Ahhh, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed last chapter! It was really interesting to read your thoughts and feelings on Raika's bully situation, and even that some of you can relate to it. I'm not sure if you guys get notifications when chapters get updated, so if you do I apologise for the spam - I've been changing the previous chapters to present tense, because I wrote this chapter and annoyingly found that it seems to flow better.

As always, I'd love to hear what you think of it! Reviews are my lifeline. Thank you to everyone who has followed/faved the story, it means a lot to me! Enjoy!

Chapter Six: Lessons in Endurance

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Raika awakes with a scream that sends half a dozen cats scattering to the corners of her room, their reflective eyes glaring back at her from the gloom as she pushes herself into a sitting position.

"Shit," Raika manages around a shaky sigh, running a hand through her hair which catches several knots on its way. She teases them out, carefully, slowly. Her skin feels cold, damp with sweat and uncomfortably sticky against the sheets that have twisted around her during the night.

For a few minutes Raika focuses on nothing more than the physical motions of extracting herself from the bedding, distracting and pushing the dream down into the darkest corners of her mind. Once she is free of the sheets and the nightmare is safely squashed she can think again. She steadies her breathing, reining it back into a steady rhythm.

In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Normal. Everything is normal.

The little short haired brown cat that Raika has taken to calling Midori - because of his bright green eyes - leaps nimbly up onto her bed, nudging her with gentle but insistent headbutts until she relents and scratches behind his ears. His rude awakening apparently forgiven in favour of head scratches.

They aren't summons, these cats, just random felines off the streets – pets and strays – that are, for some reason, drawn to the Tsugaya house. Raika has no idea how they all manage to slink into her room each evening, there are no cat flaps or gaps for them to squeeze through, as far as she knows. They just turn up during the night like fluffy teleporters with fleas.

"Don't think I'll be getting back to sleep again tonight," She tells the cat, who purrs loudly in acknowledgement and flops down into her lap. Raika strokes Modori as her gaze wanders to the clock on her bedside table and she can't stop the loud groan that slips out of her mouth when the display reads four oh four am. "Or this morning, I guess."

There isn't much use in lying in bed and watching the room grow lighter, Raika decides, feeling an uncommon urge to get up and move. A restless body to fit her restless mind.

Midori lets out an indignant meow of protest as she scoops him up and out of her lap, depositing him elsewhere on the bed. Then she swings her legs out over the side of the bed, touches down on the floor for one second, hisses like a pan boiling over, and quickly pulls her legs back under the warmth of the covers. The need for motion overruled in favour of heat, at least for the moment.

Konoha is fucking freezing in the winter.

Raika has had that same thought every morning for the past month or so since November faded and December reared it's ugly head, dragging flurries or snow and biting winds in it's wake. The worst kind of weather, in Raika's opinion.

Give me heat waves and summer sun any day, she thinks.

The good news is that the Academy breaks up for the end of second term in only four days. That means Raika can get away from the pint sized terror that is Gozen, which will be a blessing. She is tired of having to plan her route home to avoid bullies. Tired of hiding whenever she sees them. Tired of the bruises and the hair pulling.

Just tired.

But with the upcoming break she can stay curled up under a mountain of blankets with a stack of books, surrounded by cats, and not have to move until the new year.

Perfect.

The bad news of course, is that she has, in her infinite wisdom, signed herself up for the Kunoichi classes that run over the course of the break; and in doing so has screwed herself out of the chance for a warm, reclusive winter holiday.

Less perfect.

Even worse is the fact that she has missed the previous set of lessons because no one thought to tell her they were a thing. From the show Raika assumed they were mandatory, that the classes would begin later in the year or be offered as an after school club or something of the like. That turned out not to be the case. The sessions were free, all that was required was to sign the entrance sheet and turn up.

Well, at least she hopes they are free.

Hana, being Raika's only real female friend and a native in the Naruto-Verse, had failed to mention attending Kunoichi classes during first break – or ever for that matter. Mugen is absent too much to be of any help in school affairs – he doesn't even know about the bullying she has been suffering though. Not that Raika plans to tell him, half afraid he will give the same useless lines her teachers had. She can accept that from them, but not from her father.

Her mother probably would have -

Tears blur- "I can show you the world! Shining shimmering -"

Midori tilts his head to the side at her outburst, ears twisting, and gives her a look that clearly says she's one sandwich short of a picnic, but Raika ignores him. She isn't going to take sanity lessons from a creature that spent two hours watching dust moats the previous morning.

When she signed up for the classes Raika spent a few minutes badgering Tamiko-sensei -who was the ninja in charge of the classes- and figured out that she had missed an introduction on flower arranging and the properties of various plants native to the land of Fire during their first break.

It isn't a huge problem. During her summers with her father after Hikari's death Raika learned a fair bit about the plants that inhabited her homeland. Would she have liked to have gone to the classes? Sure, but there probably isn't much they could have taught her in Kunoichi lessons that she couldn't have learnt from a book, so it isn't the end of the world.

With another sigh and a gurgle from her stomach, Raika hardens her resolve and once again removes Midori, and Kin – who at some point during her internal musings also decided the bed was warmer than the floor and crept back up- from her lap, and got up.

It takes four steps from Raika's bed to her wardrobe for all the heat in her body to leach out through her feet, setting her teeth chattering as goose bumps prickle across her skin.

Raika notes that by the time she has shrugged out of her pyjamas and tugged on the warmest clothes she owns all of the cats have migrated back to their places on her bed, purring and needing the covers to make themselves more comfortable, sprawled out in the space she has just vacated.

"You guys shouldn't be cold, you've got fur," Raika reminds them as she shivers her way to the door, half debating just getting back into bed even if she won't be able to get to sleep. She shakes her head, knowing it isn't worth the effort of dislodging the cats. "I'm going to get breakfast if anyone is hungry?"

The light grey tom that Raika hasn't named because of the collar he wears -obviously marking him as someone else's - looks up. He watches her for a long second as if debating the idea of food then dismisses her and goes back to licking his paws. None of the other cats even bother to glance in her direction.

"Fine." Raika huffs, ignoring the way her hands shake as she slides the door open and steps out into the cold hall. She makes sure to close it fully behind her – last time it was left open she'd returned to find one of the little furballs had scratched the wooden frame to hell trying to get it closed again.

Even cats don't like draughts, apparently.

Raika heads to the kitchen, her thoughts reaching to latch on to something, anything other than her dream as she ambles through the cold quiet house which is starting to get dusty with it's lack of occupants.

Raika's daily routine sees her visiting only three rooms frequently; her own – which is where she spends most of her time – the kitchen and the bathroom.

The family room is perpetually empty. The Tsugaya clan had been small when Hikari had been with them, without her they made a pathetic family unit, and with Mugen away so much it was really just Raika on her own. Anything she could do in the family room could be done in her room, so the living space fell into disuse.

Mugen's room had been transformed into the central napping centre to another collection of cats - the ones that aren't able to fit on Raika's bed. So his room was slowly filling with cat hair and dust too.

When he returned two weeks past her father had accepted his fluffy room mates without protest and, as he always did during his brief visits home, spent whatever free time was available to him with Raika.

He didn't waste time with cleaning.

He'd gone again. Two days ago now, leaving the house empty of his annoyingly loud laugh along with all the other sounds that people make just by living. She'd started noticing the dripping tap in the kitchen again, and the creaky floorboards, and sound the wind made when it howled around the courtyard.

Raika had long since decided that whoever scheduled when the active shinobi returned to the village has planned it perfectly to fuck up her coping system. When Mugen left he always took Raika's inner peace at being on her own with him. His time between missions paced far enough apart that as soon as she started to reconcile herself to the quiet of the empty house he returns, just long enough to remind her of how isolated she is, then he is off again.

She can't say anything without making her father feel awful – and in fairness there isn't really much he could do - but it is painfully lonely without him. Raika thought she would be fine living on her own – she'd done it before with no trouble – but her social circle had been much larger then, and her family were always within travelling distance.

Here she only has two friends, and Mugen is fighting half a country away.

When her father was home he walked her to school each morning, and home again – not only saving her from any pursuit from Gozen, but giving the two of them time to get reacquainted after his time away. They ate their meals together, went shopping together, trained together, read together and messed around the house together.

Mugen knew her – not all of her, certainly – but he knew about her weird little habits, her quirks and oddities. He knew about her nightmares and her slips. He never overstepped, he knew when something made her uncomfortable, knew how to distract her long enough for it to fade – and when he didn't he waited until it passed on his own.

Her father was easy to be around. Raika didn't need to try and figure out if she was acting right around him or behaving as she should. She was never too much or too little. Mugen didn't care. He accepted her.

It was nice.

She missed him.

Raika rolls her eyes at herself and sidesteps around the thought before something mushy emerges from it. That kind of thinking just makes Mugen's missing presence more pronounced.

Instead she sets about making herself some breakfast - only to have the dream that had ripped her back into consciousness not twenty minutes ago roughly push itself into the front of her brain, half way through pouring the milk into her cereal.

The milk carton slips from her suddenly numb fingers, bounces off the counter and falls to the floor, splattering milk across the red tiles -

Fingers gripped tight on the steering wheel

- Raika shoves the dream away by loudly belting out the first verse of The Wheels on the Bus in between deep, controlled breaths. By the time she gets to the bit about the wipers her head has cleared and the only discomfort she feels is the cold wetness of milk soaking into her socks.

Annoyed that no cats appear to clean up the mess for her, Raika is reminded that she hasn't stumbled into the world of Disney, where singing – admittedly not very good singing – would call a gaggle of woodland creatures to her aid. Raika sighs and digs out a few towels to mop up the mess as best she can, then forces down half a bowl of dry cereal before giving it up as a bad job.

Despite what already feels like a reasonably eventful morning it is still hours before Raika is due to leave for the Academy. She knows she can't return to her room, the lure of a warm, cat covered bed is too strong for her to resist a second time. It's too cold to go for a walk – and much too dark for an almost-six year old to be wondering around alone.

That leaves reading or training or cleaning.

Reading is what Raika always does, and while she isn't quite sick of it yet, it's a close thing. The scroll on chakra enhancement she's currently working her way through is informative, but boring as hell, going into great detail about the benefits and negative effects on re-enforcing the body with chakra – but doesn't tell you how to actually go about doing it.

The training she wants to do involves kicking and punching things over and over, but that will wear her out too much for classes in a few hours. She wants to get stronger, faster - but her body is still too small for proper muscle growth and lacks enough of the hormones to build it. Puberty is a bitch, but it's good for some things.

Chakra training will tire her out just the same, though probably not quite as much – she has been getting more proficient at manipulating her chakra, and each day it comes a little easier, lasts a little longer, grows a little more. Privately she thinks that maybe some time in the not too distant future she might try something a little more interesting than just chakra-glueing random objects to her body.

That leaves the least exciting option: cleaning – and honestly, she doesn't really want to do that either.

As a compromise Raika allows herself a hour of throwing practice, after which she will attempt to spruce the house – starting with the milk that is probably going to make the kitchen tiles a horrible sticky mess.

Plan made Raika changes her socks and adds another few layers of clothing for good measure. Then she heads out to the courtyard, flicking on the outside lights as she goes in an attempt to beat back the early morning gloom. Struggling for a few minutes she manages to drag out one of Mugen's targets and the blunted set of kunai her father had told her that, under no circumstances was she to use unless there was an adult to supervise.

She shrugs the warning off. It's a minor technicality anyway, since she still considers herself to be at least half an adult.

Target set up at one end of the courtyard with Raika standing at the other she drops into a wider stance and grips the handle of the kunai like Seichi-sensei taught them. Visualising the technique in her mind; fingers curled in a hammer grip, the angle of the arm, the motion of the wrist, the force of the throw.

Raika positions herself into a perfect imitation of her teacher and draws her arm back. Two deep breaths. She snaps her arm forward again and lets the knife fly, expectation building in her chest only to drop heavily into her stomach a moment later when the kunai flops lamely to the ground two feet shy of the target.

"Hmm," Raika lets out, frowning at the kunai she'd thrown. She kisses her teeth and snatches up another one, weighing it in her hand for a moment. The first was bound to be bad, she thinks, second time lucky, right?

With that thought at the forefront of her mind Raika draws her arm back again and lets the second kunai go.

….

The allotted time of one hour stretches to two, which Raika fills by angrily throwing kunai – the majority of which dot the outer rings of the target or have missed completely- over and over again, getting more and more frustrated while spewing curses like a drunkard after a heavy night out.

She refuses to give up until she hits the centre, trudging back and forwards to collect her weapons then returning to her spot to loose them all again. After another half an hour of trying, one of her kunai nicks the inner ring, which Raika decides is as good as she is going to get unless she is prepared to stay here all day.

Which she isn't.

So Raika gathers up the kunai for a final time and settles them back into their box – pointedly ignoring the one that has somehow wedged itself into the support beam that runs below the roof tiles. If Mugen asks how it got there she would plaster on her best confused expression and plead ignorance.

Raika picks up the clothes she shucked off during her intense bout of throwing and manhandles the target back into the storage cupboard, grunting with effort, then returning to the kitchen.

The clock on the wall reads seven twenty two.

As predicted the milk Raika spilt over the floor tacks her feet to the tiles and she silently laments the second change in socks she can see in her not too distant future. More washing to add to the already growing pile.

Still, once the floor is properly mopped and left to dry there really isn't enough time for her to do any more cleaning – which is a terrible shame, really – and still get ready for school.

Raika makes her lunch, has a quick wash and returns to her room for new socks and to pick up her bag. The cats, she sees, have not moved from when she was last in here.

"I'll see you guys later," She tells them, balancing to put on her socks since all the places she would normally have perched are filled with furry sleeping bodies. Kin flicks in ear in acknowledgement, the grey tom twitches his tail and Masa yawns with an air of disinterest. "I've put food out in the kitchen for when you decide to get your lazy asses up. Try not to rip up my door again please."

Predictably, they ignore her, dozing peacefully on the covers and probably wishing she would just leave already so they can sleep undisturbed.

Raika decides to do just that and hurries to the door, tugging on her coat and a pair of gloves against the cold. With her rucksack slung over one shoulder Raika steps out of the front door and closes it firmly behind her.

A lungful of cold morning air makes her feel light headed, and she swears she can almost feel the cold and hot battling inside of her. Raika walks the short stone path that leads from the door to the street, idly noting the weeds sneaking up through the cracked stone.

Without Mugen the garden has been mostly left to its own devices. The grass growing almost to ankle height now, bogged down in places by smatterings of snow though most of it is still standing defiantly, waiting for a heavier frost or a determined lawnmower to cut it down.

Both of Raika's thumbs are distinctly ungreen and always have been, but it looks as if the gardening is going to become her responsibility while Mugen is away. And probably when he's around too, just to give him a bit of extra free time.

With a huff of acceptance tinged with annoyance Raika steps out onto the street, trying to decide if it's worth tackling when she gets home or leaving for the first day of winter break where she can tame the wilderness at her leisure.

The strange prickling sensation across her back, like someone has just run an ice cube down her spine, is the only warning she gets that things aren't Quite Right. The next second someone has grabbed a fistful of her hair, shoving her head forward at the same time her legs are kicked out from beneath her.

Her backpack slips off her shoulder and drops to the ground with a dull thud. Raika follows it down, harder, and hits the ground face first. She lays there, dazed, as familiar mocking laughter erupts around her. Pain slowly blossoms across her face and she stares blankly down at the snow, inches from her face.

No. No no no no no.

Home is supposed to be safe. That is the unspoken rule, they can pick on her everywhere else but at home she is free of them. Why had that changed? Why now?

Raika feels something warm and wet slip down the small stretch is skin that separates her nose and mouth, then tastes copper.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Your dad didn't pick you up from school yesterday," Gozen's voice says conversationally from somewhere above and a little to the left. Raika hears the words, but she is too busy worrying over the little drops of red that are soaking into the snow packed road below her. "He's left again, hasn't he?"

It didn't require an answer.

Mugen always took Raika to and from school when he was off missions, using the twenty minute walk to chat about mundane things that they wouldn't have bothered to talk about if they didn't need the normality of it.

Raika had mistakenly hoped that the two weeks her father had been home to escort her during the school run would be enough for Gozen and his group to grow tired of her. She was out of reach while Mugen was there, surely they would have found someone else to pick on in that time?

Apparently not. Wishful thinking was going to be the death of her – the second death of her, she supposed. The red droplets start falling faster -

Lying broken, half in

-"Can't say I blame him," Gozen continues, his voice moving around her, circling like a shark scenting blood in the water. "Having a stupid cry-baby like you for a daughter."

Part of Raika resents that comment -not because she thinks it's true. She knows her father loves her – but because she has never cried in front of Gozen. Has strictly forbidden herself from doing so because she is a damn adult and he is just a pint sized dick.

The rest of her is still watching the blood -

The bite of glass and twisted metal around her stomach

-"Hey! Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said-" Gozen pauses his one sided conversation to squat down beside her, his horrible little fingers tangling in her hair like spider legs so he can jerk her head up to look at him. She sees the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes when they land on the stream of red, now running down over her lips and dripping off her chin. He's never made her bleed before.

Good, she thinks, and wonders if he's ever been scared of anything in his life.

They stay like that for several long seconds, watching each other.

"Gozen?" One of his friends questions from Raika's other side, snapping the older boy out of his shock.

"I said did you miss me?" Gozen demands, whatever hesitation he felt at the sight of the blood streaming down her face gone in the wake of her silence. His grip on her hair tightens, pulling her scalp painfully. "Don't worry! We've got plenty of time to catch up."

Raika feels the cold start to seep in through her clothes and fear oozes in with it.

Not fear at Gozen, to her surprise. He's just a prepubescent shit stain high off his own power. He didn't scare her, she told herself, she'd seen worse things than him in the world.

What scared her was the intense rage coiling in her stomach, a serpent twisting in her gut and spitting venom. Suddenly she wants to beat the shit out of him. Break bones, rip skin, tear and rend and destroy and hurt him. Spiteful little prick that he is. He deserves worse. Doesn't he know what she's been through already? What is he compared to the cold, dark embra-

eyes glazed, a haze of pain, limbs twitching

-It bubbled up inside of her along with the desire to wrench her head out of his hands – no matter how much hair he tears from her scalp in the effort – and spit in his face. The saliva gathering in her mouth as she thinks it, ready.

Raika swallows it down along with the anger. Violence isn't the answer.

Well, it probably is, she admits, just not right at that moment.

She's in a bad position, lying face down on the floor with Gozen and two of his buddies – Hoji and Shigeru if she has to guess – standing around her. There aren't any other people on the street that she knows of, and even if there are Raika thinks they're unlikely to step in and help.

Maybe, maybe she can get off a few shots, purely out of surprise, but nothing that will incapacitate the little cock wombles long enough for her to get away.

It's the same thing she's gone over a hundred times before.

When she decides to try fighting back at Gozen it will have to be in a place with lots of people, where someone will step in before any lasting damage was caused. That is not today, Raika tells herself firmly. Soon, hopefully, but not now.

She'd needs the element of surprise, like Gozen had today. Raika knows she'll only get the one chance. She needs to hurt him enough to prove she is now a threat, no longer easy prey to be picked on and that wasn't true today. She isn't strong enough, not yet.

Which was all well and good but it didn't help her now, still hugging the ground with a steady stream of blood running down the lower half of her face while Gozen shakes her head about like a demented puppeteer.

"Let go," She manages, though to her ears it sounds more like 'leb gyo'. Raika wonders briefly if she has broken her nose, but surely it would hurt more? She'd never broken anything before – well not until the very end, where she had probably broken a lot of things-

Laboured breaths

- "I said, let go." Raika repeats and again it sounds like she has something wadded up in her mouth. Gozen doesn't listen, if anything his grip grows tighter.

"Or what?" He demands with a sneer.

And isn't that a good question?

Luckily Raika is saved from having to try to back up her words with action when an elderly voice calls out, "What's going on over there?"

Raika recognises it as Kojima-sans voice, wavering with age and whistling through the gap where her teeth had once been. At this distance the old woman probably can't even tell that it's Raika lying on the cold floor, her eyesight is that bad.

Gozen releases her and stands up quickly, his foot flicking out to catch her in the ribs as he does so. Raika grunts at the contact but doesn't waste any time in pushing to her hands and knees to get off the cold floor. Blood drips slowly from her nose as she turns her head to confirm that yes, it is Kojima-san, and no, from the elderly woman's place by her garden gate she won't be able to distinguish Raika.

"Nothing, Obaa-san!" Hoji calls out, waving jovially as if he and his friends are just out for a morning walk instead of being complete little ass weasels.

"Shouldn't you be in school by now?" Kojima-san asks, sounding suspicious. She fumbles with the latch of her gate, planning on coming out to confront the little group face-to-face to see what's going on.

Raika really doesn't want that to happen. It's embarrassing enough that she's being bullied in the first place, there's no need to let her elderly neighbour see it happening.

"Yes, we're just helping our friend up!" Hoji continues, still sounding like a well mannered youth instead of the awful nutsack Raika knows him to be.

"She slipped on some ice," Gozen adds, then laughs like it's all an amusing accident. He leans over and grabs Raika around her fairly unimpressive bicep, his short, stubby fingers digging into her flesh. "Come on or we're going to be late!"

He drags her half way to a standing position, and Raika lets him. But as soon as she has her feet under her she twists away from his grip and sidesteps around him.

Gozen yelps in surprise – an amusing sound at any other time- and makes a grab for her again. Raika feels his fingers ghost through her hair, sliding through the tips as she whips forward, itching to get away. But like so many other times before when Raika thinks she's gotten away, his hand closes around the collar of her coat, trapping several strands of hair in the process.

It brings her to an abrupt stop, or would have if she didn't shrug out of her jacket, ripping free of Gozen's grip with a painful twinge at the back of her head.

He gives another shout but she ignores it, stumbling away.

Raika stoops to grab up her bag, misses the strap and promptly decides fuck it. It doesn't matter, she just wants to get away.

Sprinting off, leaving Gozen and his friends staring after her, a clump of her hair and her jacket dangling limply from his hand, feels good. It feels like freedom.

But that can't be the end of it, of course. Once Raika makes it to the end of the street, puffing from the effort of breaking into a dead sprint from standing, she chances a look over her shoulder and is dismayed but unsurprised to see the three boys giving chase, her bag and coat left discarded in the middle of the road with Kojima-san hobbling her way over to take a look.

The old woman will probably recognise Raika's things, which is both a blessing and a curse. Trusting Kojima-san to keep her possessions safe is better than the alternative, but it will also mean Raika has to go and collect it later, leaving herself open to an interrogation that will likely put the future Ibiki to shame.

A problem for another time, Raika decides as Gozen, Hoji and Shigeru barrel towards her. She turns on her heel and flees, bolting down a side road that is empty of all life except one optimistic bird, pecking away at the snow dusted ground.

Raika sprints down a second alley, leaping a frozen puddle, then another, then back onto the main street that will lead out of the residential district and into the market place.

It's busy, first thing in the morning.

Raika twists and swerves around civilians, blood streaming down her face where it drips onto her t-shirt, staining it red. She doesn't need to look back to know that the boys are still following – they're bigger and slower, not quite as good at moving in a crowd as she is, but they are determined, and noisy.

The market goers complain loudly as her pursuers crash and bash their way through the busy streets. Shouting follows Raika as she ducks down an alley and bombs it to the end, glancing back to see if she is still being followed.

She is.

With a curse Raika turns and is off again, pressing a gloved hand to her face to try and stop her nose from bleeding. It doesn't work. All she ends up doing is repeatedly punching herself in the face as her arm follows through with the motion of her run.

She lets her hand drop and tries a different tactic.

Tipping her head back to stem the flow of blood turns out to be even worse. Not only does it limit her vision – which is not helpful when trying to run away, especially on icy roads – but it also allows the blood to trickle down the back of her throat.

Raika gags as a blood clot slides into her mouth, warm and slimy against her tonsils. She snaps her head forward and coughs, almost losing her footing. She hacks it up like a cat with a hairball and hocks it to the side of the road, hoping that maybe one of her pursuers will slip on it and go head first into a fence.

Gross, sure, but extremely satisfying.

Unfortunately when Raika next takes a flying look over her shoulder the trio are still hot on her heels, none of them having fallen on her bloody phlegm wad, sadly. Even more disappointing, they are gaining on her.

In a flat sprint Raika knows she is faster than any of her classmates, but her stamina isn't as good, her muscles not as strong. If she keeps trying to out run them she's just going to get tired, and eventually they will catch up.

What Gozen and his friends will do when they wore her down is still a mystery, she doubts even they have thought that far ahead. Clearly they have nothing better to do than chase after her – school included, which Raika theorises had started almost five minutes ago.

Not wanting to give them the chance, Raika switches tactics again and, grabbing a passing street light, throws herself down another side street which will lead back onto the main road, where she plans to try losing them in the crowd again.

She skids only slightly on her landing, then actually slips but manages to turn it into a forward roll from which she comes up running again. Raika squashes down the little wave of annoyance at the fact no one she actually likes was there to see it because damn, that had been cool.

Bursting out of the alley way Raika almost collides with a young woman, who leaps out of the way just in time to avoid having a five year old child smeared across her legs. Raika dodges left at the same time, scrabbled to avoid two men carrying crates of fish and, with a hasty apology to the red haired lady, sprints off again, booking it down an annoyingly less busy street.

Four seconds later there is a resounding crash and a roar of anger that echoes around the confines of the street, turning heads from every stall and doorway. Raika is a little too curious to ignore it completely. She flashes a look over her shoulder and snorts back a laugh, watching for a second as Gozen, Hoji and Shigeru try to untangle themselves from a heap on the floor, surrounded by fish and some very angry merchants.

She might have grinned, if she isn't almost completely sure she will be paying for the incident later. Not that it's her fault – if they hadn't been chasing her in the first place it wouldn't have happened, but Gozen wasn't likely to see it that way.

With that thought in mind Raika decides to put a bit more distance between herself and the boys, just in case they manage to get away from the merchants quicker than expected.

Raika runs down an alley and flips herself over the fence at the end in a feat of agility that would have floored her previous self. She lands in a snow speckled work yard and hurries across, shooting a glance at the businesses closed doors before scrabbling up the opposite fence as quickly as she can. It would be just her luck to get caught sneaking through by the owner and lose her head start.

No one stops her though. In fact no one pays any attention to her as she leaps another fence, crawls under a wire panel and scurries down another alley.

Jogging past two dumpsters and puffing hard, Raika backtracks and wedges herself in between them, wriggling down until she is tucked safely out of sight. She thinks – hopes- that she has moved far enough away from the collision site that Gozen and his friends won't be able to catch up to her.

As far as she knows none of them have any particular skills in tracking and at that thought she frowns, huffing out deep breaths that ghost as little clouds in front of her.

It's a really good thing that none of her classmates are trackers, she thinks, because if one of them had been an Inuzuka they would have found her with no trouble. Raika wipes a hand under her nose which comes away red – she's still bleeding, and has probably left a trail.

Shifting uneasily, Raika debates trying to stop the nosebleed and running again. The very thought of dragging herself out from between the dumpsters and jogging for another ten minutes to throw them off makes her feel weak though. With a gloved hand pinching the bridge of her nose Raika decides it isn't worth it. She's too tired, she doesn't want to run any more – and what are the chances any of them will be able to track such small drops of blood?

Almost zero, considering they are Genin level.

She scoots back and hears a loud crack that almost sends her running from her cover in fear, only to realise it's ice under her feet. Blinking, Raika glances down between her legs and amends that thought. It isn't ice she's standing on, it's glass. It looks as if someone has accidentally smashed an entire window – either that or they have been entirely too enthusiastic with their recycling.

Frowning, Raika nudges a few pieces with her boot then cautiously picks up a shard, it's edge like a razor. The last time she'd seen this much smashed glass had been when -

Cold earth against her cheek - "One, two, three, four, five, everybody in the club so come on-"

The glass digs into her palm but Raika barely feels it, her mind whirring for something, anything to distract it as mumbled song lyrics tumbling from her lips.

It still wasn't enough. She needed more.

Grasping, Raika thinks about Gozen and his stupid face. She thinks about how when he sneers, his nose scrunches up and his eyes turn into little slits like second eyebrows, just below the normal ones. She thinks about how he can't pronounce is 's's properly. About how that bruise he gave her before her father came home has only just started to fade. She thinks about the way his hands feel, clawing and grabbing at her hair, pulling and tearing.

Hair, hair, hair. Always the hair. Always just that little bit-

Raika turns the shard of glass carefully in her hands, ignoring the lines of red across her palm and the fleshy first joints of her fingers that are beading blood.

An idea worms it's way into her head.

With a blink she moves her hand away from her nose, sniffs experimentally around the weight of another partially formed blood clot and grabs a handful of hair. Raika brings the glass up and presses the sharpest edge – the side that has sliced her palm – against the taut hair. A few blue strands drop limply over her clenched fist, easily cut.

She pushes harder and more hair falls, severed.

Raika moves the glass back and forth, watching as it works it's way through the lump of hair. Once she has finished with that piece she grabs another handful, hacking away so that short clumps of blue litter her shoulders and chest.

She's too distracted to notice the new person walking purposefully to the mouth of the alley way. Too intent on keeping her thoughts free, her mind occupied, to realise the stranger is walking towards her hiding place, stopping just shy of the gap she has wedged herself into.

Raika is too engrossed to feel the shadow that falls over her.

And that is how the third event that changes her life finds her; crouching between two dumpsters, sawing off chunks of her own hair with a piece of broken glass, quietly mumbling Mambo Number Five under her breath.

Yikes! Hope you guys like the chapter, I actually had a lot of fun writing this one, which is probably not a good thing considering most of it is of my main character getting her ass kicked.

As always please follow/fave/review as you see fit. Until next time, much love.