Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Arg. Sorry to anybody who saw this the first time I posted it, but it was an accident. Mostly. Let's just leave it at, "I shouldn't have posted it right then, but it's been a really long time since I put anything on FF.N and I was caught up in the moment." In any case, I decided, mostly on a whim, to write this amusing little idea down and see where it went. I've gotten viciously hooked on LH through the manga (Borders hates me; I come in, read the mangas, then leave without buying anything) so I decide to go ahead and jot down some fic action. This first bit is moderately short, but the following sections will, I think, be substantially longer. I love anyone who gives me a nice review, and I shall send everybody a Thank You email if you leave me your address. Enjoy!
Two Down and Three to the Left
A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV
After a long and heated argument, the sun and the moon finally came to an agreement and traded places, the former now rising into the sky from the east, the latter sinking dejectedly into the west. They had the exact same discussion every twelve hours, and one of them always left unhappy. Unbeknownst to the celestial bodies, they were fated to continue on this path for many millions of years, until the sun would finally become so fed up with the routine that it would simply extinguish itself, rendering the moon the victor. For the time being, however, the feud went on without so much as a hitch. The sun, pleased with its success, mustered its courage.
On Earth, the morning came.
*****
Three shafts of warm, energizing light slid tentatively through the blinds on Keitaro Urashima's window, settling quickly on his face. They waited patiently for some reaction.
He delivered none.
One of the shafts, the least tolerant of the three, decided that it wasn't in the mood to cater to some stupid, lazy ronin's sleeping habits and game him a solid whack on the head. The other two giggled furiously and dashed away, followed by their smug sibling.
The unfortunate Keitaro sat up abruptly, head singing with pain, snapped from his slumber by what, as far as he could tell, could have been caused by only one thing.
"Naru!" He vaulted from his bed, tripped over a tangle of blankets, fell facedown, rolled a few feet, then righted himself. If anyone had been watching, they would have applauded his gymnastic prowess. No one was, so no one did. "Naru! Where are you?"
Keitaro dashed down the steps and screeched around the corner leading into the living room of Hinata House. He had fully expected to find Naru somewhere in this general area, possibly merged with a pool of shadows (it was a widely known fact that demons could do this), but she was nowhere in sight. Grumbling, he abandoned the living room and made his way to the kitchen. There was almost always someone in there, and one of the girls would surely have some information on Naru's whereabouts.
The kitchen was empty.
This was beginning to get unnerving. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was about nine o'clock, and there was no way that every resident of Hinata House could still be asleep. Shinobu, at the very least, should have been in the kitchen making tea, and Keitaro had never known Motoko to sleep past seven. He reversed course and went back up the stairway and stopped outside Shinobu's door; he reasoned that, even if she had slept in, she'd be less likely to smite him than one of the other girls.
"Shinobu?" he called hesitantly. "Are you awake?"
There was no reply.
"Shinobu!"
Not a sound. The entire house was silent, he suddenly realized.
"Something here is very out of order," he muttered. Deciding to abandon subtlety, Keitaro raised his voice and said, "Shinobu, I'm gonna open the door. I'm saying this to eliminate any possible illusions that I'm doing something perverted or improper, so if you're getting dressed, please let me know right now."
As he had expected, there was no response whatsoever.
"If anyone hits me, I'm suing," Keitaro muttered, and yanked the door open. Delivering a huge shock, the room was...empty. He frowned. "Okay…so maybe everyone went out to breakfast or something. It is Saturday, after all. Or maybe they're taking a bath? No, they'd be making some kind of noise...this stinks. I hate Twilight Zone stuff."
Keitaro pulled the door shut and turned to leave, thinking that perhaps he was the victim of some cruel, female-orchestrated prank. He had taken two steps down the hallway when he froze. He remained perfectly still, not even breathing for fear of drowning out the faint sound he thought he had heard.
"Sempai...!"
"Now I know I didn't imagine that," he thought, and pulled Shinobu's door open a second time. The room was still quite vacant. "Shinobu? Call me again if you hear me!"
"In here, sempai!" Keitaro looked frantically around the room, trying to figure out where the tiny voice could be coming from.
"In where, Shinobu? I don't see..."
"The closet! Open the closet!" Reflecting that he had been having very nice dreams the night before, and that they had been much more fun than his current situation, Keitaro strode over to the closet and flung it open. Shinobu was not inside. Or...was she?
Keitaro knelt down so his face was level with the closet's bottom shelf. He swallowed uncertainly and felt his heartbeat double.
"Sh—shinobu? Is that—you?" On the shelf, sitting atop of a pile of spare blankets, was a brown kitten with one white paw. It looked far more miserable than any kitten Keitaro could remember seeing, and it nodded unhappily at his question.
"It's me, sempai. Thank you for opening the door." There was no denying that the kitten had spoken; the mouth had moved perfectly in time with the words, and unless Jim Henson was tucked under the pile of blankets, there was no way it could have been a puppet.
"Uh..." Keitaro searched his brain for any kind of programming on what to do when girls spontaneously changed into felines, and could find absolutely nothing. "...No problem. I think. Are you really Shinobu?" The kitten nodded.
"Yes. I don't know...what happened..." The kitten, seeming to have used up the last of its composure, sank down on the blankets and began to cry. Keitaro's overwhelmed brain decided to process this new imagery later, and he did the only thing that felt natural when faced with a distraught fuzzy creature: he picked it up.
Shinobu's sobs caught in her throat and she looked up at Keitaro with wide eyes. He forced a smile, wondering what the hell was going on, and cradled her against his chest.
"Don't cry, Shinobu. I don't really know what's happened to you, but I'll do my best to help." He forced a smile, hoping inwardly that it didn't look too terrifying. Judging from the whimper the tiny kitten issued, coupled with the way she was now pushing herself tightly into the crook of his elbow, he dubbed it a success.
"I just don't know what to do, sempai," she mewed. "I've never been a cat before...what if I'm not allowed to stay at Hinata House? I don't know where else I could go, and..." She trailed off, trembling slightly.
"Hey, it's okay, Shinobu!" Keitaro asserted. "We'll figure this out, I promise. Just...um, just start by telling me why you've suddenly become a cat, all right?"
"I really don't know," she murmured, sniffling. "I went to bed like normal, and...and then..."
"What?" Keitaro inquired. Adding to the list of Things to Think About Later was the bizarre realization that he was actually having a coherent conversation with a cat.
"I think there was someone in the house last night. I remember hearing the front door open, and thinking it was Kitsune."
"That's right," Keitaro recalled, nodding. "She went out to dinner with Seta. Well...he had dinner, I guess. She probably just got hammered. What did you do?"
"I went downstairs," Shinobu continued. "I wanted to see if she had a good time, but...I don't think it was her."
"I'm at the beginning of a detective novel, and my informant is a kitten," thought Keitaro. "Interesting." Out loud, he asked, "Who was it?"
"I don't know. The next thing I remember, I was in the closet you were saying that you weren't doing anything perverted."
"Well at least somebody heard that," he muttered. Both of them fell silent.
"Sempai?" She sounded like she was going to cry again. He looked down, and big, brown kitten-eyes blinked at him.
"I...I don't have to eat mice now, do I?"
Magician's Note: I know, that was short and totally unhelpful. But you have to admit, Shinobu makes a pretty cute kitten, don't she? I have a pretty good idea of where this is going, and my nonsensical title will be explained within the next few chapters. I'm feeling pretty confident, so I think I should have a healthy amount of this thing finished soon. Where will it end? Hell if I know, but it should be a fun ride!