A/N:
So... this chapter's title is totally against my personal beliefs. I'm a pacifist... mostly... *cough*. The point is, I don't think violence is really the answer/solution to anything, and please don't use this chapter is an excuse to go beat people up or something. HUGS NOT PUNCHES. :3. Sorry for the long delay between chapter-updates, people. I've been getting a lot of favorite-ing action going on with this story, which is lovely beyond words, but review-action makes me smile even more. So review please?

In Which Violence is the Solution

Early the next morning, Naruto once again found himself at the home of Saint Wegmas, otherwise known as the local supermarket, waiting for Sasuke to arrive.

He felt nervous and fidgety – which is totally ridiculous, he told himself. It's not like this will be the first fight I've ever been in. Back in high school and middle school, he'd gotten into fistfights all the time. It wasn't that he was a bully; he just had to defend himself a lot. Parents all told their children to stay away from him because of his devil-seed-status. Most of them had the good decency to alienate him and otherwise leave him alone, but a few took it a step further and decided Naruto's name was actually Punching Bag. So he fought back – not in an I'm-Going-To-Beat-The-Shit-Out-Of-You way, mind you; he'd bruised a few people, sure, but he'd never broken any bones or anything. It was all purely self-defense.

And then he took up defending others – like the time Hinata's cousin started screaming at her in the middle of the cafeteria, and Naruto took a swing at him.

The entire school hated him most of the time, but when he was in one of his righteous fights, they gathered around him and his opponent, excitedly looking on and doing their best to block the squabble from view of any teachers. Admittedly, Naruto liked the attention, the thrill of being accepted – if only temporarily.

Naruto wasn't one to hold a grudge and many of his former fighting partners became his friends later, when they realized their families' hatred and fear of him was misplaced. Sakura was the first example of this; she and Ino had descended on him on the first day of sixth grade, calling him names and pulling his hair. After enduring the screeching voices, hyena laughs, and sharp pain in his scalp for a good five minutes, he slapped Sakura. She stared at him in awe for a few minutes before slapping him back and saying, "You dummy, you can't hit a girl."

"Yeah." Ino contributed intelligently.

"Why not?" He asked, rubbing his stinging face. "You started it."

"Because – Because –" Ino spluttered.

"You just can't." Sakura sighed, exasperated. "And you're the one they're calling the devil incarnate?"

He shrugged. "You're just an idiot," she proclaimed, grinning, and from then on, he and Sakura were best friends, though Ino never quite warmed up to him.

The more serious fights started in high school; Kiba and Neji were two more who grew to admire him some time after attempting to beat him up.

The fighting habits had died down by senior year, and by the time he graduated, he thought he had washed his hands of the whole business all together. That had been before he'd found out that Sakura's boyfriend had been the one to kiss him in the middle of the supermarket. Naruto would be the first to admit that he wasn't always the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he was capable of connecting the dots; if Sasuke was prepared to make out with strangers in the local Wegman's, it was a safe bet that Sakura wasn't the only girl (or boy, apparently) on his mind. He was cheating on Sakura.

Naruto hadn't really been thinking when he'd demanded Sasuke to meet him there. Now he could hear how his own voice must have sounded as he proposed the fight: shrill and childish, like a two-year-old throwing a temper-tantrum. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd been attempting to be Sakura's Knight In Shining Armor, but he ended up being a Jealous Brat – which he was, he supposed, but he was still sore over having revealed it.

It was 6:01 now, and Leaf University was an hour away. If he wasn't at Sakura's house by 7:55 AM sharp, she would drive off without him. He was cursing silently at himself for not having thought this whole thing through better when he heard footsteps in the opposite direction. It was still an hour until Wegman's opened for the day, which meant this person could only be -

"Sasuke?"

"Sasuke?" A high-pitched voice called back, mocking him. "Who's that?" Tayuya asked. "Your boyfriend?"

Naruto cringed. Tayuya was another student he'd often fought with in high school, and Sakura eagerly lifted her no-hitting-girls-rule for her sake. Tayuya hung on every word Pastor Orochimaru said, and she never did anything without his approval. She thoroughly despised Naruto – because, of course, Orochimaru told her to. Every Tuesday, Anko gave self-defense lessons to the girls of Konoha in the park. Tayuya had managed to turn those self-defending skills into beating-on-Naruto skills.

"Look," He said, tiredly, "Can you just leave me alone? I kind of have to fight someone else and get over to Sakura's house by 7:55, and I don't want to waste my energy on you, and –"

"You're just afraid to fight me."

Naruto's temper flared up. "I'm not afraid, I –" she punched him in the gut. "I – flunked – my – SATs –" she punctuated the words with punches. The statement both bewildered Naruto – what did her SAT-flunkage have to do with him? – and embarrassed him. He was being beaten up by someone a year younger than him.

"Because-of-you." She finished, and the beating made a little more sense. Being the resident spawn of evil meant he got the blame for all the bad things that happened. If you got dumped or had a fight with your parents or got fired, it wasn't because you had been a crappy girlfriend/boyfriend/daughter/son/employee – oh, no, that Naruto must have given you the evil eye. It's like the salem witch trials, Naruto remarked thoughtfully to himself as Tayuya kicked him in the shins – only minus the burning at the stake part.

Naruto was tempted to hit her back, but the last time he'd been in a fight with Tayuya, she'd run to Orochimaru afterwards and claimed that evil old Naruto had attacked her out of nowhere. The Pastor had, of course, used this information to enforce his Naruto-is-evil-we-must-shun-him viewpoints.

"Why – don't – you – just – go – back – to – hell?"

Naruto started humming under his breath so as not to focus on the blood trickling from his nose.

Suddenly the incoming punches and kicks came to a complete stop, and the song he was humming seemed incredibly loud.

He lifted his head a few inches to find Sasuke roughly gripping Tayuya's arm. Without saying anything or changing his facial expression, he twisted her arm back behind her. Naruto heard a sickening cracking noise.

"What the fuck?" She shrieked. It was the first time Naruto had ever heard her swear – Orochimaru forbade it.

"Get out." Sasuke sounded tired. Tayuya ran away, shouting at him behind her back the whole time. Naruto couldn't exactly make out what she was saying, but he did catch "fuck," "shitbag," and "Holy fuckshit this hurts!" a few times.

Sasuke whacked Naruto across the head. "I came here to beat the shit out of you." He said, his voice deadpan. "And you let someone else beat me to it?"

This Sasuke was much different from the smirking one Naruto had last met at Wegman's.

Naruto lifted a hand to his bloody face, then rubbed it on Sasuke's shoes. Sasuke kicked dirt at him, then looked down at him disgustedly. "Why do they call you the devil child around here?" he asked.

Naruto tried to lift himself up, but found that Tayuya had done a number on his arms as well. "Dammit," he muttered to himself, "I really need to pay more attention to stuff."

"Why do they call you the devil child?" Sasuke repeated, louder and more insistent this time. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was tapping one finger impatiently on the other arm.

"Help me up, bastard." Naruto demanded.

"Not until you answer my question, moron."

Naruto sighed and looked away.

"Because," he said slowly, "I… when I was three, I… killed my parents."