The TRIBE Chronicles : Forgotten Memories (Completed)

04.1 - The Ninja, The Samurai and The Assassin (Part 1)

"Lopka."

She turned her gaze as she heard her name being called. A figure of a man approached and a familiar good looking face came to her view. The man smiled.

"Remember. By the time when she reaches twenty, you have to keep your eye on her...," the man said, "...because we don't know what kind of power that will be awakened from her."

---

In the middle of the forest far from the city's light, there was a cave that was being guarded by five men; fire from torches illuminated around the area. Those men were standing or patrolling at the cave's entrance. Because of the night that had fallen late, they seemed to feel sleepy. One of them even fell asleep while standing with his spear.

Unknown for them, there were pairs of eyes watching them from the darkness of the forest. Few of them were nearer and high on the tree branches while the others were a little bit away and hid behind the bushes or tree trunks. It seemed that those watchers were waiting for signal.

Hiro was standing and watching from behind the bush. He let the dark of the night concealing his present from his enemies' sight. But he could see his friends watching the cave from above the trees and the ground. They were all in alert. He then caught a presence approaching from behind. He turned his gaze around and saw Lia approaching; Sora was with her. The girl was wearing her usual kimono, unlike her two friends who had changed into casual fighting uniform; half of her hair was tied into a bun. She looked calm yet aware as her eyes were fixed toward the cave entrance.

"It's too few," the girl commented as she stopped beside Hiro.

Hiro looked back to the cave entrance and nodded. "Yes, you're right. There are only five guards in the front of the entrance." He looked back to the girl. "But they might be concentrated their resources to the abduction. Perhaps, there are more of them inside the cave."

For a while, the girl only fixed her gaze to the cave entrance without saying anything. She seemed to think. But Hiro couldn't guess whatever her thought was. "Perhaps they are." She then blinked, lowering her gaze before turning to Hiro. "Should we prepare the ambush?"

Hiro nodded. "You can send signal to your friend. Matsu and Usa will take care of the rest. We can proceed afterward."

"I understand," Lia replied. She then turned her gaze toward Lopka who hid behind the bush. The girl had been looking at her for a while, waiting for her signal. So Lia nodded.

Seeing the nod, Lopka turned her gaze to the guards in front of the entrance. She lifted the thin bamboo tube that she had been holding since before and brought one of the open ends to her mouth. She then blown air strongly into the tube. A needle-like arrow shot out from the tube and dashed toward one of the guards.

In the front of the cave, a guard was suddenly down. Another guard who stayed with him surprised and became panic. But Usa silently appeared behind him and knocked him out. He then laid the guard down on the ground carefully.

Matsu then saw the other two guards coming as Usa silently laid the guard. He dashed out from his hiding spot and knocked them down. But one of the guards dropped his spear and Matsu missed the time to catch it. So the spear clanged as it hit the ground, waking the sleepy guard up.

As the guard saw all his friends were down, he soon realized that they were under-attacked. He wanted to tell the others who were inside about intruders' presence. But Lopka appeared behind him and pricked his nape with her needle, right at the point where she could make his consciousness gone.