A/N: I want to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows as well as everyone that reviewed this story.
"Why didn't you save me? I needed you Naruto."
Naruto sat up straight and clutched the injury that her former best friend gave her. It was a dream, she reminded herself. Sasuke never demanded for her help and he made it very clear to her that she meant nothing to him. He made it clear that she was someone that he could easily discard. She took in several deep breaths and looked at her surroundings.
This wasn't her apartment.
What the hell happened? The memories of her fight with the villains flooded into her mind and the blond-haired girl groaned as she realized that she accepted chakra from the beast inside of her. Didn't she made a promise to herself that it was never happening again? She slapped herself. How the hell could she live a normal life now that she showed everyone, the monster inside of her.
"It is good to see that you are awake, young Uzumaki," Naruto blinked her eyes and looked up to see All Might staring at her with concern. "You gave everyone a scare when you fainted, but that was expected since you just took down a lot of villains."
"All Might!"
"I shouldn't praise you for being reckless," All Might informed her as he took a seat beside her bed. "And you are going to get a scolding from Eraserhead as soon as he is healed from his injuries, but you saved everyone."
"No one is hurt?"
The superhero shook his head. "Everyone is safe and sound although some of your classmates have some minor injuries. However, their injuries can't compare to the one that you got in your stomach which begs me to ask…what were you thinking when you decided to continue fighting with a hole in your stomach?"
"There was no one to protect the others," Naruto admitted. "And I couldn't let that bastard have the chance to hurt them so I thought that I can withstand through the pain and continue fighting."
The blond-haired man nodded and looked at her with such old eyes that the blonde wondered if he was trying to stare through her soul. If it wasn't for the fact that she could still feel some pain in her back, she would be squirming under his eyes. She hadn't done anything wrong by deciding to continue to fight. She needed to save her classmates because that was what a hero did.
She needed to prove to herself that she was capable of saving people.
"Uzumaki, do you know how scared your classmates were when they realized that you had an injury to your stomach?" Naruto bit her lips and shook her head. "Do you know how concern everyone was to realize that a fifteen-year-old girl decided that she had no choice but to act like the hero. That the same girl had no concern about her life. Do you stop to think what would everyone's reaction would have been if you died from your wounds?"
"Does it even matter?" All Might narrowed his eyes at her words and the blond-haired girl gave him a bitter smile. "If I died then there wouldn't be anyone to mourn for me. My mum and dad died on the same day as I was born and the man that I considered like my grandfather was murdered two years ago."
It wasn't like she had friends that gave a shit about her. Sakura made it clear that she was useless since she couldn't even bring back Sasuke. The council made it clear that they wanted to exile her for her blunder and blamed her for the injuries that her friends had. It was not like she meant the world to anyone.
Maybe Jiraya would mourn but he would get back up and act like nothing ever happened.
"Did you take the time to look at your hospital room?"
Blinking her eyes, Naruto twisted her head around to look at her hospital room. She hadn't realized it but her room was filled with flowers. Was that a card? She chewed on her lower lip and took the card from the bedside table. She opened the card, feeling her lips twitch at the bad drawing that Kirishima made of her and began to read the thank you that were scattered throughout the card.
Weren't they scared of her?
How could they still look at her? How could they be willing to do this?
"Why did they write this?"
"You saved their lives," All Might reminded her. "If it wasn't for you then there was no telling about the damage that they would have faced from that monster. You managed to defeat the monster even when Eraserhead could not. You saved your teacher from having an even worse injury and for that, everyone is thanking you."
"But aren't they scared? I lost control."
The blond hero did not answer her and stared at her with understanding eyes. What did he understand? Had he ever been called a monster? Had he ever been hated because of the thing inside of him? He could never understand her pain.
"From their description, you turned terrifying and they were scared but they also knew that you were being emotional," Naruto blinked her eyes and the man stared at her. "The energy manipulation…it isn't really your quirk is it? The thing that appeared is your quirk."
She bit her lips at her teacher's words. She could lie and tell him that was her quirk. She could continue with the charade but there was a part of her that knew better. A part of her knew that it would be stupid for her to continue her lie. Those villains knew that she was a kunoichi and if there were really planning to bring the hero world down then they would form alliances.
She could not take the chance.
"I don't actually have a quirk," All Might raised his eyebrow and the blond-haired girl licked her dried lips. "I was posing my chakra as a quirk but if quirks were like Kekkai Genkai then it won't be considered a quirk since everyone in my part of the world have it."
"You are from the Elemental Countries? You're a kunoichi? " All Might demanded.
Naruto nodded and the man looked at her with pity. Was he pitying her because she came from a world, where kids like her were considered adults. Did he pity her because she was a child solider? Or did he know about the shit that she was forced to go through. She run her hands through her hair and looked out at the window, where there were several birds chirping.
"I was a kunoichi but I gave it up when I decided to come here," Naruto admitted and in the corner of her eye, she swore that she saw several figures hiding behind the door. It must be her imagination.
"Why did you give it up?"
"Because they were going to exile me for not doing my job properly," All Might frowned at her response and the blond-haired girl smiled bitterly. "I had a mission to rescue my teammate from a man that you would consider a pedophile. My teammate didn't want to come back home and well I decided to fight him."
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be swept back to that terrible day. Till this day, his hollow eyes haunted her. Had it been her fault for not recognizing the fact that he was going to abandon them? Maybe if she hadn't been so self-centered then this would not have happened. If she had offered to be his friend earlier then none of this would have happened.
"You failed to bring him back."
"I didn't just failed to bring him back, I nearly died trying to bring my best friend back home and I lost control of the demon inside of me," All Might looked at her with horror and the blond-haired girl grimaced. "The council wasn't happy with me and I overheard them arguing with the village leader about throwing me out of the village, because I can't control it."
"So you decided to run?"
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to cry for the first time in years. "They weren't the only reason for my decision to leave home. I never belonged there. Do you know until I was five that I never knew what my name was? If it wasn't for the Third Hokage, I would have thought that my name was Monster."
Her teacher looked at her in horror and the blond-haired girl swore that she heard a gasp from outside.
"No one ever cared about the girl that was forced to have the burden of carrying a demon inside of her," Naruto sniffed. "Whenever I wanted to make friends with the other kids, the parents would take them away. Do you know what it is like going out of your small apartment and being greeted with such cold eyes? Do you know how scary it can be when it feels like that you don't have the right to live?"
"Young Uzumaki…"
"Do you know why they look at me like that? It is because the Fourth Hokage placed the demon that destroyed Konoha inside of me," All Might blinked his eyes and the blond-haired girl sniffed. "I understand why he did it because there was no other kid born that day, but it wasn't like I asked for this. I just wanted to be loved and so I thought that by being a kunoichi, they would start to love me or the very least respect me."
Why was she telling him this? She should have kept her mouth shut about these things but All Might didn't look at her with those eyes. He didn't make her feel like a monster. He praised her for her use of the Kyuubi even though everyone in Konoha would have been angry with her.
Why could these people be understanding?
Why?
She blinked her eyes when she felt a pair of muscular arms wrapped around her. The blond-haired girl sniffed and sobbed, allowing herself to become weak in front of the man that everyone called the best superhero. It had been so long since someone hugged her like this after knowing the truth. The last time she had been hugged was when Jiraya dropped her off here.
Jiraya had tried to make her happy before she came here. He had taken her to many places in the Elemental Countries while he helped her find a way to escape from her problems. She never thanked him for that. She never told him that she appreciated him for what he did. She never told him that she was fine.
She felt like the worse person in the world.
"First of all you are not a monster," All Might informed her. "If anything, you are a hero to your village because if it wasn't for you then that monster would be causing damage to your village. Second of all, what happened that day was not your fault. If you lost control of the thing inside of you then it is because you were invested in the mission. Thirdly, it was your village's fault for not seeing the bright girl that you are."
She couldn't stop herself from crying another set of tears.
"Thank you."
Naruto didn't know if she was thanking him for seeing her as a person or for telling her that she was a hero to her village. She didn't know if she was thanking him for letting her cry like a baby or if she was thanking him for hugging her and letting her have a breakdown.
All she knew was that she was grateful for having the teacher accept her from the very beginning.
"Did you talk to our student about her actions?"
Toshinori stared down at the principal, who had a grim look on his face. He couldn't blame him since Uzumaki would have been dead if it wasn't for the fact that she could regenerate her skin. It had been so reckless of that girl to continue fighting with such a serious wound but it was her recklessness that saved the other students.
"Yes and we might need to change some facts in her file," Nezu raised his eyebrow and the hero bit his lips. Even though it had been an hour since he left the girl, he still felt so angry for what a kid had been forced to go through. She was only fifteen but she faced more things then teenagers, her age had went through.
"What facts?"
"Naruto Uzumaki is from the Elemental Countries," the principal blinked his eyes and stared at him with wide eyes. It would have been funny if it wasn't for the fact that he had to tell his student that she wasn't a monster. What kind of world were they living in? It should be forbidden to make a child feel unsafe in her own home.
Though it seemed like if there was a rule then it was ignored since they saw her as a demon.
"Elemental Countries? I should have known from her last name," Nezu commented. "Most of the Uzumaki in the country are refugees but why now? The last set of Uzumaki refugee came twenty-four years ago."
Refugee? He had known that Uzumaki was a common name but he hadn't known that they were refugee. Did they come from the same place as his student? Did they also have to go through the same things as his young student? It made him want to hurl if that was the case. It was bad enough that his
"She was being abused for something that was not her fault," He informed the humanoid mink. Toshinori clenched his hands into a ball of fist as he recalled the pain of his student's eyes. "It is a miracle that the girl hadn't decided to become a villain. The fact that they wanted to exile her for something that wasn't her fault…"
"Exile? What did the child do?"
All Might grimaced and began to tell the principle of the story that Naruto had told him. He informed the man of all the things that their student had been forced to go through. He hoped that the mink knew what to do to help the girl because god knew that he felt hopeless. He had seen victims of abuse but not to the scale that the girl had been forced to go through.
"That is a problem," Nezu muttered. "It is a miracle that the girl decided to become a hero with the way those humans treated her."
There was some truth behind the man's words. If it had been anyone else then they would have turned for a life of crime. They would have grown bitter but that tiny girl just decided to leave. She came to a place where there was uncertainty just to have a better life. He wished that this had not happen to such a young child.
"I just can't understand how their leader would tell his village people that the girl carried the thing that destroyed their homes," All Might muttered.
"He was naïve," Nezu poured him a cup of a tea. "He probably thought that by telling them then they would respect the child and care for her. The exact opposite happened instead and the girl suffered for it."
The blond hero thinned his lips and nodded his head in agreement. Their student suffered because of the actions of her village. The girl was reckless because she thought that no one would care if she died and that disgusted him. A fifteen-year-old girl should never experience those things. She should have been enjoying life, should have been smiling and playing with kids that were her age.
She should have never doubt her right to live.
"What can we do to help her?"
"She will need to go and see a therapist to talk about her problems," Toshinori raised his eyebrow and this earned a sigh. "It will be kept hush up but the girl needs to see someone about what she was forced to endure. We will also need to see if she had any relatives in Japan but we have the Sports Festival to see if a family member will communicate with her."
Toshinori prayed to God that it would happen because a lonely child like Naruto needed all the family members that she could get.
"You had us worried sick!"
Naruto looked up from her book and stared at the door, where her whole class stood with a large teddy bear in front of them. Almost all of them had a relieved look on their faces as if they were really happy to see her alive. When was the last time a classmate looked at her like that? Sakura had cried and blamed her for Sasuke, not once being relieved that she was alive.
Her classmates had tears in their eyes and were carrying such a large teddy bear.
"I'm sorry?"
"You could have died, Uzumaki," Shoto stated as Tsuyu took a seat beside her. The blond-haired girl rubbed the back of her neck and avoided her friend's eyes. She knew it had been risky and it had been reckless of her as her teacher had pointed out earlier. It had been worth it at the time but the pain in everyone's eyes told her that they wouldn't want to see her get hurt.
"I'm sorry," Naruto muttered.
"Todoroki was just stating everyone's worries," Kirishima said. "You saved everyone from getting pummeled but it was scary to know that you were fighting the villains with a hole in your stomach."
Why weren't they talking about what she did? Why were they keeping quiet about it? Weren't they going to ask her about what she did? About what she released? She run her hands through her unbound hair. Usually, people would interrogate about those kind of things so why weren't they doing it? She flickered her eyes to Midoriya, who had a warm smile on his face, and then to Bakugou, who shot her a scowl.
"Why aren't you asking me about what I did? Aren't you terrified about what I did?"
"It was scary," Ochako admitted. "But we also know that you wouldn't have done it if you weren't emotional. It was the first time that we have seen you with so much anger but it doesn't change the fact that you're our classmate."
"It was kind of cool how you told them that you would kill them for hurting us," Sero said. "We thought that you didn't like us all that much since you don't really try to communicate with us."
She did like her classmates but Naruto was terrified of being close to people. What if they were nothing but a lie? What if she got close to them and they would kill her? What if she got close and they betrayed her? This was her constant fear. It was not like she didn't want to communicate with them but the memories of her past was to hard for her to shake.
"I'm sorry for making you think like that."
"It doesn't really matter," Momo said. "What matters is that you are fine now, Uzumaki-san."
"Thank you…"
Everyone frowned at her and the blond-haired girl licked her lips as she formulate the words that would express her feelings. How could she thank them for showing concern for her? How could she ever tell them that their words meant a lot? If it had been anyone else, they would continue to be scared of her. They would try to avoid her but her classmates were willing to be around her.
They didn't mind the fact that she lost control.
"We should be the ones to thank you, Naruto," Midoriya spoke up. "If it wasn't for you then things would have gotten worse."
Most of her classmates nodded their heads in agreement but Todoroki and Bakugou. Her friend had a thoughtful look on his face as if he was wondering if there were more to her two words. Her blond-haired classmate had a scowl on his face but there was no anger in his scowls. If anything, the girl could tell from his twitchiness that her classmate wasn't comfortable.
She couldn't blame him because she felt uncomfortable with the amount of visitors that she had. She felt a tightness in her chest as she looked into the smiling faces of her classmates. They were happy to see her alive. They might not have known her for a long time but they cared for her. They cared enough to visit her for two days with gifts.
She felt tears burning in her eyes.
"Oh god! What do we do with a crying girl?" Kaminari yelled.
Naruto burst out laughing at her classmate's words while everyone groaned at his words.
Perhaps it was really time for her to contact Jiraya.
She needed to resume her training again because she finally found a new reason to grow stronger again.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think about this chapter.