Chapter 25: Day Two of Five

Mika was speechless. Staring out at the field, she could clearly see that Naruto had managed to knock TenTen down.

The two of them came walking back, TenTen slower than Naruto because of the look on Mika's face. "Ha! In your face!", Naruto shouted at her from just two feet away.

"Don't get so cocky.", Mika responded through gritted teeth. "You still have four more opponents and only three more days."

"What are you talking about? I can beat every one of them today!"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'd like to see you try. Go on, get back out there, I'm sick of looking at you. I'll send someone in a minute." He gave a big smile and proudly walked away again. She turned on TenTen and nearly exploded. "What the hell was that!? You are, like, a million times more capable of a ninja than him!"

"He caught me off guard, sorry.", she timidly responded and stood behind Lee. She kept giving a side glance to Sakura, which Mika noticed.

There was a good minute of silence as she glared at the bunch. All of them, corrupt. Naruto really must have a lot of friends. Grrr. "Fine.", she announced to the group. "I can play this game too." She swiveled around to face Kiba. "Puppy, get out there and -don't-fall-down. ¿Entienda?"

"Uh…", he didn't understand the language.

"Yes, he understands. Now stop scaring them. Go on Kiba.", Kakashi saved him from an impending smack on the head from Mika. Kiba took off and started to fight Naruto.

"Remember! Don't Fall Down!", she shouted after him.

"That was a little harsh, Mika.", Gai tapped her shoulder.

"Harsh? You don't know the meaning of the word. Honestly, I was just trying to warn him." Mika turned to look at TenTen. "Hey? You know I'm not actually mad at you, right?"

"You're not?"

"Nah. I've got way bigger problems than you taking a dive to help out your friend.", she glanced at Sakura. "And by friend, I mean Sakura."

The pink-haired girl's head popped up from the manuscript that Mika had given her to read. "Did you call me, Mika?"

"Yes.", she sweetly replied. "How are you enjoying the book so far?"

"It's wonderful. But are you seriously foreshadowing the death of the main character? I mean, you can't be serious! That would ruin the lives of so many people!"

"People or characters?", Mika laughed at her.

"Both!", she laughed with.

"Well, I haven't decided yet. You are only on chapter three." The fight caught the corner of Mika's eye and she whipped back around to face it. It looked like Kiba was about to 'accidentally' lose his balance. "Oh no you don't.", she muttered to herself. She stretched her open right hand in front of her and faced it down toward the earth. Instantly the earth swallowed Kiba's feet, stopping him from falling down.

"What the hell?", he screamed. The earth started to turn and rotate him out of the way of Naruto's attacks. It even raised him up on pillars and down into pits, but never allowing him to fall down.

"How are you doing that, Mika-chan?", Lee asked.

"Earth element. I've been doing things like this since I was five.", she widely grinned.

"Since you were eight.", Kakashi corrected her.

"Ahem? Where do you get off telling me when I learned things? I was five. I never told anyone till I was eight. I didn't want to anyone to know, until I was an expert at it." She turned around and smiled at him, "Don't you remember how clumsy Anko got when she was around me?"

"That was you?"

"And she deserved every last black eye.", Mika grinned even wider.

Sakura had finished reading the notebook and was putting it back in Mika's bag. "Why would you trip Anko-sensei?", she asked.

"Well… in short…", she thought for a moment. "I hated her."

"But why?"

The old memories flashed through Mika's mind. "She was the only kid in school with guts enough to bully me. So I did what I could to fight back; which, in comparison, was next to nothing really. I just tripped her… a lot."

"So she called you names and you used your ninjutsu to hurt her? That's harsh."

Mika shook her head back and forth. "Ya'll really don't understand the word 'harsh'. She called me names, but she also threw things at me. You know, like, spitballs, pencils… shuriken. But I don't hold anything against her now. Poor girl got assigned to that snake-fucker."

"Language!", Kakashi scolded.

"Oh come off it! Everyone here agrees with that assessment." She turned to face the group while keeping her hand facing the ground. "Have you ever talked to that bastard? He is what he is.", Mika turned back around to face the fight. "TWO MINUTE WARNING!", she shouted.

"When did you meet him, Mika?", Sakura was interested.

"I got around when I was younger." Mika paused a second, contemplating the double entendre of that statement.

Kakashi coughed to hide a snicker.

"But not like that.", she added curtly. "I believe it was in the Rain Country that I met him." She reflected on the time that she met him, "You know, even though he is completely disillusioned about his own abilities and entitlements; he can make pretty intriguing conversation."

Yet another secret revealed. I just hope they don't get any worse than that one., Kakashi thought to himself.

"You had a 'conversation' with him?", Gai was dumbfounded.

"Well, I had to do something to delay him. He was going to kill me and I had to figure out a means of surviving.", she turned to look at him. "This was nearly a decade ago; I haven't seen him since."

Wow, that lie just popped out of nowhere. 'I had to delay him'? God that's weak.

She used her left hand to look at her stopwatch. "O.K.! Time's Up!", she shouted to the fighting pair as she released Kiba from the earth. He fell down immediately.

Less than a second later, Naruto was in Mika's face being loud; again. "What was that about?! That's cheating!"

"It's not cheating, if I change the rules.", she slyly smiled.

"What? You can't change the rules!"

"Uh, yes I can. Allow me to reiterate, my test, my rules. I can do whatever I want.", she ruffled his hair. "How about I give you another advantage?"

"Fine.", he pouted.

"I decided that your fifth opponent will be… me."

How original, Kakashi thought. This is going to so much easier now.

"I can't fight you! You've got years of experience!"

"Well, according to the village records, I'm only a chunnin. So how could I possibly be any more difficult to defeat than your friends here?"

"This is bullshit.", he muttered.

"Hey!", she hit him on top of his head. "I don't ever want to hear you curse."

"Why not? You curse all the time."

"First, I'm already going to hell, so it doesn't matter. And secondly, it suits me to curse.", she looked at him. "Who taught you that word?"

Of course he had already known that word for a long time, but for the hell of it he answered. "You did.", he smirked.

"Oh.", Mika laughed nervously. "Still, no more cursing; I'll try to cut back on it some, myself. Now then, uh, we're done for today, see ya'll here tomorrow." The group started to disperse.

She gave her nephew a hug. "Au revoir mon cher."

He just stared at her. "Exactly how many weird languages do you speak?"

She laughed lightly, "I've lost count. I just told you 'Goodbye my dear'."

"O.k. goodbye oba-chan.", he took off to go eat.

Awww…. He called me his aunt., Mika thought giddily. Gai and Lee walked up to either side of her.

"Ready?", Gai asked.

"I think we should double the workload today, Gai-sensei.", Lee proposed.

"Well I think that we should triple it.", Mika added.

"We should quadruple it!", Lee shouted.

"NO! We should quintuple it!", she laughed but was serious.

"Calm down you two.", Gai smiled as he led the both of them off to where they practiced. "To be fair, we'll just decuple (ten times) our training. Sound good?"

"Yes sir!", they saluted, though Mika did it in a more goofy fashion.

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