Haha! Remember me! Yeah, school started so now I'm swamped with work to catch up with! I think the last chapter went better than I thought it did! At first I thought it freaking sucked but now my reviewers have convinced me otherwise! Thankies to you all! This chapter is dedicated to piratequeen11! I need to make a few polls so I can let the readers decide who a few characters may end up with in the end. That will come later when I'm finished introducing the characters of this story though and the only romance for now is gonna be NaruxHina. I hope you enjoy this chapter though!
Chapter 3 Talking Cats and Guilt Doesn't Mix
Throughout the whole morning Hinata had been avoiding Naruto as much as she could. She busied herself by looking after Kuro's five energetic kittens that were always on the move even though they were so tiny. Kuro herself was putting as much space between her and every person in the house. Toryufu was following Hinata as usual, the tabby cat was very fond of Hinata now. Hinata was now outside watching the five kittens play and tumble.
Shiro had just escaped the house through a nearby window and sat down beside Hinata his grey and white fur tussled from squeezing through the partially opened window. Hinata ran her hand through his soft fur. He was one of the biggest of the cats, most likely one of the oldest but not aged. Shiro looked at Hinata with his kind yellow eyes. All of Neko's cats had yellow eyes except the five kittens that were still too young to have any other eye color but blue, so Hinata inferred that they were all related somehow, like a family. Hinata was yet to meet all of the cats but Neko had said that there were exactly sixteen cats that belonged to her that roamed the woods that they lived in.
"Hey, Hinata," Neko said as she sat down beside Shiro, her long trench coat that hid her wings trailed over the ground that she was sitting on.
"Oh… hi…" Hinata replied trying to look normal.
"…So…what're you doing?" Neko asked as she stroked Shiro's fur.
"Nothing much," Hinata said as she kept her eyes on the five kittens.
"You must be making sure the kittens don't get into any trouble, huh?" Neko said trying to strike up a conversation.
"I guess," Hinata said as she looked down.
A silence followed during which Neko examined her nails. Shiro was curled up in Neko's lap and Toryufu was playing with her own tail.
"…So, have you talked to Naruto any?" Neko asked innocently (supposedly).
"No, not really," Hinata replied as she wondered why Neko would ask a question like that.
"I thought you two were friends or something like that," Neko said curiously.
"We are…at least I-I think s-so…" Hinata said as she recalled the embarrassing events of the night before.
"I'm so sorry!!" Neko shouted disturbing a sleeping Shiro, "Naruto asked me to see if you were mad at him and I felt like I had to since he really, really, really felt bad about something!!"
"Huh, he felt bad?" Hinata said with surprise in her voice, "about what?"
"He wouldn't say, but I know that if he could, he would say sorry about it," Neko said with worry in her voice as she hugged Shiro as if he was her lifeline, "I was sort of scared myself that you might've been angry at him for some reason and I felt bad about it so I wanted to help."
"This is all my fault!" Hinata said who had paid a bit attention to the last statement Neko spoke, "I've got to apologize right now! But how?"
"What do you mean 'but how?'? You've gotta go to him right now!" Neko partly shouted as she pointed back to the house.
"I c-can't, I'm too scared to g-g-go," Hinata said as she panicked a bit.
"Don't be! Go right now, or I'll throw Shiro at you!" Neko said as she threatened Hinata with a napping cat.
"No, y-you don't know what happened l-last n-n-night," Hinata said as her face turned a bit red.
"Oh, something did happen, Naruto told me nothing did, I must've been too sleepy to actually go see if anything was going on," Neko said as she recalled the night before.
"You're demon cat-,"
"I believe it's a bakeneko," Neko corrected.
"Okay, bakeneko, it scared me last night and I crashed into Naruto, and t-then….th-then, we sort of… k-k-kind of…um, k-k-k-kissed," Hinata said whispering her last word.
"Oh, that's why you've been so jumpy……." Neko said before rudely inquiring, "So what was it like? Was it your first kiss? Did you enjoy it? I can't wait to tell Shiikaa what you did!"
"What?! Who's Shiikaa? Please, don't tell!!" Hinata said with fear that last night's happenings would get out.
"Shiikaa, is another cat of mine, he's Toryufu's brother and a ruthless gossip! Oh, and if you don't want me to, I won't tell anybody," Neko said as she started to crack up a bit, "I just did that to see the look on your face!"
Neko's words didn't make anything better. Hinata stood up from her seat on the ground and left without saying anything else, she knew that her voice would only come out in high pitched stutters. She could've sworn she heard Neko and another voice talking while she left though.
"What'd I do? I was trying to do something nice for once…guess I screwed it up huh?" Neko said.
"Can you blame her?" the other voice said, male by the sound of it.
Hinata just shrugged it off thinking that maybe Akane or Ookami had shown up while her back was turned. Funny thing though, when Hinata slipped through the front door inside the house she saw Akane at his usual spot, reading his usual book and Ookami was snacking on some raw meat he found in the fridge somewhere. Hinata decided to bother with it later; she really wanted to find a secluded spot where nobody would bother her. Eventually she decided just to stay in her room and hope nobody would follow her, even though Toryufu was right at her feet as Hinata walked swiftly to the small bedroom she was currently using. Once she was in her room, she closed the old wood door which produced a defiant creak before she closed it with a snap.
"Why are you so upset, onee-chan?" a feminine voice said, startling Hinata.
Hinata assumed it was Neko who might've snuck in behind her but Hinata thought it was strange for Neko to be calling her "one-chan". Hinata looked behind her from her place at the closed door; no one was there except her and Toryufu. Hinata sat on her bed and Toryufu climbed into her lap and curled up while staring at her with her intelligent yellow eyes. Hinata distracted herself by stroking Toryufu's silvery-grey tabby fur, each tabby stripe was thinner than a pencil.
"Are you upset with Neko-onee-chan?"
Hinata squealed and jumped up, causing Toryufu to land on the bed. Hinata couldn't believe it, talking cats! She knew that Kawaii, the bakeneko had the gift of speech since she was part monster, but Neko's cats weren't supposed to talk, only meow and purr and do stuff that normal cats are supposed to do.
"Y-you c-can t-t-talk?!" Hinata stuttered out the words the best she could.
"Hai, and I'm even better than Issoku now!" Toryufu said in a proud voice that could qualify in being a soprano in choir.
"Cats aren't supposed to talk! Th-this has g-got to be j-just a dr-dream!" Hinata panicked.
"Huh, cats aren't supposed to talk? That's not what Neko-onee-chan and Ookami-onii-san told me," Toryufu said with a puzzled expression.
"Well, they aren't at least, not that I'm aware of!" Hinata said as she rethought her every encounter with a cat before, "I should've seen this coming with all the things that have happened to me in the past few years."
"Like what? You can tell me everything and anything and I won't tell anybody until the day I die…unlike Shiikaa!" Toryufu proudly proclaimed as her Onee-chan's words peaked her curiosity.
"Who's Shiikaa? And who was it you mentioned earlier, Issoku?" Hinata asked trying to figure out who the cat was talking about.
"Hm? You don't know who they are? They're cats just like me, you may have not seen Issoku, but surely you've seen Shiikaa frolicking around!" Toryufu exclaimed.
"No, I've only met you, that ghost-demon cat thing-,"
"Kawaii, she's mean…"
"Oh, okay then, Kawaii, Shiro, Kuro, and her five kittens." Hinata stated.
"Well, Neko did tell you that there were sixteen of us, right?" Toryufu said as she cocked her head in a cute way.
"Yes," Hinata confirmed.
"Okay, so we'll skip Kawaii, she's mean, and she isn't even related to me." Toryufu mumbled as she thought through her family tree, "Alright, first of all, you have Shiro and his brother, Shiruvesuteru, then the next generation is my brother from another litter, Issoku, and his sister, Buutsu, then there's my generation of me, my brothers, Shiikaa and Robu, and Kuro my sister. Then there are Buutsu's three kittens…well, they're too old to be kittens, at least six months old, anyway, there's Osatsu, his sister, Tekisasu, and his other sister, Kuroyuri. Then, there are Kuro's five kittens, Momo, Ichigo, Ringo, Kuroichigo, and Chibi."
Hinata was silent as she tried to register the great number of names Toryufu had listed of her gigantic family that lived in the forest with her and Neko. Hinata didn't know how Neko kept up with all of them, if not at all. Hinata noticed there was a lot of talk and teasing about Toryufu's brother Shiikaa so Hinata decided to ask Toryufu about him.
"So, who's Shiikaa? You and Neko seem to talk about him a lot." Hinata asked hoping to strike a conversation.
"Oh, Shiikaa? He's my brother! He's such a goof, too, and gossips almost as much as Neko does!" Toryufu giggled or what Hinata thought was a giggle for a cat, then Toryufu's expression saddened, "Him and Issoku were very close."
"'Was'?" Hinata asked hoping to know what was wrong.
"Well, he went missing, I wouldn't bring him up around Neko though, she gets real sad whenever anybody says something about him," Toryufu said she stared out of a nearby window, "I even feel a bit sad. Nobody knows how he disappeared or where he is. It's so strange because cats never go missing here unless they've been killed, but if Issoku was dead, someone would've found his body by now."
Hinata noticed that Toryufu didn't enjoy talking about Issoku so she changed the subject to something more lighthearted, "So who's the father of Kuro's kittens? He must have been a good cat as well as they've turned out."
"I don't know. All Kuro said was that he was a wildcat she had met once. He doesn't sound all that great to me!" Toryufu scoffed at her sister's secrecy.
Hinata couldn't think of anything else to say but she remembered what Neko had told her about what Naruto said. Hinata felt like she was procrastinating on apologizing but it wasn't everyday you got to talk to a cat that was able to talk back.
"I really need to see if Naruto-kun is alright…" Hinata thought aloud.
"Then, go find him! What're you waiting for?" Toryufu said encouragingly as she leaped off of Hinata's bed, ready to follow.
"I-I can't," Hinata stuttered nervously just thinking about what, "Not a-after w-w-what happened last n-night."
"Then, I'll go if you won't," Toryufu said as she already made her way to the door.
"No! I want to do it myself!" Hinata said.
"Onee-chan, I think Naruto-onii-san, will believe a talking cat," Toryufu stated as she pushed the door open with one of her paws.
"No, I feel like I have to do this myself, but I just don't have the courage to go," Hinata said as she stared at the floor.
Toryufu went to stand beside Hinata, her tabby fur brushed Hinata's white feathers of her wings. Toryufu looked up at Hinata encouragingly, her yellow softened as they gazed into Hinata's pale, opalescent ones.
"Then, I'll go with you," Toryufu said, "I want you and Naruto-onii-san to be alright, and if even one of you aren't happy I'll fix it myself."
Hinata just nodded, she didn't know what to say to the strange talking cat but instead of silence she mutters a thank you as she forces her feet through her bedroom door. She slowly pushed herself through the house as she scanned for a glimpse of blonde hair that might indicate Naruto.
"I don't know where he is," Hinata said to Toryufu as she stood in the kitchen where Ookami was cleaning blood off of what looked like a throwing knife.
"Don't know where who is?" he asked as he rinsed the crimson off of the silver.
"N-n-n-aru…." Hinata tried to stutter out but couldn't manage she gave a pleading look to the tabby beside her.
"Hinata-onee-chan is looking for Naruto-onii-san, do you know where he is?" Toryufu said, almost scaring Hinata how calm the cat could be.
"Uh, I think he's in the woods somewhere, I think Neko and her thousands of cats followed him." Ookami said as he dried the now clean knife.
"O-okay," Hinata said.
"Come on, we'll find them," Toryufu said heading towards the front door.
"Y-you don't mean that we're going out there a-a-alone? I-I don't even know where N-N-Naruto is!" Hinata said trying her best to be cautious, besides humans were prowling everywhere for angels or demons and it won't be good for Hinata to be alone with nothing but a talking cat.
"I'm a cat remember? I can follow his scent straight to him!" Toryufu said confidently as she approached the front door.
"Oh, I guess that's alright," Hinata said uncertainly, she still thought it wasn't a good idea. She opened the door for the cat to go out first and when she followed more cats met them there.
A small cat that was black except for her chin, whiskers, paws, belly, and chest that were white glanced at Hinata and Toryufu before turning her eyes to the cat beside her which was a slightly larger but much skinnier cat that was a tabby like Toryufu but was darker and had more of a brown hue to it.
"Hey Kuroyuri, hey Robu, have you seen Naruto-onii-san?" Toryfu said to the two.
"I haven't," the tabby named Robu replied as he left leaving them with the smaller black and white cat.
"Well, I have, he headed towards the western part of the forest, Neko was with him," Kuroyuri said, "Why did you ask?"
"Hinata's looking for him," Toryufu said, "It's slightly important."
"Oh, okay, then," the young cat said, "Good luck! Oh, yeah, Shiro and Shiruvesuteru followed Neko as usual."
"Thanks for the tip." Toryufu said.
Toryufu headed in the direction Kuroyuri pointed out.
"Why did you need her to tell you who was with Naruto?" Hinata asked wondering if it was important.
"It's easier for cats to follow scents they know the best and I know Neko, Shiro and Shiruvesuteru's the best," Toryufu said as she trotted westward.
Hinata walked easily beside the cat that had picked up a scent. Eventually Toryufu's ears started to twitch and the tip of her tail waved back and forth.
"I can hear them now, but it doesn't sound good," Toryufu said as she broke into a slow lope that Hinata actually jogged to keep up with and eventually Hinata could hear the struggles of a battle raging on.
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Yay! I finally updated! And it probably won't be awhile until I update again! Sorry peoples! A girl has to go to school right? Even if it sux to the max! Alrighty, next chapter is dedicated to the fifteenth reviewer! Hope I won't procrastinate the next chapter until next millennium as usual!
Sincerely,
Ninja Cat of Light