Assassin next door

Sasuke liked to think he was taking everything in stride. First he had been told he could go on vacation and when he did, someone who was most likely after his girlfriend came and ransacked their home and causing them to return and move into one of the safe-houses. Next he’s told his annoying cousin would be escorted his girlfriend to work. Why, he didn’t know. Sasuke was perfectly capable of doing it.

To top it off he had yet to apologise to Naruto- both of them for different reasons. Keeping his name a secret also became a burden and he was unsure how to deal with all these problems that kept piling up. The cherry on the top had to be the fact that Naruto Uzumaki had called for a meeting of the nine clans as well as other clans about their protection.

Whilst he despised the male purely based on ethic he had to admit, the male did a good job making sure everyone was safe. Maybe he could contact him in hopes of getting some tips but his pride wouldn’t let him. It would only give the other male reasons to gloat. He kept hundreds if not thousands of people safe whilst he couldn’t even keep his lover safe.

Yet he was sure he could swallow it if it meant he could keep her safe. With the threat of Kakazu and Hidan, as well as whoever it is she was hiding from, he couldn’t afford to let her safety to be breached.

The other thing glaring its bright nose in front of him was that this would be the first time he was meeting the blonde male and vice-versa. He was sure they would be civil but the email he had received stated that Sasuke’s whole day should be made free in order to have a meeting with him in private afterwards. He would have to find an excuse to tell Naru.

“What’s got you brooding over in the corner for?” Speak of the devil. Although, Sasuke was more inclined to believe she was an angel, perhaps a fallen angel since she was so very inclined to fall into sin.

Unbeknownst to him, a small smile appeared on his face as he looked at the blonde. She had just come out of the shower in one of his plain black button-up shirts. She was wearing a bandage around her ankle which was something she had been doing a lot since she abandoned her long socks which used to cover her ankles.

When he asked about it, she shrugged and said there was something she didn’t want him seeing under there and he had respected that and not questioned it further.

“Nothing much. I’ve just got some work to do in a few days that’s got to be done at my workplace. One day it’ll be a half day and the next will be a full day so I might not be home till really late.” It wasn’t a lie, just a lie my omission. The meeting he needed to attend was partially work related so that would ease his guilt.

She furrowed her brows before letting out a sigh and leaned her head against his chest leaving him confused. He had expected her to throw a tantrum of sorts or at least ask a bunch of questions yet she didn’t which led him to wonder why exactly.

Placing an arm around her shoulders he held her to him, “What’s wrong? Are you not feeling alright?”

She shook her head before replying, “I had made an appointment for my right eye some time ago. They were either going to change my eye through some procedure I don’t remember the name of or laser eye surgery. The latter had been done before but for whatever reason didn’t work on me. But with everything going on there won’t be any time for me to go to the appointment. I’ll have to wait god knows how long for the next appointment as well.” She groaned into him.

Her reply shocked him, she had told him about her right eye yet she had never alluded to having an appointment made for it. “Is your sight in that eye that bad? Surely it can’t be since you work at night.” He didn’t understand how she was able to work at night with her vision. As far as he was aware you had to have very good eye sight to work at night and even members of the Uchiha and Hyuuga often struggled with it.

She shook her head, “It’s not that it’s that bad, just… you can’t see it but there’s a small scar in my eye that makes seeing hard.” She shrugged yet the way she spoke made him stop asking further, it was clearly something she didn’t want to explain to him and he wasn’t about to upset her over knowing about it.

With that mind-set he turned on the TV and passed the remote over to her. He hardly used the TV and paid it any attention unless it was the news, then he was interested. However whenever Naruto put something on he would watch the first ten or so minutes before deciding to watch her instead, her reactions and such were a lot more interesting to him anyway.

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Naruto watched as Sasuke sat across the room doing some work. He had stated he needed some privacy as he was doing confidential things and she had said he could work on the other side of the room and she wouldn’t disturb him.

In front of her was a bunch of papers as she jotted things down for the meeting, however she was constantly having to stop in order to take calls from different people. Since she had been forbidden from leaving without an escort she was unable to leave the apartment and help everyone personally so instead she was making calls for her people to help each other out.

It was tiring her out. Normally she didn’t have so many people to help out yet now all these problems were rearing their ugly heads in right when she found herself in a relationship.

She had never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a night before as she couldn’t have people know her, yet somehow she found Sasuke was different.

Shaking her head, she decided to not let him distract her, Inahos words fresh in mind. She had said her relationship with Sasuke was stopped or at least clouding her ability to keep everyone protected. She of course tried to disagree but found she couldn’t. All of the crap that was going down had begun the same time the wall between their apartments had been broken down.

However she was firm in mind, she wouldn’t leave Sasuke unless he broke things between himself.

Kurama jumped onto her work and glared at her, or at least squinted his eyes and Naruto liked to think it was his way of saying ‘Shut your useless thinking and get on with your work.’

Chuckling to herself she gave him a short pet on the head before going back to her work.

One the agendas that needed to be kept in place was record keeping. She needed to know addresses, names, family etc. if she was going to be able to keep track of everyone. Her old system of hacking into things, and having her own little spy network around the globe was very helpful but it would be a lot easier if they came up to her and gave any and all information that she would need.

As it stood, the old way needed to be improved and this was the best she could come up with. Undoubtedly it would keep her very busy and give her little time to herself but it was something that had to be done in order to keep everyone safe.

Another thing was that all clan heads and the next in charge should have each other’s numbers so communication could go a lot easier between them and then there would be no delay or third party.

She had no doubt that she would have people arguing about these small things yet she was sure she could fight them off. It was vital that her plan go through or there would be more casualties that she couldn’t allow that to happen.

“What are you brooding over there for?” Sasukes sudden question had her looking up startled and wide eyed.

She looked at him and saw he was still sitting but had moved his laptop to the side and them got up, making a quick gesture to her work making her hurriedly move it to the side and upside-down so he couldn’t read it.

“You stole that from me.” she stated hoping he wouldn’t ask again. She hadn’t thought up a good white lie for him yet and didn’t want to lie completely.

He kneeled in front of her and took her hands in his, “You know you can tell me whatever you want, right?” Naruto hardly ever got Sasuke to start a conversation yet since they had left their old apartment temporarily he had been starting them on his own. It was as if their roles had reversed since she was in her head a lot more recently as well.

She gave him a small smile before kissing his forehead and gesturing for him to sit next to her. He did, a frown marking his brow as he did so only to leave when she flopped her head onto his lap.

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Sasuke was startled at her sudden movement.  As of late, Naruto had been more and more tiered and it seemed today was no different. It was a lot different to her sunny, hyperactive attitude he had known she had, “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem to be really tiered as of late.” He sifted his fingers through her hair as he asked, hoping it would alleviate some of the tension she held.

Lo and behold it did, “Hmm… I’m fine. Just stressed out that’s all.” She mumbled as she curled into him. It seemed to be an understatement. The area under her eyes seemed to be slightly darker than usual and there was a frown marring her face whenever she thought he wasn’t looking but the thing was, Sasuke was almost always looking at her.

“What’s bothering you?” he gave a brief glance to the papers she had turned over and looked back at her. Confidentiality was key in his life and he knew Naruto had it in her life as well, despite his curiosity and concerns he couldn’t look at what she was doing unless she gave him permission to do so.  

She shifted so that she was facing upwards and looked him in the eye. Like this, you could see the lines of sleepless nights marring her eyes. They were squinted slightly and held a certain droopiness that he hadn’t noticed before, “Just some stuff. Both work and personal. My friends… the area they live in isn’t safe anymore so we’re all sort of going for a lunch or something to talk about all moving near each other temporarily. Of course I can’t move but I can help them. I have to.” There was a degree of conviction in her eyes that lit up like a flame as she explained the plans.

It was obvious that what she had told him wasn’t the whole story but he wasn’t one to pry into people’s business.

But it was very tempting to do.  However curiosity killed the cat and the thing with Sasuke was, he liked cats.   

They sat in silence after that as he thought about the meeting that would be held tomorrow. It was between him, his brother and a few members of the day staff who might be possible targets. Uzumaki had emailed him the previous night listing who and why each person would get attacked including the order in which it would happen.

He had been dubious at first however he had heeded the warnings and alerted them. To his shock the evening the first attack should have happened the house that person lived in had been ransacked like his own home and so had the next persons.

Day by day he was getting more, and more impressed with the work of Naruto Uzumaki. The other male seemed to be very meticulous about everyone’s safety that a jolt of envy spiked through him over how fast he managed to relocate everyone in such a short time.

Speaking of relocation, Sasuke had also made a connection about his Naru and his co-workers. He had found it in their history. Naruto went to the same school as some of the night and day workers who were friends with the people Sasuke hung around with at work. Shikamaru for example was a friend of Sasukes, however Ino was Shikamaru’s friends who was Sakura Harunos friends who was Naruto’s friend.

Another example was Gaara, Temari and Konkuro. They had all gone to the same camp Naruto had gone to for a month and after that had kept in contact.

It was hilarious how many of their acquaintances they both knew yet had never met till a few years ago. It was the same with Uzumaki. He hung around with people who knew Sasuke’s people yet the two had never met.

Shaking his head, he looked down to see Naruto had fallen asleep and for whatever reason the pile she had been working on looked even more interesting than it did earlier.

His curiosity was cut short by a certain orange-ish red furred fox sitting on them and started growling. Any pervious thoughts on peeking had instantly iced over.

Sighing he picked a pillow and switched it with his lap as he got up to finish his work.

Itachi and he had both been told by the leaders to write up information that knew about the personal lives of day staff members which oddly enough they both knew a lot about which they had to take with them to the clan meeting the next day.

So far he had done eight members and he only had two more to do and his brother would be doing the rest as he didn’t know them well enough to know their personal lives.

When he finished doing Kurenai’s personal life he flopped back on his chair, racking a hand through his hair as he glanced at Naruto who was still fast asleep.

Looking at the clock he noticed it was too late for either of them to have lunch so he got up and started to prepare an early dinner for them and if they got hungry again, they could have some tea and biscuits.

There was only one problem with Sasuke’s plan. He couldn’t cook.

Deciding to not ruin the evening with his cooking he was reminded that Naruto had ordered takeout earlier which would come within the next ten or so minutes meaning he would have to wake her up.

He got some ingredients out to make a salad that had lots of tomatoes in before Naruto emerged from the living room droopy eyed as she rubbed her eyes and made her way to him.

“The delivery guy should be coming soon. I’m going to go quickly take a shower so if he comes pay with my card. It’s the only card here since yours has expired and needs to be replaced and you can’t get it since its still home and- Are you paying attention to what I’m saying?”

He leaned down and gave her a kiss before pushing her towards the bedroom to go get ready for her shower.

Five minutes into her shower the doorbell rang so he got up and answered it, taking the pizza before picking up Naruto’s card, glaring slightly as he pressed in her password.

It wasn’t until he was about to put it in her pocket again that he noticed something that meant he was reading the card wrong. He had received so many email from Naruto Uzumaki as of late that he was seeing that name everywhere.

That was the only explanation he could think of for his Naruto having a debit card under the name of Naruto Uzumaki.

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Naruto left the bathroom and immediately furrowed her brows as soon as she saw Sasuke. He was sitting on the sofa with his laptop and was frantically working on his laptop, “Hey, is everything alright?”

She moved to sit in front of him and not next to him but it seemed it was unnecessary as he slammed his laptop shut, eyes holding a slight franticness as he looked at her.

He leaned forwards and made her straddle his lap and kissed her with so much energy that it took her by surprise.

She didn’t allow her shock to stay for long as she gripped his hair to bring herself closer in which he helped by placing a hand on her back and drew her to him before getting up, holding her to him as he did so.

She chose not to mention that their dinner was getting cold, or that he had basically just taken her after she had taken a shower and now had to take another one. He seemed to not be in himself and she didn’t want to upset him for no apparent reason.

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The next morning Naruto had decided to cover her hickeys Sasuke had left on her since she knew someone at the meeting would mention she was sleeping around rather than protecting them all.

Sasuke had left a half hour before she had gotten out of bed, stating he had to go see his brother and then go to work and gave her a kiss goodbye.

Once again she wondered what was wrong with him but shook it off, she had to think about today’s meeting and then she could think about what was wrong with Sasuke.

Getting ready took a lot longer with her making sure each and every love bite was covered before she left, making sure she had everything she needed and headed out with Shisui to her car and drove her way to the meeting place.

It was the Hokage industries. The company her father had inherited from Hiruzen Sarutobi which Tsunade was now running till Naruto felt like taking over.

She made her way inside and the people who recognised her male persona bowed and carried on doing their work. She went straight to the main office to collect the necessary files she dared not leave and Sasuke’s place in case that got broken into and made her way a floor down to the meeting room where all leaders and immediate family would be in waiting for her.

Taking a deep breath she entered the room as soon as she heard her name being introduced by Konohamaru, chin up and walked straight to her seat.

One person’s face, however, almost made her falter between steps.

Sasuke was there, standing next to Itachi where the Uchiha clan crest was sat.