Umino Iruka felt like there were two of him, both occupying the same body.
He was familiar with one of these beings, primarily because he'd lived his entire life believing that this thought form was him, that it and it alone shared his body. This was the happy-go-lucky Iruka, the Iruka who greeted all who passed by with a smile, the Iruka who scolded when necessary and the Iruka who everyone loved.
Iruka wished to stay that way.
But as renovation to an old house awakened the ghost who once lived there before, emotional turmoil had unleashed a power so great within Iruka, he felt himself slipping away day by day, second by second. This monster clawed a his mind, the voice eerily similar to Mizuki's (or so he wanted to make himself believe, how could he, Iruka Umino, be the voice of this madness) yelling out him, shouting ugly lies to him.
"That boy doesn't care about you!" it would yell, and Iruka swore the noise broke through the boundaries of his skull, for he looked around whenever the voice spoke in order to see if anyone else had heard the yelling. But as usual, no one looked up, and if they did, it was only because of his frantic panting.
"He used you to get friends, to get power_You mean nothing more to him than your parents meant to the beast that took them away and that is now locked inside of them! You are an obstacle to him, he wants you gone!"
But Naruto wasn't like that, Naruto just had too much time on his hands, and Iruka understood.
Or so he though...
The voice, it became so clear, so apparent, so true. He could tell himself that Naruto cared, could tell himself that Naruto wanted to spend time with him, but it wasn't true. Iruka was nothing more but a free Ramen meal to the blond, and the voices did everything to point that fact out.
"You're not Kakashi, you're not Jiraiya, you're not Yamato, and you're not Minato_You're not worth his time," progressing from Mizuki's voice to his own, from an internal voice to an external voice, Iruka found himself slipping deeper and deeper into the spell of this voice, losing himself within it's prison.
But really, what was the prison? The happy-go-lucky Iruka who believed all was fine and dandy, who believed that Naruto Uzumaki actually cared, or the practical and real Iruka, the Iruka who reminded the Chunin that Naruto was not coming back for him unless he promised a free meal, not coming back unless he spontaneously jumped from boring chunin to super-cool jounin.
After the self-ignorance washed away, then the anger set in. He concluded that he should not have to live like this, that the voice was right all along.
Pure and white-hot rage.
Like a poison to his heart, the sensation spread throughout Iruka's entire being, the voice in his head egging the sensation on, yearning for him to act upon his anger.
"Grab a kunai! Kill the kid! It'll be easy, he trust you! You're his lap dog! He's laughing at you now, laughing at how stupid you are! Go do it, go kill him, you know you want to!" and this wasn't the first time Iruka had heard the voice, it started months ago, when Naruto first began to ignore him.
No, this wasn't the first time he heard the voice, it was the first time he acted on it.
So he's gone crazy now, and some people are mistreated so badly, that they do go crazy, perhaps not as much as Iruka has in my story. Just wanted to get this part out, give you guys another surprise update, because I haven't touched a Naruto story in weeks. I've been doing a lot on Deviant Art, so I've been doing quick updates with simple stories, but I haven't given up on Naruto completely. Again, I just feel this reflects Naruto and Iruka's relationship, if Naruto can be a sociopath, perhaps Iruka can be , Happy Thanksgiving (I know it's on Thursday, but I may not post then), and God bless :D