Cuteness Proximity

I wrote this in twenty minutes because the idea occurred to me and I couldn't stop myself.

The mission was a success.

Or so the boy insisted.

For myself, the fighting had not been enough to amuse, but he and I never would agree when it came to that. He was a peacemaker by nature. I had long accepted that as simply another part of our dichotomy and, in the end, I agreed with his assessment simply to shut him the hell up.

I think he knew what I was doing, but, gratifyingly, he refrained from pouting. However, that was just in the best interest of our current experiment. I suspect we would have gone a few more rounds in any other case because the boy was nothing if not tenacious and it was still fun to piss him off even now that we had reached synergy.

Eventually, he would have to accept that kindness would not always be enough to mollify the evils in the world. Or perhaps not. His idiocy made it difficult to teach him anything and his kindness is what had finally reached me through the haze and broke the chains that had bound me in the darkness—his and my own—for so long. Perhaps I would protect it for a little longer.

With any luck the idiocy would fade, though. He was still a kit yet.

I didn't really believe that, but I had hope.

A surprised shriek suddenly pierced the quiet of the small clearing we had found away from camp and we both turned to look at the female that had stumbled upon us.

I did like her. Her stupid-looking hair aside, I liked the destruction that she could hew with her dainty fists.

The quiet boy was with her too. He reminded me of the yuurei I had known centuries ago in my youth. One of the sillier, harmless ones, though. Like the one that stole the left of every pair of shoes in a village. There was just something in the way that he followed at the medic's heels that put me to mind of a lost kit and that stood in such contrast to what he was. Like the ghostly manifestation of an otherworldly spirit that, instead of sewing misery among the living or foretelling death for laughs, stole everyone's left shoe.

At first, neither my master nor I knew how to respond. I could sense his trepidation, but then that wasn't anything new when it came to the possibility of tempting the girl's ire, which was its own sort of amusing. Not that there was much at all to get angry about.

The boy's clone that I had taken possession of was as fragile as any other of its kind. Not that it would be so easy to land that single, needed blow. This compact form was not imposing by any measure—except for perhaps the telling fan of my many tails at my back—but I had good reason to believe that my speed would be unmatched. We would have to test that. At any rate, it could be useful in combat, which was entirely the point of this exercise.

"He's totally harmless!" Naruto said, holding both hands in front of himself in a gesture meant to calm his teammates. "Like this, I mean! He won't, like, destroy anything."

I took offense to that. I was absolutely not harmless.

"Oh my God, look at those ears!"

Wait, what?

I'm not entirely sure that there exists another living creature in any of the Five Villages that would physically haul an embodiment of destruction and chaos (namely, me) against their chest and hug them, but the girl did just that. I might have been offended by this once upon a time. A little, at least. Maybe. If she hadn't also been rubbing my ears in a way that felt really very nice. I did mention that I liked her, yes? Much of the blame can be attributed to that, I'm sure.

The quiet boy soon joined our merry band on the ground, entirely unfazed by the sight of his team medic unashamedly cuddling a manifestation of the legendary Nine-Tailed Fox. He simply nodded to me in greeting. "Kurama-sama."

I can only sigh. It is, I suppose, nice to be so readily accepted. And compared to my master, I will always be a fucking bastion of dignity.

1. The title is a reference to the trope "Cuteness Proximity". Basically, the idea is that intelligence goes down the nearer you get to something that is too cute. It's basically that "KITTY Wook at the wittle kitty!" reflex when you see a kitten. Sakura's reaction here is basically exactly my reaction to chibi!Kurama in the manga.

2. This is the one-shot Team Seven prompt I've promised in the poll even though it's really very bare-bones Team Seven. Although I guess if you want to get really fluffy about it, this could be Team Seven accepting Kurama as a part of them.

3. The quiet boy in question is Sai and not Sasuke, just to clarify.

4. If you say that Sai isn't a part of Team Seven, Imma cut a bitch.

5. "Yuurei" are Japanese ghosts and unsettled spirits. I figure if Kurama is a "demon fox" he might have known "ghosts" in the past. Shut up, it makes sense to me.