Summary:

Naruto has come back from his disappearance but is avoiding Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura is worried for Naruto but he hurts her feelings which angers Sasuke, and the nine tails continues to torment Naruto.

There was a bright light blocking his eyes. As he began to regain consciousness, he tried to flicker his eyes open but there was a yellow bright light harming his eyes. He brought up his hand slowly to block the light, while he began to groan as he awoke from his unconsciousness. He lifted himself up, putting his head down to block the light from his eyes, however he noticed that he was no longer on the floor, instead he noticed that he was laid on white, clean bed sheets and there was a dark green blanket all crumbled up.

Once he took note of this, he gasped lightly and looked up, away from the light, turning his head and realized the brown wooden table and mini fridge, along with ninja tools laid out on the floor with a trash can nearby filled up with ramen cups.

He was in his apartment room. Naruto then recalled the Hokage's words of him returning to his apartment, but still under house arrest. Could it be that when he was unconscious, they had moved him to his apartment. Naruto mentally noted that and hopped off his bed. His first thought was to check himself in the mirror.

As he walked over to see his reflection, the creaks on the floor board reminded him of the splashes from the water he had to walk through the cage of the demon. The thought of that scared him as he remembered the fear from meeting the demon and how it almost took him over using his hatred. But he had to keep it bottled up, for their sake.

He reached the mirror and saw a scar on the left side of his face in the shape of a single claw mark. It was still red so he could only assume he got this scar just recently while he was banging on the bars. Another feature he noticed were his eye bags being red. He then recalled him using all the strength he had left trying to at least make a dent in the bars to escape, but it was no use so he just cried out the pain he was feeling. He had cried so much that the red in his eye bags stayed there for a day.

However, he was freaked out again by not a hallucination of himself as the demon, but this time he saw a hallucination of a woman. Her back was standing to where the mirror was in the reflection so Naruto couldn't see her face, but an attribute she had was the long, red, flowing hair she had. He was scared by this again but jumped in fear when the woman had turned her head to face Naruto just a tiny bit, as her hair covered her eyes and nose but not her mouth, and smiled at Naruto through the reflection.

"Hello! Naruto, are you finally here!"

There was banging outside the door. He immediately shifted his vision to see the door moving as a person knocked it hard. Naruto began to walk up to open the door but stopped after a step to look back at the mirror. The woman was gone. Was his mind playing tricks on him again? Either way, Naruto moved on from that and continued to walk towards the door.

When he reached it, he pulled on the yellow door knob and slightly pulled the door back. He peeked through the halfway open door and as soon as he saw pink-auburn hair, he realized that the voice and the one behind the knocking was Sakura.

"Naruto you're back!" She jumped up in excitement just a little, as she had something in her hands. "Sasuke and I were so worried about you when—"

Sakura caught off to think. For a few seconds there was silence as Sakura all of a sudden came to a stop. Naruto finally fully opened the creaky door to see Sakura horrifyingly stare at the floor.

"Eh urm…" Sakura made out before she extended both of her hands to Naruto with a black item and laid her head down. "I-um… I got you this bento box this morning in case you did come and you had nothing else to eat. Well, Sasuke paid for it and I decided to it bring for—"

"I don't need it"

Naruto wanted so badly to say yes. This was the first Sakura had given him something, even though she wasn't the one who originally got it. But the thought of the demon being let out and could cause harm to her, scared him the most above all thing.

Sakura lifted her head back up and saw the left side of Naruto's face as he tried to look away to avoid her gaze. But Sakura was even more concerned as she saw the scar on the left side of his face that reached from Naruto's eyebrows, to around where his nostrils were.

"Where did you..get that scar from? Are you ok?!" a concerned Sakura let out. "Naruto...where exactly were you the past day?"

Naruto hid his widened eyes away from Sakura. He couldn't let her know about it. About him. None of them should. At this point, the amount of stress he felt for having to hide all of this away got to him as soon as Sakura asked the next question.

"I was just out in the forest now please just leave" Naruto was horrible at excuses but it was his best shot at leaving Sakura out of this. However he could only imagine what would happen if this was Sasuke.

"Oh..well...but I believe you should still have the bento box, you don't seem very well and—"

"I SAID I DON'T NEED IT!"

Naruto slapped the bento box out of Sakura's hand, along with the same hand too, and saw the rice spill out all over the floorboards as the lid to the box opened, just like a small twist to the lid on Naruto's bottled up emotions had opened. Naruto, realizing what he had done, stepped back a step from Sakura who stared in shock at the spilled Bento box. Shen then turned over to Naruto, trembling, as he realized the water forming in her eyes. Sakura then bent down in an apologizing manner with her hands held together on her thighs and her head looking straight down again.

"I-I'm sorry...for annoying y-you, I'll just...just leave right now" Sakura stuttered. She then bent herself back up and immediately made a run towards the exit, out from the apartment building.

"W-Wait! Hold up!" Naruto tried calling back, however collapsed again when he felt the same jolt of pain in his head.

'Where the hell is this pain coming from?!' Pondered Naruto, angrily.

Then after that thought, he heard laughter echoing in his head.

He was there again. Naruto was instantly awake in the cage, however was seated again in the water that looked like swamp water.

"That was quite the show you put back there with that girl"

"Tch." Naruto answered back harshly while turning his body away from the demon. The demon fox however just continued laughing which began to torment Naruto even more.

"Trying to ignore me, brat."

Naruto didn't respond or make a sound to counter the demon's sentence. Instead he looked dreadfully at the water with eyes all of a sudden turning cold. His mind was only set on what had happened just recently. He had hurt Sakura who was only just worried for him.

'It's all just to protect her and Sasuke. I'm not this cruel.'

"Keep telling yourself that brat, you'll soon realize your true self is doing that"

Naruto stood up in anger.

"My what now! I know that this is all for their sake, I'm just faking my anger to them!" Naruto angrily shot back.

"Do you truly believe that? If so, why didn't you reject her in a 'nicer' way"

Naruto's eyes grew. Come to think about it, he did just say out of nowhere, he wasn't thinking and his consciousness immediately chose to slap it out of Sakura's hand. If he wanted to, he would have sent her off without needing to do that, but instead he lashed out at her. No. Naruto denied this.

"N-No! She just...she just was too stubborn to leave so my only way was to…"

"To hurt her"

"NO!" Naruto yelled out after he had gripped his head again. He was letting the demon get to him again. He used his elbows again to cover his ears and squeezed his eyes shut although his face was already heading towards the water on the ground.

Naruto didn't want to accept the truth, because the truth would mean giving into the demon.

Sakura dashed out from the apartment building onto the village's streets. For a moment, she was so relieved and happy that Naruto was fine and wanted to share the news again with Sasuke after their long search for him the day before.

Sakura checked the Northwest first as when she was done, she didn't have to move much. Sasuke checked the South, and if he didn't spot Naruto anywhere there, he would have to go North to the eastern North. However, as time went on none of them had found Naruto. They checked every tree to see if he was hiding in its branches or if there was a hidden trapdoor, but their efforts proved to be useless after not finding him. So they met back where they were put by the KSD members, when it was night, and Sakura stood there first waiting for Sasuke. Time passed by and after not a long time of waiting, Sakura, who was leaning on the nearby walls as the KSD members had put them to an abandoned ally corner, saw Sasuke run back to the spot, panting.

"Well, any luck?" Sakura asked, putting her hand on her chest.

Sasuke looked distraught as he looked down to the floor.

"Damned luck isn't on my side today." Sasuke harshly responded.

Sakura frowned and followed Sasuke, looking at the floor. Although she didn't do it long, she felt as if there was something else they hadn't checked.

"What if he was in his apartment this whole time and only let the hokage's words get into our minds" Sakura then ran past Sasuke who just awoke from coldly staring down. "I'll go check!"

With that, Sakura ran down the streets, heading towards Naruto's lonely apartment. It was her last and only choice, if Naruto wasn't found there, then where could he be?.

She still couldn't believe that he was so harsh to her. Out of all the times they've hung out together, never has Naruto snapped or has been out right cold. Sasuke sometimes had because he had his own personal problems to deal with, but Naruto never seemed to be that kind of person.

She continued running before coming to a stop when she accidentally bumped into someone. While she had been running, she was looking down the whole time, as she didn't want the nearby villagers to deem her weak as there were a few tears spilling out. When she bumped into the person, the force knocked her back and when she looked up so she could maybe try to apologize, she realized it was Ino and her friend from the academy. Ino was the most popular girl at the academy so it would be likely she would be hanging out with one of her friends.

She and Sakura used to be friends for a medium amount of time, however had split paths once they had figured their rivalry of love to the same person. Though Sakura often found it annoying that it had to come to that, in the end, she was the one who confronted her about it and was born a female. The friend Ino was hanging out with was called Maia. Sakura had seen her before as she stood out in her class with her lackluster performances and grades. She often came to the academy with huge black eye bags and her raven-colored, messy hair. It didn't seem as if she washed it and often looked unamused or bored with her black dull eyes . She had seen Maia smile, but it looked as if she put no strength to it. Sakura couldn't imagine Ino walking with someone like her, and yet here she is with her.

"You should be more careful forehead-girl, maybe your eyes are too small for your big forehead that you couldn't see your surroundings" Ino teased getting back up from the bump. Maia had helped her but didn't tag along with her "jokes".

"I don't have time for you Ino-pig! Now why don't you go run like a pig and get out my way" Sakura had yelled back, running past her while shoving her shoulder. Sakura just wanted to be home as soon as possible and collapse into her bed of shame.

Meanwhile, Ino stood there wondering why Sakura was in such a hurry to have the confidence to shove her out of her way.

"Wowie, never seen that girl have the guts to push me after all I've done for her." Ino told Maia.

Maia didn't respond however instead kept staring at the direction Sakura ran in before she yawned and ignored Ino by walking off. However another gust of wind past them as someone who was sprinting after her with the same raven colored hair.

Sakura continued running to her house. Maybe she would stay there for as long as she could. Her parents wouldn't be there because…

….

Sakura continued running to her house. Maybe she would stay there for as long as she could. She didn't want to be confronted by Naruto again and felt that something like that had easily hurt her.

She was nearly there. Turning the corner and just before the next was her house. She tried to use the last of her energy to sprint to her home, however suddenly, a hand grabbed onto her. It stopped her from continuing to run to her home. She looked behind her to see the person who decided to stop her and became mildly nervous when it was revealed to be Sasuke who was panting

"You've been running for so long I thought I couldn't catch up" he said as he continued to pant. "Either way, what happened with Naruto, you suddenly dashed out of his apartment building."

Sakura widened her eyes. Was it that Sasuke had followed her? She tried to hide her tears from leaking, but to no prevail they did any way she stood there letting them roll by her cheeks as she tried to stare away at Sasuke who looked concerned, however he all of a sudden put his head down, darkening his eyes and forehead, let his bangs cover it, squeezed her arms, and said something with a dark and serious tone.

"What happened there? Tell me."

Sakura winced at his hard Sasuke was squeezing her hand.

"Naruto he...he snapped at me and...and." Sakura started whimpering. "He had a scar on the side of his face, his eye bags were...were huge and red...he seemed bruised and just-just...just refused the bento box you had bought by slapping it out...out of my hand."

Sakura, finishing her stuttering sentence, held her hand up to her chest using her other hand to hold over and it showed to Sasuke that it was bright red from how hard Naruto had slapped the hand the Bento box was held in.

"I'm worried for him. First he disappears, then the villagers and the high shinobi accuse Naruto of two deaths, then the Hokage acted weird and suspicious when we asked about Naruto's whereabouts, and now he's acting very off."

Sakura then saw Sasuke turn away from her furiously.

"W-wait where are you going!" She called out to him and extended her arm to reach out to him, however flinched and stopped her arm from extending further when she saw Sasuke's hand clench into a fist.

He curled himself up in a ball on his bed. All he knew was that he had accidentally hurt his friend when he meant to just protect her from him. Maybe she saw him now as a monster knowing how easily she could break into tears, but maybe he took it too far.

'No. It's all the demon's fault. It's not mine. I'm not like him. I'm not like him'

He got out of his curled ball in the bed and hopped off. Although as soon as he turned to the corner of his bed to go to his mini fridge, the door slammed open and there he saw a peaking foot, with navy sandal that had been built as a boot, which he could only assume had kicked the door forcefully open. His dead and dull eyes turned to see Sasuke with his foot out, the same that had kicked the door, and a not so happy face.

He chose to ignore this and stared back to his small kitchen and continued to walk. However, that didn't get him too far as seconds later, he received the hardest slap he had ever gotten across his right cheek, the opposite side from his scar. The slap had hit him hard enough to make him fall on his bottom, but he still continued to look away and ignore Sasuke.

"Hey loser, mind explaining to me why you made Sakura cry." Sasuke brutally said.

He didn't answer him. He didn't want to. But to think Sasuke would do this just for slapping a bento box out of her hands. He didn't even believe Sasuke had cared for her, or maybe he just cared about why he was acting cruel to his friend. Whatever was his reason to personally come up to him, he didn't want to react back, but again Sasuke still tried to make him answer by grabbing his hoodie and dragging up to his face, but he still decided to look away.

"You're not very talkative right now for someone who has a big mouth." Sasuke spat in his face. "C'mon Naruto, you have some explaining to do!"

Naruto still kept quiet. He felt as if he could tell him everything, but still told himself in order to protect them, he had to shut them out away from him. Sasuke though didn't get the hint and slammed him to the nearby wall, letting go of his hoodie and ultimately stepping back from Naruto.

"Y'know, you could just tell me and this would be a hell of a lot easier. After all, we're friends not enemies." Sasuke tried to calm himself down from hurting Naruto more and tried to get an answer from him by being calmer. But still, no response.

Sasuke tried to stop himself from punching Naruto with all his might, as his clenched fists begged to relentlessly hurt him over and over again. After a few seconds of silence as Sasuke violently stared at Naruto, whose dull eyes continued to stare away and down from Sasuke, he finally got the hint that Naruto didn't want to respond and using brute force wouldn't get a response out of him, so in defeat, he sighed and turned his back to Naruto.

"I thought you were better than that.."

With that, Sasuke walked away from Naruto towards the not so far exit, leavin Naruto on the floor still, with one eye dropping a tear as it rolled down.

'Is this what I deserve?'

She remembered now.

Next Chapter: A Sharingan.