A Hatred That Will Never Bloom Into Friendship

The Rain ninja above me smiles playfully at the knife in my hand.

“Wait a minute, Kimina,” Lloyd says, holding out his arm. “I don’t think these losers are worth going close to close combat against. I say we just take care of them quickly.”

I glance down at the weapon in my hand. I shrug. “Well, I did want to battle, but maybe your right. Don’t want to waste too much energy on the first-go.”

Lloyd chuckles. “Exactly.” He turns to Rakuyo. “You got their location?” Rakuyo nods.

“Alright then,” Lloyd exclaims determinedly. He makes a few hand signs. “Fog Concealment jutsu.”

His most famous jutsu. Naria sensei thought it prudent that we use this particular jutsu to set up and trap the enemy. And it was working, so far, just like we planned.

“Hey! What the hell…?” one of the two ninja’s shouts, confused. The fog thickens into a deep blanket of gray.

The ground then shakes violently, and screams reverberate off the many unnaturally large trees.

I make out a silhouette on my left, moving his arms back and forth. Lloyd was canceling his jutsu. The smog clears swiftly, until not a trace of it remains.

“Hey, good work, Rakuyo!” I tell him proudly, gazing up at the Rain shinobi. Giant green roots had their bodies trapped and bound, with only their heads not covered.

“Get us the hell out of this!” one of them screams, trying desperately to pull himself free.

“Answer this first. Which one of you has the scroll?” Lloyd asks.

“I don’t think neither of them have it,” Rakuyo states. The looks on the Rain shinobi’s faces tell us that Rakuyo is right. “Where’s your third team member?”

At that question, leaves in the bushes behind us rustle. I throw my kunai thorugh the hedges, and a ninja with long red hair leaps out of his hiding spot, and jumps away on the branches in the opposite direction.

“Humph, nothing but a coward. Come on, let’s go get him,” Lloyd orders. Lloyd pursues after the runaway ninja first, then Rakuyo, and me pulling up the rear.

It was like a cat and mouse chase, with us the fearless cats, and the Rain ninja the mouse. We were closing in on him though, but something caught my eye that made me slow down.

“What the heck is your problem?”

That was Naruto, I realized. And I was right. When we passed, I saw their team in a small clearing, and Naruto and Sasuke were facing each other. And they both were holding kunai knives.

“Kimina,” Rakuyo calls out to me. “You can’t worry about them now.” His voice was low.

‘Damn,’ I groan mentally.

A few minutes more pass and we finally catch up. Rakuyo makes a hand sign and roots shoot out of the ground several centimeters in front of the Rain shinobi, forcing him to stop and face us.

“There’s nowhere for you to go. So, why don’t you just hand over your scroll?” I tell the entrapped mouse. Well, I thought entrapped.

The air suddenly becomes thick with moisture; so thick with moisture that you could almost feel water in the thin wisps of smoke that appear into form.

“What is this?” Lloyd demands. The only response he receives is laughter from the opposing enemy.

“I…can’t…move. Dizzy…” My head was going blank, and the world was spinning around before my eyes. Whatever this haze was, whatever was in the haze, was zapping all of our energy. But it was too late to move away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rakuyo and Lloyd fall to the ground.

“No…no” I drop to my knees as darkness creeps over my blurred vision. The last thing I make out before I pass out was the Rain ninja coming towards us with kunai knives in his hand.