48 48: Flight Of The 'Bakeneko'

Author note:

Welcome to Volume 3.1! Yes, I know it says 'Volume004' on the chapter list; the writing tool didn't have any other options...

So this is technically still Volume 3, we're just on a new story arc now.

Enjoy the new arc, and have a nice day!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She ran.

It was all Mimi could do at this point. She just wanted to get away. Away from it all.

She could still hear the shouting and shrieking of the villagers in the back of her mind, even though she'd left them far behind at this point. The words that they'd first said to her during her childhood, which now stung more than ever as her rain-soaked cloak glued itself to her skin underneath.

- - - - -

They swore up and down that she was a monster from the moment she was born. A human child born with the eyes, ears and tail of a cat? Impossible, they shouted. She must be an evil, wicked yokai, they claimed. And for the first five years of her life, she never knew why or how she was born that way.

The only two reasons the villagers hadn't thrown her away in the wilderness or killed her when she was an infant were because they didn't want to risk the wrath of a yokai left to grow in the wild, nor did they want to be responsible for killing the child of the village chief's wife. Her mother was the only one who cared about her, swearing to the people of the village that she had never betrayed her husband and slept with any kind of cat-like monster.

Miraculously, the woman had managed to convince the villagers and her husband, the chief, to leave Mimi alone and just let the girl live her life. And for the next few years, that somewhat worked. Mimi was able to live a relatively normal life, by rural Land of Rain village standards.

The villagers still hated her of course, and many of them would spit at her or threaten to throw things if she got close to them or especially their children, so she never made any friends and became somewhat of a recluse, despite her mother's efforts.

She became so shy that even after her System awoke on the day of her fifth birthday, revealing her true identity as Reincarnator Number #11, she barely ever spoke even in the group chat. She'd wished Reincarnator #6 a happy birthday once, and even then her nervous stuttering translated through the System and she almost couldn't bring herself to post another message ever again after that embarrassment.

Her situation wasn't helped by the fact that she had very little knowledge of the Naruto world. When she read the Global Chat messages, she always felt like everyone else knew what was going on at all times. She, by comparison, had only ever read the first couple of volumes of the manga in her spare time, and was only just getting into the series when she died and was Reincarnated by the Great System. So she didn't have the benefit of prior knowledge either, and was too nervous to ask anyone for help.

A few years went by as she made what use she could out of her System and Wishes. Her first wish, of course, had been to be born as a catgirl. She just thought it would be cute, and she hadn't known what the superstitious off-grid villagers would think of her cat-like features.

Her second wish was to just generally be lucky. She liked the idea of being a cute, lucky cat. It just made thematic sense.

The Great System had warned her that if she wanted the effect to always be active for her entire life, then its power would be reduced to an almost unnoticeable level. She didn't mind. She would rather have somewhat-good luck for all her life than have a few years of amazing luck and then no more after that.

And she figured that wish would combo well with a Merchant System, the same kind that Kaowru had also chosen. She planned to use her luck to become a successful merchant, and then she could use the rewards from completing Quests to protect herself from danger.

A reasonably good plan. If only she wasn't a catgirl. No matter how hard she tried to start up some kind of business, even with her mother's help, nobody would buy anything from her. 

Then, just a few days before her tenth birthday her mother fell extremely ill. During that time, she just barely managed to complete one Quest by helping to buy medicine for her mother while her father was busy with his work as the chief.

But no number of Quest rewards would help. Despite receiving medicine, her mother eventually passed after only a week. That was the worst thing that ever happened to Mimi.

And then, it was immediately replaced by an even worse thing.

Of course, the villagers had blamed her for her mother's death. Why wouldn't they? She was a perfect scapegoat for their anger and grief.

But even when they blamed her, they at least honored her mother's last wish to not drive the girl away.

That changed when news of the existence of Reincarnators reached the remote village.

It was the final straw for the villagers. News of children who received memories of a past life? That sounded like spiritual possession to them. And who did they know who was almost certainly a child whose soul had CLEARLY been replaced by the spirit of an evil yokai cat, from their perspective? 

That's right. Mimi.

- - - - -

And that was that. Pitchforks and torches came for her in the night. With her cat-like senses, she'd heard them coming and smelled the smoke from their torches long before they'd approached her home, waking her up before they could reach her.

In mere moments, she'd made use of what little enhanced speed and reflexes she had as a catgirl to quietly rush through her house, snatching up as much loose change, spare clothes, and preserved food as she could before throwing it all into a waterproof bag, throwing a cloak over her shoulders and pulling up the hood with her ears pressed flat against her head, before fleeing into the distance. Abandoning the village that had been her home for an entire decade without ever even being able to say goodbye to her mother's grave.

And that was how she ended up where she was now.

Wandering through the woods, soaked in rain through her poor-quality cloak.

She had a map, and was vaguely following its directions, but she had no compass and could only use the sun's position in the sky to determine where the cardinal directions were. A task made harder by the fact that she was in the Land of Rain, so the sun was only barely visible in the sky above her. 

It'd been a day since she'd left the village and she was only now getting her bearings about what she was going to do with herself now that she was homeless. 

For Mimi, the only logical thing to do - with her non-existent meta knowledge - was to find another Reincarnator and ask them to help her. So that was her plan. Head east into the Land of Fire, somehow dodge the war that she'd heard had kicked off again recently, and join up with Yosuke and Rumi's Reincarnated Union.

All easier said than done, given that she hadn't even told them to expect her, due to her awkwardness, as well as the aforementioned lack of a compass.

She checked her wallet for what little change she had. 340 Ryo was what she'd managed to scrounge up from the shelves and drawers around the ground floor of the chief's house back in the village. She didn't personally know the exchange rate to any currencies from her old life, but if she had, she would've known that 340 Ryo was about 23 American Dollars, as a single Ryo was worth exactly 10 Japanese Yen.

Enough to feed herself for a couple of days, but not if she also wanted a place to sleep at night.

She knew she was coming close to the towns and villages along the edge of the Land of Rain's border, as the clouds above her were becoming slightly thinner the further east she travelled. Still, crossing through the Land of Fire was going to be a serious challenge with only 340 Ryo to her name.

'Maybe... Maybe I should just stop at the next town and ask Rumi to come and get me? I don't know if I can cross all that distance without any more money... N-No, I... I shouldn't cause trouble for anyone... I'll just keep going to them.' She thought to herself as she dragged her feet towards the next settlement on her map.

"[Girl. Now is not the time to lament about the struggles of others. Your own current struggles are far greater. Contact them. It can only do you good.]" Her System, Nekomata, spoke to her, causing her whole body to jolt from the sudden voice.

'Neko! Don't suddenly startle me like that!' Mimi replied to the voice in her head as she placed a hand on her chest to calm her elevated heart rate.

"[Sometimes a shy girl like you needs a good startling to knock some sense into you. You are travelling alone, with no clue what you're doing, no sense of how dangerous the world around you could be, and almost no money. Think straight, girl! You need help from another in order to survive.]" Nekomata insisted.

'I...'

"[You have not felt the sensation of starvation yet during either of your lives. I do not recommend learning it now. And if you cannot receive help quickly enough, you almost certainly will begin to starve the moment you run out of money. Or worse, the moment someone decides that they won't serve you in the first place just because of your feline attributes. Then the money won't even matter, because you will have nowhere to spend it.]"

'H-Hey! We don't know if other towns and villages will be the same as my previous one. The ones we're heading to could be nice-'

"[Oh, and you're certain of that?]"

'Uh...'

"[Didn't think so. Stop making excuses, Mimi. If it'll make you more motivated, why don't we make a bet? If the residents of this next settlement notice your ears or tail and they decide to abuse you for it, then the moment you leave the place you MUST contact the others immediately. If they do not decry you for your features, or you manage to keep them hidden the whole time, then I'll shut up about it for a whole week.]" Nekomata offered.

Mimi sighed and kept walking. She knew Nekomata was right, but years of mental conditioning couldn't be undone after just a single conversation. She would consider agreeing to Nekomata's bet later.

For now, she could see the town she was aiming for edging over the horizon ahead of her. Her stomach growled and she lamented the fact that she'd forgotten to bring any cooking utensils with her. Most of her preserved food needed to be cooked in some way to be eaten, and as for the few snacks that didn't need cooking, she'd eaten them all on the previous day of travel. 

Now it was time to see how well she could keep her identity a secret as she approached the town gate.

- - -

It had started out so well, you know? The shinobi guards at the town gate didn't even bat an eye at her unusually-shaped pupils, and if they somehow noticed her flattened ears under her hood or her tail wrapped around her waist, they didn't care enough to tell anyone.

She got a good ways around the place before she even had any problems. This town was considerably larger than her old village, and there were a wealth of stores to visit. Unfortunately, with her meagre funds she had to pick out the cheapest places.

She'd managed to get a lot more out of the first store she visited than she had anticipated. It was some sort of general store clearly aimed at travellers, if the pair of walking sticks on the sign were any indication. The old man in there looked tired and slightly out-of-sorts. Mimi wondered if he was just coming down from a hangover or something. 

Either way, the man was more than happy to part with a whole bag of preserved biscuits for only 88 Ryo, which could last her at least two days if she could just get over the bland taste and hard texture.

She had an instinctive feeling that she could have haggled the price even lower, and possibly even completed a Quest from her system for doing so, but she didn't want to bother the poor old man, so she just paid full price and left.

After leaving that store and considering her remaining money, she headed to a more modern store situated on the main street of the town. This one even had electricity, and looked almost like a grocery store from her old world. Here, it was clearly more clean and corporate than the old man's shop had been, so there would be absolutely no chance to haggle here either. She bought two large bottles of water for exactly 40 Ryo total, leaving her with 212 Ryo left to get herself a meal before leaving town.

This was the point where everything went wrong.

Leaving the grocery store onto the main street Mimi suddenly caught the scent of something delicious in the air. Following it down the road, Mimi found herself waiting in line at a food cart selling seasoned meat skewers for a mere 15 Ryo each.

After reaching the front of the line and buying no less than five of these magnificent skewers for herself, she quickly stuffed one in her mouth.

It was only after she'd finished scarfing down the whole skewer that she'd realised everyone was staring at her. It hardly took a moment to figure out why:

In the daze of eating the delicious skewer her ears had perked up and her tail and unraveled itself from around her waist and was now swaying happily in the air behind her.

It was like the whole street stood still for a moment as nobody knew how to react to her appearance. She began to hear whispering from the crowd, spoken at a distance she never could've heard it from if her ears were still human.

"Hey... didn't Kibori Village send out a warning about a girl with cat-like features?"

"Didn't they say it was a dangerous yokai? I dunno, she doesn't look much like a yokai... but those ears and that tail are definitely real..."

Mimi was shocked. How could her old village have sent news about her to this town before she even got here? 

Nekomata's voice chimed in her head.

"[They have working electricity in this world. If they're already building modern-style general stores, they probably have telegrams or even radios to communicate long distances. If your village had one of those, they could have called ahead to all of the surrounding settlements.]"

Mimi silently thanked Nekomata for the information as she tried to figure out what to do. She was still holding the other four skewers, which she could shove into her Inventory if she was stealthy about it. No need to damn herself further by performing magic tricks right before their eyes.

Then, as she searched for a way to slip through the crowd, she heard another whisper from behind her.

"Didn't they say there was a bounty on her for poisoning her own mother to death? She could be dangerous..."

"If there's a bounty we should just grab her and hand her over to the shinobi at the gate, right? Even if she is dangerous, it'll be their problem, not ours..."

That was her cue to get moving. The crowd began to rile up as she quickly slipped the skewers under her cloak, depositing them into her System's Inventory. 

Then, she broke into a sprint and shot through a gap in the crowd. People shouted behind her, and several men and women tried to dive to grab her, but her cat-like appearance wasn't for show. She was considerably quicker on her feet than even many Ninja Academy students were, despite knowing nothing about chakra.

Her body was also much lighter than a typical human's, allowing her to get up to speed and change directions much faster as well.

In just moments, she'd left the crowd behind her and ducked into an alleyway. 

'What do I do, what do I do...'

"[Well, looks like I won the bet. Now, you need to get out of town, but there are guards at the gates. We don't have much time to plan our escape, even with our mental communication speed, so I'll just list the key things you must remember and let you come up with something on your own.

One, the guards are at the gates, but it sounded like they were ONLY at the gates and nowhere else, if what that person in the crowd said implied what I think it did.

Two, there is a crowd chasing you, and they'll be spreading the news that you're in the city. That means hiding here is out of the question.

Three, the guards did not stop you at the gate. That means that they likely have not heard the rumors about you yet. Perhaps they think the townsfolk are crazy? If they do, that might mean that the guards will take some serious persuading to leave their posts.

That is all I could figure out. Some of it may be incorrect, but those were the most likely circumstances I could think of. Good luck, Mimi.]"

Mimi thanked her System again and continued running through the alleyways. Eventually, she would probably run into some more people trying to catch her, and she was too stressed to focus on hiding her ears and tail again, so even if she ran into someone who hadn't found out about her yet, they would figure it out as soon as they saw her.

Going to the gates was a no-go. The guards might not have cared enough about the rumors to have noticed that her eyes were different, but they would notice her running away with her ears and tail fully exposed for sure. She had no clue how fast or strong shinobi could get, but from what she'd read of the Zabuza arc in the manga, she didn't want to find out.

She decided to go with something simple, but with a high chance of success. There really was no need to make an overly complicated plan to escape from a remote, poorly defended town in the middle of nowhere.

Looking up into the sky above her, Mimi thanked the heavens that with her being so close to the Land of Fire's border, the sky had mostly cleared up compared to the Land of Rain's typical weather.

She had entered the town from its western gate, and looking at the position of the sun, she deduced that she was currently heading towards the eastern one. Turning left at the next corner she could hear shouting not far behind her. It seemed like her time spent in the alleyways had allowed some people to catch up to her.

But now that she was heading for the north-western quarter of the city she would be as far away from any gates as possible. She heard more shouting behind her and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Ducking to the side, she watched as an arrow shot past her previous position.

She hadn't considered that the townsfolk would use ranged weaponry. But it didn't matter, as she was moments away from reaching her goal. Turning another corner to throw off the archer's aim, she paused for a moment to calculate the distance to her target: the town's outer wall.

Breaking into a sprint she launched herself forwards before bending her knees and springing high into the air. The nails on the tips of her fingers sharpened into short claws that she scratched into the top edge of the stone wall, allowing her to grip on and pull herself up. Another couple of arrows were shot towards her, but both shots missed and clattered off the side of the wall next to her.

Hauling herself over the top, she gracefully dropped to the ground outside the town and made her escape. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she certainly didn't feel like putting herself through that kind of stress again any time soon.

Her journey eastwards continued, but unbeknownst to her...

She was being followed.

- - -

A few minutes earlier, when Mimi was running for her life:

*Sigh*

'Onii-chan is so sad now... he couldn't believe we didn't find any cute girls while passing through the Land of Fire for multiple months. I wonder what he meant by 'stupid, useless luck wish'?' Pakura thought to herself as she walked back to the inn that she and Mishima were staying at in this town. 

They'd travelled through the edge of the Land of Fire and ran into dozens of Konoha patrols, which Pakura and Mishima easily defeated with their Scorch Release. Now, they'd made it into the Land of Rain proper to search for this 'Konan' girl that Mishima was looking for.

But then, as Pakura was carrying a bag of groceries back to the inn while Mishima sulked- *ahem...* slept at the inn, she heard a commotion as a young girl around the same age as Pakura herself suddenly ran past, being chased by a whole crowd of people.

Pakura's eyes went wide as she caught sight of the girl's features.

'That girl has cat ears! And a tail! Wow! I've never seen anything like that before!' She noted gleefully.

Then she paused and thought back to her brother's words.

'He was looking for cute girls, right? Well, that girl was super cute! I need to tell him right away! Maybe he'll even praise me!' Pakura thought to herself as she picked up the pace and ran the rest of the way to the inn.

Rushing through the inn's front door and up the stairs to her and Mishima's room, she burst through the door gasping from the exertion. She would have simply used the Body Flicker Jutsu to make the run much easier, but Mishima told her that they had to hide their shinobi powers while in a big town like this one.

"Onii-chan!"

"Huh? Pakura-chan? What's got you in such a rush?"

"I found a super cute girl!"

Mishima blinked, then smiled.

"Well, tell me about her. Did she have blue hair?"

Pakura shook her head.

"No, it wasn't the girl we're looking for, but she was totally unique. She had cat ears, bright green eyes, and even a tail! She was being chased by a whole crowd of people and last I saw her she was heading towards the north-west wall."

"A CATGIRL?!?! Pakura-chan, you're amazing! Let's go find her right now!"

Mishima grabbed the groceries from Pakura and vanished them into his Inventory, before Body flickering away to the direction where Pakura had seen the girl.

"Onii-chan, what about being stealthy?! Oh whatever... Wait for me!"

With that, the two set off after Mishima's new target.