"Where's our room?" Hinata gasped as she pretended to struggle with the weight of a completely insensate Ayaka Yukihiro. The unconscious girl was thrown over her shoulder like a sack of grain, her arms dangling loosely as her face smacked into Hinata's lower back every time she took a step.

"Mmmnegi..." Ayaka murmured drunkenly. Hinata fought against the overpowering urge to just drop the poor girl in the hotel lobby and leave her there overnight to sleep it off. While Hinata's huffs and puffs of exertion were mostly just a ruse to hide her unnatural strength, the muscles in her arms were still beginning to burn due to the awkward way she had to carry Ayaka.

Idiot! she berated herself. How could you not have seen this coming?!

Zazie, who was carrying another intoxicated student and seemed to feel no need to pretend the weight was a burden, gestured wordlessly up the stairs to the second floor of the hotel. Hinata groaned when she realized she would have to somehow negotiate a flight of stairs with half of her vision obscured by Ayaka's rump.

To be fair to herself, although she had kept an eye out for serious threats throughout the day, she could never have been fully prepared for the sheer absurdity that befell her classmates on their very first day in Kyoto.

Lesson learned, she told herself.

With a sigh, she began to climb the stairs, pretending to grunt with effort. Zazie and several other students, all with their own burdens, climbed after her.

Bloodlines
Chapter 6: Suspicion

The trip began well, at least. After Negi had taken attendance and reassigned the three present members of group six to other groups, the train departed without incident.

"All right! I'm going to cast 'Spell of Flames' on you for five points!"

"Awww, you got me! I'm dead!"

Hinata relaxed in her surprisingly comfortable seat and yawned as she tuned out the background noise of chattering students playing some kind of card game. The cushioned chair, combined with the gentle, rhythmic motion of the train, was already beginning to lull her to sleep. She shook her head in an attempt to clear out the fog.

I have a job to do, after all, she thought to herself. The Dean had seemed certain that elements of the Kansai Magic Association—which was based in Kyoto—would be out for blood. She was supposed to guard the students of Class 3-A in case of an attack. She hadn't served as a protector for a very long time, but she still managed to slip into the familiar role with ease as she began to look around, examining potential avenues of attack.

"A group is most vulnerable when traveling," she murmured under her breath, so quietly that even Zazie, dozing next to her, didn't stir. "The likelihood of an attack from outside the train..." she glanced at the blurred scenery flashing by her window and smiled, "...is almost nil. Why fight your way onto a train traveling at this speed when you could just be on board from the start? So, next..."

She glanced around the train carriage. Other than Negi and her classmates, there was nobody else present. She frowned at the students she had noticed watching her earlier, but shook her head after a moment. It was obvious by now that the Dean had ordered them to do so, which meant he trusted them. They likely weren't a threat, either.

Next came the teachers. Negi, as a potential target, was out. The others...unlikely. If Konoka was a target as well, they'd had plenty of opportunities to nab her at the school before now.

No, if an attack came, it would come from another passenger, one not hailing from Mahora Academy.

Unfortunately, there was little else she could do to prepare at the moment. Despite having narrowed down possible enemies, she still had no idea what form an attack might take. While the Dean had explained some of what Mages could do, he hadn't gone into great detail. For all she knew, an enemy Mage might just blow the train clear off the tracks! At the speed they were travelling...it wouldn't be pretty.

And then there were the more conventional methods of attack...

"Stop it," she ordered herself. "Stop worrying about things you can't control."

She hated not being able to plan ahead. Battle plans rarely survived first contact with the enemy, but it would still be nice to actually have a plan. Was that too much to—

"KYAAAHHH!"

Hinata spun towards the sound of a scream, her head turning so fast that her neck cracked in protest, and saw a...

"F-FROG?!" another student exclaimed.

Sure enough, it was a frog. Wait...two frogs. No, three. Four. Five. Ten. Fifty?! They were multiplying so fast that she quickly lost count.

Hinata was stunned into silence as the rest of her classmates erupted into screaming chaos.

"Is this...some kind of attack?" she finally muttered in disbelief.

The croaking alone was deafening. The screaming of her classmates just added to the cacophony. As more and more frogs leaped out of every available cubbyhole, backpack, and container, the screaming escalated further.

Negi was the first to recover his senses. He dropped to his knees and began trying to gather up the frogs hopping all over the floor. Hinata's classmate Asuna followed suit, and Hinata was quick to join them.

"What are all these frogs doing here?!" Negi exclaimed as he frantically started shoving said frogs in the closest available bag.

"I dunno! They just appeared out of nowhere!" Asuna replied over her classmates' loud screams.

Seeing other students begin to calm down and help catch the horde of frogs, Hinata backed off and returned to her seat, though she paused before sitting down.

It's a distraction!

Sure enough, she saw Negi reach frantically into his suit jacket and pull out an envelope with a sigh of relief. He said something to a small, white ermine riding on his shoulder. Hinata wondered briefly if the creature was some kind of summoned animal, before her thoughts returned to more pressing manners. Konoemon had explained the details of Negi's diplomatic mission to her shortly after she'd accepted his conditions. Apparently he had to deliver that letter to the head of the Kansai Magic Association in order to bring about an end to hostilities between them and the Kantou Magic Association.

Hinata lunged towards him, already drawing in breath to shout a warning, but it was too late. The words stuck in her throat as the letter vanished from his hand!

Immediately she turned and saw what looked like some kind of bird already half-way down the aisle towards the next carriage. It held the letter in its beak.

"Oh no you don't!" she growled as she took off after it, forcing Chakra into her feet to shoot forward with such speed that Negi, who had turned just in time to catch a glimpse of the bird in the corner of his eye, completely missed her.

The bird was fast, and somehow speeding up without even flapping its wings. The envelope, massive in comparison to the tiny bird, didn't seem to hinder it at all. It flew straight and true, and so fast that even Hinata's Chakra-boosted speed wasn't quite enough to catch up.

I'm still low on Chakra, she thought as she chased the bird. Her diminished reserves were already beginning to run dry, but she pushed more Chakra down her legs anyway, leaping toward the bird—

Her instincts screamed! She ducked just in time to dodge the swipe of a sword that would have easily separated her head from her neck. Abruptly planting her feet, she changed direction to dodge behind an obstacle she was moving too fast to see, then used the last of her Chakra to glue her feet to the floor and stop on a dime. Hinata took a moment to look around, realizing that she was standing near a door on the side of the train, with a thin partition between her and the rest of the carriage. Then she looked down, and saw the severed halves of what appeared to be a paper cut-out of a bird, with the envelope lying on the floor next to it.

She also saw the shoes of her attacker. She silently backed further into the corner and crouched behind the wall, hoping she wouldn't be seen as she peeked around the corner.

Setsuna?!

Setsuna Sakurazaki re-sheathed her long blade and bent to pick up the envelope. She frowned as she looked at it, and then straightened just in time to confront a huffing and puffing Negi, who had also been chasing the bird.

"Um..." she murmured hesitantly, "You dropped this." She held out the letter to the child teacher.

Negi thanked Setsuna profusely, but when Setsuna waved it off and left to rejoin her classmates, the ermine on his shoulder started to whisper something in his ear. Hinata closed her eyes and focused, shutting out the background noise of the train so she could try to hear what the creature was saying.

"...suspicious as hell! You'd better keep your eye on her!"

"Eh?" Negi sounded confused. "What do you mean?"

"Just look down, brother!" Brother? Hinata wondered silently as the ermine pointed down at the remains of the paper bird on the floor. "That's the bird from before. She must have been the one controlling it!"

As the two of them moved away, Hinata frowned. The ermine's theory didn't seem right. For one thing, Setsuna could have easily absconded with the letter—or destroyed it entirely—long before Negi even showed up. Instead, she had waited for him, and returned the letter when he arrived. And what kind of amateur would have to destroy their...whatever that paper bird was, by slicing it in half?

No, the pieces just don't fit, Hinata decided.

But if Setsuna wasn't behind the attack...who was?

"KYOTO!"

"This must be the place where you jump off! I've heard of this!"

"Really?! Someone try jumping off!"

"I'll do it!"

"Stop that!"

Hinata resisted the urge to plug her ears as her classmates began to shout. She really should have learned to expect the noise by now. Although she had only been part of Class 3-A for a few days, and had hardly gotten a chance to really get to know any of the students yet, she had still already discovered one unquestionable fact:

They were loud.

As soon as they had left the train at Kyoto Station, they had started shouting. There was a brief lull while they travelled by bus to their first destination in Kyoto, but the shouting had returned once they'd arrived.

"This is the Kiyomizu Main Temple's famous Kiyomizu Stage, isn't it?"

Hinata looked down at the raised platform they were standing on, then back up to see the violet-haired Yue Ayase, sipping from a juice box—Hinata absently wondered where she stored her many oddly-flavored drinks, since she always seemed to have one on hand—as the girl spoke in her usual bored monotone.

"They use it for dancing and enacting Noh plays in honor of the Buddhist goddess Kannon-sama," Yue continued, quoting word-for-word what was likely a memorized passage from a book. "It's listed as a national treasure now. This is where the famous phrase 'I'm going to jump off the Kiyomizu Stage,' originated. During the Edo Period, there were two hundred and thirty-four recorded cases of people actually jumping off. The survival rate was eighty-five percent. Surprisingly high, wasn't it?"

Another student shouted something in what sounded like shock, probably about Yue's sudden outpouring of random and obscure knowledge, but Hinata had already turned away to gaze at the trees surrounding the temple. It was built on the edge of a ridge, and looked much like a small town. It consisted of several buildings connected by raised wooden walkways and balconies overlooking the trees below the ridge, offering a breathtaking view of the surrounding forest from just above the treetops. She leaned on the railing and gazed out, smiling as she recalled the similar forest surrounding her former home.

Truth be told, Hinata had been quite excited about this trip as well, though certainly not as vocal about it as her classmates. She had been looking forward to seeing more of the world than just Mahora Academy, having not yet been able to even venture across the river to visit the city proper. She was pleased to be away from the World Tree as well. Just the sight of it was enough to bring back memories of her sealing.

Then there was the fact that they would eventually be visiting a place called Nara, which was famous for its large population of deer. Shikamaru Nara, a fellow Ninja who had been in her class at the Academy, had once taken her and the rest of her former classmates to visit an expanse of forested land outside of Konoha that his family owned. She remembered the herds of deer living there, and wondered whether this Nara was the same place.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence, however unlikely, but Hinata needed to know for sure.

She knew that her quest for clues of her friends' and fellow Ninjas' existence was both futile and hypocritical. After all, she knew exactly what had happened to them. Her friends had died, fighting against the corruption eating away at the heart of Konoha. The other Ninja of Konoha had become part of that corruption, and Hinata had been forced to kill them when they chose to stand against her.

And you don't even feel guilty, do you? a voice asked in her mind.

No, I don't, Hinata argued. She had gotten used to conversing with herself over the years she had spent alone. I can't. No matter why I did it, the end result was worth it. The world is better off without the Ninja.

Is it really?

"Stop it," she muttered aloud. "Stop dwelling on the past. It won't bring back what you lost, or what you gave up."

She wondered whether going to Nara was such a good idea after all. What was she hoping to find there? Signs that the Nara Clan survived even though she knew they had been wiped out? Bits and pieces of a past she wanted to leave behind?

A past about which she could have sworn she'd just told herself to stop thinking.

"Whoa! Amazing! You can see the whole city from up here!"

The exclamation shocked Hinata from her stupor, and she turned to watch her ten-year-old teacher lean so far over the railing that she thought he might fall.

"Hey, Negi," Asuna chastised him as she walked up to the railing and tugged lightly on his collar, "it's all right to have fun, but don't fall over the side, okay?"

Hinata grinned at their antics, her previous worries forgotten. The two of them behaved more like siblings than the student and teacher they actually were. That Negi's students were all at least four years older than him only made it even more absurd.

"Oh, that's right," Yue spoke, having apparently finished her monologue about the stage while Hinata was distracted. She pointed off to their right, towards a path that led further up the ridge. "If you go further that way, there's a fortune-telling place for your love life. It's pretty popular."

The other students reacted exactly as Hinata expected. Most of them shouted with glee and sprinted up the path, two of them dragging Negi along behind them like a rag doll. Most of the rest shouted angrily as their classmates manhandled their teacher and took off in pursuit.

Hinata chuckled and followed behind them, still keeping an eye out for trouble.

When she caught up to the students who had dragged their teacher off, Hinata saw that they were gathered behind a large, decorated stone obelisk at one end of a small courtyard. A similar stone was set on the other side of the space, about twenty meters away.

"So, if you make it from this rock to that rock without opening your eyes, you'll find success in love?"

"Yes!"

"Well, as the Class President, I shall..." Ayaka volunteered first, stepping forward to stand next to the stone.

"Not fair!" Makie exclaimed as she moved to stand next to Ayaka. "I'm going too!"

"M-Me too," a third voice spoke up, so quiet that Hinata almost missed it. She was suddenly struck by an intense feeling of deja vu as the eerily familiar Nodoka Miyazaki walked up to stand next to her two classmates. As a child, Hinata had been just as shy and timid, and looking at Nodoka was like looking at her own reflection in a mirror.

Well, a reflection with purple eyes and indigo hair, at any rate.

The three contenders closed their eyes and readied themselves. Ayaka and Makie crouched, leaning forward slightly and resting their weight on their toes. Were they going to race? The two of them seemed to be trying to intimidate each other with challenging glares, though the effect was ruined by their mutually closed eyes. Meanwhile, Nodoka stood next to them, looking both worried and determined with her own eyes tightly closed.

Hinata couldn't help but root for the quiet girl, even if this was just a childish contest.

"Go!" one of the other students—Hinata didn't see who—shouted. Ayaka and Makie immediately took off, with their hands held out in front of them to warn them of obstacles. Nodoka inexplicably made a hard right turn and headed straight for the nearest wall.

"Go for it! To the left! Left!" someone shouted.

"Honya!" Haruna exclaimed. Nodoka turned her head slightly towards the voice. Was it some kind of nickname? "Not that way!"

"I put fifty yen on Makie!"

Wow, betting already? Hinata wondered.

"A hundred yen on Iincho!"

"Go for it, Makie!"

"Go, Iincho!"

Hinata almost rolled her eyes at her classmates' antics, although she was privately disappointed she had no pocket money to bet on Nodoka despite the odds being so stacked against her. As pointless as this little contest was, she had never been able to participate in such childish fun before.

"Three hundred yen on Nodoka!" Hinata turned to see it was Shiina Sakurako who had spoken. She gave the other girl a confused glance. She hadn't expected anyone else to bet on the shy girl who was still going the wrong direction.

A quiet mutter drew Hinata's attention to Ayaka, who was heading almost directly towards the far stone at a quick pace. The tall blonde's eyes were slightly open, just barely enough to be able to see.

"Target acquired!" Ayaka shouted, and then she was sprinting. Behind her, Makie opened one eye in a much less subtle manner and shouted in frustration.

"What?! That's not fair, Iincho!" she cried, trying to glare at the blonde's retreating back with only one eye open. She took off running and caught up to her opponent. "That's cheating, Iincho! You opened your eyes, didn't you?!"

Ayaka let out a condescending laugh as she continued to sprint. "I would do no such thing! This is to ensure the success of the love between me and a certain teacher whose name starts with N!"

"One guess who that is," Hinata muttered dryly, but she was quickly distracted from her amusement when a quiet crack reached her ears. A moment later, both Ayaka and Makie were standing on nothing but air, the ground having opened up beneath them.

Hinata was moving before the two girls even realized they were falling. She raced towards them, leaping solely with the strength of her muscles since she was still completely out of Chakra.

She landed on the edge of the hole and dropped onto her belly, reaching down just in time to grab the girls' outstretched hands.

Ayaka looked up at her with wide eyes, her mind still trying to process what had just happened.

"Don't worry, I've got you," she told them as Makie gasped in shock. Then she looked past them, at the bottom of the pit, expecting to see spikes or solid stone or some other horribly painful torture.

Instead, she saw frogs. The floor of the pit was absolutely covered in frogs.

"Frogs again?!" Ayaka shouted, having followed Hinata's gaze.

Asuna's arms entered Hinata's vision, reaching out to grasp Ayaka's other hand. When she saw the grip was firm enough to hold the girl's weight, Hinata let go of the blonde and used both hands to start pulling Makie up while Asuna did the same for Ayaka.

As she got Makie's hands up over the edge of the hole, she looked up to see Negi staring down at the frog-filled pit, eyes full of concern. Hinata began to worry as well. Someone was obviously targeting the class, either to go after one of her classmates or to cause enough of a distraction to steal the letter Negi was carrying. Their methods were feeble and hardly dangerous at all, but a pit trap—even one filled with frogs—was still a very slight step up from the previous amphibious salvo. She would have to keep a better eye out for further hazards, especially if their attacker decided to try a more effective and risky tactic next.

"Goal!" someone shouted behind her as she finished helping Makie clamber over the edge and back onto solid ground. She let go of the girl's arm and turned to see that, despite all odds, Nodoka had reached the other stone. Her meandering path had led her around the pit trap that had ensnared the other two students. The applause of Konoka, Yue and Haruna brought a small smile to Hinata's face. Her grin only grew when she spotted Shiina holding out her hand to Yuna, who was testily counting out the three hundred yen she owed after losing the bet.

"What the hell were you doing, Iincho?" Asuna asked as she finally pulled Ayaka out of the pit. "Are you sure that wasn't divine punishment for cheaters?"

"Wha..." Ayaka trailed off with an outraged grimace. "I was not cheating!"

"Maybe it was because I had my eyes half-open," Makie offered. Ayaka rounded on her and shouted something, but Hinata had stopped paying attention upon noticing the frown on the child-teacher's face. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Setsuna, who was standing off to the side, away from the rest of the students.

Did he actually believe what the rodent had told him? Was he actually suspicious of Setsuna?

"Yue! Yue! Which one is which?"

The large group of students had just reached the Otowa Waterfall, which was really three streams of water falling into a large pool from separate channels carved in the wooden roof of a pavilion. Yue had stopped in front of the pool while the rest of the class climbed the steps leading into the structure, stopping only to take cups with long handles from a bin off to the side.

"The three streams each offer a different kind of luck when you drink the water," Yue explained, sipping from another juice box. "From right to left, the three waterfalls are for health, career or education, and finally marriage and love."

Predictably, a collective shout of, "The left one! The left one!" immediately preceded the formation of a mob of students around the leftmost stream as they all tried to hold their cups under it at the same time. The wind shifted as they started bringing the cups to their lips, carrying the powerful scent of something that definitely wasn't water to Hinata's sensitive nose. Immediately recognizing the odor of very strong sake, Hinata tried to stop them from drinking, but by the time she opened her mouth to warn them it was already far too late. They had all drained their cups, and many had already gone back for seconds.

"Some ninja I am," Hinata grumbled as the students started to sway on their feet and slide down to sit or lie on the ground. Several had already passed out, and the rest were well on their way to unconsciousness. "I'm supposed to be better than this."

With a resigned sigh, she leaped up to the roof of the pavilion when everyone else was distracted by their drunken classmates. She landed just in time to catch a glimpse of the tip of Negi's staff disappearing over the edge. Apparently he'd already come to investigate as well. It wasn't hard to spot the barrel of sake, complete with a rubber hose that was still pouring alcohol directly into the channel for the "love and marriage" stream. She glared at it as if it had somehow wronged her personally.

"If only I wasn't out of Chakra," she lamented, not for the first time.

While chasing the paper bird that had stolen Negi's envelope, she had quickly used up what little of her Chakra reserves that had been replenished since waking up in Mahora, and now she couldn't even perform the simplest, easiest jutsu.

If she could have managed to activate her Byakugan for even half a second, she could have easily noticed the barrel of sake on the roof and spared her classmates from their current plight.

But no, it was more than that. She wasn't just out of Chakra. She was out of shape, too, and perhaps most importantly, out of practice. For many years, so many that she'd lost count long ago, she had fought only for her own survival. Now, though she'd believed it easy to slip back into the role of a protector, she was already slipping up. What if the stream had contained poison instead of just alcohol? What if the pit trap had been filled with spikes or acid or any number of other unpleasant things? Sure, she had saved Ayaka and Makie from falling into what turned out to be a harmless pit of frogs, but now she had truly slipped up by not checking the stream before they drank from it.

Cursing quietly under her breath, Hinata wondered whether allowing her classmates to get drunk violated the Dean's request to keep them out of harm. She supposed they were still—technically—unharmed, although they were definitely incapacitated for the rest of the day.

And they could have been dead by now, you idiot! she thought to herself, continuing her littany of curses even as her mind raced. This isn't a straight fight! Stop thinking like a brawler and start thinking like a ninja!

With a few more muttered expletives and a resigned sigh, Hinata vowed to do better as she leaped off the roof. As she did, she spotted a pair of eyes peeking over the edge of the roof at her. As she dropped back to the ground, she glanced up to see a flash of Setsuna's raven hair as the girl vanished from sight.

With a loud, mostly fake sigh of relief, Hinata collapsed onto one of the futons laid out on the floor of her group's assigned hotel room. While she had managed to carry her drunken classmates without much issue, it had still taken quite a bit of effort. The few students who hadn't fallen for the alcoholic trap had been forced to carry them from the shrine all the way to the nearby hotel. Even Hinata's toned, dense muscles that she had built up during her life as a Ninja—and later on as a vampire—had started to strain a bit by the time everyone was deposited in their rooms.

She rolled over to glare at Ayaka, who was snoring away in her own futon. Luckily, none of her other group members had sampled the sake-tainted stream, but they were all exhausted and had fallen bonelessly onto their pallets while Hinata was still struggling to get the completely senseless Ayaka into hers. The room was already filled with a chorus of light snores.

She rolled over to look at Zazie. If not for the very slight rise and fall of her chest, she might as well have been dead. She was lying perfectly still, her eyes wide open and gazing blankly at the ceiling.

"Where were you today?" Hinata whispered, realizing she hadn't seen Zazie at all from the time they'd arrived in Kyoto until after their classmates had gotten drunk.

Zazie turned to stare at her with amber eyes that seemed to somehow shine with an odd hint of crimson in the moonlight streaming through the window. She shrugged.

Hinata waited a moment to see if her roommate would elaborate, before shrugging as well when it became clear she would not. She sat up and glanced at the door. It was still fairly early in the evening, despite the exhaustion of her other group members. Among them, only Zazie was awake.

With another sigh, Hinata stood up and walked towards the door. She heard blankets shift behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see that Zazie was sitting up and was watching her with a curious gaze.

"Just going for a walk," Hinata lied, glancing around at the other students. Zazie gave her a look that clearly conveyed her opinion that the excuse was complete bullshit, then gestured at the sleeping students around them. Nobody else was awake to hear whatever Hinata might say.

"I know they're asleep, but still..." Hinata stopped when Zazie rolled her eyes, then chuckled under her breath. "Alright, fine. You caught me. I'm going to look around for a bit. Whoever is responsible for what happened today probably isn't very far from here. Now might be a good time to catch him or her and end these annoyances before they become dangerous."

Zazie gazed at her for a long moment, then nodded and stood up, letting her blankets fall away from her pajama-clad form. She made a beeline for the bathroom, then stopped in the door-frame and looked back, gesturing with her head for Hinata to follow.

Bemused, Hinata did as she was bid and entered the small hotel restroom after the silent girl. Zazie closed the door behind them, then turned to face Hinata, tilting her head to the side to expose her neck.

"Now?" Hinata hissed under her breath.

Zazie raised her eyebrows. You'll need it, her gaze seemed to say, if you run into trouble.

Hinata frowned. "What if someone else notices the marks?"

Zazie pointed at her neck again, her fingertip resting on the spot where Hinata had previously bitten her. The dark skin was unblemished, just as it had been the morning after she'd first fed from the girl.

"Fine," Hinata relented. "You're right; I could use some extra strength right now."

Zazie smiled in response, then tilted her head further, allowing Hinata access to her neck. Hinata stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Zazie to support her in case the loss of blood weakened her, then bit down and drank.

This time, she was prepared for the overwhelming power of Zazie's inhuman blood. She managed to keep her instincts under control, so when Zazie lightly tapped on her arm with a finger, she was able to stop drinking and pull back. She watched as the puncture marks clotted and scabbed over almost instantly, then glanced up at Zazie's face. Her roommate stared back at her for a moment, then nodded and turned away, leaning against the doorframe as she struggled with the door knob in her weakened state.

Why? Hinata wondered as Zazie finally opened the door and left the bathroom. Why does she let me drink from her? She followed behind, but headed towards the hotel room's entrance while Zazie made a beeline back to her bed. Before leaving the room, Hinata stopped for a moment.

"Thank you," she whispered under her breath, so quietly that Zazie barely heard it. Then she stepped through the doorway and closed it softly behind her.

Zazie watched her go, a wry half-smile on her face, then settled back into her futon and stared up at the ceiling.

You're welcome.

As Hinata walked, she turned her mind inward and examined her Chakra reserves. After drinking from Zazie, her power had gained a small boost. It was still barely a fraction of her full Chakra capacity, but it was something, at least. She decided to make use of it, channelling a small amount to her eyes. The arteries around her eyes became visible beneath her skin as they expanded to accommodate the Chakra flowing through them. Her sight shifted in a way she still couldn't quite describe, colors fading as her vision expanded, allowing her to see for miles in every direction, regardless of walls or other obstacles in the way.

Using her enhanced vision, she quickly glanced over the hotel. Most of its inhabitants appeared to her altered sight as dimly-glowing silhouettes. Individuals with some amount of power within them—whether it be Chakra or the Magic the Dean had spoken of—glowed brighter. Many of the students from other classes were still awake, lounging in their hotel rooms. Most of Class 3-A was, of course, either unconscious or fast asleep. Many of them, more than she would have expected, glowed brighter than a normal human. She looked back at her group's room and was unsurprised to see that Zazie glowed like a beacon.

A shorter silhouette, one that almost blinded her with its immense but tightly-controlled power, appeared to be sitting in the hotel's large outdoor bath. It was probably Negi, but Hinata decided to check it out anyway. After the day she'd had, she wouldn't have been surprised to discover that their mystery assailant had decided to stop for a swim before playing another silly amphibious prank.

"Phew! This open-air bath is amazing! The breeze is so nice..."

It turned out that the person she had seen in the baths was indeed Negi Springfield. He sat in the large, natural pool that occupied most of the fenced-in area, leaning back against the edge and gazing up at one of the several globe-shaped lamps illuminating the onsen. Some of them sat on tall posts while others hung off the side of the fence, casting beams of light through the steam. The pool itself was surrounded by rocks and a few small trees, giving it the appearance of a natural hot spring. One of these rocks was serving as Negi's backrest.

Frustrated with her inability to locate whoever was targeting the class, Hinata was about to turn around and leave her perch on the high wall surrounding the onsen when another voice spoke up:

"Yeah! If only we didn't have to worry about Setsuna Sakurazaki!" Negi's ermine familiar exclaimed. "She's always carrying around that sword of hers; she could kill a Mage like you before you even chant a spell!"

"Yeah..." Negi replied quietly, "swordsmen are the natural enemies of Mages, after all."

They're still suspicious of Setsuna? Hinata wondered, shaking her head. The Dean, a man who had begun to earn her grudging respect, seemed to trust Setsuna enough to have her keep an eye on other suspicious students. The swordswoman had also actually helped Negi on the train, retrieving the stolen letter and returning it to him. She had sliced the paper bird in two so cleanly that she could have just as easily destroyed the letter itself if she had wished.

No, Setsuna definitely wasn't behind it.

The quiet slap of bare feet against stone silenced Negi's conversation with the ermine. Hinata frowned and moved from the wall to a better hiding spot on the roof of the changing rooms. When Negi and his ermine tried to see who was coming, Hinata ducked as low as she could, hoping the darkness and the steam rising from the hot spring would be enough to hide her presence.

Speak of the devil, Hinata thought as she saw who the newcomer was.

Setsuna Sakurazaki knelt and began to rinse herself off in the onsen. Her mind raced as she thought over the events of the day. Specifically, she was thinking about Hinata and Negi.

She had seen a glimpse of Hinata on the train, chasing the paper bird with Negi's stolen letter. The girl had hidden herself quickly when Setsuna sliced the bird in two, but the swordswoman had still known she was present and watching when Negi arrived to retrieve his letter. She had also seen both of them on the roof of the Otowa Waterfall, examining the barrel of sake that had knocked out her classmates.

Negi was likely an ally, especially if he really was a Mage as she suspected, but Hinata...

While the Dean had told her, Kaede, and Mana that they could relax their surveillance of the new student a bit, Setsuna was still leery. Hinata's actions over the course of the day had only increased her misgivings. While she had managed to grab Makie and Ayaka as they fell into the pit trap, it was still possible that the entire event had actually been orchestrated by Hinata to make herself look more trustworthy. And she had moved so fast, as if she'd already known what would happen...

Even as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. If she hadn't been busy guarding a different student, she could have easily moved with the same speed.

If Hinata had any ill intentions towards Setsuna's charge, the new girl would quickly learn first-hand just how sharp her sword truly was.

"How troublesome," she muttered quietly. "If Negi-sensei is indeed a Mage...I may have to take action. If Hinata-san is the enemy..."

She paused, feeling a slight prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She could sense someone else in the bath, preparing to attack her.

She quickly picked up a small stone and flicked it at the nearest light. The fragile globe shattered with a loud crash, both darkening the area and distracting her prey.

"Who's there?!" she shouted as she picked up her sword and unsheathed it. The blade she had named Yunagi gleamed in the moonlight when she spun around to look behind her. She received no answer, but did hear someone splashing through the water, probably trying to hide in the steam.

You won't get away!

She infused her sword with a bit of Ki and swung it with all her might.

"Shinmeiryuu Ougi: Zanganken!" she shouted, her words helping to sharpen and focus the power that cloaked her blade. With her spirit reinforcing the steel, it easily sliced through the boulder her prey was using to hide. As the top half of the stone began to fall, she was already moving, charging through the steam to catch her quarry off-guard.

"Flans Exarmatio!" her opponent shouted. A blast of wind plucked the blade from her hand. She didn't halt her attack, though; as a master of Shinmeiryuu, her bare hands were just as deadly as any weapon.

Definitely a Mage, she thought with a small smirk as she caught sight of her prey. The steam was too blurry to discern any details, but she could tell he was male, and rather short.

Male attacker, facing me, she noted as she came within an arm's length of her adversary. Weak points are the neck and groin. Being of the pragmatic sort, she went after both, closing one hand around the front of his neck while her other clamped down on his family jewels.

"Who are you?!" she growled at him, narrowing her eyes in her most intimidating glare. "If you don't answer, I'll crush it and snap it off!"

She chose not to clarify whether she was talking about his neck or his privates.

He answered with nothing more than a choked whimper. She loosened her grip on his neck as she looked at the face of her captive.

"Huh? Negi-sensei?"

The child-teacher was babbling in sheer panic as he stared up at her.

She blinked at him, then jumped back and released him with a loud squeak of embarrassment. She held her hands up and tried to apologize, "I...I'm sorry, Negi-sensei! I...uh..."

The boy was still staring at her, struck speechless with terror as he trembled and tears streamed from his eyes.

Wait... Setsuna's mind caught up with her actions, Did I just grab my ten-year-old teacher's crotch?!

She lowered her hands into the water and blushed.

"Er...um...This...I mean..." she stumbled over her words while hunting for an explanation of her actions, bowing her head low in an attempt to convey her apology. "Well, to aim for a vital spot is just basic theory, and...um... I'm really sorry, Negi-sensei."

"Y...You've done it now, Sakurazaki Setsuna!" a squeaky voice announced. It came from what appeared to be a white ermine sitting atop Negi's head. Setsuna blinked. While she had heard that there were some magical familiars that could speak and act as humans, she had never seen one before. "Just as I thought!" it continued, "You're a spy from the Kansai Magic Association, aren't you?!"

"Wha... No!" Setsuna refuted. "That's not true, Sensei!"

"What's not true?" the ermine retorted. "We're on to you, so you'd better confess! Don't underestimate me just because I'm an ermine!"

Setsuna had no idea how everything had gone so wrong. In the past few minutes, she'd attacked her teacher—and grabbed his crotch, to her eternal shame—and now an ermine of all things was threatening her!

"I'm not your enemy!" she defended herself as she reached down to pick up a towel and wrap it around herself, belatedly realizing that her previous lack of covering meant her under-aged teacher had gotten a good look at her naked body. Her face went red again as she quickly retrieved Yunagi and sheathed it. "I'm your ally!"

"U-Um, what do you mean by...?" Negi asked hesitantly, finally wresting control of the conversation from his familiar.

"I'm Lady Konoka's—"

A scream interrupted her before she could finish explaining. Setsuna froze, easily recognizing the voice.

"Lady Konoka?!" she cried as she unsheathed her blade once more and sprinted towards the changing rooms, unhindered by the wet, slippery stone beneath her feet.

Negi burst into the changing rooms only a fraction of a second behind Setsuna. Inside, both Konoka and Asuna were, for lack of a better word, being molested by tiny, almost cartoonish monkeys. They had already been stripped to their underwear, and the monkeys were making quick work of what little clothing remained.

"Negi?!" Asuna exclaimed as she noticed the child teacher. "What the hell are these monkeys doing to our clothes?!"

As Negi stood frozen in shock, wondering why he was so often subjected to the sight of naked students, the monkeys finally made off with their underwear.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO LADY KONOKA?!" Setsuna roared as she lifted her sword, her face crimson with rage. "I WILL SLICE YOU IN TWO!"

"S-Sakurazaki-san?" Asuna belatedly noticed the student who had entered ahead of Negi. "What are you doing? Is that a real sword?!"

Negi broke out of his shock and grabbed Setsuna around her middle. "You can't just cut them up!" he told her. "They're just poor little animals!"

"They're not even real!" Setsuna retorted, trying and failing to shake Negi off without hurting him. "These are just low-level Shikigami! They're made of paper, like the bird on the train!"

Setsuna's furious attempts to dislodge the child finally succeeded, though not in the way she had hoped. They both tripped and fell to the floor, Setsuna landing on Negi's chest, pinning him.

"I told you I was on your side, didn't I?!" she exclaimed once she had clambered off the distressed teacher, blushing heavily as she realized her towel had been lost in the struggle, giving Negi an up-close look at her privates. "Please don't get in my way!"

"I didn't mean to..."

"Hold on a minute, you two!" Asuna interrupted. She pointed at the doorway back into the onsen. "Those monkeys are taking Konoka away!"

Negi and Setsuna both turned to look at the door just in time to see a large mob of tiny monkeys carry Konoka through it and back out into the bath. Setsuna let out a wordless scream of rage and took off after them, pushing Ki to her feet to increase her speed even further until she was flying along the ground.

She readied her sword as she caught up to them.

"Shinmeiryuu Ougi," she murmured, once again using the words to help her focus and gather her power, "Hyakuretsu Oukazan!"

She spun, releasing her power through Yunagi to call up a whirlwind around her. The air itself sharpened and cut the monkeys to ribbons, allowing Konoka to slip from their grasp, unharmed. Setsuna extended her left arm and caught the girl with ease as the monkeys turned into torn bits of paper, the magic that had been animating them dispersed by Setsuna's attack.

Negi and Asuna caught up a moment later, but Setsuna ignored them in favor of looking down at Konoka to make sure she was unharmed.

"Setsuna! There's more!" Negi shouted as another group of monkeys leaped out of the shadows around them. Setsuna looked up and easily spotted them, but she was holding Konoka in her arms and couldn't bring her sword to bear. She turned away from them instead, leaning forward to shield Konoka's body with her own, and channelled more Ki to defend herself from the attack...

...which never came.

Instead, Setsuna heard the sound of crackling electricity behind her, and sensed a corresponding flare of power. She spun around, still cradling a dazed Konoka in both arms, and saw Hinata standing with both arms held straight out in front of her. Electricity briefly sparked up and down the girl's forearms before fading away. Of the monkeys, only tattered shreds of charred paper remained.

A rustling noise in the trees just beyond the wall around the bath drew the attention of both Setsuna and Hinata. They looked up just in time to see a dark shadow fleeing into the night. In the corner of her eye, Setsuna saw Hinata's eyes narrow, arteries bulging around them as she glared fiercely at the retreating figure. Then she fell to her knees and put a hand to her forehead.

"H-Hinata-san?" Negi stuttered.

Trying to ignore her budding headache after overextending her Chakra reserves once again, Hinata looked up at the group of students with a frown.

"I...suppose I owe you an explanation."

Author's Note: And I owe all of you an explanation as well. Sorry for my (very) long absence, and sorry in advance for the long note. I had a full time job over the summer and the end of that job coincided perfectly with the start of college classes again, so I've had NO time at all to write. Of course, when I did have time, I ended up writing other things, like four RWBY oneshots and a long-overdue update to a fanfic I put on hiatus over a year ago. And then I rewrote this chapter multiple times and edited it several more times. That was a long, tiring, and frustrating exercise.

This is the chapter where my narrative rejoins the canon for a while. This is also the chapter where my rewrites rejoin what I originally wrote for NaNoWriMo. This is both a good and bad thing. Good, because I already had a rough draft of this chapter, but also bad, because it was a very rough draft, written back when I had no idea where this story was going other than the same general direction as canon (for now, at least). This final draft is almost entirely different from the rough, with additional scenes, better flow, and a few bits of foreshadowing scattered about now that I know where this story is actually going.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't noticed yet, it's also much longer than my previous chapters, beating the former longest chapter by nearly a thousand words. That was also a factor, since the rough draft was significantly shorter than this.

But that's enough rambling from me. Let me know what you thought of this chapter in a review! Seriously, do it, especially if you have concerns or things you don't like. If you don't then I'll keep doing the same things wrong.