Escape (( a naruto oc story ))

Chapter 23

((The added picture is of Ryo.))

Lani had the students line up in rows of four, Yuzuki moving toward the front but Riku pulled her toward the last row.

"I stay in the back." He cast anxious glances at a group of boys who were already staring them down. Yuzuki bared her teeth at the boys only to have the one in front laugh and bare his teeth back at her. Riku quickly pulled her away and the four boys took the first row.

Lani had moved the group to the center of the field and she stood atop a leveled tree stump, so that even the back row could see her well.

Yuzuki stood beside Riku in the last row and on her other side a skinny boy with a limp. She glanced sideways looking at the boy. He favored his left leg greatly, but his eyes were focused on Lani. Just as Yuzuki went to speak to him, Lani's voice echoed through the small area.

"Set." As one the group widened their stances into a solid defensive crouch. Yuzuki blinked and followed suit. "Right, left, left low, left high, right low, right ... "

A seemingly endless stream of commands flowed from the front of the field, the students moving as a body together and solid. Yuzuki, a second behind, found herself watching Riku to see what to do next.

The snake boy flowed from one command to another seamlessly, he seemed to be dancing rather than fighting.

A lethal dance.

They worked the command and follow style for the better part of three hours, the sun working its way up into the middle of the sky.

Only when everyone's muscles were quivering with the strain, did Lani call for a break. Instantly half the group just sat down. Yuzuki was one of these, and she curled her hand into a fist rubbing her knuckles down her shaking calf.

"My time in the Experiment hall ruined me." She hissed softly, but looked around herself making sure no one was sneaking up close to her. Sure, it had kept her fit enough to fight when ever the Others had called for it, but all other times she had sat in a cell. Quietly wasting away.

"How long were you there anyway?" Riku asked slowly taking his time to even out his breathing. Like most of the students, Riku had taken off his outer layer of clothes now wearing a netting shirt, and black shorts that reached his knees.

She shrugged and untied the yellow sash pulling off the outer layer, joining the trend and striping down to the black shirt and shorts. She tossed her clothes in a pile by Riku's. "Judging from how old Midnight looks in my last memory of her and how old I look now, I say 3 years at least." She shrugged slightly and nodded her head at the group of boys from earlier eager to change the subject. "What's their problem?" She growled softly, "They act like they think they're better than everyone else."

Riku sighed lightly and nodded, "They do. And unfortunately, they are fairly high leveled." Yuzuki frowned again and shot a look toward the boys who were now wrestling, hardly looking like they had just been training.

"I'm going to whoop their -"

"Hey." Hazu stepped up out of the shadows interrupting her, and she blinked at him surprised. He wasn't even limping, if she had not been there and seen him injured herself she would have never known.

"Hello." Riku countered suddenly seeing Yuzuki forming some sort of idea, he quickly kept talking. "I thought you were going to o on a mission today?"

"Already did. Went first thing this morning." He smirked at Yuzuki. "Since she says she's so good at fighting already, I just thought I'd come watch her get pulverized."