The next day, on the way home from school, I looked around to see if I could figure out the direction of the bad neighborhood Ikaruga had told us about. We had to go hang out there, to find out if Hebijo had a third transfer student, so we could be prepared for if shit were to go down. I mean, I'd rather not have to basically sneak behind enemy lines and instigate things, but it was necessary. And if we were training to be shinobi... well, my life was eventually going to be about sneaking behind enemy lines and instigating things. So I was looking...

Unfortunately, all the streets and shops and plazas looked the same to me.

I waited until we got home and changed out of our school uniforms into casual street clothes. Because obviously we couldn't go into Hebijo students' territory in our Hanzo uniforms. But once that was done, I stood over Tris as she started to settle down on the couch with a book.

"Yeah?" she asked.

I gestured toward the door.

"What, do you gotta go somewhere?"

I stomped my foot and continued gesturing toward the door.

"I'm not getting you. Can you try to say a word?"

I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. Then...

"Hebijo!"

"Oh, yeah... you wanted to do that today, now?"

I nodded.

"Do we have to?"

I nodded again.

"Isn't there another way? Can't we find out more about what's going on in other ways first? Or shouldn't we call Shiki and see if we can go shopping with her and that Zelda girl? Anything besides charging into enemy territory like idiots?"

I puffed out my cheeks at Tris and flapped my arms in a chicken gesture.

"I'm not afraid, I'm just being practical," she said. "There's a fine line between courage and stupidity."

I knew that, damn it. But I lived my entire life on that line, and I wasn't about to stop now.

Honestly, if I had enough sense of direction to find the neighborhood, I'd go by myself. I'd act all innocent and scared like I didn't realize I went into the wrong neighborhood at first, and that'd probably draw out the Hebijo students to come try to mug me or something. Then I could kick ass, and then use the defeated students as leverage to get the information we needed. Although, at some point I'd have to involve Tris. I couldn't exactly ask for the necessary info if I couldn't speak.

So Tris was going to have to come.

I tugged her arm until she got up, then started dragging her toward the door as she sighed.

"Fine," she said, taking the lead after awhile because she was the one with the actual sense of direction.

The neighborhood we ended up in looked just like all the other ones to me. Sure, there were more boarded up shops and broken windows and stuff, but... so far, it seemed classist to call it a bad area. But maybe that was the point in itself. That people were more likely to turn to criminal activity when they were already in a tough place and had nothing left to lose.

That still didn't explain why someone would willingly choose to go to an evil shinobi school, though. Not to me.

"Now what?" Tris whispered to me.

I shrugged, and looked around. There was a dilapidated playground nearby, surrounded by a fence, with a locked gate. I grabbed onto the fence and hoisted myself over it, landing neatly on the other side, before heading toward the playhouse and wedging myself inside it. I peered out the window, leaving Tris shaking her head. But she followed suit in hopping the fence, and then scurried to the top of the covered slide, entering it, and coming most of the way down, but not all the way. Just enough that she could peek out the slide's opening at the end.

I'd like to think we were showing some real innovative shinobi aptitude.

I didn't know how long we sat there like idiots, but we sat there watching a bunch of people go by. Regular people that just seemed to live in this neighborhood, groups of students in public school uniforms brandishing wooden swords and stuff like they were in a gang... and when two different clusters of gang kids met, there were scuffles. But so far, no one identifiable as a student from any school other than public ones...

Until two girls in unfamiliar black and red school uniforms were approaching, about to pass the park. That had to be them. I charged out of the playhouse, hoisted myself over the fence again, and landed right in their path, staring them down.

The tall, slender one with brown pigtails glared at me. "Out of the way, you stupid big-titted slut."

I crossed my arms and refused to budge.

"You looking to fight?" she said. "'Cause I'll beat your idiot skank ass."

The other girl, a curvy blonde, pouted.

"Ryobi, why don't you talk like that to me more?"

"'Cause you're my sister, you dumb fuck. Jerk off to someone else calling you a stupid bitch, but not me." The pigtailed girl, Ryobi apparently, rolled her eyes.

The blonde girl lit up with sheer joy. "I'm a dumb fuck! I'm a stupid bitch! I'm—"

"You're in the way. Now move, so I can fuck up this other useless tits-for-brains blonde hoe over here—"

Suddenly, Tris came vaulting over the fence. She stood between me and Ryobi.

"Please don't mind my sister," she said, talking way too fast all nervously. "She's being an idiot. I don't know what the hell she's thinking, picking a fight with you guys. I apologize on her behalf."

The blonde girl squealed. "Look, Ryobi, they're just like us! Isn't that cool? They're sisters, and the blonde one is a dumb crazy big-tits idiot like me, and the brunette one is fed up with her bullshit like you!" She turned to Tris. "Do you like calling people names? Would you call me a dumb fuck skank ass worthless hoe?"

Okay, I no longer had any idea what was going on. Only that I'd been called an idiot or a slut or some variation thereof, like five times. Rude. Still, though, this was important. Tris shook her head, seeming eager to get away from these girls, but I shot her a look, to remind her why we were here.

"I..." Tris hesitated, but then gave the weird blonde girl a look. "How about this? I'll call you whatever nasty names you want me to call you, if you tell me three things first. One. You two go to Hebijo, right?"

Ryobi looked shocked, but the blonde girl nodded before she could be told not to.

"Yeah! We're proud students of the elite class in Hebijo!" Wow, she was so not good at keeping her status as a shinobi a secret.

"All right, then, two. Did you get a new transfer student recently?"

"Uh, yeah, how'd you know?" Well, shit.

"Three. What's their name?" Tris was on top of her game today.

"Uhhh. It's some weird long thing that starts with a G, but we just call her Ganni. She's really cool, right, Ryobi? She beat the crap out of me on her first day! It hurt soooo good."

Gan... what? Something in what this girl said triggered a weird feeling in me. I had to lean against the fence to process it. It was like I was having flashbacks to a past life, except it was a life I'd only known in those weird dreams, and... well, I was only vaguely conscious of what was still going on. Half of me was listening to them talk, while the other half of me was a ten year old being blasted in the face with some kind of energy ball, by some guy on a horse...

Still, I shook my head and tried to focus, knowing if this what I thought it was, I'd need to listen to any information I could get. Focus, focus...

"Did I tell you everything you wanted to know?" the blonde girl asked Tris. "Can you call me names now? Ooh, ooh, I got an idea. Let's go out for ice cream together, and I'll pay, but you have to call me names the whole time and beat me up after! Oh, and my name's Ryona. What's yours?"

Surprisingly, Tris shrugged. "I'm Tris, and sure. You gave us good info, so I'll pay you with the names and beating up."

"Awesome! Let's go right now!" Ryona was bouncing up and down out of sheer joy, causing other parts of her to bounce as well. And... it seemed like Tris was enjoying looking at that... and I think I was witnessing the beginning of a beautifully bizarre sadomasochistic romance...

"Uhh..." Tris looked at me. "You'll be able to find your way home on your own, right?"

I must have been delirious, because I nodded yes. But before I knew it, it was just me standing there with little miss potty mouth pigtails, Ryobi. She turned to me, as perplexed as I was.

"So, looks like your sister is taking my dumbass sister on a weird S&M ice cream date? Good to get Ryona out of my hair for a while." She glared at me. "What's your deal anyway? Why do you want to know about our transfer student?"

I shook my head.

"What's your problem? Can't you talk?"

I shook my head again.

"That stupid, huh? I feel bad for your sister."

I crossed my arms and glared at her.

"What, you think you're gonna fight me? I'd kick your ass. Lucky for you, I don't have it in me to hurt someone as stupid as you. I mean, you obviously need all the brain cells you got."

Ugh. I was pretty sure I could beat this Ryobi girl in a fight, but... why bother? What was it going to prove? Let her underestimate me. I wasn't going to hurt someone just because they liked slinging insults at me. That was her issue. So I shrugged and walked off.

It wasn't until I was a bit further down the sidewalk that I realized that, without Tris, I had no idea how to get home. Even though I basically told her I had. And now she was on what I presumed was a date, with a Hebijo student. A Hebijo student, who was the classmate of someone I always had freaky dreams about, someone who was my sworn enemy in those dreams. Someone I felt like was about to be my sworn enemy here too. Just a gut feeling.

This gut feeling was kind of nauseating...

I pulled out my phone and texted Shiki, never having been more glad that she'd given me her number. I was freaking out sort of, so I was typing all fast and making lots of typos. I wasn't even sure what to say, either. Should I let her know I was lost again, or not yet?

"hi shiki? its linkle, im wonderign if yroue able to hang out today soon?"

It took awhile for her to respond. The longer I waited, the more the freaking out intensified. Would she not see it? But then my phone buzzed, and I perked up.

"Um sorry, kinda busy right now," the response said.

I quickly typed back "ok sory will talk to you when youre not bsuy" and took a deep breath in. Because, well, damn it. Time to try to find whatever ice cream place Tris and what's her face went to, on my own, I guess.

I don't know how much wandering it took me to find it. The whole time, I tried walking all fast and looking ahead all determined, so it would trick people into thinking I knew what I was doing. That way, no one would mess with me, like they would if they thought I was a lost confused little girl. Thankfully, the gang kids seemed way more into messing with each other. Or maybe I was decent at acting? ...Probably not.

Anyway, I found an ice cream place about half an hour later, but they weren't in it. And I would've kept looking for another one, if it weren't for the fact that I detected one of those shinobi barriers. The shadowy chain thing, that blocked shinobi battles off from being entered or even seen by people nearby.

Shit. They were fighting. This Ryona girl had turned on Tris, and...

All pretense of acting tough and determined was gone. I ran like a scared lost kid. I followed the feeling, until I was outside a boarded up abandoned storefront about two buildings away from the ice cream place. I slipped in through the board that was already loose, seemingly just bent away so someone else could get in here. And I focused my energy into my scroll, transforming, so I could break through their barrier, and find out what was going on. Tunic on, sword in hand, I cut right through the dark chains blocking me from my sister...

There was Tris. And there was Ryona. And there was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life. No, Tris wasn't badly hurt. But my eyes, my brain, and my sanity were all irreparably damaged.

They'd fought, it seemed like. There were weapons scattered around, shards of Tris' used explosives, and Ryona's weird guns lying to the side, forgotten. Both of their battle outfits were in shreds on the ground. The two of them were in such a state of undress that only the absolute essentials were still covered by anything, and even some of those essentials... weren't. Like, uh, Ryona's huge boobs.

One of which was in Tris' mouth.

"AAAAAAA!"

"Who—Linkle?!" Tris immediately pulled away from sucking on Ryona, looking up at me in wide eyed shock. "You told me you could find the way home..."

I covered my eyes and shook my head no. Ryona somehow seemed completely unperturbed about the fact that her tits were just... there. Or any of this, for that matter. The fact that I just saw my sibling doing that. With some girl we met today, just now. Which, not that I'd try to slut shame, but the reason we met this girl is to get intel on a potential enemy...

"Guess you gotta go now, huh?" Ryona just sighed with disappointment.

I could hear Tris scramble to her feet, and felt her scroll power fade as her regular outfit reformed around her body. And she scurried over to me, and put her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, okay? I... I'm sorry you had to see that. Really sorry. Really, really, really sorry. I don't know what else to say, but, I'm sorry. I... I didn't know things would escalate like that, I really didn't. You're not mad, are you?"

I shook my head no. My face was red hot, but from embarrassment instead of anger.

"...Shit, you felt the shinobi barrier and thought Ryona was killing me or something, didn't you? Shit. You don't have to worry about that, though. I beat the shit out of her, and she liked it a lot, and... yeah..." I could feel the same level of hot shame coming off of her as of me. "I'm really sorry you got scared, and really sorry you had to see that. Here, let's go home, okay?"

I nodded, opening my eyes only after turning around so I didn't have to see Ryona, who was still completely unperturbed by all this.

"You got my number, right?" she called out after Tris. "You'll text me if you want to play again, right?"

"Yeah, I got you," Tris called back. Wait... they were going to do this more than once?

Brain bleach, pleeeease. Extra concentrated brain bleach.

It was hard to go to sleep that night. There were a lot of emotions attached to what just happened, after all. A little mistrust, some confusion, a lot of embarrassment. I wasn't mad at Tris for sleeping with the enemy, just... a little disappointed. And really, really, really disgusted that I had to see it. With my innocent virgin eyes. Like, if I had no idea it happened, I would have been just fine.

But since I have no sense of direction... ugh. And to think she was the one who didn't want to go meet the Hebijo students...