The life of a Tom Kat

Tom Kat was a little orange tabby born to Joe and Karin and Kat. He had 5 older sisters who were all snowball white, like their mom. He, however, got his coloring from his dad.

He moved in with his aunt in New York city when he was a kid after HATING the military family life.

He studied taijutsu and got pretty good at it, and even found a master living in the city to help him and another boy, Eric, in ninjutsu. But no matter how good he got, it never impressed his father. As far as Joe Kat was concerned, martial arts was a hollywood invention not good for anything but nerdy exercise. So despite the good relationship they'd had when Tom was little, his father considered him an abandoner for not embracing the American military way of life, and instead siding with some foreign fighting style. However his father's disappointment did not stop him, even though it hurt a little. OK, it hurt a lot.

As he grew, he also discovered the wonders of weed and became a regular in partaking. It wasn't long into those teenage years, however, that his aunt died. He ended up having to go live with his family who were currently on a military base in Japan. By then, he had a whole secret weed selling business with some older friends who had given him the drugs in the first place. They noticed that he had a bit of a green thumb when it came to caring for the plants and hired him on as their gardener. To keep the business going, he learned to summon the whole garden so that the business could flourish even if the team was a world apart.

After making friends in a near by village and learning even better taijutsu and ninjutsu skills (also Japanese), when the time came for the family to move Tom stayed behind to join the village's genin teams.

He was put on team 3 with Nakunai, a Jashinest girl, and Blake, a humanoid creature known as an emakai.

Together they had many whacky adventures, and a few serious ones. Orochimaru captured the boys to try and get close to Naku who was his ex slave girl. He was able to do this because they were not used to him like she was and therefore were able to be lured. He killed Blake by slashing his throat, and Tom was even killed by being put into a burlap sack and thrown into a river like a litter of unwanted kittens. He carved the words "Naku's Fault" into their flesh to get his point across, but Naku, together with her lover Hidan, were able to use their Jashinisem to bring them both back to life, forever bearing the scars of that day.

After nearly dying, Tom worked even harder to get stronger and made great progress over the years. However, after even cold and hard Blake found a mate, Tom was left being the only person in the group still single. Naku tried to take him to clubs to fix this but he wasn't into it...

Naku was getting very frustrated until a short time later when they got a new mission... escort the Duchess of the Raven Clan from her village to their village. The Raven Clan was a large family of black cats who kept their genes pure to preserve their fur color within the family. However, when Tom first laid eyes on Kitten it was an instant attraction, from both sides I might add. And the two flirted like crazy and got to know each other over the journey home where he even gave her a tour of the village.. a tour that concluded in his apartment...

It wasn't long after that, however, that she came to him in tears... her fiance (chosen by the family of course, not her) had finally met up with her (he was the reason the clan wanted her escorted over) and the wedding plans were already in place. Tom was devastated... he finally met a wonderful women and she was marrying somebody else... the next morning he reported to the Kage's office for work where everyone could tell there was a huge cloud over his head. He explained to them what was going on and Cynthia became outraged... arranged marriages were illegal in the village. She left her office to personally handle the situation.. Tom and the others came with and they got to the church just in time. Cynthia shouted at everyone at the ceremony and Kitten ran from the alter and into Tom's arms. After that, there was no more arranged marriages... the Raven Clan would have to allow other fur colors into the gene pool.

As outraged as the Raven elders were, Tom and Kitten couldn't be happier. Until, that is, she caught him puffing the magic dragon... to which she was very angry and scared but happy when he promised that he would quit... which he did.. well, cut down on- ...kept more secret. The money coming in from selling the pot was too good, and so was the high.

As time went by, Tom tried a few times to propose to Kitten, but every time he did she fainted... he tried big and public to small and private... every time she would en up on the floor. She had a deep rooted fear of the word "marriage" since, from an early age, had been a horrifying thought to her. Of course, she always thought she was going to be marrying someone 10 years older who she had never met before.. but now that that was no longer her reality, the fears remained and Tom figured she just needed more time. However, it didn't end up happening until something else happened... Kitten found out she was going to have a baby.

Tom freaked out, as a man in his 20s he was NOT ready for that. He thought of everything from adoption to abortion. But once the little orange tabby bundle of joy came all of his fears disappeared. He fell madly in love with his daughter the moment he laid eyes on her, and was able to propose to her mother quietly in her ear while she was on the bed, nursing their baby for the first time. She said yes, of course, and Tom gave her a classic, public proposal later on to which she did not end up fainting. To make a long story short, they wed soon after that.

Thanks in part to his secret drug money, Tom was able to afford a nice two story cottage for his family just outside the main part of town. Kitten was worried they wouldn't be able to afford it, but Tom convinced her that he had a lot of savings and family money to dip into until his ninja salary went up when he would apply for a position in the ANBU black ops forces. Well, she decided to go with it since this was a much better place for Kana to grow up than a little apartment.

Even with the arranged married thing, Kitten loved her family and never wanted to stop being involved with them. Every year the clan would get together in one village to perform CATS the musical. This year, they had a new member of the family with quiet the bright fur compared to the rest... so naturally, he was enrolled as Rum Tum Tugger. The only problem with that was.. Tom hated singing and dancing... and especially hated being on stage. However, he loved Kitten and wanted relations with his in-laws to be good, so he agreed to do it anyway.

The choreography ended up being a no brainier, him being a freaking ninja and all. The singing and the acting however.. were a different story. They ended up wrapping his microphone with a seal that had the words "auto tune no jutsu" inscribed on them. As silly as that sounds, it worked and he was able to sing well (as long as you were listening to him through the speaker). The acting took a bit more practice but the night of the show ended up being the clan's biggest success, mostly thanks to the rumors of the new, quite not raven haired, cat in the family. Kitten played her part of Grazabella and blew the theater away with her voice. Tom had heard her sing before and it brought chills to his spine and sometimes even a tear to his eye... to see her pouring her whole passion and soul into something like that and the result being so incredible... what on earth was a girl like that doing with him? Seriously.

After those shenanigans were over, life got to be pretty normal again. Kana deicded she loved singing and fighting, so Tom began some kiddie taijutsu training with her and kitten gave her vocal and piano lessons. However, two different storms were brewing all at once behind the scenes. Tom's family was coming to Japan again and wanted to see their newest family members, whom they hadn't seen since the wedding. That was stressful enough for Tom, but unbeknownst to him was an even bigger problem... Orochimaru wanted a new slave girl. He knew he couldn't touch Naku's daughter, but he still wanted to get revenge on her for escaping all those years ago. So if he couldn't hurt her family directly, he would hurt other people she cared about...

Blake had had a son, so that was useless... but there was another teammate Naku loved like family.. and Orochimaru had never had a neko before.. the ears were kinda sexy. He looked at a picture of the happy little kitty girl and smirked and evil smirk. This would be his new slave.

Everything was going pretty much how you would expect at the Kat family reunion. All 5 sisters came with their families and military career success stories or husband's career story and make Tom look even more like a "trader" siding with the "Japs" even though his father hadn't even lived through that war. Oh but "your grandfather did!" was the argument. Tom just rolled his eyes and hoped his 100% Japanese wife wasn't too offended. As that whackyness was going on, the failure to earn his father's pride was still a bit of a painful spot for him. He always went with what he believed in but apparently that wasn't enough for dear ol' dad who believed his son was chasing fantasy dreams. Yes, even being in Massashi Kishimoto's Japan type ninja world he was not convinced that it was a serious thing.

However, that would all change when Tom was walking his family back to the American base. He stopped... a cold feeling ran through him. Something was NOT right... his first thoughts were of Kitten And Kana alone at home, and he turned and started running as fast as he could. Joe, worried about what had just gotten into his son, struggled to follow behind as they made it back to the cottage. Tom slowed down and as he saw the front door was wide open. He walked up to it and poked his head in, looking around keenly for signs of trouble. His stomach fell when he found the living room chair tipped over and scratch marks on the railing. "Kitten!? Kana!?" He called into the house but no one answered. That silence came with the worse thing Tom had ever experienced... it was an indescribable, sickening fear that resided deep within his being. He went into the house and began to frantically search. He found Kitten on their bedroom floor with a pool of blood under her head. He began to panic but his father remained calm. Joe dialed Cynthia's office and explained the situation. A few minuets later Blake and Naku arrived with some medical ninja. Tom had placed Kitten on the bed and searched the house for Kana but she was nowhere in sight...

The medical ninja explained that Kitten would be fine, she was just hit very hard and would need some stitches. It wasn't long before she came-to and was able to tell them who had done this... Orochimaru, who else? Nakunai's blood began to boil. She new EXACTLY what he planned to do with the little kitty girl. He would raise her from a young age to be his slave... as he had come so close to doing with Naku herself...

As forest dwelling creature, Blake had the sights and smells committed to memory and could sniff out anyone unusual instantly.. and Orochimaru left behind quite the stink.

He led the way through the brush and before long was able to catch up to the snake man. Kana was out cold, being carried like a foot ball, in his arm. Tom felt instantly outraged and jumped from the bushes. "Tom, wait!!!" his teammates and father tried to say, but he was already gone. "What the FUCK are you ding with Kana?" He said angrily. Orochimaru turned to him with a sly look. "I was hoping you'd catch up to me." he said "I wanted to see the pathetic look on your face when I leave you dying on the ground as I carry your daughter away to be with me forever." Tom attacked head on, but Orochimaru dodged every move and even got a hit in himself, with the use of only one arm and everything. Naku and Blake sprung into action but Naku stopped herself and Blake when she saw the hand signs that Tom was making. He wasn't about to use THAT jutsu, was he? He was indeed. He shot out hand signs rapid fire then slammed his hands down on the ground. A huge circular area began to glow in complicated patterns. "SUMMONING, THE SEVEN TIGER SEAL!" Tom yelled at the top of his lungs and 7, giant ass tigers sprung from the ground to form a large half circle around the battle area. They had huge, heavy chains around their necks and ankles that were all linked together and going into the ground. The beasts roared and snarled and Tom began more rapid hand signs. Orochimaru looked around in surprise... he hadn't expected this at all.

"HEVEN'S NUMBER OF THE TIGERS, NO JUTSU!" Once he shouted that, the stripes on the snarling tigers began to stretch and wind their way down the links of the chairs. Tom held his arms out straight to the side, his golden eyes fixated on Orochimaru. "Naku, when I move to strike, catch Kana." He said. "Right." Naku said, she knew that this was his battle.

The stripes winded down the two main links of the chains in the ground that Tom stood between. They shot through the grass and up onto his body. The moment that happened a serge of power flew from the cat's body and kept going. The firey chakra of 7 giant tiger beasts trying to enter that size body all at once meant a lot of it was shot off into the air. Tom's screaming soon turned into a deep tiger's roar as his body transformed. He looked mostly the same, but he had stripes in the pattern of a tiger.. the backs of his ears were black with white dots. He had the teeth and claws of a tiger and the speed and strength of a ninja tiger, as oppose to a ninja house cat.

The surging, burning power blew off his shirt. Once the linking was complete, the stripes on the ground detached themselves from him and he was now linked to the tigers with the stripes that were still on his skin. Fast as lightening, he went for Orochimaru and Naku acted on the que. He struck Orochimaru square in the gut and the little kitten went flying. However, Naku was there to catch her and she quickly got the little girl out of harm's way.

The battle between Tom Kat and Orochimaru was short, but epic. In a Dragon Ball Z like mannor, Tom had powered up and even commanded his tigers to eat Orochimaru's giant snake. Tom's jutsu was just about to break when Kabuto came in and rescued the maimed Orochimaru. Once that happened, the tigers disappeared and Tom's stripes were gone, leaving 3rd degree burns and a lot of burned off fur in their wake. Tom fell to his knees and then on his face. The chakra of those tigers quickly blasted away his own and having your energy punched of you like that, well.. it would kill a normal person instantly, but Tom was a professional ninja.

A few hours later, he awoke to find himself in a hospital bed. He quickly sat up but his body quivered and gave out on him. He remembered the battle but didn't remember rescuing Kana so he began to panic. "Daddy! Daddy it's OK!! The snake is gone!" Kana was standing on a chair by his bedside. It was the happiest of reunions and Kitten sat near by as well. "She's been doing nothing but talking about everything she saw." Kitten said. Tom had thought Kana was out cold... but soon learned that she had woken up after Naku had rescued her and seen the rest of the battle. At first he was worried, not wanting to appear scary to his daughter, but she had other ideas. "No daddy, it was amazing!! Tigers are my favorite animals ya know? And now my daddy's one of them!!! Which means I'M  tiger too!!!" She said excitedly. Tom smiled and gave her a big hug, "dat's my girl."

Joe came up to the bedside as well.. having witnessed the whole thing he felt ashamed. Not of his son, but of himself. He had been prejudice and closed minded, had never listened to what Tom had to say. And now that he had seen that this ninja stuff was not only real, but much more powerful than any technology the American military could come up with... he wanted to make things right. "Son... that was, amazing today.." He started, Tom looked up at him curiously. "I mean, I didn't know stuff like that was possible and, you do well for your family here.." He looked to the ground, a military general was not used to saying sorry. But he maned up and put a hand on his son's shoulder and a gave a thumbs up. "I proud of you, son." He smiled. Tom couldn't believe what he was hearing. His dad was actually proud of something outside the military?? Or America?? his eyes weld up a little and he wiped it away. "Wow, tanks dad!" After all these years, he had finally gotten his old man's approval.

Thanks to the magic of ninja doctors, the 3rd degree burns wouldn't adversely affect Tom's outer appearance. His fur grew back normal and his skin was smooth and without scaring. Cynthia heard about what had happened and was very impressed, Tom barely had a chance to rest up after being in the hospital before she gave him the ANBU black ops position. He was ecstatic, that had been his dream job for a while now.

***

Tom Kat now lived in a quiet cottage just outside town. He worked as an ANBU black ops agent for his village, a job well coveted among lots of powerful ninja. He had a wife who adored him, and frankly, was too good for him. He adored her back and