EDITED.
I am so sorry for the late update, readers! Been really busy with school and my org I'll try to update more frequently, but the coming weeks look really packed. But for you, my dear readers, I will do my best. Enjoy! And review! And share! :)
Three weeks later...
Even miles away from the village, the smell of blood was still fresh in her nostrils. The sound of a scream still rang in her ears long after the sound had died. Who's scream was it? Hers?
Maybe she was still screaming.
The forest was dark, moonlight barely creeping through the gaps between the leaves. She dashed almost blindly from tree to tree, ignoring the cuts and splinters as branches raked her skin.
Where is he? Find him, find him, FIND HIM.
She screamed the command in her mind, so strong that Tsukimaru balked mid-flight, but he kept going. The pain and panic in his partner's thoughts drove him on.
We might already be too late.
She cried out, halfway between a yell and a sob, and fresh tears stung her eyes, running through the rivulets of the ones that had already dried on her cheeks. She almost lost her footing, and gasped as her ankle twisted painfully. Still she moved onward, despite the throbbing ache in her foot.
Tsukimaru screeched out ahead, and she looked through his eyes for an instant, long enough to see an abandoned structure in a clearing below. She jumped down at the edge of the trees. The hideaway was covered in a thicket of overgrown shrubbery and vines.
She pressed her hands together in a dragon seal, and swept her arms in a wide arc. The vines fell to pieces, and she sprinted towards the entrance of the hideout. The door was ajar, and there were no guards. As she crossed the threshold, she heard a bloodcurdling scream.
No, not him too... NO!
She raced down the corridor, shrieking his name, because she knew it was his voice. How could she not when she'd heard it all her life?
At the end of the hall was a single door, half-open. Inside she heard a strangled cry, and a voice calling out.
"Kaida..."
She burst in the room, and time stopped. She heard a scream again, this time somewhere close. It seemed to go on for hours, until she realized that it was her screaming. Screaming at the sight of the body on the floor.
Kaida woke up, breathless and drenched in sweat, tears running down her cheeks. She sat up and buried her face in the blanket, shuddering. Tsukimaru perched on the windowsill above her bed, squawking sleepily as he peered down at her. She shook her head and checked the time: 3:00am. It wasn't the first time she had woken up from a nightmare like that. In the weeks after her team's death, they had haunted her almost every night.
In the dim light, she looked up at the wall above her brother's old bed. His ANBU mask hung there, and below it his sword that Kaida had been wearing. His forehead protector lay on a small shelf between them, flanked by two unlit candles.
Reaching over to her bedside bookshelf, she picked up the picture of their team. Yukito was grinning, his spiky burgundy hair swept to one side over his forehead protector, above golden eyes that looked so much like hers. His hands rested on each of the Tanaka twins' shoulders, pulling them together to where Kaida was laughing in the middle with Tsukimaru on her arm. The twins were identical in almost every way, with their unruly jet black hair and a mischievous spark in their aquamarine eyes. She had always been able to tell them apart, though, with Kinta's grin always a little lopsided, and Kyoshiro's face a little sharper and leaner than his brother's. She hugged the picture to her chest, and collapsed back on to the bed.
"Why did they have to take you from me?" She whispered softly, as sleep began to overtake her. "Why?" And the world went dark.
Kaida rose with the dawn, feeling more tired than when she went to bed. Daylight streamed through the curtains of her one room apartment. She stood up, replacing the picture frame on the bedside table. Her stomach groaned, and she made her way to the kitchen counter for breakfast. Tsukimaru was gone, presumably hunting.
As she feasted on instant noodle, fruit, and her breakfast tea, she stared out the window pensively, recalling the dream from the night before. It hadn't just been a dream, but a flashback. No matter how hard she tried, she could never remember what came after opening those doors. All she could recall was waking up in the Konoha hospital's intensive care unit, three days later.
She picked up the dishes and carried them to the counter. As she washed them, a shudder ran up her spine at the two year old memory. The plate slipped from her hand, causing part of the edge to break off in the sink. The water from the faucet ran gently over the pieces, washing away the grime. She picked them up, now clean, and placed them beside the sink, resolving to fix it later. Clean and whole... but still broken.
After washing up, she changed into her usual kimono top and pants. With a week to go before the main matches, Neji's training had intensified. I hope he takes his first match seriously. She pulled on her shoes. Naruto had been almost out of sight for the past three weeks. He can't be underestimated.
She locked the door behind her, and began her leisurely walk towards the training ground. It was still early, and she was in no rush. A screech above let her know that Tsukimaru was following her. Even at this early hour, the village was already stirring. The smells of meat buns, barbecue, and other delicacies teased her nostrils as the villagers' exchange of neighborly greetings reached her ears. The nightmare she'd had still weighed on her mind as she walked, but even a bad memory couldn't stop her from smiling as she bought a couple of riceballs from a vendor. It was home.
The training ground was empty when she reached it, as expected. A pleasant breeze blew through the trees surrounding the clearing where they had been training for the past few weeks. A couple of logs lay about its perimeter, and several trunks in the area were pockmarked from shuriken and kunai. She climbed up one such trunk, and sat on a branch, her feet dangling off the edge. She leaned back so that she was hanging upside down, her knees hooked over the wood.
"Guess I wasn't as early as I thought." She said, before flipping off of the branch and landing on her feet. "Is Tenten coming?"
"She just got assigned to a mission this morning." Neji stood with his hands in the pockets of his brown shorts. "Shall we get started?"
"Well, good morning to you too." She muttered, as they moved into position.
Leaping up a tree, she drew six kunai from her pouch as Neji stood on the other side of the clearing, his back to her. Concentrating, she infused them with her chakra, and tossed them one by one up into the air, in quick succession. As the first came down, she spun a kick towards it, barely touching it but manipulating the air with the chakra from her foot. The knife spun towards Neji, singing as it sliced through the air. She did the same with each kunai that came down, using not only her feet but her hands as well, hitting each at a different angle, altering their trajectory.
On the ground, the Hyuga tensed, and all of a sudden was a blur, just barely diverting the first kunai with his chakra. He then proceeded to dodge and knock the rest aside, but, as Kaida was pleased to note, not without difficulty. Had Neji thrown his ordinary kunai to meet hers, they would have been knocked out of the way. Her blades were not only infused with her chakra. She manipulated the air around the kunai to minimize wind resistance and increase velocity, making them fly straighter and faster than the average knife.
"I sincerely hope I'm not boring you." She said after a few rounds.
"Training is training." He replied nonchalantly.
She hopped down, looking around at the scattered kunai. "Right. Let's keep it light this morning, so we can actually fight in the afternoon."
He smirked. "Scared?"
She rolled her eyes. "Like I'd be scared of you." He said nothing, but the smirk did not disappear from his face for a bit. They spent the rest of the morning exercising his Byakugan, and practicing hand-to-hand combat without Neji using his Jyuuken.
At midday, they took a short break. Kaida tossed Neji one of the riceballs she'd bought earlier as she bit into one herself. She closed her eyes and felt around for Tsukimaru, finding him not far from where they were. He popped a quizzical thought her way. It's nothing. Just checking up on you. She opened her eyes and, walking over to Neji, sat down and leaned back against the tree beside him. They ate in silence for a while, and Kaida found herself drifting back to when she trained for her match. You'll train together for the first two weeks, but alone for the next two, he had said, You need to develop your techniques independently. You entered as a team, but now you're on your own. It made sense, since they might have faced each other eventually. Well, we'll never know now, will we?
"Hey."
She looked up. "Eh?"
"You promised me a fight after lunch." He said as he walked off to one side of the clearing.
"I did?" She stood up and stretched. "I guess I did." Neji shifted into a fighting stance as Kaida took her place opposite him.
She slid her right leg forward, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet, ready to spring. The wind stirred as she moved her hands into position.
"Let's go."
Cut! I promise to update as soon as humanely possible! To my loyal readers, thank you for the support, I love you dearly. Review, review, review! And if you like it, tell your friends :D
