Naruto: Because You Love Me.

Because You Love Me.
A NaruHina Story.
Part 1. Broken


A blonde haired shinobi with deep cerulean eyes looked out over the Konoha village from atop the Hokage mountains with a dejected look upon his face, for although he recently was able to save a good friend from the Akatsuki, barely, he still felt like a failure due to the fact that he was once again unable to bring back Sasuke, someone he had once considered to be something of a brother to him, but now he saw him as nothing more then a traitor to his village and friends.  This blonde shinobi went by the name of Uzumaki Naruto and he has not looked so down since the day he failed the final exam at the Konoha Academy and felt as though he would be alone and bereft for the rest of his life, but that was also the same day as his life took a turn for the better, for it was on this day that he was finally recognized by someone, Iruka Sensei, and he wasn’t even close to being the last to do so.  Over the past four years since being made a Gennin he had helped and befriended a great many people during his missions throughout the shinobi world, from a bridge builder and his family to princesses, priestesses and Feudal Lords. But there was still something missing from his life that he had never truly experienced before and that was that he had never felt loved, for he believed that even his parents didn’t love him for if they did how could they leave him alone to suffer the pain and ridicule from the villagers who believed him to be the monster that had attacked the village so many years ago.  It was true that the Fourth Hokage had the kyuubi sealed within an infant child, him, so that it could no longer threaten the safety of the village and its inhabitants but he was not treated as the hero the Fourth had envisioned instead they blamed him personally for killing many of there loved ones.  After helping his friend Gaara save one of the Sands students he left to train with one of the Legendary Sannin for 2 ½ years so that one day he would be strong enough to face the Akatsuki and retrieve Sasuke from Orichamaru, but although he had become incredibly strong it still wasn’t enough, and this is were our story starts with a tear caught in the corner of a cerulean eye…

There sat Naruto with the feeling of having a hole in his heart waiting for the sun to rise over the village and awaken the people within so that he could forget his loneliness and busy himself with the task of being a shinobi, and he actually had a plan that would occupy his mind and body at least for a while, and that was to take the Chunnin exam that was fast approaching, he didn’t like the idea of being the only Gennin in his age group left, but the problem was that he didn’t know of any Konoha Gennin that would be able to take the exam with him for you were only allowed to take it as a three man cell, he considered going to the academy and talking to Iruka about this but decided instead to go directly to the Hokage and see what she could do to help.  And so standing up and stretching out slightly cramped muscles he took one deep breath closed his eyes and leaped off the side of the mountain, the feeling of the wind racing past his face brought a slight smile to his lips, after counting to five during his fall he righted himself so that he would land on his feet and then blasted out a large amount of chakra from the bottom of his feet to create a cushion with which to land on.  Upon landing in a sprinters crouch he took off towards the Hokage Tower as fast as he was able, in true Naruto form he never missed an opportunity to train even a little.

Reaching the Hokage Tower Naruto slowed to a walk and headed upstairs to Tsunada’ office, upon reaching her door he simply knocked and waited for permission to enter, when he received it he walked up to her desk gave a slight bow and said “Tsunade –sama, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Naruto, how many times have I told you not to cal…?  Wait what did you just say?”
“Tsunade –sama, can I talk to you for a moment?” He repeated in a quiet and calm voice.
Tsunade realizing that something was different really took a look at the young shinobi, he stood there completely calm with no fidgety movements and definitely no foxy grin plastered to his face, but it was the eyes that she truly looked at for there was no glint of mischief in them, actually there didn’t seem to be a glint of anything in them, for although they still held the semblance of the ocean they no longer churned and roiled with excitement.  Unable to hold his gaze anymore she sat back down in her chair and motioned for him to go ahead with a simple wave of her hand.
“Thank you, Tsunade –sama, actually I am here to see if there are any other Gennin that I might partner up with so that I can take the Chunnin exam in two weeks time.”  Stunned into silence for a moment, his request finally penetrated through the turmoil of thoughts that were running through her mind as to why he was acting this way, but when it finally did she smiled at him and answered thusly “Oh, yes, the Chunnin Exam, actually I received a request from the Kazekage this morning stating that he knew that you had all the skills required to promote you to the rank of Chunnin without having to take the exam, and as I am in full agreement with my Sand counterpart I hereb…” Tsunade stopped talking as she saw that Naruto had raised his hand to stop her from continuing.
“Tsunade –sama, if that is indeed your decision I will of course accept it with my greatest of thanks, but before you promote me I have one simple request,” he pauses waiting for the sign that he may proceed, “It’s just that when I took the Chunnin Exam last time the Third told us something just after the preliminary matches, he said that the reason that we fight in the arena is so that we could display our skills to the rest of the Shinobi nations in the hopes that our individual villages would be granted lucrative missions, and to show the strength of our nation.  So if at all possible I would at least still like to compete in the third stage of the exam for the benefit of Konoha, I also understand that I may have to fight in a preliminary match to advance to the finals.”
She could not but help to stare at him speechless after he had finished for he hadn’t raised his voice or whined or anything, he simply made a logical argument as to why he should still fight in the last stage of the exam.  “That seems reasonable, but I can’t just let you fight in the third exam without going through the first two, not by my self anyway,” she said with a smile on her lips, “I will of course have to ask the Kazekage if he will allow you to do this, but I’m sure that he will not have any objections to it, actually he would probably like to watch you fight.  I will send the Kazekage a message at once and then I will inform you of his decision, you are dismissed.”  After saying this she had expected to finally see that foxy grin of his, but all she saw was a slight upturning of his lips and nothing more as he turned around and left her office.

Tsunade sits at her desk with her fingers interlaced and resting under her chin as she asks as if of no one “How long has he been like this?”
From outside her window a voice is heard answering the Hokage “Actually I think he’s been like this his entire life, but I only noticed it while we were away training.  At first it only lasted 1 – 2 hours, then ½ day, then 2 days, then a week, and the last time that he became like this it lasted 5 weeks.
She asks worry clearly etched on her face “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s broken Tsunade, his heart and soul is broken, I once asked him when the first time he felt like this was and he answered simply ‘When I was 3 I realized I wasn’t loved,’”
At this Tsunade starts to feel tears forming behind her eyes, “for although he has mended a little from the friends he now has he is still severely broken.  But even though he is not the energetic boy we know and love, when he was in this mood he still trained fiercely, actually he does even better.”
“Better, why?”
“Because he drops the stupid act completely, don’t get me wrong he’s not as smart as say Sakura or Shikamaru, but he wouldn’t be far behind.”
“But his test scores at the Academy, and everything else?” She asked, troubled.
“Ah… yes, well that’s easy to explain, self preservation, he believed that if the villagers thought him to be an idiot that they wouldn’t fear and hate him as much.”
“We should have taken him in from the start Jaraiya,” she yelled through the tears that were now freely flowing over her cheeks, “into our homes and into our hearts.”
“We weren’t ready for something like that Tsunade, and you well know it.”  But as he said it he was no longer able to look her in the eye, the pain and grief that they showed was too much.
“But we should have at least tried.” She screamed through her tears.  After this, silence descended upon the two of them until her tears had stopped and then she asked, “How long can we expect him to continue acting like this?”
“If we’re lucky 4 – 6 months,” Tsunade gasps “if we’re not he could stay like this forever.  I just hope that he can find some middle ground between the boy we know and this new sad version we are now familiar with.”  He says with a deep sigh escaping his lips.
“Middle ground,” she yells standing up and slamming her hands down upon her desk “why would we want that?”
With a dejected tone of voice he says “Because Tsunade, every time he would come out of these moods and put that smile back on it tore me up inside knowing that it was only a mask, and knowing the reason for it hurt even more.”
“What reason?” She asked fearing the answer.
“Naruto didn’t want anyone to be sad because of him, so he acted as if he was happy and carefree and buried his true feelings under the mask of a smiling boy.” He said with a slight catch in his throat.
Tsunade couldn’t take any more and slumped back into her chair and started openly crying, with shuddering sobs she bent over and hid her face in her hands.
At hearing her Master crying Shizune came into the room to see what was wrong, when she saw her Master slumped over her desk crying she quickly came over and knelt down beside her rubbing small circles into Tsunade’ back quietly asking her what was wrong and if she needed anything.  Through the crying Shizune was able to hear Tsunade ask her to tell Sakura to meet her in Kakashi’s hospital room in one hour, hearing what she wanted Shizune got up and left her Master to cry through her pain.

After leaving the Hokage tower Naruto went somewhere he had gone to every morning since returning to Konoha, he went to the library, upon entering the library he headed straight for the section related to battles in history and proceeded to grab 3 random books off the shelf, his next stop was the General Fiction aisle and once again grabbed a book at random.  Securing the books under his arm he headed for a quiet little corner and then placed the books carefully on the floor to one side and then removed his jacket and placed that on the other and sat him self between the two and leaned against the wall for a more comfortable reading position.  After reading the history books for 2 hours he turned his attention to the novel and with the faintest trace of a smile he looks at the cover for the first time and sees that it is in fact a romance novel, not the type Jaraiya writes of course but a proper love story, and in his current mood it doesn’t even register that it might be fairly humiliating to be caught reading something like this and just opens up the book and starts to read.  After reading it for a while he realizes that it’s not just a love story, it’s a tragic love story.  At this point he was lying on his side with his head resting on his arm and a single tear running down his cheek.
Elsewhere in the library a midnight blue haired Kunoichi is looking through the shelves for books on gardening, flowers, and herb lore when she spots Naruto lying on the floor with a tear running down his cheek, and forgetting about her shyness and nervousness walked up to him and knelt down in front of him, and asks with a soft caring voice barely above a whisper “What’s wrong, Naruto?” concern, clearly visible in her eyes.
“Huh? Oh Hinata hi… nothings wrong, why do you ask?”  His voice is quiet and calm, and Hinata puts this down to the fact that they’re in the library.  Without hesitation she places her palm on his cheek and brushes her thumb across picking up the tear to show him.
“Oh, that, I guess I just got caught up in the story, it’s really kinda sad actually.”  He said turning the book in his hand this way and that scrutinizing it as if to figure out its hidden secrets.
Hinata could definitely see that he wasn’t acting like his normal exuberant self, without ignoring that fact she asked him a question hoping to find out what is actually wrong with the man she is in love with, “I didn’t know you liked to read Naruto?”
“Huh, yeah, it’s something Ero-Sennin got me into, he said that it was all a part of my training, I actually didn’t believe him at first, until he bought me a book with lots of fights and stuff in it, then whilst I was reading it I was able to picture myself doing some of the things they were doing in the book.  They turned out to be a fairly good training manual.  Then after a while I started to read for the fun of it, at first just more action stuff, then I got into comedy, then drama, and now my very first romance novel,” he said raising the book in his hand so that she could see the cover “actually this is fairly good, you should read it some time.”  Through all of this Hinata noticed that not once did he yell or even raise his voice above a murmur, and never did he smile that foxy grin of his, there was merely a turning up of the lips in the corner of his mouth.
“So Hinata why are you here today?” He asked her as if the answer was important to him.
Hinata blushed slightly lowering her lavender colored eyes from his face before answering “Oh I-I was j-just here to get some books to h-help me with my g-gardening.”
“Really, what type of gardening do you do?”
“H-herbs m-mainly, but I l-love to grow flowers.”
Taking his eyes off of something he knew to be truly beautiful for a moment to look at his watch he saw that he had only 5 minutes to get to the training ground, and inwardly moaned that Hinata hadn’t shown up earlier.  Standing up slowly so as not to startle her he then offered his hand to assist her in standing, and although she blushed profusely she took it and stood also, and standing as close as they were she finally noticed how tall he had grown for he now stood at about 6’3” and she had to look up to see his eyes, and then when he spoke she could almost feel the vibrations flowing through her body “I’m sorry Hinata, but I have to get to the training grounds now, but… but if you like I’m here for 3 hours every morning when I don’t have a mission, so if you would like to hang around and read with me sometime that would be fun,”  He said with just the hint of the foxy smile that Hinata loved, and she just nodded her head a little and blushed even deeper then before “good, I get here about 6:30.  I’ll see you around Hina.” He said with a small wave over his shoulder, and quickly left for the training grounds.
Hinata couldn’t quite believe what had just happened and lowered her eyes to where he had been lying when first she arrived and noticed that he forgotten to pick up his jacket off the floor.  She bent down and tentatively reached out her hand and wrapped her fingers around it and crushing it to her chest. Closing her eyes she drew the jacket up to her face and took a deep shuddering breath taking in the smell of him as best as she could, and thinking over the way in which he had acted, for although she was extremely worried about his strange behavior she still smiled to herself just happy that she was able to talk to him again after 2 ½ very long years away from her. And her smile only grew when she remembered how he called her ‘Hina’.