A Hatred That Will Never Bloom Into Friendship

Pouf…pouf…pouf…

“Surprised those were substitutes?”

The Rain ninja turns with wide eyes. “So, even you rookies have a few tricks, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess us rookies aren’t as weak as you think,” Lloyd replies amusedly.

‘Man, wasn’t this guy just running from us? Now he’s talking all tough,’ I think with an eye roll.

The mist that had just appeared moments ago starts to form again; the moisture more heavier this time.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Lloyd yells, running towards our opposition.

‘He really did get faster,’ I say to myself, watching Lloyd run in almost a blur.

He flips over the Rain ninja, and the both of them go into hand-to-hand combat. Lloyd crouches down to the ground, dodging a punch. He then swings his leg under the Rain shinobi’s feet, in trying to trip him, but the ninja jumps swiftly into the air. With Lloyd still on the ground, the ninja swings his leg out in a half circle, the heel of his foot coming down onto Lloyd’s head.

Lloyd smirks, and at the last second, springs backwards, with the Rain shinobi’s heel hitting the earth, scatters of pebbles and rocks flying everywhere.

He grips my hand in his, halting my punch. I life my leg to kick him in his side, but he grabs my ankle with his other hand.

“You think I was too distracted with your teammate to not notice you coming up behind me?” he asks me, his tone full of mockery.

“Yeah, I think so,” I mutter in his ear.

His eyes go wide (again), and he looks behind him. “But…” He turns back to the ‘me’ he was holding on to, as it poufs into nothingness. “A clone…”

He gasps as I pierce his back with a kunai knife. His blood drips carelessly down his shirt and over my hands.

I smirk, watching him fall to his knees. The outcome of Rakuyo’s plan went accordingly, but the only outcome I didn’t see coming was the Rain ninja sneering maliciously up at me. My eyebrows raise in confusion. I then look down to my hands. There was no blood on them, but a clear liquid. Water?

“Damn it,” I hear Lloyd grumble somewhere behind me, when the Rain ninja’s body dissipates into a puddle of water. Only a water clone. He pulled the same trick we did.

Next thing I knew was that my chin was throbbing and I was flying through the air.

“Kimina!” Rakuyo shouts my name.

My back hits the ground hard and I slide across the dirt endlessly before finally stopping. I wince as I pull myself upright, and I cough up blood, a small trace of crimson trailing down the side of my mouth.

Rakuyo holds out a hand to me, and I take it with no reluctance. I wipe the blood from my face as I stand to my feet.

I glance out at the Rain ninja, who was looking back at us coolly. In his hands were countless numbers of weapons: shuriken, kunai knives, twin-bladed kunai, and a few dai shuriken.

Without hesitation, he immediately throws them all at once towards the two of us. Rakuyo drops to the ground, palms downward, his index finger and thumb touching in a diamond shape. Giant roots then pop out of the undergrowth high over our heads. Some of the weapons slice through, but most get caught in the web of greenery.

Rakuyo exhales a small breath of air and the roots slither back down under the earth; the weapons that penetrated in them clanking down atop the dirt.

Lloyd jumps over to us then, his gaze fixated on the Rain shinobi. “You two alright?”

“Yeah, were fine,” Rakuyo replies. “I have another plan, if…”

“Of course. What do we do?” Lloyd questions hopefully. I half smile, thinking back when the two of them wasn’t even talking to each other at all. Well, when Lloyd wasn’t talking to Rakuyo actually. But now they were a perfect team. Rakuyo the strategist and Lloyd executing what Rakuyo came up with, with no fault. And they got along really well now. Well, not really well, but well enough for me to put up with them, but that pertained to Lloyd mostly.

Lloyd leaps up to the tree branch above us. “How about you try throwing those weapons of yours again! Kind of pathetic how you didn’t even lay a scratch on us just before.”

The Rain ninja clenches his teeth. Out of thin air, the same tools in the exact amount of quantity appear back in his hands. He flings them again with no falter.

I throw my hands out in front of me, and a gust of wind blows out and sends the knives and shuriken soaring back to the Rain ninja. He covers his face with his arms. Most of them miss his, but a few shuriken slices over his clothing.

“Fire style: Fireball jutsu!”

The Rain ninja opens his eyes, but doesn’t get away quick enough from the incoming fire. He screams as it consumes his body, burning the flesh from his bones.

~~*~~

Ino and her team stop in their tracks.

“You guys hear that?” Ino asks them, slightly nerved.

“Yeah, and it doesn’t sound pretty,” Shikamaru adds glumly, glancing around their surroundings.

Chouji shakes from head to toe behind the two of them, munching with chattering teeth on his bag of chips.

~~*~~

When the smoke clears, Rakuyo appears next to the Rain shinobi and kicks him on the side of his head, sending him flying and crashing into a tree.

“Now, let’s see which scroll you have,” Lloyd says aloud, walking over to the unconscious ninja. He bends down and rummages through his weapon pouch, and pulls out an earth scroll. “Damn, you’ve got to be kidding me! All of this for them to have the same scroll as us!”

“Well, that was one of the two possibilities,” Rakuyo states mildly. “We might as well keep it. Just in case we lose this one,” –gestures to his own pouch—“we’ll have an extra.”

“Yeah, but we still need a heaven’s scroll,” Lloyd mutters irritably, putting the scroll in his pocket.

“And we’ll get it. We still have a lot of time,” I utter, glancing through the breaks in the trees to my right.

Rakuyo notices and smiles. “How about this? How about we split up and go off and see what we can find? We’ll cover more ground that way.”

Lloyd shrugs. “Fine with me. Just don’t get into any trouble though. We’ll be alone.” He seemed to stare at me when he said that. I roll my eyes and shove his shoulder playfully. “Seriously though.” His eyes were not playful on mine.

I nod, and gaze over at Rakuyo. I brush past him and mutter a sift “thanks”, before running off in the direction of where I saw Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.

I make it to the clearing in no time, but there was no one in sight. I look around everywhere, but there was no sign of anything.

I felt, however, a ghastly presence not far from where I was. It was powerful, and I could faintly smell the scent of blood in the air. Death.

I raced past the trees, and halt in the bushes after a few minutes. My heart pounded inside my chest at the people I came across.

As I knelt there, hidden behind the bushes, my mind screamed at me to turn and run back the way I came. But at that notion, the boy’s eyes lock on my position and I freeze there on the spot; my muscles and limbs locked in place.

I hear the faint sound of rustling below me, and I look down to see trails of sand creeping around my figure.

‘Crap…’ I was found out, and there was no turning back now.