Uchiha Sasuke was not scared. He honestly wasn't. Perhaps weary and hesitant and very much aware of the fact that a blonde she-devil was about to lead him to his untimely death, but most definitely not scared.

The Uchihas were never scared. Fear was a neighbor they had never bothered to greet. Terror was something they caused, not something they faced.

He held on tight to her shoulders, hearing the motor rev to life beneath him, the feral purring of the metal beast he was on top of signifying his upcoming doom.

"Maybe I should get off," he suggested in one last moment of clarity.

A saucy grin was thrown back at him, sky blue eyes glittering with beastly satisfaction, and her husky voice weaved through his thoughts and claimed his soul. "You're not scared, are you?"

Oh, hell no.

But, in the darkest recesses of his mind, darker than the crush he had once had on Kakashi-Sensei in middle school, he admitted to himself in a soft, hushed whimper – Oh, Kami, I'm going to piss my pants.

And then her fists twisted on the handlebars, a ruckus of noise arose, deafening, echoing through his skin to his centermost being and corrupting him. Her foot didn't softly touch the gas, but slammed down on it, and he grabbed onto her with all his strength so as not to fly off the back of her killer bike.

She howled, loud and proud and wild, and her waist-length golden locks whipped against his naked arms and face, thousands of stinging marks left behind, and he choked on his own lungs.

He didn't want to die, but she took the corner awfully sharp, right side of her motorcycle nearly collapsing into the unforgiving cement before she managed to regain control. The last five years of his life flashed behind his eyes.

He really needed to have a long talk with his mom about how much she meant to him.

She growled, something he felt more than heard, and shouted, "You mind moving your hands, lover boy?"

It took him a long, numb moment to realize what she was talking about as she cut through a four-way and narrowly missed being sandwiched by a delivery truck and a Toyota. Horns blared after them, angry, and he hoped that they were moving too fast for anyone to write down her license plate.

"Oi, lover boy!"

Right. His hands. Where were they?

Oh.

A part of him really didn't want to let go, but a larger part of him was very much aware of the fact that his life was in her hands at the moment and that, really, this was a little too awkward for his tastes. He dropped his hands from her chest to her waist and squeezed himself tight against her back.

She laughed.

"Move with the bike! Move with it, you got that, teme?" Then she took another turn, sharper than the last, and he swore they skidded for a moment before she straightened them out and her bike roared with self-satisfaction.

Almost as soon as they were done with that turn, though, she took another one, right into a gravelly parking lot in front of an old pub, and they went from supersonic to slow in one jolting motion that nearly had Sasuke flying over her head.

Traumatized, he sat stiffly behind her as she edged her motorcycle into a parking spot and cut the engine. Her bike give one last tired chuckle before it died.

Sasuke swore it was at his expense.

"What'd you think of that, teme?" She gave him a heavy-lidded look, confident and sexy and oh-so very devilish.

She was going to be the death of him. If he hadn't known it years ago when he had realized she was going to a part of his life, he knew it now.

And, yet, he found himself answering, "Hn. I thought you said you had power." Judging by how her smile became tight, edgier, deadlier, he had said something very wrong. Her hand went to the ignition, most likely about to give him another demonstration, and he had to stop her before she spattered his body against the road.

"Don't you have friends waiting for you? You know, in there?" He gestured vaguely to the pub, hating himself for having his voice squeak, and she looked assured of herself all over again as she pocketed her keys.

"Yep! We're finally going to make you social, teme." She wriggled against him, much to his dazed shock, and smirked. "You've got to let go of me first."

:::

The kitsune, as defined by Wikipedia, were intelligent beings that possessed magic and the ability to assume human form. Though some folktale suggested that they were tricksters, other legends depicted them as guardians, close companions, lovers, and wives. Kitsune, which, in English, meant 'fox', were said to have been with humans since ancient Japan, which gave rise to human belief of their supernatural escapades.

Kitsune could grow up to as many as nine tails, symbolizing how wise and powerful they were. The Kyūbui no Kitsune, meaning nine-tailed fox, was therefore recognized as the most powerful kitsune.

There were four biker jackets in the pub with a fiery red fox imprinted into the black leather, its nine tails flaring furiously behind it, its long head turned to the side to pin down anyone who dared looked at it with one scarlet eye full of scorn. Its wide, black-lipped mouth was stretched into a demonic grin that bared white, pointed fangs.

One such jacket dangled from the crook of her elbow as she swayed her hips and all but strutted through the smoky, loud atmosphere of the pub.

"Are you ready for this?" she purred, looking back at him with full, pink lips curled into a devastatingly beautiful smile. "Teme?"

He wasn't, really. He wasn't used to such barbaric and uncivilized gathering places. Five-star restaurants were lucky if he graced them with his presence and his private chef would openly admit to hating his picky tastes.

But he followed her as she wormed her way through three buff men in leather and jeans and slapped her hand down on the bar. "Teuchi! Oi, Teuchi! What's a girl gotta do to get some service around here?" Her tone was overly affectionate, body language comfortable and open, and the three men around her made a subtle retreat that left a stool of space on either side of her.

Fear. They feared her.

At least Sasuke wasn't the only one, then.

A kindly, older-looking man sauntered down the length of the bar, rag in one hand, a glass in the other. His eyes were squinted as he found her in the crowd and smiled. "Naruko, you little vixen, we've been wondering where you were." His eyes went past her to settle on Sasuke. "You want to introduce us?"

"Sure." She swung a hand towards him, pointing accusingly. "This is the teme, Sasuke. I'm trying to give him a taste of the better side of life. Teme, this is my bud, Teuchi." She eyeballed Sasuke from the toes of his expensive shoes to the tip of his spiky black hair. "Maybe if you stick around long enough, you can try some of his ramen."

He didn't like ramen. It left a bad taste in the back of his mouth. But there was a challenge in her eyes that he couldn't quite deny.

"Hn."

"That's his favorite thing to say," she shouted to Teuchi, Der Zibet thumping through the pub as someone fiddled with the jukebox. "I'll have my usual!"

"What would he like?" Teuchi raised an eyebrow towards him.

"I would like – " but he was cut off by a foot stomping on his own, making him bite down on his tongue.

She smiled angelically. "He'll have what I'm having." Her eyes turned to Sasuke, alive and fiery and predatory. "I wouldn't want you to miss out on the experience!"

:::

Sasuke did not drink alcohol.

However, when she was looking at him like that, waiting, he decided to make an exception. The hot rice wine burned his throat, but he refused to choke. He would not let them see him suffering.

Yes, them. Four biker jackets with a Kyūbi no Kitsune on the back, including her.

And they were all equally deadly.

Hinata looked the most misleading with her gentle smile and pale, guileless eyes. Deep burgundy hair flowed in straight lines over her delicate shoulders, framing the soft curve of her jaw, even bangs cut over her forehead. Her jacket was a size too big and only the tips of her fingers showed from out of its sleeves.

But he could see the laughter bubbling in her eyes as she watched him try to swallow the hot rice wine. Her smile was too wide for her to pity him as she reached out and lightly patted his back. "Are you okay, Sasuke-san?" Even her voice was as soft and light as silk, almost shy, and he turned his glare on the table so none of them could see how little he appreciated the mixed signals he was getting from her.

Not just her, but all of them. The name Kyūbi no Kitzune fit their gang. Vixens, all of them!

"He'll be just fine," drawled the next female, her jacket halfway open to flash a perky set of breasts only hidden by a mesh shirt and a black push-up bra. Kiba.

She had bronzed skin, compared to Hinata's glowing paleness, and her wolfish smirk made Sasuke want to squirm with discomfort. Her dark eyes never blinked, never looked away, never stopped laughing at him, and the twisting of her ruby lips revealed sharp canines and deformed the edges of her tribal tattoos, an upside-down triangle on each cheek.

Her wild, mahogany brown hair fell in uneven, untamed lengths around her shoulders, windblown and thick. She ran a hand through the tresses, knocking them out of her face, and leaned conspiringly closer. "Won't you, Uchiha?" Her rough, smoky voice dragged down his spine.

He wasn't going to live through this. He had known it before he had even gotten on that damn bike, but, now, the realization was so much more taxing. This was no longer paranoia, but certainty, and his hand itched to grab his phone and wish his mother and big brother goodbye. That he had, despite his antisocial tendencies and recent bad attitude, loved them.

He could have cared less for his father, though.

"Now, now, Kiba," lectured a third, "if he is not fine with consummating alcohol, then we should not be forcing it down his throat!" Her large, duke blue eyes (or were they just black?) were hard on her friend. "Not everyone in the world has to destroy their liver for a good time."

She sat straight in her seat, took her own exemplary glass of water, and chugged it down. Her jet black hair was shiny, cut into a short, admittedly cute bob, and her thick eyebrows that should have been a turn off only accented the beige of her skin and were, actually, perfect considering that her eyes seemed to swallow up her whole face. She was a tall, lithe creature, though, and, if it hadn't been for watching her throw a man halfway across the pub on his way over to their table, he would have thought that she was somewhat fragile for her feminine bone structure and slim figure. Her coat was thrown over the back of her chair, revealing a green spandex top that disappeared into her motorcycle chaps.

When she smiled, he was nearly blinded by the pearly whiteness of her teeth. "Am I right, Sasuke-san?"

He nodded dumbly, mute for reasons he would rather not admit to. His throat burned, for one, and, for another, he was simple… weary of saying the wrong thing.

Lee settled happily back in her seat as Kiba huffed and Hinata kept a good-natured aura about herself.

Naruko leaned in dangerously close, garish orange vest unable to contain the full weight of her breasts, and he found himself in a compromising position of looking into her eyes or looking a little further down. In the end, he somehow managed to keep her gaze. It would be impossible to ever look at her again if he started checking her out.

"Aren't you having fun, teme?" She dipped her chin into her shoulder, a pleasant flush on her whisker-tattooed whiskered cheeks. "It's great to let loose, isn't it?"

He brought the rice wine back to his lips, ignoring Lee's obvious disappointment and Kiba's glee as he shot it back and felt it burn.

Loose. Right. He was wound up so tight, he was waiting to break and fall apart.

:::

His eyes were perpetually glued to the clock above the doorway for the next two hours. The Kyūbi no Kitsune played pool, chose music to play, did darts, and even went into the pub's kitchen to cook themselves up something to eat – as if this was their home. Teuchi didn't even bat an eyelash whenever he turned around and one of the girls was grabbing themselves something to drink.

They got into one bar fight, one that they pinned on Sasuke, and he had to fend off five 'gentlemen' who were so kind as to tell him exactly what they planned to do to him and his pretty boy looks. Luckily, he wasn't defenseless, or else he would have gotten to see their plans come to fruition. The girls had been too busy laughing from the sidelines to step in and help him – or, at least, Naruko and Kiba had been too busy laughing. Hinata had been in the kitchen and Lee in the bathroom, possibly the only two women he could have expected to aide him.

Then it occurred to him that he had been waiting for girls to save him, and he thought of the shame he would see in his father's face if he ever found out.

It almost felt good.

Some more rice wine later and his deadweight was being carried outside, Kiba on one side and Naruko on the other.

"I think we should call it a night," Hinata was saying, though the words were distant to him and he couldn't quite figure out if they were planning another bar fight or talking about politics.

"I have to agree with Hinata-kun," came Lee's voice. "He does not look well."

"He'll live," was Kiba's apathetic reply.

"He'll get over it," Naruko happily returned at the same time.

He groaned and closed his eyes, the world around him spinning, and wondered how exactly he was getting home. If they put him on the back of that motorcycle, he was dead. Before they even moved the damn bike, he was a goner. He'd fall off before Naruko could get on and she'd run over him just for fun.

Damn vixen.

Then he heard the now-familiar roaring of engines, the mechanical purr, the revving of the gas, and belatedly realized that he was already on the bike. Something plopped down on his head, a helmet, and a voice whispered near his ear,

"Remember, safety first!" Lee.

And then the bike began to vibrate beneath him, a bad omen for his sake, and he somehow managed to get his arms around Naruko's waist before they sped out of the pub's parking lot.

Kami, but he didn't want to die yet.

:::

There were four separate dens worthy of homing the Kyūbi no Kitsune.

The first abode in the way of the Kyūbi no Kitsune was in the private boarding section of the Aubrame Institute of Research. It was a roomy apartment, a 2SLDK* with tatami flooring, but that was not what made it acceptable as a Kyūbi no Kitsune den.

All four girls had agreed, sometime in elementary school, that money and cool digs was not going to keep them happy. Oh, yes, money made a lot of things easier, but who the hell wanted to be bought? As long as they had their bikes and someone to cozy up to, they were as happy as a smile apiece.

And Inuzuka Kiba was more than smiling when she pulled into the underground parking lot directly beneath the private boarding, the purring of her gleaming brown bike echoing off of the concrete walls before she gently shushed it.

She sat back for a moment, enjoying the warmth that still came off of her motorcycle compared to the numb cold her face felt. Her hubby always tried to convince her to put on a helmet and, maybe, one day she would listen to him. If she could remember where the hell she left her helmet, anyway.

She had a feeling that, if she asked him, it would magically appear out of thin air. The creep would be keeping it somewhere, most likely thinking she would throw it away or try to donate it if he left it out in the open for her.

Kiba smirked and dismounted. Her hubby knew her too well.

She ran up five flights of stairs and knocked on the last door on the left. With a sexy leer, she leaned against the door frame and waited.

A second later and the door opened, revealing a man slightly taller than her. The neck of his turtleneck was not, for once, covering his lower face, but pushed under his chin, deep gray in color. The sleeves were folded above his elbows, revealing pale skin that rarely saw the sun, though still with well-defined muscles.

He had an angular face that led into a pointed chin and dark hair that spiked in every direction. His violet eyes were calm and apathetic behind rimless prescription glasses.

He stared at her as she stared at him, eyeing him down, tongue darting over her lips. "You lookin' for a good time?" she drawled, hand going to her jacket and unzipping it, letting the leather sides fall apart and reveal what she wore beneath. "Y'know I can make it worth your while… buggy boo."

She laughed because, even after five years of being together, he still blushed scarlet at the pet name.

"Well, aren't you going to let me in?" She threw her arms around his shoulders, squeezing up against him. She could hear her dog, Akamaru, barking from the spare bedroom, clawing at the door, and her smirk became only more dangerous as she understood what that meant. "Aren't you going to sex me up, babe? Play dirty with me, I can take it ~"

Her husband of three years dragged her into their apartment, their home, and slammed the door shut behind her. Her laughter was quick to transform into moans.

:::

The second den was the Hyuuga Residence, a series of houses attached to a larger, main building. It was a gated community, curfew at 11 p.m., and the Hyuuga heiress swung her bike through the gates at 10:58, tossing back a quick hello to the guards before she sped off.

Though her room was in the main building, she took a left at the next turn, away from it, and, instead, turned her bike into the two-cell parking space next to a smaller home. Most of her stuff was here anyway, and the bed she slept in was comfier, warmer… more inhabited.

It didn't have the intimacy that the other girls of the Kyūbi no Kitsune shared with their bedmates, but she had come to find that she had been spoiled as a child, too much so to fall asleep alone.

She unlocked the front door silently, slipping inside and locking it again behind her. Back to the interior of the house, she rested her forehead against the door and smiled. It always felt good to go out. Especially with the gang.

"You're late."

Her smile grew. "I'm sorry, Neji-kun." She turned around to face her cousin, who stood at the base of the staircase, arms crossed over his chest, pale eyes narrowed speculatively on her. He, too, had very long hair, but it was a creamier ash brown than her deep burgundy, secured low instead of her free falling tresses. "We were having a lot of fun."

He edged closer, delicately sniffed the air, and scowled. "How much did you drink?"

"I had to two cups of hot rice wine. Don't worry, Neji-kun, I made sure to wait before leaving."

"You smell like a pub."

She calmly nodded. "Well, yes. I would."

He rolled his eyes but didn't say anything – unlike her younger sister and her scathing remarks, or her father and his barely veiled dispassion.

"I'm not sleeping with you if you smell like an ashtray," Neji said instead, though she knew he was lying. He would sleep with her if she had rolled around in a pig trough and run through rice fields afterwards.

After all, they had really spoiled each other. From those nights when Neji had had nightmares of his father's death and she had had to hold him to the nights where she remembered being kidnapped and couldn't trust the shadows of her room unless he stayed with her and told her that they were alone. Oh, yes, they had, as Kiba would eloquently put it, screwed each other over.

But Hinata didn't mind. There was no one else in her family that she was closest to than Neji, and the same was true vice versa.

Nonetheless, she shimmied out of her jacket and let him take it from her, another wild day hidden away in the closet. "I'll go take a shower, then."

:::

The third home was the Sabaku mansion, four separate wings, three rooms apiece, and the only time the family had to see each other was at dinner. No, really, it was mandatory.

Lee would have pressed for more family time had she thought she would have won, but, so far, the Sabaku children's schedules varied too differently. Any more family activities and it would have been burdensome to the siblings.

She always did find it near impossible to accept defeat, but, in this case scenario, there really was no other choice.

She parked her bike in the garage beside her husband's and the five other vehicles her sister-in-law and brother-in-law owned. With a wide smile, she stroked the bike's side. It was her beautiful green beast, taking her off faster than wings ever could, and she beamed with self-satisfaction.

With a happy sigh, she slid her helmet off, possibly the only one in the Kyūbi no Kitsune to abide by safety regulations, and strapped it onto one of the handlebars.

"Don't do that yet."

Her head whipped around, caught by surprise. Surprise turned to curiosity, then to absolute and unmatchable bliss.

A redhead was approaching her, ethereal aquamarine gaze focused completely on her. He had a tattoo on his left temple, the kanji symbol ai, meaning love, and wore a deep red leather jacket over a simple black shirt. Black chaps ended in biker boots.

He mounted the bike next to her without another word, detaching the helmet that hung from his handlebar. It was after he got the bike started that he gave her a meaningful look, eyes started with hers and then wandering slowly down.

Pretty prink darkened her cheeks, but she managed her own appreciative onceover as well. "Hello, there, stranger," she chirped. Her hand went to the ignition, twisting the key. Her bike purred back to life. "I have not seen you around these parts lately."

And she hadn't either. The business tycoon that he was made it difficult for him to find time to do much of anything anymore, and, though that had never sat well with her, she had known that all she could do was help him to the best of her abilities and let him work everything else out with his siblings.

He reached over his bike and tangled a hand in her hair, gold wedding ring flashing, and pulled her to him, mouth sliding over hers with a kindling familiarity that never got old.

"I need a break," he admitted against her lips.

"Mind if I join you?" Though the answer was obvious, but, still, it was always polite to ask.

"It wouldn't be a break if you weren't there to enjoy it with me."

"Oh, you charmer, you!" She slid her helmet back on, revved her engine, and grinned at him as he mimicked her moves. "Where to, Gaa-chan?"

:::

The Uchiha manor marked the last den.

Naruko stumbled up the front steps, Sasuke half-dead at her side, eyes glazed over and cheeks flushed. "Fucking bastard," she hissed. "Learn how to hold your liquor next time or I swear I'll leave you for the big boys to play with."

But that would be next time and, right now, she still had a very intoxicated, very dazed Uchiha clinging to her. With a deep sigh, she somehow managed to unlock the front door and disable the alarm system on the other side. Though she had no clue how.

She all but tumbled into the living room, a large, richly decorated meet-and-great area that she hated with a fiery passion – it felt too impersonal, staged, like a frozen piece of history even though time had moved on around it.

She sort of got a sick sense of pleasure from it, then, when she dumped Sasuke onto the deep red sofa and he turned onto his side just to vomit on the expensive rug.

"Poor teme. Not feeling good, are you?" She crouched down, avoiding the throw up, and petted his hair out of his face. "You're not going to remember a lot of this in the morning, but, when you realize that your head isn't about to pop off of your shoulders and that you are going to have to clean up after yourself, you'll know that I gave you one hell of an experience."

With a giggle and a flounce, she left him to suffer in peace. He would wake up, eventually, and find something to dull his own agony before he would make his way up to his own bedroom. He would curse her to a number of different Hells and she would still feel pretty damn smug.

She was finally teaching her brother-in-law the joys of living.

At the top of the stairs, instead of going straight to a hot shower like she wanted to, she redirected to the bedroom connected to hers.

Opening the door quietly, she peeked inside. What she saw was both surprising and heartwarming, and she pushed the door in a bit further so she could cock her hip against the door frame and watch.

A grown man and a young girl were curled around each other on a full-sized bed. A Hamtaro comforter had been kicked to the edge of the mattress on one side and, on the other, a small hand held protectively onto the comforter, refusing to let go of Bijou's ear.

The grown man stirred, a ray of light shining into his closed eyes, and blearily looked in her direction, frowning.

After a moment, he seemed to realize just who she was. "Naru-koi…" He went to sit up, paused as he realized one arm was trapped beneath the little girl, and studied the kidnapped appendage with a detached sort of curiosity.

"Don't bother." She slid into the room, shutting the door behind her. "I was just getting ready to go to bed anyway." Even though she smelled of alcohol and smoke with a tang of sweat and dirt, she crawled into bed beside him and let one arm flop over his waist while he curled his free arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close and pressing a sweet kiss to her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and then, finally, her mouth.

The kiss lingered, warm and tingly, before they pulled apart. They couldn't risk getting frisky – not with their baby girl in the room.

Naruko fisted her hand in the man's blue shirt, nuzzling her chin into the crook of his neck and shoulder. His black hair tickled her and she smiled as she felt his dark, dark eyes remain on her.

"How was your night?" he asked her in a whisper, running his hand through her tangled, golden tresses. "Did Sasuke enjoy himself?"

"Why don't I tell you all about it…" she shifted to get more comfortable, sighing as she finally settled in, "tomorrow. Kay, 'Tachi?" She managed a wink and then a yawn. "You'll really enjoy it."

He chuckled, the noise reverberating through her as she was pressed against his throat. "I'm looking forward to it, then."

She reached around him, hand smoothing over the little girl's auburn locks, smooth and straight unlike her own wavy tresses; a redhead just like Naruko's mother, Kushina. She tugged the blankets up higher on her, right up to her chin, and smiled as the little girl groggily opened her dark, dark eyes for only a moment to see what was going on.

"I'm home, Kurama."

Her daughter blinked at her, rubbed her tiny fists against her tired eyes, and yawned. "'Come home, mommy…"

:::

*A 2SLDK is an apartment with 2 rooms, a Storage space, a Living room, a Dining room, and a Kitchen. The Storage space is usually a large walk-in size closet.

Author's Note: I decided to consider Lee and Kiba as unisex names.