"Is this seriously real? You can't be..."
She heard him mutter in intelligible Japanese. Now his voice sounded more natural to her, which only gave her lingering thought more substance.
"You really fucking can't be..."
Then the man removed his helmet, clipped it onto his rig, and rolled his balaclava up into some kind of hat. All the lingering doubts she had about his identity disappeared in an instant. While the man looked somewhat older and rougher, bigger and taller, he was still the handsome young man who stole her heart during that fateful afternoon.
"Now that you've got your dream set, I guess from now on we'll be going out together, huh, Ga-Yuno-chan?"
"Well, you can say that... And just call me Yuno, Am-Yu-Yukki..."
"Y-y-y-Yuno?!"
"Y-y-y-yu-Yukki?! Oh God, it's really you, Yukki!"
"Holy fucking shit! Yuno! It is you!"
It may be hard to believe, but yes, Yukiteru Amano was the man Yuno Gasai was looking at right now. It appeared that whatever chaos caused this place to end up in the state she found it in also brought them back together.
She immediately ran to the operative, who she now knew was Yukki, her Yukki and hugged him tightly. She couldn't even say everything she wanted to tell him because she couldn't stop crying into his tactical rig.
"I missed you for a very long damn time, Yuno... I really did... I really fucking did..."
She looked up to see Yukki trying very hard not to cry, even though he was also tearing up.
Yukki said he missed me for a long time... Wha-what happened between the two of us so long ago in this timeline?
"Y-y-y-Yukki, I-i-i-i-I'm sorry... Please believe me, I really am... I'm sorry..."
Even if she was too busy sobbing to tell him, Yukki knew exactly what she meant.
"Don't be sorry, Yuno, don't be. You only did what fate forced you to do, what you thought was the right thing to do. You never knew the truth until it was too late. Fate fucked us hard. I know. So please, stop crying. I'm here. I'm here. We're together again. That's all that matters now."
"W-w-wha-ho-ho-Yukki, how did you-"
"Cut it, cut it. I'll tell you when we get to safety. But, right now..."
The man then took her head in his hands, put his lips on the girl's own, and held her tightly. He didn't give two shits about how wrong this would look anywhere else in the civilized world, he didn't give two shits about his current mission and the reason why he was in Tarkov in the first place, and he didn't give two shits about the two of them kissing in the middle of the road, visible up to a good distance away.
Man, her lips feel just as good as I remember they were...
All Yukki gave a fuck about was the fact that Yuno was with him again.
Yukki... What happened to you? To me? To us? To this world? And why?
But then he pulled away from the kiss, took a look around, gave her back her gun and motioned for her to come with him to the trees and grass. By then she had already stopped crying, and had just finished wiping her tears.
"Ssshhhhh. Stay low and stay quiet. We have company."
When Yuno asked her man what he meant, he pointed to her the group of people slowly approaching the part of the road they were situated in a while ago. Unlike the groups of scavenger/bandit types she saw earlier, however, they were different.
Once they were close enough, she clearly saw that there were six of them, all wearing digital camouflage shirts and what appeared to be tan tactical boots hidden by the length of their pants, which shared the same pattern with their shirts. Their body language and demeanor screamed professional mercenaries.
Around half wore helmets which had a shape quite different from the one Yukki was wearing. She saw one wearing some sort of baseball cap, one wearing a boonie hat and sunglasses, and the last one, a big guy, wore a helmet just like Yukki's with a balaclava and sunglasses covering his face.
The same big guy carried what appeared to be an AK with an even longer barrel and a larger magazine than the ones she and Yukki had. It had quite a few attachments to it, not including the pre-attached bipod. Three of them carried what looked like M4A1 carbines, which were also decked out with attachments, not to mention suppressed. The big guy and the three M4 guys had Glock pistols in their holsters.
The one in the boonie hat, who appeared to be a girl, carried what appeared to be some sort of bolt-action sniper rifle, which had a black and red color scheme painted on it. There were also some vaguely Eastern markings on it, but she couldn't make out if they were hiragana, katakana or kanji or something else. Slung on her back was an AKS-74u just like the one Yuno held in her hands, albeit with a few attachments on it. Her holster held a strange-looking pistol, which Yukki told her was a Stechkin automatic.
The one in the baseball cap carried a snow white 7.62 AKMS, with attachments aplenty, had what appeared to be a snow white Tokarev TT-33 pistol in her holster and a quite hefty backpack, but not as hefty as the one the big guy carried. Unlike the others, this one was clearly identifiable as a female. She had almost pale white skin, pale blue-colored eyes and long hair, a surprisingly pretty face, her eyes had the look of a trained killer looking for prey, and even with all the gear she carried, what they could make out of her body was nice enough to make Yuno a little jealous, to say the least.
"Holy shit, you USEC dickwads are now starting to send fucking pornstars and prostitutes to hunt our fucking asses? Oh wait, see those three helmet dicks and the one in the boonie hat? They have fucking crappy anime patches and keychains on their fucking rigs and headgear and shit! Not to fucking mention Miss Titties Galore's hair here! I almost want to fucking call them a cab and send em to the nearest otaku convention and shit!"
Oh Yukki... what did this world do to you that made you into who you are right now?
As the group got closer, the two could already hear them talking among each other. One sentence in Japanese was answered by another in German, the next sentence came out in Spanish, and the next one was spoken in Russian - or at least that was what Yukki told Yuno. Sometimes, one sentence would be spoken in one language before it changes into another one within the same sentence.
"Uhhh... Yukki? Mind explaining to me who these people are and why you don't like them, to say the least?"
"Like I said, Yuno, I'll explain everything once we get to a safe place. But right now, we gotta stay hidden and stay quiet or else those guys will tear us to shreds."
The big guy then suddenly trained his RPK at their position and fired a short burst which landed just above their heads. The big guy then shrugged after a few more seconds of looking and waiting, thinking that he might just be shooting at something that wasn't there, and most likely explained the earlier burst of fire to his comrades using the same excuse.
"Phew. That was fucking close."
The group then began moving further down the road and away from the two, with someone occasionally stopping to cover their rear, until they were out of their sight.
Once the coast was surely clear, the man put his balaclava and helmet back on, donned a pair of tactical sunglasses he pulled from his pockets, motioned for the young girl to get ready, and then ran like hell across the highway, the girl following suit.
Upon reaching the other side of the road, the man then motioned for the girl to stay close and stay low while they hugged the wall and made their way to the rail bridge up ahead.
Once they reached the rail bridge, the operator then motioned for the girl to position herself on his right.
"See that gas station? That one's normally crawling with Scavs, most likely dumping stuff they don't need at the moment in the open vehicle compartments, cash registers, shelves, racks, boxes and other shit since this entire joint had been looted up in the first few weeks of this mess. The barricade may look like a lot, but you actually can get through or past it. Come with me, I'll show you the way."
"Scavs?"
"Local scavengers. They're called 'savages', 'wild men', 'wild ones' or 'wildlings' in Russian."
They went past the gas station by moving through the forest to the left, being careful not to trip on rocks or stray branches along the way. Yukki noticed that the bodies of the Scavs he and his buddies killed earlier had disappeared, with bloodstains indicating dragging ending right outside the gas station.
He didn't give that one much thought as he focused on getting himself and Yuno out of this part of town. Upon reaching the abandoned checkpoint, he noticed that the door to the checkpoint's guard post was open.
It was locked when he and his buddies came upon it earlier.
"Yuno, get behind those sandbags and cover me, I'll check this one out. And don't bother looking inside those crates, they're all empty."
The operator found barely anything of note inside the guard post, apart from an empty mug, old broadsheets, random trash, an empty rack which was supposed to hold weapons, and a few empty crates. The place had apparently been looted by the USEC mercs they spotted earlier.
When he went up to the second floor, he was met by the corpse of a Scav, which not only looked untouched, but also looked like he'd been dead for a few hours.
He only had a scoped SKS carbine with multiple modifications in his hands. His vest held two extra full magazines and some additional ammunition for the rifle. His pockets were empty save for a few hundred roubles in cash, some keys for rooms in the dormitories they passed, and an empty chocolate wrapper. His small bag contained an additional full magazine, a little more spare ammunition, an unopened and surprisingly cold box of fruit juice, two packs of crackers, and a loaded Makarov pistol.
His pack only had enough space for the ammo, so he decided to give the SKS to Yuno, knowing full well that he had to train her on it and her other weapons later. Along with the rifle, he also gave her the money, the extra magazines and the food he found.
"So, did anybody try and sneak up on us?"
"Nobody came, Yukki, nobody came... Wait, what is that gun you're carrying?"
"An SKS carbine, and I'll teach you how to properly use this along with your AK and the (PYa/MP443) Grach in your holster. You still have space in your rig and/or bag for two more mags?"
"What do you mean by– oh yeah, I do."
The operator then slung the somewhat heavy carbine onto the girl's back, then handed her the extra magazine he held in his hand, which she immediately put into the remaining space in her tactical rig.
"I'll take point, this is where we get out of this area. I'll take point, so cover our rear."
"Whatever you say, my love..."
He then slowly made his way through the hole in the wall into the industrial area, and made sure that the area was clear.
"This place looks clear. Move in, I'll cover you."
The girl then made her way to the hole in the wall, passing the operator's left hand side to get in. Once she made her way inside, he motioned for her to take point and follow the road until she reached the fence.
"But why me? I thought you were going first since you knew the way out?"
"Change of plans. I'll cover your rear, then once you're there, you'll have to cover my approach and then plan out our next course of action once we're both there. I smell something very fishy."
"What is it, Yukki?"
