Hooray! Next chapter! I'm especially happy about this because most of the time I get stuck halfway through Chapter 2! And I'm using way too many exclamation marks! Oh well! Bonus points to anyone who finds the allusion to one of the greatest comic strips of all time!
Thanks to floraHelialover and operaluva823 for reviewing! I'm glad you guys liked it, although, operaluva, I think you might be a little biased… but I still love reviews. So go on being biased.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for Miyako, Rini, Fumio, and Saki, all of whom are the joint property of me and operaluva823.
Enjoy the chapter!
And now you arrive
As soon as I'm about to forget you
Look for your path somewhere else
While I look for the time that I lost
Since today I am better without you
"Mientes" by Camila (Translation)
Akamine Miyako planned for everything.
She knew her opponent as well as she knew herself, and she knew exactly what the other girl would try to do. Right now it was a kunai attack, but soon she would switch to a flurry of taijutsu. Then it would be a genjutsu she had recently learned, followed by another kunai attack. If the pattern held true, there would be an opening for Miyako to deliver a death blow between the taijutsu and genjutsu.
Really. Her sister was far too predictable.
Sure enough, there was the taijutsu. Her sister kicked out hard with her left leg, and Miyako dodged quickly as they traded punches and blocks. Miyako swept her right leg under her sister's feet, who leapt away and started moving her hands in a series of symbols. It looked like the one they had just learned the day before, a mistake on her sister's part. She wasn't used to the combination of hand signs yet, and was moving more slowly than usual. The corners of Miyako's mouth turned up slightly in anticipation of her opening. Quicker than the eye could see, she flew forward, knocking her sister into a tree and pushing a kunai up against her throat. "Checkmate," she hissed.
Her sister's eyes widened. Before Miyako could say anything else, a perky voice interrupted. "All right! So that's Straightface twenty-six, Neon Boom twenty-five!" Miyako removed the kunai from her sister's throat and scowled at the source of the voice.
"Do you have to call me that? It's absurd."
"No, it isn't! It fits you perfectly!" Aome Saki, Miyako's irritatingly cheerful teacher, grinned at her and turned to her sister, who was still up against the tree. "Jeez, Rini, you let her get to you too easily! What happened to the whole completely unpredictable thing?"
Rini straightened and pulled a twig from her hair, faux-pouting. "I don't know! Something about Miyako-chan just neutralizes it! She's too… too… boring!"
Saki gasped. "You're right! It must be Miyako's complete adherence to all rules and regulations that saps you of your creativity and leaves you open to attack! How can you fight outside the box when the walls are closing in?"
"You can't!" Rini shrieked. "They're… too… close… Must… regain… creativity…" She collapsed in a heap on the ground. Saki howled at the sky in mock grief. "Nooooooooooooo!"
"You two are ridiculous," Miyako muttered. Rini popped up, suddenly grinning again. "Hey, that's why you love us."
"I'm sorry, did I ever say that?"
"Just because you beat me doesn't mean that…"
"Well, I thought you both did a good job," Mochizuki Fumio, the third member of the team, inserted soothingly from his perch in a nearby tree. "Rini, you really didn't vary her attacks very much, though."
"I was going to use that new jutsu," Rini exclaimed. "How is that not variation?"
"You didn't practice it enough," Miyako said coolly. "Your hand signs were too slow."
Rini scowled. "Whatever, Miss Smarty-Pants."
Miyako sighed. "You're a chuunin, Rini. Shouldn't you be at least a little more mature?"
"Go and—"
"Which brings me to my next point," Saki interjected hastily. "Straightface, Neon Boom, you two have been chuunin for six months now. That means that you guys are squad leaders, get to go on more B and C missions, yadda yadda yadda. It also means that I'm going to stop going easy on you."
Fumio frowned. "Setting a horde of rabid squirrels on us was going easy?"
"The noodle incident was easy?" Rini added. "It took me days to get all that stuff out of my hair."
"And then there was the time that you were nearly swallowed by the man-eating petunia and we had to get you out," Miyako said, wincing slightly. "That definitely was not easy."
Saki glared at them. "Okay, that's totally not the point. And Rini, don't bring up the noodle thing. What I'm trying to say is that you guys have responsibilities, and what with all the craziness since the exams, I've been neglecting them. So, we're going to try a new exercise. I call it… Find the Missing-Nin Before the Missing-Nin Finds You!"
Her students stared. Saki placed her hands on her hips defensively. "Hey, it has a ring to it! But anyways! I'm going to head into the woods, and you guys are going to find me before I find you! You'll need to mask your chakra and move quietly so that I can't find you and you can take me by surprise. Get it? Got it? Good." She grinned. "You guys can come after me in one minute. If there's a problem, just tell Rini and she can contact me. Good luck!" And with that, she bounded off into the forest. The team stared after her retreating back. Rini shook her head. "You know, she makes me look sane."
"And that's quite an accomplishment," Miyako said dryly. Rini nodded enthusiastically, completely missing the sarcasm in her tone. "It is! So, what's our strategy going to be?"
Fumio considered. "Well, we can obviously contact each other fairly easily through Rini, so maybe we should split up. That way we can cover more ground and find Saki-sensei more easily. Once one of us sees her, they can hold her off for a while until the others get there."
"Sounds great, Fumio," Rini said, grinning. "Why didn't they make you a chuunin, again?"
"Rini!" Miyako scolded. "Haven't you ever heard of tact?"
Fumio smiled and shook his head. "No, it's all right. I'm perfectly happy where I am, anyway."
Rini beamed. "See, Miyako-chan? He's fine! And it's been about a minute, so we should get going."
Miyako closed her eyes in a brief moment of irritation. "Fine. Rini, you take the right. Fumio, center. I'll take the left."
"Okay! See ya soon!" Rini took off. Fumio gave Miyako a wry smile. "Good luck, Miyako."
She nodded. "You too." Without waiting for a reply, she leapt into a tree and headed off into the woods, her mind already going at full speed. Judging by Saki's average speed and the evasive measures she was likely to take, she was probably about a mile or two in by now, so Miyako would have to move quickly in order to catch up. If she made absolutely sure to produce no noise and mask her chakra, she would move more slowly than usual, so assuming she was looking in the right section of the woods, it would take her around four minutes to find Saki. Not too bad.
Something moved in the clearing below her, and Miyako froze. Was it Saki already? But that was highly improbable! Slowly, she looked down and her eyes widened.
Rini? We have a problem.
Rini's voice entered her mind, sounding fairly annoyed. What is it? I think I'm gaining on Saki-sensei.
Trust me, this is more important. You need to contact her and Fumio and get over here now.
What? Why?
Miyako bit her lip. Because there are people in the woods. And if one of them is who I think it is, then we're in trouble.
What kind of trouble?
Suddenly, one of the figures below Miyako looked up, directly into her tree. Shivers ran down her spine as her dark blue eyes locked with the figure's red ones. She swallowed, realizing that her suspicions had just been confirmed. Big trouble.
I FINISHED THE SECOND CHAPTER! I AM SO HAPPY! YAY! So… yeah. I think we all know who these people in the woods are, but whatever. Just remember to review, because reading reviews makes me want to write more, which makes me do so, which makes me post more chapters, which makes those lovely people among you who are consistently going to read my story happy. Therefore, through the Law of Syllogism, if you review, then you will be happy. Yeah.
"You can hardly tell where the computer models finish and the real dinosaurs begin." - Laura Dern, actor, about the special effects in the movie Jurassic Park.
