"No! Out! What did I tell you last night?" Sasuke demanded as he grabbed Hikitsuko by the scruff of the neck. The fox yelped at the rude awakening. The boy dropped him down on the floor roughly. "You just don't know the meaning of the word 'don't', do you?"
Muttering darkly under his breath, Sasuke wondered if the fox was going to prove to be more trouble than he was worth. He stripped off his nightclothes and quickly changed into his typical blue shirt and gray shorts. Hikitsuko bounced behind him as he staggered, still half-asleep, into the kitchen. Immediately, the kit fell onto the half-eaten bowls of food from the previous night Sasuke had neglected to put away. The boy grimaced at the thought of drinking milk that had sat out all night.
He made a simple bowl of fried rice for himself and sat down on the counter to eat. Tables and chairs were overrated, anyway. "I bet that tastes disgusting," he grumbled as Hikitsuko plunged his snout into a dish of ant-covered meat. The fox looked up, pink tongue scattering the insects from his lips. "Really—that's just nasty." Sasuke ate another bite of his rice, and Hikitsuko begged like a dog. "Fine, but just a bite." Sasuke hopped down and dropped a bit of rice into the bowl that had once held milk. The tiny fox gobbled it down and begged for more. "Well, I did tell you you'd have to bulk up...All right, but just a little bit."
He wound up feeding the fox half his rice before it was all said and done. Hikitsuko whimpered and held up the bowl in his teeth. Sasuke shook his head. "No, that's it. You're done eating my breakfast. Besides, you never train with a full stomach." The fox growled disappointedly and set the dish back down on the floor. "You know, you'd have gotten my attention better if you'd dropped and broken my bowl."
Why would I want to do that? Hikitsuko seemed to be asking with his head tilted to the side and his brow furrowed in confusion. Sasuke shook his head.
"Never mind. Let me finish and then we'll go."
Hikitsuko proceeded to prance around in front of the door, yipping and squeaking happily. He leapt into the air and spun around nimbly. Sasuke was impressed. He still looked like a skeleton, but already he was filling up with life. The boy made a feather-light landing from the counter and set about putting away the dishes. Hikitsuko whined impatiently. "Don't get your tail in a twist, fox, I'm almost ready."
When he had finished, Hikitsuko was practically crying in anticipation. Sasuke opened the door and the fox shot out in a streak of sunset gold. He gave a sharp shout and sprinted after the scrawny little beast. Hikitsuko bolted away from Sasuke, whining and yelping. "Hikitsuko! Get back here!" The kit skidded to a sudden halt in front of a small shrub and retched. Sasuke stepped back in alarm and disgust. Within seconds, Hikitsuko was hurling up everything he had eaten. "I warned you about eating too much," Sasuke said apathetically. Hikitsuko turned to face him, muzzle dripping, eyes dull. He whimpered shamefully.
Sasuke sighed and pinched his forehead to clamp down on his growing frustration. Hikitsuko whined again and slumped down at his foot. "What am I going to do with you? You're high-strung, naive, and not too bright. Are you sick? Do we need to call it a day?" He opened one eye to study the fox kit. Hikitsuko's black eyes had found their bright sparkles once more, and he appeared to have recovered from the incident. "All right. If you're fine now, let's get working."
Hikitsuko stretched up on his hand legs and licked Sasuke's knee, the closest thing he could reach. Sasuke sighed again and started for the small clearing where he and the others in his team had trained so many times before. I can't help wondering if I've doomed myself to years of torment by taking this runt in.
;-:-;-:-;
Taking a deep breath, Sasuke centered himself and gathered a small amount of chakra to his fingertips. He held out his hands, palm up, to Hikitsuko. "Sniff," he commanded, none to gently. "This is chakra, Hikitsuko, and you should get to know its scent."
Hikitsuko studied his fingers closely, as though fascinated by some smell he couldn't trace. Sasuke stepped it up a notch and allowed his fingers to glow dully. "There. Can you see it now? That's what you're...looking...for..." He trailed off miserably as the fox kit started batting and nipping at his fingertips. "No! It's not a toy, idiot fox, it's energy!" Hikitsuko looked up at him curiously. "Listen to me—I'm not the tree over there, I'm here—chakra is—Pay attention!—is life energy. It's used—Look here, you dumb fox!—for..." The youth stopped talking as he realized that the fox kit was much more interested in poking his nose around the small clearing.
This is going to be a little more challenging than I thought, he thought. Time for a new tactic. Sasuke gathered himself up and transformed into a vixen of Hikitsuko's size. He barked softly, attracting the young tod's attention. Hikitsuko turned sharply and raced over. He sniffed Sasuke's nose in greeting, and the boy transformed back with a pop and a puff of smoke. The fox kit yelped and flipped over onto his tail. "There! That got your attention, didn't it? That is one of the many uses for chakra: a transformation jitsu. If I set my mind to it, I could turn myself into the girl of your dreams or the monster of your nightmares."
Sasuke smiled slightly. "Now let's try scenting the chakra again." He gathered the energy into his fingers and held them out, letting them glow a little so Hikitsuko could see what he was smelling. "I'm going to transfer a little of my chakra into things around here. It's your job to find where I put it." He focused on a rock nearby and let the energy fall from his fingers. Hikitsuko sniffed the air and zeroed in on the stone. He pounced on it like he would a mouse and tried to fight it. "You don't have to attack the object, but it's a start. All right, come back and we'll try it again."
After many tries, Sasuke was tired, but satisfied. Hikitsuko proved to have a good sense of smell and he knew how to smell for chakra. All that was needed was for him to learn to judge an opponent's strength by the strength of their chakra flow, but there would be time to work on that later.
Now came the important part. It was all well and good that Hikitsuko was an adept chakra-smeller, but he needed to know how to fight. Sasuke turned to the wooden dummy standing in the center of the clearing. "All right, Hikitsuko," he began, "let's see what you've got. Attack that post." He pointed, but the fox was nowhere to be seen. The boy looked down. "Hikitsuko?"
Hikitsuko whimpered fearfully and cowered behind Sasuke's leg. The boy groaned. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a wooden post." The fox curled into a shivering ball. "You attacked a rock, a bush, a pile of wood, and you're afraid of a training dummy." He scooped the terrified fox up. "Don't make me force you to attack," he menaced. "I'll do whatever it takes. I'll throw you at it if that's what I have to do." The kit began a long stream of barks and grunts. Sasuke sighed. "I don't speak Fox."
"He wants to know what the point of all this is," a voice broke in from Sasuke's left. The Uchiha youth whipped around. Uzumaki Naruto. The blonde boy winked. "He also wants to know why you're so bent on making him hurt something that won't hurt him."
"What—you—how—," stuttered Sasuke as Naruto smiled. Hikitsuko crept over to the orange-clad boy, black eyes wide. "How do you know what he's saying?"
Naruto stopped smiling as he scooped up the fox kit. "I figured you would know," he said bitterly. Sasuke thought for a minute, then nodded.
"Oh...right. The Kyuubi." Naruto nodded. "I forgot."
"At least someone in this village is willing to," the boy muttered darkly. Sasuke didn't feel like telling him he hadn't made that much of an effort to forget and the nine-tail fox demon had simply slipped his mind. "Anyway, why do you have a fox, Sasuke? I thought you hated small, furry things unless they were in your stomach."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "If you really want to know, I wanted to try fighting with him," he replied. "You know, like Kiba has his dog and Shino has all those insects. Why?"
Naruto lifted Hikitsuko up to study him closer. "Huh!" he scoffed. "Some fighting partner this little fleabag would make. Have you been letting him eat anything at all?" This seemed to anger Hikitsuko, and he began thrashing and snapping. Naruto listened, nodding. "Oh...right, then."
"What did he say?"
"He says you've been feeding him things fresh that he's only seen covered in fuzz and it's none of my business how he treats you." The boy grinned. "By the way, he says I shouldn't be insulting his mother."
"I wasn't aware you'd said anything about his mother." Sasuke stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back against a tree. Naruto almost burst with laughter.
"Sasuke...he thinks you're his mother."
Sasuke jolted forwards, staggering for balance. "Wh-what?"
"He says you've been feeding him and teaching him to survive, but he doesn't understand why you won't share your bed with him. He wonders if he's been a bad son or something worthy of punishment." He pulled a face. "Man, this little furball really thinks you're something!"
"Tell him I'm not his mother. Tell him I'm his partner."
"Fox doesn't have a word for 'partner,'" Naruto replied. "Foxes work alone unless they're mated. The closest word to what you're looking to say to him is 'brother,' but I don't think he'll think of you as that." He set Hikitsuko down, and the fox scampered back to Sasuke's side. "I could tell him to call you 'Master' if that works." The boy crouched down and picked him up, nodding. The fox started barking and panting again.
"Translation, Naruto?"
"He wants to know why you aren't changing into the girl fox again," Naruto interpreted. He gave Sasuke a strange look. "Why would you do that? Is there something I should know about?" He squinted at Sasuke.
"It's a long, long story, and I won't tell you," Sasuke told him curtly. Hikitsuko stuck out his tongue at Naruto and said something in fox language. Naruto blinked, then burst out laughing. "What? What's so funny?"
"He...he...He says he wants to know if you're a kitsune because you change turn from a human into a fox!" He straightened up. "He says also that he knows a fox who knows a fox who has a friend whose uncle's cousin's mate's best friend knew a kitsune. God, foxes are gossipy, aren't they?"
Sasuke was not impressed.
"I think we've done as much as we can do today," he said plainly. "Thank you for breaking up the monotony of training for us." He turned around. "Oh, and Naruto...before I forget..."
"Yeah?"
"Don't tell Sakura. She won't give me a minute's peace if she finds out I have a baby animal with me."
"All right. See you tomorrow, Sasuke. School 'n' all that."
The two boys parted. Sasuke studied Hikitsuko carefully. He could almost hear Sakura's squeal: Ooh! Sasuke-kun!! He's so cute! Let me hold him! He grimaced in disgust. It would be hard enough to put up with Haruno Sakura for any reason, but to have to defend Hikitsuko against her? That would be too much!
;-:-;-:-;
"I can't take you with me back to school tomorrow," Sasuke said, pausing in his dinner to speak to Hikitsuko. "So I'm leaving you here for the morning. I'll leave out food and everything you'll need, so you should be fine."
The fox kit lifted his head and whined pitifully. Sasuke closed his eyes. "No. You're not going to sway me with tears. Just sleep through the day. I'm not leaving you forever. I'll be back before you know it."
Hikitsuko frowned at him before darting off. He returned a few minutes later with a knotty piece of rope. Sasuke studied the toy, nodding. "All right," he conceded. "If it makes you feel any better, we'll play before bed tonight." Hikitsuko pranced excitedly, the rope flopping behind him like a frayed, brown tail. Sasuke shook his head and mumbled into his food, "This fox will drive me mad..."
He finished eating and set his bowl down on the counter. "All right," he said, taking a hold of the brown rope, "your move." Hikitsuko brightened up and tugged back on the rope. Sasuke shifted position so that he was kneeling on the floor in front of the fox cub. He shook the rope, causing Hikitsuko to growl and yank his head from side to side. A faint smile flickered across his lips as he pulled back hard. The fox tumbled head over tail into his lap with a startled yip. Sasuke let out a short laugh, scratching behind the fuzzy ears. "One more try?"
Hikitsuko scrambled to his paws and took the rope in his teeth again. Sasuke tugged, and the fox strained back on his heels. He gave a muffled bark and tried to pull Sasuke over his shoulder. The boy laughed again. "You're mental, fox. I weigh too much more than you for something like that to work." The look in Hikitsuko's black eyes said he would certainly try. The Uchiha boy couldn't help feeling a little flicker of admiration towards the bold young animal. Once he was trained up, he would make a great partner.
The game of tug-o'-war continued for almost an hour more before Hikitsuko was completely worn out and Sasuke's playful mood had left him. He scooped up the tired fox gently and carried him to bed. Surprisingly, Hikitsuko did not protest at being set down on his towel. He merely closed his eyes and fell asleep.
That worked well, Sasuke thought as he changed into his pajamas. I should do this in the future. Just like any little kid, he's got endless energy...endless energy that is easily expended. A smile flitted across his face briefly as he climbed into bed. He's a lot more tolerable when he's sleeping.
Sasuke wasn't as tired as his fox friend, so he sat up in bed to read for a while. Every so often his eyes would leave the page and shift down to the snoozing fox. Sleek, orange flanks drifted up and down in the steady rhythm of gentle snores. Black paws twitched in dreams as Hikitsuko presumably chased something or another in his sleep. White flashed as the fox's tail twitched and jerked. The boy smiled. He forgot the book and sat watching the sleeping kit until finally, sleep knocked at his door. He closed the book, put it on his nightstand, and turned off the light.
