"Did we lose them?" Tsukina asked as she stared into the dark trees from her stationary branch, watching warily for any sign of movement. She could practically taste the suspense in the air. The level of tenseness could be evenly compared to the taught-ness of a bowstring fully drawn.
No sign of them yet…
A leaf rustled. With lightning-speed precision, Tsukina flung a kunai. A squirrel dropped dead to a branch below.
When Tsukina had drawn her knife, her three companions simultaneously stiffened in the crouch of a fighting stance. Then the eldest of them, Galena, recognized the squirrel as not a person, and was immediately relieved—and annoyed.
"Tsukina, don't scare us like that!" Galena exclaimed sternly. She thought exasperatedly, That girl's going to take ten years of my life, surprising me like that every five minutes!
Tsukina rolled her eyes and retrieved her knife, wiping the blade on the rodents fur, and returned to her small group wordlessly. She was thankful it had not been a human that she had stuck.
A bird fluttered onto her friend Bee's shoulder.
"We have left them far behind," Bee informed them tonelessly. Her golden, waist-length hair swung downward as she crouched and adjusted her baby-blue hood. "They have gone south, not east."
"Yes!" Tsukina's other traveling companion, the lavender-haired Kaley, punched a fist in the air. "We lost 'em! Oh yeah, oh yeah, we rock, we ro-ock!" She did a little victory dance, her jacket flopping.
Tsukina raised her eyes to the black sky again. "So we lost them, big deal! Now what are we gonna do?"
She, Kaley, and Bee turned expectantly to Galena. Her curly, emerald colored hair shimmered in the fading starlight. They could see her contemplating face as clearly as though someone was shining a light on her, though she was a good five feet away from them and the night was nearly pitch-black.
"We head to Konoha," she said finally, then held up her hands to Kaley and Tsukina's questions.
"No, no, we don't have time to argue. We'll go to Konoha. Blend in. We shouldn't be noticed; the Chuunin exams are going on so no one should notice four extra girls."
Bee gazed impassively at the tree branch she was kneeling on, but she seriously doubted they could pull this off. Chuunin cells, after all, consisted of three, not four. Kaley, apparently, noticed it too.
"But there's four of us, not three," she noted, perturbed. "Someone's bound to notice that."
"Then we'll just remove our hitai-ate's," Galena said smoothly, pulling off her forehead protector as she spoke and stowing it in her pack. Kaley did likewise, taking hers off her head, Bee from around her neck, and Tsukina from her waist. "No one should be the wiser unless someone," here she glared at Kaley and Tsukina, "blabs."
They were silent for a moment. A gust of wind swept through the forest; causing the tree they were resting on to sway. Bee murmured something inaudible to the bird on her shoulder, and it departed with a flourish of its wings.
"I don't think we should stop," Tsukina said nervously.
"Why?" Galena asked practically. Tsukina pursed her lips.
"Well…because! You know why we haven't stopped sooner!"
"We need rest," Galena pointed out with the air of someone telling an overemotional toddler that two plus two equals four.
"How are we going to get by, then?" Tsukina argued. "I refuse to sleep outside again," She tossed her short, black-frosted hair and cast an angry glare at the nearest oak as though it had done something wrong.
"I stole enough money to last us months," Galena told her soothingly, "Though you and I both know we won't be able to stay anywhere that long. Besides…" here she gazed out at the now-pink horizon. "I hear Konoha has adequately stocked archives that may have information that could help us. I'll look into them while we're there."
"Well, I don't like staying in one place for too long," Tsukina said darkly, casting a significant glance at Bee. "If we get captured—"
"Look, it's only for a couple of weeks, okay?" Galena finally said, a little less calmly. "I don't care if you don't admit it, but we're all exhausted. We've stopped twice in the past six days, leading these guys in circles, and we're all ready to drop. Anyways, with Bee's ability, we'll at least have some warning if they get close." Galena waited a beat for someone else to object. With nothing forthcoming, she said, "Now, Bee, would you please lead us to Konoha?"
Kakashi stood on the brink of a sunbathed cliff, his toes pointed into mid-air, gazing out over the enormous clearing that made up the now sleepy Village Hidden in the Leaves. The sun had just risen above the leafy tops, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch the length of the village and make it look a ghost town. A small trickle of young ninjas made their way towards the Academy; Kakashi saw some of them yawning and waving to their friends with his enhanced eyesight.
Sunrises were one of the few things Kakashi still enjoyed. He went out of his way every morning just to stand here, on top of the world; watching Konoha wake up, quite unaware to the savage, unforgiving world he had grown up in. Kakashi had learned the hard way never to take anything for granted, so no matter what he was doing, he never skipped a morning.
He sensed with mild surprise several bodies moving in the forest far to his left. In one fluid motion, he leapt to the nearby rooftop of a watchtower, and flicked his eye towards the trees. There, he observed with interest four girls emerge from the foliage: the foremost, a tall, haunted-looking girl wearing a shirt with a hood and tan Capri's that were laced up the sides; the second, a slightly taller girl of around nineteen, with piercing gray eyes, an outfit that reminded him of Sakura's, and green curls. The third and fourth girls were about the same height, one wearing an unusual combination of violet spandex shorts, a sea-green tank, and a short brown jacket, and the other, a tight mesh shirt with a black tube top underneath and a calf-length loincloth-like black skirt with white spandex.
Kakashi did not see any hitai-ate's, but he couldn't help but notice forearm protectors and calf wrap on the elder girl, and the hand protectors and mesh gloves on the hooded girl. They could not be here to compete in the Chuunin exams; they had started yesterday.
Hm…I wonder who they are, Kakashi thought vaguely. It was only one of the numerous questions that had popped into his head: Why were they here? Where had they come from? Were they ninjas? If so, where were their headbands? And if they weren't, why had they not used the path a quarter of a mile away?
The girls were hardly a cause for alarm; as Kakashi thought these inquiries over the four companions made their way along the fence on the edge of the cliff to the road into the village. Perhaps they had gotten lost…?
The eldest girl stumbled, and dropped the tough leather pack she had been carrying. Food, water bags, and several small, paperback books fell out and rolled everywhere. As the other three girls turned to help, Kakashi thought, Well, that answers one question. They've obviously come from very far away.
There was not enough evidence to report their arrival, so Kakashi resolved to keep a close eye on them for the next few days. Even if they were shinobi, none of them looked very powerful. He could take all four of them if he had to.
How very wrong he was…
Hey there everybody! I hope u liked my ominous little note at the end of this post; hopefully it'l keep u guessing! grins evilly I have big plans for Kakashi….heheh not 2 mention neji & Iruka. For u mystery lovers, im happy 2 tell u I will not reveal everything until the last couple chapters (& I plan on havin a lot of em!) so if u like mystery, ull prbly like this. Comment or message me if u have questions, I might answer wink wink well ill update soon!!!