Chapter 8: The War Within

The sound of the wind blowing through the apartment woke Naruto up. It sounded more like the wailing of suffering people then of wind. Opening his eyes slowly he was greeted with the sight of a red sky above him. The roof of the room he was in was gone. Sitting up he took in his surroundings.

Naruto was in his apartment. He was sure of it but it looked nothing like he remembered it. It was in ruins. The roof was missing as well as large sections of the walls. All the windows were broken, the floor had holes in it, and all the furniture was smashed. What lay outside mirrored the carnage of his small home.

Standing up from the shredded mattress of his bed Naruto walked over to a hole in the wall. Outside, the village was in shambles. The red sky cast an eerie glow over the broken remains of Konoha. Most of the building he saw were smashed and collapsed in on themselves. Others had been torched leaving a few charred remains. The streets were littered with the broken remains of the life that once flourished here. In the distance he could see that much of the forest that had surrounded the village was charred to ash.

Naruto was in shock. He could not believe what he was seeing. Every way he turned the picture was the same. Buildings were smashed and burned, the streets broken, and no signs of life could be found anywhere. Death had come to Konoha and it spared no one.

"Well, glad to see you finally woke up," a familiar voice said from behind Naruto. "I was beginning to think you would sleep forever. Not that I had anything else to do today I just didn't want to spend it here."

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said with relief in his voice. He turned to his sensei and was greeted with horror. "What happ . . ." He was cut off in mid sentence by what he saw.

"What was that Naruto? You need to speak up." Kakashi stood leaning against the door frame staring at Naruto. His clothes were all ripped to shreds. His face a ghostly white. Most distressing of all was the kunai knife deeply embedded in his sharingan eye. "Hey Naruto you don't look so good. Are you feeling ok?"

"I'm not looking good? YOU HAVE A DAMN KNIFE IN YOUR EYE!"

"Hu, oh you mean this." He pointed to his face. "I have been meaning to take that out but you drove it so deep in there it's really hard to pull out."

"I . . .I did that?" Naruto was taken off guard by that revelation.

"Look around you Naruto. You did all of this."

"Impossible. I mean why . . . how could this be?"

"You always wanted revenge on the village for the way you were treated growing up. Now you have it. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?"

"How do you know about that?" Naruto was confused he never told anyone about his desire. If they knew they would kill him without question.

"You told me. Right before you shoved this in my eye." He once more pointed to his face. "You left the village many years ago. No one knew where you had gone. Then one day you showed up at the village gate. You were just there smiling that wicked smile of yours. Then in an instant you unleashed an explosion of power and began your rampage. You crushed everything and everyone who got in your way. It was truly amazing the power you unleashed. No matter how many ninja attacked, you just wiped them all out. Even the Hokage in all her strength could not match you. When it was over what you see before you now was the result."

Naruto was dumbfounded by the story he just heard. It didn't seem possible. He had imagined him getting his revenge on the village before but nothing like this. Everything here was dead. The village, the forest, everything. That was not part of the plan. This couldn't be right. There was no way he could be responsible.

"You're lying. This can't be right. I would never go this far."

"Lying? What could I be lying about? What would it get me? I'm dead and haunting a dead village. Not a glorious afterlife if you ask me."

"Then this is some sort of dream. It has to be. I was just in the Forest of Death fighting and now I'm here."

"A dream? Maybe, or it's a vision of the future, or the past, or it just some bad ramen giving you stomach problems in your sleep. Anyhow, I got to run. I will leave you two to talk things over."

"Us two? Who are you talking about?"

"Him." Kakashi then pointed past Naruto and at a figure walking down the street.

"Who is that?" Naruto asked but got no answer. He looked back at where Kakashi had been and found only empty space.

The next thing Naruto knew he was standing on the street outside watching a lone figure walking to him Through the red dusty haze on the street he could not make out who was coming. At street level the carnage looked worse. The sheer empty dead feeling of everything started to weigh heavy. Konoha once was a bustling city of many and now stood as a ghost town.

As the figure got closer Naruto could make out some details. The first thing he saw was the bright orange of his clothes. In fact his clothes looked exactly like his own except instead of being black and gold they were orange and blue. Next he saw the same spiky blond hair that was on his own head. A knot was forming in the pit of Naruto's stomach. In an instant the figure was before him staring him in the eye. Naruto was staring at himself.

"Yo," the Naruto in orange said. The other Naruto just stood in stunned silence. "Ok Naruto, this will go a lot smoother if I'm not the only one talking."

"Who are you? I know you look like me but you can't be me."

"You're right and you're wrong. I am you. I'm just the you that is happy. Who you could have been."

"Why do you dress like a clown?"

This threw the other Naruto of his game a little. Of all things he could have been asked, of all the things he expected to be asked, having his taste in clothes being questioned was not one of them.

"I may dress like a clown but you're the one everyone is laughing at." Just then the wind no longer was blowing. It was laughing. Men, women, children could all be heard. "You hear it now."

"What is that? Why are they laughing?"

"That's the sound of all the people you murdered. Every last soul in laughing at you from beyond the grave."

"If I killed them then why are they laughing at me? I should be the one laughing at them."

"Because, in the end you proved them all right. You became the monster that everyone said you were. So yes I guess you would feel good about killing them all, but in the end they are having the last laugh."

Suddenly the pair of them was in a different location. They both stood atop the mountain above the faces of the five Hokage's. All five faces were smashed beyond recognition. No longer could one tell who the monument was for. The Naruto in black noticed the new face but was more interested in the view. From their current vantage point they could clearly see that death and destruction was truly widespread.

"Lovely view," the Naruto in orange said. He was standing next to his twin staring out over the ruins of Konoha. "You did a magnificent job of crushing this place. Very few survived. You took an obscene joy in hunting down the poor people who were hiding and pleading for their lives or the lives of their children."

"It wasn't supposed to be like that. I wanted some people to live. Not everyone deserved to die."

"Well shit happens in war. Almost none of the people you murdered deserved to die."

"War?"

"Yes, war. That's what it was when you came. You declared war on the village and you won. Congratulations."

"Why are you so happy about this? Will doing this make me happy?"

"I don't know. Does this make you happy? This should be a dream come true for you. As for me, the sight of it all makes me sic. This is my worst nightmare come to pass. Everything I ever cared about, everyone I ever loved is dead. Our war has resulted in so much innocent blood being shed I can't help but cry each night from the pain of it all."

"Our war. I don't understand."

"Oh Naruto, you and I have been at war for a very long time. It's only recently that I have been able to get an upper hand. But let's start from the beginning."

Once more the two of them suddenly appeared in a new location. This time they were in a playground. The sky was no longer red. The building were no longer smashed or burned. It was sunset and one lone blond haired boy sat quietly on a swing.

"You remember this don't you Naruto?" the Naruto in orange asked his counterpart. They both just stood staring at the boy. "Don't worry, he can't hear us. This is just a memory."

"This is the day the Fox woke up."

"Right, it is also the day of our first battle. Right now that little boy is thinking about his life. What a sad life it has been so far. On the inside we are doing battle. One of us wants to show the village that we can be a great ninja one day. Someone worthy of respect and admiration. The other one of us wants to make them all suffer. To feel the pain of a 5 year old boy who has had nothing in life. Guess who won."

"I did."

"Bingo. You filled your heart with hate that day. You took everything they threw at you and turned it into rage. I was locked away deep in your heart of hate. On that day you rejected that you could ever be truly happy. That everyone else should have to suffer with you. And you would continue on this path and never had heard from me if it had not been for him."

"Gaara!"

"Right again. That night Gaara set me free. That feeling you had of losing your mind. Like you were going insane. That was me breaking free. Until that day you rejected that you could be happy. But Gaara is just like you and has everything you always wanted."

"A father, brother, sister, a family, friends. He has everything that I never thought I could have. Everything that was denied me my whole life. All I had was the Fox."

"I am a reflection in that broken mirror you spoke of. I'm everything you could have been Naruto, if you had let yourself."

"How? How could I have been happy living the life that I have? How could you not want to take some sort of payment for all the pain?"

"I'm not saying it would have been easy. In fact you took the easy road. You closed yourself off to everyone. You decided that they were all guilty. Even the ones who love you. Yes, there are people in this world who do love you. Despite what you think you are not alone."

Again the two of them were taken to a new place. The last they saw of the playground was of young Naruto sitting in the swing glowing red. The next place the pair found themselves was by the memorial stones. On them were carved the names of all who died while fighting for the village. Except it was different. There were many stones now. All full of names.

"Notice anything different?" the Naruto in orange asked. He walked up to the stones and kneeled down as if to read the names.

"Why are there so many?"

"You murdered a lot of people. On here are the names of every single person who died during your attack. Both ninja and civilian. A lot of people use to live here. Now the only evidence they were here is their name carved on a rock. Even the names of good people who you thought of as friends are on here. All dead."

"It was not supposed to be like this. Not everyone was supposed to die."

"You said that once before. But you could not be stopped. So much hate a loathing unleashed at one time."

"This is a nightmare."

"I thought this was a dream come true for you. So if it's a nightmare let me really make it one to remember. Read the names on the rock."

Naruto didn't move. "No, I don't want to know."

"Oh, ignorance is bliss is it? If you don't know who you killed then it didn't happen? Well too bad. I'll read them for you. Lets see first up, oh this is a sad one, Tenten. What makes it really bad is that it was her wedding day. You sure did get a lot of blood on the pretty dress of hers. The husband to be had it worse. You said something about not liking the way he looked at you. So you plucked out his eyes and fed them to him. Next is Kakashi, well you know about him. Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, dead, dead, and dead. Iruka, dead. Teuchi and Ayame, the owners of your favorite restaurant, both dead."

"Why them? They were always kind to me." By this time Naruto had sunk to his knees in despair. Hearing each name tore at him more and more.

"Bet they said the same thing when you killed them. Continuing on, you made Kiba watch as you killed Akamaru, and then you killed Kiba. Shino was not long after that. Oh and you made Rock Lee kill himself."

"How could I do that?"

"You were particularly cruel with him. When a guy only has taijutsu to rely on breaking his back and confining him to a wheelchair the rest of his life is crushing in more ways then one. He killed himself not long after the attack."

"Stop it, stop it. STOP IT! Are you taking pleasure in all this? Reading off the names of people that I hurt, telling me how cruel I was. Is this making you happy?"

"Don't get mad at me. This is your doing not mine. I'm just trying to make a point. You have no real control over what will happen. In war people die despite your best intentions. This is but a small fraction of the names on these stones. So much innocent blood spilled that you could fill an ocean."

Both Naruto's looked at each other in silence for a while. Then one reading the names stood up from the stone he knelt at and studied his counterparts face. On it he could see the wash of emotions consuming him.

"They made me do this," the Naruto on his knees whispered almost hoping he was not heard.

"No one made you do this. You chose to do this because you thought it was the only option you had. The only coarse of action that you would even consider. I'm trying to drive home that there are other things to live for then revenge. Other things in life better then hate. Maybe these next few names will help drive that home."

"Like who?"

"You should know, deep down you know. One of them was Sakura. Did you know she had feelings for you? Well of course not. She doesn't realize it yet herself I bet. She didn't want to fight you but you were threatening her family, her friends, and her home. At least you killed her quick. What a pity, she had a nice body too. Could have had some fun there."

"I didn't think you were also the perverted me."

"I said I was the version of you that was happy in life, not the version of you that's gay. Wake up and start noticing things like girls. A boy your age should be more focused on tits and ass not death and carnage. Speaking of fine females, this is another sad name. Hinata."

"Hinata? No, I killed her too?"

"In a way. You see here," He pointed to her name but unlike the others it was glowing red. "She was your first victim, of sorts. While you never laid a finger on her, the only one you actually held yourself back from killing in fact, you crushed her on the inside. Why don't we go pay her a visit?"

"What?!"

Yet again the pair was suddenly in a new place. This time in a small room. It looked to be a hospital room. The walls and floor was white. There was a bed with fresh sheets on it. The door to the room was closed and there was one window. In front of the window was a rocking chair. In it sat the figure of a grown woman. Her hair was waist long and pulled back away from her face. Her eyes were pearl colored but half closed and lacked any sort of life.

"She hasn't spoken since the day you attacked," Orange Naruto said as he walked behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked as if he was about to cry. Hinata didn't even react to his touch. "She can't see or hear us either. All she does is stare out this window each day. Nothing else."

The other Naruto walked around the front of her. He kneeled down and looked up into her face. There was no emotion, no color, and no life. It was as if she was among the walking dead. In her hands she held a Leaf headband. The Leaf symbol had been crossed out with a gouge. The headband its self was cracked and broken in places.

"What is that?" the crouching Naruto asked.

"Your headband. You dropped it in front of her when you did not kill her. It's the last good thing about you that she clings to. It represents everything she admired about you. It's all she has left. I think she still holds out hope you will come back to her."

"I'm so sorry Hinata. Of all the people in the village I never wanted to hurt you. In any way." Tears began to well up in his eyes. Feelings he didn't know were there but had always been apart of him came to the surface. "I never realized what you really mean to me. You have always been kind to me. In some way you have always been there and I just didn't see it. Now look at what I have done to you. No, what I will do to you." He stood up and turned to the other Naruto. "This isn't real. It's just a dream right?"

Their location changed. The two of them were back on top of the mountain. They both turned and faced each other. It was much like the night Naruto faced Gaara but this time he really did face his opposite self. But this time there was no rage, no disbelief, only a sense of calm.

"So this is all a dream right," Naruto pleaded with himself. "None of this has happened?"

"Maybe," his orange self said in all seriousness.

"Maybe?"

"For centuries people have foretold the future with dreams. All of this will happen if you continue on your current path. But the future is not set in stone. Every action you take will change it. This is just what will most likely happen because of who and the way you are at this point in your life."

"So you're saying I should give up and play nice. Let them get away with what they have done to me my whole life. The torment. The insults. The death threats. The people who came in the night to kill me. Just forgive and forget it because this might happen?"

"No. What they did to you is unforgivable. In some ways though you brought some of that on yourself. Being closed off and antisocial fed their fire. But there are other ways to strike back at them. Killing and death are easy and quite frankly very uncreative. You are Naruto Uzumaki, holder of the demon Nine-Tailed Foxes power. Be smart, be cunning, and be creative. Get back at them in a way they that will make them regret every disrespecting you."

"How?"

"I don't know. That's for you to figure out. But this," he gestured towards the ruins of the village. "This is unacceptable. You lost yourself to bloodlust. You became everything that they said you were. Nothing is worse then that."

"Damn it to hell! Why is everything getting so complicated?"

"That's what happens when you grow up. Things that were once clear are now hazy."

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't just forgive them; I'm not like you or Gaara. I can't let them get away with making my life the hell that it has been. But you are right. I can't let this happen either. It's far more then I ever dreamed of. It is truly a nightmare."

"Be careful of what you wish for is the lesson here. You always wanted them dead and now they are. Leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Victory does no seem so sweet. But don't worry Naruto. I'm free now and ready to fight you every step of the way. I'll be damned if this happens again."

"So are we going to be having a lot of these little chats in the future?"

"Sorry to say but no. This is one time thing I'm afraid. Very special circumstances let this happen. But I will always be around. That little whisper in the back of your mind."

"My conscience."

"I guess, but I prefer to think of myself as your better half."

The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes. Naruto had much to think about. Even just standing there he was at war with himself. He was torn between wanting to chance it and attack the village or finding a new path. The names and faces of the people who he killed ran through his mind. Some he regretted others he delighted in seeing dead.

"This is a war we will not settle today," the orange Naruto said. "There is much still for you to do in life. You have a long ways to go before you get here again. Lots of growing up still to do and lots of things to change your life." The world around Naruto began to fade to black. "Looks like you're waking up. This is where we part ways but don't worry I will always be around. One last thing Naruto. You're not alone in life. When you hurt there are others who feel your pain. Find these people, look after them. They are your true source of strength."

The world then began to dissolve. Everything faded away into nothingness. Suddenly Naruto was standing in the darkness alone. His other self was gone. The wind had stopped laughing. Everything was quiet. Then this world of darkness began to fill with light. Slowly at first but it grew in intensity. Naruto opened his eyes.

Naruto was now staring up at the underside of a large tree. He felt the grass under his body. The smells and sounds of the forest filled his senses. He was back in the Forest of Death. He let out a slow breath. He was relieved.

"So, it was just a dream," he thought. "But it was still more then that. Could it all have been real?" He then sat up. "Ahhh." He cried out in pain.

The place where the Grass ninja had touched his stomach burned like hell fire. His body began to shake. He felt like he was going to vomit. His head was splitting and throbbing. Every place on his body seemed to start screaming in agony.

"Hey Fox," he thought to himself. There was no response. "Come on Fox wake up. There is something wrong with me." Still nothing. "Stop playing around. Hey, come on and say something. Fox? What's going on? Mom, please say something. Mom where are you?!" All Naruto could feel was a hollow place inside of him. "Mom this isn't funny. Why aren't you answering me? Mom . . . mom where did you go? Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone. MOM WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Naruto gripped the sides of his head with his hands. The pounding inside was like waves battering a rocky shore. It was almost deafening. He continued to shake almost uncontrollably now. Tears once more formed in his eyes. Part due from the pain in his body part from the fear of what was going on.

Naruto then screamed to the heaves for the entire world to hear. "AHHHHhhhhh! WHAT DID THAT FREAK DO TO ME?!"