Naruto: One Shot Series

"Angry Firecrackers"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter One Shot: Angry Firecrackers

Disclaimer: I own nothing of this tepid anime and manga phenomena owned by Masashi Kishimoto. This may become part of a series of fics based on challenges from my fellow head of Otaku Town, Maneyan. Check out his fic and works now!

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It was just another day in the village of Konohagakure no Sato, the powerful shinobi village that was hidden in the leaves. It was the fifteenth year of the reign of the Godaime Hokage, Senju Tsunade and three years since the end of the Akatsuki at the hands of the Nidaime Kiiroi Senko and his hiraishin barrage that was said to have blotted out the sun from the number of kunai used to slay the nigh invincible Uchiha Madara.

It led to a golden age for the village. It became a city as other villages geared up for a war that never took place began to falter or even disappeared among the smallest nations. The tensions built over fifty years, through the scope of three shinobi wars dissipated like the waves on a beach. Time shifted, people moved on with their lives and everything at least on the surface was going well for the first time since the Yondaime Hokage stood at arms as the leader of the village.

On the lonely rooftops one blur was zipping through the skyline at full speed with the unrelenting summer sun beating down on him. Only shinobi capable of following the brief pauses between jumps picked out raven locks, white clothes with silver glittering from various parts of their body could see the yellow flashes signalling the hiraishin was in action.

"He will not find me!" the girl declared in her head proudly, fighting back the tears threatening to wash down her cheeks with her wrist. She stopped on one rooftop overlooking an apartment block and generated chakra to her eyes. Her milky white eyes bulged, veins started to throb at both sides of her eyes towards her ears and she could suddenly see nearly three hundred metres ahead of herself in almost perfect 360 degrees. The coast was clear. Nobody among the populace in range of her kekkei genkai; ninja with fiery blue chakras in ready use nor the dim faltering chakra like candle light exposed to a gentle breeze of the various civilians matched the person in pursuit of her.

She continued with the flashes of yellow light at will. Each time she would only stop for a moment to graffiti or otherwise damage either an unusual three pronged kunai with seal markings or a painted symbol bearing the same calligraphy and seal design as the weapons she defaced. The high speed bursts of light finally stopped in a grand display inside an alleyway under a set of emergency stairs. The young woman who stood there with eyes as pale of moonlight took a kunai from her fishnet top and slashed a red coloured graffiti symbol and stalked off into the crowd of bustling street vendors and civilians.

"He might not be able to sense me so quickly in this crowd," the woman thought, brushing her shiny raven coloured locks over her eyes. She tucked in her ivory coloured gi coat with her belt and lowered her chakra output next to nothing. "If he doesn't use sage mode I should be fine."

She moved deliberately, acting like she belonged here. Her pale white eyes constantly kept on alert for the presence of anyone looking for her. The girl checked out stalls, greeted people showing the respect her clan had earned and tried to melt into the humdrum of the villages thriving market streets.

"Hanabi-sama," a voice called out to her. She turned and greeted a short, older man with the same eyes in her wearing a coat that hung loosely over his bandaged torso and right arm like a shoal for some little old lady. His crow's feet accentuated the powerful gaze his byakugan eyes had over a person.

"Yes Kenichi-sama," the teenager greeted back warily. The man was one of the elder council of her clan and was to be respected. And he had been at that council meeting when he of all people was going to…

"You should have waited before leaving child," the old man sighed, his own eyes activated their sacred power for a moment. "He is using your blind spot to track you down dear. If you turn for a moment…" The man with surprising strength despite looking frail grabbed her shoulder and turned her around and indeed just within the blind spot; a secret weakness of the byakugan when it was moved from its stationary orbit in her haste to escape could detect that unique chakra signature.

Just like she had learned his techniques and abilities he too knew and mastered how to avoid detection from a byakugan from her. Damn him and his skills! He was too close, had taken a stationary position about three hundred metres back until something in the way he watched her chakras with that insufferably accurate sage mode of his made him begin to hastily charge forward. She didn't want to talk to him right now.

"Good day Kenichi-sama," she rattled swiftly, focusing her chakra to lock onto the nearest hiraishin seal she could sense. She felt a powerful hand on her shoulder once more but only heard a mystical tone telling her to "Give the young man a moment to explain" before she vanished in a yellow flash once more.

She reappeared in a clearing, a training ground he liked to use in his spare time between missions. It was their place, the land with a flowing stream where they had met for the first time just by the lone tree etched with marks from kunai throws. She stepped across the marshy soil with a liberal application of water walking until she came across their sacred place where she fell to her ass with her back on the tree.

It suddenly came back to her the way she felt, how things had gone after all the good times they had shared under this tree. They had discovered how to kiss here, hold each other and even spoke of their equally grim childhood. They had let the world fly by them just holding each other in their arms saying nothing, doing little but enjoy the other persons company until someone from her branch family found him or the village council demanded the presence of their head jounin.

Now she shivered at the thought of never having those times again. Now with the way he had been dressed or how her father acted that morning. What else could they have been discussing apart from something related to her future without her say if she wanted to do it or not. Her sister, sweet shy Hinata had given in long ago to their overbearing father and made her marry a noble in the fire nation's court and now had three children, two of which lived with them in the compound to be raised as heirs and herself was due to be made leader when her father retired. What chance did Hanabi Hyuuga have? The future of her clan depended on her and that meant her destiny was mapped out by others.

But she didn't expect that of him of all people! To request an arranged marriage of all things when they already were doing so well…

A yellow flash made her jump to her feet from surprise. It was him! Damn her stupidity in now disabling the hiraishin kunai buried in the soft soil.

Naruto Namikaze was sad. That was not what looked good on a man tipped to be the Rokudaime when the last sannin retired or dropped dead. His famous flame motif jacket was missing, his jounin outfit said Hokage forced him to wear was saggy and dirty compared to the immaculate way he usually kept his pride and joy. He picked up the kunai used to get here and looked at everything but the kunai, swapping heated if awkward looks with the woman, his girl sitting by the tree.

Her eyes read beneath the beneath. He was tense, like a tight spring about to be sprung like he was afraid of her and damn right he should be. His big blue eyes constantly blinked like he was keeping something from her or wait more like Naruto was trying to hide his intentions.

"Hey," he greeted lamely, stopping his approach a few metres from her with his hands in his pockets.

"What do you want?" she asked coldly in return, hugging her legs with her arms.

"I wanted to talk about this morning in the dojo with your father," he said, watching her every movement like a trained shinobi would. She so desperately tried to delay his admission of guilt by hiding away from his gaze but like the big lummox wouldn't take the hint to delay their conversation for a time when she was more in the mood. If that time ever came in the next one million years anyway. "You didn't let me finish what I was going to say to you."

"I know exactly what you and my father were doing," she hissed.

"No," he accentuated the word with a delay to make sure she heard him, "You don't understand. I asked your father for a…"

Hanabi loudly jumped to her feet. She couldn't bear hearing him admit his sin. She punched a huge hole in the tree behind her, pulverising it in an instant and forming chakra to jump to the next seal nearby to start to run again like she had done to flee from the compound when another dull thud from above her head made her startle. Another moment later she was blinded by a yellow flash and a powerful pair of arms was spread around her in an instant.

"Let me go," she hissed, wriggling in his tight grip. The man was built of muscle and had no problem restraining her. "I don't want to hear about you and my father…"

She was turned around in a perfectly timed moment in mid jump so a soft pair of lips was pressed against her own. Her eyes widened but like a trapped animal she tried to break free that bit harder until she was shoved against the tree with her arms pinned.

"I will not let you go," Naruto declared quietly into her ear, her breath made her spin tingle. She knew what normally followed such close quarters within each other. They had a written warning from the civilian police and an angry father who tried to castrate her boyfriend to prove it. "You did not let me finish Hanabi-chan." The back of his hand stroked her cheek gently like he was petting a favoured animal but she looked away from him in disgust. The man sighed and put his hand away.

"I didn't need to hear how you had negotiated a betrothal for us both," she hissed. "I don't want to think about you being just the same as…"

Hanabi was cut off by another strong kiss that slipped in a little tongue. His hand trailed her waist and stole the breath from her lungs. Curious fingers traced the gaps in her mesh shirt, causing small shivers where his calloused fingers touched her down to her ragged bosoms where they were gently cupped rather than groped that served as Naruto damn well knew it to calm her down.

"I…did…not…arrange…anything…of…the…sort…," he said, trailing a kiss down her neckline between each word. "You took it all wrong." Hanabi struggled, refusing to accept his excuses. "You…" He tightened his hold over her, stirring her to compliance by trailing his tongue along her ear lobe at what he called her sweet spot. "Didn't give me time to explain what we had been talking about."

"How else was I supposed to react when I saw you for the first time inside the dojo while my father was in the building?" Only family were allowed to enter the family areas of the main branch. No outsider was allowed to even see beyond the front door unless you were of course family or married to someone that was a Hyuuga. "He wouldn't let anyone that wasn't married into the clan inside those rooms."

"Look Hanabi-chan," he started, licking his lips nervously, "I wanted to ask him something and he said I could do it."

"What did you want to say to him?" Naruto stopped talking for a good minute from her question. She refused to look at him first, even making the point of stopping her bloodline for extra effect until the quiet made her impatient. From the corner of her eye the man looked nervous, ungraceful with red cheeks that rivalled Hinata in her youth before life turned her cold like all Hyuuga eventually succumbed to. "Well?" she insisted.

Naruto took a deep breath, closed his eyes so tightly he looked like he was constipated and blurted out something incomprehensible. Then he stopped that foolishness, took another deep breath and asked her the most important question of her life. "I asked him…" The man stalled until her unconscious growl from the back of her throat gathered his courage for him. "If I could marry you so Hanabi would you…" Naruto almost shifted his gaze away from her before like his eyes were pushing a great weight pulled them forward to look at her with conviction. To take away any chance he was playing a very poor prank on her. "Would you marry me Hyuuga Hanabi?"

Hanabi's heart started racing like she had run ten miles. She had been half right but… Then they hadn't organised her wedding? He was actually asking her, giving her the choice to take the bonds of matrimony? She was allowed to choose if this man would be the father of her children, be the person that she grew old and grey with? Her feelings, her heart and mind were at one when she gave him the answer Naruto no doubt wanted to hear. If he went any redder he would pass out from blood loss.

"Yes Naruto," she murmured, pushing his weakened grip away with ease, "I will marry you."

With cheeks just as hot and red as his own she grabbed his hair and pulled him into a fiery kiss. She used so much force the shell shocked ninja was thrown onto his back taking her with him. They hit the ground with a thud but the kiss didn't abate. It only gained force until finally with bruised lips she disengaged, looking down on him like a benevolent angel.

With a bright smile, Naruto reached out and moved her hair with his fingers. "So Hanabi," he stated, "My fiancée," he added, making that bright smile more radiant than the sun, "How are you going to repair all the seals you ruined."

Hanabi still drowning in the whirlpool of emotions collectively called happiness could only offer a semi coherent grunt before diving in with another kiss to shut him up. His jibe was not going to ruin the glowing moment of their lives.

Life was good.

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A/N A drabbles. Not a great one but hey it was a one hour challenge lol and I failed. It was supposed to define "cute" sorry Maneyan

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