“Are you making a fool out of me? No matter how you look at it, this isn’t matatabi, meow. Matatabi is…” The cat trailed off, stopping its curses about the soldier pill. It started to lick the soldier pill, its pink tongue flashing in and out. “What? What is this? Does this have matatabi in it?”
The cat slowly sunk down to lie down on the floor. It was the typical lounging behaviour shown in cats after they licked matatabi.
“So, how’s that?” Kiba grinned widely. “We can do business now, right?”
“What’s this about, Kiba?” Shino asked. “Do soldier pills have matatabi in them?”
“Nah, the soldier pill has inukekka** inside. It’s something similar to matatabi.”
The Inuzuka Clan’s special-made soldier pills were usually aimed at dogs. He’d never have thought that one of those soldier pills could have things that cats liked too. As expected, Kiba was a reliable man.
“Gnnn.”Tthe cat sounded vexed even in its soldier-pill induced daze. “To think that I’d curl down to the floor like this because of some dog-stinking jerk, meow. My pride can’t forgive this, meow.”
The cat said that, swallowed the soldier pillow in one gulp, and took off running.
“Wha- HEY! DON’T YOU GO STEALING FROM ME! YOU SHITTY CAT!”
The cat dashed off like a hare- or maybe he should say, like a cat? Either way, Kiba had run after the runaway cat at fullspeed.
“JUST YOUUU WAIT!” Kiba’s enraged shouts echoed furiously through the halls.
Shino and Akamaru looked at the sight of Kiba’s back as he chased the ninja cat, and started running too. As they chased the nimble ninja cat, they ran down countless twists and turns, corridors curving left and right like a maze.
Shino had just turned after another curve in the path when he saw Kiba up ahead of him. He had frozen in place, completely stock still. Shino panickedly came to a halt in his running so he wouldn’t run into him.
“What happened, Kiba…Did you lose sight of it?”
Kiba didn’t turn his head even at Shino’s question.
Shino peered around him and saw that there was a woman standing in front of Kiba. The ninja cat from before was being held in her arms.
She was a young woman with beautiful, chestnut brown hair, and lovely wide eyes. Her age seemed to be around the same as theirs.
Kiba and the woman had locked gazes, staring almost as if they recognised each other from somewhere.