A/N: It's getting close to Halloween guys! I'm super excited. I'll probably post again on Halloween
xXx
"Ouch" I could feel the rhythm of the pounding in my skull. My brain pounding like a drumbeat against the casing that was is my skull.
"Yeah, definitely too much alcohol. How the hell does Kiba keep convincing me to drink??" I lifted myself into a seated position on what looked like the bedroom floor I had been on the day before. Setting sunlight was spilling in through the window and as promised there wasn't any sign of a rising moon. Only the clear night sky, littered with bright stars in the clear aired countryside.
As I looked around I noticed that I wasn't alone. Hinata was passed out on the bed, uncharacteristically taking up as much space as possible. A soft purr could be heard as she readjusted and continued to sleep in peace.
'Well, I guess she's still mad if I ended up on the ground of all places.'
I could feel myself slowly piecing together the events of the past couple of days. The feeling of invincibility as we drank for hours and then the sudden realization that my body is still somewhat human.
Kila had made it a note to integrate us into the family, and the effect was beginning to take a toll. My body felt weak and my mouth felt like a desert.
"Man this hangover is killer."
But at least I was making friends right? It'd been a week since the "bonding" began and I had no other real complaints to speak of.
I thought back to the meal we all shared. We fed like our appetites we're limitless and drank until nothing was left. Even now I was sober, and my stomach growled mere four or five hours later like I hadn't eaten in weeks.
'That much booze should have me drunk for at least a fucking week.'
The time on the clock verified that most of the afternoon had passed.
'I should find Kiba, he'll want to fill me in on what's happening on this "mission".'
Today was the day I was to accompany Kiba and Lee.
I picked myself up off the floor and tiptoed my way to the bathroom to get myself ready. Taking a brush to my teeth and preparing to rinse when the reflection in the mirror made me pause a little.
Pause a lot actually as my toothbrush dropped from my hand and hit the sink.
My normal appearance was no more; instead replaced by someone pretty similar. But altogether different.
The teeth I had been brushing were more accurately described as fangs and my lengthened blonde hair has turned a shade of crimson and orange. My blue eyes replaced by orange orbs with black rectangular slits and the whiskers on my face more evident in than ever.
"What the hell... HINATA!"
I heard a squeal and a thump as she fell out of bed. I'm assuming I startled her pretty well.
'The teeth and the eyes make sense. But this?!'
"What the fuck did you do to my hair while I was sleeping!!?" Hinata was frazzled by my sudden shouting but by the time she reached the bathroom door there was only a look of confusion on her face.
A look that quickly turned to amusement as she fell on the ground laughing and pointing a finger at my new look.
"Ahaha, what the hell happened to you?" Laughs persisted as she wiped a single tear away from her eye. "You look like a cosplayer!"
"Not. Funny." But my mood changed when I noticed Hinata wasn't exactly herself either. I holstered a laugh as I brought my hands to my mouth to keep it in.
"What, what's so funny?" I continued to laugh as she got off the ground and bolted to the mirror, hands frantically searching her face until they fell on them.
Long sky blue cat ears poked from the top of her head.
"W-what? HOW?!" Her realization was enough to make me clutch at my sides but my next observation had me almost rolling on the ground.
"What now!? What else could there be?" She continued her search as she glided her hands over the rest of her body until she gave up and sent me a pleading look.
"What is it? Tell me!" I brought myself under control as I approached her. Spinning her around so that her back was to me and she was facing the mirror. My hands found themselves on either side of her hips.
"Um, what do you think your doi-" she caught her breath as my hands found the abnormality on her lower back.
A long blue fury tail.
"Karma's a bitch ain't it?" I squeezed a little harder and felt her jump.
"Stop it!"
"But this is so cool! Look at it!" I gave it another gentle squeeze. Her body stiffened noticeably at the contact.
"Naruto I don't know how to explain this, but you really need to let go now."
'HA! Fat chance.'
"Why? Does it hurt?"
"No, not exactly..." I watched her shift in what appeared to be discomfort, buckling her legs under the weight of my hands around her tail. I could hear the faintest sound of a whimper escape her lips.
"Naruto..."
'Harder.'
I felt my grip tighten and my actions were met with a moan. Hinata opened her own eyes in shock as she attempted to cover her mouth.
"Well, I wasn't expecting... that?" I found myself moving along the length of her tail, closer to a furry tailed tip. The closer I got, the more intense her shudder became; her hands dropping as she stared back at me in the mirror, lavender eyes rolling back in bliss.
"N-Naruto quit it. I'm gonna! I'm." Words were lost as she leaned back into me, nails digging into my hair as her breaths began to flutter out in waves. One of my hands moved to her hip as I pulled her closer, her ass placed firmly on my waist as I whispered in her ear.
"You're going to what?" I could feel her lips meet my neck as she turned to face me. Causing my to lax my grip on her tail at the suddenly contact. Her lips kissed along my neck and trailed down to my collar, a soft tongue lashing at my chest. I could feel myself completely release her as she continued.
Definitely not the right move.
Almost instantaneously the sensation of soft lips turned to razor sharp teeth at the base of my neck.
"Ow, ow, OW!"
Gentle hands became ruthless as she shoved me to the ground and found her way face to face with me.
"You definitely don't deserve ANY of that from me. So the next time I ask you to quit something. Just do it." I felt her finger press down on the exposed flesh of my punctured neck. "Got it?"
"Fuck! Hinata I get it, that hurts."
'You should heed her warning.'
'Oh, NOW you're against this.'
"Promise?" She dug her finger even deeper into the hole. I could feel that pain doubling and boiling over as the pressure made my ears begin to water. Her own tears welled at the corners of her eyes as she held back bitter laughter.
But then I realized something.
'I'm the alpha here.'
'You mean "we" are.'
In a flash, I was on top of her. Bared teeth inches away from the top of her nose.
"Don't forget whose in charge here." Albino cat eyes weren't too pleased with the new situation, an agitated look staring back up at me.
"Sounds like you're getting a little too used to this whole thing. Are you sure you haven't forgotten your purpose? To change back? Get off me." I took a second to process her words but she was right. I got up and pulled her along with me.
"Yeah, you're right. I'm not sure what came over me. This new Hinata makes me kind of snap sometimes though, you know? You're so-"
"Independent? Get used to it."
"Different..."
"Well with what we've been through. What do you expect, for me to fall apart? To become a crying mess? I left that shy helpless girl back there in that God forsaken cage." I felt her hands grab mine in hers."We both left someone back there. So we need to keep moving forward with what's left." My hands moved to wipe away tears that dwelled in the corners of her eyes. "She'd want us to do that, right?"
"... Of course." Three thuds fell on the bedroom door. " That's probably my cue." I took the moment to distract my mind from Sakura's premature death as I quickly made my way to the door. I'd always be there to comfort Hinata but the mear idea of Sakura's demise was enough to make me sick to my stomach.
I opened up the door to a rather eager looking Lee.
"Are you ready Naruto? It's time to go on patrol with kib-" Lee paused as he took in my changed appearance. " Ahh, I see the black moon has gotten the best of you. That's a very youthful color of red! But no need to worry, me and Kiba can teach you to control that in no time." Lee himself didn't seem to have any noticeable changes. Keeping his own unique style in his god awful green tracksuit."Now hurry." He motioned a pointer finger down the hall. "The longer we wait possibly the more danger Gaara and Haku can be in."
"Just come back safe ok?" I felt a gentle nudge as Hinata pushed me through the door. looking me in the eye briefly before shutting the door.
xXx
So far Kiba, Lee and I had been marching through the woods for hours, I took the opportunity to ask everything I could.
"So level with me. How weird do these abilities get? I'm almost certain that Shikamaru can turn invisible, and Ino let out a shriek that could collapse a stadium." This had been in the line up of my mountain of questions that need answers.
"I think, that you're over thinking this."
Kiba didn't bother to look back as he steadied forward, but I could all but feel the grin on his face. "We're not superheroes or some crazy shit like that, almost everything we can do is deep rooted in some kind of animal survivability trait."
"Bullshit. Explain Shikamaru."
"HA. If you look closely enough you can always see that lazy ass laying around, his body adapts to the environment around him. Kinda like a chameleon. It's not active, it only works when he's not moving. How else do you think he hides from Ino?"
"Huh, so all this time he was probably just waiting for me somewhere?"
"Bingo."
"Sure...Speaking of which, does Ino have something else I should know about? I've never been...completely dumbfounded by a girl before."
Both Lee and Kiba paused a moment to laugh at my expense. Lee took the lead on this question.
"Well part of it is her youthful beauty, but a great deal of it is a powerful control of her hormone output. As for that shriek, I'm sure it's supposed to be a defense mechanism, but she seems to enjoy abusing it. "
'Lavender!'
"She may seem nice but don't be fooled. Ino is with Shikamaru, she just likes to make life hell for the general male populace." Both Kiba and lee shuddered at Kiba's statement.
"Oh thank god, now I can blame her for this. Hinata was ready to murder me!"
"But wait, I thought she wasn't your girlfriend, pup?"
"Jackass...So then what are the abilities of you two?"
Kiba snapped at Lee, hushing him before he answered and nonchalantly waving me off.
"Now why would I answer that when you're being all secretive? Try again later kid."
"Jerk. Come on at least teach me how to fix this?!" I gestured to the red mop that was once my golden hair.
"Eh, maybe later. Things don't even get fun until around midnight."
By the time 11 pm rolled around we had found ourselves in at least our second hour of quiet. Lee had talked us to death causing Kiba to call for "tactical silence" amongst the three of us. But suspicion eventually arose as I wasn't really sure what we were doing in the first place.
"So what exactly are we looking for out here anyway?" Kiba continued to clear a path as he acknowledged my question.
"To be frank. We don't know what the fuck happened to three of my pups. Shino was to supposed to check in again this afternoon but he never showed. So we're observing their last known location which should be right arooouuunnnd" His extended phrase finally cut off as we crested a hill. Looking down into a snow valley. "Here..." the starlit sky reflected upon the pure white of the scene, clearly illuminating the snow that covered everything in sight.
"Snow?! It's not nearly that cold out here, what's going on?" But this time my question wasn't so directly answered.
"Looks like my little snow bunny's doing. You two just stay close." We descended the hill from its leafed climax into a snowy pit. Complete with withered trees and iced over puddles of water that were scattered all over the small valley. The snowed out area couldn't have been bigger than a football field. Snowfall blanketing the entire area, stopping at a crisp point on all bordering sides.
"There!" Lee ran in front of us, pointing at two figures in the distance. Draped in a thin, growing layer of snow. Still shiny in the dark night.
He was there in seconds.
"Slow down you idiot, you don't even know if that's them!" But it was too late because whatever Lee saw when he approached the group brought him to a sudden stop. I watched him pause as he dropped to his knees. Me and Kiba only a few yards behind him.
'What the hell?'
The scene walked upon was as bizarre as the snowfall itself. A fiery headed boy leaned faintly against another body. An older looking girl with long black hair.
Both they're faces calm and crusted with splattered blood on the cold canvas of their faces. The redhead fell back into the snow as Kiba gripped his shoulder.
"Shit. Gaara wake up!" Suddenly the girl whom I assumed to be Haku rushed Kiba, placing a hand firmly over his mouth.
"Kiba be quiet. He's still out there, and he can hear EVERYTHING." It didn't take a genius to figure out that Gaara was in pretty rough shape, but whatever had done this to them seemed to have the girl pretty shook up.
"Calm down, what happ-" I felt my words muffle against flesh. Unnaturally cold hands kept my words inside. Haku looked at the three of us, giving us all a pointed look as her eyes darted frantically between us.
'Her hands are colder than the snow, how?'
She spoke in a whispered voice.
"He took Shino. I managed to blind him but somehow he's still managed to track our every move. We only lost him when I made this valley." She removed her hand to point across what appeared to be a frozen pond, a blood trail steadily streamed across the clear ice and into the tree line.
'She made this?!'
"I think he's over there." She finally released our mouths when she felt we grasped the depth of the situation. But Kiba was too busy tending to Gaara to warrant much of a response. Lee still sat in shock as his eyes struggled to grasp what they were seeing.
"Haku, who exactly is "He", was it a raven?" I thought back to the giant figure that had flown over us the night before.
" No... he's a wolf. A big. Grey. Horrifying wolf." Haku stuttered out her quick description and at her words, Kiba stood and began walking toward the pond.
"I think you forgot something." Kiba crouched as he neared the ice's edge. Black fur spurting all over as his anatomy shifted with the cracking movement of bones. His chest broadened and his back stretched, claws extending to support his increasing weight. Arms and legs elongating to inhuman lengths. Blood red eyes staring daggers at the snowy forest.
"He's a dead wolf."