Chapter 83
"I want chakra. Not just from you, from all you siblings. With what is coming, it would take more than the chosen one to stop them. Even worse is if it is different from before." Okay, I definitely mixed bullshit with more bullshit. I know. I needed to sound mysterious and ominous to get the attention of the fox. What more, I needed him to be the one to reach out to the other tailed beasts. With the stubborn and hard headed nine tailed fox actually reaching out to them himself, it might actually give me an easier time gathering the other tailed beast chakras.
Not that it totally mattered though, I had already collected the chakra of kyubi. As for the others, if they refused to do this the easy way, I could always begin hunting them before Akatsuki began their hunts.
Kurama continued to stay silent before he asked again, "Who are you, really?"
"Don't you know, I'm Sakura." (Himekawa Desu kedo; For the Beelzebub fans out there). I chuckled to myself, remembering one of my favorite comedy anime. Kurama turned silent again. After an awkward staredown, where I just stared at him with a crooked smile and he just glared at me, he finally huffed and once again kicked me out the same way like the first time.
"Was that necessary? You asked me here, you damned fox! You lucky you inside Naruto." I was quite pissed so I released a little killing intent that made Naruto shiver slightly. I sighed to myself, shook my head and simply walked out without saying a word, not caring about Naruto constantly calling for me.
I had been away for a long time, and I had missed my home, my warm bed and Aoi's cooking. I was only hoping they had been able to escape their 'kidnapping'. I flickered at full speed towards my home. It was locked when I got back. The place was spotless without dust; Either they were back or Aoi took the liberty to clean the place up while I was away. I really hoped it was the former.
After a nice and long shower, I lay on the couch contently. Just as I was about to drift to sleep my eyes snapped open. There was a ping from Kouki. One long ping, meant there was in trouble. I quickly connected to the tag in my shadow and felt myself sink in my own shadow.
I emerged from Kouiki's shadow and saw he and Aoi surrounded by a group of people. No time to waste. I darted to the one closest and pulled out a kunai, swiping at his throat. A ding sound sounded out as my kunai was blocked. What surprised me was the person who blocked it.
"What is the meaning of this, Kouki?" I jumped back and people from the emerging houses began to surround me threateningly. As if that could stop me; If I wanted, I could slice them all apart without them knowing how. I just needed to know why Kouki was siding with them before I finally decided whether to slice vertically or horizontally.
"Sakura-nee please calm down." He put his arms up to indicate he meant no harm. The commotion caused more people to show up. Now that I had a good look, I was in a small village as more people came out of the surrounding buildings. Kouki tried to calm me down but I was not hearing him. My entire attention was captured by the dark-haired young lady that had come out as well.
She was dressed in a beautiful purple and gold kimono with red trimmings with her hair held up by a golden pin. "Aoi?". I called out to her, absolutely surprised by the situation. After the two of them sternly sent the mob away with only four people remaining, they stood in front of me like children that had been caught doing wrong.
"Explain. Now!" It was safe to say I was incensed. I was called me for help but turned out she was getting married? No matter what, something felt very off.
"So, let me get this straight. You were only pretending to be married just to lure out a potentially dangerous stalker, but decided to actually do it because you ended up falling in love?" Aoi was standing in front of me with a red embarrassed face nodding her head. The look in the eyes of Kouki indicated there might actually be more to the story than met the eye. I looked at the four people standing a so close to us it looked like we were all having a family meeting.
"Do you mind giving us some space?" The one with the sparkling face standing at the front of the group looked to be the one getting 'married' to Aoi. He looked like a step down pretty boy, but a pretty boy none the less.
"Haha. Don't worry. We'll all soon be family, right?" He gave his friendliest smile and in the corner of my eye I saw Aoi smile brightly with a deeper shade of red. The group behind him all laughed like pre-programed robots, nodding at each other while doing so.
"No, we won't. Now! Move! back!" Their laughter and the smiles on their faces froze. They looked like they wanted to say something, but the glare they got from me shut them up as they moved a few steps back. They kept moving back after a continuous glare from me until I was satisfied with the distance.
"So, who's bright idea was it to come up with such a dumb plan?" Kouki hurriedly turned to sparkly face in answer. Aoi on the other hand frowned slightly. Why was I not surprised? I think I understood what was going on. But I needed to ask them properly later. If I was right; captain sparkles there probably really wanted to marry Aoi and devised this plan. And somehow, he had been able to influence Aoi in some way. It was no wonder Kouki sent the danger ping.
"*sigh* First of all, Aoi, you look absolutely beautiful. Whoever will TRULY marry you one day will be the absolute luckiest." My compliment made her blush as a deep crimson painted her face. Kouki who stood by the side nodded vigorously like a hungry chicken pecking on feed. I yelled out the 'Truly' part so Mr. Sparkle face knew I was absolutely against whatever it was that was about to go down.
"Ok. Take it off. You are a shinobi on mission. What if someone attacks you." My words barely finished but I could see the slight frown on the face of Aoi. She looked to want to protest, yet at the same time she looked to be struggling with something. "Don't tell me you intend to get married without me or mother present? Is that how you want to treat your family?" After a brief inner turmoil and sudden realization, she finally took off the attire. She surprisingly had her battle attire underneath it; She was even wearing the Konoha headband around her left arm.
The group standing a distance away quickly run towards us to try and stop Aoi, but the young lady was already out of the dress. Sparkle face had a quick change in expression. He frowned and subtly glared at me before putting on what looked to me as a very fake smile and addressed Aoi. "Miss Aoi…"