Disclaimer: Word on the street says that Mr. Kishimoto owns Naruto, not me. Sad, eh?

Hey everyone! Guess what? I got another story in the works! Woohoo! Now, unlike my other two, this has no relation to them other than they're all based off of Naruto...obviously. A few things I'll be telling you right now so you won't be asking later:

1)Kyuubi isn't going to be like in 'Better Late Than Never' and 'Here and Now'...this Kyuubi wants to get out of Naruto, and destroy everything...just like the manga and anime.

2)While I'm putting this in the category of NarutoxTemari, there will be possible NaruxSaku as well.

3)This story isn't being told from first person, unlike my other two.

Okay, so there's a few things for your information. Well, without further ado, I give you...chapter one!

Chapter One: I'm a Monster...

It was over...finally. The mist had cleared, and Gato was dead, as well as Haku and Zabuza. The Land of Waves was now free to continue the bridge without any further threats from Gato's forces. It was a time to celebrate. Well, it should have been at least. One of the Genin of Team Seven, however, didn't feel much like doing that at the moment.

"Wha...what happened to me back there? Was that...the demon fox taking over?" Naruto thought to himself, shaking a little as he looked at the blood on his finger tips. He had taken a clean swipe at Haku's stomach, and probably would have killed him had the boy not gotten away-only to instead die from a Raikiri to the chest, saving his sensei Zabuza.

It was so evil. Such blood lust shouldn't be able to come from him...right?

Naruto fell to the ground, and felt his insides turning. What's wrong with me?

Kakashi, who was standing by a recovering Sasuke and grateful Sakura, looked over to his blond haired student. He walked over to the boy, feeling the uneasiness emanating from him. Kneeling down beside his student, he put a hand on his shoulder, and watched as Naruto flinched. A clear sign that something was wrong.

"Naruto...are you all right?"

Naruto shook his head in reply to Kakashi's inquiry, then without warning, vomited. He was clenching his stomach, rolling around in pain. His eyes were shut tight as he gasped for air.

"Naruto!" Kakashi said, holding the boy down and checking his forehead. It was burning hot, and Kakashi had a good idea as to what had caused it, "Sakura, tell Tazuna-san to get us medical attention, quickly! Naruto's breaking into a fever!" He kept out the part of the youth having just unleashed a portion of the nine-tailed fox's chakra not too long ago.

Sakura nodded, and ran off to inform the bridge-builder of her teammate's condition.

00000000

Naruto opened his eyes to a dimly-lit room. The shades were pulled shut, but from the look of some light poking through, he guessed it was close to sunset. A small fan was running next to his bed, and he felt the moisture of a wet cloth on his forehead. Despite the cold air running through the room, and the damp rag of cold water, the bed sheets clung to him as he felt the sweat on his back run down his body. In the corner of the room on a chair was the sleeping form of Sakura wrapped in a blanket, snoring lightly.

Naruto was about to get out of the bed when suddenly he felt a burning pain rack through his body, and an image of two burning eyes flashed through his vision. He clutched his stomach, and felt himself fall back into the bed, heaving in air as the pain subside almost as quickly as it came.

Sakura stirred in her chair, then awoke to see Naruto breathing rapidly as he put a hand against his forehead, "Oh, you're awake. How are you feeling, Naruto?" she asked her teammate as she got out of her chair, and took a seat on his bed

Naruto slowly scooted away from her, "I don't know...how's Sasuke? I saw that he was waking up from Haku's attack." Naruto replied, trying to change the subject.

Naruto's behavior didn't go unnoticed to the pink-haired kunoichi. She quirked an eyebrow, but decided to reply to his question, "Yeah, he's fine. A little sore, but nothing that Sasuke-kun can't handle..." She then reached to check his forehead. Naruto flinched as she made contact, "What's wrong, Naruto?"

"P-please...don't come any closer to me..." he whispered, trying to stop himself from shaking, thinking of what happened in the fight earlier today. That wasn't him back there, but it was his body that did the damage, "...I don't want...to hurt you."

"What are you talking about?"

Naruto shivered as the cold air from the fan hit his bare back, "There's something wrong with me Sakura-chan. I don't want to accidentally hurt you because of it."

Now, being in the same class as Naruto during her days as an Academy student proved to show when Naruto was not himself. Usually he'd give her a stupid grin and say something like, 'I'm fine Sakura-chan!' and then try to prove it and get out of the bed or something like that. However, right now he looked downright scared, and was acting like he was contaminated with a deadly disease.

"I'm going to get Kakashi-sensei. Stay here until we get back, Naruto." she said as she walked to the door. Before leaving she gave him a fleeting glance. He gave her a weak smile, and she knew he was hiding something from her. As much as he annoyed her, she did care about his well-being. Besides, he could be nice at times.

Sakura managed to find her sensei along with Sasuke after ten minutes of searching. They were by a small river near the house, sitting and talking about something.

"Kakashi-sensei!" she called to the masked Jounin.

Kakashi Hatake and Sasuke Uchiha both turned to Sakura, "What's wrong Sakura?"

She gave him a shake of her head, signifying that she was unsure of how to answer, "I don't know...Naruto's acting weird; saying something about not wanting me to come closer, and that he may accidentally harm me."

Kakashi sighed, knowing full well what was meant by the boys words, "All right, let's go check on him." Sakura nodded while Sasuke silently got up and followed.

When they reached the room their blond teammate was in, they were greeted by an empty room. The window was open, and a kunai was stuck to the wall near the open window. Pinned by the kunai was a note, which appeared to be written in a very hasty manner. Kakashi already was dreading what the paper might say.

He plucked the kunai off the wall and read the note silently:

To Kakashi-sensei, Sakura, and Sasuke,

I've left because I don't want to cause anyone unintentional harm. The village was right; I am a monster. I think it would be best if I remained far away from Konoha for its own safety. I don't know how much control I have over my problem, and I don't want anyone close to me to find out. I'll miss you guys.

-Naruto

P.S- Please tell Hokage-jiisan and Iruka-sensei that I'm sorry, and that I understand if I'm labeled as a missing-nin.

Kakashi sighed as he put the letter in a pocket inside his vest. He feared that this would happen, but not this soon. He turned to his two remaining Genin, who were looking at him expectantly.

"Well, where's the dobe?" Sasuke asked, sounding mildly concerned.

"Gone." Kakashi answered, turning to the open window. He couldn't detect the boy's scent, seeing as the ocean air decided to be strong tonight, and there was a light drizzle outside; just enough to destroy any scent trail for him. Salt invaded his nostrils as he breathed in the air. On a normal night, he'd be able to track the boy down, no problem. He was only a shinobi though; not a nin-hound. Kakashi gazed down to the ground outside the window, and much to his chagrin, noticed at least several dozen sets of footprints. Obviously Naruto had thought this through; he made Shadow Clones that had gone in several directions. It'd be a wild goose chase at this point. If he didn't have Sakura and Sasuke with him, he may be able to track him.

"Gone?" Sakura echoed, "Why?"

Could he lie about Naruto's reason to his two students? Yes, but they would eventually find out the truth one way or another, regardless of the Third's law. He sighed, cursing his luck, knowing that even though they probably just missed him by five minutes or so, that with the boy's stamina, he was long gone. He looked back at the two, and pinched the bridge of his nose behind his mask, knowing that the next couple of hours were going to be stressful for the Jounin.

"I think you two should have a seat. I'm going to tell you both something that could get me killed, considering that the Third Hokage has forbade anyone to speak of it. However, given the circumstances, I believe you two have the right to know. Hopefully you'll come to realize what Naruto's gone through a little better once I'm done explaining." He wasn't surprised to see the two rookie Genin silent with confusion, "All I ask is that you keep all questions to yourself until I'm done."

Sakura and Sasuke had a feeling that whatever was about to be said wouldn't be leaving the walls around them.

Sasuke and Sakura were speechless as Kakashi finished his story about their teammate's background. To say that they were shocked was an understatement. Naruto; the container of the Kyuubi? They were always told that the Fourth Hokage had sacrificed his life to kill the Nine-tailed fox...not to seal it in an infant child.

"...and that's why I believe that Naruto ran off; to try and protect us...even though he had been doing that already by merely holding the demon-fox inside of him..." Kakashi finished, feeling exhausted from telling them their missing teammate's story. He gave them some time to let it sink in, "Just to remind you, Naruto is not the Kyuubi. He is the container. I hope you two can see the difference between the two, unlike many people in Konoha who either are unaware of this, don't care, or are unable to do anything about it." Kakashi added, just to make sure they understood.

Sasuke, for the life of him, couldn't get past the fact that Naruto had an even worse life than he thought he originally had. With that being said, Sasuke knew that Naruto's life was rough...he just never knew the reason why. He felt a twinge of guilt for the first time in quite a few years. One of the only people who didn't sympathize with him or treat him as though he was royalty was gone. Naruto was the closest he ever had to a friend, and now that was gone he didn't know what to make of things. He also never knew that Naruto had dealt with so much hatred when he was younger, and still was even after he became a ninja.

He dealt with all that cruelty, all that hatred...and Sasuke had known nothing of it.

If Sasuke felt guilty, then Sakura was ready to beat herself out of shame. After thinking about it, she never had been the kindest person to the blond. She had grown up with the notion that the boy was a troublemaker, and just happened to be more misguided than other children without parents. She never would have guessed that Naruto was hated for something he had no control over. This brought a Sakura to a horrible realization: she wasn't much different from the villagers in a few ways. Sure, she never outright beat him like Kakashi had told them that the villagers once did when he was younger (this had brought Sakura nearly to tears), but she also never tried to comfort him. She was pretty sure that if she had known this information earlier on, she may have been able to help her runaway teammate..

Sasuke looked up, "We should go after him." The Uchiha boy was ready to jump out the window when a hand grabbed him by the shirt.

"No, Sasuke. He left long before we arrived here, and knowing him, he's out of range. Even if I tried to have my nin-hounds track him, he used the Shadow Clone Jutsu to throw off the scent. His trail would be dry by the time we find out which of the trails was false," the silver-haired man paused to look at his students, and definitely felt their spirits fall further upon hearing that last bit from him, "Besides, we can't afford to take up anymore time. We need to head back to Konoha and report this to the Hokage." he finished.

Sakura's eyes lit up with a hint of fear, "B-but Kakashi-sensei, he'll be made a missing-nin as soon as they-"

"I'm aware of this Sakura, the chances of him being labeled a missing-nin are very likely, but hopefully the Hokage can pull a few strings to give Naruto a chance." Kakashi said, giving one last look to the window before finishing, "Okay team, get to bed. We're leaving at nine o' clock tomorrow morning, and no later, if not sooner than that."

The two nodded in reply, and slowly got up, heading to their respective rooms.

00000000

Naruto stood on a tree limb, trying to catch his breath. He had not run that fast in ages, probably the last time being his seventh birthday when that group of drunkards tried to attack him. He shook the thoughts from his head. He needed to think of something else; after all, he was starting a new life tonight. He instructed all of Shadow Clones to run in their given direction for a whole three hours, change direction, then go for another four hours. He estimated by that time that they would probably dispel from using up their given chakra supply that the blond allotted to each of them.

The lights of the village that he had learned so much in the last few days from were dimming. One by one, the went out as people went to retire for the night, to the safety and warmth of their beds. Naruto only hoped that his teammates weren't suffering, however, knowing how his reputation was, they may as well be celebrating. Sakura was probably enjoying the fact that she had Sasuke all to herself now, he imagined.

Naruto looked to the forests ahead, and sighed, "Where do I go now?" he thought aloud, realizing he was south of Fire Country right now. He pulled out his compass, and then pulled out a map immediately after.

Using a small flashlight, he examined it quickly while sitting in the tree. Northeast would lead to Kumogakure, and he was sure the Hidden Cloud was not a good option. Northwest was also out of the question, considering that Earth Country wasn't on the best of terms with Fire Country. North would be going to Fire Country itself, definitely out of the question. He ruled out Water Country; he didn't have a way of crossing so much water, and after meeting Zabuza, he'd rather not chance meeting more Mist-nin if he could help it. The smaller villages of Grass, Rain, Waterfall, and Sound seemed appealing at first...but if Konoha by some twist of fate found out that Naruto was in one of the small nations' villages, it could cause problems. West lead to Wind Country, but he knew nothing of it aside from that the ninja village there had relatively peaceful relations with Konoha, considering that the two were under a treaty.

"West it is then..." he said, stashing away his map and looking to where his compass was pointing. He turned to his left, and sighed. Before taking off into the night, he untied his headband. No way would Konoha ever want him back...and doing this would only further support the anger they held towards him. He still cared for the village, but that was why he was doing this. To truly protect them.

"Good bye, Konoha..." he said, tucking his headband into his backpack, and leaped to where he believed to be the direction towards Wind Country, and hopefully a better future.

end of Chapter One- Heheh, yeah, I'm sure there's others out there. I just thought it would be cool to see where I go with this. Let me inform you right now, before you ask, this will go into the Chuunin exam times. Well, let me know what you think!