Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and DAN DA DAN.
Warning: Curse words. Sensitive language.
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"Actually Naruto-san, you don't have to accompany me to school. I'm not a kid anymore." said Okarun as he walked, slouching like he always did. However, it was not out of habit this time. He simply could not feel both of his arms. Early in the morning, the boy met up with Naruto at a park and trained his body as per Naruto's regiment, using simple bodyweight exercises. Even though he may have lost Turbo Granny's power, Okarun was determined to change his lifestyle if he didn't want to disappoint Momo. Seeing the beautiful display of Youth(!), Naruto decided to take the glasses-wearing boy under his wings. To start off, Okarun had to do 2 sets of 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, 10 squads, and 3 pull-ups, finishing up with 10 laps around the block. The blond trainer said that was only the beginner level. Okarun dreaded to know what the advanced level would be like.
"Aww, I was worried you were gonna faint on your way to school. But you're doing pretty good, buddy." Naruto was walking beside Okarun, hooking his arm around the boy's neck. When the blond saw Okarun's gloomy expression, he thought it was just Monday blues, a natural and ubiquitous phenomenon felt by workers and students all over the world during the onset of a Monday morning. He remembered the same feeling he had during his academy days.
There were also many high schoolers walking up the path alongside them to the school's gate. Sensing Okarun pause in his steps, Naruto looked on ahead to where the boy's gaze laid. It was Momo. She was leaning on the gatepost, seemingly waiting for someone. "Oooh ~ would you look at that? Momo's waiting for you."
"I- I don't know, Naruto-san." Okarun shifted his glasses, showing extreme reluctance. "Maybe she's just waiting for her friends."
"Aren't you her friend too?" Naruto pushed Okarun forward, lightly kicking the boy's bum. "Don't be a wimp. Go and greet her, brat!"
Okarun stumbled as he got near the gate, catching Momo's attention. The girl waved at him and said hi. The boy returned the greeting awkwardly before Momo bumped into him with her shoulders as they quietly conversed. Naruto smiled softly at their interaction. That was the sign of a budding friendship... and perhaps something more. "Ahhh~ young love."
"That's child abuse, sir."
"Eh?" Naruto turned his head. It was a woman, probably in her late 20's. She was wearing a white dress shirt, a pink cardigan on top, dark blue pants, and black high-heel loafers. She had pink, bob-cut hair and the greenest pair of eye pupils he had ever seen.
Woah, what in the Infinite Tsukuyomi is this... Sakura...?
"I don't know what you're talking about, miss...?"
"My name is Sakura Matsumoto. I'm a teacher at Kami High." The female teacher replied in a formal and serious manner. "I'd like to ask you to refrain from physically harming the students."
Naruto chuckled in disbelief, both at her surprising appearance and implication. "Okarun's my nephew. There's no ill intention whatsoever like you're implying."
Well, technically he was not. But after what they had gone through, the blond would like to believe that they had gotten at least that close. And what was going on with the sudden appearances of people who looked so much like his long-gone friends? First, it was Hinata. Now it's Sakura? Is it just mere coincidence or some weird reincarnation shit that old man Hagoromo used to ramble about?
"What happened, Okarun? Did that old man do this to you?" From afar, Momo yelled for the world to hear. Naruto spun his head back to the two kids, shocked at the betrayal. The blond silently cursed at the girl's trick. She deliberately said that out loud. He could clearly see her stealing sideway glances at him and the teacher. "You gotta tell me, or even your teacher if he's hitting you, Okarun."
"You little shi-" Naruto bit back his words. Before he could call out for them to explain the situation, Momo quickly grabbed Okarun and ran inside the school buildings. Well, he ain't beating the child abuse allegation now. "Look, Miss teacher. It's not what it looks like."
"Please follow me to the principal's office, sir. I have some questions for you." With that, the female teacher briskly turned away. Naruto looked up at the clear morning blue sky and let out a groan before forcing himself to follow her inside. "Fuck me..."
"Uzumaki-san?"
"Huh?" Naruto and Sakura stopped in their tracks when the blond's name was called. "Oh? Is that you, Hinata?"
A familiar dark blue-hair girl in high school uniform was walking up to them. "How have you been doing, Uzumaki-san? I didn't expect to see you here."
Naruto laughed half-heartedly, "Me neither." He still remembered the funny feeling he had when he first met her the other day. If he was suspicious of fate playing jokes on him earlier, he was certainly sure of it now. He was standing in front of two people who resembled his old friends. One was chiding his ass while another was asking how he was. A faithful homage to the characters.
However, that did not mean he was out of the sticky situation yet. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse judging by the look on the teacher's face. Her eyes were full of suspicions. Naruto bet those suspicions had even spilt to her hands as she was reaching for her phone in her pockets, possibly wanting to call the police.
"Good morning, Sakura-sensei." Hinata smiled at her homeroom teacher. "Do you also know Uzumaki-san? I noticed you were talking with him earlier."
"Good morning, Hinata. How did you know this person?" Sakura asked with a stern expression. The blond man even called the young student by her first name. Naruto winced at her words. This person? Jeez, such hostility.
"Hai! I met him the other day. I asked him to help me at my house. Although his charge was a bit high... but his service was very satisfactory!"
Agh! That's not helping, Hinata! The blond was closing his eyes, biting back a groan. That was it. This was how his reputation as a suave gentleman ended. Seiko-chan, please remember me for who I am, not how I ended up.
"Is that so?" Sakura blurted. She was actually clicking the keypads on her phone right now.
"Yes. He has helped me deal with the problem with my dad. He's doing better now because of Uzumaki-san's help." Hinata continued, oblivious to the current situation and her words' implication. Indeed, she looked much better and more cheerful than when Naruto saw her that day. "And I was going to recommend him to you, sensei. I think he can help you with your problem too."
Suddenly, the homeroom teacher's hostile attitude evaporated, replaced by an uncertain expression. "If that's so, then I'd like to apologize, Uzumaki-san. And thank you for helping Hinata."
"Not a problem at all." Naruto waved his hands, chuckling awkwardly.
"As for my problem, I don't think this is a good place to talk about it. So, I'd like to ask if we can meet later, Uzumaki-san? When are you available?" Sakura continued, with a more respectful tone this time.
"I can do lunch time, yeah."
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"Maki-chan, I don't think this is a good idea." A girl whimpered as she tightly hugged the arm of another girl.
"Come on, that is the place that Suzuki-sempai told us about. He said it worked, and it was totes' scary and super fun. We're gonna get some many views from this, Ayane." Said the other girl. The two were walking along the hallway on the fourth floor of their school building. The only light available was from Ayane's phone's flashlight while Maki was video recording their escapade with her own phone. Soon, they reached their destination. It was a storage room, its door handles wrapped in chain and a rusted lock. Maki tugged the lock lightly, and it quickly came loose. "This is it!"
With a push of the handle, the door opened. A loud creak echoed in the hallway. Ayane shone her phone light inside, but it was so dark they could barely see anything except stacks of rusted and broken tables placed at the sides of the room right by the walls. Both girls gulped nervously. Maki moved her phone camera around and saw a single table in the middle of the room. "That must be where Suzuki-sempai did the ritual. Let's go."
The pairs walked slowly toward the table. It was quite old and had gathered a lot of dust. Blowing and swiping the dust away, they saw some traces of scratches on the surface. Maki then placed a plastic cup filled with sand and candies on the table. "Give me the incense, Ayane."
The less brave Ayane shakily opened her backpack and took out three sticks of incense. Meanwhile, Maki was attaching her phone on a tripod and placing it at the edge of the table facing them to record their activities. When she was about to light up the incense, Ayane tabbed her shoulders again looking extremely reluctant to continue. "Can-can we do it another day? I really don't have a good feeling right now, Maki-chan."
Maki shook her head, "No we can't, Ayane. Suzuki-sempai said that it'll only work between July 1st and 15th. That's when they can come out. Today is the 15th already. This is our last chance, or we'll have to wait for next year."
Maki then quickly burned the incense, ignoring her friend's plea, before planting the incense in the cup. She looked at the camera, "Guys! We're gonna prove that the ritual is real tonight and that the legend is legit. Alright, here we go." She clasped her palms together and began chanting,
"With these offerings, I summon thee;
Please come out and play with me.
Your presence is welcomed both night and day;
For as long as this incense burns, you can stay."
Maki sang the chants three times before unclasping her palms and knocking on the table thrice. Silence ensued. The two girls did not hear anything in response. "Did it work?" Ayane asked, hiding behind her friend's back.
"I don't-" A table fell. Both girls jumped at the noise. Ayane frantically pointed her light at the far end of the room that was in complete darkness. Then came the sound of footsteps. Thundering footsteps.
"Hungry... hungry..."
Maki and Ayane froze their place as they looked at the monstrosity straggling toward them. It was a giant, blue-skinned, grotesque creature with two protruding horns on its head, massive fangs, sharp claws, and a third eye at the center of the forehead. The monster let out a deep, grating growl as it saw the two girls. Maki then quickly grabbed Ayane's hand and fled in terror, screaming for their lives. The monster looked down at the table, tilted its head, and reached for the candies. That was when the video was cut.
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-(Recording ends)-
"The girls were hospitalized for a week due to trauma and fright. We tried to console them and their parents, but they decided to transfer to a different school. So, we tried to investigate the incident while keeping a tight lid to keep it from spreading. Security guards had reported constant noises whenever they walked past there at night. On one occasion, one of the guards was even attacked by the monster. He is still in coma right now." Sakura, the homeroom teacher, recounted the incident.
"You said it was about a month ago?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, more or less." answered the Kami High's principal, a middle-aged man in a beige suit. The three people were currently in the principal's office during lunch break. Naruto was sitting on the sofa facing Sakura and the principal. "You see, Uzumaki-san, when we inspected the room during daytime, we found nothing out of the ordinary. But it was the night times that strange happenings took place. We figured it might be something paranormal going on. So, we invited many spiritual mediums to cleanse that room, but the result was the same."
Naruto hummed in thought, "Can you play back that video?" Sakura pushed the replay button on the controller, then the clip replayed on the TV screen. "Pause."
The video clip stopped at the scene of the monster standing in front of the ritual table. Blue skin, horns from the head, maggots on its rotten flesh, black gooey liquid on its feet, and black mist emitting from its entire body. The monstrosity looked like it came straight from the Underworld of Izanami. Normally, or at least to Naruto's knowledge, youkais and other supernatural beings mentioned in Japanese folklore, ancient mythology or modern legends frequently dwelled in the physical world. However, there was a particular subset of those creatures that did not make regular appearances in the physical world because they resided in Yomi, the Land of the Dead. Although Yomi seemed to have geographical continuity with the physical world, it was also completely separated as once entered, returning to the land of the living was impossible. But the two realms could be connected through a gate.
And the thing about those Underworld creatures was that their form and power were not drawn from the spiritual energy or natural energy in the physical world like the youkais that he had faced so far. In fact, their power source, the forces of life, was drawn directly from Yomi, their birthplace.
Naruto crossed his arms. If confronting a spirit-possessed human was a pain in the ass, then trying to exorcise a creature from the realm of the Goddess of Death, Izanami, would be akin to extinguishing a building fire with a bucket of water. They just would not die. For as long as the gate was open, those demons were practically immortal. Even his Six-Paths Sage chakra might not perish them. That was why he didn't fuck with anything to do with gods if he had a choice. His experiences so far with those omnipotent pricks, even in his previous world, had not been pleasant at all.
Moreover, Yomi was such a dark, dystopian, and overall fucked up place. The god Izanagi did not blockade the original boundary between the two realms millennia ago for no reason. Well, that was because the deity didn't want to see his undead wife and she was chasing him with her demons, but that was not the point(!). The most important thing at the moment was to destroy the passageway first so that no more demons could come through. To do that, they needed the creator deity's help. Naruto hoped that Izanagi was still scared of Izanami.
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His assumption was confirmed. The room was in fact facing the northeast direction, representing the Kimon (Demon Gate) through which evil spirits could travel from the Underworld to the mortal realm. So, by doing the summoning ritual, those stupid kids had basically opened the flood gate to the Land of the Dead. Naruto didn't know where they got that game, or how those silly, unimpressive chants could summon a freaking gate to Yomi.
Just standing in front of the door of the storage room, the blond could already feel the foul aura from inside. Chills crawled up his skin, his nerve getting jittery a little bit.
"So, this is it, huh." Seiko exclaimed as she stood beside Naruto, with her reliable baseball bat in her right hand and a pink suitcase to her left. The blond had informed her of the request, and she agreed to give him a hand since it was taking place at Momo's school and directly concerning her safety. At first, she thought this might just be another regular paranormal incident with a random evil spirit that was summoned by the kids through a ritual game. But the moment she entered the school building, her eyes kept twitching, signaling an unusually bad omen. Now she really regretted not donning her spirit medium robe. She would have to make do with her yellow cardigan, blue baseball jacket and black cape.
"Yeah. But it wasn't this bad when I came here in the afternoon." Naruto replied. The wind started to pick up, whistling as if it noticed the presence of the two exorcists. "Can you seal off the whole floor, Seiko?"
The white-hair spirit medium put away her cigarette and nodded. She noticed the missing endearing suffix that he used whenever he called her name. Naruto was in a serious mood this time. "On it."
While Seiko went away to plant talismans at every entry to and every room on the 4th floor of the building, Naruto took a step back and raised a half-Ram hand seal. "Torii Gate: Seal!"
A torii gate flashed into existence, overlapping the door frame. He was taking every precaution to not let anything slip past their hands. The torii gate would be the first blockade to seal the storage room while Seiko's talismans would be the second line of defense. He was not sure how much that would help, but they had to use every card that they had.
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A few minutes later, Seiko returned after quickly completing her preparation. The two looked at each other for a second before nodding. Naruto pushed open the door. In an instant, they were hit with the foulest emanation they had ever felt. The duo raised their hand to block their face from the blowing dark wind that was swirling furiously inside the room. Naruto turned the light switch on. The rows of stacked tables that he saw in the video were now littering the floor messily, broken and bent. Surprisingly, the table in the middle of the room where those kids performed the ritual was still there, with the cup and all. However, the wall at the other side of the room was covered in vine-like mist, emerging from a tornado black cloud whose epicenter laid an obsidian marble-like sphere. From the dark cloud, countless apparitions of ghostly arms were flailing about as if they were trying to escape from the gate.
Naruto blurted in disbelief, no pun intended. "Holy shit. What in the hell have those idiot brats done?" This was worst than he initially thought.
Seiko murmured, "The gate is wide open... This is bad. And you said it's been one month since it was summoned?"
"Just fucking great." Naruto silently cursed as realization hit him. "Who knows how many of those creatures had passed through the gate already and where they have wandered to?"
"Let's close the gate first. We'll deal with other stuff after." Seiko suggested. The two immediately got into position. Seiko walked to the ritual table and started preparing Shinto offerings for the cleansing ritual. From her suitcase, she took out bowls of rice, sake, salt, and fruits and arranged them on the table. Finally, she lit one stick of incense and placed it inside the cup that those kids originally brought.
As soon as the incense was lit, the dark sphere at the center of the gate pulsed and rapidly expanded. The atmosphere around the gate grew violent. "Here they come! You better start your chant now, Seiko. They've noticed we are here to burn down their bridge." Naruto yelled, standing directly between the gate and the ritual table with his Truth-Seeking staff in his hand. Soon, creatures of nightmare started to crawl out from the gate.
One was a monster with a lion head on a humanoid body, holding a giant wicked Kannabo (club) in its hand. Another was a Yurei, a female ghost, with abnormally long arms and long sharp claws for nails. The third creature that came out was a red-skinned Tengu that stood at almost 2 meters tall, almost the same height as the first monster. It flapped its black feather wings furiously and flew at Naruto, a powerful Ōdachi in its hand.
"Come on, big boy. Let's see what you got." Naruto dug his feet, brandishing his own weapon. His Six-Paths Sage mode activated as he kicked off and crashed into the flying Tengu, his Truth-Seeking staff clashing against the sharp blade of the Ōdachi. Sparks flew upon contact; the stalemate lasted a second before Naruto front kicked the winged demon in the chest. Naruto was not allowed any reprieve, however, as the lion-head monster jumped from his left, swinging its giant club to smash his head. The blond ducked under the swing and knee'd the monster's stomach. He then swept the monster's leg while at the same time struck its head with his staff.
Before he could continue smashing, a pair of clawed arms shot toward him and wrapped around his neck. Naruto gritted his teeth, pulling away the tight grip. At the edge of his vision, he could see the Tengu and the lionhead monster had recovered and were rushing at him again. Holding off three Underworld creatures at the same time was a bit unfair, so he decided to level the playing field. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Two clones puffed into existence, each with their own Truth-Seeking staff. The doppelgangers then thrusted their staff at the incoming demons, the edge of the staff instantly elongating and shoving the demons backward. At the same time, the real Naruto grabbed the female ghost's arms and pulled the Yurei up in the air before forcefully slaming it down into the ground. The arms then retracted back to the female ghost.
Naruto cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. He looked on with a smirk. "Now, do you fuckers want my clones to have Six-Paths Sage mode too or not?"
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Meanwhile, Seiko quickly drew a circle around her with her bat-pencil before hammering down a nail inside the circle to construct a barrier around her. She knelt and clasped her hands in a praying gesture. To combat the minions of Izanami and close the passageway linked to the Underworld, they had to borrow the power of the God Izanagi. Not delaying any second, Seiko began chanting Norito, the Shinto ritual incantations that sang praises of the Kami of Heaven and Earth:
"Oh gods of purification
created by the order of the father and the mother
who inhabit Heaven,
exactly as when
the God Izanagi-no-Mikoto
bathed in the narrow estuary
of a covered river with
permanently leafy trees
in the southern region..."
One Naruto smashed his staff at the lionhead demon, breaking its skull into pieces. The demon's head exploded under the force, but it reformed within the next few seconds without a speck of damage. It swung its Kannabo at the blond again with reckless abandon. Naruto blocked the club with his staff, but the force of the weapon proved to be very heavy as the blond's hand buckled slightly. The demon lunged forward to bite at the last ninja with its sharp jaws. Naruto twisted his body to the right. He took a step inside the demon's guard, spinning his staff to lock up the demon's grip on its weapon and then throwing the demon over his shoulder into the ground. In a blink, his Truth-Seeking staff morphed into a lance, and Naruto pierced the demon's throat with the lance. Once again, the demon's neck exploded into black mist. Once again, it regenerated just as quickly as the first time. The blond groaned in frustration. "This is unending."
Similar sequences happened with the two Naruto clones' fights with the female ghost and the Tengu. Naruto subdued them, but they regenerated again, and the same struggle continued in an endless cycle. They had to cut off the link to their power source now! "Hurry up, Seiko! More and more of these mothersuckers are coming out of the gate!"
Indeed, while Naruto was battling the lionhead creature, the Demon Gate expanded again, and a constant stream of animal-like monsters began to come out and swarm his clones. Naruto tried to spam more and more clones, but the army of Underworld demons was relentless. Strength wise, his clones could hold those demons off, but over a prolonged period and with overwhelming number and instant regeneration, those demons began to push back the clones little by little. Those damn fuckers didn't care if they were hit at all. They engaged the clones like mindless zombies. The longer the battle went, the faster they regenerated. Naruto felt like he was hitting air. "What the fuck is this, Edo-Tensei on steroid?!"
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"With all the respect from the depth of our hearts,
we ask that you hear us, just as the spirit that hears our
intent with sharpened ears,
together with the other gods of Heaven and Earth,
purify all evils, misfortunes, and sins... "
Seiko pulled out the nail on the floor and drenched it in the bowl of sake.
"Miroku Oomikami,
bless us and protect us.
Meishu-sama,
bless us and protect us.
"For the expansion of our soul,
Thy will wilt be done!"
A bright light shone from the sake bowl. When she picked up the nail, it was now shimmering in a yellowish white aura, blessed with the power of Kami. "Naruto! Strike it at the sphere!" Seiko stood up and then threw the nail at the blond with all her strength. As it flew in the air, any demons that it touched vanished.
Naruto looked back at Seiko and saw what she was doing. He gritted his teeth and expulsed a burst of yin chakra, blowing away demons around him. He caught the nail, then bulldozed through the thick crowd of demons toward the Demon Gate. Meanwhile, Seiko quickly soaked a talisman paper in the sake before pasting it on her left forearm. Then she poured the blessed sake on her baseball bat, a wicked grin now gracing her face. A shield on the left arm and a bat on the right. "Here I come, you hell rotten shitheads."
The white-hair spiritual medium stepped out of her barrier and swung her Kami-blessed weapon at the Underworld demons like a maniac. She ducked under a swipe of claws, kicked a monkey demon before spinning around to bat away a dog demon from behind. It vanished right away after the hit. The swamp of demons surrounding her paused in shock. Soon, fear struck at them as Seiko continued her assault with a maniacal laugh, swatting them away like flies. Droves upon droves of underworld demons disappeared into harmless mist.
Out of instinct, Seiko raised her left arm to block an arrow by an undead demon wearing a Samurai armor and wielding a huge bow. Then a pair of arms from the previous Yurei burst through the crowd of demons toward her neck, but Seiko had wisened up to it, having seen that move on Naruto earlier. She caught one of the arms and yanked the Yurei in to bash it in the face, decapitating and dispersing it.
One Naruto clone, who was holding a monkey demon in a bulldog choke, looked at the scene with wide eyes; that monkey demon also shared the surprise expression. The clone blurted in awe, "Wow. She's going crazy at it." The monkey demon dumbly nodded, with fear in its eyes.
Chaos resumed for a few more minutes before a loud clink of broken glass rang out. The dark sphere at the epicenter of the Demon Gate cracked and later shattered after the original Naruto had punctured it with Seiko's blessed nail. The storming dark clouds of the gate soon dissipated then vanished altogether. The gate had been closed. That also meant there was no more constant supply of dark energy from the Underworld for the demons to regenerate.
"The table has turned, motherfuckers! That's right, you're stuck here with us now!" Naruto screamed with a chilling laugh.
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Naruto let out a satisfied sigh as he took a swig of Coke. Sitting beside him was Seiko, smoking her cigarette as usual. They were now chilling on a bench on the ground floor under the school building. Their mission was completed. Well, mostly at least. After the gate of the Underworld was closed, the two exorcists made quick work of the remaining demons. Without the endless supply of spiritual energy from their birth world, those underworld demons were just like any other youkais and spirits here in the physical plane. But there were still an unknown number of them that had previously escaped through the gate from when it was first summoned. "The only thing left is to find the blue bastard and whatever else that got out."
Seiko hummed, leaning back against the bench. "Now that the gate is closed, we don't need to bother the Kami to deal with those demons."
"Yep yep. It'll be a piece of cake." Naruto smacked his lips. The blond then glanced at his friend with a frown, "Why do you like smoking that cancer stick so much? You know you can die from it, right?"
Seiko sucked her teeth. Naruto was back at it again. "Why do you like drinking that diabetes water so much? You know you can also die from it, right?"
The two huffed, turning their heads away from each other in defiance. Peace and quiet returned, with the sound of crickets filling the night. Then, Naruto broke the silence. "We haven't fought side by side in a long time, huh."
Seiko puffed out her cigarette smoke and nodded. "True. I barely even remembered the first time we met."
Naruto chuckled mirthfully, turning his body to face his friend. "I do! I think I called you a crazy witch back then. And you called me a clown monster."
Seiko shrugged her shoulders, "A normal person wouldn't be able to run up a wall, jumped off a 10-story building and lived. And then you even had the balls to ask for my number like nothing happened."
"Hey, not my fault that you were hot. And you still are, by the way." Naruto winked at her. A good save, he told himself.
Seiko rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her face. "Real smooth. And how did that end?"
"Well, we did date for a while." Naruto winced a little. "Until you dumped me."
"Because you went off and disappeared to God-knows-where for a few months without a single call back. What would you expect a 20-year-old me to do?" Seiko retorted quietly. There was no malice in her words, however. Naruto didn't look riled up either. The two seemed to have made peace with their past together.
"And that was one of my worst mistakes in my life." Naruto pursed his lips, finishing his can of Coke before throwing it into a nearby trash bin.
"The past is in the past." Seiko let out a sigh and stood up. She threw a sideway glance at the blond, a knowing smile at the edge of her lips before she walked away. "Just don't do that again."
Naruto sat still, trying to maintain a straight face until a smile finally broke out. He jumped up and picked up Seiko's bat that she left on her seat. Putting it behind his neck and resting his arms on both ends of the stick, Naruto followed Seiko with a swagger in his steps.
Tonight wasn't so bad.
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