Everyone loves cats. Everyone loves cats in their own way. (C)

Far, far away in the sky flew a hawk feather. The gentle gusts of the wind picked it up, and it, whirling, hovered in the endless blueness, rushed higher and higher, until it finally fell into a flowing stream and began to float away.

As the feather swept past the fields and forests, the bends of the river twisted under it like a blue ribbon, the sands scattered and mountains grew. It cut through the thick blanket of storm clouds and plunged into the blurry haze of fog.

So its journey continued until the wind sent it into the lowlands. After passing the plateau and the stone ridge behind it, the feather jumped over the forest edge and, circling over the spreading branches of trees, slowly sank between the juicy green blades of newly grown grass.

In less than a moment, the feather was covered by someone's shadow, and then the sole of a shoe fell on it. Such shoes were worn by shinobi.

But not just any shinobi.

“Ah, Sakura?”

In the ringing silence over the wasteland, the voice sounded akin to a blow. Sasuke, hovering over the crater from the explosion, looked down contemptuously.

“Sasuke-kun...” Sakura pressed her hands to her chest. So many years had passed, and she hadn't changed at all. The same pink hair, the same stupid expression on her face.

“Sasuke…”

Sasuke shifted his gaze. There he was, speak of the devil. Next to another blockhead, who was probably found as his replacement.

Anger suddenly flowed through his veins, bubbled and gurgled, he could feel it with every cell of his body like electric discharges of chidori.

“Naruto…”

Memories flooded into his thoughts like a wave.

The two of them are standing in the Valley of the End, facing each other, with a nasty drizzling rain lashing their faces. Sasuke is frozen, but he is not shivering from the cold - rather, he is shivering due to the hatred that overflows the vessel of his soul, the moment he looks into those wild fox eyes.

“What do you even know about me, you who have never had relatives or friends? What do you know?! You haven't had anyone since the beginning! We suffer because of our bonds, how can you understand what it means to lose everyone?”

Who will suffer more in life - the one who suddenly went blind, or the one who was born so? The answer was obvious.

“Yes, I really didn't have any family or friends, and I don't know what it's like.”

Naruto looked up from below.

“So that's why…”

“Why, Naruto?!” Sasuke doesn't understand. “Why did you come so far for me?”

“You and I are bonded. You're my first real friend. That's why I have to stop you.”

“If so, why then…”

"If that's the case, then I'll just break this bond.”

The promise rises to the sky like ashes and disappears into the air without a trace.

Sasuke jerked his head up as soon as the whirlwind from the past dissipated before his eyes. Naruto, and these mutts from Konoha…

They found him after all. How annoying.

“Why didn't you kill me then? This is how you're breaking bonds, right?” Naruto grinned, his righteous anger could be felt even from a distance. “Sasuke!”

The wind blew playfully through his dark hair. Sasuke looked back with indifference.

Nevermind, he had expected it.

“It's very simple. Don't think I couldn't break our bond.”

Sasuke’s blood boiled, and a chill ran through his skin as soon as his brother's insinuating whisper burst into his ears.

“You will be able to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan, just like me.” Sasuke feels only tears on his cheeks, and the cold in Itachi's pupils rivets him to the spot. “But on one condition: you have to kill your best friend.”

Sasuke intercepted Kusanagi’s sword and swung it.

His voice did not waver, although he was already impatient to cut Naruto's throat.

“I didn't want to give him the pleasure of seeing me obtain power by following his ways. I just spared you, on my whim.”

Sasuke darted down. From the side, as if in slow motion, he heard a confused squeak from Sakura.

“When has he…?”

Sasuke didn't care. It had been a long time since he had surpassed this village rabble. Naruto was standing right next to him, his mouth gaping stupidly. He didn't even dodge - as if he voluntarily put his open neck under the blade.

“I remember you dreamed of becoming a Hokage? If so, your time would be better spent on training than on chasing me. Isn't that right, Naruto?”

Naruto was silent.

“That's why this time, on my whim,” the blade whistled through the air, “you will part with your life…”

“What kind of person is a Hokage if he can't even save his friends?” Naruto shouted, loudly enough to make Sasuke want to cover his ears. He was so sick of Naruto’s ridiculous appearance. That black-reddish suit alone was so awful…

Naruto waited patiently for an answer.

“What do you think, Sasuke?”

A deathly silence hung over the wasteland. The tip of the chokuto froze a hair's breadth from Naruto's throat.

He was just… so tired of them. It was a good thing he was smart enough to deal with them now.

“Sasuke-kun!” Sakura undoubtedly saw the swing.

Sasuke chuckled. He was here only to end a case whose trail wound from the past and hung on his shoulders like an oppressive weight. It had long ago become impossible to get under his skin with someone else's screams.

Kusanagi hit with a powerful blow, clanked against something, and sparks fell to the side.

Sasuke quickly turned around. A good time to check the insides of jinchuriki. The fool Naruto wouldn't have time to blink an eye when Sasuke got to the fox inside him.

But suddenly something changed. Sasuke tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, feeling a strange sensation in his body. It could not be described as either painful or pleasant. The walls of the crater suddenly began to move away before his eyes, the patterned floor under his feet began to spread out in different directions, and for some reason Naruto's damn black-and-orange suit turned green.

Sasuke was ready to vouch that overall his color perception was seriously altered, although he did not even have time to activate the sharingan. Sakura's hair and her clothes turned blue, but the area around her was much more transformed. The crater increased several times, and together with it the stone blocks split by his first blow and four Konoha people whom he hated with every fiber of his soul.

But why…

The strange feeling passed, and Sasuke saw that he was no longer holding the sword. It rolled away with a clang and now laid on the ground, inexplicably suddenly growing in size. Sasuke frowned, feeling apprehensive when he realized that his hair was no longer tickling his cheeks. And then he met Naruto's eyes.

And Sakura’s.

They both seemed to have the same grimace written on their faces. And Sasuke didn't like that.

“Sasuke...” Sakura wheezed, bringing her palm to her mouth. Naruto blinked in amazement and exclaimed heart-rendingly: “Sasuke, are you... are you a cat?!”

Sasuke frowned harder.

“This must be a kind of some really strange transformation technique…”

What technique? He didn't use any techniques.

It became unexpectedly difficult to stand on his feet. Not from weakness - Sasuke felt that he was losing his balance. He had to lean forward instinctively. It wasn’t until he rested on the ground with all fours that he looked down.

There were no shoulders and arms. Instead of them - something like appendages completely covered with black hair, which animals usually possess. Sasuke turned his palm over and spread his fingers. Five paw pads.

A cat's paw? Very strange. Was it possible that he had fallen under the influence of someone's jutsu?..

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In any case, if there was a paw, then there must be a tail, too. Sasuke turned around - yes, it was okay. The tail was in its place. Thin and smooth, like a snake. It was unusual to move, but Sasuke would figure out how it works later.

First he had to look around. The trio in front of Sasuke looked at him with such eyes, as if they had seen him for the first time. He knew two of them well - he shouldn't expect anything special from them.

The third one… Sai, he thought. Sasuke hadn't heard much about his abilities. Sai wanted to inspire him with something about friendship and fraternal bonds, and then he tried to attack him using ink snakes, and this provoked an explosion. Sasuke did not allow him to get closer. Since that last time... he'd become much more careful.

A new captain arrived, who also seemed to be vaguely familiar to him.

“What are you waiting for?! Catch him while he's like this!”

“But it could be a trap…” Sakura argued. The thought of a trap also came to Sasuke's mind.

If this was genjutsu, then its creator must be very gifted. Quite the same as Itachi was, if not stronger. Sasuke doubted that it was Itachi's work. Too ridiculous and not in his style. Then…

“Sasuke, it's nothing personal, but you're coming with us!” While he was thinking, Naruto rushed towards him, grasping for him with his arms.

Sasuke tried to dodge, but no one taught him how to move on all fours. One paw tripped over another, the steps turned out to be awkward, and it was a miracle that Sasuke stayed on his feet. Immediately Naruto's hands squeezed him from the sides, and Sasuke did not even have time to gasp as he was lifted into the air.

“That's it! And who would have thought that one day I would be able to take Sasuke in my arms,” Naruto's guffaw sounded right above Sasuke’s ears, deafeningly loud, almost causing a headache. He was still trying to pull Sasuke to him, although he desperately resisted it. “Right, little Sasuke?”

What an uncomfortable form. The paws barely obeyed, and the change in colors was still confusing. Sasuke had seen Naruto's green hair for no longer than a minute, but he already had ripples in his eyes. He began to twist with all his strength to free himself from this bearish grip and accidentally made a previously unknown movement with his paw.

Naruto immediately howled.

“Ay, Sasuke! Stop scratching me!”

Yeah. So that's how the claws came out. Not bad. He needs to try it once more.

Sasuke did it again. The sensation of nails - or rather claws - passing through the soft flesh brought him almost pleasure. Naruto screamed again, hysterically, as if he was being skinned alive.

Spirits, why couldn't he just shut up? Contrivingly, Sasuke kicked him with his hind legs and immediately landed on the ground. That was better. No more nasty fingers around, that was just disgusting.

Sasuke turned around, involuntarily spitting curses, but immediately noticed that his lips stretched out, exposing fangs, and, instead of dirty words, an indeterminate sound broke out of his mouth.

“He's... hissing!” Sakura wondered. As if this was something special. Yes, cats hiss sometimes. And these people were such worthless ignoramuses, even after they had graduated from the Academy.

Naruto, whining, touched his scratched face.

“Sakura, he scratched me!..”

And he did it rightly.

“Naruto, it's all because of you! You don't even know how to handle animals properly!”

What did they call him?

“I'll detain him,” the third guy tossed an unfolded scroll and drew in the air with a calligraphic brush.

Ink lion dogs burst out of the scroll and rushed towards Sasuke. He was not sure that he could have overcome them, especially given that he could hardly move around in this strange cat form. Perhaps it was time to get out of here.

It was simply not possible to pick up a weapon, so Sasuke just ran. As he ran, it became clear why the crater and the Konoha guys had grown so much in front of him - in fact, it was he himself who had gotten smaller, so much smaller that the broken bottom of the quarry seemed to him literally endless now.

Anyway, it became much easier to run. Sasuke felt that even without using chakra, he was able to accelerate to shinobi run in seconds with very little effort.

This revealed another problem. The new captain might have been good in a style that Sasuke hadn't had to deal with in practice yet. Although he was running as fast as he could in the direction of the shelter tunnels, this darn chunin was the first to get on his tail. Well, he was definitely a worthy deputy for the leader of team number seven. It even made Sasuke wonder what had happened to Kakashi-sensei.

The time for reflection ended when wooden pillars pierced the floor tiles on the right and left. That was why this guy seemed familiar to Sasuke. He was proficient in wood techniques, just like the First Hokage. And Sasuke had no idea how to deal with him, especially while in the form of a cat.

Wooden bars grew here and there, Sasuke almost tripped over one of them, but some strange feeling in his body seemed to allow him to foresee in advance where they would appear. The Eye of Insight? Perhaps at this moment, Sasuke could try using sharingan, too, but for now…

A vibration ran through the ground. Sasuke looked ahead and shuddered - a giant wooden wall was rumbling up right in his path. The wall was without gaps and loopholes, and the only way to get around it was to run along and jump over before it could reach the ceiling.

Avoiding the clods of earth falling from above and the clattering mouths of the painted kumainu, Sasuke moved his paws twice as fast and jumped. His jump didn’t make it as far as he expected, but Sasuke at least managed to hook on the wall with his claws. Summoning chakra to the base of his paws, he rushed along the wall vertically and almost caught up with its edge.

The saving darkness of the tunnel was already blackening right in front of him. A little more - and he would leap over the wall. However, a single moment before the jump Sasuke felt that he was falling back. Belatedly, he thought that the chakra in the front paws was not enough - people do not use their hands when running on surfaces.

This was his mistake, and Sasuke flew down.

The voices of those rednecks rang out from behind. Swooping down to the ground like a stone, Sasuke already imagined how his flattened body would lie with a broken spine under their noses.

Here, success awaited him unexpectedly - no matter what happens, cats always land on their feet. Gently springing on all fours, Sasuke found himself face to face with his pursuers. It was useless to run back - there were too many of them, and he wouldn't be able to escape. Besides, the captain with the tree style had already blocked the exit.

Four people against one cat. An extremely unusual situation. To be honest, Sasuke didn't have many options. Try to attack? He, for Fujin's sake, had paws, he wouldn’t be even able to form the right seals. There was only one last way.

Sharingan.

“Huh, you made us chase you, dattebayo!” Naruto came closer, putting his hands on his hips. Then he began to wipe the sweat from his forehead, as if all this running had exhausted him beyond measure. “I didn't know cats could run so fast!”

“Naruto!..” Sakura hissed.

Sasuke strained his eyes, calling his chakra to the retina. The strange thing was that his vision did not respond with the known sensitivity and accuracy of contours, the usual crimson veil did not cover his view, and the objects around him did not slow down so that it would be possible to predict their next movements.

Naruto blinked in confusion.

“Sakura-chan, do you know why he's staring at us so strangely?”

At the same moment, a strong slap flew to his head.

“Naruto, you fool! Have you forgotten? Sasuke possesses a sharingan!”

Damn it. Why didn't it work out? If everything had gone smoothly, these idiots would have been lying for a long time torn apart in a puddle of their own blood and guts.

But this stupid body… What could he do now? Maybe try to negotiate? Sasuke shifted his gaze to Naruto, who was painfully covering himself with his hands from Sakura's attacks.

How annoying he was. What was before, still remained the same, not much had changed. Usuratonkachi, as he was. Oh, it was worth saying out loud. How did it feel to know that even a cat thought you were a loser?

Sasuke spoke the words the way he was used to and at the end received nothing but an indistinct set of sounds. Sakura hurriedly gave up trying to bludgeon her teammate and listened carefully. Naruto shook himself and cocked his head questioningly to one side; bewilderment appeared on his face.

“It seems he wants to tell us something...” Sakura's excited whisper sounded from the side.

Sasuke repeated. However, the effect was the same - usual movements of the tongue caused some new, completely alien pronunciation, more like…

“Meow? And what is that supposed to mean?” Naruto scratched his head in confusion.

Cat's sound, that's what. Well, who would doubt it. Even in Sora-ku, they had to understand others only with the help of an interpreter. It was just a shame that Sasuke couldn't communicate in a human way right away. The one who imposed the jutsu must have tried very hard to deprive him, including the ability to speak.

“We can't waste time anymore.” The tree bender appeared again. “Our duty is to carry out the Hokage’s order”.

Hokage's order? Was there really so little to do in the village right now that even the Hokage herself sent whole squads after someone like him..?

“Exactly,” Sai nodded. “We have to catch him.”

The lion dogs around the edges meaningfully got up and growled, dropping long tongues out of their mouths. Sasuke reflexively backed away, although he actually wanted to stand firmly in place. Damn instincts. This body was just miserable.

“Sasuke-human is a hundred times easier to catch than this one!” Naruto wept. “At least he doesn't scratch and run away so fast.”

“Naruto, as if you've never caught cats on Hokage’s behalf,” Sakura snorted.

Really, Naruto. Stop losing your touch.

“Enough talking,” the captain interjected. “Wood Release: Four-Pillar Prison Technique!”

Hand seals flashed in front of his chest, and Sasuke again felt a strong vibration under him. Before he realized what was going to happen, the tile on which he was standing moved, and the same wooden walls surrounded him from four sides.

No, he wouldn't let them put him in a cage.

Sasuke was about to jump, but one of the pillars grew right under him and wrapped around his back, pinning him straight to the ground. Sasuke felt as if the air had been knocked out of him at once, and then darkness surrounded him completely.

Meeting with old friends is not always for the good.

***

It was getting dark. Two figures in black coats and straw hats were walking along the forest path. One of them, the taller and broader-shouldered one, had a sword wrapped in bandages swinging behind his back.

“It's a little cold today," the swordsman clicked his teeth irritably. “The weather is not the best for walking.”

His partner looked indifferently at the road.

“How much longer do we need to go?"

“Quite a lot. If we hurry up now and get to Otafuku before midnight, we'll catch the last ferry. After crossing, we will have to wait at the border and then follow on foot to Keishi. We will arrive in Tanzaku only by the morning of the next day.”

From under the kasa's edge, eyes glittered, pitch-dark, like pieces of ebony tourmaline.

“Too much of a hassle. How far from here is Gedo Mazo Cave?”

“It's half a day's journey. Why are you asking, Itachi-san?”

“A signal from Pain came last night. Hidan and Kakuzu have captured the Two-Tails and are now heading to the cave. In two days they will be there, and the sealing ritual will begin.”

The speech was interrupted by a hollow, tearing cough. Kisame looked at his partner concernedly.

“Are you unwell, Itachi-san?” They had both been living off pills and meager bits of sleep for the past several days, and neither of them remembered how many weeks ago they had had the latest warm meal. The ritual lasted three days, it would be necessary to stock up on strength before such a voluminous work. “We can turn back and go to the cave, too. Or hold out until Tanzaku. Customers there are willing to pay well if we run their errands.”

Itachi didn't answer.

Pulling the chakra out of the jinchuuriki on site was much easier than at a distance. In addition, Pain had already sacrificed two pawns during the capture of One-Tailed. No one had chased after them yet, and the extra thirty percent of the imitation jutsu energy would be really useful to them.

“There's no point in running errands now - Pain can call us at any moment. Customers will have to wait”.

Kisame bowed his heavy head respectfully.

“Are we going back to Gedo?”

Itachi nodded.

The rustle of wind-blown leaves drowned out the sounds of their footsteps.