Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

AN: Alright. This is my new Yaoi. Pairings at the start will be Sasu/Naru and will end up with Ita/Naru. This is my first attempt at First P.O.V so I hope you like it.

Introspection

One

(Naruto P.O.V)

I knew it.

I knew the moment she came charging at us once again that it was either her life or ours. Sakura-chan and Sai were injured; Kakashi-sensei had already reached his limits with the Sharingan. It galled me to admit it but I knew that I would have collapsed because of the extent of my own injuries if it wasn’t for Kyuubi.

At that very moment I wondered if that bastard was a curse or a blessing.

The responsibility of protecting my comrades fell onto my shoulders and I knew that there was no room for error. I could not afford to falter now.

My pleas had no effect on her. I soon realized that I was talking to the demon and not the host. She was locked inside; her conscious was not powerful enough to over-power the demon’s will. There was no way out. That was the horrifying realization I came to. I was trying to stop her but I knew that her death was inevitable. If she didn’t die by my hands, she would be executed by the village.

I could see it then; at one point of time I promised that I would give my life to protect my precious people. I didn’t realize at that time that there was a difference in giving up my own life and taking the life of another. Sacrificing myself would have been easier but killing other people never did sit well with me.

I had called upon my chakra knowing exactly what I was about to do. I could feel the immense pressure of Rasengan forming in my palm, the deadly jutsu’s power hummed, sending vibrations up my arm. The swirling ball of chakra formed with frightening swiftness and for once I waited for my opponent to come to me.

My attack was perfectly timed. I grabbed her wrist that felt so slender and fragile in my grasp and slammed Rasengan into her gut. For one blinding moment I felt nothing. An eerie sense of detachment overcame me. I watched impassively, my gaze fixed on the girl’s stomach where my jutsu hit.

The effect of the jutsu was just as impressive as it was devastating. It tore her body from inside out; her blood spilled onto my face and stained my clothes. Her cries were deafening and heart-wrenching, her childish voice screaming in agony that I could only imagine the pain she was going through. After all, Rasengan was not chidori. The pain caused by chidori was not even close to the horror that Yondaime’s jutsu inflicted.

I stood there, with her lifeless body at my feet and her blood staining my shoes.

It was her soul-less brown eyes that shattered me inside.

She was like me, a victim of cruel fate, carrying a burden so enormous she could never hope for a normal life.

She was a Jinchuriki.

But unlike Gaara the little girl was not a conscious participant in the killing spree she had just committed. It was the demon within her that was just using her body. She was locked somewhere inside and now she had paid for the demon’s sins.

Her blood clung to my fingers mockingly, reminding me of what I had just done. I had killed someone. I had killed a little girl who could have been saved, who could have lived on, and she could have become a great shinobi one day. I had successfully ended a life.

I was not prepared for that. I was not prepared for the intense feeling of guilt and helplessness that followed. The hollow feeling of having someone’s blood on my hands caught me off guard. I could have prevented this. I could have done something, anything to prevent her death without risking my companions.

For once I couldn’t summon my smile. I could not bring myself to smile, to cling to the hope that this would not happen again for I knew it would. It was in that very moment I realized that I couldn’t change the way our society worked. This was our profession, if I had to protect someone I cherished I had to kill my enemy. I had to defeat every obstacle in my path. I had taken an oath. I would protect my village even if it meant giving up every drop of blood in my body.

Standing still, over her lifeless body I was bombarded with emotions I had never experienced before. I could feel my entire frame trembling. I could hear the concerned queries of my team-mates and somewhere, somehow I managed to find my lost smile. It was the smile that had helped me hold on to my sanity throughout the harsh years of my life. I felt Kakashi-sensei’s hand on my shoulder but I was blissfully numb inside. That comforting gesture went unnoticed by me.

Sakura-chan was in front of me, cupping my face in her hands but I smiled at her and she relaxed, knowing that I’ll be alright.

How wrong she was.

As always, I pushed the pain as far away as I could. The rest of the journey back home passed as a blur to me. I forced myself to forget the pain, to forget the nagging questions that lingered at the forefront of my mind. My cheerfulness eased me as just much as it comforted my team-mates. It was not a mask, I liked to smile, I liked their attention but now I couldn’t ignore the fruitlessness of my actions.

We reached Konoha in record time. Kakashi-sensei was as perceptive as always and excused me as soon as we entered the gates saying that I wasn’t needed to report to Tsunade-baachan.

As I walked through the streets of Konoha, I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone felt this nagging ache in their heart when they killed someone innocent.

That was what made us human, wasn’t it?

I didn’t know how long I walked aimlessly, I didn’t realize when the sun started to sink and the sky became littered with stars. I was standing pointlessly in the middle to the busiest streets in Konoha and no one bothered to even glance at my direction.

People weren’t looking.

They weren’t glaring.

They didn’t even realize that I was there.

Their resident demon’s silent presence went unnoticed. I knew that people always instantly noticed me when I walked amongst them. They would always glare at me as soon as they noticed.

I found it rather disconcerting. I had trained myself to endure the glares knowing that it was not directed at me but at Kyuubi. I found comfort in the fact that they thought I was the Kyuubi and therefore glared. They didn’t hate me; they hated someone who they thought was a monster.

I knew I wasn’t a monster.

That didn’t lessen the amount of hurt I endured, but it was a comforting thought when I went to sleep in the night. I knew that once they got to know me they would stop glaring and start smiling.

That was my goal.

To make them see the real me.

However, standing here, in the middle to the street I noticed something I had purposefully ignored before.

I was walking the wrong path. I was not being me. I had been lying to everyone, including myself ever since I was intelligent enough to do so. Forcing myself to understand and accept my situation, forcing myself to accept that I would never have a mother’s love or a father’s protection.

I was lying to myself when I thought that a single smile was enough to quell the growing hollowness inside. My first step itself had been the wrong one.

I was a child then. I hardly knew anything about the world when I first promised myself that I would smile, that I would not falter under the weight of their frigid stares. I didn’t know myself, I didn’t know others.

The villagers were not evil. They were hurting and I could understand that very well. Many of the precious people had died that night when the Kyuubi was sealed within me.

Was their situation different from mine when I killed that girl?

She had a demon inside her. She was innocent and that didn’t stop me from killing her. I was protecting my precious people. I was in the same position as the villagers and I understood them completely.

They weren’t wrong but they weren’t right either.

A faint disappointment was all I felt at the thought. I walked slowly and silently through the crowd, observing Konoha in a manner in which I had never done before. A few people noticed me, they scowled at my presence but that didn’t seem as painful as before. Some people glanced at me with eyes filled with pity and I found myself cringing.

Why hadn’t I noticed this before? I had lived in ignorance and ignorance was bliss for me.

But it was still ignorance.

I could see it now. When I was not trying to gain their attention, when I was not shouting proclamations, being clumsy or creating havoc in general, people barely glanced at me. I was not distracting them with my presence so I was spared for the moment from their hatred.

That realization was like a slap in the face for me.

I knew they still hated me. The people of my village were not as forgiving as they seemed but for perhaps the first time I realized that I was wrong.

I had always been wrong.

As a child I always strived to seek attention or approval. I didn’t matter to me that I got negative attention because my mind needed some sort of guidance. I needed someone to tell me what I was doing right and what was wrong. That craving was instinctual. Every child had it. They needed constant guidance from an adult to overcome childish insecurity.

That was why I was always so active and so energetic. I knew that when I did something right, I would be ignored and if I did something wrong I would be punished.

That was how I learned my values and ideals. That is how I learned what was approved by the society and what was frowned upon by the villagers. That was my way of learning. I needed to scream to be heard or else I would have been ignored. I had to work to be noticed or I would have become invisible in their eyes.

For a child, that was the worst thing that could happen.

But why was I still behaving in such a manner?

It was a habit I suppose. I knew better now. I was a fifteen year old shinobi and I had enough wisdom in my being to know that I wasn’t the center of their universe. Everybody had their own lives to live; they had no time to torture a boy who was not even present in the village for most of the time.

Why was I still trying? I had people who respected me for who I was. They listened to me when I spoke even if it was a whisper. They were aware of my presence even if I was not a bouncing ball of energy.

I was their friend.

A friend they would trust with their lives.

What more did I need? What was the use of trying so hard to gain attention when I had better things to do? With a sigh I fetched my keys and entered my apartment. The familiar scent and warmth of my home comforted me and I just wanted to sink into my bed and go to sleep.

I looked down at the blood that stubbornly clung to my nails deliberately reminding myself of the day’s events. The nameless girl I killed… her soulless brown eyes that haunted me. I felt the numbness within me grow. Suddenly everything I did so far seemed unimportant. Was the life of a stranger whose predicament was similar to mine so important to me that her death left me feeling empty inside?

I killed her, yes. It was my duty to kill her; it was my mission for she was endangering the lives of many. And yet I felt guilty because I knew whatever crimes she had committed, it was her body that committed it, not her soul.

I could understand her in a way no one else might be able to. I knew that the demon and the host were two separate entities residing in a single body. I knew it because her situation was glaringly similar to mine. Only, I was more fortunate to have an ingenious seal to help me contain the demon that resided within me.

This one simple incident which was obviously a common occurrence in the life of a ninja had shaken me to the core just because she was innocent. Had it been someone else, someone who was a criminal, and someone of malicious intent, I wouldn’t have felt even a sliver of remorse.

The demon that carried out his evil deed through her innocent body deserved to die. But it was not dieing on its own, it was taking that little girl with her.

I have never felt so torn in my life. I am not like Sasuke. He was able to see logic when he needed to. He was able to kill emotionlessly, even if the person he was about to kill was innocent. I was not like that. I didn’t like killing. That didn’t mean I didn’t know it was necessary. I learnt that killing was a part of our life on my very first c-class mission.

I let myself fall onto my bed without paying any attention to the blood on my clothes. I found it hard to believe that this single incident was enough to shake everything I had forced myself to believe. I stared at my hand as though it would give me some answers. I knew my hands were murder weapons. I was dreadfully skilled with them. Ero-sannin had trained me to wield the Rasengan to perfection.

I had taken my training seriously because with my sensei, outside the village of Konoha I had no distractions.

I had trained to protect but now I could see that I had trained to kill.

Here I was, lying on my bed and I could feel my entire world collapse around me. I had promised myself not to cry and yet I could feel the burning in my eyes. What was the use of smiling now? When there was no one to see it? What was the use of trying to push back the pain knowing that it would come back to haunt me?

I should know by now. I always pushed my problems at the back of my mind so that it wouldn’t bother others. I didn’t want the few people who acknowledged me, cared for me, to be concerned or burdened by my problems.

But right now I needed someone to snap me out of this mess. This jumble my mind was reduced to.

Why was I suddenly questioning the very foundation of my life? I didn’t understand. Nothing had ever shaken me this much. Nothing had ever forced me to contemplate my life in such a manner. Here I was, lying on my bed and staring listlessly at my bloodied hand as I started to realize what a fruitless life I was living.

I was living for others, living for their acknowledgement, living for their approval. I needed that as much as the air I breathe.

It was a daunting thought. To think that I had come to rely on people who would rather have me dead.

“Brooding is unbecoming of you dobe.”

I resisted the urge to curse as I glanced at Sasuke, who was perched expertly on my window sill. He really did pick his moments carefully, didn’t he? He was the last person I wanted to see at the moment.

His presence here was not surprising though it was unwelcome. Sasuke, being the selfish bastard that he is, escaped sound a day before Orochimaru was about to take over his body. He came to Konoha and instead of being executed, he was accepted back. But his punishment was nothing short of cruel.

He would never be a ninja again.

Tsunade had had his chakra pathways sealed so he couldn’t use it. However, I wasn’t vain enough to believe that Sasuke was weak. I knew that even without his chakra and Sharingan, he was quite strong.

They were using him as a tool. They didn’t want the Uchiha line to end and therefore they had let him live. I almost laughed when Tsunade told me of the council’s decision. Did they honestly think that Sasuke could be contained like that? He was too calm, too collected when the sentence was announced. Everybody had thought that he had given up on revenge, I knew better. He had a plan, Sasuke always had a plan.

“Go away bastard, I am in no mood to deal with you.” I didn’t know why I bother. He wasn’t going to listen anyway. I wasn’t surprised when he jumped from the widow sill and walked towards me. His vacant gaze still sent shivers down my spine.

He wasn’t the Sasuke I knew. My best friend and rival always had that fiery will and sheer power glittering in his eyes. The eerie blankness in his eyes only served to enhance my guilt. I could have saved him that day three years ago. I could have prevented this perversion of him done by that snake-bastard.

The knowing smirk on his face told me that he knew exactly what I was thinking. It galled me that he could read me so well but I too was an expert in reading him. He knew it. He sat on my bed and didn’t say anything. If he expected me to talk then he was going to be disappointed. I just lay there, with my eyes closed and tried my best to ignore his dark presence.

“Sakura came to me and told me what happened.” I snorted, hardly surprising. I had thought that she had grown in strength and maturity while training under baa-chan but Sasuke was her eternal weakness. “She told me how you saved the day… again.”

I looked at him questioningly, what exactly did he mean by ‘again’? “What the hell are you talking about Sasuke?”

I was caught by surprise when he leveled me with an amused stare. “What did you learn today dobe? I can see the change in your eyes.”

Suddenly my throat felt dry. He had this knowing look in his eyes as though he knew everything I was feeling up to this point. He lay down beside him and looked at the ceiling. He was waiting for me to speak and I had to admit to myself that the thought of letting everything out was very tempting.

“It was pointless wasn’t it?”

He knew exactly what I meant. I could see the corners of his lips twitching. “Yes it was, now the question is, what are you going to do about it Naruto?” when he looked at me, his gaze was serious and somewhat comforting. “You learned something about yourself today. Tell me what you learned.”

I closed my eyes and tried and failed to contain myself. This was Sasuke I was confessing to and even though he was a person who was willing to kill me for power, he was also the only one I trusted to give me an honest opinion.

“She was a Jinchuriki and yet no one saw the ten year old helpless girl trapped somewhere in her body. They only saw a demon.” I shook my head in disbelief, “Hell Sasuke, even I thought so at the beginning. I was ready to kill her, just like that. My mind screamed at me that she was a monster who doesn’t deserve to live! I was no better than the villagers.” There was such venom in my voice, uncharacteristic hatred soaked my words but Sasuke didn’t seem to mind.

He turned to me, his head resting languidly on his palm, “Yes, you were no better than those villagers that despised you because of Kyuubi.” I nearly flinched at his calm, bland voice, “But that is what makes you human dobe. Unknowingly you are considering that girl and the monster as one. Do you think she would have wanted to live when it was her own body that killed so many people? You are insisting that you killed the little innocent girl but you forget that there was a demon on the loose that would have killed more innocent girls like her if it wasn’t stopped. Just being a Jinchuriki gives her special status?”

I felt a jolt of realization run through me. He was right. He was absolutely right.

“I didn’t ask about the girl Naruto.” He paused for a moment to observe me, “I asked about you. What did you learn about yourself?”

This time I chose to answer him fully and sincerely, “I was fooling myself. I was going about the wrong way. If I had to gain people’s respect I have to stop being childish and start focusing on my training more. I have to stop lying to myself and face the facts of my life. I won’t be a Hokage just because I had the will to do it or to gain peoples respect. I need to let myself free and stop carrying this enormous burden of others’ opinion of me.” I smiled softly when I suddenly felt lighter and simply free.

His soft chuckle brought me out of my thoughts. He was looking at me with those black, hooded eyes. “Now that you have stopped moping around go wash up and feed me something, I have heard praises about your cooking and would like to see for myself how a dobe like you can possess such culinary skills.”

I laughed despite myself. I would never be able figure out how he could be a perfect bastard and still make me feel better.

Sasuke made himself at home as I took a shower. When I entered the living room I found him lounging in my couch with one of my scrolls. I didn’t mind him reading them. Any scroll containing important information carried a special blood seal that only I could open. It was useless for him to even try to read them.

I busied myself with cooking with every intention of making Sasuke regret barging into my house and demanding me to feed him. I was prepared to cook the worst meal of my life. But then again, that plan may back-fire.

“So, is Kyuubi the reason why Itachi wants you?” He questioned absently. The impassive note in his voice once again managed to startle me. There was no hatred in his voice when he referred to Itachi. There was just this alarming blandness that I had come to associate with his brother.

I could no longer bring myself to trust him. That was the wall that had been contrasted between us. I was ironic that without trust our relationship was better but there was no intimacy between us. Not like before. I leaned against the counter, absently setting the rice to cook and regarded him for a moment. “They want to extract Kyuubi from within me. They need all bijus to complete their mission.”

I looked at him only to see an odd look in his eyes. He tossed the scroll aside and relaxed, “Orochimaru told me once that there was only one man that could have defeated Itachi without breaking a sweat and that was Yondaime. You know who Yondaime was, don’t you Naruto?”

I felt my blood freeze in my veins at his questioning stare. No body was privy to that information with the exception of Tsunade and Jiraiya. Could Orochimaru have known? Could he have told Sasuke?

“You have the same blood in your veins dobe.” He muttered, confirming my suspicions. “You have the capacity to become just as powerful as your father if you stop holding yourself back and stop relying on that demon.” I checked the rice and walked over to him. He looked at me with those steady eyes; there was a calculating gleam in them. “I don’t see why you are so afraid of the power that runs through your veins dobe. The capacity of your own chakra is enormous and yet you ignore it.”

“Sasuke… you don’t…”

“I understand very well Naruto.” He interrupted me. “You are a fool who allowed yourself to think that Kyuubi was your only trump card. Jiraiya was a fool who trained you in harnessing that chakra which only served to suppress your own capacity. You were chosen because your father understood the power of your chakra and you are an idiot to think that Kyuubi is something you need to win battles.”

I felt irrational anger bubbling in my chest. Who was he to lecture me? He didn’t know anything about me. Before I could come up with an angry retort, something stopped me. His words echoed in my mind and I found myself confused. He looked at me, judging my reaction before pulling me down to sit beside him. “The more you use Kyuubi, the more you forget about your own legacy. Itachi calls you Yondaime’s legacy not because the sealed the Kyuubi in you, but because you carry his genius in you. You only have to utilize it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I knew that I was being suspicious but I also knew that Sasuke was up to something or he wouldn’t be speaking in the manner he was speaking to me now. It was like he wanted me to harness that power which was odd.

He shrugged and looked at the ceiling, “I have seen first hand the damage that bastard can do. I know that on my own I cannot defeat Itachi. At one point of time, I was convinced that Orochimaru and I together could kill him. But he was a coward. I soon realized that he would never face Itachi if he wished to live.”

“You want to use me?” Surprisingly I wasn’t upset at that thought. I knew now that nothing mattered to Sasuke but his revenge. He didn’t even consider his own well-being. All that mattered was killing Itachi. I didn’t even surprise me that he lowered his pride enough to ask me. Now I knew the reason he came back to Konoha.

He can back for me.

He didn’t look at me but I could see his eyes narrow at the ceiling. “Yes. I want to use your body to kill Itachi.”

I was taken aback. “I will train you with everything I have learned about your father. I would help you suppress Kyuubi. You have every right to learn what he wanted you to learn. Rasengan is only a portion of his genius dobe and see how fast you learnt it. How long did it take you to learn Rasengan? How easy was it for you to master it and improve on it? I have been watching you dobe and I know you have the potential to defeat him.”

“What do you want in return?” I knew he wanted something. He wasn’t generous enough to do this out of the kindness of his heart, the very thought was laughable.

He looked at me in amusement, “I want your body for a month when I know you are strong enough to defeat him. I have a temporary version of Orochimaru’s jutsu that will enable me to occupy you body and use it as my own for a short period of time. The jutsu is harmless to us but there is a possibility that we would die at the hands of Itachi.”

I couldn’t believe that I was actually considering his offer. It was a perfect plan and I expected nothing less from Sasuke but was I ready to get involved in this?

I was ready to give my life if that is what Sasuke needed. I felt no hesitation. All he needed to do was to ask. But was I ready to give Sasuke rights over my body for a month knowing that he could do anything with it. I had to take the welfare of others into consideration and I had to take into account the existence of Kyuubi within my body.

I knew that Sasuke was able to repress Kyuubi’s chakra just as I was able to. I had seen it first hand when he stepped into my mind during my last mission to retrieve him. But would he be able to suppress the demon’s will?

Suddenly I stood up and resumed making dinner. I needed time to think and I suspected that he understood because he didn’t question me further. He sat silently while I finished making chicken and eggs. It was when I started working on the miso-soup that he came into the kitchen started preparing tea. “Have you met anyone of our friends at all since you returned?” I questioned him as I sliced the mushrooms quickly and turned to retrieve the tofu.

“They are your friends dobe, not mine.” I resisted the urge to pound him into the ground. He didn’t even visit Sakura ever since he came back. The only one he even glanced at was Kakashi and of course me. He loves to torment me, what better way to do it than to stalk me? “What’s wrong with having friends bastard? They risked their lives to stop you from committing a grave mistake!”

Sasuke looked at me questioningly but I didn’t bother to acknowledge him. Who the hell does he think he is? What right does he have to disregard everyone as though they are the dust beneath his feet? “Nothing is wrong with having friends dobe. I just don’t want them. Besides, you can make up for a thousand friends, Usuratonkachi.”

I didn’t know if that was a complement or an insult but I chose to ignore him. I set the table up silently letting him know that he upset me even though I knew he didn’t care. It would seem that my silence was more effective in communicating my feelings than my words for he assisted me without complaint.

I watched with immense satisfaction as his eyes widened when he ate. He stared at the plate dumbfounded for a long time before setting his incredulous gaze on me. “You cook like my mother used to dobe.”

Once again I was unsure if that was an insult or a compliment.