Edited 20/11/2014

Chapter 1

Where am I? And just why?

One moment everything is fine, the next you are wondering which deity you pissed off to deserve the predicament you found yourself in right at that moment.

This whole thing started about a day ago when I woke up with one nasty headache. To make things worse when I finally did regain consciousness I did not even know where I was. The worst part was that I did not even remember how I got there.

Calming down, or at least, trying to, I concluded that the best course of action would be to determine where I am and how to get back home.

Therefore, I tried to get up, because from what little I saw while lying down, my initial thought was that I was left in the middle of the Grand Canyon. Alternatively, some other rocky place, after all, geography never was my strong side. Getting up was the hard part, because I kept falling flat on my face. I must have tried this a few times before my gaze finally fell on my hands.

Since when did I have paws? Just what happened last night?

I...

I was a cat.

Wow. Even 3 hours later, it still sounds weird.

After I had finally stood up, I realized how short I actually was. Then again, I was a cat now. So that's a given.

My face look like it was splattered by brown paint, with clear blue eyes staring at me. My ears were the same colour as my face, the most of my body was actually white, with the exception of my legs which were covered in light brown fur, resembling leg warmers. My paw remained a solid white and my tail light brown like my legs, it was also fluffy. While I had never been beautiful as a human, I could certainly say I was a beautiful cat. Hah, at least I had one thing going for me.

Alright, concentrate, where are you?

"I am the worst, I'm a freaking failure. Damn it!"

I jumped slightly at the loud scream. A girl, definitely. I reluctantly decided to approach her.

I hid behind a bolder gazing at a most intriguing sight. Yeah, let us go with that one. A teenage girl, perhaps around fifteen was smashing a rock with her bare hands.

A meow that left my mouth unconsciously gave away my position. I thought I could make a bolt for it, but unfortunately, the girl was fast. She managed to catch me by the scruff of my neck before I could even make five steps. I, of course struggled in her grip not liking the way she lifted me up from the floor like a rag doll.

"Let me go!"

Strangely enough, instead of meowing sound that I expected, actual words came out of my mouth.

The girl's glassy green eyes stared into my ocean blue ones, wide with surprise. For what felt like the longest time neither of us said anything.

Finally, I was fed up and asked sarcastically, "Well, are you going to release me now?"

To my utter surprise, she nodded slowly setting me to the ground. I sighed, satisfied when I felt the ground beneath my feet, eh, paws.

For some strange reason I felt the urge to lick my right paw, so I did. It was strangely satisfying. I hoped I would not develop a habit of that.

After that, I looked up to find the girl still staring at me, her head titled to the side, examining me.

"What?" I asked, annoyed with the whole situation.

I got a better look at her. It was not the tanned skin, or the shoulder length brown hair that got my attention, neither was it the average height of the girl. It was the headband tied to her right tight, the symbol of Kumogakure clearly visible on it.

No, on no. Oh, why? Why did it have to be ninjas? Why could not it have been pirates? I do not like the jumping, or the magic tricks that was my sister's area. Alright, she did force me to sit through the whole (well at least until the last episode out) anime, and I had to read the damn manga because my mother thought that I was not spending enough time with my little sister and I should be a good older sibling and take interest in my little sister's life. Moreover, look where that brought me? This was probably her dream, but certainly not mine. In addition, to top it all off, I am a bloody cat!

I had not even realized that I was grumbling until I heard the voice of the kunoichi above me ask if I were alright.

"Eh, yeah, I guess." I managed to mumble out. I was not ok, but what the heck. I could not tell her who or rather what I really was, either.

"Hm, are you a summon? Did I do something wrong, is it about me not being fit to pass the chunin exams? Or is it about that prank somebody pulled on Dodai, which wasn't me! Please don't punish me!" She continued rambling and mumbling out apologies and promises. I could only stare unable to stop the madness.

"Oi. OI! Girl, shut it, you are making my ears bleed. No, I am not a summon, uh, at least I do not think so and I am not here to punish you either. Jeez, what kind of village is this?"

But the girl was barely paying attention, instead sulking a bit away from where I was sitting, a dark cloud looming over her.

"You want to pass the chunin exams? Why? You look way too weak for that." The dark cloud over her head grew bigger as did the grin I now wore.

"But I got to do it! Otherwise, I will always remain an outsider!"

Outsider? Kushina-complex much? Hmm, so that means she does not have much contact with other people. Which means she does not have a lot of ninja round her that would care enough if it seemed she was in some sort or trouble or danger. Oh, this could indeed work in my favour.

"If you want, I could help you pass those exams," I offered much to her amazement. Her expression, however soon grew somber.

"But how?"

"Leave that to me. I will figure something out. Besides, as far as I can see it you do not have much of a choice anyway."

She nodded, before giving me a fake smile. "I guess you are right," she added as an afterthought.

"My name is Mariko, what about you, shishou?"

Shishou? Doesn't that mean...

"Oi, girl! I am not your master, seriously... I'm a cat." However, I plan to make quite a lot of use of you.

The girl just shrugged.

"But you're going to help me prepare for the chunin exams, no? So that makes you my teacher of sort, right Neko-shishou?"

I just groaned, that girl had a strange logic. I was not going to argue about that with her. Ah, yes, a name, let us see, what can I say? I certainly am not calling myself Doris again. Then again, what could I call myself? No names were coming to me. Maybe...

"Noriko."

The girl stopped her rambling about the exams to give me a confused look.

Annoyed I elaborated, "My name is Noriko."

She gave me a happy smile at which I could only hang my head. What this really going to be worth it?

"Come on Neko-shishou, let's go to my apartment, I think I got some fish you can eat." Now that she mentioned it, I was quite hungry, so I was not about to turn down the offer of free food. Though somehow I did not think it was going to be free. Somehow, I had the feeling this girl was going to make me work quite hard. Oh well, no sense to dwell on it now.
She insisted on calling me Neko-shishou despised me telling her my name. Oh well, can't really convince her, she was a strange one, reminded me of Naruto, sort of. Just without the demon.
Hm, now that I think about it, where was I in the timeline. Hmm, not that it is important, because obviously I cannot help. Seeing as I was a bloody cat! Nevertheless, that was not going to stop me entirely.
"Oi, Mariko-san, you think your parents will be fine with you dragging a cat home?" I really did not want to be chased by an angry mother with a broom.
Mariko gave me a small, but sad smile. Oh come on, do not tell me she does not have any parents! What is it with orphans and this series?!
"Actually, I live with my aunt. But, don't worry, I'm sure she will like you, but she is on a mission right now, so we will have to wait with introductions."
I nodded soaking in the information. Well, at least she did not live alone. That made it slightly better, but only slightly.

I could almost see it, the giant sweat drop running down the back of my head.
"Uh, Mariko-san, are you sure nobody broke into the apartment or something?"I found it to be odd she was so calm with the situation.
She turned her confused green eyes on me. "Why would you think that?"
Well, apart from the fact the place looked like a bomb went off in there with all the cloths scattered round, and empty food cartoons, no reason.
"Uh, you said I was your shishou right?" She nodded eagerly.
"Then here is your first task."
She looked so eager; it almost made me feel bad, almost.
"Clean up!"
Her face fell from happy to depressed in the matter of a second, I could have laughed, if I wasn't a cat. Turns out, I just make strange hissing sounds instead of producing laughter, so I was sticking with a silent, inner chuckle.

"You know, you're a really strange girl," I concluded as I watched the girl clean the two-bedroom apartment. She briefly stopped in scoping up clothes to look at me.

"What do you mean shishou?"

"Well, you tell me, I'm not the one taking orders from a talking cat I just met a mere hour ago."

She had a sweat drop running down the back of her head, her eyes closed as she took in what I just said.

"Uh?" Her confused expression did nothing but make me think she was insane. Much like myself actually, so everything was fine, right?

I just shook my head. "Never mind."

I glanced at her and nearly fell over in shock.

"Don't put the dirty clothes into the closet!"

"Well, I got to admit Mariko-san, the place is spotless."

She gave me a satisfied grin.

"Thank you, shishou!"

"Can't you just call me Noriko?" Mariko nodded.

"Sure, Noriko-sama! You can call me Mari." I nodded, well at least she was respectful, I will give her that.

"Too bad, you're still going to be called brat."

"Wow, you sure like tuna," mumbled the brown-haired kunoichi as I practically inhaled the fish before me.

"I'm a cat, what did you expect? Besides I was hungry," I muttered after I finished the heavenly fish.

Mari-chan only nodded. "That's fine. Though, I'm afraid you ate all the fish."

I sulked slightly, damn and it had been delicious too. "Fine, now that I ate, why don't you tell me about yourself?"

Mariko told me her life story. The shortened version, thankfully.

"As you know my name is Mariko, Tachibana Mariko that is. My parents were ninja, but were killed during a mission, so I live with my aunt, my father's sister. I used to live in Yukigakure when I was little. However, after my parents had been killed, I had to go live with my aunt. She moved here to get married... Eh, that did not turn out well. Anyway, I'm a genin, 13 years old and am supposed to take my chunin exams in 2 months time."

"Alright... What's your chakra nature?"

She gave me a blank stare.

"Chakra nature? No idea."

I restrained the urge to sigh.

"Alright... What about taijutsu, ninjutsu or genjutsu? Any good at those?"

I watched as she scratched her head thinking. "Well, I can make clones? My taijutsu is not that bad, I don't know any genjutsu." She looked rather down after she finished.

"Damn. How did you become a genin anyway?" And here I thought Naruto becoming genin was farfetched.

She just groaned hiding her face in her hands.

"I don't know! I will never pass the exams!" I sighed.

"Brat, you could always take them next year."

She shook her head. "No! I have to pass! I can't let him be right!"

I nearly fell over. Seriously, she is doing this to prove somebody wrong.

"Look kid, unless you start training because you want to become stronger and not to prove somebody that you are, you're never gonna amount to anything!"

She looked a bit surprised at my words, going silent.

"I-"

"Listen, I get it, somebody put you down and now you wanna prove to them that you can make it. Really that's fine, but as long as that is your primal motivation, I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you that it just won't do."

She gave me a nod. "Right, well then Noriko-sama, what do you suggest?"

I grinned, just what I had waited for. "Well, I'm glad you asked. First we are going to work on your confidence and motivation and then we are going to train!"

She looked plain confused. "Work on my confidence and motivation? How are we going to do that?"

"Ah leave that to me."

Good, was I glad I used to be a karate instructor or what? I knew those self-defense lessons would pay of one day!

"Alright girl, your first task is to tell me about that person you wanna prove wrong."

At first she seemed like she wanted to protest, but one look and she shut her moth before finally answering the question.

For our training session I had us moved to one of the training field, Mari-chan showed me to.

"Well, he is arrogant, full of himself, thinks he is better just because he is already a jonin, I bet it's only because he is the Raikage's son..." she continued to angrily mumble to herself while I was stuck on the last piece of information I heard.

Son of the Raikage? That would not happen to be...

"His name wouldn't happen to be A would it?" She stopped in the middle of her angry rambling to give me a nod.

"Yeah, you know him?"

Now a dark cloud was over my head. The Raikage's son, really? The soon to be Raikage is who she wants to prove wrong? The guy who threw Sasuke around like a rag doll? Well, dream on kid, because it is not going to happen.

"Kid, I can already bet all my money on the Raikage's brat."

She sulked. "But, shishou!"

I cut her off.

"No buts! Don't make enemies with people who can kick your ass without even trying!"

She pouted.

Oh no, not the puppy- eye- look, my sister used to pull that one when she wanted something and unfortunately I was a sucker for those eyes.

"Ugh, alright. I will help, but I am not promising anything. So, he says you can't pass the exams, huh? Well, then..."

I could be doing thing that are much more fun and entertaining. I could be in Konoha and watch that Naruto brat prank people, but no. Here I am clearly some good years away from canon, stuck helping a Kumo-brat with her chunin exams.