Interlude Three
Would you like to know how it feels to be Naruto Uzumaki right now?
Your friends are dead.
One's been blown to pieces, two stabbed through the heart, and another fought so hard to save you that he simply fell over and didn't get up. The only teammate you've had who's never left your side was just blown several miles straight into the sky.
The only person who's ever told you she loved you is also dead. She's lying on top of you, her blood soaking into your coat. You put it over her not ten minutes ago, trying to keep her warm.
It still is, but she is not.
There is a piece of metal through her heart. It's black, slick with red.
You can feel it poking into your chest, breaking the skin and filling your lung with something cold and anathema, but you can't bring yourself to care.
Your friends are dead. Hinata is dead.
Sasuke is still out there somewhere.
Where was he when your friends were dying? While the friends that had come to save him were dying?
Not here.
Pain is standing above you, another slice of metal in his hand. He's pointing it at your head.
His mouth is moving. You can't hear anything he's saying.
All you can hear is the rushing blood in your ears, and a whisper.
'Naruto,' it chokes out, its lungs filling with blood and its heart failing and its eyes fluttering closed.
'Naruto… I'm sorry,' Hinata had said.
And then she died.
Sorry? Sorry for failing to help you? Sorry that you would never get to know her, really?
Or sorry that she'd put herself between you and Pain? Sorry that she'd died for you?
You'll never know. She's dead now, and all you're left with are a crude simulacra and a choked whisper of a memory that you'll never be able to understand.
Pain stares at you, one eyebrow cocked. His mouth isn't moving anymore.
You can't bring yourself to care.
But then…
The VOICE.
You knew it would come. Was it ever in doubt?
It's always come to you. When you've been hurt. When you've been confused. When you've been alone.
And you have never been more hurt. More confused. Everything has gone wrong, so quickly, so horribly, and it will never be right again.
And you have never been more alone.
Perhaps it would have better to have never made friends in the first place, than having known companionship at all. At least then you wouldn't understand this loneliness.
The VOICE momentarily quiets at that thought.
But only momentarily.
COME TO ME, it says. YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING NOW. YOU'VE LOST.
ALLOW ME TO DO WHAT YOU COULD NOT.
And then, the pounding in your ears disappears. Hinata's final whisper dies a quiet death, swept away by the rising red tide.
A tide that bubbles up from your stomach, rushing through your body. Scalds your lungs. Burns your mouth.
But once more, you can't bring yourself to care. Everything is numb: the burning barely registers as a tingle.
Now, you can hear Pain's voice: that echoing pride, that has killed your friends just to prove a point. Just to see if you were like him.
Took Sasuke.
Killed your friends.
Killed Hinata.
Suddenly, you do care.
You hate.
It fills your body, and you welcome its warm embrace.
Pain cocks his head to the side and says, "Now, Uzumaki: do you understand the essence of my pain? The root of hate?"
He pauses, staring at you with ringed eyes, eyes that bore into your soul. You feel your hands form into claws. You want to rip them out, rip them out and eat them-
"Surrender the Kyuubi to me. You can no longer resist."
But he's wrong.
There's something you can do. You can resist: one final act of spite. Even if all of your friends are dead, even if you're crippled, even if there's nothing else you can do…
The one thing you can do is open your soul and pour your hatred out.
"You want the Kyuubi so much, Nagato?" you hear yourself say calmly.
The body above you rears back, sensing something wrong.
You grin, looking like a rabid, bleeding animal. Your canines have extended, cutting into your lip. Your skin is beginning to boil away again. The world is going red.
You were holding back before, desperate to hold onto your mind. Desperate to save them.
"You can have it."
But now, you let go.
Because before, you were Naruto Uzumaki.
Now, with your friends taken and your dream broken, you are nothing at all.