Chapter Text
Tsunade nursed her bottle of sake as she rolled the dice. Before it even stopped, she knew she had won. An eerie feeling took hold of her body. The only bets she ever won were on Naruto so this was a bad omen. She abruptly stood from the table, not even bothering to pick up her winnings and stumbled into the street. She was greeted not long after by a messenger hawk from Kakashi. The message was simple: “Naruto sustained an injury, please perform a casual check-up”. She grimaced as she read the message and headed towards the Hokage tower to demand further explanation. She knew there was nothing casual about this summons.
Sakura was finishing up her shift at the hospital when a hawk found her with a message. She was perplexed why Naruto would require a check up when he knew he could just visit her any time he needed help. She wondered if this had something to do with how much she had seen Hinata out and about at the night clubs. She found it odd that she never saw Naruto with her but also how much she had changed since the academy days. She could bump and grind as well as anyone these days. She’s a far cry from the shy, stuttering girl she knew. Sakura wondered if something had happened and maybe Naruto was too embarrassed to be seen by his friends. Or maybe she was overthinking this and Naruto really just needed some help with an injury. Sakura shook her head trying to clear the thoughts. She was always making problems worse in her mind, trying to solve things that hadn’t happened. She really needed to get some perspective and see the message exactly as it was, just a casual check up on a friend.
Kakashi felt a strong pressure enter the tower a second before his desk snapped in half. He looked up from his now destroyed paperwork to see Tsunade standing angrily before him. He sighed looking at the now ruined piece of furniture and gave her a simple smile. “Always a pleasure to have you in my office Lady Tsunade although I really did like that desk”. Tsunade bared her teeth and bit out "What is the real meaning behind this message?" She clenched his note in her fist, barely restrained rage rippling off her in waves of chakra. Kakashi tried to playcate her, motioning her to take a seat so they could talk without violence. He was regretting summoning her but he knew Sakura would need further guidance on fixing the injury and Tsunade was the only reason it was possible at all.
Kakashi takes a deep breath before explaining the situation. “Naruto is hurting. We haven’t seen him this bad since he was 16. There have been 2 failed suicide attempts thus far and his behaviour is erratic. Iruka and I are worried about him. Hinata broke things off and now he is a ghost.” Tsunade nodded, releasing her fury and sinking into the seat. “It would seem Konohomaru and one of Naruto’s students tried to intervene, trying to give him a purpose by sending him on a mission. The mission however was a trap to capture the power of the Sarutobi clan. They soon switched their target to Naruto and he was severely injured in the battle. He did however refuse to see a medic upon return and Pakkun noted that Naruto’s synthetic arm is of great concern, sending electric shots frequently into Naruto. As you can see, this is a delicate situation which is why I want it to be a casual visit. He doesn’t want more people prying into his life, hes feeling deflated enough without it become a spectacle. Sakura isn’t to know the details, given their tangled history, he might see it as a threat. Go visit him in the morning but keep it casual. Just a check in following the mission report. We don’t want him pushing us out of his life. We cant force him to do anything.” Tsunade nodded but part of her screamed, clinging to the message I’ll force that little brat to live if it’s the last thing I do.
Naruto could feel the heaviness of his limbs but he refused to pull himself towards the surface. He was drowning in his own mind, but he didn’t struggle or fight. He let each wave of guilt, sadness and sorrow crash over him, pushing him further down until he couldn’t see the surface anymore. Until he couldn’t see the light. He was surrounded by darkness, suffocating and silent. He didn’t claw to the surface, quite content to rot down here and waste away to nothingness.
Tsunade and Sakura met outside Naruto’s house mid morning the next day. They knocked on the door and waited but there was no response. They knew Naruto was inside, they could sense his presence but he did not respond to their knocking on the door. Tsunade sent out a wave of chakra to try and wake him but it had no effect. Sakura seemed oblivious to the situation but Tsunade felt a snake coil within her ready to strike. There was something wrong about this situation, he is so sensitive to other chakra after releasing the Nine tails, even if Naruto was sleeping, the demon should have been able to respond. Tsunade cursed before breaking down Naruto’s door.
He could feel it, a disturbance in the water, the waves breaking their hold for a moment before they pushed him down again. He knew someone was calling to him but he didn’t have the will to respond. He ignored the pulse of light that reached him and wrapped himself tighter in the darkness of this oblivion.
Sakura and Tsunade observed before walking to the Master bedroom where they assumed he would be. Neither was a stranger to his house but everything felt off kilter. There was an air of sadness and despair, not touches of home or love that they had come to expect. They followed the sense of his chakra to the guest room and found his laying in the guest bed, cocooned in blankets that smelt of blood. Sakura willed her hands to glow with her medical ninjutsu while Tsunade looked at the pill bottles on the bedside table. She frowned noting their prescription date and how many he had saved up.
Sakura gasped as she finished her examination, cataloguing the injuries and attempting to remove the blanket to better survey the damage. Tsunade assisted and found that Naruto has been digging his claws into his arm, effectively trying to cut off his synthetic hand. It was barley holding on. The Konoichi’s worked in silence, untangling Naruto and attempting to restrain him. Tsunade tried to rouse him but found all her attempted were rejected by his chakra. They had no choice to but perform surgery on him to save the hand without speaking with him first. They set to work, summoning surgical restraints and weights, restricting his movement. He offered no resistance to them, but they felt his body tense and he was held down.
He knew he wasn’t alone anymore, he could feel people touching him. He didn’t want to be touched. The people who got close to him were always the ones that caused the most damage. He wanted to be free of all these bonds, go back to being alone when his pain was his own and no one faked a smile before stabbing him in the back. He wished he could’ve undone the years of longing for connection, waiting to be seen. He didn’t want to be seen anymore. He did not want to exist anymore. The darkness whispered to him, sweet nothings that sounded like the end. Whispered promises of no more pain, no more betrayal, a world of nothing. He longed to reach that world when he felt the restraints secure him. He could no be held down again; he would not relive his trauma. He tried to focus, to claw to the surface but the pressure was so strong. He kicked and fought like mad to return to the surface, not because he wanted to be free but because he could bare the thought of more damage being down before he could end it. He fought to return to his body so that it would be his choice and no body else’s.
When he finally reached the surface and opened his eyes, he was confused by what he saw. He couldn’t move as the two figures shuffled around him, he watched perplexed. One was holding his arm that was holding on by some gory strings while sewing it back into place. He noted the weights pinning him down at the shoulders and knees, not ties like her originally thought. He tried again to move them but it was like he still wasn’t quite here, his body wouldn’t listen to him and when he thought about the abuse it had suffered at his own request, he couldn’t blame it for abandoning him. Resignation filled him and he chose just to watch as they worked, fixing the things he didn’t want fixed, repairing the damage he didn’t know he caused and thinking about the best way to explain this to the nosiest busybodies he knows. Naruto sighed aloud which alerted Tsunade and Sakura to his conscious state.
Sakura and Tsunade shared a concerned glance once they noted Naruto was awake. His eyes looked so dead and he was not complaining or questioning anything. He was just laying there, still and observant. They worked quickly to save his hand and repair the other damage they had found. Deep wounds which had been bandaged, Tsunade deduced they were self inflicted as she poured her chakra into them. She also noted the changes in his body composition and how thin he had become since she saw him a few weeks ago. Luckily Sakura was too preoccupied sewing his hand to notice all the other injuries. Tsunade tried not to cringe as her chakra alerted her to the numerous pin holes in his thighs, so small you wouldn’t be able to see them but deep enough to penetrate the muscle down to the bone.
Naruto just stared and stared and stared as they worked feeling all his anchor points washing away under the green light of his friends.
They worked in silence for nearly 3 hours and once they were finished they removed the restraints. Naruto remained still for several long minutes before working up the energy to sit up. He didn’t want to do this here, in the room he had claimed for himself after being thrown out like trash, so he slowly stood and walked toward the dining table. Tsunade and Sakura followed, removing their bloody glowed and aprons before discarding them in the trash. After washing their hands they joined him at the table, the air was heavy and Naruto looked like a ghost.
Naruto took a deep steadying breath before willing his face to smile and his voice to sound even as he spoke. “Hey Granny and Sakura, thanks for fixing my hand. I’m uh… not really sure what happened there but anyways…” He felt himself trail off as he met the burning eyes of Tsunade who was brimming with anger. He chanced a glance at Sakura who seemed to also embody the former Hokages rage. “What the hell were you thinking you knuckle head? Do you have any idea how hard it was to craft that hand and attach it in the first place? You’re lucky you didn’t lose it altogether.” Sakura all but screamed at him and Naruto tried to hide his wince. Just another instance where he has disappointed people and caused more trouble than he is worth.
Tsunade looked at Sakura incredulously and interjected. “I don’t give a damn about your hand. Who the hell told you you could stop fighting?” Naruto forced himself to meet her eyes where he could see tears. He felt a fist grip his heart. He didn’t want to do this. Not again. Not with these two. He had disappointed so many people, he didn’t want to watch this play out again. Sakura looked around slightly confused. She thought about the times she had seen Hinata recently and looked at the despair in Naruto’s eyes. It clicked for her, they mustve broken up but what did Tsunade mean? She dared the question before she chickened out "What happened with Hinata?" Naruto flinched as he felt the question hit like a physical blow. He really didn’t want to do this, not with these two. They would never understand. How could anyone really understand him. No one had seen the world the way he had. No one else had to suffer alone, begging for attention. There as not a single person in this village that truly knew what it was like to fight to exist and then wish they never existed at all. Naruto felt his rage take on a physical form, a red cloak surrounding him. It was the best he had felt in days and he allowed this rage to wash through him. It was a burning rage, warm and alive, so different from the hollow rage he felt when Konohomaru was in danger. With a single thought he was gone, leaving a stunned Sakura and fuming Tsunade to argue amongst themselves.
Naruto could only think of one place that felt right, one place in the whole village that had always held him, that he always sat when he wasn’t wanted. He found himself on the swing outside the academy. His burning rage was beginning to fade now that he had escaped the two kunoichi’s. He felt the emptiness wash through his once more as the ground fell away from beneath him. He didn’t realise he was winging until he felt a warm hand on his back, gently pushing him forward. Exhausted, he forced himself to look. It was Iruka, just as it always was.
Iruka pushed him on the swing for several minutes as he felt Naruto’s posture relax, he didn’t force a conversation and waited till Naruto was ready. When he laced his feet on the ground once more and stood, Iruka placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him to a nearby bench. They sat in silence and Iruka waited patiently while Naruto gathered his thoughts.
“Iruka..Sensei…” Naruto finally mumbles as tears begin to fall. Iruka leans over and wraps Naruto in an embrace. “I just don’t know what do to. I feel so pathetic and worthless. What an absolute waste of life I ended up being. So many people sacrificed for me and now I am giving up because of a broken heart. Pervy Sage would be so disappointed in me. You should be disappointed in me. I am pathetic…” He choked out between sobs.
Iruka rubbed soothing circles on his back before holding him at arm’s length to look him in the eyes. “You are not pathetic Naruto. You have been through so much pain and suffering in your life, you are allowed to fall apart. You are allowed to feel whatever you want to feel. You are not pathetic or a failure. You are my family and I hate seeing you hurt like this. I want to help you Naruto. Please let me help you.” Iruka hugged his again as the sobs wracked his body.
Naruto calmed enough to say “Is it better to be angry than sad? I want to be angry. It doesn’t hurt as much but all I feel is sad and pathetic. How do I become angry about this? I want the rage, that will keep me alive. This sadness is suffocating me, draining my life. I want to surrender.” Iruka once again looked at him, really looked at him. Looked at the hollowing, sunken cheeks and the bags beneath his eyes. Looked at the slender body in his arms and took in just how much this sadness had taken from him in the space of a few days. He wished he had the solution, but he wasn’t sure if anger was better than sadness. Surely it was but what if it wasn’t. what if the anger sped him down this path and made it impossible to stop?
Iruka took a deep breath before responding. He spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel and hoped he was speaking truth “You need to feel your feelings, trying to stuff them down isn’t helping. Pretending to be okay isn’t helping. I don’t know if anger is better than sadness, I think the real question is why do you feel one and not the other? You are in control here even if it feels like you aren’t. you get to decide how you feel about this.”
Naruto whispered “I just don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t know how to be okay.”
“Oh Naruto… you could never disappoint me.” Iruka responded warmly.
Naruto nodded before turning away and mumbling to himself “Two weeks might be too long…”
“What was that Naruto?” Iruka asked questioningly, concern etched on his features.
“Oh nothing, never mind. You’re right sensei, I am in control. I’ll be alright, I just need some time.” Naruto tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace.
Iruka shook his head before linking arms with Naruto and nudging him in the direction of town, fully intent on taking him out for lunch to curb some of his worry. “Lets go eat.”