NaruHina: Postscripts

Eighty-five

How about there's this story like Hinata got hurt after they got married? There's a doujinshi about this but it's not enough for me. Naruto said something like, "now, you laid a hand on the Hokage's woman, you've prepared yourselves, haven't you?"

He ran then flew across the treetops. He could see them ahead and he knew that they knew who was pursuing them.

Naruto didn't bother to hide his killing intent. In fact, he hoped they could feel it.

He was wallowing in his wrath because it made him better to know that he was putting the fear of God into them for hurting Hinata.

She was fine, he knew. And if he were being honest, he would admit that her injury wasn't that bad because she'd actually taken down most of them before he'd arrived at the scene. Even though Hinata was supposedly "retired" from shinobi work, she was still a ninja at her core.

But she'd been bleeding, a not-so-shallow cut across her arm. One she hadn't been able to block because ten of them had attacked simultaneously. Facing off against that many, somebody had inevitably been able to break through her kaiten shield and inflicted that kunai wound. Her clothes had several tears, her hair strewn wildly around her head, bruises on her arms and legs.

God, he'd hoped to never ever see her like that ever again. It reminded him too much of her fight with Pain.

But the sight of Hinata looking disheveled and battle-weary and not her usual pristine and neat self had enraged him.

And the worst part was that she'd try to calm him down when she'd seen how emotional he was becoming.

She'd smiled at the hospital, an arm around each child as they clung to her. "I'm fine, Naruto. The doctors said there are no deep wounds and heavy damage. Just some punks I was able to handle on my own," she added with a laugh.

Boruto and Himawari were looking at her, their eyes shining with pride. "Yeah, Kaa-chan! You kicked some major ass!"

That she did.

He was proud of her for defending herself, for holding her own against these thugs who'd thought to use her as a pawn for their cause.

But Naruto guessed that none of them had known what Hinata had been in her youth: a strong, capable warrior who'd seen combat.

Judging from their ages, they looked young, and foolhardy, and just plain reckless.

What made him go after these men was the sheer boldness of these rogue ninjas to even attempt to hurt her. He was glad they were rogue ninja with no loyalties to any of the elemental nations. This way, he wouldn't need to hold back and worry about the complicated political nature of shinobi attacking each other while wearing their allegiances on their forehead protectors.

He watched them now and saw a man stumble but quickly get up and start running again.

It was almost too bad that they were slow. He wanted to toy with them a bit more, but he knew Shikamaru and the rest of his friends would disapprove. But Shikamaru only wanted discretion. He'd make sure that none of these punks would know what happened.

Maybe he'd cut off their tongues so they wouldn't talk.

Ah, but maybe he could blind them first by hitting them with Kurama's power and making their eyes burst out of their sockets. Just a little bit of chakra would go a long way.

Naruto smiled to himself as he imagined it.

But there was no more time for imagining it because he was there, already wrapping all of them in his Kyuubi arms. He counted the five that had escaped.

Just as Sai had promised.

"Just make sure you don't link this back to me, Naruto," he'd asked quietly. Sai had deliberately let them out of the prison, made them think that they'd escaped because he knew how angry Naruto was and how much he wanted revenge—or how much he wanted to teach these men a lesson.

They were screaming at this point, maybe because he let them see a vision of what he was planning to do to them while he connected them with his chakra.

"Yes, that's right. Scream all you want because nobody's going to come help you," Naruto said as he inflicted more pressure on their arms. "It's just you guys and me. You've laid a hand on the Hokage's wife. That only means you're prepared to die, aren't you?"

"No!" one of them begged. "Mercy! Please!"

"We didn't mean anything by it!"

"We weren't going to kill her!"

"Bold of you to assume you could kill her!" Naruto snarled, making him lose his cool, making him twist their arms, almost tearing them out of their joints so that they were screaming with pain.

A loud clearing of the throat made Naruto lose his concentration and snap him out of his rage.

"Are you done?" came Kiba's cool voice. He stood with several of the Konoha Police force behind him.

Kiba met Naruto's eyes and a feral grin crossed his face. "Can we do our jobs now, Hokage?"

Naruto laughed, knowing Kiba wanted to make the men pay for what they did to Hinata, too.

He nodded curtly as he eased off his Kyuubi mode. He raised a hand towards the men groaning and squirming with pain on the ground. "They're all yours, Kiba."

Naruto turned around and left, but not before he heard a beetle buzz past his ear.

And he knew that Shino was silently, patiently waiting for his turn somewhere.