Chapter 11: "Truth" vs. Reality

Date Written: 23-Jun-2021
Date Posted: 25-Jun-2021

Author's Note: Well, Ancient's here! We're wrapping up the first half of Yorukō Shinden in the next four chapters! As I said before, my main desire was to try and continue the Shippuden half in this story, but my plans and prepping for Yorukō would be too much to explain in this story, forgive me! However, I promise not to disappoint in the second half, where plenty, and I mean, plenty will be revealed and altered from the original story. I'm going to give AU category a new meaning! *laughs evilly*

Well, akin to the last chapter, I won't be doing a reader review corner until the last chapter in shinden. I want to answer all of your reviews in a Reader Review Corner megasode! Ancient signing out, enjoy this chapter!

As Yorukō continued to traverse through the terrain on his journey to Tempest, he passed by some strange looking villagers, each of them looking desolate but all had a hopeful smile on their faces. Thinking nothing of it, he continued to press on when he saw another group of villagers with a similar setup to the first group. This caused the boy to stop at the second group, jumping off the tree branch he was on to try and talk to one of them. Before he approached them, he made sure to put his mask he carried with him on in order to conceal his identity.

"Excuse me," Yorukō said as he approached the second group of villagers: "I couldn't help but notice that you're all wearing similarly ragged clothing, looking horrible I may add, but look like you just heard the happiest things of your life."

"It was wonderful…" one villager spoke up with a look of bliss on his face: "We were lost on the way of life in this world. The Daimyos, Kages, even the villagers of the great nations are deluded! But with Okiri-sama through Tatsuya-sama, we can go into a new world! A world without lies!"

"Just what the hell am I getting myself into?" Yorukō thought to himself before another idea came to mind: "Tatsuya-sama? Where can I meet him?"

"He's not too far from here, we just came from one of his sessions when we learned the truth. We may look broken down now, but no one can break our spirits!" a villager spoke up.

"And where is this session? I'd like to meet him myself to learn the truth!" Yorukō said, feigning excitement.

"If you continue forward past us, you should get there in another twenty minutes. You may want to hurry – we were among the last few groups there."

"Thank you." Yorukō said with a slight bow: "I'll be sure to get there as soon as I can!" Doubling his speed, Yorukō took off for the direction of Tempest with a dark determination on his face. Hearing what those broken-down villagers told him, his hands began shaking in rage when thinking of all the things this Tatsuya person could be telling more people. Using false hope to gain supporters and create fanatic cult supporters was just something he could not stomach.

"Orochimaru, it's only because I want your scrolls why you're getting this body back alive. People like him should not be allowed to exist much longer." Yorukō said to no one as he pressed on to Tempest.

It took Yorukō less than five minutes to get to a large gate belonging to Tempest. Proud of himself for reaching in record speed, he patted himself on the back before remembering the task at hand. He began gathering chakra as he flashed through hand seals. After a few seconds of repeating the seal's order, he finished molding the needed chakra for the technique.

"Wind Style: Blend." Yorukō whispered as he landed on the final seal. His body started to become transparent, blending with the air itself which allowed him to gather information without being sensed or caught by enemy ninja. Walking through the gate, it did not take Yorukō long to figure out where Tatsuya was within the village, as the first thing the teenage boy saw was a group of shinobi and villagers alike surrounding a man in the center of the village.

Tatsuya, from what Yorukō could've seen, was surrounded by six other people, each wearing wooden masks over their faces, their long robes obscuring their body shapes, making it hard to discern which was man or woman. Tatsuya himself had a robe on over most of his body but did not wear a mask unlike his accomplices. He had a slight feministic look to him, his smooth face glistening due to the oils he uses on his face. He kept his hair in a ponytail, but left a good amount undone flowing down to his neck. Yorukō almost retched at the man's appearance.

"He looks as if he's a mega-narcissist, almost spends no time on… anything else, really." Yorukō thought to himself. He continued to watch Tatsuya preaching about his 'truth', making sure not to reveal himself until necessary. He got closer to the action when he was able to hear the things Tatsuya was saying, something he almost instantly regretted.

"Hear ye, hear ye!" Tatsuya shouted, getting the attention of everyone present. Soaking in the attention he was given, he continued: "The truth of the matter is, no one cares about you guys! No one from the great nations, not the Daimyo, no one! They leave us all to rot, finding multiple ways to gather income just to live 'by our means'! But! With Okiri-sama's ideals for a new world, we won't be inferior to the great nations, but stand together with them!"

Everyone started to cheer at the man's words, each of them murmuring to one another as Tatsuya continued: "The great nations do not care for us! If they did, this village wouldn't be in the state it's in now, would it?!"

"No!"

"Exactly! With Okiri-sama, all will be made possible! All you have to do is believe in him, and all can be possible!" Tatsuya yelled.

"But…what if Okiri-sama's words are lies?" a little girl asked.

"Who said that?" Tatsuya asked, his mood darkening.

Each of the villagers turned to the side, revealing a little girl around the age of seven in ragged clothing and holding a dirty teddy bear. The girl, now singled out, slowly walked past each of the villagers to face Tatsuya and his group of followers. Yorukō continued to watch, waiting for the right time to strike.

"What if this Okiri-sama is lying to us?" the girl asked, tears welling up in her eyes: "What if we can't get out of this rut? If he eventually can't change the shinobi world for the better, who can?"

Tatsuya made a sweeping motion to the circle of supporters, each moving away to allow the man to walk down to the girl. Standing in front of her, he knelt and cupped her cheek in his right hand.

"It's okay, little one. Okiri-sama wouldn't be one to lie to any of us. I've seen him before – he's someone who gets the world as the failure as it is. He understands the great nations and the Kages all hide the real truth from you guys, that truth being the minor villages like this suffering."

"Really?" the girl asked, hopeful.

"Yes. All you have to do is believe in Okiri-sama." Tatsuya said before standing up and walking back to his group.

The crowd murmured amongst themselves once more, taking what Tatsuya told the little girl to heart. They kept talking among themselves before a few started to clap their hands, more and more people following suit. Cheers of joy were heard as most chanted Tatsuya's and Okiri's name. Tatsuya was about to wrap up his speech when he saw three shuriken being thrown at him which he easily dodged.

"Who dares to attack me?" Tatsuya asked indignantly.

"I got tired of hearing you talk, Tatsuya Yagi." Yorukō said, dispelling his wind jutsu and walking through the crowd until he stood in front of Tatsuya and his supporters along with the little girl. Looking down at the girl, a tear flowed down his eye behind the mask he wore. He knelt beside the girl who Tatsuya just spoke to.

"What's your name?" he asked sweetly.

"A-Aya, sir." Aya answered, afraid of what the masked Yorukō will do.

"It's okay, Aya. I won't do anything to you. I just wanted to know who you were."

The young Aya didn't know how to react. She felt more comfort talking to Yorukō than she did talking to Tatsuya just now. She looked up at Yorukō then Tatsuya before looking at Yorukō one more time, paying attention to his mask than anything else.

"Why do you wear a mask, sir?" Aya politely asked, still slightly wary of Yorukō.

"It'll all be over soon. You'll see what I look like once I'm done with this lying filth over there." Yorukō replied, pointing at Tatsuya when he said 'lying filth': "Can you do me a favor and move away from this area? I don't want you to get hurt."

Aya nodded, turning on her heel and taking off from the scene and hiding behind a tree. Once Yorukō saw that she was a fair distance away, he got up and turned to Tatsuya, who was surrounded by his six supporters.

"As for you," Yorukō began: "I've come for you, Tatsuya Yagi. Don't try to resist, after everything you've said today, the only resisting I need to do is resist myself from killing you."

"Hmph. What makes you think you have the right to make orders of me, boy? Who are you, anyway?" Tatsuya countered.

"Who I am doesn't matter, all you need to know is that there's no possible scenario out there that doesn't see you coming out on top."

"Get him, my faithful followers!" Tatsuya commanded, pointing at the followers surrounding him.

The six followers all charged at Yorukō, kunai knives in hand. It was at this moment when the villagers took this chance to run away from the scene, not wishing to get hurt in the crossfire. Seeing all six supporters charge at him, Yorukō couldn't help but smirk under his mask, as if he expected something like this.

"Six against one is hardly fair. How about we make it even, three against two?" Yorukō asked out loud before making a special hand seal: "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" another identical clone of Yorukō appeared and grabbed his swords from their scabbard before engaging three of the supporters. The original Yorukō jumped back from the other three, avoiding each of their hits while he flashed through hand seals. One supporter managed to teleport behind Yorukō and grab him in a full nelson, disrupting his jutsu.

"Got him! Now, to see who you really are…" a supporter said as they tried to reach for Yorukō's mask. Before they could remove the mask, he began turning into ice, swapping his body with an ice clone. Before the supporter who caught him could drop the ice clone, Yorukō quickly made a hand seal, the ice clone quickly encasing the supporter in ice and rendering them disabled for the rest of the fight.

Turning to the two other supporters, Yorukō cracked his neck as he dashed towards them. Unaware and unable to react in time, he stopped in front of one and kicked them in the lower abdomen and sent the supporter back. The shadow clone was faring similarly well to the original, managing to disable one with a well-placed strike down their neck using the hilt of one sword. The original Yorukō went to deal with the remaining supporter when his instinct told him to jump. Trusting his instinct, the boy made a chakra-enhanced jump in the air, noticing a large water jutsu being used on the ground he was just on. Not able to recover in time, Yorukō noticed the supporter he failed to stop jump in front of him and delivered a kick to the boy which caused him to fall back to the ground.

"You fought well," said the follower who kicked Yorukō down: "but you can't win against all of us."

The supporter threw their kunai directly at Yorukō's chest, making almost immediate impact and mortally wounding him…or would've, had he not substituted with a log beforehand. The two supporters began to wildly search for the boy when one felt a hand run through their chest.

"Rule #1 of fighting: Never assume you've won this early." Yorukō told the supporter before ice began to envelop the supporter completely. Removing his hand from the supporter's chest, Yorukō flashed through hand seals and placed his hand on their shoulder.

"Ice Style: Shattered Hope." Yorukō said, the supporter's body beginning to glow. It continued to glow until it exploded in tiny pieces, each piece glistening in the sun in a beautiful arrangement. The other supporter tried punching Yorukō right after, but the boy managed to catch the supporter's fist before it connected, encasing it in ice and shattering it completely. As the supporter clutched his bleeding arm in pain, he had no time to stop the boy from molding his chakra and forming hand seals.

"Lightning Style: Slipstream!" Yorukō yelled, extending both hands as beams of lightning fired out of each finger towards the supporter. Each beam went around him until it completely enclosed him in a circle. Bringing his hands closer, the lightning beams got closer and closer until it wrapped tightly around the supporter. With a final clap, the electric beams began to electrocute the man until they all faded, leaving a charred corpse in the jutsu's wake.

Yorukō's shadow clone similarly held off the three supporters, disabling one and engaging the other two in combat. Unlike the original, the clone wasted no time with the supporters, luring both into the same area. He took the other sword from the scabbard and put it in his free hand before extending both arms out. He ran towards the supporters at blinding speed with the blades in each hand, said blades glowing with chakra. The supporters never saw it coming – by the time he ran past them, the blades were already back in their sheath; their heads falling off when the hilt connected with the sheath, the clone dispelling soon after.

"That makes four out of six, Tatsuya." Yorukō calmly said, turning to face the man. Tatsuya for his part kept a calm exterior, inwardly he was a little frantic. He wondered who the masked man really was, disabling and killing his supporters like that. He took a deep breath and began walking towards Yorukō.

"Impressive, killing and disabling my friends. You're really no different than those villages who kill to protect their secrets." Tatsuya commented, standing a small distance away from the boy.

"Cut the shit, Tatsuya. The great nations wouldn't do anything like that. People like you and this Okiri only exist to spew lies, lies that shake the foundation of everything the nations and even small villages like this. You make me sick." Yorukō spat, his anger rising more every time he hears Tatsuya talk.

"The masked man is really strong…" Aya noted, not leaving the tree she hid behind.

"However, I do believe it is proper shinobi etiquette to let your adversary know who you are fighting, yes?" Tatsuya smoothly asked.

"Sure. If you can beat me, I'll let you know who I am. Otherwise, tough shit." Yorukō countered.

Tatsuya muttered to himself, something about 'dirty mouths' before flashing through hand seals. "Wind Style: Air Bullets!" Tatsuya began to shoot small orbs of air from his mouth, each going at a fast speed towards Yorukō. The nuke-nin managed to jump away in time before any could touch him. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the bullets that hit the ground created perfectly thick holes into the pavement.

"So, Kori wasn't lying about him being proficient with wind style… I'll need to be careful." Yorukō thought to himself.

"Why run away? Didn't you just say not too long ago, 'you've come for me'?" Tatsuya taunted while firing more bullets.

"Smartass…" Yorukō cursed to himself while he continued dodging each air bullet and making more hand seals. He finished the last seal when he dodged another bullet from Tatsuya when he yelled: "Fire Style: Flame Bombs!"

Yorukō fired four spheres of fire from his mask, each heading towards Tatsuya at high speed. Assured the technique would stop Tatsuya, the teen began closing in on the man when he saw the jutsu dissipate around the man's body.

"It really is a shame you couldn't see the truth of the world, boy," Tatsuya smugly told Yorukō as the teen noticed Tatsuya's body being covered in a slightly translucent aura: "you would've been a perfect candidate for joining Okiri-sama's cause."

"How is that possible?" Yorukō asked out loud, shocked that the jutsu had no effect.

"All is made possible when you follow Okiri-sama's ways! With my Wind Style: Jutsu Breaker technique, nothing you do can really hurt me! You'll just waste your chakra before I even get the chance to kill you."

"Wind Style: Jutsu Breaker? That's certainly something to look out for, but there has to be something behind it." Yorukō thought, deciding to be more conservative with using jutsu from now on.

"Another jutsu to protect your 'features'? How about you fight me, one on one, no jutsus involved?" Yorukō goaded.

"What makes you think I'll agree to that?" Tatsuya countered.

"Simple, if you don't agree to a one-on-one fight, it simply means you can't beat a teenager, and you're not all that. Either that or you're just a coward." Yorukō explained, hoping Tatsuya would take the bait. Surely enough, he did.

"…Fine. I'll 'play along' with your challenge, but don't think for a second that I will dispel this jutsu."

"Now, wouldn't that be cheating, and still make you look like a coward?" Yorukō continued to taunt.

"He's obviously taunting me, but for what end? If I don't dispel this jutsu, the onlookers will lose faith in me! I'll just have to sneak it in while we fight." Tatsuya thought to himself.

"Fine, I won't use any jutsu from this point on. Neither of us can use ninjutsu, genjutsu, or kenjutsu. We will only fight with taijutsu. These are my terms. If you cannot agree, we will fight as we did before."

"That's perfectly fine by me." Yorukō said, taking both swords off his back and driving them into the ground: "I need the practice anyway."

"Cocky brat…" Tatsuya said before taking his robe off, revealing his toned body. "I'm going to enjoy breaking you apart."

"That is if you can." Yorukō countered, placing his thumb on his mask. "I bet you won't be able to break this mask, or any of my bones, you narcissistic bastard."

Tatsuya decided to not reply, choosing to charge toward Yorukō to land the first blow. Refusing to be outdone, Yorukō charged at him at a faster speed, hoping to be the one to land the first hit. The challenge was simple; one was fighting to prove the 'truth' of another's words, the other proving that reality has no place for such words.

Cut! Another chapter done, another cliffhanger! Demigod567 told me to post this as it was now, he needs it for our shared universe! (insert sobs here)

Author's Note: I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I wanted it to be a bit longer, maybe cover the entire taijutsu fight – but – I may not be good at writing stuff like that (for now), but I promise to watch the scenes and deliver the best fight I can muster! Leave some reviews, tell me if you enjoy this chapter, constructive criticism would be appreciated!

Ancient signing out, peace!

Next Chapter: "Truth" vs. Reality - Finale