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Orochimaru was smiling. Naruto shuddered at that smile, but he kept a calm, composed expression, trying not to show that the creature in front of him — who had just spat out a sword the size of his hand and as thick as his palm — filled him with an unsettling mix of disgust and... admiration?
"So, what about our partnership, Naruto-kun?" Orochimaru's hissing voice seemed to echo off the walls.
Uzumaki, looking at him, thought that it might be safer to make a deal with the Devil than with him. He glanced at the Legendary Sannin's unnaturally pale face and long, dark hair, and an abstract thought drifted through his mind about the elusive nature of beauty.
"Are you out of your mind?" Kurama asked, startled, sensing Naruto's train of thoughts.
Naruto coughed, wondering, really— what was he even doing?
"Orochimaru... san," Naruto began hesitantly. "What exactly do you want from me?"
"You could be a fascinating addition to my collection," the man hiss-laughed, daintily covering his mouth with a sleeve, his yellow eyes gleaming with sly interest.
"We could conduct some truly exhilarating experiments together," he added with a predatory gleam.
Naruto’s heart did a dramatic little thud, and he could literally feel the heat rush to his face. The thoughts popping into his head were absolutely not the kind you should be having when a notorious war criminal offers to “experiment” with you.
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” Kurama bellowed.
Naruto cursed, turning sharply away, doing his best to shake the mental image of Orochimaru’s hair fanned out on white silk sheets and his flushed cheeks full of… unsettlingly eager anticipation.
“Since when are you into dudes...?” the Nine-Tails asked, clearly horrified.
“I’m not into dudes!” Naruto snapped, bristling like a cat dunked in cold water.
“Or you can just lend me your DNA,” Orochimaru said sweetly, misinterpreting the prolonged silence entirely.
Naruto slapped a hand over his face. Even his ears were burning from the conversation, and he was in no state to explain — to himself or to a very stunned Kurama — why the hell his brain had taken this particular direction.
“Well?” Orochimaru prompted, still smiling, one elegant brow raised.
Naruto exhaled sharply, trying to pull himself together. DNA, right? He could handle that. Totally normal ninja business. Except suddenly his pants felt way too tight, all thanks to being sixteen and cursed with a metric ton of hormones. Hor. Mo. Nes. That’s all this was.
“Okay...” Naruto muttered. “Do I need a... jar?” He very deliberately avoided Orochimaru’s eyes, but when he glanced up, the Sannin looked mildly confused — and flicked a lock of black hair over his shoulder with a motion so effortlessly graceful that Naruto’s brain just— betrayed him. He bit his lip. What does his hair feel like? Would it be soft? What if he touched it... maybe ran his fingers through and gave a little tug—
Naruto physically shuddered, yanked himself out of the thought, and mentally screamed at every god he could name. But it was too late. Not only he noticed the, uh, situation in his pants — Orochimaru, being painfully observant, definitely caught on too.
To his credit, he didn’t say a word. Just handed over the jar in complete silence, no questions asked.
Naruto, probably blushing harder than he ever had in his entire life, accepted it without looking up, nodded quickly, and power-walked in the direction Orochimaru had pointed. DNA. Right. He asked for this.
“Interesting,” the Legendary Sannin murmured, watching him go, and scribbled something in his notebook.
***
Well, all things considered, Naruto thought as he stepped out of Orochimaru’s lair and took a dramatic breath of fresh air to recover from the impressive DNA donation — that wasn’t so bad. So what if he kind of donated DNA while thinking about a guy three times his age? Happens to the best of us. Sixteen is wild like that.
Kurama stayed suspiciously silent for about fifteen minutes, and then, squinting in his usual mocking way, finally asked:
“So what, you got a thing for long-haired dudes now, you wretch?”
Naruto stoically ignored him, frowning as he hurried off to finish the mission. But the image of Orochimaru and his silky hair spread across a pillow? Yeah… he kept that one tucked away for later. Just in case.
***
When Naruto met the resurrected Uchiha Itachi, he sincerely regretted that they hadn’t had a chance to talk earlier.
Mesmerized, he stared with a darkened gaze at his best friend’s older brother, at the deep-black hair gathered in a low ponytail that fell just below his shoulder blades. Naruto could only absentmindedly nod in response, listening (but not really absorbing) to the pleasant, low voice, while his mind conjured up images that made the Nine-Tails inside him, ears flat against his head, mouth open in a silent scream, stare wide-eyed into the void. It would take him a long time to shake off those vivid images of his jinchuriki self and Uchiha Itachi in all sorts of… positions. Probably for the rest of his life. Uzumaki, what the hell?!
Itachi asked something about Sasuke, and Naruto, snapping back to reality and realizing that the man from his fifteen-minute fantasy had just asked him something, eagerly nodded:
“Yes!” he blurted out, staring hungrily at Itachi.
“What, yes?” Itachi asked, confused.
Naruto felt embarrassed as he remembered the question, exhaling and trying to gather his courage. He needed to use all his famous eloquence to make the right impression on such a beautiful man, whose hair, like a waterfall of coal, cascaded down his well-toned back, all the way to…
Naruto shook his head, exhaling frantically and turning even redder, before launching into an impassioned tirade about love, friendship, and following his dreams. He gazed eloquently into Itachi’s face, attempting (or so he thought) to drop a subtle hint that, in general, they might get to know each other better.
Itachi understood it in his own way, gave Naruto a smile that made Uzumaki's heart perform an impossible pirouette in his chest, and told him that he trusted him with Sasuke. Then, he shoved a raven into Naruto’s mouth— who, completely caught off guard, opened his mouth to ask, “Why do I need your short-haired brother?”— before leaving with dignity.
Coughing and kneeling, Naruto thought to himself that he might be good at eloquence, but he still had a lot to learn about getting his message across. How could he have come up with such a thing and still missed the point?
That day, Naruto was slightly disappointed in the perceptive abilities of the renowned genius of the Uchiha clan, but he also etched his image into his mind. It was getting a bit tiresome doing DNA thinking about Orochimaru.
***
"Madara!" Kurama growled, and for the first time, Naruto felt such intense hatred in the Nine-Tails’ voice, along with an echo of terror.
Uzumaki turned his gaze toward the source of the terrifying, overwhelming chakra, the power of which was pinning him to the ground and literally crushing him, making it hard to breathe.
Naruto decided to get a closer look at the owner of such extraordinary abilities and froze, halting at a safe distance. His blue eyes widened, filled with awe mixed with a greedy desire, and his groin suddenly felt uncomfortably tight.
Kurama cursed under his breath.
Madara swept his gaze across the dense ranks of his enemies and lunged into battle. Naruto couldn't tear his amazed gaze away. His heart thudded painfully in his chest, heavy with a strange, overwhelming feeling.
"I think I'm in love," Naruto blurted out unconsciously, still unable to look away from the man mowing down everyone in his ten-meter radius.
"Is this seriously your reaction to the deadliest mass murderer in the history of shinobi?! Are you an idiot?!" Kurama roared, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Madara's fight was like a dance of death. He killed with ease, almost playfully, moving as though he were dancing among the shinobi, each of his movements deadly and precise.
Naruto cursed under his breath, scolding himself for such thoughts. If there was any way to justify having such thoughts about Itachi and Orochimaru — though reluctantly — this? This was a truly unattainable and deadly ideal. One that, for the sake of his own survival, was best left unachieved.
Naruto exhaled and created a hundred clones, pushing his way toward the coldly efficient Madara, who was slaying one after another. His black hair, no doubt prickly and stiff, whipped into the air, brushing against his red armor, swirling in the deadly dance after its master. Naruto wasn’t sure if his clones had a boner, but he sure did — and damn it, it was incredibly distracting in battle! Who would have thought?
"Do you want to dance, kid?" Madara's piercing red eyes locked onto Naruto. Uzumaki felt a rush of heat spread through his body, and shivers ran down his spine. His heart sped up, spiraling into a frantic dance.
Madara's strong, swift strikes pushed Naruto to move faster and almost stop breathing. He thought to himself that this was the best fight of his life, and the thought made his lower body tighten sweetly.
But, deciding that it was better to finish this quickly, and adding one last image of Uchiha Madara to his collection of youthful fetishes, Naruto used his most powerful technique, stepping into one-on-one combat and leading his beloved enemy further away from the others. After all, no matter how fervently Naruto fantasized about long black hair, he still couldn’t approve of mass murder.
***
"Interesting technique," the strongest warrior of the Uchiha clan says calmly, folding his arms across his chest and looking down at Naruto, who is lying on the ground.
Madara's voice pulses through Naruto’s battered consciousness like an electric shock, traveling from his head straight down to his lower body. Naruto breathes heavily, the taste of blood in his mouth, the pain searing through his entire body. He averts his gaze from the sky and shifts it to the man standing next to him. In hindsight, perhaps fighting one-on-one wasn’t the best idea. He had no chance—not so much because of the fact that he had been aroused since the start of the battle and remained that way until the end, but because of the overwhelming superiority in strength, and most importantly, in experience and skill.
"You..." Naruto coughs up blood but forces himself to sit up, his hungry, devouring gaze never leaving Madara. Kurama’s chakra works to heal his fatal wounds, keeping him alive just long enough to avoid dying on the spot. "Are you... going to kill me?"
"First, I’ll take what belongs to me," Madara replies, looking down at him with icy superiority.
The phrase couldn’t be more ambiguous, and Naruto’s sixteen-year-old mind, weighed down by a heavy fetish, instantly conjured up vivid images and fantasies. Madara’s black, coarse hair held his gaze, making him want to twist it around his fist, pull it toward him, brush his lips against it... and so much more.
“And you said you weren’t into dudes!” Kurama jeered, not missing a chance, even now.
Naruto didn’t blush — he’d lost too much blood, and whatever was left seemed to have dropped down to his groin. Apparently, his blood-deprived brain, full of lascivious fantasies starring Uchiha Madara, came up with the following:
“Be gentle,” Naruto grinned widely before he realized what he had just said.
Madara's face didn't change, betraying no emotion, only his gaze seemed to pierce through him with scorn. Naruto responded with a confident, hard stare, took a deep breath, gathered himself, and muttered:
"I love you." Well, there was nothing left to lose, and if he was going to die, why not at the hands of the Love of His Life?
Madara reacted instantly — a powerful knee strike met Naruto's face almost the moment he finished speaking. Naruto exhaled blood, pondering the phrase about the pain of love and thinking that such a response to a confession of feelings was pretty ambiguous, which meant he still had a chance!
Kurama was yelling about how much of an idiot he was, with frantic eye rolls, passionately describing Hell and how Naruto would be going there in the next ten seconds.
But the seconds passed, and he still hadn't gone to Hell. Naruto lifted his head, searching for Madara, but the man was much closer than he thought, grabbing the young man's hair and lifting him off the ground, staring into his face.
Uzumaki hissed in pain and knelt on one knee.
"Do you like it rough?" he whispered boldly, staring at the man with a detached acceptance of his impending death, deciding that, at this point, things couldn't possibly get any worse.
Madara gritted his teeth, clearly deeply irritated and enraged, and slammed Naruto's head into the hard ground. Uzumaki lost consciousness.
***
Naruto dreamed of sex. No wonder — in the last couple of months, he had never dreamed of anything else, the tension and the riot of hormones in his young body had an effect. However, this time Naruto dreamed of having sex with Madara, where the strongest Shinobi of the Uchiha clan, moaning softly through tightly clenched teeth, moved his hips towards Naruto's and quietly begged for more. Naruto held onto his hair — rough and spiky, some of it falling down onto the bed, while the rest clung to the man's hot, sweaty back.
"Madara..." Naruto moaned softly, then startled himself awake, immediately becoming alert and narrowing his eyes. He was lying in a cave, with a fire burning nearby, an erection straining against his pants, and the real, not imagined, Madara sitting across from him. From the man's condescending gaze, it was clear that either Naruto had moaned too eloquently in his sleep, or Madara had literally seen his dream — who knew what kind of abilities the strongest Uchiha’s Sharingan had.
Naruto nervously swallowed, propping himself up on his elbows and eyeing the man warily.
"You've got a good handle on the demon's chakra, I’ll give you that," Madara broke the silence, his eyes narrowing in irritation as he spoke.
Naruto licked his lips, admiration flickering in his gaze, the firelight casting shadows across his face.
"Don’t you want to..." He gasped, swallowing hard. "Discuss my feelings?" His gaze flicked to the messy pile of black, spiky hair.
Madara shot him a look so filled with contempt and venom that for a second, Naruto felt as if he'd be devoured by it.
"What feelings?" Madara asked, his tone dripping with disdain, obviously wishing he could summon Kurama right now to forget what he’d just witnessed.
"The world’s changed since you died," Naruto continued nonchalantly, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. "Now, love like that isn't considered... shameful anymore," he said, locking eyes with Madara, whose gaze had frozen solid.