Chapter 9: Yoji's Hidden Past

Somewhere in the forest at the Akumu no Kuni, Yori appeared unconscious. He regained his consciousness and realized that he got separated from the others while rescuing Yume when he found himself. He looked around to search for them, but there's no one here right now.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"You're finally awake," Kazekiri surprised as she's kneeling besides Yori.

He realized that Kazekiri was with him all the time while he's unconscious. "Kazekiri-san. What happened? Where's everyone?" he asked.

"I'm afraid we got serapated from the others, Yori." answered Kazekiri.

He began to remember how did he and Kazekiri got serapated from the others. "Could be it..."

Before it happened, the Inyo shinobi and Kazekiri came to the Akumu no Kuni and saw a deserted place where there are only broken and burnt trees.

"So, this is the Akumu no Kuni Ayumu-san was talking about," said Rika.

"Feels like it already became deserted." Kuta commented on the nightmare land.

"There's no time to waste, everyone. We have to proceed our mission," stated Kazekiri.

"She's right. We can't stand here right now." Seiichi explained.

"Let's go. We don't have much time..." Yori told everyone to move on.

Everyone became worried about Yori being silent and complicated after they arrived. They began to wonder what happened to Yori when this isn't his usual self somehow.

"Hey. You okay, Yori?" asked Kuta.

Yori didn't answer Kuta's question and began walking.

"What's wrong with Yori-kun just now?" Rika asked as she confused about Yori's complicated look on his face.

Pana shrugged herself as she's not sure about what's wrong with Yori.

Tsukida became extremely worried about his twin cousin and realized that Yori can't save Yume from the unknown kidnapper. He knows that Yori always protect Yume when he realizes that he had a twin sister eversince he met her. "Yori."

Suddenly, he sensed something's appoarching him and the others. He saw a strange dark whirlwind coming towards them much to his shock. The Yukisaki heir began to warn them after he saw the whirlwind.

"Everyone! Something's coming," yelled Tsukida.

Everyone even Yori heard Tsukida calling them and became shocked as they saw it comes toward them.

"What the...!" Kuta shocked. "What is that!"

"Everyone! Be careful. It's coming towards us!" Kazekiri warned them.

However, all the sudden, the Inyo shinobi and Kazekiri felt something strange when their bodies didn't move an inch. Yori realized that they can't move away from the dark whirlwind.

"What? I can't move," thought Yori.

As he knew that they can't move, he knew that it was too late as the whirlwind engulfed them, separating them apart. After Yori remembered what happened, he knew that he have to find Tsukida, Seiichi, Kuta, Rika, and Pana while rescuing Yume although Kazekiri is with him from now on.

"Don't worry. I'll find you guys. I promise," he promised as he was sure about finding them after being separated from the whirlwind. He began to worried about what will happen to Yume if she was already kidnapped. He stops worrying and begins searching for Tsukida and the others. "Yume. Please be alright."

Meanwhile, at the abandoned house where Yoji kept Yume safe, Yume realized that Yoji is about to tell her why he's the eighth nightmare and the puppet leader of the seven nightmares.

"Remember I asked you about Musashi-san?" he asked.

Yume nodded.

"To be honest... I was an Inyo shinobi before I became the eighth nightmare and the puppet leader," he explained.

Yume became surprised as she didn't knew that Yoji was an Inyo shinobi.

"You're from Inyogakure?" she asked with a surprise face.

"I was an orphan back then when my parents were killed during the war. I was found by Musashi-san and his two teammates, Seirin-shisho and Shaolin-shisho," he said. "They became my two shishos when I became a shinobi."

She didn't realize that Seirin and Shaolin are Yoji's two shishos before they disappeared. Seirin is the ninja tool expert and Rika and Seiichi's otou-san while Shaolin is the dark taijutsu expert and Pana's guardian. They disappeared during their long-term mission and returned to Inyo when Yume stayed at Inyogakure.

"They're your two shishos?" she inquired, wondering.

"Yeah, but... things changed. They disappeared during their mission. So I ran away." he answered.

"Why did you ran away?" Yume asked.

"They never came back," Yoji explained.

Yume knew that Seirin and Shaolin did came back from their long-term missions when she was training under Yoshiro. "There's something I need to tell you." she said. "Seirin-san and Shaolin-san... They came back after you ran away."

Yoji surprised when he heard from her that his two shishos came back from their long-term mission after he defected from Inyo.

"What? They came back?" he asked all the sudden.

She nodded.

Yoji became surprised that his two shishos finally came back and glad when he heard about them from Yume. Despite this, he knew that he already left Inyogakure and didn't see them again at all after he became the eighth nightmare.

"I guess... I don't know what am I going to do. It's already too late," he thought.

He became pathetic because he made everything worse such as becoming the eighth nightmare.

"It's all my fault... I'm so stupid," he comments to himself.

Yume heard him saying that he became naive and blamed himself for running away.

"For three years... I never thought that I can't come back because of this... I already became the eighth nightmare, so... there's no turning back."

"Yoji-san..." Yume didn't realize.

Yoji remembered that Yume wants to know about how he became the eighth nightmare. "Hey, you want to know why I became the eighth nightmare, right?"

Yume surprised that Yoji asked about him as the eighth nightmare. "Yes."

He took a deep breath and began to tell her about himself as the eighth nightmare.

"After I left and ran away from Inyogakure, I was training alone until... I was kidnapped." he began to tell his story.

It happened three years ago after Yoji ran away from Inyogakure when he heard that Seirin and Shaolin didn't return from their long-term mission. After he defected, Yoji was training alone in the forest near a river in the middle of the night.

He was eighteen years old and wears a black shirt with short sleeves, a black short jacket, black long pants, bandages in both arms, and black sandals. He throws his two chakrams with flames around the trees and then caught them after the two of them spun around. After he caught his chakrams, the trees are cutted down and burned with flames. While they're burning, they turned into ashes.

Yoji putted his chakrams around his waist and began to take a break from his solo training. He went towards to the river while taking a break and knelt down as he began to wash his face. After he finished washing his face, he began to wonder about what Seirin and Shaolin are doing on their long-term missions, never return to Inyogakure. He became frantic about their disappearance.

He remembered about their disappearance when the Third Inyokage told him before he defected from Inyo.

"What? They never come back? Why? What did you mean they disappeared, Inyokage-sama?" he asked.

"I'm very not sure about what happened to Seirin and Shaolin." explained the Third Inyokage. "We're still searching for them, but we cannot find any traces from them."

"That's impossible!" yelled Yoji. "There's no way that Seirin-shisho and Shaolin-shisho disappeared like that!"

"Calm down, Yoji," he replied. "We'll try to find them if necessary."

"Then, let me look for them! They're my shishos!" Yoji complied.

"I won't let you do that," the Inyokage refused Yoji's request with a displeased face. "I don't want a Jonin like you disappear like Seirin and Shaolin. That is unnecessary for you to find them."

Yoji began to protest, "But..."

"That's enough. Yoji, I know it's difficult, but I can't give you that mission to find your shishos." he explained.

Yoji became shocked when the Third Inyokage can't let him to find Seirin and Shaolin after their disappeared during their mission. After the Third Inyokage rejected his request, he became disappointed, which led him to become anti-social once again and achieved his defection.

After remembering his talk with the Third Inyokage, he looked down in a complicated way. He looked at his two red chakrams and knew that those are very important to him as he remembered that Seirin gave those as a gift before he and Shaolin disappeared and Yoji left Inyo.

It happened when he was a Chunin after he passed the exams from five years ago. Seirin gave Yoji a special present after he became Chunin.

"Here, they're very special, ya know," said Seirin as he gives the two weapons to his student.

"What're those?" Yoji asked, very curiously.

"Those are chakrams," answered Seirin. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Yoji grabbed the two red chakrams and then realized that the two of them were heavy at some point. "Seirin-shisho, they're kinda heavy."

"No worries. You'll get used to it. When you get older, it won't be heavy." he answered.

"Seirin, you sure gave Yoji a special gift after he already became Chunin." said Shaolin with a faint smile.

"Well, he needs something special after all." he explained.

"Thanks, I'll use them and keep them good." Yoji thanked him.

After he remembered about his time with Seirin and Shaolin, he sighed as he knew that he can't go back to Inyo.

"Seirin-shisho, Shaolin-shisho. Where are you right now?" he thought as he worried about them.

Suddenly, kunai are thrown at Yoji much to his shock. He dodged the kunai that were targeting at him out of nowhere. He knew that it's an ambush and looked around somewhere in the forest. As he looked around, he began to realize that he was surrounded. Who tried to kill him with kunai that were thrown? Twenty shinobi appeared and surrounded Yoji out of nowhere, making him being outnumbered by them.

"Tsk... I'm trapped," he realized.

"Good job dodging from the kunai, but you won't live for the moment," stated the unknown shinobi.

Yoji saw one of the shinobi's forehead protector as he began to realize the symbol. "Otogakure? Are they trying to kill me all the sudden?"

"Surrender right now," the Oto shinobi demanded Yoji. "or you'll be killed by one of us."

Yoji began to prepare himself to fight them as he used his chakrams. "Go ahead and try." he provoked.

The Oto shinobi attacked him with their kunai as they're going to kill him. He used his chakrams and threw them towards his opponents, making them defeated very quickly. Shinobi of Oto never knew that Yoji could defeat them with just only a single attack on them.

"Impossible..." said the Oto shinobi as he became dead after being defeated by Yoji.

Yoji putted his chakrams around his waist after defeating the Oto shinobi in a quick battle. He knew that staying here isn't a good timing after he encountered the shinobi from the another village.

"Better get going before anyone comes and probably might kill me any moment," Yoji stated.

Suddenly, he sensed something amiss before he was about to leave. A strange shadow-like creature appeared and transformed into a human figure. Yoji became cautious when it transformed into shinobi. As a shadow became a shinobi, the red-haired boy became shocked as he saw the shadow figure of himself.

"What is that? Why it looked just like me?" he confused as he was now fighting a shadow with his appearance.

Somewhere, a mysterious shinobi appeared on the cliffs above the river, watching Yoji encountering the shadow-like opponent.

Yoji attacks his shadow-like opponent by throwing his chakrams once again. The shadow blocked with its chakrams by also throwing them. Both pair of chakrams are blocked and thrown back, returning to their owners. Yoji became tensed on fighting his strange and complicated opponent. He knew that he had no choice, but to defeat it.

As the battle continues, he began to use his flame technique with his chakrams to defeat his shadow-like opponent.

"Honoo Ougi: Gōka no Chakuramu!"

He threw his chakrams with flames of hellfire at the shadow. Flames burned the shadow-like opponent completely, making the shadow disappeared. He caught his chakrams after performing his flame technique and putted them around his waist. He panted as he began to realize that he used all of his chakra due to his training before he encountered the Otogakure shinobi and the shadow-like opponent who used his appearance. He knew that he have to leave before anyone finds him.

"Damn it. I used all of my chakra already. I have to get out of here right now," he thought as he was about to leave.

However when he leaves, he began to knelt down to the ground, making him immobile from leaving the battlefield.

"Very impressive. You're very strong enough for taking them down, but don't force yourself. You'll make a difficult battle if you wasted your chakra after you used your techniques."

Yoji saw a man with circular glasses appeared in front of him while he was on the ground. He knew that he can't escape after he encountered him. He stood up and began to fight against him as he realizes that the man with circular glasses is a shinobi from Otogakure when he looked at his forehead protector.

"Tsk. There's more?" Yoji inquired if he's going to fight again. Despite he used all of his chakra, will he ever defeat him without using his techniques?

"I'm not here to fight you, but you're a very interesting shinobi."

"Back off," he snarled at him when he commented him. "If you don't want to fight me, I'll kill you instead!"

He throws one of his chakrams at him and kills him. However, when he killed his opponent, he went towards him after he caught his chakram and realized that it was just a corpse. He looked around, trying find his opponent that he was hiding somewhere. Where is he hiding right now? Suddenly, Yoji felt a quick and unconscious feeling and realized that the silver-haired Oto-nin knocked him out when he's behind him, rendering unconscious. Yoji fell down on the ground as he was knocked out, realizing that he let his guard down.

After Yoji became unconscious, two ninja from Otogakure as the silver-haired shinobi came to him after he knocked him out.

"Kabuto-sama, should we kill him?" asked the first ninja.

"No. He's very useful when he'll become Orochimaru-sama's prisoner." Kabuto answered as he's adjusting his glasses. He confiscates his chakrams when he came towards him. He became impressed when he took Yoji's chakrams from him. He ordered the two shinobi to take him to Orochimaru's hideout after he confiscated his weapons.

After Yoji was defeated and unconscious, he was now captured as he was taken to Otogakure.