Chapter 44

"Kami, I threw a kunai at him as he ran away," Kurenai shamefully voices as her memories clearly replays the entire incident. As terrible as she felt about attacking a weak unguarded boy nearly half her age, she was more worried about Hinata-chan. For whatever reason, the girl absolutely adores the Jinchūriki and he, above anyone else, can help her the fastest.

'And I assaulted him with a weapon!'

Kurenai stopped cleaning and reached for the sake bottle on its side, hoping for a little bit left to ease the magnitude of her fuck up. 'What the fuck is wrong with me!' she states in alarm, tipping the bottle over her lips and finding no dampening relief in the empty bottle. A flash of a saddened Hinata-chan with the Caged Bird Seal on her forehead feels prophetic, making her feel powerless to stop it. Growing increasingly anxious, Kurenai felt like she was panicking more than she could control and rushed to the nearest seat.

Taking deep and even breaths, Kurenai tried to slow her thoughts and clear her mind of self-deprecating reflection. Her shinobi training for torture situations tells her not to endure pain necessarily, but to consider one's life as the duty of the village. The concept that a ninja is more than a body, but a nation, keeps the mind sound through turmoil, and in this case, serves her well as she voices, "Yūhi Kurenai. Kunoichi of Konohagakure. Rank, Jōnin. Registration number 010881." As she speaks, thoughts of Asuma didn't seem quite so disparaging.

"Yūhi Kurenai. Kunoichi of Konohagakure. Rank, Jōnin. Registration number 010881," she repeats and thought's of Hinata-chan with the cursed seal on her forehead didn't seem so inevitable.

"Yūhi Kurenai. Kunoichi of Konohagakure. Rank, Jōnin. Registration number 010881," and again, thoughts of her father didn't seem so disappointed in her failure. She repeats the coping method several times before she calms down, and focuses on what she does best, critical thinking and planning. As there is little she can do about Asuma, and any focus on him only increases her agitation, Kurenai reflects on Hinata-chan, and how to get her training back on track.

The indigo-haired genin is making so much progress in her team training, even smiling more. In one week, with hard work and unwavering diligence, the beautiful kunoichi was starting to come out of her shell. Missing the last two sessions—the sadness in Hinata-chan's eyes because of it—Kurenai felt shame for snapping the way she did on Uzumaki-kun. She knows it wasn't right, but for Hinata-chan's future, she'll have to fix her error somehow.

She spends the rest of the afternoon re-hydrating as she cleans, all the while trying to anticipate the boy's needs for the possibility of bribing him. The ideal situation would be if he understood that she was far too drunk and angry to make good decisions. 'Certainly, he must know alcohol inhibits thought of consequences making it easier to make bad decisions… Who wouldn't know that?' If he does, than she can finesse a way for him to return to the sessions, but the critical analysis part of her mind felt the likelihood of that happening was very low. At dusk, she does a moderately intense work out to increase blood flow and ease tense muscles before showering and searching for the boy.

Armed with Kakashi's intelligence, her first stop was the ramen shop as it was closer than his apartment. Asking the busy girl if she's seen Uzumaki-kun, the girl informed her he generally doesn't come by on the weekends. After thanking the waitress, and coasting the market toward his apartment, Kurenai was praying it wouldn't take long to find him. Fortune must've been paying attention because barely a moment after knocking on his rusting door, Uzumaki-kun steps off the stairs onto his floor.

The panic on his face is immediate, throwing out a rash finger and yelling, "stay back!"

Kurenai expected a reaction but not to this degree. She can see him inspect his surrounding, prompting her to raise her hand in surrender as she states, "Um, Uzu- Naruto-kun-" is all she gets out before he hops on the wall of the apartment, and to her surprise runs up the wall toward the roof.

'Kakashi's already teaching them tree-climbing chakra control?' is her only consideration before she realizes she now has to chase after him; a task that she's heard many times in the Chūnin bars is very annoying. Hopping on the wall, she gives chase. They leap from rooftop to rooftop, and to her great displeasure, he's making her work for it. The boy was smart enough to travel toward the market before jumping and landing down in the streets to try and lose her in the crowd.

Kurenai keeps the high ground, for the inevitability that he would disguise himself to move with the crowd. Unfortunately for him, villagers and people as a whole project easily if you pay enough attention. She can separate a crowd of routine everyday destinations from subtle yet cautious attempts to blend. Red irises scan the throng of villagers like a hawk and soon enough, she spots her prey casually looking around before walking again. It was a good disguise, she notes, but he's obviously lacking experience in body language.

Kurenai retains a safe distance above as she tails him. When the genin is confident he'd lost her, he enters an alley to cut across to the next street and that's when she drops in front of him. "Relax!" she starts quickly putting empty hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"Maybe not this time!" He throws back, jumping in the academy standard fighting stance. "But who knows when you'll be in a mood to beat on a Genin again!"

'He wasn't wrong,' Kurenai guiltily thought, adding, 'but this isn't getting us anywhere.' "Naruto-kun, I came to apologize for what happened last night-"

"Oh, you mean apologize for stabbing me in the leg with a kunai!" he yells drawing some attention from the passerby.

Realizing they should talk in private, she suggests, "how about we go somewhere else. We're not too far from my home." They're actually very far from her home, but Kurenai didn't want to have this conversation around anyone with even decent abilities in surveillance and reconnaissance. This may be a military village but attacking active shinobi, lower rank or not, is taken very serious. Not only is it possible the walk could cool him down but her home is private. He looked warily at her offer, as if about to say no when she adds, "please. I'd really like the chance to make it up to you."

Very reluctantly, he agrees, but he stays behind her the entire walk to her home, giving her the unsavory opportunity to add a little more sway to her hips to break down some of his justified anger. For the setting, Kurenai picks the comfortable couches and gestures for him to have a seat so she can strategically sit across from him to cross her legs whenever needed. She didn't like the idea of using her wiles on someone so full of teenage hormones to manipulate him, but this was too important to leave to his immature process of assessment and resolution. She'll offer him what she needs to in order to reestablish his help, but she needs to be sure he's not too emotional to say no.