Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue; I do not own, so please don't sue.
Chapter Seven
Dogs of War
"Expecting trouble?" Natsumi asked as I jumped from branch to branch to follow my team through the forest—all of us settled in the standard manji formation, with Kakashi on the front, Sasuke and Hinata watching the flanks, and me behind them.
I snorted. 'You kidding? No, just thinking about that thing with Kurenai—about how I was so angry with her and all. I know I have a temper, but that was kind of over the top even for me."
The moonlight shone between the leaves and showed us the path to the bandit camp. I just loved that—the scent of forest and the noise of all these little things living there, oblivious to our presence and without knowing the touch of civilization.
Without any concern.
"Of course you did, the bitch threatened your pack."
I slapped a bug out of my hair. 'Come again?'
"You see Hinata and your team as your pack, Naruto. Similar to a family but not quite the same," Natsumi said, sounding like she was explaining something painfully obvious. "You just saw that woman as a threat and reacted violently. It's quite expected, as I think more or less on the same lines."
'Side-effects of having you inside me?'
Natsumi laughed. "No, not really. More like a side effect of your shitty upbringing."
I chewed on my lower lip. 'Makes sense. Will it cause more problems for me?'
"Now this would be telling, let's wait and see. You make an interesting subject of study, Naruto—like a little hamster running on the wheel."
I grinned at her teasing. 'Say, don't foxes eat hamsters?'
"Oh, we definitely do," Natsumi's voice had a vicious edge as she said that. "Run along, now, your queen is sleepy."
Story of my life—now I was just a test subject to a mad scientist, who also happened to be my girlfriend and a godly being of mass destruction. It was like mum saw the concept of sanity coming to me while I was still in the womb and said I would have no part on it.
Really.
Kakashi raised his hand for us to stop and we regrouped around him.
"Firecracker?"
"Three big bonfires burning on the camp and thirty-three sources of heat on the northern side, forty on the south," I turned to Hinata. "Hey, can you do a double-check with your Byakugan for me?"
Being honest, I knew I was completely right in my assessment, but the thing was that we had to familiarize Hinata with the right way to do these things—I wouldn't be around her every time and her Doujutsu made her quite the tracker, after all.
She nodded and the veins around her eyes bulged as she activated the Byakugan, giving her a threatening appearance. "I can see them and Naruto-kun is right. Are we still following the plan, sensei?"
"Of course, you will have to deal with me today, Hime-chan" Kakashi said and turned me and Sasuke. "Firecracker, you will pick up Princess and go through the northern entrance like we planned, I and my cute little genin will be waiting for the signal on the south."
"Do you really have to use these codenames?" Sasuke glared at Kakashi, who just ignored the question and began picking his ear while muttering something about loud flies. Sasuke scowled. "Right. I asked—must you really make us use these stupid codenames, Our Great Lord and God?"
"No, not really," Kakashi shrugged, "but it amuses me greatly. See you on the other side."
With a thumbs up, he picked Hinata and disappeared with a Shunshin.
Sasuke turned his glare to me. "I am not calling you Firecracker."
"I am not that thrilled either, Princess," I said, then jumped from the branch and crouched low on the ground while Sasuke followed my movements closely.
The bandit camp was a simple thing—probably just a meeting point to them while they worked on the Land of Fire. It consisted in a bunch of tents strewn around the top of a hill with the meager protection of a crude palisade circling the area. There were some people making a perimeter along the borders, but almost no one close enough to bother us—the exception being the two guards on the main entrance.
I pointed to them. "You wait here and let me do the talking."
I didn't wait for Sasuke to answer and took advantage of the shadows to creep closer to the guards in absolute silence. One of them was big and burly, almost on my height, but the smaller fellow carried a wicked-looking sword and looked like he knew how to use it.
Didn't matter—I wouldn't give him time to.
I snapped my fingers and the fire of the torches around them was extinguished.
I attacked as they turned to see what happened to the fire. The big one I caught by the back of his neck and pushed him down, face first, on one of the stakes of the palisade—a muffled squelch marked the moment when the sharp wood stabbed him through the eye and was embedded directly into his brain. He was dead before he could make a sound.
The other sentinel hadn't time to say anything. He turned to look at the noise I made and I punched him in the solar plexus, driving him out of breath. He doubled over and I appeared right behind him, placing him in a chokehold. The man gasped and clawed and spat on my forearm until I brought him to his knees and snapped his neck with a sharp crack.
The fire on the torches returned with another snap of my fingers and Sasuke walked to my position, an eyebrow raised as he looked at the limp cadaver on the ground and the blood trailing down the stake. "That's what you call talking? Eloquent."
"No," I snapped my fingers again and killed the torches and bonfires everywhere in the camp. "I call that a good beginning. Give it a minute, maybe half, and they will begin to come outside the tents. Fear of the dark is a powerful thing."
"More like fear of what is out in the dark," Sasuke said under his breath.
We waited with as those who were awake, true to my prediction, began leaving the tents and banding together on the center of the camp. I could feel that not everyone was there—maybe a bit more than half of them, probably drunk and tired. Easy pickings.
"Kakashi is waiting for my signal to attack. Step a bit back."
"Naruto, you do know I can't see in the dark, no?" Sasuke asked just loud enough for me to hear. "How the fuck are you expecting for me to go on and fight blind?"
"Just wait for the signal," I grinned. "One more step."
Sasuke obeyed and I turned back to the campsite, taking a deep breath. I opened my arms and felt the familiar power churning inside me, ready to get out and devour as I poured my chakra out—the flames I created circled my forearms like snakes and reached the palm of my hands, twisting and condensing here as I aimed to the center of the camp.
The blast of fire I let go of each hand was bigger than me and powerful enough to make my hair fly back with the displaced wind and crack the ground around us.
Twin pillars of heat ate their way to the bandits, tearing a trench on the earth until they made contact with the center of the agglomeration and exploded in a ball of sheer, raw destruction. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I shivered in anticipation and the night was suddenly illuminated by an inferno of flames.
The explosion ripped the camp apart—not metaphorically either. The lucky ones ended just running around and screaming, with some falling on the ground and rolling to snuff the flames. I heard cries for help coming from everywhere as every single one of them learned that fear of darkness was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what the light could bring.
"Now you can see," I looked back and laughed at Sasuke's dumbfounded expression. I pumped my fist up in the air to snap him out of his shock. "Let's go, Sasuke!"
We ran into the madness without bothering with any tactic or disguise and we were all over them before their surprise waned off. No cloak-and-dagger bullshit, just the good old fight with adrenaline pumping through the veins. Just where I felt like being home.
A man was coming on my direction—or was, until I caught him by his face, raised him on the air and slammed him down on the ground. Bones cracked and he hanged limply for my grip as I saw a bunch of dudes banded together near me.
I dropped the body and charged.
I shoulder-tackled the closest bandit I saw, strong enough to send him barreling through the nearer tents like a ragdoll, then I picked a second by his neck and, creating a kunai in my free hand, stabbed it on his eye-socket. Blood sprayed on me as I twisted the blade and I heard someone coming close, so I removed the kunai and threw it dead center on his forehead—he went down and didn't move again.
A man tried to stab me with a knife and I sidestepped the attack just he almost caught me. He stumbled harmlessly by my side, guided by his misguided momentum, and I kicked his legs from under him.
He fell in the ground face first and I stomped his head, squashing it.
"This is madness!" Sasuke shouted as I sent a spear-pointed chain to pierce a bandit. He had a kunai in each and, as I turned to look at him, Sasuke crossed them to block the swing of a sword and smashed a spinning kick on his enemy's jaw for his troubles. "You're fucking mad!"
"Madness?" I yelled back, my grin almost splitting my face in two. "This is—oh, fuck you!"
"Wha—" Sasuke began saying, just to shut up as I turned to the bandit coming from my back to surprise me and backhanded him. A normal person would need to put all his weight on an attack like that to even begin to hurt someone. A normal person would find the move totally inadequate to the field.
A normal person wouldn't cave a cranium in with it.
I had never been a normal person.
I laughed, hard and good, as Sasuke cursed and turned to face his new opponent. There were two more men coming at me and I went to meet them—two big men with even bigger blades, probably thinking they were hot shit and could take me down.
The first one was disabused of this notion as I blocked the swing of his sword with my armguard and punched him in the gut, raising him from the ground. His body almost molded itself around my fist as his organs were pulverized and he spat blood.
I threw him to the side and walked slowly in direction of his friend, who was backing away from me. I looked him right in his eyes and opened my arms, taunting him as I smiled.
"Good iron you have here, a big sword for a big guy," my smile widened, if that was possible, as I felt his eyes stopping on my pointed canines. "Think you can take me down, big fella? Come on," I took another step in his direction. "Go ahead. Make my day."
He turned tail and ran, his sword clinking on the ground as it was left behind. I bent down to pick the sword, huffing in annoyance, then pointed my hand at the man's retreating back and blasted a column of fire on his direction—the flames engulfing him entirely and burning hot enough to melt metal.
"Fucking coward," I sneered as I walked back to where the first guy was lying down and beheaded him with a swift movement of his comrade's sword. "Sasuke, my man! How are you doing there?"
Sasuke grunted as he broke the arm of a man he had locked in a chokehold and rolled back, avoiding a stab from other bandit and using the movement to throw a bunch of earth on his face.
The bandit—thin and ugly as fuck, I noted—stepped back and rubbed his eyes, what gave Sasuke, still lying on the ground, an opportunity to kick the dude's shin and slam an elbow on his throat as he fell over.
Impressive.
It seemed he was ready and in position already.
I needed just a little second more.
"How do you think?" Sasuke answered with a strangled voice as he turned the skinny dude over and punched him in the face repeatedly. Satisfied with his work, he got to his feet and exhaled a tired breath as he turned to me. "I am not fucking kidding you as I say—Naruto, get down!"
I heard someone moving behind me.
Now.
"The hell?" I shouted in surprise and the point of a blade appeared on my stomach. I looked at it and fell to my knees, a trickle of blood going down through the side of my lips as I felt the sword ripping more of me on its way out. "Fuck me."
It was like the world had stopped moving for a second or two as I saw Sasuke narrowing his eyes in anger and shooting into movement. He swiftly picked the sword I dropped to the ground and met the other man's blade with an enraged swing of his own.
Sasuke's attack sliced through the other sword as, instinctively, he ran chakra through his blade and and lightning crackled around it.
His sword didn't stop until it cut the man in half.
Sasuke stopped cold, staring at the man as he let out a scream of agony and fell to the ground in two pieces, blood and entrails pouring out of him. You could almost pinpoint the moment he realized what he had done.
"Oh no," Sasuke said, dropping the sword and stepping away from the corpse with shock written all over his face. "I wasn't, fuck, I," Sasuke turned to me and his jaw hang limply as he saw me getting up and cleaning the blood from my lips with the back of my hand. "Naruto, I forgot you could heal and, dude, you need to believe me, I— "
I saw all the signs on him, fuck, I knew the signs. Sasuke was pale as a corpse, sweating and shaking with a wild look in his eyes. He tried to wipe the blood off his hands on his shirt over and over and was on the verge of a breakdown, with just the adrenaline holding him together.
These were the signs of a first kill.
"I need you to calm down," I held his shoulder and gave him a sad smile. All had gone perfectly, just according to the plan. The plan. Just thinking about it soured my humor something fierce and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to just end the mission the faster I could. "We need to finish the mission and—"
Sasuke eyes were still open wide as he looked back to me.
I instinctively took a step back.
His eyes were shining in a baleful red.
"Thirsty?" I asked Sasuke as I kicked a burned body away, offering him a beer we had pillaged from a tent that hadn't quite burned down with the rest of them. There was nothing on fire anymore, as I had taken care of it when the fight ended, and that just made the silence more uncomfortable.
Sasuke hadn't said a word since he killed that man.
The rest of the mission had been just protocol. I took down the remaining men on our side, as Sasuke was too shocked to act all that much and help me, then we met Kakashi and Hinata on the center of the camp, both smelling like ashes and dirty with blood—none of it their own.
Kakashi just needed to take a look at Sasuke's state to know what had happened to him. After that, he inclined his head to me as if he was saying nice job and called Hinata to help him to find anything useful on the wreckage. At least, it was his excuse to give I and Sasuke time to talk.
"Whew," I smiled, looking at the stars scattered on the sky, "nothing's better than a good drink after the work is done," I said and lightly shoved Sasuke's shoulder. "So, nice to see that you managed to obtain the Sharingan. Good for you."
He still wasn't talking. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Are you going to be silent forever or can we get going, Sasuke? Let it out of your chest, you will feel better."
"Why did you make me do it?"
I turned to see Sasuke glaring at me, his voice sounding hoarse.
"Come again?" I raised an eyebrow.
"I am not dumb, Naruto, not nearly enough to fall for that. I know you set me up to kill that guy—hell, I saw you getting a hand through your chest and acting like it was nothing in that fight against Kakashi. I want to know why you did that," Sasuke said, slowly, and absently minded picked the beer I had offered him.
When I didn't answer, he threw the beer away and turned at me, the rage—the hurt, all of it clear on his face. "Tell me your reason. Now."
I rubbed my hand over my face. "Because you needed to kill."
"It doesn't explain why you had to manipulate me like that," Sasuke pressed on, "you could just have told me. I know what's on the line, Naruto, I know what I need to do as a shinobi. I am no fool."
This time, I met his glare with one of my own.
"Because the time when you need to kill is exactly when you can't hesitate, Sasuke. Yeah, you are no fool, but what you know here," I poked him on the forehead, "isn't the same you know here," I poked him again, now over his heart. "Maybe it would work anyway. Maybe in your first time in a do or die situation you would win, who knows?"
I scoffed. "Maybe. If. All these words, these pesky things of doubt," I looked away from him and took a gulp of my beer. "Doubt has no place here. Want to know why I did it like that? Because I can't risk your life, our teammates, or the mission just on a hunch. Can you?"
The silence went on until I thought he wouldn't answer. When he did, his voice was so low that I almost didn't hear what he was speaking, even with my enhanced senses.
"No," Sasuke looked down. "I can't."
"Me neither," I agreed, tilting my head to where Hinata and Kakashi were in the wasteland we left behind. "Want to know something awful? Hinata had it worse. I even asked her if I could tell you, just before this mission."
Sasuke shrugged, still without looking to me. "Why not? Go on."
"Are you sure?" I punched his shoulder and grinned. "I can wait for you to go and find the beer you threw away on your temper tantrum."
"Bastard," I almost missed the little smile on his face as he shoved me back. "Just talk."
I snickered and drunk more of the beer. "First things first, you need to know Hinata's dad. Hinata says he isn't a bad dude, you see, that he is a loyal ninja and it seems he tries to do things the best he can. I have my doubts, mostly because Hiashi Hyuuga has a little problem."
"He is a complete asshole?"
"Right in the one," I raised the bottle to him in a salute. "So, Hinata-chan was kinda timid a few years ago, a long way from this little terror who can scare we all into submission. Our buddy Hiashi looked at her, then looked at her scores on the Academy—which were bad ones, because she didn't want to hurt people without a fucking good reason.
"Sounds like a pretty sensible attitude, if you ask me. Yet, Hiashi didn't ask me and then had a brilliant idea, a hell of a genial idea," I spat on the ground. "Must have pulled it from his all-seeing asshole, that wanker."
Sasuke picked the bottle from my hands and took a long gulp.
"Hiashi, obviously armed with staggering amounts of stupidity, brought our girl to Konoha's prison. Once there he bribed, cashed on favors, and maybe sucked a dick or two, but finally managed to bring a dude from the green mile into a closed room," My hands balled into fists. "A room with only him and Hinata-chan."
I looked back to where Hinata was waiting for Kakashi to search some tent, oblivious to our talk as she waved to us.
"She looks cute, doesn't she?" I picked the beer from Sasuke and waved back to her. "Imagine, then, how Hinata felt when she found herself locked into a room with a motherfucker who, by the way, had raped two women already, and his father just sat there saying she wouldn't get out until he killed the bloody bastard."
"Fuck," Sasuke rubbed his eyes. "Look, Naruto—"
"She was twelve."
He shut his mouth instantly.
"As I told you, Sasuke, it could always be worse," I said, feeling really tired as I got up from the grass and slapped the dirt out of my pants. "For what it's worth I promise I will never lie to you again," I then threw the bottle back to him, "even if I want to."
I turned back and, just as I began to walk away, I heard him talking.
"I just don't want to forget, you know? I don't want to just go, kill everyone and then act like it doesn't bother me—fuck, Naruto, death should matter. The end of a life should be worth more than a laugh," Sasuke had no accusation or anger in his voice, that was just the raw, naked truth. "I just don't want to do that like you do."
He said nothing more after that.
I knew what he was thinking. The massacre had robbed his innocence about how the world works, but I had destroyed the last shred of it he had, the one he still was trying to hold on.
The innocence he still had about himself.
I looked to Kakashi and Hinata coming back on our direction and screwed my eyes shut, not wanting to turn back and see the expression on Sasuke's face. We are different people, I repeated to myself, what is true for me isn't the same for him. We are different as the sun and moon.
It still hurt a little, though.
"You do it on your way," I opened my eyes again and smiled to Hinata, "I'll do mine."
We got back to Konoha just as the sun began to appear in the sky. Sasuke excused himself back to his home, saying he needed to sleep—not that he had fooled anyone with that. He just needed time to think and come to terms with what had happened. Time with Tomoe and Mikoto would be good for him to deal with that.
"Seeing how there will be no training today, I am going to report to Hokage-sama," Kakashi said and turned to me. "Are you going to be alright, Naruto? I can go later if you need to talk."
I grinned and shook my head. "No, Our God and Lord, go and be praised."
Behind me, Hinata muffled a giggle with her hand.
Kakashi just sighed, a long-suffering expression on his face. "Sure, Firecracker. See you too, Hinata"
As he disappeared with a Shunshin, he somehow managed to make the leaves of his jutsu slap me in the face. Bastard was just sore because he hated doing reports, I tell you.
"I think I should go too, father is waiting for me," Hinata said, fidgeting and hesitating a bit before she suddenly pulled me into a bear-like hug. "Are you really going to be well, Naruto-kun? I know what Sasuke had to do today, and you were the one to make him do that."
"I am made of sterner stuff, you know," I smirked and used the opportunity to take a deep breath of the lavender scent of her hair. "Relax, Hinata-chan, you turned okay after I met you in the same situation. I am good with words."
Hinata gave me a disbelieving look. "Sure you are, especially after you promised you would invade our clan compound and have words with my father. Words you went into a detailed explanation about."
Seeing the expression she had, I couldn't resist and cracked up laughing.
Hinata moved her hand a bit inside the collar of her jacket and smiled brightly. I looked down and saw the pendant of a star dangling on the golden chain he had in her hand, a gift I had given to her many, many time ago.
"I still remember the oldest story, Naruto-kun."
"The best one," I looked right into her eyes as I whispered that to her, our faces closer than they ever had been before. "You still are that little star for me, you know? Even after all this time."
Something glinted on her pale eyes as her smile, if that was possible, widened. It was just when a passerby looked at us with an amused smile and snickered that the moment was broken and I took notice we were still holding each other. Holding each other very close.
"Okay!" Hinata made a cute sound of surprise and let me go, jumping back almost like she had been shocked. "I really need to go now."
I scratched the back of my neck and nodded. "See you, Hinata-chan."
"Goodbye, Naruto-kun!" Hinata scurried away fast as lightning while somehow managed to look dignified, even as her cheeks burned red with embarrassment. Impressive.
Natsumi laughed. "What a way you have with words!"
I grunted in answer and jumped to the closest rooftop, picking the pace back to my home while I hummed the tune of an old music. 'Comes with the territory. After all, Nat, I am a man of wealth and taste.'
The way I was running on the rooftops, it didn't take long to the building I lived on to appear on the horizon as the village blurred around me. I liked it like that—away from the brunt of the movement and from the people talking endlessly with each other. When you can hear a pin dropping from the opposite side of the room you learn to appreciate some silence.
"Wealth and taste my finely shaped ass," Nat scoffed and I could almost see how her lips were twitching in disgust. "So, when are we getting out of that hovel?"
I sent a pulse of my chakra to an Uzumaki spiral inscribed on the wall of the building, which disarmed the defense seals I had scattered everywhere—nobody wanted to live next to the demon, after all—and entered my home through the window.
"Well, Jiji gave me an account with the money from my time on the Black Ops before the mission yesterday, so I think we can see someone about that soon. He was kind of trying to keep me as a secret and you know how it goes while reporting to the Daimyo," I huffed in annoyance and took off my shirt. "If walls have ears, that wanker's court is a fucking labyrinth."
"I knew some courts in my time," Natsumi said, "burned most of them, if I remember things right—but you didn't answer my question."
I took off my boots haphazardly and the pants followed them to the floor. "Dunno, I will ask him to look into buying a house on the outskirts of the village for me, maybe even in the back of the monument," Natsumi then growled in warning and I held my hands up. "After you tell me your ideas, of course."
"See that you do," she said as I gave a once-over to what I had in the fridge and threw my kunai pouch over my shoulder. The apartment was organized—I didn't spend much time here anyway. Mikoto's house was more of a home to me that this place had ever been.
I walked into the bedroom, pausing on the way to reactivate the safety and sound-proofing seals and to throw my weapon's pouch in a pile of laundry of the size of a rather well-fed Akimichi, which was saying something.
Bathing would take precious time, a time I really didn't want to spend awake, so I just erupted in flames—just for some seconds, enough to burn or vaporize all the dirt and dried blood scattered all over my body.
I would take a proper bath after my deserved sleep, thank you very much.
"I am spent," I announced as I jumped on the bed and closed my eyes. My breath evened and I felt my muscles relax for the first time that day, the tension and alertness washing away from me. "Mindscape after I sleep for an hour or two?"
"Mindscape it is."
"Wakey wakey, I know you aren't sleeping anymore."
I didn't open my eyes, being comfortable as she caressed my hair and I laid on her lap—both of us were in the bed of the Mindscape's house and I wasn't ready to let that feeling go. It was just when she began kissing my cheek and chin that I cracked an eye open.
"Hello you," I whispered and pulled her closer to me.
Her lips brushed against mine and I caught her in a fierce kiss, cherishing how Natsumi's lips tasted slightly of strawberries and she felt so damned soft under my hands. She answered the kiss in kind, pushing me against the bed and straddling my hips.
I would never stop marveling at how beautiful she was. That large smile, red eyes burning with passion and raw emotion, that body which wasn't anything less than divine. It always surprised me how she was, simply put, perfect.
"Yes," she purred slightly as I bit her neck. "Give me more."
I held her by the waist and rolled to the side, reversing the positions and now above her as she crossed her legs on my back. The kiss was growing more and more heated as Natsumi scratched my back and her yukata slipped down her shoulders.
I began to lose control as our tongues danced together and my hands roamed under her clothes, feeling every inch of her body as desire burned inside me. I wanted her, wanted to make her mine and mine alone, I wanted that so much that it almost overpowered every bit of reason I had. Almost.
You need to control yourself.
I jerked back from her.
"Nat, I don't know if I am ready yet—"
"Oh please!" Natsumi said and shoved me away hard enough to make me hit the headboard. Anger burned on her eyes as she got off the bed and straightened her clothes, after what she put her hands on her hips and glared at me. "What the fuck you need to be ready for, Naruto? I want you, you want me, why the hell are you still hesitating?!"
I sighed and rubbed my face. "It's not that simple."
"It is! I know exactly what you are doing, you are trying to fight against who you are again! Control your instincts, be a rational, logical man, all that bullshit!" Natsumi shouted and the glass of the window cracked as she made her annoyance known.
I tried and tried and tried, but couldn't found it on me to deny that.
"I am not saying that you should just be an animal or something," Natsumi's voice softened as she walked closer to me and caressed my cheek. "Naruto, all that talk about controlling yourself, denying your instincts—that's for out of there. If you still want to lie to yourself and prove to these fools out here that you are domesticated, tamed, civilized, go and do it," she put his hand over my heart and brought her lips close to my ear, "but here, I know who you are. I know what you are, and I want you."
Her voice was temptation, pure and simple.
"Even then, if you still think that I am going to abandon you and go away after I get what I want from you," Natsumi shoved me again on the bed and putting her creamy thighs on each side of my body. "Well, I just need to show you stupid this thought is."
She let the yukata slide down her shoulders.
I stared and it had never been clearer to me how perfect she was. Every inch of her was flawless, her stomach flat and taut even while she was all curves—her breasts being just big enough for me, their pink tips hard and inviting to the touch.
To hell with it.
"Fuck control," I growled and pulled her to me, finally letting my instincts take over. A normal woman would've had bruises where my hands were grabbing her as I pushed Natsumi down and rolled over for me to be above her. "Fuck Konoha. Fuck being civilized. I want you now."
Natsumi laughed and kissed my neck, her pointy canines teasing the skin with each butterfly kiss she laid there.
"You are mine," I said in her ear. "I am not letting you go. You. Are. Mine."
Natsumi raised her head just enough for me to see her eyes—now shining brightly exactly as I saw mine doing time after time before, with the little veins around them illuminated from within by a red light. Like mine during all the times when I lost my hold on myself and just ran wild, fighting and killing and destroying everything in my path.
Like all the times I felt alive and free.
"Then make me yours," Natsumi whispered to me in a husky voice.
That was all the invitation I needed.
The next kiss was just hungry and frenetic as I roamed her body with my hands—I could just will her clothes away, as we were in the Mindscape, but something on me just wanted to take them off in the good old way. Like a ritual, between us and us alone.
So I did just that.
I almost ripped the yukata off her while I sucked her lower lip and heard her moaning—what drove me almost into berserker lust by the sound alone. I teased her throat with the tips of my fangs, mimicking what she did before, and teased the sides of her breasts with my hands.
Natsumi gasped and buckled under me, his hips rubbing against mine. She wasn't wearing anything under the clothes I had taken off her and it became painfully obvious very fast—but I still wasn't finished. Her nails gouged the flesh of my back as I trailed my lips lower and lower, smiling to myself with each twitch and squirm she made.
I couldn't know how much time I spent just exploring her body with my hands, lips, and tongue, tasting her and making her contort in pleasure under me—minutes? Hours? I didn't care, I just wanted to make Natsumi feel like the goddess she was.
Her hands, fingers interlaced on my hair, tightened their hold on mine's almost painfully—an sharp contrast with when she was pulling me deeper into her—and Natsumi pushed me to look in her eyes. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and grinned.
"I don't want to wait anymore," she panted on my ear and bucked her hips against mine again, willing the boxers I still had on to disappear with nothing but a thought. "I want you. All of you."
I obliged her and Natsumi bit my shoulder hard when I finally entered her, her cry of pain—maybe pleasure—being muffled by my own flesh. I only took notice of the fact that he had broken the skin as she kissed me with the taste of my blood still on her lips.
God, she was hot—literally. I had to do my best to not explode here and then.
Funny thing is, the Mindscape is just a manifestation of my mind within the seal. With all these overpowering sensations bombarding me and Natsumi, the land around us started to reflect our state as our voices, our moans, cries, and bodies mingled together.
The earth shook and the Mindscape twisted into itself and broke with a screech—not that any of us cared even a little, lost on each other as we were. The house was ripped apart, every wall breaking into particles of light and the bed disappeared in the same way. The sky above us rumbled, cracked and burned as the rain began falling.
Natsumi was in the top position now, her hips going back and forth to match my own and her breasts heaving with every movement she did. Her fingers were interlaced with mine as she looked up, her eyes closed and her beautiful red hair framing her face, and screamed in pleasure.
Her nails ripped trails down my chest, the wounds closing as soon as they were opened.
I just noticed, then, that the rain falling all around us was made of fire.
Everything around us had been engulfed by a maelstrom of flames and, yet, nothing there could possibly come even close to burn hot as we did. Two beings of fire, finally together—our sweat evaporating as it touched skin and we both moving with enough strength to break solid rock.
There was nothing human about us there—just raw, naked need and lust and pleasure, as we just did as our instincts demanded from us. I couldn't care less about anything else by the time we screamed together in a climax.
Hell, in that moment I couldn't give even the smallest shit about being human anymore.
All that mattered was Natsumi.
My Natsumi. My goddess.
Mine, just as I was hers.
"That was better than I expected," Natsumi said, sweat glinting on all of her body as she circled my chest with a finger. Even with our constitution, we were exhausted—and I felt quite proud of myself for making the queen of the Tailed Beasts tired.
It had been as much of a first time to her as it was to me, but still.
"Tell me about that," I smiled, the rocks of what had been a hill until we shattered it into rubble under me as we laid there with our legs entwined together and both of us naked as the day we were born.
I looked at Natsumi and my smile widened as I took my hand off her shoulder and gestured to the effect we had on the scenery. "Just imagine if this happens after I free you from the seal. The Kyuubi reborn, back to destroy the village with the power of literal world-shattering sex."
"How rude," Natsumi slapped my chest and laughed. We fell into a comfortable silence, both of us wanting nothing more than relax and sleep—together, for the first time. Natsumi bit her lower lip and looked to me, waiting almost a full minute until she began finally began speaking. "Naruto, I—"
Whatever she would say, though, was interrupted when the Mindscape's sky rumbled and the clouds disappeared, a reddish-orange outline appearing in the now clear sky—heat, sound, and scent. My mind was giving me an alert that someone was approaching on the outside.
"Fuck," I cursed under my breath as I recognized the person as Sasuke. I jumped to my feet, stomped the ground and, with practiced ease, the house appeared again like it had never been destroyed.
Just as I turned to Natsumi, she cut my words with a kiss.
"We spent all day and night together, Naruto, Kakashi probably sent him here," she said, then kissed me again and smiled that big smile of hers. "I need to sleep anyway, you weren't exactly sweet and careful with me."
I raised an eyebrow. "Are you complaining?"
"Perish the thought," Natsumi got to his feet and began walking back to the house, sashaying her hips all the way. She had a mischievous gleam in her eyes as she turned to look at me over her shoulder. "Next time, I want more."
Then she just went away, laughing all the while.
Sometimes, I wonder if Nat was the kind of woman that mum would tell me to run away from.
I opened the door right before Sasuke could knock. "The fuck you want?"
Sasuke was startled for barely a second before he gave me a look from head to toes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Many things, but we can begin with you putting some fucking clothes on."
I looked down to see that I was wearing just my boxers.
Recovering fast from my surprise, I smiled and looked down to Sasuke—he was a good foot smaller and much, much thinner than I was. Benefits of having an overclocked healing factor and Uzumaki blood, probably.
"Envious, little bishounen?"
Sasuke raised his eyebrow and made a sweeping gesture to the outside. "By all means, no. You can go out just like this and take these fangirls away from me," he crossed his arms, a smirk tugging the corner of his lips as I winced. "Doesn't seem like that much of a good idea anymore, no?"
"I will be back," I said, then closed the door hard enough to shake the wall and ran the fastest I could back to my bedroom, cursing under my breath all the while.
I never put my clothes on faster in all my life.
"What you want?" I opened the door and touched the little seal, almost invisible, just above the doorknob—activating the safety seals of my apartment. If Sasuke was impressed with my speed, he didn't show.
"Meeting on Hokage's office," he said. "Kakashi sent a dog to the training field to warn us, but you weren't here, so I came here and—bloody hell, can you stop smiling already?!"
"What?" I hadn't noticed I was smiling until he pointed it. "Oh. My bad."
Sasuke just grunted and led the way out of the building, giving some surreptitiously looks to me as I began whistling and greeting everyone on the way—the reactions of the villagers being all over the spectrum from outraged to shock-induced cardiac arrests.
"Naruto," Sasuke pulled my arm before we could run through the rooftops to the Hokage Tower. "Stop for a bit here, I need to talk to you. About the mission yesterday."
"There's no need, really," I was fast to dismiss him. "We were—"
"I am sorry," Sasuke interrupted me and bowed his head. I just looked at him, slack-jawed.
"What?"
He took his time to find the words—time I used to pick a cigarette and put it between my lips, as the smattering of scents of the village began to feel mighty uncomfortable to me already.
Sasuke finally found his voice and put a hand on my shoulder. "I want to say I am sorry for what I said after the fight. Telling you I don't want to be like you like it was a bad thing—that isn't true. I respect you, you know, but I—"
"You want to be your own person," I said, feeling the smoke of the cigarette dulling the edge of the village already. "Find your own way of life, all these things. I know what you meant."
"Yeah," Sasuke said, nodding and looking away. "Just wanted to say that I don't fault you for doing what you did—it will help me in the long run, and I even got the Sharingan. It's just, I was angry there and I lashed at you, and that wasn't right."
"Easy here, Sasuke," I raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I understand."
We just stood in silence for some time—two guys lost in the masses that moved all around us, each one of them with their simple and, frankly, boring lives. I would never be that simple to us shinobi, and, all in all, I was fine with that. I couldn't imagine living like these civilians even for a second.
Then the moment passed and Sasuke gave me a punch on the shoulder, his expression times and times lighter than it was before that talk. "Good. So, let's see if your good mood can endure the dirt you will be eating."
"What—"
Sasuke punched me right in the gut, strong enough to make me spit the cigarette.
"That's for lying, by the way."
He then jumped into the rooftop without waiting for me and began running. I could see in the way he was moving that Sasuke would be the fastest one between us in the future—he was built for speed and finesse, instead of brute force and raw power like me.
It didn't mean I couldn't still teach him a thing or two, though.
"Oh, you are so fucked," I spat under my breath and blurred in movement after him.
"You cheated," Sasuke accused me as we entered Jiji's office, pointing his finger right on my face. "Chains doesn't just appear from the ground, and they don't actively chase people around!"
I slapped his finger away.
"We are ninjas, Sasuke, it's kinda the job's description. Yo, Jiji, Hinata, God."
The gang was all here, Jiji puffing on his pipe, Hinata reading a magazine on the sofa, and Kakashi with his Icha Icha—which he waved in our direction as a greeting. Sasuke gave me a last glare and fell on a chair, his arms crossed.
Drama queen.
"Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun," the Hokage greeted, tipping his hat to us. "I know you are just back from a mission, but you are the only team here I can trust with this—the job hangs between a level low enough that I can't give to a chunin or jounin team, but high enough that I can't give to a genin team. Not one without experience."
"Gai and his team are out?" I asked and Jiji nodded in answer. "Fuck. Sensei?"
Kakashi just shrugged. "Fine by me."
It didn't fool me in the slightest—he wasn't careless, not with us. Kakashi would have known Jiji's plans before he even dreamed of calling us here to be briefed on the mission. It was just for show, to give us an opportunity to protest and choose.
"Good. Your mission is to escort the client, a bridge builder, to the Land of the Waves and guard him until he finishes the bridge," Jiji interlaced his fingers under his chin and called his secretary. "Miss Kira! Please send Tazuna in."
The smell was the first thing to hit me.
I picked a cigarette and put it in my mouth faster than someone could blink, taking a good puff of the smoke. The man who had entered reeked of sake—cheap sake at that— bad enough to make my nose burn.
"This is the team?" he asked just as he passed through the doors, a middle-aged man with brown skin, withered by years of work under the sun, and a distinctive hat. He looked to each one of us with a morose stare. "Not impressed. A one-eyed scarecrow, a shrinking violet, some brat who looks like a girl and a thug."
I balled my hands into fists.
"I can assure you, Tazuna, that this team is perfectly fine for the job you need them to do," Jiji still had a polite smile on his face. "If you still aren't pleased, you can update the mission to a B-rank. A-rank, maybe?"
Tazuna's eyes widened for a fraction of second before he settled back on his nonplussed expression. There was something dirt under here alright. "No, I am good. They are not much, but that's all I need."
Sasuke was gritting his teeth together, loudly, and even Hinata had narrowed eyes at the blatant dismissal of our team. I looked to Kakashi and made a gesture with my head to Tazuna. I knew Kakashi had understood as he closed his book and gave the man one of these eye-smiles of his.
"Tazuna-san, isn't it? You can rest your mind about our team, I am a jounin and I can guarantee you will be protected to the best of my abilities," Kakashi said, attentive and polite and absolutely bullshitting Tazuna. "Matter of factly, I want to give you a demonstration now about how. Naruto?"
I nodded to Kakashi, every inch of me being the good little soldier, and put my cigarette on the Hokage's desk. I took my time looking at Tazuna's and grinned as he averted my stare, a bead of sweat coming down his cheek.
The red and slitted eyes could be quite of unnerving to most people.
I began circling the old man and sniffing the air. "You was on the road for two or three days and, for what I can smell from your clothes, you didn't bathe once. The last time you ate was yesterday, fish, I think," I took a deeper breath. "More than that, this sake you have on your hand and the four other bottles in the backpack are homemade, probably illegally. For how your joints sounded as you walked here, you have had fractures on your right leg and two of your fingers. The one in the leg didn't settle correctly."
Tazuna had a clenched jaw, looking everywhere but to me.
"You have slightly hypertension and the second valve of your heart is weak, probably a congenital defect—you should look at that—and lastly, you smell of hope, desperation, and need. All things that, combined, would suggest that you should treat better the people in charge of keeping your life safe."
I gave him a last sniff before I went back to sit on the edge of the Hokage's desk. I picked my cigarette again, taking a long drag on it before I looked back to Tazuna, an innocent smile on my lips as I relished on his shocked expression.
"What would I know, though, I am just a thug. I can ask the shrinking violet, who happens to be the heiress of the Hyuuga clan with one of the most coveted bloodlines on the world, to see inside you with the Byakugan," I inclined my face to Sasuke. "Or I could ask the pretty boy, who, also, happens to be the heir of the Uchiha clan and possessor of the Sharingan, to profile you, if you want."
Sasuke glared at Tazuna with the red eyes of his Sharingan.
There was silence in the office, everyone maintaining a stony expression as every one of us was trying our damnedest to not laugh out loud at his face. Tazuna coughed, trying to find his composure back, and turned to the Hokage.
"I am out tomorrow morning," a pulsated on his forehead. "Have a good day."
He turned tail and left, stomping loudly on his way out the office. I looked back to Kakashi and he raised a hand, telling me to wait, at least until Tazuna had left the building.
Everyone began laughing then—even Jiji, the ever-dignified old man.
"Did you see his face when I talked about the sake?" I asked Sasuke, doubled down in laughter as he had that Uchiha smirk on his face, only in the thousand watts version. "I thought he would jump at me here and there."
Even Hinata was giggling madly, covering her mouth with her hands.
"Quite impressive, Naruto-kun," Jiji was the first to regain his poise. "Now, on business, your mission is to escort him back to the Land of the Waves and protect him while he is building a bridge here, a mission simple as they come."
I shook my head. "You can drop it, Jiji, there's something I didn't say—he reeked of lies and I know he couldn't have fooled you or Kakashi. What's the real mission?"
Jiji raised an eyebrow. "Impressive, indeed," he said, then picked four folders from his drawer and laid them on his desk. "These are the copies of the files we have on the billionaire Gatou, who actually has a stranglehold on the Land of the Waves if my spies can be trusted."
I picked mine's and my teammates did the same with theirs. On the very first page, there was a resume of Gatou's trajectory up in the world and a picture of him, a squat and portly man with beady eyes, glinting with some measure of malicious intelligence. Bad news.
"Gatou from the Gatou's Corporation?" Sasuke asked, flying through the pages with his Sharingan memorizing everything.
"Exactly, Sasuke-kun," Jiji said as I looked over the information. It wasn't looking all that good. "I want the Team Seven to do a reconnaissance here, protecting Tazuna and putting out a feeling from the situation on the Wave."
I shared a look with Kakashi.
"Well," Kakashi clapped his hands together and turned to the team, "six in the morning on the north gate, then. I want you lot to get supplies for one week, weapons included. This is our first long mission out there, so there will not be training today—take your time to put the head on the game. Now, chop-chop."
Sasuke got up and waved him goodbye while Hinata, the ever so polite Hinata, bowed to them before he went on her way. I followed them out of the room after I gave Jiji a goodbye and picked some of the documents for further studying.
On the corridor, I heard Kakashi calling me.
"Naruto, a word."
I nodded and waited for him to talk. It was obvious that there was more on this mission and we were going practically blind on enemy territory. Maybe, just maybe, it could be a simple reconnaissance mission that would go well as we expected, but I knew better—nothing was that simple with us.
I crossed my arms. "You think shit is going to hit the fan?"
"Yes," Kakashi eye narrowed, "you know what it means."
A devious smile appeared on my face as I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. Of course, I knew what it meant—to bring the big guns to the play, and in the ANBU manual, it meant just one thing.
Overkill.
"Shock and awe?"
"Yes," Kakashi looked up at the ceiling, "and may the gods help us."
He disappeared in a Shunshin and, just then, I let my smile drop.
I read the files about Gatou on the office—and something called out to me. I shuffled the documents I had and felt the pieces clicking into place. Among that multitude of crimes, ranging from drugs to extortion to murder, I found what I was searching for. Just one thing that made it personal.
Human trafficking.
The papers on my hands burned and my jaw clenched in anger.
That weird feeling appeared on my chest again and that familiar rage, old but not forgotten, began coursing through my veins one more time. That information meant just one thing and it had nothing to do with Tazuna and everything to do with the red braid on my wrist.
Truth had been set in stone.
This meant war.
Innocence
The Oldest Tale
Hyuuga Hinata didn't know what to think.
Since she had killed that man—that bad man, she repeated to herself, that man who would die anyway, Hinata was feeling like she was just going through motions during her days.
She took part in the ceremonies of her clan, she reported to her dad, her grades on the Academy had even got up.
Why, then, she felt so hollow inside?
Hinata couldn't deal with it anymore and ran. She ran and ran after the Academy, giving the slip to her guard, Ko, and going deep into the forest around the village. She felt like her body was going to burst—her feelings all bottled inside her and she needed to be alone.
Hinata wasn't aware of the tears trailing down her cheeks as she ran.
Inside the forest, though, she let herself stop—promptly falling to her knees. Away from the all-seeing eyes of her clan, Hyuuga Hinata sobbed, kneeling over the leaves and dirt.
Be polite, they said, be controlled and stoic, never show your emotions, they said again and again and again until shutting herself from the world became a second nature to her.
Something roared in the forest and she jerked back, her eyes wide—suddenly finding herself looking to the form of an enormous bear that appeared from the underbrushes. The beast was many times bigger than her and hundreds and hundreds of pounds heavier.
Hinata felt fear, then.
How could she shut the chakra pathways of something that big? She hadn't the necessary control. No, it was the end of the line—no more glares from her father, no more traditions weighing her down, no more obligations and protocol.
Hyuuga Hinata was going to die.
This thought made something inside her snap.
That meant no more time playing with Hanabi. The thought of dying didn't bother her, but that meant no more laughs with her few friends, and that she would never heal Neji's wounds.
It meant that, as she would die, her clan would never be united.
It wouldn't do.
Hinata picked herself up and shouted Byakugan, feeling many times bolder than she ever felt herself being before, and assumed a stance from the Gentle Fist. All that resolve that made her kill the man when her father ordered her to made her stand tall—Hyuuga Hinata wasn't going to die here.
Her dream wasn't going to die here.
She had much to do, much to repair, and so much to change.
And, if she died, that would mean that she couldn't tell Naruto—
"Naruto-kun?!" Hinata exclaimed as a yellow bolt slammed on the bear with the sound of thunder hitting the earth and made it crash back-first on an enormous tree. The bear roared in anger and, standing between her and the monster, Hinata saw him—Uzumaki Naruto, smiling as he stared down the beast.
Naruto was almost two years older than her—there were talks he flunked the Academy two times already. Hinata admired him, his drive, the fact he never took anything lying low and never shied down from a challenge. Before she had known, he had already a crush on him, and seeing how she was almost the only one he talked to on the Academy, it made that crush even stronger.
Attention is gold for these starved of it.
It didn't hurt that he was really good looking—taller than everyone and heavily muscled, the whiskers on his cheeks making him kind of ruggedly handsomely.
"Yo, Hinata-chan!" he said without looking at her, his red eyes—and how Hinata like these red eyes! Always glinting with some mischief and humor—were focused directly on the monster he was fighting.
Fighting for her, she suddenly thought. To protect her.
Hinata had no fear for herself, but she feared for Naruto's life.
With a growl, the two combatants met each other again and, to Hinata's surprise, Naruto pushed the bear back with sheer strength. One step, then two, then three, until he was dragging the bear in direction of the three he had slammed it on before.
Hinata had the Byakugan activated and she saw everything. Naruto picking impulse and simply twisting in the air, then falling on the back of the bear, his hands on each side of the enormous head of the beast. Naruto's muscles bulging, veins straining on his arms and neck.
Then a resounding crack and a shout of victory as the beast fell to the ground, dead with a broken neck.
She saw all of it, and even then, could barely believe in her eyes.
"Hinata-chan," Naruto appeared next to her, "are you alright?"
"You are asking me?!" Hinata asked, hysterically and with her eyes widened as she searched Naruto's body for any wound. Strange, she thought, shouldn't I be blushing and shy? "You fought a bear to the death just here, Naruto-kun, and you ask me if I am alright?! You are completely out of your mind?!"
Naruto scratched his neck. "That's nothing, really, I just saw you running and crying. You were acting kind of strange this week, so I came here to see if you were alright—you are, aren't you?"
Hinata looked at him, dumbfounded. He had fought a beast of that size to protect her and followed her here—all that just because he was concerned about her? She stared at him long and hard, trying to make sense of it, and almost jolted back as he touched her shoulder.
"Hinata-chan?"
She acted by instinct, throwing herself at him with a hug and letting her tears flow. "No, Naruto-kun, I am not alright. Not by a long way. I did a very, very bad thing."
Naruto felt uncomfortable—but he did the best he could. He caressed her hair and waited until she calmed herself. "You can talk to me, Hinata-chan. I am not going anywhere."
A single look at his smile was all she needed to make a decision.
Hinata told him about all of it—how her clan treated her, how she feared to be not good enough for being an heiress and how she felt alone. Then she began telling about what her father made her do, that man she killed in the prison.
Naruto just hugged her tighter—did Naruto always feel warm like that? she asked herself.
Hinata told him everything, poured all her dreams and fears and nightmares and he just sat there and heard it all, without saying anything or asking for her to stop.
When she ended the tale, it was night already and Naruto was sitting by her side, still in silence. Just that he wasn't the Naruto she knew.
His eyes were two red lights on the darkness of that forest, no pupils visible and shining brightly like twin spotlights and his canines looked sharper than she ever remembered. Naruto had his hands balled into fists and his jaw clenched so hard that Hinata feared his teeth would break here and then.
"Hinata," he said, slowly, like he was trying to control himself, "you did absolutely nothing wrong. That man was scum, simple as that, and you did the world a favor by killing him. I know it's hard and I know it just doesn't go away—but trust me, it will get better."
Naruto rubbed his hand over his face—that whiskered face she liked to look at when she thought nobody was watching. She never before had seen him with that intensity in his eyes.
"It will get better," he continued, "the woman I saw here, ready to fight that bear for her life, isn't the kind of woman who will get himself break with only that experience. You're better than that," Naruto put an arm around her shoulders. "I know you are better than that—and if you don't trust yourself, trust me here."
"How?" Hinata asked, almost in a whisper. "How would you know?"
"This, Hinata-chan, is a story for another time."
They felt in a comfortable silence, thinking about what just had happened. Deep inside the forest, with the dead body of a bear just cooling here and only the moon and stars shining over them.
Hyuuga Hinata still didn't know what to think.
"Hey," Naruto called and Hinata turned back to him, just to see him lying down in the ground and pointing to the night sky, "do you know the stars tell a story?"
Hinata looked up, she saw the inky blackness of the sky peppered with the light of a thousand stars. So many. So unreachable.
"I can't say I do, Naruto-kun."
Naruto smiled. "That's a story someone told me a long, very long time ago. The tale they tell, Hinata-chan, is the oldest story in the world."
"What story is that?"
"Light versus darkness."
Hinata looked back to the sky. "I don't know, Naruto-kun, it seems to me that the darkness has a lot more territory."
"It's because you are looking at it wrong," Naruto shook his head and pointed up again. "You see, Hinata-chan, once there was only darkness up here."
Naruto turned back to her with the smile still on his face.
"If you ask me, the light is winning."
Hinata blushed as he looked at her with such intensity.
"That's why I think you can do whatever you want. When I look to this village, to the darkness of the shinobi's work—I see you here, with your kind heart and wanting to make the world better for those around you. When I look to you, Hinata-chan, I see a little star just like these, fiercely shining among the darkness."
Naruto looked back to the sky. "I like it. I like how, even against the world, you still make me think we can win."
Hinata didn't answer, as she couldn't trust her voice. A stray tear trailed down her cheek and she stood here on the grass, just looking to the sky with him. It was strange—she felt like she had no more words inside her after everything.
Sometimes, just having someone to talk could be enough.
"Let's go back to the village," Naruto suddenly laid, looking like himself again as he got up to his feet and patted the dust out of his pants. "You have a dream to work for, after all. Never give up and never go back on your promises—you say you adopted that from me, didn't you?"
"Yes, Naruto-kun," she looked down. "I hope you aren't mad for that."
When he offered Hinata a hand to help her get up, she didn't hesitate.
She felt his calloused hand on her cheek and looked up to him. "Why would I?" Naruto asked, a smile on his face. "These are pretty good words to live your life by. Did you knew that my people on Uzushiogakure had them engraved on the gates of the village?"
"Uzushiogakure?" Hinata asked, tilting her head to the side.
Naruto didn't let her hand go through all the way back and guided her out of the forest, talking about the village his clan had and how he felt about them. Hinata let him do the talking and just looked at him, his head held right and his back squared—like he could take on anyone with the same smile he had while he fought the bear.
For the first time in weeks, Hinata dared to relax.
For the first time in years, Hinata dared to feel like she was safe.
She smiled as she looked at Naruto, who was babbling something about seals that Hinata couldn't make head or tails of and just nodded politely when he asked if she had understood.
Hyuuga Hinata still didn't know what to think anymore.
Good thing that no one needed to think all that much to fall in love.
If you like the story or want to comment anything, please review! Thank you, lads.
