Black Cat Bread :EPISODE2

[Kinezumi]

It had been a good six hours since they left Konoha. At the forefront of the group that was traveling through the dense forest was Akabana, cradling the black cat that was their mission to deliver back home. High noon, and the bright sun peeked through the canopy of the dark, dank forest, making patterns on the forest floor. Of course, lagging behind the group in a slouch was Kinezumi, muttering swears under his breath.

"Oraaaa~" Kinezumi moaned to the group in front of him, gripping at the straps of his knapsack on his back. He stood straight, cracking his back as he stopped walking. "Yo, Akabaka...let's take a break now." Kinezumi suggested in a commanding yet taunting tone. Akabana looked up at the canopy above, judging what time of day it was before sighing.

"I guess we can stop for lunch."

[Yogitō]

As Yogito walked along the path, scribbling notes into a book. His eyes peered up above the book at times, observing the people around him. Quickly his head jumped back downward, scribbling more notes into the notebook. As he finished his last scribble, he quickly slapped the book closed and placing it into his back pocket, yawning as he did so. His hands hurt from writing, and his feet hurt from walking. Akabana was proving to be the opposite of his previous sensei. These pussy missions opposed to his fast paced missions before this. However, Akabana's ability to bore him allowed him time to take notes on his teammates. Gao would certainly be interested in these details. Yeah. Like Kinezumi's tendency to pick his nose, and Hikari's habit of scratching her butt when she thinks no one is looking (both of which Yogito had made up... right?). However, he wrote most of his notes on Kinezumi's bitching and whining about having to walk so far. As planned, Kinezumi would prove Yogito's notes right as he asked to rest.

"Y'know... you're a lazy bastard. My old sensei would have took your head off. You're too soft, Akabana. My sensei would have lopped your head off too. :]"

[Hikari]

SPOILER: Click to show

<_<; So...I had forgotten my password. I waited for them to send me a new one, but they never did. I was all- "WTF?! >=C" Then..I checked my spam folder yesterday and saw it was sent there. U__U; [/nub] Sorry this took so long :[

'FEET' Gasp. 'HURTING'. Gasp. BLISTERS Gasp. GROWING' Gasp. 'NEED'. Gasp. OXYGEN!' Pantgasp. When Hikari was told they were traveling to a distant land to complete a mission, she expected a more efficient form of transportation. A carriage, a palanquin, or even a couple horses would've done the job. She didn't care where they were going, but it hadn't occurred to her that she would be using her own two feet to get there.

Though she maintained her composure on the outside and kept her pace with Akabana and Yogito, Hikari would've been more than content to flop down on the ground and have one of the guys drag her by her pigtails through the dirt the remainder of the mission.

Anything was better than walking. Would it be inappropriate to ask their sensei to carry her piggyback for a while? Probably so. Besides, she was willing to bet she weighed more than he did. But as luck would have it, Kinezumi was her savior. For once. His incessant whining was her salvation.

THANK YOU!

"Honestly Kinezumi, you really should build up some more stamina. I feel like I could walk at this brisk pace for at least another hour! But if we really have to stop, I shall not complain"

Even though Hikari was already sitting down against a tree, with a jacket folded behind her back for comfort, box lunch in lap, and shoes already kicked off her feet.

[/blockquote][/blockquote]

[Kinezumi]

"Your last sensei?" Kinezumi gave Yogitō a eye, narrowing it and arching his brow. "Dude, you had a last sensei?" He asked, stifling a chuckle before bursting into a fit of laughter, pointing at his teammate as Akabana sighed, clapping his hands together and forming a number of seals.

"Haha! You're like--ancient...your last sensei was probably like...Gojira." He stomped around like a giant monster, taunting Yogitō before he heard a loud explosion, a blanket splayed out with four boxes of bento on each end, each box was filled with sushi.

"Please enjoy your meals." Akabana said, bowing to the group of bashful children, "I made them myself."

Kinezumi sat, plucking the chopsticks and pointing at Hikari as she commented on how lazy he was. "Maybe you should walk for another hour...I like to eat my meals without the yappin' of a chick, ya'know?" He plucked on of the rolls from the box and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing on the raw fish.

[chanpuru]

"Look, homo~ Joke about my age one more time, and I'm going to bite your ear off." Yogitō chuckled, patting his stomach as he dropped into a sitting position in front of his sushi. Popping the chopsticks, he smiled at his comrades, bowing to them each, except Kinezumi before ingesting two sushi at a time. His face bounced up and down, mushing up the soft rice and fish within them. He struggled to swallow, and quickly followed through with a burp. "Thank you Akabana-sensei! Perhaps you're not a complete idiot afterall!" Yogitō smiled.

"Hikari-san. Ignore that baka. He's just mad that he can't walk like us."

[Hikari]

'o___O Chick? Homo?'

Hikari stared at Kinezumi and Yogito in pure befuddlement, as if they'd each just spoken words another language. Slang was completely foreign to her. Sighing she quickly grabbed her things and scampered over to the blanket, reluctantly planting herself beside Kinezumi.

"...I most certainly am NOT a domesticated fowl infant!"

She huffed before awkwardly stuffing a large bit of sushi in her mouth and chewing it at a glacial pace, as if it might explode if she were to bite it too forcefully. Finally, after she'd been chewing the same piece for almost ten minutes, Hikari would swallow and gently dab the corners of her mouth with an embroidered napkin.

"Yogito...how old are you exactly?"

[Kinezumi]

Akabana had come to learn to ignore them, Kinezumi scooped sushi into his mouth with the wooden chopsticks that were provided. Gobbling down roll after roll of raw fish with gusto. He pointed at Hikari with his chopsticks as she asked how old Yogitō was, "Ara, you shouldn't ask him that...on his file--it probably just says 'ancient.' Plus, he has to be a--" He whistled and made suggestive movements with his arm, signifying that Yogitō was in fact a remedial child. "Know what I mean?"

Akabana cleared his throat, "Maybe we should take this time to get to know each other a little more." He was trying to diffuse the situation before it started, god knew what would happen if these two were to go at it in the middle of a mission. "I don't have much family...my father died during the Kyūbi attack on Konoha, so my mother's all I have left." Akabana explained, scratching his cheek, gazing upward, "Ah, I used to belong to the barrier division of Konoha."

"Ora? Barrier division...? Whuzzat?" Kinezumi spoke, his voice muffled by the sushi in his mouth, spitting out little bits as he spoke.

"Well, you know the precautions to entering and leaving Konoha, right? They told you about that and stuff, how to enter and how to leave the village?" Akabana asked, "Well, that's because around the village there's a large barrier..." He explained, waving the piece of sushi he had pinched between his sticks around some. "We detect hostiles as they're entering and stuff."

"Ah...so you had a wuss job? Do you know any cool Jutsu? Can you fight?!" Kinezumi got excited, jumping from his seated position to his knees, leaning forward.

"Aaahhh...I think my Jutsu are cool...I can hold my own in hostile situations, also." He said with a nod.

"Lemme see." Kinezumi muttered, sitting back, shooting him a skeptical glare.

"Err...I don't think now's the time...plus, I'm embarassed~!" He said with the demeanor of a thirteen year old boy, waving his hand, dismissing the whole thing with a red face.

[chanpuru]

"I'm fifteen." he stated simply, placing another roll of sushi into his mouth. He listened closely to what Akabana had to say, mulling over the facts and laughing to himself at how Kinezumi started acting like an idiot. Yogito placed his chopsticks down, stretching his arms and back as Kinezumi started hopping around.

"Um... I guess I'll go next." he began, placing his fist to his mouth and belching. He patted his stomach as he continued. "My mother is the famous Geisha from Kumogakure, Nekoyami Tamamo. My father--I don't know who he is. But yeah, I was born in Kumogakure, and moved to Konohagakure about two months after I was born. My grandfather was one of the Warrior Monks of the Nekoyami clan."

"My old sensei's name was Nara Shikataro, of Team 28. ... That's all really." he said with a disgruntled face. The rest was too hard to talk about.

[Hikari]

o_____o' Hostile...situations?

Hikari twitched nervously at the prospect. Surely there was no cause for alarm and her own abundant imagination was merely leading astray once more. Hopefully Hikari, nor either one of her team mates, would ever need to see his "cool" jutsu. Judging by the looks of her sensei...the cat was better protection.

"..."

'If something does happen...'

She pictured a shinobi standing at seven feet tall, with the physique even gods would envy and muscles protruding from his clothing, shoving their poor sensei on the ground. Causing him to lay on his back, kicking and flailing awkwardly, having fallen and being unable to stand upright.

'...We're all going to die =_____='

The girl had been so engrossed in her own thoughts she barely heard what Yogitou was going on about. Something having to do with Geisha and monks..and...yami something.

"Huhwha? Oh, my turn? Right! Well, I'm Hikari and I'm twelve years old. I enjoy reading, writing, and all forms of arithmetic~!"

She could've sworn that as she'd said that- someone somewhere was heckling the word "NERD", but mentally ignored it.

"I'm from the Yamagure clan of Konoha and...look...forward to working with such...erm...interesting individuals such as yourselves. I'm engaged to be married and I suppose you're all invited to the wedding...that is all."

And with that she quietly sat down.

[/blockquote]

[Kinezumi]

"Tch..." He sucked his teeth, glancing off to the side, he was honestly disappointed that this chick was getting married. His caretaker told him love stories that involved two ninja, usually on the same team. It was a disappointment that the only chick on his team was getting hitched. Wait, what? It had to be a bluff or something. Some sort of ruse to make her seem more mature or something. Kids did that, he knew, he did it all the time.

"What about you, Kinezumi-san?" Akabana asked, cleaning off the edges of his mouth with a napkin neatly. He blinked, watching the young ninja look up, then look around at the rest of the team.

"Uh..." His eyes widened a bit...

"...There's nothin' to know about me." He reverted to his pissy attitude, grimacing down at his food.

"Well, we have a long ways to go...we should wrap things up."

---

Elsewhere, from the East, two figures darted through the forest, moving from tree to tree at high speeds. Ichi's sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight, to his right and slightly behind him was his partner, Chan.

"What're you smiling about...?" Chan asked over the roaring wind that flooded his eardrums.

"Nothin'...I just got this gut feelin'..." Ichi spoke in a mumble, turning back to the approaching trees, weaving in and out of their way with ease. "I think this job is actually gonna' be fun..."