Disclaimer: Naruto? Not mine.

::A/N::

Sorry for the wait, if there's anyone waiting.

A new format, as I have decided to continue the story on my own. D and A have moved, and there were some other issues as well. Long story short; though we keep in contact, they will no longer be participating. S'okay though. Onwards.

Thanks to mermaid princess luchia and tehokamiluva for death suggestions.

Next update will be no more than a month (I hope).

::Tail 4::

She was hungry.

Not starving, but something to eat would definitely be agreeable right at the moment.

She sniffed at the base of a tree, searching for the scent of a rabbit or maybe a field mouse.

There was always the possibility of chicken.

She knew that the pink, hairless creatures kept chickens, just waiting to be eaten, in the next valley over, but recently the big creatures had taken to trying to keep her out. The extra fencing was proof of that, and the fact that they raised quite an uproar every time that they saw her out there.

Still, she was hungry, and the chickens were available. As long as she avoided attracting attention, she would be fine.

Carefully, she crept up to the edge of the clearing where the chickens were penned up, keeping low to the ground and slinking along on her belly. She paused, looking around for and of the chickens' keepers, and sniffing the air cautiously, just in case they were lurking out of sight somewhere.

There was no scent of them; just the chickens, and something new.

A sharp, acrid scent, heavy and metallic, but at the same time smoky and stifling.

Well, it wasn't alive, and that meant it was unlikely to be a threat.

She moved in, wriggling under the fencing and coming face to face with the chickens.

As she selected her prey and moved in for the kill with a hasty pounce, the chickens began to scramble about and fuss madly, making as much noise as they could, as though hoping to drive her off by the din alone.

It was too late. Her sharp little teeth had already caught the object of her attention by the neck, and with a vicious shake of her head she snapped the creature's neck.

It went limp beneath her, and, after pausing for a minute to make sure it was dead, she began to drag the twitching corpse toward the fence.

However, even of the ruckus the chickens had raised did not save this one's life, it did catch the attention of the creatures that kept them.

With a shout, one of them ran out of the wooden den behind the chickens, gesturing angrily with the shiny stick in one naked paw.

She froze, chicken still in her mouth, waiting to decide on a course of action until she knew what the creature would do.

Then she dropped the bird and ran, as the creature started in her direction at a rapid pace, bringing the stick up so that it was pointing at her.

A loud noise, and then a sharp pain in her side, a burning tearing sort of hurt, dropped her in her tracks. She felt her fur begin to grow wet and slick with blood as she lay there.

Breathing grew more and more difficult, and she could hear the gurgling of her blood as she tried to move the air in and out of the pain wracked body.

The chicken keepers approached, and, as she slid into darkness, the scent of them called up other memories—gripping, gnawing hunger; a crushing pain in her hind leg; water flooding her nose and mouth.

This smell…

TBC