#will of fire

Like I think the only person who ever apologized for the way they treated him was Iruka. That’s it.

He’s spent his life being hated and blamed for something out of his control, but like. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t have anyone there to counteract or lessen the damage. Of course the universally blamed child grows up to blame himself for things.

The way he talks about his childhood as something that just happened to him rather than something done to him is so interesting. He’s over here, so upset about the nature of jinchuuriki but he says “them” and instead of “us”. He’s completely divorced from his own pain. He sets it aside constantly throughout the series. No one ever looks at him and goes “that shouldn’t have happened to you”. No one says “the village was wrong for how they treated you”.

Even Naruto wanting to be hokage stems from him thinking there’s something wrong with him. That he is somehow responsible for how the abusers treat him. And the grand conclusion of his character is “deep down, im still worried the village doesn’t trust me”. It’s “I have to be the Naruto the villagers believe in”.

I headcanon that Naruto doesn’t want to be a person. He doesn’t want to have a childhood or a past or pain. Of course he will bear the weight of the world’s hatred. It can only be him. Saving Gaara is his responsibility. Saving Sasuke is his responsibility. The world is his responsibility.

He’s completely fine with being a caricature because it allows him to ignore it all. I like to think he gets cagey when people bring up his past in a negative light. Just an acknowledgement of the wrongdoing gives him hives. He deflects like nobody’s business and if you keep pushing he will either shut down or lash out or both.

And not just the loneliness, the neglect, the ostracization. No. No no no no no, he separates his life into a before and after the “darkness” as he put it. You cannot under any circumstances talk shit about Jiraiya and his below average guardianship. Jiraiya is an after. Oh, his relationship with his father? Men don’t need to talk, so he’s not gonna talk about it. That’s an after. Oh, he found out his mom was trafficked and he quite literally wouldn’t exist if not for her sacrifice? She found love, so it’s completely chill. That’s an after. He spent his teen years caught between being the perfect human nuke and chasing his best friend while barely leaving an inch to just be himself? Absolutely off fucking limits.

"Do you possess the Will of Fire, Itachi?"

My fckin heart😭😭😭😭