Light reflected off a puddle that had formed out of the mouth of the cave. The puddle water was clear and still, the rain had stopped, probably only for a brief time, ending the ripples caused by constant splashing.
I stomped on it as I walked by, grinning and making a big splash as I left the cave with my friends. Today was the start of something special and even the sky knew it. No tears today.
All of us had backpacks filled with food and our few precious possessions. We weren't planning on returning to the cave, so even our blankets were being brought with us.
I glanced to my right at the two boys, my only friends in this dreary world. Nagato looked so much healthier than when we had met him a year ago. Food had been tough to get, but not so tough that I could still see his ribs. He didn't have the muscle that Yahiko had, but he also hadn't made a point of working to have that muscle. Yahiko ate more and exercised. He was driven.
Nagato and I both agreed that it was because of Yahiko that we had graduated from war orphans to ninja children. That growth had done a lot for us. It had made us faster, stronger, and smarter. It had made it easier for us to sneak away with food and supplies from the citizens of Ame - Yahiko talked about them using words like that, citizen, subject. Fancy words that only a kid like him had business using.
Our growth meant something though. No longer could we rely upon the knowledge that Yahiko had acquired. We had each mastered the art of paper sticking and had even progressed to the art of moving our chakra around in our body to enhance it. Yet that was the limit of what Yahiko had learned.
Today was an important day, because it was the day we set out on our quest. A quest to acquire a ninja teacher so we could continue our journey away from being helpless war orphans and become shinobi and kunochi nation conquerers.
"So which way do we go?" Nagato asked.
Yahiko seemed unusually nervous. "We gotta do something really stupid. Gotta go somewhere really stupid. Are you sure two want to come with? I can go alone and bring the ninja back here to teach us."
"We talked about this Yahiko. We're coming with. We want to be brave ninja too," Nagato said.
"Okay." Yahiko said. He didn't sound like he was actually happy with it though. "You remember how the people in town were talking about the ninja fighting to the north? We gotta go there. We gotta to go to where they are fighting and then find ninja. Don't worry though. I gotta plan to get in their good graces. They won't just kill us if we do it right."
"Whats the plan?" I asked. It was important that everyone knew plans before hand that way everyone could work together. Teamwork was critical for helpless war orphans like us.
"We need to find a big battle. One where ninja get hurt. Then we gotta go help one of the hurt ninja, the survivors. That way they are so grateful for our help they'll want to help us become ninja."
It sounded like a good plan to me. Much better than what I was thinking. I thought we were going to walk up to some ninja and then ask them to teach us.
I did see one problem with it. "Don't ninja have healing powers too? Why wouldn't they just heal all the places they got hurt?"
Yahiko shook his head. "They have healers, but only some of them can do it and they're really important. They stay away from the fighting, because they are so important. So if we find some ninja who are really hurt, we don't gotta worry about them getting better really fast, cause they gotta go all the way to the healers before they can get better."
I nodded. That made sense too. "We should make sure to offer them food right away," Nagato said. "I think that's really important. I liked Konan a lot more once she shared food with me."
"What type of food do you think ninja like?" I asked. We didn't have much of it and I wasn't sure bread was what ninja ate.
"Crackers," Yahiko said, back to his usual confident self. "Everyone likes crackers."
I nodded at Yahiko's wisdom. I liked crackers and so did Nagato. They were crunchy and if you didn't want to eat them crunchy you could make them mushy by putting them in water. They were a very adaptable food.