Enough to make a man cry

"Squad one is dead."

Tsunade looked up from her papers. Her eyes were wide. A daunting feeling plummeted from her chest, all the way down to the bottom of her gut, the feeling swirling and sickening.

"All of them?"

"Every last one."

She swallowed a gulp of spit. It tasted like ash, somehow. She needed a drink. At least she knew that would taste as bitter as it always did.

"Dragon, leave."

"As you command." Said the ANBU commander, who had taken it upon himself to deliver the news personally. He body flickered out of the room, leaving nothing but space.

She reached under her desk, fishing out a bottle of sake and a cup. She poured a shot out, lukewarm liquid falling dead, before just leaving it there. Sat, like her, on that desk, despondent.

Kakashi was dead. There really was no hope for Naruto then.

The entire squad. Not just the captain, everyone. They had lost contact days ago, and now they knew he didn't even care to leave any survivors. For what? Power? Was that what Nawaki would have become if that explosion hadn't happened when he was the same child that Naruto was?

She shook her head. She was the problem, she the one at fault really. She projected her love and grief onto Naruto as a way to deal with the lingering feelings all these years later. The Tsunade of then would have become hokage for her 'little brother' in an instant, but then he left, and all she had was the hat. And what did that make her?

She sends children into battlefields.

Lets mentors go on suicide missions to kill their students.

Hell, she even let Naruto escape in the first place.

Why was she even here anymore? She didn't care, she didn't want this. She wanted to gamble her life away, run from debt callers and ninja hunters, feel nothing, drag everyone down with her until she died 6 feet under.

She looked at a picture of her, Shizune, and Sakura, all smiling. Tsunade scoffed, because she knew now, she was better than that.

Just a little longer. Just a little longer and she could leave them, and die by her lonesome. It was what she deserved really. What was going to end her story. Just a little more.

…

"There we are Sakura, one miso ramen, I hope you enjoy it!"

It hurt coming back here, now more than ever. She wondered if she was the problem sometimes. The Sakura of then, pink haired and starry emerald eyed, was so weak, so cowardly that never in her pink head full of pining and jealous thoughts could she have made the team stick together.

First Sasuke, driven by revenge.

Then Naruto, driven by hate.

And finally, Kakashi. Driven by duty. He didn't even say bye, and 3 years later all she hears is his death. Gone, forever.

All of them were. Sasuke is now corrupted by Orochimaru, even if those reports of his death are true. They have heard nothing about him, except his crimes and murders, him only getting by because of Naruto's heat distracting them.

And the blonde, gone because of her. Everyone tries to tell her otherwise, that he did it to himself, that he wanted to leave ever since Sasuke did, but she knew better, knew she didn't even want to talk to him after what he said to her that day in the hospital, and she regrets it. Only a single drop more, it could have been, of love and care and attention that he needed, but she couldn't spare it, and to what end? Maybe he was right, all those years ago. Maybe she was cruel.

Her ramen was cold. She left it on the table. Those memories were meant to make her feel warm inside, but it just made her empty.

Steadily, they were getting ahead of her, but she had something they didn't. Friends.

She rushed off to another session of practise with Tsunade. Lateness wasn't tolerated. Couldn't be.

…

Sitting on a simple rock, in a simple forest, under a simple clear blue sky, Naruto didn't know what to think. Kakashi was dead, his teacher, the one who told him about his parentage, the man who saved his life. He didn't regret it, but he didn't feel much about it. He realised, it didn't matter to him anymore, the abandonment. He had let it go. No longer did that hellish trauma burrow deep inside him. He wanted to be hokage, but in a way as if he had never been born in the leaf. Power, respect, love, fear. He needed that, needed to breath it. To be it.

He didn't care about Kakashi anymore. But there was still the Leaf, still Temari. Some part of him, questioning and doubting like always, barked out that nobody wanted him as hokage, that they didn't deserve him, that he should just settle down in Suna with Temari instead, and he guessed that was the cold calculating voice of reason, but yet again he ignored it.

He couldn't let go, because it was his. Because if he leaves and joins Suna and everything else, then they won. Day after day, week after week he was feared, unwanted, seen but not heard and treat with no respect. After, if he gave up, they would still think that way, still think he was a coward, a fool, a monster.

But why does he care in the first place? Simple. He wants to prove them wrong. Wants to look them in the eye and see them surprised, wants to win against them. He doesn't care if they want him or not, he doesn't care about their admiration. All he needs is to be better, stronger than they ever thought he could be. That's exactly what he wants.

That was why Kakashi was dead. He stood in his way. Grey hair falling in bare strands because his hatred for himself obscured his consideration of his own life. Blood flowing from open chest, he chose to use Naruto to kill himself. It was rather sad, Naruto thought.

He stood up from his perch, and continued on his return. He wanted to see Garaa, see Temari. Soon, they would meet, and soon they would march on Leaf. Only a couple of weeks more, and he would break the 9 tails.

And then, he would be unstoppable.

…

Itachi was woken from his slumber, body failing bit by bit, by the brisk sound of nothing. He didn't dream often, when he did, they were horrors of the past. Not being able to catch Shisui, him falling forever and ever. Killing countless enemies until he realised they were wearing Sasuke's dead face, the stolen skin drooping off in a cruel mockery of his brother. Sometimes it was just a copy himself, crying, looking scared and vulnerable, wanting nothing more than to survive. Every time he had that dream, he killed it, an emotionless kunai to the neck.

He sighed, rising in a single, accurate, precise, perfect movement, lithe body flexing and shifting under his fishnet mesh shirt. Him and Kisame set up their camp near the coast. It was beautiful, he could admit, even through his half blind clouded eyes, but the moist air did no favours to his lungs.

Step after step he moved over the ground, bare pebbles and flakes of the ground sticking to his new sandals. They did a lot of travelling, him and the shark, wearing their clothes down bit by bit. The Itachi of before wouldn't have evenconsider him a friend, but somehow, now he was his closest ally. They were both monsters, but they had a shared understanding in that predatory existence. Keep the blood flowing, and they were alive.

Itachi once would have said he hated the killing, but that was a lie. He wanted peace, and so whenever he killed one who professed the opposite, he felt happiness. Well, until that night, so many years ago, yet far too close still.

Still he regrets that, he thinks, walking up near the edge of the continent. He regrets making that mistake, leaving Sasuke to the vultures, killing all he knew, because he was too weak to do the hard option. Find a way to let everyone live, and he couldn't. In his small 12-year-old 'genius' mind, he had to kill them all. And now he paid the price, apart from them all, and in a dying body. It was horrible and ironic, that the only way to repair it, to have any good come from his mistakes, was to scar his younger brother with his death, and hope that would be enough to let him unlock his mangekyo.

As it was, he was worthless. Yet still, Kisame grinned every time he saw him, like he did just now, his back to the shining rising sun, a letter in his hand.

"Hey, brooder. Got a letter for you." He said, smile sharp as ever, figuratively and literally.

He threw it, the paper sailing softly in the morning breeze until it landed in Itachi's hand gently.

The Uchiha read it, calm, yet a small quiver in his voice. He swallowed, then talked. "Hatake Kakashi is dead."

"You knew him?"

"Yes, he was my squad leader in ANBU."

"You sad about it?"

Itachi's eyes were as cold as ever. Distant, like he was looking at someone else entirely.

"No. It is a shame to lose such a strong shinobi, but the person that beat him must be stronger. As it happens, Naruto was our target last that I heard."

Kisame started laughing deep. "Haha! You want to fight this kid?"

Itachi, for once in so long, smiled. "After I fight my brother. I hope he is as resilient as the jinjuriki has shown himself to be."

…

The town is burning. He can smell it, he can see it, feel the terror.

He is covered in blood, from weaklings and nothing more. He is powerful, he is a god to these people.

And it isn't enough.

Sasuke was still behind him. Behind that blond haired himbo or whatever, the fool able to kill his former sensei. Some cynical, overly so, part of him thinks Kakashi wanted to die, simply sat down whilst Naruto slit his throat, but that doesn't strike him as what the ninja would do. He was given a mission, kill or capture Naruto, and he failed. Simple.

He was weaker, but Sasuke wasn't. Soon, he would run into him. He knew where the ANBU died, knew what the new Naruto looked like using the power of his sharingan and some interrogation genjutsus on an unwitting witness a couple towns back.

It was only a matter of time, of days.

Then they would meet, and Sasuke would kill one brother, and be one step closer to killing the next.

Sasuke wondered if everyone close to him was fated to die. Kakashi, Naruto, Itachi. The only exception was Sakura, but she wasn't ever close to him, was she? Just a one minded obsession.

He looked at the flames in front of him, knowing, feeling, that he was obsessed too.

…

A/N: Sequel to the chapter previous. I had some fun making this. This was originally a footnote in the previous chapter but I made it a lot better for a standalone. I hope this answers a few of your questions, such as why Naruto wants to be hokage (ego) and I also hopes it annoys you (I planted a few hints in the Sakura/Tsunade portion of the chapter)

The reason for intermissionary chapters such as this is to give you a better understanding of Naruto's effect on the world, how he effects other people, and in turn how that manages to hint towards future events. (Kakashi-hunter nin-Naruto-dead for an example. That idea was introduced in the previous intermission chapter)

Anyway, remember to review, it helps a lot, and thank you for reading until the end. Ciao.