"Peace of Mind" Originally written by GreatGoogilyMoogily, I've been given permission to rewrite it but I'm going to leave the first four chapters unchaged, seeing as they are done so well. I wouldn have had at least two more chapters of my own for you, but I'll explain it at the end of the last prewiritten chapter.

Thanks and by for now!

There were bodies all around him. Every inch of ground was either covered in blood, weapons, or the mutilated remains of human life.

Some were allies.

Some were enemies.

Some were people too mangled, with uniforms too bloodstained and destroyed to tell which side they had been on.

But more important than which side they had fought for, they were all humans. Each and every one of them was a living breathing creature that had feelings, memories, hopes, dreams, and people who were important to them. And now all of those lives were ended, cut like a piece of rope for no reason other than for the sake of one man's revenge.

The numbness had overwhelmed him now, the feelings for those who had fallen disappearing, and now he was left with a cold hollow numbness that felt as if someone had ripped a hole where his heart and lungs should have been and filled the then vacant space with a large chunk of ice.

The allied bodies still caused a small feeling in his stomach, a sort of nausea that had nothing to do with his grisly surroundings. Bodies of the enemies, however, were nothing to him. Apathy was the only emotion he could think to spare to those who would follow a madman on his quest for the death of thousands of innocents.

Then there were the bodies that hurt the most, the ones that left a bad taste in his mouth every time he thought of them and the smiles, scowls, and lazy grins that he would never see again. At least for one of those things he was filled with a small amount of comfort.

The first amongst them was a girl he thought of as a sister, a head covered in pink hair that brought attention to her in a crowd was now caked with blood, dirt, and smashed leaves. The face that he had crushed on when he was young suffered from a deep hole that went into the back of her head and left chunks of her brain squeezing out and onto the ground. She was the first to die, at the hands of the boy that she loved, from a Earth Element attack that launched a rock the size of a baseball through her like she was made of paper.

The second was certainly less gruesome, though it didn't make him feel any less pain than the first. A tall man with silver hair and clothes that even before the battle had looked messy and uncared for was littered with superficial cuts. Ironically, he did not die in battle against his former student, but had been killed by a kunai to the back from a random soldier who's name would never be remembered. The great copy-cat nin killed by a nobody that had likely never made it past Chunnin rank in Otogakure. What a fucked up world we live in, huh?

And finally the cause of this whole god damned bloody mess. A black-haired man who could barely pass as such with girly features that made pretty women look like trolls. He looked like a princess from a dream world where everything was all pixie dust, lollipops, and leprechauns. It was the kind of world where there was always a happy ending and it would fade out with music playing while the prince would get some off stage.

Not here though.

Here was the real world, and that fuckwit had lost his life before he could do anything to make the happy ending for himself on Konoha's ashes.

He had made damn sure of that.

The body was barely recognizable after he had gotten done with it, from bruises on the small spots of flesh that still remained intact, to the bones ripping through organs and muscle like a knife through tissue paper. It had left a rancid smell in the air, like someone had left a bucket of seafood scraps out in the sun for a few days then pissed in it.

The lifeless eyes of his severed head stared from the pike that had been driven up what remained of his esophagus, coming straight out the top of his head at an odd angle. The wood had splintered slightly when it had made contact with the bone that marked the top of his throat.

All that still wasn't enough though, he should have had much worse done to him. Much, much worse.

He couldn't help the small sigh that escaped his lips at that thought, as the revenge he wanted so badly after he had first seen Sakura die turned out to be a worthless thing. Honestly it made no sense to him why Sasuke would abandon his whole live for this kind of victory.

It didn't make him feel all that better, and the only real satisfaction he got from it was knowing that Konoha was safe for now.

That thought brought a small twinge of humor to his eyes, sure Konoha was safe. It probably would be for all of ten seconds until another damn enemy hellbent on the end of his village rose up and tried again where everyone else had failed. But who knows, he may just be the lucky bastard who could pull it off.

That was a bitter thought if there ever was one. Though he supposed that it was also a true thought.

For the life of him he started to question why he was doing this anymore, and he honestly couldn't come up with an answer that brought his mind a bit of peace. There wasn't all that much he had left there. With the deaths of his teammates only five members of the original twelve genins remained. Team Gai had lost Tenten in a battle with Kisame after being forced under water and devoured by water sharks. Ino and Chouji died when Madara made his first attempt on the village two years ago trying to use a Shintenshin with Nikudan Sensha to take him down. It failed miserably, and Shikamaru killed himself after the battle was over, bringing Team Ten to a complete end.

Team Eight had lost Shino on a routine scouting mission to Rice Country when they were ambushed by a group of twenty Sound-nins, the village having been brought under the control of Sasuke by this point. Kiba and Sai had escaped only because he had stayed behind to try and give them enough time to escape back to the village. By the time his fight was over he had killed fourteen of them, and would have kept going had he not completely exhausted his chakra doing so.

Those were just the deaths of those close to him, and if he were to go into the deaths of acquaintances and the shinobi who he had never met the list would stretch on much longer.

And enough was enough.

As soon as he got back to Konoha he was quitting this damned job and moving out of that god-forsaken city to some small village in the middle of nowhere. He would learn to farm, buy some land, and live the rest of his natural born life in silence. Screw being Hokage, screw staying here, and screw the consequences of his actions. This had gone on for far too long.

And with that thought in mind, he turned South and left the bodies behind.

XXXXXXXXXX

"You're sure then?"

"I've never been more sure in my life."

Tsunade let out a deep sigh. She had known this would be a conversation that wouldn't be enjoyable from the moment that he had walked in the room with the all too familiar look of utter defeat locked in his eyes. He was giving up and wanted to leave his village and home behind to off to god knows where and farm of all things.

And honestly, she couldn't blame him even a little bit.

He needed time away from the village, she had too when she had lost Dan and Nawaki. He had lost the last goal he had, along with the three people that were closer to him than anyone else, sans her and perhaps Iruka.

And that doesn't even take into account the fact that Uzumaki Naruto had put more into his friendships than anyone else she knew. With the childhood he had it wasn't surprising that the loss of his closest friends was hurting him this much.

"Look, I understand what you're going through and I know that sometimes the best course of action is to take a break, but I want you to think about this."

"I have thought about it. I had three days to run it through my mind on the way back and I really don't see anything that would make more sense for me to do right now."

She couldn't help but rub her forehead after that one. She had known it was unlikely a few words on her part would be enough to change his mind, but she couldn't help the fact that she wanted to cling onto the little bit of hope that she had left.

"Alright. I'll give you a travel pass and suspend you from active duty, you'll still be a ninja and I can still call you back if we go to war, but other than that you're free. I'm gonna miss you brat."

"Thanks."

"Just keep in mind that your current position isn't going to change if you get through this and want to come back."

"I will baa-chan."

She thought he wouldn't likely be back for a long time.

He though he would never be back.

But she knew better than he did. This place had a weird way of dragging you back into it's clutches and making you love it again no matter how badly the memories hurt. First hand experience taught her that it was impossible to really escape from Konoha.

And while on days that paperwork was plentiful and problems were everywhere she cursed the damn power this place had for placing her at the spot she was at, right now she couldn't have been happier. It was doubtful she would ever see him again if not for that little rule.

So for now she would let him go, and wait patiently until things worked themselves out.

XXXXXXXXXX

A/N: Okay, first story's first chapter. A rather short one I know, but I hope they'll get longer from here on out.

If you notice any inconsistencies in the story, please leave them in reviews and I'll get to fixing them right away.

Also, yes this will be a NaruHina and Hinata is not a ninja. You'll be seeing her soon enough, so keep reading.

EDIT 10/5/09: Okay, so I wrote the first chapter for this at 5 in the morning when I got a little flash of inspiration and posted it without proof-reading. So naturally when I got back home from school and bothered to read the whole thing I was honestly hitting myself for writing it like that. I literally doubled the size of this chapter with new paragraphs and such, and like it a lot more now.

Let that be a lesson out there to everyone, don't write when you're so tired you can't see straight.

End Chapter one.