The Stray Cat

A Story of Love, Lies, and Betrayal.

"I really don't have time for this," Tsunade complained as she was rudely awakened from her midday nap by Neko and Kiba.

"But you have time to sleep on your desk?" Neko inquired politely, her head cocked to one side in a hidden display of arrogance.

"Who're you?" the Godaime demanded, scowling at the kunoichi that was obviously from a hostile village. Neko smirked, also politely, strangely enough, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, mindful of her metal claws that were still clipped to her fingertips.

"Mayotta Neko," the kunoichi replied, "and it is an honor to meet you, Lady Hokage. I have heard much of how you kept Fire Country together even after Orochimaru's betrayal and all of the misfortune that followed."

Kiba restrained a snort. It was just like a cat to know exactly what to say to flatter someone's ego, and Neko had just completely endeared herself to Tsunade. Kiba also suspected that Neji and Tenten had some semblance of respect for her now as well, and Naruto. Damn, but Neko was good at neutralizing any problems anyone might have with her being in Konoha. If this kept up, everyone was going to love her immediately. Which was only a problem if she was a good enough liar to get past Neji and his inherent mistrust of anyone and anything unfamiliar.

"Why have you come here?" Tsunade asked, and Kiba figured Neko was getting pretty tired of answering that question by now, but the cat woman just smiled and answered with the utmost respect.

"I wish to live here instead of Hoshigakure, if that suits your needs," Neko answered, making sure to let Tsunade know that the whole situation rested on whether or not she found it convenient to let Neko stay in Leaf Village.

"Why don't we just see what you can do first?" suggested Tsunade, though it was more of an order than anything. Neko smirked again, though this time, there was more feral intent than politeness in it.

"You mean, how do I handle myself in a fight, then? Sounds like fun. Let's have ten of your best face off against me wherever you think a fight is most convenient," Neko agreed, Tomoru purring as she rubbed against Neko's leg.

"Why ten?" Tsunade wondered out loud.

Kiba really did snort this time, arching an eyebrow in Tsunade's direction. "Have you seen her against eight ANBU level jonin from her own village? They're right outside if you'd like to see their corpses."

"What haven't you been telling me?" Tsunade snarled, startled by the mention of corpses on a mere immigration request.

"Oh, she's a missing-nin from Hoshi because she'd rather not kill innocents for power," Kiba replied, with just enough sarcasm to let Tsunade know that the scale could tip either way. "Her fellows were trying to kill her when we met."

Tsunade pinned Neko with a glare that almost – but not quite – matched Neji's level of intensity. The older woman smirked, really wanting to see the cat lady in action now.

The arena was usually only used for events such as the chunin exams and some such, but currently gathered there were several assorted shinobi and kunoichi, eleven to be exact. Neji, Kiba, Naruto, Lee, Shikamaru, Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Shino, and Sasuke were there to test Neko. Neko had requested ten of the best, of course, and had gotten them. Against odds like this, Neko knew it was fairly certain she'd lose, but she was going to prove just how difficult it was to take her down first.

Kiba couldn't help but think that Neko might just be like that Kaome woman that Kakashi had married. She might look all fine and sane on the outside, but there was an underlying streak of total mental instability underneath. Then again, Kaome's special brand of instability had saved her life on at least a hundred occasions, and that didn't stop her from being a perfectly functional human being, except on the occasions Kaome had injured herself and didn't notice that it was serious. Neko on the other hand…what if she wasn't crazy? What if she really was good enough to take down all ten of Konoha's finest from this age group?

The Inuzuka didn't have much more time for thought as the fight started without preamble. Neko had basically started off by blindsiding Shikamaru, using simple heat waves on the ground to her advantage. Damn if summer in Konoha wasn't hotter than hell, and the shimmering mirages on the ground were the perfect illusion that couldn't be dispelled with a simple hand sign.

Speaking of illusions and mirages, did Neko actually have a tail? No, no, it was a brace of shuriken tied on wire, and as she whirled around, that 'tail' cut into anyone that was too close to her, which Kiba learned the hard way when trying to exercise taijutsu on her. Lee was even worse off, though none of his cuts were serious. Neko wasn't trying to kill them at all, just make them temporarily incapable of fighting.

Normally, most people couldn't win against one person from Clan Hyuga, let alone two. Neko was cornered between Neji and Hinata, who were both aiming to close her chakra points. She avoided it by simply redirecting their attacks until she had an opening to kick Neji square in the jaw and sweep Hinata's legs out from under her in the same, fluid motion.

Kiba rushed to pry Tomoru off of Akamaru, but the cat pinned him down too. Kiba and Akamaru both had a set of sharp claws at their throats, and they both knew that if they moved even slightly, they'd slit their own throats. How humiliating…

Growling his annoyance, Kiba watched as Sasuke and Naruto attempted to hit Neko with their most powerful ninjutsu attacks, and failed miserably just as Sakura failed to hit Neko with that monster punch she had. Then Neko found herself surrounded by Shino's kikaichu swarm, and it seemed like the feline kunoichi was finally going to lose. She was almost out of reach of the chakra eating bugs when she hit a wall, and instead of swamping her, they just sat there, watching her. Neko wondered why until she saw Ino performing the hand signs to the Yamanaka Clan possession technique that Neko had witnessed before. She moved just in time as Ino collapsed, but her movement caused her to be swamped by the swarm of little black insects that drained her of her chakra. When Neko seemed weakened enough, Shino called his insects back, and prepared to fight Neko hand-to-hand.

Neko wasn't ready to go down yet, though, as she hissed and hurled herself at Shino, catching him off guard with just how much fight she had left in her. When she deemed Shino properly covered in scratches – from claws coated in sedatives no less – she turned her attention back to Naruto, who was the only one who hadn't been knocked down for the rest of the fight.

"You're tough," Naruto told her cheerfully as he dusted some dirt off of his orange jacket. "But I'm tougher."

"I don't doubt that," Neko replied with equal friendliness. "I just want to see how well I do before I go down. Everyone else's attacks have taken their toll on me so far, so let's see how much longer I last."

"By the way, what did you do to everyone else?" Naruto asked, eyeing his comrades who were all either out cold or insensibly groggy.

"Tranquilizers, really, that's all," Neko smirked. "My purpose here is not to kill, but to be tested. Let's just say they'd be dead if I used poison. Now, are you going to attack me or what, Future Hokage?"

Naruto grinned, a very fox-like expression, and charged with another Rasengan at the ready. The swirling ball of chakra had great destructive powers, which Neko didn't want to experience. She dodged quickly, skimming Naruto with her claws and shuriken tail, which were both coated in sedatives, but after using them on nine other people, she didn't know how much was left and useable. She also didn't know just how much resistance to sedatives that demon fox gave to Naruto, and the cuts she gave him were healing already. All she could do now was dodge until she ran out of energy.

Or so she thought. She hadn't counted on Shikamaru getting up so soon, and therefore hadn't counted on the Nara Clan shadow technique that rooted her to her position, unmoving. The jutsu was only released when it was too late for her to dodge Naruto's fist.

Kiba watched as Neko flew through the air and skidded across the packed dirt of the arena floor. Her story ended the same as everyone else's around their age group: in the end, she'd lost to Naruto of all people. Neji, Sasuke, and himself had suffered the same fate.

"Oi, Tomoru," Kiba growled. "Fight's over. You lose."

The cat snarled, but let him and Akamaru go with only pinpricks in their throats to show for the claws that had restrained them.

Tsunade was clapping from her vantage point in the sidelines, impressed by the display, and of course, grateful for the break from paperwork. Neko had managed to subdue nine very talented shinobi without injuring them badly, and had only been beaten by Naruto, who had a thing for surprise victories anyway. Not only that, but she had taken out Neji of all people. Now that took talent, and the fact that Neko did it without killing anyone earned her major points in Tsunade's good book. Not only that, but Tsunade had been betting again, against Neji and Sasuke, and she'd won for once. She'd exact her payment later.

"Very good, very good, you are indeed talented, Neko," the Hokage told the kunoichi that was struggling to rise. "And I won the gamble I had going on your skill! Since your story checks out and you seem to be quite good at what you do, I think there's a probationary position in ANBU available, if you wish to take it." Neko read 'take the position or leave the village' in that little dialogue. It was the perfect place for professionals to keep an eye on her, dammit, and have her skills benefit Konoha. Tsunade was clever, that was for sure.

"Fine, fine, sounds great," Neko answered cheerfully, dragging herself to her feet. Too late she saw that the little claws she had clipped to her fingertips had embedded themselves in her palms when she'd landed from Naruto's attack. She'd hit herself with her own sedatives. Upon realizing this, she promptly collapsed again, unconscious.

Kiba was feeling rather woozy, and hadn't gotten up even after Tomoru had released him. Everyone else seemed to be suffering the same, except Naruto, but that was the expected outcome. He was vaguely surprised that Neko had taken down Neji and made it look easy, but then again, under any other circumstances, Neji probably would have beaten her. The problem was, Tenten hadn't been in the fight, and without Tenten, Neji was…just a bit off. But Tenten was pregnant, and while she could use her husband as target practice, fighting was out of the question.

Besides, even geniuses weren't immune to tranquilizers. Apparently, neither was the woman that had created them. Kiba snorted, bemused, when he struggled to a sitting position and saw Neko passed out with her own claw marks in her hands. For all of her seeming perfection, apparently, even the mighty Mayotta Neko screwed up every now and then.

"Damn, she's troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he tried to clear his head by shaking it. Not a good idea, as he turned vaguely green and had to sit down again. "She's talented though, I'll give her that much. Used the surroundings to her advantage and gave us all hell before she went down."

"Feh, cats are always full of tricks," Kiba scoffed, rubbing his sore throat. Tomoru hissed and swiped at him with her deadly claws, as though in understanding of his insult. Then again, Tomoru was probably just as literate in speaking, or at least understanding, human as Akamaru was.

"Cat or no, very pretty," Akamaru remarked, though only Kiba could understand what the huge hound was saying. The dog was currently staring openly at the burning colors of sunrise that Tomoru was patterned with. Akamaru wasn't colorblind any more than Kiba was, and was fully capable of appreciating art, even if said art was fur on a cat.

"Shut up," Kiba growled back, so that only Akamaru would understand. "Us dogs, them cats. There's a really big difference there buddy, and don't you forget it. We're natural enemies, so don't get too comfortable."

"Still pretty," Akamaru muttered, more to have the last word than anything. He didn't like losing an argument, especially not to Kiba. Give the poor dog a break, nobody likes losing a fight, even to their best friend.

Sakura and Hinata quickly healed themselves up once they regained their sensibilities, and then set to work on giving everyone else a dose of the anti-sedative. Hinata probably would have felt bad about losing, except that Neji had lost even harder and faster. Well, the guy never did anything by halves, that was for sure. On the few occasions he did lose, he did so spectacularly, and not in the sarcastic sense of the phrase.

Neko woke up within fifteen minutes of knocking herself out, having probably done this several times and built up some resistance to the drugs she painted her weapons with. When Sasuke demanded to know why she used sedatives instead of poison, she archly replied that she'd like to see him pry answers out of a dead guy. Sleep could be fixed. Dead, however, could not, no matter what Orochimaru said. When various people demanded to know why the hell she'd run away from her village with talent like hers, she replied that it wasn't talent that mattered so much as application. Leaving everyone to attempt figuring out her cryptic reply, she marched over to Kiba, linked arms with him, and politely requested to know where she'd be living.

"Not with me," was Kiba's first reply. Neko chuckled elegantly, smirked, and continued to listen in the case that he gave her a more complete answer. Funny how a cat could make one feel as though one was either the only person in the world, or simply a nonentity that didn't exist. It was one of the reasons Kiba had never really liked cats. "Look, I'm sure we can find you an affordable apartment somewhere around here, okay? Now get off my arm." Really, having an attractive woman hanging on him was rather embarrassing, and Kiba didn't want people getting ideas. Especially people like Ino, who, despite being reliable friends, never shut up when the gossip mill got going.

"Don't worry about price dear, I'm the last of a hard-working, well-paid family that happened to bring her money with her. My first stop should actually be a bank of some sort," Neko purred, which had the effect of annoying Kiba as much as it thrilled him. Damn that voice of hers! Neko was a freaking siren! Of course, Kiba forced himself to remember, sirens used their voices to lure sailors to their deaths. He was not going to be one of those sailors.

Author's Note: Yes, a short chapter. BloodHeron just ran out of steam, will be getting to actual interesting parts later. Still figuring the workings of the relationship between Neko and Kiba, as BloodHeron has a tendency to get ahead of herself and plan the end before the middle of a story. BloodHeron is the first to admit that BloodHeron is an idiot sometimes. If you have any suggestions, BloodHeron will read them eagerly, as she is perfectly willing to incorporate other people's ideas into her story if they offer those ideas to her, and will even thank the idea giver in an author's note if their idea is used. If you do choose to review, please tell BloodHeron what she's doing right as well as what she is doing wrong so that she may make reading her fiction enjoyable to all who click on the story link. Reviewing is optional. BloodHeron is not going to threaten not to update if she doesn't get reviews. Updates are controlled by sheer inspiration, not by time intervals. She will update when she's ready, so please don't complain on that front. Now, before the note becomes longer than the story, BloodHeron bids ye fair eve, or fair morn, fair…whenever you happen to be reading this.