That's Karma, Daph

04 – My Sister Must Have Hit Her Head, Because She's Not Sane

"You're an idiot." I was at least fighting the urge to slap the back of Pen's head, which was something, in my opinion. She, on the other hand, looked scandalized at my sudden outburst. She must have thought that I would willingly go along with this shitty plan. Follow the man with the knives into the forest? I think not.

"Daphne, would you listen to me? He won't hurt us-"

"And why should we believe that, huh?" I shouted, watching as Penelope recoiled a little. She turned and seemed to look over this man named Yamato, who was looking more and more uncomfortable every moment that we argued.

"Daph," Pen said, turning to me with large blue eyes that pleaded with me to believe her. "I have a good feeling about this."

"Well, I have a shitty one about all of this. Who's to say that following this maniac will help us at all?"

"He wants to help us-"

"He chased us with a knife!" I motioned frantically to the knife that was still lying on the ground between us, glaring at it as if it had personally offended me before turning back to my sister. "And don't think you can bully me into this with big eyes. Mom isn't here, so someone needs to keep you from making crappy mistakes like following a knife-wielding maniac through a mysterious fucking forest."

Pen turned to Yamato and said something, ignoring the look that I was sending her that silently demanded she translate what she was saying. He answered, and for a moment they had a short conversation. It was irritating, not being able to understand them, but I kept myself from yelling at either of them and crossed my arms.

I tried to get some of the mud off of the jacket I was wearing, but came to the conclusion pretty quickly that it was useless. I was doomed to be covered in mud, sweat, and everything gross for the rest of this nightmare.

"Are you done?" I asked shortly when Pen turned to look at me.

"Daphne, we don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice."

"How much farther are we going to walk, huh?" she suddenly shouted, motioning to the woods. It looked like her patience was finally wearing thin. "We can't eat the berries. We can't catch anything to eat. We don't know where we are and we can't get any other help."

I had to take a deep breath to calm myself. I didn't want to admit it – and I wouldn't – but she was right. We were currently standing in the middle of God-knows-where, shivering and soaking wet from rolling into the river, and I still didn't have my damn phone to try and call someone.

"Trust me," Pen said after a moment, her voice having calmed down significantly more than I felt. "He won't hurt us, they're the good guys."

"'The good guys?' What exactly has he told you?" I asked, giving Yamato a weary look that seemed to put him more on edge. "And why is knife-boy so nervous?"

Pen sucked in a breath and looked between us, shifting from foot to foot as if fighting an internal battle.

"I…can't really explain it," she finished lamely, looking down and adjusting her jeans. "Not now, at least."

I could only stand there for a second and try to think through the situation.

Pen did have a pretty good point. We were in the middle of nowhere, with no means of getting home, getting help, or getting food. But was blindly following a man who had chased us with a knife through the forest a better option? Pen seemed to be able to throw complete faith into this stranger, but even though I wanted to be able to have that kind of faith in people, I couldn't. Still…I didn't have to trust him to accept his help.

"Pen. If you get us killed, I will murder you." Pen's face lit up before I even finished my sentence and in a split second she splashed towards me and wrapped her arms around my torso in an awkward hug.

"Thank you thank you thank you," she said in a rush. I sent Yamato a glare over the top of her head, hell-bent on making him understand that he was not trusted, even if my idiot little sister seemed to.

Pen turned and splashed out of the water with me a little ways behind her. I wearily watched as Yamato offered her a hand and helped her up the muddy incline that we had rolled down, but his small, pleasant smile faltered when he turned back to offer me a hand as well. I ignored it, and clambered up the incline on my own.

I groaned when I got to the top of the hill. If I hadn't already been covered in mud from our tumble, I definitely was now. I tried to brush some of it off, but only managed to slide a few handfuls off my jeans.

"He says we need to follow him," Pen said, already walking into the forest.

I looked back at the river, the first thing I had seen after being dumped in this fucking nightmare. I sent it a glare for good measure and trekked through the forest after my sister and knife-boy, my shoes making some disgusting squishing sounds as I went.

"So, Pen, where are we, exactly?" I asked after only ten minutes of walking through the dense trees. Pen and I had some more difficulty climbing over the large tree roots and maneuvering around bushes, but Yamato seemed to be a natural at this, which irritated me even more. While we were covered in mud, branches, leaves, and God-knows-what-else, he hadn't even broken a sweat and was able to leap over the roots like they were nothing.

"Pen?"

"I'm not really sure," she answered awkwardly, and I'm sure she was adjusting her glasses in the way she does when she's lying.

"You said you knew where we are, Pen. You know, so tell me." Pen seemed to slow down a little bit, but sped back up to our original 'nearly-jogging-speed' when Yamato said something. I fell back into step behind her.

"Pen. Tell me."

"Well, it's kind of hard to explain-"

"So start explaining, snot!" There was a pause where Yamato stopped walking, probably after sensing an oncoming argument.

"I-I think we're in Naruto." Yamato's head jerked back to look at us, but he slowly turned back around and leaped over a particularly large root.

"What the hell is Naruto?" I asked, feeling a headache coming on. I probably didn't want to hear the answer.

"It's only my favorite show," Pen said, turning to look at me over her shoulder like I was an idiot.

"Oh, silly me for not being fluent in geek," I snapped back, only getting a little satisfaction out of the way her eyes narrowed and she spun around to face me completely.

"I'm not a geek, freak."

"I'm not a freak, nerd!" I countered, always the mature one. Pen crossed her arms and turned halfway around when Yamato said something.

It was getting more and more frustrating when she answered him.

"Speak English! Speak fucking English!" I yelled pointedly at Yamato. His eyes widened, but his expression showed that he didn't understand me. "Why doesn't he fucking speak English?" I motioned to him, but looked to Pen.

"I don't know! Maybe because Naruto was originally written in Japanese!" She spun around and after shouting something at Yamato, they continued to walk along the path.

"Pen, you don't really think we're in a TV show, do you?" I asked. Maybe Pen had hit her head on a rock when we were tossed into the river. She didn't answer me, and instead grabbed the hand that Yamato offered her from where he was crouching on top of a root that almost reached her shoulder. He helped her down the other side and turned to me, lowering his opened hand.

I let out a huff and crossed my arms, glancing around for a way around the damn root instead of over it. The narrow pathway we were on was lined with thick bushes and trees, making any way around the root nearly impossible to see. I gave his hand a wary look, and bit back a remark when he said something in Japanese and motioned for me to take his hand.

"I still don't trust you, knife-boy," I growled, but grabbed his hand and let him pull me up and over the root.