Tripletsverse

For Sarolynne.

Comparing Curves

The rap on her door was so quiet she might have not heard it, as if the visitor was hoping they would miss each other.

"Um, Neji-neesan?" came the hesitant call. Neji furrowed her brows and put her cup of tea down on the kotatsu. Hinata-sama didn't come to the Branch side of the compound very often anymore, especially not to visit young women; it was improper.

"Yes?" she replied, and got up, smoothing down her yukata.

"I'm sorry to disturb you on your day off, it's just, I don't know if you heard about Naruto-san's, er, recent ..."

She could hear him thinking his way through several words -- accident, problem, mishap; but when the door suddenly slid open she could see why he hadn't gone with any of them.

The mishaps in question were standing beside him. Actually, one of them was standing in front, fox-red hair and blood-red eyes, Naruto's sports jacket straining to contain her assets. Underneath she seemed to be wearing a sarong, or perhaps simply a bedsheet, thin cotton cloth wrapped around her legs.

Neji noted the bare and dusty feet, and then flicked her eyes back up, into disdainful, dangerous eyes. She met them unflinching, deliberately unimpressed. "I heard."

"Er. Sorry for barging in, oneesan. We just -- Kyuubi-san needs clothes, and modern clothes -- ah -- don't suit her much..."

"She hates them," piped up the male Naruto.

"She'd hate them even if she fit," groused the female, original one, with a glare at her redheaded clone's body.

Kyuubi, visibly bored with the discussion, stepped inside the room and right past Neji. Neji's jaw tightened but she refused to turn around. She was a prodigy; she didn't need to.

Hinata winced in embarrassment. "I thought, maybe you'd know where to find a kimono to lend...?"

Neji stared at him for a long second. "I do," she replied, because the way he met her eyes, sorry to ask but determined, meant he knew she still had her mother's; like a good Hyuuga bride she wore nothing else.

"We can look elsewhere if --"

"It's fine. I'll take care of it." She slid the door closed under their nose before her cousin or the rest of the Uzumaki brood could follow Kyuubi in.

When she turned Kyuubi was standing by her kotatsu, the orange and black jacket dangling negligently from a hand. She dumped it on the scroll Neji had been reading; the weight of the jacket dragged the scroll down on the tatami when it slid off the kotatsu.

She was topless underneath, breasts heavy, nipples large and dark. Flyaway red locks tumbled down her shoulders and her back in messy, wild tangles. Blood-colored eyes watched Neji with the uncaring disdain of a lazy predator; 'you're nothing, mere prey, I could kill you at my whim. Maybe I'll ignore you.'

"I'll go find the kimono," Neji said, eyes gone narrow and cold. She glided past with small, unhurried, unafraid steps. She was damned if she would show the beast the smallest hesitation.

Kyuubi was not Naruto. She was not Naruto, not even a little, no matter that her face, her figure could have been Naruto's at twenty, a mother perhaps -- a woman, not a girl. She was a potential threat, to the village and to her cousin and to Naruto herself. Neji didn't like that.

She slid the door of the walk-in closet open and took three steps to the end of it, knelt on the floor. Her mother's boxes were stuffed away at the very bottom, buried under other old stuff.

She saw Kyuubi coming, slowly following her to the closet; of course, boxing prey in had to be instinctive. She ignored her pointedly. Kyuubi could stand at the door all she wanted; there was no reason why the Gentle Fist would not work on her if she insisted on blocking Neji's way out.

Of course Kyuubi waited until Neji had crawled half under some bigger boxes before goosing her.

"Hands off," she growled back. it wasn't like she could kick in a yukata, damn it. She found some purchase on the kimono box and wriggled back to get out, irritated that she had reacted at all.

Kyuubi's hand caressed her ass again, bold and firm as she followed the curve down to her thigh, only to go back up straight over her cleft. Neji burst out of the hole and whirled to face her, cheeks heating despite her best effort.

She'd gotten rid of the sheet as well, of course; she crouched naked over Neji's legs, absolutely shameless, eyes roaming over Neji's body and a self-satisfied smirk on her lips.

"What I prefer about kimono," she purred, and leaned in, heavy breasts swinging in hypnotizing little arcs, "is how easy they are to take off."

And Neji was going to strike her, she was, her chakra was ready in her hand and she even knew where -- the shoulder, a single poke -- but then Kyuubi found the end of her belt and gave a tug and the yukata fell open, and her eyes were full of want.

It shouldn't have meant anything to Neji, anything she gave a damn about, but that look on Naruto's face, it stilled her -- not even a whole second, and then claw-tipped hands were guiding her thighs open and fur-soft locks were tumbling on her belly.

Neji was toppled on her back on the dusty tatami, in the middle of the boxes and hanging clothes, and she lay there, staring at the ceiling, hands fisted tight in fox-red hair.