Chapter 5:

“Very good. Your form is improving. You no longer look completely incompetent each time you swing the sword.” Elektra told me. It had been around two hours since she and I had randomly met in this park. I was surprised she wanted to stay and train a random girl for this long, but it didn't seem like she had anything better to do.

She had me practice different sword forms and strikes hundreds of times so far. She had me keep at it until the correct way to swing my new katana was ingrained in my mind. According to her, most students started with wooden practice swords. “Since you already have your own real sword though, you might as well learn to properly use it.”

Those were her words. I agreed with them of course. Wooden swords were lame!

I asked her if my sword was famous, but she told me she didn’t know. There were no marks on the blade to designate whether or not it ever had a proper name. That meant that I was free to name it myself! I wasn’t great with names though, so I was planning on asking Shadow for her help with that later.

…Although, she wasn't great with names either now that I thought about it. She literally named herself Shadow after all…because she can control shadows.

“Elektra, I can barely feel my arms.” I complained. I wasn’t trying to be a quitter, but I physically needed to stop. My arms ached in discomfort and my brand new outfit was already soaked with sweat! I hadn't been using any Chakra to enhance myself this whole time. That would have been pointless and defeated the purpose of exercising my currently tiny muscles. I was definitely feeling the burn.

My sword swings were starting to noticeably slow down when Elektra finally told me I could stop.

She smiled at me. “I admit, I didn't think you would stick through a full two hours of practice. Most teenage girls nowadays would have given up after 10 minutes. You did very well!” She praised me.

I smiled. “I wasn’t joking when I said I wanted to be a ninja.” I told her. Ninjas are cool and I have the Sharingan. Of course, there are other paths I could take with my Meta knowledge, but becoming something different, like a Sorceress, with these eyes of mine just felt wrong.

Imagine Doctor Strange with the Sharingan… Cringe! Cringe with a Capital C!!

“Why do you want to be a ninja?” Elektra asked me curiously. Her eyes narrowed in concern and she frowned. “Is there someone who hurt you? Are you looking for revenge!? Is someone after your life? Are you currently on the run?” She started asking me all kinds of questions like those.

“What!? No!” I exclaimed. “I want to be a ninja because ninjas are cool!” I told her plainly. What kind of crazy backstory did she think I had? I wasn’t Batman! No one had gunned down my parents in an alley and left me with a heart full of hatred.

…Even if they had, I didn’t have any of the old Satsuki’s memories anyway. Whoever her parents were or are… Sorry but we're strangers!

My answer seemed to throw Elektra off. “You want to be a ninja…because ninjas are cool…!?” She muttered to herself in surprise. “...You’re a strange girl, Satsuki.” She said after a small pause with a faint teasing smile.

I pouted at her. “Sorry for not being what you expected.”

She let out a small laugh. “No, no. You're pretty much exactly what I expected.”

“What does that mean? Are you staying? I'm not normal?”

“Normal girls don't swing around real swords outside while making Lightsaber sound effects.” She said teasingly.

She had heard all that too!? I felt my cheeks heat up from embarrassment!

She let out another small laugh and told me to sheathe my katana. “That's enough for today. Too much practice can be detrimental for your training.”

“Today?” I asked her. “Are you going to train me again?” I asked hopefully. That would be amazing!

She gave me a cryptic smile. “Maybe. I'll think about it. You don't have to find me, I'll be around and come to you.” With that said, she went back towards her path and jogged away. I watched her disappear behind a few trees. I leaned out and peaked my head around them, but didn’t see her jogging on the path like I expected. Elektra had apparently chosen to be dramatic and disappear like a ninja herself.

“...I suppose I should head home now.” I said to myself. She was right that too much training would be detrimental to me.

Also, I desperately needed a shower!

I grimaced at how my clothes felt all sticky against my body. They were drenched in sweat and I probably stank now. I picked up my bags of extra clothes and my Katana. I headed back towards the Loft.

The streets were more crowded with foot traffic since it was lunch time. I was careful not to bump into people. To be fair, a lot of people helped with that by avoiding me. They saw me carrying a sheathed Katana in my hand and chose to give me a wide berth on the sidewalk.

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I almost made it back to the Loft when I spotted someone from the day before. Someone I honestly wasn't expecting to see again so soon or ever. One of my foster siblings, the African American boy who had warned us about Ruth before she arrived, was sitting down on a nearby public bench. He was wearing the same clothing as the day before, which wasn't exactly a surprise. Except now his clothes had obvious rips and tears in them. His face was also swollen in a few places.

I know the practical thing that most people would do is just walk on by him. Obviously, I wasn’t going to do that. He was only 12 or 13 and he looked like he had just gotten beaten harshly. There was no way I was going to leave this alone.

He was literally sitting on the bench crying to himself. He didn't notice me when I sat down on the bench next to him.

“What happened?” I asked him. I wasn’t going to ask if he was ok because I knew he wasn't.

He startled for a second before turning to me. His tear filled eyes widened when he saw me. “Satsuki! It's you! What are you doing here!?”

“I live around here now. What are you doing here?” I asked him. “Why are you crying on a random bench and why do you look so roughed up?”

He sniffled again. “I managed to escape. Things got bad after you left yesterday…” He trailed off.

I grimaced hearing that. “Tell me what happened at the foster home.” I knew I wasn't going to like what I was about to hear.

He hesitated for a second before he started talking. “After you left, Chris chased after you but he never found you. He didn't come back for a while after that.”

“You guys didn't go to the police?” With Chris gone that would have been their best opportunity.

He shook his head. “Emily suggested that we do as you said. To try to report him and Ruth to the police again. Me and the other kids were too scared to do that though. We outvoted her. Ruth promised that she would start treating us better. She looked so sincere, I believed her.”

I looked at him in disbelief. He might be a kid but he couldn't be that ignorant could he? Apparently he was…

“Obviously she lied, right?” I said.

“Yeah...” He said sadly as he started wiping the tears from his eyes. He admitted that he was stupid and that he had been tricked.

“What happened when Chris came back?” I asked.

He suddenly looked afraid. “Chris didn't come back alone! A bunch of thugs, who had the same tattoos as him, came back with him! Chris and them started beating all of us kids and shoving us into their dirty van!”

That explained his bruises and ripped clothes. It also seemed like Chris and his gang were into kidnapping and possibly human trafficking. I wondered how Ruth was going to explain all the missing kids to the government?

I scoffed. The bitch would probably just burn down her home and claim we all died in a fire or something like that.

“Where did they take you all?” I asked him.

“A warehouse about 10 blocks from here! They started putting all the kids in cages! They said that they were going to sell all of us! I managed to slip away because I'm fast! They had guns and even tried to shoot me! I was super lucky. It was night time, and they couldn't see me in the dark.” He explained. He looked pretty proud of himself when he talked about dodging gunfire.

I was more concerned about his current state though. “Did you sleep outside last night?” I was concerned. New York City got really cold at night in the winter. He could have frozen to death.

He gave me a brave smile. “It wasn’t so bad. It was really cold out, but a few homeless people saw me and let me have some of their blankets!” He gestured to a pile of half rotten blankets sitting on the other side of him. I hoped those didn’t come ridden with fleas or lice…

I thought about what I was going to do with this information. Do I go to the police?

I shook my head at myself. I couldn't do that. I don't know if Ruth reported me to them as a Mutant or not last night. If she did, there's no way they would take me at my word. They'd probably just try to lock me up instead.

The next thing I know, I'd either end up being experimented on by the government or Hydra. It's sad that I didn’t know which was the worse of those two…

That left me handling this myself. It wasn’t ideal, but it was going to have to be that way.

I turned towards the boy next to me and looked at him seriously. “I need you to take me to that werehouse…er…what was your name again?” My serious expression slipped a bit when I realized I didn’t even know his name. The only one of the kid’s whose name I knew was Emily.

He stood up and grinned. “Y–You’re going to help!?” He asked excitedly. “You’re going to save them with your Mutant powers!?” He asked me loudly.

…Very loudly.

A couple people passing by on the sidewalk glanced at me in fear from his remark. They started walking away quickly while glancing at me nervously over their shoulders. This kid next to me had effectively just cleared out the entire street without even trying.

I facepalmed. “Please don’t shout to the Heavens about me being a Mutant.”

At least he realized his mistake as he looked down sheepishly. “Sorry. I know people are afraid of Mutants. But you’re still going to rescue the other kids right!? Even though we all think you’re really scary?”

“That's great, Satsuki! Thank you so much! …Wait? Did you just say you don't know my name!? We've both been living under Ruth for almost a year!?” He looked at me indignantly. “How do you not know my name?”

“Do you want my help or not!?” I grumbled. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t get any of Satsuki’s memories.

He nodded his head up and down quickly. “Yes! I want your help. Also, my name is Marcus! I'm kind of mad that you apparently never knew it after all this time, but I’ll get over it if you help save everyone else from Chris and his gang!”

I stood up from my seat. “Let’s go then. The longer we wait, the worse off the other kids will be!” it had already been an entire night according to Marcus. I was hoping that the kids hadn't been moved somewhere else already.

Marcus took me on a decent trek halfway through Hell's Kitchen. We ended up in an area that was sparsely populated and covered with graffiti everywhere. It was pretty much prime real estate for any gangs that wanted to claim it. Marcus pointed me to a warehouse that was covered in painted Nazi hate symbols.

The front doors were chained shut and the windows were all boarded up from the outside. I didn't see any obvious entrances on the ground level. Going in through the front door was also suicide if this gang had guns as well. I was fast with my Sharingan–supernaturally fast. But I didn’t think I was good enough to dodge or block bullets quite yet.

That meant that I needed to go in stealthily. “Like a true ninja...” I giggled to myself in excitement.

Was I turning out to be an adrenaline junkie?

I decided to climb up to the roof and see if they left it unlocked. I handed Marcus my spare bags of clothing. “Wait out here and don’t mess with any of my new clothes. I just bought them all!” I warned him. I didn't want any grubby teenage boy hands all over my brand new outfits!

“Kind of weird that you're more worried about your new clothes than getting shot, but ok.” Marcus said while taking my bags from me. He turned and made his way over to a nearby alley to hide and wait for me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady myself. I gripped my Katana tightly so I wouldn’t drop it for what came next. “Let’s do this!” I opened my eyes and my Sharingan blared to life. The world became crystal clear. My Chakra flowed through my muscles and I was filled with that strength I had been missing. I backed up a few feet, before I took a running start towards the building! I pressed down on the ground as hard as I could and I leapt!

I jumped a lot higher than I ever would have thought possible. The warehouse was at least three stories and I managed to clear its rooftop in a single bound! ‘Holy shit!!!’ I screamed in my head when I realized how high I sent myself flying. I was at least 40 feet in the air!

Thankfully, I managed to judge the correct distance and landed right on the middle of the warehouse rooftops with a heavy thud. Even with Chakra enhancement, my knees cried out in protest from such a rough landing. I desperately needed to train my body after this…

I took a second to massage my aching legs before making my way over towards the rooftop door. ‘Moment of truth…’ I placed my hand on the rusty doorknob and it turned! ‘Yes!’ It was unlocked!

I opened it slowly so that the rusty hinges wouldn't make any loud noise. I got it opened quietly just enough to slip inside. I had some kids to rescue and some child trafficking gang members to take care of!

XXX