[Mad Tiger] Chapter 60

Once, in a past life, I watched a movie about a boy wizard. I can’t even remember his name now—I just recall he was a funny little kid with glasses. But there was one scene I remember: he’d stick his face into this big, smoking bowl and it was like he was hanging around inside someone else’s memories. Sure, he couldn’t ask them anything, but he could see and hear everything going on.

That was exactly how I felt when the darkness parted, and I tumbled onto a wooden floor, landing beneath a low table. Around me—legs. Lots of them. By scent alone, I recognized Sasuke, Itachi, and two other people, their scents similar enough to mark them as family. I wriggled out from under the table and looked around. Morning light streamed in through the windows, and most importantly, the smell in the air was heavenly.

Omurice.

My mouth watered. Sure, milk was fine and all, but this? This smelled real. Hot, fluffy, delicious.

“Tora-san?” Sasuke’s voice snapped me out of my daze, and I froze. He could see me?

“Sasuke, did you bring home another stray?” Itachi’s voice followed, calm and unreadable.

“Hey! Tora-san is not a stray!” Sasuke huffed. “He’s a ninja cat! And he’s not mine—he lives with Naruto and Kushina-san. He probably just came to visit me today!”

I plopped down on my butt, thinking hard. This definitely never happened in real life, because I never got around to dropping by the Uchiha district. But… in theory… I wondered what date this was supposed to be?

Itachi watched me for a moment, then casually placed a bite-sized piece of his omelet at the edge of the table. I hesitated for half a second before stepping forward and eating it. It tasted real.

“This cat acts like he’s doing me a favor,” Itachi said with a smirk, but when I gave him a demanding look, he put down another chunk of omelet for me.

“Tora-san is super smart and really strong,” Sasuke bragged, grinning at me like we were in on some secret.

“Kwa-aa-a!”—and then, from out of nowhere, a fat, yellow frog with black spots dropped onto the table. It blinked once. And then it sucked in the whole scene.

I don’t even know how to describe it properly—it was like it flicked out its tongue and everything around me vanished in one enormous slurp.

I barely had time to react before the world collapsed in on itself like paper being crumpled. I ‘jumped off’ just in time—just barely escaping being flattened—as the entire memory folded inward and disappeared.

What. The actual. Hell.

Was that what had erased Itachi’s memories? Sasuke looked about eleven years old back there.

I ran around the darkness, trying to find the frog, or another memory to fall into.

And suddenly—Boom. New scene.

Now I was in Naruto’s house. I nearly stumbled as a wave of emotions hit me. Memories. My memories. There was Naruto’s bed, with my pillow. His desk, his scrolls, his ink. Sasuke and Naruto sat with their backs to me, whispering and laughing as they cleaned their kunai. I remembered this night.

“Good evening, Hokage-sama. I came to pick up my brother. Mom told me to come a little early tonight...”

I froze. I knew that voice.

“Oh, Itachi, sweetheart, outside of the Hokage’s office, you can just call me Kushina. I am your godmother, after all,” came the warm reply.

The fur on my neck bristled. I bolted downstairs and jumped straight into Kushina’s arms.

“Tora-san?” she laughed, scratching behind my ears. “What’s gotten into you, little guy? You’re usually not this clingy.”

“Oh, hey there, tiger cub,” Itachi greeted from the couch. The exact couch I always sprawled out on whenever guests visited.

I forced myself to calm down. Right. Not real. Not real memories. Just… possible memories. Fabrications.

Still, I couldn’t help it. I turned, hopped onto Itachi’s lap, and curled up.

“He seems to like you,” Kushina teased.

“I’ve always liked cats,” Itachi murmured, stroking my fur carefully.

Footsteps on the stairs. Sasuke and Naruto entered the room.

“Hey, Nii-san! You’re here for me?” Sasuke beamed.

“Yeah…” Itachi began—

And then, that damn frog reappeared.

I lunged for it. But it leapt first—snapping out its absurdly long tongue, latching onto the couch—

And sucked the memory away.

I barely escaped the collapse. Again.

Oh, you fat little bastard. It’s on!

After that, there were memories of yet another family dinner. A few times, I saw the Academy setting, with Itachi watching over his brother from the same tree I liked to climb. Sometimes he talked to me. Sometimes he was wearing an ANBU mask and pretended we didn’t know each other, but I’d still walk up and rub against his legs.

From what I could tell, these reconstructed memories kept getting attacked by the frog-devourer—which, by then, was as big as I was—and everything was heading toward that fateful day when everything changed.

I was right. It all culminated with me standing the middle of the Forest of Death, bathed in red moonlight, surrounded by ominous half-darkness. 

There were multiple figures with Sharingan eyes, presumably powering some kind of technique. I saw them carry Naruto out of that building where I’d tried to free Kushina. Itachi rushed to help him, but his father blocked his path. 

The image was pretty fuzzy—probably Nekomata-sama had pieced it together from what I’d heard rather than what I’d actually witnessed. Someone grabbed Itachi, and then that masked guy with one eye, the one who used to help Minato, appeared in front of him.

“You’ll forget everything,” the masked man said quietly.

And right on cue, that devouring frog fell from above again. By now it was bigger than me. It looked like it had grown each time it ate a memory.

Acting on impulse, I clamped down on its tongue just as it shot out to slurp up that memory. The frog let out an ear-splitting, totally un-frog like shriek and leapt… with me still hanging on to its tongue. 

I bit down hard, and the two of us ended up back in the darkness. Then it was like being on the wildest carnival ride ever. I was rattled around like I’d stuck myself in a washing machine or signed up to be an astronaut. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the memory we’d left behind freeze in midair, shrinking and dissolving into the surrounding black void.

Then I got slammed hard against whatever passed for a floor in that place, and the frog yanked its gross, slimy tongue out of my grip. We stared each other down, and that was when I noticed that this thing looked an awful lot like Naruto’s froggy coin purse—fat and bulging as if full of coins. I’d assumed those lumps were warts or something, but now I could see them clearly: stuffed inside its mouth, still glistening, were all those memories, like crumpled bits of paper.

There’s no creature stronger than a cat, I bet…

“All right, cough it up!” I yelled, trying to psych myself up, and pounced on the devourer, claws and chakra at the ready.

Its back was slick, covered in some gross slime, and my claws barely caught hold of its skin. The first time, I slid right off. Then the frog started shrieking, darting around, and jumping away from me. On the next tries, I formed chakra claws—and maybe my hunter’s instinct was kicking in. My vision was red with fury. I bit and scratched, tearing into that stupid frog that seemed to have wiped out all of Itachi’s memories, leaving only darkness.

I didn’t hesitate for even a second when I tore open its nasty white belly with my claws. The devourer thrashed its legs, and chunks of vivid memories flew out of its mangled body. It was disgusting, but at the same time, I felt a rush of strength and a fierce pride that I’d beaten it. 

I’ve killed animals before—birds, mice—usually just on instinct, never stopping to question if I should. But this frog… it was different. I wanted to annihilate it. And maybe I felt a bit weird about it because I know Kushina-san and Naruto eventually form summoning contracts with frogs. But this thing was probably just some twisted manifestation of a jutsu. Either way, its shredded body vanished, easing my moral jitters somewhat.

Now freed bits of memories just hovered there, glowing, like they were trying to rise up the way but couldn’t manage it.

"Damn it!" I tried to straighten them out, fix them, but it was no use—my paws just weren’t built for this. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" I was about ready to start howling in frustration.

"Who’s there?" A quiet voice suddenly cut through the darkness. Definitely Itachi.

"Hey!" I called out. "Get over here! Help me!" Maybe since this was his memory, he’d be able to fix it properly or something? Damn these mind tricks.

"Who’s meowing?" I heard footsteps in the dark.

Oh, fantastic. Even inside the twisted halls of mental reality, Itachi still couldn’t understand me. Just great. I swore under my breath.

"Who’s there?" And suddenly, Itachi was right in front of me. "A cat? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know, just playing with some paper," I huffed and kicked one of the crumpled scraps his way. It rolled to his feet, and he picked it up, smoothing it out.

"A photograph," Itachi murmured, staring at the unfolded paper. "Who crumpled this? And why?" He laid it out on his knee, and I circled around to get a better look.

It was a frozen moment in time: we were all sitting in the Uzumaki living room. I was curled up in Itachi’s lap, Kushina sat beside him, Sasuke and Naruto stood behind us, both grinning. The photo suddenly glowed, lifted into the air, and dissolved into light. Itachi, however, now fully focused, started smoothing out more crumpled memories, watching as each one lit up and vanished into the air.

"I remember you, little cat," Itachi suddenly smiled. "Your name is Tora-san."

He reached out, touching the tip of my nose. My whiskers twitched, and suddenly—

A tickling sensation hit me so hard, I wanted to sneeze—

And then I woke up.

I was curled up on Itachi’s chest, rising and falling with his slow breathing. His fingers were tangled in my fur, and as I stirred, his body jolted slightly. His eyes fluttered open, and for a second, he looked so young—like a kid who had just woken up from a long nap. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, blinking blearily.

"Tora-san…?" He whispered my name like a question, running his fingers through my fur. I purred in response.

"Itachi? How do you feel?" A shadow suddenly blocked out the greenish sky. Shisui.

"Shisui-nii-san?" Itachi stared at him in shock. "I just… I just had the strangest dream… It felt so real…" He sat up, lifting me off his chest, but the second he looked down at himself, at the familiar black-and-red Akatsuki cloak, his face turned deathly pale. "This… This isn’t a dream, is it?" His head snapped up. "Sasuke! Is Sasuke alive? Tell me!" His voice cracked, and he grabbed Shisui’s arm in a panic.

I glanced at Nekomata-sama, who had once again shrunk down to his smaller, yellow-eyed cat form, his dark ears slightly drooping.

"Sasuke is alive," Shisui reassured, nodding toward the two figures standing at a distance—Naruto, watching quietly, and Sasuke, his expression unreadable, eyes locked onto Itachi like a starving man staring at food. I guessed they’d left Sakura in a genjutsu for now. Hopefully, she’d never find out about her decapitation.

"…Nii-san?" Sasuke took a small, hesitant step forward. And in just that single word, I heard everything—pain, hope, uncertainty.

"Come here, my foolish little brother," Itachi’s voice trembled as he stood up.

"…Nii-san!" Sasuke closed the distance in an instant, stopping just short of touching him, hesitating. Then Itachi reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace.

"What a touching family reunion," Nekomata-sama purred, dramatically washing his face as if wiping away an invisible tear. "You did well, little one. His original memories couldn’t be restored, unfortunately—too much time has passed, and they were erased far too thoroughly. And let’s be honest, people don’t want to notice inconsistencies when they’re drowning in grief. But this… this was something else. 

“That sneaky little creature only revealed itself when things were already in motion. By the time I noticed it, it was too late to warn you. It was a hidden memory-devouring seal that activated the moment we tried to unlock Itachi’s past. But you handled it well, and you didn’t hesitate. If that frog had kept feeding, it would have eventually devoured every last good memory he had, leaving nothing but an emotionless husk…"

I shuddered at the thought. Then, out of nowhere, a cold drop of water landed right on my nose.

And then, just like that, the skies opened up.

Great. Just great. I hated the rainy season. With a sharp shake, I darted for cover, Nekomata-sama following close behind.

But the Uchiha brothers didn’t move.

They stood there, still holding onto each other as the rain poured down in sheets, soaking their clothes and dripping down their faces.

Real shinobi don’t cry… 

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TN: Forgot to add this in the last chapter but “There’s no creature stronger than a cat, I bet…” is from a Russian poem “Mouse and Rat” by Krylov Ivan Andreevich (orig. Крылов Иван Андреевич, “Мышь и Крыса”)

P.S. Damn, that was trippy...