Naruto: Tales of Ashihara
Kakumei – Arc 5: Fear of the Dark
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Chapter 108 – After Kakumei
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Shortly after Takeshi was informed of the current situation by his parents in Konoha, he is already in Ryuka investigating the old Minamoto mansion and the surroundings, which is where the attack of the stranger occurred.
He's just walking around the place and looking for traces left by the two fugitives, but there seems to be nothing to find here. Instead, he goes toward the abandoned mansion to look inside. His father did tell that the man first tried to attack him inside and that there were traces of people living there. So he'll hopefully find something inside.
Before he passes the front yard of the place, he's greeted by a middle-aged woman dressed very professionally and wearing a pair of glasses.
"Well, isn't that the little Takeshi?" she says happily.
"Um… Do I know you?" the Kiri-nin replies, not sure to recognize her.
"I don't know, but I sure know you." she answers. "Last time I saw you, you were still a kid. Actually I've known you since you were a toddler."
"Um… Ok." Takeshi says, not knowing how he should react to that.
"I'm Natsuri Yokawa. The leader of this village since your aunt passed it on to me."
Takeshi, in his mind, stares at Tentoki and waits for confirmation, to know if he's right not to remember.
"Hmhm… I think we met her consciously only once when you were 10 or so." the tengu explains. "But there's no reason for you to remember her indeed. She's a good friend of your dad."
The Minamoto ninja now acts as if he figured out what his tengu said by himself.
"Oh, yes of course. Miss Yokawa." he says. "You're a friend of my father. I think we've briefly met before… Sorry if it sounds rude, but I don't really have time to chat. I'm here to settle some business and I have work to do."
"Of course, I won't bother you." she answers, fooled by Takeshi's friendliness. "It is about what happened to Tsubai, isn't it? Two employees of my hotel were here too."
"That's it." the ninja says. "I was told it took place in this mansion, so I was hoping to find clues about the culprits here. Am I allowed to get in?"
"Of course you are. This place belongs to your family after all." Natsuri gladly answers. "As long as your lineage was here, they used to live in that mansion. It was destroyed by a dragon attack 19 years ago, but was rebuilt to look the exact same right after."
"A dragon attack?" Takeshi asks Tentoki to get his confirmation again.
"Don't question it. I'm too lazy to explain that."the celestial light says.
"It's been abandoned after your aunt left,…" Natsuri adds. "But people recently started to report things happening inside and around. It was certainly squatters, yet neighbors preferred to call it haunted."
"Well I'll see about that." Takeshi says as he steps forward to enter the old mansion.
Inside, he has the same first impression his dad had. It looks all dusty and dark, but there still are some clues about who occupied it. They left old blankets to hang from the stairs and windows. Seems like whoever was here made it look haunted on purpose. They probably stayed here for a few months at least.
He goes upstairs to the first floor, then the second, third, but doesn't find anything until getting to the fourth. There, in the bathroom, the tub is still full, as if someone forgot to empty it. On the left of the tub, one large towel. And on the right, a bunch of smaller ones. On the ground next to the tub is a tattoo pen.
In and around the water on the right, Takeshi finds a few light yellow hairs. Apparently, two people were in that bath together. One has tattoos and the other has blonde hair. This fits the description made by Takeshi's parents. Satisfied from what he found here, he goes to check the last level of this part of the mansion, which is the attic.
There, to his surprise he finds a disturbing and personal decoration. All on the walls are messages written, likely with the tattoo pen. He immediately figures out that they're addressed to him. "I knew you'd come here". "Do you even remember?". "You'll pay for what you did". "Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever"…
This last message, Takeshi doesn't get it (it's certainly a bad joke), but the others confuse him even more than he already was. What's even more surprising is the symbol drawn on the walls along with these messages. The mitsudomoe. The same as Oshio's eye pattern, and as Kakumei member's signature tattoo. Unsure of what this might imply, he prepares to ask his tengu about it.
"This doesn't surprise me." Tentoki says before being asked about anything. "It makes perfect sense."
"Does it?" Takeshi asks.
"I'm not telling. And I'm surprised that you still didn't figure it out." the tengu answers, disappointed.
"What's it supposed to be?" the ninja wonders. "A Kakumei fanatic who thinks I'm responsible for the group's fall?"
"What kind of idiot would think this?"
"So you mean the person we're looking for has a good reason to act?"
Before answering this question, Tentoki takes a moment to think. After a while, he lightly nods, like he figured out something more while Takeshi is still in the dark about this. Upset by his tengu's lack of cooperation, Takeshi hurries to leave the attic. He goes back to the bathroom and carefully collects the tattoo pen and a sample of the blonde hair. As he's wearing long gloves that fully cover his hands and forearms, he doesn't leave his own prints on the objects and hides them in his ninja pocket.
Thinking that these clues might reveal some things if he brings them to Kiri's scientific lab, he hurries out of the house to go back to the land of Water, but first stops to speak with Natsuri again.
"Did you find what you wanted?" she asks.
"I found all I could." he replies. "Just a little question. Do you have any idea where the two people who attacked my parents went?"
"Well, I wasn't there, but villagers reported that they saw them running away. And tourists said a little boat left the harbor side around that time as well."
Takeshi wonders about this information. The duo must have fled to another land by the sea. He'll definitely have to go around the world a lot to find his answers… Since he's done here, he should hurry back to Kiri.
"Thanks for your help Miss." he says to miss Yokawa before vanishing in a white flash of light.
In a hurry, he runs all across the sea from the Land of Fire to Kirigakure, which takes him just a few minutes, and gets to the lab of Hideo Kotobuki where he leaves the clues he found for analysis.
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He doesn't have to wait for long before the lab director comes back to him with his opinion on the samples.
"Young Minamoto… Did you expect me to find out whoever this hair belongs to with some kind of DNA test or something?" the scientist says.
"I guess you couldn't do that." Takeshi embarrassingly says, having maybe thought a bit too fictionally.
"I can still give some advice." Hideo adds, while suspiciously looking at the familiar color of the hair. "It looks like… I guess you'd find the identity of this girl if you brought this hair to Hikari."
"What? How? Why?" the ninja confusedly says.
"Well… You did say that you found Kakumei's symbol there." The scientist justifies himself. "They were based in this village, so I guess the 2 people you're looking for are from there. That girl's hair color is pretty uncommon. If she's anyone special, people will recognize her."
Takeshi doesn't answer. This kind of makes sense to him so he accepts it. In his mind, Tentoki is more interrogative.
"He is quick to make conclusions. You didn't even tell him that the hair belonged to a girl."
"He just assumed it from its length I guess." Takeshi suggests.
"He's a long haired man himself." Tentoki argues. "I doubt he'd make such an assumption. But anyway, I'm just being overcautious. His guess seems legit."
"I'll do that then." Takeshi says aloud.
"Heading to Hikari." the scientist exclaims. "You'll find it's a nice place when not a battlefield."
"You've been there before?"
"Not Hikari, but to Shin no Kuni, yes." Hideo says. "Anyway, you should go, young Minamoto. I have a call to make."
Takeshi pulls up his mask on his face again and runs away for the second time. Hideo smiles in amazement as he sees the black ninja vanish in an instant. He turns around and gets back to his office where he grabs a seal phone, a tool that grew a lot in popularity this last year. He brings it to his ear after initiating a certain call.
"Yes, may I talk to Lady Gisei?" he says while thinking of Takeshi who's probably already in the middle of the ocean.
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The ninja in black is indeed running an immeasurable speed toward the south. After just about 15 minutes of gliding on the waves and currents of the sea that surrounds the land of Water and the south ocean, he has already gotten close enough to see the shores of the lands of Heart in the distance. From where he is, he can clearly see the separation between the east part of this continent, which was turned into Momoshiki's garden almost a decade ago, and the still civilized west.
At the sight of the harbor of Hikari and the high tower of the main castle of the village that is no longer hidden by a Genjutsu, Takeshi is reminded of last year, when he had the same view but from above as he was hidden in Suigetsu's giant wave heading toward the village. He recalls this battle once again before noticing a little boat that lays aside from the harbor, alone on the shore.
"Judging from how poorly it's moored, it must have arrived recently." Tentoki deduces about it. "Could be their boat."
Takeshi, remembering what Natsuri told him about the two strangers leaving by boat, understands what Tentoki means. Pleased by this unexpected sign, he hurries to the boat and lands on it.
"No Don't…" Tentoki exclaims, but too late. "Damn it, Takeshi. You run faster than I can talk."
The tengu's warning could have indeed saved his host from the trap he just fell for. As soon as his feet landed on the boat, he found himself paralyzed by the Kagemane just like his parents this morning.
"You fell for it! And I don't have Daikoku or Amabie's ability to take over your body and free you." Tentoki blames Takeshi, before solving his problem. "But I can still help you. It seems like your shadow is what maintains the hold. Erasing your shadow with a strong light should cancel it then."
Takeshi understands the assignment, and tries his best to focus his Koton in his body to make it shine and emit a light strong enough to chase the shadows and free him from this bind, and this without any hand seal. However, before he completes this jutsu, Tentoki and him are abruptly struck by an unforeseen attack.
Jinton – Genkai Hakuri
Takeshi doesn't see the white spectral cylinder appear and pass through his leg, and only feels his limb being dismantled and erased. Still unable to move, he's forced down on his knee and hands by gravity, and holds back a scream of pain. He and Tentoki frantically look around in panic to find the origin of this surprise when a voice suddenly starts to speak in their mind.
"You should have stopped running, Flash." it says.
"Oh this happens sooner than I expected." Tentoki remarks having already understood what happens. On the shore, a man reveals himself and comes closer. Black hair hiding his half of face, a purple tank top, tattoos on the left arm… He fits the description made by Tsubai, yet Tentoki still notices one detail that was not mentioned. On his left shoulder, this man has Kakumei's mitsudomoe tattoo.
"Who are you?" Takeshi says, still shaken by what happened to his leg.
"I'm the one you're looking for." the man answers while stepping on the boat. "I'm the dude who assaulted your gay ass looking dad, and will soon get rid of your fagot face."
Takeshi frowns, disturbed by the vulgarity of that statement. In his mind, Tentoki is angered by his host's naivete.
"Oh, Come on Takeshi! You didn't forget that! You're making me feel like Teru and Kaori are right about you." he complains before explaining. "Look at him! He's the tengu user that you knocked away on the battlefield last year."
"What? But I killed that guy!" the ninja exclaims.
"Think, Takeshi. Think!" the tengu adds. "You first knocked out one guy in the forest, and then killed another in the village. It wasn't the same guy coming back. There were two of them all along. Inoue Yamanaka probably knew about this already, but thought that you did too. You killed the yamabushi of Akashita, but this one is using Ryutoki's Jinton. This means that Sojobo gave them Akashita and Ryutoki, but also that he wasn't lying when he said he only wanted to give Tenshi to your aunt."
Takeshi takes a moment to process this information. It seems like he was right about the Daitengu not being evil back then… But more importantly, the person he was running after is who he defeated in the forest, and it's not the same person as the one he killed. Too stubborn to assume a mistake, he finds an excuse.
"Oh I remember! But no wonder I didn't recognize you." he says. "I thought you were dead. But I guess you had a twin or something. The other one looked way less masculine."
"I'm Fuyuko, shithead." the man replies. "That was my sister, Akiko."
"I'm pretty sure it was a guy." Takeshi argues. "Just very girly."
"Yeah, that's called a trans woman, you intolerant piece of shit" Fuyuko yells at him.
"This guy's an unbearable hypocrite." Tentoki remarks about him. "First thing he said when he showed up was homophobic slurs, yet he calls you intolerant."
"You know I can fucking hear you, damn albino lizard?" Fuyuko says to Tentoki, as he uses his shadow linked to Takeshi's to enter his mind.
"… Good. It was addressed to you." the tengu replies. "So what do you want from my host?"
"Doesn't matter!" Takeshi exclaims to interrupt this discussion. "You're Fuyuko, you say? It's pretty nice of you to show up. I was coming for you anyway."
"Nah you don't get it, Sonic." the rogue Yamanaka says before grabbing Takeshi by the hair. "It's not you coming for me. It's me coming for you… Now tell me, why aren't you afraid?" he adds while bringing his head closer. "You're trapped, paralyzed, without legs to run away anymore. You're standing still in my range. I'll take what I need from your mind, steal your tengu and finally do as you did my sister. Yet you don't seem to be bothered or to understand. So tell me, why aren't you afraid?"
Takeshi looks up to his enemy, and asks himself the same question. About it, he remembers words that Sojobo told him when they first came in contact. He still doesn't know what they mean, but repeats them to answer.
"The master of one feeling wouldn't fall under its influence." he says, leaving Fuyuko confused.
Then, a total stranger's voice resonates for everyone to hear in Takeshi's mind. A muffled, dry, thin sounding voice that addresses the body's owner.
"Molt your body. Grow back your leg." it simply says as a new ability instinctively occurs to Takeshi.
Daitengu Dappi
A new leg suddenly emerges from his severed limb and lets him stand again, which startles Fuyuko and makes him fall back. Not willing to let his target escape, the Yamanaka gathers tengu chakra in his hand and quickly fires a little chakra ball to him.
Tengudama
Koton – Shunshin
But he's too slow for his opponent. Takeshi resumes what he was doing earlier and concentrates an intense light in the part of his outfit that will better reflect it, being his forehead protector's metal plate and the silver vambraces he wears on his forearms. They become totally white and shine so bright that the surrounding shadows are dismissed, freeing him from his binding and letting him run away in a blink.
Fuyuko closes his eyes, blinded by the light. When he opens them again, Takeshi has disappeared and his Tengudama is hovering away in the ocean. The former Kakumei member stands up, pissed off but glad at the same time. He holds his chest and hardly breathes. Behind him, his blonde partner gets out of her hide and comes to help him.
"What's happening?" she asks him worriedly as she holds him by the head and shoulders.
"No idea, Julia. I don't know what that was." he replies, about Takeshi's sudden regeneration. "But it feels like my time left is getting quickly shorter with his presence."
"Hm? Good thing he ran away then." she says. "Come on, let's go back to Minoka's village."
Fuyuko stares at her, Julia Tomoe. The member of Kawaki's team that was tasked to look after him by Oshio before he left the village. She somehow is the last gift he received from his friend. Glad to have her support, he follows her.
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Takeshi Minamoto, stops shortly after, inside of Hikari and close to the castle. There, he takes a moment to breathe and frantically looks around him to find the source of the voice that spoke earlier. After dumbly searching for a few seconds, he calms down and stares at the silent tengu that lives within him, that only he can see.
"It was you, wasn't it?" he asks, to no reply. "It's the first time I hear you speak."
"Was that the other tengu?" Tentoki asks, confused. "It can't be. Takeshi, this power you just used to grow back your leg… It's an ability unique to the Daitengu. Why do you have it all of a sudden?"
"Hell I know!" Takeshi exclaims, as confused as his tengu about it. "Good thing is I got my leg back at least. Now, can we speak about Fuyuko?"
Tentoki looks around to check if he can see the mysterious other tengu now, but doesn't find anything. He calms down, and follows Takeshi's advice.
"Did you really not recognize him?" he first asks, to see if his host is really as careless and egoist as it seems.
"I remember I killed a tengu user." Takeshi explains. "But I had no idea there were two of them. And I only saw them briefly. When I run with your speed, I only see what's in front of me for an instant. I saw these two siblings close up only for a second each. Of course I didn't memorize their faces… Anyway, what can we tell about his intentions?"
"… Well, let's see." Tentoki prepares to tell, giving up on the issue for now. "He said he wants to take what he needs from your mind, which probably meant the jutsu to seal and unseal us, and that he'll take your tengu. Since there is no reason for him to know about the other one, I assume he means me. Also, and obviously, getting revenge for his sister must be an intention as well. This is probably why he's interested in you."
"Can't be just that." Takeshi says. "In this case, he could go after my family or Kokoro-sensei. They all know the jutsu he wants and have a tengu as well. There must be something special about me, other than vengeance."
"I wouldn't say it like that, but it's true." the celestial light suggests. "This guy seems way too smart to be motivated only by vengeance. To your father, he only said he'll take the jutsu and not Daikoku. So there must be something he needs me for… Aside from that, he used Ryutoki's powers, which is pretty odd."
"Why that?" Takeshi demands.
"Well, it is inconceivable that Ryutoki lets himself be hosted. What he'd do is take over the yamabushi's mind like Daikoku, Amabie or Akashita could, but forcibly to keep it forever. This is why we wanted to avoid him being seeded in your aunt. If Fuyuko can use his abilities while remaining conscious it must mean that Ryutoki's seed still didn't hatch. Since Sojobo's presence is what makes the hatching progress and that he's been dead for the last 8 years, it could be that Ryutoki is stuck as a seed and leaves Fuyuko to use his powers freely."
"I see… So we still have to find out what he needs me for…" Takeshi deduces. "Next time, I'll be the one to strike, and we'll get our answers."
"If you say so." Tentoki sighs. "But we didn't meet his yellow haired partner. For now, we should follow Hideo Kotobuki's advice and try to find clues about her with her hair. We're already at the right place."
Takeshi pulls the blond strand from his pocket and looks around to see the giant black castle of Hikari before him. The lab director said that the person this hair belongs to should be identifiable by the village's leader. Not willing to waste any time, Takeshi immediately leaps to the throne room's balcony and gets in to meet with the leader.
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He finds the room empty, with no throne left at all. There's only a round table in the middle for many people to sit. There are 5 great chairs on which lie the symbols of the 5 great nations, and one last seat. He finds it odd, since this land isn't supposed to have any business with the villages. Tentoki, however, remembers that the remaining of the feudal families of the continent pressured the new leaders of this village, successors of Kakumei, to give them control over the territory as a payback for the harm done by Oshio.
While he's analyzing the room, someone opens the door and gets his attention. There, he sees a woman, who looks just 20, staring at him worriedly. The woman notices his headband and sighs.
"If you intend to make any request, your land will end up in trouble with the Tomoe clan." she says, mistaking Takeshi for a shugonin of the land of Water.
"What? No, I'm not here on behalf of my land." the ninja justifies himself. "I'm just in a hurry and need some information from the local ruler for a mission. Do you know where I can find him?"
"Oh… It's supposed to be me." she answers. "My name is Anastasia Tomoe, I'm the entitled leader of this village."
Since she left Ketsugakure to take on the role bestowed to her by Oshio Uchiha, Anastasia has left her kunoichi uniform behind. She only wears a high neck sleeveless green dress, black mittens that cover her forearms and black opaque tights. She has no headband or flack jacket. Due to the status of the village, she was made to take a more diplomatic role than military.
"What is it about?" she asks.
"Well…" Takeshi shows her the yellow hair. "I'm after a person, a woman apparently, who collaborates with a former Kakumei member and is posing a threat. I was told you might recognize her from a hair."
"Oh? Who told you that?" Anastasia replies while analyzing the hair. "Cuz he may be right. Blond, nearly yellow… There is one person alone I've met with the exact same thing."
"So who is it?" Takeshi questions eager to learn what he should.
"Her name is Julia Tomoe." Anastasia says. "She's a deserter from Ketsugakure."
"So, she's from the same clan and village as you?" he says.
"From what I know, she fled with her mother when she was still very young." she explains. "Apparently, she had ties with Kakumei, which wouldn't surprise me since most of the ninjas who still are in this village were part of this army too. She doesn't live here anymore, but if you want any more information about her identity, it is in Ketsugakure that you'll find it."
"Great, let's head to Ketsugakure then." Takeshi declares before turning around to leave.
"I wouldn't go there so carelessly if I was you." Anastasia warns him about this village's lone and odd policy, as she points down the village's location on a map of the land lying on the table. "Ketsugakure is home to the Tomoe clan, leaded by my mother Lady Toshima. They are very unfriendly to men, and don't let them in easy. Even if you manage to enter, you'll be under surveillance and not allowed to stay for too many days. Depending on the season, they could force you to take part in what they call masculine surrogacy."
Takeshi makes a disgusted, but curious face under his mask. He looks at Tentoki in his mind, waiting for his opinion on this odd warning. The tengu shrugs, not knowing enough about the village they are headed to.
"Don't worry, I'll handle it." Takeshi naively says to sound cool even though he didn't really understand what this means. "Thank you for your help." he adds before saluting the leader of Hikari and leaving.
While he runs toward the location pointed out on the map by Anastasia Tomoe, Takeshi gets an odd feeling as he thinks of the new political context of this village and land. It seems like, after Kakumei, there are people who simply refuse to let this territory be at peace. He, personally, wasn't even aware that the feudal families still had any international power, after they were almost forced to collapse by Oshio.
Apart from these political questions that he knows too little about, he's intrigued by the masculine surrogacy she mentioned. Does it mean that a village populated only by women ninjas is using traveler men only to maintain a correct demography?
In his boredom and curiosity, he wonders about the actual procedure to put this in place. What happens to the men afterwards? Do they ever know if they had a child? If such a cultural ritual becomes well known across the world, it could have the odd effect of tremendously rising the number of men who'd come to visit. It's a smart choice for this village to be hidden and hostile after all. Takeshi is suddenly woken up by his tengu who brings up a more serious question.
"So this Julia Tomoe is Fuyuko's partner, had ties with Kakumei, and is a member of Lady Gozen Tomoe's clan, …" he sums up. "Why did her mother desert the village with her?"
"Tentoki,… I'm as curious as you, but this question really isn't something we should focus on." Takeshi says. "There's other mysteries we have to solve."
"I hope you're talking about Fuyuko's intentions, and not that masculine surrogacy thing." the tengu jokes.
Takeshi lightly laughs and embarrassingly looks away, feeling awkward about how curious he actually is regarding this. Is he just now discovering his own pervy side?… Why does he insist? He shakes his head to get rid of these thoughts and focuses on the land that he's roaming through accurately to find the village he's looking for.
After running blindly and carefully for a few minutes, he reaches the end of a forest and catches a glimpse of a wide red flower field on countless hills in the distance. Between the trees, he also sees the starry night sky. He didn't pay attention to it, but he spent the whole day running around the world.
From his squad camping before they finished the mission, to Kotobuki's lab, then to his aunt's home in Konoha, and to his family's mansion in Ryuka. And after that, back to Kotobuki's lab and straight to this land where he met Fuyuko before getting to Hikari, and then heading to Ketsugakure. He only thinks of it now as he reminds himself of his day, but he didn't even mention what member of Kakumei he was after, to Hikari's leader.
The member in question, Fuyuko Yamanaka, isn't even someone he was aware of. This morning, when he asked Tentoki about it, they thought there were only 2 Kakumei members left alive. And since Oshio Uchiha is imprisoned, he thought only one was still free. While he's standing still before the sight of the flower field and the night sky, he hears a voice behind him.
"I wouldn't go this way if I were you." the female voice says.
Takeshi gets on his guard and turns around, imagining that he'd find himself face to face either with Julia Tomoe or Lady Toshima. Instead, he realizes this meeting is even more intriguing.
"Speak of the devil…" Tentoki says in his mind, aware of who Takeshi was thinking of at last.
In front of him stands a woman dressed in a black ninja outfit, with a short sleeve on the left arm, and a long sleeve, tucked in an armored glove, on the right arm. Around her waist, she has a large white scarf that is tied in her back and falls down her thighs, which are naked and visible thanks to the holes in her outfit under her hips. Her uniform has a large collar that goes down to her cleavage, where a fishnet top she wears on her chest is visible.
Around her neck is a white thin choker that glamorizes her slightly tanned skin. Takeshi stays focused on her face. Her long messy flowing red-brown hair, her blue eyes with red contours, her thin nose and her lips highlighted by red lipstick. He knows he saw this eye-catching, terribly innocent looking face somewhere before but he's too distracted to remember.
As he analyzes her, he looks down to her chest and peaks at her cleavage, keeps staring down along her body and arms to see the red nail polish on her perfect hands and catches the one detail to wake him up. On her right thigh, through the hole in her suit, he sees the same tattoo as on Fuyuko's shoulder. The mitsudomoe of Kakumei again. This makes him remember. Her face, he saw it in the bingo book.
"You're Killin' Kiss." he quietly says.
"You can call me Meinu." she replies while slowly walking closer, but still keeping a distance. "And you're Takeshi Minamoto, aren't you?"
"Wh-Why are you-? What do you want?" Takeshi stutters, unsettled by this meeting, and by this woman's unfair attractiveness. He shakes his head to keep it cold, makes a serious face, and gets on his guard again. "You're tied with Fuyuko Yamanaka aren't you?"
"Hihi… Not at all handsome." she replies, calmly and peacefully. "I know he's after you. And you're after him. I know you're looking for intel about him and his girl, and I know you don't need to get into the village you're headed to, now that you have me."
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End of Chapter 108 – Next Chapter: Fuyuko Yamanaka