Disclaimer: Naruto is made by a man with a K in his name
Pairing: does not exist
Updating schedule: also does not exist
Summary: You cannot transport a mentally unsound person into a world full of murderous, fire-breathing, water-walking ninjas and expect they to become sane
Other: Rated M for abuse, suicide, etc., trigger warning
Also: Edited by a friend because I can't grammar
- Everything is Fine -
Another thud hit the window, making him jolt. Another scream of "kill yourself", followed by a wave of laughter.
He pathetically raised his head from under the warmth of his blanket to peek through the curtains and stare at the only source of light in the room, a slimy trail which was slowly created by a blob of raw egg sliding down, right over the tomato stain from half a month ago.
He would bet the conditions outside the walls weren't any better. Perhaps words like murderer, psychopath, and monster were scribbled and painted in red and black letters, covering the previous ones, since that's what the internet and social media all called him these days.
Maybe he could've told himself: It's fine, get over it, it was an accident. But how could he believe the car crash was an accident when all of those people are now buried six feet beneath because he was the one who chose to drive under the influence?
Especially a crazy person like him who drank underage. But the prison didn't want him, and he was already past the age of visiting juvie. He was left in the pile of wreckage long enough to bleed out all the alcohol from his system.
The incident blew up so much that the entire country was talking about it. The incident where he partied with his friends like animals, then chose to drive under the influence of alcohol, and started a chain reaction on X-90 East, leaving 24 dead, 102 injured, and no one but him alive in the car with the corpses of his four friends.
He silently promised that he would never forgive himself, but then he realized the graveness of the incident when he went to his friends' funeral. The usual friendly faces from his friends' family were covered in anger and painted in despair.
He was alive and in a wheelchair. He came back alive. They didn't.
His parents sent comforting messages and calls saying 'it's alright', 'it was an accident', and 'it will be fine', but they refused to meet him in person. Even when they did meet in person, they didn't look him in the eyes.
It was bright and sunny outside, his digital alarm clock next to the pile of empty ramen cups displayed 3:29pm, but he couldn't help but feel exhausted.
When was the last time he woke up from anything but a nightmare?
He winced in pain when he grabbed his wrist and blood started to seep through the bandages. He let out a curse. He had just changed them.
He helplessly crawled his way out of bed and the comfort of his blanket, and then he nearly tripped on the piles of newspapers and trash on his way to the bathroom.
He flicked the light switch on the wall. Broken mirrors on the wall, shattered glass over the sink, and pieces of paper and ripped books on his bathroom tiles. He ignored them all and went directly to the cabinet.
Scissors, half-used toothpaste containers, random cards and papers, and even empty bottles of antidepressants and used box cutter blades sitting in his piles. Seemed like he ran out of bandages, and nearly out of blades.
"It's fine." He whispered to himself, "I'm fine-"
An ironically happy and joyous ringtone echoed through the room as his phone vibrated itself off the nightstand.
He shuffled over the piles of unrecognizable mess and picked up the shaking screen. He could barely perceive the caller with his blurry eyesight.
He glanced at the name, hesitatingly pressed the accept button and cautiously moved the phone to his ear.
Before he could even force out a greeting, the caller let out a wail, and shouted, "Why do you have to cause so much trouble for us!? Did you know that your father lost your job because of you? Do you know what people are calling me?" The feminine voice let out a hiccup, "It would have been better if you never existed in the first pla-"
The voice was abruptly cut off, and all that was left in the room was beeping.
He stared blankly at the screen, thinking about how he almost couldn't recognize his mother's name on the screen.
He didn't think any further.
He couldn't think anymore.
He turned the phone off and crawled back into bed. He felt neither sadness nor disappointment. All he felt was the pain from his wrist.
'It's fine.'
'Everything will be fine tomorrow.'
So he closed his eyes and decided to sleep through the pain.
He tried opening his eyes. It was like trying to open two heavy doors.
Something felt wrong. The lack of soreness in his body, how he no longer felt in pain… or how the ceiling is somehow bright orange instead of the usual depressing gray.
He sat up and glanced around the unfamiliar room.
Messy? Definitely.
But despite the chaotic state, it was as if everything was in its rightful place. The room was a chaotic yet organized mess, almost like the one from his college before he dropped out.
However, the mess was not his.
He crawled out of bed and immediately realized he was noticeably shorter. Then he saw how small his hands were and the lack of bloodied bandages around his wrist. In fact, there wasn;t any bandages at all.
He started to panic.
Had he been kidnapped? Did someone finally have enough of him appearing on television and decided to end him for the sake of society? Or did a crazy bastard decide to play a joke on him?
He rushed to the disgustingly bright orange window curtains and yanked it open. He screamed when he saw four human faces carved out on a mountain.
He fell on his ass and was able to sit up, barely stopping himself from collapsing.
Shouts of "Quiet down! You disgusting demon!" could be heard in the background.
'It's fine,' He thought, 'I'm fine.' He tried to calm himself down, covering his mouth to slow down his heavy breaths with his trembling fingers.
No matter how much he wanted to deny it, the fact that he's now a short midget with smaller hands proves that he wasn't himself anymore. The blond hair, blue eyes, and whiskered face in the mirror definitely wasn't his. But if his theory is wrong and some sick bastard decided to give him a disgusting surgery, the public might even sympathize with the psychopath that did this.
However, if he did just take over a body and got isekaied into a fictional world, he could've very well just murder a child, and the child would've very well been the main character. The memory he received told him that this body had barely reached the age of seven.
Now all he thought about was what was going on, what he should do next, and the guilt of kicking a 7-year-old out of their own body.
The kid is probably dead, absorbed, disintegrated, erased, annihilated-
His breath was too fast, too heavy, and his mind was too muddled to think straight. He told himself to concentrate and focus on the immediate future-
Three loud bangs came from the door.
"Quiet down!" A loud and hoarse voice echoed from the other side. It was filled with disgust. "It's barely six in the morning! You better shut up before I double your rent again!" There was the sound of spitting, before everything was quiet again.
He stared down at the short arms and small hands. The tips of the fingernails were painted red and the wrist was covered in fresh scars. It seemed like he had scratched himself during his short panic attack.
He was always too tired or too drugged up to comprehend what had happened before in his past life, but now that his body was awake and full of energy, he felt anger, anger at himself about how big of an idiot he was. But more than anger, he was depressed by the fact that the most important woman in his life just asked him to kill himself.
Now that he was in a different world, maybe his parents will be happy that they didn't have a useless son. Maybe his younger sister will finally not be dragged down by her brother. Maybe the family of the dead and injured from the car accident can finally rest peacefully, now that the penetrator is dead.
Everything happening now is probably his punishment.
Afraid of ruining the perfect mess that didn't belong to him, he crawled to the only place that seemed unused.
He curled up into a ball inside the large wooden box filled with nothing but a shirt or two, a few pairs of black shorts, and orange jumpsuits. He closed the lid, so nobody spying would see him becoming a sobbing mess.
"I'm fine." He whispered as two salty streams made their way down his cheeks.
"Everything will be fine."
No, it wasn't fine.
It wasn't fine at all.
He had been going on autopilot, following the body's muscle memory to put on the 'kill-me' jumpsuit, the stupidly fake bright grin, and the surprisingly normal-looking green goggles.
No, he wasn't the one Uzumaki was.
The kid had worn this overly large smile for years.
If the kid was crying and weeping, people became unsatisfied, telling him how he should be glad that the village is even keeping him alive.
If the kid was angry and throwing tantrums, people just say that the kid was really a monster, asking the village to throw him out.
If the kid wore a blank face, they'll beat him, beat him until he reacts because he wasn't allowed to feel indifferent.
So Naruto Uzumaki just put on a smile, a smile so large that distracted people from thinking he was anything but an idiot. At least people will only glare or throw disgusted looks in his direction. Everything was programmed into this body, just like the immune system. This had been the case ever since the kid could remember.
This tragic life seemed like it was built just for a criminal like him, and he was fine with the punishment because he knew he deserved it.
He was not fine with going to the academy and hanging out with civilian children.
Contrary to what people think, he learned that children are incredibly observant, especially when he saw through the memory of one Naruto Uzumaki.
Adults had pride and arrogance. They would look at naive children and take anything as a joke. Afterall, they were always correct because they lived longer.
On the other hand, children, especially civilian children who were naive and knew nothing of the world, watched and copied anything that piqued their interest and curiosity. With no sense of right and wrong, they simply followed what the adults did, and Naruto Uzumaki being shunned and hated was no exception.
The people who had a deep sense of hate despised him with every cell of their bodies. They would watch his every move and wait for the right moment to strike. All because of something that won't ever be forgotten on October 10th, seven years ago.
He clutching his trembling hand into a fist. Thanks to the large orange jumpsuit, the color attracted more attention than his shivering.
"Uzumaki!" A voice barked.
He snapped his attention back to the Chuunin standing in front of the board.
"Did you not just hear what I just said?" The voice was like all the other voices: filled with disgust, disdain, and hatred.
"I-I'm sorry, sensei." He winced when he nearly choked on the first word he spoke. "I, um… wasn't paying attention." He forced a large foolish grin and then reached to rub the back of his neck.
The Chuunin scorned. "In my office during lunch." His words were stiff with anger.
His muscle memory told him exactly what this Chuunin will do.
'It's fine.' He breathed deeply. He had to be confident, or something would slip. 'Everything's fine.' He had to pretend to be the perfect idiot, the perfect fool until everything was over. Afterall, this was his punishment for his crimes…
'I'm going to be fine.'
"What's an effective way to cover your tracks?" The brown-haired man asked sternly.
"I- I don't know?" He croaked out.
The short stick whipped both of his wrists and he winced at the pain.
"Wrong answer, and too slow! One way to cover your tracks is by getting rid of your scent!" The Chuunin growled before barking out the next question, "How do you lose a tracker if you're being chased?"
"J-jump into a b-body of water and swim away!" He quickly answered, hoping that he wouldn't get hit this time.
"Idiot!" Another hit on the wrist, this one snapped the stick in half, "What about your chakra signature!?"
The Chuunin spat out in disdain before harshly throwing the stick at Naruto Uzumaki's face.
"Come to my apartment at 4 PM today. Your education in my class seems to be lacking." The Chuunin didn't bother to hide the cold and calculating look, "We need this one-on-one lesson to improve your grade from being dead last."
The big fake grin slowly disappeared from his face. This was the first time the boy had felt true fear.
Toshio Nagata was amused. He was amused by how scared the blond brat was. Can you believe it? The demon was scared of him. Looking at the cowering form of the orange-wearing demon gave him an inexplicit sense of pride, satisfaction, …and pity? Where did that come from?
The last thing the demon deserved was pity. Not after the brat killed his family, lover, friends, and most importantly, hero.
He couldn't believe that this foolish village decided to keep the demon after his hero, the Yondaime, was killed by the fox. Then they had the audacity to order him to teach the fox as a Chuunin sensei, but now he finally understood. Death was too light of a punishment for that thing.
He was blessed with the opportunity to educate the fox on the wrong things it did, and for the village, he will punish the demon when at its weakest.
His superiors will be proud of what he had done for the sake of the village, Danzo-sama will be proud!
-cigarette butt on his back-
-cuts with a rusty kunai-
-a kick in the stomach-
-and it hurts and hurts hurts so much and he was so damn tired but the moment he falls unconscious his head will be dunked in the water again and he wants everything to stop but it can't and-
-it hurts-
-hurts so much and he just wants to stop but he'll heal-
-it always will-
-heal so much and so fast that no one would notice a single bruise tomorrow and-
-he kept telling them to stop and-
-stopstopstopstopstop but it won't-
-whydoesn'titstopwhydoesithurtsomuch-
-so he begged begged and begged begged for the pain to stop but it doesn't end-
-why can't everything just end-
-just end everything enditenditendit-
-no no no, he can't, can't, and can't. Not yet-
'Calm down.' He paused.
'Breath.' He breathed.
'Take a deep breath-' He breathed.
'Look, it doesn't hurt anymore.' No, it doesn't.
'Look, everything is fine.' Yes, everything was-
Red.
Everything was red.
The floor was red-
The table was red-
His jumpsuit was red-
That kunai was red-
That body is red-
And his hands, his hands were so red, it's so red.
Why was his hands red? How did he get it red?
'Quiet.' He shut his lips which he didn't know were moving.
'He's dead.' What's dead? Something was dead?
'That man, he's dead.' His breathing stopped.
'You killed him.' No. No. No, he didn't. He can't, he can't kill anyone, he shouldn't. Naruto Uzumaki wasn't supposed to kill anyone. oh no did he ruin everything he ruined everything didn't he everything is going to failandfailandfail and endendendend-
'We can save this.' No no no how can he save this everyone will know he was a fakefakefake-
'No one knows.' People know people will know-
'ANBU wasn't interfering, they're not around. Trust me, we can save this.' He could? He really could?
'Listen to me, take off the jumpsuit.' He took off the red jumpsuit and he couldn't but notice the red redredredred spots on his previously white whitewhitewhitewhite shirt-
'We have to get rid of the evidence.' What about burying? If he cover it up no one would notice-
'No, they will notice if a person is missing.' What was he supposed to do? How was he going to cover it up?
'Accident.' Accident?
'Move his body so his sitting on that couch.' He complied.
'Sensei smokes, he accidentally dropped a lit cigarette onto a pile of old newspapers as he fell asleep. The fire spread and he was burned to death as a result.' Didn't he kill the man?
'No, you didn't. His death was an accident.' An accident?
'Yes, an accident.' An accident.
'Go back, wash up, and sleep. Remember, sensei had an accident, and you didn't know a thing.' He doesn't know a thing.
'Everything will be fine.' Everything will be fine.
'I promise.'