Growing up in the slums of Konoha, Naruto had found himself deprived of the childish innocence that his fellow classmates possessed.

Instead of clan members, streets thriving with intelligent shinobi and the likes, there were brothels and cunning men waiting to rob him of his little wealth. As much as he tried, the Sandaime Hokage could only do so much for an orphan who supposedly had no special bloodline or ability.

This particular disadvantage was how Naruto ended uo the way he was. With no emotional suppourt, the blonde jinchuuriki had to find other outlets for his emotional baggage.

Which so happened to be alcohol.

A feeling of bitter resentment crept into his viens as he remembered the day in which he stumbled across his faithful poison, an unhealthy dependance he would never escape from one that had been born from years of pain and suffering.

A childhood which set a barrier in place that he would never know how to breach.

And hidden from view was the insight that Shikaku needed but lacked.

His classmates may have learned to read or write their names with playful rhymes and easy smiles, but Naruto learned the hard way, through blood and hardship as he gave each letter a meaning to form its existence.

He started of with N.

N for numb, because after awhile he couldn't feel anymore. Every time their hands would grasp tightly at his wrists or when their weapons dug deep into his skin with eyes that burned with hatred, he could not feel. Would not. Because demons didn't deserve to do so.

A for agony, an emotion he felt so often, whenever the villagers hands struck his skin or when the children flinched and ran away. He felt agony deep within his bones, a dull pain he would never be able to escape.

R for the resistance he knew was futile. No matter how deeply he craved to be free from the chains holding him back, how much he craved for the freedom of being set free from the kyuubi's shadow that encased him, he knew he never would. He was konoha's jinchuuriki, from the day he was born till the day he died.

U for unpredictable. He chose to hide any intelligence from their prying eyes, and became Konoha's most unpredictable ninja who went into a fight head first, no plans and survived out of sheer luck. He was unpredictable because no one would bother to look underneath the underneath and see the cunning mind that lay behind the mask.

T for torture. Distantly he can remember each and every time his hands were bound, rope digging into tan arms tearing apart the skin beneath. All the times he was cut and healed again only to relive the pain once more. Over and over again.

O for oblivion. Naruto wants to fade into oblivion, a state of unawareness where he doesn't have to deal with all the complete and utter bullshit thrown his way. His only way to do so is by drinking, glass after glass so his mind becomes a haze and his thoughts a drunken mess. .

He was not Uzumaki Naruto who shouted at the top of his lungs of how he would become Hokage, not the kid who had no talent or passed because of circumstance.

No, he was Naruto.

Who loved them enough to give himself up, enough to become an empty shell, granting their wishes for their happiness, to be a distant memory as they grew and advanced.

Without him.