Naruto/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


He's gonna need more than sunscreen for this skin problem.[1]

Ah Naruto. No wonder you're so popular. You've got it all. An abundance of Bishonen, Bishoujo and Fetish Fuel, heartwarming moments, hilarious moments, tearjerker moments, AWESOME moments, Ho Yay and Foe Yay subtext, cool villains, Badass and (mostly) likable and well-developed characters.

Now, if only some of your content wasn't so friggin' scary we'd all probably be getting a lot more sleep...


Please add examples in chronological order.



Pre-Time Skip

  • Ibiki Morino never takes his bandanna off... and once you see the HORRIBLE scars underneath, you'll wish he never ever does it again.
  • Orochimaru is the poster child/man/thing of Nightmare Fuel for Naruto. Gaara reforms; Orochimaru gets worse.
    • At the Forest of Death. His face melting off. And Him vs. Anko and Sasuke ripping off limbs.
    • By far his crowning moment was learning that he experimented on infants. Bad for regular viewers, doubly so for parents.
  • Just after getting the Curse Mark, Sasuke is unconscious, and in some weird dimension, facing his younger self from the massacre. The scene suddenly shifts to his dead parents on the ground, and Young!Sasuke with Hidden Eyes, crying and saying he wasn't strong enough to save them, and that he needed more power. Then he giggles, with this sick grin on his face, grabs his left eye with his hand, and starts talking like Orochimaru still using his younger self's voice. What's worse is that his voice slowly changes to Orochimaru's voice mid-line and Young!Sasuke slowly rips away the skin of his left eye revealing the horrible yellow eye of Orochimaru.
    • From the english dub. "Instead, you stood by and watched them die...So helpless..like lambs to the slaughter....if only you were stronger. If only you had more power."
    • And there is the scene where a posessed Sasuke breaks Zaku's arms. "You must be very proud of these arms of yours..."
  • Shino's first significant fight in the Chunin Exam had a couple of moments:
    • The scene where his bugs exited his body the first time in the manga. Unlike in the anime and later in the manga, which features three little holes in varying places, in his first time we see him using it, his skin cracks and breaks open for the bugs to exit.
    • Later, in the same fight, Shino's bugs block Zaku's wind tunnel arm holes. In the anime, it isn't that bad. In the manga, it causes Zaku's arms to graphically explode from the inside out.
  • Gaara has a number of these moments during the Chunin Exam: Naruto does have to have a reason to fight him, after all.
    • His battle with Rock Lee, because it looks like Gaara's completely lost it. And after the sand armor reforms on his face he's got his implacable expression. Cue the realization that under his apparent indifference there's still that horrible grin.
    • Gaara's facial expression here as he tells Shikamaru and Naruto how his own father has since he was really young tried countless times to kill him.
    • Gaara going completely AWOL when he is transforming into his Shukaku form was both badass and freaky as hell. Especially him shouting "MY PREY!!!"
      • And his speech in the Chunin exams when he first attempts and almost succeeds, also Nightmare Fuel when it does happen to transform in the series. In the English dub, at least, there's something, even ignoring the speech itself, about the way Gaara's voice just gets slowly shakier and shakier as he continues speaking that.

Gaara: Are you ready? I'm going to open it now...I'm going to rip it open, that's how you get it all out...everything inside will come spilling out...lots and lots of it...and I'll give it all to you...I'm such a good boy, aren't I? Are you watching, mother? Are you ready? I'm ready...

    • The aftermath of Gaara bleeding for the first time was terrifying. Sasuke blindly shoving his hand into the ultimate defense, getting stuck, only hearing Gaara's screams of pain from inside (think about that too: Chidori, twice to the chest, once at point blank range and tell me it doesn't make you squirm in horror at the sheer pain Gaara must of been in) to pull back out again with a huge sandy claw chase you and one brief glimpse of a demon's eye. This troper barely slept.
    • Gaara's childhood. Also, his mother got pregnant, his father took the Shukaku out of its tea kettle, and sealed it into his wife's unborn child.
  • The Shiki Fuijin technique. If you use it, both the spirits of the sealer and the sealed are trapped in the Shinigami's body, fighting each other for all eternity.
  • The first time we see Mangekyou Sharingan in action. Itachi's Tsukuyomi technique is a torture device that makes the victim see or feel certain things for several days in their mind (mere seconds in reality), effectively mind-raping anyone without a strong constitution. Since he controls everything in his mind, even one "second" of that torture is the equivalent of several day's worth to the prisoner.
  • Orochimaru's Shower Scene, when his arms are... flaking off, as well as his screams of agony.
  • Tayuya casting an illusion in which is Shikamaru in chains and his arm melts off leading him and us to scream in horror.
  • Kisame suggesting to Itachi that they cut Naruto's legs off so it would be harder for him to get away.
  • That wooden... puppet... thing that Kankuro keeps around. Particularly when he comes to Kiba's aid during the Sasuke retrieval incident, and we see his "Iron Maiden" move for the first time. It's extremely squicky - the end shot is of the Black Ant with blood oozing from between the wood slats.
  • Kimimaro's bone powers. The part where he can fling bones from his fingers, or when he pulls out his spinal cord from his body and proceeds to use it as a whip. Even more so in the manga, because his fingers split in half so he can fling the bones like bullets, among other things. Some of the more morbid fan colours include pieces of flesh still on the bones. At one point there even is another mouth on his cheek while he talks.
  • The Uchiha Massacre. Sasuke, being a happy-go-lucky 8 year-old, comes home to find that his entire family[2] has been murdered by his own beloved big brother. That is not a nice thing. Nor is said brother calling him a foolish weakling before psychically making him relive (twice, for a subjective 2 days) the entire ordeal, then putting him on a path to become a ruthless avenger and advising him to find a best friend, and kill him to gain power.
  • The ninja who pulled her own heart out and squeezed it. Especially terrifying because she connected her heart to Naruto's so they would both die when her own heart stopped. Even Cartoon Network realized how graphic this scene was, as they put a warning at the start of that episode.
    • The entire arc was filled with nightmare fuel. The same ninja pulled off a pretty gross transformation, going from an ugly old... thing to a young woman with wings. Then after that, one of Orochimaru's creations attacks the team, and it's sewn together from different corpses, each turning into a howling pile of flesh colored goo with a grotesque face, when cut off from the main body.
  • Yakumo's id monster is very, very scary, especially the first time it appears -laughing from the fire that killed her parents.
  • The Bridge saga has a woman threaten Tongue Trauma to save her son. The Generic Thugs say they only need one hostage, so they'll kill the boy, but his mother replies that if they do that she'll bite her tongue off and drown in the blood.


Post-Time Skip

  • When Naruto and company have their first reunion with Sasuke after the Time Skip you get a look at Sasuke and he looks utterly emotionless and his eyes are of the cold Dull Eyes of Unhappiness sort.
  • As part of Sai's enrollment into Danzo's forces, all of his emotions were stripped away until he was emotionally empty. It's implied that this is what happened with other's in Danzo's forces as well. Just seeing Sai give that fake smile and say that he feels nothing is quite unsettling. He gets better though.
  • When Kyuubi!Naruto and Orochimaru fight Orochimaru sticks his tongue out and barfs up billions of snakes that go at Naruto like a tidal wave with swords coming out of their mouths. Kyuubi!Naruto later cuts Orochimaru in half and Orochimaru's body reattaches itself with snakes coming out of both halves and meeting.
  • Deidara's hand tongues and the way they shape his clay bombs.
  • Sasori's puppets. They're made out of people, and Sasori describes in graphic detail to Sakura and Chiyo how he goes about making his puppets.
    • Sasori himself is pretty creepy in his own right, considering he has an utterly insane look on his face after revealing his puppet body. However the dub succeeded in making him even scarier. Additional nightmare fuel can be had when you learn that Sasori turned himself into a puppet. Also, as soon as Sasori reveals his puppet body, his tone goes from calm and composed to violent and almost insane. Thank his voice actor for that.
  • Manga Chapters 257-260: Itachi's genjutsu on Naruto. Naruto's right cheek begins peeling off and flows away. Half of his whole head peels off, revealing half of Sasuke's face in his Level 2 Cursed Seal state. The illusionary Sasuke says he will finish the job of killing Naruto from their last battle and proceeds to make Naruto strangle himself with his own right hand. While Naruto fights with his own body, Sakura's head appears from out of the front of his jacket, asking him why he failed to bring Sasuke back and glares at him saying "I trusted you!" And after that, Kakashi's face extends out of Naruto's shoulder, telling him that he failed to protect his friends and he's disappointed in him because he had such high hopes for him. Finally, Gaara's eye appears on Naruto's palm, telling him "As always, no matter what, you come out ahead. Only you achieve happiness." With all of his subconscious regrets coming back to haunt him at full force, Naruto feels like he is about to break and tears begin streaming out of his eyes...
    • At the end of this fight, they manage to defeat Itachi only to find out this entire time they were fighting some poor schlub they'd turned into a corpse puppet. A corpse which Zetsu proceeds to eat.
  • The genjutsu Sasuke uses on Sai. It was pretty freaky and enough to scare Sai.
  • Orochimaru's rebirth ritual already looked disgusting enough in the manga, but when you see the ritual slowly take place in the Shippuuden anime, it quickly becomes even scarier.
  • Naruto's 4-tailed transformation, where his skin is slowly being burnt off with a look of pure rage on his face, enshrouded in a cloak of chakra and his own blood. And then there's only glowing holes for his eyes.
    • His 6-tailed form is the same, but with a partial fox skeleton loosely attached to him by threads of the blood-chakra aura.
  • Hidan when he's in Ax Crazy mode, as well as his fight with Shikamaru, particularly the end where his body is blown into pieces, and buried underneath rocks while the head curses Shikamaru. As if being buried alive while your body is in pieces isn't enough, Hidan was essentially being kept alive by his immortality, but will die eventually because his immortality is sustained by killing other people. Also, Word of God states that his head will rot before his immortality runs out.
  • Hidan's partner, Kakuzu, is even worse. First, Kakuzu looks more or less like a normal shinobi at first. At first. Under that mask, he has a Glasgow Grin , green eyes with red sclera, and he's sewn together like a Raggedy Andy doll. Oh, and the threads holding him together are evil black threads similar in appearance to Shikamaru's shadow tentacles, powered by a Forbidden Jutsu that turned Kakuzu into a Humanoid Abomination. He only cares about money, but if you're a challenging opponent, he might want your heart, to add to the five already extending his lifespan (none of which are necessarily the original). And he's one of the stronger members of the Akatsuki, boasting jack-of-all-trades and Genius Bruiser in his portfolio. And that's not even getting into his One-Winged Angel forms.
  • Orochimaru's true form that he transforms into whenever he performs his body-switch technique. He takes the shape of a giant white snake made up of a multitude of smaller snakes, with a monstrous, dragon-like face and shaggy black hair. He also has a jutsu that allows him to transform into a giant Orochi, one of the mouths of which holds his normal body.
  • Pain's (specifically the Animal Path) summoning animals. There's nothing worse than seeing freakish, undead animals with purple eyes and concentric circles within them, and several sticks inside them. His "pet" dog takes the cake. First, it's agressive. Secondly, it has five heads. Thirdly, it can duplicate whenever it's cut, including and especially its heads.
  • The details of Jiraiya's death. Essentially after fatally wounding his opponent(s) ... well they come back and kill him. The battle ends moments later when Jiraiya's arm is cut off, he's shot at with missiles, his chest is pierced with a rod. He then tries to escape, but is corned when all six pains impale him... crushing his back and throat. He's once again shot at with missiles and the ground he's laying on crumbles and he drowns. Considering he was pretty much dead with his opponent's first assault that was absurdly brutal and almost scary, many fights before that point were not that graphic... at least in the anime. What makes it worse is that it was a hero and a pretty likable character who bit the dust and he didn't really even go out with a bang... unless you consider a beat down explosive.
  • Naraka Path's form of torture interrogation (pulling out one's tongue and ripping it out when proven lying). The animation's addition of bulging blood vessels (and the Outer Path's tongue with hands, with hands did not help).
  • Any of the confrontations between Sasuke and Itachi. Especially the part about the eye transfer, even if it wasn't Itachi's intention. While many found it comical, some found Itachi's Villainous Breakdown moment to be quite unnerving.
  • All the stuff that falls under Eye Scream is pretty horrifying as well: Itachi and Sasuke bleeding profusely from the eyes when using Amaterasu or Susano'o. Depending on your preferences, slowly but inevitably going blind may count as well. Or when Itachi uses the Tsukoyomi to simulate popping Sasuke's eye out of its socket. He plucked it out and warned Sasuke that he would try to take his other eye as well.
    • Madara Uchiha takes it a step further by actually stabbing out his own brother's eyes in order to transplant them into his own eye sockets and cure gradually increasing blindness, in addition to unlocking the extremely powerful, ultimate Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan which allows him to use the eye's abilities with ridiculous impunity..
    • Kakashi Gaiden: Kakashi got his one Sharingan eye when his old one was damaged in a fight, and Obito, after getting mortally wounded and recently unlocking his Sharingan, has Rin surgically replace Kakashi's with one of his while they're both conscious.
    • Pain tried to kill Kakashi by shooting a nail into his eye. It didn't work.
  • Filler episode 150 had the scene where Shiranami is telling a helpless Hotaru (who's the vessel of the powerful Forbidden Jutsu) who's in a binding jutsu about his plan to help her destroy the village that shunned her even though Hotaru clearly doesn't want any part in that. The Nightmare Fuel reared its head once Shiranami smiled, laughed and asked Hotaru why she wasn't smiling. He then forcefully pushes the corners of her mouth outward as though she were smiling though her expressionless pupils are widened and she's sweating in fear. Made even worse when he revealed in an earlier episode while smiling happily that he killed his own father to further his goals and that he's merely using Hotaru as a "tool" to destroy everything else she holds dear and change the world the way he sees fit. He even says that he doesn't give a damn about Hotaru at all.
    • Filler episode 152...at the very end Utakata goes to find the mist ninja who were after him only to discover their bloodied masks by the tree. And then we see none other than all 6 bodies of Pein Pain standing before him.
  • Danzo ramming his sword straight into the brains of an enemy ninja when they ask for a merciful death, then dragging along the corpse with the sword for a few seconds.
  • Juugo's Body Absorption jutsu in Chapter 465. It was mildly creepy in the manga, but the anime made it so, so much worse. It shows the samurai's suit of armour slowly deflating like a balloon as Juugo sucks flesh, organs and who knows what else out of him through some kind of needle thing he sticks in the samurai's body, until all that remains is some flat, empty armour lying on the ground.
  • The Ten-Tailed beast. Seriously just look at that thing.
  • Chapter 470 shows that Kisame's "sword" is less an empathic weapon so much as an eldritch abomination on a stick. And then, Kisame fuses with his sword.
  • Torune's poison nano-bug technique: thousands of microscopic insects living in his body which he can spread through contact with his skin and, when they get into your body, they cause your whole body to rot and die in an incredibly painful manner. And Torune's the only one who can get the poison nano-bugs out of you if you get infected.
  • A number of examples in the Danzo vs Sasuke fight:
    • When we finally see under Danzo's eye covering it turns out that A. It has the Sharingan and B. it's decaying to the point that the sclera isn't white but some sort of transparent shade of green/gray/brown.
    • The last page of Chapter 475. Danzo has an arm full of Sharingan and a shoulder full of Hashirama.
    • Sasuke using Susanoo to, at first glance, crush Danzo like a grape. And not even flinch when sprayed with blood. And it just gets worse. It turns out Danzo's strongest jutsu allows him to shrug off any attack that hits him as though it had never happened; as a result, his fight consists of him getting brutally killed only to get better and keep going. To die another brutal death.
    • Chapter 480: In a last desperate act, Danzo grabs Karin and attempts to use her as a hostage. In response, Sasuke simply tells her to stay still, impales both of them without a second thought., "smiles" and happily says: "Niisan... That's one down...". The way he says it sounds like he's talking to his brother as a child would an imaginary friend.
  • The look on Sasuke's face in 483 when he's about to stab Sakura through the chest with a Chidori is pretty damn freaky as well. As well as his expression when he tells Kakashi how he's been "dying to kill him".
  • Sasuke's Susano'o getting even bigger and scarier, and:

Sasuke: I want to change that laughter to screams and moans!

  • Edo Tensei. Mainly that it's reanimate the dead, except that you don't need the original's body, just a human sacrifice to mold into it, it has all the powers the original had, it regenerates from all damage. Plus imagine if you are one of the unlucky to be brough back from the dead: You'll not only have zero control of your own body, but you'll also be forced to kill your loved ones.
  • Chapter 500: Tobi threatening baby Naruto with a Kunai.

Tobi: Fourth Hokage... Minato. Step away from the Jinchuuriki, or you son dies at the ripe old age of one minute.

  • In chapter 501, Tobi throws baby Naruto into the air before trying to stab him with a kunai and planted explosives on him.
  • In chapter 508, Kisame summons a hordes of shark to devour him. Being torn apart by sharks would obviously show a lot of gore, organs, and bones on screen. In this case? It's all obscured by a cloud of blood. That's right; blood is used as a censoring device.
  • In Chapter 523 the Nuibari sews people together.
  • Way back when, it was mentioned that Kakuzu rips out the hearts of his foes and takes them for his own. In Chapter 530, we get to see him do it.
  • Naruto gives a Death Glare in chapter 538, one so damn potent and downright terrifying that even the KYUUBI was frightened.
  • Chapter 559 features the following from Sai. And I Must Scream: one of his latest techniques, named Sealing Technique: Stalking Predator Launch, consists of an animated drawing of a tiger which can attack the enemy and then go back in the drawing with him.
  • In Chapter 580 we get these [dead link] lovely images of Kabutomaru attempting to eat Sasuke!
  • Chapter 583: At the end young Kabuto is upset that his mother doesn't remember him and looks at his reflection in a river in despair. We then see Orochimaru's face appear where Kabuto's reflection was and he jumps out of the river and leans towards Kabuto. Why didn't his mother remember him? She was slowly brainwashed to think of a different boy as being Kabuto, and him as a stranger to assassinate.
  • From the 3rd Naruto Shippuuden Movie: The bandages falling off Hiruko's face revealing his misshapen mouth and he does a Slasher Smile which reveals rows of pointy teeth before laughing insanely.
  • Chapter 585: The sound Five and Orochimaru, partially emerging from Kabuto's chest. Kabuto bisecting Itachi.
  • Chapter 586: Orochimaru's true form partially emerging from Kabuto's chest.
  1. ↑ And this is only THE BEGINNING of his transformation.
  2. ↑ his entire clan, actually
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