The Cat Contract

Mission update is live.

Get comfortable. The village is watching.

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Tora was not missing.

Tora was conducting war from inside a district that smelled like polished wood, expensive tea, and servants swallowing their opinions.

The mission scroll avoided that phrasing. It called her a valued domestic companion belonging to the Fire Daimyo's wife. It requested recovery without injury, scandal, or damage to guest property. Naruto read the scroll twice, because the second reading did not make it less insulting.

Sakura had repeated the six-thousand-ryo ceiling from their last payment before they left the office; Sasuke had agreed only after she kept their three shares separate. No one had promised the cat job's unknown costs from another person's pouch.

"So," he said, "we are being hired to arrest a cat politely."

Sakura tightened her forehead protector with the focus of someone refusing to be defeated by grammar. "We are being hired to complete a high-priority D-rank for a politically important client."

Sasuke looked toward the white walls of the noble guest compound. "It escaped again."

Kakashi leaned against a stone post with his orange book open. "Forty-three times this year."

Naruto lowered the scroll. "You let us accept a mission against a repeat offender."

"I accepted it for you," Kakashi said.

Sakura's mouth flattened. "Does she bite?"

"The client or the cat?"

"The cat."

"Yes."

"And the client?"

Kakashi turned a page. "With paperwork."

The compound gates opened before Sakura could decide what to do with that. A woman in a layered kimono stood beneath the eaves with two attendants behind her and misery arranged around her like perfume. She described Tora with deep feeling, large hand gestures, and no practical detail except that the cat was gray, precious, furious, and not to be harmed under any circumstances.

Tora had last been seen near the east guest room.

Sakura reached the window first. She did not kneel dramatically. She crouched, set one hand on the sill, and studied the scratches in the lacquer. "She went out here. Not forced. The curtain caught fur after she turned, so she paused on the sill."

Naruto leaned over her shoulder and caught himself before crowding. "Up?"

"Up, then left. See the dust where the claw dragged?"

He saw dust. He saw a scrape. He would not have known which mattered. "Good catch."

Sakura glanced at him as if praise from Naruto might be a trap with whiskers. "It is evidence."

"That is usually what good catches are."

Sasuke was already at the courtyard wall. He crouched on the top stone and pointed with two fingers. "Servant prints below. Cat marks above. Someone chased her, then stopped."

One of the attendants stiffened.

Sakura noticed. Naruto noticed Sakura noticing. Sasuke did not look at either of them, which meant he had noticed too.

Kakashi smiled into his book. "I will be nearby in the way that does not help until after you needed help."

"That sounds like help with extra cruelty," Naruto said.

"Training has many names."

They began with the wall instead of the rooftops because Sakura chose the slower angle first. The first servant they questioned had been told not to speak; the second had been told not to embarrass the household; the third was old enough to decide that shinobi rank mattered less than being bitten before lunch.

"She goes where people feed her," the old man said while wiping the same tray for the sixth time. "Fish stalls, laundry roofs, sometimes the shrine wall when children bring sweets."

Naruto kept his face mild. "Children feed the daimyo's cat sweets?"

"Children feed anything that looks important."

Sakura wrote that down on the back of the mission copy. Sasuke's eyes moved to the servant's left sleeve, where gray hairs clung near the cuff.

"You carried her," Sasuke said.

The servant stopped wiping.

Sakura's pencil stopped too. "When?"

"This morning," Sasuke said. "Fur is fresh."

The old man sighed through his nose. "She fell asleep in the linen room. I tried to return her before Madam woke. She objected."

He showed them two punctures on his thumb.

Naruto winced with honest respect. "Political violence."

Sakura gave him a look that said she was considering violence of a less political kind. "Where did she run after that?"

"Kitchen roof, then fish street. She likes the stall with red cloth. The owner hates shinobi."

"Specific," Sasuke said.

"He hates everyone. Shinobi only get uniform pricing."

The detail made Naruto suspicious of how much of the world ran on complaints. He made one shadow clone in the corner of the courtyard, away from the guards. One. The clone looked at the compound, at the servants, at Kakashi pretending not to watch from the wall, and then back at Naruto.

"If I get bitten, I am charging hazard pay."

"You are me."

"That is why I know you will underpay."

Sakura inhaled slowly. "Can both of you be normal until we leave the client's property?"

The clone considered this as if it were an advanced technique. "Define normal."

"Dismiss him," Sakura said.

"Absolutely not. He is evidence with legs."

"He is a lawsuit with hair."

Sasuke dropped from the wall. "Fish street."

The clone went high, not fast. Naruto stayed low with Sakura while Sasuke crossed the roofs. That split felt less like a plan than a set of habits learning not to collide. Sakura followed the servant entries and scuffed corners. Sasuke tracked broken tiles and the weight of a cat landing badly. Naruto spoke to people who had already decided today was bad enough to include conversation.

They found the red-cloth fish stall before they found Tora.

They also found the owner.

He was a square man with forearms like cutting boards and a temper already sharpened. He saw their forehead protectors and pointed a gutting knife at the street between them.

"No shinobi on my awning."

Naruto stopped with both hands visible. "We are here about the cat."

"That cat owes me money."

Sakura's expression changed. "How much damage?"

The man pointed to a crate of ruined fish, a torn strip of red cloth, and claw marks down one wooden post. "Enough."

Naruto felt the shape of an easy answer rising: client pays, mission pays, noble pet, not our fault. Sakura reached the answer first and killed it with a look.

"We can reimburse part from the mission fee if we cause more damage," she said.

Naruto stared at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing. I am admiring the death of our lunch."

Sasuke landed on the opposite roof. "Found her."

Tora sat on the second-story gutter above the stall, gray tail wrapped around herself, yellow eyes full of lawless confidence. The clone appeared on the next roof at almost the same moment, saw the cat, and made the mistake of looking pleased.

Tora saw him.

Tora chose war.

She bolted before anyone moved. Sasuke cut across the roofline to block the left gap. Sakura snapped her blanket from her pack and shouted for the fishmonger to pull back the red cloth. Naruto sent the clone toward the alley mouth, not to grab her, only to make the open gap look occupied.

The clone arrived too early.

Tora swerved, hit a stack of empty baskets, and turned three calm seconds into a public incident.

Baskets rolled. A boy yelped. One basket struck a vegetable cart and scattered onions across the stones. Tora launched from the mess toward the stall roof. Naruto lunged, missed fur by an inch, and caught an onion with his knee hard enough to skid into the fishmonger's post.

The post held.

His pride did not.

Sakura did not waste breath yelling. She moved into the space Tora wanted, blanket low, face set, not trying to look brave. Sasuke's wire flashed between gutter and chimney as a boundary, loose enough not to cut, sharp enough to change the animal's mind. Naruto rolled to one knee, saw the crate of ruined fish, and opened the paper bag they had bought from the stall.

"Tora," he said softly, because volume had already failed. "Expensive fish. Terrible company. Your choice."

Tora froze on the gutter.

The street froze with her. Civilians watched from doorways, annoyed enough to become witnesses. Sakura's scratches from catching the blanket earlier were not bleeding yet. Sasuke held the wire without tightening. The clone stood very still with both palms raised, which was the most dignity any version of Naruto had managed all morning.

Tora climbed down two careful steps.

Then a child whispered, "Pretty kitty."

Tora leaped.

This time Sakura was ready. She let the blanket take the first impact, folded the edge under before the claws found her wrist, and turned with the momentum instead of fighting it. Sasuke dropped from the roof and pinned one corner with his sandal. Naruto caught the other side and paid for it with three claws through cloth into the side of his hand.

The bundle screamed.

Naruto looked at Sakura over the thrashing blanket. "Mission complete?"

Sakura's hair had escaped its tie. Her forearm had two red lines. Her eyes were bright with fury and focus. "Do not say that until we are paid."

"Emotionally complete?"

"Financially pending."

Sasuke glanced at the onions rolling underfoot. "Socially damaged."

"Also accurate," Naruto said.

They paid for the broken baskets and the scattered vegetables before returning the cat. Not all of it. Sakura negotiated the fishmonger down by pointing out that half his claimed losses predated Team Seven and that Tora had already ruined the fish before they arrived. Naruto watched with growing admiration and fear. Sasuke said nothing, but when the fishmonger tried to add a roof fee, one look from him removed it from the conversation.

The mission fee survived.

Barely.

The daimyo's wife received Tora with tears, silk sleeves, and the confidence of someone who would absolutely let the cat escape again. Tora stopped screaming long enough to glare at Naruto from inside the woman's arms.

Naruto gave her a respectful nod. "Enemy acknowledged."

Sakura stepped on his foot.

At the mission office, the clerk stamped completion after inspecting Tora from a distance. Kakashi appeared behind the desk without any evidence of having walked there.

"Report," he said.

Sakura straightened. "Target recovered alive. Civilian disturbance contained. Minor scratches to two genin. Partial reimbursement for collateral baskets and produce. No formal complaint."

Kakashi's eye curved. "No formal complaint is a beautiful phrase."

"It cost money," Naruto said.

"Most beautiful phrases do."

Sasuke looked at the stamped paper. "The cat knows the district better than the guards."

Kakashi closed his book one finger-width. "And?"

Sakura answered before Naruto could. "People know where she goes, but they do not all report it to the same person. Servants, stall owners, children, guards. Different pieces."

Naruto looked at her. She did not look back.

Sasuke added, "She used habit, not intelligence."

"You sound offended," Naruto said.

"It worked."

Kakashi's gaze moved between them and settled nowhere. "Then tomorrow we work on foundations."

Naruto did not like how harmless that sounded.

Payment was lighter after reimbursement, but not useless. Naruto bought rice, eggs, bandages, cheap tea, and the wire the repairman had set aside. The old man noticed the scratches through the fresh wrap.

"Cat?"

"Noble assassin."

"Different tax bracket."

"She had staff."

The repairman snorted and slid two bent practice kunai across the counter. "Bad balance. Good for learning when your grip lies."

Naruto looked at the metal, then at the old man's carefully blank face. "How much?"

"Scrap."

"Scrap keeps becoming expensive."

"Only when idiots bleed on it."

Outside, Sakura waited under the eaves with one sleeve rolled up. Sasuke stood across the lane, pretending the shop window had tactical value. Naruto held up the grocery bag before either of them could ask.

"Food, bandages, wire, and insult-based equipment."

Sakura's mouth twitched. "You paid the stall owner before buying food."

"You made the face that said I had to."

"Your conscience."

"My conscience sounds more expensive when you say it."

Sasuke's eyes shifted to the rooftops.

Naruto kept walking.

There was a watcher above the tea shop. Not ANBU. Too still in the wrong way, too careful about not being seen by ordinary eyes. Naruto did not look up. Sakura noticed his silence, then the angle of Sasuke's attention, then the empty place on the roof after the watcher slipped away.

She did not ask in the street.

That mattered.

Kakashi was waiting at the next corner, reading as if corners naturally produced jonin. "Late lunch?"

"We are poor again," Naruto said.

"Convenient. Poverty builds character."

"Mine is built enough."

"Tomorrow morning," Kakashi said, ignoring him with professional ease. "Forest. Breakfast first. Bring kunai you do not mind throwing badly."

Naruto tightened his grip on the bag. His hand hurt where Tora had clawed through the cloth. Sakura walked close enough that her shoulder almost touched his sleeve, then drifted away before it became a statement. Sasuke stayed behind them where he could watch both roofs and road.

The cat mission had not taught a lesson.

It had left scratches, witnesses, a lighter purse, a bag of food, and one more person in the village who might remember Team Seven as something other than a problem.

For a D-rank, that was a lot of trouble.

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