The Huntress

Author's Note: This is a lion neko story with Hinata x Sasuke as the main pairing. There will also be other kinds of hybrids involved. Hybrids are animals with human features or humans with animal features, depending on how you want to look at it. If any of that bothers you, you might want to turn back now. For those of you still here, I hope you enjoy this story and reviews are always appreciated.

Neko Forms: The first form is that of your everyday lion or lioness. The second form is mostly humanoid in appearance. The main difference is that they have lion ears, tail, and retractable claws.

Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit off of any of my stories.

Chapter 1

Beautiful, graceful, and deadly. Those were the thoughts flowing through Sasuke Uchiha's mind as he watched the huntress from a safe distance. She was in her animal form and leading some pride females on a hunt. Today's prey was zebra.

Sasuke was a lion neko. That mean that he was a human with lion features or a lion that could turn into a mostly humanoid creature, depending on how you looked at it. His own kind couldn't always agree on what the proper interpretation was. To Sasuke, it mattered little how one looked at it. It didn't change what you were.

"I GOT IT!" The huntress cries out as she clamps her jaws around the zebra's nose and tries to grapple it to the ground.

That was always a dangerous move. Zebras had powerful legs and those hooves could crush your skull, if they got a good kick in. Though it was always smart to suffocate your prey, when you got the chance.

"Good job, Hinata!" Another lioness says as she races behind the slightly larger one and jumps on the zebra's back.

Hinata. So that was the huntress's name. Sasuke liked the way it rolled off his tongue. It didn't particularly matter though. She had a pride. A large one with several adult males.

Eventually, the lionesses manage to wrestle the zebra to the ground. That meant that it was over for the poor beast. Once your prey was on the ground, it was highly unlikely that it was going to get back up again. This was especially so when you had multiple lionesses tackling it.

"Sister! Look!" Sasuke hears the smaller lioness cry out.

Sasuke looks to see what caught the female's attention and his eyes widen. It was a pack of hyenas. There must have been at least thirty of them. Maybe forty.

Lions and hyenas whether they were hybrids or normal animals, reviled each other. They were natural enemies because they were both predators and pack animals. The main advantage that hyenas had over lions was their numbers. It was rare for a lion pride to become as large as a hyena pack, but lions were much bigger. Battles between the two species could turn deadly.

"Damn it." Sasuke growls under his breath.

The Hyugas were a large pride with a dozen adult females. Sasuke only counted ten of them at the moment though. He assumed the other two had stayed behind to watch the cubs, along with the pride males.

That meant they were outnumbered. Badly. The smartest option for them would be to retreat, but it was likely the hyenas would pursue them. Sasuke frowns as he realizes there was a very real possibility that some of the lionesses could be killed.

"RUN!" Hinata shouts at the other lionesses as they take off.

As predicted, the hyenas chased after them. Sasuke roars and springs into action. Lionesses were faster, but lions were stronger and a lot bigger. The sheer size of them and power of their roar was sometimes enough to make hyenas think twice, if there were enough of them.

Sasuke was a massive lion by anyone's standards, but he was especially large for his age. The fact that he had sharp fangs and a raven black fur coat probably also had something to do with the very shocked looked on the hyenas faces. Black lions were rare. He doubted they had seen one like him before. He roars again, baring his mighty jaws at them as he mock charges at the hyenas.

"Go! I can buy you some time!" Sasuke snaps at the lionesses.

"We'll come back for you! We'll get help!" Hinata cries out.

They look at him uncertainly for a second. If they left him behind, they would likely be leaving him behind to die. He was a magnificent lion, but no single lion would be able to defeat a pack by themselves. The best that the raven furred lion could hope for was to escape after they did.

"I can handle it!" Sasuke assures them and the lionesses all take off running.

"Oh really? You look pretty tough, are you really stupid enough to think that you can take all of us?" One of the hyenas sneers at him.

Sasuke smirks. He really hated hyenas, but on the plus side they tended to have one-track minds. While they were harassing the lionesses, they didn't realize they were now in baboon territory.

Baboons might have a comical connotation to humans, but anyone that lived in the wild knew the truth. They could be quite dangerous, especially when you got a band of them. Sasuke's roar had alerted them to the fact something was going on and they came to investigate.

"Yo, Sasuke. Are these fleabags bugging ya?" Suigetsu asks.

He was a baboon hybrid. While Sasuke and Suigetsu had an interesting relationship to say the least, it was generally an advantageous one. Sasuke thought the baboon leader was annoying, but he could be useful. He was particularly useful in times like these.

"Yes, they are. They were harassing a bunch of women." Sasuke says.

Suigetsu shakes his head. While he certain possessed an unconventional moral compass to say the least, the one thing that he wouldn't tolerate was someone picking on women. Well except for Karin and even then he was the only one allowed to harass her.

"Well that's not very nice of them. Ladies, do you have anything you would like to say about this?" Suigetsu asks the females in his troop.

Apparently, the women did have something to say about it. Suigetsu's group was large, numbering over a hundred. About half of them were female and rather irritated now. That was bad news for hyenas as the ladies sprung into action and charged towards their foes.

The men blink. After a minute, they decide to join in on the "fun" and finish chasing off the hyenas. It was quite the spectacle.

"Never a dull moment with you, is there?" The violet eyed hybrid inquires.

"Of course not. I wouldn't want you to get bored. I'm going to clear out though. The Hyuga Pride will likely be back with reinforcements soon." Sasuke says.

Suigetsu nods sympathetically. Lion prides were considerably less complicated than a troop of baboons, but they had their own hierarchy. Put quite simply, pride males wouldn't be too happy to see another adult male who wasn't a Hyuga. They'd likely assume Sasuke was trying take over their pride.

"Yeah. Alright. You better head off. This was fun though. I imagine everyone's going to be feeling pretty badass after chasing them off." Suigetsu says and Sasuke heads off.

Meanwhile with the Hyuga Pride, the lionesses make their way back to the rest of their groups. Hiashi blinks when he saw the panicked expression on their faces. Something must have gone horribly wrong.

"What happened? Did someone get killed during the hunt? Is someone injured?" The proud lion asks.

"A pack of hyenas stumbled upon us. There were so many of them! None of us were killed or injured. A lone male saved us. Hurry! We have to go back! He's all alone! They'll kill him!" Hinata pleads.

Hiashi was torn. He didn't like the thought of endangering his pride needlessly, but honor dictated that he couldn't just leave the rogue to his undoubtedly horrific fate. He had for whatever reason, come to the defense of his family. The nomad didn't have to do that.

"Very well. I want four lionesses to stay behind and hide the cubs in the safe places we have agreed upon. Do not leave there until we return. If the hyenas scatter, I want you all to be in safe places." Hiashi bellows as the rest of the pride darts off to offer assistance to the mysterious male.

When they got there, all the Hyugas looked around in confusion. The hyenas were gone, though their scent was still fresh. Hiashi could smell that a male lion had clearly been there, but he was also gone. Perhaps even more baffling was the fact that he could smell that a troop of baboons had been all over the place and very recently.

"Do you think he escaped when the baboons showed up?" Hanabi asks her father.

"I think that's the most likely scenario. I don't see a body and surprisingly, I don't scent any blood. I think that he made it. Come. Let's go home before they come back." The Hyuga Patriarch states.

Hinata nods and the lionesses follow him back. Soon enough they are reunited with those that had stayed behind to watch the cubs and of course the cubs. Everyone engages in some reassuring fluffing.

"Father, there was something strange about that nomad. He had black fur. Black like the night sky." Hanabi says.

Hinata had noticed that as well. At the time, she hadn't commented on it though. Everyone's lives had been at stake. Fur color had seemed a rather trivial thing in comparison. Now that everyone was safe though, well she was just as curious as her sister.

"Black lions are extremely rare, but they aren't unheard of. Finding one is like finding a needle in a haystack though. The Uchiha Pride is famous for producing a lot of them though. They live many days travel from us, but I suspect he may have been an Uchiha cub. He was likely driven out when he reached adulthood, as most young adult males are." Hiashi reasons.

The Hyuga woman nods in understanding and shifts back to her humanoid form. She had long midnight blue hair, lavender eyes, creamy skin, a tawny colored tail, and matching ears. In her human form, she wore a impala furred dress that came to her knees.

When males came of age, they were generally driven out from their prides. That or they took them over. This seemed cruel but there was a reason for it. It kept the prides from becoming too closely related. There was also another pleasant benefit. If the young males were able to survive and take over prides of their own, it spread out the original pride's genes.

"I think we should try to find him. He did risk his life for a pride that he had no ties to. Black lions are also as you said rare. It would be quite the status symbol. Did he look healthy, Hinata?" Neji asks.

Neji was her cousin. He was also one of their adult pride males. In addition, he was one of the few males that actually liked hunting. Most just preferred to let the females handle it, if given the option in exchange for offering protection to the pride.

"Very healthy. He was big! The man looked well fed for a nomad." Hinata replies.

Hiashi frowns. It would be the honorable thing to offer him a place in the pride. Still nomads could be unpredictable. The man was crazy enough to chase after a pack of hyenas on his own. He might just be suicidal enough to try to take over their pride, despite the fact they already had several males.

"I think we shall see how things unfold. For now, let us all get some rest for the night." Hiashi says and the pride of lions do exactly that.

Elsewhere Sasuke finds a cave to stay in for the night. After checking to make sure that it wasn't already occupied, he trots inside. This would do nicely. The rains should be starting soon and it would be rather unpleasant to get drenched in them.

He knew that Itachi would find him soon enough. He had left scent markers for him. Even if he didn't, the elder Uchiha would have anyway. Itachi was an excellent tracker.

"He better hurry though, if he doesn't want to get drenched." He murmurs to himself.

Itachi was his elder brother. Despite the fact that he was six seasons older, the two of them had formed a coalition. His big brother had carved out a range that was close enough to the Uchiha Pride that when Sasuke was finally disowned, his baby brother had been able to find him.

Sasuke knew that had been something of a gamble for Itachi to spend that many seasons so close to his old pride. It was a wonder that Fugaku hadn't thought that Itachi wasn't hoping to challenge him later on. Maybe he had and Mikoto had intervened. Their mother had always been a kind lioness.

"I heard that. Foolish little brother, do you not think that I can't feel the rains coming on?" Itachi asks in amusement as he prowls into the cave, while dragging an antelope in his jaws.

Itachi was still in his animal form, like Sasuke. While Sasuke had raven black fur, Itachi had a dark smoky gray fur that was almost black. His eyes were crimson red and Sasuke's were ruby red. The Uchiha Pride was famous for producing black lions with red eyes for good reason.

"Itachi!" Sasuke greets him happily by fluffing him.

Itachi smiles and fluffs his brother back. The younger Uchiha had only been thrown out of the Uchiha Pride last year. He was barely mature, but already so massive.

The elder lion was almost certain that by the time Sasuke finished growing, his animal form would likely outweigh him by at least ten pounds. Itachi's animal form had always been more built for speed, stealth, and agility than anything else. Sasuke was fast, but he was also going to be a very large lion. (Well he already was, but he was going to get even bigger soon.)

"Sasuke, why did I smell a suspiciously high number of baboon, hyena, and lion scents all in one area on my way back from the hunt?" The smoky furred lion inquires.

"Oh that. Well it's a very long story." Sasuke says sheepishly as he cleans his paw and tries to look as innocent as possible.

"Well I have nothing but time. I think we should eat this in our human form. The meat will last us longer that way." Itachi says as he shifts back and drags a wooden "door" over the entrance of the cave.

Damn. Sasuke wasn't going to get out of this that easily, it seemed. His brother wasn't going to be too happy about what he had done. The younger Uchiha realized that he was damn lucky to be alive at this point.

"There were some lioness nekos out hunting. A pack of hyenas stumbled on them. I chased them off while they escaped. Suigetsu heard my roar and came with reinforcements. It was funny to watch the ugly mutts get their tail handed to them by a troop of baboons." Sasuke says.

"That was very gallant of you, but very foolish. You could have been killed." Itachi scolds him.

"I know, but I couldn't just leave them. They are lion nekos like us. Standing idly by and watching members of our own kind die is wrong." Sasuke argues.

Itachi begins the process of preserving the meat from his kill and storing it. He was grateful for this task. It gave him an excuse not to respond to Sasuke right away. He needed time to collect his thoughts.

On one hand, Sasuke had done the right thing. He had probably saved the lives of several lionesses. On the other hand, he had done a very stupid thing. They could have all died together.

"Don't do anything that reckless again. I want to call you my foolish little brother, not my dead little brother." Itachi says as he pokes Sasuke on the forehead.

"OWE! You always do that?! Why do you do that?!" Sasuke demands.

"Because it annoys you and it shows that I care. Oh and because I can. Now help me salt this meat and prepare dinner." Itachi instructs him.

Sasuke grumbles about annoying older brothers and proceeds to help Itachi prepare dinner. When given the choice, he preferred his food cooked. He liked eating in his human form because food generally tasted better and it lasted longer. Itachi was the same way.

"So was it the Hyuga Pride?" Itachi asks.

"Yes, it was. They were hunting on the border of their territory." Sasuke explains and Itachi nods.

Somehow he doubted that his brother's actions were completely motivated out of heroism. He was aware that Sasuke had a soft spot for one of the lionesses in the Hyuga Pride. It would have been sweet, if it wasn't so risky.

The Hyugas were a large pride, with several adult males. Itachi wasn't entirely certain that he and Sasuke could defeat them. It was a coin toss and that was before considering that there were a few cubs who were nearly grown. They might join the fray as well.

"I'm thinking we shall have stew tonight. What do you think?" Itachi asks.

"That sounds like a fine idea to me." Sasuke agrees as they continue preparing their meal.

Itachi hadn't told Sasuke that he knew Sasuke liked the pretty female. He didn't want to embarrass him and the younger lion would only deny it anyway. He was hopeful that they would eventually find a smaller pride that they could take over with ease and maybe his foolish little brother would find another lioness that would catch his eye.

Oh the elder Uchiha liked her well enough. He had never actually met the lioness before. Still Sasuke had excellent taste.

She was young, a good huntress, and easy on the eyes. It was just she belonged to a very established pride that would be difficult to take over. Other than that, she'd probably be a purrfect Mate for his foolish little brother.

"Food's done." Sasuke says with a smile.

Unbeknownst to any of the lion nekos at the moment, Jirayia and Kakashi had just arrived with their research team. Honestly, the silver haired man thought that his mentor might be losing control of his marbles in his old age. He couldn't actually believe that they were going to find a race of cat people, could he?

"Jirayia, how did you manage to talk the department into funding this little project?" The masked man inquires in amusement.

"Simple. I told them that we wanted to study the big cats of Africa. I just failed to mention that we will also be looking for nekos." The white haired scientist replies merrily.

Kakashi shakes his head. Jirayia was Jirayia. Once he got an idea into his head, there was simply no reasoning with him. He would never give up.

"That was quite clever of you. I do hope that you won't be too disappointed when we don't find these nekos. That was probably just some locals messing with you. I think that if a feline race existed, we would have discovered them long before now." The biologist reasons.

"Pft there are lots of undiscovered species. Besides, if the legends are accurate there is a very good reason why we haven't found them before. The nekos can turn into regular lions. No one would have ever known the difference. That's probably why they were able to hide for so long." Jirayia says.

Kakashi still thought his former professor was nuts, but he nods his head in "agreement." The man was stubborn to the end. Oh well. The chance to study the big cats of Africa was too good to pass up.

He'd let Jirayia chase after his fairytale while he did real research. Oh and maybe he'd be able to finish the other man's latest book while they were here. Big cats tended to be rather elusive. There would likely be countless hours of waiting and searching before they found anyway. Why not kill time by reading a good book?

"I hope you know that he thinks you are just as crazy as I do." Tsunade says.

Tsunade was a doctor. She came along with their research group in case anyone got hurt. That and Jirayia admired the view. Who didn't love the sight of such an ample bosom?

"The only difference between being crazy and a genius is whether or not society has caught up with you yet." The white haired man insists and Tsunade rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

She and Jirayia had known each other since middle school. Given that both of them were now in their fifties, that was a long time. The man would never change. He always had his head up in the clouds.

"That's just something crazy people tell themselves to make themselves feel better. Hurry. We better get back to the hotel. I saw on the forecast that it's supposed to start raining heavily tonight." She warns him.

"You're right. Alright, everyone. Let's move out." He says and the group heads off.

Danzo was amongst their number. While the aging scientist pretended to scorn Jirayia's fanciful notions on the outside, he actually agreed with him. It was possible that another humanoid species had evolved. If that was indeed the case, they would all be famous and made rich beyond their wildest dreams when they discovered nekos.

Of course, that was assuming that the team played their cards right. He didn't think that they would for a second. Most of them were academics with the best of the intentions. That was all very well and good, but it wouldn't increase any of their bank accounts. No, he would have to be there to ensure everything was handled properly.

"How long of a journey is it back to the hotel?" He asks Tsunade.

"Hmm not that long. I'd say we should be able to drive there in about fifteen minutes." The blonde replies.

Danzo nods in acknowledgement that he had heard her. He wanted to rest. His arthritis was acting up again. It always did just before it rained. In his youth, he had thought that was just a story old people made up. Now he knew it was true.

His pain reminded him of one critical fact. Danzo was now firmly in his twilight years. He needed to do something quickly, if he was going to leave behind a lasting legacy. Something like discovering a new species would do very nicely.

A few minutes later, they arrive and check into their rooms. Danzo was in a considerably better mood once he could rest on his bed. Now, he just had to figure out how to find the cat people. Then everything would be perfect, but where to begin?

"I suppose the best place to start is to check habitats that are frequented by the cats, particularly lions. The locals do claim to have seen lions turn into men and vice versa." He muses to himself.

So immersed in his own thoughts was he, that Danzo didn't notice that a hawk had just flown by his window. A very special hawk. His name was Jugo and he was another hybrid.

Instead of turning into a cat or possessing feline features, he could transform into a hawk and possess avian ones. He had overheard the old man talking about checking out lion habitat. It looked like he was going to have to warn Sasuke.

Occasionally, humans would visit the lands ruled by hybrids. All hybrids knew that there was a very real risk that one day humans might discover them. So no matter what your species was and what your issues with other species may be, you were required to inform everyone when humans were coming.

That's exactly what Jugo did. He soared back to the center of the lion territory and let out a mighty call. The call could only mean one thing. An emergency meeting was necessary.

It didn't take long for many hybrids to start filing in. Everyone recognize that distress signal. No one would willingly make a false alarm. So the odds of this being merely a drill were low. People who "cried wolf," were punished severely.

"I was just flying around, when I overheard a man talking about visiting the lion habitat. I think it's another team of big eyed humans." He explains.

Big eyed humans was what their people called scientists. The name had stuck because they usually used binoculars. Of course the hybrids, had no idea what binoculars were and naturally just thought them to be large eyes.

"Thanks for warning us. We shall take the proper precautions." Hiashi says and there were choruses of agreement.

It was impetrative that humans never know that they existed. That could only mean bad things. The hybrids who had had a few run ins with humans were generally not eager to repeat the experience. Humans were the ultimate hunter. No matter your place on the food chain, you could easily become the prey when they were involved.

"You're welcome, Lord Hiashi." Jugo says.

He frowns when he didn't see Sasuke anywhere nearby. Maybe that was to be expected. His friend only had Itachi in his coalition. He likely wouldn't risk going to a big meeting like this, even with the rules in place. One of the major rules was no one could attack anyone else while a meeting of this nature was going on. It was a rule that had served them all well over the years.

"I'm going to leave now and try to warn those that couldn't attend the meeting." Jugo says as he flies off as he flies off to warn Sasuke and Hiashi nods approvingly at his decision.