A collection of one-shots about the secret lives of our favorite characters. I'll be writing one every day or every other day. If you have any requests for new characters to do, please input it into a review. I may or may not do the character depending on my feelings about the character. Leave suggestions, critiques, flames, etc in a review, and I'll reply when I have time to.

After years of fighting to the death with each other, they each thought they knew each other. But did they really? Everyone has their own secrets, and the Rookie 12 are no exceptions. Collection of one-shots. Dark. Mentions of cutting, rape, abuse, etc. Ratings may go up.

.:The Secrets Within:.

.:Naruto: Hatred:.

The water rushed down the drain, becoming a deep crimson color as it descended. My blood was dark, I noticed somberly. It suited a monster like me. Narrow cuts aligned my wrist as I hung my hand over the sink's faucet. I enjoyed cutting myself; the pain of a blade entering my skin throbbed only for a few dull seconds before it drizzled out into content. Cutting myself made me feel alive.

I was a masochist, someone who enjoyed feeling pain. My nasty habit started years back, although I can't pinpoint the exact day. It was around then when I realized that no one cared about me, no one loved me. Nothing was ever going to change, no matter how hard I strived to gain the acknowledgement of the villagers. I was worth a nickel at the junkyard. My life was dull, bleak. I was tired of bawling my eyes out, like a little child, waiting for someone to do something to fix my damned life whenever something went wrong.

I was sick and tired. I was sick and tired of acting like a cheerful idiot all the time and being Sakura's punching bag. I was sick and tired of being ignored, ridiculed, and laughed at.

I stared at my drenched lower arm. Multiple scars and the most recent cuts marred my pale skin at that area, although the wounds were already trying to close up. The wonders of being a jinchuuriki, I suppose. "I guess it's time to stop today," I muttered to myself. I had a nasty habit of talking to myself when I was alone; it helped appease the silence, my loneliness. I turned off the tap, dried my skin, and pulled down the sleeve of my orange jumpsuit, which I made sure to keep dry.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, and it stared back. The dark lines around my dull, cerulean eyes were evidence of my sleepless nights. My sunny blonde hair—which now appeared anything but sunny—draped around my face, which was filled with sweat and stress. My lips were cracked and dryer than my jumpsuit and I licked it hurriedly to try to wet them. I looked terrible, even more so than before. How can people not notice it? How can they just learn to ignore it? It's because they don't care. They never cared.

I sighed and splashed my face with water before cautiously unlocking the door and quickly treading softly out, making sure not to step on any of the garbage the villagers "gifted" my apartment with. My place was filled with wrappers and and dirty napkins, things that didn't belong to me. The civilians had a nasty habit of sometimes breaking the lock on my door and trashing and vandalizing my already run-down shelter. I used to buy paint regularly to cover up their offensive vulgarities or threats or insults, but I learned that they would only do it again. I saved money by letting them use my walls as their canvas of vandalizing.

My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I am the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, making me the village pariah. I was hated—despised—because of the demon I hold back in my stomach. The day the Kyuubi attacked Konoha, so many people had died. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sister… It was my entire fault. That would explain why they call me names, mocking and ridiculing my appearance. That would explain why they keep their children away.

"Why can't I play with him, mommy? He seems so lonely?"

"Akira, listen to me! No means no, okay? He's a bad boy, a demon in disguise. If you ever talk to him, he'll take off his disguise and gobble you up," the boy's mother said in a hushed whisper.

That would explain why they hit me and pushed me around.

A few staggering men surrounded him, maliciousness sighted in their eyes, smiling at the evident fear in Naruto's trembling knees. "Aw, wook at the wittle baby!" one of them taunted. He held a beer bottle in his hand, signaling his intoxicated status.

"Let's make him cry!" At those words, they all launched onto him at once. Naruto cried out in surprise as he was tackled by five men, all at least four times his weight. One rose his arm to inflict pain on him. In sudden panic, Naruto struggled to free himself and bit the man's arm as hard as he could, nearly breaking his front teeth. "You little bitch!" he barked, backslapping the small child, causing him to fly several feet away, hitting the ground with a thud.

The torture began as they found ways to torment him that he never knew possible.

I can take the glares from the villagers every time I hit the streets. I've endured the glowers from people who I've never seen before. I can continue smiling, pretending that everything's perfectly fine, feigning ignorance and obliviousness to the hatred. I can take the receipt whenever shop owners charge me three or four times the actual price. I can starve for a good week before succumbing to malnourishment. I can bear sitting on the swing alone while other kids play with their friends, running and jumping in eager glee. I can tolerate the punches and cuts that they cause as well as I can tolerate the cuts I inflict on myself. I can put up with anything.

I can put up with anything but myself. I abhor myself. I can't help but look away in revulsion at the person in the mirror, at the person at the base of the water. Why am I so weak? Why am I so filthy? I am dirt to the face of the world and I wish I could just kill myself and get it over with. The damn fox won't let me, though, always healing every wound I get with a surprising intensity. Its will to live is even stronger than my will to die.

My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and my darkest secret—the secret that I want no one to know—is that I hate myself.

First chapter done. The cutting scene was an excerpt from one of my fics on another fandom with bits added, removed, or changed. I was too lazy to actually start one from scratch, since I've written so many cutting scenes already. -.-

Next Chapter: Uchiha Sasuke

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