Chapter 1

A clothed figure hit a young boy with their palm and it struck the boy square in the chest.

The impact was terrific and it sent the boy hurtling through the air to hit another the figure had hit earlier.

Only a moment passed that let the figure take a breath, before two new young boys attacked from the sides. The figure swung to one side in a arc and hit the boy from behind to collide with his friend.

A few astonishing looks were given from the crowd and the audience realized that they would need to take this person more seriously.

A group of young kids nodded to each other before splitting to surround the figure. One of the kids was a girl who was known as Cherry, a girl that joined two boys to sign up to become part of the higher class ninjas. Their group always worked together and later got extra members and were known by their nicknames.

Cherry, Apple, Pear, Orange and Grape. Together, they were some of the most talented lower class ninjas of East Claw ninja clan.

Cherry signaled to the others and they all flew in to attack the figure standing motionless in the middle of an open space in the woods.

They were mere inches from the figure when a chill ran through all of them. The source of their bad feeling was the soft laugh that came from the figure. Cherry's temper rose, 'how dare this person laugh at us!'

The first person to collide with the figure was one of the boys that wanted to kick the hood off the figure and maybe get in a critical hit to his or her head. His foot was caught by the figure and his whole body was twisted and released to spin right into a nearby tree.

The figure then used the momentum to shove one of the girls' head straight into the ground and lifted his one leg to kick the girl jumping on him from above. Each of his moves were precise and didn't waste energy or momentum.

His cloak and mask didn't even move an inch, as if he was as used to this as breathing. The last two of the group retracted to reform their plan and nodded before pulling out their weapons.

They didn't think this person was such a threat to them and refrained from using their weapons when weapons are used, it meant they're ready to kill.

Cherry glanced at her comrades that were unconscious and anger grew in her chest. They were just supposed to patrol the woods around the clan for a drill, but they encountered this mysterious and shady looking person just walking leisurely to the clan.

They did call for backup, but they needed to deal with him in the meantime. If the backup arrived and saw them using weapons, they were in for a big punishment. They were only allowed to use weapons in the clan when it was in serious danger.

The last two left standing apart from the cloaked figure were palming their weapons trying to find any openings in the figure's stance, but strangely the posture of the figure was relaxed and loose but could attack or defend at a moments notice.

They silently stood like that, with the two of them standing in between the mysterious figure and their clan base. The tension was so high that if a leaf moved, everyone would jump.

There was silence... and then the figure took a relaxed step forward. The two nearly jumped out of their skin from stress. They tried calculating where the figure would strike, but the figure just calmly walked towards them.

When the figure was close enough to reach out and touch, they froze up. They had been training to be full ninjas in the hell that was their clan training for five years, but the glare from this figure made even their bone marrow tremble.

It wasn't bloodlust, nor hatred. A simple emotion that only flashed in the figure's eyes for a moment was annoyance. They were so frightened that if one were to ask them what colour the figure's eyes were, they would be unable to remember.

It was common for ninjas to cover their hair, mouth and nose and wear long clothes with gloves to cover any signs that could identify them, so the eyes were very important.

The last two remaining young ninjas were so busy in their own minds that they didn't notice when the figure seemed to vanish and only a falling leaf was left.

The remaining young ninja, Cherry and Pear, sank to their knees on the ground and dispaired. There was no way they would be able to become ninjas this year after letting an intruder in on their first patrol.

The quiet atmosphere in that clearing was disturbed when groans could be heard from the neatly piled ninjas from the fight earlier.

Cherry unsteadily stood up and helped the now awakening ninjas to stand and dust off. Except for a few bruises, all of them were fine.

They exchanged few words and the mood was obviously very droopy. Pear had still not stood up from his kneeling and when Cherry came to help him, he slapped away her hand angrily. He stood up in a huff and raised his voice for everyone in the clearing to hear.

"I'm obviously not cut out for this, what's so great about being a ninja anyway! I'd rather just work as a farmer at the bottom of the mountain."

Cherry was the one that brought the entire group together and always tried to keep everyone positive. She was about to try to convince Pear, but was cut of with him turning to the rest of the group.

"I'm leaving and I suggest you follow me. This life will just lead to death anyway. In this life, you have to keep striving to be the best to survive and there will always be people better, quicker or more tricky than you like what happened today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and now I was finally proven right. Come with me if you agree and want to live a free life. Or stay here and follow Cherry into your merry deaths."

Apple and Orange moved closer to him and Cherry looked on with horror. Her voice was higher than usual when she spoke again.

"But why Pear? We have been working together for years, why did you never talk about this? We could have resolved this earlier."

Pear turned back to her and now three faces of anger were glaring at her. Pear basically spat as he spoke.

"You don't get it! Always so positive, little miss perfect and popular. Popularity will only give you so many meat shields ready to sacrifice themselves at any moment for your sake. I'm done! Maybe next time you should make friends instead of followers."

Apple and Orange stood beside Pear and nodded furiously. Cherry was shell shocked, weren't they friends? Yes they sometimes did things so she didn't have to and some have gotten hurt trying to protect her, but how could they abandon everything they went through to get here for this?

Grape came to stand behind Cherry and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her when the other three turned to walk down the mountainn. Cherry turned to Grape and grabbed his hand,

"You won't leave me like them right?"

Her eyes were near tears, a terrible quality for a ninja, but Grape ignored it just shook his head and pulled her to go back to see what happened at the clan base.

Cherry wiped her tears and followed Grape back, her face distorted into a foul picture as she thought about her friends leaving her.

'How shallow our relationship must have been to be lost so easily, wait. None of this would have happened if the cloaked figure wasn't there.'

There and then, Cherry promised to avenge her friends by winning the cloaked figure by any means possible.

Meanwhile in the clanbase, the same cloaked figure stood before the clan head in a head on confrontation.