Naruto: Cautious Ninja

"Remember?" Naruto repeated before thrusting the knife further forward. "Talk! Who the hell are you?"

The red head slumped against the wall pulled her knee up to her chest and brushed her hair aside. "Maybe this will help jog your memory." She then burst into a puff of white smoke, the fumes dispersing seconds later to reveal a long, brown-haired woman wearing a familiar dark grey uniform. Naruto's eyes widened when he saw her form emerge fully from the sheath of her transformation. "Well? Ring any bells, sweetie."

"Y-You're?" Naruto choked before swinging his kunai around. Before he could follow-through with an attack however, the boy's eyes widened in horror when he suddenly felt a sharp sting shoot through his entire body from his right side. Mouth dropping and giving out a strangled yelp, the jinchuriki dropped the knife he was holding, the blade clattering loudly on the floor before he looked down to his ribs to see another kunai being driven into his side from an unknown attacker. "W-What the hell is this?"

Looking over his shoulder, half of his question was immediately answered by another familiar face popping into view in the form of the silver haired fox from his younger years. The lead kunoichi of the band of three that had infiltrated his village two years ago to steal information on Konoha's security system grinned slyly at the boy as she knelt behind him with her specialized, curved kunai buried into him.

She twisted the weapon for extra measure, earning another strangled shout from her still standing victim. Blood began seeping out of Naruto's mouth.

"Pay back," the silver haired kunoichi exclaimed, with the third member of the group appearing behind her with her hands on her hips and looking toward the child smugly. "Don't bother calling out for help, though I doubt anyone will be able to hear your cries of terror even if you tried. I've made sure to aim for your lung so that you wouldn't be able to even squeak. You'll bleed to death, but live long enough for us to enjoy this."

"I-It can't be? How are you three even here?" Naruto choked out as best as he could. His gravelly tone registered barely above a whisper thanks to the blade sitting inside of his organ. "I took you down ages ago. Y-You should be rotting in jail right now."

"Should be, could be, would be, but thanks to the little mole hiding out in your cozy little village our sentence has been cut short. Now that we're free to do as we please what better way to turn over a new leaf then by taking out all our years of pent-up frustration on the runt who put us in that hellhole," Noriko exclaimed. "You should be happy… although… not as happy as we'll be when we're through with you."

"That's not fair, Noriko," Shuko whined in disappointment. "I wanted to stab the kid in the back. Why do you get all the kill shots?"

"Because I'm the leader, that's why," Noriko replied before smiling over at her teammate. "But I'll let you break all of his fingers if that'll cheer you up?"

"Oh goodie," the kunoichi exclaimed with a clap.

Noriko chuckled before looking back at the jinchuriki, while their teammate pulled herself to her feet and placed a hand on her hip. They were all dressed in the same uniforms they had worn all those years ago with their swords strapped to their backs. This showed that they were all set and ready for action, but clearly wanted to take their time in wanting to cause the boy they now had at their mercy as much pain as they possibly could.

After all the humiliation he'd put them through in their first encounter, they wanted to make good on their promises to put him through double, even triple the pain he'd caused them.

"So, runt. Where were we?"

"W-What did you do with Tayuya-chan?" Naruto growled, biting his teeth together and shutting his eye as the pain continued to shoot through him. "You better not have hurt her, because if you did…"

"Oh? That little waste of skin?" Noriko chuckled before looking up at Kureha standing in front of them. "She's probably still wandering around the streets doing God-knows what at this time of night. Good thing we saw all those picture of you and her cluttering your nightstand for us to figure out you had a roommate, otherwise this wouldn't have worked out as well as it did."

"Yeah. She's quite the looker too," Kureha commented while rubbing her nose. "We didn't think you even had the sack or smarts to bag an item like that. Good on you."

"But don't worry about kissing her goodbye or anything like that. We'll make sure you're dead and bloodless by the time she gets home and discovers your lifeless corpse lying across the floorboards," Noriko said darkly, twisting the knife a little more. "How does that sound?"

"D-Damn it!" Naruto hissed through his lips.

Where the hell was Tayuya if not here?

OOO

Elsewhere…

The red head in question hummed pleasantly to herself as she sat at the local bar just a couple of blocks away from her apartment. True to her words earlier spoken to her dear flat mate, Tayuya was busy enjoying the new item the stand had on the menu tonight.

Teriyaki chicken with fried rice and a side of dumplings; it was exquisite.

It was so exquisite in fact that she'd decided to have four more dishes. Since they were each served small, as a lot of people loved them and it was good for business to leave customers wanting more, the redhead had gone on ahead and spoiled herself over a handful of servings, while making sure to order several as take-away for her to chow down on later and for Naruto to share with her.

Figuring that three bowls of ramen wouldn't be enough for her energetic teammate who needed more fuel to burn in a day than most, and because he did technically have a black hole for a stomach that was very much like hers when it came to delicious treats, Tayuya made sure to plan ahead. She needed meals to please the boy who was letting her stay in his apartment, so she loaded up with everything she could to go along with the other shopping she also needed to do tonight.

Tayuya noticed that they always ran low on milk. That was weird. How could two people burn through four liters in two days?

"It doesn't matter," Tayuya thought after that brief interlude and picked up another dumpling from the side of her plate. She held it in front of her lips, allowing its aroma to fill her nostrils with its intoxicating smells of oil and hot sauce. "Naruto-kun will probably do some shopping as well, but I'll do some extra just to make sure he didn't miss anything."

One thing was certain; Naruto was definitely going to be refilling his cupboards with more ramen. It was the one thing he couldn't live without.

Could you imagine Naruto going for an entire week without ramen? That's like a smoker going cold-turkey.

The thought of a pale, blonde haired jinchuriki lying in a fetal position on the couch while watching television together made Tayuya laugh.

"Yeah. There's no way in hell he'll ever let that happen to himself," the musician laughed before munching down the dumpling. "Man this is good." It was her last serving for the night. She wanted to make this one count.

Looking at the clock hanging over the chef's work area, she figured that Naruto was home by now and waiting for her. Hopefully he would be able to keep it together while waiting for her to return and not make a mess of the place in her absence.

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