Chapter 16: High School Orientation Arc - Neko Asuka Noroi

Took me a day longer than I thought, but here's the sixteenth installment! Enjoy, and drop a review if you did! Those motivate me to continue writing faster! ;)

Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs.


Kagami's POV

I stared at the blue kitten that was flailing on the ground, aiming water blasts angrily at Tobi.

"How did he turn back into a kitten?" my sister asked, restraining Dragon tightly so that he couldn't claw Tobi to pieces. "What did you guys do?"

Deidara shrugged. "The only thing Tobi did was whack him with a pillow—"

"Perfect!" exclaimed Yukio from the doorway. Taking the pillow that Tobi had dropped when Kisame's had squirted him, he whacked Hidan with it as hard as he could, feathers exploding everywhere.

"What the f***, you little s***?" he growled, Yukio surprised that the pillow had absolutely no effect on him.

Yukio blinked at Deidara in disbelief. "I thought you said that they turned back when you hit them with a pillow!"

"You didn't let me finish my sentence, un!" growled Deidara. "As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, it seems that we will be able to turn back into kittens if—"

"Ah-choo!" Hidan suddenly sneezed, followed by another explosion of smoke.

I coughed, trying to fan away the smoke, which was luckily not toxic. "Onee-chan, what's going on?"

Kaiya, who was barely visible, was also coughing and trying to divert the direction of the smoke. "I think Hidan turned back into a kitten! It's just...why does there have to be much of this white smoke whenever the Akatsuki transform? Can't there at least be a little less?"

"It's the way it works in Naruto," Naoki explained from outside. "Whenever a Henge no Jutsu, or Transformation Jutsu, is performed, smoke surrounds the user to give them time to make a transformation. But then again, you're kind of right. This is more smoke than usual."

When the smoke finally cleared, Twinkleshine was sitting on the floor, swiping his claws at Yukio angrily. I wasn't sure if it was the sneeze, the transformation, or the incident that had led to the transformation that had caused the kittens to get angry, but it seemed that becoming kittens again made the Akatsuki very grumpy.

"But onee-chan," I asked her, "if they become kittens again, can't you just use the trick to turn them back into humans?"

She shrugged. "I don't have any more perfume, imouto. The one that Tobi smashed the other day was my last one, and all the nearby perfume stores are closed today. Besides, I honestly prefer Hidan as a cat anyway. That way, you won't have to hear what he's saying all the time."

I blinked. "I don't exactly mind the words he says, but you're right, onee-chan! He looks much cuter this way!"

Deidara chuckled, and Kakuzu snickered at his silver friend. Twinkleshine merely growled at the two before extending his claws and heading for the couch.

"Oh no, you don't!" Yukio said, glaring at Twinkleshine. My brother just stood in front of the cat's way of reaching the couch, and before the silver kitten could swerve around him, Yukio restrained him by all four of his paws.

"Mrrow!" Twinkleshine yowled, flailing wildly in Yukio's grasp. But despite being only eleven years old, he had quite the grasp on the loud-mouthed cat, even ignoring the way Twinkleshine was slapping him with his fluffy tail.

"Anyway," Kaiya began, in yet another attempt to change the subject. "What did you do all day while we were gone?"

Deidara opened his mouth to speak, but Sasori cut him off. "Nothing, really. We just slept in, sat around the house, and played hide and seek. However, Tobi's idea of hide and seek was to whack everybody he found with a damaged pillow."

"I see," I remarked. Remembering my sister's date with Daichi, I turned to her right after. "Onee-chan, how was your study date with Daichi-san?"

Her cheeks turned slightly pink, then she shrugged. "It was okay, really. I mean, it didn't really feel like a date, since I was talking to Hideki more than Daichi-kun himself. After all, the whole purpose wasn't really to hang out, but to help Hideki with Algebra homework."

I blinked at her, giving her an innocent look. "Why don't you just tell Daichi-san how you feel about him, onee-chan? That way, you don't have to feel so upset anymore!"

"It's not that I don't want to," she mumbled, "it's that I can't. I'm not sure if you understand now, but when you're older, you'll eventually figure it all out, like I'm trying to right now. Daichi-kun and I have been friends for years, ever since what? Third — no — fourth grade? I don't feel like ruining the friendship we have already kept together for so long, especially since there's a high chance that he won't feel the same way about me. That's why I can't tell Daichi-kun that I've started to feel this way towards him."

Off to the side, Naoki and Yukio shrugged. "I can't help you there, onee-chan," said Naoki. "I've never fallen for anybody before, other than maybe Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran Highschool Host Club, and possibly Princess Leia. Have you liked anybody, otouto?"

Yukio shook his head. "Nope, not even television characters. I don't think eleven is the right age to start liking a person yet. Besides, the girls in my school are weird. Very weird."

I gently patted her arm, since I couldn't reach her shoulders yet. "Just try to pretend you're always going to be best friends, and nothing more. Maybe Daichi-san will eventually like you, once he realizes what a wonderful girl you are. I mean, you're smart, good at drawing, a straight A student, and beautiful. What's there not to like about you?"

Kaiya smiled at me, giving me a gentle pat on the head. "Thanks, Kagami-chan, but I guess time can only tell. No matter how much I study, I will never understand how these feelings work…"

Her smile quickly faded, turning into a frown as she sank to her knees. I could hear her mumbled something that sounded a bit like, "Best friends, huh? Yeah, best friends…"

Deciding to leave her alone, I walked towards Tobi, who was still trying to shoo Dragon away from the far corner of the kitchen.

"Poor onee-chan," I murmured loud enough so that only he could hear me. "Feelings are quite complicated, especially when it comes to falling in love with the person who has been your best friend for years."

"Tobi knows how Kaiya-chan feels," the masked boy muttered rather sadly, surprising me slightly.

Interesting, I noted. When I talked about love to him, he seemed rather different, not like the happy-go-lucky boy he usually is. Maybe…

"Tobi-chan?" I asked him, making sure that he was making eye contact with me. "Did you fall in love with someone, too?"

Initially, Tobi did not respond. I could tell that he was well considering it. After all, it took great courage to tell somebody other than your family members about romantic feelings that you hold for another person. In addition, by Tobi's sudden mood change, I determined that if he had a backstory about liking someone, it was sad.

After two minutes, he finally gave his answer, shaking. "Yes," he whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "Tobi fell in love with a girl when Tobi was young."

I smiled tenderly, holding his trembling hand. "What was her name? It must have been quite a lovely name, belonging to a beautiful girl."

"Her name was very lovely," he answered, a softer edge to his voice. "And the girl was absolutely gorgeous, on both the inside and the outside. Even today, Tobi still loves her. But her name...too sad for Tobi to say now."

I realized where this conversation was going, and abruptly put an end to it. My smile disappearing, I gave him a calm embrace. "You don't have to tell me her name, Tobi-chan. I understand almost exactly how you feel. Even though it's been three years since it happened, I still can't bear to utter the names of my parents."

He continued to remain silent, and soon, the silence fell upon me too, even though I could hear Yukio arguing with Twinkleshine with Kaiya and Naoki laughing in the living room. Sighing, I wanted to join them and maybe even tease Twinkleshine a little, but at the same time, I felt that Tobi needed me. After all, we both had lost people dear to us.

I remained by his side for a while, solemn expressions on our faces as we remembered the ones that we had loved. Before I knew it, my eyes had closed, and my body fell limp against Tobi, who I saw quickly catch me before I succumbed to exhaustion.

My eyes fluttered open to find myself in the place that I felt like I could clear my mind in the best. At first, it had been home, but now, it had moved to the serene realm with clouds of pink and white and scintillating stars everywhere.

The Pure Land, I thought. Maybe Rin accidentally summoned me here or something? I'm still not sure how the jutsu works, since we've only spoken so little the last time that we've met.

I turned around, expecting to find the brown-haired girl standing there, but there was nobody there at all, not even a trail of stars. Rubbing my eyes, I spun around again to make sure that I didn't miss Rin by mistake, but I could not feel her presence.

"Rin?" I called, hoping to receive an answer. "Hello? It's me, Kagami! Did you summon me here by accident or something? Please answer me!"

But no matter what I called or how loud I called it, I received no response whatsoever. Rin simply was nowhere to be found, but then again, the Pure Land was pretty much both endless and limitless. She could have been anywhere in the realm, and I still wouldn't be able to locate her, especially since I didn't know anybody else in the Pure Land.

Nevertheless, I decided to start searching for Rin. I began to run forward, watching as the puffy clouds moved with me. It all seemed like a never-ending pattern of cotton candy-colored clouds that anybody could munch on for days, but no matter how far I ran, I felt as if I was getting absolutely nowhere. There was literally nothing else in the Pure Land for me to see in order to keep track of my location, just sparkles and clouds.

How does she even navigate her way around here? I pondered, thinking of Rin. Maybe she did end up getting lost before her jutsu was completed?

"Come out, wherever you are!" I shouted playfully to absolutely nowhere. "Rin, if you were able to summon me here again, you should be around here somewhere! Please talk to me!"

Suddenly, a huge sparkle exploded in front of me, and I covered my eyes again to avoid getting blinded by all of the light. It felt almost as if — what was it called again — a flashbang had been thrown in front of my face with almost twice the amount of light.

"Argh…" I mumbled. "Turn out the light! Turn out the light!"

A minute or so later, the light finally disappeared, allowing me to see again. The realm appeared a little bit fuzzy at first, but luckily, my vision cleared, allowing me to clearly see the young girl standing in front of me, nervously rubbing the back of her head.

"I'm so sorry, Kagami-chan!" she said. "When I summoned you here, you didn't appear right in front of me, so I got worried. Then, I completely forgot about the whole 'blinding lights' concept whenever I change back into a human. No other spirit has found you yet, right?"

I nodded, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, good! If they did find you, I'm not sure what they would do. After all, you are still a mortal…"

"Rin," I began, "I wanted to ask you a few things when we first met, but we ran out of time. Do you have enough time for me to ask you now?"

She shrugged. "Possibly. I wanted to deliver a message to you from one of my friends. Don't worry, he knows my secret, but he was pretty nice about it. I'm not to worry about him being a blabbermouth, since he is nothing close to that type of person."

"Alright," I said, wanting to do this quickly. "What does your friend want me to say to whoever the recipient of the message is?"

"It's addressed to your entire family," Rin explained. "You know the Akatsuki, and how they were all turned into cats, right? Well, upon further inspection of the user and the jutsu itself, we were able to determine what kind of jutsu it was, and just a little bit about how to reverse it."

My eyes widened, in both interest and shock at this newfound information. "Ooh! What kind of jutsu, Rin? Is it a Kawaii no Jutsu? Gwiyomi no Jutsu? Cutie no Jutsu? Kitty no—"

"Easy there, Kagami-chan," she interrupted, patting my head softly. "It's called the Neko Asuka Noroi no Jutsu, or the Cat Perfume Curse Jutsu. I actually had no idea that such a ridiculous jutsu like that could exist, but apparently, it does. When done correctly, the user can turn up to ten opponents into cats at once, with the possibility of sending them to another world. But once the jutsu is used on ten shinobi, the user will die. Currently, no other mortal in our world knows about the jutsu, except for me and my friend. I'm thinking of telling another one of my friends about it, and maybe my friend's distant cousin as well. But despite being able to identify the jutsu, we have no data on why or how he obtained and used the jutsu."

"Naoki-nii-chan said that the Akatsuki were a group of S-rank criminals," I told her. "Maybe the user wanted to be a hero and sacrifice himself to banish them to another world."

"That seems like a plausible explanation," replied Rin. "But still, it doesn't explain how he got his hands on the jutsu in the first place. Because of its deadly result, the Neko Asuka Noroi no Jutsu is most likely a forbidden jutsu. It must have been strongly guarded, but none of us know by who. We were too busy watching our friends and loved ones to pay attention. Even the wisest souls in the Pure Land forget things."

I blinked. "Very interesting. How do you reverse it?"

"We haven't truly figured it out yet," she admitted, "but we're working on it. You and your family already know how to turn them into humans with lavender perfume, although they return to kittens when they sneeze. My friend has been studying the jutsu ever since it was cast on the Akatsuki, and has discovered a few clues about the items needed to build a portal or something that connects our world with yours."

I squealed excitedly, jumping up and down. "That sounds so cool! Tell me, Rin! What do we need to make it?"

"Based on the clues written in the man's last will," she explained, "I believe that the thing we need is a scintillating orb."

"Where can we find it?" I cut in, causing Rin to giggle slightly.

"Well," laughed Rin, "I don't know if this is correct or not, but there should be a mysterious orb shattered in pieces around your world. Usually, they can be found whenever somebody finds peace, love, friendship, and maybe some other strong feeling, according to my friend. Sometimes, they even appear when learning new things or solving mysteries. They usually appear in the tiniest fragments at first, but when all of them are collected, they form an orb that can be used as a traveling method, especially through dimensions. However, that's all we really know about it. But still, I have a great idea on how to make a couple shards appear in your world."

I leaned in closer, wanting to hear every word that Rin was saying. "How can we do that?"

She started to chuckle again. "I think you might need to send a couple of the members to your sister's high school. There are tons of great experiences to try out there, and one of them should definitely lead to finding scintillating shards. However, I'm not sure if all of the members can do it, especially if we don't know if they are still able to perform their Henge no Jutsu. After all, Neko Asuka Noroi no Jutsu does limit the use of one's chakra prowess and jutsu."

"So what you're saying is that we send most of them to high school?" I inquired curiously. "But how will people react when they see people like Zetsu, Tobi, Kakuzu, and Kisame?"

"That's why we have the Henge no Jutsu," she giggled. "Besides, they might end up liking high school, since none of them have truly experienced it before."

"I'll make sure that they enroll there," I declared. "At least tomorrow is a non-student day for all of us."

Rin smiled in gratitude. "Thank you, Kagami-chan. I knew I could count on you!"

But before either of us could speak again, Rin's body began disintegrating into sparkling stars.

"Oh my," she cried, realizing that she was starting to fade. "I believe our time is up, Kagami-chan. Unfortunately, we must return back to our own worlds."

I gasped. "Already? I haven't even gotten the chance to ask you any questions!"

She smiled at me. "Maybe another time. But the message must be delivered to the Akatsuki and your family about the Neko Asuka Noroi no Jutsu."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I simply nodded instead.

"Remember," she reminded me, "when you deliver the message to your family, don't tell them anything about me or that I can exist and talk to you. Keep it a secret, and use my friend's name instead."

As she began to fade away, I watched as the Pure Land began to crumble around me, signaling the end of my dream. Gradually, I began to shut my eyes again, preparing to wake up in my own world again. However, very much like last time, I heard Rin utter one final message of importance.

"Tell them that the message was from a man named Shisui Uchiha."


A/N: And there you go! Rin's here again, and this definitely won't be the last time we see her or Yahiko. But now, it looks like the Akatsuki might be going back to high school...

Question: Favorite Fruit? I love strawberries, but blueberries are close behind.

Until next time!

— Tenshi —