Disclaimer: Naruto is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto and his publishers. Furthermore, this work is based on "A Growing Affection", a fanfiction by Xavon Wrentaile available on this website.
Chapter 1: Foxhunt
It began in a forest. This forest, in fact. There were more than enough forests in the Land of Fire that one could get confused. Though the forest itself was not the reason for the confusion of the young fox who scampered through the thick, neglected undergrowth.
Something had disturbed him while he was lounging atop a rock in the rare clearing, and he could tell there was still something after him, though he could not quite tell what it was.
To shake it off, he squeezed through a thorny brush, but after a few meters the presence was still there, and he had lost speed.
Still confused, he followed his instincts and fled on, charging straight at the next safe patch of undergrowth, parting the long blades of wild grass that populated the sunny spots between the trees. And suddenly something struck the ground in front of him.
Stopping from a dead run, he yelped from surprise, eyes and ears frantically searching for refuge from the danger. But the moment of hesitation cost him dearly, when all went dark.
With a look of dismay, the young girl lifted the struggling brown bag and tied a complicated knot in the fastening rope, only then relaxing. "I've got him", she said with a level voice into the radio, not betraying her short breath.
It took a moment until there was an answer, and it was not what she expected. However, she did manage to dodge.
"I would've gotten him before you", insisted the boy who had narrowly missed her. He was rather tall for his age, with a natural tan, dark hair and unmistakable Inuzuka Clan markings. A small dog scrambled to catch up with him.
The girl shook her head. "I was already ahead of him. If you want to catch him, use your chances.", she stated decidedly.
"But you sacred him away! Me and Kinmaru could've encircled him.", the boy insisted loudly.
"Like in the clearing, when you tripped on a root and woke him up in the first place?", she needled.
The boy blushed and hastily blurted out a cover story, "That wasn't me, it was Ken!" As if to support his human, the gold-blonde hound Kinmaru chimed in with a short, happy bark.
"What was me?", a third voice asked from the same tree the tan Inuzuka had jumped down from, which startled the lad despite his good nose.
But even startled, he stood his ground. "You made some noise and scared off the fox!", the Inuzuka accused.
The other boy, high up on a branch, crumpled his forehead in mock reminiscence. "Hm, no, I can't remember doing that. But I did hear somebody trip over a root."
"Quite. Also, I did in fact see Kuroyuuki-kun trip, right before I had to give chase to our little thief here.", she presented the still-turbulent bag with the fox, a slight sparkle in her currently brown eyes.
"Don't call me Kuroyuuki! It's a girl's name!", the boy with the all-too-patient dog looking up to him complained.
"It'a your name", she shrugged.
Exasperated, the tan boy conceded at least his much. "Well yes it is, but at least call me Kuroi."
"I don't think it fits you, I mean, calling you black would imply at least some stealth, wouldn't it?", the other boy joked up on his perch.
"How about Yuuki? You can make that reckless resolve that drove you to sneaking so fast that you stumbled your strong point.", the girl chimed in with a teasing smirk.
"Would you give it a rest?", he pouted. The other two children chuckled, and even his dog let his tongue hang out in an amused expression. Even Yuuki couldn't help but smile at that.
"Actually, if you fixed your sneaking, you wouldn't be half bad", the girl said openly, afflicting her dog-holding teammate with a slight blush.
"Uh, you think?", he inquired hesitantly.
"Well yeah, after all, we're hunting down thieving foxes in the countryside because you fell from the rafters in that storehouse and we had to put down the smugglers before they met their contact.", she qualified with a half-serious mien.
"That… er… that wasn't my fault! The beams were slippery!", he tried to play it down.
"Then why didn't you use chakra to cling to them?", asked Ken, who had at some point turned upside down and now squatted on the underside of the branch, seemingly without strain.
"They were… very slippery.", the tan Inuzuka weakly defended. His expression looked guilty.
"Come on, we were making fun of you.", the girl said with a reconciliatory smile, punching him lightly.
"It wasn't very funny." Yuuki said in a tone of complaint.
"I think it was.", Ken shot back with a smirk and let himself fall down. Somehow, he managed to land on his feet despite hanging upside down.
"Nobody asked you.", the Inuzuka complained cheerfully.
Another round of laughter, this time openly. When the chuckles died down, somebody appeared from between the trees. There wasn't much doubt she had been waiting for them to end their squabble. She wanted her daughter to befriend her teammates on her own terms, after all.
"Ah, there you are.", Yugao said simply.
"Hello, Yugao-kaa… sensei. We caught the fox." Rei Uchiha held up the bag, now mostly still. One could hear a fearful whine from the inside.
"You didn't put a genjutsu on him?" The purple-haired women asked curiously. She didn't look like she had given birth, even as Reis second sibling was slowly growing up.
"Oh shoot!" Rei dropped her normally calm demeanor and put the bag half-gently on the ground before she started signing. "Ninja Arts: Peace and Quiet.", she shouted after a rapid series of hand seals.
The fox, whose outline could be seen where he tried to bite his way out of the bag, suddenly ceased his attempts to escape the rough-hewn prison. There was nothing to be afraid of, after all.
Rei lifted the bag again, and the fox didn't do much besides rolling himself in to avoid falling over from the movement. "Where are we supposed to drop him off now?", the black-haired, brown-eyed bearer of the Sharingan asked a bit sheepishly.
Her mother by adoption looked up to the meridian sun, squinting a little. "Area C7 on the big map, about half an hour from here. Don't get lost, please.", she said with a wink and vanished from sight.
After a second to process what she had said, the three children groaned. She really wasn't going to let them off easy.
While her charges fiddled with the map to find the best path, Yugao went back to observing them from afar. She had taken a page from her husband's book in having a similarly relaxed teaching style, but she gave the young Genin even more slack in their tasks, despite claims to the contrary. It still was difficult to step back so much after years of doting on her… well, Itachi's daughter actually, but she was hers as much as the two she had born herself.
The three took off after only a short discussion, and seemingly in the right direction. They had probably missed the easy way across the river, a rock formation with a small gap between the opposing banks, but that was mostly for bonus points, anyway. She would have to tell them afterwards if they really did miss it, but at least Rei and Ken Takamichi could already walk on water, and Kuroyuuki… well he was a good swimmer.
Just when she was standing up to follow the three Ninja and the dog bounding across the treetops, her phone rang. Well, vibrated actually, she wasn't going to make finding her too easy for the kids. Yugao Kakashi casually snapped the sleek, new device open and continued tracking. Even before speaking, she took off and trailed behind the youngsters in a leisurely pace, at least for her standards.
"Yes, this is Yugao, who's speaking?", the women asked semi-formal, expecting a worried Kakashi to answer. Instead, the chakra-bonded circuits transmitted Naruto's voice. "It's me, Yugao. Are you and the kids done with your task?", he said with a rare anxious vibe. The wife of the Hokage's teacher unconsciously started concealing her jumps more when she took in the atmosphere.
"We're nearly done. Is something the matter, Hokage?" Her voice was serious. Unlike normally, the person on the other end of the line didn't complain about being called by his title.
"Toro and his squad are on a mission nearby, but their target injured Hibiki and Hiroku and ran away. They can't pursue without putting the two of them in danger, but we can't just let the target be the way it is. Do you think your team can do it?" The voice betrayed much personal involvement. Even as a Kage, Naruto cared deeply about his friends and by extension his people, and the young member of a Hyuuga branch family as well as his late uncle's son were close to the heart.
Still, she needed to know more before she put herself, her charges and her daughter at risk, even if she had to stop herself from impulsively saying yes. "Maybe, but Hibiki and Hiroku are both injured? How bad is it?"
She heard a sigh. A bit more calmly, the Fire Shadow explained. "They were on a C-rank mission to clear out what we believed to be a few bandits with tags left over from the Shozoku War, but it was only one enemy, and she didn't use any tags, but some strange taijutsu that heavily injures whoever it hits. Hibiki said that girl's chakra was strange, and she had seals on her, but it didn't seem to be any Jinchuuriki we know.
They injured her, but she had at least some formal training, so she got away before Toro could get him without risking to kill him. They said she doesn't look older than Rei, and she had red hair, like Gaara.
Tsunade meant she might be from one of the exiled clans, and Hinata is browsing the archives just now, but we need to talk to her to know for sure. She didn't have any equipment, and her left arm is broken, so we don't think she can still shape ninjutsu. I still think you should fight her yourself and have the kids support you, just to be sure.", he urged. Yugao smirked, she had planned on that exact strategy.
"We can do it. Where is she?", she inquired, businesslike.
"Er, sector C6 on the big map. You know, the regional one.", Naruto said after a short pause.
"Dammit." That was right where Rei and the others were, and she had fallen back considerably. "I need to hurry. I'll tell you the results later."
"Yugao, wha…" But before the sentence was finished, she had already broken the connection and stowed her phone. Then, she cut loose.
Yuuki had somehow goaded both her and Ken into racing him, with Kinmaru failing to catch up, but still having as much fun as any of them.
"Shouldn't your dog normally be faster than you?", Rei voiced over nearly a dozen leaps to her lanky teammate.
"Well - he - needs to - train - more - so this - is - good - for him.", said that teammate in a much shorter breath. But that was misleading, he made much further and harder jumps, so he was one or two jumps ahead, with Ken trailing a few leaps behind them.
The naturally gray-haired Takamichi had the edge in skill over both of them, but his stamina was weak, and ever since her Kekkei Genkai had awakened, Rei caught up to him fast.
Speaking of catching up… "Gotcha!" The bright-skinned girl yelled when she vaulted Kuroyuuki's head while he was in the middle of his jump.
He nearly fell, but managed to grab onto a lower branch, where all he could see of her was a wink of a red-and-black eye and then only the blur of her speeding away. "Damn you, Rei!", he screamed out of the top of his lungs, before her slumped a little.
Wasn't he supposed to be showing her up?
To protect his honor from being sullied by even Ken streaking past him, he pushed himself off and landed back on a higher branch, dead set on taking back his lead. Though while he propelled himself forwards and upwards, he caught a whiff of a weak scent, and quickly checked the wind. It was coming from Rei's direction. "Hey, Rei!", he screamed even louder than before, even while he was picking up speed again.
Meanwhile, the girl was laughing in between breaths, she would have loved to take a photo of Kens silly face when she intercepted him. But running was more important, she couldn't very well let him pass her after this, now could she?
In her arms, the fox was still docile, even at this speed where she had to hold him tight, lest he might fall. With her more acute vision, she could make out the river in the distance, and with it her goal. The smell of victory…
"Huh?"
Somebody cut across her, a few branches lower, and at an unsteady pace.
It was a thin boy in rags, with a shock of dirty red hair and apparently a few injuries, if her "eye" for the details didn't fail her.
The race forgotten, she stopped, and called out to the stranger. "Hey! Redhead-kun!"
The figure jerked around, and nearly tripped on its next landing. But he didn't quite stop, Rei noticed a near-panicked twitch around the boy's eyes and a tensing of muscles, then he just ran, jumping from branch to branch even faster than before.
"Wait! You're injured, we can help you!", she yelled in futility, even while she gave chase.
The boy darted around on the lower levels, switching direction randomly in an attempt to shake her off, but she could see him well enough from this distance to anticipate his turns.
This was in earnest, no longer a fun race across the trees, and she tensed up a little. The fox had to wimper slightly before she noticed it was more than a bit.
Several hundred meters behind, Kuroi had picked up on the chase, and got a better picture of the situation than his teammate in the lead, albeit he only smelled it.
There was a stench of fear, and he got a hint of danger. Who- or whatever Rei had spotted felt cornered, and the girl was stressed. Like always, when there was going to be a fight or another difficult situation.
The tan boy redoubled his speed, and did his best trying to catch up while staying downwind, both for his nose's sake and in case it wasn't as human as it reeked.
Even further behind, Ken squinted his eyes to make out either Rei or Yuuki, but even with the Genjutsu he had layered on top of his above-average eyesight it just wasn't enough.
Maybe he should try learning from his teammate and try to enhance his nose for a while, but he didn't like dropping his increased eyesight much, and he had less practice with the smell enhancement, never mind that he didn't have much chakra to waste… okay, he was making excuses.
But there was yet another way. He slowed down a little, allowing himself to recover for a moment, while he scanned his surroundings. There!
He skipped sideways, but he narrowly missed. On a second attempts, two jumps later, he got it.
The smallish gold-haired dog struggled a bit in his grip, but he was mostly trying to lick his face, not to escape.
"Gah! There, shush!", he sputtered when the slobbering tongue hit his lips. "Now there goes my first kiss.", he commented wryly.
"Kinmaru, we need to catch up with Yuuki. Do you know which way he went?", Ken asked seriously.
*Bark*, was all what Kinmaru had to offer, before he resumed taking potshots at the grayhead's chin. Ken just assumed that meant yes, the dog seemed to understand anything his human said, too. "Then show me!"
The dog struggled free, and took off far to the South, away from the planned route.
After a moment of bafflement, Ken jumped after him. It wasn't what he would have liked to happen, but he was way slower than either of his teammates and he had lost sight of them, while the dog would at least have some idea where to look. Or sniff. And stuff.
At the top of the chain chase, the redheaded boy reached a small cliff that parted, but also accelerated the river, which shot out between some smooth rocks as a small, white waterfall, trailing out of sight deeper into the forest.
The cliff had a small plateau, and below it huge, broken boulders offered ample opportunity for even an unskilled jumper to cross the stream, just as the redhead may have planning to do. But this was also where Rei cut in front of him, and forced the boy to stop.
"Why are you running? I want to help you!", she yelled in outrage.
The boy shooks his head, mumbling. "I can't trust you." He was keeping his right arm close to the body, with several shallow, scabbed cuts on both of his arms, his legs, and even one above his eye, which had crusted over his eyebrow. Not to mention the bruises. He looked winded, and was thin to the point of being malnourished, his visible bones covered in rags which had long lost any semblance to clothes.
Still, he took a fighting stance. "Let me leave.", he growled.
Rei considered for a moment, but then she set down the fox. "I can't just leave you like this.", she stated, taking her own stance.
Without declaration, he jumped at her swinging, but she brushed aside the obvious attack, only to be forced backwards by a fast kick and an elbow thrust, missing her barely. She retreated a little, considering. He was obviously trained, and fast. Waiting him out wouldn't work.
"Sorry", she said, shifting into an attack stance, then kicking off.
She lead with a shallow jump kick, feinting that attack to plant her foot inside his reach and kneeing at him before launching a punch at his right, but he took the hit and painfully shoved away her arm before tackling her.
Caught off guard, she still managed to keep her footing and launched another taijutsu strike through the itch where he had shoved her, this time observing more carefully. The redhead caught knifed Rei's wrist, but the second strike landed and numbed his left arm, and she followed through with an elbow, to gain enough distance for a kick. But his footwork was better, he kicked her legs wide and hurt her shin before she could recover, meanwhile touching his hands together in a sloppy Tiger seal and pushing unformed fire chakra at her, but she noticed and dodged.
Well, if he wanted to play it that way… she signed a quick technique and cried "Suiton: Water Cuffs", raising four blobs from the river behind her to strike at the unwashed boy.
He looked at her in alarm, raising his good hand and trying to push the first blob aside while escaping, but it clung to him, and the other blobs swung around to trail. Somehow, he produced enough fire chakra to rip his hand out of the water, but he cried out in pain when the steam burnt him.
While the boy dodged the water narrowly with fast, backwards jumps, she prepared another technique to finally trap him, but then it was her turn to be alarmed. With a snap kick, he shattered one of the blobs closing in on him, and jabbed at the unstable projectile he had partly evaporated before, before he came at her with speed.
She hurried through the last signs and yelled: "Raiton: Spark Darts!", launching two more, faster projectiles at her foe, but he was already dodging, brushing past one of the water blobs and barely avoiding being caught, before he struck it with clawed fingers, somehow causing the whole cuff to explode towards her darts, absorbing much of their energy before they struck him, drawing a pained scream. He still managed to destroy the last cuff with a high kick before it could catch him.
In awe, Rei hesitated for a dangerous moment, while the redhead caught himself and attacked with Taijutsu again. She dodged the fierce punch, but had to block the knee, giving him the momentum to bring up his other knee and scoring a painful hit on her elbow and flank when she couldn't defend fast enough, but he lost that opening when he had to right himself again before punching left.
The Uchiha blocked, but even with both her hands busy, the attacker hammered his one-handed jabs home until he somehow burned her right arm, making her flinch. Fire again? Wasn't she supposed to use that? Pained, she moved her hands together, and tried to gain distance with a jump.
But he wasn't going to let her, as soon as she left the ground, he was next to her, tensing his muscles to push her away. She saw it, but she couldn't do more than cross her arms, and then there was a sharp pain before she tumbled across the rocky platform.
"Rei!", another boy's voice screamed through the stunned haze.
As soon as he had smelled blood being shed, Yuuki had pulled all the stops to reach Rei in time, but when he was in sight, some scruffy redhead smashed the last of the water bullets his teammate had to have summoned and threw her to the edge of the plateau after a momentary exchange, too fast for him to reach. Landing, he yelled the girl's name, but she was still breathing, even with bloody wounds and burn marks on her arms.
"You'll pay for that!", he raged at the unknown opponent, right when he was trying to escape. Kuroi was pleased to note that that guy was in even worse shape, though it didn't seem like all of it was Rei's handiwork. Time to add some wounds of his own: "Fire Release: Mortar Strike", he exclaimed, making a gesture like he was whistling. But instead of a whistle, a screeching bolt of fire arced over the guy in rags and exploded on the ground, cutting off his escape, which bought the tan dog trainer some seconds to exploit. He threw several Kunai at his startled opponent, and didn't even wait for them to hit before he charged in his next attack, "Gijuu Ninpou: Fore-Claws."
Somehow, the louse deflected all the Kunai, taking only a few more cuts, even with one arm. But that wasn't gonna safe him. Kuroi was already there and swiped with his now clawed hands at the opponent, right when he was open from defending against the knives.
That got the mutt some gouges on his chest when the first claw struck, but before the Inuzuka could score a second hit, the unnamed redhead caught his arm with the injured right before striking at the larger boy's shoulder while the second claw went wide, only scoring some shallow scratches.
Gnashing his teeth to endure the pain, the wounded boy held fast and pulled the Genin into a kick he couldn't quite dodge, toppling him over, but Kuroi reacted fast and lashed out while he fell, forcing his opponent back. His wrist hurt, and a quick look showed that his sleeve was somehow smoldering, which made him take off his coat in panic.
When he was finally rid of his sleeves, the boy was again trying to escape, but he wouldn't have that. "Raiton: Thunder Clap!", he intoned after a few quick signs, coating one of his still transformed hands in purple arcs and charging again.
The rags-wearer stood his ground, and the simplified variant of the thunder pressure technique missed narrowly, though the blast still caught its target and spared Kuroi of a counterattack, but now it was down to Taijutsu again, which was arguably not the tan male's strong point.
Still, he valiantly threw himself in with a rough fist combo, only to learn that his greater reach and power didn't do him much good against a stringy opponent who could dodge well, albeit he clipped the guy and kept him in the defensive, at least until he made a desperate call to slip below Kuroi's arms which worked out so well that he could knee the leaf ninja's groin before he bowed out. Needless to say, the larger boy fell to his knees in agony, while his opponent raised his fist for a killing strike.
Then Kinmaru bit him. The boy let loose a panicked, wordless scream, but then he managed something to make the young dog yip, crashing him into the ground where he tried to stand up again, wimpering.
Not even trying to look where his dog had come from, Kuroi flashed into action again, basically just tackling the much lighter youth without regards to style, and with both arms injured he could do little to avert the enraged mass of the dog-holder but be hit and tumble across the platform, ending up opposite of Rei, who still struggled to clear her head.
No such luck in case of the opponent, but even though he managed to stand up again, gingerly pushing off with his arms, he was bleeding from his new wound and had somehow gained deep red burns on top of it, while using his right arm still seemed to cause pain, and he was openly panting.
Though Kuroi also had some trouble standing, still stunned from the painful kneestrike, he was in much better shape.
Also, Ken was there. Through that didn't count for much.
The gray-headed Takamachi took stock of the situation, and while none of his teammates looked as damaged as their opponent, they still had bloodied their noses, so to speak. It came to him to end this. He began signing for a genjutsu, but the wounded redhead seemed to pick up on it before he was done. So be it. "Illusion Art: Limits of Exhaustion", he whispered, so the enemy wouldn't pick it up. It worked out just like that, the enemy didn't pick up the illusion, and just continued to charge.
Baffled, but still in control, Ken took out some of his needles and threw, but his enemy shifted his hands in the way, keeping them away from the dangerous locations. "Gah!" Instead of meeting the charge, he switched himself out against a near branch, but that moved him out too far to do much good, should their foe decide to go for one of his teammates.
Instead of doing that, the drained, panting and outnumbered boy tried yet again to flee, while there was no-one up to intercept him. Ken deliberated just letting him, but somebody had different ideas.
Body-flickering in like a ghost, a purple streak crossed paths with the underdog, felling her faster than any of them could even see, except maybe the still dazed Rei, who didn't look at her adoptive mother avenging her with slightly more force than necessary.
When the combination of a slap with the flat side of her customary katana and a knife-hand to one of the major nerve clusters settled in, the red-headed offender simply collapsed.
This wasn't the end of it for Yugao, however. Nodding at Kuroyuuki torn between scrambling towards his wounded dog and his downed teammate, she ran for Rei, who had just now managed to lift her head.
"What are you doing, taking off to fight somebody like that!? Are you okay?", she asked, afraid.
"I… I'm good, I… just wanted to help him.", came the pained answer. But her mother didn't listen any further than "good", and pulled her in an embrace, tears of worry wetting the girl's black scalp. She allowed herself to faint a little.
Meanwhile, the fox in his bag just slept through all of it.
Preview
[In the Background: Naruto in the Hokage's office, swamped in stacks of documents]
Hinata: Naruto?
[Naruto continues signing documents]
Hinata [confused, louder]: Naruto!?
Naruto [distracted]: One second, my love.
[Naruto kicks out to the side, another Naruto emerges from behind the desk]
Other Naruto [drowsy]: Uh… haaa. Oh, hey Hinata.
Hinata [chiding]: Naruto, you were supposed to do a preview!
Original Naruto [collecting himself]: OH! That was today? Dammit, I knew I should have made more clones.
Naruto Clone [still working, annoyed]: Whatever gave me that idea.
Original Naruto [sheepish]: Uh… [announcer voice] Next up: A Love Forever, Chapter 2 – Back to the Foxhole
Other Naruto Clone [hanging from the ceiling]: Believe it!
Original Naruto [stern]: And what have you been doing!?
Naruto Clone 2 [innocent]: Well, I was on guard duty.
Hinata [exasperated]: I probably have run for the hills by now if I didn't love you so much.