AN:
Inu= dog
Nezumi= mouse
Kuma= bear
Taka= hawk
::
"Souya, Shinrin, Denki."
Fugaku is sitting on a tatami mat, his attention solely on his wife. She's still as ethereal as the day he met her, aged like fine wine if anything even though she is three years his senior and has given birth to two children. But his wife is still the quiet kunoichi that he remembers, Sakumo's most forgettable student. Her hair used to be short back then, he muses, and she was all hard muscle and sharp elbows. Now she's the very embodiment of motherhood and Fugaku still loves the infiltration specialist turned housewife.
Mikoto shifts in her position and a frown graces her face. Her back is hunched, eyes closed in concentration and her hands are in the rat seal. "Denki and Souya are the only ones left now."
Fugaku hopes he lives long enough to see her hit old age.
"Denki is next."
It's two o'clock in the morning and he knows that the compound's border is crawling with ANBU but the grotesque image of insects scurrying over his skin and through his ears is what's occupying his mind. He blinks a few times. His gaze lowers to the hands in his laps. The cup in his hands is tilted at a dangerous angle, the tea is about to spill. The tea has long gone cold. Fugaku tries to recall days spent catching sight of a younger Mikoto with her sensei's knowing look always in the background somewhere.
"That is all of them." She visibly relaxes. He visibly tenses.
The insects that he felt earlier are now becoming bolder. They're everywhere. He knows that his face betrays none of the hysteria he feels, but he knows that to a skilled sensor such as his wife, she can feel his chakra raging under his skin. Even so she takes her time to shake off any feelings of stiffness before digging the heels of her palms into her eyes. He knows she can feel how wound up tightly he is feeling and he appreciates the space she's giving him. Mikoto is blinking up at him, her eyes are getting used to the candles adorning the ground beside him. He catches her nose scrunching up when she turns her head to the left and is blinded by the brightness of the moon. She's flawless under the moon's glow, her laugh lines mar her face and Fugaku wants to bestow the biggest curse of his predecessors starting with fucking Madara-
There's a gasp. Her eyes widened dramatically. She loses all the colour in her face. "His baby...his baby girl." A wounded noise leaves her and she looks as though she was the one killed. "Gods. Fugaku. Fugaku the twins." He stands up at that and makes way to one of the many cats loitering around his property.
The realisation hits her while Fugaku is in the middle of sending the Hyuuga a message through the summoning cat he had chosen. (If we truly are your kin help us.) The animal stretches languidly before straightening up to let its contractor fit the note into its collar. The animal yawns before it scratches its ear. Even in the middle of a massacre the cat takes its time before it disappears in a cloud of smoke that smells strongly of catnip. By that time the Patriarch is back to his original spot on the floor with his wife, a consoling hand on her shoulder as she shakes.
"The ANBU Fugaku. They're not stopping him. Why isn't anyone stopping him?"
Fugaku hopes they live long enough to see tomorrow.
::
When Sasuke wakes up he is in a very miserable mood. His head is pounding with the force of a hundred hammers, his mouth feels like someone stuffed a lot of cotton into it and he's seeing double of everything in the room. There's a human walking up to him, but his hair is all weird and up, so Sasuke kinda thinks that might be the cat summons messing around with him. He still remembers them stacking themselves on top of each other with a trench coat thrown over them as they ran godspeed at him. He squints, partly to stop himself from crying at the scary memory but partly to help himself see better. Whatever it is in front of him has a stupid face but they also have a glass of water in their hands that is being pressed to his lips, so Sasuke tells himself that he'll wait for the figure to draw a little closer before he punches him in the balls. Or a body if it's the stacked up cats again.
The tepid water is moved away from him once he starts to choke on it. He coughs as he lays back down and closes his eyes. There's a lot of sound around him in the form of people chatting. People chatting quietly, he corrects himself. There's also the loud noises of a small girl's voice that sticks out. Sasuke wants to get up and see who that is so he starts blinking rapidly. This place is lit up with long beams of fluorescent light stuck to the ceiling. The light above him is dimmed down in comparison to the other beams in the room. There are no windows in the room which is such a bummer honestly. The girl's voice has moved from one area to the other and the little Uchiha frowns at that.
The place smells familiar though, even if he knows that this is definitely not home. It smells like that cupboard that his mom tells him to never touch because it has products that shouldn't be ingested. But he feels relaxed in this environment and furrows his face into the leather couch. Itachi. This place smells like Itachi.
Sasuke lets the biggest grin split his face before sitting up right. It takes a lot of effort on his behalf to do this, and he suddenly feels like he's gonna throw up. This was definitely Shisui's doing. Sasuke was going to tell on him to mother. He remembers being shot up with a bit of horse tranquiliser thanks to his cousin's experimentation. He also remembers the piping hot frying pan that his mom launched at Shisui's head that tore a massive hole in two separate walls before embedding itself into the third hard surface three centimetres away from his cousin's paling face. He still managed to continue his escape and wasn't seen in the village for two months after that. Sasuke remembers this fondly and never fails to show the holes in the walls to Hinata whenever she's over for tea ceremonies.
There's a shout that definitely came from a woman before a mass of pink and green is gliding over him. The maybe-human entity catches the bundle before hurling it to his right without looking where it lands. It takes Sasuke a minute to realise that they're more likely than not throwing around a pint sized girl. Probably the same one that had been extremely loud. There's a woman with purple hair who's running around after the child as she shouts words that would've made his mom throw several forks at her for saying around kids. A peel of childish laughter as the bundle's flung halfway across the room confirms his suspicions.
The Creature is suddenly beside him staring at eye level. He's squatted down, Sasuke realizes absentmindedly. The boy is still laying on the couch, his body unmoving because of the embarrassingly squeaky noises it creates. He's still seeing doubles but not as bad as before so he definitely knows that Shisui is gonna die tonight. In the span of a second Sasuke freezes as the Thing peels its face of and oh my gods Uncle was right demons really did come for the souls of children that didn't brush their teeth before bed time and oh my god-
Oh. It's a mask. Sasuke squints at the very human man some more. Oh.
"You have a single sharingan? How come I don't know you uncle? Where d'you live? Why is one eye on only? Why-," he started coughing and his newly introduced relative was already halfway gone. He frowned a little and made quick work of whipping away a few stray tears that sprung from the pain, believing that his chatter really did scare away Uncle. All doubts were gone in the blink of an eye when the man turned around to reveal a cup of water in his hands. Sasuke breathed into the cup as he gulped down the warm water, his gaze matching the other Uchiha's stare. He gave up the cup once it was empty and proceeded to practically vibrate in his chair. The man had to duck as the pink and green girl from before went 'nyooom' over his head. Sasuke saw the man give someone a very scathing look as his sharingan did a swirly thing. Sasuke nodded his head in an approving manner. The weird man is once again beside him in a sec.
"It...it was given to me by a friend." The man reaches into his pocket and takes out a Konoha headband and ties it around his head. His mask (previous face) hangs off his hip. "I'm not an Uchiha." The man looks tense, Sasuke notices sadly. Kinda like Itachi whenever father shouts at him. Sasuke reaches out and pats his silly hair in a comforting way just as the strange man slings his headband to cover the sharingan eye.
The man freezes up a little and Sasuke is actually getting the hang of this whole comforting thing so he continues. "Yeah goddess Amaterasu gave an eye to her blind husband. Mama said it's a love thing because Uchiha love lots."
"Ah." The not-Uchiha was still frozen in place but that's alright because as long as there was love everything was gonna be ok according to Mother.
"I'm gonna give one of my eyes to my wife. We're gonna swap eyes." Sasuke isn't sure if what he said was a bad thing because suddenly the man's eye goes really big and he's waving a hand around as he calms down.
"Maa, i don't know what your dad will say about that."
"You know my dad?"
"Yes. I was ordered by him to take care of you for the night."
"Is it still night time?"
"Yes and I think you should go back to sleep." The swirl of a sharingan, a girl's cry of laughter, and then nothing.
::
He's gaining ground on them if Mikoto's hysterics are anything to go by. Fugaku hopes that the Uchiha's self proclaimed rivals arrive in time to take care of the corpses, after all it takes someone from a dojutsu clan to understand the necessities of proper burials to avoid dojutsu theft. His form is hunched as he tries to console his wife and try as he might he can't stop this foreboding feeling from squeezing the air out of his lungs.
"The ANBU, Fugaku..."
He lets out a hum and in the middle of his pity party his sharingan springs to life before resting at its mangekyou phase. He wonders what could have driven Itachi to pursue such a self damning course of action. Maybe he really was the one to end Shisui's life. Maybe his loyalties were never with the clan. Fugaku finds himself unable to bring forth anger at his son. There is only disappointment and anguish. He thinks back to the last war, how his wife gave birth to Itachi and two days later was stationed at Konoha's gates as part of patrol because every able bodied shinobi was being pulled out of retirement and school and jail and every corner of this gods forsaken village to fight. He had barely enough chakra to keep him from collapsing of chakra exhaustion and all of his energy was going into taijutsu and begging for Amaterasu's help. He remembers a Kumo battalion that drove his team all the way from the borders of Fire country, remembers true fear for his village when he realises that they were being picked off one by one while one of the enemy flashed through a jutsu that permanently altered his Kumo comrades' physical appearance into that of the Konoha nin. And then mikoto was suddenly beside him instead of back in the trees where she had been giving long distance support and all he wanted to do was scream and shout at her because can't you see we're all dying here woman, run back before you join us. Then she's in front of him, and there's blood spurting out of her mouth and oh, his kunai is stuck into his wife's midsection and oh gods it's completely twisted into her, he just touched her guts and. And then. Pain. Pain and agony like none he'd ever felt before. And the mangekyou is bestowed to him from Ametarasu's bosom and he remembers tales from his childhood, she see all Fugaku dear, and she loves us all equally, but those who suffer a great loss are gifted a part of her so that she may do what every mother strives to do, that is to alleviate her children's pain as much as she can.
He remembers Kushina's fury that day as somehow she felt Mikoto's death but really it wasn't since she's alive now. Remembers how she tore through one of Konoha's impenetrable walls with the Kyubi's chakra singing its vengeance as it burned everything it touched. And then there was silence as Kumo realised that this was the nine tails headed this way and if they don't start running right now they will die a death that will be so horrifying, the afterlife wouldn't accept them. Then there was a type of calmness that Fugaku wasn't able to fully appreciate because he'd just killed his wife and she was his moon and stars and now he was damned for an eternity and a half and please Amaterasu please save her. But most of all he remembers Kushina punching him square in the face before getting onto her knees and gently probing Mikoto with medical chakra. In the midst of this absolute nightmare he had experienced there were murmurs of "you idiot" and "this was probably part of her dumbass plan cause she's a dumbass."
"At least Sasuke isn't here, Love," he murmurs into her hair. His nose picks up on the scent of lemon grass tea and catnip and something that could only be attributed to motherhood.
"No Fugaku." Her voice is coarse but he cages her in his arms, not letting her move away. "Fugaku, no." Her voice takes on an edge that worries him.
"This isn't good enough. It wasn't supposed to happen like this." She pulls away from him and is now looking straight into his eyes. She's like steel; strong and immovable. He tries to bring her back into his arms but she slaps his hand away and fuck can't she see how tired he is from this village that keeps trampling all over his clans efforts and look they've shed as much blood for the Will of Fire as any Inuzuka or Nara has so why are we always so ostracised.
"Fugaku." Her voice rises a debacle and suddenly she's not the dirty daughter of a shameful affair that no one in the clan wanted to accept as his bride, she's Hatake Sakumo's student, she's their matriarch and she's his equal. "Get up. Raise an alarm. We're stopping him."
She's up in an instant, there's still tears that fall from her eyes freely but the Uchiha have never categorised feelings as a weakness so she lets them fall. "You would go against your son?" He's barely putting up any sort of resistance, from either Itachi or Mikoto. Or the uchiha. Or konoha. He's so tired.
Now she's standing in front of him and there's a tanto strapped to her back, the same type as her late sensei's. An elemental blade. There's a chest piece armour strapped to her chest and she's currently struggling to put on arm guards but he knows that she will manage. "Get up." She's still crying but her anger and grief were always of a more subdued type. She's slowly calculating. Fugaku doesn't know what exactly but what he does know is that if Itachi is hailed as a genius then his mother is one as well by default. After all she was the one to teach him all that he knew to this day.
"The Hyuuga will be here in time to collect corpses and ensure that our eyes remain safe, please sit."
"You're giving up?" Fugaku realises that he's never heard his wife's disgusted tone before.
"I cannot raise a hand on my blood."
"You fool." She screams and oh maybe he didn't know his wife as well as he'd thought. "You fool. Minato is as good as our blood. As is his son. And Tsume and Kakashi and Hizashi and Hiashi but this clan was ready to kill everyone-"
"I am not the clan, Mikoto," he tries to raise his voice at her but he's so very tired and incredibly drained. "The eradication of those poisoned with the idea of a coup didn't go as planned but if Itachi sees his course of action as a suitable one then we should trust him."
"He's thirteen years old. Have you lost your gods damned mind?" She roughly wipes away at her tears, glare drilling holes into him. "I refuse to kill him, but we need to stop him."
"Oh?" He has picked up that cold, cold cup of tea from earlier and is spinning the liquid in it slowly. "And how do you propose we do that?"
::
Inu-1 won't let her play with the boy and that's such a bummer in Sakura's opinion. But her sadness is quickly forgotten in the face of Nezumi-12 picking her up and throwing her around the room to the rest of the people to catch. No one drops her of course, because Sakuraso had told her that any ANBU worth their salt would never drop a body. She doesn't fully understand what that means but she also doesn't trust him because if all of his previous attempts at shaving her hair short and putting her in boy clothes are anything to go by, he's probably a little crazy.
This goes on for a while until Taka-1 entered the room and gasped loudly at Sakura's mishandling. It was a downward spiral as every woman and man in the room played hot potatoes. Except that there was a death penalty involved once Taka-1 found out who started this ("She's a civilian girl she's gonna crack her skull of the ceiling and die you fucking imbeciles") and Sakura was the hot potato ("I don't care if her brother is in ANBU she's six, motherfucker").
Taka-1 eventually did pluck her out of the air which sucked because Sakura had been having so much fun. But it is what is. A lot of fusing was what followed as a glass of warm water got pushed into her chubby hands. She began gulping it down while breathing heavily into the cup. Her shoulders were supported by the lady until she turned around to demand something. Sakura finished the water in a record of five seconds and continued with her shenanigans by trying to fit her entire fist into the cup.
"Where's Kuma-16? I need a hairbrush." Her voice was just like mama's, very snappy.
An unforeseen bout of nausea hits Sakura out of nowhere, she lets the cup slip of her hands in her confusion and falls on her behind. Tears sprung from her eyes just as she threw up all the water she had just drank. The woman was crouched beside her in a second, lifting her head up slightly and rubbing her back in soothing motions. There were many orders given out that Sakura could barely make out in her miserable state. Most of which included lots of f bombs and "I'd rather be sent on assassination missions then do this, who the hell just throws up water" and a few "someone get Inu-1, don't kids like dogs?"
She's crying hysterically now. There's a disgusting taste in her mouth and Sakuraso is no where in the room and she just wants her mom and-
Oh. It's a puppy. Sakura bursts into laughter that she chokes on because of her hiccups. She beckons the animal to come closer to her using her outstretched hands. The dog stays rooted in place until someone's foot pushes it a little closer to her. A towel is wrapped around her and she's hoisted up into the air, but she feels that the movements are deliberately slow so she knows that the arms won't be throwing her around any time soon.
"Alright kiddo time for a bath."
"But I want doggo."
There's a pause as everyone registers the tremble in her voice.
"Doggo in the bath?"
There is a resulting squeal of pure happiness as the lady that's holding her continues on the trek to the bathroom and everyone collectively lets go of the breath they were holding. The voices behind her leave Sakura confused.
"Boss there's no way in hell I'm reducing myself to this."
"It's for the good of the village."
"I'm biting ankles."
::
It's very early in the morning judging by the few people milling around the streets, most of whom look like they're built for heavy civilian work, and the shop vendors that are only now opening up their stores. Sasuke looks back at the man with the silly hairdo who's staring back at him expectantly. But Sasuke doesn't understand him so the man makes a 'shooing' motion. A frown takes over the boy's face and he sticks his tongue out in a petulant manner, ignoring a scolding voice in his head that sounds eerily similar to his father.
Turning on his heels he begins his march home. Three steps in and he pauses. Exactly where was he? But when he turns back to demand an answer from the masked man there is no one there. He scowls some more and begins walking straight ahead, fully intending to find the closest shop on the street to ask direction from a cashier. If he was luckier he might catch a clansmate on the road and demand to be brought back to the compound.
Of course he wasn't lucky. It took him the directions of a blind restaurant cleaner, a set of chunin twins on their way to a mission and the freely given ear rubs for every stray cat (secretly he had been hoping that at least one of them could be a talking uchiha summon cat. Unfortunately none of them gave him a human reply so he was left with the itching urge to sucker punch a summon cat to rid him from the trauma of witnessing the Trench Coat fiasco) he came across before he found himself in the part of the village that he recognised. It was one of the walls to the Hyuuga compound. While this wasn't as great as finding a wayward Uchiha to command, he was sure if he asked uncle Hizashi with enough manners the side branch member would be willing to walk home with him.
He reached the compound gates eventually. Sweat beaded his temples and his hands were uncomfortably clammy, his irritation only grew in size because of his fatigue. At the gates there was only one Hyuuga guarding it as opposed to the usual number of two. The standing guard was talking to another man who had his back to sasuke. Without a care for etiquette he walked up the Hyuuga, trying his hardest to imitate that air of power and authority that his father managed to exude.
"Lord Sasuke?" The Hyuuga finally took notice of him after a lot of huffing and puffing out his chest. "How may I serve you?" The man looked worried if the defining crease of his forehead was anything to go by.
"I need an escort to the Uchiha compound." After a bit of deliberation as that same voice that sounded a lot like father nagged him, he added on a reluctant, "please?"
There was hesitancy in the man's form. "I… don't think that this is a good idea right now my Lord." The man that previously had his back to Sasuke was staring intently at the young boy. He proceeded to look up to the Hyuuga and catch his eyes. With a tilt of his head his raised left hands flashed through a series of hand signs. These ones Sasuke was one hundred percent sure were not ninjutsu signs since he knew all twelve thanks to his father's tutelage.
A thankful nod was returned by the Hyuuga as an answer and then his attention was back on the Uchiha boy. "Perhaps the young lord would like to come in and spend some time with the Princess while we look for an escort?" Sasuke wanted to ask him why the man couldn't do the escorting himself but he was too angry at being lied to. Enough time with Shisui, uncle Hikaru and Itachi had cultivated a talent in him for spotted white lies adults told him. But what really irked him was that he couldn't figure out what part of the guard's sentence was a lie. Before he could inquire any further his mouth spoke for him.
"I want to go visit aunt Atatakai's bakery. Good day." He formally bowed to them, a little lower than usual in his haste. Abruptly he turned and fled, fully intending to get back home and find out what was happening. He was starting to feel hurt, his emotions swirling like a mini tornado as he failed to understand why his parents dumped him in the arms of a stranger for the night and didn't come to collect him in the morning. The sun was steadily making its way to the peak if the unbearable heat Sasuke was facing was anything to go by. It left him cranky and he did his best to stab at his eyes with the heel of his palm to prevent tears from falling and adding embarrassment to the list of negative emotions he was currently undergoing. At this stage he would actually embrace Shisui if he saw him instead of aiming a kick at his kneecaps, such was his desperation.
The Uchiha residence was stationed at the far end of the village, right up against one of its walls which when he usually though about sent him into a chipper mood as he devised the best ways to climb the vines that cousin Getsuma had spent years planting them from the cracks in his garden wall to the ten metres it took to reach Konoha's western wall. But today was not a good day, not when he had yet to see a single Uchiha on the streets, no matter how close he got to his home. He made it to the compound of course. It was hard to forget the way from the Hyuuga to the Uchiha place when his parents had been pulling him and Itachi to attend tea ceremonies from the time he could walk. But once he reached the gates, Sasuke immediately hunched down as he gulped in air. He knew his face must be beet red from all the blood running around in his blood, Shisui enjoyed teasing him relentlessly about it. He took his time breathing and wishing for some water. He was at home now. He was safe. No more masked men with their dumb haircuts and no more lying Hyuugas, he was going to walk into his house and pitch such a fit.
In his tired state he failed to notice the lack of guards stationed at the wide open gates.
::
Another masked man came to stand in front of Sakura. Except that this one is very short, smaller than Inu-1 but his arms are covered and there's a mass of brown hair framing the mask.
"Finally." Taka-1 sounds extremely tired which confuses Sakura since the lady has been doing nothing all day. But she doesn't question her out loud, not when she's drying her hair and Sakura's too scared of the idea of her getting angry and pulling her pink hair. So she continues to pat dry the puppy between her legs.
There's an impatient sigh from the woman but Kuma-16 stays rooted in place. "Boy I need a hairbrush so get to it."
The man (or boy? Sakura is very confused, more than usual) stretches his arm outwards and for a second she's afraid he might show then The Finger but something starts to break out of his hand. Sakura squints as she tries to make out what it was, her fear over ridden by her curiosity. A tree? No it's too thin, but whatever it is is definitely made of wood. Sakura remains mystified until the man/boy uses his other hand to pull the shape out completely. The girl's eyes bulge out of her sockets as she recognises the shape.
The girl pushes her hand out, palm upwards in an expectant manner. There's a pause that's quickly overcome by the man giving her the hair brushes. She brings it to eye level as she studies it. The material is rough and not lacquered so she's careful when running her finger on it to avoid getting a splinter stuck in her skin. It's a wide tooth comb, nothing like the small spiked circular brushes Sakura's mom uses on her thick and ridiculously hard to tame hair. The woman behind her plucks the hairbrush of her loose grip easily and begins to brush the knots out. It's a slow and tedious process considering the lack of any oils or leave-in conditioner that Sakura is accustomed to but she holds her complaints in fear of having her hair pulled.
"Um...mister? Can you make me a doll?"
There's a very rude snicker to her left that's silenced in the same five seconds when the man forms another brush and throws it at whoever laughed. An echoing smack sound and "dude, that hurt," is her confirmation that the weapon hit it's target.
::
In Naruto's humble opinion, today was an absolute shit day. His crush, Sakura, came in looking like what the walking dead monsters depicted in the cartoon poster looked like. But she had a secretive smile on her face that had Naruto vibrating in his seat. But since he didn't approach her to talk, he never found out what was on her mind. Partly it was because of his short attention span, but partly because that one Uchiha wasn't here for him to bother which was seven different kinds of sucky. He burrowed himself deeper into his back aching bed, not really registering his movements in his lucid state of mind as he replayed the day's events.
Ripping him out of his silent musings, a piercing shriek of "demon!", as a caretaker pointed a trembling finger at Naruto, alerted every single soul in the orphanage.
The door was burst open with such force that the handle was embedded into the wall. "Hitoshi what's wrong?!", snapped an auburn haired, seventy year old woman.
"He did it again", she hissed as she leaped across the room, towards the door and away from the blonde boy. "Red, all over!" The woman was close to tears as she wailed to the mother of the orphanage. Naruto on the other hand stood in the corner, eyes downcast and his ratty blanket scrunched up around his ankles. A twinge of shame stabbed at his heart. He hadn't meant to let it leak out while daydreaming like that...
Sho Chinen had been running this orphanage ever since she was twenty six years old. The woman had lived through the third Shinobi World War, where her orphanage was used to house all sorts of people. She was a strict mother who didn't take any nonsense. She may not have been known for her kindness but she was fair. Therefore now, she had to deal with this nuisance of a woman.
"Hitoshi, get a grip, I've already informed you he often does that".
"He was playing with red chakra", the woman screeched as she frantically tugged at her clothes.
"That's exactly what I told you yesterday, the day you decided to work here", explained the mother as patiently as she could.
"But...but...he..!", Hitoshi sputtered.
"Enough, you will either tend to the boy and tuck him in bed, or you will go and help out the girls in the kitchen".
"He's a demon".
"He's a boy. One more word and I'll have you out on the street. You are a grown woman, now start acting like it", barked Sho.
The brown haired woman flipped her hair and stormed out of the room, refusing to apologise to...to such a creature, she made her way downstairs nonetheless. The second the young woman was out of sight, Sho's shoulders sagged in relief, at least this one didn't try to throw a kunai at the boy like the last caretaker.
"Boy, it's bed time. Lock away your pet, you can play with him tomorrow", snapped the elder before closing the door.
" 'kay", yawned the sleepy boy, rubbing his eyes, the adrenaline faded with the hysterical woman's presence. The red chakra which had been seeping around him began to subside and disappear into the black marks imprinted on his belly. Before the last tendrils of chakra could disappear, he grabbed onto it, ignoring the pain as his skin burned.
"...stay", he whispered in his high pitched voice. He stood there for a few more seconds, to make sure it stayed with him, before letting go of it.
Naruto was feeling better now. What little bit of shame he had felt was no longer there. 'It isn't my fault,' he kept repeating to himself, forcing his mind to be happier. Old lady Sho always says it herself. He nodded his head as his breathing became normal and he was feeling okay once more. The only reason he had cowered was because he hadn't prepared himself for the worst when she arrived as he had been told by everyone in the Home that the newcomer was actually nice.
The boy hobbled up to his bed and pulled himself up, that last tendril of chakra pushing up from the ground, helping him to hoist his scrawny figure up. He got under his covers and ignored it all. The terrifying howls which came from outside, the gnarled branches as they bet mercilessly against the window, the happy cheers which floated from the other rooms, the sickly smell of mould on the walls, the dull grey wallpaper. He ignored it. After all he still had his 'pet' as everyone here called it. Even if touching it hurt him, even if it always shouted how much it hated him and even if everyone seemed to hate both him and his pet.
AN: that was my take on the type of abuse naruto would have faced in the village. micro aggressions, people ignoring his existence, the extreme would be what i have written just there. i added his part last minute so it might not be fleshed out properly.
ps; looking for an editor