Naruto : Monsters

"…You had one job…"

Kakashi couldn't stop staring, his one single opening so wide it looked as if it was about to roll out of his skull. His sights were locked onto the top of his living room table or, more precisely, they were locked onto what sat on top of it.

It was supposed to be a cat.

It really was.

I wasn't sure if it could be called one anymore.

Kakashi tentatively reached out to the 'cat', pausing as his fingers were about to brush its fur, but when the cat didn't seem to react to him he poked it on its side.

The cat didn't move.

Kakashi poked it again, harder, and again it didn't so much as twitch. This time he shoved it. The cat began to tilt precariously to one side by the force of Kakashi's shove, not moving so much as a muscle as it remained stiff as a board, before swinging back and rocking from side to side like a rocking chair.

"…one job…"

This time Kakashi pushed the cat much harder, tipping it over.

There was an audible 'thunk' as the cat fell onto its side, hitting the wooden surface of the table. I couldn't explain it but the noise it made sounded wrong as if the cat's body had been made from solid stone instead of flesh and blood.

There was a brief moment where we all stared at the unmoving cat.

Kakashi looked up at us, his one eye wide, filled with genuine incomprehension."…and you blew it."

We all stood awkwardly across the table from the man, in the living room of his apartment, trying our best not to stare at the prettified cat named Tora.

It was hard to believe only a single day had passed since we completed our Genin examination, or as it was more commonly known by the rest of the village 'the day Kakashi's crazy kids blew up a forest'. Needless to say, we were already beginning to develop an infamous reputation in Konoha.

Nevertheless, the news didn't seem to have put a damper on Naruto's mood. We had barely been officially inducted into Team 7 before she shot up to Kakashi's side and excitedly demanded that he gives us our first mission. He hadn't wanted to at first but it only took her a few minutes to get him to cave and give in.

That was how Team 7 received its first official mission.

And Kakashi, being who he was, naturally chose a mission that involved the least amount of work. For him, I meant he chose a mission that involved the least amount of work for him. I didn't know how he did but the lazy ninja managed to secure a D-Rank mission that required practically no involvement from him at all.

Due to the unique prerequisites of the mission, it was something that only children could complete. Which meant that all Kakashi needed to do was sit back and relax in his apartment while he waited for us to finish the job on our own.

Or at least that was the plan before we fucked it up.

"I asked you to get a cat, a freaking kitty." Kakashi looked back down at the still unmoving cat, "It wasn't supposed to be hard. I don't even understand how it was even possible for you to screw up this badly!"

D-rank missions as rule were designed to be relatively simple affairs and this was no different; our missions was to retrieve Tora the cat and bring her back to her owner, the Daimyo's wife Madam Shinjimi.

To be perfectly frank the job barely even qualified as a D-rank mission.

Daimyo's wife or not, retrieving lost pets were usually classified as an E-rank mission and were assigned to Academy students. It was considered good practice for them. It taught students how to interact with clients and cater to their demands so that by the time they graduated and became real ninjas, they would at least have some experience under their belt.

Tora, however, was different.

Despite her appearance, she was no ordinary animal. And I meant how her appearance before we fucked the mission up beyond belief and petrified her.

Tora was a part of a rare species of cats known as Nekomata, a breed that had at one point been incredibly popular among the nobles in the Capital as pets. Their popularity stemmed from their ability to judge a person's character and sense out any ill intent they may have.

Unlike Kakashi's dogs, Nekomata did not have their own chakra network and they couldn't talk or even understand the human language. Physically at least, they were little more than your ordinary run-of-the-mill cats and you couldn't even tell one apart from a random street cat just by looking at them.

What made Nekomata stand apart from ordinary cats was due to a single unique trait they possessed. They were born with a natural ability to use Senjutsu.

Had they possessed a working chakra network it would have made them a powerful breed, strong enough that a clan would have eventually formed around them much like the Inuzukas did with their dogs. But without a chakra network to channel the energy, they could never mould chakra, making them incapable of using Jutsu of any kind. It did, however, turn them into natural sensors, one especially attuned to sensing the negative energy in people.

For a time this ability made owning a Nekomata all the rage among the nobles, as it was believed that the cats could be used to spot out the corrupt and traitorous among them. That quickly fell out of favour when every Nekomata the nobles brought as pets kept running away. No matter what they tried, no matter how well they treated or fed the cats they would, without fail, try to run away the first chance they got.

While no one would say it to their faces, most of the general population believed the reason why the poor cats kept running away was because the nobles as a whole were so corrupt, that none of the Nekomatas could stand being in their presence for long.

Madam Shinjimi was one of the few Nobles who decided to keep the cats despite their unfortunate habit of disappearing. Apparently she fell so in love with her cat, Tora, that she refused to give her up and regularly sent ninjas to recapture her whenever she managed to run away.

Which tended to happen every other week or so.

The problem was, due to their natural ability to sense the character and ill intent of individuals, Nekomata were incredibly good at hiding from Shinobi. As a profession of assassins, almost every high ranked ninja in Konoha has murdered, lied or tortured people so the cats could sense them coming a mile away.

Not that it would have made much of a difference in the end. There were few things that could stop a determined ninja for long and a cat, no matter how special, was not one of them. But it would have taken time, days or even weeks. I wasn't exaggerating when I said that they could sense ninjas coming for miles.

In the end, it was deemed too much of a waste of resources to justify sending highly trained ninjas to chase what basically amounted to an expensive house cat for who knew how many days. Especially when you considered the ninja shortage Konoha was still suffering under due to the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack.

The solution to the problem was a rather simple one; instead of adults send children. Fresh out of the Academy Genin were the most innocent kind of ninja you could ever hope to find and because of their 'purity', they tend to have little trouble approaching Nekomata.

Except for one tiny problem…

I wasn't exactly pure or innocent, now was I?

Beside me, Shikamaru let loose a long sigh, before reaching out to Tora up and setting her back down on her feet. The poor thing hadn't even reacted to his touch, I wasn't even sure if she was aware of what was happening around her.

Tora was a tiny thing, she could have easily fit into the palm of both my hands. I had no idea why she was named Tora – tiger – because she had white fur with large patches of orange scattered around her body along with the most soulful blue eyes I've ever seen. When we first spotted her hours earlier she appeared to be a perfectly healthy, ordinary cat.

Not anymore.

...

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