Four Great Tigers Hidden In The Leaves
Chapter One: The Unholy Pranking Alliance

Sita

Grumbling curses on brothers who were either too lazy or too worried about the wrath of Iruka-sensei, I stalked the streets of Konoha, looking for Naruto.

Mom and Dad wanted us to look after him because they were friends of his parents— not that they'd ever tell us who they were. For Naruto's own good, they always told us.

If he knew, Mom said he'd go shouting it to the heavens that he was his father's son, and Log only knew what sort of trouble that would cause, especially with Iwa and Kiri.

Dad added that if my brothers and I knew, or even if just one of us knew, Naruto would drag it out of us, because he always did, and then he would know and shout it to the heavens, which of course was the original problem.

The reason, they always told us, that they wouldn't tell Naruto about his mother was because he didn't really look like his mother, and if he knew who his mother was and what she looked like, he'd want to know about his father, and sooner or later, he'd find out. And then, he'd go shouting it to the heavens— back to square one.

I didn't know why exactly his father was so important that Mom and Dad feared Kiri and Iwa finding out, but I supposed that whoever he was, he must have made a lot of enemies in the aforementioned villages.

So I didn't press.

However, I was designated Naruto's 'finder' person because if Naruto didn't want to be found, and I mean he focused his whole mind on not being found, he wasn't going to be found no matter what Iruka-sensei or anyone else did.

I could only find him because he couldn't get rid of his scent.

Could get rid of every damn other trace miraculously including his chakra, but he couldn't mask his scent.

Because of my clan's bloodline (the ability to change into a tiger) I had a very sensitive nose and I could track his scent.

Especially if I was in tiger form, like I was now.

Granted, my brothers Sultan, Taj, and Rama could have found him if they wanted to, but Rama was too cautious and afraid of Iruka-sensei's wrath, Sultan point blank refused to do it because he didn't want to, and Taj was just too lazy and didn't have as good of a nose as me or so he claimed anyway.

Such wonderful brothers I had.

Giving a triumphant tiger grin, I finally managed to pick up the scent. Naruto couldn't hide from me now. His scent trail led into the older part of town, the part most ravaged by the Kyuubi's infamous attack which ironically took place on the night Naruto was born. That meant that there were a lot of old, abandoned buildings for him to hide in, because it was never restored like the rest of Konoha was due to all the damage it took. For some reason, probably because of the Kyuubi, there was always a fairly strong scent of fox which anyone with a strong enough nose could smell. While this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, Naruto's scent was a mixture of ramen and foxes. Rama once described it as 'a fox who took a bath in ramen' or something like that. On top of that, I just knew that Naruto would be weaving in and out of buildings, trying to throw me off the trail because I was always the one to come after him. Mom and Dad were too busy and my brothers never wanted to do it. That left me. But for all of Naruto's sneakiness, having been around Naruto as long as I had, which is to say pretty much every day since I was six, when I first entered the Academy (Mom and Dad weren't allowed to officially adopt him, but my brothers and I could have sleepovers with him . . . every night), I knew his habits and quirks pretty well. He had this one particular area that he liked to hide in because it had a lot of old, deserted buildings clustered together that he could hide in, ones he could dart back and forth between so it was harder for me to catch him.

"Oi, Naruto!" I shouted. "I know you're in there somewhere, so I'll make you a deal: if you come out within the next ten minutes, Mom and Dad won't hear about this from me. And if you come out within five, I'll keep Iruka-sensei off your tail. Come out within three, I'll actively lead him away."

"By the Log?" Naruto's wary voice came from nearby. Good.

I grinned. "By the Log."

"Other than Samara-kaa-san and Mohan-tou-san not hearing about this from you and leading Iruka-sensei away, what's in it for me?" So he had learned.

I debated for a moment before smirking. "One warning free Sultan prank."

Sultan was Naruto's favorite target. Probably because he was a major whiner and his fatal flaw was hubris, or deadly pride, so he assumed that Naruto either wouldn't prank him or I would warn him. Most of the time, I warned Sultan when Naruto was about to play a prank on him because Sultan became almost unbearable when he did get pranked. However, Sultan failed to realize that it was hilarious when he got pranked.

Not even Mom or Dad stopped Naruto when he pranked Sultan. The reason? Most of the time, Sultan walked with his nose so high in the air that he was just asking for either the Nap Tap (a jab to the underside of his chin with my sword) or a prank from Naruto.

When we finally graduated, I was going to suggest to his Jonin-sensei that they should use a baton, and the Nap Tap, to keep Sultan in line. I didn't know who it would be, but my brothers were almost certain to be placed on a team together, because between the three of them, they could fill any role a team might need to fill.

Sultan was pretty good at interrogation— people would talk if only to shut him up and was also passable at medical Jutsu. He wasn't up to my level, but then, with my unusual ability to memorize anatomy easily (something I chalked up to having three brothers who made me want to stick a senbon in any sort of pressure point, not to mention the one spot that no male should ever have a senbon stuck) and my decent chakra control, Mom had decided I would do well learning Ijutsu, and so drilled it into me. Rama had the biggest chakra reserves and could learn and master high level, chakra intensive Ninjutsu easily. Taj was good at Fuuinjutsu. He wasn't quite as good at it as Jiraiya-sama or of course Namikaze Minato, who were renown seal masters, not yet anyway, but he was still pretty damn good at it. With the ability to shift into a tiger, we were all pretty good trackers— Dad made sure of it. He claimed that no child of his would be bad at tracking when that was how he had earned his title— Mohan the Mighty Hunter— and his place in the ranks of the Hunter-nin. Even to this day, when Hokage-sama had a particularly tough person to track, he called in Dad. Rumor had it that when an enemy saw him tracking them, they knew it was time to either turn tail and run or surrender then and there. Anyway, because of that the four of us were all pretty good at tracking. Largely thanks to his paranoia, I thought, Rama was good at capturing people. Sultan was also good at Genjutsu, because he had quite the active imagination which occasionally tended to run away with him. Taj was the best at Taijutsu, likely due to his heavy frame. He and Sultan seemed to have a running contest going for who was the heaviest. This month, it was Sultan. Taj also showed an interest in Kenjutsu, mainly Kodachi, because he had an extremely close ranged, get right up in your opponent's face before they can react so that they don't have time to do anything fighting style.

Naruto in tow, I led the way back to Konoha after shifting into tiger form again. It was probably my favorite way of traveling, since tigers had much better endurance, not to mention power and speed, than humans did.

Naruto followed me without any problems and didn't try to bolt, mainly because every few minutes I looked over my shoulder. While I had promised that Mom and Dad wouldn't hear about this from me, he was still going to be in trouble, because they would hear. Taj too, I suspected, because I heard him and Naruto talking last night, something about Taj coming out of the closet and no longer being a closet evil mastermind and prankster. There was also something about to celebrate they would pull off a major prank and 'redecorate' the Hokage Monument and after they would have an all-out prank war. When I found him, he was going to be in for a world of hurt.

One prankster brother was enough, thank you.

Two of them would just be a nightmare.

"Hey Sita-imouto," Naruto called as we neared the Academy. "If I were to, theoretically, bolt, what would you do?"

"One, Mom and Dad would hear about your latest prank and the fact that I suspect Taj was in on it too. Two, I'll warn Sultan when you're about to prank him. Three, I won't give you Rama's latest paranoia, which I know you need to prank him."

Years of chasing after Naruto had given me the tools I needed to get him to do what I wanted, without having to lose an arm and a leg in the process.

I didn't need to see him to know he winced. "Ouch. Harsh much, imouto? Alright, alright. I promise I won't bolt. Reluctantly."

I smirked. "I knew you'd see it my way."

"But that doesn't mean that I can't free him!" A cheerful voice sang.

Before I could react, a white tiger darted in front of me and made off with Naruto.

A dark orange tiger cantered up to me and changed back to a black haired, orange eyed, human girl I knew very well: my little sister Jaya.

"Nee-chan," She panted. "Please tell me that wasn't Taj making off with Naruto."

I sighed. "Okay imouto, I won't tell you."

She winced. "Great. Mom and Dad are gonna have my butt for this. I was supposed to make sure Taj and Naruto didn't form the 'Unholy Pranking Alliance.'"

I snorted. "Not sure that it's possible to stop the 'Unholy Pranking Alliance' from forming. I'll vouch for you. But before I can do that, we at least have to get our dear brothers back." I growled as I shifted into tiger form.

Jaya sighed. "Onward to battle then."

Perhaps an exaggeration, but it was practically like pulling teeth to get those two to do anything they didn't want to.

She shifted into her own tiger form and the pair of us set off at a run, hoping to find our brothers before they could cause even more chaos, because if we didn't, Mom and Dad would have both our asses on a silver platter.