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	Suzuhime's breath came in short, quick pants, ripping through her chest like a whirlwind. There was no time to catch it. The other ninja had longer legs than she did, so she had to run thrice as fast just to stay out of his reach. He was older, so she had to be smarter. She broke the branches she was standing on with a spike of too-much chakra as she jumped just to make him find another path up to her, but they were in a [i]forest[/i] with no shortage of alternate routes. 

	'[i]Use the environment to create breathing space.[/i]'

	She was doing what Samuru-sensei said to do, and it wasn't working. Or it was working, but not well enough to save her. It bought her thirty seconds at best to descend, duck behind a tree and take inventory of the situation. The senbon-launcher attached to her wrist broke in the last flurry of blows before she alighted into the trees. Her wrist ached like it was broken, too, but right now the senbon-launcher was of more tactical importance: she needed it to make sure nothing [i]else[/i] broke.

	She bit at the smashed mechanism with her teeth, trying to get it to please open up so that she could at least access a few extra senbon, or the vial of poison stored inside. It did not yield. It must have been the spring inside that had snapped, because she couldn't access it through the front, either. Nothing would come out, and no-one could get access to it – least of all Suzuhime.

	A manic thought struck her on a wave of panicked laughter. If only she could have fit the scroll inside it. Then they'd be golden. She had a lot of those. If only she hadn't agreed vociferously to take a rest when they hadn't scouted out the area for traps.

	If only someone else had responsibility for the scroll. Instead, she kept the scroll in the pouch on her hip. Her supply of kunai was running low. She paused in her assessment to throw one of her last ones at a rustling bush where she thought he might have been coming for her, then forced her legs to keep going.

	[color=E25A73][i]Help me,[/i][/color] she thought. [color=E25A73][i]Usagi, Makoto, [b]anyone[/b], please help me.[/i][/color] But she had seen Usagi and Makoto dart in opposite directions back in the clearing, a good distraction. The chances of them catching up before she was caught were infinitesimally small – she didn't have to do the kind of calculations required in the written exam to know that.

	And a small traitorous voice said that they would have to contend with their own opponents before they could help with hers, and victory wasn't guaranteed for any of them.

	The ninja leapt in front of her from above, and she had to skid to a halt before she ran straight into him. His headband said he was from Mist, but she hadn't seen that before. She forced her hands into a series of seals. Ram, boar, ox. 

	"Hand it over, brat, and we won't do any permanent damage."

	Dog.

	As he made a grab for her, blade glinting, she twisted into the final one. Snake. The Body Replacement Technique absorbed the blow but left her off-balance and disoriented somewhere to the left of them. The Mist-nin was coming for her, and there was nowhere else to run.

	'[i]Use stealth. If the enemy can't see you he can't hit you.[/i]'

	[color=E25A73][i]Samuru-sensei, there's nowhere to hide, either. What else have you got for me?[/i][/color]

	Suzuhime brought her hands up once more to attempt a last ditch effort of her clan's secret technique. The Mind-Body Switch. It shouldn't have been used when there was no allies around to protect her body if she missed or otherwise failed, but it was all she had left up her sleeve. Her forefingers and thumbs met, and––

	And the ninja advanced upon her too quickly for her to summon the necessary chakra. She had to roll out of the way to avoid his first kunai, deflecting the second with the hard metal of the senbon-launcher, even as the force behind it jostled fractured bone. It was enough for her to let out an instinctual yelp loud enough to unsettle the birds above. His hand shot out and grabbed her other wrist, the one that was far more useful at present, and yanked her into the air.

	[color=gray]"Your team's scroll. Where is it?"[/color]

	'[i]Do your best to not die.[/i]'

	[color=E25A73]"I don't – have it,"[/color] she lied. Better to die than live with the shame of losing her team's scroll. They'd never forgive her. She'd never forgive herself.
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