Journey to the Land of Lightening

Chapter 03

The next day, Mikkay awoke early to the sound of the birds chirping. All was peaceful in the forest. The only sounds that she could hear were the sounds of nature. Well, all she could really hear was the beautiful sounds of the nature that surrounded her and the snoring coming from the boy in the tent next to her.

Kankuro had been snoring for most of the night. She thought it was amazing that she was able to sleep with that racket going on next door. Hell, she was even surprised and amazing that Kankuro, let alone, could sleep with all that noise. Like, damn.

Mikkay exited her tent and stretched. It was early. Dawn must have barely passed her by two hours. She should be sleeping since she still has two and a half long days of walking with the behemoth that she had to travel with.

Well, she thought, I guess he isn't that bad. After all, he did save me yesterday from those thieves. She knew it was his job to protect her from harm on the way to and from Lightening, but she was still very thankful for it. Without him, she probably would have been kidnapped, or whatever. The Sunan diplomat was very grateful and she was looking for a way for her to show Kankuro her gratitude.

"I know!" she said to herself, then blushed. She forgot for a moment that he was sleeping. She hoped that she hadn't woken him up from being too loud. "I'll make him breakfast," she said just a little more quietly. "Yeah, that's it. Breakfast. It's the least I can do."

Carefully, Mikkay walked away from the campsite. As she passed Kankuro's ninja gear, she paused. It wouldn't hurt for me to carry one of his kunai with me while I go and search... she thought. I really don't want to risk getting attacked again, and not having any sort of defense on me. So, she grabbed the kunai and went on her way to start searching for things that she could make as food. Now, it wasn't that she wasn't a very good cook – on the contrary, from her living by herself, she had become quite the little chef from having to prepare her own food. So, no, it wasn't because she couldn't cook. It was more that she wasn't much of a scavenger. She could barely find anything there in the forest for her to whip up into a meal.

After a while, she sighed to herself. "This is going to be impossible," she groaned. "I'm no ninja, and I'm not a scavenger either. How in the world am I supposed to find food in this blasted forest?" She was still walking, and not too long after she had muttered that to herself, she had come across a lake. The girl squealed. "Fish! I can fish!" Having her excitement being renewed, she ran over to the lake, and then she stopped. Now, she knew that because she was probably going to have to get wet, she wasn't that naïve to think that going fishing wasn't going to get her wet. She looked at her bandaged arm. "I'll have to have him rewrap my arm when I'm done making breakfast," she said. "I'm going to cook for him, so he'd better not mind or I'll kill that bastard."

First, Mikkay took off her skirt and her tank top, leaving her standing in her sports bra that was covering her bra and her fishnets. She also took off her shoes. She didn't want to ruin them with the water. Carefully, she unwrapped her bandages. As she glanced at her arm, she saw that it was a slice, but a not very deep slice. In fact, it was barely more than a cut. Though, she supposed that if Kankuro was so worried about it, she would just have to humor him with it.

Even from a few feet away from the lake, she could still see plenty of fish swimming around in the lake. There were plenty for her to make Kankuro and herself a decent size breakfast. Now all she had to do was find something that she could catch the fish with. She knew that her hands aren't able to do the job on their own. Then she saw the glint of Kankuro's kunai that she had taken coming from the pile of her clothing. She could certainly use that to catch a fish or two!

She grabbed the kunai from the pile and then she walked into the lake water. The lake water was cool against her olive colored skin. It wasn't really that hot out, but she was still warm, so the water was very relaxing to her.

At first, the fishes were being unreasonable and she was having a hard time catching a single one – even just a small one! Then, after a while, she started getting the hang of it. Miraculously, she was able to catch three fish. She decided to give Kankuro two of them, and to only leave herself one. She didn't mind it, because she wasn't that hungry and she thought that he would want to have two instead of her. Whatever, he deserves the extra fish.

The girl put her clothes back on, and walked back to the campsite. Having her skin wet from being in the lake provided her a nice cool feeling across her skin from the gentle breezes that the wind was creating. It felt so good.

Kankuro woke up when she was about almost done preparing the fish. When he saw what she was doing, he looked amazed. "Whoa," he said. "What's with the fish?"

"It's breakfast," she told him. "I hope you like fish, because that was all I was able to get. If all civilization came to an end right now, I would probably die because I am incapable of gathering any sort of food from the forest. It's that bad."

Kankuro laughed. "That, I can believe." He came closer to the fire she was currently cooking over and sat down. "So you went out and caught fish for breakfast?"

"Yepp."

"How did you get them without some sort of, like, knife?" he asked.

"I didn't," she stated. "I took your kunai for protection just in case, so I used it to catch the fishies."

"And why are you making breakfast?"

"I just thought it would be nice for me since, one, you were sleeping. And two, you saved me yesterday, so I thought I should at least try to make it up to you. This was the only way that I thought of."

"Okay," he said, "one last question."

"What's with you and the interrogation you're performing on me?" she asked.

"One last thing, I swear."

"Fine, what is it?"

"You had to go into the lake to catch the fish, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to get any fish, right?"

"Yeah..? What of it?" She didn't know what the ninja was trying to get at here.

Kankuro smirked. "So why aren't your clothes soaked? Did you jump into the lake naked?"

Mikkay blushed. "No, I did not!" she defended. "I just took off my top layer and went into the lake with my fishnets on! Not naked!"

"Fishnets, huh?" he asked, still smirking. She blushed when she realized what she had just admitted to him. "Sounds sexy."

"You pig!" she said, blushing a dark shade of scarlet. "How would you like it if I didn't give you any of the fish? I could just eat it all for myself, you know!"

"No, you couldn't," he challenged. "You're stomach is too tiny for that."

"Try me." She took one of the fishes that were on the sticks and she brought it steadily to her jaw.

"Fine," Kankuro laughed, "I'm sorry. Can I have some fish?"

She smiled, feeling achieved as she handed him the fish on a stick she was about to take a bite out of.

"Hey, your bandages," he said as he was chewing. He stared at her arm. "Your bandages are off."

"Yeah," she said. "I had to take them off since I was about to dive into the water." She grabbed one of the other fishes on a stick and started to delicately eat one.

"Do you need me to redo them?"

Mikkay paused her eating, resting the cooked fish on her lip. "If you want," she shrugged. "They're really not that bad, you know." She continued to eat.

"You still need to have them wrapped up. They'll get infected."

"Okay, mom." She rolled her eyes. "Here," she said, handing him the last fish. "This one is for you."

He took the fish. "You didn't catch another for yourself?"

"Nah, I don't need it," she said. "I'm not all that hungry, any way."

"I told you you couldn't eat three fish all by yourself."

"Oh, whatever."

After they were done eating, they started to gather up their things. Mikkay got done eating first since she only had half a fish left as compared to his one. He watched her as she started to try to put the tents down.

"Hey," he said.

She turned. "What?"

"Thanks for the food. You didn't have to make it. Helping you is my mission."

She went back to putting one of the tents down, turning her back away from him. "I know, but I thought it would be nice of me."

He laughed. "Conceited, much?"

"How is that conceited?" she asked. "Do you need a dictionary, or something? Because I'm pretty sure you don't know what that word means, or how to use it."

Again, the ninja laughed. "Whatever."

They were out of the campsite in less than ten minutes. Kankuro was a quicker worker than she was and got more things put away and taken down. They left as soon as the fire was put out.

The forest was full of blooming flowers and large trees surrounding a narrow path. The path was most likely formed from the ninja that often had to make commutes through the forest to get from one country to all the others. There was enough room for barely two people to walk. In order to give Kankuro room that she was pretty sure that he would want, she walked slightly behind him in the path. It wasn't far enough away as to where she could not see him in front of her like it was when they had started traveling together. She saw little scrapes on the higher branches of trees that intrigued her as she was walking. Mikkay guessed that ninja would most of the time use the trees as transportation and not bother with the path unless they were like Kankuro and escorting someone or multiple somones that could not travel using the trees like they could, and that was probably why the marks were on the branches.

As Mikkay was looking around at the forest around her, she forgot to pay attention to the path she was walking on. She tripped over a stray root that was laying across the ground and did a face plant.

"Ack!" she said, getting a mouth full of dirt.

Kankuro stopped and looked behind him. Contrary to her, he had been paying attention to where he was walking and carefully avoided the large root that was in the way. She, however, seemed to have not. He laughed at her.

"Wow," he said. "That's impressive."

She blushed and pulled herself off the ground. "Shut up," she said, wiping herself clean of the dirt. "I'm not a ninja – walking around in a forest is not something I do often! I live in Suna, for God's sake! There is no forest!"

Kankuro laughed at her again and, when she was ready to go, started walking again. He looked back to her and she could see him smile.

Huh. He looks cute when he smiles…

Mikkay blushed at her thoughts.

Nope, never mind. He's so not cute! What am I thinking?