Shorty seemed to take that as an admission of -- actually, challenge. Kitty politics were a strange thing. He let his paw come back down to the table, then stalked after the other kitten. When McWonderful looked back at Shorty, he gathered himself for a pounce. Sakura leaned forward and nabbed him out of the air.

"Do you only morph the things you like?" She held her kitten close again, shifting her weight and turning back toward the cage. She remembered back in the art hall, where memories had been played out in sculpture and paint. The creature she'd never seen before, and the cobra.

She remembered snakes larger than the room they were in, rearing back and striking out, intending to kill. She remembered being frozen with fear, incapacitated by a killing aura...

Orochimaru.