"What do we do after the tours, anyway?" Lan wondered aloud the next morning, staring up at the ceiling as he tossed on his pineapple print shirt (it was that same shirt he'd been wearing earlier that year-he, Dex and Tory had had to dress up as girls! But it's a bit complicated. So watch old reruns of MegaMan: NT Warrior for details!). "Yoshiro isn't going let us have a tour the whole night, is he?"
Hiroshi rubbed his sapphire eyes as he tossed on the dojo's traditional ninja-style uniform. "Well, the tours only last until five, Netto. Then you can…well, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there's a NetBattling station in the basement, right under Kisho's desk on the first floor. I saw you with your PET last night and I think we have something in common," he finished, grinning widely.
"So there is a jack-in port somewhere around here!" Lan declared triumphantly, tossing on his blue headband. "I knew ninja stuff couldn't stand away from the path of technology!"
"It's not only that, Lan," came Mega Man's voice from his PET. "The guests need their luxury too, you know."
Hiroshi nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, but don't tell anyone I told you, OK? I don't want to get in trouble."
"No prob. You do have a Navi, right?"
Grinning almost shyly, the Japanese boy lifted a hand under his bunk and fished out a sky-blue PET, exactly the same as Lan's except that his own crest, a ninja Navi holding a sword against of his dark silhouette, was at the bottom instead of the top. "His name's Fighter," Hiroshi explained. He grinned deviously then, his head lowered slightly so that his jet-black hair covered his forehead and Lan could see his blue eyes shining like sapphires from in behind his dark forelocks.
Lan threw up his own PET and flipped it in midair. "Mega Man," he introduced, catching it neatly before tucking it away into his shorts' back pocket.
Hiroshi shook his hair away from his face as though he was afraid he'd be seen like that before continuing. "They're going to test you, you know."
"Test
me?" Lan wondered, scratching his mass of spiky brown hair. "What
do you mean, they're going to test me?"
Hiroshi gave an
annoying, devious and possibly evil grin as he stuffed Fighter's
PET up his pocket. "The first time I went here, they did it to me
too. There's a village a few miles away from the dojo, and I lived
there, right? So one day I was just exploring - I'd seen the dojo
before but wanted a closer look - and they saw me. Things brightened
up from there. You get the picture."
"They made you a ninja-in-training?" Lan asked, impressed. "Who's 'they?' "
"The boss." Hiroshi gave a shrug, as if he didn't care. There's this man who runs the dojo. His name's Haru something-or-other, and if you're on a tour or he sees you or something, he'll set you up against some ninjas at beginner level. He says there aren't enough ninjas in the world, apparently."
"Weird," Lan muttered, then shrugged. He paused for a second before swinging his legs over the edge of the hammock. Lan looked down into the dormitory's spiralling depths, freaking out, his brown eyes wide open. He scooted across the white fabric.
Hiroshi laughed. "Yeah, that happens a lot," he said, clambering down from his own bunk. "You're supposed to grab the wires on your way down, then jump."
Lan grabbed one of the hammock's support wires in his right hand, taking one of the others with his left. He swung himself over the edge of the hammock, which sagged with his weight.
Hiroshi laughed. "Putting on the pounds, have you?" he joked. "Just kidding. Now jump."
Lan swung his legs in the air, jumping and landing on his bare feet. "When does the tour start today?"
The other boy checked his watch. "Right about now, in fact."
Lan groaned.
