Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

When team seven had become official, Naruto had greeted each morning with more than his usual enthusiasm. He had imagined learning awesome new techniques, and going on dangerous and exciting missions. One month into his career as a ninja, that dream had not only died, but had been stuffed and mounted on the wall of cold reality.

His sensei had yet to show up on time, and when he did, they either did training like at the Academy, or on occasion, went on some lame mission like picking up trash. Naruto suspected that there might be better missions, but they were always the last to show up for morning assignments, thanks to their perpetually tardy sensei.

The door to the mission room opened and an older team emerged and they headed in. Looking up from the paperwork in front of him, the Hokage smiled. "I'm sorry Kakashi, but there's only one D- rank mission left and so far two teams have turned it down."

Naruto perked up at that, much like a dog hearing a bag of treats being opened.

"Oh really," Kakashi said sounding surprised. "Well if that's the case I guess we'll try our luck with the afternoon missions."

The old village leader sighed, "You do have the right to turn down a mission. This mission is coming from an important person though, so I guess I'll have to bump it up to C-rank when I offer it in the afternoon."

"We'll take it!" Naruto shouted running forward and slamming his hands on the table with a broad grin. "Come on come on, tell us what it is."

"Naruto sh-" Sakura cut herself off and surreptitiously looked over at Sasuke, trying to determine his opinion on the subject. Finding an answer in his unchanging expression, she remained silent despite her own misgivings.

This little drama had been watched by Kakashi and upon its completion he said, "Well it looks like they're willing to try."

"Good," the Hokage said pulling the D- rank scroll in front of him. "It seems a member of the daimyo's family has gone missing. So this is a search and rescue mission."

"Yeah," Naruto said nodding seriously.

"There is no suspicion of foul play, but the daimyo's wife is understandably upset."

"And, and," Naruto said leaning in closer.

"We're pretty sure the target is still in the village and," he shifted through his papers before finding a photograph. "Yes, here's a picture."

Naruto's expression fell once he saw the picture, "That's a cat."

"Yes, this is Madam Shijimi's cat. His name is Tora. She is very fond of him and is worrying herself sick. You should…."

The Hokage stopped talking when Naruto turned around and said, "Forget it. A ninja like me can't waste their time looking for cats."

As the blonde walked past Kakashi, the Jonin grabbed his collar and turned him around, much like a mother cat corralling a wayward kitten. "We've accepted the mission and we can't give up even before we try. That is, unless quitting is your way of the ninja?"

Naruto stiffened at that and turned back around and sighed, "All right. Let's hear it."

A few minutes later, team seven filed out of the building before forming a circle. Kakashi brought out his orange book as he started the meeting. "Well, you three know what the cat looks like, so before I assign you your search areas, does anyone have any ideas?"

"Ideas, for what," Naruto asked.

"For finding the cat, what else?" Sakura said rolling her eyes at the stupidity of her teammate.

"It's a cat. You just go out and look for it. Maybe say here kitty kitty a lot. How hard is that," Naruto said pantomiming an old woman before placing his hands behind his head.

"Um, Naruto, did you pay attention at all at the Academy?" Kakashi asked. "If you're searching for someone you have to know their habits or in this case a cat's habits."

"Cats have habits?" Naruto said frowning.

"Of course," Sakura said with a sense of superiority.

"Like what?"

She opened her mouth to answer his question, but realized she had no idea what a cats habits might be.

Sasuke sighed and spoke his first multisyllabic words of the day. "They like to be above people and sun themselves. They're not fond of crowds and they'll avoid areas with dogs."

The entirety of team seven stared at Sasuke in astonishment. None were more surprised than Kakashi who managed to tear his eye away from the page he had been reading. "That's right," he said astonished. Shaking his head, he said in his normal tone, "Well now that you have some parameters for your search I suggest you split up to maximize your time. Naruto you take the street that way," he pointed up the street, "and Sakura and Sasuke will go that way, taking the right and left streets respectively."

"What about you sensei?" Naruto asked suspiciously.

"I shall be observing, from a distance."With that, Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving his three students to their own devices.

"More like you're going to read your book," Naruto muttered before finding a reserve of enthusiasm. Spinning on his heel with a broad grin plastered across his face he shouted, "All right, Operation Rescue the fur ball is underway."

Sakura walked beside Sasuke, trying to hold her excitement back. Since she had learned that she would be on the same team with Sasuke, no since she had met Sasuke had dreamed about a moment like this. They were alone and it was the perfect opportunity to make an impression on him. She just had to think of the right words and before they reached the fork in the road. Her mind desperately searched for something, anything to say. She settled on the mission at hand. "So do you like cats Sasuke?"

He issued a sound that could have meant anything to anyone, but she put it through her Sasuke translator and interpreted it as, 'Yes, I've always been fond of cats, but have been afraid to admit it because others might think less of me.'

She felt her cheeks warm thinking how sensitive he was and it was only as she turned to continue the conversation that she realized she was already alone.

She found herself wishing that the street had been twenty feet longer, so that they could have prolonged their alone time together. Reluctantly, she went down her street and started looking for the cat. Her search was halfhearted, but thorough. She did however have the forethought to choose increasingly abandoned streets. Lost in her own thoughts of Sasuke she would walk by the cat in question without noticing it.

Sasuke would never admit it, but the Hokage had had him going almost as much as Naruto. He just had better self-control, and while not enjoying being tricked, his attitude towards the mission was to get it over with so he could get to training. As a result, he had no intention of searching every alley for a cat.

No, Sasuke was a ninja with a plan. After all, he knew a thing or two about cats. So instead of looking down every alley he looked for a pet store and finding one, he went inside. A few minutes later he emerged from the store with a supply of freshly cut catnip. He knew cats liked this stuff and they would come from everywhere and anywhere to eat it. Now he just needed to figure out where to lay his trap.

A park was out of the question. Too many people would be around and he didn't want to hurt any of the cats. So an alley, one that ended in a dead-end, would be ideal. That decided, Sasuke headed for a residential area. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice that he was being followed.

It took Sasuke several minutes to find an alley he liked and by then he had decided that he would only lay half of his catnip there while finding another alley for the other half. That way he could maximize his time by periodically checking both locations. He walked to the end of the alley and there he laid half of it down against the fence that cut the alley in two. Turning around, he paused seeing three cats at the end of the alley.

The three cats started down the alley almost as if they were marching. Sasuke scanned them for the target, but none of them were even the right color. He stepped aside to let the cats pass, but they all seemed to gravitate towards the catnip he still had. Sasuke held the remaining catnip above his head to keep it away from the cats. They crowded around, stood on their hind legs and pawed at his legs.

He tried to nudge them away, but getting between a cat and catnip was much like getting between Naruto and ramen, it just wasn't a good idea. The cats started to use their claws and tried to climb up his shorts like a tree. Sasuke was just about to jump when a fourth cat landed on his head.

He flinched away, and for the first time, glanced around himself. There were now easily two dozen cats now all around him. Absentmindedly, Sasuke noticed that none were the cat he was looking for, but that was only secondary to the fact that every single one of them had a crazed look in their eyes. Sasuke knew he was in over his head and he threw the remaining catnip down the alley which caused a furry stampede.

Ten minutes later, Sasuke stared down the alley. There were now maybe thirty cats, all in various states of euphoria. Some were chasing imaginary mice while others were simply staring up at the sky, questioning their self centric view of the universe. None of them were Tora, and he was pretty sure one of them wasn't even a cat.

Suddenly, he felt his sensei standing behind him and he felt the unfamiliar feeling of embarrassment. Unlike Naruto, he wasn't used to making a fool out of himself. He suddenly had an urge to run away like when he had been five and accidentally broken one of his mother's good plates.

A hand landed on his shoulder and his sensei said, "Catnip, not a bad idea."Sasuke looked up at him, a little disbelievingly and then looked back down the alley as the older man added, "We should go. People are going to start wondering where their house cats went to."

Across the street a cat with eyes too smart for any feline showed with mirth.

Naruto kicked a small stone down the street as he absentmindedly looked around for the cat in question. Passing an alley, he stopped in his tracks and did a double take. Right in front of him, sitting on top of a garbage can, was his objective. His dark mood vanished faster than a bowl of Ichiraku Ramen in front of him. Naruto grinned and started slowly towards the cat. He tried not to look intimidating and did a terrible job at it. When the cat was just out of arm's reach, it jumped off the garbage can and ran down the alley and into the next street. Naruto chased after it.

The street the cat led him onto was much busier and he tried to duck and weave between people, but he ended up bumping and colliding with them instead. Tora was fast, but Naruto was close on his tail. It was like a cat and mouse chase only this time the cat was the mouse. In Naruto's wake came a flurry of shouted epithets and shaking fists that marked his path. Naruto didn't care as he slowly closed in.

Then the cat suddenly jumped up and over a high fence and the blonde was right behind him. Upon landing, he rolled and was only a hair breath away from the cat. He was so close that his fingertips were almost touching the hair on Tora's tail. So fixated was he, that he didn't notice the clothes line until it caught him in the throat.

Naruto's torso stopped moving forward, but his legs didn't and he fell on his back, bringing the clothes line down with him. Sitting up, he pulled a skirt off of his head and started to climb to his feet when he heard a shout.

"Hey you, what are you doing with my clothes!"

Naruto glanced at where the voice had come from and saw a very large woman, in all dimensions, standing in the doorway. He was about to mutter a quick apology when her face turned red and she started towards him with a broom in her hands. Having a very strong will to live, he quickly followed the cat's example and quickly beat a hasty retreat.

Jumping over the fence, again he felt a tug around his neck. For a brief second he thought the woman had grabbed him, but when he flung his hands behind him he felt a strange cloth. Turning his head, his eyes widened as he saw what was holding him.

A large bra had hooked itself around the collar of his jacket on one end while the other had slipped between two boards in the fence. Reaching up, he tried unhooking himself, but then the woman appeared over the fence and swatted at him with her broom while shouting, "Pervert."

Naruto tried to block the blows from the broom with his arms and opened his mouth to try to explain, but only got a mouthful of dirty bristles for his trouble. After a few more swats he was finally able to unhook the bra and roll away, much to the woman's apparent dismay.

On his feet again, he stopped as he saw Tora sitting at the end of the street, almost as if waiting for him to continue the chase. Spitting to get the taste of dust out of his mouth, Naruto didn't disappoint.

He charged at the cat with all the abandonment of a warrior going into a hopeless battle. Naruto chased after him as he darted into another alley, only this one had a fire escape which Tora climbed with all the grace and finesse of his species. Naruto was less so, using a dumpster to jump onto the first level of the fire escape and nearly slipped off.

Saving himself at the last second, he started to climb. There were three stories, and as he started up the final ladder, he shouted, "Hey fur ball. I may have been led on a chase halfway through the village and beaten with a broom by a very large woman, but you can't get away from me. I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the next Hokage, and I never give up."

As he finished speaking, he crested the roof and froze. The cat was sitting patiently, well within his arms reach. He smiled to himself and placed his hand on the roof to steady himself while his other hand slowly crept around the side. Then something unexpected happened.

Tora placed his paw over Naruto's hand. The action was so unexpected that the Genin stopped what he was doing and looked down. The cat's paw was soft and he felt unexpected warmth spread through his body. Maybe this cat wasn't so bad Naruto thought, smiling to himself.

Then the muscles in the cat's leg tightened and four little, but very sharp, claws sunk into Naruto's hand. He looked down at the source of the sharp pain before it really registered and he pulled his hand back. Unfortunately, between pulling his one hand back and not having the other oneholdingon to anything, he started to tip backwards.

His arms whirled, desperately trying to push himself forward or grab anything, but only found air. He fell backwards and finally catching a break for the first time that day, he landed in the open dumpster. With another stroke of luck there wasn't anything particularly smelly in the garbage that cushioned his fall. Realizing he was alive he noticed the cat looking over the edge of the roof and he swore it was smiling.

"That's it! You asked for it!"

Naruto formed his hands into what had become his favorite hand sign and a second later a half-dozen clones appeared around him. "Bring me that fur ball!"

His clones simultaneously raised their fists and shouted to show their enthusiasm before starting to climb up the fire escape. Naruto, who was still in the dumpster, tried to follow them, but as he sat up, he sank even deeper into the garbage. It took him a moment to dig his way out, and by that time, the clones had reached the roof. Naruto started up after them, but when he reached the roof, he found he was alone.

The cat had jumped several roofs away and his clones were in hot pursuit. As he watched, the cat jumped on to yet another roof and one of his pursuing doppelgangers miss judged the jump and smacked into the side of the building, disappearing into a puff of smoke. As the blonde watched, two more disappeared as they tried a pincer movement that ended with the two of them colliding with each other. A fourth simply slipped off of a slanted roof and a fifth disappeared behind a water tower and never emerged. The last sight he saw of Tora was of the cat jumping into the treetops from a nearby building.

Naruto stared across the rooftops in disbelief. There was no way that cat was normal he thought to himself.

"You know, that technique is much more effective when you're clones use teamwork."

Turning, Naruto saw his sensei standing behind him, his nose buried in his book. "I tried, but that's not an ordinary cat. There's something weird about it." Naruto said defensively.

"Oh Naruto, a cat is a cat, but don't feel too bad. Neither of your other two teammates even saw it. Here, catch."

Without looking away from the page he was reading, Kakashi reached into the pouch at his side and tossed Naruto a little radio. The blonde almost dropped it and stared at his sensei in bewilderment. "What's this for?"

"Well, as we have a rough idea of where the cat is now, we are going to join forces. Come on, Sasuke and Sakura are already waiting.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his desk working his way through the mountain of paperwork next to him. It was times like this he regretted ever accepting the title of Hokage. He didn't mind signing the contract with the Shinigami or being prepared to lay down his life at a seconds notice for the village, but the paperwork was a terrible thing. Not for the first time, he wondered if he could delegate it to one of his underlings. After all, what was the point of having underlings if you couldn't force your work onto them anyway?

He heard a sound from behind him and he turned to see a familiar cat on his windowsill. With a smile, he stood to open the window allowing it in.

Tora hopped from the windowsill to the desk and then into a chair before turning with poise that not even a cat should possess. "Can I get you anything Tora?"

"I would not object to a saucer of cream. That woman has me on a diet." He spoke in a high pitched tone, but clearly a male one.

The Third Hokage walked over to a small fridge that was disguised as a filing cabinet in his office. He had been anticipating the request and the cream and saucer were both chilled to his guest's liking.

Tora was not an ordinary cat. Nobody was sure what exactly that had happened, but Tora had once been the pet of the First Hokage. He had ended up living so long, though, that he had transformed into a Bakeneko and in the safety of the office, he allowed his forked tail to show. In addition to being immortal, he had learned to talk and had developed some of the skills of a ninja.

After the First had died, his care had passed to the Second Hokage who had not been a cat person. He had a brilliant idea though. Tora would be a perfect spy, if he wasn't still as lazy as the rest of his former kind were. It had been the cat's idea to spy on the daimyo of the Fire country. In theory, the government of the Fire country and Konohagakure were supposed to work together, but back in those times, that had not always been so certain. So the Second Hokage had offered Tora as a pet to the daimyo's wife.

Every few months, Tora would run away to deliver a report to the current Hokage. Then he would return to the daimyo, or on occasion, they would receive a mission to retrieve the cat. About every dozen years or so, he would fake his own death. Then Konoha would give him again as a gift as a new cat.

"Did you have fun?" Sarutobi asked laying a saucer down in front of his guest.

"Yes, more so than usual," the cat said before leaning down and lapping up the cream. When the saucer was empty, he looked up and added, "I might've gone overboard on the blonde.

"Not too much I hope," he said refilling the saucer.

"He can take it," the feline said. "After all, he does have the nine tails in him doesn't he?"

"I'm afraid so. By the way, how were they overall?"

The cat inclined his head toward the ceiling and thought for a moment. "The girl may have potential, but she's not even trying." Tora had only ever been treated kindly by females and he found it hard to say anything bad about them, but many more years under Madam Shijimi's tender care and he would be reversing that policy.

"The boy with the dark hair is clever, but he doesn't handle the unexpected very well." He paused and grinned, which looked very strange on a cat, "The blonde boy is a lot like his father. Determine and resilient, but doesn't have anywhere near his father's skill at the same age. He was the only one to catch me under three minutes you know."

"Well, he's only been a Genin for a few weeks and I hope he'll improve in his new environment. He strikes me as the type that doesn't do well just by sitting and listening," he spoke truly, believing those words.

The cat did his best attempt at a shrug. "I guess we'll see. If you ever want me to play with them again just say the word." After saying that, he stood on all four paws and added, "Well, I've got to go get captured now. See you in four months."

"Tora, the report, you remember the whole reason you ran away."

"Oh, that's right. Just give me a second here." He straightened his body and started to cough like he was about to hack up a fur ball, but instead, a scroll started to emerge from his mouth. It took him a few seconds, but eventually it clattered to the floor. "There's nothing really interesting in there I'm afraid, but I guess that's something in itself. Well till next time."

"Yes, take care," the Hokage said staring down at the scroll on the floor. After he was sure that Tora was gone, he muttered, "We have to find a better way for you to pass reports."

Authors note: Japan has a lot of folklore about cats. Bakeneko are usually cats that have lived for a very long time and can sometimes be evil or helpful as in the story of the "Beckoning Cat."