Kumori forced her bones back out through her palms as Hikari dashed directly at her, this time managing to weave away just in time to avoid a bone in his right shoulder. At the speed they moved, it would appear as if they were heading at each other with a killing intent.

Hikari was fast, it was as if he could predict her movements exactly. After a few moments of dodging well placed attacks, this began to annoy her. She jumped back quickly and faced him again.

"Yanagi no Mai!"

Bones erupted from many places on her body as she fell into her stance again. Her knees, elbows, palms, shoulders and the top part of her spine all had long, pointed bones projecting from them, threatening to impale anything that came within feet of her.

"What the hell are you!?"

Her eyes rose to meet those of an astonished Hikari, but he quickly regained his senses, readying himself. They flew back into a heated battle, dodging blows. Neither managed to get many hits on the other, but Kumori's chakra was dangerously low.

She knew she had to end this fight soon; otherwise she would fall unconscious from lack of energy. Jumping back again, she paused for a moment, thinking hard.

She reached up to her shoulder, grasping the bone with her right hand and pulling it out completely. Hikari was looking at her in horror as she fell into a different stance, slightly more relaxed and laid back.

"Tsubaki no Mai!"

She darted forwards, falling into a complicated swerving dance pattern and forcing Hikari back. This time, he was not as quick to recover from his surprise, and her bone blade managed to catch his arm, tearing open his white t-shirt and entering the skin below. Blood flowed down the bone, and the pain seemed to snap him back to reality.

"Kaiten!"

She was suddenly blown backwards as a giant dome of chakra exploded out from Hikari, his body spinning and sending it flying in every direction. She hit a tree hard, blood flying from her mouth before she slumped down painfully.

Hikari stopped his spin and she forced herself up, readying her bone blade and charging him, her face contorted in pain. He pulled out two kunai and charged as well, both of them charging with enough force to kill easily if they landed a hit on each other.

They met with incredible force, but something was suddenly between them, one hand grabbing her bone sword and the other hand raised, the arm bleeding as Hikari's two kunai embedded themselves into it. Genma flicked his toothpick in irritation.

"Nice teamwork. I leave you alone for a few moments and you try to kill each other."

"Sensei!"

Hikari pulled his kunai from the Jounin's arms, stepping back. Kumori replaced her bone, sliding it painfully back into her shoulder. She drew in the rest of her bones and stepped back as well. Tsuno came up to them as well, a bell in his hand. Kumori had forgotten about the bells, but as she remembered, she cast a dirty glance towards Hikari, who didn't seem to notice.

"So the one without a bell is Kumori," said Genma, the irritation in his voice evident. A moment later, Kumori found herself tied to a tree securely with Tsuno and Hikari eating their lunches happily beside her.

She was perfectly still, her head hung and her eyes squeezed shut as she dealt with the side effects of using her bloodline. Her head throbbed painfully and the scars left behind from where the bones had broken through burned. It was also hard to breathe, her airways had tightened and her lungs sent pangs of pain through her chest with every breath. To her, it felt like she was underwater, suffocating.

Genma had disappeared somewhere again, leaving them alone to eat. He would come back to check on them later and instruct them on their training. Kumori forced another breath into her lungs, trying to relax them.

"Are you alright?" asked Tsuno, interrupting his lunch to look up at her.

"Can't breathe…"

"Did Genma tie the rope too tightly?"

She let out a raspy breath, squeezing her eyes shut tighter.

"It's not that… It's the side effects of using my bloodline."

Tsuno eyed her for a few more moments before returning to his lunch half heartedly. She finally managed to get her body under control again and relaxed, lifting her head and sighing.

"This place is so different then Kumogakure," she said absent mindedly, looking around at the bright forest. There were hundreds of birds flitting from tree to tree, singing their songs and going about their daily business.

"What's it like in the Hidden Cloud? You never told us about how you grew up either," said Tsuno, flopping back on the grass.

"The Cloud isn't the best place on earth. Everyday all you can see is storm clouds, all you can hear is thunder, and all you can feel is icy raindrops. I can actually count the number of times I've seen the sun fully on one hand."

"It's always stormy?"

She nodded, sighing. She thought about how many sleepless nights she had spent on the streets, shivering in the rain while she huddled against one building or another.

"And it's even worse when you grow up without a home to stay in. I spent four years, almost five, alone on the streets. Some days I couldn't move at all, I rarely ate, going up to a week with no food whatsoever. After the bloodline war, the Hidden Cloud had no money left and kids like me were common on the streets as young as three or four years old. I was one of the lucky ones who managed to make it through the winter every year.

"That was the most horrible sight. In the winter, you could see children huddled together for warmth on street corners, their dead bodies curled up and frozen alongside buildings. Some of the children even resorted to cannibalism. All because of the bloodline war."

"They ate eachother!? How did the bloodline war start anyways?"

"Its cause is equally divided between two people from the same clan. That would be the Kaguya clan's Kimimaro and myself, Kumori. We were to be the successors to the clan, but I ran, eventually being picked up by the lady Raikage herself to be trained as a personal bodyguard. The other, Kimimaro, mysteriously vanished two years later, when I was nine. Losing both clan successors was a heavy blow to the Kaguya clan, and they blamed another clan who had nothing to do with it and started the war."

"So it was partially your fault? You started a war?" This time it was Hikari who spoke, finishing his lunch and laying back as well.

She said nothing, listening to the birds for a few minutes until Tsuno spoke up again.

"The how did you get here?"

"Genma found me on the street and took me here, but…"

She dropped her head again, a troubled expression on her pretty face. She squinted, remembering the state she had left Akame in. He was probably still chained to the fence with his only company being his cat, Akisu.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," she answered quickly, wiping the expression off her face.

'You left someone important behind," stated Hikari simply, She turned her head towards him in astonishment. But it quickly turned to anger.

"What would you know?" she snapped back.

"What are those from?" asked Tsuno. She looked down at her scarred arms, wincing as she remembered.

"Like I said, some days I couldn't move at all. It wasn't because my muscles didn't respond, it was because I would give up. My life was so horrible, I just didn't want to go on living."

It took a moment for her words to sink in, and for Tsuno to understand what she meant.

'Those are from suicide attempts!?"

"It was useless to try to kill myself though. Every time I cut open my arms, my bloodline would come into action and quickly heal it. It was useless, I was cursed to go on living. And I still am."

"What about that tattoo?"

"The Kaguya clan had two types of shinobi. Those born to fight with the bloodline and those born to utilize the clan's high tolerance for poison. The ones born to use the bloodline were marked at birth with a mark on their foreheads that granted them extra power. The ones fated to work with poisons were marked with the viper, having tattoo placed somewhere on their body, hiding a seal that prevented them from fully utilizing the bloodline. The poison masters were never taught the dances, but I learned by myself."

"Sounds like Hikari's-"

"Shut up, Tsuno," snapped Hikari, cutting him off. Genma suddenly appeared in front of them, an even more irritated look on his face.

"You three have no team work whatsoever. You make a horrible team. Looks like we'll be working on that for the next while."

He reached up, untying Kumori from her tree and letting her fall to the ground. She rubbed the feeling back into her limbs before standing along with her team mates. Genma pulled out a white cloth from inside his vest, waving it in front of them.

"The next activity is slightly different," he began. Kumori sighed, her head pounding from too much sunlight. It was going to be a long day.