You Were My Light

3. Caution and Chances

A/N: Sorry for the late upload. I've been really unwell recently.

*** TRIGGER WARNING *** Mentions violence, rape, abuse, torture, swearing ***

PREVIOUSLY:
" ...What about the time he sliced his stomach open because he thought if I wasn't a prisoner I might be able to live a better life without him? Or any of the times that he punctured the arteries in his thighs, saying that allowing the blood to run made him feel less of a burden to the village? Where were any of you? The ones he loved and trusted all abandoned him!" Maybe knowing that I could lay waste to this useless village of Konoha in a heartbeat - the same way each person had laid waste to my poor kit's body, spirit and soul, every day since he was born, Kakashi Hatake took the bloodied cloth from my hands and wrapped his arms around me without hesitation when he saw the tears. "Let it out. Let it go," the young man said in a soothing, hushed voice. This ninja was showing concern and care for me that few others in my existence had shown me... I let him hold me as my tears fell.

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Kakashi's P.O.V

I embraced the human form of the Nine-Tailed demon... no... That is wrong, thinking about him like this, as if he were only a monster, it felt wrong. I held the Kyuubi in my arms as he released his pent up emotions from all the cruelty he had been forced to witness Naruto suffering. I understood all too well how it felt to see something happening and not be able to do anything about it. As I held Kurama memories that constantly haunted me flashed through my mind so quickly of all the people I loved but couldn't save; my former team-mates Obito and Rin, Minato-sensei and his wife Kushina, my father Hatake Sakumo- a legendary ANBU known as White-Wolf who was driven to suicide because he had chosen to save his team over completing his mission. 

Memories I relived over and over again that were always at the edge of my mind. Watching the small beaten up boy who was my Sensei's son I felt waves of guilt swamp my chest. I could have done more, I should have done more to protect him. This was Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki and I had failed his parents. Being hesitant to look closer I took a deep breath to steady myself. I needed to see, to know everything about Naruto and his Guardian, the Kyuubi no Kitsune. I needed more than what I could just see on the surface because looking closely at the malnourished figure on the futon in front of me wrapped in only a soft blanket I felt nothing except pain; I raised my hitai-ate and activated my sharingan eye so I could look 'underneath the underneath'.

I saw the bruises of this beating that were turning every inch of Naruto's skin quickly to shades of sickly yellow and green, blue, purple and black - bruises that were underneath these bruises. I saw more than three of his ribs were currently broken, two were fractured, his left leg and ankle as well as his right wrist are broken. I saw the cuts and scars all over his small body and where the kunai had carved his sallow skin with all the words in his arms and legs. I saw the lines going both ways on his arms underneath the words carved into his arms and the rest of his body. I saw the many and layered scars on his chest and stomach, I saw the wounds on his back. I saw everything. The new scars and the old ones that Kurama had sealed closed. The scars on top of scars that littered this small body. It seemed as if there were too many bruises and scars for the body of a twelve year old. I could see the bruises on his hips forming where someone had restrained him to stop him moving (probably while they raped him) and long term effects of being poisoned like damage to his internal organs. I saw the layers of scar tissue that had formed what looked to be lumps low near his hips and pelvis.

I saw everything I was afraid to see and more...
I saw the tortured body of a small boy.
I finally saw Naruto.

'Naruto's been raped and tortured, abused physically, mentally and verbally. I don't understand how this child is still alive with all the damage he is being dealt, and can still walk around with a smile on his face, how? He has tried to kill himself I don't know how many times. How is he still even alive? What the hell has been going on? Does the Sandaime Hokage know? How is he still so bright after all he is subjected to? Naruto clearly isn't eating because I can see his ribs, can he not even buy food? His body is suffering effects of long-term undernourishment, his hair is matted, filled with blood and other things, it's greasy and . . . My thoughts tapered off as I did the maths in my head; I worked out Naruto should be 12 years old. But the Kyuubi said he had been looking after Naruto for 16 years..? Huh? His body is small enough to only be of a small 7 or 8 year old child... Just how much torture has he had to endure?'