Okay, readers. This story, along with Five Dawns, are both derived from the Mind of the Heart (MOTH) series, which you all know has been discontinued due to a lack of plot. Fortunately, I have an epic plot planned for this one, so I hope to be able to maintain the motivation to finish it! Of course, I'll need the support of my readers. ^_^
Also, I noticed that when I write stories that are meant to feature more than two people, I tend to focus more on one person and forget about the others. If you see this beginning to happen in this story, please feel free to leave me a message telling me to get back on track. Thanks!
Opening Theme: Shōjo S by SCANDAL
Chapter 1: The Decided Fate
A high school girl with golden hair and brown eyes sat idly in the classroom, tapping her mechanical pencil on her desk absentmindedly as she stared out the window at the autumn leaves fluttering to the ground. The sleeves of the white shirt of her school uniform were rolled up to her elbows, and her legs were crossed at the knees. Her fingers fiddled disinterestedly with the cloth of her ankle-length, plaid skirt.
The teacher, a middle-aged man with glasses and a bald head, was going over material for a test that was scheduled for tomorrow. Unfortunately, more than half the class wasn't paying attention, either texting on their phones or chatting quietly with their neighbors. The teacher didn't seem to care. After all, it wasn't his loss if nobody passed.
Brrrrrrrring!
As the dismissal bell rang, all of the students jumped up and began to pack up. The teacher shut his notes and intoned, "Don't forget to study for the test tomorrow!" He sat down at his desk and began to typing on his computer.
The girl who had been staring out the window rose from her seat and pushed her calculus textbook into her bag. She zipped it up and slung it over one shoulder, wrinkling her slightly baggy shirt in a somewhat cool way. She twirled her pencil in her hand as she headed for the classroom door.
"Bye, Mr. Makleroth!" she called, waving her free hand lazily. The calculus teacher didn't look away from his computer screen as he returned her goodbye.
The female student left the classroom and immediately turned left, walking down the flight of stairs that took her from the second floor to the first floor. She paused in twirling her pencil to place her backpack on both shoulders to prepare for her walk home.
As she left the building and was about to cross the road, she heard someone calling her. The golden-haired girl turned to see another girl with black hair and blue eyes running towards her.
"Jade, wait for me!" The girl cried, stumbling slightly.
Jade sighed and brushed a strand of her golden hair behind one ear. "Calm down, Crystal. I'm waiting for you."
The two girls fell into step as they left school. "Say, Jade, can I come to your house to study today?" Crystal asked, smiling sweetly.
"Are your little sister's friends going to your house today?"
"Yeah, it's going to be loud, and I won't be able to study for the calculus test."
"Sure, you can come over. We'll study together."
"You're not going to nearly flunk the test this time, are you?" Crystal asked.
Jade gave her friend a mock glare. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing at all," Crystal quickly amended, although she knew that Jade couldn't possibly get angry with her, let alone physically harm her.
As the duo walked past the supermarket, Jade made a mental note to stop by for some more milk and eggs after school tomorrow. She probably needed some more vegetables, too. On second thought, she should probably buy the stuff today, when she was lucky enough not to have much homework.
"Hey, I'm going to drop my bag off at my house and come buy some groceries," Jade informed Crystal, "You'll be in charge of the house while I'm gone."
"No problem!" Crystal agreed. They passed the supermarket and stopped in front of a large white house. Crystal peered curiously at something that was sitting in front of the door to Jade's house. "Hey, Jade, did you get a cat recently?"
Jade blinked at the white cat that was sitting in front of her house. "No, I didn't. I haven't had time to pick out a cat. Besides, Silver's allergic, remember?"
"Ah, right," Crystal answered as they walked up and Jade shooed the cat away, "She starts sneezing if there are too many cats in a small, enclosed space."
"And yet, she still volunteers at the animal hospital…hmm?" Jade had pushed open the screen and stepped into her front porch to notice a medium-sized box placed directly in front of her door. She approached and picked it up carefully. "I don't remember ordering anything, and this box isn't even sealed properly." She gestured at the flaps sticking up from the top of the box.
"What's in it?" Crystal lifted the flaps more and peered inside curiously. Her blue eyes widened and she let out a squeal that sounded like a fangirl meeting her favorite male, anime character in real life.
"They're so cute!" she gushed, hearts practically leaping out of her eyes at the sight of the nine, sleeping kittens in the box.
"Speak of the devil," Jade muttered, "Hold this while I open the door." She passed the box to Crystal, who continued to coo over the baby cats. Jade sighed and pulled out a set of keys, pushing one into the keyhole and turning it. The lock clicked open, and Jade twisted the knob and pushed the door open. She and Crystal filed inside and the black-haired girl gently placed the box on the living room floor.
"You're gonna keep them, right?" Crystal pleaded, looking up at Jade.
"I…wait…but…how…huh?" Jade sputtered, "I don't want them, and what about Silver's allergy?"
"If Silver thinks it's a problem, then we can give them away, but you can't just cast out these nine kittens," Crystal argued, "Look at them!" She beckoned Jade closer to the box. The taller girl walked over and peered inside at the adorable kittens curled and snuggled against each other in their sleep.
There were two red kittens, two blue kittens, an orange kitten, a gray kitten, a black kitten, a yellow kitten, and a brown-and-black tabby. One of the red kittens had fluffy fur that stuck up in various places while the other's red fur looked sleek and smooth. The softer of the blue kittens was curled up against the sleek, red kitten with its nose tucked under a paw. The other blue one was curled up with its head placed on the flank of the black kitten, which was sleeping on its side. The orange kitten was snuggled with the soft, blue one and the sleek, red one while the yellow kit hugged the fluffy red one in its sleep. The gray kit was sprawled on top of the black-and-brown tabby, which shifted slightly in its sleep.
"Fine…" Jade gave in, "…I'll keep them for now, and you owe me for this!"
Crystal beamed. "I knew you'd agree!" she cheered as she reached into the box and began to take the kittens out one-by-one.
"You have idea how manipulative you can be," Jade said as she dropped her school bag onto the sofa and walked out of the house again. "I'm going to get some cat supplies as well. Don't forget to watch the house."
"I know!" Crystal called back as Jade shut the door. She checked on the sleeping kits one last time before turning to her backpack, pulling out her calculus textbook, and flipping to the chapter about trigonometry.
For about half an hour, the black-haired girl sat on the sofa and worked practice problems dealing with sine, cosine, and tangent. She was about halfway through her last problem when she heard a noise by her feet.
"Mrrooow!"
Crystal looked down to see that the gray kitten had awoken and was glaring at her with magenta eyes. The fur along its spine was sticking up, and the tip of its tail twitched back and forth.
"Meooow!" it yowled again, sounding as though it was accusing Crystal of something. Crystal put her book down and knelt down on the floor in front of the kitten, which backed away, still looking wary and aggressive. Crystal stuck out her hand to stroke it.
"You're awake, kitty. Sorry, but I don't have any food for you…ow!" She withdrew her hand as the kitten lashed out with its front paw, claws unsheathed.
The orange kitten let out an angry hiss and jumped on the gray one, which reared onto its hind legs and bared its tiny teeth. The two of them tangled in a mass of fluff and started rolling around on the carpet in a real fight.
"Oh, wait, no, please don't fight…" Crystal's attempts to stop the battle failed miserably.
The gray one pinned the orange one to the floor and spat in its face. The orange kitten hissed and struggled to throw its opponent off. Suddenly, the smaller of the blue kittens darted forward and dealt the gray one a harsh blow on the ear. The gray one screeched in pain as blood appeared from the nick, and the orange one took the chance to throw him off. The two regained their balance and faced each other again.
"You little heathen, who the hell do you think you are?" Hidan snarled, preparing his kitty body for more fighting.
"I could ask you the same thing!" Yahiko spat back, "Who do you think you are, attacking a little girl like that?"
"I'll do what I want, kitty," Hidan extended his claws threateningly, "Stay out of my way."
"Right back at you, kitty!"
"Yahiko, Hidan. Please stop!" Nagato stepped between the two quarreling cats.
"Move, Nagato!" Yahiko commanded, crouching with his tail lashing back and forth, "I'm going to teach this Hidan a lesson on morals. Akatsuki members would never harm defenseless citizens."
Hidan laughed. "You must be suffering from amnesia, orange, because the Akatsuki is made up of S-ranked criminals! What makes you think we care about morals?"
Yahiko froze. "What?" He turned to the red kitten that stood in front of him. "Nagato!"
"This is wasting time," Sasori, the fluffy red kit, muttered, "Who is that orange guy anyway?"
"Dunno, yeah," Deidara flicked his yellow tail, "But I don't see Tobi or Zetsu here."
Kisame twitched his whiskers and leaned closer to Itachi. "Any ideas, Itachi-san?"
The black kitten blinked and said, "Judging by their actions and words, the red one called Nagato and the orange one called Yahiko know each other, and I'm fairly certain that Nagato is the current leader of Akatsuki."
"How can you tell?"
"His eyes," Itachi replied, "They look the same as Leader-sama's. I'm guessing that Yahiko was the leader of Akatsuki before Nagato, and while Yahiko was leader, Akatsuki wasn't made up of S-ranked criminals like us."
Meanwhile, Yahiko was giving Nagato a serious lecture. "You took that person's advice, didn't you? Even though I warned you that he couldn't be trusted! What's gotten into you, Nagato? Akatsuki was created to overthrow Hanzo, and now it's become a group of wanted criminals."
He could have gone on and on if Jade hadn't come home then. "Had any trouble, Crystal?" Jade asked as she dropped loads of shopping bags onto the kitchen table in the next room.
"Just a fight between two kits," Crystal replied, getting up and walking into the kitchen as well, leaving the nine kittens in the living room alone.
"Hey, get over here," Kakuzu told the others from where he sat in front of the window, "This is important." He flicked his tabby tail for emphasis.
The rest of the present Akatsuki members pushed themselves in front of the window and gazed out.
"What is this?" Konan whispered, ears twitching.
The scenery outside definitely did not belong to Amegakure or Konohagakure or any other village that they could think of. The houses were too wide and spread out. A black path crawled its way around the buildings and occasionally, a big, loud piece of machinery would roll by on the path.
"Where are we, yeah?"
"Is this a village that's managed to stay hidden all these years and we haven't known about it until now?" Yahiko pondered, pressing a paw against the glass.
"Right," Hidan said, strolling up to the window, "Now let's break this crap and get out of…holy Jashin!"
A fully-grown white cat had suddenly appeared in front of them on the other side of glass. Startled, Hidan and Yahiko both let out surprised exclamations and fell off the window ledge. Deidara had jumped and pressed up against Sasori, who ended up toppling off the ledge as well.
The white cat stared at the Akatsuki as it sat in front of the window with its paws tucked under its chest. This suspicious behavior made the Akatsuki wary and alert as they stared right back.
Hidan bounded onto the window ledge again and started pawing at the glass. "What are you looking at, heathen?" he meowed, "I'll claw your eyes out!"
The white cat narrowed its eyes at the gray one, but didn't seem to care for Hidan's threats. After a few seconds of watching Hidan struggle to break the window, the cat's gaze slid past Hidan and the creature jumped off the windowsill outside and vanished.
Jade and Crystal walked back into the room, and Jade walked over and scooped up Hidan. "This is the one that got injured?"
"Yeah." Crystal pointed out the nick in Hidan's ear.
"I'll take him to the animal hospital after school tomorrow," Jade said, stroking Hidan's head and making the immortal purr.
The rest of the Akatsuki stared in shock as Hidan seemed to realize what he was doing. "What the hell?" he screeched, "Why am I acting like a cat?"
"I have a bad feeling…about…this…" Kakuzu trailed off as Crystal dangled a string in front of the kits. An irresistible urge rose in all of the furry little chests, and soon, many little paws were reaching into the air in an attempt to grasp the string.
"You, too, Konan?" Yahiko wailed as he gave in to his kitty desire, swiping at the string with his front paws.
"Be quiet, Kisame," Itachi warned before the blue, male kitten could say anything. The black kit dropped onto all fours and jumped at the string, missing by a centimeter and falling on top of Sasori, who let out an irritated hiss.
"I am going to kill whoever did this to us," Kakuzu growled angrily as his green eyes followed the end of the string as it swung back and forth.
"So not only are we in cat bodies, but we have the instincts of a cat, too, yeah?" Deidara grumbled as he disentangled himself from Nagato.
After a while, Jade and Crystal left them alone so they could study for school tomorrow. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to be able to focus on anything except for the nine adorable furballs in Jade's house.
Outside, the white cat stayed hidden as it watched the nine Akatsuki members mourn over the loss of their dignity from that little game of 'attack the string.' The white cat narrowed its red eyes slightly and spoke to itself.
"Hmm. It seems like the spell worked." Its voice was that of a female and sounded as though the cat wasn't going to take any worthless blabber from anyone. The cat turned and began to walk down towards the street. "I should go and inform my partner of the success, and make sure he has paused time in that other dimension. We don't want those little idiots to go back to some childish and weak illusion. 'Tsuki no Me.' Ha! Give me a break." The cat scoffed as it rounded the corner of the street and disappeared in a flash of pink light.
To be continued in Chapter 2: The Discretion of Time and Space…
Ending Theme: Glow of a Firefly by Ikimono-Gakari