Kitten

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Bite asked for 'Ibiki and a kitten' for Christmas. I was happy to oblige. I'm not planning a second chapter to this, but if it does occur...it will probably involve Anko. And her kitten. Bwahaha.

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"Here," Izumo said, plopping a stripy grey and brown thing down in the center of Ibiki's desk, right on top of a pile of freshly stamped reports just waiting to be filed. The thing stretched a plaintive paw out after the retreating chuunin and opened its tiny mouth wide to reveal a cavernous maw of sharp little teeth and long raspy tongue. It mewed.

Ibiki felt like recoiling. He felt even more like picking the thing up by its mangy scruff and hurling it back in the faces of the grinning band of chuunin lurking around to see his reaction. But since he very seldom ever did what he felt like doing, he simply set down the brush he'd been using, carefully out of reach of the thing's curious paws, and stared flatly up at Izumo.

"What," he asked levelly, "is that?"

One of the lurking chuunin—Mozuku, Ibiki thought—had the audacity to giggle. Izumo simply looked earnest.

"It's a kitten, Ibiki-san. A small specimen of Felis catus, the domestic cat. I believe it's a tabby of the shorthair variety, about three weeks of age, and—"

Properly applied, Ibiki's glare could make genin faint, chuunin run, and even jounin swallow and wonder whether they'd run afoul of one of Yuuhi Kurenai's genjutsu (or her stronger stock of alcohol). Coupled with the small thing in the center of his desk trying hard to gain some nutritive value from the stack of papers it was gnawing, his stare didn't have quite the intended effect, but it did make Izumo shut up. That was probably a minor victory in itself.

Izumo's ever-present partner in crime, hovering over his right shoulder, at least had the grace to look abashed. "We found the litter in a file cabinet yesterday," Kotetsu explained. "We think some kid used the mother for target practice; there's a dead cat on the roof of the Hokage's palace."

"Ko and I took two of 'em," Izumo chirped, "and we got Kurenai-san and Anko-san to each take one, too. This is the last one." He gave its rump a sharp little push; it slid, mewling unhappily, through a cascade of papers to come to a sprawling and precarious halt at the very edge of the desk.

"Why," Ibiki inquired, "did you feel the pressing need to dispose of this one to me?" He didn't even want to ask why they'd been scrambling around on the roof of the Hokage's palace, or what they thought Anko would do with a kitten. He didn't want to guess what Anko would do with a kitten.

The two chuunin traded thoughtful glances. In the corner by the file cabinets, Tonbo elbowed Mozuku in the gut to stop his giggles.

"Well," Kotetsu said innocently, "we thought after the line you took with the first test of the Chuunin exams, you seem to be softening up; we thought something cute and furry would be right up—"

A muscle twitched in Ibiki's cheek.

Izumo grabbed Kotetsu's elbow; Tonbo seized Mozuku's collar; Iwashi and Shimon stopped even pretending to read the fire-escape procedure posted by the door. In several almost simultaneous puffs of smoke, the chuunin were gone.

Ibiki glanced down at the kitten. "Softening up, hmm?" he said meditatively. "Perhaps it's time to…remind them of a few things." He finally let the twitching muscle do as it pleased, and his wide mouth curved into a small, predatory smile. "I can think of a few ways to apply cute and furry."

The kitten, gnawing industriously on his knuckle, seemed to agree.