27

Chapter 27Chapter Text

By the time we reached our destination, it was nearly night.

Several hours of travel across Fire Country. Thirty minutes of making sure our equipment was up to snuff. Clarifying mission parameters… Naruto giving Sasuke concerned looks when he thought no one was looking as Sasuke stared off into the middle distance.

And here I was, enjoying the day and the chance to stretch my legs before the main event…it wasn't hard. We weren't going to be dealing with anything (too) dangerous. Sasuke was going to find some closure. We were all going to get the chance to indulge our inner child. 

There were talking cats.

"This is where we part ways, nyan." Our guide, a scruffy dirt-brown ninja cat that could have passed as any alley cat at a glance if not for his kimono, climbed up on a rock. Did a circle on top of the rock. Then, he flopped over for a nap with a yawn, the castle towering over the treeline in a cinematic backdrop. "You can take it from here, I hope."

Talking cats that said nyan . They didn't just meow. No, nothing that simple.

They said nyan as a deliberate and adorable species-wide choice, and it took everything I was to avoid melting on the spot whenever it happened… Just that alone made sure that today would be a good day. And I would have to ask Granny Cat if I could keep the headband after all was said and done.

Ninshu, while useful as a communication tool, was sometimes far too overly literal to be cute. That was a shame. And now I had to find out if there were any other headband models…because now I had to know. Did dogs say 'bark'? Did birds say 'chirp'? Did fish go 'blub blub'? 

I needed to know.

"Yeah. We've got this," Sasuke replied, giving the cat a nod after a subjective eternity of me wondering what it would be like to be the animal-friendly princess in a children's movie… Messy. Very messy. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it, nyan." And with that, showing exactly what would happen if you combined your average soldier and a cat, our guide instantly fell asleep.

One second, he was talking; the next, he was well on his way to REM sleep.

Amazing.

"So. Recap." I clapped my hands together instead of admiring our guide's skills in partaking of the favorite pastime of soldiers and felines as we all ambled towards the castle, the cat not twitching in the slightest at the sound. "Options?"

"Again? Naruto groaned.

I wagged a finger at him as we stepped out of the ever-present woods and made our way onto the cat road...which was the same thing as a regular road, but made by cats, that led to the cat bridge. Also made by cats… My heart. "Haste makes waste, Naruto."

Measure twice, cut once also worked. Probably better than what I'd said, honestly…but, also, honestly, I was saving that for a knife fight, and we were all just going to have to live with that decision.

Or not. Knife fights were like that, or so I'd heard.

He groaned. Again. "Fine." But he went along with it anyway because it wasn't like he had a choice. "We're cats. The headbands make us look, sound, and smell like cats. So if we want to get in without raising the alarm, we must complete the disguise by acting like cats."

And how often did you get to do that?

"I'm not eating the food," Sasuke added with the sort of finality that only a person who had made that mistake before could have, which Naruto had to have noticed, seeing how he'd just coughed a laugh into his hand. "But if I have to act like a cat to make this work…" He grimaced. Or winced. Somewhere in between. "Sure."

Sure indeed.

"Ah, come on, Sasuke. Lighten up. Put the resting bitch face away for a second and get in the proper mindset. " Naruto dodged the negligent swipe at him on reflex, hopping back on a single foot. "You've chased enough cats to know how they work, right?"

Sasuke, with a twitch in his brow, swiped at him again.

"Hey!" Naruto hopped back again, this time with a whine. "Asshole!"

"Good job getting into character, Sasuke. Good warning display." As usual, my carefully timed input kept a minor spat from turning into a fight; Sasuke hadn't even touched him, so there was nothing to fight about. Boys. "Naruto?"

"Man…this sucks. I don't want to do this shit." Naruto crossed his arms, pouting, and showcasing his hypocrisy wonderfully. "When's dinner?"

I nodded. "Very good."

Naruto gawped at me as Sasuke made a reluctant noise of agreement while self-consciously rubbing his arms; Some scars, such as his trauma, were invisible. The ones on his arms were still pink, and getting Tora chasing missions off the roster had been done just in time.

She enjoyed her newfound freedom far too much.

"Just keep that up; most cats won't ask questions." Back to the matter at hand… Hangry cats weren't any better to be around than a hangry human. You couldn't ask for a better disguise. Onwards. "So, infiltration point?"

"We could take the bridge." Sasuke was quick to point to the most direct method of entry, physically pointing at it for good measure. "What's the point of getting these disguises if we aren't going to use them?"

Good question.

"If the gate guards are anything like ours, as long as we aren't openly hostile and satisfy minor conditions, they'll let us in. If." I wagged a finger. "But if we're caught, or they aren't satisfied, they'll memorize and spread a description of our disguises to the rest of the castle. And with more than one cat spreading the news…"

"Henge."

I raised a brow. "How confident are you that you can imitate a ninja cat without the headband?"

Sasuke paused, his brow furrowing…then he scoffed and looked away without a rebuttal.

Thought so.

"We could just sneak in. No one's seen us yet. No alarms are ringing; they don't even know we're coming." Naruto, our resident prankster and break-in artist, mused. "I don't need to be there to see all those handholds."

Naruto had been running Konoha's rooftops before graduating from the academy. And sneaking his way around Chunin was his bread and butter. If there was anyone here who knew how easy it'd be to climb a wall, or not as the case may be, it would probably be him.

This was our infiltration expert. One that came by his skills honestly and through years of practice. This was someone to listen to, and even Sasuke could recognize it as he grumpily waited for the blond to finish.

"I mean… Dodging the guards makes sense if we don't want anyone to know we're here in the first place. And it's not like we can't climb, yeah? Probably don't even need chakra to do it for this one." Naruto scratched his chin, his eyes narrowed as he looked over the castle, a giant stone cat, tail standing in for the traditional tower and all from afar. "It shouldn't be too hard."

Naruto trailed off. And we waited a while, walking as he scratched his chin, still peering at the castle and making thinking noises.

"And what'll we do if we get caught trying to break in?" Sasuke broke his silence as Naruto's finishing took its time coming. "Say sorry?"

Good question.

"As a start, yeah. It throws people off their game. It's a good distraction, and if you can make it more trouble than it's worth to deal with you while you do it, the guy that found you'll just leave." Naruto said, clearly not putting all his attention in as he went from scratching his chin to holding it. "And if that doesn't work, the water is right there if we need to jump off."

Water. Yes. There was that.

That a clan of cats had made a giant cat castle in the middle of a lake while being notoriously aquaphobic was undoubtedly a choice… Wait. 

Mirroring Naruto, I also held my chin in thought.

That may be the point. Cats or not, they were still a ninja clan. And if they were anything like us, they probably had to worry about other clans attempting to infiltrate (or worse) all the time. If that were the case, the water would be considered a plus.

"The secret lives of cats are something else. "I nodded.

Seriously. If my dreams were correct, some went beyond working-class kimono. Some even wore suits.

Hats.

That was just adorable.

"Fuck them. Little bastards keep digging up my flowers," Naruto grumbled, speaking just fast enough that I could keep my twitch down; Ino would have said and done worse if anyone had done that to her flowers, cat or not. "And that's what I've got to say. We can cross the bridge, or we can climb the wall."

From what I could see, that was about it…from this point, our plans were variations on the two. Some better. Some worse. And ready to be done at a moment's notice. "Yes."

"Those are our choices," Sasuke agreed, making this observation unanimous as we stopped, just out of sight of the gate. Just the right place to make a decision, one way or another. "And you know what?"

A polite interrupt is necessary.

"I have an approximate knowledge of many things. And noted that you didn't allow my input," I politely interrupted. "Did you two know that cats, when wet, quickly begin to lose body heat due to the composition of their fur? And that is why most cats dislike water?"

"... I didn't know that," Sasuke replied after a cautious pause, his instincts no doubt screaming at him, as they should… Not because I would do anything that deserved it, of course. But it should be screaming. Constantly. "That's - interesting. But what does that have to do with infiltrating the castle?"

Good of him to ask.

"Cats possess empathy." Good of me to answer. "Even an urge to contribute to the community and help others in need. That's normal cats. And I suspect that ninja cats aren't much different where it counts."

Naruto stopped rubbing his chin.

"If we play it up enough, how cold we are, we might even be led to the infirmary, deeper into the castle. Or to a fire so we can dry ourselves off. At the very least, it won't hurt." I hummed. "Me, anyway. It won't hurt me. I haven't gotten a cold since I was eight."

It was very convenient.

"So, those are our choices. Cross the bridge and go through the gate as normal while hoping the guards let us in. The same thing, except that we might be lucky enough that they'll let us in, in worry over our health, expediting the process. Or we can climb the wall."

Sasuke recrossed his arms while Naruto rubbed his chin again, eyes narrowed so tightly you could almost mistake them for being shut.

"We can only do the bridge crossing once, but we can climb the wall as many times as we want."

It was left unsaid that we could climb the wall as many times as we wanted, only as long as we were confident we could get past the heightened security. But it was still valid.

Sasuke grimaced, regret visible before he had even opened his mouth."... And all we have to do is get wet?"

"Preferably all of us, yes. Just one of us looks like bait. All of us having the same problem is a youthful misadventure." We were young enough that sort of explanation was still cute and believable. I'm pretty sure. "And you two can act as you normally do in this case, other than occasionally adding a 'nyan' to the end of your sentences. Taciturn and grumpy is what anyone would expect from a wet cat." I cleared my throat. "Nyan."

When it came to habits, better late than never. That the boys were now staring at me like I'd just grown a second head mattered not.

Shame was for the weak. And for people who didn't know how embarrassing these two were if you left them alone in the same room for a few minutes.

"Sure. Fuck it. Why not? I'm not picky about how we do this." Naruto spread his arms and squared his jaw. He puffed his chest and widened his stance with all the sincerity of a man willing to die on his feet…proving my prior point. "Whatever gets this done the fastest, I say."

What an excellent way of looking at it.

"... Whatever's fastest." Sasuke, once again proving my prior point as Naruto's display of 'manliness' aggravated one of his many complexes, did the same damned thing as the blond. Spread his arms. Squared his jaw. Puffed out his chest and widened his stance. He did it all. "You're lucky it's summe-"

Before either of them could change their mind, I tackled them into the lake.

Whatever's fastest, yes?