Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter 2, which will direct you back to Chapter 1.
Definitely a longerchapter this time.
The night was uneventful, and everyone slept peacefully. Apparently, travelling through the forest had thrown off the ones Kai was worried about being after them.
That morning, a little past sunrise, Kai woke Akane and the two oldest bladers woke the rest of the team. Rei had brought some food and they ate a quick breakfast, and then took off on foot again.
They walked until about five in the evening before something actually happened. Everyone was getting tired again. Tyson was griping about being exhausted and Cassie and Max were yawning. Rei was attempting to act like he was fine, but he was slouching a bit, so his exhaustion was obvious. Akane was also tired, made obvious by her quiet complaints of her feet hurting. Even Kai was making silent objections to walking all day, occasionally sighing in exhaustion.
At about five, though, everyone got a sudden wake up call. As they were walking, a throwing star flew down from the tree tops and stuck in the ground near the center of the group. Kai had had to dodge out of the way of the ninja weapon.
"Look out!" Kai shoved Akane out of the way of a throwing knife. "Everyone, get behind me!"
Rei and Akane immediately stepped beside Kai. They were followed by Cassie, Max, and Tyson.
"What're you five doing? I said to get behind me!" Kai snapped.
"Are you stupid?" Akane glared at him.
"You'll get yourself killed!" Rei added.
"Seriously, Kai, we aren't gonna let you take them on all by yourself!" Max cut in.
Kai was going to retort, but didn't get a chance to. As two people – the ones who were attacking them – stepped into view, six people appeared out of no where and ambushed the two. There wasn't a way to really describe the two who were attacking the Bladebreakers other than dressed in dark clothing from head to toe. The other six were different, though. Five were teenagers, the sixth was an adult.
The adult was relatively tall, with spiky silver hair. He had a headband on his forehead, but it was pulled down over one eye. He wore a green vest with a red swirl on the back of it. He also had a mask covering his mouth. The tallest of the five had black spiky hair. His eyes were as dark as his hair. He wore a blue short sleeved shirt and white shorts. He had bandages wrapped around his legs and blue and white sleeve-things (that was how Cassie described them) on his arms. The other boy of the group had blond hair and bright blue eyes. He wore a blue and orange jacket and orange pants.
The group included three girls. One had sea green eyes and bubblegum pink hair. She wore red clothing. Another girl had long black hair and blue eyes. Her clothing was red and black. There was another girl as well, smaller that the others. Her hair was black and her eyes were bright green. Her clothes were green and black and she had a scar across her face.
The group of six quickly drove off the pair that had ambushed the Bladebreakers. Once the two were gone, the six turned their attention to Kai, Rei, Akane, Max, Tyson, and Cassie.
"So, would you all mind explaining who you are and how you came to wander so close to our village?" The adult was the one speaking.
"Uh…Well, I'm Rei Kon. This is Kai Hiwatari, Max and Cassie Tate, Akane Hiroyuki, and Tyson Granger. We were kinda going through the forest in an attempt to throw off those guys who attacked us…" Rei explained.
The pink haired girl whispered something to the other teenagers. Rei, Cassie, and Kai all heard it, though they made no comments. At least, they didn't comment until they got annoyed by being talked about.
"Do you guys feel that chakra? It's coming from them…They aren't ninja, so what do you think is causing them to have such an immense chakra…?"
"I don't know…Weird isn't it?" The blond asked.
"It really is," the girl with long black hair commented.
"From what I can tell, they must've been working with their chakra for almost as long as us, for the strength of it to have developed this much," the raven haired boy commented. The girl with the scar simply nodded in agreement.
"I realize that you all may not know this, but three of us can hear you," Kai informed them, folding his arms in irritation. The five teenagers appeared slightly startled, even the seemingly emotionless boy with black hair.
"You three were able to hear us?" the pink haired girl inquired.
"Well, they're neko-jins," Kai explained, motioning to Rei and Cassie. "I just have highly trained senses."
The girl nodded in understanding. As the silver-haired man attempted to speak, Max interrupted him.
"Are you going to tell us your names? If you won't tell us your names how are we supposed to trust you?"
"I was about to introduce us before you interrupted me," the man answered. Max blushed in embarrassment and gave a sheepish smile.
"My name is Kakashi Hatake. These five are my students, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Shusaku Ayame, and Asuka Suri," Kakashi pointed to each of the teenagers in turn.
"What are you guys doing out here, though?" Akane asked.
"We're ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village . You all wandered close enough to our village to cause suspicion, so we were sent to investigate," Ayame answered. "Your chakra levels are high enough that we thought there was actually a threat."
"So because we aren't ninja, that means we aren't strong enough to be a threat?" Akane seemed offended.
"That isn't what she means," Kakashi said hurriedly, attempting to help obviate a conflict. Deciding that Kakashi was right to try and avoid a fight, Kai placed a hand on Akane's shoulder and subtly shook his head, silently telling her that this was neither the time nor the place for arguing. Akane seemed to understand, since she backed off.
"Any way, the fact that you six were attacked makes it pretty dangerous for you to be out here," Kakashi said. "The fact that you were attacked by ninja makes it even worse. We will need you all to come back to our village so that we can find out what this is all about."
Kai was skeptical. He still didn't trust them, which was obvious.
"We won't cause you any harm, I assure you. If those ninja were working for who I think they were working for, then it would be in your best interest to return to our village with us. At least there you'd be safe. Out here, those ninja would return the instant that they were sure we had left," Kakashi explained, trying to ease Kai's wariness.
Kai seemed to relax slightly. "Fine, we'll go with you."
There was an unspoken 'but I still don't trust you' in there. Kakashi caught the silent message, but chose not to acknowledge it.
"Follow me, then."
The silver haired ninja began walking, obviously expecting them to follow. The teenage ninja followed immediately, but the Bladebreakers hesitated momentarily before following. This was only half because of their distrust of the ninja. Kai had to stop and let Cassie climb onto his back, since the little neko-jiin was almost too tired to walk now.
"C'mon, Cass, get on. I know you're tired," Kai said with a gentle smile, bending down so that she could climb on. Cassie objected to being carried, but still climbed on without hesitation, falling asleep not even five minutes after doing so.
Despite the extra weight, Kai had the easiest time keeping up with the ninja, who were all moving somewhat fast. Max was stumbling every so often and Tyson was stumbling constantly. Rei and Akane were keeping up pretty well, but even Rei was tripped up a few times.
"Uh, hey, Kakashi," Kai called from where he was with his team.
Kakashi stopped, allowing the bladers to catch up. "Hm, what is it?"
"We may need to slow down. Max and Tyson are having a little trouble keeping up," Kai answered, looking back at the younger boys who were just now catching up, both breathing heavily and a little scraped up from tripping.
"I agree. That may be a good idea. Besides, I figure that as long as we stick together, those ninja will probably leave us alone. We're almost there, anyway. We don't really have to rush."
I'll try to post the next chapter soon.