CHAPTER 10

"Yes…" The Hokage said. "According to this… Naruto's very close to actually…" She didn't finish, Sakura didn't understand and neither did Sasuke. A half-hour later Kakashi walked inside; followed by three people who were carrying something very big. Sakura didn't understand what it was since her line of sight was blocked by the other team members coming in.

Tsunade walked over to Naruto. He had apparently stabbed himself many times. According to her knowledge he shouldn't have lived. The Kyuubi was using its strength to keep them both alive and couldn't keep it up…
"What do you think caused it?" She whispered. Kakashi shook his head.
"I have no clue." He told her. He turned to his team to talk. "What you are about to see is the result of a long suffering. That is all we know about it. We don't know what caused the suffering and we hope to find out why tonight. But things won't go back to the way they were. I can't promise that." He sighed and nodded to the others who set down what they were carrying into a chair. Both Sakura and Sasuke recognized the blond hair, the whiskers, and the eyes. What surprised them most was that his jacket was gone and the shirt underneath torn. Ten of the injuries were still visible, Tsunade having cured the others. Lots of blood was streaming down his shirt.

"What happened to him?" Sakura shouted. "Was he attacked or something?" Her "friend" sat in the chair too weak to move. All he could do was look at them. The people who had come to help him when he thought he was beyond help. Kakashi sat down next to the others and sighed.
"It all must come out now Naruto." He said slowly. "Everything that caused this." Naruto nodded slowly. His voice was hoarse and he spoke very slowly, coughing every now and then.

"It… it started after…after the accident." He said. "When I nearly lost my… my teammate." He took a few breaths and to Sakura's surprise he was crying. "I couldn't… sleep. I-I kept…having nightmares." He gagged for a second and then continued. "They were… they were about… about losing her… about it being my fault." He took another pause here to cough.
"She began seeing…another teammate… and I felt jealous…" Naruto continued. His vision had begun blurring but he ignored it as he spoke. "I… didn't want to feel… jealous. So I tried to… punish… punish myself for it… But it just got worse… I hated myself… I wanted to feel happy that she was happy." Sakura's words rang through her head.
"Why can't you just feel happy for me? I don't love you and I don't even know why I consider you a friend.'
"They got…closer and I… felt worse and…worse." He nearly threw up there. Kakashi looked at Tsunade who still held a hand over him, the green light showing that she was attempting to fix things. I saw what seemed to be a daydream of the future… or something like that… It scared me and I had to go somewhere to calm down. But when I got there my teammate…found me. She told me…" He didn't continue but looked at the floor.
"What did she say?" Kiba whispered. Akamaru was whining sadly.
"I… said that I didn't consider him a friend…" Sakura said slowly. She stood up and walked over to Naruto. She looked horrified at her actions. He didn't look at her but his eyes widened when she gave him a hug.

"I'm sorry…" She said. "I… was angry…things… slip out," She said. She had started crying now too. "I didn't mean what I said…" Kakashi just sat there. He was unsure what to do now. Had this ever happened before in Konoha? The other Genin teams were all silent. When Sakura let go she didn't care that the blood he was covered in had gotten on her. She wasn't even thinking straight as she sat down. They sat in silence for a while. Then suddenly Naruto began to cough. He fell out of the chair coughing! He threw up and Tsunade hurried to try and heal him. Surely her power combined with the Kyuubi's would work? Sakura had leapt out of her seat and knelt down beside Naruto.
"Don't die! Please!" She cried sobbing. Sasuke actually looked disturbed and frightened. The other teams didn't know what to do. Hinata had begun sobbing too, her teammates trying to comfort her.

Why didn't it help? That was the question that everyone was asking a few days later. No one understood the loss. Many weren't ready to accept it. The Hokage herself was unbelieving of it. She had been healing him steadily the whole time… what happened? Kakashi was the first to arrive at the true answer. It was the Kyuubi. He had tried hard to keep Naruto alive long enough to be cured. Tried hard to cure him and had failed. He had done too much damage to be dealt with within the time they had. The only thing that might have changed things would have been Tsunade being where they found him.

Sakura was the one most broken up about it. She blamed herself. But, unlike Naruto, she had her parents to comfort her. She refused to talk to anyone for the first week after the tragic event. The other ninja were experiencing loss. Neji wasn't broken like Sakura but he too blamed himself. If he had only revealed Naruto earlier then the whole thing would have ended. He vowed to never make the same mistakes again and to train harder. Rock Lee and Gai were both wearing black versions of their standard outfits. Sasuke hadn't changed much. He still didn't talk to people and looked annoyed half the time. But he'd suspiciously leave the room whenever anyone mentioned Naruto. Hinata was taking a lot of damage too. She hadn't stopped sobbing for the past week. Her dad and sister were there to help. Kiba and Akamaru both were shocked at it. Akamaru wouldn't stop whining anymore. Shino…was Shino and expressed sorrow in his own weird way. Ino also blamed herself because of the Genjutsu she'd used. Tenten wasn't crying but was more depressed. She barely knew Naruto so it wasn't as hard.

The other people of the village expressed their emotions over it. A small group of people was glad the "monster fox" was killed and had been told off by Tsunade. The whole village wasn't the same for the first few weeks. Iruka had stopped teaching because of personal reasons. Konohamaru refused to go to class. It was a surprising turn of events for someone who considered himself of very little importance.

"What will become of my team?" Kakashi asked Tsunade one evening. He had avoided the question because he didn't wish for the team to split. Yet he didn't feel that there were any who could take the place of the loss. The Number One Hyperactive Knuckleheaded Ninja as Kakashi had once put it.
"They will be a two-man team until you find a suitable candidate for entry." Tsunade answered. Kakashi nodded.
"It wasn't your fault." He told Tsunade. "There wasn't time…" She nodded slightly.

"The pieces of a broken life are hard to fit together again." Tsunade said to the crowd. No one was speaking otherwise. "In fact it is nearly impossible to do so alone. All we can do with our limitations is hope that someone comes to help put them back together. You never know what will become of those pieces. Whether they will become better than before or just as good. Those who give in are not weak. Sometimes wounds go too deep to heal. Sometimes the darkness just can't be beaten. We lost a ninja last week. The wounds he had were indeed too much to heal, both physically and emotionally. He was one of the strongest people I had ever met. But Naruto Uzamaki never had anyone to help him through his sorrows. As a child he had to deal with them alone and he believed that to this very day." She sighed and continued. "Many of you knew him… his teammates… his friends. What should we do now? The only thing we can do is pick ourselves up… comfort one another. And in the end, hopefully, we can all overcome the sorrow and sadness…"

THE END.


Final Notes:

(1) Thanks to the creators of Naruto for a great Anime and Manga.

(2) Thanks to any who read the story over the uploading time. ;)

(3) History of Sorrow and Sadness

Originally the concept came into my head for no reason. I was reading the usual comedies here on Fanfiction and it just stuck there. I hadn't written anythingfor this place yet so I decided that I might as well. The original story ended happily with Naruto getting together with Sakura. I didn't feel that was right for the story as I was writing it and ended it with him leaving Konoha and not knowing whether he'd come back.

Well I uploaded the first few chapters but the story didn't seem to fit together. Too much seemed rushed and undone. So I rewrote all of chapters 5-10. This time I was pleased except for the little tweaks I was making with them before uploading. The ending was rewritten today on a notebook during school. Well I typed it out when I got home and uploaded chapter 9. As I worked out the bugs with Chapter 10 I couldn't help but feel this was the proper way to end the story. I don't know if you'll agree but that's how things are.

(4) Review Replies:

full-metal-sousuke: Now you have your answer I suppose. :)

Hikory: Well as you can see she didn't get punished twice as hard as Naruto. But she was aware of her mistake in the end.

ravemastaj: Well it's not a ritual...


I don't know what I'll write next. Or if it will be anything like this. I usually write comedies or action/adventure stories. So this is really a new area for me to explore. Thanks for your replies everyone.