All Roads Lead To...

Chapter 13 - All Roads Lead To…

Sakura was more or less fuming by the time that she and Naruto met back up and started their trek back to the Queen of Victory to rejoin with Karin and Batsu. She was still quite upset by her meeting and resulting conversation with Guy, "I'm sorry I'm not in a good mood Naruto, it just makes me so mad when people treat you like that. They never get to know you and that guy didn't even give me a good reason for not liking you." It was more or less because Naruto wasn't more like him.

"You don't have to be sorry Sakura-chan." Naruto informed her with a smile, "Some people are like that. I'm used to it." He still hated it though.

As a general personal belief, Naruto was always willing to give new people a chance. The opportunity to make a new friend was never worth just choosing to blast someone discriminately. Some of his best friends and most influential people in his life came from being his enemies first, he just had to get to know them first. It just hurt that very few people were willing to extend the same courtesy to him.

A hand was placed on the cheek of his previously smiling, now confused face before Sakura hugged him, "Don't do that Naruto. I hate it when you do that." She pulled away to take note of his befuddled look and elaborated, "When you smile when I know you're unhappy. I don't like that. It's heartbreaking."

Naruto gave her a surprised look before schooling his expression, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine." From the look on her face she wasn't buying it at all.

"You've got a right to be miserable just like everyone else you know." Sakura said, holding her arms behind her back as they walked close to the southern sea of Hong Kong, "People that know you can tell when you're sad. That smile of yours doesn't really fool anyone that pays attention. Your body language is a dead giveaway when you're gloomy." It was true. He wasn't as vigorous, his voice seemed to lose some pep that he artificially tried to manufacture and it didn't seem to match the smile that he constantly plastered onto his face.

It was like he'd work his ass off to keep people from thinking he was down. Sakura herself could never understand why he did it, and neither could anyone else really. Her mother was actually worried about it at one point when the two of them were younger. It wasn't healthy. He avoided showing despondence like it was a symptom of the bubonic plague.

Whoever said that it took more muscles to frown than to smile didn't take into account that all frowning took was letting gravity win over your face, smiling forced you to fight against gravity and do work even if it did happen to use less muscles.

"That's not to say that no one wants you to smile." Sakura spoke, continuing down the path of their conversation, "People that love you and care about you like it a lot. Sakura just thinks that if Naruto would show when things bothered him so that others could help him, his smiles would mean a lot more…" She then looked up at Naruto, beaming radiantly at her best friend, "…Because sometimes maybe Sakura could be the one that puts the smile on Naruto's face the way he always seems to put one on hers."

"Damn Sakura-chan…" Naruto said quietly, hiding his slightly misty eyes by looking directly upward as if he'd suck the mounting moisture back through his tear ducts. Eventually he regained enough of his composure to look over at her and give her a kiss on the cheek that she accepted in an 'I-know-you-want-to-give-me-one' manner, "Heh, you should be a shrink… you always seem to know what to say to mess with me."

"Oh that? I'm just in your head." Sakura joked, tapping Naruto's temple with a finger, "I've been in your head for a lo~~~ng time. It's my duty to know how you tick because somebody has to be able to keep all of your crazy pieced together. It's a labor of love, being your best friend I mean."

"Well it's definitely not a loveless labor." Naruto said, pulling the brown-haired apprentice fighter close to him in a shoulder hug, "Thank you." The calm air between the two of them then shifted a bit when Naruto smirked, "…You know I love you, but you know you lost that bet we made right?"

A shocked facade flew onto Sakura's face, quite affronted at the sudden proclamation, "What? No way! Your informant told you to go to Thailand too!" They technically were pointed in the exact same direction, so she didn't accept that as a loss at all.

"Yeah, but my information was actually legit on Shadaloo. Your information was on Ryu!" Naruto exclaimed in an overly exaggerated manner, "I don't even know how you did that. How'd that even come up? How'd you go from being pissed off at Guy to squeezing where Ryu's going out of him? That doesn't even make any sense."

"That doesn't mean I lost!" Sakura defended desperately, "It's just a little bit more roundabout than what you got…"

From the grin on Naruto's face he wasn't buying her bid whatsoever, "Roundabout... yeah, around about way off base. Just face it, you lose and you know what that means. You better start playing peacemaker with Karin or the next time; POW!"

Sakura could already sense that Naruto was going to go overboard with this whole thing. Her backside was turning red already just thinking about it, "You're going to enjoy doing this way too much."

"I just want my friends to get along Sakura-chan." Naruto said with an earnest exterior look, "…If I have to smack you on the ass every single day for the rest of our lives to make that happen I'm willing to make that sacrifice." He noticed her eye twitching dangerously as he still hugged her around the shoulder, "Oh stop fussing. Better me than someone else." Because at least he'd enjoy it properly.

All Sakura could console herself with was the fact that it still could have been worse. Naruto could have set it up so that he could spank her every time the topic of Ryu came up around the two of them. As a matter of fact, in hindsight she was surprised that he didn't, 'He hides it decently well, but he's a total pervert…' She thought to herself as she managed to get herself away from Naruto's hug.

As if to break the current trains of thought between the two, Naruto's phone went off to reveal a message from Chun-Li that perked him up somewhat, "Hey, the guy that the Interpol agent I fought yesterday was waiting on is here. She wants me to meet him."

"Well you should go then." Sakura stressed just as they were about to turn and enter the marina that housed the Queen of Victory, "You were supposed to be sharing information on Shadaloo with her anyway weren't you?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, putting his phone back in his pocket, "Alright, I'll be back in a bit. Go ahead and tell everyone where we're heading next and I'll do the same with Chun-Li."

That was agreeable enough as this little link-up with Interpol's agent was set up by Naruto, so Sakura didn't really have any place there, "That's fine. Just don't-." She stopped when she turned and realized that he was already gone, "I hate it when he does that… and why didn't he just send a clone?"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

The moment Cammy divulged her identity to Karin and Batsu it seemed like everything in the room stopped. Batsu's shot that he had been lining up at the pool table was hit so hard that it flew through the air and smashed itself into the wall.

Karin didn't outwardly show much shock or a physical reaction to that bit of news at all, still observing Cammy astutely, "You must either have a very good reason for appearing here to tell me this, or you are taunting me. For your sake I would hope it is not the latter."

"It's the truth. And I'm not here to taunt you or harm you… nothing of the sort." Cammy impassively tried to reason. If nothing else she was at least grateful that nobody had tried to kill her yet. And then she was forced to lift her hand to catch a ball from the billiard table that had been sent screaming at her head from across the room. She leveled a glare on Batsu who was still in position from the throw and he was more than willing to send a dirty look right back at her.

"…Every single girl we meet… I swear to fucking-." Batsu muttered before cursing under his breath and speaking up, "I remember what Naruto told me about the attack on his school! That's the bitch that almost killed him; the robot chick. I can tell from the scar on her face."

A delicate blonde eyebrow rose on Karin's face in interest, "'Robot chick' you say?" Well she couldn't see anything robotic about Cammy at all, and she didn't speak like a machine. There was emotion behind it, "She seems to be flesh and blood to me. I believe I need to have a talk with Naruto-san on how he needs to amend his understanding on just what comprises a robot or an android."

Cammy frowned at Batsu's recounted description of her, "That was a different me. Things have changed now. All I can do now is really just apologize for it."

But they did indeed know Naruto. That was good. It was partly the reason that she had tracked down info on Karin Kanzuki, and then she discovered that the Kanzuki Family yacht was in China, she moved from where she had been travelling in eastern India and made it to Hong Kong post-haste.

'Oh here we go.' Batsu thought to himself as he observed Karin from where he was across the room, 'Karin's a seriously vindictive bitch. There's no way she's gonna let this Cammy girl slide on almost kidnapping her during that attack.' He was coiled and ready to react whenever Karin chose to attack her.

"One of my associates was injured during the plot against me and you yourself tried to kill my closest confidant." Karin said in a low and even-tempered tone of voice, "Not only that, but you were in the employ of an organization that intends to use my family and siphon away my father's fortune akin to a tick. I will not attack you without warning, but I cannot see how you can defend this."

Oh, well that was easy. It depended on how believable it was from the point of view of the others listening to Cammy, "Until two weeks ago I had no free will. No emotions. This is why Naruto Uzumaki compared me to a robot from our interaction. I was soulless really… until a spiritual leader in India that I was supposed to assassinate did something to me."

Batsu just gave her a deadpan look from across the room, "So now you're still a Shadaloo assassin… just with a soul? That still means you want to kill Naruto and kidnap princess here!"

A raise of Karin's hand wordlessly directed him to be quiet much to his displeasure as she then efficiently directed Cammy to continue. With a nod of thanks, the young femme fatale continued, "I realized that Master Bison was controlling me, but he sent his assassin Vega to confront me because I was 'an experiment that was no longer needed' or so he said. I somehow overcame him, but I don't know why I'm a target. I never did anything against them."

"Why come to us then?"

"The enemy of my enemy I guess…" Cammy said with a bit of a hapless shrug, "I don't know what else to do but confront Bison directly before he manages to kill me. And then there are the other twelve girls that are still brainwashed; the rest of the Dolls."

Batsu almost put the brakes on the conversation right then and there to loudly shout a question that was exploding in his head, 'There are twelve other girls just like you? Are they all hot too?' If that was indeed the case, he was going to start to like this trip.

Karin's attention was on the actual important part of that statement, "You know where Bison is? The Shadaloo leader? And you are planning to confront him alone?" A confrontation was not a good idea… directly. Fortunately she knew a ninja. A ninja that was technically under her employ, and all he needed was the location of a target.

This was useable. Yes, this was very good.

From the silence of thought permeating through the room via the gears turning in Karin's head, Batsu could almost already tell where this was going, "Oh no. No you're not. Naruto's gonna flip the fuck out if he comes back and sees her standing here. He isn't even going to wait for the explanation, he's just going to scrap with her, and they're gonna rip this place apart because she's not going to just stand there and take it."

Damn right she wasn't going to just stand there and let Naruto beat six different shades of bruises into her. It didn't matter if Cammy was sorry or not; she was a trained killer, not someone's punching bag. If he tried to 'teach her a lesson' as it were, she would rip his scrotum off and chuck it into the harbor.

"I am aware of how impulsive he can be." Karin stated as she furrowed her brow in thought. Naruto and Sakura weren't going to be gone for that much longer, "And it is true that Naruto-san is not the most reasonable person in the world. It shouldn't matter. In the end it is my choice more than it is his." She said, then choosing to direct a pointed look at Batsu, "You are paying for what you did to my wall by the way."

XxX

(Southern District of Hong Kong – Ocean Park – Atoll Reef Aquarium)

"Yo." Naruto said with a big grin on his face as he dropped down from a two story stairwell to land next to Chun-Li who had been waiting, sitting against a ledge at the bottom of it, "I made it here as fast as I could. You pick weird places for meetings."

Chun-Li rolled her eyes and beckoned him over to sit with her, "It's weird to you. Where did you want to meet, in a low-lit alley somewhere?" She had to admit that it was impressive that he knew his way around without even having to ask her for directions.

"No, I've had enough alleys for today." With a grunt, Naruto sat down next to the older woman and looked at the towering aquariums that stood more than four stories and covered the vicinity, "I hope this guy isn't a jerk."

"Charlie's a good person." Chun-Li assured him before pointing intently at the blonde ninja, "I'm going to need you to be nice okay? On your best behavior. Charlie's really important in helping us find Shadaloo's main area of operations in Asia." And right on cue she saw the bespectacled American soldier coming their way, "Here he is. Naruto, meet Charlie Nash. Charlie, this is Naruto Uzumaki."

Hopping up from his seat on the ledge, Naruto extended his hand to Charlie who was surprised at how sudden he moved, but he shook it regardless, "I hope you're as good as she says you are kid."

"You kidding?" Naruto grinned widely in a confident manner, "I'm the best ninja in the world. If I can't handle this nobody can. And if that doesn't tell you enough, I found out that Shadaloo is funneling drugs across the continent out of Thailand. They've got control of a lot of the countryside. Small villages with no contact with the government can't really do anything about them."

Well Charlie would be damned… That was actually consistent with his own string of info and experience, "That makes a lot of sense. It was a mission I flew in Thailand with a friend of mine. We were both shot down and captured. As far as we knew only a handful of people knew we were on that mission so I'll believe that."

"Speaking of your friend…" Chun-Li said with a knowing smile on her face, "He's in Hong Kong looking for you. He wants to help and I said okay. Guile was his name I believe."

Charlie rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses in exasperation, muttering about how he was supposed to be undercover. Naruto however, saw no problems with this at all, "That's great! That means between me, you two, my friends that are strong, and this new guy Guile too we've got seven tough fighters to help us search and find the base. This is gonna be easy."

"Have you ever even seen Bison kid?" Charlie asked Naruto with a raised eyebrow, getting Naruto to shake his head, "Well don't just think that because we've got the numbers we're going to win. He's not that kind of opponent. Trust me. He's that strong."

"Right then." Chun-Li punched into her palm, "Well I need to start getting this little operation in motion. The operation to get an airstrike to bomb the hell out of that base and scorch it from the face of the earth with Bison in it. But first we need to actually locate it and mark its coordinates." She turned towards Naruto, "I hate to use you like this, but you don't seem like you mind. Could you go to Thailand first and see if you can find it? We'll be right behind you; Charlie, Guile, and myself, but if we can coordinate me getting the green light for the attack with you finding the base we could wipe them out before they even see it coming."

"That's why I don't work for anybody." Naruto said as he spoke sagely from personal familiarity, "At least if I screw up it's me screwing up the way I want to. That and I don't have to ask for permission for blowing stuff up." He then realized what he said and backtracked, "Not I've ever blown anything up..."

"Yeah, you should just quit while you're ahead kid." Charlie said, taking mercy on Naruto before he could possibly incriminate himself in several large unexplained explosions across the Japanese island over the last four years, "She still does have to throw you into prison for illicit activities."

Seeing that as good advice, Naruto just let the topic drop there and turned back to an amused looking Chun-Li, "So Thailand right?" She took pity on him and nodded, holding back some giggles. Naruto was a goofy kid, "Alright… I'll see you guys later then."

XxX

(Later that Evening – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

Something was strange as Naruto walked back onto the yacht after returning from his meeting with Chun-Li and Charlie. Things seemed too still in his opinion. Normally Karin and Sakura would be just about to have it out, and he could sense the tension between the two of them about to kick off from a mile away. Either that or he'd see servants about somewhere on the ship doing various things like cleaning the deck, checking the levels in the pool, things like that.

It almost made him want to pull a kunai it was so quiet.

Almost.

As he eventually made it back to his personal cabin and plopped down face-first on his bed, the sound of the ship's intercom coming on made Naruto flip over and throw a shuriken directly at it, "Naruto-san, please come to the bridge. Everyone is waiting for you here."

Naruto blinked at hearing Karin's voice come through the speaker and sat up in his bed, "How'd you know I was even here?"

"Cameras are all over the vessel. You never can be too safe you know. Please hurry as we have already made to depart the harbor . We already know where our next destination is."

Not needing to hear anymore, Naruto jumped up and strolled his way through the halls and different floors of the yacht before reaching the bridge where the main controls of the ship and all of the other important accoutrements lay for observation and use. This yacht was smooth. He hadn't even felt it begin to go.

"Now when you say there are cameras everywhere…" Naruto started to say as he walked up the last flight of stairs that would take him to the bridge, "…You don't mean in the rooms too right? Because that would be totally creepy Karin." As he reached over the top step and started making his way into the room he was grabbed from behind in a bear hug by Batsu, "The hell?"

"Okay… don't freak out." Batsu said, holding firm to his grip on Naruto, "Just be cool alright?"

Naruto wondered what his friend was referring to, and why he was keeping such a tight grip on him with his crazy gorilla strength that let him chuck motorcycles fifty yards without breaking a sweat.

And then he saw Sakura and Karin walk into the room from the other side on the outdoor deck, with a familiar looking assassin following them in, "Naruto-san, this is Cammy. I am sure you two know each other. She has explained her situation to us and will be travelling with us to Thailand to deal with our Shadaloo problem." The blonde heiress chose to explain preemptively.

The sharp blue eyes of Naruto went wide before they narrowed on the form of the girl that he knew as Killer Bee, "I wonder if we're far out enough from shore yet for sharks, because I'm gonna hurl this bitch overboard and she's probably going to be bleeding when I do it." And with that, Batsu dug his heels in and started holding Naruto back from stomping over to the last person that tried to kill him to finish what they started in Aohura City, "Batsu let go!"

"Fucking talk already!" Batsu shouted at the girls, "If he gets his hands to touch each other I can't stop him! You know that!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" It was obvious that he had no desire to hear anyone out, not about this. When he looked at Cammy all he could remember was what her allies had done to his close friend Ibuki. It wasn't even really about himself, "Are you out of your minds? I've done a lot of things that you all thought were stupid, but you can't look at me and give me a good reason for this! It's asinine -ttebayo!"

For some reason the worked up Naruto struck a chord with the patron of the entire trip in a very negative way. Instead of immediately talking, Karin walked up towards Naruto who continued to struggle against Batsu. He seemed to be managing to wiggle his hands closer and closer together and it was only a matter of time before he was able to make hand-seals. If that happened then all bets were off.

As the noted heir to her family's fortune, Karin was extremely knowledgeable on how to make people do what she wanted with the least amount of effort needed to do so. The heads of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu traditionally possessed wills powerful enough to influence meetings without even speaking. Just their presence alone was usually enough and had been for generations. The reason for this being that when persuasion and money failed they would still have one absolute method of persuasion.

Karin was vastly more imposing than her father was though, even at her age, even being thirty-plus years his junior. If she opted to show it she could frighten even him though she never chose to do so out of respect, but she had no problems showing this when she felt there was a need to assert herself elsewhere.

She had enough of Naruto trying to break free of Batsu and then break their guest in half. Once Karin reached Naruto she grabbed his face underneath the chin, her fingers pressing into his cheeks as she forced him to look directly into her eyes, "That. Is. Enough."

A struggle continued until Naruto's eyes locked with Karin's, and he found no humor or patience within them as he started to calm down. From Naruto's perspective it felt like his body temperature had dropped several degrees just from making eye contact with her. All of his bucking and snorting and shouting did not amuse her whatsoever.

So is this what it felt like to actually make her angry? He'd aggravated her before, but he'd always towed the line enough to keep from outright pissing her off.

"Yes, our guest waged an assassination attempt against you in the past, but you're a professional mercenary. It comes with the occupation and you know this, so get over it. Grow up." Karin snapped at him, "She told us who she was, and I hold no grudges. I have forgiven her as she has apologized. I am a target and I am alright with that. She has offered to cast her lot in with us against Shadaloo, and I have accepted."

"She tried to kill-."

"This is my vessel that we are aboard." Karin cut him off, not wanting to hear any sort of weak or petty dispute Naruto had, "I can invite anyone I choose for as long as I wish. And you will respect that. Otherwise you can walk cross-country to Thailand or you can find another way back home." She kept a hold of Naruto and remained staring directly in his eyes, "Release him."

Batsu frowned but loosened up his grip, "Are you sure? He's gonna-."

"He will do nothing."

Cammy still stood on her guard next to Sakura who looked on in concern as Batsu released Naruto and stepped away from him a safe distance. But Karin still held onto him as if she were a teacher lecturing a problem child, and Naruto didn't move, still looking at her with the defiance creeping out of his gaze.

As if daring him to do anything, Karin let go of his cheeks and stepped back with her hands on her hips, "We are friends and I accept that. I enjoy that. Don't ever think that I do not. But I will not have you disrespect my ability to deliberate. I am your friend, but I am also next in line to lead the largest Zaibatsu in Asia and you will not walk all over me and slight my deliberation processes. I am no fool, and if you believe that I am, that I allowed an assassin of our enemy into our midst without covering our bases first… that is the most vulgar show of disrespect you can demonstrate to me as the heir to the Kanzuki Dynasty and I will not accept this."

It wasn't a matter of Naruto not liking Cammy for what had happened in Aohura City. That didn't matter to Karin. It was not personal on anyone's front what happened that day. It was business in its most sincere form in her mind; it was all a part of the chess game of life and industry. But the way Naruto reacted as if he didn't trust Karin's judgment and rationale, it was a slap in the face to his friend; a young woman that had been groomed and conditioned to be the successor to her family's company since the moment she was able to first form coherent thought.

It was nothing like the teasing and the good-natured one-upmanship that seemed to exist between them all. This forceful doubt of her reasoning she took deeply personal. As far as she saw it, it was the equivalent of someone calling her unworthy of being who she was; denying all of her life's work to be good enough.

He didn't have to like it. She didn't care. Not about this. He didn't have any say in the matter, it was her call. It wasn't just about him and how he felt because he hadn't been the only one targeted that day and she had taken hours to actually think of how she felt upon this while he had been off gallivanting elsewhere in Hong Kong. He'd damn sure accept it though if she had anything to do with it, or else they would be the ones with the problem, not him and Cammy.

"Accept it or walk away." Karin stated flatly, "This is not the Uzumaki Naruto show and you are not in charge of me or any of us. You do not automatically get to call shots that are not your right to make."

Naruto's eyes momentarily flickered away from Karin's to Cammy's and right back to Karin's, "Fine… okay. If you all agree on her being here then I can't say no. It's not like anyone's the leader or anything."

He then felt just how hot his blood had been boiling until right at that point. Was he really seeing red over this girl? And she had just been standing to the side demurely while he had been talking about throwing her overboard and whatnot.

Wow, that made him feel like he had been a total confrontational prick. That wasn't him. The prick part wasn't at least. He knew he could be a little quick on the draw, but compared to right then it was absurd. Wasn't he supposed to be the kind of person that gave new people a chance? Even if there were few people willing to extend the same courtesy to him?

Well here was an actual, factual past enemy that seemed to want to make nice for once instead of him having to be the one to initiate the reaching out process. And Cammy wasn't saying that she wanted to be friends, she just wanted their help against Shadaloo. Desperation made for strange bedfellows.

Damn it, he knew that by then.

Maybe the fortune telling thing with Rose earlier that day compounded with all the other emotions swirling through him with the kind things Sakura said after Guy's appearance, excitement at searching for Shadaloo that got his blood pumping, the dangers of the previous night, the uncertainty of international travel and a pending operation… all of that combined to create the perfect storm that seeing Cammy just so happened to set off.

And him getting set off without even bothering to listen to the reasoning of a very level-headed girl that he had trusted and had never received any reason to doubt as to the purpose Cammy was there, he had done so as if she were ignorant and that could have hurt a close friend of his deeply. Not physically of course, but in another way.

"I'm sorry." Naruto said, eventually reaching out to hug a very surprised Karin who lost her coldly angry expression, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You must have been feeling pretty bad to give me a tongue-lashing like that huh?" Acting all tough like that was a defensive reaction he hadn't ever seen out of her towards him or any of them in the past. She never had to act like that unless it was reactionary and he knew it.

Managing to hide her embarrassment at getting such a quick apology by quickly pushing Naruto away, Karin scoffed, "Just do not let it happen again. I am willing to overlook very much when it comes to you and I, but now you know where my limit stands. Take the time to think every now and then. You're smarter than this." She then gestured towards Cammy, "Now I believe that you two should bury the hatchet for the time being as it were."

It didn't sound like too much of a suggestion.

Accepting this to avoid another chance of a shakedown, Naruto walked over towards Cammy who stood tall as he approached and they faced off, "I don't know you." He said to begin, "Other than the part where you tried to kill me."

"I don't know much about myself…" Cammy replied in a straightforward way, "But I can promise you that I don't want to fight with you. I have just become self-aware. My mission against you was back when I was more or less soulless. It's a long story."

Looking at the others as if to ask if she was serious, Naruto got his answer in the flat stares that came back his way from his friends. She was serious, even though she still seemed a little stiff. And the pretty little assassin seemed to be waiting as if she were about to receive Naruto's judgment on whether or not he would accept her explanation or not, "Well it's a long way to Thailand, so I've got the time to listen."

How farfetched could the explanation really be? It wasn't like his own origin story wasn't literally out of this world.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Thailand – Abandoned Buddhist Temple)

As she thought after being pointed in the right direction via the amount of information that she was able to glean from Naruto, Rose didn't take long afterwards to track down the sickening source of the Psycho Power that permeated the landscape. The clouds overhead were dark as if the environment itself was aware of how black Bison's heart was.

She didn't expect him to actually come out and face her though.

He confronted her directly. Bison went right to her. No guards, no trap, nothing. Just him and him alone. And as imposing a figure as the military man cut in his red uniform and hat, his solid white eyes that lacked pupils and irises… eyes of evil. He was shrouded with his dark cape that could have been a metaphor for what he had planned for the world, Rose did not fear him the way she should have. She defeated him before, she could do it again.

She had to.

Levitating directly in front of Rose, Bison had his arms crossed over his chest as he smirked at her confidently, "You should taken your last little victory over me and left it at that." He said in his dark tone, "You were amusing the last time and I simply toyed with you for too long. Don't consider that a gauge of your own power."

"This comes to an end now." Rose replied, standing in a fighting stance, "I won't let you destroy the world. I can't. Not when I have the power to stop it." With that, she threw one end of her scarf out and it struck towards Bison like a snake.

A snake that he caught by its head, laughing as he did so, "And what if I told you that your power was my power?" He asked, dropping the scarf when the Soul Power Rose began to generate through it began to shock him with its purity, "You've never found out where it came from have you?"

"It doesn't matter because I know it can destroy you!" Rose shouted before using her scarf to fire a ghostly green-blue projectile at her adversary, "Anima Scintilla (Soul Spark)!"

Bison merely lifted one hand and allowed the attack to collide with a sick purple energy that was generated around his hand, "You haven't gotten any stronger since the last time? In that case you definitely can't win!" He exclaimed before laughing again, suddenly teleporting out of Rose's sight.

He reappeared instantly right behind her, swatting her away with a powerful backhand strike that she was unable to avoid or block at all.

Rose's body flew along the aged yellow brick ground of the temple grounds until she came to a stop and shakily retook a standing position. She couldn't see Bison again, but instead of waiting for him to reappear she prepared countermeasures, "Let the spirits guide you! Anima Satellitari (Soul Satellite)!" Two larger orbs of her Soul Power took form around Rose's body and quickly swirled about in a defensive manner.

Bison reappeared right within the rotational pattern of these orbs and they managed to blast him, eliciting a cry of great pain from the twisted dictator. The resulting explosion of force sent him careening into a large Buddhist statue that crumbled and fell around him, clearly crushing him beneath it.

Beginning to charge a ton of her power into her scarf to the point where it began to glow an unnatural green, Rose was beginning to sweat at the amount of power she was using. She had hit him once and it was a doozy, thus she couldn't let up for a moment until he was dead, "Try this on for size! Illusione Scintilla (Illusion Spark)!"

She threw her scarf and extended it outward to where Bison's arm was sticking out of the rubble of the destroyed statue his body had broken. It wrapped around his arm and began unleashing every bit of Soul Power she could muster through the medium item.

A loud humming noise emitted from the ruined pile of rubble as Bison's visible arm began to glow green to show the Soul Power swelling into him to damage him. The statue pieces began to crumble even further against the pressure of the powerful energy pouring out of Rose's scarf into Bison's body.

"Die!" Her entire body glowed the strange green of her Soul Power before it all released in a vicious burst through the scarf as if it were a power surge heading through electric lines in an overload. The resulting crash of power put a blinding glow over the entire temple grounds.

The ground beneath the site of the destroyed statue finally crumbled and formed a crater that seemed to bury Bison's body as neatly as could be arranged for its scenario and Rose retracted her scarf before falling to her knees in outright exhaustion.

She had put her all into that last attack. She had him in dire straits and this time she wasn't going to leave any chance of him surviving behind. She had to kill him. That was her aim, and that was what she had just done. Even at the cost of all of her power. It hadn't been a smart fight, it had been a total blitz because it was her only chance.

But she had gotten the job done. That was her thought as she fell forward onto the ground and passed out from fatigue.

The temple grounds were completely still until the makeshift grave of Bison began to shake and rattle prior to the debris being sent flying everywhere.

"Fool. As long as the Psycho Drive exists you can't overcome me in the end. I have too much power at my disposal to be killed for good. By anyone." From the crater in the ground, Bison floated up and back onto the ground with intense purple power blazing around his body. In addition to that, the shoulder pads that held his cape to his uniform were glowing white and crackling with black electricity, "Fear and respect the energy that is Psycho Power."

Despite Rose's all-out attack, he stood unscathed, as if he were amused at having directly endured her very best shot that would have killed anyone else of any lesser level of strength, "You can't kill me. When you fought me last my body was beginning to break down from the Psycho Power exceeding my power. I've managed to adjust state of being until I can receive a new body to house my spirit. Too bad for you… weakling." He taunted, though she couldn't hear him.

Now he had more important things to concern himself with, things that were actually interesting to him and important unlike Rose's futile effort to stop him with her powers that she knew nothing of the origin of.

Things like the fighter that had defeated his right-hand man Sagat. The man was in Thailand and this was of great interest to him. He already had his operatives gathering data on him. The Dolls would easily accomplish that mission. All they had to do was fight him.

Speaking of Dolls, he had a lost little Doll out in the world. Not just any one though, but his most prized of them. It was okay though. He knew that she would return home soon enough, she had no choice. Even as self-aware as she was she knew nothing else. Her brainwashing was just too deep, and she had never had free will prior to now.

So yes, she would return home. His cherished Doll would bring herself right to him no matter how she felt or what had occurred to cause this malfunction in her brainwashing.

And of course he would be there to receive her, with arms wide open.

XxX

(Village Near Historic Ruins of Khmer, Thailand – With Sakura and Batsu)

Once again, the groups opted to split up to cover more ground. Sakura and Batsu went their own way with Ishizaki piloting one of the two helicopters that sat on the Queen of Victory to take them inland without wasting any time. On the other side, Karin took the other helicopter to go with Naruto and Cammy as she tried to show them the area where they could prepare to locate the Shadaloo base.

They would not approach it on their own until Chun-Li and Charlie arrived and gave word to do so, that the airstrike was a go. And then it would only be to mark the coordinates of the hidden base that had escaped prying eyes thus far.

"I can't speak Thai…" Batsu mumbled as he and Sakura walked through a crowded village square. He was listening to the people around him speaking that sounded mostly like indistinguishable chatter to him, "If that Cammy girl knows where the base is, why aren't we all just going together?"

"We can't go straight there. Approaching it would be trouble if we did it before the airstrike was ready." Sakura responded. Though she didn't know any Thai either, she was not shy at all about trying to move amongst the people, always excited to see new places as she was, "And what are we going to do going that way with two helicopters? We've got to approach from the ground."

Letting out a conceding grunt, Batsu was just thankful that Ishizaki was out procuring a vehicle for them to drive towards the rally point village with because he didn't like being in a place where he couldn't speak the language, "Okay, but why aren't we with Ishizaki?"

Sakura gave Batsu a wryly amused look over her shoulder as she continued to lead them along, "Because he can't speak Thai either. Who knows how long it'll take him to get us a ride?" The butler told them to merely waste time around the middle of the village and he would find them himself later. The village square architecture was comprised of yellow brick and set up as a literal square with descending ledge levels and stairs on each side. It looked something like a temple ground, but it was just the architecture. People were strewn all about, as were small stands that sold foods and sundry goods and items.

And amidst the crowds all around, a bright red gi stuck out like a sore thumb. A sore thumb that Sakura proceeded to march right up to as she had unfinished business with the last person she had met in a red gi. Though she was wrong on who exactly this person was, because it wasn't Guy.

The gi was fundamentally different being a sleeveless karate variation instead of that suited for ninjutsu with a red belt holding it closed. In addition to that, the person wearing it had long blonde hair that went down their back and he was going shoeless to boot. But that gi looked mighty familiar.

It also seemed that this man knew of Sakura too from an appearance of something, "That headband… you wouldn't happen to be named Sakura would you?" The man said curiously, "Ryu's kinda-student."

"Wait…" Sakura said, trying to dredge up some memories of the last time she had gone around the world, "…I know you. We've met. Aren't you the friend of Ryu that I met?"

"Yeah, it is you." The blonde man said with a grin, walking through the few people standing between himself and Sakura and Batsu before reaching them and resting a hand on Sakura's short hair to ruffle it, "That schoolgirl that tracked Ryu down two years ago. Heh, that was weird." He said with a laugh, not noticing Sakura fume slightly at being made fun of, "You're still on about him aren't you?"

It was obvious to Batsu that he was missing something going on at the moment as he watched the byplay between Sakura and this American guy, "Uh yo… who the fuck is this guy?"

The American man turned towards Batsu and raised an eyebrow, "Another kid running around the world? Don't you all have parents? Whatever. Nice to meet you, my name's Ken Masters." He finished, pointing his thumb at himself confidently.

XxX

(Northeastern Thailand Interior – With Naruto)

"So some weird yoga master that you were supposed to kill tapped you on the head in the middle of a fight to screw with your head and that's what happened to make you the way you are now?" Naruto asked as he and Cammy walked through the woods outside of a small village they had decided to wait things out at, "That's weird. Usually when someone hits me in the head it does brain damage, it doesn't fix it."

"It wasn't a hit so much as it was him pushing his powers into my mind." Cammy explained, following along with him as he traversed the forest. He seemed very good at navigating wooded terrain. It was like he was right at home, and he was way nicer here too. As if it made him calm down being in the forest, "And I wasn't brain damaged, I was brainwashed." She specified with a bit of a glare at her fellow blonde.

"Tomato/To-mah-toe." Naruto replied as he jumped up into a branch and leaned against the trunk with a long strand of grass in his mouth idly. It was a nice little walk they were having and it served a purpose as well even if there was no real reason for it.

The reason the two were together with no mediator was because Karin was in the village fussing over making sure that she had acceptable accommodations that would suit her for as long as they stayed there. It was a pretty backwater place, at least that was what she referred to it as. Naruto personally liked it as it was a change from the very close quarters of the cities that he had lived in for four years in Japan.

But back to Karin. While she was finding her way into buying enough comforts to keep herself content for the duration of their stay she basically kicked Naruto and Cammy out of the village altogether to see if they couldn't get along or at least see if they could make it back later without one having killed each other.

Even that would have counted as a success in her book.

"Not really." Cammy said, seemingly impatient with Naruto's cavalier take on things, "Would you be attentive? This is the village with the closest proximity to the base. We could walk there and arrive by dawn. The base is intentionally kept in the thickest woods available in the country. It's been preserved by Shadaloo's influence. The land can't be cleared because of the underlying threat from them." She simply stood beneath the tree straight, no leaning, sitting or anything.

"It reminds me a little bit of a hidden village." Naruto mused to himself with a touch of familiarity before quickly quelling it, "…Meh, not really." The tigers and the cobras and whatnot that he knew would lie deeper would not have been a Konoha thing… unless someone decided to go into the Forest of Death.

Hearing him talk to himself, Cammy decided to continue to address him even though she wasn't necessarily being spoken to, "Master Bison has soldiers patrol about quite often though they never come this far out. They stay deep in the woods, many kilometers deeper so that no one sees them. It's a precaution in case outsiders come. If they go deep enough into the forest to discover the forces they don't leave again. The locals just say that they disappear."

A thoughtful look crossed Naruto's face as he sat down on the branch he was in before laying back on it, "You did it again." Cammy looked up at him confusedly as she was unaware as to what he was referring to, "You still call him master. That doesn't make me feel very safe you know."

It was instinctual at this point for her. A few days of self-awareness was not going to cure her of something like that. Despite being self-aware and able to feel emotions, Cammy was not used to the whole gambit of them, thus she still chose to ignore most of them. The three days of travelling to Thailand saw the following sentiments and states of mind brought out of Cammy; boredom, curiosity, apprehension, excitement, and among few others that she didn't verbalize: annoyance.

Naruto had a lot to do with the last one as he really didn't believe that she didn't know what emotions she happened to be feeling, thus he took it upon himself to try and pull each one he could think of out of her. He failed miserably for most, only agitating her at best, and decided to just let her be. These things would come to her eventually.

"You've never been scared before have you?" Naruto asked her suddenly.

"I'm not afraid of fighting. I just think I'm nervous about what we're doing here." Cammy replied sternly. She was still a powerful fighter even if she was not the same as before. All that had changed were the thoughts running through her head. She lost none of her fighting prowess, nor had she automatically gained a personality.

Sighing at her choice in response, Naruto had to remember what Sakura had told him when it came to his patience with her. It wasn't like Cammy had a need to be nice to the people around her that didn't have authority over her. Most of the people in the world that she met she had probably killed or defeated before now. It wasn't as if she were completely lacking social graces. Not at all. She was a very smart and well-read young lady, but she wasn't an experienced conversationalist, "There's nothing wrong with being scared."

"Cowardice is a mark of the weak." A robotic response from the pretty young girl that should never have said anything in such a way. There was barely more life in that statement than the way she had spoken to Naruto during their battle in Aohura City, "I am not weak, I am not allowed to be weak, therefore I am not afraid."

Naruto rolled over onto his stomach to stare down listlessly at the former Shadaloo assassin, "Well I get scared sometimes. Does that make me weak?" Apparently Cammy had enough tact to hold her tongue from speaking blatant truths that could be taken as insults because she said nothing, "…Don't answer that. But seriously, being scared isn't the same thing as being a coward. Sometimes when you're scared it lets you think of stuff or do stuff you could never do."

"I don't understand." She said, looking up at him with a slight cocking of her head that Naruto couldn't help but deem as cute from her earnest face. It seemed her go-to mentality was just to try and be like the Doll she had been before the yoga master Dhalsim messed with her head, but when she wasn't trying to maintain this she just let what she naturally was supposed to feel in certain situations come out.

He scratched his cheek and chewed on the grass piece as he thought of what to compare it to, "Well it works both ways actually. It's kind of like fighting when you're mad. It can help you or hurt you depending on how you use it."

"I still don't understand." Cammy replied, her brow furrowing in thought as she tried to ponder his words and work to comprehend them.

"Why?"

"I've never done either of those things; fighting while angry or scared." For some reason she knew she should have been able to comprehend this from the way that Naruto was looking at her, but with no experience of either she couldn't imagine what he was talking about, "I think I've seen what you're referring to, but I don't have experience feeling it myself to say I understand."

A grunt escaped Naruto as he rolled the blade of grass around in his mouth, "What are we gonna do with you?" She was still so well conditioned that even then she seemed to be standing at attention, eyes drawn on him while he spoke as if she were being briefed, "I mean after this is over with what in the hell are we gonna do? Where are we going to take you? Where are you from?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have any family?"

"I… don't believe I do."

Of course she didn't. Other than her time working amongst the Dolls, Cammy was unable to give them even the slightest glimpse into her past. All she knew was her training and her missions and things having to do with Shadaloo. That kind of brainwashing had to be deep to make her forget what she had been before she was forced to fight as Bison's fire-and-forget killer, "Well… what do you like to do? Maybe we can take you somewhere that would work for that after all of this is over."

"Collecting data on powerful fighters." Cammy rattled off without missing a beat, "It's what I did when I was not working on missions; preparing myself for potential fights in the future."

"Damn it, you are really not helping me out with this at all." Naruto whined, waving his arms and legs in the air from where he was laying on the branch, "Whatever. We'll figure it out later." He pushed himself up and sat against a tree before yawning and shutting his eyes, "I think we should wait a bit before going back to the village while Karin is turning it into her own base camp while we're here."

Upon hearing the yawn, Cammy managed to jump her way onto Naruto's branch to make sure she was seeing what she thought she had heard. It stirred Naruto for a moment before he shut his eyes again, "You're going to sleep out here?" She sat down on the large tree appendage with her legs folded inwards, hands pressing down on her ankles with a frown on her face, "That doesn't seem very smart."

"It's okay." Naruto assured her as he tried to catch a nap in the calm forest, "You can relax for a bit too. I promise I've got everything under control. Nobody's going to sneak up on us." Skeptically, Cammy observed him for a bit before it was evident that he had fallen asleep.

Weirdo. But he was still alive for a reason, no matter how unorthodox he seemed. And he said that he had their security in this predicament under control. They weren't that far inside of the forest anyway to be in much danger. She wasn't going to shut her eyes though. She was merely going to continue trying to make heads or tails of just what she was going to do when she returned to the Shadaloo base.

XxX

(Village Near Historic Ruins of Khmer, Thailand – With Sakura and Batsu)

Sakura and Ken spent the time waiting for Ishizaki to procure a ride for her and Batsu catching up, what with Ken being the best friend of her personal hero.

Sitting on one of the numerous ledges in the village square, the two fighters with similarly derived styles spoke while Batsu just waited with them while eating a large amount of fruits he had bought from a nearby stand.

"So you're looking for Ryu again are you?" Ken said to Sakura before laughing in a bit of amusement, "I can't really say anything though. I am too. I heard he was in Thailand."

'Well that's not really the reason I'm here…' Sakura thought to herself with a sheepish look. But Ken was the kind of guy that once he got something into his head it was rather hard to convince him otherwise, "I heard that too. But he's never going to train me is he?" She asked almost knowingly.

"It's not that he doesn't want to." Ken decided to explain, as he could tell from the first time they had met that she had a lot of raw talent that she just needed to hone, "He doesn't believe he's fit to really train anyone. Not right now. We both still have a lot to learn. Our master could still wipe the floor with both of us at the same time so neither of us has any right to teach anyone for real. And he's having a bit of an identity issue at the moment too. That's sort of why I'm looking for him to see how he's doing with it."

When Ryu had visited her and Naruto back in Japan two months ago it was clear that he was suffering from some sort of internal conflict with himself, about his dark inner power the Satsui no Hadou. He feared that one day his drive to win at all costs would eventually have him willing to kill his opponents and do whatever was necessary just so that he wouldn't have to suffer defeat, even in insignificant fights.

"He seemed troubled when I saw him." Sakura reported, choosing to look around their rather beautiful surroundings instead of at the person she was talking to. She wasn't going to give up on trying to earn Ryu's respect so that she could get real training from him, but hearing a rundown of reasons as to why it wasn't going to be happening anytime soon wasn't exactly fun.

This downcast mood wasn't exactly where Ken wanted the conversation to be directed towards so in an effort to liven things up he gave Sakura a few hearty pats on her back that almost accidentally knocked her from the ledge, "Hey, I'm actually curious to how good you are now. It's been a while." With that he jumped up and started stretching himself out, "How about it? You want to go a round or two?"

Absolutely she did. A spar would have been great.

Great for her. For the other company present it was boring.

Batsu had managed to bulldoze straight through his large pile of fruit and had long since gotten up to go for a bit of a walk around the premises, as it was a nice place and he wanted to go down to the grassy field at the bottom of the town square.

The stairs were rather crowded though, and used to things like this on the crowded sidewalks of Aohura City he went to slipping his way through the people in his path. At most he would barely brush past them as he walked, something he had great practice in doing, but apparently even this was offensive to someone as when he lightly jostled a person he was walking past on the steps they turned and stopped him by grabbing his shoulder.

He was turned around and greeted by a veritable gang of young men that were older than him, all wearing Muay Thai kickboxing shorts, athletic shirts and looking as if they had just come from training somewhere. While they started babbling about respect for the practitioners of the strongest martial art in the world, Batsu didn't understand a word that they were saying because he didn't speak Thai… at all.

But he was getting sick of the lead man's grip tightening on his shoulder and knowing that this was about to lead to a confrontation, grabbed him by the wrist tight enough for one to hear bones creak. Batsu then casually tossed him back over his head and down the stairs. All the way down the stairs, with the aspiring young fighter landing directly on his back in the grass with a crashing thud.

The crowd gasped at the show of freaky strength and the other fighters started backing away from Batsu and ran away after he let out a bull-like snort that roughly translated in any language to 'leave me the hell alone'.

With that little problem dealt with, he continued down the stairs until he reached the grassy center at the bottom of the square and kneeled down by the fighter he had thrown there who was groaning in pain, "I guess there are jerks in every country that think they can bully people just because they're stronger fighters." He mused to himself until he heard the crowd begin to chatter and heard shouts from the boys he had scared off prior.

This time he saw them being led by a man down the stairs that the crowd automatically cleared out of the way of, either out of respect or fear, he couldn't tell which. Either way he stood back up and waited for the man to head over to him as the others from earlier picked up their friend that Batsu had thrown there. Apparently his name was Adon, because that was what he kept hearing the people say that he could distinguish from the rest of the words he couldn't understand.

The man stood a few inches taller than Batsu with orange hair like a hawk's tail, a lean, muscular frame unlike the others. He had on a traditional Muay Thai headband, heavily taped hands and feet, blue and yellow ropes wrapped around his biceps, and blue and yellow colored kickboxing trunks. On his face he seemed to have a rather slimy-looking smile, but it was clear how confident he was in his fighting ability, unlike the previous boys that seemed to be self-conscious with something to prove.

"Well at least they aren't stupid." Adon said in English, surprising Batsu and getting him to chuckle, "But they're cowards though for calling me as if I'll fight their battle for them." Batsu relaxed for a moment, but tensed up again after the next sentence, "I'm still going to fight mind you, but not for them, for me."

"Why?"

"Because there's no one strong in this country after you've dethroned the 'God of Muay Thai!'" Adon exclaimed in a grandiose manner, "Sagat was a pathetic representative of our fighting style for losing to that man Ryu three years ago, but he was the last tough opponent there was for me. Now I've got to wait for a new Muay Thai challenger to rise up and in the meantime I've got to test myself against any tough fighter I can find."

"Yeah about that…" Batsu replied, wondering just what his luck was. The last important fight he had was against a former heavyweight champion boxer and now it seemed like he was about to fight against the best in Thailand, "I ain't a world champion. But you're saying you beat Sagat? You're the second guy I've met that said that… and I don't believe you either, just like him. What, did you beat him when he was maimed or did he throw the fight?"

Adon narrowed his eyes at Batsu and the smile fell from his face, "What are you saying? I beat him two years ago right after he embarrassed himself and our martial art against Ryu."

"No shit you beat him then!" Exclaimed the boisterous young Japanese man immediately after, "You challenged him to a match right after? I saw that fight with Ryu at the tournament, he tore Sagat's fucking chest open like he was getting bypass surgery!" The whole world saw it. It was on TV everywhere, "You're proud of that? I don't accept you as any champion of anything!"

"Then I'll just make you." Adon took a high Muay Thai stance and everyone immediately got themselves off of the grass and moved to the ledges and the stairs to get away from both him and Batsu, "I don't normally beat up children, but you don't look like you care too much about that kind of thing."

"I don't. If you can fight you can fight, it doesn't matter how old you are." By now Batsu was also in his own low stance to defend himself.

"It matters here." It seemed that Adon wasn't taking Batsu very seriously, underestimating him. But that didn't mean that he still didn't plan on taking the youngster to school, "It's a whole different ballgame fighting a Muay Thai expert! You either get strong by the time you reach my age or you usually wind up dead or crippled!" With that, he attacked Batsu, seemingly taking one step to close twenty feet worth of distance between the two of them.

The movement was extremely fast.

A hard side kick was driven directly into the stomach of Batsu, knocking the wind right out of him and sending him rolling back head over heels across the lawn until he came to a stop with all sorts of dirt and grass in his hair.

Coughs came from Batsu's throat as he got back up off of the ground, still a little loopy from the previous shot. Not only was Adon's short range foot-speed great, but he lashed out with a lengthy kicking strike that was difficult to counter, "Ugh." Not one to surrender so easily though, Batsu sucked it up and chose to wage an attack of his own.

But once he got up and his eyes locked onto where Adon had once been he was pushed towards the defensive as he found that Adon had already gotten well within his personal space again, this time locking both of his hands together behind Batsu's neck to hook him in place where he began pummeling him with knee strikes to the body. When Batsu began to block his torso with his arms, Adon pulled his head down and kneed him directly in the face.

His head would have snapped back, but Adon still had a hold of him, so Batsu started doing the only thing he could think of to keep himself in the fight; he started throwing shots to the body as best he could.

Adon kept his hold on Batsu despite the hooks coming from the left and the right pounding away at his kidneys, 'How can he generate that much strength from this close and in this position?' As his grip started to lessen, his danger senses then went off, causing him to step back and avoid a strike that would have torn his lower jaw asunder.

"Kiaiappa (Guts Upper)!"

A bright orange glowing arm sailed just upwards in front of Adon's face in the form of a powerful uppercut from Batsu before Adon responded in kind. They were still in very close range, and he used a lightning-quick overhand elbow strike that hit Batsu's face, "K̄hb Kheī̂yw Cākạ Wr̒ (Jaguar Crunch)!"

It hit so fast that Batsu didn't feel any pain, nor did he even know anything had hit him until his brow split open as if someone had pulled a zipper and blood spilled freely from the wound. His eye beneath the bloody brow instinctively closed from the plasma flowing down into it, 'Shit! Does his elbow double as a surgical scalpel or what?'

Adon was still close and took advantage of his semi-blinded foe, moving into Batsu's blindspot where he struck at him with several pawing and quick looking jabs.

This was the scene that Sakura and Ken neared close enough to see. They had finished their own little test of one another's skills only to find that a real fight was going on not too far from where they had been, a fight that was being lost by… "Batsu!" Sakura exclaimed upon seeing him stumble back from Adon's most recent barrage of strikes, "How did this even happen?"

Ken noticed who Batsu was fighting and cursed underneath his breath, "Damn it, that's the champion Adon. What's your buddy doing? I've fought him before, he's dangerous." He asked Sakura before shouting some advice aloud so that Batsu could hear him, "Stay the hell away from him kid! Keep him back!"

Adon heard this as well and scoffed at the loud blonde man as he understood English, "I'll deal with you in a bit. This is between me and this kid here." But turning his attention away from Batsu was a mistake as he had underestimated the boy.

"Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" Batsu managed to score with a 360 degree swinging kick directly to Adon's face that sent him flying back from the power behind it, but as Batsu spun through he opted to follow up immediately, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" From his hand he generated ki before punching it with his other hand, firing a solid burst of energy right at Adon that hit him again.

Ken crossed his arms in a satisfied manner that his advice had come through while Sakura jumped and cheered for Batsu at his side, "Good combo for the projectile." Ken admitted appreciatively. Batsu fought bowling-shoe ugly, but damned if he couldn't exploit an opening, "You get a three out of ten for style though… and two of those points are for the blood on you."

Grumbling about smart-mouthed Americans bashing the way he fought, Batsu wiped the blood from his cut in vain as it just came right back out. This didn't hinder him for the most part though as he saw Adon get back up, glaring at him heatedly all the while, "You get one…" Adon said, wiping the blood from his own mouth after getting kicked square in it by his younger adversary, "…Everybody gets one. You won't land another move."

A middle finger from Batsu was his response, as was another Guts Bullet. But keeping true to his word, Adon did not allow it to hit him at all.

Still though, Batsu had a strategy now; to keep Adon as far away as possible. His ability to backstep and keep moving away from a foe was more important than ever to keep that plan alive, just so that he could buy enough time to find a pattern in Adon's movements to capitalize on.

On the other hand, Adon was getting sick and tired of Batsu firing off shot after shot at him. It reminded him of how Sagat battered and beat him to within an inch of his life years prior. Adon had defeated the injured man under the rules of the Muay Thai fight they had engaged in where ki attacks were forbidden, but afterwards there was no such restriction, and the angry Sagat who was not hurt enough to lose a fight with no rules annihilated him with his Tiger Shot projectile before inflicting damage on him with his hands and feet. He thought about it every day.

In other words he had been training for such a thing.

He was by no means able to work out exactly how to use his ki to utilize such attacks, but he had mercilessly worked to overcome the advantage that a projectile user held over him in his own way.

Adon backflipped out of the way of a Guts Bullet that struck the ground before he used the spring his legs took on immediately upon landing to launch directly forward during the lapse caused by the time it took for Batsu to compress a useful Kiaidan, "Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth)!" He leapt directly towards Batsu with his leg extended to drive right through the boy, forcing him to dodge.

By Batsu's judgment he still had enough range to try another ranged attack. Perhaps it would push Adon back again because all that Batsu had worked out about how to beat him thus far was that he liked to take to the air often, a nimble combatant, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" He didn't have the time to charge up his stronger variant of the technique. Adon would never give him the opportunity to.

However by using another projectile he had played right into the experienced Adon's hands who sprang towards him and jumped right over the attack, flipping and smashing both of his feet off of the top of Batsu's head, "Tea r̒ (Jaguar Kick)!"

Batsu's head snapped downward violently though he still remained on his feet with a glazed over look in his eyes. Adon figured that he was out on his feet, and he was right. But Batsu was an instinctual fighter and as long as he was still standing he had a touch of danger about him. As shown when he unconsciously prepared to lash out with a last gasp Kiaidan.

Adon took this as the insolence of a person that didn't understand when they were beaten and would not acknowledge him as the superior fighter. This was something he was not going to let stand at all.

Ken could see that Batsu was not consciously defending himself, but he could also see Adon's muscles coil for another attack, "Adon stop!"

"H̄ima Thl̀m r̒ (Jaguar Avalanche)!" Leaping at Batsu again, he struck him on the chin with two flying knees in succession that knocked him into the air. Following his body, Adon delivered another kick to his head before flipping over and delivering a series of stomps that sent Batsu crashing to the ground, "Rest in peace brat!" He then noticed Ken running towards them with anger in his eyes.

The normal end of this move would have seen Adon dive down and stomp on Batsu's chest, something that could kill him. But he had to change this, as killing the boy during this fight would have resulted in a far more serious battle against Ken than the battle he had trying to teach a young punk his place.

Thus instead of trying to crush Batsu's ribs and breastbone he landed on his knee with his falling stomp. While there was no threat of death, there was an absolute chance of excruciating injury from the results of this action.

"GAAH!" And the sharp pain provided by such a move was more than enough to wake up the previously out of it Batsu. Getting your leg broken would do that to you.

The ear-splitting cry of pain from the young man got Ken to stop running, flinching at what he was too late to stop as Adon had moved away from him, smirking at Ken smugly, "Too weak. You should thank me for keeping him alive."

By this time, Sakura had made it to her downed friend's side as he was writhing about and ripping up the grass and the earth with his hands in a futile effort to assuage the pain, "Batsu keep still. We're going to get you to a doctor alright?" She figured only Naruto got into trouble like this with no one around to watch him.

"Why the leg? Fuck!" Batsu shouted loudly, not knowing what to do with himself with Sakura's best efforts to make sure that he held still and didn't try to move around.

Ken meanwhile was glaring heatedly at Adon, "You'd cripple an opponent like that? You had him beaten! He was already done you goddamn disgrace!"

"The only disgrace here is you trying to defend that weakling." Adon dismissed Ken's anger to his own amusement, "There's a new God of Muay Thai that the world needs to accept. It's not Sagat anymore, you're looking at him right now. He needed to understand that and now he does."

An angry Ken clinched his yellow-gloved hands in rage before taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, "Okay, I will accept it. I know the man that beat your teacher, and I'll tell him to come here and fight you so you can prove you're better than Sagat by succeeding where he failed." He could see Adon's beady eyes light up at the idea of getting Ryu to fight him, "…If I can't beat you in three moves that is."

"What?"

"You heard me." Ken held up three fingers as an illustration, "All I need to beat you is three moves. I promise. Take it or leave it."

Instead of remaining offended, Adon simply began to laugh, "Three moves? I won't even have time to warm back up." He got back into his stance and charged right at Ken without warning. Preparing another flying double-knee strike, he was preempted.

"Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!" Spinning around almost like a red blur, Ken also launched towards Adon with a rapidly spinning kick and the two clashed, with Adon getting blown back from his attempted maneuver, neutralized. Ken simply stood there unfazed whatsoever, "One."

Adon growled at the fact that Ken actually seemed to be taking his own terms to the fight seriously and decided to show him who exactly he was dealing with, springing back after faking a forward approach, he used the contradictory movement to rocket himself forward with more momentum, leading with his leg straight out to spear straight through Ken, "Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth)!"

Able to see the threat level behind the move, Ken wasted no time in dodging it, but it seemed to be just a tactic to let Adon get close as he hadn't used as much range as the move could have provided. He chose to cut it short in an effort to batter Ken in close, but he didn't wonder why Ken hadn't countered yet, as when he reached out to grab a clinch with the blonde martial artist he felt nothing more than pain afterwards.

Ken had ducked down to sharply build up his ki for his strongest close-range countermove, "Shinryuuken (Divine Dragon Fist)!" Ken launched into the air with a powerful leaping, twisting uppercut that smashed Adon right in the chest, but it didn't stop there.

The buildup of ki was released the moment Ken started going upward with his uppercut. Before he ever even left the ground for his jumping portion of the room he had created a spiraling vacuum of flames around himself that scorched Adon along with the forceful blow to his chest.

The Muay Thai champion was knocked fifteen feet into the air before landing on the ground flat on his back and unconscious, eyes showing that the lights were off in his head. A nasty burn sat on Adon's chest where Ken had struck him in the form of a fist.

"Well what do you know?" Ken said, dusting his hands off as he looked down at the beaten man, "It only took two."

Adon was good, but Ken had seen more than enough of his style from when Batsu had been giving him fits to have come up with a way to defeat him. Were he not so cocky he wouldn't have chosen to step into a battle against an opponent that had just seen him fight a fairly complete battle while he himself hadn't been able to see any of his enemy's capabilities whatsoever.

Sakura had propped Batsu up to allow him to see Ken defeat Adon as a way to help him take his mind somewhat off of the pain of his broken leg, but they hadn't really expected to see that incredible performance. Both Sakura and Batsu had the same thing in mind as they saw the blonde man walk back over to them, tightening the belt of his gi, 'We need to get stronger…'

"Don't worry kid." Ken said in a heartfelt and concerned manner as he crouched down by the wounded teen, "We'll get a doctor right to you to patch you up."

All Batsu could do was nod in a pained manner to the very skilled martial artist while breathing erratically, "Looks like my vacation is over…" He joked humorlessly as Sakura set him back down flat on the ground to wait for medical attention.

XxX

(Northeastern Thailand Interior – Sundown)

The quick flash of a claw drew across the throat of an orange clad interloper who was merely in the wrong place, with the wrong predator in the vicinity. It actually wasn't bad camouflage, the orange clothing. Tigers were orange with markings and existed just fine in the jungles, and that wasn't even mentioning the blinding and blazing sunset bathing the landscape in orange as well.

The stalker of his prey was just too focused.

But much to the claw-wielding hunter's chagrin, his target disappeared into a puff of smoke instead of bathing his metal three fingered claw in precious lifeblood.

"Hmm…" Vega said lowly, somewhat disappointed that he had not indeed caught Naruto slipping dangerously close to Shadaloo's hidden base. But then again, this merely meant that there was a game afoot. If there was one Naruto there were more, this was the cardinal rule of dealing with Naruto's copies; that he never made just one, "Let's have a little fun Uzumaki." He then took off through the forest again like a shadow.

He wondered how many fakes he would wind up killing before he found the real one to snuff out.

XxX

Naruto's eyes popped open after visions of three clones dying went through his head. Those weren't dreams. They weren't mental sleep terrors. They were the feedback from his dispelled clones. And he had just received another one. Something fast and dangerous was gleefully hunting his Kage Bunshin and/or him down.

He looked over to where he saw Cammy, sleeping a bit fitfully face down on the large branch they had taken a rest on. And she'd been so against trying to relax while out in the jungle or so it seemed. The long trip inland from Bangkok had tired her out, she was human after all.

Sighing to himself, Naruto quickly created a small squad of five clones to watch over her and possibly wake her up and take her away in a retreat if necessary. He wouldn't send them away right then because unneeded movement might attract the forest attacker if they tried to leave with her. He was taking down clones already without them trying to flee.

Naruto stood up and leapt from one branch to another without stirring the first place at all, lest he awaken his new ally. He'd leave that for the clones keeping watch over her.

There was already a trail to follow as he had upwards of thirty Kage Bunshin on patrol through the area and three had been killed already… make that four… no five.

They were dropping like flies out there, but Naruto could triangulate the position of his attacker in the woods from his clones' memories of their movements prior to their extermination. It would be easy for him to set up and prepare for battle as long as he knew where the killer was moving towards.

Kami he was fast though. Whatever. Anyone was trappable, no matter how fast they were.

Naruto tightened his headband around his forehead tightly for security. Whoever it was wasn't going to get him or anyone else killed on his side. Not tonight.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

{Character Profile}

Name: Ken Masters

Nationality: USA

Gender: Male

Age: 25 (February 14)

Height/Weight: 5'10/165 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: His girlfriend Eliza, his best friend Ryu, fighting, skateboarding, the beach, sports cars.

Dislikes: Umeboshi, soap operas, wearing shoes, losing to fighters with no honor.

Hobbies: Pasta chef, finding Ryu on his wanderings.

Rivals: Ryu (friendly), Sakura (friendly), Akuma.

Fighting Style: Martial Art rooted in Ansatsuken.

Current Techniques: Hadoken (Surge Fist), Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist), Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg).

Hyper Techniques: Shoryureppa (Rising Dragon Destroyer), Shinryuken (Divine Dragon Fist), Guren Senpukyaku (Crimson Lotus Whirlwind Kick).

Background: Ken is the son of a rich hotel tycoon and the best friend, chief rival, and fellow disciple of a fellow user of his style, Ryu. Where Ryu is focused, serious, and stoic, Ken is his general antithesis; flashy, unconventional, and very capricious. A bit egotistical and sometimes short-tempered, he is extremely friendly and far more easygoing than Ryu. As a young boy starting at the age of 12, Ken was trained alongside Ryu at the behest of his father who wanted to teach him discipline so that he did not wind up spoiled by his family's fortune. After returning to America and winning multiple tournaments he returned to Japan and witnessed his master Gouken's death at the hands of a man named Akuma. Ken was no match against him and was defeated in one blow. To this day he balances his life back home in the U.S. with his further training and searches for Akuma, who left him alive for being too weak to pose any kind of challenge to him. Ken differentiates his fighting from Ryu in his focus on developing his Shoryuuken and physical attacks instead of the Hadoken as a specialty the way Ryu has chosen to do.

Name: Adon

Nationality: Thailand

Gender: Male

Age: 27 (August 2)

Height/Weight: 5'11 ½/161 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: Enjoying nature, Muay Thai fighting.

Dislikes: Sagat, people who talk big.

Hobbies: Waiku (a dance of Muay Thai).

Rivals: Sagat, Ryu, Ken.

Fighting Style: Muay Thai

Current Techniques: Pheìm Khụ̂n r̒ (Rising Jaguar), Tea r̒ (Jaguar Kick), Tea Xākāṣ̄ r̒ (Airborne Jaguar Kick), Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth), K̄hb Kheī̂yw Cākạ Wr̒ (Jaguar Crunch).

Hyper Techniques: R̒ Cū̀com Thī̀ Hlākh̄lāy (Jaguar Varied Assault), Pụ̄n r̒ (Jaguar Revolver), H̄ima Thl̀m r̒ (Jaguar Avalanche).

Background: Adon is a former student of Sagat and has often been compared to his teacher throughout his career as a 'lesser version' despite his efforts to differentiate himself with more acrobatic techniques. Three years ago Adon entered the World Warrior tournament to prove himself as something more, but was defeated by eventual tournament winner Ryu who defeated him with a single Shoryuuken. After witnessing Sagat's violent defeat to the same man that defeated him, Adon began to break down, blaming Sagat for failing to uphold Muay Thai's honor and neglecting to acknowledge the fact that he himself was defeated far more decisively. He challenged a still gravely injured Sagat for his title of God of Muay Thai and defeated him according to the rules of their bout, but an angered Sagat beat him so badly that he was hospitalized for months afterwards. Even as a recognized champion, Adon cannot escape the shadow of his former master Sagat, something he obsesses over almost fanatically, driving him to continue increasing his reputation and build his own legend to eclipse Sagat's.