"A…are you sure she'll be okay?"
Arms folded across his chest, Sasuke fires off an irritated glare at the fool that is not only questioning the one reassurance he'd given the populous, but the fool that is idiotic enough to question Naruto's methods.
They're in a small seaside town, one that doesn't exist in the time they came from. Oh, the buildings are falling apart and the whole place is dirt poor. But cultures have survived on that for donkeys. Nah, the reason Sasuke knows for sure that this town isn't around in a hundred or so years isn't because he has been to this particular spot before (he's not a seaside person; sand gets fucking everywhere and he hates it) but because of what's about to wash up on shore. Oh, a tsunami they might have been able to run from, might have been able to build after. But a Biju? Yeah, that's not happening.
Ignoring the quaking town leader (needs to grow a pair of balsa and his brat of a son needs to get his eyes off of Naruto's ass before he gets stabbed for it), Sasuke perches himself on the edge of a barrel, plucking a tomato from the recently abandoned food stall. Hell, when Naruto pulls this off, he doubts they' d try paying a ninja to bring him to justice for one stolen tomato. Not that any ninja alive other than Naruto herself could extract vengeance upon him, but that's neither here nor there.
The eyes still haven't left Naruto's ass.
Sasuke drops the fucker in a genjutsu. Serves him right; Naruto's worth so much more than to just be objectified by some small-town hick.
"Sasuke, you lazy bastard! Are you really just gonna sit this one out?!" Naruto's twisted around now, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. With her long blonde hair tied up in a single high ponytail, only her bangs frame her face. But what a face it is; tanned skin, whiskered cheeks, blue eyes that he could wake up to every morning and know then and there it was going to be a good day-
"Sasuke!"
"Tch, this is your area of expertise. I trust you." That's it. Naruto can handle the Biju like no other, Naruto can save the world. He's just here as her support, her shadow. She still looks at him as if he's hung the fucking moon.
Tucking the smile on his lips away, hiding his chin in the large collar of his shirt, Sasuke folds his arms and waits for the show to begin.
And begin it does. Naruto's opening act is all fireworks and sunshine, all bright sparks and 'look at me, I'm so good a ninja I don't have to hide, I can kick your ass out in the open'. The Biju chakra that is no longer the choking, burning energy he remembers from their fight during his defection (what an idiot he was; he'll never turn his back on Naruto like that again). Instead, it wraps around her in a billowing cloak. He's seen it already, has fought alongside it. But it's a damn sight different when you're just sitting back and watching. He doesn't have to worry about the incoming enemy, can just focus on Naruto. Can centre her as if she's his whole world (she is).
"Oi! Isobu! Yo! Stop your charge!"
Naruto's bellow doesn't change anything. There's still a fuck ton of Biju racing towards them. Sasuke spares a look for the few town's inhabitant that have already accepted their lot and not even tried to flee. Huh. He wonders what it's like to be that helpless. Even as a child, he'd have tried to fight. Even in the face of overwhelming odds.
He's like Naruto in that respect. Not just like her (no one is just like her), but it's a similar quality they share.
Sasuke's not particularly worried. Even if this is one of the rare 'lessons' that the universe has decided Naruto needs to learn, they'll survive. Sasuke's always been good at that and great things than the universe have tried to kill Naruto.
He doesn't think she'll ever die. Not until she's good and ready, anyway.
He hopes good and ready means after a long life with him by her side, a couple of kids, and a whole lot of grandkids.
Sasuke'll be able to relax on the porch and bask in his sure to still be exuberant wife's presence. With any luck, the Uzumaki personality will skip a generation and he'll get to raise some calm, chilled-out kids.
Sasuke's never been particularly lucky though, so resigns himself to two decades of raising brats.
He'll manage. It'll probably be his life's work, but he can't think of anything he'd rather be doing than that.
"Isobu!" Naruto screams again, that same one that leaves her voice raspy and raw. She charges. She glows. She gets bigger.
The entire town gawk as the Kyūbi appears in a flare of golden chakra.
And this? This is the part where they start building a reputation.
.
It takes about a minute for Naruto to calm the other Biju. It doesn't sound like a lot of time, but it's about a hundred and ten terrified heartbeats for the civilians. And they get thrown around. A lot. Sasuke's stuck both himself and his barrel to the ground via chakra, but the rest of the town's folk are rolling back and forth, tumbling all over. It's undignified.
He helps himself to another tomato when the stall gets blown to bits though, produce flying everywhere. Soon enough though, here they are. The Three Tails staring down at a no-longer glowing Naruto, a town still standing against all odds, and awestruck civilians. Sasuke hops off his barrel. With his chakra no longer running through it, it splits apart at the seams, sea-water pouring out and fish flopping breathlessly on the ground. Huh. Explains the smell.
"-can we meet up and I'll tell you all about it?" He gets close to Naruto as she finishes up her 'I'm a saviour of the world here to finish your father's work, butter won't melt and I hung the moon' spiral, slipping his arms around her waist and dropping his head on her shoulder. He has to hunch a bit for it, but that's no problem. It's not even a problem when Naruto knocks her head back, pressing her cheek against his for a moment. Then, she's right back into business mode. The soon they have a working village, the sooner they can both relax. He'll have to keep reminding his idiot savant that her clones can do the paperwork. No way is he losing her to the beast of bureaucracy.
Naruto's clearly waiting for the Biju to respond verbally. Instead it… it shrinks? No, it breaks apart into thousands of miniature versions of itself, every last one dropping back into the ocean barring a single one. The size of a cat, the Biju stands before Naruto and looks expectantly up at her and- and fuck, it even lifts two 'arms' in the universal 'pick me up'. Which Naruto does. Without hesitation.
And then, as if this is a completely normal day, she spins on her heels to fucking beam at him. Stupid sunshine smile; she should know he can't resist that. If she doesn't, he's not about to tell her. She'll abuse the power and it'll probably end bad for him.
… eh, she'll catch on eventually. Maybe.
"Right! I'm ready to head back home, Sasuke!" Right. Home.
He's already home. Home is with her. But he gets the idea.
Then, he gets an idea.
"What have you got."
Izuna tilts his head to a side at his brother's sharp snap of a demand, Fūinjutsu brush dangling between his forefinger and thumb. He's not a complete idiot though; he has dried it before settling down to eavesdrop on the current conversation. It's not like it's information he shouldn't know; he's part of the 'hunt down the bastard Uchiha' team. And holy fuck, he still wakes up in a cold sweat even now, a week after getting caught in the other's genjutsu. If he wanted to, that 'Sasuke' could have easily killed both of them. It's a chilling thought.
Two very dangerous people; a Uchiha strong enough to capture the 'strongest Uchihas' in his own genjutsu, a woman strong enough to overrun an entire Senju encampment.
And neither of them want anything to do with the Uchiha Clan! The only silver lining is that they clearly haven't entertained the idea of joining up with the Senju either.
Upon returning to camp after the genjutsu (they'd not even managed to break it; it'd worn off after an hour), Madara had shaken down every middle-aged man that could have possibly fathered the bastard Uchiha with a determined fury that Izuna's not seen since he was a kid training (back when he'd been meeting with.. the Senju). But no one had confessed to it, even when Father had held the emergency meeting.
Ever since, they'd been on high alert (and there's another kick in the teeth; they'd had to move because the woman knew their location and, unlike those Senju bastards, building homes takes time for them). Coupled with that, they'd formed the taskforce.
It's not the first time a Uchiha has gone off and tried to make it on their own. It is the first time that one has kicked ass so soundly that they've had to make a team to retrieve him, kicking and screaming if needs be.
Izuna hopes that the woman will come back with him too. What had Sasuke called her? Naru something?
"They were last seen in Namiai," one cousin reads from the report, voice balancing dangerously between bored and nervous, "where they-"
Izuna jolts at the sudden cut off, half expecting the man to have a kunai sticking out his jugular or something. But, nope. Instead, he's full out gawking at the report, one he should have read before coming in but clearly hasn't.
"Where they what," Madara snaps, not giving their poor cousin time to continue. He snatches the report from his hands with a growl, flicking the scroll open the rest of the way. Izuna's up on his feet a moment later, peeking over Madara's shoulder (not that such a thing is difficult; they're pretty much the same height and he's two years younger than Madara so that doesn't bode well for his brother, who only has a year or so of growing left to stretch up those extra few inches he needs to be physically imposing).
He scans the scroll. Stops. Scans again. Looks to Madara for a hint that it's a joke.
His brother's stony faced.
Not a joke then.
"So…" Izuna trails off, rubbing at the back of his head as he drops back onto his cushion, working the brush he's still holding onto back and forth between his hands. How does he put this? How can he verbalise it aloud? Oh, it's one thing to say they're going to catch the bastard Uchiha by overwhelming his with numbers (preferably when the multiplying girl isn't next to him but they can get her with a Sharingan genjutsu if needed). It's another thing altogether to get the bastard Uchiha that's in cahoots with the girl who tames Bijus. Well, not technically tames. But, stopping a Biju in its tracks from attacking a town and then getting it to disperse into miniatures of itself, taking one away from the ocean with her? Yeah, that's as close to taming Biju as Izuna could ever imagine.
Given that yesterday he wouldn't have dreamed such a thing possible, then this is- yeah. This is.
Fuck.
"What else happened?" Izuna asks. He'd not dared to read beyond the second paragraph, too busy trying to compartmentalise exactly what had been in that first section of text.
Stopping Bijus. Taming Bijus. A chakra form that looked suspiciously alike a Biju.
Shit. The Bijus can't become human, can they? He hadn't found himself interested in the Kyūbi in human form, had he?
"The Bastard-" When Madara says the personal nickname he has for Sasuke, it's always said with venom and a capital letter. "-went on a rant about the village for peace their building."
Well fuck. It's one thing for the two of them to say their building a village where there'll be no war. It's another thing entirely to say they're doing it after stopping a Biju in its tracks.
Holy shit. They might actually get their idea off the ground. That's… that's ridiculous. It won't work, can't work, can it?
Izuna looks to Madara for any hint of what he should be thinking about all this, but his big brother is already storming out of the room.