Chapter 8

The stone ninja walked out of the bushes, and I stared at them, grinding my teeth, and I jumped when Hikara whispered fiercely in my ear.

"Quick! We'll help you get your scroll, just get ready."

We stationed ourselves away from the ninja, and I saw Katsu, out of the corner of my eye, silently burying the other team.

"This it gonna be so easy, they're just munchlings," said the on on the left

"Um, actually," cut in the one on the right leaning over to look at his comrade, "I think it's 'munchkins' but-"

"Hey, shut up! C'mon you three little sissies; come on and fight."

I heard a soft schlucking noise as the other team rose up from the ground, Ryota and Hikara on each side of me, and Tsukiko softly floating above me.

"Okay, so there's six little sissies, we can still take them!" said the first ninja.

They boy in the middle ran at us, forcing me to quickly teleport out of the way to let Hikara do whatever she did. With a quick flick of the finger, I watched from my hiding spot in the bushes behind the stone ninja as Hikara opened up her bracelet, letting a good enough size of whip come out, which she threw to Ryota. He grabbed it, and the stretched whip tripped the boy. Tsukiko threw a lightning bolt at the fallen boy's heart, instantly killing him.

His teammates stared, "Okay," said one, "we can still do this."

One started to run, but then I quickly materialized at his side.

"Oh, no you don't," I said, my eyes glowing blue, which signaled that I was using telekinesis.

XxX

From somewhere in the forest, Kiba fell to the ground as the large boulder he was leaning on floated up and away.

"Looks like Amaya's at it," he said.

XxX

I floated the boulder over to the scared nin, and fell on him. He was killed immediately.

The last boy was horrified. He tried to run, but tsukiko quickly stopped him. She punched him, hard, but just enough for him to fall back, right into Katsu's arms.

Katsu closed his eyes, preformed a few hand symbols, and reached into the shinobi's pocket. Out of it, he pulled an Earth scroll. Then, using the hand holding the scroll, he preformed more hand symbols, and dug his heel into the ground. A large, gaping hole appeared, and Katsu tossed the ninja in. Scared, he looked up at Katsu, who preformed yet more hand symbols, and dug his heel in again. The hole was instantly covered.

"Whoa," Tsukiko said, "how did he…?"

"He works with dirt," I said, looking at Katsu. "Oh, fine! 'Soil.' But anything he does, it has dirt in it. That's how he found their scroll."

"Oh," said Hikara, "So is that how you knew we had the same scroll?"

"Tsukiko was obviously caught off balance.

"Huh?"

"We had the deal, remember? Now we're gonna get you yours."

Katsu silently picked up a handful of soil, and studied it. Then he threw it up in the air, and started walking

I looked at him. "Okay," I said, "this way." And I began to follow Katsu.

Tsukiko quickly caught up to me. "Wait, why are we following a boy that doesn't talk and throws dirt up into the air?" she asked.

I looked at her.

"Didn't we tell you already?" I asked.

"Yeah, probably, " she answered, "But just tell me again."

I sighed.

"He works with dirt. Like I said, he can find anything with a speck of dirt on it. Thus, he just looked into the dirt, and it pointed him in the direction of the closest person with an earth scroll. So I was thinking that we did a surprise attack, y'know, let Katsu point us in the right direction, then jump on the others, and take down the one with the scroll."

"Pff," Tsukiko said, "You obviously have never planned put a battle, have you?"

I looked at her strangely. "No. Have you?"

"Of course."

Then Hikara cut in, her head over my shoulder, "She's a master at planning. Our sensei will normally let her decide what to do."

"Um, okay then," I said, "What do you suggest we do?"

"Oh, that's easy," she said, "We jump on the guy with the scroll first, then we get the other guys, so they'll- OUCH! WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FOR!?"

Tsukiko had started shouting at Katsu, when he smoothly turned around and covered my mouth.

"Mmmph, Nneergh! Bffffbmbrmm!"

"Oh."

There were three extremely dirty ninja, standing a few feet away from us.