"Ja ne, Sarai-chan!" The voice was singsong, high, but not so high as to grate on the nerves. There was a short pause filled by the sound of a bus revving it's engine and driving away.

"Mata ne Ibuki!" The delayed response was similar both in tone and the age of its speaker. The two girls turned away from each other ran their individual ways. The first speaker was a young Japanese girl, aged sixteen. She wore her phenomenally long black hair in a tight ponytail that had to be angled nearly straight up so the ends wouldn't touch the ground. Sharply angled bangs brushed her brow as the fuku clad girl walked casually up a narrow stone path leading home. She seemed normal, though a careful (or perverse) enough observer would have noticed that the play of muscle in her legs was far more developed than it should have been. Even the slim girl's walk was different, she seemed to glide rather than step.

Her name was Ibuki, and despite all appearances she was not what she seemed. Which was exactly how the kunoichi (female ninja) wanted. Her life was currently one of controlled schizophrenia, two almost totally different people existing in one body. The schoolgirl was now retiring for the night; it was time for the shinobi to come out and play. Even as the sun began to set and evening fell over the heavily forested, and long shadows reached out to embrace her like an old friend Ibuki's mind was elsewhere. It was almost summer break, and she had a new project, two of them in fact.

One was a new girl in school, an exchange student from Africa to be precise. The girl was tall, actually by Japanese standards she was huge, with powerful, but sleek, muscles that many of the boys in school envied. Her skin was the color of chocolate, and oddly enough her hair was stark white and her eyes pale blue. Her name was Elena, and all of these characteristics made her stand out, but it was the way the girl moved that made Ibuki interested. The near-floating gait of someone who has far more balance than humans should have. Just like the kunoichi herself possessed.

Ibuki mused to herself that this Elena girl could be a substitute for her friend and rival Rindou Makoto who had disappeared after the ninja girl had directed her toward Hong Kong and the underground fights there. Despite their intense rivalry the lithe young woman counted the karateka as possibly her best friend. Nearly unwillingly Ibuki felt herself drawn into the past.

Four years earlier.

Her huge eyes were wide and tears could be seen in the corner of the black orbs. Ibuki's shoulders shivered and as she tried to hold back the tears. Her sensei, Geki knelt by her and placed an arm around shoulders comfortingly.

"You should not allow yourself to be made so upset over this Ibuki-chan." His voice was soft, consoling, a rare occurrence for the aged shinobi. The pony-tailed girl turned and buried her face in his shoulder. In between sniffs and shivers her voice, muffled by the old ninja's gi, worked it's way up.

"But I've never lost before! And, and Makoto, kept saying that ninjutsu wasn't meant to be used by real warriors!" The senior shinobi smiled grimly running his free hand through his graying hair.

"That old insult again." He said, his voice heavy with disdain. Gently pulling Ibuki away from him, the old warrior met the sorrowful kunoichi's gaze. His voice returning to its soft comforting tone he spoke again. "You must understand something little one, fighting like your enemy fights is the surest way to defeat. Those we combat, even those who are not truly our enemies do not appreciate this, and will never understand the path of the shinobi. Our way is split evenly between shadow and light."

"But, Makoto's father says life is nothing without honor!" Ibuki protested.

"It is so." Geki responded calmly. Ibuki was now just confused. A stern look from her sensei sent the girl scurrying into seiza, the traditional seated posture of Japan where one is basically seated on their shins. Geki nodded and knelt down in the same posture.

"However honor is not in how you fight, but why." The black haired girl remained intent, but patient as Geki continued. "For which is more honorable? The fighter who battles his opponents face-to-face, mindlessly destroying for foolish pride, or the whim of a mad lord? Or a warrior whose course is dictated by his heart, and the ideals of justice, not law. The second warrior is one who truly understands Bushido, even if his methods are best left to shadow and darkness."

Then the old man smiled and his eyes showed a spark of his younger fighting days. "Besides Ibuki, I have watched you and Makoto, she is too good a friend and a person to have truly meant those things she said. Rindou-san's daughter was using your emotions against you Ibuki-chan."

The kunoichi's eyes narrowed as a good chunk of rage built up inside her. She was however distracted by stout cuff on the side of the shoulder by a bamboo slat that had appeared out of nowhere in Geki's hands. Without changing expression, or having apparently moved, the old ninja set the bamboo next to him and addressed her calmly again.

"Do you see? You are still allowing her to control your feelings. A ninja must master his, or her, own heart before they can master their opponent."

Two days later.

"Ibuki!"

"Ah, Mako-chan!"

The short haired girl ran up to the kunoichi easily despite moving at speeds most sprinters would have been proud of. When she stopped her shoes made a sound usually associated with emergency stops and high speed chases. She bowed to the ninja-girl respectfully.

"I am sorry for what I said the other day when we sparring Ibuki, I did not mean to-"

Ibuki laughed brightly and shook her head. "Dai jo bu, Mako-chan. It's my fault for letting it get to me. However, if you still feel guilty, then let me have a re-match!"

Makoto smiled and bowed again; apparently so glad to see that her friend and rival did not hold a grudge that she overlooked her normal hatred of Ibuki's pet name for her. "Of course Ibuki! I'd be honored! The truth is your techniques are pretty good and I like trying to figure them out."

Ibuki smiled widely and bowed back. "You too Mako-chan, how about, after school today at your father's dojo, loser buys dinner!"

The shorter, but much stronger girl nodded and grinned back.

Four hours later.

"Mmmmm this is really good! Are you sure you don't want any ice cream Mako-chan?"

"... No, thanks anyway Ibuki." Said an extremely bruised Rindou Makoto rubbing her collarbone, and wondering exactly how the HELL she had got talked into spending her entire allowance on buying some shinobi-wannabe girl dinner. And where had that sweep-into-double-jump-kick come from?

However Makoto had been missing for quite some time, though Ibuki's family of shinobi had told her the young woman had recently appeared in Tokyo, apparently going by the name of Tendo Makoto. The kunoichi couldn't help but think there was something familiar about her adopted surname. Ibuki smiled to herself, trying to imagine the painfully honest and good-hearted Makoto trying to assume a cover identity. There was a break in school coming up and the pony tailed girl idly mused about going over to visit her friend and see how well she had pulled her little ploy off.

For now however the schoolgirl/kunoichi had other things to do, her second project. Which had taken the form of a recent, and dramatic, increase in the availability and addictiveness of certain illegal synthetic drugs. Everything from MDMA (also know as X-tasy), to synthetic heroin, to performance boosting steroids that were almost impossible to detect until the users body crashed. All of it was spreading, and it had started to spread into Ibuki's school. This was unacceptable; no one did things like that in her school!

So resolved Ibuki had decided that she would take care of this little problem herself, tonight. And she would do it without Geki-sensei or the rest of the clan watching over her shoulder. Maybe then they would let her go on her own private mission. Ibuki had been strolling with her head down, and as she set her course of action the lithe young woman raised her gaze to the sky, with eyes that were like spheres of onyx.

It was almost too easy. These yakuza were obviously so used to people ignoring them (either through bribery or fear) that their security was a joke. Of course for their precautions to have mattered they would have to be at the level government research laboratories were usually at. Or certain dark haired tomboyish karateka named Makoto.

All that was incidental right now however, and would only serve to distract her. The lithe kunoichi closed her ebon black eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. Then she opened her eyes casually, and all emotion was gone from them. There was only the Void, everything and nothing. Ibuki then took stock of her surroundings.

It was night, and from how long she had been waiting, around eleven at night. The streetlights in this part of town were so bad that some stars could be seen in the sky, and the crescent moon was still bright. The black haired young woman was currently crouched in the shadows of a bookstore across the street from the back of both a bar and a gym. Both buildings were owned by a local yakuza clan. The gym was one story, and big, the size of a dockside warehouse, while the bar was part of a three story apartment building. The crime family had purchased the complex and owned all the tenants, who either steady customers of products produced in the basement of the building, or foot soldiers of the clan.

All in all a very neat setup, everyone knew, but no one could prove anything, and the yakuza presence did have a side effect. No one, absolutely no one, pulled any street crime without getting clearance from the yakuza first. Street crime makes noise, noise attracts attention of police who were not so easily bribed, and attention was bad for business. Those who violated this law of the street were found, usually quite quickly, and taught the error of their ways. Typically with blowtorches, drills, and baseball bats with nails in them.

The kunoichi had elected to wear her midnight blue gi pants and sleeveless top instead of the tan ones, as this was a night mission. Which was also why her typical foot garments of ankle braces and sandals had been replaced by a more sensible and traditional set of tabi (those two toed boots you see in all the anime). Dark blue actually blended into darkness better than black, and black was sooooooo stereotypical anyway. The dark cloth made what little skin was exposed seem so pale as to be nearly ghost-like. Also under her wrist and forearm guards were silk gloves. Police in Japan were mainly to keep the status quo, and vigilantes were looked on as being no better than the criminals they fought. Or as the saying went "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

Ibuki checked her kunai (throwing daggers) and shuriken again, none of it had gone anywhere in the past five minutes. The ninja girl was waiting, and being patient had been Geki-sensei's first lesson. Unfortunately it was the hardest one for her to learn and the raven-haired girl was going out of her mind with boredom. Nevertheless when a mid-sized cargo truck pulled up, its engine far quieter than it should have been, Ibuki's trial of mental fortitude was rewarded. Two men leaning against the gym wearing cheap suit and smoking even cheaper cigarettes (Ibuki identified them as low level thugs, they had been present when Ibuki arrived nearly an hour earlier and looked even more bored than she was) pulled the sliding back door open then stepped back. The already over stressed shocks of the truck groaned under the shift in weight as something inside the cargo area moved.

What stepped out of the truck made the kunoichi's large eyes widen even more. The gaijin was huge, easily seven feet tall, maybe eight. His shoulders were nearly as broad as Ibuki was tall, and bulged with huge muscles. However despite the enormous strength that this man was sure to have Ibuki had to contain a laugh, for the black haired foreigner was wearing a purple and black polka dotted spandex top, and mauve pants. All of his clothes appeared to be nearly ripping with the effort of holding in his prodigious muscles, and even larger quantities of fat. To top it all off he appeared to be wearing cowboy boots. The gaijin's glazed looking beady eyes stared out from under a sloped brow, adding to his ridiculous appearance.

He was the stupidest looking thing Ibuki had ever seen.

The Japanese men stepped back to make room for him but did not appear impressed, the gaijin was obviously hired help. Their eyes did light up, in an evil manner, when the next person got out of the van. She was a tall Caucasian woman, with long blond hair, a slim (nearly anorexic) stomach, and very curvaceous in the chest and hip department. A fact that her clothes, if they could be called that, showed. For the gaijin woman wore a white t-shirt torn so that the underside of her large breasts were visible, and her jean shorts had once been pants, but now no longer had any legs. In fact the were so short Ibuki was fairly certain she could see bits of the woman's panties sticking out from the edges of the shorts. She also had some kind of blue, ridged hat on; similar to the type Harley bikers wore in Tokyo.

The huge man crossed his arms and tried to look threatening, it didn't work. The blond woman sauntered to the two Japanese men and addressed them in a tone that would have got a Japanese woman slapped. The two men were obviously barely paying attention to her, lost in the expanses of creamy flesh in front of them. Eventually one of the men threw a quick thumb over his shoulder and nodded at the enormous gaijin. There was a pause. The huge man didn't move, until the blond woman elbowed him and mumbled something in a language Ibuki barely recognized, but did not understand. Unless she missed her guess it was German.

Regardless the huge man ducked his head and went through the door into the gym. The blond woman leaned back against the truck, a smug grin on her red lips. The two thugs grinned wolfishly and took up position on either side of her. Oblivious to anything but the gorgeous woman in front of them. Which was absolutely perfect.

The ninja girl uncoiled from her hiding position, turned into a dark blur dodging the pale yellow lamp light, and with all the noise of a shadow falling, ran up the wall of the bar three steps and jumped off, vaulting herself almost directly above the three people. Once airborne, a black patch against the night sky, Ibuki took a kunai in each hand and hurled them at yakuza thugs. The two knives buried themselves perfectly in the base of the two thugs necks, paralyzing, then killing them instantly.

Before the two yakuza had a chance to drop to the ground, Ibuki was on the blond woman, grabbing her long hair, then snapping her own body downward, and crushing both knees into the gaijin's face. The raven-haired kunoichi twisted to the side so that the foreign woman was thrown on to the body of the thug on her right. Ibuki paused, crouched on top of the unconscious blond, scanning for any sign that her attack had alerted the occupants of the gym or the bar. When all remained silent the kunoichi rolled off the fallen woman, rolled the two bodies and the comatose woman under the van, and sprinted toward the wall of the bar, got four steps up and jumped backward.

She landed on the roof of the gym with slightly less sound than that of a snowflake melting. She saw to men smoking near the front of the building's roof, both had long gym bags that could conceal any kind of weapon. There was also a skylight, but that was so obvious that it had to be trapped or at least wired. Rather than risk additional attention Ibuki glided across the roof to the side of the building opposite the bar. The dark dressed kunoichi crouched down into a tiny ball. As she had expected, there was a side entrance to the fitness center. There was also another guard leaning against the side of the building.

Ibuki nodded once to herself, checked the two guards at the front of the building (they were still smoking, ignorant or uncaring of what smoking does to a person's night vision), and then scooped up a handful of gravel from the roof, the padded silently along the edge of the building. At the rear of the building the kunoichi saw a trash can and dropped two stones in it. The guard at the side of the building turned his head, unsure of what to make of the noise. Two more rocks. The yakuza thug dropped his cigarette and pulled a long bladed tanto dagger from his lousy suit coat. Cautiously the punk walked on the balls of his feet to the corner of the building, and forgetting the most basic rule of thug self-protection. He forgot to look up.

As Ibuki dropped off the edge of the gym she calmly thought of how many bones she was about to break in this mans body. Just enough, was the conclusion she reached as both of her heels crushed into the joints of his shoulders.

Five minutes, and three more crippled yakuza thugs later; Ibuki was crouched outside the steel double doors of the basketball court. She had taken the opportunity to disable the hall lights so there was no back lighting to give her away. In the center of the court was a crowd of ten more thugs (all dressed in cheap white or black suits, with short black hair, and the thick build of men whose primary employment is hurting others), a thin man who looked like he had a serious vitamin E deficiency in an Armani ensemble, and the huge gaijin man. They were moving toward her door casually, totally unconcerned, joking about little girls they had kidnapped and sold, women they had raped, and how well their drug sales were doing.

A truly tactical move would be to hide behind something and take them out one by one. However Ibuki was going for psychological effect as much as military efficiency. So the kunoichi waited in the darkness, coiled like a viper, and twice as unsympathetic for her upcoming prey. Two thugs opened the doors, not even looking down the hall but at each other. Suddenly it dawned on them that there was no light in the hallway. The pair of criminals looked forward in time to see a flash of smooth pale skin, and cold, hard, black eyes. Then the kunoichi was among them.

Ibuki caught the first one with an upper palm strike in the bridge of the nose, shattering the weak bones there, and sending fragments of them into the yakuza's brain. Without pausing the kunoichi spun, grabbed the other front man, locked his arm above her head, then punched a fist into his stomach, detonating a small blast of ki at the instant of impact. The criminal flew backward, toppling three of his fellows in the process. Over the crowded entrance exploded Ibuki, catching one man in the neck with a pair of heel stomp kicks to the face, bouncing back into the darkness of the hallway and impaling one of the fallen men with a kunai to a nerve nexus in his shoulder.

Amidst the chaos two men stepped over the fallen pair and snapped out collapsible batons in their right hands. One actually managed to swing at her. Ibuki side stepped the clumsy strike, caught his wrist in her left hand, and his elbow with her right. Then the raven-haired kunoichi slammed a knee into gut of the other man. Swinging her leg up and over, Ibuki planted her foot on the side of his head and kicked out. This slammed his head into the wall and gave the ninja girl something brace against. Pushing off with both legs (and grinding the unfortunate thug pinned to the wall against the concrete even more) Ibuki vaulted over the shoulder of the arm she had caught, heard the shoulder joint pop and dislocate, threw the man up into the air, rotated on the ball of her left leg and caught the punk in between the shoulders with ball of her right foot.

Then the kunoichi turned to face the remaining four thugs who were now backing away, terrified of this slim specter. Ibuki walked into the court calmly, keeping her eyes on the huge gaijin who stood in the center of the basketball court with his arms crossed. Narrowing her ebony eyes the ninja girl shot forward, sliding on her knees to catch one thug's feet, swing up behind him, brace her hand on his head, feet on his back, then jumping and twisting. Vertebrae snapped loudly as the punk's neck was broken.

As she twisted in mid air, two more kunai span out of the whirling black blur that was Ibuki. One caught the Armani man in the knee, dropping the pale figure instantly, while the other buried itself in the collarbone of the yakuza nearest the gaijin. Ibuki hit the ground, took three fast steps forward, and swept one thug from behind (which had happened because the last two were busily trying to run away), came rocketing off the ground to plant two diving heel stomps on the last standing punk's neck.

In fit of impulsive (and foolish) courage (well kind of courage), the criminal who had been swept rolled to his feet and jumped at Ibuki's back, arms spread wide to catch the girl in a bear hug. Ibuki looked over her shoulder, and in that instant, the thug knew that the kunoichi had enough time to go out for tea and come back before he could have got to her. The pony tailed girl turned sideways, bent her knees, let the man's elbow hit her shoulder, caught his wrist, then rotated on her inside foot. The yakuza felt his arm go painfully tight, heard the snap of tendons and muscles, the pop of his shoulder coming out place, then he was rushing toward the ground, face first.

Then he didn't feel anything because his face had just been crushed into the basketball court's floor and he was knocked the f**k out.

Ibuki straightened up and faced the huge gaijin. The enormous man flexed his arms and swung them leaning over to show off his shoulder muscles.

"I am Hugo, I am power! Come one!" The gaijin growled in English.

The ninja girl carefully studied him, then turned her head and made a big show of yawning.

"I better hurry this up, I've got a trigonometry test tomorrow!" She mused to herself, also in English. Hugo's beady, bloodshot eyes grew huge, and he bellowed in rage then ran toward the slim girl, right arm cocked back to deliver a huge punch. The clumsy but absurdly powerful strike was thrown arcing toward the seemingly uncaring girl with lethal force. At the absolute last half second Ibuki turned with the assault, bending like reed in the wind to sidestep/duck the blow, while dropping and raking her heel along the front of his knee. Rolling off to the side to avoid the huge bulk of the gaijin the black haired young woman bounced to her feet and launched herself at Hugo's back, arcing her leg up, over, and finally landing a descending heel kick to the gaijin's back.

If Hugo noticed he didn't show it. The huge man shook his curly, greasy black hair and stood, as if nothing had happened. Ibuki's already large eyes now were doing saucer impressions. The wrestler swung his arms across his body again, laughing darkly all the while. The he started forward again.

The huge man swung an under cutting left spear hand that Ibuki guessed was supposed to be a jab, but seemed too slow. The pony tailed girl side stepped, using her left hand to push herself outside the attack, the pushing off with her legs and slamming every ounce of muscle, weight, and training into an open hand palm strike to the wrestler's elbow.

Even Hugo's mountains of fat and muscle couldn't save him from the pain that ignited his left arm as nerves, cartilage, and bone were slammed together. The enormous man tried to recoil, pulling his wounded arm back. The kunoichi smiled underneath her mask, grabbed onto the wrestler's wrist and let him pull her forward. At the last second Ibuki's legs flexed and she bent the joint painfully down, forcing the black haired man to twist his elbow up to avoid his wrist breaking.

Which opened his side beautifully.

The devious ninja girl twisted at the waist, pushed up with her left arm, and punched her right arm forward, her gloved fist sinking into the fat man's side easily. A half second went by as the Hugo and Ibuki's eyes met. Then the black haired girl focused her incredible ki through her right hand in an explosive burst, folding the huge man over at the side, sending him flying off the ground, his face a mask of pain.

Her black eyes cold as an ice flow Ibuki belted across the arena on the balls of her feet, a ball of energetic destruction wrapped in an adorable body and dark gi. Though he knew she was coming Hugo's back was turned to the girl, and he didn't see a flash of ki energy erupt from her center and suffuse the young woman. Showing remarkable timing for someone as stupid as he was, Hugo suddenly pushed off the wall, and lashed an enormous booted foot out at the incoming kunoichi.

He was about a hundred years too slow.

Ibuki spun to the inside of the attack and buried her elbow in his soft gut in the opening strike of her Hashin-sho combination. Two more ki enhanced hand strikes, then three kicks, all of which tore skin, crushed nerves, and the last of which sent the huge man flying into the air. Hugo hit the ground with a thunderous splat, both of fat and blood. Ibuki stood without a drop on her. Calm as the mountain she lived on Ibuki turned to face the terrified yakuza lieutenant.

She didn't have to see him to know Hugo had risen and was charging her back, she would have heard his sweat covered body make the floor creak, felt both his stinking breath on her back, and the vibrations of the court floor as he stepped toward her, arms out spread to crush this upstart little girl. Ibuki dropped down at the last second, arcing her elbow over her shoulder, aiming for the huge man's diaphragm. What she had forgotten was how tall Hugo was, and while she hit him, the kunoichi hadn't got exactly where she had aimed for.

With a blink of surprise Ibuki realized her elbow was imbedded a good four inches in the big man's groin.

Hugo wasn't moving. More to the point he appeared to be frozen, not even breathing his face caught in mid-howl of pain, his beady eyes so wide they were almost normal size (normal for an adorable anime girl that is), and thick arms halted in the motion to clutch his injured body. The lithe young woman pulled away and hopped to the side, arms ready in case the gaijin came at her again. Then, a tiny, tiny squeak emanated from Hugo's pain constricted throat, and he fell face forward, with the finality of an oak crashing to the ground.

Even the thin yakuza forgot his crippled knee to turn away and wince in horrified sympathy pain. By the time he turned back around the dark figure of Ibuki was standing over him. Logically he knew she was a small girl, maybe five feet tall. But standing over him, with eyes colder than a glacier, she seemed to dominate the world.

Then she reached out for him, gloved hand extending directly for the criminal's face.

The Armani dressed man covered his face with his arms and screamed.