A/N: Okay, so I meant to have this chapter out last night, but I was overwhelmed by debilitating laziness. However after reading a really, really, really sucky self-insert fic, I got the drive to keep writing. I have this thing where when I start something, I have to finish it, no matter how bad it is. And obviously there is nothing better than a bad fic to make you think "Well, I could do better than that!" So thank that author for getting me out of my funk! And here is the next chapter, Enjoy!

Chapter 7: An Almost Reunion

The reaction of the residents of Maison Izumo when Minato returned home with Yashima hadn't quite been exactly as he had expected. He had opened the door and was greeted by Yomi, who seemed to be in a good mood as she was smiling at him (A rare occurrence indeed) as she greeted him.

"Welcome home Minato. How was w-" She froze mid word when she say Yashima who was still clinging to Minato's arm. Minato braced himself as he saw her frozen smiling face twitch.

"Mi~ Na~ To~? Who is this?" Her voice was deceptively calm. He rubbed the back of his head with his right hand, as his left was somewhat occupied at the moment, and chuckled nervously.

"Yomi-san, this is Yashima-san. She is a sekirei who has chosen me as her ashikabi. I hope that you will all make her feel at home." Yomi's face turned sad.

She whispered in a voice so low that Minato almost couldn't catch what she said, "You just go looking for them don't you. Aren't we enough for you?" She shifted her gaze to Yashima and her face changed into a more familiar emotion. Anger.

"Minato, can you please tell me." Her voice rose with each word. "Why. Is. She. Holding. Onto. You. Like. THAT!" She exploded and Yashima, who Minato expected to cower away from Yomi wrath took the opposite approach. Still holding onto Minato's arm, she took a step forward and stood a little taller.

"Isn't it normal for a sekirei and their ashikabi to be close? I just want to be close to Minato-sama." Yomi's face twitched again, and this time, instead of yelling, she latched onto Minato's other arm, causing him to yelp. He glanced down at the flushed red Yomi holding his arm.

"W-w-what are you doing?!"

In response, she looked down at her feet and whispered, "Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not doing this because I want to, I just wanna get you away from her!" With the word 'her', Yomi pulled hard, almost yanking Minato off his feet. Yashima pulled back and a sort of tug-of-war began using Minato as the rope. They yanked him back and forth, and just when he thought that it was going to end, he head a voice.

From behind him he heard, "Ooh, how fun! I want in!" And Uzume jumped on his back and began pull him in a third direction. He would have jumped in surprise if there hadn't been three beautiful women pulling him down.

"Uzume-san, why are you doing this?!" In response, all Uzume did was grin wickedly and continue to pull him. In front of him, Minato saw Kuno and Ku enter the room, and seeing all of his other sekirei, and one they didn't recognize, pulling on him, they decided to join in. Kuno pulled on his chest in the opposite direction of Uzume, and Ku latched onto a leg. Tears streamed down Minato's face as he was pulled in different directions by a group of gorgeous women.

o0o

Elsewhere in the city, at about the same time, Yukari Sahashi was walking home, carrying her groceries from the day shopping. She it had been a while since she had talked with her brother, so she thought that she might give him call when she got home. She wondered if he was still with that cute Kuno girl. She was clearly to good for him, but she really seemed to care for him, so Yukari suspected that they were still together unless Minato did something stupid, which of course was a very real possibility. While she was lost in her thoughts about her brother, which happened on a pretty frequent basis, a figure fell out of the sky, landing right in front of her. When the figure stood, Yukari saw that it was a boy with messy silver hair and gray eyes. Her eyes began to twinkle. He was gorgeous! I bishounen for sure! Before she could say anything however, there was an explosion on a building on the other side of the street.

"Stop running! You'll be happy being Mikogami's sekirei I promise!" A blonde woman standing on the building that had exploded called out. Yukari could see the fear in the boys eyes and a sudden protective urge sparked inside her. She grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the blonde before the smoke cleared.

She kept running and only stopped when she finally arrived at her apartment. The bishie she had dragged across town finally spoke up when she stopped to catch her breath.

"Umm, far be it for me to complain, but who are you." Yukari turned around and looked at the boy. She couldn't look at his face though because every time she did, she noticed just how pretty he was and started imagining how good he would look in her clothing. She wiped the blood that was dripping from her nose and faced him properly.

"My name is Yukari. You were obviously in trouble and I couldn't just leave a person in trouble now could I?" The boy looked at her with a kind of admiration in his eyes and didn't manage to hear it when she murmured, "Plus, I might never have the chance to have a pretty boy in my room ever again." Under her breath. She motioned in the direction of the building.

"Wanna come in? It's almost dinner, so you must be hungry." The pretty boy meekly nodded and followed her into the building.

When they reached her room, Yukari sat in front the boy and served them tea while dinner cooled down. They sat in silence until Yukari couldn't contain herself anymore.

"What were you running from?! Who are you?! Why were you running?!" It all came out in a rush and Yukari immediately flushed red afterwords. The boy sighed before answering.

"I am sekirei # 107, Shiina. I'm looking for my ashikabi and my little sister." He hesitated before continuing, and Yukari held herself back from blurting out her questions about sekirei and ashikabi. Shiina started again.

"You are a good person, w-would you be my ashikabi?" He started to lean forward. Yukari started to heat up at this.

"Uhh, what would that entail? Is there something I would have to do? What is an ashikabi?" Shiina leaned back to where he previously had been before answering.

"As my ashikabi, you would be my destined partner, and if we won the sekirei plan, we would stay together forever." These words made both Shiina and Yukari flush red. Shiina continued.

"To become my ashikabi, we would have to k-k-kiss." He looked down embarrassed. "B-but, if that isn't enough, w-w-we could do more than that, so please?" He closed his eyes and leaned forward, hope on his red face. Yukari looked at his face and ideas began to run through her head. Kiss? More? What did that mean? Before she knew it, blood spurted out of her nose and with an "Excuse me!" She got up and ran into the bathroom, leaving a saddened Shiina in her room.

Once she reached the bathroom, she washed her face and staunched the flow of blood. She looked into the mirror and saw her flushed face.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!" She whispered to herself. She thanked the stars, gods, heavens, whatever it was that let her be walking down the street at that moment. But wait, hadn't she just in essence refused him? Oh god, what if he took back what he said. She threw open the door, her mind made up.

In her room, Shiina still sat, his eyes downcast, but he glanced up when Yukari entered the room. She strode up to him and pulled him to his feet. Without any hesitation, she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his face to hers and kissed him. His eyes jerked open in surprise, but as the surprise passed he closed his eyes and kissed her back. Lights flashed as the wings exploded from Shiina's back, and this time it was Yukari's turn to be surprised.

When their lips separated, Shiina hugged Yukari and whispered, "Thank you." They finally separated and Yukari sat down surprised. She hadn't expected him to be serious with that sekirei and ashikabi talk. She had thought that talk of destined partners had been a come on. A come on that she had been willing to wholeheartedly accept. But that it had been real? That was something that she had considered out of the realm of possibility.

"So you were telling the truth." She shook her head. "Why don't you start from the beginning? And tell me what you meant when you said that you were looking for your sister." So Shiina started.

"She's not really my sister. She's another sekirei. # 108 Kusano. We got separated and I'm looking for her. I hope that you will help me look for her." Yukari nodded. She thought of her brother, who though he could be an idiot sometimes, was really a very smart person and who could probably come up with a plan to find one girl in the whole city. She said as much to Shiina, who seemed to be willing to accept any help that was offered, though he had one condition.

"We can't tell him anything about sekirei or anything like that. It would put him and us in danger." Yukari nodded, accepting these conditions. So with that conversation out of the way, Shiina told her all about the sekirei plan and all it entailed.

o0o

Back at Maison Izumo, after Minato managed to escape from the situation at the front door when Kagari had come home and laughed at all of them and scolded them for clogging the doorway. However, he ran into the same problem at the dinner table. Yashima had insisted on sitting beside him and that caused a stir among his other sekirei, so in the end they had played rock, paper, scissors for who got to sit beside him. That ended with a happy Yashima on his right and an equally happy Uzume to his left. Yomi sat scowling across the table beside a pouting Kuno. Ku sat in his lap like the previous night. Other than that though, dinner went quietly. Everyone welcomed Yashima warmly, and she accepted their welcome just as warmly, though she kept clinging to Minato the whole time.

After dinner, Minato was walking up the stairs toward his room when his phone went off. Glancing at the message he saw that it was from Yukari.

It read,

Hey Bro, It's been a while, so I thought that you'd be missing me! I gotta talk with you about something, so I need to meet with you tomorrow and I won't take no for an answer. Knowing you, you don't have anything important to do anyway :P. Anyway, if you haven't messed it up with her yet, bring Kuno-san too, it'll be fun! See ya tomorrow!

After the message, there was a address of a restaurant and the time that she wanted to meet. All Minato could do was sigh. That was so like his sister. Assuming he had nothing to do (It didn't matter to him that he didn't) and expecting him to change his schedule to fit her. And what was that about Kuno? He sighed again. This time when he sighed though, a soft feeling appeared on his back and arms wrapped around his neck.

"Minato~. Why are you sighing? Missing me already 3?" Minato blushed as Uzume whispered sensually into his ear. Laughing, Uzume sauntered past him down the hall and into her room. Before she entered her room however, she leaned backwards and blew him a kiss and gave him a wink, making Minato blush even redder. Hurrying to his room, Minato went to sleep before his other sekirei got there so as to avoid the arguments of previous nights.

When Minato woke in the morning, he found not only Yomi, but also Yashima and Kuno lying on top of him, asleep. He would never say it out loud, but he actually thought that it felt kind of nice. Well, it was nice until Miya opened his door and threatened his life for engaging in "Illicit activities." Oh well, it was just another day at Maison Izumo. He got up and at breakfast, told his sekirei that he was going to meet his sister and that she had requested Kuno come with him. Kuno smiled at the memories of meeting his sister. She was the only one smiling.

All his other sekirei responded by saying something along the lines of, "Minato! I wanna meet your sister!" And they were only dissuaded when he reminded them that she didn't have anything to do with the sekirei plan and that she though Kuno was his girlfriend, though they all pouted at he word girlfriend. In the end, he managed to persuade them not to follow, so he and Kuno left to meet his sister.

o0o

The same morning, Yukari was walking down the street beside Shiina. She walked happily at the thought of meeting up with her brother, but Shiina was nervous about meeting him. Yukari had stayed up until it was late talking about her brother, and from what he had heard, Shiina wouldn't have minded if Ku was the sekirei of someone like Minato, but not having met him himself, he couldn't be sure.

They were both deep in thought as they walked, when suddenly a figure landed in front of them. As the figure stood, Yukari realized that it was the same girl that had been chasing Shiina yesterday.

"Found you!" She called and immediately attacked, not even giving Shiina enough time to explain that it was useless now that Yukari was his ashikabi. She moved her hands and a web of strings flew forward, trying to entangle him. Holding up his hand, a wave of what could only be described as decay appeared before him, blocking the strings and disintegrating them. That didn't deter the girl however, and Shiina couldn't manage to stop all of the strings. The ones left started to wrap around Shiina, and he would have been caught, except Yukari managed to tackle Shiina and drag him down the street, away from their pursuer. They could hear cursing from the girl as she gave pursuit. As they ran, Yukari pulled out her phone and typed a short message. With a 'Bing', the message was sent and with an increased intensity, they ran.

o0o

Minato and Kuno were waiting at a table at the restaurant Yukari had told them to go to when Minato's phone received a message.

Bro! Sorry something came up, so I'll make it up to you later! Don't miss me too much!

Minato groaned. Just like the message from last night, this was exactly like his sister. He showed up and then left him high and dry. Oh well, he might as well make the best out of this. He looked over at Kuno and smiled. She looked at him confused.

"My sister can't make it. Well then, since we don't have anything else to do today, why don't we just spend the day together?" At his request, Kuno grinned from ear to ear and nodded in agreement. Minato held out his hand, smiling brightly, and Kuno, smiling equally bright took it. So hand in hand, they set off to have a day of fun.

o0o

From a nearby rooftop, a pair watched as the sekirei and her ashikabi walked down the street. One stood and looked down at the other.

"Those are them right? From the arboretum?" The other figure stood as well. She nodded. They matched the description of the ashikabi and one of the sekirei that had thwarted their ashikabi's plans. They glanced at each other and with a nod, set out in the tracking of their prey.

A/N: Aaaaaaaand there is the cliffhanger. Honestly this isn't where I wanted to end the chapter, but if I ended it where I wanted, it would be more than twice as long, so I'm cutting this into two parts. The next chapter should be up by Tuesday night at the latest, tomorrow if I feel the urge to write tomorrow, which I probably will. Thanks all for reviewing and a special thanks to Helios-Rufus for sending me a PM with your thoughts on how I could improve my story. I hope that this chapter was a little better. Now on a little rant here, so forgive me. It makes me a little sad to see how few Sekirei stories there are on this sight. I mean Naruto has over 300,000 stories (And don't get me wrong, Naruto is fine, but it's just not my cup of tea) and a great manga/anime like Sekirei has less than 200! Oh well, I guess that I'll have to fill up the section myself! Haha. I've been feeling the sudden urge to write a story about the discipline squad next, so when I'm done, or close to done with this story I'll probably do that. Anyway, like every chapter, let me know what you thought of this one. Till next time!

CassiusBrutus out!