Y'all think I'm gonna leave it just like that? HAH! If there is one thing I don't do, is to leave a story without a cliffy cliffhanger! :D So here it is; Arachnid Hero and the Fox Host Epilogue!

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BOBOBOBO: Uber-thanks to you! :D It's a shame you don't know much about Digimon, but I assure you that it won't really matter when I start the second arc. Oh, and I'm glad that you notice that Vocaloid part ;D It's good to know that someone agrees.

xoxoxo

Epilogue

Lightning Strikes Twice

"Aaah...a sunny day out, eh? Somehow, though, I feel kinda tired." Said one Kamizuki Izumo as he lazily put his head on his folded arms, which were lazily propped on the guard table.

"Tell me about it." His partner and fellow guard, Hagane Kotetsu, agreed, "I wonder, when will Hokage-sama give us back our cards?"

"A month after this, if we're lucky." Izuma said, sighing. His hand travelled underneath the table and pulled on a drawer, revealing a shogi board in it, "But the good news is we still have board games." He said, grinning as if his earlier laziness didn't exist. "You up for a round?"

"Meh, why not? We got some time to kill, anyway." Kotetsu said, moving his chair a bit so that it was positioned across Izumo. He smirked confidently at his Chuunin partner, "You better watch out, though. I'm no Shikamaru, but I can kick your ass for at least 10 rounds after we start!"

"Cocky, much? Let's see how'd you like it when I paint a frown on your ugly bandaged face!"

"Bring it on, ya brown-haired virgin!"

"Okay, don't go there."

"Right." Kotetsu nodded quickly, realizing that he just crossed a boundary that Izumo had once set up. Izumo grumbled as he set the shogi pieces, still sore after his spiky-haired partner's jab of his pride. So, okay, he's not the ladies' man kind of guy, but didn't need nor want to be reminded about that!

"Wait..." Izumo said, his eyes staring at the board. His hands had stopped moving when he was almost finished setting the pieces. He frowned, observing the shogi board thoroughly, realizing one odd detail, "Something's wrong here." Kotetsu raised his eyebrow curiously, finding his partner's behavior kind of weird, "What is it?"

Izumo raised his head and looked scrunitingly at the other Chuunin, "Where's Keima?"

Kotetsu blinked. He leaned forward to look at the board himself, and counted each pieces one by one. When realization came to him that his side's Keima (Knight piece) wasn't there, he groaned, "Argh, COME ON! We've got this game, this ONE game, and the pieces aren't even complete! Why the hell isn't it complete?! Darn it!" He ranted. Izumo sweated at his life-time partner's obvious stress, and laughed nervously as he tried to calm him down, "N-Now, now, Kotetsu, calm down. Don't get worked up over one game."

"How could I calm down when it's the only game we have?!"

"Well, there's this other game. Hey, it's a board game, too!" Izumo exclaimed in joy. He held up a brown wooden board which had some kind of engraving on it. There was a title engraving on the center, and Izumo tried to read it, "It's in romaji rather than in hiragana, so it should be a western board game. It's, uh...Ju...manji?"

"Ah, who cares what it's called!" Kotetsu exclaimed, paying little to no attention to what the board game was called, "It's a game! So let's play it!"

"Sheesh, okay, okay." Izumo, terribly unaware of the horrors of Jumanji, moved his hand to open it. Now, if he opens it, we all know what kind of massacre would happen in Konoha. Of course, if we count in the killer mosquitoes, the rampaging monkeys, the lion, the crazed hunter, the animal stampede and much more, it would be Konoha's greatest downfall. And it would be all the fault of two oblivious Chuunin.

However, Fate was kind enough to prevent that from happening. Before any of the two gate guards could open the board game, they were stopped when they heard someone coming through the gate. How could they actually hear someone coming? Well...the newcomers weren't that silent, themselves. However, what Kotetsu and Izumo caught are only their voices, as the newcomers were talking in a language they didn't understand.

"Hey, Izumo, we got company." Kotetsu said, warning his friend about the newcomers' presence.

"As if I haven't notice, yet!" Izumo exclaimed, "Let's greet them, then."

Kotetsu nodded. Then, both he and Izumo body-flickered themselves out of the guard's post and appeared in front of the newcomers. Their sudden appearance must've surprised them, since one of them elicited a feminine squeal out of surprise. Kotetsu, priding himself of having to be the a gate guard, put his game face on and eyed them with a serious expression, "State your name and business in this village." He said, mouthing each words with the fluency of a rehearsed role player.

However, instead of the response he expected, Kotetsu received a laugh from the person beside the one who squealed earlier, "This again? I thought we're already over this."

Kotetsu blinked in response; the comment caught him off-guard, "Excuse me?" He observed the stranger carefully. Judging by the voice and built, the person is a man. He wore a plain green robe that Kotetsu had seen several travellers wore for the sake of protecting themselves from dusts and strong winds. There was clothing under the robe, but it wasn't that discernable. The man wore a pair of loose blue jeans on his legs, and surprisingly, he also wore a pair of ninja sandals. He had a wide straw hat on his head that hid his face, making him look even more mysterious.

Then the stranger seemed to talk to his companion in hushed voices. This other stranger was nearly the same height as the first one, but the stranger was slightly shorter and had a smaller built. Judging by the hourglass frame of the body, the guards assumed that the second stranger is a woman. This woman's clothing wasn't that different from the man beside her; the only differences Kotetsu and Izumo could see being the cream-colored pants she wore which was more form-fitting, and the high-heeled sandals she wore for her feet. Heck, she even wore the same kind of straw hat, though at least she let her long red hair stay visible.

The man looked like he was trying to calm the woman down, judging by the worried tone the red-haired woman was using when she talked to the man. The man seemed thankful when he finally managed to calm her down, however slightly.

Kotetsu cleared his throat, "Ahem. We'll be glad if you would be so kind to elaborate what you meant. I don't believe we've met before."

"Aw, now you're just hurting my feelings." The male stranger said, making Kotetsu cringe at the disgustingly sweet tone he was using, "Perhaps this hat is in the way. Darn it, I shouldn't have listened to that old man's advice to buy this thing!" The stranger took his hat off, revealing his face and the fact that he is a brunette. The woman beside him also took her hat off, and proved that Kotetsu was right when he thought that the woman was a redhead.

However, his and Izumo's attention was to the male stranger's face. He looked damn familiar, bu they couldn't put their finger on it. "Hey, Kotetsu...we've seen this guy somewhere, right?" Izumo asked, voicing his confusion.

"Yeah, but where—" Kotetsu stopped himself when a memory came forth in his mind. It seemed that the same happened to Izumo, because he, too, suddenly froze.

"Y-You're...!"

The two guards' shocked expression was enough to bring out a laugh from the red-haired woman. Once again, she spoke to the brown-haired man next to her in that foreign language that they didn't understand.

However, being the generous author I am (not to brag, but...), I'll write down exactly what the woman said. The woman, still laughing, said to the man next to her, "Tiger, I think you scared them shitless."

"Really?" The brunette asked in the same language, amused, "These two? Scared? Of their very own friendly neighbour?"

End of Epilogue

xoxoxo

Told you I like to tease ;P