Chapter 10: Fateful Meeting (Formerly "Fateful Meeting on the Way to Tempest")

Date Written: 14-Jun-2021
Date Posted: 23-Jun-2021

Author's Note: Hey! Ancient here with some updates for you guys. As you know, from the last chapter, there's a special meeting that'll occur in this chapter, our main man Yorukō running into someone from his memories. Can you guess who it is before you begin reading? No? That's fine. We're approaching the end of the story, the sequel to this taking place in the Shippuden timeline. I wanted to do more with this, maybe even add the Shippuden aspect into this story but I decided against it, citing having two parts would be more of a progression with our guy Yorukō. For more content, I won't be putting a Reader Review Corner in the upcoming chapters. Enjoy this chapter!

With Yorukō…

"If I remember correctly, Kori said Tempest was east of here, but she never really said how far it was." Yorukō said out loud, jumping from tree branch to tree branch. As the nuke-nin travelled from tree branch to tree branch, he began to think about Yuina and Kori, both girls loving him in their own unique way. With a determined attitude and look, he pushed forward to Tempest to capture Tatsuya, deliver him to Orochimaru, and return to the girls safely.

With Yuina and Kori…

"I suppose I should get ready to leave while Yuina's still out cold." Kori said to herself as she turned to grab her belongings. She began walking into the room she stayed in at the cottage and started to pack her belongings up. She placed everything on her bed – clothes, ninja gear, toiletries, which she placed in three rows. She grabbed three scrolls off the wall closest to the door, opening and placing each one at the end of each row. Making a hand seal, each scroll had a vacuum effect, sucking in all her belongings. Once everything went into the scrolls, she rolled them up and placed each one into pockets on her flak jacket. She turned to the door when she saw Yuina standing there.

"For someone who passed out not too long ago, it doesn't take you long to recover, Yuina." Kori commented as she properly adjusted her flak over her body.

"You put Yorukō-kun under genjutsu." Yuina stated, completely ignoring Kori's comment.

"I said I regret doing it!" Kori replied.

"Why? Why would you do something like that?" Yuina asked.

"I… I was in a bad place at the time when I met Yorukō-kun. It was right after I barely became a chūnin in the village. My ninjutsu skills were really poor. No one really wanted me on missions, their main reason being I would 'slow them down'." She chuckled dryly after saying that: "When I saw Yorukō-kun, I thought that he would be one to ridicule me too, but to my surprise, he praised me. He encouraged me to get stronger and helped me out whenever and however he could've, which was when I must've probably developed a crush on him."

"Before I say anything, I'm guessing you have more to say." Yuina cut in.

Kori nodded, continuing: "At first, I thought the crush I developed on him was a fleeting one, partly because we barely saw each other, and he was – and is – always kind of distant, but that all changed when we went on a recon mission together. We got split up, the team and I, when I was intercepted by two enemy shinobi. It was dark, so I couldn't really make out their village symbol on their headbands, or even what they looked like. I tried to hold them off with my ninjutsu, but I didn't have any strong jutsus to defend myself with. Just as they would eventually kill me, Yorukō-kun showed up with one of the most enraged looks on his face I've ever seen. Those shinobi stood no chance, he decapitated them with his swords before they could even try to retaliate. He gave me one of the warmest smiles I'd ever seen someone give me before taking me back to our teammates."

"And the genjutsu bit?" Yuina asked once more.

"He was still distant with everything and everyone. I tried talking to him, but he was always on missions, so I took it upon myself to try and grab more information about him, when I found out about his genjutsu intolerance. Somehow, around when I found this out, I also found out I had a knack for genjutsu." She lightly chuckled a bit: "I practiced on my genjutsu and when he came back… I made him a bit more 'receptive' to me, when I gave him my confession, and we went out after that."

"I don't even want to ask this, but how did he manage to find out?" Yuina asked.

"His dad. He managed to sense his chakra being warped and he released it. Oddly enough, Yorukō-kun seemed to remember everything while he was under my genjutsu, and needless to say, he was angry with me. We didn't speak much since then up until I was sent to go kill him. Which leads us to here." She made a sweeping gesture across the room: "You listening to what I just told you with how I fell in love with Yorukō-kun."

"So, let me get this straight: instead of just trying to talk to him normally when you got a chance, you decided to hit him with genjutsu and make him more 'receptive' to you, which basically means you forced yourself onto him." A tear rolled down Yuina's cheek as she continued: "I like…no. I'm in love with the man and I'd never do anything like that to show just how much I love him." Another tear rolled down her opposite cheek: "Did you even ask for his forgiveness yet?"

"I…I'm afraid of bringing it up around him. Afraid of what he might say." Kori admitted, turning away from Yuina's gaze.

"I'm not going to forgive you until he forgives you." Yuina said, turning her back to the girl: "Where is Yorukō-kun, anyway?'

"About that… he wants us to go to the Hidden Leaf." Kori said.

"Where did he go?" Yuina asked.

"Not sure. I recall him saying something about Raion Village, so he might be heading in that direction."

"We should follow him!" Yuina exclaimed before beginning to take off when she felt Kori grab her right shoulder.

"He asked that the both of us to go to the Leaf, Yuina. Believe me – I lobbied for us to follow him too, but he said that with us two there, he'll definitely make it back in one piece to us." Kori said calmly: "Least we can do is make sure we get there, okay?"

"…Fine. But don't think you're off the hook, Kori. When you see him again, you better apologize, got it?" Yuina reminded Kori, the girl nodding in approval. After their conversation, it didn't take Yuina long to grab her belongings up in a similar fashion to Kori before heading to the front door, where Kori waited for her.

"You ready?" she asked. Yuina nodded, placing her scrolls inside her pockets.

The two teens left the cottage and took off in the direction of the land of fire so they could reach the leaf. Although Yuina didn't want to talk to Kori much (she was still mad at her, after all), she made sure to talk to her when she needed to due to the girl's Radar Search Jutsu. They traversed the terrain for a little while, Kori leading the two when Yuina felt an off but familiar chakra nearby.

"Kori, dispel your jutsu. We have company." Yuina instructed, stopping on one branch and grabbing a kunai from her holster.

"I sensed it too. Two of them to be exact. You can take one, I'll take the other." Kori suggested to Yuina, the girl nodding in agreeance before turning to the other shinobi who had a kunai in her hand.

Before long, the two kunoichis intercepted their would-be attackers, Yuina intercepting one by kicking him off the tree branch he was on while Kori stayed near the other. Looking down at the boy she kicked, Yuina couldn't help but think this was someone she knew from a long time. She shook off the feeling and kept him within her sight.

"Who are you? How did you know I was coming this way?" the first shinobi asked.

"I should be asking you the same thing." Yuina countered, dropping into another defensive stance. She noticed the shinobi looking at her in a certain way, as if he was looking for something, causing Yuina to slightly wince. He turned to look at Kori, the same kind of gaze given to her.

"Frost ANBU?" the shinobi questioned, causing Yuina's eyes to widen before he continued: "I see. So, why are you working for Okiri? Last I checked, Frost ninjas are too proud to leave their village for something as little as a cult."

"A cult? Is this the same cult Yorukō-kun was talking about? And how does he know so much about the Frost Village?" Yuina thought to herself.

"Who is Okiri?" Kori asked, breaking Yuina out of her thoughts. She continued to look at the kunoichi in front of her, as if she is waiting for a sign of aggression on her part.

"Like you don't know. You work for the bastard! You're all wasting my time, now I'm done talking!" the shinobi yelled before throwing a kunai at Yuina. The kunai came too fast at her, but she managed to narrowly dodge the kunai when she felt something cold and sharp press against her neck.

"He's fast!" Yuina thought as she tensed up.

"I won't ask again. Who are y-" the shinobi didn't finish the sentence when he took a closer look at Yuina, her features reminding who she was to him.

"Y-Yuina?" he managed to stutter out, taking a few steps back in disbelief.

"Kazu-chan?" Yuina said, turning to face the boy. Her eyes widened when she really took a good look at him and realized he was Kazuma, Yorukō's younger brother.

Kazuma nodded his head as Yuina continued: "It's been so long to the point I didn't recognize you. Look at you!"

Yuina took note on how Kazuma looks now compared to when she last saw him all those years ago, admiring how 'Kazu-chan' grew up into such a splendid shinobi.

"Yeah… it's been a while. Look, I'm sort of busy today." Kazuma said, slightly turning away from the girl.

"But I have so many questions to ask…" Yuina said. Kazuma was someone she hadn't seen in a long time. The last time she had seen him was when they were kids so she wouldn't remember him for the most part largely due to her infatuation with Yorukō. Seeing him like this, she was reminded of how much she missed hanging out with him for the parts she did remember.

Kori looked towards Yuina while keeping the kunoichi in a stalemate and asked: "How do you know this leaf ninja, Yuina?"

"This is Kazuma Tagami, Kori. He's Yorukō-kun's younger brother. We all used to play and hang out together when we were children." Yuina told Kori.

Kori hopped off the branch she was on to take a closer look at Kazuma before she looked confused: "This guy doesn't look like Yorukō-kun at all. His hair is different, he's a bit lighter, and his eye color is completely different. How are they related?"

"Listen, don't look into it that much. It's seriously not that important. Why are you both here instead of in the frost village?" Kazuma asked.

"Yorukō-kun is sending us to the leaf. We were just on our way there when we bumped into you. There's someone Yorukō-kun is supposed to kill here in the Land of Lightning; I think his name is Tatsuya. I don't know much about him. My best bet is that he's a part of the cult you and Yorukō-kun keeps talking about. He should be here right now." Yuina said, her face turning serious.

"Yorukō's here? Right now?" Kazuma asked, his eyes widening.

"He's not exactly here, but he should be close by. There are a lot of locations he's visiting, but if you are both searching for the same group of people, then you might run into each other." Yuina told him.

"Two sexy guys in one place? Ugh why do we have to go on this stupid mission?" Kori complained.

"Because Yorukō gave us this special mission. You know how he is. He probably is just trying to help us."

Kazuma listened to the women. The person they had described wasn't the person he remembered. Yorukō wasn't particularly mean to him. He just wasn't as prevalent in Kazuma's life even when they lived in the same house. Yorukō was always out training, hanging out with Yuina, or on missions.

"Alright listen. I'll probably run into Yorukō eventually. He must have had a pretty good reason why he wanted you both to go into the leaf. When you get there, be sure to tell Lady Tsunade that I'm vouching for you. Take this kunai for proof." Kazuma said, then handed the kunai over to Yuina. She stared at the strange markings on the kunai.

"What are these markings for?"

"Don't worry about it." Kazuma said quickly and in a serious tone. He also had a serious look in his eyes. "Just go. I'll be sure to tell Yorukō that I ran into you guys. Be safe. I'm sorry but I have to hurry."

Yuina and Kori both nodded their heads in understanding.

Yuina watched as Kazuma turned around and walked away. She couldn't help but notice how grown up he had become since they were little. It was almost like there was too much of a change. Gone was the kid who always searched for her attention. Now there was a man on a mission.

"So that was Kazuma-kun, huh?" Kori asked.

"Don't call him that. He's like a little brother to me, and extension you." Yuina said with a sigh before looking at the kunai one last time.

"Hmph. Doesn't hurt to look, right?" Kori asked.

"We're both older than him! And aren't you still head over heels for Yorukō-kun?" Yuina asked with a facepalm.

"Spoilsport." Kori said before turning to their original direction: "In any case, we need to get to the Hidden Leaf as soon as possible."

Yuina nodded, the two girls taking off for the direction of the leaf, unaware of any possible stops or dangers heading their way while heading to Konohagakure no Sato, the Hidden Leaf Village…

Cut! Another chapter done. I'm sorry in advance about changing the name of the chapter, but I literally had no room for anything with Yorukō in this scene, but I promise to make it up in chapter 11. We're getting closer to the end of this half of the story (an unconventional half but half nonetheless) and I want to thank you for your continued support so far.

Ancient, signing out!

Chapter 12: "Truth" vs. Reality