Disclaimer: Randy Cunningham is owned by Disney, while Senran Kagura is owned by Marvelous. Please support the official release.
Sunlight shone in through the window and onto the sleeping pinkett's face. The young shinobi stirred a bit before sitting upright on her bed as she rubbed the sleep from her eye. Hibari then let out a cute yawn as she stretched her arms over her head.
Which caused her breast to bounce a bit.
Once she was done stretching, she let her arms fall to her sides, and she opened her bright blue eyes with pink clover-shaped irises.
"Good morning world!" Hibari chirped with a bright smile before climbing out of bed.
As She made her way to her dresser, she didn't notice the large black book on the floor. Because of this, she ended up tripping over it and falling face-first onto the ground.
"Owie," Hibari groaned as she pushed herself onto her knees before rubbing her forehead.
'What did I trip over?' She thought to herself as she tried to rub away the pain, she was fairly certain that she didn't leave anything out on the floor before going to bed. She looked over her shoulder to see what she tripped over, and lying on the floor was a large black book with red inlays that she had never seen before.
"What's this?" Hibari asked no one in particular as she picked up the book. It was old, thick with a heavy black cover and red inlay. The design on the cover consisted of a red circle in the center of the cover within two red rings, with squarish swirls spread across the cover in a simple yet beautiful manner. And within the red circle in the center of the cover was a black emblem that resembles a mask worn by a shinobi.
Hibari then notices a faint odor coming from the book. she brought the book up to her nose and gave it a quick sniff, before slightly scrunching her nose at the smell. For some odd reason, the book smelled like farts.
Curious about what was in the book, Hibari tried to open it to take a look inside.
Key word being tried.
When Hibari pulled on the covers, they wouldn't budge.
Hibari couldn't help but blink in surprise at this.
She let out a cute, "huh" before tugging at the covers again, but the pages didn't even shift.
The young shinobi tilted her head in confusion as she stared down at the book that refused to open. It wasn't bound by anything as far as she could tell.
It was just like how her math textbook refused to open for her yesterday.
"Mou" she let out somewhat dejected, before looking at her clock. She had classes today and she was running a little bit behind schedule already.
"Maybe Kiriya-sensei would know what this is," she said to herself as she placed the black book into her school bag, before continuing on with her morning routines, not noticing the book softly glowing within her bag.
Theresa panted heavily as she ran as fast as she could down the sidewalk.
"This is so wonk," Theresa thought to herself with a bit of frustration, "I mean it's Saturday, why do we have to go to school on a honking Saturday!?"
How Schools worked in Japan was very different from what she was used to back in Norrisville high.
For one they had to wear the school's uniform, which Theresa herself didn't mind all that much. Though she would have preferred wearing the uniform she wore for the Norrisville high baton twirling team.
Hey, she thought it looked cute.
But if she was being honest, Theresa thought it was weird that they had to exchange their shoes for "indoor shoes". She also thought attending school on a Saturday was weird as well.
Theresa, like many teens from the states, wasn't used to waking up for school on Saturdays. So likewise, by the time the purple-haired girl remembered she had school today she was already way behind schedule.
Hence why she was sprinting as fast as she could in order to avoid running late for class.
Fortunately, it wasn't long till Hanzo academy was within her sight. Unfortunately, the front entrance was nowhere in sight. Fortunately again, Theresa could see the school's back entrance.
'Wait, I didn't know the school had a back gate,' Theresa thought in slight surprise. However, she didn't dwell on it for long as she sprinted toward the entrance.
As she reached it, she made a sharp turn through the gate and-
Boing
Suddenly Theresa smacked into something soft and springy before falling down onto her rear.
The purple-haired girl let out a groan as she rubbed her aching butt, silently wishing the ground was as soft as whatever it was she just ran into.
"Are you alright?" Theresa heard someone say in Japanese, concern evident in their voice.
Looking up, Theresa saw who the voice belonged to. They were a Japanese teenage girl that looked to be about a few years older than Theresa. She has fair skin, dark brown hair that was tied into a ponytail with a white ribbon, and brown eyes that look down at the purple-haired teen with concern.
She also wore the Hanzo academy uniform, though the brunette seemed to be slightly lax in regard to the school's uniform policy as she wore a red scarf and her skirt was worn just a little higher to the point where Theresa was sure the older girl would accidentally show off her panties if she wasn't careful.
Though the thing about the older girl that caught Theresa's attention the most was how extremely…well proportioned the brunette was.
'Seriously, I thought a figure like that only existed in anime!' Theresa thought to herself with a bit of a blush as she stared at the brunette's well-endowed chest with a bit of envy.
She immediately shook her head.
'No Theresa, don't think like that. it's rude to think of others like that!' She chided herself mentally.
"Y-yeah, I'm alright," The purple-haired teen reassured as she averted her eyes away from the other girl's figure.
"Here, let me help you up," the brown-haired girl offered with her hand outstretched, to which Theresa accepted. The purplette couldn't help but notice that the other girl's hand had calluses, and Theresa wondered if the brunette played any sports. She was definitely athletic since she was able to pull Theresa back onto her feet with hardly any effort.
"Thanks," Theresa said with a smile, before looking at their surroundings, wondering what it was that she ran into. There wasn't anything nearby that she could have bumped into, except for...
Boing
"I-I guess I should also apologize as well huh?" Theresa said with a nervous smile, as she once again blushed.
"Don't worry it's alright," the other girl reassured with a nod of her head, "You look like you're in some kind of rush."
"Yeah, I'm kind of running a bit behind schedu…'' at that Theresa's eyes widened once she remembered why she was in a rush in the first place, "Oh, wonk! I'm going to be late!"
"Wonk?" the brunette repeated with a tilt of her head.
"Sorry, but I have to get to my classes before I'm late," Theresa apologized before running off toward the school building, "Maybe I'll see you later."
"Ah, alright!" the brown-haired girl shouted back as she watched the younger teen run off, "Wonk, huh. I guess she's also from Norrisville."
The brunette continued to watch the teen, before something the purple-haired girl said reminded her of something important, and her eyes suddenly widened in panic.
"Oh wonk! I'm going to be late for my shinobi classes!" With that, the brown-haired teen ran off toward the older part of the school.
Theresa dashed through the door right as the bell for first period rang.
"Whew, made it," Theresa said with a sigh of relief as she wiped the sweat off her brow.
"Nice to see you're early on a Saturday ," a grumpy and harsh voice said sarcastically from behind the purple-haired teen.
Theresa couldn't help but flinch at the voice's tone before turning around to face the owner of the voice.
Standing next to the door was a middle-aged man with slick black hair, and brownish-black eyes, with a few wrinkles donning his face, and He wore a pair of glasses with thick black rims.
He glared down toward the purple-haired teen as he crossed his arms over his chest. Theresa couldn't help but gulp at the man's intense glare.
"G-good morning, Mr. Nōtarin," Theresa said nervously with an equally nervous smile, to which Mr. Nōtarin gave a hmph.
"You were almost late today Ms. Fowler," he said sternly.
"Y-yeah, I-I know, it's just that-" Theresa
"No excuses, Miss fowler," he said, slightly raising his voice, once again making the purplette flinch, "you should make more of an effort to arrive to class on time."
Theresa had to resist the urge to frown.
'This is the first time since coming to Hanzo that I was almost late to class. You make it sound like I do this often,' the baton twirler thought to herself in slight irritation.
Behind Mr. Nōtarin, the door creaked open slightly and two familiar faces peeked through the opening before quietly entering the classroom.
It was her crush, Randy, and his best friend Howard. Apparently, they were late as well. Not really surprising considering the latter's attitude toward…well anything really.
Even so, Theresa tried her best not to draw attention to the pair as they sneaked toward their desk with Mr. Nōtarin's back to them. Not even Howard deserved to be on the receiving end of the teacher's "strict reprimanding".
As they were sneaking by, Theresa noticed Randy sending her a sympathetic look, and looked like he wanted to step in, but the shorter chubby boy stopped him before he even got the chance to do so. The baton twirler had to make an effort not to blush.
Randy was the second kindest person she knew, a bit selfish every so often, but he still cared about others.
However…
"The same goes for the rest of you!" Mr. Nōtarin shouted as he spun on his heel and threw a piece of chalk toward the boys, striking Howard in the face.
"Ow, what the juice!" the short chubby boy exclaimed, rubbing the spot where the chalk hit him, "That honking hurt!"
"Ever since the first week, Most of you Norrisvillians made it a habit of being late to school on Saturday, assuming any of you even come to school at all," Mr. Nōtarin said glaring at Howard and Randy, "I don't know how things are like at your last school, but here at Hanzo we expect our students to arrive on time every day!"
'That's not true at all,' Theresa thought with a frown. Yeah, overall the students of Norrisville were still getting used to how schools worked in Japan, but only a number of students arrived late the first Saturday they were attending Hanzo. After which the number of late students went down as the weeks progressed.
Even the teachers understood this and were, for the most part, forgiving of the students provided they didn't keep doing it too many times. Mr. Nōtarin was not only the only teacher who's been hard on them, but he grossly exaggerated their faults.
Heck, the only student that never even bothered showing up to Hanzo on Saturday, and every other day for that matter, was Bash.
"Now get to your seats so we can get started with classes," he ordered as he glared down toward the Norrisville students.
The three Norrisvillians did as they were told, with Howard grumbling as he rubbed the area the chalk hit him.
Theresa let out a sigh as she sat down at her desk. Next to her sat her best friend, Debbie Kang, who until a moment ago was immersed in her notebook.
"Hey Theresa," Debbie greeted
"Hey Debbie," Theresa said with a groan, before noticing the other girl's notebook, recognizing it as the one Debbie uses to write down her notes for Norrisville high newspaper.
"Are you working on another story for the NHGTTWDPC online edition debs?" Theresa asked out of curiosity.
"Kind of," Debbie said as she scratched her head with the eraser of her pencil, "I'm trying to find out why the ninja…"
Debbie stopped when she noticed Mr. Nōtarin glaring daggers at her and Theresa. The short girl let out a low groan as she rolled her eyes.
"I'll tell you later when we don't have Mr. Nōtarin hounding us," Debbie said quietly before she and Theresa turned their attention toward Mr. Nōtarin's lesson.
It was now time for Lunch, and all of Hibari's friends sat in the ninja room after finishing their training for the day.
Hibari herself just looked at her own lunch (which consisted mainly of a large chocolate cake and various candies) with a glum expression on her face. Again her performance during training was terrible.
Today Kiriya-sensei had them go through an obstacle course as fast as possible within a specific time limit.
Her friends were able to get through the course without much issue. Ikuraga went through the course with the least amount of time, shortly followed by Yagyu, then Asuka with a few hiccups, and then Katsuragi.
Hibari on the other hand pretty much fumbled through the course, especially the part where she had to run on top of bamboo stalks without losing her balance. And it didn't help that there were traps that would fire various projectiles at them as they went through the course, along with the occasional wooden puppet ambushes. Hibari barely cleared the course within the required amount of time.
Even though Kiriya-sensei wasn't too hard on her for her performance, Hibari still couldn't help but feel downhearted at how she did in the course and her performance as a shinobi overall.
"Is everything alright Hibari?" Yagyu asked, seeing the pinkett's downcasted expression.
"O-oh it's nothing Yagyu," Hibari lied with a forced smile.
The white-haired girl didn't look convinced.
"Are you sure Hibari?" Asuka asked, concern evident in her voice.
Looking at the rest of her friends, Hibari saw that they were all looking at her with worried expressions on their faces.
"Like I said, it's nothing to worry about you guys," the pinkette said in reassurance. However, none of the other girls were convinced.
"Come on Hibari, you can tell us," Katsuragi said with a reassuring smile.
Hibari continued to stare at her lunch with a downcast expression, contemplating whether or not she should tell her friends what was bothering her. A moment passed before she made her decision.
"It's just that I didn't do so well in training again today," Hibari confessed as she looked down toward the ground.
"Is that all?" Katsuragi asked with a raised eyebrow. Her words caused the pink-haired girl to look up toward the blonde with a confused expression, to which Katsuragi send a reassuring smirk to the younger shinobi, "don't worry so much about it alright, you just got to do some more training and you'll be a top class shinobi in no time."
"Katsuragi is right, Hibari, every shinobi starts from scratch, even someone like Asuka's grandfather," Ikuraga added, "take Asuka for example, when she started out here at Hanzo her performance was even worse than your's Hibari."
"Really?" Hibari asked as she blinked in surprise.
The brown-haired girl in question couldn't help but blush as she let out an embarrassed giggle, "yeah when I first started training here in Hanzo, I kept messing up in all the training exercises. I once even got myself, Katsuragi, and Ikaruga blown up as we were going through an obstacle course."
"That wasn't the only time she got us blown up," Katsuragi said with a chuckle to which Asuka's blush deepened, "in fact, it was pretty much almost every day Asuka got us blown up during training."
"Mou, Th-that's not true Katsuragi!" Asuka denied as she flailed her arms up and down in embarrassment.
"Actually, it is true," Ikaruaga said bluntly, "She got us blown up when we were practicing our dodging, the time when we simulated infiltrating a facility, and that one time when Kiriya-sensei had us try to catch fish with our bare hands."
"I still don't know how that happened," Asuka mumbled under her breath as she scratched her head in confusion, "there wasn't any kind of explosive nearby."
"Thankfully it eventually stopped halfway through her first year," Katsuragi continued before rubbing the back of her head with a smirk, "I was worried all my hair was going to get burned off, hehehe."
Hibari couldn't help but giggle at the story, her mood brightening up at the thought of Asuka messing up so much during her first year.
It definitely did help with her confidence. If Asuka was able to improve so much after starting out so bad, then so can she.
"Thanks you guys," the pinkette said with a bright smile, "I guess I just need to train more huh."
"Yeah, and if you need help, just ask," Asuka said with a bright smile, "you know we're more than happy to help you Hibari."
Hibari continued to smile, thankful for the friends she had. , "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I brought sweets for all of us to eat."
With that Hibari stood up and quickly made her way to her locker where she kept her school bag. Humming a cheerful tune, the pinkette opened her bag to get the sweets she brought. She stopped humming when her eyes laid upon the black book she found in her room.
She suddenly remembered that she was going to ask Kiriya-sensei if he knew what it was.
Hibari then returned to her friends with the book in hand.
"What do you got there, Hibari?" Yagyu asked
"I don't know," Hibari answered as she sat back down next to her best friend, "I found it in my room this morning."
The white-haired shinobi narrowed her eye in concern as she assumed the worst, "did someone break into your room Hibari?"
If anyone dared to try anything on Hibari, she'll personally make them regret it.
"No, I don't think so," Hibari said with a blink. She hasn't really considered the idea of someone sneaking into her room. After all, nothing in her room was disturbed or missing that would have suggested a break-in. Then again, Hibari didn't check to make sure that wasn't the case either.
"So, what's in the book anyway," Katsuragi asked, curious about the book's contents.
"I'm not sure," Hibari said with a tilt of her head as she studied the book resting on her lap, "I'm not able to open it."
"Really?" Asuka asked as she blinked in surprise.
The younger shinobi gave the older girl a nod before handing the brunette the book.
Asuka took the book and tugged experimentally on the cover, but the pages didn't even shift.
"Eh, It really won't open," she exclaimed in surprise.
"Here, let me take a crack at it," Katsuragi offered with her hand outstretched toward the book.
The brunette shrugged her shoulders, before placing the book into the blonde's grasp.
Katsuragi looked at the book before pulling at the cover with a considerable amount of effort, yet it didn't even budge.
Katsuragi tried again, but this time using all of her shinobi strength.
The blonde let out grunts as she kept on pulling at the edges of the book with all her might, but even as her face turned red she couldn't even open the book in the slightest.
The perverted shinobi eventually had to stop to catch her breath. She then glared down at the book with a determined grin on her face.
"Oh, so you want to do this the hard way, huh?"
With that Katsuragi dropped the book onto the floor, much to the rest of the other shinobis' confusion.
Before they could ask what Katsuragi was doing, she placed both of her feet on the book's edge that was touching the ground and grasped the upper edge with her fingers. She then pulled as hard as she could to open the book.
Even with all Katsuragi's strength, the book still wouldn't move even a single centimeter.
"Katsuragi stop, you're going to end up brea-"
Ikaruga's words were cut off when the book's bottom edge slipped out from under Katsuragi's feet. Still grasping the book's upper edge, the girl didn't notice and ended up launching it toward the ceiling by accidentally throwing it over her head.
"Eh, oops, hehe," Katsuragi let out with a nervous smile.
As the book ricochets off the ceiling, it bounces off the wall and speeds downward toward Yagyu. The eyepatch-wearing girl wasn't in the least bit concerned as she nonchalantly pulled out her umbrella from…somewhere, and opened it before the book reached her.
The book then ricochets off of the white-haired girl's umbrella and…
Bam!
…crashed, corner first, into Katsuragi's forehead with the force of a cannonball!
"Ack! Book! That's a book!" The perverted shinobi exclaimed, her eyes looking in opposite directions, before sprawling onto the floor.
"Kat! Are you alright!?" Asuka exclaimed as she rushed toward the downed shinobi's side. She knelt down and gently cradled Katsuragi's head in her arms. The blonde shinobi's eyes were spinning, and a large bump was starting to form where she got smacked by the book. Asuka also wasn't sure if it was just her imagination or not, but she could swear she could see dragons and puppies circling the blonde's head.
"The B-boob goddess, she calls out to me from up top of marshmallowy hills on the other side of a beautiful river," Katsuragi weakly mumbled as she shakily stretched out her hand up into the air, "she's telling me to take her hand and go with her."
"B-boob goddess?" Asuka muttered in confusion as a small blush appeared on her face before she vigorously shook her head.
"Kat, whoever that woman is, don't follow her into the light!" Asuka cried out in desperation and panic as she vigorously shook the downed blonde back and forth in an attempt to bring her back from the brink.
As this was happening, the black-haired shinobi picked up the large book that fell to the ground after it struck Katsuragi's head.
Examining it, Ikuraga noted that the book was still in pristine condition even after that brief hectic moment. Impressive, considering how old the book seems to be. Whoever made it did so with durability in mind.
Though the ravenette couldn't help but slightly grimace at the slight odor the book had.
What she didn't see, however, was any kind of lock and/or binding that would prevent someone from opening the book. And brushing her thumb across the page showed that it wasn't just some kind of realistic-looking prop.
Despite knowing she might have just as much luck as Asuka and Katsuragi did, Ikaruga tugged at the edges of the book.
And just like Asuka and Katsuragi, the book refused to open.
"It doesn't seem like it's going to open for any of us, not only that but it also looks really old," Ikuraga explained as she gave the book one more look over, before looking at the youngest shinobi of their group, "are you sure you've never seen it before Hibari?"
the pinkette merely nodded her head, "No, I've never seen that book before in my life."
the ravenette let out a quiet hum as she looked at the book one more time, "well in any case you should probably show it to Kiriya-sensei. He might know what it is."
"I was planning on asking him about it," Hibari admitted sheepishly while twiddling her fingers, "but I forgot."
"Well unfortunately he's now teaching in his civilian classes, and we don't have any more shinobi training for the rest of the day, so you're going to have to wait until the end of the day to show him."
"Couldn't I show him the book right after mine and Yagyu's math class?" Hibari asked.
"It's probably not a good idea to risk showing this book with so many normal students around."
"Oh, okay," Hibari said, seeing the older girl's point.
"Kat, don't squeeze my boobs!"
"Boobs for the Boob goddess!"
looking at the source of the commotion, the group saw the still disoriented Katsuragi was now groping one of the red scarf wearing girl's breasts.
"BOOBS FOR THE BOOB GODDESS!"
"AHHHHH!"
Ikuraga, Yagyu, and Hibari couldn't help but sweat drop at the blonde's antics. Even the book somehow seemed to be sweat-dropping as well.
"For 800 years, Norrisville High has been protected by a ninja. No one knows that every four years, a new warrior is chosen. A freshman to fight the forces of evil.
I am the ninja. I am Randy Cunningham!"
"Only thing is… I am not at Norrisville anymore."
Randy stared out the window as he was deep in thought. Yeah, yeah, I know this is a common cliché in anime, but so what?
Anyway, it was only a few weeks ago since he defeated both evil Julian and the sorcerer, as well as sealed away the latter's power beneath the eye of eternity. He and Howard celebrated their victory over the 800-year-old evil and the fact that they were now living next to each other by playing grave puncher and snacking on junk food for the rest of the day.
After that, Randy was pretty much left wondering what he was going to do now that his role as the ninja was likely to end. He would have most likely spent the rest of his high school days as a regular student of Norrisville once it was time to relinquish the mask back to whoever it was that left it in his room in the first place. However such thoughts were put to a halt when the Nomicon...
"Oi, Cunningham!" Randy was pulled out of his thoughts when someone yelled out his name. That someone being his best biffer since they were three years old.
"Huh, wha?" The taller teen uttered out in surprise, to which his orange-haired friend couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Weren't you listening to me Cunningham?
"Sorry Howard," Randy apologized as he scratched the back of his head, "just thinking about ninja stuff."
Howard let out an annoyed groan to that.
"Seriously Cunningham, you defeated both evil Julian and the sorcerer, still can't believe that all you gave him was a thumbs up by the way, and McFist has no reason to destroy the ninja anymore. What ninja business do you have to think about?"
Randy could see where Howard was coming from. Pretty much all of the threats the ninja would have to face were dealt with. Mac Antfee no longer remembers his time as the ninja and thus won't come after Randy to reclaim the mask, and the sorceress is trapped in the land of shadows.
"Yeah, I know Howard," Randy said as he rested his elbows on his desk, "but after we defeated the sorcerer the nomicon said, "A ninja must always be vigilant, lest he be unprepared for the struggles ahead."
"So," Howard asked, his tone uncaring.
"Soooo, it's telling me that there are probably more things that the ninja is going to have to face," Randy explained with an annoyed tone, "I need to be ready at all times, otherwise I'm going to get caught with my pants down like a shoob."
"Like Bucky last week?"
"Exactly like Bucky last week," Randy said with a nod. The purple-haired teen then let out a sigh before leaning back on his chair, "I don't know, maybe I need a ninja trainer or something."
"Why?" Howard asked incredulously with a raised eyebrow, before raising his arms into the air.
"I mean you beat the honking sorcerer for crying out loud. I don't think you need any "training" buddy," he continued, using air quotes when he said training.
Randy couldn't help but roll his eyes before giving his best friend a deadpan expression.
"Howard, it was mostly thanks to luck that we beat the sorcerer," Randy countered with a serious expression on his face, "If it wasn't for you unexpectedly dropping on top of him when you did, as well as getting tangled up in his balls, he would have ganked my cheese right then and there!"
"Alright, you might have a bit of a point there," Howard conceded somewhat, "but the important thing is...you didn't get your cheese ganked. Besides, you got the magic suit, why do you need to train?"
Randy merely rolled his eyes at that.
"The nomicon has been teaching me techniques and other ninja skills, but...I don't know...I feel like I'm not improving as much as I should be. Like I'm missing something important. but whaaat exactly?"
"Wait, I thought the suit gave you all those ninja skills?" Howard asked with a raised eyebrow, confusion evident in his voice.
"The suit mainly gives me superhuman abilities, it doesn't just give me those skills," Randy explained, "remember when you wore the suit? you were just fumbling around like a shoob."
At that Howard let out an amused chuckle.
"hahaha! Yeah, I really sucked at being the ninja."
"You did, you really did suck," Randy agreed with a nostalgic smile, before regaining a serious expression, "But that's what I mean, I can't really afford to not be at my A-game in case someone even badder than the sorcerer rears their head up."
The purple-haired teen's gaze then shifted toward the window, showcasing the town the school resided within, "I kind of figured that since we're in Japan, I could see if I could find someone who can show me what it is I'm doing wrong. I'm not saying the Nomicon isn't a good teacher, it is, but I can't help but feel like the training I do in it isn't really...I don't know...translating...is that a good way to describe it?...into the real world."
Howard merely shrugged at that.
"You do seem to forget about some of your more bruce abilities," he said crossing his arms, "I mean you don't really seem to use your super senses a lot, or the earth attack either."
"I'll be honest, I often forget about those, I'm not sure why though," Randy admitted as he grabbed his chin between his index finger and thumb while looking up toward the ceiling in a contemplating manner. Those powers definitely would have made some of his fights easier.
"And what makes you think there might be anyone here to help you with the whole ninja thing?" Howard asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Well, I kind of figured that since Japan is where ninjas originated from, then I might meet some ninjas and they could show me the ropes."
"And how exactly do you intend to find these ninjas?" the orange-haired teen continued, now raising an eyebrow.
"I, uh, haven't really thought of..."
"And that's not even taking into consideration if they're trustworthy or not," Howard stated, placing his fist on his hips, "I mean they could totally be Shoobiopaths for all we know."
At that, Randy let out a groan before slamming his face onto his desk. Howard was right, Randy didn't put much thought into his idea. assuming there were ninjas other than himself, he had no idea of how to look for them, how to convince them to help him, and most of all whether or not they were trustworthy. For all, he knew they could be just like Mac Antfee before Randy tricked his predecessor into taking the ultimate lesson. And he's been tricked more times than he was comfortable with.
It would be a lot easier if the Nomicon was able to tell him where he would need to go to find some ninjas that could help him, but when he asked the book about it all he got was nothing.
Not the usual vague messages that the Nomicon would occasionally give him, where Randy would be completely clueless about at first, the Nomicon actually gave him nothing. The most the Nomicon did was simply have a doodle ninja shrug their shoulders.
It was just as clueless as Randy was.
"Hey, you know what I think will cheer you up?" Howard spoke up. without lifting his head from the desk, Randy looked through his bangs and up to his smirking best friend and shot him with a questioning frown.
"The new Grave puncher JRPG edition is coming out tomorrow, remember!?"
At that, Randy's mood lifted and an excited smile grew on his face as he sat up on his seat.
"Of course, how could I forget!?" He exclaimed with excitement in his voice, "It was only one of the things we were looking forward to when we heard we were going to japan!"
"to think we would have had to wait months before they sold English copies to the U.S.! Months Cunningham!" Howard said, equally excited, as he clenched his fist in anticipation, "but now we won't have to wait that honking long!"
"And tomorrow our fists are going to hit those sweet sweet graves," Randy added. Sure the version they're getting will only be in Japanese, but that wasn't really an issue for him and Howard. Both of them knew enough Japanese to understand it with perfect fluency.
'Mom was right, being bilingual does provide you with more opportunities,' Randy thought to himself as he continued chatting with his best friend about the new grave puncher game.
And who knows, maybe taking his mind off of ninja stuff for a while could help him figure out what to do.
"Now for some unexplained reason, during the Taishō Period, a fire started and began spreading across the entertainment district, destroying much of it in the process," the teacher droned on as many students were having difficulty paying attention to the lesson. Not because the lesson itself was boring, but rather due to the monotonous way the teacher conducted himself. Hibari was also one of those students having trouble paying attention.
It also didn't help that throughout the day, Hibari's mind kept on drifting back toward the black book she found in her room this morning. She couldn't help but wonder about it. Things like why it wouldn't open, what was inside, is it important, and why was it in her room in the first place?
"However, not long before the fire started, there were claims of a man with a boar's head running around, and a young man wielding a sword while carrying a-," the teacher continued until suddenly the bell indicating the end of the school day rang, and all of the students began packing their stuff into their bags.
"We'll continue our discussion on Monday," the teacher said as he made his way toward the door, "And remember class, your assignments are due Monday."
With that, the teacher exited the class, with some of the students following him out the door.
As Hibari was placing her stuff into her bag, she noticed the black book resting in her bag.
'I should hurry to Kiriya-sensei before he leaves so I can ask him about this,' Hibari thought as she was closing her bag.
However, before she could close it all the way, the inside of her bag briefly glowed.
"Huh?" Hibari let out in confusion before the inside of her bag glowed again.
Blinking in confusion, Hibari opened her bag to see what was causing that light.
At first glance, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary in her bag. As she was about to thoroughly search her bag, the large black book glowed.
"What," the pinkette let out, her eyes widening in surprise before immediately closing her bag and quickly looking around the classroom to make sure no one noticed. Thankfully, no one seemed to as all of the students exited the classroom, not even so much as looking in her general direction.
the young pinkette let out a sigh of relief before deciding to wait until all of the students left the classroom.
Once she was sure she was the only one in the classroom, Hibari slowly and carefully pulled the book out of her bag.
As she looked at the book the pinkette couldn't help but wondered how or why it glowed as it did. Hibari's pondering came to a stop however when the book suddenly opened on its own, much to the pink-haired shinobi's shock.
Before Hibari could regain her bearings, the pages rested on a page that had a large image of a hallway with countless doors, with a door larger than the others at the very end of the hallway. On the door were words written boldly in English, so unfortunately Hibari didn't know what it said. However, if she could have understood what it said, it would read "The ultimate lesson."
"Are you sure?" Theresa asked as she exchanged her indoor school shoes for her regular shoes.
"Yeah," Debbie Kang said as she adjusted the straps of her bag, "I want to see if the school's newspaper committee is willing to share their workspace with me."
"Do you think they will?"
The short girl shrugged her shoulders.
"Wouldn't hurt to try," she said before giving the taller girl a smirk, "besides I can't leave my readers hanging, It is my job to keep them informed on current events."
"But we're not in Norrisville right now Debbie, any story you find here isn't really going to be a big deal back home," Theresa explained as she placed her school bag on her shoulder.
"It doesn't matter where I am, I'm the youngest of the NHGTTWDPC It's my job to find stories to inform the people with."
Theresa couldn't help but giggle a bit. Her best friend did love being a journalist almost as much as she loved Mexican death bears.
"So what story do you plan on doing?" The taller girl asked curiously.
"Overall, I'm not really sure, there's not really much that goes on in this town, other than the weirdly large number of gangs made up of teenagers around the area,"
"Debbie," Theresa said in a warning manner, concern evident in her voice.
"Relax, Theresa," the shorter girl reassured with a smile, " I won't go out looking for those punks and risk my neck. I'm not reckless."
"You mean like that time when you carelessly told everyone that randy was the ninja," Theresa reminded as she crossed her arms, with a slight frown on her face, "you're lucky that the actual ninja was able to save randy from that killer robot that attacked the school that day."
"I don't ever remember making that dumb scoop," Debbie argued with a bit of frustration in her voice, her words making Theresa look at her with some disappointment. The shorter girl took a deep breath before she continued talking, "Speaking of the ninja, I am trying to figure out why he didn't tell everyone about that sorcerer underneath the school, but I keep running into dead ends. It doesn't help that we're not in Norrisville right now, and we haven't seen the ninja in weeks, and that's assuming he came with us to Japan."
"I'm sure he had his reasons," Theresa said as she let her arms fall to her sides.
"Don't you think we had a right to know?" Debbie argued as she pointed a finger at Theresa, "I mean he was under the school for ninja knows how long!"
"Well, maybe," Theresa conceded somewhat as she scratched her cheek in an unsure manner.
"Anyway, until I can get answers, I'm going to have to find other scoops to cover in the meantime," Debbie said as she grasped her bag's strap.
"Well alrighty then," Theresa said before looking out the front doors' windows. She couldn't help but frown a little at the large number of students exiting through the front gate. While Theresa wasn't exactly the shy type, she wasn't really a fan of going through a large crowd either, "it looks a little crowded up front, I think I'm going to take the back gate, later Debbie."
"Later Theresa," Debbie said as she waved goodbye to her best friend who was now walking away, before walking off in the opposite direction herself.
"Wait," the short girl said as she suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway, "this school has a back gate?"
After school Asuka was walking out through the back gate by herself. Ikuraga and Katsuragi had already left the school grounds some time ago, and Asuka hasn't seen Yagyu and Hibari either since their shinobi training, so the brunette was currently alone at the moment.
"Oh hey, wait up," a familiar voice called out from behind Asuka.
Looking back, the brown-haired shinobi saw someone running up to her. They were a Caucasian teenage girl with a bit of Japanese ancestry, who had short violet hair with three lavender streaks, tied in a mini ponytail, and had dark blue eyes.
She recognized her as the girl that ran into her this morning.
"Oh, uh, hey," Asuka said, a bit put off and confused as the purple-haired girl ran up to her, "You're the girl from this morning right?"
"Yeah, I haven't really had the chance to introduce myself," the younger teen said with a small giggle, "My name is Theresa, and again sorry about this morning."
"I'm Asuka, and it's alright, "the brunette said with a reassuring smile, before feeling the need to ask the other teen a question, "By the way Theresa-chan, you wouldn't happen to be one of the exchange students from Norrisville would you?"
"Yeah, I am," Theresa answered with a tilt of her head, "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I heard a couple of other Norrisville students use that same word you've said this morning a couple of times and I was wondering what it means."
"The words I used this morning?" the purplette asked in slight confusion.
"You said "wonk" this morning when you said you were going to be late for class," Asuka clarified.
"Oh," Theresa said, now understanding what the brunette was talking about, "Well wonk generally means something is lame or uncool."
"Oh, that's neat," Asuka said with a smile.
"Thanks."
"Also I don't mean to be rude, but why are you using the rear gate?"
the purplette shrugged her shoulders, "the front gate looked a bit overcrowded so I decided to go out the rear gate to avoid it. Is that also why you're using the rear gate?"
"Um, yeah, it is," Asuka answered truthfully. After all, the rear gate was made specifically for shinobi students like herself, so they could avoid the regular students.
It wouldn't do to make friends with the regular students and have them start getting nosy about which classes Asuka was in."
"Well I was going to head home by myself, but then I saw you and figured we could hang out a bit," Theresa explained.
"Eh, really," Asuka asked, somewhat taken aback.
"Yeah, why not?"
"Well, um, er," Asuka fumbled a bit trying to think up a response of what to say. By all accounts, Asuka should decline the girl's offer. She was a shinobi and she had to avoid interactions with civilians as much as possible.
But then again, this could be her best opportunity to learn as much as she could about the Norris shinobi. The Norrisville students had been attending Hanzo for weeks, and she barely learned anything regarding the fabled shinobi.
Asuka would be lying if she said that it wasn't driving her a little bit crazy.
"Y-yeah, sure," Asuka said with a nervous smile, knowing what she was doing was against the rules, especially when Kiriya-sensei told them not to approach the Norrisville students.
"Sweet, let's go," Theresa said with a smile as both she and the brown-haired shinobi walked out through the rear gate.
"By the way, out of curiosity, what grade are you in Asuka?" Theresa asked, looking at the brunette walking beside her.
"I'm in my second year."
"Well I'm still in 9th grade," the purplette said before a thought seemed to occur to her, "Wait, aren't I supposed to refer to you as senpai since you're in a higher grade than mine?"
"It's alright Theresa-chan, you don't have to," Asuka reassured, raising her hand in a reassuring gesture.
the younger girl let out a sigh of relief at that.
"Thanks, it's just that I'm still not used to the whole honorific stuff."
"It's alright," Asuka said with a smile before remembering what she wanted to talk to the purplette about, "Hey, do you know anything about the shinobi in your town?
"You mean the ninja," the younger girl asked to which the shinobi nodded in confirmation, "yeah, pretty much everyone knows about him. Why do you ask?"
"Well um, you see I kind of heard stories about him and um…"
"You're a fan of him aren't you?" Theresa said with a knowing smirk
Asuka blushed deeply in embarrassment at being figured out so quickly.
"Y-yeah you can say that, hehehe," the brunette admitted as she scratched her cheek with her index finger.
"So what do you want to know?"
"Well, erm," Asuka thought for a moment, thinking about what she wanted to learn about the Norris shinobi the most, "How is he like?"
"Oh, he's super bruce..."
"Bruce?"
"Oh, that means cool," Theresa explained, before resuming what she was saying, "anyway the ninja is amazing, he's always there to save the day and help people out."
"Can you tell me about some of the stuff he fought?" Asuka asked excitedly, with sparkles in her eyes.
"Well, there was that one time he fought a giant sausage monster."
"Eh, he fought a giant sausage!?" Asuka exclaimed, her eyes widening in shock.
"Yeah, he did," Theresa said with a nod, before tilting her head to the side in thought, "I'm still not sure what made that baloney "baby" Mrs. Driscoll assigned to Randy and Howard turn into a monster."
Asuka couldn't help but sweat drop at how...casual the purplette sounded when she said that. And the idea of the Norris shinobi fighting a large thick sausage just seemed so outlandish that it was kind of hard to believe. But judging from the purple-haired girl's expression, she wasn't making the story up.
"So how did he beat it?" Asuka asked curiously.
"I'm not really sure, to be honest," Theresa admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, "It smashed its way toward the top of the roof of our school with the ninja following after it. From what I've heard it just stopped rampaging before falling asleep, then it suddenly disappeared."
"Huh, that's kind of weird," Asuka mumbled, while also feeling a little let down at not being able to learn how the Norris shinobi defeated such a weird monster.
"There was also that one time the ninja fought a Scorpion bot."
"A Scorpion bot?"
"Yeah, just the usual killer robot," Theresa said with a shrug, once again making the brown-haired shinobi sweat drop at the purple-haired girl's casual attitude to her school being under attack, "Though for some reason, it came after me."
"Really?" Asuka asked as she blinked in surprise, "Why?"
"I'm not really sure," Theresa admitted with a slight tilt of her head, "Thankfully the ninja saved me. that robot chased me into a corner, and the ninja literally swung in like spiderman and scooped me up to the roof of our school. I was so grateful to the ninja for saving me that I couldn't help but hug him, and then he sai-"
Suddenly Theresa stopped mid-sentence before a small blush appeared on her face.
"Is everything alright Theresa-chan?" Asuka asked with a bit of concern in her voice, "your cheeks are turning red."
"Ye-yeah, I'm good," Theresa said as she frantically waved her hands.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, it's just something kind of embarrassing," Theresa reassured with a nervous giggle as she rubbed her left arm.
"Alright," Asuka said, somewhat confused by the girl's behavior, before asking "So how did the fight between the ninja and the robot go?"
"I'm not really sure, I exited the roof as fast as I could," Theresa admitted her blush vanishing, "I didn't want to get in the way.
"Mou," Asuka let out with a bit of dejection in her tone.
"What I do know is that he beat it by shoving it off the roof," Theresa continued.
"He did?"
"Yeah it blew up and everything, but a few hours later it came back good as new."
"Eh, really!?" Asuka exclaimed in surprise, "but how? you said it blew up."
"I'm not really sure, it could have been another robot, but I could be wrong," Theresa admitted as she scratched her cheek with a finger, "Of course, the ninja reappeared to fight it off again. Though he was acting a bit like a shoob at the time. Shoob basically means being a jerk or loser by the way," Theresa quickly added.
"Really, how?"
"Well, he was pretty much picking on the robot, making fun of it, making it hit itself for no reason, and overall humiliating it to the point that it ran off crying," The purplette explained, to which Asuka couldn't help but be taken aback from both the Norris Shinobi's apparent behavior as well as the idea of a killer robot crying in shame, "Yeah it was trying to kill us but what he did to it was really uncalled for."
"He doesn't act like that all the time right?" Asuka asked in a hopeful tone, to which the purple-haired girl merely responded with a shake of her head."
"No, he at most just shoots off one-liners or puns, he doesn't really go out of his way to humiliate any of the monsters he fights," Theresa said before looking down to the ground frowning a bit in thought, "Not only that but the ninja also looked…weird at the time."
"Weird how?" Asuka asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"I'm not really sure how to describe it…he just looked weird," Theresa admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, apparently just as confused.
Asuka couldn't help but find what Theresa said strange and confusing. Maybe the shinobi Theresa saw that day was another shinobi who would fill in when the normal shinobi wasn't available.
"Though he seemed to have gone back to his usual self when he showed up the next day when Bucky turned into a monster again."
Again Asuka couldn't help but sweat drop at the purple-haired girl's relatively casual attitude when she mentioned one of her fellow students turning into a monster.
It was like Theresa was used to stuff like that happening around her on a regular basis.
"Maybe it was another Norris shinobi," Asuka suggested.
"I doubt it," Theresa argued, "There has always been just one ninja protecting Norrisville."
"Only one! you sure there hasn't been more than one?" Asuka asked in both shock and confusion.
"Yeah, there hasn't been more than one ninja protecting the town ever since its founding," Theresa said, somewhat taken aback by the other girl's reaction.
"It's just that, from what I've heard there were originally nine Shinobis protecting Norrisville."
"That's the first time I've heard there were Nine ninjas," Theresa admitted, kind of surprised.
"Huh," Asuka let out under her breath. She wondered why the Norris clan would only have one shinobi actively protecting the town at a time. It could be a family tradition or something, but it doesn't seem all that practical. But, the thing that bothered Asuka the most was, what happened to the other eight members of the original Norris clan and why didn't it seem like anyone remembered them?
"Oh, the place where I'm staying is down this way," Theresa said, pulling the brunette out of her thoughts as the purplette was pointing down a street.
"I think that takes me further away from my place," Asuka commented with a tilt of her head.
"Well then, I guess I'll see you later," Theresa said before walking off in the direction she said she was living in, "See ya Asuka."
"Bye Theresa!" Asuka waved the purplette goodbye while said girl waved back as she walked away. Once the purple-haired girl was out of sight, Asuka then began making her way home, as she pondered on what she learned about the Norris Shinobi.
Yagyu walked down the halls of Hanzo academy by herself. She and Hibari had different classes for last period, much to her annoyance. She never liked not being by her best friend's side for long periods of time if she could help it. So as soon as classes ended Yagyu always made her way towards where she usually met up with Hibari after class as quickly as she could within the limits of regular civilians.
It didn't take long for the white-haired girl to reach where she usually reunites with her best friend, however, she couldn't see the pinkette anywhere. Figuring Hibari was being held up, Yagyu decided to wait for her.
The silver-haired girl waited for what felt like an eternity (Not even five minutes), and her best friend still hadn't appeared yet. Yagyu began to grow impatient, as well as slightly concerned, and began making her way towards Hibari's class, her pace slightly quicker than before.
It didn't take long for the white-haired girl to reach her best friend's class. Looking into the room through the open door, Yagyu saw that the classroom was completely void of any teacher or students, except for a familiar pinkette.
Hibari was sitting at her desk, her face resting on top of the table using her school bag as a makeshift pillow, with her arms dangling to her sides. Even from the entrance of the classroom, Yagyu was still able to hear Hibari's soft breathing, telling her that the pinkette was asleep.
Yagyu relaxed a bit seeing that her best friend was alright, and let out a sigh of relief as she entered the classroom.
As Yagyu approached her friend's sleeping form, the white-haired shinobi noticed the black book Hibari found laying on the floor next to the pinkett's desk. Yagyu frowned a bit upon seeing it. She didn't know why, but there was something off about it. She didn't sense any kind of malice coming from the book, if anything it was the opposite. It had this strange presence that somewhat reminded Yagyu a bit of Kiriya-sensei and Asuka's grandfather, wise, experienced, and protective. Which she found to be strange, considering it was just a book.
Shaking her head, Yagyu decided to instead focus back on her friend, Hibari.
She was about to nudge her friend awake when the pinkette suddenly let out a low groan. Hibari slowly raised her head off her desk and sat in an upright position.
"Mou, what happened," the pinkette moaned as she rubbed her slightly aching head, while she swayed back and forth slightly and had a small bit of droll escaping her mouth.
Yagyu couldn't help but smile a bit. Hibari looked so cute, even as drool was escaping her mouth.
"You were asleep," she said as she brought out a napkin and wiped the drool off of the pinkett's face.
"Eh, I was!?" Hibari exclaimed in surprise, now fully awake. She didn't remember falling asleep.
The last thing she remembered was…
'Huh,' she couldn't remember what she was doing before she fell asleep. Just that class was ending and she was packing her bags.
After that, it was all a blank.
Hibari was pulled out of her thoughts when her best friend bent down and picked up something off of the floor.
In the silver-haired girl's hand was the black book the pinkette found this morning.
"You need to be more careful with this Hibari," Yagyu reprimanded gently, as she handed the book back to the pinkette, "we don't want any normal students seeing it."
Hibari couldn't help but look at the book in slight confusion as she took it from her best friend's hand. She didn't remember ever taking the book out of her bag. Though seeing how her bag was open and knocked over, Hibari guessed it must have fallen out.
"Hehe, My bad," Hibari said with a giggle as she stood up off her chair, "well I guess we should show this to Kiriya-sensei."
"Kiriya-sensei already left the school a while ago Hibari," Yagyu said.
"Huh," Hibari looked at her friend in confusion, who then pointed behind the pinkette.
Hibari looked behind her to where Yagyu was pointing, and her eyes rested on the wall clock in the classroom.
The young shinobi's eyes widened in shock upon seeing the time.
"Wow, it's already this late!" Hibari exclaimed in surprise. How long was she asleep?
"Mou," the pinkette pouted as she slumped her shoulders.
"We'll just have to wait until Monday to show him the book," Yagyu said as she put a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder, "how about we go to that restaurant you love so much?"
"Really!?" Hibari asked, her mood brightening up at the white-haired girl's words, who smiled and nodded her head.
"Yay!" Hibari cheered, throwing her hands up into the air, careful to not let the black book slip from her grasp like Katsuragi did earlier today, before putting it away into her bag.
"Let's go, Yagyu," Hibari said as she put her bag strap on her shoulder, before exiting the classroom with her best friend walking next to her.
Neither one noticed the inside of the pinkett's bag glowing softly.
A.N. Alrighty, second chapter up. Took me a while, but that's kind of what you would expect when you're writing by yourself, making sure the pacing is decent with nice little bits of fluff, the characters are in character as much as possible, while at the same time making sure the grammar is all good without any help whatsoever. No seriously, I don't have a beta reader to proofread what I wrote. I rely solely on grammarly, wordtune, and natural reader (free version for all three) to ensure my grammar is nice and clean. If you think I'm gloating, I'm not…it's kind of mentally exhausting having to relisten to the same sections over and over again, but I guess it's worth it in the end.
I've finished watching Kipo and the Age of the wonder beast on Netflix with my mom, and we both loved it. And I'm also watching Cyberpunk Edgerunner, which I'm loving so far. Rebecca is my favorite character ever since I saw her shoot her brother's hand in the trailer, hehe. Sadly, I know her fate because of spoilers. Who knows, I might even do a short crossover with the cyberpunk setting. Anywho, Stay safe, Stay Healthy, and Have a Honking Nova day. See what I did there…hehehe.