Anthology

There are Nine great beasts in the world which have haunted mankind since as far as history records. They hunted and killed many people. Until A powerful man created a way to seal the beasts so as to prevent further harm to mankind again. However there was a catch to this powerful sealing jutsu. You had to seal the beast inside a human, and should the beast ever escape, the human in which the beast was sealed will die. The man which devolped this jutsu, was Konoha's first hokage. He founded the ninja village called Konoha, or the village hidden in the leaves, and became the first Hokage. He sealed the strongest of all the great beasts, a nine tailed fox, into his wife, and sealed the other great beasts into people of other villages to balance power. years later he died and his wife grew old and weak, at this time the Third Hokage brought in a girl to be the next contanier of the kyuubi. SHe had unusal powers which allowed her to contain the beast. however, years later during the time of the fourth Hokage, Kyuubi broke free of his current container and went on a rampage throughout Konoha taking many lifes. The Fourth Hokage Sealed Kyuubi into an infant named Naruto Uzumaki, but it cost him his life. 

That was 16 years ago.

I blinked my eyes open, and rolled over to look at the clock on my bedside table. The little neon green numbers glowed evilly in the darkness. 2:45 shone brillently as if it was happy i was woken up by one of the worst nightmeres of the week. sighing, pushed the covers off me and got out of bed. now that i was up i probebly wasnt going to get back to sleep, well, i might be able to but it would be a while anyway. I wandered into the dark kitchin and flipped on the lights. Looking at the sorry exucse for a kitchen i sighed once again. I walked up to fridge and pulled out some ice cream and chocolate suryp, then as an after thought i grabbed the whipped cream. Setting them on the counter i started to grab my blender before i remebered that it was broken. i frowned. Then i reached into one of my drawers i pulled out one of the little metal things that came with mixer, normal people would use this to mix cake batter or cookie batter but then again im not normal. Setting it on the counter next to the ice cream i went and grabbed my drill out of my tool box, which was standing silently next to the front door. I really hadnt used this thing that much, i had used the other tools to repair my ninja tools but my i hadnt really found a reson to use the drill till just now. going back to the kitchen i taped the mixer's metal thing on the drill. then i shoved ice cream into a cup with some of the surpy and whipped cream, and holding the trigger mixed it all up. it worked pretty well, despite the occasional ice cream splat on the wall. takeing my ice cream shake i sat down at my tiny table and slurped it down while looking out the window at the moon. it was quiet except the sound of me slurping down my shake. but i had grown used to the soul consuming silence. I had grown up with it after all. i set my empty cup down on the table, as my mind flashed back to the lastest nightmere in a lifetime of nightmeres the haunt my sleep. Kyuubi really doesnt like me all that much, and he proves it every single night. My hand unconiously moving down to my stomache where my seal was. i sighed. It was all kyuubi's fault, it was all his fault that i was alone. Stupid Fox!! If it werent for Kyuubi i wouldn't be hated by everyone in the village. Then i remebered. I wasnt alone anymore. I had friends. Then I frowned, friends who would give their life to protect me and mine for them, but it still did nothing to erase my feeling of utter lonliness. THe feeling of having no one. most times i could forget, could laugh and pretend nothing was wrong. Until i went back to an empty house. I sat there for i dont know how long before i stood up and went back to bed. 

waking up to sunlight streaming through my bedroom i stood up. I rubbed my eyes trying to get sleep out of my eyes and get rid of the bags under my eyes i could feel forming. I jumped up and got dressed into my usual orange outfit. I tied my forehead protecter on and ate a quick breakfast of instant ramen. Everyone thinks that i eat ramn because i am addicted to the taste, but really it's just the cheapest food that i can get. I shut the door and locked it, heading out to the training grounds.I needed to get stronger. i have so much i have to do. i have to get sasuke back, i have to kill madara, i have to...i have to make up for all that i have done. all the people which died cursing me. i need to atone for all of those sins. And if i was to do any of that i needed to get stronger. People say i have done so much, but i know it is no where near enough. My mind flashed to the nightmere i had lastnight. Well, i say nightmere but it was a memory. A memory of when kyuubi went on a rampage in Konoha when i was born. No one know's this though. No one knows how Kyuubi tortures me by showing me his memories of death and destruction. and he has a lot of them. Last night was special because he decied to show me my parents' death. i just never could tell anyone that i could see his memories. I mean that isn't exactly something you just say. i mean, most of the people in konoha lost someone very dear to them becaues of kyuubi, and the already saw me as kyuubi in human form. it took me years to build up the reputaion i have now as a hero and human and good person. But i could lose all of that in a second if they were to ever find out how close to kyuubi i realy was. Kyuubi chuckled in his cage,

"Little brat worried about being alone?" he said, his voice echoing in my mind. 

"SHUT UP KYUUBI!!" i yelled to him in my head. i sooo, did not want to deal with him today. 

I was just about to the grounds when kakashi tapped my shoulder.

"yo! How have you been Naruto?" He said, and even with half his face covering his face i could tell that his was smiling.

"Kakashi-Sensei!" i yelled out grinning, Kakashi is a pervert. Ande he is always late. and always wears a werid mask. but, he is a pretty good guy. He never abondens his friends on the battlefield and he took care of me sakura and... Sasuke. Kakashi still smiling said to me,

"where are you going?"

"Oh i was going to go train some more." i repled, i guess i enjoy training, it makes me feel as if i am one step closer to making it up to everyone.

"hmm? well your going to have to forget about that for a while. Lady Tsunadia has a mission for you." Kakashi said pulling out one of pery sages books, reading it. I blinked. A mission?! 

"WooHoo!!" i yelled out at the time of my lungs before i ran back home and grabbed my ninja stuff and then headeed to the hokage's office to recive my mission. 

Arriving in the Lady Tsunaide's office, i looked over to see shikamaru standing there looking bored. ALthough he always looks bored. 

"Hey Old Lady! What's my mission?" i asked, curious, i really wanted to go on one, for many reasons. One, it helped sooth Kyuubi's bloodlust, Two, i liked to get out of town often because even though i have made friends and everyone smiles and and waves and are nice to me, but... i still get chills sometime when someone smilies a fake smilie. I dont think my friends notice this, so i dont bring it up or anything. I mean who can blame them. I am nothing but a monster anyway. I am nothing.... I shook my head, no, i need to concentrate and what the old lady is saying. I heard a bang as sakura, Hinata, Lee, Neji and the rest of the gang came in. 

"You called, Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked. 

"Good. You are all here. i have a mission i want all of you on." Tsunaide frowned before continuing. "When the akatsuki attacked the other hidden villages they did quite a deal of damage. I want to try to try and encourage peace between us, hevan knows that we need it, the akatsuki are growing. Therefore i am sending a few of you to each of the other nations to help with repairs, as an act of good will. Hopefully this will help encourage peace. SHe gave them each their assignmen tand all that was left was myself, Lee and Neji. The Hokage looked over at us, You three will be assigned to aid The village Hidden In The Sand with their repairs. With your higher stamina you should be able to work longer in the heat of the desert. we nodded and headed to the massive gates of the village. I was glad when we walked out of the gates and started to make our way to Suna. We kept going till the sun sunk below the horizen. Neji stopped, Lee and i followed suit.

"What is wrong Neji? Are there perhaps enemys around?!" Lee immeditly put up his garud and looked around.

"No. i figured this would be a good spot to stop and rest for the night."

"Stop?! why would we stop? we have the power of youth on our side! We shall push through all of our tiredness and continue our journy to Suna without rest!" Lee said loudly. Sometimes i wondered about him. I sighed and sat down, and looked up at the two of them arguing. Finally Neji won and i finally got to sleep. I passed out right away. It was a three day journey, i wanted to sleep sometime. 

Blinking my eyes, i found myself in the familar tunnels of my mind. Weaving and winding, i made my way to the room where i knew he was waiting for me. it was never good to keep him waiting. he just made it worse later. And i was tired. i hoped he would let me sleep tonight since we are not in the village. i turned a cornor and found myself looking at Kyuubi's cage.

"hey Kit." a deep voice rumbled.

"kyuubi." i stated coldly. He chuckled at my tone.

"Now now, no need to be so cold, i was going to be nice and let it go for tonight, but no im not so sure." My stomach dropped. i dont want to have another Nightmere. "hmm... what to do. Tell you what. i will show you a very short memory of mine and then let you have the rest of the night off. How does that sound?" he didnt wait for my reply as he launched us into his memory. 

There was blood everywhere. 

it covered streets, and trees alike. screams echoed of what looks like the remains of buildings. but the screams didnt sound like they should have, they had a faint musical hint to them. I heard, and saw and felt everything as Kyuubi felt it.

which is why it was so scary. 

if kyuubi was having fun killing people, then when he showed me, i felt the joy as i killed the people. it terrified me.

The musical rythem of the people screaming was soothing, like a lullaby that i had forgotten a long time ago. The screams played like the music and the blood slpattered everywhere like a music video. 

it made me want to sleep. To close my eyes and rest, like the job i had set out to do was done. 

I looked down to see a little girl with a music box in clutched in her hands. I had, well Kyuubi had reached down to look at her and he pinched her head, lifting her off the ground her scream lifting the music higher, the music box the had in her hands falling to the ground. I twisted he head around and snapped it off her body. The blood splattered onto my hands, warm and sticky it clung to me. Like the guilt over killing all of these people will cling to me, for the rest of my life. 

sticky and warm. so very warm.

Gasping i fell to my knees as kyuubi realsed me from his memory, and blinking i opened my eyes to see Neji and Lee still asleep. It was dark still. Like Kyuubi had promised he let me go early. I gasped quietly still trying to catch my breath. I felt tears roll down my face. I can still hear her screams echo in my head.

"Im sorry" i whispered. i stayed that way for a while before i eased back to sleep my body telling me that if i wanted to make it up to the little girl, i cant die of insomnia. 

And so i fell asleep, a very deep dark sleep. With the little girls scream echoing in my head and the lullaby the screams formed still playing.