I Am What I Was Made

Naruto

Sarutobi Hiruzen stared across the battle field that had once been Konohagakure. The battle; though the term was unfounded and inaccurate, it had been a slaughter, was nearly over. The civilians of the hidden village had been decimated in the first two days, perhaps a handful had managed to flee from the assault they had provoked in their hatred. Against his moral compass Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha, had sent his ninja forces to battle. A fruitless and impossible effort. And now he stared at the wreckage of his once beloved home.

The streets were thick with blood, shreds of human flesh and the occasional whole corpse scattered through the village in a seemingly random pattern. Ruins of shops and houses smoldered in the dawn's light rain, remnants of a lost day. Fire still devoured the southern quarter of the city, clan homes lighting the early morning with a haze of red and orange. The last of Konoha's ninja, the small meeger force, stood around him. And all this destruction from one man. No, not even a man. One child, a boy no more than four.

The child stared blankly at them, nearly level if a bit higher, gazing back as they prepared upon the Hokage Monument. His sunny locks flattened, caked in mud, blood and rain. Crimson streaks of life splashed across his visage. He looked so hollow sitting atop the red monster, so broken. And it was a wonder it had lasted this long.

"You failed, pathetic humans!" The Kyuubi fox laughed in it's growling manner.

It was right too. They had failed, more importantly, he had failed. Not just Konoha. Not just his ninja. He had failed the boy. Failed to keep him safe and loved, to give him a real childhood as the Yondaime had wanted him to have. Sarutobi Hiruzen had failed, and Konoha had paid the final price.

"Naruto, please! You must call it back! You mustn't let the seal continue to fade!" That was Jiraiya, one of the last ninja of the Leaf left.

"Why should I care!" The boy's eyes sharpened into icy slits, focusing on Hiruzen's student, voice startlingly clear for a child, "Why should I call him back when all he's done is love me!"

The child was hurting, angry, bitter. Hiruzen couldn't blame him, not really. Not with the way the village had treated him. Kicked from the orphanage at two and a half, banned from almost every store in the village, constantly belittled, kicked, and spit upon. Not many could stay sane through such a life. And every year on his birthday, a special present. Hiruzen had tried to stop them, but one or two always slipped his guard. The mob would beat him, within millimeters of life. It was not a life many could live with and be happy.

"Naruto, don't you see what it's done? What has become of the village? You must stop it," Hiruzen tried to plead. Naruto had told him once that he wanted to be Hokage. If this continued there would be nothing left, there was so little even now.

"Fools," The Kyuubi snarled, "All I do is for the kit! He wished it, and now I will make it so,"

A great sorrow filled him with this admission. The Kyuubi was not acting on it's own, then. It was drawing from Naruto's will and merely creating what it's container desired in an effort to be released.

-o-o-o-

Naruto cocked his head lightly to the side, huddled atop Kyuubi's large head. The fox had saved him for the last two years. He was the reason Naruto remembered to eat, and didn't accidently ingest something poisonous. He was the reason Naruto healed fast enough for the beatings to mean nothing. But, Kyuubi couldn't heal the wounds that were left by their words, not really. He was trying to now.

He had smiled when the fox began it's destruction. Asking the dying villagers if this was the demon they were looking for. Delighting in the recognition, the fear, that lit their faces as the boy and his beast tore through the streets of Konoha. As his jiji, no, the old man Hokage, begged his to stop the demolition, though the village lay in ruins already, Naruto broke into a childish grin. The grin grew, splitting his face in half garishly. And then bursting into improper hysterical laughter.

"Oh, old man," He gasped through his giggles, "Why would I stop my reign of terror here?"

The look of shock on the shinobi's face was almost too much.

"No, no. They asked for the demon. Called for him every day. Why should I deprive them of their desire? Isn't this what they wanted?" He patted the Kyuubi on the head with a soft chuckle. "They called and called. 'Get out, Demon,' 'You aren't welcome, Demon,' 'What are you doing here, Demon?'. No, they asked. They begged for him to come out. They wanted Kyuubi back. Why should I be mean and keep him away? Wouldn't that make the survivors sad? Or mad? That they didn't get to play with Kyuubi to? That's not fair, old man. Not fair at all," Naruto giggled again.

"His logic is wonderful, yes?" The Kyuubi barked harshly, grim smile stretching it's lips.

The final battle began and ended with blood.

Days later, the sole survivor of the Konohagakure slaughter collapsed in Suna, covered in dried blood. He was four years old, and no one knew what to make of it. The details of that horrifying three day massacre were never fully reveled. Most assumed the jinchuriki had lost control, though none knew it's identity. They would never know how right they truly were.