Title: Victims of
Circumstance
Summary: A ninja's life is full of complications
and many of them seem to be superficial.
Genre: Humor
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Circumstance One: Rooftops and Insurance
'Damn cat,' Naruto thought through gritted teeth. It seemed that even after achieving the rank of Jounin, the cat that he had been chasing after on D-ranked missions during his childhood saw fit to torture him even further.
Said cat, the tiger striped tabby with a newly bought blue bow in his fur, was bouncing merrily across the rooftops apparently mocking the blonde Jounin. How on Earth the cat managed to make the leaps between buildings was a mystery to him.
Naruto found himself wondering idly where his genin students had run off to. Had they abandoned him to complete this cursed mission alone? His eyes glinted evilly at the punishment the three genin would be receiving. Assuming he caught the damn cat any time soon, of course.
He growled as his target cleared another twenty feet and landed on the roof of a market grocer with grace that should not be possible to a cat nearly twenty years old. He was a Jounin of Konoha for kami's sake. Something like this should not be taking him this long. It had been easier to catch the mangy fur ball while he was a genin! Then again, he had had Sasuke and Sakura there with him.
Thoughts of the Uchiha of Team Seven turned his mood even fouler, if that was indeed possible. Konoha had yet to retrieve the younger Uchiha and it infuriated Naruto to no end. He had made the Promise of a Lifetime to Sakura and he meant to keep it.
Sakura. She was still Tsunade's assistant and had been growing steadily stronger ever since their first Chuunin Exam. He could still remember the look on Kakashi-sensei's face the first time she had used her brute strength against him in the little test after Naruto had returned from his training trip. Naruto had made sure not to anger her after his first encounter with her fists.
He was beginning to get angry. No, 'angry' was not the right word. He was pissed. It had been almost an hour since this mission had begun and the cat did not even seem the least bit winded. It defied all logic! His logic!
Then, when Naruto was about to call in reinforcements—his clones—the cat stopped. Somehow, Naruto had closed the gap from the previous four roofs apart to none. They were now on the same roof.
In a leap of faith, and blind rage, the blonde jumped and dove headfirst at the cat. His eyes widened when the cat seemed to grin and then disappear in a small plume of ninja smoke and he found himself landing on the roof nose first.
"Ouch," he complained picking himself up off of the tiled roof while holding his nose. He knew it would be healed by tomorrow, but that did not mean that it still did not hurt like hell. He looked around and spotted the assailant. He glared.
Three genin grinned at him from the next roof over. His team.
The cat he thought he had been chasing was in the young girl of his team's arms and she was petting it while it purred. Before he knew it, he pushed chakra towards his legs to speed him up and—CRACK.
The villagers that were walking the streets heard the loud noise and looked up to see three genin—one holding a cat—and a Jounin standing on the rooftops. This was a normal occurrence in any ninja village and while many looked away, a few stared up in silence as the Jounin suddenly disappeared.
Naruto was only given enough time to blink dumbly before he fell through the roof and landed on the floor of the second story of an unknown store in the market place. An elderly woman was standing over him with a broom in her hand, but she was not glaring or even staring at him in contempt. Instead, she held the broom out to him with a shaky hand.
"You're cleaning it up and I hope you have insurance."