Disclaimer:
I don't own Naruto and so could you.

~Umbra

Patchwork

Chapter One – Accidental inclusion

My dreary eyes slid around the room I was sat in, taking the vibrant colours of every child's overly bright coloured / impossibly shaped hair in front of me as the Ninja headband wearing teacher droned on about something to do with will and fire and Ninja.
Though I was only half listening to what the man was saying, my ears, one ten thousand times more sensitive than the other picked up on what he was saying.

"Team seven will be formed under Kakashi Hatake, its members will be Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke..."

At this declaration there is an outburst from the sunny blonde in the front.
Every time I see him, I feel recognition prickle the corners of my mind which always causes me annoyance, however not so much so as the boy's incessant chatter that pained my sensitive ear.
Come to think of it, why was the boy complaining? Had he and the one he was articulating towards and bemoaning the thought of being on a team with not just minutes ago shared a passionate kiss together? A lover's tiff perhaps?

These thoughts managed to pass through my head before the words that would shape the rest of my life were spoken.

"... and Tesuta Kazue."

My eyes widen and my chest pounds. Why does this feel so wrong?
So infinitely bad, as if those words alone just caused the cataclysm to come early?
Worse even than the moment I realized exactly what had happened to me.

See, I wasn't always in this body, the body of an eleven year old girl whom had managed to escape dying at birth through sheer luck.
My, I hesitate to say 'original,' form was that of a male from the ever lovely country of Britain.
Even now, I remember at least my age and just how dully average I was.

Nobody Nobodyson of Nobodytown.

Even my death seemed to be nothing to marvel at, one car going double the speed limit as I was walking home with my usual stash of confectionary, happily chewing the head off of a gummy snake and bam. Death hit me like the speeding car that delivered it.

Then it had been darkness and confusion.
It's funny, dying. Feeling all of one's senses slowly go away. First goes your sight, the noises of people screaming slowly fade away as your ears fail you, your mouth goes agonizingly dry as your body tries oh so desperately to keep itself going and then slowly, oh so slowly, your touch goes and you begin to float away into the abyss as your mind and conscience slowly disintegrate into nothing.

And then I woke up.

My exact first thought was this;
'These people are bloody huge!'

Then the pain hit. A crushing pain from a deathly aura so heavy, so thick with malicious demonic intent that it manifested itself as a thick red fog that literally weighed down physically on the being.

Thunder, lightning, earthquakes, pain, screaming, anarchy and obliteration.

Truly I had died and gone to hell and the crushing ungodly presence must be that of Satan, come to torment me.

I was left on a medical bed as the shaking intensified, a burning pain throughout my body as if my blood were slowly being replaced by the fires of brimstone I had so obviously been brought to rot in.

After an eternity, or perhaps several hours, had passed the presence lifted as suddenly as it came, the cool night air feeling like ambrosia against my skin as a gentle autumn night's breeze calmed my burned skin.

I felt... Different, even more so than when I first arrived in 'Hell.'

Parts, no, patches of my skin felt numb in rather specific places.

My left hand and foot felt as if they were boxing gloves and slippers respectively.
The left side of my face felt numb too, in a constant state of pins and needles and the same could be said of my crotch and rear, I even felt the numbness reaching out as if my spine had extended and managed to cause me this strangest of feelings.

I laid there for a long time, watching the sky move in its own natural fashion, allowing my mind to ignore the pain burning my body, when a man ran in to the crumbled building.

He noticed me not until the moment he was about to step on me.
He looked down on me, his eyes a mixture of pity and disgust as they washed over my form.

I blinked and tried to speak but all that came out were infantile gurgles.
The man's eyes widen and he yells for help.

The language he speaks is so very different from the English I'm used to being around every day or any other language I would have been used to back... home.

Yet I understand him, I understand every word.

Soon he is joined by another man whom is holding a stretcher.
The man speaks words of warning to the new man, something about fur and stone that did not make much sense to me.

They push me onto the stretcher carefully and carry me off towards a temporary infirmary.

Again, I lay there as people run about, tending to the ill and dying.

I am fed from a bottle and tended to as I soil myself, unable to control my bodily functions.

Soon, I am joined by a pair of women, one tall and buxom with pure blonde hair held in pigtails with a green diamond tattooed upon her forehead, the other a raven haired late teen holding a small pot bellied swine, dressed in human clothing in her arms.

They look me over with eyes that hold only interest, as if I am a specimen in a cage and then pick me up with gloved hands.
I am placed on a weighing scale in front of a mirror and instantly realise the reason for their interest.

I look like a patchwork doll of a baby.
I am a chubby infant female, barely hours old, however over my skin are patches of bright orange fur with black stripes like that of a tiger.

The whole left side of my face is covered in this orange and black addition and my eyes have become heterochromatic, one having a yellow iris with a rounded pupil, the other being emerald green with a slit pupil, while one side of my head had a normal human ear, the other has gained a tiger's ear, round large and black striped orange with white fur lining the inside.

My left hand and foot have become paws with black velvet like padding and my hand looks like a glove and though restrictive, my thumb did seem to be opposable and therefore of use.

My... Ah... More private areas were too covered in this furry addition and indeed, continuing with this theme, I seemed to have grown a tail, twice as long as my legs and as thick as my arms, patterned with black, almost flame-like markings that ring the orange appendage up to the end where it is tipped in a inky blackness that looks like I've accidently dipped it in oil.

This extra limb of sorts wanders around behind me on its own accord, flowing and writhing, reacting only to the most extreme of my emotions.

I react to this in a manner that a person in the body of a child should be expected to and scream the house down.

Not seconds later, the raven haired teen picks me up and I am rocked in a manner that I must say seemed to be strangely therapeutic and the action ended my assault upon their ears.

From her gloved hands, I am placed back upon the medical bed from which I witness her speak with the overly buxom blonde whilst showing her a small stone carving of a spider.

Buxom Blonde looks at me then back at the spider then tells Raven Teen (as I have now dubbed them) to fetch a 'Jiraiya', whatever that is.

She then produces, from nowhere, a cage with many mice in, most likely for experiments.
For some reason, the sight of the things causes me hunger pangs and I try to express this however it comes out as a gurgle.

Buxom blonde gives me a look that tells me she has no idea how to work with babies in anything but a medical standpoint and thus has little clue what to do.
Well she has some clue as to what she wants to do, this made obvious as she takes a mouse from the cage, with a pair of tongs, and places it in my paw.

The effect is instantaneous.

What was once a living breathing animal is now a perfect stone model of itself.

Solid stone, pure rock all the way through, though I suspect that if you dissected this statue you would still find holes where there was no flesh.

Before I have a chance to process this, the stoned mouse is taken away and another is brought from the cage.
This time, the mouse is wrapped in clothe so that it can barely even breathe and is then placed into my paw.
When it is retrieved and unwrapped, the mouse is still in its organic twitchy and tasty looking state.

Wait what?

Anyhow, this experiment is repeated over and over against the different patches of fur that mar my body until we run out of mice to kill... I mean experiment with.
That's totally what I meant.

The results were that the mice that were dropped on me without protection were turned to stone and those that were wrapped in clothe or bandages, depending on what was available, all got off scot free.

It takes a while for me to drag my eyes away from my new collection of stoned mice and find I have yet more company.

The new arrival is a red clothing wearing old man with a face that is stuck in a perverted smirk as he stares without shame at Buxom Blonde's voluminous breasts.

He is quickly slapped out of this perverted state by a few sharp words from Buxom Blonde and is explained the situation by her and Raven Teen and he looks at me, his formerly perverted expression turning to one of surprisingly deep thought.

Suddenly, he starts talking.

Big complicated words that make no sense whatsoever.
Something about baby seals in bandages.
His speech is so boring that I black out.

Well, more likely that the long day had finally caught up with me and my infant body needed the rest in order to function properly but it's best not to get bogged down on details.

When I wake up, I am a mummy.
No seriously.
Every inch of me is covered in bandages, so much so that I feel like a Christmas present, though I am left holes of a sort for various bodily functions such as breathing, seeing and well no need to go into the rest.
Old Pervert stands over my... Crib, I guess and says those things adults say to babies that are supposed to be endearing and... Actually for some reason this is somewhat calming...

He picks me up rather suddenly and rocks me for no reason whatsoever then tells me that we're going to visit both his student and his master before marching out of the door.

Soon, we find ourselves atop a cliff that overlooks the village, the stern faces of four men staring down upon the mess of buildings below and I find myself wondering what kind of purpose we would be out here all alone.

Well. Not quite alone.

For stood but a hundred metres to our left is a wizened old lady with somewhat feline qualities.
Her hair is white as snow and her skin is so wrinkled that, if dyed blue, it would look like a sea during a violent storm.

Her aged eyes, full of wisdom, glance towards us and her face fills with anguish at the sight of the old pervert.

Then her sight reaches me and her expression slowly turns to one of resigned determination.

She brings her hands together in a strange mix of a hand sign and a motion almost like a prayer to some almighty God.

A strange, old voice passes her lips, forming the words that got me stuck with another passenger.
"Fuinjutsu: Seal of the great cat; release! Come, MATATABI!" She cries to the heavens and for the second time in my life, I feel a heavy demonic presence as the woman's skin begins to flake away as she sets alight in dark blue flames.
Jiraiya swears and backs off as the demonic power cranks up to its maximum in an explosion of raw, invisible power.
I do the only thing a baby can and black out.

I wait, alone in the silence for a second and for eternity before I feel the chill of a pair of eyes staring at my back.
I turn and am faced by an extremely strange sight.
Floating in an eternal void right in front of me is a giant cage, held in place by chains that spread off into eternity from the very corners of the metal.

Upon the hatch of the cage is a peculiar spiral shaped lock.

These are the least interesting spectacles of the void however as trapped in the cage is a giant flaming cat.
No that isn't a euphemism, it is literally a cat made of ethereal blue fire with black markings that make constant motion, rising off... Her?.. Body.
The giant cat has two tails that swing in a hypnotising manner as she stares down upon me with heterochromic eyes, one green, one yellow, just like mine except hers are without pupils.

I can feel pain, anguish, anger but most of all; sorrow, simply rolling off her in waves.
This causes me to tip my head, my brow furrowing in sympathy for the giant blue cat.
Her pain feels wrong, unfair, like this shouldn't be happening to her so I walk slowly and inexorably towards her.

I easily fit between the bars and continue my approach upon the giant tabby cat.
She looks down upon me apprehensible as I reach out and hug her foreleg.
Strangely, for a being made of pure fire, I feel only the normal heat one would expect from a cat.
The cat makes a noise somewhere between a hiss and indignation, pulling her paw away from me and curling up into a ball facing away from me.

I sigh and sit against her back, looking upon my form here.

I am simply a white blob in the vague form of a human female in low definition here.

I look up to the roof and allow quite words to pass my lips as this voided world starts to become hazy.
"I don't know who I am or who you are but I'm sorry if what's hurting you is my fault" I say lamely.
As the abyss fades away and I can no longer see the bars of the cage, I swear I hear a soft silky voice speaking from behind, just two simple words were whispered as I regain consciousness.

'... Thank you...'

After that, my life is somewhat of a blur, I soon learn that my given name is 'Kazue' or, in English 'Harmony' a name that seems almost fitting, and that void where I met the giant cat was actually my own mind, which makes no bloody sense.

The cat soon revealed herself (for she was a 'she') to be named Matatabi and told me of the nature of this world.
She taught me of Chakra and Jutsu, of her own history and Jinchūriki.

I found this all incredibly interesting and adopted the giant blue cat in my head as a big sister because why not?

I was regularly seen by both the old pervert and the buxom blonde but also by a third even older man.

These three taught me more normal things and acted as my avant-garde guardians however this was only once in a blue moon as from what I could tell, they were important figures of political power (and power in every other sense) here.

Thus I kept myself to myself (and Matatabi of course) until I was enlisted into the Ninja academy.
Even there I sunk into the shadows though the children attempted to call me out on my bandaged form.

I ignored their pitiful attempts or just gave them a deadpan stare until they slunk away uncomfortably.

I only remember one item of note between this point and the point I left you at which was the visit from old lady cat.

I only called her this because I had no better name to call her by.

She appeared out of the blue while I was reading a book in the library, her old, thin eyes drilling into mine.

Half creeped out, I asked her what she wanted and she asked but simply for my paw print and that of Matatabi.

At this point, my creep-o-metre was at full and I asked how it was that she knew about my paw and Matatabi and she replied that she knew where all the cats in the world were and how to find them.

With no smart comment on that, I presented her my paw and warned her not to touch it but was interrupted by the ever present Great Cat in the Mind.

"Don't do it."

"Why ever not?"

"You're only a kitten, you couldn't understand."

"Stop saying that! You know I understand everything you say."

"Then know this; giving your paw print is like willingly presenting pictures of your nude body."

"AW HELL NO!"

And thus was the answer I gave to the poor old lady, whom then fled the building as ANBU filtered in.

I have a feeling that the Pervy Cat Lady stole my print while I was asleep.

...

...

That bitch...

Basically, that was the only interesting thing that happened in those long years.

Well, to me anyway.

First, the Hyuuga got fucked over by the Hidden Cloud though I'm not exactly sure what happened and why exactly I had to have almost every ANBU in the village watching me those few days.

Then I heard something about a massacre but that didn't involve me 'cept my favourite ANBU that watched me, the one that smelled of weasels, gave me a hug then disappeared from the face of the world.

It was a fun little time.

Nice not to worry for my life for a little while.

"Why'd I have to get the Emo and the Mummy and the Sensei who's two hours late, 'ttebayo?"

"Stow it, Whiskers, we're all bored, right Emo?"

"..."

"Told you. ~Nya."

"Stop making cat noises, dattebayo!"

"Naruto. Shut up. Your voice hurts."

"Huh... He spoke."

The door opened and a man who smelled like my dog ANBU protector guy stood there looking totally bemused.

"My first impression? I hate you guys." He spoke.

I couldn't hold it back, I pounced on him with my best 'meow' as loud as my throat allowed.

"Apart from the cat. I'm keeping the cat." He said, grabbing me and carrying me under his arm like a parcel.

"See you on the roof in five minutes." He added, walking away casually with me under his arms.

(Spinning cat logo no-Jutsu – The roof.)

*Pomf*

"Wah! What are we going to do on the bench, Dog-ANBU-Sensei-San?"

"You will be introducing yourself to the other two, I shall be sitting here impassively." The Dog smelling Jounin spoke almost bemusedly.

This neatly brought the other two up to sit with me while Dog-San sat on the fence, reading porn.

"Well, introduce yourselves. Name, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams." Dog-San spoke, not looking up from his porn.

"Buh-But what about you, Sensei?" Naruto panted.

"Me? Well... I'm Kakashi, I like... Well, I don't dislike much. My hobbies are my own business and my dreams are dead." He spoke as bluntly as possible.

"You next, blondie." He didn't even glance up from his book once.

"Huh? Well I'm Uzumaki Naruto, 'ttebayo, I like ramen and playing pranks... I guess. I don't really like the three minutes it takes for ramen to warm up and being caught playing pranks. My hobbies are playing pranks and eating ramen..."

Ninja Jesus, this guy doesn't think about much but his bread and circuses, does he?

"My dream for the future is to be Hokage, dattebayo!"

And he also wants to be a military dictator. I like this guy already.

"Aha... Okay... You next." Kakashi spoke, pointing vaguely in Sasuke's direction.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke. I don't really like or dislike anything. I'd say that training, no, getting stronger is my hobby. My dream, no, ambition, is to kill a certain man and to revive my clan." The Emo spoke, surely imagining himself as some sort of cool avenger or something of the like.

"You sound like a little kid." Kakashi stated. "The cat can go last."

"That's a me. I'm Tesuta Kazue but you can call me Neko-Sama, I like cats and my steaks bloody, oh and Matatabi. I don't really like mice and stone statues. My hobby is reading and catching mice and my dream for the future... Eh... I'll get back to you on that one." I say proudly, kicking my legs under the bench.

"Really interesting..." Kakashi says in a manner that suggests the opposite of his words.

"You all done? Good, well, basically you're not Genin." He speaks bluntly.

"Not Genin? Not Genin he says... Read it and weep, Dog-Sensei!" I exclaim, intending to be as troublesome as possible, pointing towards the headband that I had tied loosely around my neck. Well I wasn't going to let it replace my lovely straw hat now was I?

"Mummy-Cat thing is right, 'ttebayo, we passed the test, we're Ninja now!"

"Yeah, no. You all have to pass... A second test. One that only a third of post academy students will pass. See you on training ground three in half an hour, don't eat anything on your way, you'll probably puke. Ja-ne." Even when the bastard disappeared into thin air, he didn't bother looking up from that damn book.

"So..." Naruto spoke awkwardly as Sasuke stalked off in silence. "You talk pretty weird, mummy guy."

"Okay, Naruto, I know you didn't get taught how to play nice, but seriously? One, I don't wear these by choice and two, I'm a girl." I say, making sure to take in his shocked expression before storming off, a secret smile on my face.

"YOU'RE A GIRL?!"

(Spinning cat logo no-Jutsu – Training ground three.)

About an hour later, when we'd all been stood there for about three quarters of it, Kakashi finally turned up, a pair of bells attached to his pocket that most certainly hadn't been there before, their shiny, jingly quality distracting me from whatever the Dog Smelling Jounin was saying.

Finally, as he picked them from his pocket and jingled them, the temptation was too much.

The bells disappeared from his hand and the three boys were left blinking as I lay on my back, playing with the bells and purring, quite without dignity.

Kakashi looked at me, his bored expression giving nothing away as he spoke with a voice that suggested all kinds of cruel sneakiness.

"Well, I guess it's up to the cat to decide who passes." He spoke with an evil glint in his eye.

"~Nya?" I purred, only just realising that everyone's eyes were on me.

"Ne... Kazue-Chaaaan~ Please could I have a bell?" Naruto pleaded.

My cute-o-metre went off the charts and exploded but, being part cat, I played it cool.

"KAWAI!" By pouncing on him in full cat mode. That's cool. That's totally cool.

"Whiskers may have a bell but only because whiskers asked nicely." I purr, petting the somehow foxy boy.

Then Sasuke ruins it all by making his presence known.

"Kazue... That other bell... I need it." Sasuke spoke, fixing me with a glare that just didn't work with his round, childish face.

"Weeeellll... You are my team mate... and I've done playing with it... I guess... If you say please, I'll let you have it." I spoke cheerily, knowing internally that the word would burn him up inside to say.

"You are one sadistic little kitten."

"That's why you love me."

"I do not deny it."

"I... you... Grrr... Puh... Please may I have that bell?" Sasuke all but whispered.

"Sure." I spoke, tossing him the bell as Naruto shook me off.

"Huh... Guess I have to pass you guys..." Kakashi spoke, his book disappearing into his pocket as he smiled the truest smile I'd seen from him.

"Wait, Kazue-Chan too, you mean?" Naruto asked.

"Of course. Let me leave you with this; those who disobey the rules are trash." He spoke bluntly. "But those who abandon their comrades and their friends... are worse than trash."

Their was a moment of serious and profound silence, in which even I let the weight of his words sink in.

"Anyway, you have tomorrow to get stocked up on any Ninja tools you think you need. Don't forget to report to the Hokage so you can have your picture taken and be registered as a Ninja of the Hidden Leaf. Ja-ne."

With that, he disappeared, thus spoiling the moment.

"Well... That was anticlimactic."

Author's note;

Okay, this idea came to me in the bathtub. Harmony's character is as old as most a good wine and I've had her around forever so don't bring her down. Seeing her in the Naruto world with the emotional baggage of not being able to touch things without killing them is pretty cool.

Yeah, I have no idea where this is going.

This most likely will not be an OC X Main character story unless you guys really badly want her with a certain character.

Coming up;

Konohamaru and his bitch ass Sensei

Death and Mist

Ice over troubled waters

And much, much more.

See y'all next time.

~Umbra Gami