Disclaimer: I have no ownership of Naruto, and this is just a fan fiction with loose connections to the actual show.
A/N: This chapter we get to meet two new interesting characters. (by the way, we're all going to love Yoruki!) :)
Chapter Twelve: Like Oil and Water
Vince's POV
Yoruki and Asaki stood at the doorway. Now that I could see them up close, I realized they looked really similar, but completely different at the same time. They both had the same hairstyle, the same clothes, and their features seemed identical. Other than the fact that they had the opposite color schemes of each other. Yoruki had dark black hair while Asaki had shining white hair. Yoruki had a black jacket, with a white undershirt, and a white sword sheath with black designs, with Asaki vice versa. They acted pretty different too. Yoruki had a big sh*t-eating grin on his face and was standing straight and tall. Asaki on the other hand, stood behind Yoruki a little and sort of half-hid himself and his slight smile behind Yoruki.
"What are you guys doing here?" Annie asked.
"I'm sorry I didn't know we needed your permission to come home." Yoruki said sarcastically as Asaki went to Mrs. Giata to get their keys.
"What you guys live here? Why? Can't you just live in your own house?" Annie asked confusingly.
"That might be a problem since we don't have a house to go to." Yoruki answered.
"Wait what? Don't you still live with you parents?" I asked, "Oh, you guys must be adventurers like us! We just started our journey and we-"
"Come on bro." Yoruki called to his brother, ignoring me as he started climbing the stairs.
"Wait don't just leave us! We just wanted to talk to you guys!" Annie shouted at them.
Her words did nothing to stop them.
"Those guys are jerks!" I said to Taylor and Annie, "They don't deserve to win the tournament! We do!"
"Don't lie to yourself, you know we didn't deserve to win either." Annie said. And though I hate to admit it, she was right.
"You know, " Reyna said, "Maybe we can ask those two to help you guys, They might be nice enough to train you two. Then you guys would stand a better chance in three weeks for the next tournament."
"I'm not so sure that they'll agree, seeing as how they acted right now." Taylor said.
"You may be wrong Taylor." Mrs. Giata said from behind the counter, "There is a chance that they'll help you."
"What do you mean Mrs. Giata? They didn't exactly seem like the friendliest people." I said.
"Oh but that's not so." She answered. "The brothers are actually very nice if you get to know them. Though Yoruki tends to put a shell around them, which doesn't really let many people get close to them. But I remember them when they were younger. Oh how adorable the two were when they played with the other kids when they came to visit. Their parents entered the tournament frequently, so they stayed at my inn very often. And little Yoru would always come running to me every day and asked for a sweet, and made sure to always get another for little Asa, who would stand by the stairs, peering from the corner of the wall. But things have changed, and many things have happened to the two of them. Their not as innocent as they used to be. The two enter every tournament, every few weeks, and get the prize every time, thought they do skip a few to let others have chance. Then they use the reward money to pay for their rent and other supplies. And when they're short on money, they work hard in the inn to pay off their debt. Their good people, and I'm sure they'll help you. Yoruki might need some persuasion, though if you get Asaki to accept, Yoruki will have to!"
"Are you sure Mrs. Giata. I don't think-" Taylor started.
"Their room is one floor above yours."
And with that she left through the door behind the counter, leaving us to decide on what to do.
"Well I guess we can try." Annie said.
"Then come on! Let's go!" I said as I rushed up the steps
Annie's POV
We all stood in front of room B3, and waited for one of us to knock on the door.
"Maybe we should go back, I don't think they want to be disturbed right now." Reyna said.
"No we have to do this. I mean, we can quit now before even trying." I said as knocked on the door three times. I heard some movement inside and finally the door knob started to turn.
When the door opened, Yoruki came to view.
"Oh it's you guys again. What do you want?" He said.
The three of us looked at each other nervously before Taylor finally spoke up.
"You and your brother were amazing out there today."
"Yeah we kind of know that already." He said lazily.
"Who is it!" Asaki called from another room.
"No one really" Yoruki replied back.
Vince looked annoyed and I bet I did too. But Asaki came to the door anyways.
"Oh it's you three from the lobby!," Asaki said when he saw us. Then he turned to his brother, "Come on bro you can't just tell me there's no one when there's people right here!" Turning back to us he asked, "So do you guys need anything?"
"Um…Yeah," I started, "We were kind of hoping, you know, since you two are so good at teamwork, maybe you could help me and my brother get better at it."
"See ya never." Yoruki said as he started closing the door.
"Wait!" Vince said stopping the door with his feet. "You can't just close the door on us! At least give us an answer!"
"The answer is no. See ya never." Yoruki pushed the door close and we heard the click of the lock.
We stood outside the door, annoyed by his rude reply, when we heard murmuring behind the door. After a few more seconds, Asaki opened the door alone.
"Hey again. Sorry about my brother, he's not always like this, trust me. But he doesn't really want to help you guys, since it wouldn't really benefit us in any way, and if we did help you, it would only make it harder to win the next tournament. So…um...yeah..."
"Aw man. I was really hoping you guys would train us. Come to let's go back to our floor." I said as I started to turn to leave.
"No wait, just because my brother doesn't want to train you guys, doesn't mean that I don't. Yoru said that if I want to help you then I could go ahead and help you alone. So, I guess you'll at least have me to help you."
"Thank you so much Asaki!" Taylor said, "Though no offense, wouldn't it be hard to teach us teamwork, when your partner isn't here?"
"Maybe. In combat, we take turns being the lead, but in reality, I usually need Yoruki to take charge. But I'll try my best. Let me just get my stuff and we can get started right away." Asaki answered inviting us in while he went to get his sword.
"Come on bro, I need you just as much as you need me," Yoruki said as he entered the room, with both his brother and his swords. "And right now, you're gonna train these guys. So I guess I have no choice but to help you too." He handed Asaki his sword and started walking out into the hallway.
"What happened to this not benefiting you and making it harder to win." Vince said mockingly as we all walked down the stairs.
"Well, I've got nothing better to do. And anyways, there's no chance that anyone'll beat us!" He said smirking, "We've been needing more of a challenge lately, so I decided, 'why not create our own challenge?'."
As we passed by Mrs. Giata in the lobby, I heard her whispering quietly to herself, "It always works, catch one and the other gets trapped trying to help."
I laughed a little as we walked out of the inn and towards a training field.
Reyna's POV
When we arrived at the training field, Yoruki stopped and turned around along with Asaki to face us.
"Okay, I gotta admit, I might've been a little unnecessarily rude to you guys." Yoruki said.
"A little?!" Vince said.
"Don't push me." Yoruki said glaring at him.
"Fine then whatever," Vince replidd.
"Anyways," Taylor started, "we haven't gotten to introduce ourselves yet. I'm Taylor Tsubasa, and these are my friends, Vincent Viridian, Annabeth Azure, and Reyne Simanei"
"But you can call me Annie and my stupid brother over there Vince" Annie said sticking her tongue out to Vince, just as he was doing to her.
"I guess we should introduce ourselves too." Asaki said.
"No problem. The name's Yoruki Onmyo and this is my younger bro Asaki." Yoruki told to us.
"Not much younger though," Asaki added, "We're twins and he's only a few hours older than me."
"I guess that's enough to get us started." Yoruki said, "Now let's get to the actual training. Let me see both of your fighting stance as if you were in a team match."
Annie and Vince fixed their body positions. It seemed pretty good, and looked just as I would have done it, but the Onmyo brothers looked disappointed.
"There's a problem with your stance." Asaki said.
"What is it?" Annie asked.
"Oh you want me to tell you?" Yoruki asked mockingly, "I'm sorry that's not how I teach. How 'bout we show you."
"What do you-" Vince started but was interrupted by Yoruki.
"Let's go Asa!"
Both brothers lunged at Vince and broke his stance.
"Hey! Give me a better warning next time!" Vince said as he got up from the ground.
"You don't get warnings in battles other than what you can see yourself. You're lucky you got what you got. Let's try again."
Annie and Vince steadied themselves again, looking confused.
"Hmm…. this is a little better bu-" He didn't finish and instead ran alongside Asaki to lunge at Annie this time. She fell back just as Vince had, "Just kidding, it's as bad as before."
"Can you at least give us a hint?" Annie said as she got back into stance.
"Nope." Yoruki said. He then immediately lunged with Asaki again at Annie knocking her back down.
"Hey!" Vince shouted at Yoruki.
"And hello to you too." He replied, as he joined Asaki to attack Vince together.
"Come on!" Vince said angrily.
Asaki leaned close to Yoruki and whispered something in his ear. Yoruki nodded and Asaki turned back to us.
"How about you see an example? Try to attack us." He said.
The two brothers got into stance, though they stood much closer to each other than Vince and Annie had. Then Annie and Vince charged at them. Vince aimed at Yoruki while Annie went after Asaki. But at the last second Asaki dodged Annie's punch and added his defence to Yoruki, and they pushed Vince away as he tried to collide with them. Then they both turned to Annie, who had just prepared her next attack, but was immediately stopped by the two brothers.
"Well that was pathetic," Yoruki said. "Try again."
"Wait," Annie said, thinking for a few seconds, "Can we have a minute? I want to tell Vince something."
I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I saw Vince nod and they both got ready to attack again. This time, they both charged at Yoruki ignoring Asaki. At first I thought it would work, it seemed like a pretty good idea. They were using the Onmyo twins own attack strategy against them! They would be able to take down Yoruki then attack Asaki together! But…that's not how it went.
As they came close to Yoruki, Asaki moved and leaned closer to his brother. When Annie and Vince attacked, Asaki pushed Vince's fist to the side, giving Yoruki time to grab Annie's wrist and turn her around, so she faced away from him. Then Asaki pushed Annie's back while Yoruki did the same to Vince. Annie and Vince fell to the floor with a thump.
"Aw man! Why didn't that work!" Annie shouted, "It's the same thing you did!"
"Yeah and that was actually pretty smart," Asaki said to her, "but we didn't do the same thing you guys did. Do you wanna try blocking us again?"
"Yeah, just give us another minute." Vince said.
Again, they whispered quietly and I could only see Annie agreeing to something Vince said. When they finished, they got into the same defensive pose as before, but like Yoruki and Asaki, they stayed close to each other. Asaki smiled when he saw that and I could tell they were doing the right thing. Then the brothers both dashed at the other pair of siblings. They zigzagged as they ran so I couldn't tell who they were targeting. Though at the last second Asaki jumped on Yoruki's back and landed behind Vince while Yoruki attacked him from the front. Annie managed to intercepted Asaki's punch before it could reach Vince, and she swept her foot under his causing him to trip. However, as he was falling he tripped Annie causing her to fall back. Yoruki faked his attack and instead let his hand fly by Vince's side in order to grab Asaki's hand to pull him back up, while Vince did the same to Annie. Both teams stood poised for the next move. Then Yoruki relaxed and went down to lay on the grass and Asaki sat beside him grinning at Annie and Vince.
"You guys did great!" Asaki said to Vince and Annie.
"Wait that's all?" Vince asked.
"Yep, there isn't much to learn for teamwork. It's just stuff you gotta get used to." Asaki replied, "The only thing you really need to know, is what your main goal is. And it's to help you partner, not yourself. If you do everything you can to help your teammate, and your teammate does everything he can to help you, both of you, are practically one person. One person, one mind, one plan. But it takes some getting use to to be able to get in sync with your partner in the middle of a real battle."
"Yeah, don't think you're so tough just 'cause you did well right then," Yoruki said, "Me and Asa were going easy on you. You wouldn't stand a chance against us in a real match!"
"I guess we'll see about that in the next tournament!" Annie said.
"We'll see you there!" Yoruki replied as he got up and started to leave.
Asaki got up to join him and turned to us before he left, "We're done training you two, but that doesn't mean you guys are done training! Keep working on your skills together so you stand a chance against us in the tournament!" He turned back and ran to catch up to his brother.
"Well," I said after they left, "I guess we'd better get started. We only have about three weeks to get you both to be one person."
"Yeah let's show them! We're gonna beat them and get the prize money ourselves!" Vince said.
Vince's POV
Three weeks ago, I was sure we could catch up to the Onmyo brothers. Three weeks ago, I was wrong. This time though, we did make it to the semifinals, instead of losing right away. That's where we fought Yoruki and Asaki. It would've been more epic if it was the finale, but I was okay with beating them in general! But, as me and Annie walked back into the participant's room, Taylor was already starting the replay of our battle against the brothers. In other words, the battle we lost. But I remember it perfectly fine without the replay.
As soon as the battle began, both sides charged at each other. The twins did their zigzagging move again but we had a counter strategy planned for that move. A few feet from where our two sides should've met, me and Annie stopped in our tracks and jumped backwards. I grabbed Annie's arm as she casted a strength spell on my hand. Kiareskito she shouted. I spun once and threw Annie over the brothers. Before I could check if she landed right or not, I was met with Yoruki's sword lunging towards me. I pulled out my kunai and blocked his attack. Through the corner of my eyes I saw Annie doing the same with Asaki. Her eyes met mine and I immediately knew we should move to our next attack. We both let our opponents attack push us back, and we backflipped away to gain more distance between us. Annie began shooting a jet of water, only for it to be negated by Yoruki's shield he created, using his dark nature. Asaki started to form a flash bomb from light but my vine tripped him, making his bomb hit the ground near them. Yoruki expanded the shield to cover around them while they recovered from their momentary blindness. While that was happening I charged at the shield as Annie strengthened my arm. But as soon as I came close the shield disappeared and the twins leaped into the air. I hadn't noticed that Yoruki had been getting ready for a move while he was in the shield. I looked up to see a flash bomb coming towards me. I tried to run but dark walls had already formed around me and another started to form from above as the flash bomb entered the box. I could do nothing to stop it. On the other hand, Annie was having just as much difficulties. Yoruki and Asaki were shooting a volley of dark and light slashes at her, causing her magic shield to crack, and eventually break. As both slashes hit her she flew off the platform with a ring of the bell. I realized I had to finish the match myself. I got up, and prepared myself to attack as soon as my vision cleared. But...it never came to that since I was soon sent flying off as well. The bell rung once again.
Annie's POV
Once we reached the inn, and trudged up the stairs into our room, me and Vince fell into the couches face first and groaned. We lost again. Taylor and Reyna came in after us and sat down.
"Well, so much for that." He said.
"Damn why are they so good!" I said.
"I guess it just ain't fair that we were made with awesomeness and good looks." Yoruki said as he appeared in the doorway with a smirk on his face.
"What are you doing here?" Vince asked as he sat up.
"We came to tell you guys something." Asaki said as he joined his brother at the doorway.
"What, here to brag about your win?" I said annoyed.
"No even better. We're here to join your team so we can brag about our win for your whole adventure!" Yoruki said.
"What! Why do you even want to join us?" Vince said.
"Well, you guys did well today, in the tournament. But not good enough." Asaki started, "So we decided that it would be wrong for us to start something and not finish it. So we're gonna join you on your journey so we can help you two get better."
"You too Yoruki?" Reyna asked.
"Hey I go wherever my bro goes. Anyways, I've gotten bored of always winning these tournaments, and I need a change of scenery. Besides, why would I pass off a chance to beat your two everyday and call it training you!" He said laughing.
"Well then, I guess that's it then, welcome to our group." Taylor said.
"Yep, we can get moving tomorrow. And don't worry about cash for a while, we have some zento saved up and we just got plenty more today" Asaki added.
"Alright, meet us at the lobby tomorrow so we can leave." I said.
The next day we met Yoruki and Asaki ready for us downstairs. As we passed by the front desk, we said goodbye to Mrs. Giata, and I heard her whisper to herself.
"This will be an interesting group. I see big things for them in the future. They might just someday be legends.
A letter to Vince and Annie: From Anthony
Hey kids, I can't believe it's been a little more than two weeks since we've last seen you. Well of course, it's probably been three weeks by the time you get this letter. I'm so happy to hear you've already made it to the next town, and I'm glad you two remembered to write to us when you got there. Or maybe Reyna or Taylor reminded you when you forgot! It's going to be hard for us to send letters to each other. You two can send them anytime to us, since we're always in the same place, but the four of you will be constantly moving, and we can only send you a letter when we know that you'll stay in a place for a while.
Anyways, me and your mom are so happy to hear that you two entered a team tournament already! Of course, it was a made for rookies and younger heroes like you, but it's still a great experience, even if you lost! It's okay though. By the way you say those twins were, it's very reasonable that you couldn't beat them. And I know you two are saying that one of them is kind of annoying, but he must be pretty nice if he was willing to train his opponents. However they are, we can't wait until the day you return with them one day, so we can meet them in person.
On a side note, your mom has decided on taking on a great task. She has promised herself that she would find Alex no matter what. Both Delilah's agreed to this. As you two know, while she stayed with us, she practiced trying to regain her teleportation powers, and they returned at a much weaker level. She is striving to get stronger, and she wants to unlock the dimension traversing skill again. She wants to search through the dimensions to find her son. We believe he is still alive somewhere, and we hope to find him. However, this strain from her training has gotten to her memory lapses. Now she switched in and out of her two memories much ore frequently. She forgets what she did one day, and remembers it two days later. Even though your mom understands why she's forgetting things, knowing that what she forgets is something the other version remembers, she is still upset with the problem. I feel terrible that I have to watch her struggle with her mind, unable to do anything about it. On the other hand, I have been able to cheer her up somewhat.
Since me and Delilah are such great cooks, we have decided to save up to open a restaurant. We want to someday open up a store where we can make and sell our amazing food. We have even already decided on a name. "Sweet Paradise". And don't worry, of course it will sell pancakes! I guess this is enough for now. Write back to us soon and we hope you four enjoy yourselves.
Sincerly,
Anthony Azure
A/N: Yoru's just pure gold. I love how close Yoru and Asa are, and I love the way Yoru talks! We'll get even more of that next chapter, when the Onmyo twins get their huge narrations!
Also, how did you like the letter? I thought it was important that we get to hear from the parents of the main characters every now and then. I hate when anime's leave out the parents waiting at home. And Delilah's taking on a big task. Searching through the infinite universes for her son, while fighting her memory dilemma. And the restaurant is such a cute idea. In the previous version of the story, the store was already suppose to be made by now, and have great business, but I changed it for a more logical, reasonable, sadder route. I love playing with people's feels. Even if my own feels get hurt too. :)
