Wow, I haven't touched this story in forever, but I got the inspiration to go for it again. I had to reread the old chapters and I have to say, my writing has changed a lot since I started this. I miss my style from chapter four, but it's not like I can go back. Sigh.

Anyway, thank you for all the reviews thus far. (They are wonderful baskets of love!) I hope those who've tolerated my flighty update schedule will continue to tolerate it.

Chapter 6: Happenings

It was a cloudy day when Hyuuga Hinata walked down the street that day. She was on her way back from school and she looked up at the sky. It had been sunny this morning and to match the cheery day, she wore a white shirt and long yellow skirt. She had debated wearing her yellow cardigan when she stepped out of the compound that morning, but she was glad now that she had, and with that thought, she rounded the corner to her family's compound when she heard a high-pitched whimper.

'What's that?' she wondered to herself. Looking down the street, she saw a group of boys. They seemed about 8 or 9-yrs-old—probably from the elementary school nearby—and they were huddled around something. Hinata stepped closer to investigate.

"Hah! Take that!" one of the boys shouted, crashing his foot down as his friends hooted and cheered him on, a wide grin on his face when—

"Stop that! Get away from there!" a blue-haired woman cried. One of the younger boys tensed.

"Oh man, white eyes? She's from that freaky family!"

"Let's get out of here!" another boy shouted, running as his friends scattered in different directions. Hinata slowed to a jog and stared after them. A blip of unease rose in her—her family wasn't that strange, were they?—before she dismissed the thought. Now was not the time to be worrying about that, she told herself, kneeling down to look at the origin of the cries.

There, lying on its side on the sidewalk, was a small fox. It was roughly the size of a puppy, and she marveled at the rich orange that colored its sleek coat before giggling at the white tuft crowning its pale underbelly under its chin. It looked like a marshmallow, she thought to herself, letting her eyes trail to its two splayed tails.

'Two tails?' Suddenly, it became clear. That's why those children had been picking it. Those children were probably afraid of its extra tail, but coming from a family of exorcists, Hinata was used to the supernatural.

'It's probably an ayakashi that came down from the forest and got lost,' she thought to herself, reaching out towards the animal that lashed out at her. Hinata winced. She had only managed to move her hand away before it bit her, and she watched it, meeting its wary gaze as it tried to struggle away, whimpering painfully as it moved.

Trailing her eyes down, she scanned over its injuries. The fur had been dirtied and there were small flecks of blood on some of the dirt stains. What worried her most though, was the broken hind leg on its left side, and whispering a small incantation, she hovered her hand over its leg. A soft blue light began emanating from her hand, flowing around the fox's leg, and a few seconds later, she lifted her hand away, watching as the fox moved its leg experimentally. Finding that its leg was healed, its gaze turned to hers, no longer wary, but curious.

"See? I'm not going to hurt you," she said. Reaching out to touch it, she smiled when it not only let her, but leaned in to her touch as she stroked its ears. Giggling when it began lapping at her fingertips, she smiled down at it. "Would you like to come home with me? I can treat your injuries a lot better there and I don't think the cook would mind giving you a meal while you're there."

At the sound of food, the fox perked up and gave a happy high-pitched yip. The fact it understood her did not shock her. Ayakashi understood humans quite easily.

"Okay," she nodded. Opening her bag, she retrieved the box that held her school project earlier that morning and removing her sweater, made a small nest in the box before gently scooping the fox and placing it inside. When it was comfortable, Hinata continued the rest of her way home, smiling as the fox stared up at her with its large amber eyes.

"Finally!"

Crash! The sound of an apartment door savagely rebounding off a wall echoed as Tenten stumbled into her apartment eagerly, a large, wrapped object in her hands. What was this object exactly? Why, it was none other than her new mirror. Well, technically, it was old since she found it in an old antique/thrift store, but she had never had it before, so really it was new.

"And it's mine!" she said excitedly, closing the door with her foot much more gently than she had opened it.

When she had first spotted this mirror in the shop window of the thrift store on her way home, she hadn't thought much of it. If asked honestly, she would've thought the thing was a bit—for lack of a better word—gross. The long oval frame had lost much of its luster with some of the gold paint, now dulled with years of age, chipping off in areas. The mirror itself was intact, but years of dust and dirt had collected on it and when she had looked through the mirror, the only thing she could see was a blurred outline of herself. And so, she left the shop window and headed home with little thought of the mirror. However, that was then.

Later that night, and for many days afterwards, that mirror plagued her thoughts. She would spend hours imagining it in her small apartment and a needling voice in the back of her head would constantly tell her with a bit of elbow grease, it would be good as new (or at least, way less dirty than when she had purchased it). Eventually, she agreed that it would look nice at her place and she needed a new mirror anyway after Lee broke her old one. The boy had been showing off his martial arts moves while drunk again, and while his skills were impressive, Lee had always been a bit of a destructive drunk. Last time was her coffee table; this time, the mirror in her entryway. Luckily, the pain was sobering for him and while she retrieved her well-stocked first-aid kit and treated his wounds once more, he apologized with the upmost sincerity and promised to pay for her new mirror.

Now, Tenten knew better than to accept money from a friend who was equally as destitute as her, but Lee was relentless. But it was one of the endearing qualities of her childhood friend and even if his sense of honor was often misplaced, it didn't change the fact she loved him. If anything, it added to their brother-sister dynamic. (Though whether she was supposed to be an older or younger sister had still yet to be determined.)

Tenten shook her head. Now wasn't the time to be having these kinds of flashback thoughts. First she had to put away the mirror.

Tenten's apartment was not big in the slightest. Though she had a kitchen and bathroom in her apartment, even those were small, and her living room (which was also her dining room) was only big enough for a small television (complete with stand) that Hinata had given her as her graduation present, her coffee table, and Ino's old couch (luckily, no questionable stains were to be found when she had gotten the hand-me-down furniture). Her kitchen was a sink, a fridge, and a stove, and her bathroom was a mere toilet, sink, and shower. A small hallway led from her living room to her bedroom, and this was Tenten's apartment.

This wasn't why she didn't have many guests though. If one merely looked at her kitchen, living room, and bathroom, they'd assume Tenten's living situation to be not bad at all. No, the reason why Tenten didn't have many guests, was her room.

Tenten's room was at the back of her apartment. In it were a bed, dresser, closet, and her desk where she did all her work. Unfortunately, Tenten was not a very tidy person and strewn about her floor were old clothing and various papers and other knick-knacks. (Tenten had a penchant for collecting old things, after all.) What space wasn't covered by her clothes and homework was occupied by her bed (which took up most of the room). Her desk, resting against the wall was piled high with textbooks and old homework, and her dresser was buried under mounds of jewelry, lotion bottles, and other various items. She also had a small bookshelf and nightstand, but even those things were hidden by her various baubles. The only clean part of her room was the path leading from her bed to her closet to her door. In short, her room was messy.

This was also the room the mirror was going to go in.

Granted, placing a large mirror fitted with its own set of wheels in a room this messy was probably not a good idea, but if she put it outside, there was a strong possibility—practically a guarantee—that Lee would destroy it the next time he came over for a drink. At least in her room, it had a better chance of being safe, even if it was sandwiched in the corner by her desk.

Shoving away old clothing and her desk chair, she pushed her mirror, kicking the greying white carpet away when it got caught in the wheels, into the corner. Turning it this way and that, she placed it facing the bed and satisfied with herself, began raiding the closet to the right of her bed. As she did so, she thought she felt something in the mirror watching her and could've sworn that she saw something white in the mirror out of the corner of her mind, but such things were impossible and she dismissed it as merely her imagination.

"You know that stuff will kill you, right?" Sasuke asked, watching the fox demon inhale bowl after bowl of ramen as he sat on the table and swung his feet. Naruto continued undaunted, slurping loudly before replying.

"This stuff can't kill me. We're pretty much immortal, teme. Or did you forget?" the boy said knocking on the raven-haired boy's head much like he would a door. Sasuke scowled and swatted the offending hand away.

"We may be immortal, but even so, that stuff is terrible for you. And how can you eat so much? I know demons have to eat while on Earth since we expend more energy up here, but this is ridiculous. This is your fifteenth bowl!"

Naruto slurped up the noodle dangling from his lips and shrugged. "What can I say? It's a gift," he smiled, his tail trailing under Sasuke's chin. Sasuke grabbed it and threw the tail back at the boy.

"Keep your tails to yourself or I'll cut them all off. Even the ones you've got hidden away," he snapped.

"Someone's PMS-ing," Naruto said, catching the knife that was thrown his way and deftly placing it back into the knife stand. At the insult, Sasuke merely grunted and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. After a few centuries together with Naruto, he'd learned early on that it was best to just let some things go.

"In any event, you're cleaning up this mess," he said motioning to the pots and pans soaking in the sink, evidence of Naruto's ramen binge. Naruto merely nodded, but Sasuke knew the boy hadn't heard a word of what he had said. When Naruto got started on ramen, be it conversation or otherwise, he never stopped until he was absolutely finished. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Though demons didn't eat in Hell, when they ventured into Earth, their organs became more human-like to help cope with the change. As a result, they expended energy like humans and were forced to eat food to replenish the spent energy. How much you ate depended on your rank and how much energy you expended with the lower ranks having to eat more than the higher ranks, but Naruto was a rank-6 demon. At most, he should only be eating five bowls of food a day, but no-o-o. He had the capacity to hold thirty bowls per sitting without having expended energy. Sasuke knew of Naruto's ramen addiction before he became a demon and knew that demons could retain some sense of taste when in their human forms, but this was ridiculous! And secretly, Sasuke believed the only reason Naruto came to the human realm wasn't to check up on him, but to eat as much ramen as he could before going back to Hell. Sasuke sighed. How was he going to explain the missing ramen this time?

Ever since Naruto's initial arrival, the blonde fox had continued to visit Sasuke and each time, he would devour that human's stash of ramen. She had explained to him once that she was going to college and therefore did not have much money to spend on food and so he didn't touch her ramen stash. It was a wise decision seeing how he saw how intimidating she was when hungry (and the fact he, a rank-8 demon, was calling a merely chit of a mortal intimidating should give you a clue of how frightening it was to see), not to mention his own contempt towards the food.

Sasuke had discovered his hatred for packaged ramen one late night while that girl was doing homework, a bowl of ramen in her hands. She usually ate it when staying up to do papers and when he looked at the strange yellow broth inquisitively, she offered him some. After convincing him she had not indeed poisoned it, he had tried it—only to hastily spit it back out into the garbage can. Though she protested to having any notions of poisoning him and that was indeed how it tasted—Sasuke still doubted anything man-made could taste so foul—he told her he'd never touch it again. He'd said it with such loathing that his hatred towards the food item was obvious. That having been done, how would he explain its continued absence?

The first time, he'd given the excuse of rats having eaten the ramen (after he'd cleaned the pots). The second time, with more of the ramen gone, he'd given the excuse of large rats; the third time, even larger rats, and by the fourth time, he'd given up explaining (she had stopped believing the rat excuse long ago). This was now the fifth time and he could only hope as he thought up an excuse that the stupid girl didn't think he was a closet-ramen fan.

Luckily, his problems of coming up with an excuse were solved when the sound of footsteps began padding towards the kitchen.

"Sasuke, I'm home!" the girl shouted, and Sasuke was thankful once more that he had forced that angel to announce her presence whenever she entered the house.

"Well, it's been fun and oh gee! Look at the time. I should be going and—Ack!"

"Oh no, you're not," Sasuke said yanking the boy's shirt collar to bring him eye-level, his fingers and lips twitching as he pushed down the urge to throttle the boy. Naruto's swallow was audible when he met Sasuke's red gaze, "you still have to clean up your mess. I don't care how many minions you have to summon to do it. I am not picking up after you again!"

"Sasuke?"

Both demons turned their heads to see a pink-haired girl staring at them in shock. And that's when Sasuke realized how inappropriate their positions might have seen. The fact that Naruto was grinning did not help. Sasuke inwardly cursed.

He had lied. Now he wanted to throttle Naruto.

Sakura stared at the blonde boy in front of her. He was a half a head taller than her with blonde hair and blue eyes. His lips were painted with a foxy grin, the tips of his incisors glinting in the faint sunlight from outside. Other than the whisker-like scars on his cheeks and pointed fox ears on top of his head, she would've thought him to be like anyone else on the street.

Soft fur trailed against her calf.

"Don't touch her, dobe."

Oh right, she forgot about his tail.

Watching Naruto watch Sasuke warily out of the corner of his eye after he'd stepped on one of those precious tails, Sakura thought back on their conversation earlier. After she had stumbled upon the two in her kitchen, Sasuke had gone through great pains to explain to her that it wasn't what she thought; that they weren't gay and that the reason for her disappearing ramen was the blonde boy she saw in front of her. And after seeing the bowl in his hands as well as the deer-in-the-headlights look he gave being caught red-handed—or rather, yellow-handed (he still had soup base powder on his fingers)—she had no reason to doubt Sasuke's words. A voice cut her out of her reverie.

"You're pretty!" the blonde stranger stated enthusiastically with a grin. Sakura blinked.

"Um…thank you?" she answered awkwardly, not quite sure how to take the compliment. It was quite rare for anyone to call her pretty. Usually that honor fell to Ino.

"No, I'm serious! You're super pretty!" Naruto said, nodding to himself with a thoughtful expression on his face. "If teme didn't already call dibs on you, I'd totally go after you."

At this, Sakura's gaze turned to the raven-haired male. "…you called dibs on me?"

Sasuke snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. I didn't call 'dibs' on you. And stop spewing your idiocy in front of impressionable lesser beings." A dirty look was shot at the blonde, but Naruto didn't notice. His attentions were already elsewhere.

"If you didn't call dibs on her, then hi! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, level 6 fox demon and your new boyfriend. I like ramen, foxes, and more ramen!" he said excitedly, only to be cuffed behind the head.

"Idiot," the raven-haired demon muttered before turning to his reluctant housemate, "and you. Even if he's a harmless buffoon now, don't encourage him. It'll only make him want to come back more."

Sakura nodded at his words, having learned that it was best to just agree with Sasuke, and merely followed the small yellow and orange foxes playing at her feet into the living room.

Naruto, however, did not take it quite as easily and began to throw insults at the "unfeeling bastard who would injure such a good and honorable friend such as himself." And it was only when a pair of chopsticks was deftly flung and embedded themselves in the wall at Naruto's eye level that the blonde stopped talking. Gulping audibly, he smiled at his patience-thin companion.

"Well, I should be getting back and—"

A hand gripped his throat and his frightened gaze trailed up the arm to the menacing face of its owner, his eyes glowing red as his lips curled into a dark smile.

"Just where do you think you're going?" he asked, his voice deceptively cool.

"N-nowhere," Naruto stammered.

Sasuke smiled wider. "That's right. After all, you still have to clean up the mess you made," he said soothing, his dark lilt betraying his tone as he looked at the mess of pots and pans in the sink behind him. Naruto gulped. That pile of dishes was going to take him forever!

Sasuke pushed Naruto towards the sink, drawing enough energy to let a claw form, knowing the fox would feel the warning and not be stupid enough to run away, "I'm going to the roof for a little while. By the time I'm back, I want those dishes like new."

And with that, Sasuke left the room. In the living room, Naruto could hear the sound of his fox minions yipping mingling with the sound of the pink-haired girl's laughter.

"I don't hear any cleaning."

Naruto sighed. Even in a weakened state, Sasuke could still terrify a person, and with a heavy sigh, he pulled up his sleeves and grabbed the sponge from the counter.

Akamara Tarou was bored. In the back of his mind, he knew he should've expected this. After all, just because he graduated from college and got a job, didn't mean that his life was going to be an action-packed adventure like the manga he liked to read. Quite the opposite. He was twenty-five, alone without even a pet to comfort him, and all his co-workers had decades on him. In short, it was the future he had always feared for himself.

'I want an exciting job! I want a dog! I want a girlfriend to make my cute lunchboxes for me and stay up talking about nothing with her!' he screamed in his mind before promptly collapsing head-first into his desk, jarring the stale coffee in the mug just a few inches away.

Initially, when he had gotten his job at the Konoha geology lab, he had been excited. He had interned here before and watched all the professors conduct experiments and configure numbers. He, being an intern though, was stuck doing filing and taking notes and other menial paperwork, but he had always thought he'd be able to do some of those things once he stopped being an intern and a functioning member of the team. Unfortunately for him though, he was still stuck filing papers. Only his job title had changed.

'Bo-o-ring!' he moaned to himself, not quite sure why he was being so quiet. He was the only person in the lab since Dr. Yamamoto had left two hours ago. Dimly, he could hear the doctor's voice play back to him about watching the seismograph. That had been another change when he became a full-member of the research team.

"You're to keep an eye on the seismograph. If you spy a series of tremors, send a call on the yellow phone. It'll connect you to the city and sound the emergency alarms."

In a way, it was a noble duty. Japan was prone to earthquakes with some being utterly devastating, and if he rang the phone, he would undoubtedly save many more lives in the disaster than if he hadn't, but after a full 40 hours of running on stale coffee and no sleep whatsoever, ideas of dramatic heroism were the last thing on his mind.

Still…, he told himself, he should check the machine—if only to placate his conscience about not doing his job and letting the good doctor down.

Flipping his head on his desk, he stared apathetically at the seismograph by his desk, watching the small needle draw an endless thin line on the rolling sheet of paper.

"Well, my duty's done!" And that was the last thing he said before dropping head-first into dreamland.

As he drifted into dreams of a pet dog and a beautiful loving girlfriend, he thought he felt a small tremor, but he quickly dismissed it. Even small tremors were normal given how they were so close to the edge of a tectonic plate and if it was only a single tremor, it was nothing to be alarmed of.

And so, the dark, jagged mess of ink on the paper was dismissed and like Tarou's dream, quickly slipped into a calming lull.