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XXXII

Unknown Encounters

When Deidara, Yagura and Gaara finally departed, reluctantly, from Naruto's mirror realm, Kurama squirmed out of his jinchūriki's hold and bounded across the room to nudge at an unmoving ball of black and silver fluff.

"When are you going to stop playing dead?" Kurama goaded in an attempt to incite the furball's ire.

The fluffy creature remained deathly still, turning a deaf ear to Kurama's mockery.

"They are gone now. It's just us four," Naruto informed, transporting the two fluffy animals across the room and into his arms with but a thought.

Noel belatedly expressed his discontent by pawing aside Kurama, thus shoving the miniature bijū onto the ground with a thump.

"Noe-" Naruto scolded, only for his words to be cut short by a flying fox sailing through the air towards his face.

He dodged Kurama's mad lunge for the cat within his embrace, then halted him in his tracks by stepping on the kitsune's tails.

"Enough, Kurama," Naruto sighed, picking up the bijū none too gently by the scruff of his neck and tossing him into Mitsushi's waiting arms. "You were the one who picked a fight anyway."

It was strange to see names above the head of an animal.

In the familiar scarlet that he remembered was "Cairn", with "九喇嘛" below.

There were no hiragana to clarify the pronunciation of the kanji, but Naruto knew it was read as Kurama.

After all, this was his longtime partner who had been the only constant in his life despite the shift in dimensions.

He finally returned his attention to the cat, who had moved the fluffy tail covering his face aside at some point, and lifted Noel by his forelegs.

It was then that his jaw went slack.

"Noel" now graced the region above the black-tabby's head, with a pair of kanji below it and no lifespan.

Even after he bestowed a name, Naruto was certain that his pet did not have scarlet lettering hovering over his head back in the Shinigami World.

A nagging thought that he inwardly knew to be the truth arose.

In his mistaken miscalling of Noel's name, it seemed he had granted the cat a new name in the kanji that happened to lurk in his subconscious.

"之衛", pronounced as Noe.

Naruto laughed, somewhat hysterically.

Noe mewled softly, ears flattened and eyes downcast in guilt.

Kurama glared at the cat.

"Hey, Noel. You have one too, don't you? A Death Note. Not only that, but you probably also have a human form now. What's it like to become a superior shinigami?" Naruto questioned piercingly, dropping Noe unceremoniously.

With the natural predatory grace of all felines, the Maine Coon -- or the being who still resembled a kitty -- landed on his four feet and looked up at the blond sadly with watery eyes.

Naruto felt his heart waver at the abused front of the now-shinigami.

"It isn't that I didn't want to tell you, Master," Noe said earnestly, tail lowered submissively. "I did not have a chance to attempt to transform yet either. I was not trying to hide it from you."

The cat spoke English perfectly on his first attempt, causing Kurama to grind his teeth jealously.

Naruto had alienated Noe because of his shock at realising that his dear nonhuman friend might have changed irrevocably without his notice.