Naruto couldn't compare to Sasuke.

He had always lost in everything, been last in everything, in skills, in grades, in popularity—

But first to be glared at, pointed at, sneered at. Last to leave the playground after all the other children left with their parents.

Sasuke, though, had great grades, natural talent, good looks, charisma—had had a family. Had a mother and a father and a brother and so what if he killed everybody, what if everyone was dead; at least for a while Itachi was a good older brother, at least Sasuke had had people who loved him.

But no, he doesn't mean that. He knows loneliness, has it down to an art form, is proud to have struggled through it and overcome it. He knows that Sasuke's loneliness was sharper, more acute than his own was because Sasuke knew what it was like to have everybody, knew the exact measure of the empty spaces where they used to be. Because Sasuke had people he missed. Because he had memories.

His own loneliness could hardly compare.

But at least Sasuke had an object he could direct his hate towards—who could he hate? The Fourth, for saving the village? The villagers, for missing their loved ones, for trying to protect the ones they had now?

Even at the Academy, though both were without families or friends, though both were exceedingly lonely, though both had to deal with far more than any six year old ever should, one was the best and the other was the worst. The smartest and dumbest. The coolest and the lamest. The most composed and the most hot-headed. The one liked by Sakura-chan and the one who wasn't. The one who graduated at the top of his class and the one who failed the first time.

It was the same after graduation: Sasuke came the closest to snatching the bells from Kakashi-sensei while he was hanging from a tree. Sasuke was the one who fought the Demon Brothers while he was frozen in fright. Sasuke was the one whose name everybody wanted to know at the Chunin exams while nobody cared one whit about him.

Sasuke was the one taught specially by Kakashi-sensei.

But those things don't matter anymore. The past is past and although important doesn't determine the future, and everything starts now. Now that he has people who acknowledge him and trust in him, believe in him and bet on him, now that he has learned to use the bane of his existence to his advantage and now that Sasuke is in need of him and Sakura-chan depends on him. Now that he has someone on par with the one Sasuke sought out.

And even the past did determine the future, well, he'll just have to change that won't he?

Because he will train and learn and hope with all that he has for Sasuke's safety and return so that he won't have to break his promise of a lifetime with Sakura-chan, so that he won't have to go back on his word because that is his way of the ninja.

And so he will never give up, like that Perverted Hermit taught him, so that he won't become scum that abandons his comrades, like Kakashi-sensei taught him. And he will do whatever he needs to, even if that means becoming an idiot or a monster, in order to have his team back.

And he will break that circle of inevitability and turn it into an infinite spiral of possibility and sweep Sasuke back to Konoha with all the power of a whirlpool, because he is Uzumaki Naruto.

Believe it.

Uzumaki—pun on the word 'spiral'/whirlpool, Naruto—fishcake found in ramen; has a spiral on it