Isn't love wonderful?

Summary: After the 4th great ninja war, Naruto leaves the village to go train with Kurama. During his travels he falls in love with a girl, Yume. He traveled for a year and a half before finally returning home. Seems he brought an unexpected guest though…

A/N: I obviously don't own Naruto, just a fan with a lot of fantasy and who wants to share those fantasies with all the other Naruto-lovers out there.

First of all if there are any faults when it comes to grammar or spelling I'm sorry. I will do my absolute best to write without mistakes but English is not exactly my first language. I'm Belgian, so I speak Dutch, but my English is pretty good if I say so myself. I'm just telling you all this so at least you'll know why there might be flaws. If you have any questions regarding the story please do ask. I will definitely do my very best to answer all of your questions and don't hesitate to review. I could certainly use advice.
Some extra info: Thoughts will be written like this or sometimes I'll use this to emphasize a word.
"Spoken sentences like this."
I will try to update a new chapter as soon as possible but I can't promise anything. I'm quite lazy you see. Anyway enough with the chitchat let's begin with this love story.

Chapter 1: damsel in distress

A soft warm breeze rushed over the fields, making the grass dance in the sunlight. A narrow stream of water cut through the flat landscape. Next to the stream stood a big proud tree. The green leaves waved with the wind, taking in all the sunlight they could. The tree casted a big shadow over the earth. And under that tree, laying in the shadows, was a figure. A human figure. The young man looked like he was sleeping, but the faint humming that could be heard proved otherwise. He was laying on his back with his legs crossed and his arms placed under his head. The warm wind played with his long golden hair. His beautiful cerulean eyes were shut. He was humming a soft sweet song. His foot moved with the beat of the song. The young man was only wearing a pair of dark blue ninja pants. His pants was torn in several places and dirty. The rest of his body was also covered in grass and dirt. There were traces of blood on his chest, arms and legs but no wounds were seen. The soft song came to an end. All that could be heard now was the wind playing with nature and the water rushing over underwater rocks. Not much later though the peaceful silence was violently broken by a scream. The blonde teen opened his eyes and lifted his body up a bit. Leaning on his elbows his now visible blue eyes skimmed over the landscape. He was looking in the direction of where the scream came from. Then suddenly another yell reached the teen's oversensitive ears. The scream sounded female. He fluently got up his feet and headed towards the source of the sound. After running for about 5 minutes the blonde reached a forest. There he heard another scream. He was very close now. He kept running towards the noise. Not much later he stumbled upon a bunch of guys and a girl. The teen hid himself in a tree where he had a good view over the scene in front of him. There was a young woman, about his age, surrounded by five guys. She was very beautiful. Nice slender body with a cute face, but the thing that really caught the blonde's eye was her hair. It was the most beautiful hair he had ever seen. The color was as red as blood. It was very long as well, it went all the way to her waist. He thought her eyes were green but he wasn't sure because of the distance. The guys surrounding her were threatening her with kunais and other weapons. The girl was fighting back but she was no match against the 5 bigger brutes. She seemed to know taijutsu but it was lacking. Her clothes were tattered showing too much naked skin. That appeared to be the attackers' goal. Whenever they attacked they destroyed more and more of the redhead's clothes. She was doing everything she could to fight them off and at the same time keep her clothes in place. Tears were rolling down her face. She was terrified. The girl knew very well that she couldn't win. She started to beg. "P-p-please … d-don't. J-just leave me alone." Her sobs and pleas only amused her attackers more. They laughed at her and were making all kinds of rude and inappropriate comments. They were saying what they were going to do to her. Rape, torture,… The blonde stranger in the tree was starting to get angry.
Suddenly one of the guys attacked the helpless girl from behind. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands behind her back. Another guy approached the girl with his kunai. He stopped right in front of her and held the kunai against her neck. "Struggle as much as you want, you can't get away. Just cooperate and maybe we'll let you live." Then he sliced his kunai through her dress from top to bottom. The girl was now completely naked apart from wearing underpants. That was the final drop. The blonde in the tree crossed his hands into an all too familiar hand sign. A second later there were 4 more blondes identical to the original. They jumped down from the tree and each attacked a different opponent. It only took him seconds to take them all out. His clowns poofed out of existence as soon as their opponents were defeated. The girl was sitting on her knees. With her arms across her bare chest and teary eyes she looked at the blonde standing in front of her. Her hero wasn't looking at her instead he was staring at the guy he just took down.
"well, euhm, are you okay? You're not too badly hurt or anything right?" he asked her without looking at her. Probably out of respect, the girl thought. She got back up her feet, still hiding her exposed breasts behind her arms. This guy was really chivalrous. He seemed very kind. She smiled. "Yes I'm fine thanks to you. Arigato. Really I owe you. By the way you can look at me you know I've pretty much covered the … sensitive parts."
The young man suddenly walked away from her without saying a word. He stopped at one of the knocked out attackers and took his shirt of. Then he walked back with his eyes focused on the ground in front of him. When he reached the girl again he handed her the dirty shirt. She hesitated.
"Take this. I know it's not clean but it'll have to do. As you can see I'm a little low on shirts myself so I can't give you mine. Just wear this one for now, then we can go to where my stuff is and I can give you one of my clean ones. All right?"
The young woman blinked a few times and took the smelly shirt. She quickly put it on, ignoring the repelling smell it gave off. It was a big and long shirt, it almost reached to her knees. "Okay, where's your stuff?"
The boy lifted his head and looked her in the eyes. His previous assumption was now confirmed. She had light green eyes.
"It's about 20 minutes walking from here." He smiled at her. Just a nice comforting smile.
"Well, lead the way." She said with a smile of her own. The young man's smile got bigger and with a tiny chuckle he turned around and started walking in the direction where he had appeared from. The girl examined him as she was following him out of the forest. He was only wearing ninja pants. The pants was ripped in some places and dirty. She found that a little bit odd. He hadn't had any problem defeating those guys. He didn't even break a sweat, which means he ruined his clothes before he got at the scene. He wasn't wearing any shoes either. Weirdo. He was fairly good-looking though. He had a long lithe body. He was all muscle but not in a buff way. His long spiky blonde hair almost seemed to shine on its own. As if he had a sun right on top of his head. She saw his eyes before. Big blue eyes. She had never seen such beautiful shade of blue in her life. She had also noticed he had some scarring on both of his cheeks. She had lots of questions for him so she decided to catch up to him. The girl was now walking next to him. He gave her a quick glance before looking back at the horizon. She decided to introduce herself. "Well, my name is Yume Teriyaki. I've been travelling for a couple of weeks now. My village has been destroyed during a raid so I couldn't stay there any longer. I'm on my way to the village of forests. An uncle of mine lives there. But a couple of days ago I got robbed by some guy. He took my bag with all my clothes and other stuff in it. And then today I got attacked by those guys. I really thought that was the end you know, 'till you showed up, thank god. You're a real lifesaver."
After the waterfall of words was finished she looked at the young man next to her. He had stopped walking and was staring at her with an amused look on his face. "What?" the girl asked. Was there anything funny?
The blonde raised an eyebrow and grinned. "You talk a lot, don't you?"
She blinked a few times before crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive manner. "So? Is there anything wrong with wanting to have a conversation. I just don't like uncomfortable silences, that's all." She pouted and turned her head to the right. Sticking her nose in the air like a stubborn child.
The young man chuckled and she looked at him angrily, eyes just slits.
"I wasn't aware that the silence we shared was uncomfortable. In fact I found it quite comfortable." He said with a smile locked on his face. The girl snorted. "Well fine then, I was just trying to get to know you, okay. I figured if I introduced myself you would automatically introduce yourself. Apparently I was wrong."
The blonde looked at her without saying anything. Then he started walking again. Yume quickly followed, jogging, 'till she was walking next to him again. Suddenly he spoke. "If you want to get to know me, just ask."
He looked her in the eyes before glancing away again.
"Just introduce yourself. Your name, where you're going, where you came from."
Yume was really curious. The guy was an awesome fighter she had seen him in action. His taijutsu was flawless. He was probably a shinobi. Her line of thoughts were interrupted when the blonde started to talk.
"All right. My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I'm not really going to a specific place, just going wherever the wind may take me. I'm a shinobi from the hidden leaf village."
They were walking through a field and a big tree could be seen in the distance. A stream of water cut through the land right in front of them. It was about 2 meters wide. Naruto just kept walking as if there wasn't any water at all. He walked across the water and when he reached the other side he turned around to check on Yume. Surprisingly she was walking across the water as well. When she stood next to Naruto she looked up at him (he was about a head taller than her) and saw an intrigued expression.
"Are you a shinobi as well? 'Cause I've seen you do taijutsu and you obviously know chakra control."
Yume smiled at him. It wasn't a happy smile though, Naruto noticed.
"I'm not a shinobi. My father and brothers were ninjas and they thought me some taijutsu and how to control my chakra. I can also perform 2 fire style jutsu but they're pretty weak." They had started walking again. Naruto quietly listened to Yume's story as she went on.
"I never went to a shinobi academy. I wanted to but my family was poor and such an academy wasn't exactly cheap. The main reason that I couldn't go to the academy though was because I'm a girl. For my father it was very important that all of his sons became shinobi so they would be able to protect our family. Since I had 3 brothers they all had to be able to go to the academy. We were barely able to afford the 3 of them going. That's why it would be too expensive if I went as well. That's also why my father and my 2 older brothers decided to teach me some things themselves. The reason we were so poor is because my father was paralyzed from the waist down. A mission gone wrong. He could no longer take any jobs and since we were a rather big family, we really needed the money. Besides my father and mother and my 3 brothers I also had a younger sister and there was a baby on the way. From then on my brothers were the ones to bring in the money, but they couldn't afford to take any long-term or very dangerous missions since we needed them at home. So they didn't make a lot of money. We managed though. I would occasionally take minor jobs in the village, like babysitting. But then about a month ago, my village was attacked by some thugs passing through. They were very powerful, using all kinds of mind-blowing jutsus. I was in town when the attack started. I hid myself in a nearby shop and waited there 'till everything was over. The village was ruined. A lot of houses and shops were burned down and many people lost their life. I quickly went to my house just outside the village to check on my family, but it was already too late. My house was on fire. It was falling into pieces. My entire family had been home so they all…"
Tears had started rolling down the girl's flustered cheeks. She wiped her face clean with the dirty sleeves of her borrowed shirt. At that time they had reached the big tree in the middle of the giant field. There was a bag laying in the shadows casted by the tree. Naruto kneeled in front of the bag and opened it. He took out a black T-shirt with short sleeves and dark blue ninja pants. He got back up and handed Yume the clothes.
"You can wash up in the stream over there and put these clothes on. I'll be waiting here."
She took the clothes and headed towards the stream. Naruto kept staring at her retreating back. He thought about the story she just told him. So she's an orphan, like me, he thought. He walked around the tree and sat down. This way he wasn't able to see her at the stream. Yume noticed it. She saw how Naruto walked around the tree to give her some privacy. He really was a gentleman. Yume smiled lightly and took off the smelly shirt. She threw the thing as far away from her as she could. Then, after looking one last time at the tree just to make sure, she took of her underpants. She lay her underwear and the clean clothes Naruto gave her on the ground. Then she slowly lowered her left foot in the slowly streaming water. Yume flinched because of the cold, but kept going. The water came to her knee. Soon after that her other leg followed. She walked through the water, the further she went the deeper it got. When she was in the middle of the stream the water almost reached her rear. Yume bent over and started rubbing her arms clean with the refreshing water. Then she cleaned her upper body and then her legs. After that she lowered her body until her breasts were under water. She bent backwards so her head would touch the water and started cleaning her hair.
In the meantime, Naruto had gotten back up to his feet. He checked his arms and chest. He was still covered in dirt and dried blood. He could really use a bath himself. The blonde grabbed his bag and took out a simple white T-shirt and long black ninja pants. Then he sprinted to the left. After a while he stopped and calmly walked towards the stream. It was the same stream as the one Yume was currently washing herself in, but Naruto had made sure there was at least a distance of one kilometer between the two of them. He took off all of his clothes (only pants and underpants) and walked into the water. He welcomed the cold with a smile and immediately went completely under water. He rubbed his arms, legs and chest until he was spotless. He then walked out of the water, swinging his arms back and forth, trying to get as much water off of him as possible. He did the same thing with his legs. Naruto also shook his head, ruffling his hair with his hands, to get the water out. When he was pretty much dry he put on his clean clothes and sprinted back to the tree.
All the while, Yume was completely clean now and was standing on dry ground next to the stream. She was slightly bent forwards while wringing the water out of her hair. The sun warmed her wet skin, drying her in the process. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the comfortable heat. A couple of minutes later she was almost completely dry. She walked to where Naruto's clothes were laying. She looked down at them and suddenly realized something. She had been wearing that underwear for three days now since her bag had been stolen. She couldn't put on dirty underwear. She grabbed her underpants and drenched it in the stream. Yume thoroughly cleaned her underwear. Then she laid it down on a nearby rock. It was nicely warmed up by the sun. Now she was faced with another problem. She didn't have any underwear. She couldn't just put on Naruto's clothes with no underwear now could she? Yume gazed at the tree.
"Euhmm, Naruto, are you there?" she screamed to overcome the short distance. No answer. She decided to try again. "Narutooooo." This time she yelled even louder. Still no answer. Maybe he fell asleep. The girl slowly and quietly sneaked up to the tree. She placed her hands on the rough surface and walked around it using the tree as a shield. She peeked around the tree, but there was no one there. Naruto was gone. She let go of the tree and walked towards the beige bag laying in the grass. His bag is still here, but where did he go? She dropped down next to the bag, which was still open. She looked inside and immediately saw what she came for. Underwear. Yume was about to stick her hand in the bag to grab the pair of black boxers when a soft gasp to her right, made her arm freeze in mid-action. She slowly looked up from the bag and saw Naruto standing a couple meters away from her, staring at her with a shocked expression on his face. Yume yelped, grabbing the bag and holding it in front of her naked body. Naruto's eyes widened and he immediately turned his back to her.
"I'm so sorry. I hadn't noticed you. I …" Naruto's head was beet red. So embarrassing. Why do I keep seeing this girl naked? Yume softly spoke. "It's fine, it's my fault, really. Don't worry about it, it's not like you haven't seen anything before." She was embarrassed but it really was her fault, she should have been more careful.
"Yeah, I saw a bit more now though." Naruto regretted it right after saying it.
Now it was Yume's turn to blush. "I-I mean … I didn't mean to …" Naruto sighed and dropped his head in utter embarrassment. Why do I always say the worst possible things to a girl? Suddenly Yume started chuckling and that soon turned into full-blown laughter. She dropped the bag and crossed her arms over her belly. She couldn't stop laughing. Naruto slowly turned around and gazed at her with a raised eyebrow and a curious expression on his face. She was standing now, slightly bent over, with her arms across her belly, holding her sides. Her entire body was shocking and trembling. She straightened her body and pointed a finger at Naruto. At that moment Naruto could really see everything.
"You-y-y-you are s-s-so f-funny." She barely managed to say that one little sentence. Tears were rolling down her face and she was completely out of breath. Naruto couldn't help but chuckle at the scene in front of him. Yume finally started to calm down. She let go of her belly and wiped away the tears of joy. She looked at Naruto holding back the occasional chuckle. Her face was red from the tears and lack of oxygen. Her arms casually hung next to her body and she was fully erect. Which, I repeat, gave Naruto the ability to see everything. She was definitely beautiful. She had a long slender body with narrow hips and a cute butt. She had a nice pair of breasts, not too big or too small. A good B-cup. She had pale moon-kissed skin which made her red hair and green eyes stand out even more. Naruto looked her in the eyes before diverting his gaze toward the barely visible stream.
"Why are you naked? I gave you clothes, didn't I? You lose them or something?"
He shifted his eyes back to the naked girl.
"I didn't lose them they're at the stream."
"Why?"
"Because I left them there."
"Why?"
"I needed something."
"What?"
"Underwear."
Naruto looked at Yume questionably. Underwear?
"You're telling me you don't have any underwear? You were wearing some earlier. Where did it go?"
Yume snorted. She crossed her arms with an angry demeanor and shifted her weight more to her right leg.
"I was robbed, remember. I don't have any underwear anymore or clothes for that matter. I've been wearing the one you saw earlier for three days already. I washed it in the river, but it needs time to dry. So I just figured I could loan one of your boxers."
Naruto had a far-away look on his face while he slowly nodded his head.
"I see"
He then approached Yume 'till he was standing right in front of her. He looked down at her and she at the same time looked up. Naruto then suddenly crouched down and started ruffling through his bag, which had been laying at Yume's feet. He pulled out a pair of simple black boxers, holding it in his right hand.
"Do you want black," With that he raised his right hand, holding the boxer, a little higher. "Or do you prefer white? I'm afraid I left the one with pink hearts at home though." He said it as plainly and coolly as possible, but couldn't help smirking a little bit. Yume clenched her teeth, narrowing her eyes while shooting death glares at the blonde idiot kneeling in front of her.
"Black's fine, thanks." Was her crabby answer. Yume snatched the black boxers out of Naruto's hand and quickly put it on. She immediately felt a lot safer. Without saying a word she turned around and walked to the stream with a rather fast pace. Naruto watched her hurry away with an amused look on his face. She's a special one all right! I've never met a girl quite like that.
Naruto walked up to the large tree and sat himself down in its shadows. He relaxed, closing his eyes, wandering off to another world. This world was dark and gloomy. There was little lighting. The blonde walked through a long hallway before entering a huge room. There was a lot more light in this place compared to the hallway. On the right side of the room there was a gigantic cage, over 60 meters high and 30 meters wide. The bars of the cage were red and the lock was shaped in a spiral. As Naruto got closer a surge of immense power could be felt, but Naruto wasn't affected by it at all. He stopped right in front of the cage and looked through the broad bars. Inside the cage lay an enormous creature. It had an orange fur and nine long tails, resting next to its colossal body. It somewhat resembled a fox, but there were some aspects that weren't foxlike. Like its ears, they were considerably longer and darker and it didn't really have normal paws. Instead this creature appeared to have humanlike arms with clawed hands. These arms were currently crossed under its heavy head. The usually frightening red eyes surrounded by pitch-black fur were closed. This was the fearsome nine-tails, the Kyuubi. Naruto was still standing outside the red cage, gazing at the immortal demon. He could hear a soft soothing breathing pattern coming from the nine-tails. Naruto had been here, standing in this place, countless times before. He no longer feared this ominous creature. In fact ever since the beginning of the 4th Great Shinobi war he had gotten to know the fox and they even sort of became friends. Naruto let out a barely audible sigh, not one out of frustration or anything but a happy kind of sigh. A scarcely noticeable smile lingered on the corners of his mouth. The blonde slid through the bars
and closed the short distance between him and Kurama. Even when Naruto was standing right next to the nine-tails' head, the fox didn't budge. Apparently the demon hadn't noticed Naruto's presence. He gently placed a hand on Kurama's muzzle, stroking the rough fur next to its nose.
"Kurama, wake up. Come on, you sleepy head." Naruto spoke with a low and gentle voice. Just a second later red split eyes opened, glancing at the smiling blonde. His eyes were a little glazed over, still sleepy. The giant fox slowly blinked the sleepiness away and raised its head a little. Naruto followed the motions with his head, now looking up. Kurama spread its jaws as wide as possible and yawned loudly, showing rows of giant and dangerously sharp teeth. Naruto was somewhat amused, watching Kurama. For some weird reason the blonde actually found the way Kurama yawned quite cute. Naruto softly snickered while holding a hand in front of his mouth trying to muffle the sound. Kurama had heard him though and looked at him curiously. The almighty fox felt a little annoyed cause he knew Naruto was probably laughing at him for some reason.
With a voice that leaked of annoyance and some tiredness he spoke.
"What …the hell is so funny?"
Naruto looked up at Kurama, holding back the occasional chuckle.
"Nothing, nothing, I just thought the way you yawned just now was kinda cute. Like a little innocent fox-cub." Naruto gave the fox his signature smile, all teeth.

The nine-tails blinked slowly and then I mean slowly. He gave Naruto an annoyed a look as possible, grinding his teeth at the same time, trying to stay calm.
"Cute? Like a cub?" Kurama stared down at the smiling blonde who was enthusiastically nodding his head. The grinding of teeth was becoming more and more audible.
"Are you trying to piss me off?" The fox said through clenched teeth. In response Naruto's smile if possible grew even bigger.
"Didn't you know? Pissing you of is my soul purpose in life." Naruto watched Kurama expression change from slightly annoyed to pure rage. His booming voice echoed through the spacious room.
"what! You woke me up just to make fun of me? Get the hell out of here you little brat!" Kurama was on all fours now, chasing the laughing Naruto out of his cage. Ones Naruto was outside of the giant imprisonment he fell to the floor. He was rolling over the floor while gripping his sides. His loud laughter reverberated through the enclosed space. Tears were streaming over his cheeks and his abdomen was starting to hurt. After a while he finally calmed down and slowly pushed himself up in a sitting position. Naruto glanced up at Kurama, who was giving him his scariest death glare. Naruto got back up his feet and started to walk away from Kurama.
"Gotta get going, thanks for the laugh, Kurama."

The fox snarled at that and watched Naruto disappear. Kurama sighed and his angry demeanor was replaced with a rather sad one. Even though Naruto pestered him a lot, Kurama knew that the boy didn't mean it, that it was just for fun. And quite frankly Kurama didn't really mind either. He had started to enjoy the loudmouth's company. So it was safe to say that even though he had told Naruto to leave, he was sad to see him go. The fox didn't worry about it to much though because he knew that the blonde brat enjoyed his company as much as he did his. Lately Naruto came to visit him every day. Most of the times they just annoyed the crap out of each other, but now and then they had an actual conversation. A couple of days ago Naruto came by looking a bit distracted and completely out of the blue he asked Kurama whether or not he hated him. Kurama had been taken aback by that question and had just started shouting. Saying what a stupid question that was, that he sounded ridiculous. At that Naruto had given him a sad smile before leaving again. Then Naruto didn't visit for a couple of days until today, which was out of his habit. Since he normally visits every day. Kurama laid himself down again and closed his eyes. He started to relax awhile his eyes slowly shut. That day once again, he fell asleep with that question lingering in the back of his mind.
"Kurama, do you hate me?"