Monsters

…..

Poke

Poke

Poke, poke

Kushina jerked awake. She rubbed her eyes and stared blearily into night, wondering what had woken her up.

Poke. "Mummy?" a voice quietly whispered out of the darkness, terror laced through the simple word.

"Naruto? What are you doing up?" She asked as she hauled her son up to sit with her on the bed. Dear, he was starting to actually get heavy, she thought dozily.

The usually bright and sunny boy clung as close as he could to his mother, shaking in absolute panic. Alarm bells started to ring in her head and she began to gently nudge her husband awake.

"Naruto? What's the matter? Honey, tell me what's wrong? Did someone try to hurt you?" She tried to sense any danger around her, but the rest of the world remained calm.

Naruto mumbled something into her chest, and even with her amazing mother deciphering powers, she couldn't make it out. "Naruto? Tell me."

"Kushina? Naruto? What happened?" Her husband, awake and ready to rip anyone's head off if need be.

"Monsters." Both parents guards went up.

"Naruto, what kind of monsters? Where?" Minato gently asked.

More unrecognizable muttering, Kushina drew her son's face toward her own and held his chin firmly. "Naruto, what monsters?"

The whispered reply was so quiet that both parents almost missed it. "In the closet."

Minato's eyebrow rose slowly as his wife turned to stare at them, the corner of her lip beginning to twitch. Both of them relaxed, realizing no foreign nin was trying to kill or abduct their child.

"Naruto, could you show us these big scary monsters in the closet?" Kushina asked, turning her attention back to her son.

A small nod. She gently got out of bed and he clung to her shaking. Minato followed closely behind.

The door to Naruto's orange room creaked open ominously, not helping soothe the child any more. Kushina rolled her eyes.

Her son pointed toward the closet without looking. "In there. I heard something." His voice was soft and barely audible. Kushina stood a little away, Naruto's head buried in her chest, as Minato opened the closet door. The small family all held their breath in anticipation. Several stuffed animals fell out with a slight squeak.

"Well that was anitclimatic. What noises were you hearing Naruto?" Minato asked as he began poking through the closet and stuffing the toys back in a safe spot on the top shelf. Kushina felt her son begin to relax as her husband continued to poke around. "Well I don't think there are any monsters in here anymore-What the-!" A black shadow had launched itself upon his head with a yowl and glowing yellow eyes of fury.

"Kushina! Help! There's a monster attacking me!" the flurry of claws, hands, black and blonde hair continued for a minute longer before with a final yowl the creature leaped away toward the small toddler bed decorated with frog sheets.

Kushina though was trying to keep her own ball of terror under control as her son began to wail and wrestle out of her grip toward the door and supposed safety. "Mommy! Monsters!"

"Shhh Shhh, Naru, honey, it's not monsters. Look."

As one the three of them turned and looked at the attacker, now sitting and washing itself with aloofness. "See, it's a kitty."

"How in the world did a cat get in here?" Minato questioned while he wiped at one of the scratches left from his short battle. The perpetrator gave a sidelong look out of its yellow eyes at him.

"Kitty!" Naruto dropped from her arms and began to scramble forward, all fear now forgotten. Too late Kushina lunged forward to grab her errant son who already had the thing held within his arms, nearly strangling it in his hug of joy. Both parents held their breath. "meeeorw" the cat said in resignation.

From within the closet mewling could be heard, which pulled the cat's attention away from the torture it was enduring patiently. It wriggled free gently and scurried back to the closet. "Aw, I liked the kitty." Naruto said as he wandered back to his parents. Kushina this time decided to be the one who rummaged through the closet. As she pushed some hung clothes aside and looked into a basket of laundry she found the cat curled up around three small kittens.

"Oh my, you silly cat." The mother cat looked up with contentedness and purred. "I guess we'll find a better placed for you in the morning."

"What! You can't be serious, that cat is pure evil. We are not keeping it." Minato spoke up with defiance. His wife shot him a glare that could have rivaled the cat's. "On second thought…"

"Well that's that now, let's go back to bed. Come on sweetie, you can sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed tonight. See no monsters, just a momma cat protecting her kittens." She leaned down and hauled her son into her arms and began to walk back to her room.

"Can we keep them? I want to name one Naruto! I promise to take of of them…" His voice grew softer as mother and child wandered away, leaving Minato in the room with the new family of cats.

"I'm watching you cat." The cat shot a look at him that seemed to say almost the same thing. "But I can't say no to my love."

"Mrrow"

...

So I actually had the motivation/boredom today to finish a chapter. This one actually flowed really well and knocked a few hours off my block between classes. The sucky thing about starting a new semester is that the first week you still have those big slots of time between classes that i usually use to study or work on my research, but none of my books have come in and i dont have homework yet (well actually i do but i need the books to do the physics stuff) so now im taking the time to post this. eh hope you enjoyed it.

zahresthr