Chapter 11: Love and Other Wildfires
Washington D.C. had seen its fair share of important people walking its tree-lined avenues—presidents, generals, celebrities, the odd billionaire with a cape fetish—but it was safe to say that the couple feeding ducks by the lake in Roosevelt Park that morning were something… else entirely.
They didn't walk so much as glide, hand-in-hand, as though the wind parted politely around them and the sunlight voted unanimously to hit their hair at precisely the right angle. Even the squirrels paused their nut hoarding to blink up at them in stunned reverence.
"Who are they?" someone whispered behind their iced coffee.
"I dunno, but I want whatever skincare routine they're on," said another.
"They're either movie stars or ancient gods trying to blend in," muttered a college student who was discreetly taking selfies with them in the background.
The man—tall, golden-haired, with a lean frame that belonged on the cover of a samurai novel—tossed a crumb into the lake, which a duck snapped up like it had just received divine communion.
Beside him sat a woman with eyes like pearls and a presence so serene she made cherry blossoms look disheveled. Her lavender dress fluttered faintly in the summer breeze, and her soft laugh made a passing jogger trip over their own feet.
And yet, Naruto and Hinata Uzumaki were utterly unaware of the gentle chaos blooming around them.
They had come to the capital for a short break, a casual stroll in the park, and perhaps a moment to talk about lightning chambers and chakra mutations without a child climbing on Naruto's head and declaring war on gravity. Their youngest was at home—underground, naturally—bathing happily in a precision-calibrated storm cloud designed to help him harmonize with the electric element.
Because, really, what else do you keep in the basement if not indoor lightning?
"Do you think it's too much?" Naruto asked casually, feeding another duck and watching it flap away in bliss.
"The lightning?" Hinata asked, raising a pale brow in amusement. "Or the fact that he nearly called down a thunderbolt on our neighbour's cat?"
"Both, probably."
She smiled and leaned into his shoulder. "You're doing the right thing. He'll thank you one day… after the cat forgives him."
Naruto chuckled. "I just want them to reach heights I couldn't. Specialize—go beyond me in their own way."
Hinata nodded, understanding perfectly. "And you'll guide them, like you always do."
Truthfully, Naruto could surpass anyone. With thousands of shadow clones and the kind of chakra reserves that made deities feel inadequate, even a skill he was average at could become godlike. But he never wanted to outshine his friends. He'd seen how beautiful they all were in their specialties. Why steal the sun when he could be the soil beneath their roots?
Sasuke with his thunder and genjutsu. Sakura with her brains and fists. Hinata and her heaven-born healing. Each one, a master in their field.
As Hinata leaned over to toss crumbs, Naruto watched her—his gaze soft.
There was no one else who understood him like she did. She didn't just hear his words—she felt the silence between them. The worries he never spoke. The quiet pride. The guilt. The dreams.
And she loved him still.
A small breeze danced over the lake. A child nearby stopped crying. The ducks looked inexplicably healthier. Even the city air smelled a bit cleaner.
It was the effect of just being near the Uzumakis.
"Wallpaper set," whispered a man with a camera phone three benches away.
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It was, in every way, a perfectly charming day.
That is, until it wasn't.
Just when the ducks were making peace with each other over who got the next crumb, and Naruto was about to ask Hinata if she'd like to visit that bookstore with the very suspicious aura he felt earlier, chaos waddled into the park—like a particularly violent goose with a bat.
Only this goose had blonde pigtails, mismatched shoes, a dangerously wild grin, and a baseball bat resting on her shoulder like it was her emotional support cudgel.
Harley Quinn.
She stormed into the peaceful scene like a sugar-high banshee at a yoga retreat, muttering loudly enough for a nearby squirrel to faint.
"Damn assholes makin' so much noise with their flirting while Mister J is suffering!" she snarled, kicking over a couple's picnic and sending potato salad flying.
It was unclear who Mister J was suffering from, or what exactly flirting had to do with it, but Harley didn't seem the sort to be weighed down by logic.
Screams erupted as she whipped out a revolver from what could only be described as "hammerspace," sending innocent joggers and dog-walkers fleeing in terror.
One poor man tripped over his own labradoodle and rolled into a rose bush.
"Move it, ya flower-sniffin' lovebirds!" Harley snapped as she stomped through the chaos, glaring daggers at the one couple who hadn't run.
Naruto and Hinata.
Still seated.
Still utterly unbothered.
Still feeding ducks.
Harley blinked. "Are you two deaf or just suicidally romantic?!"
Naruto didn't glance up. "Bit of both."
Hinata giggled softly, brushing her hair behind her ear as if being threatened with a gun was just another Tuesday.
"Ugh, gross," Harley shuddered and raised her bat. "You've got, like, three seconds to say goodbye before I redecorate this park in bold and bloody!"
In the blink of an eye, the air changed.
The grass shivered.
The birds scattered.
And Harley Quinn suddenly found herself staring into the gentle but unmistakably terrifying gaze of Hinata Uzumaki.
There was a moment—a heartbeat of silence—before Hinata softly, politely, sweetly said:
"Miss… if you harm a single duck, I will erase your fingerprints from existence."
Harley's mouth opened.
Then closed.
Then opened again.
"Wait. What?" she asked, sounding suspiciously like someone trying to remember if they left the oven on.
She didn't even see Naruto move.
One second, he was sitting with a smile. The next, he was in front of her, gently pressing one finger against her forehead like a teacher about to deliver a life lesson via divine smiting.
"Bonk," he whispered.
Harley Quinn flew backward through the air with all the grace of a bowling pin in a hurricane, landing in a flower bed, dazed and blinking at the bees now circling her.
"I think I peed a little…" she muttered faintly.
Naruto turned to Hinata, grinning.
"You were right, dear. That was fun."
Hinata smiled. "You always say that after tossing someone through the air."
"Because it's always true."
And with that, the park returned to peace.
The ducks resumed their waddling.
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Naruto Uzumaki, who had once been the most unpredictable, rambunctious ninja in the entire Hidden Leaf Village, now sat on a park bench with the air of a man who had finally discovered the bliss of sitting still. Not meditating. Not training. Not battling. Just sitting. A mug of tea in one hand, his other wrapped comfortably around the hand of his wife.
Hinata, lovely as springtime itself, leaned into him with the grace of a woman who knew that her place beside him was not taken for granted. Her smile was soft. Her eyes closed in serenity.
Naruto, meanwhile, had slipped into one of those rare silences that often hinted at a storm of thoughts brewing behind his sapphire eyes.
He stared at the lake as if it held the answers to something long pondered. Ducks glided by, completely unaware that a man who could punch through planets was contemplating the fragile intricacies of love.
"I remember back in the academy…" Naruto began softly, not entirely sure whether he was talking to Hinata or the wind, "there was a girl who sat near me in class."
Hinata tilted her head to listen, her expression unreadable but kind.
"When I saw her," he continued, "my mouth would go dry. My heart raced. It felt like there were butterfly shuriken doing drills in my stomach." He smiled faintly. "I saw her everywhere. In the hallway, at the ramen stand… even once at the marketplace when I was buying instant curry and nearly burned my eyebrows off trying to act cool."
Hinata giggled lightly, and Naruto chuckled too, though there was a wistfulness in his tone.
"It lasted about three weeks," he said, "and then… it just sort of faded. That's the thing about infatuation. It's like a match. Bright. Fast. Gone."
The ducks quacked in agreement.
"Back then," Naruto went on, "I didn't know what love was. I thought I did. I thought it was posters of actresses and longing looks from afar. We used to pass around that one poster—remember, the one that looked like Lady Tsunade?"
Hinata raised an eyebrow. "You passed it around."
"Semantics," Naruto said, waving it off. "The point is… it wasn't her we wanted. It was the idea of her. That's not love. That's… what Jiraiya used to call 'plot-driven nonsense.' Or was that Kakashi? Either way, it wasn't real."
Hinata smiled knowingly. She knew where this was going, but let him find the path himself.
Naruto's gaze turned serious, thoughtful.
"I always wanted love, you know," he admitted. "Not the poster kind. The real kind. The kind that sticks around when you're cranky, or injured, or emotionally constipated. But for a long time, I mistook wanting love for wanting attention. I chased admiration like it would fill some hole in me."
He looked down at their joined hands.
"It never did."
A breeze swept across the lake, carrying with it the laughter of children, the rustle of leaves, and the smell of popcorn someone had most definitely over-salted.
"I once worked as a pastor for a month," Naruto said with a grin. "Don't ask. Jiraiya's idea. Apparently pretending to be clergy gets people to talk."
Hinata gave him a look. "I will ask later."
Naruto laughed. "I performed a bunch of weddings. And they all read that passage—1 Corinthians 13. You've heard it. 'Love is patient, love is kind…' all that."
He cleared his throat and looked at her seriously now.
"It's not a grand jutsu or a flashy declaration, Hina. It's just… choosing someone, every day. Being there. Trusting. Protecting. Hoping. And never… never letting go."
She looked up at him, and for a moment, Naruto swore he saw the Academy Hinata—the one who blushed, stumbled, and never stopped believing in him—sitting beside him. Not older. Not stronger. Just her. And he felt a lump rise in his throat, uninvited.
"You stuck by me," he whispered. "Even when I didn't give you what you deserved. You never wanted a title or a palace. You could've been a queen, but you chose a broken idiot with a thousand clones and a ramen addiction."
"You're my idiot," Hinata whispered back.
Naruto leaned his forehead against hers, their laughter mixing softly with the rustle of wind through the trees.
"I've lived in the past too long," he admitted. "Too many memories, too much regret. But you… you remind me that the future is still waiting. That I can still write a story worth remembering."
"Then start writing," Hinata said, eyes glowing with soft determination. "And make it beautiful."
They sat like that for a while—two people who had weathered the storms of war, duty, and distance—wrapped in each other, in the sunlight, and in a love that burned not like a wildfire, but like a steady, enduring flame.
One that would never go out.
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For a blissful moment, the world had been perfectly quiet.
The sun sparkled across the lake like scattered gold dust, the ducks were enthusiastically nibbling at the breadcrumbs Hinata had dropped earlier, and Naruto had his face buried rather enthusiastically in the crook of his wife's neck.
"Dear," Hinata murmured, brushing a stray strand of hair from his cheek with a smile only a woman long-accustomed to her husband's playful mischief could wear, "it seems we have a guest."
Naruto groaned like a lazy cat interrupted during a nap. "Should I?" he asked with the vague interest of someone who'd rather return to neck kisses and Hinata's soft giggles than attend to external disturbances.
"Oh dear, please wake up," Hinata said, giving his arm a firm but loving smack. Her tone walked the line between fondness and exasperation.
Naruto blinked, the whisker marks on his cheeks lifting slightly as he glanced past her shoulder.
A young woman was striding—no, stomping—toward them with enough chaotic energy to turn daisies into dynamite. Clad in a white tee and short denim shorts, she clutched a bat like it was her emotional support animal and wore a smile that was teetering dangerously between mischievous and murderous.
Naruto's blue eyes sharpened. Gone was the affectionate husband; in his place stood the quiet storm.
"Insanity," he muttered. "Mind break. Deep fear rooted in her core."
The bat-wielding woman had reached them… and promptly stopped mid-step. Her feet lifted gently from the ground, her arms flailed once in alarm, and she realized—far too late—that she was floating.
"I… um… I'm really sorry for disturbing you," she squeaked, eyes now wide as dinner plates.
"No need," Naruto replied cheerfully, his smile the kind that made grown warlords shiver. "We're very nice people. We offer complimentary medical care to the clinically insane."
The woman began to shake.
"No, no, no! Please don't—don't touch my brain!" she pleaded, her voice rising in panic. "I'll do anything—anything! Just let me go! MR. J! MISTER J!"
Her final shriek echoed off the trees like a broken music box. The birds scattered.
Naruto's eyes darkened slightly as he turned to Hinata. "Failsafe," he said softly. "He hardwired a trigger into her mind. Just hearing those words unravels her sanity."
Hinata's expression fell. The delicate grace in her posture was replaced with gentle sorrow as she looked at the girl flailing mid-air.
"She's not evil," Hinata murmured, her voice barely a breath. "She's just… lost."
Naruto raised a hand and nodded. "Let's fix that."
The air shimmered around his fingers as warm chakra radiated out like ripples on a pond. It wrapped around the young woman—Harleen Quinzel, he now remembered—and gently invaded her mind and body, not like a scalpel but like a balm.
Harley's body went still.
She hung there like a suspended doll while the chakra worked through her, gently separating trauma from identity, pain from memory. Naruto didn't erase the scars—some wounds needed time to heal, not magic—but he softened them, tamed the agony, and buried the sharpest edges beneath silk-like veils.
The memories would return in fragments—half-dreams and distant déjà vu—but never again would they control her. Never again would "Mr. J" own her mind.
"She was smart," Naruto said aloud, almost wistfully. "A psychologist. Brilliant, even. But she let him in… and he knew just what to twist."
"She's not like him," Hinata said firmly, standing now beside him with hands folded. "She never was."
"No," Naruto agreed. "She still held back. Joker would've razed this park without blinking."
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Harley Quinn had floated through many strange days in her life.
There was the time she'd danced with hyenas in a clown suit, the time she'd tried to rob a museum while disguised as a 17th-century pirate (complete with a talking parrot who turned out to be an undercover cop), and of course, all the Tuesday tea parties with Mr. J—most of which involved explosives, tears, or both.
But this was entirely different.
Hovering gently in the air with her pigtails slowly twisting in the breeze, Harley Quinn—former criminal psychologist turned volatile villainess—found herself at the mercy of a couple who looked like they belonged in a fairy tale.
"Well?" Hinata's voice rang with soft certainty, like warm bells on a winter morning. "Let her serve Hima."
Naruto, whose eyes still glowed faintly with golden chakra, raised an eyebrow. "Sure about that?"
Hinata nodded, her gaze as steady as stone and just as unyielding. "She needs structure. A new purpose. Not pity or punishment."
This was the new order Naruto had been slowly weaving together—not just punishment, not vengeance or endless prison sentences, but repentance. It was an idea that had startled the world when it first began: criminals, broken minds, even twisted hearts given tasks—real work to do, real contribution to make, as a way of stitching their souls back together.
They worked in the villages and towns, in fields and kitchens, in hospitals and workshops. Some were gardeners; others became guards. Some swept streets; others helped train children in self-defense, using the very knowledge they'd once abused.
It wasn't a perfect system, but it worked surprisingly well. Most people, when given a purpose and held accountable with compassion rather than cruelty, changed.
Most.
The truly dangerous ones—the high-level threats or minds on the verge of cracking—were dealt with directly by Naruto or his elite. But a handful had... potential. Potential strong enough to become servants—a curious word that in Naruto's world meant something entirely different than it had before.
Servants were handpicked and reborn through discipline and healing, trained in body and spirit to carry out missions, teach others, and sometimes simply watch. They were his extra hands in a world that never ran out of broken things.
And now, Harley Quinn had been chosen. Not just to serve, but to serve Himawari.
Naruto's eyes softened. "You're always too kind."
"No," Hinata said, her lips curved in a mysterious little smile. "I'm simply planting seeds. She'll either grow… or she won't."
Naruto chuckled and leaned in to kiss her—tender and slow, like someone sinking into the warmth of a fire after a storm. For all his power, all his responsibility, this—this moment—was what he truly craved.
A breath of love. A heartbeat of peace.
Then, with a flick of chakra, Harley vanished. Not a trace left behind except the slight scent of bubblegum and gunpowder.
She would wake up in a new bed, in a safe place, with new clothes and a simple message pinned to her chest:
"You are now Hima's responsibility. Learn, grow, serve. Or try running. Up to you."
Back in the park, the ducks had returned once again to gobble breadcrumbs. Children played near the fountain, laughter bubbling up like a fresh spring. The Uzumaki couple went back to their quiet conversation, the world around them reduced to birdsong and rippling water.