38 Younger Sister, is that You? (1/2)
”Konohamaru!”
The loud kid was frozen on his spot, unable to move under the pressure emanating from the black-clothed boy. He shivered uncontrollably when the gloved hands brushed off his neck, and then down his body as the boy patted him around from head to toe.
Eh?
”You're not hurt, right? Next time, don't run off without looking ahead. You might get into trouble sooner or later if you keep doing that.”
Contrary to his intimidating appearance, the boy was smiling very kindly at him.
A weird thought flashed through Konohamaru's jumbled brain. Somehow, this person's smile looked exactly like that old grandfather of his...
”Nothing's wrong with the kid, just knock it off already,” the boy's partner grumbled. ”We're already late to the meetup.”
”But, what if the kid accidentally broke his bone...”
”D-damn you!”
The loud brat pushed the boy's hand away as he rose back to his feet. Seeing that the boy wasn't as scary as he looked, the brat's courage soared to the roof.
”Kid this, kid that, screw you! I'm not a kid! I'm a proud ninja who'll one day become the Hokage! The name's Konohamaru, remember that well!”
”Oi, Konohamaru, what are you saying? I am the one who'll become Hokage!”
Somehow Naruto ended up joining the shouting contest, further complicating the situation.
The sandy-blonde girl rubbed her temple, regretting ever suggesting that they should take this road instead of the bigger one.
”I see, it seems that I've been underestimating you.”
The black-clothed boy suddenly stood up. Bowing slightly, he gave the boy the cupped fist salute.
”My name is Kankuro, a shinobi from Sunagakure -the village hidden by sand. For not addressing a fellow shinobi properly, please accept my deepest apology.”
Konohamaru flinched, not knowing how to respond to him.
”Hmph! It's fine if you understand!”
In the end, he could only pout and showed mock anger. The boy laughed heartily in return.
”Well, I won't waste your time any further. Let's go, Temari.”
He was about to walk away when his sleeve was yanked back all of the sudden. When he turned around, he saw two pairs of glazed eyes stacked on top of each other, one belonging to a brown-haired girl and the other owned by a white-furred dog perching on her head.
Apparently, her move was so unexpected that the others were shocked by the sheer intensity.
”Err... can I help you, miss...?”
That salute he had made just now. Everyone couldn't understand its meaning, but they had merely passed it off as some kind of exotic greetings. Hikari, however, couldn't be more clear about it.
That was definitely a salute from her motherland!
”Can you understand me?”
Kankuro shuddered.
Those words... those words were spoken in a language that he was too familiar with!
”Don't tell me... you're also...?!”
The two humans plus one dog stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. And then, they tightly clasped their hands together with warm, understanding smiles spread over their face.
””Comrades!!””
God damn!
First the Anbu, now there's another one! It was raining reincarnators, hallelujah! The two were so emotional that tears threatened to stream down their cheeks uncontrollably.
”C-can I know who you actually are?” Kankuro said in a shaky voice.
”I was known as Yao Huang,” the girl replied, equally excited.
”Venerable Yao!?”
His eyes opened so wide that the eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.
”I'm one of the Guardian of the Underworld, Niutou -the Ox-Head!”
It was Hikari's eyes' turn to pop out of their sockets.
”We-we definitely have to talk about this! Follow me!”
”Eh, now?!”
”Right now! I won't take no for an answer! Let's go!”
During their entire exchange, the rest of the kids were watching slack-jawed, their brain unable to process the majestic gibberish those two were spouting about. They could tell that those two were very, very excited about God knows what, but the rest were absolute blank.
It was when Hikari had pulled Kankuro away from them did Temari snap out of her daze to yell at him.
”K-Kankuro, wait! Where are you going!? We're supposed to meet up with Gaara right now!”
”Sorry, Temari, something more important came up! Please tell Gaara that I'll be away for today!”
”Hey! Catch!”
Hikari turned around as well, and then threw the bowl she was carrying toward the blonde girl. She managed to clumsily catch it, causing the thing inside to bobble around enthusiastically.
”E-eh? What is this? Tofu?!?!”
”Please take that back to the Inuzuka residence, okay? Thanks, bye!”
”Haaaaah!??!”
And with that, they bolted off in the speed of light, leaving everyone in complete confusion.
Not too long after that, a strange boy with a gourd on his back arrived to the scene and had a brief clash against a boy with spiky black hair and navy blue shirt who had come to check on Naruto and the pink-haired girl. That incident, however, was a story that Hikari and Kankuro could only hear in later date...
---
Currently, they were sitting at the upper floor of a small tea house located at the less-populated area of Konoha.
Before they started their discussion, Hikari pulled out a paper filled with chinese characters out of her pocket, and then flowed her chakra inside. The paper burned into ash rather quickly.
”Isn't that a communication talisman?” Kankuro blinked. ”You can use mystic arts in this world?”
”If it's just talisman or formation arrays, it's possible with chakra. However, their effectiveness is drastically reduced,” she sighed.
She was using the most simple form of communication talisman. When the paper was destroyed in any way, another paper linked with it would suffer the same effect as well. In this way, owner of one paper could alert the person who was holding the other pair.
In this case, the owner of that talisman was the bear-masked Anbu from before.
A blue bird flew in through the open balcony and landed at one of the seat. With a poof of smoke, a handsome man appeared in its place. His signature porcelain mask was pulled up over his head.
”Venerable Yao, why did you call me? Is this kid also...”
”Ooh! Another one of us?!” Kankuro was this close to squealing. ”So there's three now!”