Author's Note: Hello!
First week of work went well. It was actually a little slow. Maybe it wouldn't be too much to hope for that for the rest of the summer, yeah?
Anyway, this time we have yrsd to thank for the inspiration for this one-shot! I really got the ball rolling on this one, so I hope you guys like it.
Oh Bother
"Why are the two of us, two of the most powerful ninja in the entire village, wandering around the middle of the woods looking for some damn cat?" Naruto said, nearly tripping over a root he hadn't seen. A low-hanging branch knocked him in the forehead, further souring his mood.
Hinata looked horrified Naruto wasn't as wo rried as she was. "Hanabi loves that cat! She would be devastated if it ran away."
"It's not even her cat! You told me it was some stray she feeds every now and then. If she likes the fur ball so much, why doesn't she just go out looking for it?"
"Because she doesn't know it's missing, Naruto-kun. And it's going to stay that way, because you and I are going to find it before she gets back from her mission."
Naruto groaned. "Look at me, wasting away a beautiful day looking for a cat. What has the world come to?"
"Stop being so melodramatic. I thought you liked spending time with me?" Hinata said, raising an eyebrow.
"Low blow, Hinata," said Naruto. "You know I like to hang out with you. I just figured we would be doing something else. You know, something interesting."
Hinata rolled her eyes. "It won't take that long if you stopped complaining for a few seconds and let me concentrate." She had been searching around them for nearly an hour with her Byakugan, but this pesky feline was proving more difficult to track than she had anticipated.
There was a sudden flash at the edge of her vision, and she turned around just in time to spot a tiny, and furry, shape darting further into the woods. Naruto, on the other hand, had seen the whole thing, and angrily pointed a finger in its direction.
"I know that damned cat!" he said. "That was the one that was always running away from that crazy old lady, and we had to chase it all over the village. You couldn't call yourself a full on genin until you had caught that cat. Fastest thing I'd ever seen in my life, and he scratched and bit something awful. Why did your sister have to start hanging out with that cat?" Naruto shuddered with bad memories.
"Looks like he couldn't take it anymore and ran away for good." Hinata grabbed onto Naruto's hand, and started off after the cat. "If we hurry, I can keep an eye on it. Let's go!"
"It's payback time!" Naruto said, leaping up into the trees following Hinata's lead. "I'm gonna teach that stupid fuzzball a lesson!"
"We're just going to find him and bring him back to the village, Naruto-kun. You wouldn't actually want to hurt that little kitty, would you?"
Naruto snorted. "I guess I'll decide when we get there."
They tracked the cat all the way to the base of some foothills outside the village, known for its splendid natural cave formations and tumbling rapids.
"I'm not going in there!" said Naruto. He folded his arms and turned his nose to the sky. "Half of those caves are crawling with rats and cockroaches and bears!"
'You're including bears with rats and cockroaches like they're some kind of pest. You haven't had a bear infestation before, have you?' Hinata walked closer to the cave. "Naruto-kun, don't tell me you're afraid of a few little bears and rats? They're just as scared of you as you are of them."
"Yeah, until they get hungry..." Naruto said, shivering. "Couldn't we just leave some cat food at the entrance and wait for it to come out?"
Hinata shook her head. "You said so yourself, Naruto-kun. All the rats in there will keep the cat fed if it wants; we'll have to find it ourselves." She started for the entrance, but Naruto still hung back, eying the darkness with apprehension.
"It's not that bad," said Hinata. "I've got my Byakugan, meaning there's nothing that can sneak up on us. You'll be fine if you stick with me, okay?"
Naruto didn't seem convinced. "How about you go in, and I wait outside just in case that cat tries to make a run for it? I'll cut off it's escape!" He laughed far too loudly, rubbing the back of his head.
Hinata began to suspect something. "Naruto-kun, don't tell me you're afraid of that old ghost story? Everyone knows that's only something parents tell their children to keep them from wandering too far!"
"I didn't know that!" Naruto shot back. "Besides, it's not just a story! I've seen them!"
He clutched either side of his temples. "It was terrible. I was just a little kid, and we had gotten out of the Academy early that day. I was bored, so I started to do a little exploring. I came across these caves, and they looked really cool, so I decided to go inside and check them out. I thought they could be my headquarters!"
Naruto squeezed his eyes shut. "But those ghosts are real, I tell you! A group of travelers, lost in those caves until they starved to death? It's not just a story! I saw them!"
"You're such a scaredy-cat," Hinata teased, having snuck up behind him as he was telling his story. She poked him in the back, and he jumped five feet in the air, squealing like a little girl. "These ghosts didn't try to hurt you, did they?"
"Luckily for me, I got away before they could cover me with their ectoplasm or whatever it is ghosts do! I strongly advise you not to go in there, Hinata. Nothing good comes from disturbing the deceased."
"Then you and I will be extra careful not to disturb them, okay? We'll rush in, grab the kitty, and get out before these 'ghosts' try to haunt us." Hinata pushed up against Naruto's back and started forcing him inside the cave, much to his vocal protest.
"I'm telling you, Hinata, this isn't a good idea! We'd be better off waiting for the cat to come out by itself! Please don't make me go in there!" When all traces of the light from outside disappeared, Naruto whimpered.
"Don't worry, I think I have a flashlight in here somewhere," said Hinata, digging through her pouch. She tossed it over to him and giggled as he fumbled around in the dark trying to switch it on. "You're not afraid of the dark too, are you?"
Naruto looked indignant. "Of course I'm not! But ghosts are stronger when it's dark. Everyone knows that."
The cave system was a lot bigger than Hinata had initially guessed from outside. The tunnels varied between towering caverns with ceilings so high that she couldn't jump to touch the ceiling, to narrow little holes too small for a rat to fit through. Deeper and deeper they went, further beneath the surface, until the sounds from outside had all but disappeared.
Hinata sighed with wonder as she passed a natural pillar jutting out of the rock. Seeing all the wonders of the caves with her Byakugan was a spectacle to behold. There were magnificent formations of stalactites and stalagmites, bio-luminescent algae, and the sounds of rushing water all around them. All the while Naruto stuck close behind his girlfriend, muttering apologies to any spirits that might be listening to them.
"Naruto-kun, come look at this!" said Hinata, racing around the corner.
"H-hey, wait up for me!" Naruto called, tripping over his own feet. His mouth gaped open in awe, and even his fear was quelled for a few moments.
A gargantuan waterfall loomed above them, at least over one hundred and fifty feet unbroken, it's roaring waters tumbling downward before splashing into several small springs. More bio-luminescent algae hung from the ceiling, and the water glowed with its reflections.
"It's beautiful..." Hinata said breathlessly. "And all this time, it lay undisturbed. We might be some of the first people down here to see this."
Naruto was reminded of why no one else came down here, and scooted a little closer to his girlfriend. "Maybe this is where the ghosts hold their ghostly meetings. I don't think we should stay much longer."
"We're admiring the natural beauty of this waterfall, Naruto-kun!" Hinata insisted. "I'm sure your apparitions won't mind if we linger a little."
But there came a sound, bouncing off the walls of the cave. It was hard to hear over the roaring of the waterfall, but Hinata could not mistake its origin:
It was faint, but she could hear the sound of a cat mewing.
She had been so drawn into the beauty of the caverns that she had almost forgotten their reason for coming in the first place. She craned her neck to hear better.
"I think it's coming from the waterfall," said Hinata.
"Man, that thing sounds creepy in this cave." Naruto rubbed his arms as goosebumps tickled them. "Let's just grab it and go."
Hinata leapt over to a rock in the middle of the largest pool. The waterfall was nearly deafening this close, but the mewing was louder as well, and from there, Hinata could tell that it was coming from behind the waterfall. There was no longer and footholds, so she jumped into the shallow water, surprised at how tepid the temperature was.
"Hinata, what are you doing?" Naruto asked as he chased after her, wading through the water. Hinata shielded her head as she dove right beneath the roaring falls, and Naruto was forced to follow her. He took a deep breath, and plunged into the water.
There was even more algae underwater, lighting the way forward. Naruto would catch the last of Hinata's body as she turned a corner or disappeared behind one of the many pillars holding the submerged tunnel up. Naruto breath was just starting to slip away when he saw Hinata pull herself out of the water, and seconds later he joined her, rubbing the water from his eyes.
"Are you sure a cat is all the way back here?" he asked. "This has gotta be like some kind of super cat or something, you know?"
"He's in here somewhere," Hinata replied. "He's gotta be."
The room they had been brought to was even more fantastic than the previous. Another waterfall stood on the far end, this time falling from a large crack in the cave's ceiling that led to the surface in the form of a river. Naruto guesses this was the result of some kind of cave-in or sinkhole, namely because of the tree standing in the middle of the cave
It was picturesque, almost to the point of being hard to believe in. But there it was; a tree standing in the middle of the cave, surrounded by a small grove of grass. It must have fallen many years ago as a sapling, and received just enough sunlight to reach maturity. Some of the grass had died due to lack of sunlight, but the it was still quite a beautiful sight to behold.
The mewing was even louder this time, and Naruto's impatience at lingering in this place drove him to rush over to where the sound was loudest, a small hole in the wall with complete blackness on the other side.
"I think that furball ran in here!" he said, his voice echoing off the walls. "Once I get the flashlight on him, you just get in there and –"
The light blinked on and off for a few seconds, before finally dying out. Naruto felt a chill run up his spine, and for the second time that day, he squealed like a little girl when a hand rested on his shoulders, before he realized that it was only Hinata.
A flash of color shot past them, pouncing from rock to rock with little effort. Once it was a safe distance away, the cat watched them idly, swishing its tail back and forth.
"Finally, we got you!" Naruto said excitedly. "There's nowhere to run, now!"
He formed the familiar hand-sign, and almost immediately there were dozens of Narutos running straight for the cat, hoping to overpower it with sheer numbers.
The feline jumped in between the closest Naruto's legs, and dove over and under each pair of arms that reached out to try and grab it. One Naruto would crash into another, and soon chaos erupted in the cave as their efforts grew more and more erratic. Hinata tried several times to jump into the fray herself, but whenever there came opening, it disappeared almost as quickly.
The cat lazily jumped back up to the little hole it had came from, licking its paw as the Narutos crawled off of one another. The cat flicked its tail as if to tease Naruto, before jumping back into the darkness.
"Well that was a colossal waste of time," Naruto cried, throwing his hands into the air. "Even after all that time, that cat is even harder to catch than it used to be!"
"It's back inside this little hole now, Naruto-kun. If we keep it in there, it should be a lot easier to catch."
She tied forcing her way through the little cave, but the hole was a tight fit, and Hinata was too short. She felt the cat lapping at her fingertips, and she knew it wouldn't be any use for her to try.
"You'll have to try, Naruto-kun. I'm too short."
Naruto groaned, but stuck his arm through the hole nonetheless. He groped about blindly in the dark, feeling a catch of hair on his fingers every now and then. All of a sudden, there was a sharp pain in his hand.
"The damn thing bit me!" he yelped, jumping from one foot to the other while he sucked on the wound. Hinata calmed him down, and looked the bite over.
"It's not even that deep. She's probably just playing with you," said Hinata.
"That's a funny way of 'playing', don't you think? Can't we just leave the damn thing here?"
Hinata pouted. "Naruto-kun, I'm sure you can get it if you try one more time. For me?" She gave him her best sad eyes just to be sure.
"Fine! But that cat better cooperate this time!" Instead of just his arm, he somehow forced his entire top half into the tiny hole. It was a tighter fit than Hinata's, and he didn't have any wiggle room, but at least he was far enough into the hole to reach it.
"Where are you, you stupid little...Hinata! Can you see it anywhere?"
Hinata activated her Byakugan, and the cat became illuminated in the darkness, watching Naruto from the right side of the cave.
"It's just to your right!" Hinata told him, tugging on the right side of his jacket. She could feel him shift and try to grab it, and saw the cat jump out of his reach just before he could grab it.
"Now it's on the left! 10 o' clock!"
Naruto tried again, and painfully cracked his knuckles against a rough patch of stone.
"Now it's back on the right!"
"It's right in front of you now!"
"You almost got it that time! It's standing just over your head. Try going really fast!"
"You think I haven't already?" Naruto complained from the hole, his voice muffled. "This thing is like greased lightning!" He suddenly groaned in frustration, and started blindly snatching at the air, hoping for luck to be on his side for once. He felt a tuft of fur in his hands, and latched onto it. The fur moved, and he smiled.
"I think I got–OW!" he had in fact gotten ahold of the cat, but no sooner did he have it in his hands than did it try and hasten its escape, scratching his face with its razor-sharp claws.
"Hinata, I –Ow! I got the –ow- cat! I got it!"
"Great work, Naruto-kun! Let's get out of here." She started to walk away, but Naruto had fallen silent. "You coming, Naruto-kun?" she asked.
She turned around to find him still in the hole, squirming against the rock. His efforts grew stronger until they stopped altogether, and his body fell limp against the side of the hole.
"Oh bother..." a muffled voice muttered.
"...I think I'm stuck," she heard him say, with barely contained frustration. He tried again, with the same results. "Yeah, I'm definitely stuck."
"Is the cat still bothering you?"
"No, I think he calmed down. Or is this thing a she? Either way, she seems ready to go back to the village. I think I heard her stomach growl." There came a loud rumble. "I think that one was mine. Could you give me a hand?"
Hinata spat into her hands, rubbed them together, and grabbed onto Naruto's feet. She planted her own, tested her grip, and pulled. With all her might, Naruto remained stuck in the hole.
"No luck?" she heard him ask. "This is why people shouldn't go wandering into haunted caves chasing after cats that they don't even own! I knew we should have stayed home today!"
"For the last time, Naruto-kun, these caves are not haunted!" Hinata ran over to his side, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Quit it, that tickles!" he started wiggling up against her, making it hard to hold on.
"Will you stop moving? I'm trying to get you out of there!" She pulled with all the force she could muster, and the only thing she managed to do was yank his pants off. They flapped in the air before falling to the pool of water below, quickly becoming drenched.
"Why me?" Naruto asked to no one in particular. "Why does this always have to happen to me?"
"Shut up!" Hinata said, annoyed she had not succeeded. "I'll get you out of the damn hole if it's the last thing I do!"
She heard Naruto giggle at her word choice from her side of the hole, and snapped. Her fists began to glow with concentrated chakra, forming into the shape of two lion heads. With a hearty cry, she started punching the wall all around the hole Naruto was stuck in, pummeling the rock and stone with her fists. A huge cloud of dust rose from the punishment the wall of the cave was taking, and Hinata could no longer see what she was doing to it. There came a loud cracking sound, and Naruto yelped in surprise.
He looked around. "Well...at least you got me out of the hole...sort of."
She had broken the stone that held the hole in place, but the rock that held onto Naruto proved to be a bit more stubborn. It remained intact, and although he was free from the wall, he was still stuck.
The cat leaped out of his arms and onto the floor of the cave, purring and rubbing up against Naruto's leg. Perhaps it thought this entire ordeal was amusing.
"Well now what are we supposed to do?" he asked. "I guess I could just walk back to the village this, and– woah!"
He unexpectedly lost his balance, and while the ring of stone around his body caught his fall, he couldn't stop himself from rolling down the floor of the cave, straight into the water. He went headfirst, and the weight of the stone made it too hard for him to flip back over to where he could breathe, forcing Hinata to jump in and do it for him.
"What kind of rock is this?" he demanded, glaring at it. "Hard enough to not break when you punch it, but now this stuff floats? Hinata, I'm telling you, this place is haunted."
He sighed. "Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, am I right?" Naruto joked, trying to make light of his annoyance. "Got any ideas about what to do next?"
Hinata scratched her chin. "Well, we could try to get you back to the village like you suggested, where someone else could help us."
"Hey Hinata?"
"Or maybe I could try and numb your body, so we don't have to worry about something getting damaged as I pull you out."
"Hinataaaa?"
"We could even try to put you up against the wall, and–"
"Hinata!"
She noticed that his voice had become smaller and smaller, and when she looked up, she realized that there was a current in the pool they were standing in, and that the current was pulling Naruto away.
Straight towards another waterfall.
Naruto started feebly kicking his feet, slowing himself down just a little. "I could really use your help here, Hinata!" He looked over his shoulder, and saw the massive drop beneath him. He started kicking his feet faster.
Hinata started wading towards him, afraid she might not be fast enough before he tumbled over the edge. She saw him try to grab onto nearby rocks, but every time he got close, the current would pull him away just before he could grab on. She screamed when he teetered over the edge, and fell over without a sound.
But to her surprise, she heard him call out. "I'm okay! You aren't gonna believe what just happened..."
She waded towards the edge of the falls, and pulled herself over a rock to see what Naruto was talking about. He was in fact safe, as the ring of rock that held him in place had gotten trapped between two other rocks jutting over the edge of the falls, catching him before he fell.
"I don't think I'm going anywhere anytime soon," he told her, letting his legs dangle. "What a pain in the ass..."
Hinata put some chakra into the soles of her sandals, and stepped out over the edge of the falls, walking alongside the wall. She closely inspected every inch of the rocks trapping him. If she broke it, it might be hard to catch him before he fell. One of his arms had been pinned against the wall, making shadow clones out of the question. Their list of options dwindled further and further until Hinata saw but one left to them, and she knew Naruto wouldn't like it.
She quietly made her way behind him, positioning herself right in between his legs.
"You figure something out, Hinata?" he asked her, trying to peek over the rocks to look at her. "What do you have in mind?"
"Something you're not gonna like," Hinata told him. She clapped her hands together. "You know I love you, right?"
That scared Naruto. He started squirming from his precarious position. "Hinata, what are you talking about? What are you up to down there?"
"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun..." she lifted her index and middle fingers up, and pointed them straight in between Naruto's legs.
He craned his neck just far enough to see what she was doing. His eyes went wide as saucers, and he started to plead for her to think of something else, but he didn't have the time.
"ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!" Hinata cried, driving her fingers straight up Naruto's rear. There was a squishing sound, and then silence.
"AAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" Naruto screamed, before flying out of the hole with amazing speed. His arms now free, they clutched at his wounded behind as he flew through the air. His momentum finally slowed, and he plummeted into the branches of the tree beneath him.
"Are you alright, Naruto-kun?" Hinata called, jumping back up to the top of the falls.
Naruto glared at her from the tree, spitting out several leaves. "You are the worst girlfriend ever."
Hinata rolled her eyes as he jumped down. "At least you're not stuck anymore, right?"
Naruto snatched the cat by the scruff of its neck. "I went through all the trouble for you. Do I even get a thank you?"
The cat nuzzled it's chin against Naruto's, and Hinata couldn't help but giggle.
"When we get back to the village, your sister is going to owe us so big," Naruto said, letting the cat rest on his shoulders. "I'm thinking free ramen for a couple weeks."
They had been taking their time as they made their way out of the caves, having been drained by the day's events. It was dark, but Hinata was leading Naruto by the hand with the help of her Byakugan, and the way out was getting closer and closer.
"You know, we never did figure out what the hairball was doing down here in the first place." He held the cat in front of his face, ignoring as it tried to play with his nose by hitting at it with its paws. "Just what are you hiding from us?"
Just then, there came a horrific sound from the depths of the caves. It sounded like something between nails scratching across a chalkboard, and a blood-curdling scream. In his fright, Naruto tossed the cat straight up to the ceiling, where it hung by its claws, caught by surprise.
"What the hell was that?" Naruto asked, just before the cry came again, this time louder and in greater number. "See? I told you this place was haunted!"
He made a run for it, but since he had absolutely no idea where he was going, he ran straight into a wall. The cry came a third time, and he scrambled into a ball, his eyes searching wildly about for the source. He looked into the darkness, and saw several pairs of glowing yellow eyes staring back at him. Yet again, Naruto Uzumaki screamed like a little girl.
Three little kittens came prancing out of the dark, straight towards their mother. Once Hinata realized what had happened, she found it hard to keep her balance, as she was laughing so hard.
"What the– kittens?" Naruto scrambled over to see for himself, and sure enough, they were kittens. One of them meowed loudly, producing the same chilling sound from before.
Naruto made a face. "This place is evil. Maybe not haunted, but evil for sure. Let's get the hell out of here."
He heard a deep rumbling sound, and turned around. "Okay, which one of you is making that noise?"
But as he heard it again, he realized that none of them were the source of that particular sound. He checked the ceiling above him, and saw several small pieces of it falling to the floor.
"It's a cave-in!" he yelled, grabbing Hinata's hand. He could hear the sounds of outside just nearby, and hoped they were close. "It must have happened when you tried to get me out of the wall!"
The rumbling grew louder and louder as they raced for the exit of the cave. They turned one last corner, and the burst of sunlight spurred them on. They were almost there...
Hinata looked behind her. "Naruto-kun! The kittens!"
They were completely unaware of the danger, having stopped in the middle of the cave to chase each other's tails. Naruto tossed their mother to Hinata, shoved her outside the cave, and jumped over them just as the ceiling fell down on top of them.
Hinata coughed and swatted the dust away as best she could. "Naruto-kun?" she called out, nosing through the piles of rock.
She heard more coughing, and after she pulled one of the larger rocks out of the way, was greeted with Naruto's face. He had just enough room to lift his chest into the air, where the three kittens emerged from, jumping down the rocks to join their mother.
Hinata kissed him on the nose. "You're such a hero, Naruto-kun."
"Yeah, I'm a real stand-up guy. Let's just go home. I think Granny needs to pay us both for having to put up with this crap." He planted his hands on the rocks beside him, and tried to pull himself free.
He wouldn't budge.
"Oh bother..."
Author's Note: The title is a reference to Winnie the Pooh, and his bad habit of getting stuck in holes in the ground.
Here's what inspired this one-shot: I have an idea if your interested basically naruto and hinata alone on a mission together to find a lost animal and while looking in some caves for it naruto stupidly gets himself stuck headfirst and halfway through a hole in the wall and hinata has to try and free him from his humiliating position.
Thanks again, yrsd! That was a lot of fun to write!
Remember, if you have a moment of inspiration, let me know! As you can see, you'll never know what could be worked into a story! A lot of you liked that one with Konohamaru and Hanabi, so I might just have to revisit that story. ;]
Until next time.