He watched him. He was always watching him. No one ever saw, and if anyone ever did, they would probably be too stunned to say anything. After all, the residents of Konoha were not very keen to the idea of him being in their village. If anyone did see him, they probably forced themselves to forget it, passed it of as a trick of the light or something.

Really, tricks of light could never describe himself, but that was beside the matter.

He would always watch him, undetected, encased in the shadows of the leaves. Call him a voyeur of sorts, but he loved watching him. Not just anyone, HIM.

The one who had shown emotions other than hate and spite. The one who had taught him about protecting precious people. The one who had offered him friendship, where all else offered nothing but fear. The one who was like him so much that he was his opposite. The one who had defeated him, the one who had fought against him and had won.

Uzumaki Naruto.

This boy had changed the way he lived, the way he thought, the way he felt. No longer did he kill all those who opposed him (unless of course they REALLY got on his nerves). No longer did he feel the need to slaughter, to taste the blood of his victims. No longer did he want to kill the innocent, the pure.

For to kill them would be to kill him. Uzumaki was innocent, but guilty. Uzumaki was pure, but he was tainted. He was innocent of crimes, but guilty for the mere fact that the Kyuubi had been sealed inside of him. He was pure because he had a dream to earn the respect of those he fought to protect, but he was tainted with the hatred that those same people rewarded his efforts with.

He himself had been the complete opposite, and though he wished things were different, many remained the same. All who saw him looked at him with an unrivaled fear that ate at his soul, and the children still ran away in fear...in repulsive amusement. He was guilty. He was tainted. Guilty of killing countless shinobi, ripping their souls away from their bodies. Tainted with the blood that he still carried in the gourd on his back.

Even their appearances were opposites; Uzumaki with his bright blond hair with sky-blue-eyes, tanned skin, and bright orange as his trademark colour. He himself had blood-red hair with pale-green-eyes, skin as pale as death itself with only the darkness as his colour. Two different people living in two different worlds...worlds that were the same. Filled with loneliness, rejection, hate, spite, and the smallest amount of love possible. Uzumaki had his precious people...he himself had his siblings, though it took him years to realize it. And if it hadn't been for Uzumaki, he never would have realized it. He would have remained love-less, he would have remained a monster...but he wasn't. No matter how many people still thought that he was, he wasn't a monster anymore.

Uzumaki Naruto had seen to that.

-Owari-

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Disclaimer: Is Naruto publicly making out with Gaara? No? Aw, then I guess I don't own Naruto...

VDG