Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hibari let out a dejected sigh as she walked down one of the halls of Hanzo academy. Her ninja classes were done for the day, and like always her performance in class…wasn't that great. Kiriya-sensei had them spend a good majority of the class standing on the tips of their toes on top of bamboo stalks, all the while balancing a stick with a bucket of water hanging on each end.

It hasn't even been five minutes since the start of the exercise when Hibari lost her balance and fell face-first onto the ground. Not only that but the contents of the buckets spilled all over her, subsequently drenching her head to toe in water.

Kiriya-sensei calmly told her to try again. After refilling her buckets, she got back onto the bamboo stalk.

Not even four minutes passed before she fell to the ground again. Kiriya-sensei once again calmly instructed her to try again, And again Hibari would refill the buckets with water before going back on top of the bamboo stalk.

This would repeat with her failing over and over again throughout the entire course of the class. The entire time Kiriya-sensei has not lost any of his patients with her, and merely instructed her to keep trying.

Even Hibari's friends gave her words of encouragement and cheered her on, especially her best friend Yagyu.

However, despite all the words of encouragement, Hibari still failed to keep her balance.

The young pinkette honestly lost count of how many times she fell to the ground by the time class ended. Even after that horrible performance, Kiriya-sensei still remained patient with the girl and told her to keep on practicing her balance in his usual calm but stern tone, and her friends all comforted her and tried to reassure her that she'll get the hang of it eventually.

While Hibari was grateful for her friends as well as their words of encouragement, she still couldn't help but feel downhearted and a bit frustrated at her lack of progress. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she trained, she just can't seem to improve.

She was so distracted by her thoughts that she failed to really pay attention to her surroundings and because of this, she ended up walking face-first into something hard.

"Gyah!" Hibari shouted, more out of surprise than pain, as she stepped back to see what she had bumped into. It wasn't a wall or an open locker like she expected but rather a large fist.

Mocking laughter flooded the pinkette's ears as she looked up to see the owner of the fist. He was a tall muscular Caucasian teenager with medium ash brown hair that Hibari thought looked like a dung beetle's horn, and he had royal blue eyes. He wore the boy's uniform for Hanzo academy, however, the shirt was completely unbuttoned showing off the gray t-shirt with a golden fist logo on the front that he wore underneath and completely disregarding the school's dress code.

His name is Bash Johnson and was part of a student-exchange program. She didn't really know much about him other than from what she heard about his quickly established reputation. Said reputation as being the biggest bully on the campus. His harassment of the student body would include but was not limited to, giving people wedgies left and right, a number of swirlies, multiple accounts of physical assault, and a Chattanooga Gravy Bowl (whatever that was) all within the short span of time he's been attending Hanzo so far. While Bash seemed to prefer to bully certain individuals over others, such as that other student who also participated in the same student exchange program as Bash and played the triangle when he could, he would bully just about anyone he came across. Even the disciplinary committee wasn't safe from his abuse.

And now it seems like Hibari was Bash's next victim.

While pointing his finger at Hibari, he said something to her before he started laughing. Hibari didn't understand a word of what Bash said, because he was speaking English, and she doesn't know English well enough. But judging from his tone of voice and the expression he had, Hibari can guess he was making fun of her.

The next thing the young shinobi in training knew, the larger teen snatched her school bag right out of her hands much to her surprise.

"H-Hey, give that back!" Hibari whined cutely as she reached out for her bag, but Bash stopped her by grabbing her face with one of his large hands.

Between his large fingers, Hibari could see Bash holding her bag with his other hand and raising it high over his head and far from the reach of any normal student. The older boy once again said something in English, and again Hibari can tell that he was mocking her from his tone of voice.

Hibari could easily get her bag back. She was a shinobi, and even she could easily handle this big meanie. The problem was she didn't know how she could do that without revealing her shinobi abilities.

The best the Hibari could really think of at the moment was to feebly flail her arms up and down. This just caused Bash to laugh even harder at the girl's actions.

Bash's laughter came to an end when his legs got kicked out from under him, causing him to not only release his grip from Hibari's face but also fall face-first onto the ground. Before the muscular boy could do anything, he felt someone knelt on top of his back before a pair of petite hands grab one of his arms and painfully twisted it behind his back.

Bash let out a pained yell as his arm was being forced into an unnatural position, and Hibari smiled at the newcomer.

"Yagyu!" Hibari cheered in joy, happy to see her best friend.

Yagyu herself glared down at the large boy pinned underneath her as she continued to twist his arm.

"Give Hibari her bag back and apologize to her," Yagyu demanded, her soft voice gaining a certain edge that is normally only present when someone dared to hurt her Hibari.

Hibari wasn't sure if Bash understood what Yagyu said, but instead of doing what the white-haired girl told him, he merely continued to yell at her. In response, Yagyu applied a bit more pressure on his arm, causing bash to once again let out another shout of pain.

"I said give Hibari her bag back," Yagyu repeated. This time Bash did as he was told…somewhat. Instead of just merely releasing Hibari's school bag, the large teen opted to just toss it up into the air.

Hibari's eyes widen in surprise as she moves backward, reaching out to catch her now airborne bag. Fortunately, she was able to catch it. Unfortunately, she crashed into someone and they both ended up sprawled across the floor.

The shinobi in training let out a groan as she pushed herself up into a sitting position before rubbing her head.

"Hey, watch where you're going you shoob!" someone shouted behind the pinkette. Turning her head, Hibari saw the source of the voice. They were a caucasian teenage boy that looked to be about her age with orange hair, brown eyes, and an overall plump body. His shirt had some of the upper buttons undone and was not tucked in, and it hung over his pants. He seemed to follow the school's dress code about as much as Katsuragi. Even from her position on the floor, Hibari could tell that the orange-haired boy was much shorter than her. She didn't even need to crane her neck upward that much to look directly at his face despite the fact he was standing over her.

Before she could utter an apology, Hibari heard a groan from underneath her. Looking down she saw that she was sitting on top of the back of another boy.

Seeing this, Hibari immediately jumped to her feet.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry," Hibari quickly apologized, "I didn't see you and-"

"I-it's co-cool, I'm good, everything bruce right now," the boy interrupted as he rubbed his head, giving the girl a reassuring smile. Hibari wasn't convinced due to how much the boy's head swayed back and forth and his eyes were spinning. Hibari also didn't know if it was just her imagination, but she could swear she could see fishes and tufted titmice circling his head.

Now that Hibari was no longer on him, she was able to get a good look at him. He was also Caucasian, with a bit of Japanese ancestry, had a slim body, Tyrian purple hair and has his bangs hanging over his face with a long lock of his hair center on his face, sapphire blue eyes, and also looked to be about the same age as her.

"H-here let me help you up," Hibari said a bit shyly, as she offered her hand out to the downed boy. The boy in question vigorously shook the cobwebs out of his head. Once he was done with that he blinked a few times before his eye focused on Hibari's hand.

"Yeah, thanks," The boy said with a smile before grabbing the offered hand.

Once he was back on his feet, Hibari noticed that he was about a few inches taller than her, which combined with his slim build made him look a bit lanky.

"You're not hurt right?" Hibari asked in concern.

"Oh Yeah, I'm good," he said with a smile as he patted down his uniform before messing with his collar a bit, apparently not used to wearing the uniform.

"Hibari are you alright?" Yagyu asked as she came up next to Hibari, before noticing both of the boys. The white-haired girl wasted no time putting herself between them and Hibari, much to the three's confusion.

"Um okay," The taller boy said somewhat put off by the white-haired girl's behavior, and the glare she was giving both him and the short chubby teen made them visibly nervous.

the taller teen coughed into his fist before giving the younger shinobi a nervous smile.

"Um, hi my name's Randy," the taller boy said, doing his best to hide his discomfort, before gesturing to the shorter teen, "And this is my best friend Howard."

"Sup," the orange-haired boy greeted lamely with a wave, as he gave the girls (mostly Yagyu) a nervous smile.

Hibari walked out from behind Yagyu, and with a bright cheerful smile, introduced herself.

"Hi, my name is Hibari," she said with a small hop in her step, causing her ample chest to bounce a bit, before gesturing to the white-haired girl standing next to her, "And this is my best friend Yagyu."

Yagyu blinked a bit at the mention of her name before looking at the pinkette.

"They didn't do anything to you right Hibari?" she asked with suspicion in her voice. Both Randy and Howard didn't seem to appreciate what the white-haired girl was implying and shot her with an annoyed look.

"They didn't do anything Yagyu," Hibari said, quickly coming to their defense, "I just bumped into them after Bash threw my bag."

"Eh, more like you crashed into Cunningham," Howard corrected with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

At that, Yagyu's glare softened a bit, much to the boys' relief.

"As long as neither of you plans to hurt Hibari, you are alright...for now," she said simply in her usual quiet voice as she still observed the boys with suspicion.

"S-sure, no problem," Randy replied with a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck, before looking down toward the ground and grimacing.

When Hibari followed his gaze she saw why, and she couldn't help but let out a small whine.

Apparently, when she crashed into Randy, the contents of both his bag as well as her's spilled out all over the floor. Textbooks, notebooks, writing utensils, sheets of paper, and even the sweets she kept in her bag were sprawled around their feet. The pink-haired girl couldn't help but pout in dejection at the mess.

Nearby, a teenager in shades played the infamous sad trombone using the instrument he was carrying. The jingle seemed meant to emphasize Hibari's bad luck, which didn't help with her mood in the slightest.

Today wasn't really her day.

At least she didn't keep her ninja scroll or any of her shinobi tools in her school bag, or her secret as a shinobi would be out.

She, Randy, and Yagyu knelt down and began collecting and sorting the spilled contents and placing them back into their respective bags. Or in Yagyu's case, only picking up items she knew for certain belong to Hibari. Yagyu didn't really care about the boy's possessions, she only cared about Hibari.

Speaking of friends, Hibari noticed that Randy's friend, Howard, wasn't doing anything other than standing around and eating a chocolate bar.

'Wait, isn't that one of my chocolates?' Hibari thought to herself before checking her sweets. Sure enough, the chocolate she had was missing and she knew she hadn't eaten it yet. The pink-haired girl couldn't help but pout again.

Both Randy and Yagyu also noticed Howard's behavior and looked toward the orange-haired teen who just merely continued to munch on Hibari's chocolate.

"What," Howard asked with a raised eyebrow, his mouth full of chocolate as he spoke.

"Aren't you going to help?" Randy asked with an unamused expression and slight annoyance in his voice.

"Noooo, noooo, you look like you three got it all covered," Howard said with a wave of his free hand before pointing Hibari's chocolate down toward the three kneeling teens, "Besides, I don't want to get in the way of what you guys seem to like doing."

Hibari couldn't help but blink in surprise at the orange-haired teen's lazy demeanor, while Yagyu only stared at the boy with an unimpressed expression. Randy merely rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath in English, but nonetheless continued picking up the contents on the floor. It was easy to tell that the taller teen was used to this sort of behavior from his companion.

As the three teens continued to pick up the spilled contents, Hibari looked over the two boys before her. Considering that the taller purple-haired teen spoke English just now, there was a good chance that these two students were also part of the exchange program. And if they were from Norrisville then they might know some rumors about the Norrisville Ninja.

(Flashback: Three weeks ago)

Shinobi class started like it always had. There was the usual explosion, followed by the ninja room being encased in smoke, causing all the girls to fall into a coughing fit. When the smoke cleared, everyone saw Kiriya-sensei standing in the middle of the room.

"Good morning sensei," all the girls said as they stood before him while bowing in greeting.

"Good morning girls. Now before we start our shinobi lessons for the day, I have something you need to hear," Kiriya-sensei announced, his words making everyone look at him curiously. Except for Katsuragi, who had an eager look on her face.

"Oh, are we finally getting our first real mission?" the blond asked excitedly, "Are we going to assassinate someone!?"

"No, it's not a mission Katsuragi," Kiriya-sensei replied simply, his answer causing the perverted girl to deflate, "a week from now, a number of students from Norrisville will be studying here at Hanzo academy for an indefinite period of time as part of a student-exchange program."

"Eh, really?" Asuka said in surprise.

Kiriya gave the brown-haired girl a nod before Hibari raised her hand up into the air.

"Yes Hibari," Kiriya said, giving the pink-haired girl the go-ahead to ask her question.

"Where's Norrisville Kiriya-sensei?" the pinkette asked curiously as she tilted her head to the side.

"It's a city that resides within the United States," the silvered hair man answered, his answer once again surprised his students.

"That's quite far for a large number of students to travel," Ikaruga commented before grabbing her chin between her index finger and thumb in thought, "Though wouldn't the students have difficulty with the language barrier?"

"From what I've been told, something like that won't really be an issue," Kiriya explained before continuing with the news, "however, the students being here because of the exchange program is the official reason. The real reason is mainly due to the high school in Norrisville having been utterly destroyed in the midst of the latest battle between the local Shinobi and a sorcerer and Hanzo Academy is the only school that would be willing to take the students in while their school is being repaired."

"Wait, there's a shinobi in America!" Asuka exclaimed in surprise.

"And they're coming here to Hanzo Academy?" Hibari added.

"That seems to be the case," Kiriya confirmed with a nod of his head, "Especially since there appear to be multiple sightings of this shinobi."

"Doesn't sound like they're that good of a shinobi if they're being spotted by civilians a bunch of times," Katsuragi commented to herself.

"Also, I'm not sure whether or not this is true, but this shinobi could be a member of the lost Norris Clan."

"WHAAAAAAAAA?!" Kiriya and the ninja girls flinched all at once when Asuka suddenly yelled out, except Yagyu who merely stared at their sensei in stunned silence.

"A member of the Norris Clan is coming here to Hanzo!?" Asuka exclaims excitedly with a huge smile plastered on her face, her eyes sparkling like stars.

"Ow, geez Asuka you almost blew out my eardrums," Katsuragi complained as she messaged her assaulted appendages. The blond-haired girl then grew a perverted smile on her face as she edged her way behind Asuka, who didn't seem to notice the movement, with her hands reaching out to grope the brunette's chest, "seriously, do your boobs also provide more space for your lungs to expand?"

However, a thought popped into the perverted shinobi's mind, and she pulled her hands away from the brown-haired girl's chest without even touching them, an action that would have surprised everyone if they weren't still reeling from Asuka's outburst.

"The Norris clan huh, I feel like I heard that somewhere before," Katsuragi said as she rubbed her chin trying to remember something.

"It's a famous shinobi legend about an ancient clan who were believed to be the first shinobis to have ever existed," Ikaruga answered as she messaged her aching ear while recalling hearing this story from her father.

"Oh yeah, I think my parents used to tell me that as a bedtime story," Katsuragi remembered with a smirk as she snapped her fingers.

"Have you heard about them Yagyu?" Hibari asked her best friend, causing the white-haired girl to blink out of her stupor

"A bit, the Norris clan is believed to be the first shinobis in the world," Yagyu explained to the pink-haired girl, who listened intently wondering what was so special about the clan that would cause Asuka to react the way she did, "the clan was comprised of nine shinobi brothers, also referred to as the Norris Nine, and each brother was immensely powerful and just as skilled. They would travel all across Japan hunting down and eliminating any and all demonic monsters that would threaten innocent civilians. Much of the shinobi methods we use to this day are based on what the Norris Nine utilized."

"Wow, they sound like really amazing shinobis!" Hibari commented excitedly, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I know right!" Asuka exclaimed as she suddenly appeared next to the first-years causing the pinkette to let out a startled yelp, and even making Yagyu jump a bit, "My grandparents used to tell me stories about them when I was little, how they would always appear out of nowhere whenever monsters or evil sorcerers threaten innocent people and pretty much save the day!"

"Geez Asuka, you sound like your a really big fan of these guys," Katsuragi commented with a smirk, her remark making the brown-haired girl blush a bit in embarrassment.

"I am actually," Asuka admitted as she scratched the back of her head somewhat shyly, "their stories inspired me to be the kind of shinobi I want to be, protecting people from within the shadows."

"But is it true sensei?" Ikaruga asked skeptically, "I mean the Norris Clan disappeared over 800 years ago, and for one to pop up out of nowhere and from America of all places. It's kind of hard to believe sir."

"I can understand why you would have a hard time believing this Ikaruga," Kiriya said and he crossed his arms over his chest, "its as I said, I don't know whether or not if its true, however the source that gave this information is someone I know to be reliable."

"It will be so cool to meet someone who is a member of such an amazing good shinobi family," Hibari commented with a smile.

"The Norris clan aren't exactly "good shinobis", Hibari," Kiriya said, much to the girls' confusion.

"What do you mean Kiriya sensei," Katsuagi asked with confusion, "I mean they did go around saving people right?"

"While yes they did protect the innocent, they disappeared far before the concept of "good shinobis" and "evil shinobis" was ever established. As far as I understand they're not affiliated with either the Good Shinobi or the Evil Shinobi factions," the silvered-haired teacher explained.

"Yeah, but wouldn't they be on our side if they still protect people," Hibari asked somewhat hopeful.

"Maybe," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, "However, remember Hibari, Good Shinobi are those who work for the government, and according to legend, the Norris Nine refused to work for any of the feudal lords back in the day regardless of how much they were offered in exchange for their services. It's possible that they wouldn't join the Good Shinobi faction."

"Ahhhh," Hibari and Asuka whined in disappointment, the both of them looked down to the ground with downcast expressions.

"However I don't think that would prevent you from befriending them," Kiriya reassured with a smirk. At that, both of the girls smiled once more.

"However, you must remember you girls are shinobis and that your identities must remain a secret," he continued, his face turning serious and in turn so did the girls, "and with the increased number of students, you must be even more careful than usual. Even if the Norris shinobi do exist and are arriving to Hanzo Academy, we do not have a mission to learn who they are. So you're not allowed to approach the Norrisville students if you don't have to, even if it's to discuss any potential rumors about the Norris clan."

"Yes, Kiriya sensei," all the Hanzo girls said in unison. Though Hibari was once again somewhat disappointed. From what she was told, the Norris shinobis sound like really cool people. And if the fact that a member of the Norris clan is also coming to Hanzo among the Norrisville students, then there's a possibility that they're about the same age as them.

Unfortunately, the chance of meeting them was probably low, especially since they couldn't really talk to the Norrisville students directly.

(Present)

Seeing that she most likely wouldn't get many more opportunities to talk to the students from Norrisville, Hibari decided this might be the best chance she got to ask about the Norris Shinobi.

"Both you and Howard are transfer students right?" Hibari asked the purple-haired teen with a tilt of her head, "From Norrisville I mean."

"Yeah," Randy said in confirmation before following up with his own question, "Why do you ask?"

"Well I've heard that there was a shinobi in Norrisville, and I was wondering if it was true."

Yagyu didn't really pay much attention to the civilians, only enough to make sure they wouldn't do anything to Hibari. That was until Hibari mentioned the alleged Norris shinobi, then she was completely focused on the civilians. Well maybe not fully, a good deal of her attention remained focused on Hibari.

The two boys both grew excited smiles on their faces when Hibari asked about the ninja, especially Randy.

"Yeah we do," Randy exclaimed excitedly.

"How do you know for certain?" Yagyu asked skeptically, not really believing these two would really be able to spot a shinobi.

"Hello, the guy has been protecting the town for like forever, everyone has seen him!" Howard explained as it was the most obvious thing in the world. However, his words confused the white-haired girl. She was at most expecting a number of rumors about the Norrisville ninja, but for the entire town to see him? Something wasn't right.

"Really, he protects the town?" Hibari asked excitedly, her bright smile nearly making Yagyu forget what she was thinking.

"Yeah, he fights stuff like monsters, giant killer robots, and just about anything else that would threaten Norrisville," Howard continued.

"And with a bit of flair if I might add," Randy added, his voice filled with pride for whatever reason.

"Eh, he kind of looks like a shoob most of the time," Howard argued with a shrug of his shoulder. Randy shot his best friend with an irritated glare looking like he was just personally insulted. The orange-haired teen merely gave the taller boy a shit-eating smile.

"Wow, he sounds like a superhero!" Hibari exclaimed, her eyes sparkling.

"Yep, he's been protecting the town for the past 800 years," Randy explained with a smirk.

"Really?"

The purple-haired teen gave a hum of confirmation, to which the pinkette eyes sparkled even more.

"Wow, so cool!" she said with a bright smile.

Yagyu didn't really buy that part of the story. It was impossible for anyone to live that long, much less retain the strength needed to be a shinobi. Even Asuka's grandfather, the legendary Hanzo, still falls victim to the passing of time. What was more likely the case is that the role of Norrisville's protector would be passed down from generation to generation. Why anyone would think that one shinobi could survive for centuries was beyond her.

"How can anyone believe a person could live that long?" Yagyu found herself asking.

Her question caused both of the boys to blink in bemusement, before looking at each other, then toward the white-haired shinobi.

"Beeeeecause the ninja said so," Howard admitted somewhat lamely. Yagyu was once again perplexed by what the orange-haired teen said, even Hibari tilted her head in confusion.

"You mean he purposely showed himself in public," Yagyu asked with a bit of disbelief evident in her voice.

"Well yeah," Howard said, not really seeing the issue.

Yagyu had to resist the urge to face palm. One of the biggest rules within the shinobi world was to keep the existence of shinobis a secret from the general populace. If what these two boys were saying were true, then that would mean the shinobi clan residing within Norrisville has been blatantly breaking this rule for centuries. She knew Kiriya-sensei said that the Shinobi clan within Norrisville wasn't affiliated with either the good shinobi or the evil shinobi factions as far as he could tell, but it was still a miracle that the council hadn't gone after them for so long.

"But aren't shinobis supposed to keep their identities a secret?" Hibari asked, her voice filled with confusion. After all, that was one of the biggest rules all shinobis have to follow. Not even evil shinobis would break that rule.

"He does keep his identity a secret, no one knows who he is," Randy explained rather quickly and somewhat defensively, before rubbing the back of his neck a bit nervously, "though there are some people who are trying to figure that out."

"Yeah, like Debbie Kang," Howard spat out, irritation evident in his voice at the mention of Debbie Kang.

"Whose's Debbie Kang," Hibari asked as she picked up her math textbook absent-mindedly.

"She's the youngest member of the Norrisville High Gazette Times Tribune Weekly Daily Press Chronicle or NHGTTWDPC for short," Randy explained as he also absent-mindedly picked up his math textbook and placed it within his bag. The ridiculously long name for what Hibari guessed was the boy's school newspaper honestly made the pink-haired shinobi somewhat dizzy. Why would anyone give their newspaper such a long title?

"And whenever she finds a potential story, she sticks to it like super glue," Randy continued before noticing that there weren't any more objects on the ground and stood up from his kneeling position.

"What do you mean by that?" Yagyu asked cautiously as she and Hibari also stood back onto their feet.

"Debbie Kang, like my sister, would always try to find the biggest scope she could put on her paper, and when she finds a scoop she doesn't let up till she gets it. People call her Scoops Kang because of that," Howard explained, crossing his arms over his chest as a frown appeared on his face, "this one time she thought Randy was the ninja and decided to tell the whole school."

"Of course, I'm clearly not the ninja, not the ninja, nope," Randy immediately said with a panicked smile followed by nervous laughter. His behavior made Hibari once again tilt her head in confusion.

"A few minutes after she told everyone, a killer robot came after Randy," Howard continued before smirking, "fortunately the real ninja saved my best bud and made it clear that Randy wasn't the ninja."

Yagyu narrowed her good eye in concern. If what Howard is saying is true, then she and the others needed to be even more careful around the transfer students.

At that point, Yagyu decided that they needed to end the conversation right there. As shinobis, they can't bring too much attention to themselves and thus they need to interact with the normal students as little as possible. Their Conversation with the two teens went on longer than she would have preferred.

"Hibari, we need to get to our next class before we're late," Yagyu said softly to Hibari as she gently placed a hand on her pink-haired friend's shoulder.

"Oh yeah, that's right!" Hibari exclaimed with a cute panic, "sorry, but we need to get going, bye!"

"See ya," Randy waved.

"Later," Howard said as he ate the last bite of Hibari's chocolate.

With that, the two pairs of friends went off In opposite directions to their next classes.

"They seemed nice, right Yagyu," Hibari asked her best friend as they walked down the hall.

Nice wasn't really a word Yagyu would use to describe them, at least not the short chubby orange-haired teen. The taller purple-haired boy was at least respectful toward Hibari and looked to make an effort to ensure his gaze didn't go below her or Hibari's noses, so he was at least tolerable for now.

The white-haired girl didn't voice her opinion and just let her friend continue talking.

"I wonder if we'll ever see them again," Hibari pondered with a smile, placing her finger on her chin, "They did seem like they could be fun to hang out with."

"Hibari, you know we can't interact with the normal students, even if they are transfer students," Yagyu said softly, shooting down such thoughts.

At that, the pinkette's smile dropped, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry."

"It's alright Hibari," Yagyu reassured as she placed a hand on the other girl's shoulder, "We did at least learn a bit more about the Norris shinobi."

At that, the pink-haired girl's smile returned even brighter, "Oh yeah, that's right we did!"

The young shinobi tilted her head to the side as she once again pondered on what the boys said about the ninja, "though it is surprising that the shinobis in Norrisville wouldn't put so much effort in keeping their existence a secret from everyone."

"At first I thought the current Norris shinobi was being careless, but it doesn't seem to be the case," Yagyu said as she nodded her head in agreement, 'though that's assuming what those boys said was true.'

"Well I still think he's very cool," Hibari said cheerfully as she pumped her fist into the air, "Fighting robots and monsters, saving people, he sounds like a real-life superhero! I hope we get to meet him someday."

Yagyu couldn't help but smile a bit at Hibari's cheerful attitude.

"It could be possible if Kiriya-sensei learns who he is and they decide to transfer to our classes."

"Hey, maybe Randy is the Norrisville shinobi," Hibari suggested in a half-joking manner.

"Not likely," Yagyu said bluntly, "He doesn't seem to have the qualities that most shinobis have-"

'Neither do I,' Hibiari thought glumly to herself, her smile waning slightly.

"And his presence is far too noticeable, every proper shinobi knows that they need to keep their presence hidden at all times."

"Yeah, good point."

Hibari was sitting at her desk doodling in her notebook while humming a cheerful tune as she waited for math class to start, as well as listening intently to the surrounding conversations. She didn't usually do this in most of her other classes, the only reason she's doing it right now is because some students from Norrisville are also taking the same math class as her.

She was curious about how things were like in their hometown, it's not really often you get to hear about exciting new places. And after hearing a bit more about the ninja, her curiosity about Norrisville only grew.

Unfortunately, most students from Norrisville conversed among themselves, and when they did they spoke in English. The few times they spoke Japanese was when talking to a Hanzo student.

"I'm not making this stuff up," said a Norrisville student.

"Yeah, right," a Hanzo student scoffed as he crossed his arms in disbelief, "You really expect me to believe that people get turned into monsters only for some ninja to pop out of nowhere and turn them back to normal?"

"Well yeah, stuff like that happens pretty much almost every day in Norrisville," the Norrisville student said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "and when there's not a monster attack, there's usually a robot rampaging around the town."

"Riiiiight," the Hanzo student said, not really believing what the Norrisvillian told him, "Let's say I buy all that, why is it that there's a ninja in the US, but not a single one in Japan?"

"That's a good question," the Norrisvillian said as he grabbed his chin in thought, "Hey, what about that Kasumi chick from the Dead or Alive tournaments, isn't she a ninja?"

"Eh, I don't think she's a real ninja, probably just a gimmick for show," the Hanzo student dismissed with a wave of his hand, "Though, there's no denying that she's super hot."

"That's for sure, and the outfit she normally wears just makes her look even hotter."

At that point, the conversation diverges onto a different topic than the city of Norrisville, so she decided to tune them out for the moment. So far the stuff she heard from the few conversations she could understand confirmed what Randy and Howard told her earlier.

Hibari personally found the idea of monsters existing in the first place to be scary, but the idea of people turning into monsters sounded even scarier. She wasn't sure what she would do if she had to confront someone who had been turned into a monster, especially if it was one of her friends. The fact that the Norris shinobi faced such threats on a regular basis and was able to return the unfortunate victims back to normal speaks volumes about how amazing he is in Hibari's eyes.

The doors to the classroom opened and Kiriya-sensei stepped in, at which point all conversations halted and the students went to their assigned seats.

"Alright class, we're continuing from where we left off last time," he said as he pulled out his own copy of the math textbook assigned for the course, "open your books back to page 216."

All the students did as instructed and opened their textbooks to the assigned page.

Hibari herself pulled her math book out from her bag, before tugging at the covers to crack open her textbook.

Except it didn't open.

"Huh," The pink-haired shinobi blinked in confusion at her still closed textbook in her grasp. Using a bit more strength, She tried again to open her math book, but not even the pages would budge.

Hibari couldn't help but pout in annoyance before inspecting the book. She couldn't find anything that would prevent her from opening her math book. She couldn't see any gum, or sticky substance stuck between the pages. She then brushed her thumb across the pages to see if it was taped shut. There wasn't any tape or anything similar on the book itself.

Hibari once again blinked in confusion, perplexed as to why her math book wouldn't open.

She once again tries to pry open the book, this time with all her strength. However, no matter how hard she tried, the book just refused to open.

Seeing how futile it was, Hibari let out a quiet whine as she placed it down on her desk.

Today really wasn't her day.

To her left sat Yagyu, who noticed her friend's distressed expression.

"What's wrong, Hibari?" Yagyu asked, concern evident in her voice.

"I don't know why, but my math book won't open," Hibari whined as she slumped down on her desk.

"You can use mine," Yagyu suggested as she brought her desk closer to Hibari's.

"Really?"

"Of course," Yagyu nodded.

"Thanks Yagyu, you're the best," Hibari beams as she edges her desk closer to her best friend's. The pink-haired girl's smile was so bright that Yagyu couldn't help but smile herself.

Those smiles faded when an annoying nasally voice permeated the classroom.

"Mr. Kiriya, those girls all the way in the back are talking to each other instead of listening to your lesson," a Caucasian teen with short brown hair combed up at the front and wore a pair of square-rimmed glasses called out to the silver-haired shinobi as he pointed a finger in Hibari and Yagyu's direction.

From the corner of her eye, Hibari saw Yagyu flinch in annoyance at apparently being noticed. Hibari herself couldn't help but feel responsible.

Fortunately, no one really bothered looking where the teen was pointing, instead, the other students opted to just glare at him or outright ignore him.

"Shut up Doug," Another student said with an annoyed groan.

"Settle down," Kiriya-sensei instructed in his usual stern tone, before looking at the teen, " I would appreciate it if you didn't disrupt the class."

Doug's eyes widen in surprise, his jaw-dropping.

"But they-" the boy tried to argue but Kiriya-sensei interrupted him.

"If there is anyone who is doing something that I feel needs to be addressed then I will handle it," Kiriya reprimanded, "shouting out in the middle of the class is far more disruptive than what you're accusing a fellow student of doing."

At that, Doug said nothing and simply let out an annoying whine, after which class resumed as normal.

"He's so annoying," Yagyu muttered under her breath in slight irritation. Not long after attending Hanzo, Doug's constant tattle-taling and insistence on pointing out the obvious had made him immensely disliked among the Hanzo students. Even Hibari found him to be somewhat annoying.

"Why can't he just mind his own business."

"I'm sure he means well," Hibari said with an unconvincing smile.

"I doubt it," Yagyu argued with a deadpan, "I swear he's the most insufferable person on the planet."

"Isn't that a bit too harsh Yagyu?" Hibari asked with a bit of uncertainty. Yes, he was annoying, but Hibari didn't think he was that bad.

"No," Yagyu said plainly, "Even the students from Norrisville seem to despise him."

"I guess so", Hibari said, not really quite sure what to say to that. With nothing else to say, both she and Yagyu directed their focus toward Kiriya-sensei and his lesson.

After that, the rest of the day went without any more incidents, much to Hibari's relief. She, Yagyu, and the rest of their friends; Asuka, Katsuragi, and Ikaruga, walked through the back gates of Hanzo as they conversed with one another.

At some point, Hibari brought up her conversation with Randy and Howard and what she and Yagyu learned about the Norrisville shinobi.

"So he fights monsters and robots?" Katsuragi asked, a bit surprised.

"That's what Randy and Howard told me and Yagyu," Hibari said.

"I find that a bit hard to believe," Ikaruga said skeptically, "are you certain they weren't just making it up Hibari?"

"Yeah, some of the other students from Norrisville also said the same thing," Hibari said with a nod of her head.

"I've also overheard the same thing from the transfer students that are in the same classes as me," Asuka chimed in.

"Still, for him to fight in the open so brazenly goes against one of the biggest rules that come with being a shinobi," Ikaruga said as she shook her head in disapproval, "a shinobi must remain in the shadows at all time."

"I don't know, by the sound of it this Norrisville shinobi doesn't really have much of a choice but to fight out in the open," Katsuragi commented with her hands behind the back of her head.

"Sounds like he cares more about protecting people than anything else," Asuka said with a smile, "It's too bad we can't ask the students directly about him though."

"We can't interact too much with normal students less we risk exposing ourselves," Ikaruga reprimanded, "and if what those boys said about this Debbie Kang person is true, then we need to take extra care not to draw any attention to ourselves. Especially you Asuka."

"Eh, why me?" Asuka asked in confusion..

"You're often careless when it comes to hiding your presence," Ikaruga explained, "On the day when you returned from your training exam you went through the front entrance and was spotted by two students, then a few days later you were spotted by another boy from another school who confessed to you.

"O-oh yeah, R-right," Asuka stuttered in embarrassment at being reminded of her blunders.

"I'm not trying to put you down Asuka, but you need to be careful. While I know you're excited about the Norris shinobi being here more than the rest of us, if Debbie Kang sees any of us not attending the classes she'll get curious and want to know what our secrets are."

"I know, I just really want to know more about him," Asuka whined, "I mean the students from Norrisville have been here for almost two weeks and we haven't seen him at least once."

"It would be pretty cool if we ever met him," The pinkette said with a hopeful expression on her face.

"Yeah, I'm hoping to get the chance to throw down with him," Katsuragi exclaimed in agreement as she cracked her knuckles with an eager smile on her face, "this guy sounds like he's pretty strong."

"Honestly, is fighting all you think about Katsuragi?" The ravenette asked with a deadpan.

"Nope! I also think about big boobs," the blond exclaimed as she slipped behind Asuka before grabbing and squeezing the brown-haired girl's breasts, "especially Asuka's nice honkers."

"Katsuragi, let me go!" Asuka cried out as she tried to break free from the blonde's grasp to no avail.

"No way!" the older girl said with a perverted smile.

Ikaruga couldn't help but let out an exasperated sigh as she facepalmed.

Hibari couldn't help but giggle nervously at the scene, while Yagyu didn't really give it much attention.

It went on like this with the girls conversing with one another, all the while Katsuragi continued to grope Asuka's breasts.

Eventually, it was time for the five shinobis to go their separate ways for the day. After saying their goodbyes to each other they went off to their respective homes.

Hibari let out a happy sigh as she entered her room after coming out of the shower and was now wearing her pink bunny-themed Onesie hoodie pajamas. After having a bit of a rough day today, a nice hot shower was just the thing to help wash away all the bad moments of the day.

She flopped down on her bed. The pinkentte let out a yawn before reaching out to the lamp on her nightstand and turning off the light and encasing the room in darkness. After that, she buried herself underneath her blankets before drifting off to sleep, and the only sound to be heard in the room was the girl's soft snoring.

Her school bag she had set upright on top of her nightstand fell over, and her mathematics textbook fell out toward the floor. After it bounced off the ground, it finally opened, and in the process, the textbook cover fell off.

In place of the standard math textbook, however, was a beautiful old book with a cover made out of black leather with red inlay.

As it lay on the ground, the inlays briefly shone red and the book emitted a low humming sound that went unheard by the sleeping shinobi.

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

The birds were chirping, a gentle wind was blowing, and the morning sun shone brightly for all to enjoy. All in all, it was a perfect day to be out and enjoy the beautiful day, and Randy and Howard were more than happy to spend a part of it waiting in line for the game store that was selling the brand new Grave puncher JRPG edition to open, and the rest of the day playing it.

"Oh man Cunningham, I can't wait. I'm so honking hyped!" Howard exclaimed excitedly as he bounced in his place in line in front of the local game store, "in just a few short minutes we'll finally get our hands on a copy of…"

"GRAVE PUNCHER JRPG EDITION!" Both he and Randy exclaimed at the top of their lungs as they raised their fist up toward the heavens.

"Would you two keep it down, it's early in the morning!" Yelled another person who was also waiting in line, Clearly annoyed by the two boys' excitement.

"Sorry about that," randy quickly apologized with a nervous smile before turning back to his best friend, who was mentally rolling his eyes at his best friend's tendency to be polite, "yep, it won't be long till we be punching those graves!"

"You got the money for the game right?" Howard asked, pointing a finger at his best friend.

"Don't worry buddy I got it right here," Randy reassured as he presented his best friend his wallet.

"Awesome!" The short chubby boy exclaimed with a double fist pump, "just want to make sure otherwise we wouldn't be able to purchase Grave Puncher Jrpg edition."

"Don't you have money too?" Randy asked with a raised eyebrow as he put his wallet back into his pocket.

"Nope," the shorter boy replied nonchalantly with a smile, not surprising the purple haired teen in the least.

"Spend it all already," Randy said more as a statement than a question.

"Yup," Howard replied, still smiling.

"Howard, you got to be more responsible with your money," Randy reprimanded as he rolled his eyes.

"Why, I got you best buddy."

"You can't keep muching off of me forev-," Randy began to say before a random teenage girl suddenly bumped into him.

"Ow, hey!" the tall purple-haired boy exclaimed at the girl who was quickly walking away, not so much as offering an apology.

"Yeassh, and people here call us rude," Howard said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Actually they just call you rude, and two, I know righ…Wait a second," Randy said before feeling something was wrong. The purplette began checking his pockets for something and his eyes widened in realization, "That honking shoob took my wallet!"

Upon saying that the girl that bumped into him broke into a sprint.

"Get after her," Howard exclaimed with a panicked expression on his face, "without money, we can't buy the Game!"

Not even bothering to give his best friend an annoyed look, Randy immediately sprinted after the pickpocket.

"I'll save our spot in line!" Howard called out toward his friend.

Randy ran as fast as he could after the thief all the while being careful not to bump into anyone. The pickpocket, unfortunately, had a significant head start over him, and apparently didn't care about running into anyone as she shoved anyone and everyone who was in her way.

Fortunately, that wasn't too much of an issue for Randy, his time as the ninja has greatly improved his athletic capabilities, and was quickly gaining on the thief.

"Stop right there thief!" he yelled, unintentionally speaking in his silly heroic voice, as he and the thief ran past multiple bystanders who were confused by the spectacle.

"Why would I?" The thief yelled back, not looking back as she knocked over a trash can right in Randy's path.

"Cause that's my wallet you swiped you shoob!" Randy exclaimed as he simply jumped over it and continued chasing after the thief without losing his pace.

"Finder's keepers' buddy!" She yelled as she knocked over a food stand containing a large number of oranges. Said oranges sprawled out in front of Randy's path who wasn't deterred in the slightest.

"It was in my pocket, not on the ground!" He countered as he hopped on a bench and leaped over the oranges.

"Whatever, it's mine now loser," she said as she knocked another trash can over, "you snooze you lose buddy."

"Would you stop knocking things over!" Randy exclaimed in annoyance, as he leaped over the knocked-over trash can.

"Just give up, I'm not giving it bac-"

Bam!

Suddenly the thief was punched in the face, not only stopping her in her tracks but also sending her flying flat on her back.

"Woah!" Randy exclaimed as he came to a stop as he watched the person who stopped the thief pick up his wallet and began walking toward him.

They were a teenage Japanese girl that looked to be a few years older than randy. She had tanned skin, turquoise eyes, and dark brown hair tied in a long ponytail that reached down to her calves, with a white ribbon with the ends of the ribbon standing straight up.

She wore a black sailor fuku uniform with a red trim that showed off her midriff, and white loose socks with brown dress shoes. Randy figured that it was the uniform for whatever school she attended.

She also had a figure that reminded Randy of those two girls he talked to a few days ago. Something that Randy was trying his best not to pay attention to.

"This is yours right?" The girl asked as she held Randy's wallet up in front of him, her tone masculine yet still sounded feminine.

"Yeah, thanks," randy said with a grateful smile as he took back his wallet from the girl, "that was really Bruce of yo-"

"Hi there, names Howard Weinerman, grave puncher extraordinaire," Howard said as he appeared out of nowhere and got between Randy and the tanned girl, surprising both of them at his sudden appearance. The short chubby boy gave the tanned girl a flirting smile as he tried to come off as cool, "you know if you want I can show you how to punch graves like a pr-"

"Not happening buddy," Homura shut down with a deadpan expression on her face as she placed a hand on her hip.

"Yeah buddy, she's clearly way out of your league," Randy said in agreement as he couldn't help but smile in slight amusement.

If Howard was at all bothered by what he heard, he didn't show it as he continued to look appreciatively at the older girl.

"Anyway, I haven't seen you guys before," the tanned girl said, ignoring the orange-haired boy's gaze, "you guys from out of town or something?"

"Yeah, me and my buddy, Howard, are from Norrisville," randy said, as he checked to make sure he really did get his wallet back. After confirming it was, and nothing was missing, the purple-haired teen put the wallet away in his pocket.

"Norrisville, huh," the tanned girl said with a tilt of her head as she crossed her arms over her ample chest, "can't really say I'm familiar with it, other than the rumors that a lot of crazy things seem to happen in that town."

"That would be putting it mildly," Howard muttered.

"Though I did hear something about there being a Shinobi clan in that town, and how they pretty much protected it for a long time," she continued before she once again placed a hand to her hip, "is it true?"

Randy wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or not, but he could have sworn there were hints of excitement in the girl's voice when she asked about the ninja.

'Eh, probably not,' Randy dismissed with a shrug.

"The ninja? Yeah, he's real!" Howard exclaimed proudly as he placed a hand on Randy's shoulder, causing the taller boy to slouch a bit.

"Really?" the tanned girl asked a bit skeptically, and again Randy wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but the girl also seemed to have a bit of a hopeful tone in her voice as well, "no offense, but I'm going to need more than just your word."

"Yeah, I got some pics of him," Howard said as he got his phone out, already opening up the photo app."

"Really?" the tanned girl asked with a raised brow.

"You do?" Randy asked in surprise.

"Yep, feast your eyes on the ninja!" The chubby boy said as he took his hand off of Randy's shoulder and brought his phone up for the tanned girl to see.

She looked at the screen and Immediately the girl's eyes widened in shock, and her face turned completely red like a tomato much to Randy's confusion.

"Wh-what the hell are you and your friend doing in the bathtub!?" The tanned girl asked, completely flustered as she tried, and failed, to avert her eyes from the image on the phone.

Confused by the girl's reaction, Howard looked at the screen and his eyes widened in shock at the image being shown. Randy, who was looking over his friend's shoulder, could only stare in absolute horror, his jaw falling to the floor as all the color in his face drain away.

"Ehhh, oops," Howard let out as he rubbed the back of his neck. The short chubby teen was surprisingly calm, as if he didn't just show an extremely hot girl a super embarrassing photo of him and his best biffer, "wrong photo."

"Wrong photo!? WRONG HONKING PHOTO!?" Randy yelled into his friend's ear, making the shorter boy flinch, "THAT'S THE PHOTO YOUR SISTER USES TO BLACKMAIL US! WHY THE HONKING JUICE DO YOU HAVE THAT PHOTO ON YOUR PHONE!?" Randy exclaimed as he pulled on his own hair.

Howard merely shrugged his shoulders.

"That's not important," Howard dismissed as he scroll through his photo gallery.

"Pretty sure it is!"

"Anywaaaaay," Howard said with a roll of his eyes, before once again presenting his phone to the still blushing tanned skinned girl, who seems to be somewhat stuck in a daze, "once again, feast your eyes on the ninja!"

The orange-haired teen's shout seemed to pull the tanned girl out of her daze as she vigorously shook her head, before blinking a few times.

"R-right," she said before coughing into her fist as her blush died down, however her cheeks were still red.

Randy couldn't help but groan as he buried his face into his palms at that.

As she looked at the phone screen, it showed an image of the Norrisville ninja standing proudly over the corpses of large killer robots.

The tanned girl looked unimpressed.

"You really expect me to buy this?" She asked with a raised eyebrow as she once again crossed her arms over her chest, her tone unconvinced, "no shinobi would ever show himself out in public so brazenly, much less pose for a photo op. That could just be some kid pretending to be a shinobi just for kicks."

Randy couldn't blame the girl for thinking that. After all, other than the Norrisville ninja, no one has really seen any ninjas ever since the Edo period. And even the people who move into Norrisville don't believe in the ninja's existence until they see him in action.

But he also couldn't help but flinch at what the girl said, it felt like she was personally directing that jab at him. He'll admit there were times when he felt like he was just some shoob running around in the ninja suit.

Yeah, the Nomicon reassured him that he was the right guy to be the ninja, he was brave, unstoppable, and pure of heart. But even then he still felt like he wasn't meeting the expectations befitting of the Norrisville ninja, especially those times where he messed up royally.

Like that time when he slipped up and allowed Debbie Kang to figure out he's the ninja, the time he took Plop-Plop away from the seal that protected him from the power ball's influence, how he abused Rachel (he still hated himself for how he treated her), and how he hurt Howard during their fight against evil Julian.

Randy couldn't help but shiver at that memory. When he used the power orb on evil Julian, he could feel its influence washing over him, saying it would grant him unlimited power, power to defeat the sorcerer himself, power that surpasses the 800-year-old evil.

He could understand why evil Julian was obsessed with the balls. Even with just one of the chaos orbs, Evil Julian was unbelievably powerful. The guy not only gave Randy a hard time in their fights but also smacked him into the ground and make him eat dirt in pretty much every single one of their encounters.

And when he channeled its power to attack evil Julian and overwhelmed his classmate's evil duplicate, it felt great. As Evil Julian begged him to stop and the sounds of his cybernetic body cracking filled the young ninja's ears, Randy couldn't help but completely enjoy every minute of it at the time. Something that scared the modern-day ninja immensely.

It scared randy, even more, when it felt like that sadistic joy came from within rather than from outside.

"Okay," Howard said undeterred, bringing Randy out of his thoughts, as the shorter teen once again scrolled through the phone's gallery, "if that's not convincing, then how about this."

The short chubby teenager once again brought his phone up for the girl to see. Instead of a photo, however, the screen was playing a video of the ninja fighting monsters, specifically the fencing team that got stanked after they lost to Flackville High and performing feats that no regular human can do.

Randy will admit, that was his most epic battle against the sorcerer's victims yet. their attacks were as fast as they were precise. combine with the fact that their swords were sharp enough to cut Principal Slimovitz's car in half with just one swipe, and Randy found himself putting his mad sword skills to the test.

The Norrisville high fencing team was definitely a lot stronger than most of the stanked people he went up against.

Though now that Randy thought about it, the more athletic a person was, the stronger their stanked forms seemed to be. Bash, Brawn Brickwall, Jacques, and even Theresa and Morgan's dance team to a lesser extent have all proven to be much stronger than the average students that get stanked.

the purple-haired boy merely shrugged off the thought. The sorcerer was gone, so he didn't have to worry anymore about fighting off stanked individuals. instead, he returned his focus back to the tanned girl who was still watching the videos on Howard's phone.

As the video went on, the doubts that the tanned girl had begun to vanish.

"So, do you believe the Ninja's real now?" Howard asked with a smug expression on his face.

"Yeah, I thought you were most likely just pulling my leg, but there's no way you can fake this. He's real, he's really really real!" The tanned girl said excitedly, her tone losing some of its masculinity as her eyes sparkled with childlike glee and she began hopping in place...which also made her chest bounce.

Both Randy and Howard were taken aback by the girl's sudden change into a slightly cute demeanor, so much so that her bouncing assets didn't even register in their minds.

Apparently also realizing this, the tanned girl froze in place before she began coughing into her fist and regaining her composure.

"Forget you saw that," she said in a calm yet threatening tone, her voice returning to normal. The dark look in her eye told both Randy and Howard that they would be in a world of hurt if they didn't comply.

"S-saw wh-what?" Randy said with a nervous smile, as he could feel the killing intent radiating off the tanned girl like one would feel the heat radiating off a blazing fire. The purple-haired teen couldn't help but gulp in fear.

"I didn't see anything," Howard said quickly, his tone doing nothing to hide the panic he felt, "did you notice anything Cuningham?"

"Nope!"

Satisfied, the tanned girl smirked and the killing intent Randy felt from her faded away before she turned around and began walking away.

"Well it was nice talking with you," she said as she gave them a wave without turning to face them, "See you two later."

"Later," Randy said as he waved back.

"My offer still stands!" Howard called back with a smile on his face, before placing his fist on his hips, "I think I had a shot there."

"No buddy, you didn't," Randy said in slight amusement as he patted his best friend's back. Suddenly a thought finally occurred to the tall purpled haired boy regarding his best biffer, "Hey, weren't you holding our place in line?"

Upon hearing his friend's question, the shorter chubby boy's smile vanished within an instant as his arms dangled at his sides and his eyes widened, "Ah, wonk!"

Homura couldn't help but smile in excitement.

If those boys were telling the truth, then it would mean The Norris shinobi was real and likely here in japan.

when Suzune-sensei told her and the rest of her team that the legendary lost clan could be arriving in japan, Homura will admit that her excitement at the idea had gotten the better of her at that moment. She could still remember how much the other girls didn't appreciate having their ear drums ruptured.

when she was little, she use to hear stories about the Norris clan so much. Those stories inspired her to strive to become a powerful shinobi.

She may no longer be on the side of good, but that still didn't mean she no longer idolizes the Norris clan. Maybe not so much for their heroism anymore, but mostly for their renowned strength.

And if those videos were any indication, then the clan members more than likely lived up to the legends.

The tanned skin shinobi clenched her hand into a fist in anticipation, hoping to finally have a chance to fight a member of the famous shinobi clan.

Suddenly her mind shifted toward that image of that lanky purpled haired kid and his chubby friend in the bathtub, and her face turned completely red again.

"God, why was that image surprisingly hot!?' She mentally added in her head as she face-palmed while blood began to leak from her nose.

Debbie Kang stood at the back gate. She hasn't seen a lot of students go out through the gate, or more accurately, Debbie hasn't seen anyone yet.

Though she guessed that shouldn't be surprising. The way to get here from the classes was a little out of the way. You probably would never have noticed the gate unless you knew about it beforehand.

The fact that the school had one wasn't suspicious, but she did find it a little weird they weren't told about it.

Granted, not being informed about the rear gate wasn't suspicious either. There are plenty of places at her old school she didn't know about before attending Norrisville high. But something in her gut told her that she would find a big scoop here.

However, after a couple of minutes of nothing interesting happening, the younger journalist let out a sigh.

"There's nothing here," she said in slight exasperation before walking out through the rear gate.

'I'll come back some other time if I still don't have any big scoops,' she thought to herself.

Little did Debbie Kang know, two pairs of eyes were watching her from a distance.

"About time she left, eh Ikuraga," the Katsuagi said from on top of a tree branch, with her ravenette friend perched on another branch of the same tree.

"There's something off about her," Ikuraga said as she pinched her chin between her thumb and index finger.

"I know right, she's shorter than even Hibari and she's already starting to grow a pair," the blonde said with a lecherous grin before raising her hands up and began making groping gestures, "maybe I could help make them grow faster."

"Katsuragi," Ikuraga reprimanded with both a stern and annoyed tone, as she chopped the back of the blonde's head.

"Kidding, kidding," katsuragi chuckled as she rubbed the spot where the ravenette hit her, before gaining a somewhat serious expression, "but yeah, it was weird how that chick was just standing around here. Other than us, no one really knows about the gate, and she doesn't seem like she's a shinobi."

To that Ikuraga nodded in agreement.

"You're right, if she was a shinobi she would have been more subtle," the ravenette said with a frown, "Still we should be careful about her, I have a feeling we're going to see her more in the future."

"We probably should figure out what her name is if that's going to be the case," Katsuragi said as she placed her hands behind her head.

"That might be a good idea," Ikuraga said in agreement.

"Also is it just me, or do a lot of the kids from Norrisville seem to have Japanese ancestry?" Katsuragi asked causing Ikurage to blink a few times.

She was right, Ikuraga didn't think about it before, but a lot of the Norrisville students did seem to have Japanese ancestry despite coming from a city in the united states

Hibari let out a groan as she rubbed her head.

"Mou, what happened?' she mentally asked herself as she opened her eyes.

She found herself sitting on one of the benches in the park not far from the school, and looking down she saw the black book resting on her lap.

Hibari tilted her head in confusion as she wondered what she was doing with it. she never remembered taking it out of her bag.

Come to think of it, she never even remembered coming into the park to begin with.

she then heard a groan to her left, and turning toward the source, Hibari saw her best friend Yagyu sitting right next to her, rubbing her head as well.

"Yagyu," Hibari spoke up, gaining the white-haired girl's attention, who seemed to just now realize the pinkette's presence.

"Hibari?" Yagyu asked blinking in surprise, before immediately scanning her surroundings and then toward the pinkette.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Yagyu asked Hibari, concern evident in her voice.

the pinkette simply nodded her head, "No, I'm alright Yagyu."

The eye-patched-wearing girl let out a sigh of relief at that. for a moment, Yagyu was worried that the both of them were captured by enemy shinobis. Thankfully, it just seemed like she and Hibari just simply fell asleep in the park.

"By the way, Yagyu, do you know what we were doing just now?" Hibari asked with a tilt of her head.

"I'm...not sure," Yagyu admitted as she rubbed her forehead. for some odd reason, she felt like she had gaps in her memory. she immediately shook the ridiculous thought out of her head, "It probably wasn't important."

"Are you sure?" Hibari asked, somewhat uncertain as she absent-mindedly placed the book back in her bag.

"Yes," Yagyu said as she and Hibari got up off the bench. Though somewhere in the back of her mind felt off, what it was she wasn't sure. however that feeling quickly went away, and both she and Hibari began walking.

The bushes behind the bench both girls were sitting on then began to shake and Katsuragi popped her head out from the foliage.

"Ugh, why am I in the bushes?" the blonde asked as she rubbed her head before her eyes rested on the now empty bench, "and why do I suddenly feel slightly disappointed? like I lost my chance to grope some nice boobs?"

She scratched her head in confusion, before shrugging her shoulders.

"Ah well, no point in asking about stuff like that," she said in a casual manner as she began to walk away with her hands behind her head.

The Nomicon couldn't believe it was in this kind of predicament…again.

Normally this wouldn't be so much of an issue. Most people wouldn't really understand the importance of the book, and would more or less brush off the contents within its pages. Just like McFist's brat, and that Bucky boy did. Not even Viceroy even realized what it was until the sorcerer explained to him what exactly he was holding within the palm of his hands.

However, that wasn't the case here. Instead of falling into the possession of some random civilian, it fell into the hands of another ninja, or shinobi as she calls herself.

Out of the millions of people in Japan, the ninja lost the Nomicon to another ninja.

Even ignoring the fact that ninjas outside the Norris clan still exist, the probability of it coming into the possession of another ninja by chance was ridiculously low.

If she or her peers had managed to even so much as peek within its pages, not that that was even a risk of that happening with those girls alone, they would have immediately realized what the Ninja Nomicon was and try to learn its secrets.

that was something it had to avoid. the Ninja Nomicon holds powerful techniques and secrets that would be dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands.

That's why the Nomicon didn't want to risk falling into the hands of the teacher. He may seem like a decent enough individual, however, the Nomicon wasn't sure if that was truly the case or just a mask. After all, the most dangerous enemy often wears the mask of an ally.

And even if he was a noble individual, the same probably isn't true about those higher up the ladder than him.

It was safer to remain within the possession of the pink-haired girl until an opportunity for it to reunite with the ninja can present itself. And if a fight occurs in the process of the ninja reclaiming the Nomicon, the book was more than confident the ninja can easily handle the pink-haired girl.

so when the pink-haired girl was about to bring the Nomicon to her sensei, the book Shloomped the girl into its pages and immediately into the ultimate lesson. a strategy that the current ninja had used on Debbie Kang when she was going to expose his secret as the ninja.

Which, in hindsight, was admittedly a good call on the ninja's part despite panicking at the moment. Had the Nomicon focused more on Debbie Kang instead of the ninja, the situation probably would have been resolved without drama.

And not only did it help prevent the girl from bringing the Nomicon to her sensei by making her forget about the idea (at least temporarily), but it allowed the book the chance to learn a bit about modern shinobis, and throughout the days that it was within the possession of the young "shinobi" it learned a bit more about the girls and their shinobi training routines as it observed them,

The pinkette that was In Possession of the Nomicon, Hibari, was a bubbly and cheerful girl, and her presence seemed to brighten up the mood of everyone around her.

Though she was incredibly clumsy and lacked confidence in her own abilities. The latter of which was holding her back immensely.

The white-haired girl, Yagyu, was a talented and highly skilled shinobi for her age, though she did seem cold and somewhat distant toward the other girls with the pink-haired girl being the complete exception. There wasn't a moment, if she was allowed to, where she wasn't by the pink-haired girl's side, and seem to be quite protective of her. The pair seemed to be really close, though the white-haired girl's constant babying of her friend will only hinder the both of them immensely.

The blonde one, Katsuragi, was highly energetic and always seemed eager for a challenge. Respectable, though her tendency to…invade her peers' personal space left a lot to be desired.

The ravanette, Ikuraga, seemed to be the leader of the group of girls and carried herself in a dignified and composed manner…at least until the blonde-haired girl started acting up.

Though, centuries worth of ninjas being vigilant for potential victims of the sorcerer allowed the Nomicon to see that there was something bothering the ravenette, as well as the blonde, though the latter hid it slightly better.

The brown-haired girl and apparent granddaughter of the famous shinobi the school was named after, Asuka, seemed like a perfect candidate for the role of the Norris ninja. She was pure of heart, though oblivious to the innuendos she says occasionally, dedicated to her training, and seems to have the desire to protect others. Traits that she shared with the current Norris ninja…minus the innuendos.

The Nomicon couldn't help but feel stabs of nostalgia and sadness running through its pages as it watched the young shinobis train together and interact with one another. Memories of happier times with the rest of the Norris nine, back before the sorcerer came into power.

It also gained bits of more detailed information by mind wiping the girl, and occasionally a few of her friends, whenever she tries to bring the Nomicon to her teacher.

Apparently, the shinobis of the modern era were divided between two factions, Good shinobis, and Evil shinobis.

The girls were all apparently part of the "good shinobi" faction, and the school they attended was dedicated to training "good shinobi" such as them in order to deal with yoma and other shinobis from the opposing fraction, or "evil shinobis" as they called them.

Though the Nomicon highly doubted things were as black and white as the young girls seem to believe, especially since the "good shinobi" faction was working for the government.

Even from what it learned from the girls' minds, the Nomicon already found a few things of the "good shinobi" practices that it both personally disliked and strongly disapproved of.

Such as the perverted blonde's situation with her parents simply because they failed a mission.

The Nomicon could have probably learned significantly more from the teacher himself, but it wasn't going to risk the more than likely possibility of things going south. It wouldn't be the first time individuals were able to escape its pages and avoid the mind wiping, Randy and Mac Antfee were strong examples.

The pink-haired girl was easy enough to handle at the moment. She was easy to frighten, even unintentionally, and she was slow to regain her composure compared to her friends, so it was relatively easy for the Nomicon to make her take the ultimate lesson.

The other girls weren't as easy to deal with, however, especially Yagyu. They all quickly regained their bearings and all attempted to escape, fighting off the effigies it sent after the girls. There were even a few times the Nomicon needed to…be more direct in ensuring they take the ultimate lesson.

It was thanks in large part to the girls being unfamiliar with the Nomicon and its mechanics that it was able to get them to take the ultimate lesson.

However, it couldn't keep mind wiping the girl forever. Eventually, the rest of her peers and teacher would become suspicious of her constant sleeping and gaps in memory.

It was already becoming more and more difficult for the Nomicon to find opportunities to make the girl forget about bringing it to her teacher without drawing suspicion.

Unless something changes, the likelihood of the Nomicon's nature being revealed to these shinobis is likely to happen.

The Nomicon tried to come up with ideas of how to prevent that from happening and getting back to the Ninja, however, almost all of them wouldn't work. There's only so much you can do when you don't have any limbs after all.

However, there is one idea that can ensure the Nomicon's secrets aren't exposed and can help it get back to the Norrisville Ninja. It was risky, highly possible to backfire, and went against one of the most important rules the Nomicon had.

But at the moment it's really the best option it has, and hey, as the ninja and his friend would say…Wiggle room.

Besides, from what it saw so far, the pink-haired girl would definitely benefit from it, and would no doubt be desperate enough to agree to its terms.

"Oh man, that was an awesome boss fight!" Howard exclaimed as he set his controller on his lap, before pumping his fists in excitement.

"Heck yeah it was,'' Randy agreed with a wide and fulfilled grin on his face.

It was one week since Randy and Howard purchased their copy of grave puncher JRPG Edition And had just defeated the third boss in the game…after dying to it a number of times.

"But Seriously I can't believe how hard that guy was," Howard breathed out before flopping onto his back, "he made the last two guys look like chumps! Especially with those unfair abilities."

"I know right!? That shoob kept brainwashing some of our guys and making them fight us," Randy exclaimed before throwing his hands up in exasperation, "and what made it worse was he gave them buffs making the fight more difficult!"

"Well it's over, we beat 'em, that's what matters!" Howard exclaimed with a grin before clenching a fist in front of his face, "and sweet cheese does victory feels so good."

Randy let out a chuckle before flopping down onto his back, "and we own this victory to your strategy."

"Ugh, don't remind me," Howard complained as he messaged his head, "I haven't used my brain this much since principle Slimovitz made us attend school during Saturdays."

"Thankfully you didn't end up making black holes this time," Randy muttered to himself with a smirk.

"Ugh, I hope I won't have to use my brain this much anytime soon."

"Hate to break it to you buddy, but there are going to be a lot more bosses later on, and for sure they're going to be tougher than the one we just went up against," Randy said, shooting down the orange-haired teen's hopes, to which said teen couldn't help but let out an agonizing whine much to the purplette's amusement, "we should do a whole lot of grinding before we head further into the story."

"But grinding is so boring," Howard whined again.

"Yeah that's true," Randy admitted with a shrug of his shoulders before sitting upright, "but "A ninja must always be vigilant, lest he be unprepared for the struggles ahead." And we most definitely need to be prepared if we want to take on future enemies.

"Did you seriously just quote that stupid book?" Howard deadpanned as he too sat upright.

"Yes I did!" Randy said proudly, not a hint of embarrassment showing in his expression or voice, before giving his best biffer a disapproving glare, "and the ninja Nomicon is NOT stupid."

"Whatever," Howard scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

"Speaking of the Nomicon, I better see if it got anything new for me," Randy said as he got up onto his feet before making his way to his bag where he kept the Nomicon, "It's been a while since I shloomped into its pages."

"Just don't stay in there for too long," Howard said as he sat up, "I want to get back to punching more graves, and I can't continue without you. Well, I can but I don't want to deal with you asking me what you missed while in the book."

Randy resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he looked in his bag and pulled out his math book, or rather the ninja Nomicon he disguised as his math book. Originally, Randy didn't bother disguising the book, after all, no one really knew about it. Heck, he and Howard didn't know about it either until the former found it in his room, and they've prided themselves on being the ninja's biggest fans. Of course, that was before he misplaced it and (after a series of it being passed around by Bash, Bucky, Principle Slimovitz, couch Green, Howard, himself, and Bash again) Randy had to sneak into McFist industry to get it back, but not before the sorcerer informed McFist what the Nomicon was.

After that whole ordeal, Randy opted to disguise the Nomicon with the cover of his math textbook, lest McFist figures out his identity as the ninja.

Randy opens the book, expecting the usually glowing ancient pages and the pulling of his consciousness. However, what he got instead were mathematical equations and trigonometry formulas.

'Oops, that's my math book,' Randy thought to himself somewhat embarrassed as he put the textbook down, before pulling out another textbook with the math cover. He opens the pages, bracing himself to be Shloomped once again into the Nomicon…only to stare at a page regarding circumferences.

He continued staring for a solid minute before letting the textbook slide out of his grasp and landing on the floor with a thump. The sound makes Howard jump and the chubby boy looked at his best friend, who was as still as a statue.

"Um, Cunningham is everything alright buddy?" Howard asked, concern evident in his voice.

Randy didn't respond to Howard's question, he just remained frozen on the spot.

"Oi, Cunningham, what's wro-" Howard began to ask again when Randy suddenly began frantically searching through his bag, "Um, CunningWOAH!"

Howard let out a yelp as he ducked underneath a thrown History textbook.

"Where is it!?" Randy exclaimed as he pulled out his Science textbook. He quickly flipped through its pages, and let out a panic whine when he saw only science stuff.

"Where's what?" Howard asked before he had to once again duck to avoid being smacked in the face by a flying science book.

"It's not here!"

"What's not here!?" the short chubby boy asked before his eyes bulged wide open and his irises and pupils shrunken as he narrowly avoided being skewered by a sai, which was now impaled on the wall, "WHY DO YOU HAVE A HONKING SAI IN YOUR BAG!?"

"Nonononononononononononono!" Randy at this point was now reduced to merely throwing any and all content from his bag, surprisingly a lot of which were sharp and deadly.

Howard couldn't help but wonder why his best friend thought it would be a good idea to keep his ninja weapons in his school bag, especially since his ninja suit already had seemingly bottomless pockets for him to store his weapons. Not only did it run the risk of his best friend getting in severe trouble if they were ever discovered, but it risked revealing his identity as the honking ninja.

He also wonders why his best friend thinks it safe to throw deadly weapons sharp enough to cut steel so haphazardly!

After nearly getting decapitated by a wakizashi, Howard finally had enough, "CUNNINGHAM WHAT'S WRONG!"

"I CAN'T FIND THE NINJA NOMICON!" Randy exclaimed as he turned to face the orange-haired teen while pulling his hair.

"I thought it was weird that stupid book was so quiet for so long, it normally doesn't go longer than three days at most, and that's really rare," Howard said nonchalantly with a shrug of his shoulders, "And it's been a bit longer than a week since we last heard so much as a peep from it, I'm honestly surprised you didn't notice that up to now."

Randy's body stiffens at his best friend's words, his eyes going wide, his pupils shrinking to the size of peas, and his breath quicken as the young ninja began to hyperventilate.

"Uh oh, not again," Howard said with concern as he immediately covered his ears with his hands before Randy let out a high-pitched scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Within the headmaster's office of a castle, a hooded figure looked about her new quarters now that she took over as the school's new headmaster after the previous one had to undergo… "early retirement" at her…request.

A sickly inhumane smile grew on the hooded figure's wrinkly face. With her newfound tools, she will soon enact her revenge on the one who robbed everything from her, and then chaos will engulf the world.

The hooded figure then began to let out maniacal laughter, as the orbs hanging from her neck began to glow a sinister purple.

However, not even a moment later, anguish high pitched screaming began to fill her ears and she ceased her laughing.

"Is that…the pained screams of a young child?" She asked as she tilted her head in bemusement, "but it isn't my birthday."

Within a large castle full of butt statues, a group of four was sneaking around in the shadows. They stopped in their tracks when the sounds of screaming echoed from outside the castle.

"Hey, Joker you hear that," A young man in his late teens wearing a skull mask asked another teen about as old as him who was wearing an Avian mask.

"I feel that baby," the Avian mask-wearing teen said nonchalantly with a straight face.

"Dude, don't say that," the Skull mask-wearing teen said with a deadpan, "Don't say that ever again."

In an office on the top floor of a corporate building, a large muscular man wearing a black suit and a pair of glasses was conversing with another individual whose body seems to be completely replaced with cybernetics. Their conversation stop when they both heard screaming.

"What the hell is that?" the man with muscles on his muscles asked in annoyance as he took the cigar out of his mouth.

"The sound of a young pup crying out to the heavens for the loss of a dear teacher," the cyborg said with an arrogant smile, "such a common meme."

"What the hell are you talking about Monsoon?" the muscular man asked with a deadpan.

Within dark space, right outside a galaxy, was an armada of countless ships all resembling cuttlefish or squid. They were all seemingly dormant, hibernating as they drifted across the darkness of space. That was until, against all logic, the sounds of screaming echoed across space.

One of the ships, the largest of them all, began to activate for the first time in thousands of years.

"What is that," it asked itself as it observed the impossible phenomenon, "such a thing should not be possible".

The ancient machine then activated its sensors, "Scanning Anomaly. If this could disrupt the cycle, it must be found and dealt with."

A young girl with short purple hair wearing a white parka and stockings with purple and white stripes skipped into the kitchen and toward the fridge. She hummed a cheerful tone as she opened the fridge.

"Nothing like a nice delicious pudding after a hard day of-," the girl began to say as she grabbed a pudding but stopped when she heard screaming.

"Huh, what the nep is that?" she asked no one in particular.

A naked muscular man with strange markings all over his muscles stood proud in the center of a massive chamber that was empty except for him and another individual doned in impenetrable green armor who radiated pure anger.

"No blood can be spilled in this…holy plac…," the naked man began explaining to the fully armored individual, but stopped when a high-pitched scream filled the chamber, much to both men's confusion.

"What is that?" the naked man asked as he looked around the chamber before his eyes widened in anger.

"Oh me, is that my sister?" He growled as he clenched his fist tightly, before throwing his head back and yelling so loud that the chamber violently shook, "Leave me alone Amara! You and brother already took everything from me, what more do you want!?"

The armored individual, unaffected by the shaking happening around him, merely tilted his head in confusion as he watched the naked man continue to scream.

(Prime RC9GN universe, three weeks ago)

"This is so honking Bruce!" Randy exclaimed in excitement, "I still can't believe my parents moved us next door to your house!"

"I know right," Howard exclaimed just as excited, before hearing his best biffer scream, "also why are you screaming Cunningham?"

"I'm not screaming," Randy said as he tilted his head in confusion.

"Then where is that coming from," the shorter boy asked as both he and Randy looked around trying to figure out where that screaming that disturbingly sounded like Randy was coming from

(this universe in the present)

"Cunningham calm down!" Howard cried out as he put his hand over Randy's mouth, effectively putting an end to the taller teen's screaming.

"How the juice can I calm down, I lost the honking Nomicon, and…" Randy then began to breathe heavily as sweat slid down his face, "What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? It's a book of 800 years worth of ancient ninja wisdom and I honking lost it. Without it, I'm wonked, I'm so honking wonked."

Randy grabbed Howard by the collar of his shirt and lifted the chubby teen up into the air.

"I'm spiraling Howard, spiraling, SPIRALLING!" Randy shouted into his best friend's face, unintentionally spitting in Howard's face much to the orange-haired boy's annoyance, before vigorously shaking the shorter boy back and forth, "SPIRALING!"

Smack!

The young ninja's cries abruptly came to an end when Howard, who was now sporting an annoyed deadpan expression, slapped Randy in the face.

The force of the blow was hard enough to make randy head turn to the side with a bright red handprint appearing on his cheek. Randy merely stared off with a far-off expression.

"…Thanks Howard," Randy said dumbly as he gently set the shorter boy down. Randy took in a deep breath before letting it out, to which Howard once again raised his hand up ready to slap the other boy.

"I'm good, I'm good Howard, spiraling over! Spiraling over!" Randy exclaimed as he quickly reached out and grabbed the shorter boy's arm, before slowly lowering it, "Spiraling over."

"Seriously Cunningham stop freaking out," Howard said with a roll of his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest, "It's not like you need that stupid book."

"Yes I do Howard, if I didn't have the Nomicon, I would have been done in from the beginning," Randy argued angrily, frowning at his best friend's usual dismissal of the Nomicon's importance, "Where do you think I learned the ninja air fist, the earth attack, my super senses, the ninja art of healing? "

"Um-" Howard tried to come up with a response but nothing really came to mind.

"The Ninja Nomicon holds powerful techniques and knowledge that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, Randy explained as he walked toward the window before leaning his head on the glass, "I have to find it before someone else does and looks inside it."

"Oh come on, Cunningham, we both know that book won't open for anyone unless it wants to be open. No one's going to open the book alright."

"I hope you're right Howard," Randy said with a concerned frown as he looked out the window.

Hibari let out a dejected sigh as she flopped down on her bed, not even bothering to change out of her school uniform.

Today's training didn't go so well, as usual, in fact, it was by far Hibari's worst performance as of yet.

Kiriya-sensei had them spar against one another. Her opponent was Katsuragi

The fight was the same as always, far from even but far from hopeless either. Hibari was able to get a few good hits with her unpredictable style but she still lost.

That by itself wouldn't have been so bad, however, Kiriya-sensei also had them practice their aim with Shurikens.

And like in most of her other training exercises, she didn't do all that great. While her friends were all able to hit the bullseyes of the targets Kiriya-sensei set up for them, Hibari on the other hand couldn't even come close to hitting the center of the target no matter how much she tried.

Her friends helped her during practice by showing the pinkette the correct way to hold Shurikens and how to twist her wrist when she throws it.

However, Instead of improving, her aim would get worse and worse as the days progressed despite the amount of practice she did.

Her aim eventually got so bad, that her shuriken didn't even hit the practice dummy and instead ricocheted off the rocks behind it and nearly struck Kiriya-sensei in the head. Of course, the experienced shinobi caught it midair with no issue, but Hibari still couldn't help but feel embarrassed at her performance.

Her loss in the sparing match just felt like a reminder of her inadequacy.

So as soon as school was done for the day Hibari ran home as fast as she could, making sure to avoid her friends, even Yagyu.

She's not as strong as Katsuragi or as skilled as Ikaruga, or as smart as Yagyu or even Asuka.

'I never even wanted to be a shinobi in the first place,' Hibari thought to herself before squeezing her eyes shut as tears threaten to leak.

Suddenly Hibari heard a soft humming sound.

Opening her eyes and Lifting her head off her bed, Hibari looked around her room wondering where that sound was coming from.

Following the sound, her eyes eventually rested on her school bag that she threw on top of her drawer, which the inside of it was glowing brightly.

Blinking, the pink-haired girl climbed out of her bed and slowly and cautiously made her way toward her bag.

Eventually, Hibari reached her bag. However, she just stood there looking down at her bag with a nervous expression, worried that if she tried anything her bag might bite her.

Hibari shook the silly idea out of her head, bags don't bite people.

But they don't glow either.

Hibari stood there a moment longer, working up her nerves, before slapping her cheeks.

With a brave face, though still nervous, Hibari slowly and carefully opened her school bag.

And saw the black book she found a week ago emitting that very same glow.

Hibari blinked in surprise as she pulled the book out of the bag.

As she held the book in her hand, it ceased emitting that strange light, and Hibari tilted her head in confusion.

The entire time that she had the book, it never did anything like this.

"I wonder what it means," Hibari mumbled to herself. Before she could ponder any more, the book suddenly opened on its own much to the pink-haired girl's shock.

"W-wha-," was all that left the pinkette's mouth before The pages of the book glowed brightly, and Hibari felt something pull on her conscience.

The young shinobi's eyes then glazed over and became unfocused, similar to that of a fish, before her body crumpled to the floor much like a puppet whose strings had been severed.

As Hibari lay on the floor, her body motionless save for the rising and falling of her chest, the mysterious black book landed next to her head wide open as its pages glowed.

Chapter Text

she was falling down through what Hibari could only describe as some kind of void.

She couldn’t tell which way was up or down as she tumbled through the seemingly endless expanse.

As she fell she saw words written in Japanese, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying as they were passing by so fast for her to be able to read them.

There were also artistic renditions of shinobis, dragons, samurais, various yokais, and other creatures from Japanese's mythology.

and like the words, she flew by the images too fast to really get a better look at them other than their general appearance.

“Yagyu, he-help me,” Hibari whimpered as tears began to form in the corner of her eyes as she shut them tightly hoping that whatever was happening would stop.

Suddenly, the young pinkette noticed that she was falling toward a large wall made out of clouds.

Realizing she was going to crash into it, Hibari once again screamed as she began comically flailing her limbs in a feeble attempt to slow her fall.

As expected, it didn’t do anything to slow her descent as she crashed into the clouds and created a Hibari-shaped hole.

Hibari popped her head out of the clouds, with pieces of clouds that resembled a pair of bunny ears on top of her head, and a piece of cloud that looked like a bunny’s nose on her nose.

Blinking a few times in confusion, the pink-haired girl shook her head to get rid of the clumps of cloud stuck to it.

“What is this place?” Hibari asked out loud, her voice full of fear, as she held a fist to her chest. She scanned her surroundings.

Despite there not being any source of light, everything was well lit, so she was able to see clearly. However, There wasn’t anything she could see, no people, no trees, no rocks, nothing. The place the pink haired shinobi found herself in was completely void of anything except for the clouds she crashed into, which seemed to stretch on forever. Though now that Hibari took a closer look, she noticed that the clouds didn’t look natural, in fact, they looked like they were drawings. Which was surprising since when Hibari touched them, it felt like she was touching cotton candy.

Looking up, Hibari saw more of those drawing clouds floating above her head, the “sky” was completely beige like old paper, and scribbled all across the “sky” were more kanji.

‘Am I in a shinobi barrier?’ Was Hibari’s initial thought as she pushed herself onto her feet. Kiriya-sensei did explain to her and the other girls that shinobi barriers were used to isolate other shinobis and/or keep a battle between shinobis hidden from regular civilians.

However, this didn’t feel like a shinobi barrier, it felt…different.

Not really sure what to do, the young pinkett began walking in a random direction.

With luck, she might find something that can help her.

Nothing.

Hibari walked for what felt like hours, and she still couldn’t find anyone or anything.

Hibari let out an exhausted sigh, as she trudged forward with a slouch as she let her arms dangling at her side.

Hibari, physically at least, wasn’t really tired. Her training as a shinobi had given her far more stamina than even the most fit civilian.

And despite The clouds going up to the middle of her thighs, they didn’t impede her movement in the slightest.

In fact, ever since hibari was in this place, her body felt more refreshed than when she first got home.

Mentally however, not so much. she calmed down a bit and wasn’t as nervous as before, but she was still scared. That and Not really making any progress in finding out where she was, or how to get out, really brought her morale down even more.

Hibari would be lying if she said she wasn’t feeling the least bit frustrated at her lack of progress.

Looking back up toward the “sky”, hibari tried reading the Kanji to see if it could reveal some kind of clue, unfortunately the sentences didn’t make any sense and looked more like gibberish than anything else.

Hibari thought that they were written in something like a code and tried her best to decipher it, but all she got for her trouble was a headache and even more frustration.

Hibari only saw one instance where the sentences actually made sense.

[I still don’t think this is a good idea

Got any better ideas buddy

She is pretty cute though, with a nice figure to boot

Down boy

I’m a girl you honking shoob]

And that was it.

Hibari noted that it Looked like some kind of conversation was taking place. Though what it was about, hibari couldn’t tell, and it didn’t help her in the least.

She let out a whimper as she once again slumped her head and continued walking.

As she walked, she eventually saw two individuals not that far in front of her. Happy to finally see other people, Hibari began sprinting toward them. Hopefully, they could tell her where she was.

However, as she got closer and she got a better look at the two people, the young shinobi’s hopes were dashed, and was now also confused.

Instead of actual people, the two individuals Hibari saw were actually doodles that resembled peddlers during ancient Japan. One was colored red, while the other was a bright pink.

What surprised the pinkette the most was how the doodles seemed to move all on their own, what’s more, they didn’t seem to have been drawn on the wall or any surface for that matter.

Hibari watched as the doodle peddlers trudged forward as they carried their wares on their back. Suddenly the fog in front of Hibari and the peddlers rapidly dispersed, revealing a deep ravine.

The pinkette eyes widened in shock. Had she kept walking she would have fallen down it.

Peeking over the edge, the pinkett couldn’t help but gulp nervously at how deep the ravine was.

To say it was a long way down would be an understatement. Hibari could barely make out the river all the way at the bottom.

As well as the numerous sharks swimming through the water.

Letting out a nervous whine, Hibari backed away from the edge of the ravine to a safe distance.

Hibari didn’t want to think about what would happen if she fell. She had a pretty good idea, she just didn’t want to think about it.

The sounds of footsteps pulled her out of her thoughts and her attention returned to the doodle peddlers. The both of them were standing near the edge of the ravine, scanning the area, probably looking for a way to cross to the other side.

Eventually the red peddler tapped the pink one’s shoulder, gaining their attention, before pointing off to the side.

Following where the red peddler was pointing, Hibari saw rock pillars that stretched up from the bottom of the ravine and looked like a way to get to the other edge by using said pillars as stepping stones.

The red peddler patted the pink peddler’s back before making his way to the pillars. The pink one followed suit, but Hibari noticed that he looked nervous.

Once the doodle peddlers reached the pillars, the red one began hopping from pillar to pillar quickly and gracefully, all the while being careful of his footing.

It didn’t take long before the red doodle peddler reached the safety of the other side.

The red peddler waved for his companion to cross as well.

Hibari looked over toward the pink peddler and saw him looking down the ravine with a nervous expression, not that the pinkett could blame him.

The pink peddler gulped nervously before looking up toward the red peddler, who was still waving their hand. The pink peddler took a deep breath before exhaling and then began hopping across the pillars, Al be it at a much slower pace.

The pink peddler was almost halfway to the other side when he made the mistake of looking down.

As soon as he saw how high he was over the shark-infested waters, he faltered when he was about to leap toward the next pillar. This proved to be costly as he lost his footing and fell down the ravine screaming.

Hibari let out a horrified gasp as she watched the pink peddler fall down toward the shark-infested river below.

One of the sharks sticks its head out of the water and opens its jaw wide intending on swallowing the poor doddle whole.

The clouds rolled over and covered the scene before Hibari had to see that happen, and the pinkett swayed a bit as she hugged herself in an attempt at self comfort.

She didn’t want to be here anymore, heck she didn’t want to be here in the first place.

Hibari was then pulled out of her thoughts when bits of cloud floated in front of her before forming together to form what Hibari guessed was a message.

“The most deadly poison to a ninja is a ninja’s own lack of confidence in themselves.”

The pinkette blinked wondering what it meant, but before she could ponder any more, all the clouds surrounding Hibari Suddenly dissipated and the young pinkett found herself standing on top of a bamboo stalk.

The young girl wobbled a bit before she was able to balance herself, and in doing so made the mistake of looking down.

Her eyes widened in both shock and fear. Below her was the same ravine as before, and at the bottom, Hibari could see the fins of even more sharks.

One of the sharks popped its head out of the water, looking directly at the pink-haired girl. It licked its lips in anticipation before showing off its razor-sharp teeth.

Hibari immediately closed her eyes shut, her entire body shaking in fear.

‘C-calm down Hibari, this is just like in training, just remember your training,’ she thought to herself in an attempt to calm down and trying not to think about how much she kept failing at keeping her balance.

Her heart stopped when she began hearing cracking sounds right below her feet.

Opening her eyes and slowly looking down, Hibari saw the source of the noise. The same bamboo stalk she was balancing herself on, was starting to crack.

Eyes widened in panic, and Hibari desperately looked around for a way to get herself out of this. The edge of the ravine was too far away for her to merely jump towards. Thankfully, there were multiple bamboo stalks for her to jump on so she could reach it.

Right before the bamboo stalk she was on crumbled, Hibari leaped onto the nearest bamboo stalk. However, right as soon as she landed the stalk began to break as well. Hibari regained her balanced as quickly as she could as she looked for the next nearest bamboo stalk and leaping towards it before the stalk she was on crumpled as well.

Like the previous two, as soon as Hibari landed on the stalk it began to break under her weight. So, like before Hibari tried to quickly regain her balance before leaping onto the nearest bamboo stalk.

This repeated as Hibari quickly leaped from one stalk to the other, as she was getting closer and closer to the edge of the ravine. Though what the girl didn’t notice was that the time it took for her to regain her balance was decreasing little by little with each leap.

However, as she was halfway toward her goal, Hibari noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Resting on another bamboo stalk was a nest full of baby birds. Unlike the doodle peddlers from before, these birds instead looked real.

Before the pink-haired girl could even question how they got there in the first place, the bamboo stalk the nest resided on crumbled. Her eyes widened in horror as the nest began to fall.

“Oh no!” Hibari exclaimed, and without thinking dove for the nest. She was able to catch the nest and birds, however, she now found herself falling down toward the bottom of the ravine,

As if to emphasize her predicament, more sharks popped their heads out of the water looking right at her. Some repeatedly snapped their sharp teeth together in anticipation, and one even wore a napkin around its neck and was holding a fork in one fin and a knife in the other.

Thinking quickly, Hibari grabbed onto a nearby bamboo stalk. She gripped it as tightly as she could, winching slightly at the heat fiction she slowed down to a stop. All the while making sure the nest and the birds in it were safe.

Below, the sharks all let out disappointed groans, as the one holding the utensils crossed its fins over its chest and grumbled to itself.

However, before Hibari could even relax in the slightest, the Bamboo stalk began to crack. Quickly looking around, Hibari saw another bamboo stalk below her and leaped toward it.

Like the others, once hibari landed on the Bamboo stalk it began to crack under her weight.

Thankfully, there were nearby bamboo stalks that she could leap towards. what's more, the bamboo stalks looked like they could allow her to reach the top of the ravine.

Acting quickly, Hibari pushed off the bamboo she was hanging from right before it crumbled away, and landed on the nearest stalk. the pinkette quickly regained her bearings while also ensuring the birds in her grasp didn't fall, before leaping onto the next elevated stalk.

she kept leaping from stalk to stalk, until eventually her feet planted firmly on solid ground.

“Ha ha, I’ve finally made it,” hibari said as she breathed heavily before falling to her knees while being careful so the birds don’t fall out of the nest.

“I thought I was never going to make it,” she cried out in exasperation, before looking down toward the nest resting on her lap.

The pink haired girl smiled in relief when all of the baby birds were alright.

That smile turns into surprise when the baby birds flew up into the air.

“Eeehhhh!” Hibari let out cutely as she saw the birds fly away from her and on top of a doorway.

Wait…doorway?

Blinking in surprise, Hibari found herself kneeling in front of two massive doors. And those doors led into a massive pagoda that stretched high into the “sky”.

How did she not see it earlier?

“What is this place?” hibari asked nervously as she clutched her hands together.

Suddenly the doors leading into the pagoda open seemingly all by themselves.

Hibari didn’t move from her spot, still both scared and confused by the situation she found herself in.

What felt like A full minute had passed to the girl before the pinkette shook her head.

She didn't know why, but apparently she was brought here. For what she didn't know. and the only way to learn why...was to go inside the pagoda.

However, she was afraid of doing so. Shinobi training combined with her own fears told her that this was most likely a trap, and she would be walking into it as soon as she stepped through those doors.

Though as she looked around, hibari realized she didn't really have much of a choice.

the pagoda resided on top of a plateau completely surrounded by the ravine, and Hibari couldn't find any way to cross to the other side...which was now obscured by more clouds.

she thought about sneaking into the structure but immediately dismissed the idea. whoever resided within the building more than likely knew she was here, and was expecting her. so there was really no point in trying to sneak around.

that and hibari couldn't see any windows anywhere on the pagoda...which was a really weird design choice in her opinion. But it also meant there weren't any other entrances other than the front door.

she slapped her cheeks in an attempt to gain her bearings and walked through the doors.

And Hibari’s eyes widened in awe at the scene before her.

The chamber was filled with numerous shinobis, with pairs sparing against one another, each one armed with either a katana, a pair of wakizashi, nunchucks, a Bo staff, Sais, kunais, and various kinds of shinobi weapons that Hibari didn’t know the names of. Some of the doodle shinobis were even just using their bare hands.

It was like a massive Dojo, the largest Hibari has ever seen in her life.

None of the shinobis seemed to have noticed her, or (and more than likely) at the very least didn’t feel the need to respond to her presence.

Either way, Hibari was thankful they weren’t attacking her. She could handle large mobs consisting of run-of-the-mill shinobis without much issue,

However, these shinobis moved with both greater speed and precision than even her friends. And even with Hibari’s inexperienced eyes, she can tell that each and every doodle shinobi were many times more skilled than her friends.

If just one of these doodle shinobis decided to attack her, Hibari doubted she would be able to fend them off.

Shaking the thought out of her head, but remaining cautious of the doodle shinobis, Hibari began walking into the dojo.

As she walked through the dojo-like chamber, Hibari couldn't help but stare in awe. not toward just the doodle shinobis and their fights, but also toward the beautiful and surprisingly colorful architecture.

So distracted, the pinkette bumped face-first into something before falling backward onto her rear.

The pink-haired girl let out a groan as she rubbed her aching butt, before looking up at what she bumped into. Hibari was immediately petrified by fear and her pupils shrunken to the size of peas as she stared at what she saw.

Before her was what looked to be a samurai donned head to toe in a dark red yoroi armor with and with a haori with the same color draped over it. Despite it sitting down on its knees, its large size still allowed it to loom over her.

Hibari couldn’t help but shake in slight fear as she gazed up toward the Imposing figure before her.

That fear only grew when the giant samurai tilted its head forward to gaze down toward the pink haired shinobi. It didn’t help that Hibari didn’t see any eyes, or anything really, passed the holes in the mask that made up the samurai’s face.

“Wh-who are you, and what is this place?” Hibari asked after finally gaining enough courage to speak, however she couldn’t keep the fear she felt out of her voice. 

The samurai didn’t say anything and continue to stare towards the young pinkette before it’s eyes briefly glowed  

Hibari then heard what sounded like a pencil scribbling on paper.

Looking in the direction of the noise, the young shinobi blinked in complete surprise as an image was being drawn in midair  

Seeing a doodle...being(?) move and perform actions as if it were a 3D creature is one thing; seeing something drawn in mid-air is another.

When the scribbling was done, Hibari saw a doodle of a familiar black book.

Hibari wondered why she was being shown a doodle of the book, before she remembered the last thing she did before coming to this weird place. 

And that was picking up the book that was strangely glowing, before suddenly opening all on its own. 

Then she found herself in this strange place. 

That’s when it clicked in the young pink haired girl’s head. 

“Am I…in the book?” Hibari asked, not quite believing what she said.  

The samurai merely raised its hand and gestures toward the doodle shinobis behind the pinkette. At that, the doodle shinobis all ceased their sparring sessions simultaneously, bowing respectfully toward their respective opponents before standing at attention before the samurai.

The whole sequence kind of reminded Hibari of the times when Kiriya-sensei calls for her and her friend’s attention.

Wait a minute.

Hibari turned to look back toward the giant samurai.

“Wait, you help train shinobis like me?”

The samurai merely nodded.

“What do you want with me?”

The samurai once again gestures toward the doodle shinobis, then pointed a finger toward the young pinkette.

Hibari couldn’t help but be confused at first, not sure what it was trying to tell her. After a minute, the young shinobi in training figured it out…probably.

“Y-you want to train me?” She asked, unsure if that was the case.

The samurai nodded again.

“But why me?”

The samurai gave no response, it didn’t even make any movements.

Realizing it wasn’t going to give her an answer, Hibari couldn’t help but pout cutely.

But that pout was quickly replaced with a hopeful and excited smile.

I have to show this to Yagyu and the other girls, hibari said excitedly

The large samurai eyes and mouth glowed and hummed in a seemingly disapproving manner as it shook its head side to side, before putting a finger in front of its mouth.

“Wait, I shouldn't tell my friends?” Hibari asked in both surprise and disappointment.

It nodded, before reaching into its harori and pulled out a scroll. It held the scroll in front of Hibari before unfurling it.

On the parchment it said;

“Once a ninja is known, he can never be unknown.”

Hibari understood that, and was somewhat confused by this. One of the first and most important things that’s been taught to Hibari, is to keep your identity as a shinobi hidden from civilians. So she didn’t really understand why it was telling her this.

Looking back toward the samurai, her confusion clearly showing on her face, Hibari couldn’t help but ask, “But why not? Their my friends, and I don’t like having to-“

The young pinkette was cutoff when the samurai eyes and mouth glowed and hummed once again with more intensity before bringing its finger back in front of its mouth.

Hibari couldn’t help but shrink in herself a bit as she gulped in slight fear.

It was clear that this wasn’t up for discussion. It would train the young shinobi, however she wasn’t allowed to tell her friends about the book.

No if and/or buts.

Hibari looked down at her feet in disappointment. She didn’t want to keep things secret from her friends. It was bad enough she kept her real name hidden from them, as well as her eyes’…condition.

The former is due to the rule that all shinobis must follow, while the latter…was out of fear that her friends would resent her if they ever found out.

It still didn’t mean she liked it though.

But she hasn’t been making much, if any progress in her shinobi training. There were even times where she felt like she was going backwards instead of forward in her training.

And right now she was given an opportunity to help her in her training, to help make her stronger, to help her no longer be both a burden and a disappointment.

The answer was obvious.

Taking a deep breath before exhaling, Hibari built up her nerves and looked up directly into where the samurai’s eyes would be with determination in her own.

“Alright, I won’t tell the others about you,” Hibari said before giving the samurai a bow.

The samurai nodded its head in acknowledgement.

Suddenly hibari felt something tug against her being, and she let out a surprised yell as she was suddenly sent flying backwards in the air.

"aaaaahhhhhhh," Hibari let out as she tumbled through the air, before her world was engulfed in a bright white light.

The next thing Hibari knew, she found herself staring up toward a familiar ceiling, lying in a rather awkward and very uncomfortable position.

Sitting up, Hibari checked her surroundings, and saw that she was back in her room. her eyes then landed on the book.

She picked it up, and stared at the pages of the now open book. The pages contained the same message she remembered seeing when she was inside the book: “The most deadly poison to a ninja is a ninja’s own lack of confidence in themselves.”

The young pinkette continued staring at the book, still taking in the fact of what she found and how it said it could help her.  

She was so lost in her thoughts that she was startled when someone suddenly began knocking on her door.

"EEEK," Hibari cutely yelped out as she jumped and accidentally tossed the book up into the air.

realizing what she just did, the young pink haired girl's eyes widened, and she looked up toward the book. her eyes widened even more when she saw the book fall right towards her...

BANG!

and corner first, onto her forehead.

“Owie!” The pinkette whines cutely as she messages her forehead. She flinched at hints of a bump forming where the book struct her.

“Hibari, are you in there?” Yagyu voice can be heard from behind the door, and

“Uh, um,” Hibari stammered her as she looked down towards the book that was now resting on her lap, “hang on, I’m uh…naked, yeah I’m naked. Just give me a minute!”

Not noticing the stammering noise from the other side of the door, The pinkette scrambles off the floor and toward her dresser. She quickly opens one of her draws before stuffing the book inside and slamming the drawer shut, before she rushes toward the door.

Hibari took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. Yagyu could always tell when something was bothering Hibari, so the pinkette had to calm her nerves so her friend didn’t suspect anything.

Hibari opens the door to see yagyu on the other side, the white haired girl's cheeks slightly red with a hint of blood dripping from her nose.

“H-Hi Yagyu,” Hibari greeted somewhat nervously, “Um, why are you here?”

“I didn’t see you once school was over, I was concerned so I came to see if you were home,” Yagyu explained with her usual stoic expression, “Are you alright Hibari?”

If Hibari wasn’t close friends with Yagyu, the pinkette would have missed the concern in the white-haired girl’s voice. The young pink-haired shinobi suddenly felt guilty.

“Yeah, I’m alright Yagyu,” Hibari reassured with a nervous smile, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry, Yagyu. I just…I just needed some time alone.”

Yagyu grew a frown, her concern more evident.

“Are you sure you're alright?" the white-haired shinobi asked as she stepped into the pinkette's room.

"Yep,” Hibari reassured with a nervous smile as she placed her hands behind her back, “Just had a lot on my mind, that's all.”

“Is it related to your performance in training today?” Yagyu asked more as a statement than a question. The Pinkette’s eyes widen as she stared at her friend, surprised at how close to the mark she was.

Well minus the part involving a magic shinobi book and all.

“Y-yeah, I just felt like I haven’t been getting any better,” Hibari admitted.

“It’s alright Hibari, in time you’ll get stronger,” yagyu reassured as she gently placed a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder, “and if anything tries to hurt you, I will protect you.”

Hibari was slightly annoyed by the last comment. She knew Yagyuu meant well, but Hibari sometimes couldn’t help but become somewhat irritated by her friend feeling the need to baby her.

Still though, Hibari did feel a bit better at her best friend’s words.

“Thanks Yagyu-” Hibari began to say but her eyes widened when she looked behind her friend. Sticking out of the drawer of her dresser was one of the corners of the black book. In her rush, she must have not made sure the book was hidden properly.

"Is everything okay Hibari?" Yagyu asked, a concern frown beginning to form on her face.

Thankfully Yagyu’s back was toward the book so the white haired girl didn’t see it. While yagyu did know about the book's existence, Hibari didn’t know how to explain to Yagyu why she didn't show the book to Kiriya-sensei without revealing the book's nature.

"um, yeah! everything is alright yagyu, hehehe," Hibari tried to reassure, giving her friend an unconvincing smile.

Sure enough, the white haired shinobi didn’t look convinced as the concern frown became more apparent.

Hibari tried thinking of some way to make Yagyu leave her room and preventing her from seeing the book, but she couldn’t come up with anything.

Thankfully her prayers were answered by her stomach rumbling.

At that moment the expression on the white haired shinobi’s face shifted from a worried frown to blinking in mild surprise as she looked down toward the pinkette’s growling stomach.

Hibari couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment, but it did give her the opportunity to get Yagyu out of her room and away from the book.

“S-sorry Yagyu, I guess I’m kind of hungry,” Hibari said with a giggle as she rubbed the back of her head, before grabbing the other girl’s hands with both of hers. A blush immediately appeared on the white haired girl’s cheeks, though Hibari didn’t know why.

“Hey how about we go and eat dinner at a restaurant, just the two of us,” Hibari suggested as she gently pulled her friend toward the door, “I know this place that I’m sure you’ll like.”

“I ugh, um…that, that sounds nice,” Yagyu stammered, which made the pink haired shinobi giggle. Most of the time Yagyu was always serious and cool, but every now and then Yagyu often becomes flustered

Hibari would be lying if she said it wasn’t cute.

“Alrighty, then let’s go!” Hibari cheered as she yanked Yagyu out of her room and into the hallway.

And away from the black book hidden within the pinkette’s dresser.

Barely five minutes after striking a deal with the pinkette, and the nomicon was already having doubts this plan was going to work.

…well a bit more doubt than it already had.

The girl wasn't all that good at lying and keeping a straight face when under pressure (Not nearly as bad as the current ninja, but still…), and her friend was smart enough to see through the façade the pinkentte was trying (and failing) to put up.

Thankfully the white haired girl seems to have feelings for the pinkette, to the point that her judgment and thought process become considerably clouded.

[ohhh, potential yuri action!

Down boy

Again, I’m a honking girl you shoob!]

GETTING BACK ON TRACK!

While this would eventually be harmful to the white haired girl in the future, right now it will be helpful in preventing the white haired shinobi from noticing that her pink haired friend is still in possession of the nomicon.

And given how protective/possessive she was over the pink-haired girl, she would no doubt inform their sensei of the nomicon's nature if she ever found out.

…which is honestly something the nomicon couldn’t fault the girl for. The nomicon did suck people's minds into its pages and can potentially erase their memories…

…or allow personalities composed of the negative traits of previous ninjas to take over the host’s body and leave the original trapped within the nomicon.

[I still think that was a stupid idea!

Well how else were we going to get the ninja to stop going “full on nomicon”!? For crying out loud, he chose the Stroganoff over the chicken parmesan because the message we were giving him wasn’t clicking!

You know things would be a lot smoother if we were able to directly talk to him as opposed to just using riddles.]

Still though, the nomicon was certain that the pinkette will be able to keep it's nature of its existence a secret. the girl had great potential, she just needed to push past her self doubts.

after all it wouldn't be the first time when a ninja went beyond the nomicon's expectations, such as the current ninja of norrisvile.

Now it just needed some way to get the girl to deliver the nomicon to the ninja without revealing his identity…which would be tricky considering that there wasn’t any “obvious” threat that would require the norris ninja to come out.

Key word being obvious.

Debbie let out a sigh as she adjusted the strap of her bag before resting her eyes on the stage in front of her and the crowd.

There was going to be some kind of eating contest today. The 2nd Annual Ultimate Eating Championship to be precise.

It wasn’t anything big, at least not when compared to the ones back in Norrisville, but it was honestly the only scoop-worthy thing that happened since she got here. Which in Debbie’s opinion, was very disappointing.

"hey there peeps,” a Teenage girl with long orange hair and a beauty mark under her left eye announced from on top of the stage,

 “it's your gal Heidi talking to from

the 2nd Annual Ultimate Eating Championship, all the way from the Land of the rising sun!”

Even more so since Heidi somehow became the co-hostess of the event. How she convinced the chairman of the district to let her also host the event, Debbie wouldn’t know. However, this didn’t surprise the young journalist either, Heidi always somehow manages to become the host of many events back in Norrisville.

The main issue with this however is that due to her popularity, more people will be more interested in watching her Me-cast instead of reading her paper.

Like usual.

Debbie is well known for her comprehensive reporting and in-depth analysis on pretty much everything she has covered. This has given her a considerable amount of credibility, enough so that she can even make McFist recall some of his products, especially when said products mutate high school students.

Though her credibility did take a hit for supposably reporting that Randy was the Ninja…only for that to be false.

However, while Heidi doesn't put as much effort into finding facts as Debbie does, or at all really, she did know how to draw people’s attention and entertain them.

And as much as Debbie hated to admit it, people preferred to be entertained than getting facts.

More often than not, people would ignore the NHGTTWDPC online edition in favor of Hedie’s web show.

Debbie was then pulled out of her thoughts when the opening celebration began and the contestants for the contest walked on stage.

Out of the contestants, only five really stood out to Debbie.

The first was Howard, which didn’t surprise Debbie in the least. That boy would use any excuse to eat free food.

The second one that caught Debbie's attention was hard not to notice due to their sheer size. They were a large teenage girl (at least Debbie assumed they were a girl, judging by the uniform they wore) who was so fat that they rivaled the size of bash’s monster form. Debbie had a pretty good guess as to why she(?) was participating.

The third one stood out if only because of how he wore a long white school uniform that was unzipped, completely exposing his lean torso. However, he still looked unhealthy, like he had barely seen the sun.

‘He’s probably one of those delinquents that was a member of one of those gangs in the area,’ Debbie thought to herself with a slight frown.

 It didn’t help that the man had an arrogant smirk on his face as he looked down on everyone, as if he thought he was better than them.

Debbie couldn’t help but roll her eyes, people like him didn’t go far in life, and normally end up dead in an alleyway.

The last two contestants stood out to Debbie not so much because they were the only girls who were competing (Debbie had doubts that the fat one was really a girl), but more so because of their…appearance.

Not to say they were unappealing, no, far from it. Both girls were beautiful.

One girl had fair skin and long blond hair that reached down to her waist. She had teal eyes and a kind serene smile plastered on her face.

The other girl also had fair skin, but had long straight raven black hair that reached down to her lower thighs and had flat-cut bangs resting on her forehead, and deep blue eyes. She had a refined look to her and was dressed in high-quality clothing.

The thing that made both girls standout more was how… well-proportioned they were, especially in the chest department.

Debbie couldn’t help but stare in disbelief, and slight annoyance, at the girls’ ridiculously sized breasts.

Debbie was certain that those two were often the center of attention wherever they went, especially with the boys. Similar to that girl Amanda, who somehow was able to make pretty much all the boys in school drool all over her and treat her like a honking queen.

heck, even the guys whom Debbie was certain didn't seem to know that girls even existed (ie; Bash), guys who seemed to only had eyes for another girl (Bucky), and guys who she was certain didn't care about girls (Howard, Julian) all seemed to want to go out with the new student. If Debbie was a conspiracist nut, she would have assumed that Amanda was some kind of succubus.

Debbie shook her head, and all thoughts of the strange girl went away. She looked up toward the raven-haired girl again, who seemed to be conversing with the blonde contestant. They were shortly joined by another girl who also had a voluptuous figure and long wavy blonde hair that reached down to her waist.

She seemed energetic and outgoing,

What they were talking about, Debbie couldn’t hear.

However, Debbie couldn’t help but stare at the group, more specifically the ravenette. Debbie didn’t know why, but the young journalist couldn’t help but feel like she saw her somewhere before.

“I don’t get why we’re even here in the first place Howard,” A familiar voice said, pulling Debbie from her thoughts. Looking toward where she heard the voice come from, she saw both Randy and Howard.

The purplette looked particularly annoyed, while the orange-haired teen had a non-caring expression.

Which wasn’t really out of the ordinary with the two, despite how close they were. There were often times the two would butt heads, more often than not because of Howard’s selfishness. And by the looks of it, this was no different.

However, Randy looked even more annoyed than usual, as well as extremely antsy if the way he was bouncing his foot was any indication. Not only that but Debbie also noticed how his hair was slightly messier than usual, and that there were subtle hints of bags forming under the lanky’s teen’s eyes.

‘He probably didn’t get enough sleep last night’

“You know why Cunningham,” Howard said defensively, with annoyance in his voice, as he cracked his knuckles in anticipation, “I’ve won every single eating contest back in Norrisville, now it’s time for the reputation of Bottomless Weinerman to spread to different lands.”

“It’s also an excuse to eat free food,” Randy grumbled with a roll of his eyes as he crossed his arms, “You do know that everything in the prize is past their expiration dates right?”

Debbie couldn’t help but wonder what seemed to have gotten under Cunningham's skin. Normally in events like this, he would display about as much enthusiasm as his best friend Howard. Even if he wasn’t going to participate himself, he would do his best to be the best motivator he can be.

Now, however, not so much. Right now Randy looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here

“Just past their expiration dates Cunningham, just after,” Howard countered. Knowing Howard, all the food would be gone in less than a week, give or take a few days, “What’s the big deal, Cunningham?”

“You know what the big deal is Howard, I should be out there looking for you-know-what,” Randy shot back as he facepalmed, “Instead we’re just wasting our time in an eating contest.”

“One, participating in an eating contest is never a waste of time,” the short chubby boy countered, before grabbing the taller boy by the collar and pulling him down so they were eye to eye, “SO YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

The force of the orange-haired teen’s voice was strong enough that it caused the skin on Randy's face to be blown backward.

Immediately after that outburst, Howard let go of his best friend’s collar and return to his previous attitude, while Randy was left somewhat dazed.

“Two, where are you going to start looking?” Howard asked with his arms crossed, as Randy shook his head back and forth to regain his composure.

After blinking a few times, the purplette glared down toward his best friend and opened his mouth to protest.

“It’s not like we can check the school’s lost and found, it’s still the weekend,” Howard cut Randy off before the other had the chance to say anything.

Whatever the tall teen was going to say died in his throat. Randy simply closed his mouth before crossing his arms and glared toward the ground.

“It’s just that the book is really important Howard,” Randy grumbled before glaring at the orange teen again, “it contains ove-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know how important that book is Cunningham,” the shorter boy quickly said, cutting off whatever the purplette was going to say as he facepalmed, “you kept repeating how you needed to find it as soon as possible all night for the past two days!”

After he said that, Debbie noticed that Howard's hair was also slightly messier than normal, and he too had hints of bags forming under his eyes.

At his friend’s words, Randy gained a guilty expression and he began rubbing the back of his neck before grumbling, “It wasn’t all nigh-.”

“That’s because I had to knock you out using my underwear Cunningham!” Howard interrupted with a deadpan, making both Randy and Debbie scrunch their noses up in disgust.

Debbie eventually decided to ignore them. She didn’t really know what they were talking about, nor did she really care. Knowing them, Randy was probably talking about a book that he was assigned to do a report on and he lost it before even starting the assignment itself.

Instead, she returned her attention back to the contest which was now calling the contestants up.

"Alrighty, let's get this show on the road!" Heidi said with excitement as she announced the first two contestants, "First up on the block are Yomi and Murasame!"

After calling out the names of the first contestants, the blonde girl with the serene smile and that unhealthy looking delinquent walked up onto the stage before sitting down at their respective tables.

The latter then turned to leer at his opponent and looked like he was saying something. What he said, Debbie wasn’t close enough to hear. Though whatever he said just seemed to confuse the blonde as she just looked at him while tilting her head to the side.

Apparently mistaking her confusion for being intimidated, the delinquent laughed before talking again.

Instead of giving the man any kind of response, the blonde teen just turned to face forward and began to ignore him, even as he kept talking with that smug grin on his face.

A while passed however the food the contestants needed to eat wasn’t brought out. In fact, what they needed to eat wasn’t even announced yet.

Debbie was getting both inpatient as well as confused with how long it was taking for them to start the competition. eating competitions back in Norisville didn't nearly take half as long as this to begin even with delays.

And she wasn’t the only one who was thinking this as well.

“Oh, for the love of cheese! What’s taking so long!?” Howard exclaimed, his tone irritated, as he waved his hands up in the air.

Hedi was starting to look nervous, apparently also wondering what was taking so long, as she kept looking backstage.

Following the older girl’s gaze, Debbie saw the chairman rushing around.

Eventually, one of the district’s employees came up to Heidi and whispered into the ginger-haired girl’s ear. Debbie couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by the shocked look on Heidi’s face, chances are something happened that would affect the contest.

After coughing a bit into her fist, Heidi muttered something Debbie couldn't hear before looking at the audience with a nervous expression, “Sorry everyone, apparently there’s been some kind of mix up…”

‘Called it,’ Debbie thought.

“For the first round the challenge was to eat a whole cabbage,” Heidi continued, trying to put a peppy smile back on her face as the employees brought out a heaping mountain of cabbage core, “but instead our contestants will have to eat cabbage cores!”

“What!?” Murasame exclaimed, making no attempt to hide his disdain, “Cabbage cores!? I’m not a rabbit!”

Debbie couldn’t help but find his attitude immensely grating. He was almost as annoying as Howard gets when he has to do something he didn’t want to do…which happens very often.

“If you don’t like it, why not abstain from competing?” Yomi suggested, her serene smile still plastered on her face, but Debbie could pick out traces of annoyance in her voice.

“Abstain?!” the man repeated, looking at the younger blonde with wide eyes, as if she just said the most outlandish thing, “If I did that, this would be as far as I go! Eighth place!”

Suddenly, Murasame got into Yomi’s face, his eyes growing thoroughly bloodshot, “Do you even realize what that would mean, little lady?!”

“N…No…?” she answered nervously and uncertainly, as she began to scoot away from her opponent.

 Debbie couldn't blame her, the man looked like he was about to start frothing at the mouth.

Suddenly Murasame shot up off his chair, and jumped onto the table.

“I’ll do it!” he proclaimed, shouting up to the very heavens as he tightly clenched his fist to his sides, “I’ll be a rabbit! Just call me ‘Bunny Boy’!”

Debbie was sure it was just her imagination, but it almost seemed like fire burst all around his body when he made that claim.

Awkward silence filled the district as everyone in attendance just stared at the young man in bewilderment, who just panted heavily from up top of the table.

“Complete…weirdo,” Debbie heard Howard whisper to Randy.

“Tell me about it,” an unfamiliar female voice whispered back.

Blinking, Debbie turned to look toward the source of the voice, and to her slight surprise saw the blonde-wavy-haired girl from before.

She was standing with a laid-back posture, her left leg slightly bent, as she had her hand behind her head…which, much to Debbie’s slight annoyance, made her already large breast more pronounced. Her expression was overall neutral with both eyebrows raised.

Standing next to her was the ravenette girl who was also competing in the contest. She, for some reason, looked concerned, and her shoulders were slightly slumped as she looked at Murasame.

Next to them were both Howard and Randy. The former had an unamused expression while the latter had a perplexed frown with a raised eyebrow.

At first Debbie thought the four of them were together, but it didn’t seem like either of the pairs really acknowledged the other’s presence.

“Hey, isn’t that you’re brother Ikuraga?” the blonde asked, to which the ravenette simply let out an exasperated sigh.

‘So her name is Ikuraga huh?’ Debbie mentally noted as she racked her brain at the familiar name, ‘I know I’ve heard that name from somewhere.’

“Man, if I had a brother like that, I would rather crawl in a hole and never come out,” Howard said with a laugh.

Upon hearing that, Ikuraga buried her face in the palms of her hands and groaned.

‘Their siblings?’ Debbie thought with a raised brow as she looked between both the raven-haired girl and the young man on the stage, ‘I don’t see much of a resemblance.’

“Along with a lifetime supply of McFizzles and the entire series of Grave Puncher?” Randy asked with a deadpan, more of a statement than a question.

“Of course,” Howard admitted without a hint of shame.

Debbie couldn’t help but roll her eyes at their banter, which unfortunately pulled her away from her attempt at recalling where she recognized the raven-haired girl from.

And before she could try to recall again, Heidi started the countdown for the start of the round, “Alrighty you hungry bunnies, it’s time to get hopping!”

At that, both Yomi and Murasame immediately began consuming the cabbage cores.

As soon as she took the first bite of the core, Yomi's face morphed into one of pure bliss. Debbie couldn’t help but be taken aback by this as she continued to watch the girl eagerly chow down the vegetables.

…

‘She’s really enjoying those,’ Debbie thought with a raised eyebrow, surprised to see someone enjoying what is essentially scraps.

And at the pace she was devouring those, she was likely to finish the dish in no time at all.

Shifting her attention to the other participant, Debbie sweatdropped at what she saw.

Apparently also coming to the same conclusion as Debbie had, Murasame was just stuffing cores into his mouth. Inhaling the cores as opposed to taking the time to bite down on them.

‘He does know he needs to breathe right?’ Debbie mentally asked herself with a deadpan expression.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long until Murasame began to choke on the cabbage cores. His hands clawed at the cores stuffed in his mouth in an effort to dislodge at least some of them to allow air into his lungs.

However, as much as he tried none of the cores came loose, and eventually his face began to turn blue. In a last-ditch effort, Murasame began to bang on his chest repeatedly as if that could help with his predicament.

But sure enough, it didn’t.

Finally succumbing to oxygen deprivation, Murasame’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell face-first onto the table.

Debbie merely rolled her eyes as she shook her head in exasperation, before returning her attention back to the blonde contestant.

Who apparently was oblivious to what just happened right next to her, as Yomi continued to eat her cabbage cores in pure complete bliss.

She remained lost in ecstasy until her fingers tapped on her now-empty plate.

Blinking a few times the blonde girl looked down at her plate, before smiling and putting her hands together as if in prayer.

“That was delicious,” she said in thanks.

“And we have our first winner!” Heidi announced as she grabbed and raised Yomi’s right hand up high, “Yomi advances onto the next round while the loser hops away in defeat.”

Murasame only let out a few choke gurgles at that, still unconscious.

“Well if he wakes up anyway.”

“Brother!” ikuraga exclaimed in worry, as she rushes to her sibling’s side. She was surprisingly quick, as she was by her brother’s side and dislodging the cores from his mouth rather quickly.

Debbie figured she must have been part of a tracks team.

After dislodging enough of the cabbage cores, Murasame let out wet coughs as air was reintroduced into his lungs. He let out a groan as he lifted his face off the table.

‘He recovered fast,’ Debbie mentally commented.

“what happened, did I win!?” He asked as he looked from side to side, as if he was expecting a miracle.

Debbie couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the dumb question.

‘You didn’t even finish one core before passing out, why would you think you won in the slightest?’

“You lost you honking shoob!” Howard shouted out before his laughter began to assault Debbie’s ears, “oh man you should have seen your face. You looked like a chimp muck, hahahaha!”

“Shut up!” Murasame shouted back at the orange-haired teen, his face turning slightly red. Whether by anger or embarrassment, Debbie didn’t know, “there’s no way I’ve lost, you short fatso with tiny hands!”

“Hey!” Howard shouted back in clear offense, “just so you know, my hands are delicate.”

“That’s what you're upset about,” Debbie heard the girl with wavy blonde hair mutter in confusion.

What expression she had, Debbie didn’t know as she was more focused on what was happening up on stage.

“Actually my loser brother is right, you did lose,” Heidi clarified, causing the older man to stare at her in shock.

“Wh-what!? No way!” He exclaimed, clear in denial, “There's no way I lost, especially this early on!”

“Well, you did you shoob!”

“I said shut up you dainty hand fatso!”

“They're delicate!”

“Brother, that’s enough,” Ikuraga said softly, as she stretched out a hand in what seemed like an attempt to calm her brother down.

Murasame suddenly and viciously slapped her hand away.

“Don’t touch me!” he demanded with a snarl, glaring at the younger girl with pure hatred in his eyes.

“Brother…” she said softly, her tone and expression showing she was clearly hurt.

“No one but my real family may lay a hand on me!”

After that sharp remark, Murasame ran off the stage and dashed out of sight.

“Yikes, family drama,’ Debbie thought to herself as she watched the scene. Apparently, for whatever reason Murasame seemed to hate his younger sister with a passion.

Or supposed younger sister, if she took what Murasame said into consideration.

And after seeing the both of them side by side…Debbie still couldn’t see a resemblance, which only supported what he said regarding him and Ikuraga not being related.

The only thing that Debbie could conclude with certainty was that there was some kind of change in the family dynamic, and Murasame believed it was (or it very well could be) somehow Ikuraga’s fault.

However, Heidi’s voice pulled Debbie from her thoughts before she could think any deeper into the subject.

“A-any way…” Heidi spoke up, trying to regain her bearings after witnessing the harsh interaction between “siblings”, “Let’s continue on with our next contestants.”

Ikuraga clenches her lips and goes to her place in the B-Block stage as the next round begins.

“You got this Ikaruga!” The energetic blonde cheered as Ikuraga took her seat next to her opponent, as more cabbage cores were brought out.

The moment the round started, Ikuraga immediately began to chow down on the cabbage cores.

"Go, Ikuraga!”

With her friend's encouragement the ravennette stuffs her face full of cabbage cores. But unlike her “brother”, she went at a pace where she wouldn’t end up suffocating by the cores.

"Keep it upl You can't quit now!”

Ikuraga eats daintily, but not without speed.

Bite by bite, she pulls ahead of her opponent.

"Mm! Mmogh!"

It wasn’t long until she reached the last few remaining cores on her plate. As she finishes the last core, she delicately wipes her mouth with a napkin.

Debbie couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. She was kind of honest, she didn't think the ravenette would win. she seemed too...eloquent for this type of event.

“Woohoo! Ikaruga!” The ravenette’s blonde friend cheered as she brought her fist up into the air, “Let me reward you with a nice massage!”

Debbie frowned with slight disgust as the blonde began to make groping gestures with her hands, and an obvious lecherous grin grew on her face. Clearly she was thinking of something inappropriate.

“I’m fine, thank you!” Ikuraga refused both quickly and sharply, the annoyed expression on her face more than enough evidence to confirm what Debbie was thinking.

Why someone like Ikuraga was friends with such a pervert, Debbie didn’t know.

It was then Howard's turn, which ended in almost an instant when the short chubby boy merely poured the cabbage cores into his mouth before swallowing them all in one go.

He then immediately began clutching at his stomach as if he was in pain.

“Ugh, I ate too much healthy stuff,” he whined, as the grumbling of his stomach was heard by the entire audience.

“Seriously!” a person that sounded like Murasame shouted out, anger clearly evident in his voice, “How the hell can that fatso with tiny hands do that, but I can’t!?”

“My hands are delicate, you honking shoob!” Howard yelled back, equally annoyed, before he once again clutched at his stomach, “Ugh, I need junk food stat.”

Debbie Kang couldn’t help but let out an exasperated sigh. So far the only thing that the young journalist found interesting at this event was the raven-haired girl, but that alone wasn’t front page worthy.

Or even side articles worthy.

She silently hoped that something scoop worthy would happen.

Nothing major, like say one of those kaiju attacks Japan was known for, or an alien invasion, or the embodiment of evil awakening and corrupting the world.

She wasn’t that desperate to put herself in life threatening situations just for a scoop.

Not like that tabloid in Paris who runs the ladyblog.

But she hoped for something more interesting than doing a report on the winner of some eating contest.

AN: Oh man, I’m so sorry it took me so long to post this! I’ve kind of fallen into a writer's funk, and it doesn’t help that I have a hard time focusing. That and I’ve also got a gaming channel as well.

So anyway, it looks like the Nomicon is going to help Hibari with her ninja training as a means to somehow get back to the ninja. 

To amyone who managed to figure this out, congratulations. You just won a cookie. 

Meanwhile Debbie seems to have taken a bit of an interest in ikuraga. I wonder why.
…

Oh, wait I’m the author, I do know why. 
…
…
…

…this isn’t going to end well is it?

The second half of this chapter has kind of gotten split in half as it was getting too long, and I really wanted to post another chapter. 

Anyway, leave a review as any critique will be greatly appreciated. see you guys in the next chapter. 

Chapter Text

Theresa stared with an unimpressed look in her eyes down toward the pin resting in the palm of her hand. The pin was red with an image of a pair of Sunglasses a at the top, a black trombone in the center, and the name Steven written in cursive at the bottom. It was a pin she saw more times than she cared for, and each time making her more annoyed than the last.

It was Steven's band pin…or one of them at least.

She looked up to see Steven, dressed in his usual casual wear, which consisted of a t-shirt with an image of a tie printed on it underneath an unbuttoned shirt, greenish brown shorts, his signature sunglasses, and for some reason was also carrying around his infamous trombone.

The boy was giving her a charming smile, the kind that one would see one of those so-called “prince charming” like characters you would see in anime (like Motoyasu from rising of the shield hero, or kouki from Arifureta Shoku-something something), as he slightly lowered his glasses to give her a wink.

The purple haired girl could only groan in annoyance at the boy’s blatant attempts at flirting with her.

It wasn’t the first time he flirted with her, in pretty much every encounter Theresa had with the band member, the trombone player would always hit on her.

At first Theresa was only uncomfortable by this, mainly due to not being so used to that kind of attention. However, after being constantly flirted with despite the numerous times she rejected him, eventually that shyness and discomfort grew into nothing but complete annoyance.

Seriously, couldn’t Steven take a hint?

Steven simply strutted off down the sidewalk, a smirk plastered on his face, apparently not registering the purple haired girl’s obvious annoyance at his advances.

Rolling her eyes Theresa walked in the opposite direction Steven went and threw the pin in the nearest trash can she could see.

Debbie was at some local eating competition today so she can have at least something to write about in the school’s paper, so the young journalist was unavailable.

She could have gone with Debbie, but the baton twirler wasn’t really interested in watching a bunch of people gouge down large amounts of food.

Especially when the last eating contest she went to ended up being attacked by a tongue…tentacle…monster that grew out of bash’s mouth.

And the rest of zee monster klub were off doing their own things, so she couldn’t really hang out with them either.

Though she wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t want to get together in Oder to avoid Julian after his whole…phase.

The young baron twirler also wondered if the glares the hanzo student gives her fellow klub members whenever she talked to them was also a reason.

Eh, probably not, that kind of stuff only happens in anime. It was more than likely just her imagination

So that left Theresa with no one to hang with, she decided to spend the day to herself, walking around the market to see if she could find anything that catches her eye.

Preferably something related to batons.

“Oh hey Theresa Chan,” a familiar voice called out.

Theresa looked where the voice came from and smiled when she saw a familiar brunette.

Oh hey asuka senpai,” Theresa greet back with a smile,”what brings you out here

Oh nothing much, just killing time, Asuka answered as she walked up to the purplette, “what about you?”

“Same as you, all of my friends are busy with their own things, so I kind of figure I just explore on my own.”

“So what are your friends like

“Well there’s Debbie,”

Debbie?” Asuka asked, a hint of worry creeping into her expression and tone.

“Yeah, she’s the youngest member of the NHGTTWDPC,” Theresa began to explain but paused when she saw the other girl blinking somewhat quickly.

“The NHGTTWha?” Asuka muttered out, confusion evident in her tone.

“It’s short for Norrisville High Gazette Times Tribune Weekly Daily Press Chronicle,” Theresa explained, smiling in both amusement and understanding.

“They should use a shorter name for that,” Asuka breathed out in exasperation.

Theresa couldn’t help but giggle at that, “I know what you mean, but would you believe the name use to be longer.”

“Seriously!? You’re kidding!?” Asuka exclaimed in complete disbelief.

Theresa once again giggled, “yeah I’m messing with you.”

Asuka glared at the purplette with a small pout, unamused by the joke.

“That’s not funny Theresa-Chan!”

“Sorry, sorry, I just couldn’t help it!” Theresa apologized through giggles.

Asuka continued to pout, but eventually she began to giggle as well.

Eventually the giggles died down.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Debbie’s the youngest member of my school’s paper, she’s also the captain and best player of my school’s chess club.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s really smart, but also really stubborn. Especially whenever she sets her sights on something," Theresa continued with a smile, however that smile slowly turned into a concerned frown, “though that’s not always a good thing.”

“What do you mean?” Asuka asked with a curious tilt of her head.

“Well she’s my best friend and I love her and all, but a lot of her articles do end up ruining some of the cool stuff in school. Like the time she got hallway mopeds revoked, got two day school weeks scrapped, and there was the time she got soupsicles banned from being sold in school. Though she did say Howard mutated into a blob monster after eating a whole bunch of soupsicles,” Theresa explained as she listed off some of the things her friend in depth reports have gotten rid of, with her adding the last part offhandedly.

Asuka couldn’t help but stop in her tracks, as she stared at Theresa, her eyes wide in both shock and horror.

“They sold something that turns people into monsters in school!?” Asuka asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know if it is true or not to be honest, but Debbie was pretty certain that Howard was turned into a monster thanks to the soupsicles,” Theresa said as she scratched her cheek with her finger, her tone somewhat nonchalant. After all, Julian once theorized that one turns into a monster after wearing the same underwear for five days in a row, and Theresa KNOWS that she doesn't do that.

“Why aren’t you bothered by this?” Asuka exclaimed in confusion, “one of your classmates got turned into a monster!”

“Someone getting turned into a monster isn’t really that big a deal to be honest,” Theresa explained with a shrug, not really understanding the big deal, “I mean pretty much everyone in Norrisville got turned into a monster at least once.”

Asuka's shocked expression shifted into one of slight exasperation.

“Theresa-Chan, how often do people get turned into monsters at your school?” Asuka asked with a slight deadpan and concerned expression.

“Pretty much every other day,” Theresa said, as she was merely discussing the weather.

“Seriously!?”

Theresa nodded her head as she let out a hum of confirmation, “the longest I think there wasn’t a monster attack was about a week at most.”

“Only a Week!”

“Yep.”

“It doesn’t sound like Norrisville is very peaceful if it’s constantly under attack by monsters,” asuka said, her concern more evident.

“Yeah, but it’s not boring and we can always count on the ninja to save the day.”

“It's still crazy that the Norris shinobi would fight in broad daylight,” asuka added, hints of confusion in her voice, “I’ve been taught that shinobi always fight in the shadows.”

“To be fair pretty much all of the monsters and killer robots attack out in the open,”

That’s true

“Though I just wish they was some way to really thank him for everything he’s done for the town,” Theresa said, as she clasped her hands behind her back, a small hopeful smile on her face, “I mean sure we throw him events every now and then, but I mean a more personal thank you. You know.”

Asuka tilted her head to the side, apparently in thought. Theresa wondered what the other girl was thinking about, but before she could ask, Asuka spoke up.

“I’ve heard that someone tried to find out the ninjas real identity,” she said as she returned her gaze toward the purplette.

At that, the purple haired girl let out an exasperated sigh, “yeah, my friend Debbie suddenly wanted to do a scoop regarding his identity.

“But Isn’t that dangerous?” Asuka asked with a concerned frown, “the reason why a Shinobi keeps their true identity a secret is to keep those close to them safe. If anyone learns she was trying to figure out who he was they could go after her to get the information for themselves, while-“

Asuka looked like she was going to add more, but then her eyes widened and she stopped herself mid sentence. Whatever she was going to say Theresa didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to press the other girl.

“That’s what I tried to tell her, but she’s so stubborn she wouldn’t listen. She said that “the people has a right to know,” or something like that," Theresa explained, annoyance and a bit of anger creeping into her voice.

The concerned look on Asuka's face grew even more upon hearing that.

“She didn’t even hesitate to reveal that Randy was the ninja to the whole town on Heidi’s web cast,” the purple haired girl continued, the anger more noticeable.

“Randy?” Asuka asked with a tilt of her head and her brows slightly furrowing, as if contemplating the name.

“Oh, he’s a boy I know,” Theresa explained, the anger she felt dissipating as she was doing her best to repress the heat in her cheeks, “we sometimes hang out, mainly whenever we’re doing klub activities. He’s pretty goofy and silly a lot of the time, but he’s also really sweet and caring.”

As she talked about the purple haired boy, Theresa was starting to get lost In her thoughts regarding him.

His goofy antics, his adorable smile, his purple hair, and all of the antic he and his best friend would get into.

She recalled the time when both he and Howard joined ze monster klub (which was blurry at most). how he tried to pretend to be fearless in an attempt to impressed both her and Debbie (which did work, despite the shorter girl’s constant denial). And how he used her baton in order to distract that sorceress’s monsters long enough for everyone to escape into the cave.

As she reminisced about all the memories she had of her crush, eventually her thoughts stop on a particular memory, specifically the time when she woke up in his closet. She didn’t know how she ended up there, but it was hardly the first time she ended up in a strange location.

Like the time she woke up stuck to a spider-web in the gym.

However the fact she woke up in her crush’s closet wasn’t the thing she found weird, it was the conversation Randy had with Howard the day before the ninja fought that sorcerer that was underneath the school.

Some of what they said pretty much confused her, though that could be attributed to lacking any context the boys had…which honestly wasn’t really that surprising to be honest.

But the parts that did stick to her was hearing randy talking to Howard regarding Julian

What was a power ball, and why would julian want them?

Why would Julian want to enslave the world?

Why did Randy feel that he has to be the one to stop julian?

What digging contest?

She didn’t really think about them at the time cause…well…how would you react if you suddenly woke up in your crushes closet.

But even so the same questions couldn’t help but wondering into her mind every now and then

She wasn’t going to ask Julian any questions. The poor boy seemed like he went through a lot. Not only does he talk to a stone gargoyle’s head he calls Tyler, but he would alway seem to avoid mirrors, and jump at the shadows as if something was going to reach out to him and drag the boy to the otherside.

It wasn’t as bad as before he began wearing all white, but it was still concerning.

“Theresa Chan?” a voice suddenly pulled her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see asuka’s face, inches from hers, with a quizzical look in her eyes, “is everything alright?”

“I, uh, um, y-yeah everything alright don’t worry,” Theresa reassured with a nervous laugh, as she backed away from the busty brunette while she waved her hands frantically.

“Um, okay,” Asuka said with a tilt of her head as she blinked in confusion.

Theresa took a minute to regain her bearings before continuing her story.

“Anyway, right after Debbie told everyone that Randy was the ninja, a killer robot attack the school.

"Yeah I heard about that. It was a good thing the real ninja arrived just in time to save him."

“Yeah, I don’t know if I would ever forgive Debbie if anything happened to Randy,” Theresa muttered in a slightly dark tone, something that concerned the other girl a bit, “it's bad enough that she put randy in danger, but she doesn’t even want to acknowledge what she did.”

The events of that day put a massive strain on their friendship.

Especially when the short haired girl wanted to pretend that day never happened, nor that she ever tried to figure out the ninja secret identity.

It was a combination of their long friendship, Theresa's forgiving nature, and a bit of pity Theresa had for Debbie, that their relationship hadn’t broken off.

But even so, theresa couldn’t help but bring it up in conversations every now and then, And it irritated Theresa more every time Debbie just looks at her with confusion.

Sure, Theresa chalked it up to Debbie blocking off the memories to keep her pride as a respectable journalist intact

But even so, wouldn’t that just make her just as bad as that person who runs that ladyblog all the way in Paris.

Just thinking about it darkened her mood more. more than usual, strangely enough.

Asuka noticed this and began to grow concerned.

“Um, um,” Asuka mumbled as she tried to think of something, but her mouth opened before she could come up with anything

“DID ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU SMELL LIKE RAINBOWS!?”

The purple haired girl jumped at the other girl’s outburst and her dark expression instantly shifted into one of bewilderment as she stared at the busty brunette.

Neither girl noticed the purple fog that was gathering at Theresa's feet dissipate.

“Whaaaaa?” Theresa let out as she was taken aback by what the other girl said.

Asuka for her part began to blush in embarrassment as what she said registered in her brain.

It didn’t help that other people in the area were now looking at her with confusion.

Thankfully most of them didn’t stare too long and went about their business. Though a few people, particularly the younger ones, did linger to drink in the sight of two pretty girls a bit more.

“Um, sorry it's just you looked so very mad, and and and I was tr-kyaa!” Asuka tried to explain to the purple haired girl, who still had a bewildered look on her face.

However, while she was talking, some random teenage girl with short blue hair bumped into her and nearly knocked her over.

“Woah asuka, are you okay?” Theresa asked, her bewildered expression replaced with one of concern as she caught the other girl before they hit the pavement.

“It’s alright Theresa Chan,” Asuka reassured with a wave of her hand, “I was just surprised is all.”

The purple haired girl glared at the random teenager, “hey be careful, you almost knocked my friend over!”

The girl stopped in her tracks before turning around to face the pair.

"Whoa. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to run into you," the girl said apologetically as she scratch the back of her head.

"No, it's okay," Asuka reassured with a smile, as she shook her head, "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Nah, I'm fine," the bluenette replied with a smile of her own, "Later."

With that the blue haired girl turned on her heel, and began running off.

"She looks like she's in a hurry," Theresa commented as she and Asuka watched as the girl ran down the street.

"Yeah, I wonder where she's going? ...Hmm?" Asuka asked before she felt something off.

" ....Hmm?" the burnette hummed as she reached a hand up to her chest, "Huh? Huh?!"

"What's wrong asuk..." Theresa began to ask, but stopped and blinked in confusion when the brown haired girl began to pat down her chest. Her unbelievably large and well endowed chest.

‘Does she even wear a bra?’ Theresa mentally asked herself as she watched the other continue to pat her chest down but now in a frantic manner.

Starting to become uncomfortable (as well as embarrassed), Theresa began to shuffle in place as she tried, and failed, to look at anything else other than the brunette's...assets.

“Um asuka, what are-” the purplette began to ask, but was cut off when the other girl shouted.

“My wallet’s gone!” Asuka exclaimed as she grabbed her hair in panic.

“What!?”

“I keep my wallet between my boobs since I don’t have any pockets, but it's gone now!”

“You keep your wallet between your boobs?” Theresa asked incredulously with half lidded eyes.

“That girl took it!” the brown haired girl exclaimed, "I wonder....could she be one of the Grunt Mountain Thieves I've been hearing about?"

"How much did they take?" Theresa asked in concern.

"I only had 500 yen in there..." Asuka answered, looking somewhat downcast. However, that didn't last long as the brown haired clenched her hands into fist and looked up, determination burning in her eyes, "But money is money! And even more importantly, it's my precious allowance!"

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go after her!" Theresa declared before grabbing Asuka's hand and began running after the blue haired thief, dragging the brunette behind her who couldn't help but let out a yelp.

"S-so tight!" Asuka let out, her eyes widened in surprise.

Unfortunately the thief had plenty of time to create a considerable amount of distance between her and the pair of girls.

Fortunately, all the times where Theresa had to run away from the daily monster attacks, as well as surviving coach's green's exercises, Theresa was able to run fast enough to slowly close the distance.

Even with her pulling Asuka behind her, she wasn't slowed down in the slightest.

Of course it didn't hurt that the brown haired girl was able to keep pace with the purplette.

and because of this, it didn't take long for both girls to spot the thief.

*There she is," Theresa shouted as she pointed her finger toward the thief. turning her head to look over her shoulder, the blue haired girl's eyes widened.

"shit," she cursed, before quickening her speed. seeing this the two girls sped up as well.

“Hey, give me back my wallet!” Asuka demanded

"Finder's keepers' buddy!" She yelled as she flipped the bird.

"It was in my friend’s boobs, not on the ground!" Theresa countered as she shook a fist at the thief. The purplette couldn’t help but deadpan as she realized the words that just came out of her mouth.

"You’re the second purple brat who said that to me,” the bluenette shouted back, before quietly adding, “minus the Boob part.”

“Whatever, it's mine now losers," she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a yo-yo, "you snooze you lose bitches."

With that the bluenett threw the yo-yo toward a fruit stand she was running by.

The yo-yo wrapped around one of the stand’s legs, and with a pull the leg was yanked out from it.

Without all four legs to maintain proper balance, the fruit stand toppled forward and spilled its contents onto the pavement…

And in front of Theresa and Asuka’s path.

Both girls' eyes widened in shock at the obstacle now in their path, but were unable to stop before it was too late.

Theresa foot stepped on a banana, crushing it under her weight. The potassium rich fruit made the baton twirler’s foot slip out from under her and she fell to the ground, dragging a surprised busty brunette down with her.

Theresa let out a grunt as her back hit the pavement. Thankfully it didn’t hurt too much. All those times when she was tossed through the air during the usual monster attack made her grow accustomed to impacts many times worse than simply falling to the ground.

However, before Theresa could even think of getting up off the ground, what felt like a pair of large marshmallows smothered her face.

“Ow,” Asuka groaned as she rubbed her head, not noticing that she landed on top of Theresa.

Or the fact that she was also suffocating the baton twirler with her assets.

Instead the burnette looked up, and her eyes widened when she saw how much distance the blue haired thief placed between them, And that she was about to slip into a large crowd.

“Oh no, she's getting away!" asuka exclaimed as she pushed herself off of Theresa. the purple haired girl gasped as she sucked the much appreciated air, her face completely flushed with embarrassment.

POW!

“Huh?” Both girls let out as they witnessed the bluenett being sent flying flat on her back, and near the pair, courtesy of a tan skinned girl…who also had a figure that rivaled of asuka.

“Seriously what do the girls here eat, and can I have some,’ Theresa thought before slapping herself, ‘no Theresa! Bad Theresa! Don’t have those kinds of thoughts!’

“Seriously, you again?” shouted the tan skin girl, “this is like, what, the fifth time this weekend that I caught you pick pocketing! Get a job!”

“Homura-Chan?” Asuka blinked in surprise.

“Oh, You know her?” Theresa asked, her face still flushed, as she tilted her head.

“Huh, oh hey there jugs,” Homura said, also looking surprised, “I didn’t see you there.”

The tan skin girl then looked to be taken aback as she looked down at the downed pair.

Theresa couldn’t help but be confused when the older looking girl began to scratch the back of her head, her expression also looked to be somewhat confused and a bit uncomfortable as a small blush formed on her cheeks.

“Um, what are you two doing,” the tanned girl asked, looking to the side, “and in public for that matter?”

“What,” Theresa let out, confused as to what the girl meant.

It was then that the purple haired freshman realized the position she and the burnett were in.

Theresa was lying on her back with Asuka right on top of her, straddling her waist, leaning forward with her hands on both sides of Theresa’s head after she pushed herself up off the ground.

“Um,” was all Theresa could utter out of her mouth, as she was overcome with embarrassment in being in an awkward position.

It didn't help that the brown haired busty girl simply stared down at her with innocent confusion, apparently unaware of what being in this position usually meant.

If anything…it just made it more awkward.

“You two are idiots,” a familiar voice said, making Theresa blink.

Looking to her right, Theresa saw a girl she only recognized thanks to her glasses and braces.

“Um, what?” Theresa let out, confused by what the band girl meant.

Above her, Asuka merely blinked dumbly just as confused.

“You heard me,” Flute girl said with a scoff as she rolled her eyes, before walking away, “you’re just as bad as Randy and Howard.”

“Okay, rude,” Homura commented, looking at the glasses wearing girl’s back with an unimpressed frown.

Meanwhile, Asuka could only stare at the leaving teen as she tilted her head in befuddlement, trying to understand why she called her and Theresa idiots. As far as the brown haired girl knew, they haven’t done anything that would warrant that kind of attitude.

Could the girl have been referring to how she and Theresa fell to the floor after slipping? That was really the only thing the burnette could think of.

That and the fact Asuka gotten her wallet stolen from literally under her nose.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when an embarrassed voice from below her called out to her.

“Um asuka-sempai,” Theresa said, a small blush forming on her cheeks ,”can you, um, get off me now?”

“Oh, sorry Theresa-chan,” Asuka apologized as she pushed herself onto her feet.

“Here’s your wallet, Jugs,” Homura said as she presented the wallet to the burnette.

“Oh, thank you Homura-chan!” Asuka smiled gratefully as she reached to take back her stolen wallet. Then her eyes opened wide and her smile dropped as what the tanned girl said finally registered in her head.

“Hey I’ve told you not to call me that!” The burnettes shouted in indignation.

The tanned skin girl could only chuckle in amusement as the brown haired girl pouted angrily at her.

Theresa also couldn’t help but giggle at her new friend’s reaction. Thought she still found what the tan skinned girl called asuka kind of rude, especially when her’s are about as bigs as asuka’s.

Though it didn’t seem like the tanned girl said it out of malice, but more as a friendly jab. Kind of like what the boys in ze monster klub would throw around.

“So who are you?” Theresa heard Homura ask her, “Haven’t seen you around here before.”

“Oh, I’m Theresa. I’m from Norrisville,” Theresa introduced with a smile and small wave.

“Norrisville huh?” Homura repeated, muttering to herself.

“So what are you doing here homura-Chan,” Asuka asked as she tilted her head to the side.

“Eh, I’m just picking up some supplies for the headmistress of my school,” Homura explained as she showed the girls the bag she was carrying.

“You’re doing chores for your school’s principal, why?” Theresa asked, confused as to why someone her age would do a job that would usually be done by a school’s staff member.

The tanned skinned merely shrugged her shoulders.

“Beats me, but I can’t exactly say no to her,” Homura explained, her cheek turning red. The tanned skinned girl then shook her back and forth much to both Asuka and Theresa’s surprise before she coughed into her fist.

“Anyway, What's that get up you’re wearing?” Homura asked with a raised eyebrow, as she looked at the purplettes uniform.

“Oh this,” Theresa asked as she grabbed the hem of her baton uniform’s skirt, ”it’s my school’s baton team uniform.”

“Okay,” Homura said, still perplexed, “Why are you wearing it though, you got practice later or something?”

Theresa merely shrugged her shoulders, “no, i just like wearing it is all. I think it looks cute.”

“It does look cute,” Asuka muttered in agreement, “I kind of want to try one on now.”

Theresa couldn’t help but imagine how the busty burnette would look in her school’s baton uniform. Suffice to say, Asuka rocked the look.

“Fair enough I guess, I’ve seen people wear weirder stuff than that,” Homura said, muttering that last part to herself, “anyway, Asuka says you’re from Norrisville right? I take it you’ve seen the Norris shinobi?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?” Theresa asked curiously, but she had a feeling she knew why.

“I just respect him is all and-“

You’re also a fan of his aren’t you?” Theresa asked with a smirk, more a statement than a question.

“you’re also a fan of the Norris clan as well homura-Chan!?” Asuka exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she clasped her hands together in front of her chest.

“Y-yeah you can say that,” Homura replied somewhat embarrassed as she scratched the back of her head, “Though more for his strength then anything really.”

“Oh like he defeated a killer sorpian robot and a giant sausage?'' Asuka asked excitedly, as she bounced on the ball of her foot…and causing her ample breast to bounce.

‘Again, does she even wear a bra?” Theresa thought to herself as she shuffled a bit out of self counsunis.

“A giant sausage?” Homura asked skeptically, a bewildered look on her face.

“Believe it or not, a giant rampaging sausage isn’t the weirdest thing the ninja fought,” Theresa brought up, gaining the older girl’s attention

“Wait, so you also seen the norris shinobi?”

“Yeah, pretty much almost everyday,” the purplette confirmed with a nod of her head, her tone casual, “he actually saved me a few times.”

“Everyday?” Homura questioned, her eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Don’t ask,” Asuka deadpanned.

“So what kind of battle have you seen the Norris shinobi”

Well there was that one time the ninja fought this tentacle monster that grew out of bash’s tongue,

“Wait, what?” Asuka and Homura asked dumbly.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“It’s time for the next round folks!” Hedie announced, as she extravagantly waved her free hand in the air, “up on the block this time is Yomi and Debu.”

At that declaration, Debi watched that Yomi girl walk up onto the stage before taking her seat at the table, followed by that Whale sized girl(?).

The blonde smiled up at the incredibly overweight girl(?) and looked to say something. What she said, Debbie couldn’t hear.

Whatever she said though, The large contestant merely responded by laughing scornfully as she took her seat next to the relatively tiny girl.

Debbie couldn’t help but frown at that. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t help but feel something was up.

However she pushed that feeling to the back of her mind for the moment as she waited for the round to start.

Like the first rounds before, a considerable amount of time has passed and the food the contestant would need to eat hasn't even been announced yet.

Debbie couldn’t help but let out an annoyed groan.

“What is taken them so long this time’ she thought in annoyance

Up on the stage Heidi was nervously tapping her foot as she was at the back of the stage with an annoyed frown on her face.

Behind her both of the contestants were also expressing their annoyance.

The large whale of a contestant had an impatient glare plastered on her chubby face, and was visibly growling as she repeatedly tapped her knuckles on top of the table.

Even from where she stood, Debbie could hear the legs of the table creaking from the force of each tap.

‘Hope her temper isn’t as bad as bash’s,’ Debbie thought with a grimace, remembering all the time her school's resident bully would unleash his anger on anyone and everyone whenever things didn't go his way.

Just thinking about the bully's rampages made Debbie go through pain memories of each of the times she was on the unfortunate receiving end of Bash's beatings.

Next to the large contestant, Yomi was also showing her annoyance at the event planning. Though the blonde still maintained her polite elegant smile, it was obvious at this point that she was straining to maintain it. Especially If the twitching at the corner of her lips was anything to go by.

Eventually the flustered chairman once again scrambles onto the stage, With tears flowing from his eyes similar to waterfalls.

“I’m so sorry everyone!” He apologized as he repeatedly bowed toward the audience, bending his body at a 90% angle, in a rapid manner, “the second round’s food was supposed to be popcorn, but when we opened the boxes. Well…”

As he was explaining, a random worker pushed the cart with the food out onto the stage, and Debbie couldn't help but recoil in disgust at what she saw.

“…it was full of pickled hornet larvae.”

“Okay, ew,” Hedie let out in English, clearly grossed out, “that’s just uber gross.”

“Ah Larvae,” Howard groaned out, his face twisting into a disgusted grimace, “Snasty!”

“What’s the big deal?” Randy asked in confusion with one of his eyebrows raised, apparently not seeing the issue.

“What do you mean “what’s the big deal” Cunningham!?” Howard asked in disbelief at his friend’s words, “don’t you see what we have to eat!?”

“Yeah pickled hornet leaves, my mom serves this at home a bunch of times,” Randy explained as he tilted his head to the side, still not seeing the issue, “they're actually really good."

Debbie Kang couldn’t help but gag when he said that.

“Seriously Cunningham,” Debbie breathout, her tone expressing her disgust.

Both boys looked to be taken aback by the sudden sound of her voice before turning to look at her, their eyes widening in surprise.

“Debbie?” Randy asked, his brow scrunching in confusion, “what are you doing here?”

“And how long have you been standing here kang?” Howard asked in a defensive manner, as his eyes narrowed into a suspicious frown.

At the mention of her name, Debbie noticed Ikaruga and the blonde haired pervert blink before turning to look toward them.

Upon resting their eyes on the young journalist, both the ravenette’s and the energetic girl’s eyes widened.

“Ehhh!” the blonde yelled out as her mouth dropped in both shock and bewilderment, apparently surprised to see the short girl there.

Why the blonde made that reaction, Debbie didn’t know.

Nor did she care as she looked back at the two boys, both of whom were staring at the blonde with confused expression on their faces.

The girl in question noticed the looks she was getting, and let out a nervous chuckle as she rubbed the back of her head.

“Ehehehehe, nice weather we’re having huh?” She asked as she gave a Bashful smile.

“Uh, yeaaaah, yeah it is?” Randy responded, still somewhat weirded out by the blonde’s reaction if his tone was any indication.

Debbie was also sure it was just her imagination, but it. also seemed Randy’s tone also had hints of suspicion in it.

Debbie immediately squashed that last part down.

Randy being suspicious of other people was out of character for the purple haired teen. He was too simple minded, and was a jokester to boot.

“I’m sorry about my friend,” Ikaruga apologized with an embarrassed tone, her gaze subtly focusing on Debbie, before bowing slightly, “she can be…over the top sometimes.”

“Eh, we seen worse,” Howard brushed off with a nonchalant wave of his hand, “one time, there were these two shoobs that barged into the school gym during a basketball game in nothing but speedos and were completely covered in blue body paint and screamed “HELLO NORRISVILLE HIGH!” Or something along those lines, I can’t remember all the details.”

The wavy blond haired girl couldn't help but let out a snort, as she tried to hold back her laughter.

“Oh man! Those guys sound like total dorks!” she said as she chuckled, apparently finding the story amusing.

“That’s what I said at the time!” Howard exclaimed with a smile before letting out a laugh himself.

“Wait, weren't those two shoob u-?” Randy began to say before the shorter teen punched him in the arm.

“OW!” he let out in pain before rubbing the spot where the orange haired boy struck him, all the while glaring down at his best friend in annoyance.

Ikuraga raised an eyebrow in confusion at the brief exchange, while her blond companion was too busy laughing to notice.

The young journalist couldn’t help but roll her eyes in annoyance at what she assumed was Howard’s attempt to try and hit on the two girls.

“Any way,” Debbie let out with an annoyed tone, regaining all four teens’ attention, “I’ve been here the whole time, I’m planning on doing an article covering this eating contest.”

“Why?” Randy asked in both a confused and uncharacteristically cranky tone, “it’s just a dumb eating contest.”

The moment he said that last part, Howard's hand shot up toward the scruff of the taller boy’s shirt, before pulling Randy down toward his eye level.

If looks could kill, Randy would be dead three times over as the shorter orange hair boy glared dagger’s into Randy with an expression that would make an ogre wet their pants.

Cunningham simply rolled his eyes, not all that bothered by the glare he was receiving.

“I'm sorry, i meant that it’s just a small eating contest,” he “corrected” with an exasperated tone, “now can you let go of my shirt?”

Debbie couldn’t help but raise one of her eyebrows, still somewhat taken aback by Randy’s uncharacteristic crankiness.

She figured he was like this due to misplacing the book he was assigned to do a report on, or something along that line, But it was still weird seeing the normally goofy kid act all grumpy.

“Eh, good enough,” Howard grumbled as he let go of the taller boy’s shirt before turning to face away from his friend with his arms crossed over his chest.

Debbie could have sworn she saw traces of concern on the shorter boy’s face, but quickly disregarded that as her imagination.

This was Howard after all. He only cared about himself.

“Well other than the unusually large number of gangs around the city-“

“Seriously, what’s the deal with all these gangs?” Randy asked, confusion plastered on his face, as he scratched the top of his head.

“You got me there buddy,” the blonde replied with a deadpan, her tone exasperated, as she shrugged her shoulders.

The young journalist was annoyed at the interruption, but decided to continue with her explanation.

“-This contest was the only thing that was “interesting” enough to write an article on.

“Well you better prepare to write about yours truly,” Howard declared proudly with his thumb pointing at his chest, before fist pumping with both of his hands as he shouted out, “cause bottomless Wienerman is going to own this competition!”

“And we have a winner,” Heidi's voice suddenly called out, gaining everyone’s attention back toward the stage.

They all saw the orange haired girl lifting Yomi's hand up, declaring her to be the winner of the round.

“That was delicious,” the blonde said with a smile as she waved her free hand.

As for her opponent, the sumo-woman’s face was flushed a deep red as she stomped off the stage.

“Damn it!” she growled out, her fist clenched so tight one can see her knuckles turning white, “this can’t be!”

“Woah, she won!?” Howard exclaimed, surprise evident on his face. It was clear he wasn’t expecting a girl like her to be able to eat all of those larvae.

Debbie couldn’t blame him either, she was just as surprised as well. After all, Yomi didn’t seem like the type of girl you would typically think would enjoy eating bugs, especially with how she carried herself in a refined and dignified manner.

“Next up for block-B is Ikuraga and Randamu,” Hedie announced as Yomi made her way off stage.

“I guess I’m up,” Ikuraga said as she made her way to her seat.

“You go get them Ikaruga," the energetic blonde cheered as she pumped her fist in anticipation, before once again wiggling her fingers in a groping manner, "And maybe when you win this round I’ll reward you with a nice message."

“Again, I refuse,” the ravenette said sharply, without looking back toward her blonde hair friend.

"Who would turn down a nice free message? If someone offered me a free message I would take it!" Howard exclaimed with a confused frown on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

Not even a minute passed before Debbie heard the chubby teen let out a thoughtful hum as he began to rub his chin. A sly smile then popped onto his face, the kind she saw him have whenever he thinks he’s going to get what he wants, before spinning to face his best friend.

"No," the purplette shot down before the shorter boy even opened his mouth, his unimpressed gaze resting on the stage.

The quick response made Debbie let out a “pfft”. Whether out of surprise that the taller teen didn’t do what Howard wanted like he usually does, or just found the way Howard visibly blanched at his friend’s word humorous, Debbie didn’t know.

"but you don't even-"

"I know what you're going to ask, but the answer is still no Howard."

The shorter boy visibly deflated before once again crossing his arms over his chest, grumbling under his breath.

"Hey Kid," the blonde spoke up, gaining the orange haired boy’s attention.

“If you want I could help you get that message you wanted,” the older girl offered as she placed one hand on her hip while pointing her thumb toward her face which had a bright smile plastered on it. Debbie noticed that there was a mischievous glint in the blonde’s emerald eyes, and for some odd reason it annoyed her greatly.

"Really!?" Howard asked with an eager smile on his face, no doubt excited at the prospect of getting a massage from a pretty girl with...more than perfect proportions.

The thought of which made the short girl more annoyed.

"Howard, I don't think she means that kind of message," Randy deadpanned, giving the blonde a wary frown and nudging the shorter teen away from her.

“What?” the blonde asked with a seemingly genuine confused look on her face, though Debbie didn’t really buy it, “I know this guy who gives the best messages, and cheap to boot!”

The shorter girl had to suppress a growl from escaping her lips as she glared at the blonde. She didn't know what the blonde had planned to do with Howard, but considering her behavior with her raven haired friend, Debbie knew it was inappropriate in some way.

Which made Debbie even more annoyed

‘Wait, why would I care what that girl wanted to do with Howard?’ Debbie thought to herself.

After all, she didn't care about the orange haired boy in the least. he was a selfish idiot, who constant idiotic antics only serves to make her find him more annoying each time.

the fact that Howard wrote a story where she fell in love with him only made her find the orange haired boy even more annoying.

Debbie decided to dismiss the thought and instead brought her focus back onto the stage again.

And blinked as she watched as ikuraga consume the larvae without any issue or hints of disgust. If anything the ravenette seemed to be enjoying the dish much like yomi seemingly did. If the fact that the serene looking girl enjoyed eating a bunch of larvae surprised Debbie, seeing a girl who looked like she belonged to a rich family completely shocked her.

‘Seriously who is she,’ Debbie thought, her curiosity regarding the raven haired girl increasing.

Her eyes then shifted over to the perverted girl that the ravenette was friends with. She wanted to get some answers, and see if it could help alleviate the metaphorical itch Debbie had regarding Ikuraga.

While she didn't really want to interact with the blonde, she wanted to get some info about the raven haired girl before talking to the girl in question herself.

“Hey,” Debbie called out, getting the wavy blonde haired girl’s attention.

“Yeah, what up?” she asked as with a curious tilt of her head, her voice relax as she placed her hands behind her head in a nonchalant manner. However Debbie could swear she could see hints of a serious look in the older girl’s eyes.

It could have been just the lighting playing tricks on her, but Debbie couldn’t help but feel the sensation in her gut that usually told her when she was close to having a lead on some kind of scoop.

“I’m curious about Ikaruga,” Debbie said bluntly, getting to the point while at the same time trying to not fall into her whole "journalist" mode (as theresa called it), “what can you tell me about her?”

“Why do you want to know about Ikaraga?” the blonde asked, a small and barely noticeable frown appearing on her face. And Debbie could swear the blonde's tone was slightly defensive, so much so that she would have missed it if she wasn’t looking for those little hints.

‘Interesting,’ Debbie thought to herself, a small smirk forming on her face. The blonde noticed the smile, and her frown deepened slightly.

“I’m just curious is all,” Debbie answered honestly. While yes, the young journalist was curious about Ikuraga, her questions was mainly to help her determine where she recognized the ravenette from. she somewhat doubted any information she learned about Ikuraga was good enough for a scoop.

Maybe if Debbie was like Hiedi or the girl that runs the ladyblog, Debbie would have posted anything and everything she learned about the girl on her paper, even if the info wasn't true.

However the blond subtle defensive tone only made the feeling in Debbie’s gut grow stronger.

‘Maybe she could lead me to a major scoop,‘Debbie thought with a smirk before giving the blonde an (unconvincing) innocent smile.

“I mean she seems like this important person with how she carries herself, and she doesn't seem like the type of person who would participate in these kinds of events,” Debbie explained while shrugging her shoulder and tilting her head to the side, “Yet here she is in an eating contest and doing rather well, might I add.”

“Ikaraga isn’t all that special kid,” the blond said a bit quickly, and somewhat defensively, “I mean sure she’s dignify and disciplined and all that stuff, while having a totally smoking hot body to boot, but she doesn’t have any talent, her grades are pretty average, and no one other than me really interacts with her all that much. Heck, she can't even get a boyfriend.”

“Isn’t that a little bit mean to say about yo-UMPH!” Randy began to say with a raised brow, before Howard cut him off by elbowing him in the gut.

Debbie disregarded the boys’ action and instead focused on questioning the blonde.

“And what about her “brother”, murasame I believe his name was?” Debbie asked, her (not so) innocent smile becoming slightly (significantly) inquisitive, “he seem to have strong feelings regarding her being his "sister"."

“That’s really none of your business kid,” the blonde replied sharply, her tone still defensive, as she crossed her arms over her chest.

It was obvious that the blonde didn’t want to talk, however This only made Debbie want to keep on digging for more information regarding the raven haired girl.

“Come on,” the young journalist pressed, “surely there’s something you can tell me.”

“Well,” the blonde said as she put a finger to her chin in thought, “there is one thing.”

“And that would be?”

The blonde merely smirked, as a low chuckle escaped her lips.

Suddenly Debbie's smile dropped as a sense of unease washed over the young journalist.

and before she knew it, the blonde dashed out of her sight.

Debbie blinked in confusion, before looking around the area wondering where the blond went.

“Don’t tell me she ran awa-eekkk,” Debbie began to mutter, but let out a shriek when she suddenly felt a pair of hands grasping onto her breasts.

“That you got a decent pair of boobs on you despite how tiny you are!” the blonde exclaimed as she fondled the younger girl’s small assets.

Both Randy's and Howard’s eyes widened in both shock and disbelief at the sight before them, completely taken aback by the blatant act of sexual harassment, and in public no less!

“WHAAAAAAA-!”

“THE HONKING JUICE!? Though I can’t say it’s not a nice thing to see.”

Randy stared at his best friend with a deadpan for a moment before smacking the back of the orange haired teen’s head.

“OW!”

Debbie Could only stare down in sheer disbelief at what was happening, her face turning completly red out of pure embarrassment.

That disbelief and embarrassment soon turned into anger and disgust.

With a twist of her torso, Debbie brought her left arm forward, before spinning on her heel and striking the blond in the face with the back of her left elbow.

The force of the blow not only caused the blonde to let go of the smaller teen, but also sent her crashing into the ground head first.

Both boys, and anyone who happened to be watching at the time, flinched when they noticed the cracks appearing from where the girl’s head impacted on the cement.

“Ow,” the wavy haired teen let out a pained groan as she pushed herself up into a sitting position while rubbing the spot where the young journalist struck her, “That’s going to leave a mark.”

“WHAT THE ACTUAL JUICE IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Debbie cried out, using her arms to shield her chest as she placed herself at a distance away from the perverted blonde.

“Hehehehe,” the blonde chuckled pervertedly, a cheeky and lecherous smile plastered on her face as she brought her hands up while making groping gestures with her fingers, “come on it was just a friendly massage, what’s the problem?”

“I’m pretty sure what you just did was sexual harassment,” randy deadpan with a disapproving frown.

“Really? Is that what I did?” The blonde asked as she brought her hands behind her head, Her surprised and confused tone clearly fake.

“IT WAS YOU B*#TCH!”

“Language!”

Both girls blinked in bewilderment, taken aback by the word that was shouted out loud, before slowly turning to look toward the source of the voice.

That source being both randy and howard, the former of whom was giving Debbie Kang a disapproving frown while pointing a finger at her in an exaggerated manner, while the latter was merely facepalming in clear annoyance and embarrassment.

“Dude…Did you seriously just say…language?” The blonde asked with a raised brow, her tone a mixture of genuine disbelief and amusement.

At that, Randy frown dropped as he blinked a few times.

“Well, I, um,” the purple haired boy sputtered out, becoming visibly self conscious as he used the hand he had pointing toward Debbie with to nervously rub the back of his head, “it just sli-”

“That’s not important!” Debbie growled out, causing both boys to jump a bit in fear, before glaring at the still smiling pervert.

“You…” the short girl snarled out, her fist clenched tightly, before stomping on the ground and shouted out, “I AM SO FREAKING PRESSING CHARGES ON YOU, YOU HONKING PERVERT!”

If the blonde girl had any ounce of shame or fear, she didn’t show it, as she merely continued to giggle in a perverted manner.

“Yeesh, you seriously need to chill out before you pop a blood vessel kid,” the blonde said with a shrug of her shoulder. The blond then began to roll onto her back while bringing her knees up toward her (ample) chest (she was also wearing a skirt, so both randy and howard quickly turned their heads away so they wouldn’t accidentally see the blond’s panties), before pushing herself off the ground and kick jumping back onto her feet, “you’re kind of overreacting. All I did was give your boobs some appreciation. Even if they were still on the small side.”

“Why yooooou!” Debbie growled, her glare somehow becoming even more intense. The blond, either not noticing the murderous look or didn’t care, merely gave the shorter girl a large cheeky smile before spinning on her heels.

“Later,” the blonde said with a wave, not even looking back, as she began walking and disappearing into the crowd.

Debbie continue to glare at the section of the crowd where the girl disappeared into.

“Um, Debbie Kang you probably shou-” the young journalist could hear Cunningham beginning to say something. However, whatever the purple haired boy was going to say died in his throat when she directed her glare at him and Howard. Both boys tensed up worried about being on the receiving end of the shorter girl’s wrath.

However the young journalist just let out a growl before turning on her heels and stomping away.

“Well that happened,” Howard muttered under his breath, just loud enough for his friend to hear.

Randy merely nodded his head in agreement as he watched the back of the short girl as she continued to stomp away, a concern frown etched onto his face.