Chapter 6:

You Had One Job

"…You had one job…"

Kakashi couldn't stop staring, his one single opening so wide it looked as if it was about to roll out of his skull. His sights were locked onto the top of his living room table or, more precisely, they were locked onto what sat on top of it.

It was supposed to be a cat.

It really was.

I wasn't sure if it could be called one anymore.

Kakashi tentatively reached out to the 'cat', pausing as his fingers were about to brush its fur, but when the cat didn't seem to react to him he poked it on its side.

The cat didn't move.

Kakashi poked it again, harder, and again it didn't so much as twitch. This time he shoved it. The cat began to tilt precariously to one side by the force of Kakashi's shove, not moving so much as a muscle as it remained stiff as a board, before swinging back and rocking from side to side like a rocking chair.

"…one job…"

This time Kakashi pushed the cat much harder, tipping it over.

There was an audible 'thunk' as the cat fell onto its side, hitting the wooden surface of the table. I couldn't explain it but the noise it made sounded wrong as if the cat's body had been made from solid stone instead of flesh and blood.

There was a brief moment where we all stared at the unmoving cat.

Kakashi looked up at us, his one eye wide, filled with genuine incomprehension."…and you blew it."

We all stood awkwardly across the table from the man, in the living room of his apartment, trying our best not to stare at the prettified cat named Tora.

It was hard to believe only a single day had passed since we completed our Genin examination, or as it was more commonly known by the rest of the village 'the day Kakashi's crazy kids blew up a forest'. Needless to say, we were already beginning to develop an infamous reputation in Konoha.

Nevertheless, the news didn't seem to have put a damper on Naruto's mood. We had barely been officially inducted into Team 7 before she shot up to Kakashi's side and excitedly demanded that he gives us our first mission. He hadn't wanted to at first but it only took her a few minutes to get him to cave and give in.

That was how Team 7 received its first official mission.

And Kakashi, being who he was, naturally chose a mission that involved the least amount of work. For him, I meant he chose a mission that involved the least amount of work for him. I didn't know how he did but the lazy ninja managed to secure a D-Rank mission that required practically no involvement from him at all.

Due to the unique prerequisites of the mission, it was something that only children could complete. Which meant that all Kakashi needed to do was sit back and relax in his apartment while he waited for us to finish the job on our own.

Or at least that was the plan before we fucked it up.

"I asked you to get a cat, a freaking kitty." Kakashi looked back down at the still unmoving cat, "It wasn't supposed to be hard. I don't even understand how it was even possible for you to screw up this badly!"

D-rank missions as rule were designed to be relatively simple affairs and this was no different; our missions was to retrieve Tora the cat and bring her back to her owner, the Daimyo's wife Madam Shinjimi.

To be perfectly frank the job barely even qualified as a D-rank mission.

Daimyo's wife or not, retrieving lost pets were usually classified as an E-rank mission and were assigned to Academy students. It was considered good practice for them. It taught students how to interact with clients and cater to their demands so that by the time they graduated and became real ninjas, they would at least have some experience under their belt.

Tora, however, was different.

Despite her appearance, she was no ordinary animal. And I meant how her appearance before we fucked the mission up beyond belief and petrified her.

Tora was a part of a rare species of cats known as Nekomata, a breed that had at one point been incredibly popular among the nobles in the Capital as pets. Their popularity stemmed from their ability to judge a person's character and sense out any ill intent they may have.

Unlike Kakashi's dogs, Nekomata did not have their own chakra network and they couldn't talk or even understand the human language. Physically at least, they were little more than your ordinary run-of-the-mill cats and you couldn't even tell one apart from a random street cat just by looking at them.

What made Nekomata stand apart from ordinary cats was due to a single unique trait they possessed. They were born with a natural ability to use Senjutsu.

Had they possessed a working chakra network it would have made them a powerful breed, strong enough that a clan would have eventually formed around them much like the Inuzukas did with their dogs. But without a chakra network to channel the energy, they could never mould chakra, making them incapable of using Jutsu of any kind. It did, however, turn them into natural sensors, one especially attuned to sensing the negative energy in people.

For a time this ability made owning a Nekomata all the rage among the nobles, as it was believed that the cats could be used to spot out the corrupt and traitorous among them. That quickly fell out of favour when every Nekomata the nobles brought as pets kept running away. No matter what they tried, no matter how well they treated or fed the cats they would, without fail, try to run away the first chance they got.

While no one would say it to their faces, most of the general population believed the reason why the poor cats kept running away was because the nobles as a whole were so corrupt, that none of the Nekomatas could stand being in their presence for long.

Madam Shinjimi was one of the few Nobles who decided to keep the cats despite their unfortunate habit of disappearing. Apparently she fell so in love with her cat, Tora, that she refused to give her up and regularly sent ninjas to recapture her whenever she managed to run away.

Which tended to happen every other week or so.

The problem was, due to their natural ability to sense the character and ill intent of individuals, Nekomata were incredibly good at hiding from Shinobi. As a profession of assassins, almost every high ranked ninja in Konoha has murdered, lied or tortured people so the cats could sense them coming a mile away.

Not that it would have made much of a difference in the end. There were few things that could stop a determined ninja for long and a cat, no matter how special, was not one of them. But it would have taken time, days or even weeks. I wasn't exaggerating when I said that they could sense ninjas coming for miles.

In the end, it was deemed too much of a waste of resources to justify sending highly trained ninjas to chase what basically amounted to an expensive house cat for who knew how many days. Especially when you considered the ninja shortage Konoha was still suffering under due to the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack.

The solution to the problem was a rather simple one; instead of adults send children. Fresh out of the Academy Genin were the most innocent kind of ninja you could ever hope to find and because of their 'purity', they tend to have little trouble approaching Nekomata.

Except for one tiny problem…

I wasn't exactly pure or innocent, now was I?

Beside me, Shikamaru let loose a long sigh, before reaching out to Tora up and setting her back down on her feet. The poor thing hadn't even reacted to his touch, I wasn't even sure if she was aware of what was happening around her.

Tora was a tiny thing, she could have easily fit into the palm of both my hands. I had no idea why she was named Tora – tiger – because she had white fur with large patches of orange scattered around her body along with the most soulful blue eyes I've ever seen. When we first spotted her hours earlier she appeared to be a perfectly healthy, ordinary cat.

Not anymore.

I didn't know if petrified was the proper term to describe her current condition but it was the closest thing I could think of to describe it because she was literally petrified, as in stiff as solid rock. All her hairs were standing on end as her unblinking eyes remained wide with terror. Her tiny jaw hung open in a silent unending scream while her tail stood straight up.

To be perfectly frank Tora looked dead at first glance. Hell, even after a second or third glance she still looked dead. You could have easily mistaken her for a stuffed animal instead of a living one. The only reason why we knew she was still alive was because I could still see her heart beating whenever I checked her over with my Byakugan, albeit rather slowly.

"And you know what?" Kakashi blinked and pointed at the cat. "I'm not even mad. That's amazing." He turned to us, his eyes twinkling with amusement and repressed laughter. "I didn't even think it was possible to screw up a D-rank mission so badly. How did you even do this?"

"Look, it wasn't our fault. We didn't even touch the thing." I stepped forward and held my hands up, "We did exactly what you told us to do, down to the letter. We found the cat with my Byakugan then slowly encircled it without letting it notice us. Everything was fine until that point. It was only after we jumped it that things began to go wrong. It, well, it…"

"The cat caught sight of Naruto." Shikamaru interjected, picking up from where I left off.

Kakashi eyebrows shot up. "…I see. That would explain things."

Nekomatas were famed for their ability to sense the ill intent in others, so what would happen if it ran into the container of the Nine-Tailed Fox, a being that was said to be the living embodiment of all the malice and hatred of the world.

"So, it saw Naruto and became so terrified that it ended up like this?" Kakashi guessed.

"…Not exactly, no." I muttered, looking away, refusing to meet the questioning look he sent my way.

An awkward silence filled the room before Shikamaru broke it with another sigh and answered in my place,

"The cat looked terrified when it caught sight of Naruto but other than that, it was still perfectly fine. It just stood stock still for a second before bolting away. We expected that to happen and had already blocked all off all its escape routes. Unfortunately the direction it ran just happened to lead it straight to Hikaru." Shikamaru paused, and you could almost see how he was trying to think of a way to describe what happened next, before simply shrugging. "When it got one good look at him it froze and turned into that."

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.

Kakashi slowly turned away from the cat to stare at me, his eye disbelieving, before returning to look back at the cat.

"So let me get this straight." Kakashi pointed at the cat, "Tora here, a breed of cat that can sense the evil in all living beings, caught a glimpse of Naruto," he pointed at the fidgeting girl in question, "and after sensing the Kyuubi in her, which just might be the closest thing to being a living embodiment of pure evil you could ever hope to find in this world or the next, only caused Tora to run away in terror but when it caught sight of him," He then pointed at me, "Tora was so terrified by what it sensed that it ended up becoming literally petrified with fear."

Another long silence followed that statement.

Kakashi scratched his chin and gave the cat an appraising look, "That's one smart cat…"

"That's what I said." Shikamaru chimed in.

"Hey!" I yelled out, offended. Come on, I knew I was no angel but I wasn't anywhere nearly as bad to justify this kind of reaction.

"Umm, Kakashi-Sensei," a timid voice spoke up from beside me. I glanced to my left to find a downtrodden Naruto anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, "We're not going to get fired over this…are we?"

I rolled my eyes at the girl, "Naruto, for the last time, we're not going to get fired as ninja's just because we failed a single mission."

"But Hikaru," she turned her wide blue eyes to me, "We didn't just fail the mission, we completely bombed it! We just killed the Daimyo's cat! His cat, Hikaru! If we can't even keep a stupid cat safe how are we supposed to rescue princesses or save entire countries?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that we are ninjas Naruto? Say it with me, nin-ja, not samurai." I explained, "We don't save princesses, we assassinate them. In that sense our ability to kill helpless innocent animals shows great promise in our future for our profession." For some reason Naruto wasn't the least reassured by words if her growing slump was any indication. Turning to Kakashi, "Sensei will you please tell her that we're not going to get fired."

"Hikaru's right, you're not going to get fired." Kakashi quickly assured her.

"...Really?" Naruto asked, raising her head up almost reluctantly, her expression a mix of disbelief warring with hope. Kakashi hasn't exactly proven to be the most reliable teacher so Naruto's scepticism was more than a little justified.

"Yes, really." He nodded, looking so oddly happy as he did so that I was instantly on guard. "In fact, not only are you not going to get fired but you're going to successfully complete this mission."

"But how?" Shikamaru poked the cat, sending it rocking again, "Even if we had technically succeeded in getting the cat back alive, I doubt our client would see it that way."

"Normally you would be right." Kakashi nodded, "But you have me here with you and that makes all the difference. I'm a veteran of a thousand successful missions, and almost two hundred of those were D-rank missions. Over the years I've learned more than my share of tricks to get me out of messes like this one. And I happened to know just the jutsu to fix this."

"Really!" Naruto perked up, all traces of earlier anxiety gone, replaced with excitement. And she wondered why I kept calling her bipolar. "You're going to show us a new jutsu? What is it? A B-rank, A-rank? Oh-Oh, could it be an S-rank? Are you gonna teach it to us?"

"Yes, as matter of fact I am going to teach it to you." Kakashi smiled at her exuberance before standing up and walking around the table, stopping once he stood behind the cat, near its tail. "Now what I'm about to show you three is a personal jutsu of mine, one that I created years ago. It's a secret technique, a team 7 exclusive."

His voice took on an unusually grave tone as he looked us over. "There are two conditions you must all agree to if I'm going to teach it to you. The first is that you must never teach anyone outside of this team this jutsu, no matter how desperate the situation. And second, is to never, ever use it on a comrade." He looked us over again to make sure we were listening. "Understood?"

"Understood." We replied.

"Good," Then Kakashi smiled and nodded at us, all seriousness gone as if it were never there. "Now watch carefully, because I'm only going to use this jutsu once."

He turned to face the cat before bringing his hands together to form a single hand seal, the tiger – hands held together with fingers interlocked, except for the index and middle finger which were held straight up.

For some reason I couldn't explain, a feeling of profound dread washed over me when I saw Kakashi forming that hand seal. It stirred an old memory in me, sending all of my instincts blaring up in alarm.

"Hidden Leaf Ancient Taijutsu Supreme Technique," A glint appeared in Kakashi's eye and I realized what was about to happen too late to do anything to stop it. "A Thousand Years of Pain!"

Then he shoved his fingers up Tora's ass.

The frozen cat eyes shot wide open and – MMMEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"…You had one job."

The Sandaime Hokage rubbed his temples with both of his hands but even as he spoke to Kakashi he never took his eyes away from the form of poor Tora as it walked across his desk.

"…one job…"

The cat was entirely wrapped up in bandages from the waist down, particularly around its ass. In fact, its entire back half had been wrapped up so thoroughly with bandages that the poor cat couldn't even bend its knees or twist its hips, forcing it to waddle across the desk whenever it wanted to move. It kinda reminded me of how a penguin would walk, making a tap-tap noise with every waddling step it took.

Tora's eyes were wide open, so large that they resembled golf-balls and seemed to take up half of its face. If it had any eyebrows then I was sure they would have shot up to its hairline in surprise. Every few seconds the cat would release a heartbreaking and baffled sounding meow, as if it was confused and had no idea what had happened.

Seriously, if there ever was a 'what the fuck just happened' face then that was it. It had been wearing that expression since the incident and as far as I can tell it hasn't even blinked once the entire time since.

It just kept looking around the room with wide baffled eyes, occasionally letting loose another of it's confused sounding meows. Poor Tora has been behaving like that for the entire time. And I couldn't blame the poor thing, it's not like it woke up this morning thinking that this would be the day that Kakashi would take its anal virginity. Hell, I'd be wearing the same devastated expression on my face if that ever happened to me.

"…and you blew it." Sarutobi looked away from the cat and back to Kakashi, exasperation clearly written on his face. "What were you thinking?"

Kakashi was once again kneeling like a misbehaving child in front of the Hokage's desk and somehow I got the distinct impression that this was a common occurrence between the two. I guess after the Fourth Hokage's death, Sarutobi was the one who ended up taking over the role of Kakashi's disciplinarian.

The three of us stood a little behind our insane Sensei, lined up near the door to the office, so we all had front row seats to the entire thing.

Sunlight poured through the windows that filled the back wall of the office, revealing a breathtaking view of Konoha. You could literally see the entire city from up here, and I had no trouble picturing Hokages, both old and new, standing before these windows and fondly gazing down at the village they dedicated their lives to protecting.

It was a shame the view was ruined by the still blacked remains of the training ground we had devastated yesterday during our exam. Thankfully it was already starting to look much better than it did since the last time I'd seen it.

All the fires have long been put out, while the craters that had littered the landscape had already been filled up and levelled through liberal use of earth jutsu. It even appeared that a certain green-thumbed Anbu had let a hand in the restoration efforts because I spotted several trees sprouting from spots I knew that had been burned down.

Speaking of Anbu, I could hear the sound of their muffled laughter coming from directly above me, where the squad of Anbu tasked with guarding the Hokage lay hidden behind the secret panels on the ceiling.

I'd known about the Anbu hiding there for years now, ever since my first visit to the Hokage's office. A natural consequence of owning a Byakuan was that you could never remain hidden from our eyes for long no matter how well you hid.

Despite that, the Anbu still maintained their secrecy and refused to reveal themselves or even talk to me. In fact I had never even heard them speak before. They were supposed to be the Hokage's silent guards, unheard and unseen until they were needed. In all the years I've known them they never made a sound, not even a peep.

But for the last five minutes or so, ever since we began verbally reciting our report, non-stop snickering could be heard coming from directly over our heads, ruining the mental image I had of them. It was clear that at that moment they were fighting a losing battle to contain their laughter.

Then again, I couldn't exactly blame them. If I hadn't been personally involved in this mess I'd be laughing my ass off too.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head and gave the Hokage an awkward laugh. "I was planning on demonstrating that particular technique during my Genin exam yesterday but I never got the chance. What with the explosions and all. So when an opportunity presented itself I couldn't resist."

And just like that, I lost whatever sympathy I had for the guy.

That bastard was going to use the Thousand Years of Pain on us! Oh, who the hell was I trying to kid? The sadistic prick was going to aim for me, I know it. I never thought I was going to say this but thank god we blew up the forest when we did, had the fight lasted any longer than I may have been the one sitting in Tora's place right now.

My spirit broken alongside my anus.

"Kakashi," Sarutobi took a deep calming breath as he pinched the bridge of this nose, "What am I supposed to tell Madam Shinjimi about what happened to her cat?"

Almost as if Tora knew we were talking about her, it let out another heartbreaking meow as it's wide eyes glanced around the room.

Actually, that was a very good question. How the hell are we going to explain why we had to bandage her cat's ass without coming off as completely insane?

"Jiji," At the voice, Sarutobu turned to glance at Naruto who was fidgeting nervously at the back of the room. She gave the Hokage a weak smile that contrasted greatly to her usually exuberant ones, "We...are we in trouble?"

The old man paused, surprised before his expression melted into a fond smile and he chuckled. "No Naruto, you're not in any trouble. Going by the reports you've all given me none of this was your or your teammate's fault. Just his." He thrust a finger towards Kakashi. "Your Sensei is the one who failed to take the Kyuubi into account when choosing the mission. And he was the one who made the situation worse by…" he paused, no doubt searching for a more polite way of saying 'shoving his fingers up a cat's ass', "…traumatizing Tora more than she already was."

The effect of the Hokage's reassurance was instantaneous.

"Yes!" Naruto cheered, throwing her arms into the air, "For once, I'm not the one in trouble. This is awesome!"

Then, as if to demonstrate just how much respect and loyalty Kakashi had earned from his new students, Naruto pointed towards the kneeling Kakashi and barked out a laugh, "Ha! You hear that Scarecrow? Jiji is going to punish your lazy ass. You're going to really get it now."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he is going to 'get it'," Sarutobi said genially as he reached down into one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a pipe. He made a show of examining it, "You have disappointed me Kakashi," he said before setting the pipe down on the desk in front of him.

Kakashi eyed the thing as if it were a snake.

"Now why don't you kids hurry back home?" Though the words were for us, Sarutobi's eyes were firmly locked onto Kakashi's form, the latter of whom had broken into a sweat under the old man's merciless gaze, "I have a few things I need to discuss with young Kakashi here, particularly about his recent behaviour and how inappropriate it is now that he is a Jonin-Instructor. I'm afraid this will take a while and as such Kakashi will be unavailable to you for the next several hours. Team 7 may disband for the day."

We didn't need to be told twice.

After a respectful bow of goodbye from Shikamaru and me, with Naruto just waving, we quickly hurried out of the room. And just as we shut the door behind us, a familiar noise sounded from behind it.

*Whack*

You know, it was disturbing to realize that despite being reincarnated into an anime world after being murdered by my own son and having dedicated the rest of my existence to finding a way to ascend to God-hood, I still wasn't the craziest person in this team.

*Chapter End*