Chapter 4

In his defense, Naruto never thought it would escalate the way it did. He just really wanted to win is all. Perhaps it was because he'd been under a little too much stress as of late, or that there wouldn't ever be a future with him and Sakura, or the simple fact that he was still feeling the lingering grogginess and associated grumpiness that came with very little sleep, or even-

Wait, no. Naruto knew exactly why it escalated the way it did. It was because he wanted to wipe that smirk off her face. So haughty and smug. It didn't matter that Yugito didn't look a thing like Sasuke, because whenever he saw that look, that look brimming with a superiority that didn't have to be stated outright because it was just known by everyone, he was a kid again in the academy trying his best to stand up against the Uchiha's overwhelming power that seemed to come out of nowhere. He hated that smirk more than anything in his life. It reminded him of everything he used to be that he wanted to leave behind.

As soon as the leaf touched the ground between then, Naruto rushed forward and tried to punch her in the face, such was his consternation. She parried the blow away, stepped forward, and planted a knee into his stomach, launching him backwards a few feet.

Naruto coughed up some spit, got his balance back and let his nose curl into a semi-snarl. "You call that an attack?" he asked.

Her smirk only grew in scope and scale. "No, I don't."

Naruto breathed out slowly and rushed right back at her again. He found that she was right to be confident in her strength at least, but not enough that he would concede defeat so easily. Whether it was because of her being a Jinchuuriki to a cat beast or not, her flexibility was far and away echelons above anything or anyone he had fought before. She contorted her limbs around in ways that would break or pop out of socket to any normal person. This meant that not only did he barely touch her throughout their spar, it meant that he couldn't predict the way she moved with any regularity and also meant that he got more strikes underneath the neck than he had been preparing for. She wasn't lying about that previous jab either. She hit hard and she hit mean.

Any normal man would have seen his obvious disadvantage and conceded defeat then and there, lest they become any more bruised and battered than they already were, except Naruto knew about his strengths and weaknesses. He might get batted around like a yarn ball in any straight taijutsu fight, but he could continue to get batted around ad infinitum. He had endurance and he had the will to never give up, even for things one might consider to be petty. Most importantly, however, he wasn't against tricking his opponents.

WHA-PAHM.

Over the course of thirty seconds, Naruto had made it appear that his arms were becoming heavier and heavier, until they reached below his face, creating a faux opening that Yugito took full advantage of. Already, he was getting a feel for her fighting style. She struck at what was most painful or what was most debilitating. An open face was like catnip to her. She couldn't resist it.

Naruto crumpled and got to one knee, his smirk hidden by his downturned head and sweat-logged hair.

Yugito was breathing hard as she stopped before him, one neuron blast away from sending a leg crashing down on his exposed neck. She had to remind herself that it was just a spar. He looked to be down for the count. That might teach him to be too arrogant around her. Still though, he could take a punch. If he got any better, he'd be a good workout. Better than any wooden dummy, that was for sure.

"Are you o-"

CRACK.

Her world suddenly turned sideways and upside-down. Her cheek was smarting with pain and there was blood on her tongue. Another punch rocked her world, this time to the other side, before she planted both feet on the ground and pounced away from him.

They stood up, several meters apart, both worn by the battle, but only one tired from it. Yugito wiped the blood/drool that was flowing out of her lips and straightened out her back, trying her best to get oxygen back into her body. He was standing as tall and confident as ever, not perturbed by the least from the plethora of bruises forming all over his body or the intense fight they just had.

"That was dirty," she said, a full-on snarl marring her face.

Naruto shrugged with a half-cocked smile. "We all have to play to our strengths."

Yugito's snarl quickly turned to a smile that knew more than he did. "You've got that right," she muttered, only barely audibly, before her finger and toenails grew in size until they were all the length of kitchen knives and, from the way her toenails sunk into the ground whenever they touched it, appeared to be just as sharp.

Naruto saw this and took half a step back. "No ninjutsu," he said seriously.

"No ninjutsu," Yugito parroted back at him. And it wasn't, not technically at least. It used chakra, but she never had to do signs for it. It was just something that she could do.

The boy's face took on a tinge of fear, only making the smile on Yugito's face race upwards more. She wasn't going to cut him up too bad. Not enough to leave permanent damage anyways. Just enough to get him to surrender.

Maybe a little more for those cheap shots.

Yugito's claws dug into the ground as she got on all fours. The grass between him and her flung away as she raced towards him with all the ferocity and lethality of a big cat. Naruto ducked under the first slash, blocked the second slash with his forearm, and caught the third between his torso and his other arm, making him wide open for the fourth slash to swing upwards and rake across his chest.

"Fuck!" Naruto spat out as he gripped her arm and flung her away like an oddly shaped kettle bell.

She hit the ground crouched on all fours with a wide smile on her face. "Give up," she said.

Naruto shook his head. "I never give up."

Yugito sunk her nails back into the ground. "Then prepare to be cut up."

This loop happened a few more times. Yugito would pounce forward, wound him, then jump back and reevaluate him. Her fighting style had changed to less of that of a cat's, and more like a shark's. She wasn't hurting him with anything more than seriously painful cuts and barbs, then circled around him like a shark waiting for its meal to die.

Almost every inch of his body had long cuts or small holes leaking blood. Everything from the neck down was a reddened mess of angry skin drenched in sweaty blood. He was being thousand-cut to death.

Yugito's jaws clenched a few times. They'd been going at it for a while and he was still standing. Any more and she might get in trouble for spousal abuse. "Give up!" She spat out again, this time with more desperation.

Naruto got to his full height and stared back at her. "I never give up!" he said, just as resolute as ever.

Yugito was breathing hard. She was going to have to stop this soon. No more playing around. She had to knock him out and drag him to a medic asap. His resilience was going to be the death of him if he let it. Her claws dug into the ground and her body flung forward claws first.

She aimed her first strike at his chest, but he ducked down at the last second until his head and face were about to be struck by her claws. A cold grip of fear latched onto her stomach and didn't let go for a fraction of a second.

The window might have been small, but Naruto took full advantage of it. He grabbed her outstretched hand and twirled around, using her momentum to slam her into the ground. As quickly as he could, he sat on her torso with knees on either side of her chest. She tried to strike him with the arm that wasn't being held, but Naruto caught that one too. On a good day, she was stronger than him, but the fight had worn on to the point where her muscles ached with exertion.

Naruto planted both of her hands on either side of her head and brought his forehead crashing down on her nose. The first time it happened, she was shocked enough that a second one could land. She tried to wriggle her way out of his hold, but his forehead kept on crashing down on her face and head, making her lose focus as a flash of pain and shock derailed her brain every two seconds. Soon, their faces were drenched in a mixture of both blood types.

Perhaps it was then that Yugito drew on the power of Matatabi. She didn't mean to do it. Her body reacted faster than her mind, both when the power came back to her to overpower him, and when she sunk all ten nails deep into his torso.

They were like that for a still pause, both wondering if what had happened had truly happened.

It was only when Naruto realized he had been skewered that red chakra came forth from his body and engulfed his skin.

00000000

There was a blank space in both their memories after that. How long they fought, they couldn't tell. Naruto was engulfed in a rage not totally unknown to him and Yugito was consumed by fear and anxiety. Her mastery over Matatabi's chakra was brute-forced and unlike Bee's and Gyuki's. She had never really gotten a hang of defeating her negative emotions. The best she could do was to still them momentarily before engaging in battle. When they came crashing onto her without warning, she lost control.

The simple fact that she didn't have complete control over Matatabi's chakra was an endless pool of shame to her. Whenever she blanked, which thankfully hadn't happened in years until now, she always woke up with the fear that she had hurt or killed somebody important to her.

It was the sudden and alarming realization that she couldn't move anymore that consciousness returned to her. Yugito's arms and legs were held in place by what felt like wood and her head was lolling down uselessly.

"YUGITO!"

Even bringing her head up to look up at the furious face of the Raikage made her entire body light up with pain. "RRrrr…" She tried to ask what was happening, but her words turned into strangled mumbles. The kind of pain she was in wasn't the worst she had ever felt, but it was vying for a close second.

Ai took it upon himself to grab her forehead so that she could look into his directly. "WHAT HAPPENED?!" he screamed.

Yugito's eyes flickered from side to side a few times. They were still in the training fields, but it looked like one that went through the wringer. Huge gauges of earth had been ripped from the ground and there were patches of blackened earth where the fire had eaten away. "Ahh- I…" her voice was coming back, but her mind was still reeling.

Ai backed out of the way, allowing Yugito to see her opponent strung up much the same way she was, in a tangle of branches holding his legs together and his arms to the side. His lower body was obscured by the frantic back of Tsunade and by his side was Jiraiya, who was biting the side of his finger with a worried expression. There was a green glow coming emanating from somewhere in front of Tsunade, putting a light green glow to whatever pallid skin still remained. Naruto's body had entire parts of where his skin was burnt away, showing enflamed muscle underneath.

"WHO'S FAULT WAS THIS!" Ai yelled at Yugito again.

"This isn't the time or the place!" Jiraiya yelled back.

Ai whipped around. "You assured me he was stable! If it was him that hurt Yugito-"

"She's barely conscious! And how can we rule out that it wasn't her fault in this!?"

"You would dare to-"

"QUIET, BOTH OF YOU!" Tsunade shouted out. There was a slight break in her voice. Yugito couldn't see the Hokage's face, but she could practically feel the tears falling down the woman's face.

The sounds of a bug's buzzing came upon her from behind until Fu dropped from the sky between them, wings folding back into her back. Her afraid, ashen face switched between Yugito and Naruto a few times, unsure of who deserved the most worry and attention.

This was bad. She fucked up big time. This was no time to be shifting the blame on him. The only thing left was to tell the truth and apologize. She'd let her arrogance obscure her pride and this was the price. She promised to try her best to get along with him and this was the result? What was she, a toddler?

Yugito coughed out whatever blockage remained in her throat and opened her mouth to speak. Everyone's eyes were on her, except for Tsunade, who was listening intently. "R-Raikage-sama. T-the truth is that-"

"-It was my fault."

Everyone whipped around to look at Naruto, eyes cracked barely open and a pained grimace on his face. Despite the no-doubt huge amount of pain he was in, Yugito could tell the grimace was fueled by shame rather than pain. Did he think it was really his fault? How much did he remember?"

"What did you just say?" Ai asked dangerously.

Naruto coughed again. "W-We were sparring and I lost control. I didn't mean to. It just happened."

Ai pointed his attention towards Jiraiya. "You told me he was under control."

"He wa- He is under control. This is just- This is just a freak accident is all," Jiraiya said with a mixture of fear, desperation, and self-defense. "And he's not the only one who's at fault here. I was under the impression that your Jinchuuriki had lost control as well! Look at her, she's barely conscious."

"You would attack my Jinchuuriki to cover up the mistakes of your own?!"

"Hey!" Fu barked out.

Everyone pointed their ire at Fu, who stood proud and tall through it all. She made a 'ramp down' gesticulation with her arms. "Let's all just calm down here. It's not easy being a Jinchuuriki, you know. Sometimes you lose control even though you didn't mean to. Plus, we're all only just getting to know each other. It's better that this happened now. We know our limits."

Ai huffed. "I know better than anyone what it's like being a Jinchuuriki. My own brother is one-"

"But you aren't." Fu said, interrupting him and pointing a finger at his chest. "This isn't anybody's fault. It happens."

"No!" Yugito coughed out, sense finally seeming to come to her. "I was, uhm… He asked me to help him control his powers. I wasn't being vigilant enough and he lost control. It was my fault, not his."

Jiraiya whistled appreciatively. "Hear that?"

Ai's eyes narrowed. "And the boy saying it was a spar?"

"It- It was a spar," Naruto said quickly, eyes darting between Yugito and Ai a few times. "That's how she was teaching me. I accidentally hurt her pretty bad, so she didn't have a choice but to use her powers too."

Jiraiya crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the ground, sighing. "It's not like there's any real damage here. Nobody got hurt-"

"I got hurt," Naruto said weakly.

"Quiet boy!" Jiraiya hissed out. "Anyways, like I was saying, nobody got hurt. Collateral damage was minimal. Why don't we just file this away as a training mishap?"

Ai looked between the two restrained Jinchuuriki a few times before huffing and walking off without saying a word before vanishing in a flash of lightning.

Tsunade let a sigh of relief puff through her lips. Naruto's skin was rapidly healing to the point where it was almost like he'd never been hurt before in his life, but his eyes were fluttering close, betraying a deep exhaustion he was only barely staving off.

There was a tense few seconds of silence before Jiraiya clapped his hands and said "Okay Tenzo, you can stop now."

Yugito lurched and fell to her feet, now unrestrained by the bondage that held her. She rubbed her raw wrists without daring to look at how Naruto was doing. A man wearing an ANBU mask she guessed was Tenzo walked towards Tsunade who dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

Tsunade stood up straight with one of Naruto's arms draped around her shoulders and turned to Yugito. Her face was that of the austere, composed, and headstrong Hokage, but it was threatening to give way to a plethora of emotions. "Thank you," Tsunade said quietly. Her tone was betraying her face. "I know it was hard to lie to your commander. If he found out Naruto was prone to losing control to the Kyuubi, he would have demanded a better deal. It would have set our negotiations back to square one."

Yugito was wobbly on her feet, but she could hold herself up just fine. Strength was returning to her rapidly thanks to Matatabi. She couldn't raise her head to look at Tsunade. The shame was too great. "No- It's… uhm… I really did lose control there. I shouldn't've. I really am to blame."

Fu shook her head. "I doubt that's true. If you were telling the truth, then the blame is shared."

Yugito raised her hand to protest more, but it fell down quickly. If the lie was believed and effective, then it didn't need to be nullified for the truth. Especially when the details were inconsequential. Yugito also had a sneaking feeling that everything would be worse off if she decided to tell the whole truth. She decided instead to walk forward and take Naruto's full weight on her body, grunting a little from the exertion.

"Are you okay to do that?" Tsunade asked warily.

"Yeah," Yugito said, nodding quickly. Her pupils turned to slits as her body started drawing on more of Matatabi's chakra. She stood up straight and held him tightly to her side. His feet were practically dragging on the ground. "Don't worry. I'll take him to the house."

Tsunade looked at the two of them warily. Naruto was of the resilient sort. Now that his injuries were healed, he mostly needed some R&R. "Just make sure he's awake and at the kage tower by at least noon," Tsunade warned. "Let him sleep until then."

Yugito nodded and set off to the house at a somewhat slow walk.

Fu got into a hover and followed them. "I could carry him back. It'd be faster," She said enticingly.

Yugito shook her head. "No. I have to do this."

Fu thought about arguing her point more, but Yugito didn't even have to look at her to let it be known that she was going to be stubborn on this one. After biting her cheek for a few seconds, Fu flew off to help spread the word to all the panicked people that nothing was wrong. It was a conditioned response to do it back at waterfall whenever she accidentally succumbed to her emotions within a certain distance of the village.

Once they were alone, Yugito shifted Naruto onto her back, where his body lost all of its tension. His head lolled onto her shoulder, unable to be kept up with his neck anymore. He might have been heavy, but she was strong.

'My, my, what a display.'

Yugito hung her head down even further. Her cheeks burned with the combined embarrassment and shame. 'I know,' she thought back. 'I really screwed the pooch this time, didn't I?'

She had an unsubstantiated mental image of Matatabi playing around with a large ball of yarn while she talked. She always had this tone about her as if she doing something that didn't take many mental faculties while she spoke. 'Oh, I don't know. That Fu girl was right for the most part. The blame is shared.'

'And it rests mostly on my shoulders.' Yugito thought back. Naruto shifted his head on her shoulderblades into a more comfortable position. 'No pun intended.'

'You're too hard on yourself kitten. Maybe your pride is part of the blame in this, but that boy should have known better than to stick out a fight he couldn't win just to prove a point. Especially considering the both of your conditions, i.e. Kurama and I."

'That doesn't change anything,' Yugito replied. "I was the more mature one-"

"Huh?" Naruto asked blearily from her back.

Oh shit, did she say that out loud? "J-Just go back to sleep," she said hurriedly.

Naruto let out a pained moan. "I was never asleep. Can't walk on my own is all. Wouldn't let you carry me otherwise."

'Oh, just ask him what he thinks then. If it really was your fault, he could have thrown you under the bus, but he didn't.'

'I can't do that.'

'Yes you can.'

'No, I can't! I almost killed him not five minutes ago!'

'Are you going to let your social awkwardness dictate your life.'

"I am not socially awkward!"

Naruto jostled on her shoulder from the sudden outburst. "What?" he asked.

Yugito nearly tripped on a loose stone. The grass was turning into a dirt road. She was making pretty good time on her way to the house. "I- I… I was talking to Mata," Yugito said lamely.

"What, is that like your imaginary friend?"

The tips of her ears were burning from the assumed embarrassment. "No, she's the two-tails. Sometimes I switch from mentally speaking to her to physically talking. That's it."

Naruto grunted an affirmation then settled back into her shoulder. After five minutes of plodding down the street with indecision clawing at her mind, Yugito finally built up the courage to ask "W-Why did you… cover for me?"

"Huh?" Naruto grunted.

Yugito gulped hard. "I was the first one to lose control. Then I… If you weren't a Jinchuuriki, you would've died. That wasn't… that was my fault, but you took the blame. Why did you do that?"

It appeared as though Naruto still had the energy to let loose a deep sigh into her shoulder if nothing else. "I was being an asshole. It was just supposed to be a spar, but I took it way too far. It was my fault you did that." His tone was clipped and resigned. His jubilance was gone from more than just a lack of energy. He didn't feel good about what he did either.

Yugito shook her head. "No it wasn't. I'm not supposed to lose control. I should've called the match."

"How could you have? I was… bashing your head in with my head. Even if you tapped out, I wouldn't have known it. I was being an asshole. It was my fault."

Yugito gulped again. "I escalated the spar."

"So did I."

The street began to turned to a semi-paved road. People starting popping up on the road and each and every one of them stopped to stare at them. She was used to the looks and the whispers of subtle disapproval, but these took it up a notch. It was probably a confluence of factors that made them stop and stare, but the harshness of the glares made her realize that his life probably was too peachy either. "I… I'm sorry," Yugito said after a few more minutes of walking.

"Huh? For what?"

"I was being- I was acting, like a child. You have it hard too. I shouldn't have goaded you."

Naruto sighed again. "It's fine. I was being a pill too."

"And also for… you know, threatening you last night."

If Naruto had the energy to raise his eyebrows, they'd hitting his hairline. This new meek Yugito was more than a surprise.

"And..." Yugito started. She'd been wanting to ask this question, but her mind kept blocking he from doing so. "How did you know I'd lock up if I tried to hit you in the face?"

If Naruto could have shrugged indifferently, he would have. "I didn't. You were pretty keen on hitting below the head, so I just assumed you didn't want anyone to know how much I got the shit kicked out of me. I took a risk and it paid off."

They were in front of the door to the house when Naruto put his palms on her shoulders and hopped off her back. He stumbled under his own weight, to which Yugito looped an arm under his armpit and held him up.

"Erm, thanks," Naruto said, blinking rapidly to get the stars out of his eyes.

"No problem," Yugito said quietly, opening the door and walking in.

They couldn't get two steps in before Fu flew up from the couch and stopped in front of them. "Are you guys okay? Do you need help-"

"He just needs rest," Yugito said quickly, cutting Fu off mid-sentence and walking down the hallway. Naruto only needed to hold onto her for the balance now, but even so, he was snug against her side. Not that he was complaining. He wasn't about to turn down help from someone offering it, even if that person had almost killed him.

Temari walked out from a hallway with wide, searching eyes and watched them shamble upstairs, where the rooms were. She didn't say anything to them or offered help of any kind. They shared a look she was used to seeing very often at her home: silent disapproval directed to the self.

The first door they opened, they found Kurotsuchi lounging on a bed with a penguin sleeping cap firmly planted on her head as she pored over an open scroll. She looked up and raised a tired eyebrow. "Yes?" she asked.

"This is his room," Yugito said tiredly. She wasn't in any mood for a verbal back-and-forth between the two of them. "Beat it."

Kurotsuchi put her hands behind her head and leaned back. "No, I claimed this room. It's mine."

One of Yugito's eyes twitched. "He needs to rest. This is the room whe-"

"It's fine," Naruto mumbled out, his tired eyes searching the room and finally settling on Kurotsuchi. "I'm sorry, by the way," he said flatly.

Kurotsuchi looked taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"For uhm…" Naruto put his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as he searched for the right words. "For making fun of you for the dress. You're sensitive about that and I'm sorry.

Kurotsuchi's eyes narrowed. "You'd damned well better be. Go sleep in the last room. I'm pretty sure Fu hasn't gotten to it yet."

Naruto nodded and leaned away from the door, prompting Yugito to follow. "Oh," he said, grabbing the doorway at the last second and peeking his head in "You looked really pretty," he said with the confidence of a man half-asleep and with nothing much to lose.

The two of them vacated the door quick enough that he didn't get to see her purse her lips with a small flare of red reach the tips of her ears, nor when she quietly muttered "Asshole."

The next room they opened had scrolls open all over the floor with a couple of battle fans open and spread out over them. There was a pair of crumpled clothes balled up on one side of a disordered bed. "Temari's," Yugito murmured, drawing back with him.

Opening another one, they saw a bed with a few different pairs of battle dresses, all with varying degrees of navy blue to them and dress lines. The top of the dresser already had an assortment of hygiene products with a few bottles used for prescription medicine among them. "Mei's," Naruto muttered.

The last one they opened up had a bustling nest of bugs on the bed all somehow managing to not eat each other. Other than that, there were a few stacks of books on the floor with a couple cracked open to pages that had been oft doggy-eared.

Fu flew up them with a hurry from the downstairs once she realized what was happening. "Er, I'm sorry. I- He said last night that- er, I… I'll get this all moved out."

"No," Yugito said, shaking her head. "It'll take too long. He'll sleep in my room."

"Are you sure?" Both Naruto and Fu asked in synchronism, albeit with varying degrees of speed and tone.

"Yeah," Yugito nodded, bringing Naruto along with her before he could say no. "It's fine."

'My, how bold of you kitten. To offer up your bed to such a strapping young lad. I'm shocked.'

"Oh, shut up," Yugito said, most definitely not in the mood for her light teasing.

"What?" Naruto asked.

Yugito shook her head. "It's nothing."

She had to work on that. Although the things she let slip through her lips so far had been somewhat mild, there were times back in cloud that things were let loose that she most certainly did not want known to the general public. Luckily, they were often so unbelievable that even if a chatty Cathy had heard her say it, nothing got sent around the village as a rumor.

Yugito let him slide off her and into the bed she had claimed in a slump. He didn't even take off his clothes or get under the covers before his eyes rolled shut and his breathing slowed.

'The boy did have a point, you know.' Matatabi said in her brain.

'And what was that?' Yugito asked as she sat in a chair next the bed, cupping her cheek in her hands.

'You're always taking things a bit too seriously. There were other ways of letting him know you weren't going to have sex with him than threatening his life.'

'I didn't threaten it,' Yugito thought back defensively. 'I wasn't seriously going to do it.'

'That's not the point here. You're never going to make friends if you take things so seriously. The boy's got a good sense of humor. He's strong and handsome, if in a bit of a childish sort of way.'

'I don't need friends and I definitely don't need you playing matchmaking. I'm more than a decade older than him anyways. That's just… wrong.'

'Oh, kitten, I'm not telling you to fuck him. Just… be nice to him. Try. You said you were going to try, didn't you?'

Yugito looked down on his sleeping face, contorted into a silly expression from being compressed on one side, and couldn't help but let a small smile come to her lips. The demon cat was right, for once. Why would she act like a bitch to one of only maybe nine people in the world who could really know what it was like to be in her shoes?

She reached over and tucked his bangs behind his ears. And he was sort of cute, in a puppy dog sort of way.