5/30/09 Have edited this chapter slightly. Will probably editing the others too, but no major changes in plot.

I obviously do not own Naruto, or I would not be begging for chapter 439 (:

The monster they saw in Uzumaki Naruto had been a figment of their imagination, a creation of their paranoia. It was they themselves who brought it to life.

Monster

"I nearly gave in to all those bad things...But then I found someone who would acknowledge me."

-Uzumaki Naruto, manga chapter 2.

This time around, young Naruto never meets this someone.

Prologue

The transformation is startling. The Sandaime hates the feeling of unease that seems to have taken up permanent residence in his stomach, as he looks at the boy, no, the soldier standing in front of him.

A full-fledged ninja, not a boy. But yet, a boy.

He is only seven years old- his eighth birthday is in a month's time.

It's only been one year.

He doesn't look radically different from the last time he saw him- his face had already donned that cold and emotionless mask.

However, this time, the chill and impassiveness seems to have been refined and hardened into something much colder, more detached. His blue eyes are sharp and alert, glacial and hard, not the slightest spark of warmth in them.

Yes, he is different.

The chilliness of his demeanor, his seeming incapability of feeling remorse seems to have been honed and sharpened into something predatory, a dull metal edge crafted into a gleaming steel blade that can slice through anything.

A once harmless boy with nothing other than anger and loneliness polished into a deadly weapon. His very bare hands are weapons in itself.

Even as he stands at attention, his muscles are faintly tensed. It reminds him of a deadly predator, coiled and ready to spring.

Sarutobi can sense the enormous power contained that lies coiled inside of him, like a snake lying in wait.

The analogy makes him uncomfortable. Unbidden, the thoughts of another young ninja he had mentored flashes into his mind. Where everything had gone so wrong.

It's an unpleasant memory, and he pushes it away.

He wonders whose idea of a joke it was, as he looks at the stylized swirls and markings on the pure white porcelain of his ANBU mask the boy has just slid over his face. The face of a fox, the corners of its mouth twitched up in what appears to be a mocking grin.

Paying homage to the beast sealed within him. The beast that has granted him a colossal power. The beast whose presence had caused him to become one of the youngest ever members of the Konoha ANBU, at an age where his counterparts are still fumbling with their kunai in the Ninja Academy.

He's told that the boy chose that mask, and he wonders once more if he should have tried harder to look for another way out.

He wonders if he'd allowed Danzou, Koharu and Homura to justify their actions with a pitiful excuse all too easily.

He wonders how that cheeky, raucous blue-eyed blond haired boy he once knew from what seems a lifetime ago has managed to metamorphose into this unrecognizable soldier.

He wonders what the dead Yondaime Hokage would say to him, at the sight of what he's allowed his son to become.

He wonders if things could have been different.

He wonders if he's failed Naruto.

Monster

The exact same shade and texture of that blond hair, the same cerulean blue eyes, right down to the facial features and even the expression.

In another time, they would have smiled at the boy who looked so much like the young Namikaze Minato. A memento of what they had lost.

It was the three whisker marks, like dark scars, on each of his cheeks that reminded the villagers of the truth, and it was because of this that they gazed at him not with kind or nostalgic eyes, but ones full of hatred.

The three prominent whisker marks, a reminder of the boy's true identity behind that charismatic resemblance to the Yondaime Hokage.

The three lines were markings, signifying the presence of the Kyuubi no Yoko.

Shame on him.

Shame on the demon fox, for so brazenly wearing the Yondaime's face, were the dark thoughts that flashed into their minds whenever they were unfortunate enough to catch sight of the blond boy.

Others took the stance that there wasn't the slightest resemblance between their beloved Yondaime and the monster fox that was now walking around in human form. To have admitted that that spiky blond hair the Kyuubi no Yoko had bore the least resemblance to the dead Hokage would have been tantamount to an insult to the man who had given up his life to contain the Kyuubi no Yoko.

Nevertheless, many of them- especially the elder generation that had seen the Yondaime as a young boy, could not help but see the ghost of him in the face of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki.

Ghost was perhaps an understatement. The boy was a dead ringer for the young Minato.

And they hated it with a passion; it was an utmost sacrilege to have their most revered hero associated with or even compared to the demon fox.

They could see it, the Kyuubi no Yoko laughing inside its head, dancing just out of their reach, as it mocked them, ground their faces in the dirt that was defeat. For the monstrous fox still lived on, while their Yondaime was dead.

For while it no longer seemed possess its powerful form and seemed to be unable to use many of its powers through its human medium, it lived on, lying just out of reach, because of that infuriating decree the Sandaime and Village Council had placed upon the village.

Fox spirits were well-known to be metamorphs who could take on any form they wished. That the demon chose to wear the face of the deceased Yondaime was simply rubbing salt into the wound- that it was free, it was alive and that there was nothing the good villagers of the Hidden Leaf could do about it.

One

He Who Wears the Yondaime's Face

Everyday, he stood and watched. Everyday he stood alone.

Everyday, he watched as mothers and fathers, or varyingly, older brothers and sisters came to pick up his fellow classmates.

No matter how long he waited, no one ever came for him.

No one.

It had been a sobering realization.

He had asked the Sandaime, why was it nobody ever came for him, why was he different from his classmates? The old man had suddenly seemed years older, his dark eyes full of pity as they regarded him.

He didn't have parents, he learned. They must have died during the Kyuubi attack, the day he was born. In any case, no one could be sure who they were.

But why, why did they leave him, without even the slightest clue to as to their identity?

Perhaps they had abandoned him. They had not died, but left him. This notion filled him with a crushing, overpowering sadness.

The realization that he was so completely alone.

The slow, lonely walk home from the Academy, the unfriendly stares from the villagers only underlining the harsh truth.

With every day that passed, he could feel another tiny, spider-webbing crack across the porcelain, the control he had over his emotions becoming more and more tenuous, like an unraveling reel of thread. One day, it would slip from his hands, too far out of his grasp for him to ever reclaim it. It would fall out of his reach, forever beyond the point of no return.

He could feel it, the protective facade he had managed to put up around himself was weakening, the strength of his will faltering. The previously strong and determined voice at the back of his mind that urged him on during the many times of adversity he had encountered had been growing softer and softer, fading into nothingness.

The dispiriting depression hovered over him like a fog, longer nowadays, unable to be dispersed or forgotten.

He knew it was because he was beginning to believe that nothing he could ever do would change anything.

He was forever stuck in this torturous limbo, this painful and damning hell.

It was so ironic, he thought, hating the fact that the hot tears were threatening to spill from his eyes- tears were a sign of weakness, a sign that he had finally let them get to him.

He remembered, one blazing hot afternoon, the sun beating down so strongly on the Village of the Hidden Leaf, it seemed that the ground was visibly sizzling. He had stared, fascinated at the mirage he could see, the fuzzing of the image of the Academy building due to the hot water vapour rising off the ground.

He had been shaken out of his reverie by the loud wail of a girl in his class, who had evidently scraped both her knees badly while playing a game of tag. He had watched abstractedly, at the blood tricking from her knees, as a female instructor comforted her, leading her away to get her wound cleaned and tended to. This seemed to placate the girl not the slightest; her loud wails downgraded only to loud sniffs, between which she yelped how much it hurt, it hurt so bad, she wanted her mother.

He couldn't help it, the words were already spilling out of his mouth.

"You think that hurts?" It was a simple question, but he knew the girl could hear the faint indignation and anger just under the surface of his neutral tone.

It showed, because the solicitous female instructor's motherly expression transformed rapidly into a scowl at the sight of him, and most likely at his audacity to insinuate cowardliness on the part of a young, vulnerable innocent fellow six-year old. But no, he remembered, to her, he was not just some childishly insensitive kid, but some malevolent, evil creature who was only showing not his utter lack of tact, but humanity, by making such a remark. He didn't know why any of them thought he was some sort of insidious entity, but that was what they thought of him, from the not-so-subtle comments muttered that he had managed to pick up.

He hated the way his heart clenched as though it had been pierced with shards of ice, from the cold glare the woman sent him before she turned away, leading the young girl away by the hand. It wasn't even a particularly fierce glare, but the way the instructor's steel-gray eyes lost their warmth and filled with barely concealed resentment, as they met his. It felt like what it must be like to have someone twisting a kunai into his side, slowly and prolonging the pain.

The worst pain was not physical, or at least did not have to be physical. Maybe it was because he everytime he scraped his knees, the wound would easily be healed within an hour, or at most a day, unlike the other children. But he knew that to him, it was not the stinging pain of a wound that seemed to hurt the worst.

It was the simple, frosty glare, the imaginary daggers being hurled at his person, the way expressions transformed perceptibly whenever they caught sight of him, into one of disdain, of hatred and dislike. The look that told him they saw him to be below the very dirt on the ground, that he was a walking pariah, that told him they saw it of utmost sacrilege that he had been so audacious as to dare to show his face in the light of the day.

Many a time, he wondered just what on earth he had done to them. Just what was it that he had done to them that had warranted the seething, burning glares, the uncomfortable looks, the sharp jerks of mothers dragging their children away from his path, to keep them from being corrupted, twisted by him.

He supposed he could have been flattered somewhat sarcastically that they thought his barely six-year-old self capable of such cunning machinations.

It mystified him, really, how those mothers, their warm and maternal faces seemed to almost glow as they played with their children. Yet these very same faces could twist into such icy looks of distaste and disgust, their faces warped beyond recognition, till they bore no resemblance to the benevolent expressions they had been wearing a second ago, when their eyes fell on him, just another six-year-old. It was almost terrifying, this transformation.

He pondered what was it about him that set him apart from the other children his age, that made everyone instinctively feel resentment and disgust.

Bakemono. Monster, they called him, he managed to catch from their not-so subtle whispers.

It occurred to him that they purposely talked just loudly enough, muttered those words in his presence just to make sure he got a good idea what they thought of him. It was their way of twisting the imaginary kunai in his side, some way of making their hatred and resentment of him really hurt him, a way to materialize the imaginary daggers into something that truly caused pain.

Such truly sickening people they were, he thought. They were the real monsters He did not understand, simply could not reconcile how those mothers and fathers who smiled so kindly upon their own young children could be capable of such insidious hate and revulsion towards him, he who had not even done anything to them other then being born, as far as he had known, and was as much a child as those children they smothered with love.

Even those who simply ignored him ignored him not as though how one might display indifference to a stranger, but with a callousness with which one would regard an object of their abject dislike.

He wondered why they didn't just come out and be up front about things, to come out and shout all the hurtful words he knew they wanted to say to him, to come out and attack him directly, to translate the visceral hatred they held of him into real actions. It was tempting to assume that they did not hate him enough to actually want to hurt him physically.

But he knew better. The pure, unbridled hatred in their expressions were restrained, stopped only by what he assumed must be some invisible law or decree, not because they did not hate him to that extent.

It was very easy, the first time, to ignore them. To chalk it up to the entire village simultaneously being in a bad mood, having a particularly bad day, all waking up on the wrong side of the bed that morning in perfect synchrony, although somewhere at the back of his mind, it gnawed at him that he was simply lying to himself.

It was very easy, even after it hit him that the object of their anger was him, to ignore them, to regard them almost pitifully as ignorant individuals who didn't know any better, to behave normally with them, to pretend he didn't see the unfriendly eyes barely concealed behind the barest semblance of a fake smile when he tried to buy some food at a roadside stall, when he tried to ask the Academy teacher to let him use the bathroom. To still smile a real smile in reply to their fake ones or outright glares.

It was easy, even when he realized that no matter how much he spoke politely to them despite their rudeness, to show them what a completely ridiculous perception they held of him, they never changed their opinions, the iciness of their expressions never relenting or abating, to just tolerate them, to hide behind his protective facade of happiness.

All these years he maintained perfect control of this shield, hoping for the day he wouldn't need it.

But yet, like an insidious poison, the tangible hate they directed towards him eroded away his resistance, slowly but surely wore down the protective facade he had built up around himself. It ate into him, minute after minute, hour after hour, for days, the weeks, the months, the years.

For despite the fantastical notions they had of him being a monster, he was all-too human.

Human in that he had feelings.

Human in that he had a heart.

Human in that he had tears, and now they ran, hot and sticky down the sides of his face, as his small body shook with uncontrollable sobs.

He cursed himself for his weakness, for finally allowing them to break him, although he was in the relative sanctuary of his apartment, all by himself. He was sure that they knew, and that somewhere they were laughing that they had managed to shatter him.

Eventually, his growling stomach reminded him he needed to get some food. The empty refrigerator and cabinets meant he would have to go out and face them, a small, lone, defenseless figure. Pocketing some money the Sandaime had given him, he slipped out of the door.

It was raining outside, but he just didn't care. It was all the better, as most people now pulled out umbrellas or scurried to take shelter. It meant the street would be emptier of his tormentors.

As he walked, letting the rain soak into his clothes, ignoring the chill they sent to his bones; in fact relishing the feeling of physical numbness they imbued in him that he hoped would somehow transfer to his emotions, only so if it meant he would not feel pained by their accusatory stares, the nasty, whispered comments that floated around him like a smog, unable to disperse.

He could feel himself beginning to shiver; for the high temperatures in the day, Konoha could be pretty cold at night. Still, it was no matter. He never seemed to catch a chill or a fever. In fact, he only had a vague idea as to what they were.

In the rain, he spotted a brightly lit ramen stand he had frequented a few times before. It was one of the few places where he was served without a customary glare or plastic smile specifically engineered to allow the receiver to know the lack of sincerity behind it. In his opinion, the man and his daughter who owned the stand were like the Sandaime, they probably just felt a vague sense of pity for him, so they tolerated him.

That had been enough for him, but now as his mask lay fallen, shattered into pieces, he was unsure if it would still be sufficient to prevent himself from drowning into depression.

Then he stopped short, just as he was only a few yards away, an uncomfortable and vaguely nauseating feeling stirring in his gut.

There was a man at the ramen stand, a familiar figure. He was wearing a chuunin vest, his dark hair in a ponytail.

His legs would not move. He recognized the man, he was one of the instructors at the Academy. An image of the female instructor appeared in his mind, the cold glare in her gray eyes that had so easily pierced his very being, the unfriendly and guarded posture, the look she gave him that conveyed to him her utter hatred of him.

His hand shook. He could not bring himself to walk to the ramen stand, to face another of those cold, painful glares the man would surely shoot him, as his colleague had done, as much as his stomach gnawed, begging to be filled with a hot meal. He was weak and vulnerable now, the facade that protected him now broken into innumerable pieces.

He knew he was a coward, he hated it bitterly that he had allowed them to win, but he turned around, retracing his steps. His body felt like a leaden weight, his heart felt heavy, every step forward seemed to require a monumental effort, as though he had leg irons chained on, dragging him down.

He managed to make it into his apartment, and for once, the silence of it was not a welcome respite from the ugliness he faced outside, but a cold reminder of how he had no one.

No one who cared, no one who waited for him. It occurred to him just how shabbily the walls were painted, he suddenly seemed more aware of the peeling paint, the cracks in the walls, the creaking of the cupboards, the pitiful state of his homestead seemed all the more pronounced.

It seemed sad and dilapidated, a lifeless and desolate prison, of which he was the sole occupant, an accurate metaphor of the state of his own life.

He never felt more alone, as he crawled under the thin blanket, trying to ignore the dull ache of his stomach.

He felt the tears gathering in his eyes as he thought again of the faceless man and woman who had been his parents. Why did they leave him? The same, pitiful question presented itself once more in his mind.

The notion that they might have had callously left him by choice filled him with a terrible, depressing despair. He felt the building liquid in his eyes spill over.

He was angry, furious with them, for abandoning him. For leaving, leaving him without even the slightest hint as to their identity, nor even scraps of photographs, memories that he could cling on to. Not even a name or a face, so that at least in his dreamworld, he could imagine them smiling down upon him.

He hated them with every fiber of their being, for their cruelty in casting him off, to face the ugly world all by himself.

Their utter heartlessness.

Yet, what he felt was not a consuming rage, but instead a bleak sense of emptiness, tinged with loneliness. A hollow feeling of depression. For all that he hated them, more then anything else, he knew he wished the unknown man and woman were here right now, their arms around him, comforting him.

He was so weary. So tired, tired of this farce. Tired of everything.

He realized what a fool he had been.

Somewhere, inside him, the seed of a dark, cold anger made its presence known.

Mitsuki hummed to herself as she arranged the papers on the teacher's desk, as she watched the Academy students file in. She loved her job at the Academy, it was her love and joy to teach the future generation of ninjas that were the hope of Konoha, as Sandaime-sama had put it, when he had emphasized the important roles teachers like herself played in ensuring the future of the village, she thought with no less pride.

Well, there was one tiny caveat. Perhaps not quite tiny, actually. Her lips pursing into a frown, her thoughts darkened as she turned her gaze on the blue-eyed blond boy who sat in the front row.

If only that abominable creature wasn't in her class, she thought darkly. The shamelessness and audacity of that monster sickened her thoroughly.

The blond hair and blue eyes that exactly matched the Yondaime Hokage's, it was an utter travesty by that demon fox, daring to wear the Fourth Hokage's face, as a way to mock the sacrifice of their beloved leader in the most disgusting manner. It was deeply disturbing to her, to see the face of the young Yondaime being worn by the monster they all knew was truly behind the mask, and it stirred up an icy fury in her at the audacity of the demon to play such a disgustingly perverse joke.

Every single time she had the misfortune to catch sight of him, she wanted nothing more then to wipe off the mocking smile the boy wore on his face.

It never ceased to anger her, the way the monster dared to walk freely amongst the people whose families he had killed and wounded. She remembered her parents, the smiling man and woman that had been her life, whom it had so cruelly snatched away.

It disturbed her the way the Sandaime seemed all too at ease with the demon fox, how easily he believed that the boy was only a container, instead of effectively being the reincarnation of the Kyuubi no Yoko. Was it not blindingly obvious? Fox spirits were tricksters, after all.

It was so like the Kyuubi to don the face of the Yondaime, true to its malicious nature. The way the boy always seemed unaffected by the glares and unfriendly looks the villager shot him, as though it was just water rolling off a duck's back.

Obviously, because he basked in it, it was just one grand, sick joke to him, taking advantage of the Sandaime's goodwill, the way he moved among them, dancing just beyond their reach because of the decree the Hokage had placed upon the village that promised severe punishment for whomever dared to raise a hand to the demon or to speak of the boy's true nature.

It was true the boy had not hurt anyone-at least not that they knew of, but she knew better. The fox was just lying low, mocking the villagers, and to ensure the senile Council Elders that had been so supremely stupid to agree with the Hokage's bad decision would too, lower its guard. One day, it would reveal its true self, she knew.

Those whisker marks that adorned the boy's face, was it not a sign of the demon itself?

She knew many hated the brazen manner the demon paraded around the village, just out of their reach. But they would never raise a hand to the fox's human form, only because they saw it an utter insult and dishonor to be executed or punished by the village leadership over the demon.

Her mouth pressed in a thin line, as she turned from the blackboard where she had written the theory about the different handseals, she saw that the impudent demon was lying his head on the table, obviously sleeping. The demon unquestionably did not need to sleep, it just loved to deliciously play with their minds, to rub them the wrong way.

"Uzumaki!" She snapped, barely able to conceal the venom in her voice.

The demon fox looked up at her calmly, the usual cheeky grin eerily absent. Something gnawed at Mitsuki's intuition.

The almost stricken, sad face of the demon when she had glared at him coldly yesterday when he dared to pick on one of her charges flashed into her mind. She firmly pushed it aside, she would not fall for any of the Kyuubi's duplicitous tricks.

"What is it, sensei?" He asked, his voice completely lacking any inflection, like the still and calm surface of the lake. However, the malevolent undercurrents were unmistakable, like a storm brewing just beneath the surface.

The blue eyes were cold, sharp shards of glass, completely devoid of the fake warmth the fox had at least mustered up as part of its illusion in the past.

It profoundly frightened her. Mitsuki found her hand trembling slightly, unaware that they had garnered the attention of the entire class of children, all of whom had stopped their conversations and were peering curiously at their sensei.

"P-pay attention," she ground out stiffly.

It was like a perfectly donned mask, his face completely bereft of any expression, a total one-eighty from the usual mischievous grin. Yet, she could see the inhuman, frigid, deeply frightening animosity that danced in his eyes, the hideously terrifying fury that seemed barely held back, that trapped her in its deadly gaze. She felt an unmitigated sense of dread blooming within her.

The sinister, mocking grin the demon fox used to wear everyday, that aroused that deep anger in her paled in comparison.

It now seemed benign, in contrast with the contained, but pure malevolence she was now confronted with.

Then, the demon fox smiled a smile of unadulterated malice that chilled her to the marrow of her bones. It was gone almost in an instant, the image that the demon within wore of the Yondaime melding back into the emotionless facade, the stormy blue eyes now blank and deadened, leaving her unsure if she had imagined it all.

The vacant, lifeless expression scared her, simply a mask for the seething malevolence and loathing she now knew was unleashed behind it.

She was shaking with a fear and consummate terror she had never known, her knuckles white.

This was the real face of a monster.

The reel had slipped, slipped from his grasp, down to the dark abyss, beyond the point of no return.

Please review, thanks. Apologies for any spelling errors, e.g because I don't have a beta.

Do let me know what you think, to be honest, I haven't decided what to do with this, to leave it as a oneshot or continue some drabble series thingy, or to attempt to, for once, write a proper story.

With regards to the chuunin Academy instructor's opinion that the Kyuubi was wearing the face of the Yondaime, in my opinion, I find it hard to believe that the villagers were so blind to not notice the striking resemblance between the two. They probably were unaware that the Yondaime had a son, and were also rather hazy on the exact details of the sealing. To them, they believed Naruto and the Kyuubi were one and the same. They saw it as the demon fox masquerading as a human with the face of the Fourth as some sort of sick, sadistic Kyuubi-esque joke, especially with how fox spirits are known to be shape-shifters in Japanese mythology.