"SHIT!"
Hikari cursed to herself between tightly clenched teeth.
Something that she very rarely did, even in her anger.
The voice came again, this time from her right, and a lot closer.
Hikari figured that he was about three yards away and behind a large oak tree.
"This is no joke, little one."
It started.
The voice was young but seemed to be at least several years older than Hikari —maybe 17 or 18, she assumed.
"Where is the boy?"
It asked calmly.
By now, she could tell that it was a boy, a young man even.
And by the sound of his voice, he was wearing a mask.
"Who wants to know!?"
Hikari demanded, trying to sound as intimidating as she could at the moment.
"My name is irrelevant."
The young man responded.
"Please. I don't want to kill you, but if you will not tell me where I can find the boy, I will have no choice but to find someone who will."
The bold words hit Hikari like a brick wall.
She swallowed hard and tightened the grip on her sword just a bit more, shifting her feet into a more comfortable stance.
She eyed the tree and tried to measure how much strength she'd have to exert in order to cut through it, and him.
She had her plan, and now it was time to put it to the test.
"Look, man..."
She began.
"I don't know who you are talking about, so I'd advise you to leave while you're still in one piece."
The threat wasn't idle, but it wasn't meant as a warning either.
Hikari saw it this way: The more she could agitate him, the more he'd get pissed.
The more pissed off a guy was, the greater amount of body heat he would put out.
With that in place, she'd have him in the bag.
The character behind the tree did shift a bit, but he didn't leave, which, to Hikari, was a sign that he had just drawn a weapon, though what type it was, she didn't know, but she really wished that she did.
"Well..."
She said as she bent low on the branch in a crouching position.
"Here goes nothing."
In the blink of an eye, Hikari shot forward towards the tree at full speed.
She would need as much speed as she could get in order to save as much energy as possible after the attack.
Just in case.
At about a yard from the tree, she cocked back her sword as far as she could and swung as hard as her body would let her.
Success.
Upon contact, her blade seemed to slice through the four-foot-thick trunk of the great oak as if it were naught but grass.
The battle was on.
Hikari fell to one knee and slid to a stop several yards from the tree.
At a glance, she could see a thin line of bright red blood smeared across her blade.
"Huh, easy enough."
She breathed to herself, but the cockiness caused her to forget the first rule that her aunt had taught her: Always confirm the kill.
Suddenly, a chill ran up Hikari's spine, which is a huge deal, seeing that her element is ice.
"What the!?"
She exclaimed as she spun on her heels to face the unknown foe.
Luckily, as she did so, she also raised her sword up just in time to block the trio of shuriken that were expertly thrown her way.
"Impossible!"
She thought aloud.
"I know I hit him! I had to have hit him!"
And she was right.
Hikari had hit him, but the "him" that she had hit wasn't the real one.
As she stood dumbfounded, staring at the man whose back was still to the tree (which began to tilt dangerously in her direction), the darkly-dressed figure stepped out of the shadow that the tree was casting and gave a slight chuckle as he disintegrated.
"What the hell? A doppelganger!"
The real fight was on.
Just seconds after the copied ninja had disappeared, the real one fell from the sky above her head.
Luckily for Hikari, her reaction time was just quick enough for her to raise her five-pound sword and block the attack in the blink of an eye.
The unknown man's sword pressed against Hikari's as he was temporarily suspended in midair directly above her.
"Impressive."
He taunted her before he flipped forward, landing a swift kick to her back, causing Hikari to stumble forward and drop her sword.
"Dammit!"
She thought to herself as she watched her sword fall to the ground in what seemed like slow motion,
"He's fast!"
Was the last thought that flew through her head as the first of four shuriken thrown her way made contact with her left shoulder, slicing it open with a sickening ripping noise.
Thinking on her toes, Hikari quickly summoned a thick wall of ice from the moisture in the air, and a split-second later, three soft thuds signified the deflection of the other three knives.
"You're good..."
The mysterious man said from somewhere above Hikari's head.
"But I am done playing... Where is the boy? I will only ask this one last time."
Hikari was irritated.
Not only had she been caught off guard, but she had taken damage!
Two things that had not happened since she had completed her training with Ivy.
She had won over 200 battles up until now, with naught a single scratch on her flesh.
"This guy is tough!"
She thought to herself as she concentrated on the temperature around her right hand, dropping it directly.
"But I can't give in...who is he talking about anyway? Bastion? Or that Himora kid?"
As if he had read her mind, the shadowy figure dropped from the tree, not 10 feet from her, and pointed his sword toward her.
"His name is Bastion... You saved him from the pixies back at the gate."
Hikari grew slightly more irritated.
"And just who the hell are you that I should want to tell you!?"
She spat his way, flinching as warm blood dripped down her left arm, then froze as it touched her wrist.
Her sudden outburst seemed to catch the Shinobi off guard, for she noticed his right hand tighten its grip on the handle of his long, slender sword. Maybe her resistance was finally getting to the man.
Maybe not.
But whatever it was, Hikari was going to try her best to push him to his limit.
It was time to unleash her special ability, an attack which Ivy had affectionately named "Slip-walking".
Hikari's Slip-walking ability allowed her to zero in on the waves of an enemy's body heat, and move at lightspeed between them.
With this technique, her speed jumped almost tenfold, and her opponent rarely saw her move in for the kill.
She figured that by the time her ice darts were in his back, it would be too late for him to even think about counterattacking.
She took a step forward.
"Ah, ah, ah."
The man said as he took a step back away from the girl.
"Please...do not force my hand. I don't want to kill you. Just tell me where the boy is already, and you can keep your life."
Hikari took his hesitation as an incentive.
Maybe she could taunt him a bit, raise his temperature a bit more.
The more heat he put out, the more she had to work with.
"What are you afraid of? Little-ol' me?"
She said in a playful, high-pitched voice.
"I didn't think Shinobi were such cowards. HA! I don't see why you guys are so forbidden! I'm just a kid, and I can take you alone!"
In truth, Hikari was scared out of her mind, but she wouldn't show it.
In her mind, she had seen herself as stronger than Bastion, as she had rather easily dislodged him from her ice sheet, and a better swordsman than Himora based on how he had fought the pixies.
If SHE didn't stop this man here, then who would?
She took another step forward.
"Forget it, man. I'd never tell you even if I knew. You're gonna have to kill me."
That didn't sit well with the hired assassin.
"Tis, tis...as you wish."
The man said as he bent his knees and shot toward her at top speed.
"Perfect."
She thought to herself.
"As close as I need you to be!"
The Shinobi swung his sword as hard as he could, swiftly taking off Hikari's head.
Or so he thought.
In the blink of an eye, she was gone.