CHAPTER 8: Challenge with Team 9!

"Lee-senpai!" a familiar female voice called out softly.

Rock Lee slowly opened his eyes to find himself in sparkly field of flowers in every color. Lee's eyes widened as he gaped at the beautiful scenery around him.

"Lee-senpai!"

Lee turned around to find Cori standing at a distance, amidst the flowers wearing a simple dark green summer kimono with a white sash, smiling serenely at him. "C-cori…-chan…" stuttered Rock Lee.

Cori smiled at him as she held out her hand to him. "Lee-senpai!" she called.

Lee eyes grew big and sparkly. "Cori-chan!"

"Lee-kun!" another voice called out suddenly.

Lee turned around to see Sakura wearing a similar kimono, only red in colour with a pink sash. Sakura gave him an angelic smile holding her hand out to him.

Lee stood confused as he swiveled his head from left to right, unsure of which girl to go to.

"Lee-kun!" "Lee-senpai!" "Lee-kun!" Lee-senpai!" "LEE-KUN!" LEE-SENPAI!"

……………………

BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGG!!

"Whaaaaaaa!!" yelled Lee in shock as he shot out of bed and did a cheesy praying mantis stance like out of a badly dubbed kung fu movie. Realizing, it was all a dream, Lee relaxed and sighed . Lee lay down on his bed and stared at ceiling which was covered with pictures of Sakura. 'Usually it was only Sakura-san, why did Cori-chan appear in my dream as well?'

"Wait!" said Lee suddenly, shooting into a sit up position. "AM I A BEING A TWO-TIMER??" he yelled grabbing his head.


(At the Inuzuka compound)

Cori let out a big sneeze as she woke up. "I hope I'm not getting a cold today," she said as she reached for her glasses on the bedside table. She looked beside her to find the whole bed empty. Jubei yawned sleepily as she awoke in Cori's lap. "Ohayo, Cori-sama…" she said, rubbing her face with her paw. Cori smiled at her little kitten as she scratched Jubei between the ears. Jubei purred in content. Suddenly a clash of metal was heard, capturing the attention of Cori and Jubei instantly. Cradling Jubei in her arms, Cori slipped out of bed and walked towards the window. The window showed a full view of the Inuzuka fighting ground, where a red and gray blur clashed with each other repeatedly.

Down at the fighting grounds, Kiba quickly leapt over Hikari as she made a dive at him. Hikari landed on all fours, turned and pounced again at Kiba who was left vulnerable in mid air. Kiba crossed his arms to shield himself as he braced for impact. Suddenly, Akamaru appeared as a beast clone and pulled his master out of the way in time. At the same time Akane appeared as a black clad and a black haired version of Hikari above Akamaru and purposely dropped on Akamaru's back. "Akamaru!" yelled Kiba as he landed on the ground and launched himself at ground under Akamaru and Akane. The two beast clones landed on Kiba hard, a little too hard unfortunately. The impact resulted in dust flying everywhere. When the dust cleared, Kiba lay on the ground all swirly eyed with half his air supply knocked out of him. Akamaru, had changed back on impact was sprawled on his master's stomach wearing the same expression. Only Akane, who had also changed back and was at the top of the pile the whole time, stood on her hind legs with one foot over Akamaru's back ginning triumphantly as she jabbed a paw in the air. "Nya-ha! Victory is mine!! NYAHAHAHAA!!"

"Akane."

"Hai? Hikari-sama?" replied Akane as she looked over at Hikari only to stop grinning when she saw the mark of annoyance pulsating on the girl's forehead.

"We're supposed to do this together..." said Hikari through gritted teeth. Akane sweat dropped as she chuckled nervously.

"But.."

"HAI?!" Akane said going a little tense.

"GOOD JOB!!"exclaimed Hikari as she gave her kitten a thumbs up and a grin. Akane did the same thing.

"Ugh, talk about take my breath away..." groaned Kiba as he sat up. "Awor..." agreed Akamaru, sprawled on Kiba's lap. At that moment, a gust of wind came and blew Kiba's hood off. Since Kiba wasn't exactly wearing a headband, his dark brown hair swept gently over his face.

Hikari's breath got caught in her throat and her eyes widened a little as she saw this. A slight blush appeared on her cheeks. "Hikari-sama? Are you okay? You seem flushed," asked Akane as she patted her master's cheek. Hikari quickly shook her head."Me? Of course I'm okay! I'm feeling a little hot from sparring that's all!" she replied as she reached for the rubberband that held her long red hair in a braid.

Now it was Kiba's turn to blush a little as he watched Hikari shake her hair loose from the braid as she removed the rubberband. Her long red hair fell gracefully behind Hikari. Suddenly, she noticed Kiba staring at her. "What are you looking at Kiba?" she snapped.

Kiba snapped back to reality as he grabbed Akamaru and a shot up straight. "Nothing..." he muttered walking back into the house. As he walked past the living room, he saw Kaori lying on her stomach on the couch doing a Sudoku puzzle book. Next to her were two piles of other Sudoku puzzle books. One pile taller than the other. Yue was asleep of course, on the armrest the couch.

"So how did the sparring session go?" asked Kaori without even looking up.

"Alright, I guess," answered Kiba, flopping onto the second couch and closed his eyes for a moment. Akamaru leapt onto Kiba's stomach, yawned and lay down. All of a sudden, thumping of steps was heard coming towards the room. Cori face appeared through the doorway with Jubei on her head.

"Kaori-neechan, Onee-sama just summoned us to the training field behind the academy, come on!" called Cori cheerfully.

"Hurry! Hurry!" piped up Jubei as she and Cori ran ahead with Hikari and Akane coming up from behind them.

Yue opened one eye sleepily. "Hmph, how noisy..." she commented.

"Utterly inexcusable..." agreed Kaori getting up as Yue stretched and leapt onto Kaori's shoulder.

"Have a nice day..." said Kiba sleepily before giving a big yawn and falling asleep like Akamaru.

As he heard the girls leave, Kiba popped open one eye to look at the two piles of Sudoku books. His eye noticed a slip of paper sticking out from one of the top books from the taller pile. What was stranger is that it had his name on it. Curious, he took the paper and read it. "Dear Kiba, you are welcome to indulge yourself in my Sudoku collection, you can look at the books I've already done for help, signed, Kaori," read Kiba out loud. Shrugging, Kiba reached for the small stack of books. 'I guess I can humor myself a little...' he thought as he opened the first book only to find it empty. Another piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Picking it up, Kiba read, "If you are looking in this pile for reference I suggest you look at the taller pile which I've been doing for the past hour..." Kiba's voice trailed off as he looked at the taller pile which was at eye-level with him. "What the hell...?"


"All right! I'm all fired up and ready for action!!" yelled Hikari excitedly as she did warm up exercises. "YEAH!" agreed Akane, standing up on her hind legs and joining in on the warm up session. The sisters stood in an open field by a forest area.

"Tch, how noisy..." muttered Yue and Kaori at the same time.

Cori and Jubei merely smiled and turned to her oldest sister a.k.a jounin instructor. "Zakuro-oneesama, whose team did you say was willing to spar with us again?" she asked sweetly.

"ZAKURO-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!"

Zakuro and Tsuchi groaned and rolled their eyes in disdain. "Take a wild guess..." they both said bluntly.

Maito Gai came running up from the distance with a dust. "ZAKURO-CHAN MY SWEET, BEATUIFUL, YOUTHFUL GODDESS!! YOUR DIVINE, YOUTHFUL LOVER HAS ARRIVED!!"yelled Gai as he came dashing towards Zakuro, flinging his arms open. Gai then leapt into air and threw himself at Zakuro. "OH, MY SWEET HO-" he yelled before getting cut off by Zakuro who lifted her foot parallel to her body and connected her geta sandal with Gai's face.

"Hello, Gai-senpai..." Zakuro said bluntly, taking her foot of her senior's face, revealing the peg marks from the bottom of her sandal and taking about 8 steps back.

Gai regained his composure and coughed. "Anyway, I am here to accept your youthful challenge of having your team sparring against my own youthful students!"

Zakuro said nothing but just glanced over Gai's shoulder. "I assume that's them?" she asked, pointing to the large dust cloud coming up from the distance.

Just at that moment the dust cloud screeched to a stop by the triplets. The girls and their partners coughed loudly as the dust began to clear. "Alright! I'm the second to reach! YEAH!" yelled an extremely loud voice.

"(pant!) Lee, this wasn't a race to begin with!" yelled a second voice which appeared to be female.

"Tenten's right you know!" agreed another male voice.

The dust finally cleared to reveal the whole of Team 9.

"Right as always Zakuro-sama," said Tsuchi, catching the attention of the team.

"Hey, you're that giant talking kitty!," exclaimed Lee in surprise.

"Yeah! Sushi, was it?" asked Tenten.

Tsuchi fell face first to the floor in disbelief. "MY NAME IS TSUCHI!! AND I'M A COUGAR GODDAMMIT!!"

Lee and Tenten flinched. Cori and Jubei laughed in amusement. "You have to excuse Tsuchi, she's a little sensitive about that."

Neji, Kaori and Yue rolled their eyes. Zakuro cleared her throat to grab everyone's attention. "Follow me," she said, walking towards the forest area.

"Anywhere my darling!" said Gai as he followed Zakuro like some lovesick puppy.

As the others trailed behind, Hikari leaned over to Tenten. "Your sensei is one weeiird dude..."

"Pity me..." replied Tenten.

Very soon the group reached a clearing in the woods. Zakuro turned to face the others with Tsuchi curling round her legs. "Alright, it is now I'll announce my challenge. This whole forest is our battleground. The challenge is a simple game of Predator and Prey, Predator takes down it's Prey and brings he or she to this very spot," she said throwing down a kunai to mark the place. There's no time limit, it all ends when we have finally met up again, any questions?"

Gai raised his hand. "From the genin," emphasized Zakuro. Her senior immediately put down his hand.

Rock Lee raised his hand. "Who are the Predators and Prey?"

Zakuro and Tsuchi smiled. "It's your choice..." they both said mysteriously before jumping into the air and disappearing into the trees, leaving Team 9 confused.

Everyone turned to the triplets who just shrugged casually.

"Our sister works in strange ways.." said Hikari, disappearing in a single leap into the trees with Akane closely behind.

"It's her way of saying ready, set, Go!"added Cori and Jubei, bolting past Team 9, laughing happily.

Kaori and Yue remained. "A word of advice from my master..." said Yue.

"If you any of you faces Hikari, I recommend you guys to try and keep away from hers and Akane's mouths..." Kaori said, fading slowly into the shadows behind her with Yue on her shoulder. Their eyes glowing a brilliant blue as they vanished. "Good luck!" hervoice rang out hauntingly.

"Spoo-ky..." muttered Tenten.

"MY GODDESS I'M COMING FOR YOU!!" yelled Gai, running in his beloved's direction. Everyone else sweat dropped.

"Well I'm off to be the Predator!" announced Rock Lee speeding off.

"Me, too!" agreed Tenten going off in another random direction.

Neji remained standing in the middle off the clearing. All of a sudden, some of the leaves nearby rustled even though there was no wind. This was followed the clear sound of bells ringing that pierced through Neji's mind.


R.F:Aaaaaaaand I'm done! See you for the next one!