Saruwatari stretched his skinny limbs. He yawned before smacking Matsuo on the back of the head. Matsuo whipped around, his round face red and his fists clenched.

          “Saruwatari!” he groaned. “Why do you always do things like that?”

          Saruwatari giggled like a monkey. He stretched toward the sky, a large grin spread across his tan face.

          “Because I can, little cousin!”

          “Saruwatari! Matsuo!”

          The boys turned around to find Yumi standing there with her arms crossed, leaning against the side of their work building. She didn’t look too happy as she tapped her foot, the wood from her shoes tapping against the cobble stones.

          “What have I told you a million times?” she demanded.

          Saruwatari’s smile faded. “Aww! Yumi-Kun, you always ruin the fun!”

          “Fun?” Matsuo looked over at his cousin with a confused expression. “I’m not so sure of that one.”

          Saruwatari giggled again.

          “You guys! It’s almost the end of the week. The day is almost here. Be respectful!”

          Matsuo sighed and nodded. Saruwatari shrugged.

          “Yeah, I know,” he commented. “But we have a few days before. I know it’s a time of morning, but…”

          “Yes?” Yumi urged him. “But what?”

          Saruwatari looked away.

          “But…you know…Kojima would have wanted us to be happy.”

          Matsuo nodded. “She always thought that when you were happy on the day of one’s death, as long as you were still remembering that person, your happiness made their spirits happy. She told me that our deceased loved ones want us to be happy, not sad. She thought that us being unhappy for that person made their spirit unhappy.”

          Yumi sighed.

          “Then when you remember Koji, be happy…”

          Something suddenly caught Saruwatari’s eye. He spun his head to one side to catch a better glimpse of a large man in the crowd. He had short, sandy brown hair and large muscles visible beneath his robes. Saruwatari’s eyes widened at the sight of the man. It was the man they ran into two years ago when their village was invaded.

           “Saru-Chan?” Yumi looked at him funny. She followed his gaze directly at the man. She gasped. “It’s him!”

           Matsuo had seen him by this point.

           “B-but…You said he was dead!”

           Yumi couldn’t believe it. His face had burned in her sole fore the past two years. There was no doubting it. It was him. Kojima’s killer.

          It was a minute or so before the man noticed the three. When he spotted them, his eyes narrowed. Then he took off.

                                             *                                *                                  *

          Fu Makoto turned to run. He had just spotted three familiar faces in an alleyway from back when his village invaded another. The three were friends of his companion, someone he had taken in after the attack was over. His comrades had thought his new friend to be the only survivor. Fu didn’t see the need to send a search party after the three friends.

          But as he noticed they were running after him, he thought that those three out of the way would make his purpose in this new village easier. After all, he was here only as a traveler. He had left his fellow ninja a few months after the attack on the Nakamura. Now he traveled with his new companion.

          This village was the last place he expected to see the three young ones living. He had wanted anything but to run into them. They must have hated him ever since the day their village was burned to the ground. But what they didn’t know was— 

          When they had gotten to the outskirts of town and out of the sight of most all of the townspeople, one of the boys following Fu had reached him. He tackled Fu, both of them tumbling to the ground. Fu, being stronger than the boy by two hundred fold, jerked the boy off of him.

          By this time the other two had caught up. The small, plump boy was pondering frantically what to do. The girl, however, drew a bow and two arrows from the folds of her robes. She aimed directly at Fu’s throat and pulled back on the thick string. As she was about to release, something caught her eye.

          A girl about a year or so older than Yumi appeared from farther down the trail into the forest. She was dressed in a green kimono with a light bubble pattern going along it. The large decorative sash was a golden yellow, a dragon stitched into it with the same green as the bubbles.

          She had short brown hair with long blue and red patched in the front. She wore spectacles and a hopeful grin on her fair face.

          Yumi dropped the bow.

          “Kojima!!!”