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Thanks for reading and please enjoy

Reality Viewing: Naruto the Charming Assassin Charmer

-Chapter 18-

"It's okay baby, it's okay, we'll find a way to fix you, *Sniff* promise."

"You'll *Hic* you'll be all better in no time."

"…They are really taking this hard, aren't they?" Yami asked in a dry tone as she and most of the group watched Mea and Momo hugging Rito from either side with tears in their eyes, whispering reassurances into the blushing boy's ears between sobs.

"A little too hard if you ask me." Mikan chipped in with an exasperated shake of her head, to which the transforming blonde and Sephie nodded in agreement.

"Should we do something?" Lala asked with a tilted head as her gaze flickered between the three unsurely, struggling to figure out if she should be comforting any of them.

"Just leave them be, they'll get over it eventually… probably," Nana said with a shrug before pointing towards Lala's invention as it switched back to Play Mode. "Besides, the TV's done loading already."

"…Huh, that was fast." Sephie muttered in surprise, unknowingly speaking aloud the rest of the group's thoughts.

The Human Heart.

Comforting the Depressed.

How Love Works.

Yami wanted to help Naruto, with the slump he had been in since he learned of his friend's death at his ex-best friend's hands, get back to the way he used to be. She liked, yes she would admit that, it much more when he was smiling.

"You don't need those books Yami-chan," Lala said while hugging Yami from behind, resting her chin atop the former assassin's head with a kind smile. "You just need to give him a big ol hug like this and show him you're there for him."

Not responding verbally, Yami simply sighed in exasperation as she resigned herself to the hug, silently thankful that Momo was too busy mourning Rito's lost 'luck' to make one of her usual double-entendres.

As of late, he hadn't really smiled at all, and he would go off to where he hid from the world, and wouldn't be seen until late at night.

'... I want to help him.' Yami thought to herself as she looked through the book she was reading. She wasn't a human, and she had long since thought she abandoned her heart, but she wanted to show Naruto the same kindness he showed her. She wanted to help him stand up strong, when he didn't have the strength to do it himself.

Her heart, something she thought she got rid of... hurt when she saw him hurting so much, and she wanted both his pain and her own to end.

'Ah man, she really does have it bad for him.' Mikan thought to herself, her gaze flickering back and forth from the Yami on screen to the one beside her. A tiny smile formed on her lips when as she saw the subtle tells from both blondes that showed how much she cared, she WAS her best friend after all, like how her hair kept curling slightly at the ends every few moments.

She didn't understand love though, love that was causing Naruto to hurt so badly. So, understanding the human heart, and the emotion that was causing Naruto's pain, were the first steps to helping him. Now, thanks to Sai, she had been able to get her hands on several books on the matter. She still didn't like Sai, he was a very unlikable person, but his knowledge on the library system and the locations of the books she needed told her that he had experience with researching emotions.

"Poor boy, he does tend to come off on the wrong foot." Sephie muttered with a sympathetic sigh.

"No kidding, if Naruto hadn't been there to talk Yami down she'd have probably pummeled him into a pancake for calling her dumb like that." Mea said, a giggle escaping her lips upon remembering Sai's not-so-great first impression.

"Sup Yami."

Yami blinked when she heard Naruto's voice, and she turned her head and looked at him. He was there, standing right behind her, and she had been too into her books to notice him.

"Naruto, you seem... better." Yami noted that Naruto was smiling. She couldn't help but blink in surprise, all of Naruto's depression from before seemed to be gone now. He was grinning at her like everything was alright again. Like his friend hadn't been killed by his best friend, or ex best friend. Yami blushed and pushed the books she was reading out of Naruto's line of sight, before she stood up and put them in the bag she was using to carry them around.

Naruto silently waited for her to turn back to him.

"Sorry I've been ignoring you. I was just wondering, do you want to go and train? I've been itching to let loose some of this pent up energy." Naruto pounded his fist into his hand. He reached out his hand to her, and gave her a familiar grin.

…

Everyone watching were just as surprised at the sudden mood change, with even Mea and Momo snapping out of their depressed moping in order to stare at the screen in disbelief.

"…Uh, did we miss something?" The transforming redhead asked with a raised brow as she glanced around the room, only to be met with a series of mumbles and shrugs. "Then what the hell happened? Someone doesn't just get over the kind of crap he just went through in ten minutes."

"Perhaps something happened to him whilst Viewer-kun was focused on Yami. It wouldn't be the first time after all." Peke suggested, making Lala rub her chin thoughtfully as her head tilted to the side cutely.

"It's possible," She mumbled softly, before shaking her head as her lips curled into a frown and thought to herself. 'I don't think that's it though, something just feels… off about Naruto-kun for some reason.'

Unknown to the pinkette, very similar thoughts were passing through Yami's mind as she stared straight intently at the whiskered teen. She didn't know why but for some reason all of her instincts were suddenly screaming at her that there was something amiss with Naruto, something big.

Yet, something felt off about the grin to her. "So, what do you say Yami?" Naruto asked her, and she nodded rather slowly.

Something was off about Naruto.

The smile on his face... it wasn't filled the same... joy that she was used to. It wasn't Naruto's real smile, the kind of smile that made the sun look dull in comparison.

'... Something is wrong with him.' Yami couldn't pinpoint the issue with Naruto.

He must be suffering from a broken heart, having decided to kill Sasuke or something, and it was causing him to fake being happy.

Yes, that must be it.

"Of course, poor guy's probably just trying to put on a brave front for everyone." Mikan said as most of the group aside from Yami and Lala nodded in agreement, murmuring their sympathies for Naruto.

Said duo instead opted to keep staring at the enigmatic blonde, neither able to shake off the feeling it was more than just him masking his feelings, but unable to figure out what exactly it was.

"Well, Yami, lets go to a private area. How about we use your ship to go somewhere private for our training?" Naruto asked her.

Her ship.

"... I had to clean my ship without help." Yami reminded Naruto with a frown. Naruto had been in a depression, so she wasn't angry at him, just a little annoyed. She understood him forgetting to help her clean up, but she was slightly annoyed by it. "We should..." Yami didn't look directly at Naruto. "... go get a bowl of ramen after training... with you paying for it." Didn't mean that Yami wasn't going to try and get some payback for what he did. She had to clean all of those snake guts off her ship herself.

It wasn't pleasant.

"Uuuugh, no kidding, just thinking about it…" Nana could even finish her sentence as she cupped her mouth, a shiver running down her back and cheeks gaining a slight green tint to them.

"Hahahaha-" Naruto laughed as he rubbed the back of his head, seeming to remember that he promised that. "-sure thing Yami. Lead the way to your ship, and after training, I'll treat you to as much ramen as you want. Sounds tasty right about now." Naruto rubbed his belly.

Yami started to lead the way with her backpack slung over her shoulder, nodding to Naruto as she passed him.

Naruto grinned at the back of her head.

'... Something is really off with Naruto.' Yami thought as they started to pass by people.

'Indeed.' 'Definitely.' Yami and Lala unknowingly thought in sync.

"I'm sorry for your loss Naruto-san."

"I should have protected Sakura better Naruto."

"... I'm sorry Naruto-kun."

Shino, Kiba, Hinata, and Yami listened as they passed by more of Naruto's friends, all of them giving their own words to him. All trying to say how sorry they were one of his teammates died. It seemed in Konoha, your teammates might as well be your family, and losing a teammate was similar to having part of your family taken from you.

Sephie pulled her youngest daughters into a hug whilst Lala did the same with Rito, Mikan, and Yami, earning various sighs, stutters, or rolled eyes from their 'captives' as the older pinkettes snuggled with them.

"Here we go again." Mikan muttered dryly as she was smooshed between her brother and best friend, with Lala's chest resting atop her head.

Giggling softly to herself at their antics, Mea started to get comfy with the extra room she now had…

"Oh, get over here already Mea."

…Only to be caught by surprise when a certain petite pinkette grabbed her arm and dragged her into the hug as well, and before the redhead even knew what was happening she found herself in almost the exact some predicament as Mikan.

"If all of us have to suffer this, then so do you." Nana said jokingly while resting her head on Mea's shoulder, making the former assassin blink in confusion for a few moments. However, once her surprise wore off, the redhead couldn't help but smile a bit while snuggling against the animal lover.

"... Naruto... what are you going to do about Sasuke?" Yami asked Naruto without looking at him. She wanted to give him her advice, since she knew he had been in inner turmoil about what to do about this situation he was in.

Kill Sasuke was her advice.

"He needs to die." Yami stated in complete agreement with her counterpart.

"Loath as I do to admit it, it would be for the best," Sephie muttered sadly as she hugged her daughters and Mea a bit tighter. Being the Queen and diplomat to the biggest empire spanning the known universe, the eldest pinkette had dealt with her fair share of messy intergalactic affairs, many of which still haunted her to this day. "I've seen enough to know where that young man's path leads otherwise, and it never ends well."

Nobody refuted the queen's statement.

"I'm going to kill him, of course. He killed Sakura, Yami. He needs to die now." Naruto stated coldly to her, as if his emotions had been erased.

Naruto wasn't ever that cold, even when he killed Kabuto, he seemed saddened by what he had to do. Naruto wasn't a cold-blooded killer, he didn't regret murder, but he wasn't the type of person who could so casually admit to planning murder.

Yami frowned.

Sakura.

Yami.

""…That's not Naruto/Naruto-kun!"" Yami and Lala said at the exact same time, the former barely audible whilst the latter all but screamed it getting the rest of the room's attention.

"What are you two talking about?" Rito asked in confusion, unknowingly voicing everyone else's thoughts.

"That Naruto-kun is a total phony. He always calls Yami-chan Yami-chan and Sakura-chan Sakura-chan, never just Yami and Sakura," Lala stated, pausing the TV as she pointed at the whiskered blonde accusingly.

"And my other self is correct, he'd never be so cold about having to kill someone," Yami added with a deep frown, the ends of her subconsciously started to turn to knives as she glared at 'Naruto'. "It goes against his nature."

As the pair spoke, everyone turned back to the screen to look at 'Naruto' again, and really taking in the cold heartless expression on his face.

"Okay yeah, I'm starting to see it too now," Mikan muttered while everyone else nodded in agreement. "But that begs the question, if that's not Naruto…"

"Who is it really?" Momo finished for the brunette dramatically

Hitting the play button with a hair hand, Yami glared at the screen. "We'll find out soon."

"I... Lets go this way, it's faster." Yami changed the direction she was walking. She slipped around several people in the street, and brought out white feathered wings. She flew up above the houses, with Naruto jumping up and following after her. As she flew, he would jump from roof to roof. Yami started to fly towards Naruto's apartment, with a deep frown on her face. Even deeper than before. '... He's so distant...' Yami thought as she looked at Naruto following closely behind her.

The heart.

After meeting Naruto, she had started to learn to feel out what was in Naruto's "heart" as people would call it. Naruto was so open with people, attracting people to him, and giving his heart out freely, that it was practically impossible not to feel his heart. He had no barriers around himself, and was open and tried be friendly with people.

"Looks like we're heading to my apartment... oh right, you keep your ship behind my apartment building." Naruto reminded himself, seemingly.

"Okay, yeah, totally an imposter." Nana said with a grimace as whoever was posing as the blonde was just really, reeeeally bad at it. It was like a walking mannequin and a bad voice actor combined, with him simply going through the script with none of the real Naruto's energy or liveliness.

Yami nodded her head.

"I need my key out of your apartment." Yami stated as she lowered herself down to the ground. She walked in the unlocked front door, Naruto was the hero of the leaf so nobody would dare steal from him, before she started to cross the room. She saw Naruto come in behind her, and close the door with a grin.

"I can't wait to see the inside of your ship."

Yami gave a forced smile herself.

"You can unlock it." Yami walked over to Naruto, and she held her hand out to him, so that she could give him the key of course.

"Awesome! Thanks Yami!"

"What the hell!?" "Huh?!" Mikan and Lala yelped as their eyes and ears were suddenly covered by Yami's hair before it morphed into blindfolds and noise canceling earmuffs.

"Yami! What are you-hey!" Rito started to demand as he turned to the transforming blonde, only to end up shouting in surprise when he was similarly blinded and deafened.

Seeing all the questioning looks she was getting from the rest of the room's occupants, Yami simply pointed at the screen with a dead serious look on her face.

Naruto accepted what she gave him, and he opened his hand up and looked at the key. He blinked when he saw that there was no key in his hand. Instead, all he had in his hand was a-

Yami's blade-transformed hand sank into his heart.

"AAAH!" "Holy shit!" "Oh my god!" Nana, Momo, and Sephie all screamed out in horror, eyes wide in shock and disbelief as they watched Yami's counterpart mercilessly impale the whiskered blonde.

Meanwhile, Yami just kept staring onwards coldly while keeping a firm grip on the bindings she'd placed on Mikan, Rito, and Lala.

The only one who seemed unaffected by the blonde's actions was her fellow former assassin Mea as she casually munched on some popcorn she stole from a distracted Momo. "Whelp, can't say I didn't see that one coming."

"Naruto calls me Yami-chan... and he would never talk about killing Sasuke so coldly. You're not Naruto... I can't feel Naruto's heart in you." Yami stated with a neutral, cold blooded, killing expression on her face. Her blade went through the front of his chest, and came out of his back. She pushed her head up against him, and she gave her blade a twist for good measure, before she yanked it out.

"Gah!"

Naruto grabbed the hole in his chest, and looked at her with a sense of betrayal.

'Now, drop that Transformation Technique and show me who you really are.' Yami looked at Naruto as his back touched the wall, holding his chest. He sank down to the ground, and Yami waited for the puff of smoke that would show her that it wasn't Naruto that she just fatally stabbed.

"Guys? Mom? Yami-chan? What's going on? Why can't I-OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED!?" Lala screamed at the top of her lungs as Yami finally removed her and the Yuuki sibling's blindfolds, thus allowing them to see Naruto fall to the floor with a bloody hole in his chest.

"I dealt with the fake, now we'll see who they really are." The former assassin stated bluntly, her gaze never once wandering from the screen as she spoke.

She had spent enough time amongst ninja to know of their transformation technique, she had seen Naruto use it plenty of times now.

"Yami... how..."

Yes, drop the transformation.

"I..."

The transformation would drop any second now.

Any second now.

It wasn't dropping.

…

"Oh god… what if… w-what if that really is Naruto?" Momo stuttered out after several moments passed with no change, Naruto still rapidly bleeding out as Yami towered over him.

"…Naruto-kun?" Lala called out weakly as she watched the life gradually fade from the whiskered blonde's eyes, briefly forgetting that he couldn't hear her regardless of his condition.

"N-no, he's definitely a fake," Yami stated with a shake of her head, her voice hitching slightly before she managed to regain her usual calm demeanor, albeit with slightly yet still noticeably trembling hands. "He has taken a literal fistful of lightning through the chest and just shrugged it off. There is no way I could have taken him out with just a single stab like that, he'd been more pissed than hurt."

"That's true…" Mikan agreed reluctantly, before pointing at the screen with a green face. "But that still doesn't explain that."

"... Naruto!" Yami rushed over to Naruto's side and put her hands against his chest, against the wound that she put there. Yami looked at the vast amount of blood that was gushing out of his chest, and onto the floor around them. Her eyes widened in horror when she realized that she had been wrong. "I'm sorry... I thought... I didn't mean... I meant to kill..." Yami didn't know what to say,

Yami saw as Naruto sent her the look that she had seen as she had killed other people, but for the first time in her life... those eyes hurt. Eyes that asked only a single question, before the life went out of them.

Eyes that asked why?

She killed Naruto.

"Uuuuh…" And just like that, any composure Yami had rapidly drained away, her face losing all color as she stared into those dead lifeless cerulean eyes. "I-"

"Hey Yami-chan, sorry to interrupt your reading or whatever, but... What is that ME doing there ya know!?"

Yami looked at the doorway with widened eyes when she saw another Naruto standing there. She saw him looking at his own dead self, with shocked eyes, Kakashi standing behind him looking just as shocked as Naruto himself.

Yami-chan.

"OH THANK GOODNESS!" Lala cheered at the top of her lungs, hopping up and down happily with Rito and Mikan still clasped tightly in her grasp. "He's okay! He's okay! He's really really okay!"

""Choking… not breathing… choking… not breathing!"" The Yuuki siblings gasped out in almost perfect sync, their faces slowly turning blue as Lala unintentionally strangled them in her vice grip. Yami, who had thankfully managed to avoid the inventive pinkette's dreaded 'death hug' this time, sighed in relief as she saw the real Naruto appear on screen.

Meanwhile, everyone else was cheering in their own way, such as Momo dancing in place and Nana hugging Mea tightly as the redhead patted her back with an amused eyeroll. The little celebration went on for several minutes, and only really ended once Lala FINALLY noticed Mikan and Rito's passed out in her arms.

After quickly reviving the pair, which didn't somehow end up in an embarrassingly misunderstood situation to Momo and Mea's dismay, the group returned their attention back to the TV which Sephie had thankfully paused for them.

Relief flooded Yami as she ran towards Naruto and wrapped her arms around him. Naruto, out of instinct, returned her hug with a confused expression.

Relief.

'... I've never been so scared... That hurt so much... I thought I killed Naruto...' Yami didn't say a single word to Naruto. She didn't even stop to question who it was that she did kill. Kakashi on the other hand, walked over to the Naruto on the floor and placed his hand on it.

Kakashi frowned under his mask.

'... Tobi... the masked Madara... Konan-san spoke about him with an army of White Zetsu. They have the ability to take the appearance and chakra signature of whoever they want. Madara must be trying to lure Naruto out of the village by capturing Yami.' Kakashi was a smart man, smarter than most. Transformations dropped the second that the user lost concentration on the technique, they could maintain during injury yes, but not death.

The only known transformation that could do that, was the one that Konan told them when she explained the abilities of White Zetsu when he met with her.

Two profiles popped up on the screen, one labeled White Zetsu and showed the image of a ridiculously pale looking man with green hair and half his body severely deformed, and the other labeled White Zetsu Clone with a similar looking man only without the deformity and a more armoured spiky appearance.

"Uuuugh, and just when I thought that place couldn't get any scarier." Nana muttered with a shiver after reading of these Zetsu things various abilities such as perfectly duplicating someone's appearance, transforming into various materials within an environment, and even sucking the life out of people on contact.

*Sniff* "Those poor people." Lala on the other hand was more focused on the Zetsu's origin, more specifically how they were originally humans that had been trapped by the God Tree and been literally drained of everything from their personalities to their appearance.

Capturing Yami would have made Naruto try and rescue her.

"... I really have NO clue what is going on." Naruto whispered as he looked at the top of Yami's head, and over at Kakashi.

"It was a White Zetsu... It seems that Madara is trying to capture people close to you, to lure you out." Kakashi spoke to Naruto, while Yami let go of Naruto when she was absolutely sure it was him. Hearing what Kakashi said gave her comfort, and she looked away from Naruto with tomato red cheeks. "... I'm going to take this body to Shizune. Naruto, you and Yami should spend the night in your ship. There might be more nearby." Kakashi told Naruto, and Yami glanced at her blond-haired friend.

Friend.

Still didn't like that word.

"I bet you wouldn't if it had the word boy before it~." Momo said teasingly as she gave the transforming blonde a knowing smirk, which only grew when Yami scowled at her with enflamed cheeks.

"…I don't get it." Lala said with her head tilted to the side cutely in confusion, earning a few giggles from her siblings, mother, and Mikan which only made the alien princess more confused.

"... Can I get ramen first?"

Yes, this was her Naruto alright.

As the screen once more faded back to the buffering screen, most of the occupants in the room seemed to deflate a bit with exhausted looks on their faces.

"Oh man, that was way too intense," Nana said with a tired sigh, earning a round of muttered agreements and nods all around as the adrenaline that had been rushing through them petered out. Slipping free of her mother's grasp, the petite pinkette laid down and cocooned herself with her blanket. "I don't know about you guys, but I need a nap. Wake me up when the TV's ready."

"What she said." Mea stated while flopping down next to her friend, who promptly pulled her into the blanket pile to snuggle.

"Eh, I could do with catching a few Z's too." "Same here." "Rito, let's take a nap together!" "Huh!?"

Before long everyone was following in Nana's stead, all of them mentally exhausted from the constant roller coaster of emotions. Rito naturally found himself smooshed between Lala and his sister on a fold out on a futon that had been stored under Nana's bed for some reason, while Momo and Sephie were snuggled up on the former's bed together.

The only one not on a bed was Yami, who'd opted for her usual standing sleeping position, leaning on a nearby wall for support. However, just before she drifted off, the former assassin sent one last confused look towards the television as she cupped a hand over her chest.

-End Chapter-