His face scrunched up as the light filtered into his squinted eyes. He sat up, and as he looked around, all he could see was white. White bed, white walls, white floors. He knew where he was now, the memories began to flood into his mind.

He looked down to see himself in a gown, there was an IV stuck in his arm and he felt slightly fatigued. He knew what happened to him but had no idea how he got here. He furrowed his brow trying to recall his last few moments of consciousness. Then it hit him.

"Fukurō-san must've brought me here! I'll have to say thank you if I ever see him again."

Naruto felt something rustling under the covers. As he looked over, a scaley blue head popped up and locked eyes with him.

"Seiteki!" Naruto exclaimed.

The small dragon jumped onto Naruto's lap and began to hop up and down excitedly. Naruto chuckled at the hyper dragons antics.

"I guess you found a safe place to hide once shukaku came out huh? I'm glad you're okay."

Naruto began to pet Seiteki's head, which was much smoother than it appeared. Small arcs of electricity began to jump between the spines on Seiteki's back and he made a low rumbling sound.

'I guess that means he likes it.' Naruto thought with a smile.

The door to his room swung open and Naruto could see a woman holding a clipboard. she was wearing a nurse outfit and was young and attractive.

Naruto looked at her as she stepped to the front of his bed without looking up. She finally took her eyes off the clipboard to see Naruto staring at her.

"Oh, you're awake. Quite the fast healer, aren't you? You were only out for a day."

"Yup!" He said grinning.

"Well in that case I'll need to do a check up." She placed the clipboard down and walked to the side of the bed. Her hands began to glow and she placed them onto Naruto's bare back.

Naruto blushed a little, her hands were soft and very warm. He heard her speak up.

"I saw your fight with the hyuga boy, you know. I thought you were amazing, and so was he." She said nodding to Seiteki.

The small dragon puffed out his chest with pride, making the nurse giggle.

A grin spread across Naruto's face, he'd never had anyone besided his jiji praise him before.

"I heard some rumors about you too."

"Rumors? Rumors like what?" Naruto asked.

"Really weird ones" She said laughing.

"People say that you fought a devil and some others say that you single handedly saved Hokage-sama. People come up with the craziest things don't they?"

"I wouldn't say those are totally wrong." Naruto stated. "I did fight a huge monster and I was there to help the others save Jiji - I mean, Hokage-sama."

The nurse looked at this boy in complete shock. The words coming out of his mouth were completely outlandish, but she couldn't see any signs of it being a lie.

"How is he anyway?" Naruto asked.

"What?" The nurse asked, breaking from her thoughts.

"The Hokage, how is he? I'd like to see him."

"Oh, the doctors finished operating on him sometime yesterday, but I don't think they're accepting visitors."

Her hands stopped glowing and she said "Well, you seem fine, so you can leave whenever you'd like. Your belongings are in the cabinet over there."

"Thank you."

The nurse carefully removed the IV and once again grabbed the clipboard. She began to walk out of the room. She was excited to tell someone how she got to do a checkup on the boy who helped save the hokage. It still sounded crazy just thinking about it.

Naruto rose up out of bed and moved to the cabinet to readorn his chain mesh, blue hoodie, black shinobi pants, and sandals. Seiteki once again sat upon his throne, in other words Naruto's head, and Naruto pulled the hood up so the dragon could sleep better.

'I should try to see jiji'. He thought.

Naruto exited the room then looked left and right. He paused, to his right, all the way down the hall there was a room with a jonin guard standing by the door.

Naruto began to think. ' Obviously the hokages room would be guarded, but I doubt it would be by a single Jonin...They probably have that red haired girl in there.'

He continued walking through the halls in search of where the hokage was resting, it was a bit hard to find because anyone he asked refused to give him a direct answer. After a couple minutes of wandering he spotted two anbu standing guard.

'Bingo'

Naruto walked up to them and was immediately stopped by the one to his left.

"Stop, you are not permitted past this point." The man was very forceful and Naruto was about to turn back, seeing as how there was no way he could sneak past these two anbu, but then he heard a familiar voice.

"You here to see the kage kid?"

Naruto looked to his right and saw the man who brought him here.

"Fukurō-san! I didn't think I'd see you again. Thank you for bringing me here."

"Well I couldn't just leave you passed out on the roof of a collapsing building, could I?"

Naruto snickered and the other anbu asked "You know him?"

"I do." Was Fukurō's simple response.

"Can you please let me see him, I won't take too long, I promise." Naruto asked.

"We are under strict orders to--" Fukurō cut off his partner.

"You might not want to see him kid. He's in pretty rough shape."

"You're not supposed to tell him tha--" Now Naruto cut him off.

"That's why I need to see him!" Naruto protested.

Fukurō stared at Naruto for a moment, like he was analyzing him, which was unsettling for Naruto because he couldn't see his eyes but he could feel them on him. His eyes were piercing, like an owls.

After a moment Fukurō suddenly spoke. "Sure kid. let him in, he's good."

"Are you sure? You'd be ignoring your orders...again."

"It won't be a problem if no one knows." Fukurō said slyly.

His partner just sighed and said "fine."

"Thank you Fukurō-san"

Fukurō simply nodded and Naruto walked through the door into the room and shut the door behind him.

"You think he'll be alright? After seeing that?"

"I don't know, but he's a tough kid." Fukurō answered.

Naruto walked into the room. It was dimly lit and he could hear the beeping of the equipment. There was a curtain up ahead that was shielding one of the beds from view. Naruto approached it and slowly pulled it open.

The very next second he forcefully pulled it back into place, obscuring the bed once again. Naruto's heart dropped and he felt slightly dizzy.

'There's no way... that can't be him... Is it?'

Naruto once again pulled open the curtain to reveal Hiruzen lying in bed. He had a tube going down his throat, a cast for some broken bones, an IV stuck into his veins, and bandages covering nearly his whole body. The old man was hooked up to more machines than Naruto could even count.

It turned out that he had sustained a lot more damage than what it first appeared. There were internal lacerations, broken ribs, a punctured lung, and problematic swelling. He was in a stable condition now but Naruto could only imagine the stress on the doctors as they tried to stitch him back up.

Naruto took a chair, sat next to the bed and grabbed Hiruzens hand - the one that wasn't broken. He looked over the state of the man and began to cry.

"Why did this happen?" he wailed.

He mulled over the events in his head again and again, thinking of all the little things that he could've done different, things that could've prevented this from happening. The memories he had with Hiruzen began to stream into his mind, all the times he was there when Naruto needed him. His emotions began to fluctuate wildly, from saddnes and regret, to happy and reminiscent, then settling on frustrated and vengeful.

He sat there for about half an hour, alone with his thoughts. He tried to remember all the good times that he and Hiruzen shared in order to calm himself, but he only succeed in falling deeper into a pit of rage.

"It was them. Orochimaru and those four, it's their fault." Naruto spat out.

He paused.

'That room with the guard, thats where the girl is. Someone has to pay!'

Naruto rose from his seat and left, taking one last glance at his jiji, which only served to spur on his actions further.

He exited the room.

The door shut behind him as he stepped forward and turned to face Fukurō.

"Would you come find me when he wakes up?" Naruto asked.

"Sure."

"Thanks." Naruto turned and began to walk back to the room with the guard.

'I remember them saying they would treat her wounds, so if she's anywhere, it's in that room' Naruto deduced.

He was speed walking down the halls trying his best not to draw attention. He stopped where two hallways intersected and when he reached the corner he went to take a peek. All the way down the hall he could see a single Jonin guard.

'How do I get past him?' Naruto wondered.

Naruto toiled over the problem for a minute and then a light bulb went off in his head.

A red headed girl shot out from behind the corner and began to frantically run down the hall. She had strange red hair, was covered in bandages and had a limp. Her eyes were darting around, looking at every door hoping one of them was an exit.

She stumbled along until her eyes locked with those of the guard, she froze in place. The guard stared at her in shock and looked between her and the door he was guarding a couple times. He analyzed the girl and saw that she had a kunai in her hand, how she got it he didn't know.

'I can't let her get away, especially since she's holding a weapon.' The guard thought.

He suddenly began to give chase and the girl turned and ran back the way she came, always staying a few steps ahead of the jonin to keep him chasing. As the girl turned left into the intersection hallway, the guard followed.

The next second Naruto shot out from the right and ran full speed towards the now unguarded door. He threw the door open and walked in.

"Man, I really love shadow clones." Naruto mumbled as the door closed.

Naruto approached the bed slowly. The girl was sleeping and she had one arm and one leg in a cast. With every step he took his body began to heat up and his rage began to boil.

Stopping beside her bed he just stared for a little while, trying to decide what to do. He had come here without really thinking, acting on impulse, but the longer he looked at her the angrier he got.

Naruto reached into his holster and gripped a kunai tight enough to turn his knuckles white. With a shaky hand he brought it directly over her heart, and then hesitated. His heart was working double time and he was breathing harder.

For an instant, his eyes glanced over at her face and he was shocked to see that she was staring at him. Naruto began to panic.

But a raspy voice cut through air. "Do it."

Naruto gave her an incredulous look. He figured that in the event of this happening, the girl would be begging for her life, apologising for what she did or try to make some sort of deal. He was so taken aback that his grip on the kunai loosened.

He looked into her eyes and he saw himself. He might as well have been looking into a mirror. He could see that endless loneliness that he knew all too well.

But the rage was still bubbling inside him, anxious to burst forth and turn the world to ash. Naruto inhaled sharply, raised the kunai higher, then froze again. Naruto looked her in the eye.

She was fine with this.

Naruto's arm was trembling and he desperately wanted to end her life, to take revenge upon those who harmed his precious people, but in the end he sighed and the kunai fell back to his side.

"I can't" Naruto whispered.

Suddenly heavy footsteps could be heard quickly approaching the door. In his turmoil, Naruto had failed to realize that his clone got poofed during the chase.

Naruto did not want to be seen, so he threw himself out of the window. He landed onto the ground hard, luckily it wasn't too high up. Naruto got to his feet and made his escape, still feeling conflicted over what just happened.

Naruto had run untill he reached the training grounds and he felt like screaming. He felt so conflicted and frustrated that he was ready to lash out at anything.

He forcefully yanked down his hood and Seiteki flew out looking for enemies, seeing none, he landed back on the ground.

"I should've done it! But..."

Naruto began to scratch his head and mess with his hair in frustration. He decided that this needed to be settled, so he made a familiar hand sign.

"Shadow clone jutsu!"

Of course a clone popped into existence, but this time it wasn't for battle. Naruto had always found that when he had conflicting feelings about something, it was best solved by having a debate with himself, debates that sometimes devolved into senseless fist fights, but it worked most of the time.

The clone wasted no time in trying to get his point across.

"Why didn't you kill her?!" The clone screamed.

"You want to kill a girl who was lying helplessly in a hospital bed?!" Naruto yelled back.

"Yes! I did! And I still do! So do you!"

Seiteki watched the exchange with curiosity, cocking his head to the side.

"That's cold blooded murder!" The original yelled.

"We're shinobi idiot! Murder is what we do! look... she hurt someone close to you, for that, she deserves to be hurt back. She came into our home and tried to destroy everything the hokage have built over the years, she's scum!"

"She was following orders, we could've been in the same position as her. You said it yourself! How can I fault the soldier for following her orders? It's not right."

The clone faltered, it appeared Naruto was getting through now.

Naruto sighed and said "Look, what she did was bad, we both agree on that, but if I were to kill her, what would that make me?"

"You'd be a damn hero! You'd be someone who wanted justice and then went and delivered it."

"No... My whole life was spent trying to become strong enough so that I could protect people, and not just the people of the leaf, I'd protect anyone who needs my help. So for me to kill her while she's completely helpless would go against who I am, and then I really would be what they say. A demon."

The clone sighed but stayed silent, the original had a point. He wanted revenge but to get it he would have to throw away the ideals and morals that made him who he is.

Maybe that's why they tell you to dig two graves.

"So... what? You're just gonna forget about it? While jiji is suffering in that same hospital?"

"What do you want me to say?! I just... I don't know."

The clone sucked his teeth, he wasn't so sure if his way was right anymore either. There was a long silence with nothing but the sounds of birds filling the air.

"...Did you see that look in her eyes?" The original called out suddenly.

"Yeah, it was like she wanted it. She looked terrified."

"Yeah...but not of us."

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." - Confucius

Review please!