A/N: I have no clue what this is, either. But here it is.
When Naruto turns a corner, he generally expects thing. Like getting hit in the face. By Sakura, mostly. Or see someone do something stupid because they recognize him. Sometimes it's also Kakashi reading in that stupid book. And then there are the times Jiraiya waits for him but got distracted by beautiful women. This time, however, in a village far north of Konoha, neither of these things could happen. So there was a second set of tings that he came to expect.
Bandits that just so happened to do something bandit-ish just as he showed up.
Things that were generally connected to Orochimaru.
A woman falling into his arms. (They just tended to do that, Naruto would very much like to know why.)
This time, it was the latter. And a bit of the former. Or, actually, all three of them, no?
He had been in a hurry, of course, so Naruto hadn't really watched where he was going and - in his defence - she was a lot smaller than him. What he meant to say is, he was bound to run into her. The girl, however, was obviously in a hurry, too. She grabbed his open vest and pulled him into the next storefront before he could apologize.
"Quiet," she whispered up at him, glaring out onto the street.
"Uh, okay?" He, too, peeked over his shoulder. Was she running from someone? If so, Naruto Uzumaki could surely beat the crap out of them! But she held him there with surprising strength.
"Stay for just a second, will ya?" She glared up at him for a moment before staring back out onto the street again.
Suddenly a good fifty chunin - Konoha chunin - sprinted down the street. Naruto's eyebrows rose. Did she not see his headband- Oh right, he forgot. He wasn't wearing that on his off day.
One of the passing chunin peeked into the store. Naruto had been moments shy of greeting him - Ren, was it? - when the girl pulled him towards a shelve and kissed him.
Naruto's mind stilled.
That hadn't happened before.
She tasted of cinnamon for some reason or another and smelled pleasantly of the forest. And before he knew it, the kiss was over. Naruto blinked down owlishly at her.
The girl smirked up at him - so much pride, it reminded him of Sasuke. "Thanks, blondie." And then she was gone, red hair trailing after her.
"Somethings off today."
Naruto elbowed Kakashi's hand off his head. "Well, I got kissed today."
Sakura, who had just sat down on the bench next to Sasuke, fell right over and into the shrubbery behind it. "You-! What?!" she exclaimed, fighting her way out of it. "Who!?"
Naruto shrugged. "No clue."
"Why would anyone want to kiss you?" Sasuke wondered scathingly, glaring at the cloudy sky.
"Dunno," Naruto answered with a shrug. "She did, though."
Sasuke turned to look at him. "You were serious."
"Well, duh!"
"How touching," Kakashi said, mockingly holding a tissue to his eye. "My student, experiencing love!"
"Love?" Naruto repeated incredulously. "It was just a random girl! And she only did it to hide from the-!" He stopped himself. "Well, she just did it for no reason."
Sakura walked around the bench and put a hand on his shoulder, nodding sagely. "I understand," she said. He didn't. "Love's ways are mysterious."
"They really aren't."
She shook her head, no less sagely. This was irking him something fierce.
"Could you stop that?" he whined. "It's stupid."
"Love isn't stupid," she said.
"I agree with that," Kakashi threw in, pulling his book from his vest. "Don't you, Sasuke?"
"Hn."
Typical.
"Look," Naruto sighed, shrugging Sakura's hand off. "It was totally random and won't ever happen again."
"It happened again."
He splashed water from his bottle at Sakura before she could do the sagely head nodding again.
"Alright," Kakashi sighed, putting his book away. "How come? You said it was random."
"It was this time, too!" Naruto argued. "I just... turned the wrong corner!"
Sasuke scoffed. "That sounds more like it."
"Shut up!"
"Go on," Sakura prodded, wiping the water off her cheek. "Tell me more."
"Us," Kakashi corrected.
"Whatever," Sakura dismissed.
Naruto sighed. "I mean, it was just like yesterday. I ran into her as she was... in a hurry. She pulled me to the side, and before I realized what was happening, she kissed me again."
That wasn't entirely true. She had obviously been running from a bunch of chunin again. This time, however, the kiss had been a lot longer and ended with a "Fancy meeting you here, loverboy." That had left a weird kind of impression. A good weird.
"Did you get her name, at least?" Kakashi asked.
He shook his head. "Nah, she vanished before I could... well, I never got her name."
"Tayuya."
He blinked down at her. "W-What?"
She grinned. "My name, you dipshit. You better remember it, you turned out to be useful."
She slipped out from between him and the alleyway's wall and vanished in the crowd before he could blink twice. This time, however, times time, Naruto decided to follow her. He vanished from the alleyway with a loud crack. Naruto was upon the roof of a water tower two streets down before she got too far away. Her red hair was easy to spot in the crowd.
And yet, the chunin never caught up to her. There were even some Hyuuga among them. Hinata, too. Poor girl.
"Tayuya," he repeated to himself. A curious name for a curious girl.
Naruto created a shadow clone. It followed after her and soon vanished beyond the village walls.
"Never heard of her before," Sasuke mused.
"Since when do you care?" Naruto huffed scathingly.
"Since she keeps you occupied, idiot."
"Now, now," Kakashi said, intervening. "No fighting, my adorable little genin."
"We haven't been genin for a decade," Naruto grumbled under his breath.
"Never mind that!" Sakura gushed, eyes all sparkly. It made Naruto uncomfortable. "When will you meet her again?"
"Hell if I know," Naruto muttered. He really didn't know if he should meet her again at all. Considering that she was a thief. A fugitive. And some other unpleasant stuff. But his clone had watched her take care of some kids. Outcasts that had once been Orochimaru's experiments. He had also observed that Anko was well aware of where Tayuya was but never said a thing. So Naruto decided to do the same for the time being.
"You have to!" Sakura urged. "It sounds like she at least likes you!"
"Which can't be said for a lot of other people," Sasuke added.
"You little-!"
Their roles were reversed, this time. He was just about to leave Ichiraku's Ramen bar when he caught her zooming down the streets out from the corner of his eye. Before he got the chance to really think about it, he had already reached out and pulled her inside. Spinning them in one smooth motion, he deposited her in the chair he had seconds ago vacated and kissed her before she could protest.
It would be lying to say he didn't enjoy those seconds, skin against skin, her breath hot against his face.
Naruto pulled back the moment all of her chasers had passed.
Tayuya looked up at him, smirking. "Why thank you, loverboy. That wasn't too bad."
He swallowed the bundle of nerves in his throat. "Always happy to help out."
"Right," she nodded, her grin growing more mischievous. "That, too."
And then... she stayed. Blinking he realized that he had her trapped against the counter, hands on either side of her. But even after he took a step back, Tayuya remained on the stool, lazing against the counter.
"So," she began, smiling a smile that made his heart twist. "Did you just drag me in her to make out or do I get some food, too?"
"That's great!" Sakura cheered, "And that totally counts as a date!"
"Whatever," Sasuke grumbled, obviously done with the conversation.
Kakashi tapped the Uchiha's head with his book. "She's right, you know?" he advised. "Now, the next step is seducing-"
Sakura slapped their team leader hard across the face, but aside from an odd head bob, nothing much happened. Kakashi just continued talking as if he hadn't noticed the aggression.
"- her. She's obviously willing."
"Seduce?" Naruto echoed, the word odd on his tongue. "I... no?"
"By no means are you supposed to force yourself, much less her, but you are obviously attracted to one another."
"Since when do you give out relationship advice?" Sasuke asked haughtily.
"Since one of my cute little genin actually has one."
Ouch. Naruto almost laughed.
"Fancy meeting you here."
That was about as lame as could be.
Obviously, Tayuya thought so as well. "Really? That's what you decided to do instead of straight out kissing me?"
"I- I mean-"
"It's fine." She waved him off, an amused smile on her lips. "So, now that I have to hide here for a few minutes, whatever will I do with you?"
Oh. Oho. Did it just get really warm in here?
"That counts as seduction," Kakashi observed.
"The hell it does," Sasuke objected, glaring at both of them.
Sakura somehow took Sasuke's side for the first time in this entire thing. "I agree," she said, doing that stupid nod thing again, "You obviously had no clue what you were doing."
"Well excuse me!" Naruto exclaimed, affronted. "What was I supposed to do!?"
Kakashi opened his book and cleared his throat. "Ehem! You could have slid your fingers down into-"
Sakura slapped him over the head so hard, Kakashi's face hit his book.
"Alright, now this can't be random anymore," Tayuya observed. "I wasn't even running from anyone."
Alright, she got him there. "I guess," he allowed.
She smirked, and his heart fell into some new space below his stomach. "Not that I object much. You're fun, loverboy."
"Naruto," he said, "My name is Naruto."
"Hm? That so?" She chuckled lowly. "Well, if you can make me scream it, I might just use it."
"- so she calls me Naruto now," he said proudly.
"I call bullshit," Sasuke said, frowning. "You don't know shit to make anyone scream. Torture doesn't count."
"He obviously wasn't talking about torture," Sakura said, a little pink around the ears. "And the details were... unnecessary."
"I found it quite inspiring," Kakashi said proudly. "You did well, Naruto."
"So?" Sakura pressed. "Are you, like, dating now?"
"Uh." He had honestly no clue. "Well, I mean, I could ask her?"
"What?"
He had somewhat expected that. "I mean, because we, uh, do all this stuff and, you know, I thought we could-"
Tayuya held up a hand. "I get that and all but why the fuck would you want to date me?"
He blinked at her. "Because I like you?"
That must have done something right because her skin abruptly assumed the same shade of red as her hair. "W-What? The fuck are you talking about!?"
"I like you," he said, observing the way her eyes widened. That was kinda funny.
"But I'm a-!" She scowled. "You don't even know me!"
He shrugged. "Well, I know enough to know that I like you."
Somehow her face grew even redder. "Stop saying that shit."
"But I like you."
"So she slapped me."
"We can see that," Sasuke said, still chortling.
Kakashi whistled appreciatively and prodded his stinging cheek. "Damn, she hit you harder than Sakura. Must've mighty embarrassed her."
"But we had sex!" Naruto objected. He saw Sasuke make a face out from the corner of his eye. "How could that have embarrassed her! I saw her naked!"
"That's totally different," Sakura sighed, doing that stupid headshake again.
"How?!" Naruto whined.
"Well," Kakashi advised, "You'll just have to be a bit persistent, then."
"You're following me."
Well, at least she noticed before they had reached her home. "I guess I am," he admitted, "but to be fair, you've been avoiding me."
"And you decided to stalk me? To pull me off the street and have your wicked way with me?"
"Uh, pretty much."
That seemed to give her a pause. Then some smirked. "Hmmm, well, in that case, you are pretty overdressed."
"As are you, but I kinda wanted to talk to you first."
"Then talk fast," she said, unwrapping her sash, "because the moment my pants hit the floor the time for talk is over."
"Oh, uh." Naruto's mind scrambled. "So, I kinda said that before but I know you enough to know that I know that I like you, so I also know that you take care of the kids that the stupid snake messed with so I got the Hyuuga to not chase you anymore because I know you've been flinching food for them since no one wants to sell them anything but don't worry I didn't tell them where you were so-"
Tayuya's pants hit the floor, and Naruto's mouth lacked shut loudly.
"You," she growled. "Do you even know how horny all that stuff you just said made me?"
Naruto swallowed. "I'm about to find out?"
She smirked. "Hell yeah."
"So I have a girlfriend now."
"Congrats," Sasuke drawled sarcastically. "Can we go back to training now?"
"No!" Sakura threw in, shoving Sasuke out of his spot in the bank to get in Naruto's face. "Now we gotta meet her!"
"I agree," Kakashi... well, agreed. "I find myself very curious as to who would finally catch your attention. Enough have tried, after all."
Naruto blinked at him. "Hah? Who?"
"Ugh," Sakura's eye roll was painfully audible.
"You wanna meet the kids?"
Naruto looked down in his lap where Tayyau's head rested.
"You have kids?" He smirked and got slapped in the chest for it.
"You know what I mean. I'm sure they'd like you well enough." She raised a warning finger in his face. "But tell on them, and I'll kill you."
He shrugged, licking her finger instead of answering. She made a noise, pulled away and flicked his forehead. "I haven't told anyone," he said, smiling down at her, "and I hadn't planned on doing so."
Tayuya huffed rolling to the side, so she faced his stomach. "So you could keep fucking me, aye?"
"So I could get to know you better."
Her head turned a little and she raised an eyebrow at him.
"And... fuck you, yes," he admitted with a sheepish grin.
She smiled back. "At least you're honest about it, loverboy."
Naruto reached out and ran a hand through her hair. It was surprisingly soft to touch even though it looked like Sakura might call it "heavily damaged". He'd seen her shower before - mostly because he'd been right in there with her - but he hadn't figured out how she got her hair to be that soft with nothing but simple soap and hot water. He lifted a long strand, watched it glint in the sunlight.
"You're not suddenly going to pull, are you?" she asked, watching from out from the corner of her eye.
He smirked down at her. "Only if you want me to."
She scoffed. "Only while we're fucking."
"So I won't pull it now."
"Good."
They lapsed into silence again, and Naruto let his hand wander up to her scalp, massaging it softly. Tayuya made a content noise, so he kept going. Eventually, his hand wandered down to her cheek, his thumb tracing her ear, and he turned her head so he could see her face.
Tayuya's gaze was intensely warm, yet still guarded, as if she could drop everything at a moments notice and kill him In cold blood if she needed to. He wondered what must've happened to make her more distrustful than he had been in his younger years. It was probably to blame on Orochimaru.
"Hey," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
"Hm?" Naruto let his finger caress her cheek, then over her lips. They were almost hot to touch.
"You're a shinobi," she observed.
So she did know. And hadn't bailed yet. "Yeah."
"A Chunin."
"Jonin," he corrected with a proud smile.
"And you didn't hand my ass over to the Hokage?"
He huffed with mock hurt. "I'll have you know; I like your ass where it is." His other hand have it a squeeze for emphasis.
She swatted at it but kept him there with her own. "You're a perv. And probably in for treason or something."
"Nah," he dismissed. "You've yet to do something that really hurt anyone. If nothing else, you give the Chunin some kick-ass exercises."
She laughed, and Naruto was glad to see the relief in her eyes. "Glad I could be of service, loverboy."
"So." He leaned down and noisily kissed her temple. She squirmed and elbowed him. "Meeting the kids?"
"Momma! Who's the tall dude!"
The entirety of the house had come out to greet them. The clone from before head not seen the entirety of the twenty-seven orphans that lived out here, the oldest of them maybe fourteen while the youngest was perhaps two or three years old. And the lot of them all stormed out of the house to greet their "Momma".
Naruto managed not to snigger.
"Momma!" A small girl of maybe five broke free from being the older kids' legs and ran straight at him. Once she arrived, she raised a finger at him. "Is that daddy?"
"Ah." Alright, this girl was working fast.
"Yup," Tayuya said nonchalantly. "That's your new daddy. Go play with him."
Twenty-seven pair of eyes all locked on him. Naruto swallowed nervously. Alright, he could do this. He could totally-
"I think I'm going to be a dad soon."
Sasuke - the Sasuke Uchiha - tripped over a random bit of nothing on their way to the training ground and almost ate dirt.
Naruto raised an eyebrow at him. Sasuke stared back at him. "You what?" he asked, disbelieve colouring his voice. "Are you stupid? She's been your girlfriend for, what? A week? And you already got her pregnant?"
"I was talking about adopting." Naruto grinned at his friend.
"Who on the world would you have to adopt?"
They turned a corner. None of the usually expected happened. So Naruto ran straight into Tayuya and had reached for the three-year-old girl she was carrying before he fully realised into whom he had just stumbled.
"Oh," he made, holding both Tayuya and the tiny blonde child close. He indicated the kid once Tayuya had regained her balance. "This one. Sasuke, meet Rei."
"Naruru~!" the girl chirped, noisily nuzzling his chest. "Hullo!"
Both Sasuke and Tayuya stared at him, but Sasuke actually looked like he had short-circuited. Tayuya, on the other hand, looked pleasantly surprised. She let little Rei - the youngest rescue from one of Orochimaru's labs - rest in the crook of his arm and got on her tippy toes to kiss him. Naruto found it adorable when she did that.
"Heya," she greeted with a smirk. "Fancy meeting you here." Then she looked at the befuddled Sasuke. "My gods," she said sarcastically," it's an Uchiha. Someone save me."
Rei giggled in his arms. "Mommy's bein' fun."
Naruto laughed, rubbing Rei's short blonde hair. "Yeah, she is."
"I think," Sasuke said slowly, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm taking the day off. Let Kakashi deal with your bullshit."
"Bullshi?" Rei repeated innocently.
Tayuya raised a brow at Sasuke. "Man, you be glad I don't give a fuck about her vocabulary, else I would have strung you up over the next snake pit."
"Fuck!" Rei agreed happily.
"What's with him?" Sakura asked, nodding at Sasuke, who was slumping against the bench, listlessly glaring at the sky.
"He met my future daughter, and he can't wrap his head around it," Naruto answered nonchalantly, flipping through a book of laws in Konoha. Apparently, he was perfectly eligible to adopt an orphaned child. How neat. Being a high ranked Jonin had so many benefits in the face of the law, it was kind of ridiculous.
"Your-?" Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. "Your what?"
"His daughter," Kakashi said as he made his way over to them, nose in a book. But not the usual orange book. The same book Naruto was reading. "And I see you won't have any trouble with it. The girl might be a bit of a problem, though."
Naruto shrugged, snapping the books closed. "Meh, I'll wing it. Granny will let me."
"I can believe that. She's an adorable kid, by the way."
"Thanks!" Naruto grinned back at him.
"Now hold up!" Sakura exclaimed. "How did we go from "She's your girlfriend now" to "Adopting a kid with her" in a matter of days!?"
Naruto shook his head. "Rei's basically hers anyway," he dismissed. "And soon, she'll be mine, too!"
"Aha," Sakura made, slumping on the bench next to Sasuke. "I think I'm getting too old for your shit, Naruto."
"You're not even thirty yet," Kakashi threw in.
"And I'll have wrinkles long before because of him!" she whined.
"And so you decided to just come here and wing it?" Tsunade raised a suspiciously thick scroll at him, stabbing his chest with it. "This is the list of offences your girl has committed! I can't just overlook it all!"
Naruto batted the scroll to the side. "Hey now! It's not like she killed anybody!"
"She's formerly one of Orochimaru's personal guards!," Tsunade argued. "She's bound to have killed dozens!"
Like that was a good reason not to grant her citizenship. Naruto rolled his eyes. "So what? That's all Line of Duty stuff! I've killed a lot more than a few dozen."
Tsunade sighed. "Look, Naruto. It's not that easy. She's not military anymore. That's outside of the Hokage's jurisdiction. And it's not wartime either. I can't just pardon her for being Orochimaru's right hand."
"Kabuto's Orochimaru's right hand," Naruto argued. "And we know from Anko that she's not been there for the fun of it!"
"Alright," Tsunade began, taking a seat. "Let's just say we can drop all the Orochimaru stuff, okay? She's still stolen goods worth several thousand-"
"I'll recompense," Naruto stated, cutting her off. "I know what she's stolen, why she's stolen. And if they won't accept my money, I will shove it down their throat!"
His vehemence obviously took her aback. Tsunade stared at him pensively for a moment. She sighed. "I... can probably arrange something."
"I need you to punch me."
Tayuya looked up from the stove and raised an eyebrow at him. "Didn't know you were into that shit. But I guess I can, if you want."
Naruto shook his head. "Not like that! I need you to punch me so you can go to prison!"
She stared at him, blinking slowly. "What the fuck are you on about?"
Alright, so maybe he should be explaining these things a bit more. "Granny can't just drop all these charges that people could raise against you because you're a civilian n' stuff."
Tayuya nodded. "Well, yeah," she said. "Obviously. I've been hiding for a reason, you know?"
"I know!" Naruto smiled. "But if you weren't a civilian, Granny would have to deal with it!"
"Who the heck is your Granny?"
"The Hokage!"
Tayuya rubbed at her eyes. "Oh my gods, what the fuck... Alright." She leaned against the counter to give him a seriously doubtful stare. "Now, ignoring that your Granny is the fucking Hokage, what would that change? If I kick your ass, civilian or not, I'll get incarcerated anyways." She wagged her saddle at him "Not even to fulfil some sick fetish of yours."
"It's not like that!" he argued, stepping closer to her. "If I'm attacked by you - one of Orochimaru's, in this case, with the mark to prove it - it'll basically fall into a wartime act since we've never really ended the one that's technically going on with him."
She leaned forward, hands against his chest. He could see the mark on her neck clearly now. And all that scarred skin surrounding it. "So?" she whispered, breath warm against his chin.
Naruto licked his lips. This was.. hella distracting. "Uh, well, we'd capture you and pardon you. Easy."
"Bullshit," she said, smiling softly. "It's not that easy. The daimyo doesn't like people playing favourites."
"We won't be," he said, reaching up to take her free hand. "I mean, technically we will, but he won't ever know."
"Oh, yea?" She squeezed his hand. "And how'd you do that?"
"Easy." He grinned down at her. "We'll present him Orochimaru's head. And you'll just have to hold out in prison until we do."
"I'm going to punch you."
Naruto took a wick step to the side, putting at least an arm's length between him and Sakura. "Hey! You were all for it before!"
"For you to be happy with her!" Sakura hissed. "Not for you to hunt Orochimaru over her!"
Naruto shrugged. "Sahem thing. So," he addressed Kakashi, "any movement."
"None whatsoever," he replied, flipping through yet another book that was decidedly not the usual orange one. "But at least we know he's here."
Naruto nodded to himself. "Yeah, well. I told you, all it needed was Sasuke showing some leg. Or Sharingan. That's really the same to that sick fuck."
He narrowly dodged the kunai Sasuke threw at him from the stool by the door. "I hate you," the Uchiha growled at him.
"Quit your winning," Naruto huffed. "It worked! Easy!"
Sasuke scoffed. "Shut up. As if it will be easy. Killing Orochimaru. For fuck's sake. I almost prostituted myself! Couldn't you have been happy with just fucking her?"
"Obviously not!" Sakura threw in, glaring at their teammate. "He's so in love! Of course, we're doing it!"
Scowling, Sasuke crossed his arms. "Weren't you complaining just as hard before?"
"Now now," Kakashi cut in, slamming his book shut loudly. "Keep it down. We have movement."
Naruto cracked his neck and rose from the bed. "Alright, time to hunt some snakes."
"Wouldn't want to keep your lady waiting, huh?" Kakashi remarked, pulling his headband up. "Let's go, Team."
Tayuya had expected prison to be a lot dirtier. Like, at least with grey walls and a rusty key to a groaning door. Her cell wasn't. The walls were painted, the floor was a plain grey carpet - actual fucking carpet - and she even had a small separate space of the toilet and sink. Showers were a communal thing, though. The only real problem Tayuya had with this whole thing was that she didn't get to see her kids.
Sure, a good dozen of ANBU were supposedly looking out for them, but Tayuya didn't trust them to care for all of them properly. Fact was, she fucking missed them. And it was only the second day.
Shit.
Was this really worth being free again? Well, it had the added benefit of a roof over her head and three reasonably warm meals a day. And of course a dead fucking snake. Yeah. That didn't sound too bad a trade for some prison time. Ah, yes, and loverboy too.
...
She tried not to think about him. Made her miss him. She hated missing people.
Aaaand not she missed him. Great. Fuck.
A knock on the door disturbed her musing.
"Yeah?"
The door opened, without creaking, and-
"Momma!"
- little Rei waltzed right in, closely followed by one of the ANBU that were supposed to be guarding her.
"Rei!" she exclaimed, scooping the little girl up. "The heck are you doing here?"
She giggled, hugging her as tight as she could. "The nice purple lady brought me here!"
Nice purple lady was obviously that ANBU at the door, who simply nodded when Tayuya looked at her. "And the other kids?"
"I could hardly have smuggled all of them in here," the ANBU responded. "But I will endeavour to try." Was that sarcasm? Fine, whatever.
Tayuya smiled and allowed herself to breath a sigh of relief. Maybe her time in here wouldn't be so horrible after all. Now, loverboy better hurry the fuck up!
"For the gods' sake, Naruto!" Sakura whined, "They weren't serious when they said they wanted Orochimaru's head!"
Naruto made a rude gesture in her direction, undisturbed in his preparation of a small fire pit. "This way, the daimyo can't back out."
"The daimyo doesn't even know about this yet!" she hissed back, slapping the tree next to her so hard it uprooted and careened into the river they were making camp at.
"Cool it, Sakura," Sasuke hissed from where he was putting up their tent.
"You're just salty Naruto got the finishing blow," Kakashi commented jovially, reading in his usual book.
"Am not!" Sasuke ground out, stabbing one of the holdings harshly into the ground.
"I doubt the Daimyo will care much," Kakashi went on. "Tsunade will write to him, tell him you got attacked by one of Orochimaru's goons, captured her and then she willingly gave us information. Then the next letter is a report on the death of Orochimaru, and Tayuya can go free as a reward."
Naruto huffed as he struck the wood with a bit of fire. "I swear, that's all just chicanery! Granny acts as if the daimyo would have found out if she just slipped her citizenship!"
"Well, "Sakura shrugged, dragging her felled tree over so that they may sit on it, "people know she's been with Orochimaru."
"How, though?" Naruto whined, kicking a pebble across half the country in frustration.
Kakashi whistled lowly as he watched it sail toward the horizon. "Same as with Anko. Word gets around. Especially among civilians."
"Screw them", Naruto spat. "I swear! As if they hadn't learned anything at all with the whole fox thing."
"Well, they didn't," Sasuke deadpanned. "As if they'd ever get it."
"Aye to that," Kakashi chuckled.
Their teacher walked over to a tree stump at the edge of the campsite. On it, wrapped in a bunch of dirty cloth, was Orochimaru's severed head.
Sakura made as face as he looked over the blackened blood soaking the cloth. "Can't you just seal that?" she asked irritably.
"We don't know what he did to himself," Kakashi said, shaking his head. "Who knows? It might just blow up."
"All the better," Sasuke muttered under his breath.
Sakura would complain about the smell on her uniform for weeks to come.
Once Sakura's uniform smelled adequately again, Tayuya had been free and an official citizen of Konoha for two weeks. People talked a lot, as they always did. Still, the appearance of the Daimyo himself, who thanked Tayuya personally for her help in taking down Orochimaru, did a lot to silence the doubting whispers.
Tayuya officially took ownership of the house in the outskirts of Konoha, was legally enabled to take care of the children living there and officially adopted the youngest of the children.
Naruto got into a lot of trouble for eradicating a few mountains - former landmarks of the northern Land of Fire - and for throwing Orochimaru's severed head at the Daimyo. Aside from that, he was seen most often around the children in the orphanage. And Tayuya, of course.
"I'm gonna miss running from the chunin," she told him, watching from the roof terrace of the orphanage as the kids played some ball game.
"Yeah?" Naruto asked, sending her a sideways glance. "Was good sports, I suppose."
Tayuya chuckled. "What? Nah, I miss using you as cover."
Naruto raised an eyebrow at her. "Wha? How could you miss that! I literally ate you out not five minutes ago."
"Mm," she hummed, "I guess that was pretty hot."
"You were so loud the kids got concerned," Naruto grumbled.
"Fuck you," she growled playfully. "I told you to stop."
"You pulled on my hair. And definitely didn't want me to stop!"
Tayuya shrugged. "Never said I did, but I remember telling you to stop, is all." She smirked. "Glad you didn't, tho."
Naruto puffed his chest out. "I don't ever stop!"
She laughed. It made his stupid smile widen even further. "Oh, you better fucking don't! I've still got use for you, after all!"
"Knew it," he lamented mockingly, "You only love me for my body!"
"Oh?" she smirked at him. "What of it?"
He stared at her. "Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Do you love me as much as I love you?"
Tayuya tilted her head, studying him. He swallowed nervously. "Well," she began slowly, "to say that, I'd need to know how much you love me exactly, no? So I can compare my love to yours, loverboy."
Ah, she was blushing. Gods. A weaponized blush. Muste be. It struck his heart like a million kunai. Made of love. And shit.
"You should do that more often," he said, reaching out to caress her cheek.
She leaned into his touch, her skin warm under his fingers. "What?"
"Blush."
"Blush?" she asked with an incredulous laugh. "Really? You can get my fucking face to flush by a lot of other means, you know?"
Naruto shook his head. "It's just not the same as when I tell you how much I love you."
Her face indeed warmed some more, but she smiled through it. "Shit. And how much is that?"
Naruto got in close, leaned his forehead to hers. "I actually have no clue. A lot? It's not like there's a measurement for that."
"True, that," Tayuya breathed, eyes sparkling. "Try anyway. I'll do the same."
And before he could lovingly kiss her, the door to the roof opened rather abruptly. A good dozen of the kids fell onto the terrace, eyes wide and obviously not pleased at being found. Behind all of them, Kakashi and his trusty book.
"Oh," his teacher said, lone eye meeting his annoyed stare, "Did we interrupt something?"
Naruto was about to respond by throwing his shoe at him, but Tayuya turned his head back to her.
"Nah," she said, "Nothin' at all."
She kissed him in front of all of them, and Naruto would spend hours explaining to Sakura why the older kids all made kissy faces at each other when she came by. And other inappropriate gestures.
Sasuke's response to all of this - ever since Naruto had met Tayuya - was a resounding "Hn."
A/N: So? Yay or Nay, people?
:3