2 Mission

Deep in the mountains of Ionia, stood a monastery.

The large structure was propped up on a mountain, hanging from the rocks and defying gravity. The massive building was the resting place for those who pursued the ways of balance and peace.

Within these walls, in the center of a courtyard stood two young ninjas, one male and one female.

After a brief stand-off, the two began the battle.

Immediately, the male ninja dodged the shuriken that threatened to pierce his lungs. The volley forced him to retreat into a corner, should dodging be his only concern.

The female ninja, understanding her brief advantage, rushed towards her adversary. With a kunai in one hand and a kama in the other.

She dashed towards her opponent in one swift movement, travelling the entire distance in one second.

However, the male ninja had expected this.

A thin string lies suspended in the air, acting as an invisible shield for the young ninja.

During her dash, the female ninja noticed the thin string. However, she was going far too quickly to slow down in time.

Therefore, she slid underneath the string, surrendering her advantage, and slicing at the young man's legs in retaliation.

The young man immediately leaped forward. The two young ninjas had effectively switched places, the advantage now lying with the male ninja.

In a desperate attempt to escape, the female ninja threw a smoke bomb below her, effectively blocking all line of sight.

The male ninja simple stood and waited for the smoke bomb to clear out.

And what remained was the female ninja, tied up in strings, helpless to any attacks.

"You cheating bitch." The female ninja spat. "You set up traps before we even started!"

"Yeah obviously. Not everyone is as bullheaded as you." The young man responded.

"Fuck you, Kal!" The female ninja cursed. Her foul language didn't seem as threatening when she was restrained in mid-air.

With a smile on his face, Kal released the female ninja from the bindings.

"You need to start thinking in fights Akali." Kal lectured. "You aren't stupid, you just get too excited."

"Wow, you're really starting to sound like Shen." Akali sighed.

"Yeah, both of us want to see you succeed." Kal confessed.

"Ew, don't be so genuine, it's weird." Akali cringed.

"Whatever." Kal sighed. "Anyway, what's the score now?" he asked with a smirk as he re-entered the warm walls of the monastery.

"I really hate you." Akali replied upon mention of their score.

"I believe the score is 19-38, young Kal." A passing elder ninja teased.

"Oh, so it's 19-39 now?" Kal smirked.

"Shut up, the both of you." Akali wanted nothing more than to tear her own ears off.

"Hahaha." The two male ninjas shared a laugh at their colleague's expense.

"Anyways, when is your next mission?" Kal asked as they entered the cafeteria together.

"I don't know. Shen said he'd tell me today." Akali responded.

"Huh, he said the same to me." Kal pondered.

"Reckon we're teaming?" Akali asked.

"Probably. Although he usually tells us much earlier." Kal replied.

"Hmm..." Akali pondered.

The both of them took a tray and began filling it up with food.

Akali took a couple of flavors of soup and some soft white bread.

"Really?" Kal asked, looking at her diet.

"You think it's easy looking this good?" She replied. "Abs don't come cheap"

"Well, it is easy looking this good." Kal smirked as he took a burger, some pizza and a steak. Hardly a conventional dinner, but health was hardly a concern for him.

"Pig." Akali teased.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He replied before sinking his teeth into his burger first. "You'd eat like me too if you knew that you'd stay in perfect condition regardless."

"I have no clue what kind of bullshit power lets you do that." She grumbles. "I want it too."

"Yeah, you might actually start winning our duels." Kal smirked as he teased.

"I'm gonna kill you when you go to sleep tonight." Akali threatened.

"Good luck." He responded. "Although if our duels are anything to go off of, you'll somehow lose that fight as well."

"I hate you." She spat.

"You love me." Kal chuckled.

"Kal! Akali!" An elder yelled towards the young couple. "Shen is calling for you, finish up your dinner."

-------------

"We've received intel that a Noxian army has gathered in one of their main campsites." Shen informed the two young ninjas. "Your mission will be to go and collect documents of their plans."

"Understood." Kal replied and left Shen's office.

"I'm guessing this is a stealth mission?" Akali asked with a bit of disappointment in her voice.

"Yes." Shen curtly replied.

"Tsk." She clicked her tongue. "Anything else we should know?"

"Be wary of the Order of Shadows." He spoke. "I don't doubt that they'll be after the same information you are."

"Yeah, yeah." Akali shrugged it off and left the office, following Kal.

It only took her a moment to catch up.

"Any reason you run away from Shen every time you see him?" Akali asked.

"I don't run away; I simply keep my distance." Kal replied.

"What? Why?" she pestered.

"Because not everyone treats him like a dad." He replied. "He's our leader."

"I don't treat him like a dad!" Akali exclaimed.

"Really? Last I heard, you stumbled into his office while he was in a meeting to complain about me." Kal smirked.

"..." She couldn't retort.

"Anyways, enough flirting. Let's get ready." Kal spoke as he entered his room to gather the necessities, leaving Akali stunned in the hallway.

'Oi, flirting?' She kept her eyes trained on Kal's door, unable to comprehend what he had just said.

'He's just fucking with me, isn't he?' She snapped out of her overthinking and walked to her room.

-------------

In only an hour, both Akali and Kal had gotten prepared. They had a small bundle of food and a waterskin each. Of course, they were both armed to the teeth as well.

Akali was armed with all types of sharp ninja tools; shuriken, kama, kunai. She also had a couple of smoke bombs to get out of any sticky situation as well as a deck of cards to occupy her while she was bored.

Kal, on the other hand, didn't even seem to have weapons. Of course, this was because his weapon of choice, his strings were tucked away in his sleeves. Although he also had a couple of smoke bombs and weights of varying size.

The small weight would be tied to the string to manipulate it, otherwise, he would have to use the Kinkou Order's techniques.

And while they are powerful, they drain energy.

Akali, Shen and Kennen were outliers. Their talents lay in using and regaining energy, while relatively normal people like Kal were unable to use the techniques so often.

Of course, this meant that Akali was physically much stronger than Kal. Although that didn't mean much when Akali was too inexperienced to make use of her superior strength.

Both took to the windy and complex trees to get around. Although it would undoubtedly be faster to run across the ground, it was nowhere near as safe.

Ionia was home to all types of beasts, and although Kal and Akali could slay any beast in no time at all, it saved a lot of stamina in the long run. Not to mention, gaining the ire of Mother Nature never goes well.

Knowing that the sun would rise soon, the ninjas opted to sleep during the day to gain a more advantageous position at night.

As ninjas, sleeping anywhere at any time was a skill that needed to be mastered and thankfully, these two had long since mastered the basics.

They scanned the immediate area for an ideal location, and almost immediately found one.

In the distance, stood a mountain shaped like a ring with trees covering it in full and a river running along the top. Waterfalls fell occasionally from the sides and the right side of the mountain had a small volcano protruding from the side.

Although the weight of the monument made it completely impossible, this type of typography wasn't rare.

They saw a large tree hanging on the underside of the ring mountain and decided that it would be a good place to settle down.

"Race you there." Akali grinned as she took off.

Kal saw her practically disappear and knew that he had no chance to win. He was physically at the level of a superhuman, but Akali eclipsed even that.

With no other choice, Kal simply did his best to keep up.

Even using his energy to find footholds on leaves to prop himself up to find another, even using energy on his string techniques to swing himself up didn't shorten the distance between the two.

Akali glanced back for a moment after reaching the top of the mountain and found that Kal was only 65% of the way up. She took a moment to bask in her own greatness and swiftly parkoured to the underside of the mountain.

She got to the tree first, so she was able to pick her spot first.

And as such, when Kal arrived, he found that every inch of the tree except for one singular flimsy branch had been occupied by Akali.

Her body was strewn across 4 thick branches. Her torso being held up by two and each of her legs splitting to occupy two others.

With the 4 biggest branches being hogged, Kal found that her smoke bombs took up the 5th largest, her kunai took the 6th, her kama took the 7th and a small bundle of preserved food took the 8th.

All that was left was a half-broken branch that wasn't long enough even to contain Kal's entire leg length and was only think enough to hold a singular asscheek.

'I could use my string to make this branch livable, I could move her stuff and sleep on a decent branch...' He thought to himself. '...or...'

Kal swung to the largest branch, which held her head as her torso stretched to another.

"Hmm? What's up Kal?" Akali grinned. "I got first pick, so you'll have to find another."

"So, you aren't going to move from this one?" Kal asked with a grin.

"Nope." She curtly replied.

"Very well." Kal used a hand quickly to hold Akali's head up as he lay down on the branch and let go of her head.

Akali shot up and looked back at Kal who shot her a smirk.

"So, you're stealing my spot now?" Akali pretended to cry.

"Not at all." Kal teased. "The branch is big enough for both of us." As he finished his sentence, he patted right next to him. Indeed, the branch was as wide as a double-sized bed, it could easily fit both.

Akali froze for what seemed like hours. Her eyes locked onto Kal's smirk; he knew that she wasn't going to go along with his bullshit. However, that smirk pissed her off enough to forget her embarrassment.

"...yeah, sure." Akali tried to keep a straight face as she crawled onto the same branch and lied next to Kal.

Both were completely dumbfounded by Akali's action, but neither were going to back out now. What once seemed like friendly banter became something so much more.

Kal and Akali used their arms and pillows and slowly drifted into unconsciousness.