4- I will Fight until the End
"Ow! Not so tight!" Kaede complained as
Kamaki pulled the last knot firmly. She struggled against the ropes
binding her to the stump and the Sensei rested his hand on her crown.
Secret just hung in his ropes and Katsumi sat cross-legged on the
grass facing them all. "How come she's not tied up?" Kaede
glared across at the blonde Genin,
"Because she got a bell,"
Kamaki answered and Kaede frowned in confusion
"She can't
though, that's impossible…" To correct her teamate, Katsumi
held up the sliver bell by the string. Secret turned his head
slightly and fixed Kaede with his cold, hard stare; If only the girl
hadn't been so slow in coming back then they might have been in
with a chance with their plan.
"Right, as punishment for you
two for being lazy asses," Kamaki announced "You will be
receiving no lunch but…I have decided to extend the exercise by
another hour after I have finished my lunch but first…"
He ran
his hard gaze over all three of them "We have a few issues to sort
out."
The Sensei turned to Kaede "Kaede-san, you give up too
easily, you have no intention of working in a team and a Shinobi
should have a natural feel for teamwork. Secret-san, you are to
intent in getting Kaede-san to work with you and Katsumi-san when
it's clear that she's not going to go along with you.
Katsumi-san, you wait too long until attacking and then you still go
ahead and do it alone, that bell you holding was gotten by some skill
but mostly luck."
He shook his head "If you want to succeed
then you must overcome these obstacles."
Katsumi looked from the
stern face of her Sensei and then down at her bell and got to her
feet and held it out to him. He looked down at her "What is it
Katsumi-san?"
"Kamaki-Sensei, I don't want to keep this
bell, I don't want to get by on just luck…I want to get it with
my trying."
By the faces of them all, Katsumi knew what she had
just said the last thing they had all suspected "I want to work in
a team with both my squad members…is that ok?"
The Sensei
paused and then took the bell from her fingers
"You idiot!"
Kaede cried "That bell was your ticket to passing; you've just
thrown your entire future away!"
Not meeting Kaede's eyes,
Katsumi sat back down on the grass "No I haven't because I'm
going to get it back, the way I want to."
"Well that settles
that," Kamaki finished and stood up from his leaning position "See
you all in half an hour."
He grabbed up one of the two lunches
from the floor and chucked one to Katsumi, his eyes were fixed and
stern as she pulled away the foil "You are forbidden to feed
them any of that food, otherwise you will fail straight away, got
that?" And then he marched off into the denser trees on their left,
the other food box in his grasp. "Old git," Kaede muttered under
her breath as she watched him disappear "We work out butts off all
those years to get where we are and what does it do for us?"
"We
won't give up this time Kaede-chan, we have another hour," Secret
pointed out.
"But me and you Secret-kun are starved, were gonna
be really ineffective," She whined and eyed Katsumi's food box.
Katsumi didn't notice as she was gazing up at Secret "Katsumi-san
has a plan like I said," He continued "And it's a plan that
might just work."
"Why can't we go back to the academy and
try again next year? Then we could get a better Sensei that made it
easier for us…" At this Katsumi lost it, jumping to her feet she
clenched her fist and the food box fell from her lap "Listen to me,
there is no way I'm going back to that academy, EVER" She
…. "All those years I sat at the back of the class,
daydreaming about how I would one day make something of myself and
now I have the chance I'm not going to see it pass by me. I don't
want it easy like you, I want it the hardest it gets so I can prove
to myself that I am worthy, why else would I give that bell back to
Sensei. I don't want things to happen the easy way, by luck, I want
a challenge. Something that will test me…I'm never going to take
the easy way out!"
All three of them were silent for a few
seconds and then Secret spoke up "So there you have it, which
proves two of us are willing to succeed, now…what about you
Kaede-chan?"
The brown kunoichi let out a long breath and after
pausing for a moment nodded "Ok, I'm in…so what's that
plan?"
"We'll talk tactics later, lets all have a rest
first," Katsumi suggested, resting her back against the stump which
did not have a Genin tied to it.
"Wait Katsumi-san, aren't
you eating lunch?" Secret asked.
The Genin shook her head and
went back to playing with the small bracelet "If we want to win
fairly then we have to play fairly, if you guys can't eat then
neither can I"
"But that's just stupid…I mean if your
famished too, how are we going to be able to get the bells?" Kaede
retorted her expression implying that the kunoichi before her was
mad.
"It would be impossible if we were working against
each other but going together as one, I think we would be in with a
chance," She grinned and touched the metal on her forehead
protector with one finger "I wasn't really hungry anyway!"