Younger Sister, is that You?

"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 longer. Have a good day, everyone. 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.

"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.

"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.

Only after Hikari had pulled Kankuro away from them did Temari snap out of her daze.

"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!"

"This is Honorable Ox-Head," Hikari said. "By the way, you're slightly wrong. There are four of us here."

"Four?"

Woof!

Kankuro had just realized that the white-furred puppy on Hikari's head was now seated right across of her. He was about to comment about it, but another poof of smoke numbed his tongue.

Right in front of his eyes sat a woman with beauty so alluring that she could ruin nations with a single wink of that pair of black phoenix eyes. Her silky black hair was put up with a flower-patterned jade hairpin. Her smooth white skin looked as if it was glowing in the dark as it reflected ambient light.

Not to mention, the collar of her elaborate hanfu dress was pulled open over her shoulders, suggestively revealing more of her chest while keeping the most important part hidden from sight. The merciless teasing that left things to imagination was incomparably more seductive to the sight compared to being completely naked.

"D-Daji...? The Calamitous Vixen, Daji...?" Kankuro murmured.

"Why, you're more easily aroused after becoming a mortal, Honorable Ox-Head," Daji chuckled. "I wonder what Honorable Horse-Face would say if he got a hold of this, ufufu..."

"S-spare me, please..." the black-clothed boy immediately kowtowed.

No way would he let that blabbermouth Mamian knew! The entire nine layers of the Underworld would end up gossiping about it in a single cycle!

"...Just hearing your voice had given me goosebumps, but seeing your appearance in this world feels even more unreal," the Anbu remarked.

"That's right," she turned her attention to the golden-haired man. "You have known our identity. Now it's time to tell us yours."

"..."

His hands trembled for a moment before he replied resolutely,

"My name is Youen. I have to keep my identity secret because of my work as an Anbu, so please don't tell this to anyone."

The brown-haired girl coughed.

"I think you already know that we don't give a crap about your current identity, right...?"

Youen broke into cold sweat.

"...I'm a cultivator, like you guys. That should be enough."

Hikari, Kankuro, and Daji stared at him with a gaze that silently screamed 'yeah, right'.

"Fine, I already suspected that you won't tell us," Daji showed him a mischievous smile, the same smile that had pushed him into her traps so many times in the past.

"I have a good guess of your identity already. I'm sure that Huang'er also think the same way. Say..."

He gritted his teeth. He wouldn't fall for that venomous tongue of hers. No matter what she was going to say, he would stand firm and not react at all cost!

"...Younger sister Mei Mei, is that you?"

"Don't call me 'younger sister'!"

The Anbu suddenly slammed the table, surprising Hikari and Kankuro.

Youen, however, was already drenched whole in cold sweat.

'Damnit, I messed up!'

He had vowed never to react to that call anymore, but old habits refused to die just yet. His body had responded faster than his brain could stop it.

Seeing Daji's smile growing wider and wider just cemented the fact that he had definitely been had!

"Since when did you know...?"

"That mastery of Emei Sect's martial arts style which surpassed even Huang'er's and your affinity toward water attribute spells. Those were the clues that led me to your identity. However, the clearest proof was that moment when you slipped up and called us 'big brother' and 'big sister'. In our past lives, only one person would call us that way. That's you, Mei'er~"

"I see... so that's why..."

The Anbu collapsed on his chair, finally giving up the last bit of resistance left in his heart.

"Venerable Mei...?" Kankuro mumbled, testing the water.

Was there any reason to deny it at this point? Youen just nodded at him with a defeated expression.

"So it's indeed younger sister Mei Mei!" Hikari clapped her hands.

"I told you, don't call me 'younger sister'!"

Kankuro looked back-and-forth between the three figures around him, his eyes twinkling with girth. He let out a heavy sigh, which managed to stop their aimless arguing.

"It's really a mess, huh? A heavenly spirit like me got turned into a mortal. Venerable Yao, who was a man, got reincarnated as a woman. Venerable Mei, who was a woman, got reincarnated as a man. Lady Daji even ended up as a dog..."

"Male dog, to be exact," Daji added, making the frown on Kankuro's face deepen further.

Okay, it was no longer a mess. It was just pure, unadulterated chaos. He wondered whether the wheel of karma in this world was hurting their stomach from laughing non-stop.

He then focused his gaze toward Hikari and Daji.

"Even after getting reincarnated, the two of you still ended up together, huh..."

"It's called fate~" the seductive woman said while pulling Hikari into her embrace. Unfortunately, she quickly pouted as the latter didn't have any reaction even when she felt a pair of soft, bouncy peaks touching her back.

"Yeah, yeah, she's just a stalker," Hikari retorted with a straight face. "More importantly, younger sister..."

"I said, don't call me y-!"

"Fine, fine, little Mei!" Hikari coughed. "Why did you reincarnate as well? Actually, why did you die in the first place?"

"Why not?" He narrowed his eyes. "I mean, big sister is here."

"Daji is a special case, don't use her as reference. She's nuts."

Youen sighed.

"Is it so hard to believe, big brother? Everyone had decided to end our time and reincarnated with you. We were separated back then, but I was sure that everyone had arrived to the underworld more or less around the same time."

Hikari almost jumped out of her seat if not for Daji holding her down.

"Why?!" She screamed in disbelief.

"Because we agreed with your words," he replied with a decisive tone. "We wanted to see the new era that we had fought so hard to achieve in a new light. We..."

His gaze turned soft as he gave her a weak smile.

"...Our souls felt so heavy, weighed down by all the blood that we had spilled. We just wanted to start over in the peaceful Yang Dynasty, away from our treacherous pasts. Is that... is that wrong...?"

Hikari couldn't retort.

Because, if she denied their cause, then she would had denied her own death. She would render everything she had done meaningless.

Thus, she could only fell into silence.

"R-right, how about we change the topic?" Kankuro nervously offered. The atmosphere had turned so heavy all of the sudden, making him worry. "Venerable Yao, about what you've asked me earlier... you want to know why I got reincarnated, right? Also, about what had happened back then when the reincarnation pool got destroyed."

Hikari nodded. While she was still angry about her allies' decision, her curiosity about that incident took precedence.

After all, that information could prove pivotal for her goal.

Now that he had gotten their attention, Kankuro straightened his posture as he began to talk business.

"Very well. I shall tell you..."