My Ninja Girl 4 by Gideon Caldwell (latest novels to read .TXT) 📕

go first,” Soraya said as she stepped over to a container filled with balls. They’d thankfully stopped using the bricks. Micah got pegged by a brick a couple days back, and now he flinched every time she threw one, the kitsune not at all the type to go easy on him. Besides, both of them reasoned that if they were able to grab onto one of the balls, they could easily latch onto a brick. It was easier, and safer.

Soraya tossed the ball up into the air and caught it. “Well?”

“Almost ready.”

Once Micah was in position, he nodded and she proceeded to strike him in the chest with the ball.

“You’re not supposed to absorb it; you’re supposed to repel it by catching,” she said. “How many times do we have to go over this?”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

The next thirty minutes passed, Micah never able to utilize the power correctly. There were a few points where he did latch onto the ball, but this was after it had already hit him, which didn’t count. There was even a time that Micah was able to stop the ball midair and hold it there for a moment, the ball simply floating before dropping to the ground. But that was about as impressive as he was going to be able to get with it.

They switched places, and Micah started off by underhand tossing balls to Soraya, which only seemed to frustrate her more.

“You need to relax,” he said after a dark look took shape over her face. “I know it’s hard, but you’re not going to be able to do it by acting like that.”

She didn’t say anything, but her ears lowered to some degree.

“You know I’m right. And there’s no need to be angry at the messenger. Just try again. If anyone can do this, it’s you. I might be a lost cause myself, and I’m fine with that. But we have been practicing a lot, and I know it has helped some of my other abilities. What I’m trying to say here is that you’ve got this.”

Micah was certain she could do it.

And it was true, with all of their training, he had noticed that his ability to heal had grown exponentially stronger. He was even getting better and better at absorbing and subsequently repelling attacks in his sparring matches against Liza. He also felt as if he were moving faster than he had been just a few days back.

He was by no means moving at the same speed as any of the ninjas, but if he kept it up, he’d be able to catch up to Liza sooner rather than later. It was strange to think that what the team truly needed was just a few days off to train and lick their wounds, that this was the key to radically unlocking their powers. Even his grandmother seemed to be in a better mood as of late, still adding salacious comments and teasing people when she could, yet happy, the elderly woman a fan of where they were living and the bustling district around them.

It didn’t hurt that Youseg had some serious connections. Micah and his group had already received permits, all forged, that listed them as foreign nationals with different names. Their biometric data had been modified as well, which was something that Choro had tested, Micah’s old friend finding what Youseg called his ‘tech room’ quite handy. Everything Choro could ever want was in the room, and he had already made sure he could communicate with Bobi, Choro also modifying Micah and Liza’s helmets to even allow for cross-border communication.

Yes, Youseg’s monastery was truly what they needed, a place to call home and start over, yet the future still loomed over them. They couldn’t remain stationary and wait for it to reach them. There was always the option of expatriating, which Micah saw in their future, but this didn’t mean there still wasn’t work to do in the meantime.

Here we go, he thought as he focused on Soraya.

He threw the ball at her with a short breath out, the kitsune squinting as she managed to swipe it out of the air using industria. She couldn’t believe she had done it, and of all things, he didn’t expect her to run forward and hug him, Soraya squeezing Micah tighter than she ever had before.

“You did it,” he said. “I told you that you could. I knew it.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she told him she lowered her hands and turned away. “I’m getting ahead of myself. It could just be a one-off.”

“I don’t know,” said Micah. “It seems to me like the start of something new…”

“Throw it again and we’ll find out.”

Unfortunately, Soraya turned out to be right. Over the rest of their early-morning practice, she was unable to perform the same move again, but she didn’t grow as frustrated as she normally would have, which was a relief to Micah. A glimmer of hope seemed to go a long way with the kitsune.

Toward the tail end of their early morning training session, Youseg’s attendants came to help Soraya with breakfast and she sent them away. “Micah can help me.”

“I can?” Micah asked. He had been planning to take a shower.

“Of course,” Soraya said as she passed him, her tail lightly flitting against his arm. “You’ve been my assistant before.”

Your assistant? Micah followed her into the large, first floor kitchen, all the surfaces nice and clean, everything orderly. He did as she instructed, performing a number of tasks as he thought about how he used to make breakfast and dinner for his grandmother. It had just been the two of them for so long, Micah raising her as much as she raised him at times.

Who would have thought that things could change as drastically as they had?

Six months ago, Micah would have never dreamed of