Summary: Naruto was good at keeping out the hateful voices. She hid behind a mask with a smile and closed eyes. But she can't keep the voices out anymore. And it hurts. Same universe as The Blue Sky. Oneshot. Self harm. Depression. ShikaFemNaru. Awhile after the chunin exams, just before her 3 year training trip.

For Naruto, pain was a constant friend. He stood on her left side. Loneliness stood on her right.

To her, they were as real as the demon in her stomach.

They whispered into her ear in cruel delight.

You're all by yourself, said loneliness with glee as she walked to the training grounds, alone.

They hate you, they wish you dead, pain said merrily as she walked through town, hateful glares followed her.

Like the villagers, she was good at ignoring them.

But she couldn't ignore them. Not forever. And day by day she could feel it, like a senbon was puncturing her vital points. One by one by one.

It started after she came back from retrieving the Leafs slug princess, Tsunade.

Soon after being appointed the Hokage, Tsunade gave the title of chunin to Naruto and Shikamaru.

As she walked through the village the civilians gave her glares full of malice and hate and fear.

'Did you hear?' They'd whisper, 'The demon bitch became a chunin!'

'You're kidding!' Others would whisper back, 'What the hell is the Hokage thinking? That kitsune bitch will kill us all if she gets stronger! She should be killed!'

The whispers became louder and they didn't give a shit if she could hear them or not.

Naruto often walked alone through the streets, her eyes shadowed by her blond bangs.

Pain and loneliness were more frequent and they joked about her feelings, feelings! They'd say, how long will it take for those 'feelings' to vanish huh Na-ru-to. We are all you need!

Her special people didn't notice that her mask was starting to slip. Non but a lazy pineapple head.

He could see her smiles becoming strained, her eyes shadowed. Her usual energy, usually like a bonfire, became a tiny flickering flame. The people around her were too dense to see the shell of a person she had become.

Naruto found a solution to let the emotions of pain and loneliness out so they wouldn't bubble beneath her skin.

So one day she locked her door and sat on the cold floor of her bedroom. She took the kunai from her bedside and pressed it to her inner elbow until it drew blood. When a bead of blood gleamed on her skin, Naruto used the same amount of pressure and drew a straight line from her inner elbow to her wrist.

She watched as blood streamed from her arm and frowned. She didn't feel better.

She positioned the kunai a couple centimeters from the already closing wound and sliced a line across, then another and another and another.

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Shikamaru was worried about his usually bright comrade.

She hadn't been herself lately.

After a moment's consideration he decided to visit her.

It would be to troublesome to knock at her door if she wasn't there so he went to her bedroom window instead and what he saw made him nearly fall.

Sitting there on her floor was Naruto cutting herself.

There were already four cuts on her arm and she was in the process of making another when Shikamaru slammed her window open and smacked the kunai from her hand.

Naruto looked at him with clouded eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" He shouted.

Naruto frowned at him like he should know, "I'm letting the emotions out."

Shikamaru gripped the broken girl's shoulders and watched the wound as it healed and left only the trail of blood and light pink lines behind.

"Kami! Naruto that's not how you release emotions! You break things and scream and rant and tell people and train yourself to exhaustion, you don't cut yourself!"

As if those words broke her glazed mind, she burst into tears, "I can't do it! It hurts so much!" She sobbed, clutching her chest.

"I don't have anyone to talk to! I don't want them to take on my sorrow because I forced it on them!" Naruto cried.

Shikamaru hugged the girl to him as she sobbed, letting out all her pain and loneliness and sorrow. Even surrounded by people, Naruto had always felt alone, he realized.

"You can put it on me, I'll share your burden. You don't have to be alone you troublesome woman." The Nara mummered into her hair.

And like that, her unwelcome friends vanished as if they had never been there.

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I hoped you liked it. And please guys! Don't hurt yourself! It isn't the way.

Omg guys! Thank you for all your nice comments and your favs and follows! You seriously have no idea how happy I am that every time I open my inbox there is a new follower! It fills me with so much happiness!