"How much do you weigh?!" The princess shouted angrily, caught off guard by the unexpected weight of the boy. She struggled to hold on to prevent them from falling.
"A lot, today I made Ramen and ate like twenty plates."
"You're a rhetorical question moron!" Azula had to let go of the rock and dig her nails into the wall as the entire platform began to shake again.
"Let go!"
"That?!" She looked at him in disbelief. Didn't he see her fall? And to make matters worse, the walls began to close around them.
"Let go! Trust me!"
"Ahgg!" With her nails slowly losing their grip, Azula looked down to see the shinobi's smile. Shaking her head, she couldn't believe what she was about to do.
Letting go, the two began to fall.
Only a few meters, Naruto began to spin with a current of wind that enveloped him, stepping on the wall and launching Azula upwards.
As they were still holding hands, they were propelled upwards out of the trap, like a rocket crashing into the ground.
Hitting the earth pillar where the box was, the tall pillar began to give way due to the breakage of its base.
In response, the entire platform began to shake violently, causing the two teenagers to be thrown off in a single movement.
The crowd fell silent, not expecting the carnival game to become so intense.
But their worry turned to joyous cries when they saw Naruto lift the ivory box high.
"I think I broke something," Naruto complained as he served as a cushion to soften Azula's fall, eliciting a huff from her.
"You're a baby," the firebender retorted, sitting up and perching on her date's chest, causing him to grunt.
"I'm not the one sitting on the other's chest." To his relief, and perhaps disappointment, Azula stood up, separating herself from him.
"You two are crazy," the stall attendant admitted, impressed that the two teenagers were unharmed, "But a deal is a deal. You've won not only the box."
"There's more?" Naruto eagerly got up from the ground, thinking they had won another prize.
"Yes, you've earned a portrait of yourselves. Allow me to introduce one of Ba Sing Se's most recent guests." With a snap of her fingers, an old man appeared, carrying what looked like a wooden box with a lens and a dark sheet hanging from it. "Admire the illustrator."
"Illustrator?" Naruto snapped his fingers a few times. "That's a camera."
A very old camera, which if he remembered correctly, was only found in antique stores in Konoha.
"Camera? Hmm, sounds better than 'the illustrator.' I'll send a letter to the factory; we'll have a better name for this thing." Delighted with the idea, the woman could already envision the money from the patent for her father's invention.
"Yes, yes," the old man nodded his head in agreement, adjusting the lens and focusing it on the two teenagers.
"What's a camera supposed to be?" Azula asked, confused, looking at the box and torch that the old man was holding above them.
"You just smile."
Naruto didn't give the girl time to think as he grabbed her shoulders, bringing her closer to him and directing her gaze towards the 'box'.
*Flash*
Several minutes later, we see Azula holding the drawing, or better called a photograph, in her hands.
Naruto had his right arm around her shoulder, sporting a big smile that could dazzle the camera lens. As for her, she stood stiffly, with an expression resembling that of a deer caught in the headlights of a float.
The two were covered from head to toe in mud, disheveled, beaten, and with their clothes ruined. Even after resting a little in a water fountain after taking the photo, they were still a mess.
"I'm going to burn it," she said with a grim expression, illuminating her hand with blue fire, ready to burn the photograph.
"No!" Naruto acted quickly and prevented her from burning the photograph. "Don't be a party pooper, you look so cute."
"I'm going to burn you."
"If you don't want it, then I'll keep it." With an amused smile, he decided to stash the photo in one of his many pockets.
"Do whatever you want," she huffed, resigned, knowing that fighting to burn that photo would be in vain.
Both teenagers walked through the silent streets away from the festival. It was getting late, and it was time to go back, at least that's what they thought at first.
"What are you doing?" Azula raised an eyebrow when she saw how the boy defied gravity by walking along the wall as if it were the ground.
"It's a surprise," Naruto held out his right hand for her to take. "Do you trust me?"
The girl took a moment to look at the hand and then at his face. She slowly stretched out her own hand and accepted.
She immediately regretted it when she was pulled and placed on the shinobi's back, who ran to climb to the roof of the building.
Instinctively, Azula clung tightly, wrapping her arms around Naruto's neck. When he jumped, it caused the two to ascend to a great height.
"Air... control." The princess was shocked by the wind that seemed to come from the shinobi's feet and back, propelling them so that both teenagers remained suspended in the air for several seconds until they began to fall again.
But not to the ground, rather on top of the great wall of Ba Sing Se.
"This is a good place." Naruto landed as carefully as he could and helped the girl stand up.
The princess's eyes shone as she saw the entire gigantic city of Ba Sing Se, with thousands of lanterns and bonfires illuminating the dark night.
He never thought that something as simple as going up to a high place and looking at a city could leave anyone speechless.
"It's nice, isn't it?" Naruto also had the same thought as the girl. Since the first time he escaped at night from the mansion they forced him to live in, he came here.
He liked peace.
He liked the silence.
He liked the nostalgia in his chest.
"It reminds me of home."
He couldn't remember the times he had climbed the walls of Konoha at night to appreciate it at its best, dreaming of one day going up in the future and having his face be in the mountains of the Hokages.
Carefully, the boy dropped to sit on the edge of the wall. It didn't take long for Azula to do the same.
"Your home... Was it something like this?" breaking the silence between them, she gave the ninja boy a curious look.
"Yes, it's a village mostly made of wooden huts and several clan compounds. A large wall like this surrounds us, and on a mountain, there are several faces of our previous leaders, great heroes…"
"..." It sounded like an interesting place to the princess. "Do you have a family?" That was a question that always made him curious, and from the teenager's expression, he already had an idea of what her answer would be.
"No, I have been an orphan since I was little."
"And no one wanted to adopt you?" She wasn't subtle with her questions, but now that she had the chance, she wanted to know more, she wanted to know everything.
"I guess no one could stand the Uzumaki style."
"Because you do that?" she saw it.
His smile seemed forced, hiding things she might not know.
"Will you tell me the truth?"
[ If you want to read advance Chapters then go to Pat reon and support me there.
PAT REON I'D:- Alzero ]