A star is born every time someone makes a wish.
This is the story of a star who was born to a wish of revenge.
Uzumaki Naruto was tired. He stood alone in the early rain, staring down at his unconscious teammate sprawled out in front of his legs.
A quiet breath left him as his lips fell.
Taking a deep breath to calm his strained gasps, he choked on the blood that rose to his throat.
Ignoring the pain that seared through his chest after the adrenaline wore itself away, he stepped forward and crouched down, forcing his left arm beneath his older teammate's back. His other injured arm hooked under his teammate's knees.
Another strained breath sent a violent cough to rack his body and he leaned over his teammate as red spluttered from his lips, letting the blood get hacked out into the water. Painful, but it cleared his throat enough for him to gather some semblance of energy and hoist up his teammate in his arms.
Small ripples flooded outwards and around him as he rose, feet sinking into the unhappy banks of the once-small stream that now drowned his bare ankles and had soaked through his clothes.
Water clung to him obsessively, weighing down his hair and uncomfortably creasing his thick clothes over him, doing nothing to erase the crimson blossoming under his paling skin.
Cold feet trudged through the rising river, sifting past the pebbled banks to the slick stone that created the sheer cliff walls of the shrouded valley.
Vision clouded with darkness, blood and fatigue, he didn't remember how he ventured up the steep grey surface.
Ears ringing, he only heard the growling whispering leading him to the dense forest.
Fingers numb, he only registered the pain when he saw the ripped shoulder of his jacket.
Tasting copper, he couldn't spit away the familiar flavour without choking first.
There was no relief in his bones as he reached the painted gates of the village.
Bright hair identified who ran to him, burning his eyes as inaudible words spilled from his other teammate's mouth, biting at his perseverance and indifference.
A great load was stolen from his unfeeling shoulder as the weight of his teammate was transferred to another, taken away for unneeded treatment.
Stinging spread across his face from an avoidable blindness by emotion. It mingled with the aching of the rest of himself, inflicting no more agony than the lightning that sizzled at his fingertips and the fire the burned his lungs.
Vivid eyes tried to tear into him violently before shooting away.
Mismatched eyes sent him a look that had become too familiar from his other teachers.
Shepherding gates closed before him. He did not remember what side of those gates he fell upon, only that he fell back, looking up to the glaring sun that tried to take a peak through the breaking clouds at the village, and lifted an arm to the star in the sky.
An intentional twitch corrected his dilated right pupil before the heavy arm he had raised to greet the sun fell from its perch and came to rest upon his chest.
The fist-sized hole in his chest had closed with burning chakra but still bled uncomfortably at the flesh wounds that remained, and lay him in a bed of rubies. Both his hands went to his chest and preformed the little they could to help his state, applying pressure to the wound that had destroyed his left lung.
Eyes closed to the world, the orange glare that bled through his eyelids set a small, genuine smile on his face.
He didn't expect anyone to come to him until Tsunade heard of the return, so he took a deep breath, relaxed and took the time to enjoy the rising sun as he waited.