Swirling Chaos Ch. 29 (Naruto) (Patreon)

A/N: Naruto and Kurama make up.

-x-X-x-

“I forgive you.”

Kurama stiffens up beside him as he says it. Easily and without any caveats. He forgives her, just like that. But then, what else was he supposed to do? Get angry? Was he supposed to scream and rage at her? Was he supposed to become cold and hateful towards her?

She’d lied to him, that much was undeniable, but to be fair, Naruto had been lied to a lot in his life. And if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that there were good lies and bad lies, and then there were the lies in between.

Maybe this lie fell closer to the in between part then it did to good. Maybe Kurama should have told him the flaws in his plan so that they could try to work out a solution together. But Naruto knows she’s right about him. He’s precisely as stubborn as she described him to be, and just because he’s self-aware about it doesn’t make him any less stubborn.

Had Kurama made the right call? That remained to be seen. But had she truly betrayed him? No, Naruto didn’t think so. She’d done what she’d done FOR him… for both of them. The fact that she was willing to apologize only drove it home for Naruto that forgiving her was the right thing to do. Letting something like this fester between them was pointless, really.

“… Of course you do. Because you’re a big, dumb idiot.”

Sounding both exasperated and affectionate at the same time, Kurama rolls her eyes skyward as Naruto looks over at her with a raised brow. She’s sitting beside him with her tails flicking back and forth behind them and her hands pressed on the rooftop on either side of her. This has the added effect of bringing her arms together, which in turn pushes her breasts together as she keeps looking up.

“A big, dumb idiot who I could bamboozle a dozen times only to be forgiven each and every time. A big, dumb idiot who-eep!”

With a growl, Naruto lunges over and pins Kurama in place, pushing her down onto the roof as she squeaks and then gasps from having his weight on top of her. He can feel her intent through their connection of course. He can tell she’s being a agitating and provocative on purpose. That doesn’t change his reaction though. If anything, knowing she’s being impish on purpose only makes him more prone to act.

Chest heaving, panting breaths leaving her lips, Kurama looks up into his eyes from under his body.

“Punish me, Naruto. I deserve it.”

He scoffs but pushes her down even further. She doesn’t resist as he forces her legs open and easily frees his cock from its confines. However, he stops just short of penetrating her, instead pressing just the tip against her slit. Kurama makes a confused noise in the back of her throat, furrowing her brow at him… which is when Naruto strikes.

Opening the connection between them nice and wide, he hits the Nine-Tails with every ounce of his feelings for her. He throws it all at her all at once, turning what’s normally a stream of consciousness and thought between them into a raging river. Sure, there’s some bad along with the good. He’s hurt that she lied to him and currently beating himself up for the fact that she felt the need to lie to him in the first place. But that’s completely overshadowed for his love and affection for her.

Kurama flinches as if she’s just been smacked in the nose. In fact, her nose even wrinkles as her eyes cross and then she shudders under the onslaught of positivity and adoration. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out as her dusky toned cheeks begin to color. Her impishness vanishes amidst the weight of her embarrassment as she lets out a foxlike whine deep in her throat. Her hands come up, curled into fists, and beat weakly against his chest for his actions.

Just as she’s opening her mouth to speak however… that’s when he thrusts forward, piercing her deeply with his cock. Kurama gasps and then moans, unable to hold back her unvarnished reaction as he fills her with his member. He’s stripped away all of her defenses with his opening assault, leaving her to mewl and whine and moan as she shudders beneath him.

But he doesn’t stop there. Pushing his own hands between them, he grabs her fisted hands and forces them open, sliding his fingers through her fingers. Then, he pushes her arms back to either side of her head, clutching at her hands with his own as he pumps in and out of her. He can tell she realizes the severity of these actions as well. Handholding? How lewd!

Joking aside, Naruto leans forward, pressing his chest to Kurama’s and burying his face in the crook of her neck, suckling at her flesh there as she arches her back and moans all the more wantonly. For all that he’s love-bombing the shit out of her right now and completely overwhelming her with his adoration for her, he’s not taking things slowly. He fucks her hard and fast there on the roof, a combination of tender affection in the form of handholding and neck kissing alongside rough pounding as her legs come up and wrap around his waist, clinging to him in response.

They don’t last long. It’s already been a long enough night as it is. Finally, Naruto lets out a grunt and finishes inside of her, with Kurama shivering in delight as she tips over the edge too. They come out the other side of their mutual release still clinging to one another, though eventually Kurama recovers enough to narrow her eyes at him and hiss.

“I hope you understand I’ll get you back for this, Naruto.”

He knows. But he’s unable to help himself in the end. Grinning wickedly, Naruto just cocks an eyebrow in response.

“But you were the one who told me to punish you, Kurama.”

The Nine-Tails fumes for a little bit at that, not exactly able to deny it or talk back. In the end though, they both nestle into one another, cuddling there on the roof. Any tension between them caused by Kurama’s lie is already released, already dealt with. They are and always will be partners in crime for as long as Naruto lives and not even this is enough to stop that.

They fall asleep in each other’s arms like that on the rooftop, the stars shining overhead. Together, just as it should be.

-x-X-x-

Of course, they still have to pay the piper in the morning. Naruto had expected this, so he’s not really that surprised when Kushina orders him to the Hokage’s Tower for an early morning meeting. His mother actually looks surprisingly well-rested when he finally stands in front of her desk, but she also looks more serious and grave then he’s ever seen her so far.

This isn’t his mother Kushina Uzumaki. Nor is it the woman who became his lover the night before. This is Kushina Uzumaki, the Fifth Hokage. This is the woman who lost her husband to a terrible attack that devastated their home over a decade and a half ago and after seeing how everyone else was handling the aftermath, decided to take matters into her own hands. This… was the woman who had looked out at everything that had happened over the course of her life and proclaimed ‘Never Again’.

As such, Naruto isn’t remotely surprised when Kushina snaps out a hand, making a handful of ANBU hand signs that result in the members of Anbu currently posted up in the Hokage’s Office to not only vacate the premises but also bring up the highest level of privacy seals that the tower has. They remain on the perimeter of course, but no one, not the Anbu and not anyone else, can now see into this room. If they try, Kushina will know immediately.

“Sit.”

Naruto sits. Not out of fear, but with a seriousness and graveness that matches Kushina’s energy to a T.

“Genin Uzumaki. I assume you know why I’ve called you here.”

“I do, Hokage Uzumaki.”

“And is the Nine-Tails also in attendance?”

“I’m here.”

Appearing out from his seal, Kurama flops down on the couch off to the side. She still lounges rather disrespectfully, she can’t quite help it, but there’s no foxy grin on her face, no twinkle in her eye. She’s also matching the energy in the room, at least partially. And there’s something else too… a flicker of worry in her expression. Worry directed at him.

“Good. I trust you both understand the gravity of this situation. What you told me last night… I should not have let things progress as they did without questioning each of you further.”

Naruto notices that Kushina isn’t saying that she shouldn’t have let things progress at all. Even if the Fifth Hokage’s face colors just a little bit, she’s not trying to backtrack on everything that happened between them last night. Still… she’s sort of right. Sucking in a deep breath, Kushina looks between the two of them for a moment before pressing her hands flat down on her desk.

“Tell me everything. This other world… the other Naruto and Kurama… they didn’t choose our world for anything as mundane as sightseeing or tourism, did they? They were running from something. And from what you described, that world might very well be our world’s future. So I need to know. I need to know what happened.”

Naruto nods, but before he can begin Kurama pipes up.

“It also might not be. Your very survival has already changed things in this world beyond recognition in a lot of ways.”

Kushina inclines her head in acknowledgment of that, before sweeping her gaze back to him.

“Even still, if there’s even one tragedy that we can prepare for or stop completely with your knowledge, I need to know.”

As she repeats herself, Kurama bristles a little bit from the couch, but Naruto sends the mental equivalent of holding up a hand in Kurama’s direction via their connection, stopping her in her tracks.

“I agree.”

Kurama isn’t happy about it, and Naruto has figured out why now. She’s trying to protect him from the things that happened to them in that other world. She’s trying to help him avoid reliving their shared trauma. But Kushina is right. She wouldn’t be asking this of them if it wasn’t important, if she didn’t need to know.

And so, with Kurama settling back into her couch defeated and Kushina leaning forward in anticipation, Naruto begins to speak. And he tells Kushina… everything.

-x-X-x-

It takes hours, of course. It’s funny, even the half of Naruto that’s from this world had never looked at his mother as the particularly studious sort. He knew better now, of course, having already gotten a taste of the paperwork she handled on the daily. But still, the way Kushina listens so very attentively to every word out of his mouth, questioning him every third sentence… it speaks to a woman with a very, very sharp mind.

But then to be fair… they wouldn’t let just any knucklehead with no sense for tactics or critical thinking put on the hat, now would they? A small, bitter smile flashes across Naruto’s face at that even as Kushina leans back in her chair, looking off to the side lost in thought at all he’s just told her.

“Tch… to think the man who robbed me of a husband and you of a father was Obito… if it wasn’t from your lips, I would refuse to believe it.”

That’s right. Obito, Tobi, Madara… whatever you wanted to call him, whatever he wanted to call himself… at the end of the day, Obito Uchiha had originally been one of the Fourth’s students. Meaning he’d probably been like a surrogate son to Kushina.

“Itsuki… in that other world, Itsuki Uchiha was a deep cover spy for Hiruzen?”

Naruto wordlessly nods.

“Well… she’s not here. She truly is in the wind. I don’t know whether she’s a member of Akatsuki or not either… they’re barely on our radar, though Jiraiya has just started looking into them. Still, all of the Jinchuriki are currently accounted for. Meaning that if the Akatsuki do exist in this world in the same form as they did in your world… they haven’t started ramping up yet. They’re likely still recruiting and working on their plans.”

That causes Naruto to tilt his head to the side. The Akatsuki were behind? Because they definitely should have started making a mess of things by this point. That they hadn’t and that Kushina didn’t even know if Itsuki was a member or not… that was weird. Really weird. It left Naruto wondering just how good his information was. It was like Kurama said. This wasn’t the past. They weren’t from the future. They’d dimension hopped straight into this world from their own and while the timelines were off, so were some of the events.

They couldn’t rely on everything Naruto knew or treat it as gospel, necessarily. Funnily enough, this didn’t irritate Naruto like maybe it should have. Instead… it actually relieved him a little bit. Because it meant he got to ask Kushina this.

“What should we do next, ma’am?”

Tossing him a glance, Kushina huffs for a moment, no doubt having similar thoughts to his own. Still, after just a few more seconds of thought, she nods.

“Easy. We do what I was already planning to do even before all of this. We bring the Elemental Nations together.”

Naruto’s eyes widen at that. Even Kurama raises an eyebrow from over on the couch. Kushina just smirks.

“You said that at a certain point, the threat of the Akatsuki became so known and so great that all of the remaining Hidden Villages and Kages came together to unite against them? Well it just so happens that I’ve had something similar in the works for a long, long time. An end to the Great Ninja Wars. An end to the needless bloodshed and fighting. True peace. No doubt that’s something the Akatsuki will want to stop if they’re as bad in this world as they were in the other.”

She tilts her head in his direction at that, raising an eyebrow.

“We’ll probably make them play their hand, won’t we? But even if we didn’t, I’d still want to do this. So what do you say, Naruto? Ready to go on a tour of the Elemental Nations with me?”

Hah! Was it even in question? Naruto grins, ready to agree when Kurama prods him with a memory of a certain Hyuga’s face. Ah. Right. Hm… should he advocate for Hanabi’s inclusion in these plans? But then that would require Mikoto to come as well and that might not work out. Maybe Hanabi would have to stay behind…

Either way, one thing was for sure. Hanabi was his next stop after this meeting.