Hi Madara!

Its Naruto, obviously. Anyway, as I should have probably mentioned, and as you no doubt noticed, I have moved to a small apartment on the south side of the city. I know you don't like the neighborhoods 'around here' but honestly they're fine, and I think you're being a little prejudiced towards the communities. Anywho! I have not been robbed, or even seen it as a problem with anyone else either, least while I've stayed here. People typically avoid each other anyway. I do see the occasional fancy car drive by now and then, which is slightly weird, but no one has ever really said anything about them so I don't think I'll start asking questions.

My neighbor is really nice too. He waved me on rent fees the other month for no reason, and said it was for a good reason! Which it was, because I really didn't have too much money at the time, but still, not many people would do that right! He also bought me some donuts the other day straight from the bakery, for 'his favourite tenant,' he said. Which made me feel awesome, oh! And he also got me some coffee too! He does have a slightly creepy grin, but otherwise I think he's a good guy.

Me and Ino also went on a spa day not too long ago, probably a couple of days ago by the time this reaches you. I needed to unwind and she totally helped, I got a manicure, facemask and everything! She paid too!

To be serious though, she did mention something a little worrying though, and I am a little scared for her because of it: You see, an old 'acquaintance' of ours (mine and Ino), Sakura, recently got hitched: To the same man I was kinda screwing around with, the same one I've known for ages. That's what's worrying me, apparently there's a suspicion within the local police force and some prosecutors that Sasuke is a Yakuza. According to them he's from a long standing family the 'Uchiha' who have been under suspicion of extreme criminal behaviour since the 1910s or something. I mean I could probably handle that, even though Sasuke has never really been the 'criminal or gangster' type, I suppose I could believe it if he was.

But that's not what's worrying me, Sakura is. You see, the woman has always had a fierce, red-hot, ambition to be the top-model of the country, and she's pretty close nowadays to the title: only Ino and a few others really stand in her way, and as she and Ino have a... 'colourful' past, I don't know what Sakura will do if Ino comes out on top.

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing, but it is scaring me a little Mada. I guess I'm just rambling at you because I'm used to it, and I'm sorry, I know you're really busy with work, maybe even pulling troops out of the south?

Anyway, miss you! And love you always.

-Yours, Naruto.

By his own method of begrudged irritation the Major threw the letter he was so tenaciously reading on top of his desk, hands running down his face in pure desire to punch the next cadet to interrupt his personal hour. A heavy sigh left him as he slumped back over his chair, vaguely hoping none of the soldiers would walk in to see him in such a position. He was annoyed, and the metal pieces adorning his uniform were beginning to feel as if they were pinching at his skin, the arms of the jacket were painfully tight and restricting any movement he made, this, he ignored for all of the familiarity it bore. Instead, he lifted his eyes and made them to stare at the awaiting papers on his prop-up desk: they all had the same variant of report, some type of registration of death and changing of position; he scowled onto it for all the change it brought.

That was when the sound reached him, one he knew well as that of a plant bomb going off, nearby and in the northern direction. He shoved himself to his feet, they were at the main base in the region, to be found and attacked in their place of operations was more then unlikely -it was convenient. He turned himself to pitch scrambling from the desk as the loud bombing continued to come ever closer. His fear minimized by the goal of defense coming to his head with all the force he might harbour. The unwanted knowledge of equipping in an emergency easing him once more as he managed to put himself in full armour, gun in hand as he flipped open the tent to face chaos.

Some officers were maintaining a minor order, as they directed some teams off into particular safe points they'd previously determined while establishing the camp. The captain, covered in sand and filth came up to him first, voice hurried and her breath was a clear enough sign she'd run the entire way to him. "Sir! There's a force of at least five hundred to the northwest, and another marching up from the southeast! The roe and jai teams have lost contact-" The building nearest exploded an array of fire and burning stone crashing fast onto the road, sharp pebbles flying almost into his eyes at the impact the boulders made with the earth. He was knocked off his feet by the sheer force and sent rolling on his side for a moment, before he managed to regain his sense of area. He stood, disjointed, but his vision wasn't obstructed by concussion or injury, there were three buildings crackling with a fierce fire -a type of air missile they had yet to gain intel of? He had no knowledge, it had not been in any of his reports.

The sound of his boots stomping through the dry sand rang through his head as he ran to a barrier, and he wondered if his head truly was injured for a moment before ducking down. There were two other soldiers nearby, obviously rather inexperienced as their hands shook on their weapons with the fear of a cadet. By some unfathomable luck, most of the camp had remembered the emergency plan and had separated to the defence points readying for the oncoming breach of their cast iron gate. There was still the risk of an air missile, but Madara did doubt the validity of that assumption as he'd seen no flying artillery above or heard anything indicating a drop -that said, he did not know the full weapons power of their enemy and he couldn't safely rule out the possibility. By his own guess, the type of bomb they'd been using was ground to air, and mobile, if they could retain position there was the possibility of disabling the vehicle that harboured it, as it were however, they were primarily in defensive positioning, and to change such a course would endanger everyone around him. He scowled, such a course wouldn't be wise at the moment, even with a small infiltration, their enemy was bound to be well guarded as it was.

He checked his ammunition as quick he might, finding that he had ten bullets on him alongside the five already loaded. He was in poor shape to fight, though he did have a small pistol in his left pouch.

He heard the tell-tale signs then, his eyes quickly catching onto their force entering from the northwest. They had been fortunate, that was their main entrance, and defensible from their positions. Madara still had no exact plan for when the troops from the southeast came forward, it was an ambush and he had no way to protect his men from a sure death if no reinforcements came.

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Sunday. Ino burst in with her extra key dropped to the carpet without a care, she did not lock the door, she had no care to take off her boots and he was made ready to protest her actions until he saw her face. There were tails of pale skin peeking through her foundation, her mascara was smeared about her eyes, her hair flew in all directions. Her body was shaking, quivering as she scrambled to his place on the couch, her manicure was the only thing still perfect upon her, and Naruto froze at the appearance. She grasped the television remote almost aggressively, and he allowed her too with his own eyes boring into her back as her lower-lip shook in the grasp of her teeth. She flipped to the news. Then lost all her strength and fell down, and curled her body nearly on top of his, she curled and she wept and he hugged her as best he might with their uncomfortable position.

The newswomen's neat clothing and look seemed offensive to her report. Naruto had the urge to scream at her as she spoke in candour, with little expression and hardly any waver in her tone."Three days ago saw a devastating attack upon our main camp within the region of Sunagakure. With a reported; over nine-hundred of our people dead, and nearly three-hundred injured. The exact numbers are unknown as our troops are still being recovered from the damage. Prime Minister Hashirama Senju has ordered an emergency press conference to address the attack, while in the meantime she assures the friends and family of all affected that all measures are being taken to recover and escort all our injured troops from the region." For a moment of silence Naruto's vision blurs over as the fog of panic runs through him in swift course, his breathing hastens, and Ino holds him tighter. "General Jiraiya Namikaze -who is incharge of the encampment of the south at the moment.- Has stated that with the damage being so palpable -and devastating, we may be looking at a possible retreat from the nation, and an increase in personnel along our southern border." His air left his lungs at the knowledge that his Grandfather was alive.

Ino kissed his cheek as he attempted to console himself that his husband would be as well, she buried her face in his neck and he cuddled himself into her embrace. The worry didn't dissipate, his fear remained stagnant and his breathing did not return to normal. He listened to the newswoman continue on with all the information she could relay, with a focus so poignant he took barely a notice to his friend getting up to lock the door and make some food. "Major General Madara who led the attack upon the Akatsuki invaders, was shot five times in the chest and back during the encounter has said that the situation requires continual, and strict, monitoring as it is highly-likely an information leak caused the ambush." Naruto collapsed into his couch, the relief was so extensive that he nearly picked up his phone to call everyone he knew merely to brag over the fact in joy. It was uncertain, and unverified by the tone the news pertained, but Naruto took the explanation and quotation of his husband as proof that the man was still alive.

He grasped around the table for the nearest paper to his delicate hands, and dug around the couch cushions for a pen to write with. As the news woman continued; "Please use this twenty-four hour federal number on screen if you are looking for information about a potentially wounded family member." He wrote it down quickly in a scrawl that was not legible to the common mind, paying little heed to the cautious hand stroking through his hair as he input the numbers as fast he might into his phone. He did hear the discreet sniff she attempted to hide however, and without thought her took her idle hand into his own.

The voice on the other end was plain, male, and obviously fed up with his job, "Military Emergency Family Response, how can I help you today?" Naruto, gave the man not a thought, for the bland tone, nor the sympathy springing into his mind at the consideration of having such a horrid job.

"Hello." He offered, not caring to sound kind as he gripped firmly onto his friend's hand tighter then he should have. "I need information about my husband, Major General Madara, is he alive?" He skipped to the point, not caring for the grip Ino incurred upon him at the information.

"Very well, what is your name ma'am?" He didn't bother to yell at the man for the assumption, his quest for knowledge outweighing any pride he might hold for the unintentional insult.

"Naruto Umino." There was a pause, a tapping of keys, static on the other line and the shaken breaths of the Yamanaka beside him was all he heard. Before he recalled himself and mentioned in haste; "I am on file, but only as 'Mrs, Madara.'" It was an embarrassing fact, but it had helped keep their marriage hidden for nine years, and if it protected himself and his husband from potential threat, then Naruto merely considered it a necessary sacrifice -despite his own pride taking the blow. Madara had no last name for him to use on file, military or otherwise, and Naruto knew his own name would stand out prominently should Madara have married into his family. Thus, Madara was used as both a first and surname on most governmental files, it was certainly unconventional, but still legal under their nation's laws.

"Verified Mrs. Madara. Your husband is alive, he has been transferred to Haiku Hospital within Haiku City and has undergone a successful surgery to remove four bullets from his chest and one from his lung. He is expected to make a partial recovery, and is to be given both medical and veteran's benefits for his injuries and service." He breathed a heavy sigh of relief into the phone, his fears abated, it was not a full recovery, but it was enough to make him grateful for the comfort of knowing.

"When will I be able to pick him up?" He asked it in hope, though he expected the wait to be several days under the circumstances.

"The hospital staff did say he can be brought home presently, but it is necessary to keep him under strict watch in fear for relapse, or stitches breaking." Naruto nodded to no one at the news, already he was certain Ino could feel his heart throbbing in his chest in his eagerness to spring from the couch and run to the hospital. There was no way for him to get to his husband without the car Ino had undoubtedly come in, and he didn't wish to panic the woman either. Though Mr. Yamanaka would not have been stationed in the main southern camp for fear of death, Naruto knew that his friend was actually here and crying in empathy, not in fright, it touched at his own want to curl into a ball and cry. Or at the least, allow her the relief of ignoring his own selfish thoughts.

Naruto closed his phone, though the sweat he had on his face murked the screen, he had wanted to ask for his Grandfather, but he also knew that Iruka would do so before he could, or at least his Grandmother would; and they (himself and her) hardly knew each other. His fingers trembled a little as he put the flip onto the table, in glancing outside, he knew it was a bit late to go demanding a car ride, and getting a taxi was unwise given what the clock read. "Ino-" He started, only to comprehend a moment later that her sniffing and tight grip had stopped because she had fallen asleep on top of his side- which he reckoned couldn't be comfortable; he was a lanky man with a slim, feminine frame and always had been, she could probably feel his ribs quite easily through his overworn pajama top; correction, Madara's worn pajama t-shirt that hardly fit the Major and dwarfed himself.

Ino muttered something as he slowly got up. There wasn't much he could do, the woman was slim and generally unmuscled, but she was also taller then him by a few inches and that would make her difficult to carry. Instead he moved the bag of popcorn he'd already slightly scattered over the couch and pulled her hair out of her already loosened ponytail while covering her with the makeshift quilt he'd been working on. He knew hardly anything about make-up, and frankly he didn't want to wake the woman up for the simple task of freeing her skin from mascara and foundation -he knew how to get rid of eyeliner only, and that had been because of one incident when he was fourteen, which got him mocked for three years in highschool.-

There wasn't a pillow around, so he grabbed one of the seat cushions and put it underneath her head as carefully as he might. She hardly even steered at the disruption. It was past one in the morning, and Naruto did figure that although his heart ached with all the unsuitable reasonings; it would be better that Madara get at least another few hours of monitoring and relief in the hospital, the cramped walls of his own apartment would only drive the man to an unpleasant sardonic attitude. He turned off the TV with a click, and the flickering light switch without a sound as he wandered into his own bedroom to rest. He would speak to his father at a more acceptable hour, potentially ask about his Grandfather then as well, and hopefully: Pick up his husband sometime before the hospital fed the man a dry lunch.

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The building was one he found to be daunting, strange as that became unto a man who had frequently visited the NDB as a teen, it was a hospital he stood before in trepidation. Naruto reckoned it as a ridiculous hesitation, especially as the doors of the building held his husband; perhaps not waiting for his arrival, but Naruto at least assumed that Madara would know him well enough to understand that he would come for him as soon as he might under the circumstances. Plaguing the mind of the young blond was the fact that they could have failed to heal his husband, that he could enter into the lobey only to be offered condolences and asked if he would like to see the body of the man he loved deceased on a bed table.

The car horn behind him honked loudly, and he knew it was in his direction as it was Ino's violent car which rang. He barely glanced at her in his attempt at casting her a smile, and he walked forward with a hesitant step, his legs shook in his boots; they were old things he'd had since his thirteenth, Madara had always rolled his eyes when he saw them, and bought him a new set six months into their relationship: Yet, after his husband had left their home for the battlefront, Naruto knew he wouldn't have been able to wear anything Madara had bought him without a memory fermenting, and tears leaving his eyes.

The lobby smelt like sanitizer and chlorophyll, it was bussed with people struggling for information and hoping to visit their loved ones as they will. Oftentimes turned away by exhausted nurses, though some were brought into the halls by a man or a woman who appeared to have the want to be anywhere else. Naruto turned his face from those sights and gazed about him; according to the receptionist he had spoken to, Madara would be in the reception area. Then he spotted a peculiar woman, who was talking to a man sitting on the nearby chair, someone who wore a pair of green army trousers, and had curled thick black hair behind the chair back and had the relaxed posture of a smug man, with a large arm slung over the side of another seat, Naruto recognized the positioning instantly as that of his husband. But in his own obstructed sense of rationality -and in ignoring his own want to run up to the man,- the blond choose to observe first; finding that the odd woman he had been gazing at priour to recognizing his husband was Hashirama Senju, the Prime Minister. Beside her was her stern set assistant, a somber red-head with a similar personality to the one Madara projected; a woman, whom Naruto had only had the displeasure of meeting once, much to his relief.

It was in his own confusion that Naruto walked up towards them both. He had known Madara and Hashirama knew each other, though he knew not the extent, it knawed at his curiosity. Abstractedly listening in on their rather private conversation until they took notice of his presence.

"Can you do nothing?" Hashirama asked, while Madara sat back on his chair, Naruto gave a simper at the fact that his husband was beginning to present with obvious age lines, and the stress lines around his eyes had begun to be more prominent. Madara smirked, and the blond found himself squirming for the familiar look he presented in his cocky arrogance, a blush crawling to his own tanned- scarred- face.

"Not unless you want my family to have full comprehension as to what you're planning to do." It was a refusal, though by wording Naruto could understand it was meant as a warning. "I have no power in this, or any other circumstance in its regard." The prime minister slumped over herself as if it were everything she had been fearing, her head dropped and her hair fell in front of her face; it was brief however, before she straightened, and neither her assistant nor Madara seemed perturbed by her behaviour as she gave a wide grin, clapped her hands together and heaved a sigh.

"Well! It is what it is! I better go contact Tobirama and see if he can get anything done with the Marines, we need all the blockade we can get from that stuff." Then, much to Naruto's personal ire, she clasped Madara on the shoulder and gave him a large kiss on the cheek before staring him directly in the eyes -as if within some romantic tragedy,- though the blond couldn't hear her words when they were that close together. Though the word '-safe' did echo from her voice a little bit. For the briefest of seconds, Naruto watched their interactions, and wondered if they were going to kiss; Madara did not appear to be interested as he simply stared at her waiting for her move, but he wasn't moving. As for Hashirama, she looked to be in the midst of contemplating the benefit of kissing his husband simply because the man was nearby.

Naruto chose to interrupt.

"Madara!" He exclaimed rather loudly, making the Prime Minister jump back, and Madara quickly turn in his direction, an eyebrow raised. Naruto waved with all the confidence he could muster, with the most brightened grin he could force, while Madara stood up, grabbed a lose bag of belongings -likely brought from the army on his side. He did pat his friend on the shoulder once before he walked over to Naruto.

While the blond found himself shuttering like jelly to see the man again, he was struggling heavily, and in turn Naruto made his legs move so that he could grab the bag the major had over his shoulder, and try and reposition the crutch he walked on to be more helpful. He gained an amused glance from obsidian eyes, and he found himself smiling back, before he leaned into the man and gave him the most gentle kiss he could; with all the feelings within him running rampant.

Shaking out the most quiet sentence he'd ever said. "God, I missed you." Tears didn't fall then, for Naruto found himself devoid of the liquid, a content filling him in their stead.