Sakura was running as fast as she could, her forehead covered in sweat and blood.

"Please!" She cried out to her pursuer, "Please stop! You don't have to keep your promise! Not if it means this!"

Her pursuer never slowed or showed any sign of having heard her voice. Instead he continued to relentlessly pursue her like the hell hound he had become. This was no longer Naruto. This was the 9 tailed fox.

Behind the glowing white eyes of the beast was Naruto, her friend, unable to control the beast that he was being consumed by.

"MMmmmmmhmmmm...stop...stop...eh?"

Naruto sat up straight in his bed, his heart racing, body stiff and on high alert. He looked out his window at the blue sky and birds fluttering in the breeze. It was a beautiful day in the hidden leaf village, but Naruto didn't care. Flashes of his nightmare were still present in his consciousness and when he looked at his hands he could almost still see the blood that had been on them in the dark night of his dream.

He put his hands down on his blanket and sighed. It had only been a dream, fortunately. Only a dream.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Naruto sat up straight, the sound having shocked him into high alert. He stood up and stumbled over to the door, his spiky blonde hair even more ruffled than usual and his eyes half closed in exhaustion. Opening the door he was surprised to run into none other than Shikamaru, who was leaning against Naruto's doorway.

"Hey Shikamaru. What brings you here?" Naruto answered the door, still wearing his sleep cap.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at the dark rings underneath Naruto's eyes, then shrugged and put his hands behind his head.

"You don't look so great. Hey, you gonna let me in?"

"Oh uh…." Naruto and Shikamaru look past the doorway and into the abyss of ramen, dirty bowls, and bags of chips that was Naruto's den. Shikamaru sighed,

"Never mind. The Hokage wants to see you, Naruto."

"Grandma Tsunade wants to see me?!" Naruto gasped, "What for?"

Shikamaru shrugged,

"Don't ask me, I'm just the messenger. It's a drag really, but I can't tell you anything." With that, Shikamaru begins to walk off.

"Wait Shikamaru!" Naruto called out. Shikamaru waved back before disappearing down the street.

"Mmmm I hope she is going to yell at me for the last mission we went on. That cat was faster and fiercer than it seemed!" Naruto sighed, and turned back into his house. Looking at the mess he actually considered cleaning up, but decided not to. No need to risk the wrath of Grandma Tsunade. It seemed he was never home enough to clean up, but that didn't mean he didn't want to go on missions. In fact, he would rather almost never be home at all, not until he lived in the house of the Hokage. But still, his house really was a mess, and he wasn't much better.

"You are a beast, may as well live like one..." The husky voice inside his mind growled.

"I'm not! I'm not like you!" Naruto argued, but to no avail. The fox chuckled menacingly. No matter how hard Naruto fought, the words would get to him, and it wasn't just when he was conscious either. Every day he had more and more trouble sleeping. He had begun to develop dark rings under his eyes, like Gaara's. Everytime he used that pesky fox's chakra, it drew more and more out of him and Naruto was beginning to feel the effects.

Naruto yawned once more and picked up a pair of pants and a shirt that didn't smell too bad. After putting them on, he looked at himself in his full length mirror, his hand on his belly over the seal mark. Why was he the one who had to spend every day fighting against this animalistic nature that pushed at his conscience? The 9 tailed fox...he didn't ask for it. Although it did help sometimes, Naruto felt like he was a little less than human. How can he consider himself fully human, when he was not treated as such? For most of his life, he was seen as being the 9 tailed fox. Still to this day there are some that still treat him as some wild beast, ready to turn and attack at any moment, and sometimes he believed them. Especially as of late, he had been feeling more and more angry, sometimes going so far as to think about what it would be like if he could just show them, show them how much of an animal he could be, how wrong they were to think of him as being synonymous with the blasted fox that was imprisoned inside his body, because if he was to let loose, he could show them what the fox could do that Naruto had never done, so he could prove that he was not the demon that was so hated, he was Naruto Uzamaki, ninja of the Leaf….

Naruto punched the glass in front of him, tears in his eyes. The glass cracked and inside the cracks Naruto could see his eyes returning from the fox's slits to his bright blue eyes. The fox got stronger everyday, while he got weaker and weaker...