Happier Than Ever: A Naruto Uzumaki Love Story

Chapter Six: An Understanding

*NARUTO*

Something didn't feel right.

Naruto stopped walking to turn and look up at where he'd left Kazuna. Moved by the strong urge to turn around and check on her, Naruto rushed back towards her building. With Kakashi-sensei already poofed away in a cloud of smoke, he had no choice but to go alone. Quickly, he leapt through the winding perron stairwell up to her floor, then ran to her apartment door. Before he could even touch the door handle, a man, no smaller than Pervy Sage, came flying through the door. Naruto's eyes bucked from their sockets as the large man laid in a limp heap against the railing opposite of the door.

He peered inside, finding Kazuna hunched over in the dark apartment after having heaved the man out. Her eyes gleaming against the dark of her room, burning with anger. She marched towards the man, not noticing Naruto, and lifted him by the collar of his green tunic. It wasn't until then that Naruto noticed how bloody and swollen his face was. Had Kazuna done that all by herself?

Naruto felt that familiar stinging sensation in his gut as Kazuna lifted the man over the safeguard of the balcony and held him above the ground. Gripped with pain, Naruto reached out to Kazuna with one hand and clutched his stomach with the other. What the hell is going on?, he thought as he winced.

"Kazuna, wait," Naruto implored, inching towards her.

"Tell me who sent you," she growled at the barely conscious man. Naruto could feel his hands shaking, his body reacting to Kazuna's anger with the same sentiment. He could feel the kyuubi inside of him rumbling with ire.

"You need to subdue her. NOW," Kurama's voice insisted with imperative urgency.

"I-I don't know anything," the man pleaded.

"He tried to kill us, Ryuzu, there is no stopping. Tell me. Who sent you," she demanded. Naruto frowned, wondering if there was someone around he couldn't see. Us? Ryuzu?

"Please! Someone told me to come here tonight. Said they'd pay me and have my sentence reduced if I showed up to attack you," the man begged. The look in his eye was all Naruto needed to know he was telling the truth. He placed his free hand on Kazuna's shoulder, fixing his lips to calm her down, but she took the man and threw him against the wall next to her apartment door, knocking the wind out of him. She started to step toward him, but Naruto blocked her path, earning him a repugnant glare.

"You're in my way." Her voice was still and dull, but it boomed in his ears as bloodlust burned in her bright pink eyes.

"I think he's telling the truth, Kazuna. Maybe we should let someone else take care of this." Looking down at her wrists, he noticed the blood of the beaten man drying on the cuffs around them.

"Maybe you should get out of my way," she retorted, taking Naruto by his jacket and roughly moving him aside – notably careful not to hurt him – but when she stepped forwards to pursue the man, he'd been replaced with Kakashi-sensei leaning against the stone wall. Kazuna stepped up to him until she stood with her nose mere inches away from his face, galled by his interference. Kotetsu and Izumo were hoisting the large man up behind Kakashi-sensei, making their way towards the stairs of the complex.

"We'll take things from here, Kazuna," he smiled sheepishly, "Now, why don't you do me a favor and take a little nap." He pulled the forehead protector covering his left eye, exposing his sharingan and trapping Kazuna in a genjutsu. Kakashi caught her body by the small of her back as she went limp before tossing her over his shoulder.

"I-I tried to stop her," Naruto said, feeling defeated, the pain in his gut slowly subsiding. "She–"

"It's not your fault, Naruto," he answered tenderly.