She hesitated, curling a strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail around one finger. “Are you going to swim?”

“Possibly,” Ibiki said, and began to kick off his shoes. “Maybe I’ll just wade.”

“Me, too,” Hana declared, shimmying out of her tank top and tossing it over a low branch. She wasn’t wearing shoes to take off, and her shorts didn’t take long. She wasn’t going to be teased for wearing her underwear; she stripped out of those, too, and made a dash for a low cliff that overhung the creek. “Don’t go in the middle!” she shouted to her brother and his friend, who were trying to bait Idate out even farther than he already was. Then she jumped, dropping five feet and splashing into waist-deep water.

“You shouldn’t be so far out, either!” Kiba yelled.

“I can swim much better than you,” she told him imperiously, taking a few steps deeper just to show him.

The creek was wide, anyway, and shallow for a good twenty feet out from each bank. It was only in the middle where the ground dropped away and the current grabbed hold; there, she could see the ripples of rapidly flowing water and knew that the real strength ran far deeper than her eye could view. She was already near the twenty foot mark, and could feel the strong tug. Hana turned back to the bank. “You coming, Ibiki?” Not even Ibiki-san. Her mother might not like him, but Hana liked him just fine.