Standard Disclaimers apply.

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Kisa waited until she was dismised, then made a motion to follow Briar. She still wanted to here why it had been her that was choosen for the position in Frost's Cell.

"And where, do tell, do you think you're going?" Kenneth asked pleasantly from behind her. Kisa jumped slightly at his voice and turned to look at him.

The black haired boy was glaring at her, his left hand dripping blood into a puddle at his feet. He didn't look happy at all.

"Show him to the Training Halls and then meet me in the gardens," Frost told him. The white haired boy glanced at her strangely again. "Ki . . . . . .I think that . . . . ." he started to say before turning and walking away.

"Shouldn't you have someone look at your hand?" Kisa asked softly.

"If you hadn't cut this deep, then everything would be fine," Kenneth snapped. "We cannot treat the wounds ever!"

Kisa looked faint suddenly. She was still losing too much blood from her hand. If it didn't stop bleeding soon, then she would transform from weakness. She turned away from him silently and started following the general flow the ninjas were making towards what she hoped was the Training Hall.

Kenneth caught up in a couple of seconds. "Hey!" he protested, putting a hand on her shoulder and trying to get her to stop. It worked because he was stronger, but it was obvious that Kisa wanted to continue without him.

"Look, this cut is barely anything," he told her. He thought that her reaction had been because of his injuries, and surprisingly, he didn't want her to be worried about failure too much.

Kisa didn't say anything. She felt sick to her stomach. If she didn't do something to her bleeding hand she would transform into a tiger in front of anyone lucky enough to be around. They'd probably kill her and since that would mean failure on her part, her father would carry out his threat to kill her mother.

Kenneth noted her pale face. He laughed lightly, but not cruely. "Ki, I can treat your injury for you, okay. If your wounds go untreated, it's a sign that you are rejected by your cell. You see, we can treat each other's wounds, but not our own."

He pulled her into a different hall. "Your evaluation changed already," he commented lightly, but with bitterness buried underneath his light tone. "You got a rating of 6 already. Briar raised it for what you said after catching my shuriken. . . . . . . and about that. . . . . I uhmm. . . ." his voice trailed off.

"Forget it," Kisa said softly. "It wasn't true. I just made it all up, and like you said, I shouldn't have interferred in a man to man battle."

"I never said that - "

"But you were thinking it, weren't you?" Kisa interrupted him, her voice still soft and hesitatant.

Kenneth laughed. "Yeah, I did think it, but. . . . . .well it's only girls that have to stay out of a man to man battle. Since your a guy yourself - well there's really no problem beyond my wounded pride."

He reached a seemless black door and pressed his bleeding hand to the door. It slid open silently, revealing a small room. Inside the room there wasn't very much. Three black metal chairs were situated around a table of similar colors and texture. A filing cabnit stood against the back wall and a large chest was set under the silver and black ventillation grate.

He gestured for her to sit down in one of the chairs while he rumaged through the chest. "There," he said, coming over and sitting beside her with a long lengh of guaze in his right hand.

He held her hand over a small sink that she hadn't noticed, and scrubbed her small hands until they were clean of blood.

"Why did you get so mad at Ryu earlier?" Kisa asked. She was remembering why she wasn't slipping into an unresponsive mood. If she wasn't alert all the time, then it would make Ryu's self appointed task all that much easier.

"He was insulting me," Kenneth said flately.

"How? Why?" Kisa asked.

Kenneth had finished bandaging her hand up. "That's none of your bussinses," he snapped, his gentle tones replaced by angry ones.

"Sorry," Kisa said automatically. She snagged his sleeve as he was leaving the room. "I'll treat your hand now - can you tell me what to do?"

A soft, appreciative look flitered across his features for a brief moment. "My injuries aren't bad - "

"That's a lie!" Kisa exclaimed harshly. She was using a tone of voice that Hatori Souma, the doctor in her family, used whenever anyone was pretending to be well when they were sick.

Speaking like that shocked her, but it also caught Kenneth off guard. He sat down in the chair and stared at her, shaking his head in dissapointment. "You'll never be good enough," he said. Kisa blinked; it was evident that he was talking to himself, not to her.

"You're better then me," she said.

It was the wrong thing to say. "Of course I'm better then a snot nosed brat like you!" Unable to control his temper, he reached out and slapped her across the face with his bleeding hand.

Kisa quickly grabbed his hand and shoved it under the hot water pouring from the facucet. "What is this room?" she asked. She really wanted to change the subject before he lost his temper even more.

Kenneth stopped moving and let a slow smile strech across his face. "When ninjas are in training they are divided into Divisions. When they are active, they are divided into Cells. This is our training room. This is where we prepare to go out on dangerous missions. You see, it's just your luck that you get to transfer to an active cell immeadiatly. You're going to see combat very soon. . . . . . "

Kisa had finished wrapping his hand in gauze as his words sunk in. "What kind of combat missions?" she asked, her voice too high pitched for her own comfort.

"Ninja stuff. . . . . assassinations, bodyguard work, infiltration, annilation. . . . just to name a few to the missions we get. The last one was even tough enough to kill Sou who had a rating of 341. That's very high, don't you think?"

"How did Sou die?" Kisa asked, her words trembling slightly with fear at her worsening prediciment.

"Sou was found gutted in the Caves of Oblivion during a recovery mission. He had all of his weapons scattered around him, and his own sword was pinned through his ruined chest. The culprit was never caught and never identified."

Kenneth smiled at the shell shocked look on her face. "I'll see you later," he told her before he walked away.

Kisa didn't move. If Sou's death had been caused by Ryu, then he had to be very good. She probably wouldn't be able to defend herself against him for more then a second. Then it would be all over, and she would be dead.

She shivered with the thought, unable to force herself to leave the room.'What if you tell someone who killed Sou?' she asked herself. She remembered the awestruck look on many of the teachers faces when Ryu had casually turned Kenneth's attacks back on him without much effort. They looked like they had faith in his talent. They'd probably not believe her, even if she did tell.

That meant that she had to deal with him on her own. She had to stay alive without explaining to anyone the identity of the man trying to kill her and Briar.

She stood up and headed for the door. If she was going to survive Shinobi Academy, it was going to take a lot of work.

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It took her a couple of hours, but Kisa finally found the main training halls. Entering proved to be difficult with her left hand wrapped up in gauze, but with the amount of people coming and going from the room it was only a matter of waiting for the door to open. Then she had to get it before it closed.

Ryu and his team were training against a wooden pillar. They were using their weapons on it, but it was in a set pattern. She moved to the other side of the room. It had just occured that if she were a member of an advanced cell she wouldn't attend usual classes.

That meant she would have to train on her own and improve rapidly at the same time. 'First, I should learn to use my weapons. . . . . . or maybe to move without making a sound, but that'll take tons of practice so maybe I'll just work on - '

Her thoughts were abruptly cut off as a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and reached for her chest.

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Author's notes;

I'll bet your all curious how she manages to avoid having her secret found out. That is, both her secret about the curse and her gender.

Well, you'll have to read the next chapter to find out. Oh, and be sure to review me. \_/

Thanks for reading,

Kissa-chan