Naruto - Part 4

Tsunami woke up feeling incredibly comfortable. She was warm and the beating of a powerful heart resonated in her ears, trying to lull her back to sleep despite the fact that she was ready to wake up. If not for the fingers that began running gently through her hair, she would have fallen back asleep. As it was, she still didn't want to open her eyes and return to reality. She hadn't felt this good in a long time and she wanted to draw it out as much as possible.

She was well aware that the whole thing was rather inappropriate, sleeping in the same bed with a man that she met only the day before, but she couldn't bring herself to care. It had been so long since anything good had happened in her life that she wasn't going to let something as petty as propriety stop her.

She was grateful that the blonde she was using as a pillow didn't try to move or interrupt her self indulgence. They had moved sometime during the night and Naruto was now on his back with Tsunami resting her head on his chest.

She was lightly running her hand over his chest, marveling at how hardened his muscles were. She could practicaly feel the restrained power they contained, that combined with the fingers gently threading themselves through her hair wove a feeling of safety that she hadn't felt since before Gato had set his sights on Wave...before that even.

Unlike Inari, who had no true concept of the differences between a ninja and a common thug, she knew that they were completely safe from anything Gato could throw at them now that his hired missing-nin was out of commission. She had never seen a shinobi before, but even a civilian like her could see that there was something that set them apart from regular people.

She had loved Kaiza, but he had been a fisherman, not a trained warrior. Though his convictions had been firm and he had been strong for a civilian, laying on the blonde shinobi's chest, she could appreciate the difference between them. She knew that thugs and bandits, no matter how many would never be able to touch this man and if they tried, they would easily fall to his muscle and skill. His dangerous appearance had frightened her at first, but now it was reassuring.

With a regretful sigh, she decided that she really should be getting up.

"Good morning." She said as she looked the blonde in the eye.

"Morning, decided to get up?" He teased with a grin, making her flush slightly. She couldn't keep her heartbeat from speeding up at how predatory he looked.

"I'd preffer not to, but I've got to make breakfast." She was always the first to wake up and make breakfast .

"And I imagine that Tazuna might be upset that one of the shinobi he'd hired to protect him slept with his daughter on the day that he met her." Naruto mused idly.

She scowled at him, but her blush made it hard to take her irritation seriously. "You're making it sound worse than it actualy is!"

"True, even though the way you were wiggling against me made it really hard to resist making any moves on you." He teased with an amused grin and lightly groped her ass.

Tsunami was looking so mortified that it was hard not to burst into laughter.

"Come on, lets get up before someone walks in on us." Naruto continued.

After that they both got dressed and made their way downstairs, Tsunami still sporting a faint blush at his teasing. Despite her embarassment however, she was in a good mood. It had felt good to tell someone about what had happened and be held while she cried. The playful teasing was embarassing but she couldn't deny that she liked it.

Some time later, breakfast was just about finished, just as the others began to make their way down. Inari once again took his food and left the table, glaring at the shinobi but without saying a word, making Tsunami sigh in disappointment.

"I'm going to need to go to town today and buy some more food." Tsunami spoke up when they were done eating.

"Could one of you go with her?" Tazuna directed his question towards the shinobi. He wasn't feeling comfortable with the idea of his daughter going to buy groceries alone, especialy with Gato after his head.

Kakashi's single eye took a considering look as he thought it over. Someone would definitely need to go with Tsunami, but whoever would go, was going to be missing on the training today.

"What were you planning to train us in Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked before the Jounin could say anything.

"Oh, I was planning to teach you how to climb trees." Kakashi answered with his usual eye smile, making everyone except Naruto look at him like he was mad, as they wondered how exactly that was going to be useful at fighting Zabuza.

"Well in that case, I'll go with Tsunami, since I already know how to do that." Naruto replied with a sigh. The woman in question was happy to hear this, as she had been considering if she should ask the blonde to accompany her either way.

"Without your hands?" Kakashi pressed further, making everyone look at him like he was even crazier.

"Yes, without my hands." Naruto rolled his eyes. "I know how to walk on water without my hands too in case you wanted to know." He continued in a deadpan voice.

"What are you guys talking about?" Sakura burst out, losing her patience at the conversation that wasn't making any sense to her.

"He's going to be teaching you how to walk up vertical surfaces by using your chakra." Naruto explained to her.

"Why do you already know how to do that?" Sasuke asked with a scowl. He most certainly did not like the fact that the blonde was apparently ahead of him in this as well.

"Two words Sasuke. Genin. Library." Naruto deadpanned at him.

Sasuke scowled some more. He really needed to get into that library as soon as they got back to Konoha.

"Kakashi, I want you to show me those elemental manipulation exercises once Tsunami and I come back from town." Naruto told the Jounin-Sensei.

"You do know that those exercises will take much longer than a week to master? And even if you do master them, you wont be able to use them for anything much without knowing any wind or water tehniques." Kakashi protested.

"Well if you know anything else that I could train in that would actualy be useful in one week, then I'm all ears." Naruto retorted.

"Well, I guess you've got a point there." Kakashi gave in with a sigh.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Thank you for coming with me." Tsunami said towards the blonde walking next to her as they entered the town.

Naruto had opted to bring his newly aquired giant sword with him, strapped to his back with an improvised harness.

"It's no problem, I could hardly let a pretty woman like you go into a dangerous place like this alone now could I?" He answered with a lazy grin towards her, making her blush again at his slight flirting. He'd noticed that she seemed to be in a better mood than she had been yesterday and was being deliberately playful with her to keep up her spirits. He had never liked seeing women sad.

Naruto was observing the state of the town as they moved through it and noted that it was in a sad state indeed. There were people just sitting in the streets, looking absolutely hopeless and clearly too hungry to even stay standing for very long. He was drawing some fearful looks due to his style of dress and the sword, but the fact that he was walking peacefuly next to Tsunami seemed to calm them down. Most people never even glanced at the Konoha forehead protector strapped to his thigh.

As they made their way to a store that sold food, he could see clearly that the only food it had available was of poor quality and sold at obviously inflated prices. His respect for Tsunami's cooking went up a few notches. He had no idea how she had managed to make food that still tasted good with such poor quality materials.

"This actualy reminds me of my own childhood." Naruto commented a bit sadly as Tsunami picked out the best of the vegetables that were available.

Tsunami looked at him in surprise and confusion. "What do you mean, isn't Konoha a prosperous village?"

"Oh it is, the problem is that I'm not too well liked by a lot of the villagers, so they often sold me nearly spoiled food at triple price." Naruto explained.

"But why?!" She exclaimed in shock.

"It was due to certain events that took place during my birth. The villagers blamed me for it even though I was a baby at the time."

"But that's insane! How could they blame you if you were just a baby at the time?" Tsunami asked in distress for him.

"Because people are stupid." Naruto answered simply.

They had bought everything that Tsunami had picked out by now and were making their way down the street.

"But surely not everyone was like that?" Tsunami asked hopefuly.

"No, not everyone. An old ramen stand owner and his young daughter were very kind to me and some other people that bothered to talk to me at least treated me like anyone else. In my experience, a person can be very intelligent and brave, but people as a group are often barely any better than animals...worse sometimes, since animals at least aren't likely to do much harm." He made no mention of Xanna despite the fact that she was honestly the only reason he hadn't become suicidal at a record young age. That was information that was simply not revealed lightly.

"What do you mean?" Tsunami asked, wanting an explanation for that rather cynical statement.

"Take the situation in Wave right now for example." Naruto began. "Your husband saw that Gato was bad news and fought against him, but he failed because nobody else was willing to stick their neck out alongside him. If everyone had risen against him, then he would never have gotten a stranglehold on the country, but everyone was telling themselves that they've got too much to lose if they take that risk, never even considering what might happen if Gato was allowed to take over. Now they're sitting hopelessly in the street, but they're still unwilling to stick their neck out and help Tazuna even if they have nothing more to lose. The people in Konoha did something similar with me, everyone just condemned me because that's what everyone else was doing. Most of them never even gave a single thought towards the why, instead blindly believing what they heard somewhere."

Tsunami was deeply shaken by his words, not just because she was reminded of the loss of her husband, but also at the dark but undeniable truth of what he said. The people of Wave had looked up to Kaiza as a hero, but had been unwilling to stand with him and now they were paying the terrible price of their cowardice.

They had lapsed into silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts until Naruto felt a small tug on his coat. Looking down, he saw a small and dirty girl who couldn't be more than six years old holding onto his coat. She looked terrified that he would be angry at her, but the growling of her stomach, which he could hear clearly had made her desperate enough to approach. She had apparently seen that he was looking much healthier than anyone else here and was hoping that he would give her something.

"Do you have any food mister?" She asked timidly while cuping her hands in front of her hopefully.

Looking at the small girl, Naruto was reminded of himself at that age. Giving her a smile, but making sure not to show her his teeth, Naruto reached into his coat towards one of the seals inscribed into the inside of it and unsealed a few ration bars that he kept in there. The things tasted as bland as cardboard, but there was a lot of calories packed into them.

When he deposited the ration bars into her hands, the small girl gave a bright smile and thanked him before running off.

"That was a very kind thing you did." Tsunami said approvingly.

Before he could say anything back, there was a sudden commotion from the direction that the girl had run off to and when Naruto turned to look his face darkened with anger.

"Watch where you're going you filthy little brat!" An unwashed looking and more than slightly tipsy thug yelled at the very girl that Naruto had just given the ration bars to, his hand already raised to strike her.

Tsunami quickly ran after him as the blonde made his way towards the thug, catching his hand before he could hit the girl.

Ignoring the angry looking man trying to get his hand free, Naruto adressed the little girl. "Run along sweetie."

When the wide eyed girl picked up her dropped ration bars and scampered off, the smile that Naruto had given her dropped off his face and he shoved the man into a nearby alley, with Tsunami following behind nervously.

To Naruto, this was a perfect opportunity. He'd been intending to get some more information on Gato and this piece of scum had very convenietly volunteered for an interrogation, assuming of course that he worked for Gato.

As soon as the man got back on his feet, he rushed at Naruto, intending to punch him, but found his fist caught in an unbreakable grip. He tried to free his fist, but Naruto just tightened his grip painfuly and twisted his wrist, forcing the man to his knees.

"We're gonna kill you for this you bastard. I work for Gato and you've been warned that anyone who goes against us is gonna be killed." The man spat angrily.

Naruto looked at him coldly and bared his sharp teeth in a menacing smile. The idiot had just spared him the trouble of finding out whether he worked for Gato or not.

"Tell me what Gato is planning to do about the bridge builder." He demanded.

"Fuck you." The man raged, trying to get his hand free.

Naruto kept tightening his grip until the bones in his fist were crushed, causing the man to scream. Predictably nobody came to check what was going on, being too scared to get caught up in anything dangerous.

"You've got plenty of bones left. I'm going to keep breaking them until you answer me." Naruto stated coldly and without the slightest shred of simpathy.

The man's nerve broke and he started talking. "He's just going to wait for that ninja he's hired to get better and let him take care of it."

"Is there anything else?"

The man hesitated and the blonde grabbed his other arm and began squeezing. "Ok ok! He also told us all to gather at a spot several hundred yards away from the bridge a week from now, but I dont know what for." The man quickly started talking before any more of his bones ended up broken.

Well that doesn't sound suspicious at all. Naruto thought to himself sarcasticaly. Gato sounded exactly like several other greedy pieces of slime that he'd had to deal with in the past when he'd still been taking over the criminal underground in Konoha, except for the fact that he was more successful. And the one thing that you could count on with the likes of them was that their own greed always got the better of them.

"I've told you everything, now let me go." The man said, cardling his broken hand.

Naruto ignored him and instead grabbed hold of his head with both hands and twisted violently, ending his life with a sickening crack. Letting the fresh corpse fall to the ground, he produced a sealing scroll from inside his coat and sealed the body inside. No need to be causing Gato to get suspicious and changing his plans if one of his flunkies was found with with his neck broken.

Turning back towards the entrance of the alley, he saw a pale and shaken Tsunami staring at him with wide eyes and trembling hands.

Shit.

"Sorry you had to see that Tsunami." He said quietly.

Tsunami for her part was having trouble reconciling the image she had of the blonde as a gentle and caring man with the cold and brutal execution she had just witnessed. She knew of course that killing was a part of life as a shinobi, but seeing it was something else entirely. She didn't feel at all sorry for the man he'd killed, it was just the act itself that shocked her with it's casual brutality.

"It's allright." She said shakily.

They made their way back to the house in silence, giving Tsunami plenty of time to calm down.

"Does it bother you? To kill like that?" She asked softly.

"Not anymore. It bothered me when I made my first kill when I was 12, but I've long since realised that some people just need to die, just like Gato is going to die by the end of this no matter what." Naruto admitted and she was struck by the absolute confidence with which he said that, as if any other outcome was simply impossible.

They had nearly reached the house before Tsunami spoke again. She was biting her lips nervously and blushing in embarassment but forced enough calm into her voice to speak clearly.

"Um, will you come to my room again tonight?"

Naruto looked at her in surprise at the request, before his expression turned into a teasing grin again. "Well if the client wants to have her way with me, then as a shinobi under your employ, I cannot refuse." That her father was the actual client was a minor detail that Naruto decided to ignore in favour of his teasing.

She slapped his arm, blushing furiously. "Sh-Shut up! It's not like that!"

Once she had calmed down somewhat, she asked another question. "Is that really true? That you can't refuse something like that?" She was thinking about kunoichi and if they were forced to sleep with clients if they demanded it, as she imagined that many clients would be like that.

"No, not really. Clients are warned that demands like that are not tolerated. At least, that's how it is in Konoha, I don't know how it is in other Hidden Villages." He admitted. His D-rank sexcapades were another matter as members of the village were well aware of that rule, they had just ignored it in his case because they knew that they wouldn't get in trouble for it.

By this time they had reached the house and Tsunami went inside to put away all the groceries, while Naruto made a beeline for the forest where the rest of Team 7 was training. When he arrived there he could see Kakashi lazing around, reading his porn as usual, Sakura leaning against a tree in exhaustion and Sasuke glaring at a tree venoumously.

"how's the training going?"

"I figured it out on the first try." Sakura said proudly, before sending a nervous glance towards Sasuke when she saw his scowl deepen.

"Oh? And how long were you able to stay on the tree?" Naruto questioned.

"Well...about 15 minutes." She admitted with a blush.

"So basicaly, you have such a tiny amount of chakra that controlling it was easy, but a simple chakra control exercise like that exhausts you in 15 minutes?" He asked drily.

"Yes." Sakura said with her head hanging despondently.

"Well, this should help you build up your chakra capacity if you keep at it and you can help the princess over there figure out that he's using too much chakra." Naruto advised. Sakura frowned at him for calling Sasuke a princess, but thought better of saying anything.

"How do you know I'm using too much chakra?" Sasuke asked irritably, having heard the entire conversation and was none too pleased with being called princess.

"I can see you blasting the bark off the trees genius. Dont feel too bad about it though, the first time I tried this I used so much chakra that i nearly blew the tree in half." The blonde admitted with a wry grin.

Sasuke scowled even further at the blonde. Naruto's obvious greater strength was annoying him to no end and the worst part of it was that he didn't even know if he'd seen all of it yet. He really wanted to ask about those chains that the blonde had created, but Kakashi had already forbidden him and Sakura from doing so or even talking about it. He could understand why even if he didn't like it. When the blonde had called out the tehnique, he had called it a secret art, so not only was it pointless to ask, it was also prying into the business of another clan.

Naruto made his way over to Kakashi, intending to get those elemental training exercises out of him.

"Allright sensei, tell me how to train up my affinities." Naruto said as he came up to Kakashi.

Closing his book, but keeping his thumb inside it to mark his place, the Jounin turned towards his blonde student. "Well for wind you need to learn how to cut a leaf with only your chakra and for water you need to take some regular paper and soak it with only your chakra. Learning how to do this will give you a better handle on transforming your chakra nature."

"I see, so I've been going about the whole thing backwards." Naruto muttered to himself as he created 10 clones and had them cut leaves. He'd have to wait for water training until he got home, since he had no paper.

"So you've figured out the secret of the shadow clone tehnique as well?" Kakashi asked in surprise at seeing the blonde foist off the training on his clones.

"Oh yeah, it's the only reason I managed to learn Fuinjutsu without killing myself, that shit is dangerous." Naruto answered.

Kakashi sweatdropped at the blondes reply. If Naruto was using shadow clones to learn Fuinjutsu and the typical Uzumaki instinct for the art bred true, he could only hope that the blonde wouldn't start making reality bending seals until he was a Chunin and Kakashi was no longer partly responsible for his actions.

"One other thing sensei." Naruto said, making Kakashi look towards him again. "I interrogated one of Gato's men while I was in town with Tsunami. Apparently he's ordered all of his goons to gather somewhere close to the bridge a week from now, which I found suspicious considering that that's about the time we expect Zabuza to recover from his death trance."

Kakashi considered the information carefuly for a minute before replying. "That is suspicious, we'll have to be careful about that."

"I'm going to be sending disguised clones into town every day to see if I can pick up any more details over the next few days." Naruto informed his sensei.

Kakashi nodded in approval before his mind went off to a different subject that he'd been wondering about since the previous night.

"Say Naruto..." Kakashi began.

Naruto had just been about to move off and start practicing with his new sword when the tone of his sensei's voice stopped him.

"Yeah?"

"If you've known who your parents were for years now, why didn't you reveal it?" It had been bugging him ever since their talk last him and he couldn't figure out the reason that Naruto had kept quiet about it.

"Because I can just imagine that a number of people that hate me for the Kyuubi right now, would suddenly be trying to kiss my ass if they knew I was the son of their precious Yondaime and I think the hipocrisy of it might have made me break someone's face sooner rather than later."

"Ah, I see." So Naruto is that kind of man Kakashi concluded. The kind of man that disdained anything and everything that he hadn't gained through his own sweat. The fame of his parents, no matter how much respect it would give him, was not his own, so it held no appeal for Naruto.

It was an attitude that Kakashi couldn't help but respect, even though he wondered just what had happened to Naruto that he valued only his own strength. That kind of attitude wasn't born from nothing after all.

With nothing further to say, Naruto moved off to get a handle of swinging around his new sword and Kakashi went back to his porn.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tsunami was anxiously waiting in her futon for Naruto to show up. She'd been terribly embarassed about asking him to do this, but it had been the most wonderful thing that she had experienced in a long time and she was willing to suffer through a little embarassment if she could have that again.

His sudden appearance next to her made her jump in instinctive fright, the fact that she had been expecting him being the only reason that she hadn't screamed. He was already in his underwear, coat and pants nowhere in sight.

"You're finaly here." She said with a relieved sigh as he climbed under the sheets and spooned her exactly the same way that he'd done the previous night.

"Sorry about that. I had to take a swim in the river, swinging that sword around made me smell a bit too manly." Naruto explained, making her snort in amusement.

As soon as they'd settled Tsunami started fidgeting again and Naruto couldn't help but notice that she wasn't wearing the same thing as she had yesterday. Her night shirt today was a lot shorter, only just barely reaching he thighs and she'd apparently decided to wear a purple thong instead of a more...substantial piece of underwear.

He was already developing the inevitable hard on and was about to warn her about what her fidgeting was doing to him when she surprised him by turning around and pressing her breasts against his chest. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her that was only barely visible in the low light, but she just kept biting her lip nervously while looking at him and rubbing her thighs together.

"What it is?" He asked just to prod her out of her thoughts. It was getting pretty obvious to him what was on her mind.

Instead of answering she leaned brought her head close and kissed him. Despite his intention of getting rid of the smell by taking a swim in the river, she could still smell the remnants of the sweat that had clung to him and it had been the last straw. She'd been attracted to him ever since she had seen him and the more time she spent around him, the more things she found to like. Far from being unpleasant, the musky smell excited her to no end and she couldn't take it anymore. She didn't care that he would have to leave when the mission was over and she'd probably never see him again, she didn't care that she had only known him for two days, the only thing she cared about was the burning need to feel him sheathed inside her.

"Are you sure about this?" Naruto asked her just to be sure.

"Yes, now take me." She urged, getting desperate to get what she wanted.

Not needing anymore convincing, he returned her kiss and rolled over so that he was on top of her. It was something of a surreal experience for Tsunami to have to be careful so that she didn't cut her tongue on his teeth, so she let him win their little tongue duel without putting up much of a fight.

When he moved his mouth down to her neck, she couldn't help letting out an excited shudder at the feel of those teeth scraping lightly over her neck, knowing that they were easily sharp enough to pierce through her skin.

She suddenly felt herself lifted up and her night shirt went flying over her head, leaving her completely naked except for her thong. She covered her breasts with her hands self consciously when she saw his eyes roving over her the way a hungry lion might look at a gazelle. Without saying a word, he grabbed her hands and raised them over her head and lowered his mouth to her right nipple. The movement of a hot tongue over the sensitive nub of flesh made her take a sharp intake of breath that grew into excited panting when she felt the gentlest of scrape of inhumanly sharp teeth against it. The fact that she tried to free her arms from his grip but felt as if she was trying to move a mountain only aroused her further.

He paid equal attention to both of her breasts and left her aching with need by the time he moved on. Her panties were already a soaked mess when he hooked his fingers into the waistband and took them off, with Tsunami eagerly lifting her hips to help him. The deep whiff he took of her crotch embarassed her, but she didn't protest when he started moving his face closer. He had released her hands by this time and she was desperately grasping at the futon, wanting him to get on with it already.

She kept her teeth clenched tightly to prevent any loud moans from escaping her as he started licking up what she'd released so far, avoiding any highly sensitive areas. She continued to grit her teeth together when his tongue began to probe her nether lips and slip inside of her, only moaning deep in her throat to prevent herself from being heard by the entire house. When he moved his attention to her swollen clitoris, she quickly raised her hand and sank her teeth into her own forearm to hold in the moaned screams, the other hand finding it's way to the top of his head and pressing it harder against her crotch. It didn't take even a minute before she was shuddering with the after effects of her orgasm.

Panting, breathless and almost ready to pass out, she couldn't believe that he'd gotten her this worked up already and they were technicaly still at the foreplay stage. Due to her lack of attention she never even noticed him before his weight was suddenly pressing down on her again and she felt the monster between his legs pressed againt her quivering nether lips. She'd known he was big when she felt him through his underwear the previous night, but now that he'd removed it she realised just how big it was.

She was intending to tell him to be careful, because there was no way that all of that was going to fit inside her when he pressed his lips against hers again, making her taste herself on his tongue while he rubbed his rod against her, getting it lubricated so that it would slip inside her without trouble.

He took hold of her hands again, having noticed earlier that she liked it, as he lined himself up with her entrance and pressed inside with the head, making her moan into his mouth. The deep, satisfied growls coming from his throat as he penetrated her slowly excited her with the thought that he was going to slam himself fully inside of her any second now. As he penetrated deeper and deeper inside her stretching her insides to the point of being painful, she was distantly grateful that he hadn't done that, as it would have no doubt hurt her badly. There was no restraining her moans and screams as he kept going deeper everytime she thought that there couldn't possibly be any more room inside her, moans and screams which were fortunately muffled by his mouth.

He stayed buried inside of her fully for a short while as she gasped for breath and squeezed her hips around him, letting her adjust to his size before he moved again. He returned to plundering her mouth when he began to move, causing her to return to moaning into his mouth. When he began to speed up and growl in a way that told her that he was getting close, she tried to let him know that she didn't want him to release inside her and possibly get her pregnant. The way that he was holding her down and covering her mouth prevented that however, and the frantic bucking of her hips served only to push him deeper inside her. Despite that though, she still felt her own orgasm approaching again and she was helpless to do anything except let him do as he pleased while she climaxed and felt him filling her up with his seed, prolonging the pleasure she felt as her fleshy inner walls tried to wring every last drop out of him.

"You shouldn't have done that, I dont want another baby." She panted out when the uncontrollable shuddering from her orgasm subsided, her face and hair sweaty.

"And you won't have one. I've placed a seal on myself that prevents me from getting any woman pregnant." Naruto assured her, his voice much more composed than hers. He was expertly hiding just how stupid he felt for not telling her about that before he'd nearly caused her to freak out by making her think that he was trying to impregnate her.

"A seal?" Tsunami asked in confusion, having no idea what that was.

"It's a ninja thing that I used to make sure I'm incapable of having children until I turn it off, don't worry about it. " He dismissed airily.

"Oh, well that's good." She said in relief. "We should get some sleep."

"Oh? You think we're done?" He smirked at her in a predatory manner when she looked at him in shock. "Shinobi do not tire that easily."

Tsunami felt him hardening inside her again as he said that and she couldn't believe that he was ready to go again so soon. She was already tired and felt as if she could fall asleep any moment now, but was denied as he began thrusting inside her again.

He brought her to another orgasm and released inside of her twice more before he was finished, leaving her barely able to stay conscious. She noted with some incredulity that her stomach had actualy bulged slightly from the amount of sperm he'd pumped into her and she was painfuly full.

She'd thought that stuff like that only happened in that Icha Icha book she'd read once when she'd been bored.

Despite how much she just wanted to pass out and sleep for the next two days however, there was something that really needed to be done if she didn't want her futon to be soiled beyong all hope of recovery.

"I need to go to the bathroom." Tsunami murmured into his ear sleepily.

"Allright." Naruto answered.

"I'm afraid you'll need to carry me." She muttered at him with a good deal of embarassment. "I can't move my legs properly." She was grateful to every deity that had ever existed that at least the bathroom was just across the hall from her room.

What followed was infinitely embarassing for the single mother, as Naruto had to manouver her onto the toilet and then proceeded to stare shamelessly, as she sat on the toilet with her legs spread and a small river of sperm leaked out of her

"Don't look, it's embarassing." She pleaded with him. Neither her first husband nor Kaiza had been this blatantly unashamed of all things sex related and she had no idea how to deal with it.

"I think we're a bit past being embarassed with each other don't you?" He chuckled at her, amused by her flaming red face.

At least the shower they took together was less embarassing, despite her uncooperative legs.

Once they were both cleaned up and back in her futon, still naked since they hadn't bothered to get dressed, Tsunami looked over at the blonde that whose presence she intended to enjoy for as long as his mission in Wave lasted.

"I really wish I could keep you after your mission is over." She murmured longingly. Aside from how attractive he was, he was also just so likable that it would be absurdly easy to fall in love with him.

"Ara ara, are you trying to sink your claws into a younger man Tsunami?" Naruto said in a faux scandalised tone.

"I'm not that old Naruto, I'm only 29 you know." Tsunami scowled at him, but the poorly suppressed laughter in her voice betrayed the fact that she was just playing along.

"Ah, but I am that young, didn't Tazuna tell you that I'm only 17?" He said with relish, realising that she must have made the same mistake as her father and assumed he was somewhere in his mid twenties.

The look of shock on her face was priceless and he intended to treasure it for a long time.

"No, as a matter of fact he didn't tell me." She muttered sourly. "I can't believe I've bedded a 17 year old. When did I become a cougar?" She said mostly to herself with wry amusement. It didn't really matter how old he was in the end, but she had honestly thought that he couldn't be more than 5 or 6 years younger than her.

"Why, when you met me of course. I could see you checking me over like a prime piece of meat right away." His grin was so wide by now that she could swear that she saw the moonlight pinging off those fangs of his.

"Oh, just shut up and go to sleep." She scowled at him for embarassing her again and nuzzled into his chest.

Naruto did as he was told and shut up, but he did not fall asleep yet. He didn't fall asleep because he was troubled. He had started to like Tsunami...in fact he had started to like her a great deal. He had never expected such a thing to happen and didn't know what to do about it.

Either way, he wasn't going to be doing anything about it at this exact moment, so he decided not to worry about it. He wasn't really stupid enough to think that the problem would leave his mind if he left the comfortable spot with the warm woman cuddling into him, so he didn't bother freaking out. He could think this problem over when he was less sleepy.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Breakfast the next morning was an interesting affair to say the least.

Inari had decided to actualy eat with the rest of them for a change, but was scowling as darkly as an 8 year old possibly could, seeming to be especialy irritated that his mother appeared to be happier because of the presence of the shinobi in their home. It seems that the gloomy brat resented the fact that they believed themselves capable of doing something and that his mother was 'buying into it'.

Naruto wondered whether he would have preffered to know the real reason why his mother was in such a good mood.

Tsunami was walking with a slight limp, claiming that she had slipped and bumped her hip against the doorframe while she had been making breakfast.

Everyone seemed to believe her, except Kakashi, who had glanced at Naruto and caught his quickly concealed smirk. After that the scarecrow Jounin had quickly stuck his nose into his orange book to conceal the proud tears gathering in his eye. MILF hunter! There was a time and place for that kind of information to be used in order to traumatise his other two students some more and the dining table during breakfast with the family of the lucky woman who had scored herself a young blonde was definitely not it.

After they had eaten, everyone had gone off to do their own thing.

Sasuke and Sakura, along with Kakashi had gone to the forest to continue training tree walking, one to learn it and the other to bolster her chakra capacity.

Naruto and Tazuna had gone to the bridge, though not before the blonde had made several dozen clones and had them scatter across to accomplish various tasks, such as training and spying around town. Both Sasuke and Sakura had wondered what the point of sending clones to train was and were shocked at hearing that shadow clones could be used as a training aid due to the memory transfer function.

The Uchiha survivor had seethed with jealousy at learning that his blonde teammate had such a powerful tool at his disposal and demanded to learn it, forgetting that it was a Kinjutsu. Kakashi had shot down his idea with a reminder that only people with a truly insane chakra capacity could utilise the tehnique as a training aid.

The day passed without any further incidents.

Naruto's transformed clones that had been skulking around town, eavesdropping on anything of interest had not found anything new, but had caught a few conversations with the thugs wondering why they were supposed to show up near the bridge, so it least that was confirmed.

The clones he had sent to train had been making slow but steady progress, though one of them had for some reason decided to go fishing instead of training, which had made Tsunami smile when it had brought the fish, so he figured it was all good.

Sasuke had just about mastered the tree climbing, his desire to catch up to Naruto making him desperate enough to ask Sakura for help. Sakura herself had been ecstatic about it, along with being able to stay vertical on a tree for half an hour at a time, making her claim that this was the best mission ever, momentarily forgetting the threat of messy death looming over her head. They would both be moving on to water walking soon.

It was during the evening meal that Inari's gloom finaly reached critical mass and exploded, unable to stand the fact that people were able to enjoy themselves.

"Why do you guys bother to try so hard?! No matter how hard you train, you're still no match for Gato's men! No matter what glorious claims you make or how hard you work, the weak will only end up getting killed!"

"Which is why Gato is going to get killed and Wave can begin rebuilding." Naruto said with a dismissive shrug, not particularly bothered with the rant. He was living proof that hard work and training did pay off, so the ranting of an 8 year old didn't phase him in the slightest.

"Shut up! What do you know about our pain?! Living in your big, fancy village, happy all the time and then sticking your nose into other people's business! You don't know anything about suffering! You should just leave!" Inari shouted at the blonde, further enraged by his dismissive attitude.

A feeling of murderous anger suffocated the room, making everyone shut up and freeze as Naruto stared down at the boy who had just blurted out something incredibly stupid.

"You must really hate your mother and grandfather." He said coldly.

"Wh-What are you t-talking about?" Inari stuttered, feeling both shocked and terrified at the sudden menace in the blondes voice.

"We are here to protect your grandfather while he finishes his bridge, if we leave the way you want us to then he will die and your mother will likely suffer the same or even worse soon after." Naruto continued with the same cold tone, freezing the young boys thoughts in his tracks.

"Come on Naruto that's enough." Sakura said, trying to stop things from escalating, but received a glacial glare and a growl that told her to shut up and stay out of it.

"You sit here, in a warm house, with a loving mother who cooks for you and takes care of you, with a brave grandfather who is risking his life to make sure you can live a better life and you spit on their love for you."

Inari looked about ready to burst into tears and run away, but found himself unable to. Unknown to everyone, Naruto was using his much neglected chakra voice enhancement to force him to listen.

"You live near a town not even 20 minutes walk away, where there are children living in the street. Children who have no one to take care of them. Children younger than you, who are forced to beg for food and you sit here with a full stomach and complain."

Tsunami who was just as frozen as everyone else realised that he must be thinking of the little girl from yesterday.

"My life was harder than yours is ever likely to be, but I climbed out of that instead of whining about it. Sasuke had to see his entire family killed by the hand of his own brother, but you don't hear him whining about it, even if he is a moody bastard."

The last part might have been considered somewhat funny if it hadn't been delivered in a voice cold enough to freeze water.

"I have no idea what happened to Kakashi-sensei, but I can guess that whatever makes him stare at a monument to the fallen for hours on end every day wasn't pleasant. In fact, the only one here who had a life better than you is Sakura. Instead of making everything worse, you should be doing your best to protect what you have, because as far this world is concerned, you're actualy pretty lucky."

With that the blonde turned around and headed towards the door, grabbing his stolen sword along the way and everyone breathed a relieved sigh that it was over without any violence.

"Where are you going Naruto?" Kakashi asked with some worry.

"Training."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto made his way towards the forest, most of his anger already cooled. The brat had gotten to him with the way he threw tantrums and ignored just how lucky he actualy was.

But the real reason he was still walking into the forest instead of going back was because he needed some space to figure out what the hell was going on with him and Tsunami and what he was going to do about it.

All the women that he had slept with previously had been either prostitutes or the type who was just looking for quick fling with no strings attached, excepting the obvious case of Xanna who was another matter entirely.

Tsunami however was a wonderful and loving woman that was very easy to get along with. She was a good deal older than him, but he had never cared about that before and he wasn't going to start now, besides he didn't even know how old Xanna was, but it was likely to be a number with four digits, so that argument didn't hold any water.

The root of the problem was that he had enjoyed the time he spent with her a great deal and could quite easily imagine settling down with her and abandoning his long shot dream of becoming powerful enough that the red haired demoness would consider him worthy of being her equal. That however would mean abandoning Xanna, which was out of the question.

She had been the one to get him through his childhood with his sanity more or less intact despite her fondness of mind games and he had made a promise on top of it. He may have given the promise as a child who hadn't truly understood the importance of keeping his word yet, but it didn't matter as he would have probably done the same thing even if he did know. He didn't make promises often, but he would sooner carve his own heart out than break them.

It was too late to distance himself from Tsunami to prevent himself from getting attached to her, as it had clearly already happened, which left him a horribly confused man. He'd avoided thinking about this last night, but there was no avoiding it now. If he didn't get himself straightened out and fast, this situation was going to blow up in his face sooner rather than later.

He recognised that most of his real anger at Inari had come from the fact that the brat was hurting Tsunami with his tantrums rather than anything that had been said about him. The only thing about him that the brat had attacked was his pride and it would take more than the tantrums of an 8 year old to noticeably dent the pride of Uzumaki Naruto. Unlike with him though, the boy had shown immense disrespect and callousness towards his mother, who had done everything in her power to help him.

He knew perfectly well that it had not been about the fact that he would have been ecstatic to have a mother like her when he had been the boys age. No, it had been about the fact that Tsunami was hurting because of his attitude and he had grown to care about her wellbeing.

Naruto growled to himself as his thoughts started running in a loop of thinking about Tsunami, to how dangerously close he'd already come to betraying his devotion to Xanna without even realising it and back to the fact that he was indisputably developing feelings for Tsunami.

Rapidly getting angry due to his frustration, he defaulted to the typical male response when their feelings weren't making any sense and they were alone where nobody could see them losing their shit.

He started punching the nearest tree and kept going until he'd flayed the skin off his bones and the tree was lying in a broken heap on the floor. He could have reinforced his fist with chakra but that would have defeated the point. The damage to his hand healed quickly and now that the poor tree had paid the price of his frustration he didn't feel like damaging it again.

Feeling much calmer after the random act of destructive violence, he started putting together the pieces and came to the only conclusion that could possibly be true.

Xanna had done this on purpose.

She had insisted that he keep on sleeping with other women because she knew no matter how much he swore up and down that she was the only one for him, the hearts of men could be swayed under the correct circumstances.

It had confused him endlessly. On the one hand she didn't seem to care at all whether he had sex with other women or not, but on the other she expressed extreme possesiveness of him. But now everything made sense.

No matter how driven he was, or how set his mind was on something, Naruto was still only 17 and was therefore lacking wisdom and experience. He had not seen everything by a long shot and many of his preconceptions about life and himself were wrong. Xanna was an ancient being and had seen many things, she understood things and saw things that he didn't by sheer weight of experience. Thinking about it that way actualy made him wonder why she even humoured him now that he thought about it.

Maybe she thinks it's cute or funny seeing me stumbling around in the dark like an idiot that barely even knows who he is?

He shook off that morbidly amusing thought with a snort. Of course she thought it was funny.

She had known that he would inevitably attract the attention of other women and some of those women he would find himself liking. She had predicted that he would eventualy come across a human woman that he could fall in love with and that human woman would not demand near godlike power before she considered him husband material. So she had all but demanded that he sleep with other women to hasten the process. That little lecture about lust had just been something that she had thrown along both to distract him from the truth and because he might as well learn something while he walked blindly into a situation that would get his heart mangled.

It was brutal and underhanded and exactly the kind of thing that she would do.

Regardless of how brutal it was though, he couldn't really be angry at her. This wasn't something that could be told, only experienced and he'd never been good at listening to advice anyway. Case in point would be Xanna's advice that his quest to become powerful enough to match her was tantamount to impossible, but he hadn't listened to that, so why would he listen if he had been told that he wasn't always going to be able to control his feelings.

Now that he had figured that out, all he had to do was figure out what to do.

Creating a harem with Xanna as first wife sounded so absurd that it made him want to smash his head into a rock just because the idea had passed through his mind for an instant.

Ask The Kyuubi, the most powerful being in existence outside of perhaps any gods that may or may not exist, to share him with humans? She'd use his spleen as a toothpick for even suggesting it, of this he was certain. He was still having trouble wrapping his head around her logic that sex was another thing entirely, but he knew with absolute certainty that a half baked idea like that could not possibly end well.

Either way, he was not giving up on his self imposed quest to gain her acknowledgement and love. He had loved her for years now and would not be swayed so easily, would not be swayed at all. Getting attached to Tsunami the way he had was going to suck when it was time to leave, but there was no avoiding it so he was just going to have to deal with it. He would remember her with fondness and see if he could do anything about improving her life before he left. At the very least she understood that he was going to be leaving, so he wouldn't have to tell her that he couldn't stay and see the disappointment in her eyes.

He wasn't going to act cold and distant towards her either. That would be a really dick move, especialy considering this was right after he had slept with her and it wouldn't achieve anything on top of it. He had already developed feelings for her and hurting her by acting like an asshole was just going to make him feel guilty as well.

He actualy had the girls from the brothels to thank for that bit of wisdom. Women really hated it when you're nice until they sleep with you and then you start acting like an ass. He suspected that he would have been enough of an idiot to not consider that angle if he'd encountered this situation without all those women coaching him on what made them tick.

There was no way that he was going back to the house tonight though, the whole thing was still too raw and he wanted to be alone and let this whole thing settle so that he didn't feel like a cauldron of unstable emotions.

Rubbing a hand across his face, he smiled wrily to himself. All of this emotional introspection and soul searching was not a job that men were suited for and he needed something simple to relieve some stress.

And the simplest and manliest way of relieving stress available to him in the middle of a dark forest was to swing an oversized piece of sharp metal around and see if he could figure out how Zabuza managed to do anything useful with the damn thing.

He flew at a nearby tree with the sword raised high and a wide grin on his face.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Haku could not believe her luck.

There he was, the blonde Uzumaki that had taken Zabuza-sama's sword. Apparently sleeping after training during the night. The many slashed trees were a testament to the fact that he had been using the very sword he had stolen not very long ago. The sword itself was lying on the ground near him. All she had to do was dispose of him before he could wake up and take the sword back to Zabuza.

She didn't want to kill him, but she would do it to get back Zabuza-sama's sword.

Haku glided silently towards the prone blonde, readying a senbon needle which she intended to jam into his neck to paralyze him so that he would be unable to defend himself. Taking a deep breath, she steeled her heart for what she was about to do...and found herself pinned to the ground in a blur of motion, hands held above her head with a strength that she couldn't hope to overcome and the rest of her body pinned under the much heavier blonde who was now eyeing her with a speculative gaze.

Naruto had been awoken by the feel of killing intent, but had elected to wait until his would be killer came close enough to act. Now that he had the very pretty girl disabled he could assess the situation.

Senbon? Long black hair? Wants to kill me for some reason? I do believe this is probably my old friend the fake hunter-nin, now to make sure.

"Hello hunter-chan have you come to take me up on my offer about getting the sword back?" Naruto asked with amusement.

Haku blushed faintly, remembering his crude words that day before her features turned into a blank mask.

She had failed Zabuza-sama utterly. First she had been unable to retrieve his sword from the blonde and now she had even gotten captured because of that moment of hesitation. There was no escape for her in this situation. She couldn't bluff her way out since he already knew she was the fake hunter-nin, couldn't form hand seals, couldn't break his grip, couldn't even kick him because he was nestled between her legs. The best she could hope for right now was that he at least wasn't a rapist.

"Please kill me quickly Uzumaki-san." She requested with a hollow voice.

"Well aren't you a morbid one, what's your name girl?" Naruto asked her. There was an idea percolating around his brain and it didn't involve killing this girl.

"Haku." She answered shortly.

"Well Haku, would you mind telling me why you want me to kill you?"

"Zabuza has no need for broken tools. I have failed him twice already, I am useless to him now." Haku told him. She had no reason to hide that information and she had no desire to suffer possible torture over useless information. She would not tell him about Zabuza-sama's location though.

"You think of yourself as a tool?" Naruto frowned. He was not a fan of that kind of mentality.

"Zabuza-sama has saved my life and given me purpose. I am his to do with as he wishes."

Naruto's frown deepened, that sounded disturbing on several levels.

"Allright, new question. What are you doing out here so early?"

"I was gathering herbs to speed up Zabuza-sama's recovery."

"Would I be correct in assuming that Zabuza is going to be healed approximately four days from now?"

Haku paused and considered whether to answer or not and why he was even asking. They leaf ninja had apparently already correctly guessed at when Zabuza-sama would be healed, so even if she told him, nothing would be changed. She could claim it would take longer, but with a legendary ninja such as Kakashi, the deception would likely be perceived, not to mention that they were running out of time to finish the mission.

"Yes."

Naruto frowned thoughtfuly. "I hope you're being honest about that, because this could be very important."

This made Haku frown in confusion. Obviously it was important information for the Konoha team, but he made it sound like it could be important to her and Zabuza-sama.

"Allright, I'd just like to know one more thing and then I may or may not have a proposition for you." Naruto began and Haku nodded in cautious agreement. "What did Zabuza save you from that you have this kind of loyalty for him?"

Haku once more considered whether she should answer or not. If she answered, then she would reveal her that she had a bloodline, but without knowing of anything specific that would hardly matter. Aside from that Konoha is well known for it's love of bloodlines, so perhaps he would try to take her back there, which would give her a small chance to perhaps be useful to Zabuza-sama one final time and if she failed, she could quickly use her bloodline to kill herself by flash freezing her own blood, it only took one hand seal.

Making her decision, Haku told him her story about how she had ended up wasting away in the streets because of the bloodline purges until Zabuza had found her and given her a reason to live.

Naruto was quite surprised to hear that she had a bloodline and at how similar her early life had been to his. But he knew everything that he needed to know now. His idea could definitely work.

"Well, I hadn't expected your life to be so similar to mine. Allright Haku, I'm going to let you up now, so please don't go doing something stupid like attacking me. I've got a proposal for you."

Haku sat up, feeling very confused. She had expected the questions to eventualy turn towards the types of things that would put Zabuza-sama in danger, leading to either torture or death, but instead he had just asked for things that had very little at all to do with the swordsman and was now even letting her go.

He motioned for her to follow and they both sat down against a tree.

"Here is my proposal for you Haku. I'll give you the sword back and in return you will tell Zabuza that I want him to delay the battle until I get there."

Naruto had no problem giving up the sword. He'd thought the thing was interesting at first, but the previous nights training had told him that a Kenjutsu user he was not. The sword had felt wrong in his hands the entire time, even if he was strong enough to swing it without a problem. Returning it to Zabuza was a gamble, but he was almost certain that Gato was planning to double cross them.

Haku was now immensely confused and shocked. The blondes actions didn't make any sense at all.

"But why would you do such a thing?"

"Well for one thing, I can't use that sword worth a damn. Maybe it doesn't like me, I hear that special swords have a will of their own or something like that. The other thing is that I've been spying on Gato's thugs in town for a while and I've overheard that he's ordered them to gather at a spot a small distance away from the bridge about four days from now. From what I know of Gato and men like him, he's probably thinking that he can wait for us to fight it out and then swoop in with a small army of hired thugs, avoid paying you and cash in on the bounties of both Zabuza and Kakashi on top of it." Naruto explained.

Haku's eyes widened at hearing this information and she found herself agreeing. That sounded exactly like something that Gato would do.

"So I'm proposing to give back the sword as a sign of good faith and then Zabuza can make his mist so that it looks like we're fighting and then just wait for the greedy little midget to show himself. If I'm wrong we can always pick up the fight later." Naruto finished with the proposal of his plan.

"Why would we need to wait for you to show up though? Will you not you be at the bridge as well?" Haku asked.

"No, I'll be at the bridge builders house, because people like Gato are also fond of using hostages as insurance, just in case something goes wrong, so I'm expecting them to try and take his daughter and grandson."

"I cannot guarantee that Zabuza-sama will agree to this." Haku stated.

"Then make your own observations of Gato's goons. The closer the day is, the more obvious it should be and he'll have an easier time believing you than me." Naruto reasoned.

Haku agreed and prepared to leave when Naruto stopped her with another request. "Could you meet me here in two days and give me Zabuza's answer?"

"I believe I can do that Uzumaki-san."

"None of that now Haku, we're practicaly friends, so just call me Naruto."

"Allright...Naruto. May I ask what you meant when you said that your life was similar to mine?" Haku asked cautiously.

"Well, I had something placed inside me when I was born that caused most of the village to hate me, so I lived my early life in a similar way to you." Naruto explained.

Haku was surprised, but also intrigued. "Zabuza-sama saved me from that life and became my precious person, this is why I will do everything in my power to protect him. I have always believed that people become truly powerful when they have someone they wish to protect. Do you also have a precious person that you want to protect?" She asked curiously. Despite the initialy bleak situation, she was now glad to have encountered the blonde Uzumaki. She was curious about what had been placed inside of him, but decided not to pry.

Naruto thought it over for a moment before answering. "There are two people who are precious to me above everyone. One is like a big sister to me and I would do nearly anything to keep her safe and the other is someone who doesn't need my protection, but it is my hope to be her equal one day."

Haku gave a smile at meeting someone that was so similar to her. "With reasons like that to grow strong, I have no doubt that you will succeed."

XXXXXXXXXX

The next few days passed without incident.

Kakashi had not been happy at all that Naruto had returned Zabuza's sword, but had decided to trust his student and hope for the best. The second meeting with Haku had revealed to them that Zabuza was wary of traps, but willing to go along with it, as everything was pointing towards Gato planning treachery. Sakura had been relieved that they might be getting out of the mission without a fight and Sasuke had been angry at being unable to face a powerful opponent to test himself.

Inari had been quiet and barely spoken a word since Naruto had laid into him, but he seemed more deep in thought than gloomy.

Everyone had continued their own training regardless of a possibly peaceful resolution. At this point both Sakura and Sasuke were working on water walking, one for endurance and the other to master it, while Naruto was still working on cutting a leaf in half with his wind chakra.

Naruto and Tsunami had also continued their nightly activities in secret. At first Naruto had been hesitant about it, but Tsunami had assured him that she had known he wouldn't be able to stay. She would miss him, but she had never expected him to stay and just wanted to enjoy the short time they had left together before he left. True enough, she hadn't expected to find herself liking him to this extent, but she knew that there could be no future together for them. She was happy enough that he'd come around and help lift the loneliness she had been feeling ever since her husband died and that his words semeed to have done some good for Inari despite their harshness.

Now the day had finaly arrived for the long awaited confrontation.

Tazuna had told his workers to not come that day in order to prevent anyone getting caught in the possibly crossfire, but he intended to join them on the bridge.

Naruto had stayed behind at the house, waiting for any possible kidnapping attempts by Gato's thugs. He was going to stay for two hours and then join them on the bridge if no kidnapping attempts had been made, leaving behind shadow clones just in case they were late. He didn't like relying on shadow clones for this kind of thing, as one tiny cut was enough to dispel them, which was the only reason he hadn't left shadow clones to begin with.

Inari was currently in his room, as he had been wont to do lately, thinking over what Naruto had said to him.

Meanwhile, Naruto was in the kitchen, standing in a place where he couldn't be seen from the front door or from the stairs leading to the first floor. He had his pants undone and Tsunami on her knees in front of him, with his rod in her mouth.

Normaly Tsunami wouldn't have even considered doing something like this, but she had gotten a lot bolder in the past few days and she knew that the short time she had to enjoy the company of her favorite blonde was running out. She knew that Naruto would hear if anyone was approaching, so the risk of getting caught was minimal and they couldn't risk doing anything more with the danger of being attacked at any moment. Aside from that she had also discovered that instead of the usualy unpleasant taste of a man's sperm, Naruto tasted like the most wonderful thing to have ever graced her taste buds. She had been confused when she first tasted him and it felt like she was drinking liquid lightning, but with only positive effects. His explanation on chakra density having strange effects on the body didn't really explain anything to her, so she just accepted it as being another oddity about him that she was going to miss.

Before she could extract what she was after from him though, the front door was destroyed, causing Naruto to quickly pull out of her mouth and stuff it back inside his pants. He didn't show it, but he was rather pissed off at the timing of this attack. Couldn't they have come a few minutes later?

"I'm going around the back, don't worry, I won't let them touch you or Inari." Naruto whispered to her and vanished through a nearby window. Tsunami quickly wiped her mouth and then stood to meet the would be kidnappers.

Zori and Waraji had expepected the standard kidnapping when they broke down the door. Screaming, panic, pleading maybe even an attempt to fight back, thus they were very confused when they were met with a composed looking woman. Oh, she still looked somewhat frightened, but not anywhere close to what you'd expect when you break down someone's door with swords and barge into their home with blades drawn. Still, they had a job to do and they were going to do it.

"You're coming with us girl, Gato wants to have a little talk with you and your father."

"I'm not letting you take my mother!" A young voice suddenly screamed and they turned to see a boy at the top of the stairs.

Inari felt Naruto's words echo in his mind as he saw the men who had come to take his mother away and he couldn't believe that he had ever wanted the shinobi to leave. He understood now just what it meant that he had been telling them to leave, he had been telling them to abandon them to this exact fate. He didn't see Naruto anywhere, so he was determined to protect his mother at all costs. He couldn't lose her too after he lost his adoptive father.

Zori and Waraji couldn't understand why the woman suddenly looked calm.

"You won't be taking me anywhere." Tsunami said with a grim smile, all traces of fear gone. Inari just looked confused at hearing his mother so calm, as he didn't have a direct line of sight behind the two thugs.

"Yout think this little runt is gonna stop us?" Zori laughed mockingly.

"No, Inari is much too young to stop you, but the shinobi standing right behind you is another matter entirely."

They instantly spun around, intending to cut down whoever was behind them, only to find their hands caught in an iron hard grip and a much bigger man than they were leering at them with a menacing fanged smile.

"We've been waiting for you. Now, you are going to tell me what Gato is up to at the bridge."

"Screw you, I'm not telling you anything!" Waraji raged, trying to get his hand free without success.

When they tried to kick the blonde shinobi and force him to let go, his grip on their forearms suddenly tightened until the bones broke under the strain. Both screamed in pain and let go of their swords, falling to the floor immediately after, cradling their now broken arms.

"I don't have time to screw around with you, so tell me what I want to know or I start taking off body parts." Naruto demanded in a cold, chakra enhanced voice, instantly removing any thoughts about refusing. They were just hired swords and definitely had no interest in being tortured in order to protect information.

"He's gonna wait for your team and Zabuza to fight it out and then ambush you with everything he has!" Zori revealed franticaly, wanting to tell him everything he knew as soon as possible, before the blonde could make good on his threat.

"So I was right then. That makes things simple." Naruto said to himself, before dragging the two of them outside. He didn't want to kill them in front of Inari and leaving them alive was not an option.

When he came back in, both Tsunami and Inari were waiting for him.

"I'm going to the bridge, it's time to finish this." He told them.

They nodded, but Inari felt that he had to say something. "Thank you Naruto nii-san"

Naruto raised a surprised eyebrow at the new form of adress and then put his hand on Inari's head and ruffled his hair. "You did good trying to protect your mother Inari." The words made Inari smile proudly.

The blonde made two shadow clones and then sped off towards the bridge.

XXXXXXXXXXX

When he arrived at the bridge, he saw a rather odd thing.

The bridge was enveloped with a Kirigakuretehnique and once he penetrated it he saw a dome of ice mirrors with Sasuke trapped inside them, looking progressively more like a pin cushion.

The odd thing about this was that Kakashi was standing next to Sakura and Tazuna, with Zabuza on the other end, the mist not thick enough for combar purposes, but plenty thick enough to block sight from the outside.

"So...what's going on?" Naruto asked, as the whole thing seemed as casual as a tense situation between possible enemies could be, with the exception of Sakura's nervous shifting, clearly worried for her precious Sasuke-kun.

"Apparently Sasuke was upset about being unable to fight anyone on the mission thanks to you sniffing out Gato's plan and he made his displeasure known. Zabuza suggested that he fight Haku and here we are."

"Right...well anyway, I've just interrogated the two goons Gato sent to kidnap Tsunami and it seems we were right to be suspicious. He should be coming here soon, looking to pick off any survivors from our 'battle'." Naruto said, catching everyone's attention.

"Well I guess we're not enemies anymore then." Zabuza said.

It was at this point that Sasuke collapsed, too injured to stand anymore and causing Sakura to shriek out his name in worry.

"Don't worry Sakura, he's fine." Kakashi reassured her.

Haku dismissed the ice mirrors and moved to stand at Zabuza's side while Kakashi collected Sasuke. "Looks like the Uchiha was no match for you Haku."

"He was somewhat able to dodge my senbon after awakening his Sharingan, but he had no abilities powerful enough to break my mirrors, so it didn't help him too much." Haku confirmed.

"The prick is going to be even more insufferable with his pouting after this though." Naruto sighed in resignation.

"Don't talk about Sasuke-kun like that!" Sakura raged.

"If you don't stop shrieking I'm going to ask Haku to put you in a death trance Sakura." Naruto told her irritably. No man wants to listen to a grating, high pitched voice shrieking into their ear, especialy not after an interrupted blowjob.

That shut the pink haired fangirl up quickly, as she didn't want to have senbon stuck in her neck.

Naruto took the opportunity to observe Zabuza and Haku since they weren't trying to kill each other. What he had heard from Haku about how she considered herself a tool for Zabuza still bothered him. It wasn't really any of his business, but he had taken a genuine liking to Haku during their short talk in that forest and he didn't want her living that kind of life.

"Hey Zabuza?" He suddenly asked, surprising the swordsman and Haku slightly. They hadn't expected there to be much talking going on until Gato showed up.

"Yeah?" Zabuza felt that he had a slight debt to the blonde for returning his sword so freely, so he was willing to answer some questions.

"Do you really consider Haku to be nothing but a tool to you?"

"That's what Shinobi are." Zabuza answered simply, causing Naruto to frown.

"I dont believe that." Naruto refuted.

"You can believe what you want, it won't change the truth." Zabuza retorted.

"So if I had asked for Haku's life in exchange for the sword you would have agreed?" Naruto asked somewhat heatedly.

"Haku is a lot more useful than a sword and I'd have gotten my sword back another way." Was the cold response, though it was somewhat evasive.

"Well then what if I had demanded that Haku sleep with me in exchange for the sword." Naruto demanded, getting irritated with the swordsman's disregard for his partner.

The question caused Haku to flush bright red and Sakura to gape at him, also blushing.

"What the hell are you implying you bastard?" Zabuza demanded angrily.

Naruto stared at him for a few seconds before he gave a small smirk. "If you only think of Haku as a tool, then I don't see what you're getting so angry about. It shouldn't be any big deal to sacrifice the virginity of a tool to get your sword back right?"

Zabuza growled and looked like he was about to draw his sword and cut the blonde Uzumaki in half when a brightly blushing Haku asked a question of her own.

"Naruto-san, Why are you saying such things?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what Zabuza really thinks of you. I did say that we were practicaly friends and I don't like seeing my friend treated as a tool. Given how mad Zabuza looks right now, I'm pretty sure that his whole attitude about you being a tool is fake." Naruto explained, making Haku look at him in surprise.

"Uzumaki..." Zabuza growled, but was ignored.

Kakashi was watching the whole thing in silent amusement.

"I bet he wouldn't even mind if you gave him a hug right now." The blonde prodded further, while Haku blushed some more at the suggestion and inched a bit closer to the swordsman. She had always looked up to Zabuza as a father figure even if she said that she was just a tool and she had wanted to hug him several times before.

Any further conversation was interrupted by the noise of several hundred feet walking towards them.

"Showtime." Zabuza said with anticipation.

Gato walked onto the bridge like he owned the place, intending to give an arrogant little speech about how he had screwed everyone over, but stopped in confusion when he saw that nobody except for one black haired kid seemed to be injured.

"Zabuza, what the hell is this? I'm paying you to get rid of the bridge builder not to screw around."

"You fucked up for the last time when you tried to double cross me. I'll just take my payment out of your hide." Zabuza growled, making the greed midget back up in fear. He had brought all of these hired thugs with him because he had expected that they would be able to deal with a severely exhausted Zabuza. A fresh and uninjured Zabuza was something else entirely however.

"Please leave Gato alive for now Zabuza, I have something special that I need him for before you kill him." Naruto requested.

Zabuza looked at the blonde next to him. He was still a bit pissed at him for the earlier comments about Haku, but he had no problem delaying the midget's death for a little while.

"Fine." He grunted.

In contrast to the conversation on the shinobi side, Gato was starting to get a little desperate, which is why he resorted to a tried and true method for motivating a mob of greedy thugs.

"There's only a handful of them and I'll be paying a 50,000 ryo bonus to anyone who can strike a killing blow on one of the shinobi and then the lot of you can go do whatever you want to the town as a celebration."

The small army of thugs looked excited at the prospect and charged right at the small group of ninja, intending to overwhelm them with numbers. They were further encouraged when they saw that only three of them intended to fight.

Indeed only Zabuza, Kakashi and Naruto had readied themselves to fight the mob. Haku had no desire to engage in a slaughter, Sasuke was unconscious and Sakura knew perfectly well that she wasn't ready for something like this.

The following 'battle' quickly reminded the thugs why exactly it was unwise to fight trained shinobi if you weren't one yourself.

Zabuza was effortlessly cleaving through several of them with every pass of his huge blade, barely needing to even bother with any tehniques aside from swinging the sword from one side to the other.

Kakashi stuck to the basic kunai and went for quick kills, his speed much too high to be in any danger from the slow attacks of the mob.

Naruto simply manifested his chakra chains and and swiftly sent them to impale the attacking mob. He wasn't much for wholesale slaughter, but he didn't want to have all of these thugs turn into bandits and cause further trouble out of some misguided sense of mercy.

A few blood soaked minutes later, Gato was the only one left alive and he was shaking with terror, fully aware that there was no getting away.

"Allright Uzumaki, the little pig is alive for now, so go do whatever it is you intend to do so that I can kill him already." Zabuza grumbled impatiently.

Naruto moved toward Gato and the tiny man immediately started trying to negotiate.

"Please spare me, I'll give you anything you want, just don't kill me!"

Naruto gave him a chilling smile and answered. "Yes, there is something that I want from you."

Gato looked hopeful and thought that he might just be able to get out of this alive.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The group was now in Gato's mansion, more specificaly his office, which had previously belonged to the Daimyo. Naruto had his clones bring Tsunami along as well. The only one missing were Sasuke and Sakura, who had returned to the house, one to rest from his injuries and the other to watch over him.

"Naruto, why did you bring me here?" Tsunami asked in confusion.

"That's simple. The midget here is going to be signing over everything he owns to you." Naruto answered simply.

"WHAT?!" came the voices of Gato, Tazuna and Tsunami, while the others simply looked surprised.

Naruto had considered the idea of taking all of Gato's holdings for himself, but he honestly didn't have time to be dealing with a company, nor did he really need that much money. Just killing Gato and letting whoever wanted it to get his hands on it was also out of the question, which had left him with the option of giving it to someone else. He knew Tsunami and knew that she would no doubt make use of the funds to bring Wave country back to prosperity. She might not be much of a business manager, but she had a good heart and it was going to take a lot of money to repair the damage that Gato had done, money that the diminutive business man conveniently had.

"You heard me midget. If you don't like it we can always resort to breaking bones until you see it my way."

Gato paled at the threat and rapidly began signing documents to turn over everything he owned to Tsunami, who was still looking stunned.

"But Naruto, why are you insisting that he sign everything over to me?"

"Because I know that you'll make good use of it." Naruto smirked and continued. "After all, we can't have your father using all that money on sake."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several days later, the Konoha shinobi were preparing to leave, as the bridge was finaly complete.

Zabuza and Haku had already left, their destination unknown, but much richer than when they arrived. Zabuza had helped himself to several times the amount of money that Gato had promised him and nobody had really begrudged him the money, so the swordsman was overall pleased with the way things had gone. The swordsman had also taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in removing Gato's head after the midget had realised that the only one who had promised not to kill him had been Naruto.

Contrary to Naruto's belief about Sasuke being upset about losing to Haku, the Uchiha was too happy over activating his bloodline to be upset over the loss and had taken to activating it randomly whenever the urge struck him. Naruto somehow figured that this good mood wouldn't last long however.

"Thank you for everything that you've done for us." Tazuna was saying. All of Wave seemed to be there to see them off. Inari looked like he was barely holding back tears at seeing his 'big brother' leave.

Tsunami was looking very nervous, before apparently gathering her courage and dragging Naruto into a kiss by the lapels of his coat. Everyone watching seemed to be stunned for a moment, before a loud 'oooooh' came from the crowd. Tazuna and Inari were both gaping in shock, tears forgotten in the case of the boy.

Sasuke and Sakura were both surprised for a mere moment, before irritation filled their expressions and Kakashi just gave a off a perverse giggle...quietly so as not to ruin the moment.

When the kiss ended, Team 7 bid them all goodbye and left the country.

"We still need to name the bridge." Tazuna said, trying to get his mind off what he had just seen.

"The Great Naruto Bridge seems appropriate." Tsunami said lightly.

"Why exactly is that appropriate?!" Tazuna exclaimed, now fully into angry father mode at the fact that someone had kissed his daughter, even if the woman in question was nearly 30 years old.

"Because he is the main reason that everything went so well, along with giving us the means to rebuild. Aside from that he also restored Inari's hope, not to mention my own." The woman answered.

"Allright fine, we'll name it The Great Naruto Bridge." Tazuna relented.

"Kaa-san why did you kiss Naruto nii-san?" Inari asked in confusion.

Tsunami smiled and walked towards home, looking back to answer."Because I wanted to."

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, at least it was just a kiss this time." Sakura grumbled.

Kakashi gave off a loud perverse giggle this time.

"It was just a kiss wasn't it?" the pinkette asked her sensei with some trepidation.

Kakashi merely looked at her with an eye smile and giggled perversely again.

"Tell me that it was just a kiss Naruto." Sakura all but demanded.

Naruto just gave a small smile but didn't answer. He wasn't much in the mood for joking or screwing with their heads this time. Though Sasuke was getting pretty good at masking his irritation, he was not quite good enough yet, even if he never said anything.

The smile did not fill Sakura's heart with confidence that her hopes were true.

"Well, it's not like you had any chance to sleep with her." She assured herself.

"Why do you think she was limping that day?" Kakashi asked her, his voice full of amusement, eyes firmly curved into their signature strange smiling shape.

Sakura's face went blank as she remembered the story about slipping and hitting the door frame. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember hearing any kind of loud smacking sound which that kind of thing would have made.

"DAMNIT NARUTO, CAN WE NOT GO ON ONE MISSION WITH YOU WITHOUT YOU SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE?!" The pinkette raged.

The perverted giggles of their sensei echoed through the forest.