It would suffice to say that Naruko was more than a little displeased by the disruption.

The seven-year-old girl, blonde-haired, blue-eyed and idly playing with a wispy sheen of light blue chakra in her hands, had found the perfect, secluded natural wonder by which to sit down and mope. She'd call it something less childish than that, maybe brood, even sulk, but mope was the word most befitting to her emotions at that exact time. Her second year at the Academy had started over a month ago and at this time, Naruko had concluded, as she had last year, that she would be alone.

'If I knew why they didn't like me…' Naruko sulked over the unfairness of the world and her own inability to solve the problem. 'I could change. If I knew what I had to do, then I would change.'

The small waterfall, only two stories tall and one of the many that dotted Konoha's beautiful landscape, had distracted her from that. This one was fed into by the Naka River, the serpentine ink-blue waters that twined their way almost mid-through the Uchiha District, but it was far enough from the main branch, that it was safely outside of clan grounds. The waterfall fed into crystal clear springs, dotted with wet, mossy rocks and surrounded by crisp blades of grass that stood like a disciplined row of soldiers flattened back by the brisk autumn breeze. Hashirama trees, a hardier variant of the apple trees that flourished around the Land of Fire, sparsely dotted the mix of briar, oak, pine and ash of the forest behind her.

Naruko had climbed up briefly to snag a few apples, brighter, bigger and a distinctive orange-red, fed into by the Shodaime's Mokuton, for her midday snack. One had to be careful eating too many of these, as while they were delicious, there was always that minute kickback of chakra that made children hyperactive and adults, when the apples were pressed into sweet wine, hazy-headed. Naruko hadn't any problems with them thus far; she remembered a lazy summer eating nothing but Hashirama apples for a week and the worst she had come off with was a stomachache. If anything, the apples seemed to weaken her constant need to run around and do something.

She'd already eaten three so far, and thrown the cores into the pond, where black-finned trout of an unknown name had encircled it to take nibbles of the remainder. Naruko attributed that to the almost content way that she lied back on the grass, a kitten stretched out beneath the white sunlight, pulling up handfuls of grass and coating her hand in unfocused, weak light. She'd learned to activate her chakra less than a week ago and the marvel of the accomplishment hadn't yet escaped her. While Naruko failed- completely, utterly, embarrassingly so- at sticking a leaf to her forehead, she'd found that her chakra hand would throw all of the grass blades into a frenzy and they would fly out of her hand and spin dizzyingly around to rest on any prone surface. Most of them returned to the ground but a fair few had found a second home on her sunset orange shirt and vibrant yellow hair. One particularly stubborn one had landed right below her nose, a crooked mustache that after three attempts at blowing away, had declared its intention to refuse her.

It was to this peaceful scene, featuring a little girl that remained upset and wistful but was ever-more being nudged into contentment, that Shisui Uchiha broke.

He couldn't exactly help it when his fifteen-year-old body was thrown like a broken rag doll through the air, arcing backwards into a near perfect U-shape, before breaking through the waterfall barrier and brutally hitting the ashy volcanic rock. There was a sickening crunch sound, of jarred broken bones grinding against one another, and then the figure toppled, face forward, a puppet with strings cut, down into the shallow water. From where he landed, ripples of blood-tinted water spread.

'What was that?!' Naruko scrambled up to her knees, chakra fading immediately and without notice, her bright blue orbs focused entirely on the severely injured young man. 'What happened to him?!'

She had caught sight of the red-and-white emblem on his back- an Uchiha, a Konoha shinobi, why was he injured here- and just decided to run forward and help, when the light was briefly snuffed out. She looked up to find another dark-clad figure jump over, blotting out the sunlight with his body, take out a glint of metal- long, thin, narrow, not a kunai- before landing on the water's surface, bringing the metal pole down and digging it mercilessly into the injured boy's back. The Uchiha shinobi, in the midst of pulling himself out of the bloody pool, made a gurgling sound as he was shoved back in.

Naruko screamed.

The two fighters turned immediately to look at her. The taller one, the one with the metal pole, was clad entirely in black. None of his skin could be seen, from the hands covered in leather gloves to the face hidden behind a mask of unmarked porcelain, and it was empty brown eyes that stared back at her. It was the other figure though, the injured one, the Uchiha with the Konoha forehead protector, that frightened her. Naruko didn't notice the distinctive details of his appearance, not the messy dark hair or the slightly too broad nose or the carved marks around his mouth, even at such an early age, of one that either smiled or frowned too often and too widely. Instead it was the blood red eyes, one with a thin line above it, gushing actual crimson liquid down on that pale skin, that held a four-point pinwheel design. It was enchanting. It was hypnotizing. It was the most goddamn terrifying thing that she ever seen and an unknown instinct, heavy and ancient, screamed in the back of her mind to engage either the flight or fight response. Either flee from those eyes as fleet-footed as she was capable of or gouge them out, be rid of them before they could so unspeakably cruel things to her.

Naruko wavered between these instincts, and her own uncertain one to help the Konoha shinobi, before the Uchiha answered her query for her, his bloody eyes filled with panic. "Run."

Naruko was ashamed to admit she obeyed.

'I'm sorry.' She felt a burst of guilt at leaving a comrade, or at least a fellow Konohan citizen, alone, as she pulled herself up and turned her back. 'I'll get help. I'll find the KMPF, the ANBU, anybody-'

Naruko hadn't managed to take more than three steps when there was a sudden spike of chakra, a sudden silence where the wind had been, behind her and then- pain. There was a blow to the back of her head, her body was thrown forward several feet, a blur of greenbluebrown, when her nose dug into the soil of the ground. A white starburst of pain skittered through her eyes, her temple burned, and metal against metal clanged in the air, as Naruko tried to regain her bearings.

'What is this pain?' Naruko's throat closed as tears came to those ocean-hued orbs. 'How can anything hurt this much?'

Her body told her that she was still firmly in the sphere of danger, so the Academy student determinedly tried to crawl her way forward. She curled her fingers inward into fists, braced them against pliant soil and tried to lift herself up. Ning! There was another blow, against the small of her back this time, that returned Naruko to the ground and stole the breath from her lungs. Her vision blurred as she flipped around, to at least be able to see the man that kept beating such pain into her limber body.

A glint of light on metal as the pole- a tanto, her scattered mind noted, Satoru-sensei had done a unit on common weapons just last week- flashed downwards. Clang! It hit against ash-grey steel, the quadrahedron-angled point of a kunai, as the Uchiha boy stood above her. Warm drips fell against her face, when she removed her hand from her cheek, the sun-kissed skin was stained red. 'Blood. I'm covered in his blood.'

"Leave her alone! Your battle's with me!"

It was such a dramatic declaration, so very trite and a line straight out of a Princess Gale movie that Naruko half-expected the attacker to start cackling evilly and monologuing. But this wasn't a story, not at all- her ribs burned, Naruko feared one might be cracked- so the man jumped back and started going through a rapid series of hand signals. The water rose up in the pond, crystal clear and menacing now, as it swirled into a discernible, dragon-like shape.

'I'm going to die,' Naruko thought, with absolute certainty, 'I'm seven years old, I've never gone outside of this village and now I'm going to die.'

A muttered swear- "bad word," Naruko said lowly- and shivering arms wrapped around her, reminded the blonde that at least she wouldn't die alone. She closed her eyes, buried it into a chest that scented metallic and rusty, and hoped that it would be quick and painless. 'I'm sorry I couldn't do more.'

She didn't know if it was an apology to herself or to him. A heartbeat later, it didn't matter. The wind picked up, the water dragon roared, a flash of chakra grew blinding white behind her smothered eyelids, and then there was a sudden discolation to her limbs. A rapid movement, arms and legs stretched out far too wide, even though they were cradled to a stranger's chest, a sudden decompression, like a coiled spring let loose, and a popping sound to her eardrums. Her ears felt wet and when Naruko opened her eyes, it was to another discoloration, brownblackgreenbrownblackgree, as the Uchiha Shunshined again. Then again, then twice more.

He staggered on the last one, another clearing, dropped her and said something. Naruko's ears were ringing, so she couldn't hear. He looked at her, far too pale and far too young, even though Naruko was even younger, and smiled sadly. The Uchiha pointed over at the woods.

'Run away,' she read. Naruko clambered to too-skinny legs, too-weak arms, ready to grab his hand and pull him along and never, ever complain about conditioning training at the Academy again.

'We'll live.' It was relief and giddiness and wonder and- he was bleeding, he was bleeding, he was BLEEDING- horror. The Uchiha stood there, tall, pale, too young and too bloody, and there was a pole of metal stuck through his stomach. Naruko looked up. The attacker was back, he was standing next to him, and his tanto was halfway inside of the Uchiha, the teen's crimson eyes sheened with water born of pain. The blood was pooling around the metal, still a slowly, steady drip staunched by the weapon, and instead of pulling it out or fighting back…

"Run." Her ears had been blown, she couldn't hear him but she could see the word form on his lips. Naruko turned away from that, looked at the cold brown eyes within the porcelain mask, and the boy was dying, the boy was dying and the man didn't even regret it . Her entire world turned red.

x

Shisui had several broken ribs, a near shattered left elbow, a half-blind right eye, a crushed larynx and more bruises than he could count but somehow the Kyuubi's chakra- RunRunRun- still managed to break through the fog of pain. It was just special like that, he supposed.

If he'd had any doubts about the identity of the unfortunate pint-sized blonde he'd accidentally dragged into this mess, well, they were dispelled now. Shisui had just enough presence of mind to worry about the Uzumaki releasing the Kyuubi and just enough teenage schadenfreude to hope that the Root jackass sent to kill him pissed himself, that his concern for the blonde herself was nearly deluged. 'Any sensor in a fifty mile radius can find us now.'

At least that meant his eye would be safe. Thank Kami, for Shisui shuddered to think of how much damage Danzo could inflict on the world with a fully matured Mangekyou Sharingan in his eye. The reminder of his birthright, more a pain in the ass than a benefit half the time, provided a potential means of keeping the Kyuubi from devastating the countryside once again should the seal break. They didn't exactly have a Yondaime-level sealmaster around to deal with the demon but they did have him. A fifteen-year-old teenage Uchiha that had half-listened to his deceased Nana's bedtime story about Madara and the Kyuubi once.

'Yep. We're doomed.' Maybe the Chipmunk ANBU would get here in time to Mokuton the blonde? His cousin had mentioned his teammate had the legendary bloodline, didn't he? His cousin… 'Itachi, I'm so sorry. It's all up to you now. Redeem the honor of our clan and save the village.'

His last act may just help with that. Turned on his side, Shisui angled his head forward and saw that Naruko Uzumaki, nearly unrecognizable behind an opaque cloak of demonic chakra, had thrown herself forward in attempt to rip their attacker into pieces. Her form was a sloppy brawl he had outgrown by toddler years but form hardly mattered, when even a glancing blow was laced with corrosive, poisonous, demonic chakra. The Root ninja was wholly unprepared, barely able to deflect a handful of swipes, before Naruko's claws- and yes, the little girl had sharp, two-inch thick claws on her hands- dug into his chest. Past the ANBU-standard vest, past a chain-metal shirt, past skin and sinew and yep, Shisui's sharp eyesight definitely caught that hint of bone. There was a squelching, sickeningly wet sound that wouldn't have been out-of-place in a brothel, if Naruko didn't just pull out a still-beating heart from a minimum Chuunin level ninja.

The bloodlust in the air took on a gleeful tinge and Shisui was alarmed enough to try and put a stop to it before it could go any further. Every primal sense screamed at him to keep his goddamn mouth shut around this uncontrolled alpha predator, that used to be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pint-sized Academy student. Shisui being Shisui, he didn't listen.

"Hey," the dark-haired teen coughed out, "It's okay. It's okay, he's dead now."

The little girl chakra-construct, it was hard to tell where Naruko ended and the Kyuubi chakra began at this point, turned to him. Her blue eyes were the crimson of the Sharingan, only brighter somehow, an unnatural hue, and the thin whisker marks on her cheeks had darkened into something feral and wild. Shisui's head throbbed, the last remnants of his chakra pulled itself from the core to keep his heart beating, and his Sharingan deactivated itself. Too stricken at the loss of this potent weapon, Shisui gave no thought to the idea that it may have just saved his life around a Kyuubi-influenced Uzumaki.

Naruko meanwhile took an unsteady step closer. Shisui flinched but she only raised her hand, the bloody organ still crushed between her fingers, and proffered it to him, almost like a gift. It may have been the dramatic loss of blood or his impending death or the vicious battle fought shortly before but Shisui was stupidly touched by the gesture.

The chakra cloak began to fade, Naruko's body becoming visible and enviously free of any bruises whatsoever. Her clothes may have been tattered and worn but that sun-kissed skin lacked any blemish or cut, those blue eyes were wide now in disbelief, as she knelt over him. Wet droplets fell on his face, one slid down to his lips and he tasted salt.

"It's okay," Shisui tried to say, "It's okay. Don't cry. It doesn't hurt at all. Dying doesn't… hurt… at all…"

He didn't know what actually came out his mouth but it obviously wasn't reassuring her at all. Shisui wished that he was a better liar. Itachi was a fantastic liar; he suspected that having a little brother helped with that skill. The Uzumaki crept closer, almost leaning over him, as she continued to cry. Sparks of chakra, orangish-red, the color of Hashirama apples rather than normal blue-white chakra, still ran over her limbs. Naruko looked down at them and after a heartbeat, her eyes lit up in an expression that Shisui would learn to dread in the coming years.

Naruko raised her hand, the one still covered with Bijuu-laced chakra, channeled her own chakra in there, until blue-white danced amongst if not with orange-red, and deliberately pressed it against his stomach. Shisui could have sworn he didn't have it in him to scream as loud as he did then. Kyuubi chakra truly was one of a kind.

"Stop! STOP!" Naruko flinched but she didn't move. Her eyes were focused intently on him, on his stomach in particular, and then, also deliberately, she raised her other hand… "Please, stop!"

His body burned. It was boiling from the inside, he felt so hot, utterly parched, it was tearing his skin in two and then knitting it back together, it was so painful, it was devastating, it was…

"Stop," Shisui croaked, "Stop. Stop, please, stop. Stop… More."

It was drenching him now. It still hurt so much but there was something else there, something full of light and clarity, a power, a strength, he could do anything, he could survive anyone… "More."

Both of Naruko's hands were on him, her arms too, up to her elbows, as she pressed half of her body against him. It wasn't enough, the orange-red was fading away, he needed more.

Shisui's eyes tracked an orangish spark, one that had taken on a bit of the blue, it was nearly violet now against the golden skin of the Uzumaki. More. He leaned up. More. It was so close. More. He had just had to touch it…

The dark-haired boy's tongue flicked out. It skittered over her collarbone, almost shocking the blonde into pulling back. The Uchiha drew forward, his teeth bit down and the fragile skin broke. Something filled his mouth, with the coppery tang of blood followed by the most spectacular rush of power he'd ever felt. Chakra gushed into his body, not just the burning sparks of orange fire but white-blue chakra that tasted like summer rain, brisk wind and ocean water. Shisui was parched and Naruko was the oasis in a desert after a month of fruitless wandering.

Shisui closed his eyes and he drank.

x

Note: This is not a 'bite the jinchuuriki and become mates for life' type of story. That premise is grossly simplistic, and ignores the basic concept of the Kyuubi as an immortal chakra entity that lacks the natural instincts of mating and reproduction.

In this story, Naruko's chakra has the same healing properties as Karin's, so when Shisui bites into her, it rapidly heals his injuries. However, Shisui biting into Naruko also gives him chakra poisoning, because canon established that the Shiki Fuuin releases minute traces of the Kyuubi's corrosive chakra into Naruko's system constantly. This led to Naruko building up a partial immunity to that chakra but Shisui's body doesn't have that resistance, so, while Naruko's chakra does heal him, it also causes severe damage to his chakra system. Damage that can only be resolved by- surprise, surprise- biting into Naruko.

This is where another aspect of Bijuu chakra comes into play- it is highly addictive. Remember, the more Naruko uses the Kyuubi's chakra in canon, the more she wants to use it. Shisui will have to balance the addictive and corrosive natures of the Kyuubi's chakra, all while his body starts to slowly build up an immunity. And yes, at some point along the way, a romance will develop.

Also note that this story does have the Uchiha Massacre and the only two survivors will be Shisui and Sasuke Uchiha. Shisui knows the truth about Itachi's defection but Sasuke does not. Naruko suspects that the situation isn't as black-and-white as it's painted but doesn't know about the coup d'etat. Danzo does not get the Mangekyou Sharingan and as he doesn't have that, has no need to corpse rob the other lesser Sharingan either.

Anyway, this is an idea that I had over three years ago and never got around to writing till now. Let's see if I can handle a darker romance from my usual happy-go-lucky bent.