10th day, Month of the Monkey, Year of the Horse, 7th Cycle of the Hidden Villages Era
Somewhere in Kentani Province, Land of Fire
It hurts so much to die. It's disgusting. Especially on your own birthday. Yeah... A fitting end to seventeen years of a miserable life. I didn't manage to do so many things... What were my parents thinking when they sacrificed themselves for me and for Konoha? They were thinking about me, and yet things turned out the way they did...
The villagers where I grew up hated me. Though, to be fair, the 'demon boy' was carefully managed and guided, never allowed to let his hatred unleash the one who had been sealed inside me as an infant. Kyūbi no Yōko, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. A fox, sure. But a demon? The demonic nature of my friend remains highly questionable. We've both seen demons, and Ku has almost nothing in common with them...
Now I understand that much of Konoha's hatred toward me was staged. Restrictions, threats, prohibitions. And then there was an organization like ANBU Root, staffed with mental manipulators. Those people could make anyone believe anything if they wanted to. I think they kept away anyone who might have made my childhood easier. Yet now I remember so clearly how people would secretly leave me food, shoes, and clothes. How hospital staff would sneakingly treat me kindly whenever I ended up there again after beatings and fights, trying to grow stronger. Sometimes I would return to find my room cleaned up, or discover my clothes had been washed. A few adults looked at me differently from everyone else, but they never approached me. Then some of them I never saw again...
There had to be a reason why whenever I left the village or approached strangers, nobody sensed anything unusual or monstrous about me. I didn't sense anything either. I only learned about my furry stowaway almost by accident. Thanks, Mizuki-sensei. He was the first to open my eyes to all the injustice in the world. Not only was I an unwanted orphan, mocked and treated as a failure at the urging of his colleagues, deliberately denied the chance to learn, but I was also a jinchūriki. For the first twelve years of my life, all of my chakra went toward maintaining the Demon Seal that kept the bijū imprisoned inside me.
Why is it only now, when I'm about to step into the Pure World, that I finally understand my best friend, Sasuke? His entire clan was slaughtered. And no, his older brother wasn't the one responsible. Village politics was. If Sarutobi Hiruzen weren't already dead, I would have killed him myself. The Third Hokage did everything he could to make sure the jinchūriki, me, ate out of his hand.
My thoughts are getting tangled...
I probably don't have much time left.
Only the legendary vitality of the Uzumaki is granting me these final moments of life.
At least I kept my promise to Sasuke... And I know that I have real friends... Had.
The peace I wanted to preserve... Nothing came of it... Heh...
It hurts so much...
It feels like that strange summoning happened only recently.
In reality, hardly any time has passed, yet it feels as though it happened in another life. Before the war. Before all of them died...
A couple of days of completely civilian life. Days that I actually enjoyed. Another world, and a rather gloomy country called England, where wizards lived. I spent those days with Harry, and that bespectacled guy became my friend. You could even call him a brother in misfortune. Chosen One of his own world, burdened with defeating some dark enemy.
The hero has done his part and can leave now. Damn this war. I wonder if things turned out just as badly for him... At least I had a real life with real friends. I even managed to become friends with Ku...
"N-Naruto..." Ku's voice comes from far away, while everything before my eyes turns green.
"Prepare the 'Last Breath', Kurama. When they all come close... Let them know... What it feels like... When... The last Uzumaki... Dies."
=============================================================
Please write reviews, comments, and check the other works