Author's note: A twoshot because it's getting late/early here. Sequel to 'Sending a Clear Message' and 'Loud and Clear', so you might want to read those first to familiarise yourself with this particular universe.

Fair warning: I've got a lot on my mind right now, so if that in any way affects my writing now and in the upcoming weeks, I apologise for that. For now have this first part; other updates will follow this weekend.

Warnings: Kurama's pov; Alternate universe; established slash; drama; yakuza

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

I hope you'll like this first part!

Part 1

Before Naruto became known as the Jinchuuriki Fox or more derisively as Kurama's favourite, people had often mistaken him for Kurama's son when he had been younger.

It had been an easy mistake to make, Kurama supposed, considering how often little Naruto had clung onto Kurama, chattering his ear off even whilst Kurama had been threatening someone on the phone. He would attach himself to Kurama's leg while the older man paced around his office, giggling every time Kurama half-heartedly would try to shake him off. Glue companies could have learnt a thing or two from the brat's strength. His face would lit up whenever he would catch sight of Kurama and the leader's long red tresses had been the victim of grabby hands too many times to count.

By all accounts Kurama shouldn't have liked the kid. He had never been fond of kids to start with, not even when he had been young himself. Perhaps Naruto was the exception because he wasn't afraid of Kurama. Those who weren't afraid of him were either powerful enough that they had nothing to fear from him or they were simply stupid. Kurama didn't believe Naruto fell in the second category, though. Sure, he would grow up to occasionally do stupid things, but that wasn't the same as actually being stupid. Naruto didn't fear him and Kurama liked that.

Choosing to train Naruto personally only made sense to Kurama in light of all that.

If training him made Kurama slightly protective over him, wasn't that normal? Naruto was the most suitable one to take over the clan after Kurama passed; it wouldn't do if something were to happen to him before Kurama died. If that meant that Kurama would eye anyone close to Naruto with suspicion – bar his own parents – he figured that was only reasonable.

He considered himself extra sensible for being suspicious when a member of their biggest enemy clan decided to go after his protegee.

Especially when that member was set to inherit a clan of his own.

"This can't wait?" Naruto asked, vaguely annoyed.

Makoto bowed even deeper. "I'm sorry, but apparently it can't. They insist on hashing it out with you."

"Motherfucker," Naruto cursed and stood up. "Fine, I'll go see what the hell they want. You two," he waggled a finger at both Kurama and the devil incarnate, "be civil and don't fight or kill each other. I'll be back soon."

The door closing was like the final nail in the coffin and Kurama glared at Uchiha. The man in question raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like I wanted him to leave either," Uchiha said calmly.

"We wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place if you had left him alone," Kurama shot back, baring his teeth.

This situation being an informal meeting between Naruto, Kurama and Uchiha. With barely a month left until the, Kurama shuddered, wedding, Naruto had insisted on having Kurama and Uchiha meet privately. If it had been entirely up to Kurama, they wouldn't even be in this position, but Naruto had been very insistent that he wanted both his fiancé and his boss to get along.

"Or if not get along, at least tolerate each other," Naruto sighed.

"Why now?" Kurama scowled at him.

"Because we're getting married in one month."

"So? It's not like you waited for my permission to get hitched to that bastard."

"You wouldn't have given it anyway," Naruto retorted, sharp as always. "I still want my boss and my fiancé to at least tolerate each other's existence."

"Oh, so now you acknowledge that I'm your boss."

"If I remember correctly," Uchiha murmured, his dark eyes glinting maliciously, "it's Naruto who came on to me."

"But you definitely didn't do anything to discourage him," Kurama said irritated.

"Now why should I have done that?"

Why indeed? Kurama clenched his jaw, once more wondering where the fuck he had gone wrong that Naruto had chosen an Uchiha out of all people he could have picked. Kid was pretty and could literally have anyone he wanted and he went for an Uchiha? Something was wrong with that brat and Kurama had no idea what. He had been more than clear about how untrustworthy those damn snakes were, so it couldn't have been his teachings, right?

"I understand why you don't trust me," Uchiha stated out of the blue, leaning forwards slightly. "To be quite frank, I don't even know whether I can trust you."

If he possessed even a shred of self-preservation, he wouldn't ever trust Kurama. Honestly, Kurama didn't even trust himself around Uchiha.

"But Naruto respects you and he might not ever admit to it, but he wants nothing but your approval of us," Uchiha continued.

"He went about it quite the wrong way then, don't you think?" Kurama smiled thinly.

"That's what Naruto does," Uchiha said calmly and unfortunately, yeah, he was right.

That was just how Naruto was: barrelling forwards with only the faintest regards for others. Kurama would get pissed off about that, if that wasn't how he also tended to handle things.

"He wants you to be there when we marry," Uchiha said, crossing his legs. His hand returned to resting idly around his glass of wine.

"I bet that makes your clan happy to hear," Kurama snorted.

"Grandfather is as thrilled as you are," Uchiha responded dryly. "The others, well, …"

"Your father's okay with it?" Kurama asked neutrally.

He hadn't had any real dealings with Fugaku himself, but from the rumours he had picked up he didn't think Fugaku would appreciate his son marrying an enemy either.

"He has grown used to it," Uchiha answered, which wasn't exactly a yes but not a no either.

"And here I thought they would have thrown you out by now," Kurama said idly.

"They could have, but it wouldn't have bothered me," Uchiha said, which sounded like utter bullshit to Kurama.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" he snorted sceptically.

"Believe whatever you want," Uchiha retorted. "I love Naruto; being kicked out of the clan wouldn't have changed that."

"How sweet," Kurama sneered.

"It doesn't bother me that some in my clan aren't happy about my choice, but I do know that your disapproval bothers Naruto," Uchiha continued; his eyes cooling slightly. "I'm not going to beg for your blessing, but I do ask that we could at least try to get along, for Naruto's sake."

Kurama thought Uchiha was demanding a whole lot for someone being outside his territory, but unfortunately his comment had also hit a sore spot. For all that Kurama at times complained that Naruto did nothing but ignore his orders, the truth was that he knew he could rely on Naruto for the full hundred percent. Yes, the brat might test his patience at times – sometimes a lot – but in the end he knew the kid wouldn't turn his back on their clan.

Did his taste in men utterly suck? Absolutely. He could have done so much better, but for some reason he had chosen Uchiha. Kurama couldn't just sit by idly, though.

He leant forwards, lowering his voice so that Uchiha had to pay attention to him. "If I ever find out that you did this to trick him, I will raze your entire territory to the ground and I will personally take my time with you," he promised. "Young and old, I will destroy everyone, keeping you for last and making you watch everything. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," Uchiha said curtly and smiled thinly. "I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint, however. Your revenge fantasy will remain unfulfilled considering I'm not doing this to trick Naruto."

If he spoke the truth, then for once Kurama wouldn't be disappointed that he didn't get to live out his dream.

"We're going to have to station more guards on the day of the wedding," Shukaku announced, frowning.

Matatabi pursed her red tinted lips, leaning over Shukaku's shoulder to read the screen. "That's going to be difficult; Gyuki says we're already at the limit we can spare," she said dismayed. "If we pull people away from the borders - "

"We could be in deep shit there, yes, I know," Shukaku grunted, tapping his fingers erratically against the desk. "Chomei already lectured me on that, but we can't take the risk."

"The risk of what?" Kurama asked, fully entering the room.

He hadn't been paying much attention to their conversation when walking by on his way back to his own office, until he had picked up the mention of pulling guards away from their designated places.

"What's going on?"

Shukaku's eyes briefly flickered up at him before they returned back to the screen. "We've been keeping our ears open and it seems that some clans are gearing up to launch an attack during the wedding."

"Well, that's not a surprise." Kurama rolled his eyes. "We were expecting something like that."

Of course some lowlife idiots would try to attack during the wedding. They most likely were under the wrong impression that they would have the upper hand then. Kurama had no idea why they would be that stupid; this particular wedding would see the two biggest clans coming together. Only the biggest fool would try to attack then.

"We were expecting the smaller clans to pull a stunt," Matatabi agreed and cocked out her hip, bracing it against the desk. "But our people have also caught rumours of the Root and the Sound planning something."

That made Kurama furrow his eyebrows. While no other clan could ever hope to even reach the ankles of the Jinchuuriki or the Uchiha clan, nevertheless there were some clans out there that could be a real pain in the arse if they desired to be so. Root was led by the biggest arsehole Kurama had ever had the misfortune of meeting and that included Madara in that list. Danzo was relatively untouchable thanks to his ties to the bureaucracy, rubbing elbows with famous politicians. Killing him would at this moment lead to unnecessary trouble, though if it came down to it, Kurama wouldn't hesitate to cut him down. He would deal with the fallout afterwards.

Sound, meanwhile, was led by Orochimaru. Some said he had been a deranged scientist before he fell off the radar, others claimed he had been a well-respected professor before he had started busying himself with shady business. Whichever it was, Orochimaru was absolutely ruthless, not even shying away from sacrificing his own men if it meant gaining even the slightest sliver of land. Somehow he still had a steady following, even though following a guy like him meant being prepared to die for no real reason at all.

Both clans were a veritable bitch to deal with, precisely because the members were so tenacious and bloodthirsty enough not to give a fuck who got caught in their crosshairs.

"How much truth is there to these rumours?" Kurama demanded.

"Isobu verified them himself," Shukaku answered. "They are definitely planning on doing something, but for once they are smart enough to keep quiet about what exactly."

"We'll need a lot more guards to deal with this, but we already put the maximum of guards we can on this wedding," Matatabi said, pursing her lips. "If we pull others from their stations, then they might use those openings to attack us there."

"The Uchiha are going to have to help us," Kurama realised with a grimace.

So far he had managed to keep them out of the planning of the protection, stating the Jinchuuriki clan would take care of that part, but if both Root and Sound were planning something … They couldn't risk the wedding not having enough protection, but pulling even more men away from their regular spots would make them vulnerable there. Kurama loathed the very idea of having to ask the Uchiha for help, but he wasn't going to give those other clans a chance to attack either. The risk of casualties was too high, especially with regular civilians in attendance as well.

"We've got no choice," Shukaku said sombrely. "We'll need all the extra hands we can get, both during the wedding and for the borders."

"I'll ask Kushina whether she'll call them and - " Kurama was interrupted by his phone and he plucked it out of his pocket, checking the caller. The hell was he calling for?

"What do you want?" he asked bluntly.

"There was a damn ambush!" Konohamaru choked out on the other end of the line.

Kurama's blood turned to ice in a way it hadn't done in years. "Who's down?" he demanded and strode out of the room, aiming straight for Kushina's office.

"At least six, I haven't managed to reach everyone yet," Konohamaru replied and there was a hint of hysteria in his voice.

No wonder considering he wouldn't be used yet to this. The young man had only been recently promoted to being a guard; even the most experienced guard would be a bit shook up by that number of people down.

"Who did it?"

"I think I saw some Root members, but I also recognised some of the Sound," Konohamaru rushed to reply and this time the hysteria was very obvious in his voice when he stuttered, "B-boss, they took Naruto-sama!"

Kurama saw red.

Uchiha was leaning against his car by the time Kurama marched outside, flanked closely by Minato and Kushina, whose frigid looks and trigger happy looking fingers would send everyone cowering.

"I don't have time to deal with you now!" Kurama snapped, making a beeline for his own car.

"There are two places they might have taken him to," Uchiha said, pulling all three of them to an abrupt stop.

"How do you know?" Kushina asked, ashen-faced.

"Some of our own men managed to tail them to the garage, where they followed two cars, each to a different abandoned silo at the edge of the town," Uchiha explained tersely.

"Why two cars?" Minato questioned; his mouth nothing but a thin line.

"The two cars are identical and all the windows bar the front one were blinded, so they couldn't see which one has Naruto inside of it," Uchiha replied; his fingers twitched around the ivory handle of a knife strapped to his thigh. "They did each follow one car and radioed through the locations. I came here as soon as we knew the addresses."

"Why did you come here?" Kurama asked suspiciously.

If they already knew which locations to raid, wouldn't it have been easier and more logical for Uchiha to go after Naruto and play his white knight? Their own clan had been planning on systematically going through each member of the Root and Sound association until they found someone willing to spill the beans – however unwilling that would end up being.

"Naruto is part of your clan; it's only normal that the clan leader gets to extract revenge," Uchiha spoke.

It was almost instinctive for Kurama to automatically refute whatever Uchiha was saying, but now he couldn't help but be reluctantly impressed. Uchiha could have easily left the Jinchuuriki clan floundering, while he himself got to enjoy his revenge. Instead he had driven all the way over to what could still be considered enemy territory to give Kurama chance to extract his own revenge.

Whatever else could be said of Uchiha, at least he respected the natural way of the clans.

"You two drive to the first silo, Uchiha, you're with me," Kurama ordered. "Whoever finds him will alert the others."

"What with the ones we'll find there?" Minato asked; his blue eyes sharp and cold like ice.

Kurama smiled, showing his teeth. "Leave nobody behind."

It was time to set up their own ambush.

AN2: Guess who are going to enjoy themselves in the next part?

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.