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The next day…

“Twelve-o’-one…” Hana sighed. “I’m not that late am I? Well she did say ‘noon sharp’… but you’d think that she would at least wait a little, right?”

All the while she was talking to herself, she paced back and forth in front of the North Gate that led to the Forest Beyond the North Gate and the Forest Beyond That. A good day’s walk would get them to the border of the Nation of Sorrow, so why T-Chan had told her to meet at noon, wasting half a day, didn’t make all that much sense.

But then again, T-Chan was a Jonin, one of the strongest in the Village Hidden by Awesome. Maybe she was planning on running the whole way and cut their travel time in half.

“Or she likes to sleep in,” Hana said to the frog sitting in the middle of the road.

The frog croaked then hopped away.

Hana heaved a sigh. “Maybe she really did leave without me.”

“She leapt to her feet and pointed a determined finger to the sky. “I may have failed her once, but it will not happen again!” Her hands began to move in a series of signs.

“Tsunami no Jutsu!”

Meanwhile, further on down the road, T-Chan hopped off the merchant cart just as they reached the edge of the Forest Beyond the North Gate.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said and bowed to the merchant driver.

“Think nothing of it,” she smiled. “I’m just sorry I can’t take you all the way through the Forest Beyond That. Afterall, you came along just in the nick of time when I got one of my wheels stuck in a hole.”

“It was no problem, really. Without your help, I would still be halfway through the Forest Beyond the North Gate. You were more help than you give yourself credit for. Take care, now.”

She watched as the merchant drove her cart down the left fork of the crossroads. That road led directly to the City of Fabulous Shopping. Though T-Chan was no stranger to hunting down a good bargain, her path lay to the right fork, over a sturdy bridge into the Forest Beyond That.

T-Chan took out her map and marked where she was with her finger. “Sweet! I made it through the Forest Beyond the North Gate in a third of the time. I’ll be at the border of the Nation of Sorrow by mid-afternoon.”
She returned the map to her knapsack and stepped onto the bridge. No sooner did her foot touch the wood than she felt a sharp stab of guilt.

T-Chan shook out the thoughts of her inner decency, like shaking dust off of a bath mat, and continued across the bridge.

“Hana would have just slowed me down,” she reminded herself. “I would have been too busy keeping her out of trouble to stay focused on the mission. Besides, my health insurance doesn’t cover malpractice.”

Halfway across the bridge an all too familiar rumbling began to shake the foundation.

“It’s not possible,” T-Chan gasped looking to the south where a wall of water rose high above the tallest trees of the Forest Beyond the North Gate.

Thinking quickly, she turned and dashed across the bridge and into the relative safety of the Forest Beyond That. But she didn’t stop.

T-Chan pumped her legs as hard as she could, digging her toes into the ground and propelling herself forward.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the shadow of the unnatural tsunami looming above her.

T-Chan focused her chakra into her feet, greatly increasing her speed. She wouldn‘t be able to keep this up for much longer. But with the help of her chakra she was just barely able to escape the tsunami’s devastating touch down.

The earth shook violently as the tsunami broke in on itself and became a mad rush of water.

T-Chan could feel the effects of her desperate escape. She began to slow down, much to her dismay. Though she escaped the worst of it, the water was still there. And it was moving fast.

With the little chakra she had left, T-Chan ran up a tree and perched herself on the highest branch. As the water pounded against the tree’s trunk, T-Chan held on, even though her energy was running low.

A sickening crack rang in T-Chan’s ears, signaling the worst.

The branch snapped and she hurtled downward into the water. All of her attempts to keep herself and her supplies dry were now in vain.

The water ran its course, leaving T-Chan soaked to the bone. She stood in the middle of the path, her arms crossed over her chest, and her face set in a deep scowl.

Hana, also completely drenched, ran up to her and threw her arms around her. “I found you! I knew I would!”

T-Chan slapped Hana off of her. “Yes. You found me. And kudos to drowning the entire forest in the process.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“No, you never do, Hana. But it doesn’t matter because you’re here now and the mission can begin.”

“Yes! So I’m not late?”

“Oh, no, you’re late. But seeing as how you were able to catch up to six hours of traveling in six seconds, you have proven yourself worthy. Oh, what… Hell if I know…”

“Yay! Wait… Who’s been traveling for six hours?”

“No one that matters.”

“This is so exciting! My first real mission! I’m so happy! I haven’t been on a mission since Sensei Morris retired!”

“I heard about that. Shame really. Good teacher.”

“Yep! Sensei Morris taught me how to climb a tree without using my hands. And how to catch fish with my teeth. And how to throw Sarumaru into the river. And how to do that thing with the thing!”

“How interesting.”

“Then there was that time that he threw a kunai up in the air and caught it! With his toes! It was so cool!”

“You don’t say.”

“But my very, very, very first mission I’ve ever been on, we got to go to the City of Fabulous Shopping and buy a birthday present for this lady person’s son’s birthday. We looked all over the city looking and looking and finding nothing and just before we were about to give up, we found it! The perfect gift!”

“What was it?”

“It was – you know what? I actually don’t remember.”

“Is that so? That’s nice.”

“Then my second mission! Oh, man! My second mission was a doozy!”

“Shh!”

“What is it?”

“Shh! Quiet!”

“Did you hear something?”

“Yes! Just be quiet for a moment!”

This caused Hana quite some trouble as her mind could not quite comprehend what a “moment” was, since it wasn’t an actual measurement of time, and therefore couldn’t be taken literally. Since most minds of her level could not go above a literal standpoint, she stood there and blinked in a dumbfounded stupor.

T-Chan pulled a kunai from her leg holster. Slowly, she crept into the shadows. “Stay here, but be on your guard.”

“What did you hear?!” Hana cried.

“Silence!” T-Chan barked, quietly.

Hana stood absolutely still. In her head she went through the lest of possible enemies that lurked in the Forest Beyond That. But the only one she could think of was monkeys. Vicious, evil monkeys with their sharp teeth and big eyes. Big eyes that saw straight to your soul. Big vicious evil, mocking monkey eyes!

“DODGE!”

Hana saw the kunai but only had the time to scream before it bounced harmlessly off of her goggles.

T-Chan burst out of the cover of tress and scooped up the kunai between her fingers. “Ah, come on, years as a genin and you can’t even dodge a simple kunai?”

“Hey! That wasn’t very nice! It’s not nice to scare people like that!”

T-Chan sniffed. Her cocky smirk revealing the truth of her actions, even if her words were meant to deceive. “Just having a little un, Hana. Besides, I needed to see how well you could evade an enemy attack. But it looks like you’re lacking proper evasion skills. Much like a meatshield.”

“I am not a meatshield! And it’s not fair that you attacked me like that. You could have at least given me a warning!”

“What do you think ‘dodge’ was? The key to battle is always be prepared for an attack. Most enemies won’t give you the luxury of a warning, so be grateful I even did that much.”

Hana sighed. “But I’m not a meatshield.”

“As long as you don’t know how to dodge, you’re a meatshield. So do yourself a favor and learn at least the basic arts of defense techniques on this trip.”

“But I thought this was a mission… Not a trip…”

“For me, it’s a mission. For you, however, you are a tagalong. Tagalongs don’t go on missions. They go on trips. Little vacations just to get away from the bustling village life for awhile. You just happen to be traveling with a Jonin on a mission.”

“But… Awesomekage-kun…”

“Whatever Aweosmekage told you was just to get your hopes up. It was a lie.”

Hana looked at the ground. For a moment, T-Chan felt a twinge of guilt for her harsh words. But she shook the thoughts from her head and continued down the road, out of the Forest Beyond That and toward the Memorial of Fallen Heroes.

Hana dragged her feet a bit, subconsciously keeping fifteen feet behind T-Chan.

A small flash of light caught her attention, making her forget about her self-pity. She stopped and cocked her head to the side, fixated on the shiny object.

T-Chan heard Hana stop. She looked behind her only to see the shark-toothed girl bending down to pick something off the ground. She suddenly remembered the coin. The coin that was attached to a string. A string that would spring a trap when pulled.

“Hana! No!”

Hana plucked the coin off the ground, not paying attention to anything else around her. “Look, T-Chan! I found a coin!”

She leapt up into the air, holding the coin high above her head. The string tightened and T-Chan could hear the trap set.

She lunged and shoved Hana out of the way just as the trap sprang to life.

Hana rolled along the ground clutching the coin tightly to her chest. Still in ball form, she slowly unraveled and looked around for any danger.

“Oh, wow! That sure was a close one, huh, T-Chan?”

Hana waited for an answer but none came. “T-Chan?”

“Up here, you dumbass!”

Hana looked up into the trees, where T-Chan was hanging in a net. One leg was free, but the rest of her body was tangled in the ropes.

“Uh-oh…”

“Yeah. Uh-oh. Now, before the bandits that set this up come running to collect their spoils, go over to that tree and untie the rope that’s holding this net up.”

Hana ran over to the tree and started to untie the rope.

“Wait!” T-Chan snapped. “Do not, under any circumstances, let go of that rope! I need you to SLOWLY lower me down to the ground. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Hana untied the rope, but just as she was reaching to grab it, it zipped right out of her fingers.

T-Chan felt herself falling faster than she knew was healthy. She screamed, knowing that exhaling would reduce the amount of pain she would feel upon impact.

In theory.

T-Chan hit the ground hard. Hana ran over and started pulling on ropes trying to get her free.

“Stop, stop, stop!” T-Chan ordered.

Hana jumped back holding her hands straight up in the air as if she was surrendering. T-Chan blinked and looked at where she had been standing. Lodged in the ground was a black kunai. Attached to its looped hilt was a blinking red talisman.

Description
The next day…

“Twelve-o’-one…” Hana sighed. “I’m not that late am I? Well she did say ‘noon sharp’… but you’d think that she would at least wait a little, right?”

All the while she was talking to herself, she paced back and forth in front of the North Gate that led to the Forest Beyond the North Gate and the Forest Beyond That. A good day’s walk would get them to the border of the Nation of Sorrow, so why T-Chan had told her to meet at noon, wasting half a day, didn’t make all that much sense.

But then again, T-Chan was a Jonin, one of the strongest in the Village Hidden by Awesome. Maybe she was planning on running the whole way and cut their travel time in half.

“Or she likes to sleep in,” Hana said to the frog sitting in the middle of the road.

The frog croaked then hopped away.

Hana heaved a sigh. “Maybe she really did leave without me.”

“She leapt to her feet and pointed a determined finger to the sky. “I may have failed her once, but it will not happen again!” Her hands began to move in a series of signs.

“Tsunami no Jutsu!”

Meanwhile, further on down the road, T-Chan hopped off the merchant cart just as they reached the edge of the Forest Beyond the North Gate.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said and bowed to the merchant driver.

“Think nothing of it,” she smiled. “I’m just sorry I can’t take you all the way through the Forest Beyond That. Afterall, you came along just in the nick of time when I got one of my wheels stuck in a hole.”

“It was no problem, really. Without your help, I would still be halfway through the Forest Beyond the North Gate. You were more help than you give yourself credit for. Take care, now.”

She watched as the merchant drove her cart down the left fork of the crossroads. That road led directly to the City of Fabulous Shopping. Though T-Chan was no stranger to hunting down a good bargain, her path lay to the right fork, over a sturdy bridge into the Forest Beyond That.

T-Chan took out her map and marked where she was with her finger. “Sweet! I made it through the Forest Beyond the North Gate in a third of the time. I’ll be at the border of the Nation of Sorrow by mid-afternoon.”
She returned the map to her knapsack and stepped onto the bridge. No sooner did her foot touch the wood than she felt a sharp stab of guilt.

T-Chan shook out the thoughts of her inner decency, like shaking dust off of a bath mat, and continued across the bridge.

“Hana would have just slowed me down,” she reminded herself. “I would have been too busy keeping her out of trouble to stay focused on the mission. Besides, my health insurance doesn’t cover malpractice.”

Halfway across the bridge an all too familiar rumbling began to shake the foundation.

“It’s not possible,” T-Chan gasped looking to the south where a wall of water rose high above the tallest trees of the Forest Beyond the North Gate.

Thinking quickly, she turned and dashed across the bridge and into the relative safety of the Forest Beyond That. But she didn’t stop.

T-Chan pumped her legs as hard as she could, digging her toes into the ground and propelling herself forward.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the shadow of the unnatural tsunami looming above her.

T-Chan focused her chakra into her feet, greatly increasing her speed. She wouldn‘t be able to keep this up for much longer. But with the help of her chakra she was just barely able to escape the tsunami’s devastating touch down.

The earth shook violently as the tsunami broke in on itself and became a mad rush of water.

T-Chan could feel the effects of her desperate escape. She began to slow down, much to her dismay. Though she escaped the worst of it, the water was still there. And it was moving fast.

With the little chakra she had left, T-Chan ran up a tree and perched herself on the highest branch. As the water pounded against the tree’s trunk, T-Chan held on, even though her energy was running low.

A sickening crack rang in T-Chan’s ears, signaling the worst.

The branch snapped and she hurtled downward into the water. All of her attempts to keep herself and her supplies dry were now in vain.

The water ran its course, leaving T-Chan soaked to the bone. She stood in the middle of the path, her arms crossed over her chest, and her face set in a deep scowl.

Hana, also completely drenched, ran up to her and threw her arms around her. “I found you! I knew I would!”

T-Chan slapped Hana off of her. “Yes. You found me. And kudos to drowning the entire forest in the process.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“No, you never do, Hana. But it doesn’t matter because you’re here now and the mission can begin.”

“Yes! So I’m not late?”

“Oh, no, you’re late. But seeing as how you were able to catch up to six hours of traveling in six seconds, you have proven yourself worthy. Oh, what… Hell if I know…”

“Yay! Wait… Who’s been traveling for six hours?”

“No one that matters.”

“This is so exciting! My first real mission! I’m so happy! I haven’t been on a mission since Sensei Morris retired!”

“I heard about that. Shame really. Good teacher.”

“Yep! Sensei Morris taught me how to climb a tree without using my hands. And how to catch fish with my teeth. And how to throw Sarumaru into the river. And how to do that thing with the thing!”

“How interesting.”

“Then there was that time that he threw a kunai up in the air and caught it! With his toes! It was so cool!”

“You don’t say.”

“But my very, very, very first mission I’ve ever been on, we got to go to the City of Fabulous Shopping and buy a birthday present for this lady person’s son’s birthday. We looked all over the city looking and looking and finding nothing and just before we were about to give up, we found it! The perfect gift!”

“What was it?”

“It was – you know what? I actually don’t remember.”

“Is that so? That’s nice.”

“Then my second mission! Oh, man! My second mission was a doozy!”

“Shh!”

“What is it?”

“Shh! Quiet!”

“Did you hear something?”

“Yes! Just be quiet for a moment!”

This caused Hana quite some trouble as her mind could not quite comprehend what a “moment” was, since it wasn’t an actual measurement of time, and therefore couldn’t be taken literally. Since most minds of her level could not go above a literal standpoint, she stood there and blinked in a dumbfounded stupor.

T-Chan pulled a kunai from her leg holster. Slowly, she crept into the shadows. “Stay here, but be on your guard.”

“What did you hear?!” Hana cried.

“Silence!” T-Chan barked, quietly.

Hana stood absolutely still. In her head she went through the lest of possible enemies that lurked in the Forest Beyond That. But the only one she could think of was monkeys. Vicious, evil monkeys with their sharp teeth and big eyes. Big eyes that saw straight to your soul. Big vicious evil, mocking monkey eyes!

“DODGE!”

Hana saw the kunai but only had the time to scream before it bounced harmlessly off of her goggles.

T-Chan burst out of the cover of tress and scooped up the kunai between her fingers. “Ah, come on, years as a genin and you can’t even dodge a simple kunai?”

“Hey! That wasn’t very nice! It’s not nice to scare people like that!”

T-Chan sniffed. Her cocky smirk revealing the truth of her actions, even if her words were meant to deceive. “Just having a little un, Hana. Besides, I needed to see how well you could evade an enemy attack. But it looks like you’re lacking proper evasion skills. Much like a meatshield.”

“I am not a meatshield! And it’s not fair that you attacked me like that. You could have at least given me a warning!”

“What do you think ‘dodge’ was? The key to battle is always be prepared for an attack. Most enemies won’t give you the luxury of a warning, so be grateful I even did that much.”

Hana sighed. “But I’m not a meatshield.”

“As long as you don’t know how to dodge, you’re a meatshield. So do yourself a favor and learn at least the basic arts of defense techniques on this trip.”

“But I thought this was a mission… Not a trip…”

“For me, it’s a mission. For you, however, you are a tagalong. Tagalongs don’t go on missions. They go on trips. Little vacations just to get away from the bustling village life for awhile. You just happen to be traveling with a Jonin on a mission.”

“But… Awesomekage-kun…”

“Whatever Aweosmekage told you was just to get your hopes up. It was a lie.”

Hana looked at the ground. For a moment, T-Chan felt a twinge of guilt for her harsh words. But she shook the thoughts from her head and continued down the road, out of the Forest Beyond That and toward the Memorial of Fallen Heroes.

Hana dragged her feet a bit, subconsciously keeping fifteen feet behind T-Chan.

A small flash of light caught her attention, making her forget about her self-pity. She stopped and cocked her head to the side, fixated on the shiny object.

T-Chan heard Hana stop. She looked behind her only to see the shark-toothed girl bending down to pick something off the ground. She suddenly remembered the coin. The coin that was attached to a string. A string that would spring a trap when pulled.

“Hana! No!”

Hana plucked the coin off the ground, not paying attention to anything else around her. “Look, T-Chan! I found a coin!”

She leapt up into the air, holding the coin high above her head. The string tightened and T-Chan could hear the trap set.

She lunged and shoved Hana out of the way just as the trap sprang to life.

Hana rolled along the ground clutching the coin tightly to her chest. Still in ball form, she slowly unraveled and looked around for any danger.

“Oh, wow! That sure was a close one, huh, T-Chan?”

Hana waited for an answer but none came. “T-Chan?”

“Up here, you dumbass!”

Hana looked up into the trees, where T-Chan was hanging in a net. One leg was free, but the rest of her body was tangled in the ropes.

“Uh-oh…”

“Yeah. Uh-oh. Now, before the bandits that set this up come running to collect their spoils, go over to that tree and untie the rope that’s holding this net up.”

Hana ran over to the tree and started to untie the rope.

“Wait!” T-Chan snapped. “Do not, under any circumstances, let go of that rope! I need you to SLOWLY lower me down to the ground. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Hana untied the rope, but just as she was reaching to grab it, it zipped right out of her fingers.

T-Chan felt herself falling faster than she knew was healthy. She screamed, knowing that exhaling would reduce the amount of pain she would feel upon impact.

In theory.

T-Chan hit the ground hard. Hana ran over and started pulling on ropes trying to get her free.

“Stop, stop, stop!” T-Chan ordered.

Hana jumped back holding her hands straight up in the air as if she was surrendering. T-Chan blinked and looked at where she had been standing. Lodged in the ground was a black kunai. Attached to its looped hilt was a blinking red talisman.