looked up at the sky. It was beginning to turn cloudy as a storm rolled in from the east. After a while, the storm was directly overhead, and it began to rain. 'It was going to end up like this sooner or later,' he thought.

This is the way that it's always been.

In his freedom, he was imprisoned.

Could've never have been different.

Once again, he was alone.