One For The Road...

Chapter 37 - One For The Road...

Sitting still didn't appeal to Naruto any longer. With fifteen minutes left until it was time for the final round he wasn't going to pack away any more significant chakra gains back into his body. A check of his gear and a few quick stretches to warm up and it only took two minutes.

He had since left the stands, but he was not on his own. He had the company of Ryu, whom he had come across at the top of the courtyard grounds and Ryu had followed him around from that point forward. A bit of security was never a bad thing, he just wished he'd have gotten someone more talkative to go with to ease his mind. Hell even Guile or Cammy in that department would have worked better.

Guile would have acted like he didn't want to talk, but the airman would have spent the entire time Naruto wandered around trying to dole out advice on the coming battle. Cammy wouldn't have had much to say, she never really did, and she seemed to clam up even more in times of heightened tension, but the sweet little thing still would have been wonderful company.

"So…" Naruto said, trying to start some kind of ice-breaking conversation, "…Crazy two days right?" In all honesty Naruto had never been left alone to carry on any interaction with Ryu by himself before. For some reason he found the prospect somewhat daunting. Though that was probably just Ryu himself projecting that image.

"Indeed." Ryu said, still walking right along with him. Well at least he was talking in return. As mentioned before, Ryu wasn't mean by any stretch of the imagination, nor was he particularly anti-social. He just didn't know how to be social and didn't seem to have any desire to pick the necessary personality traits to do so up.

"Hey Ryu?"

"Yes?"

"We're friends right?"

"In a manner of speaking I would say yes."

Wow. In a manner of speaking he would say yes. No flat out yes or no. Naruto didn't know quite how to feel about that, so he just went to his default and nodded as if he understood, content to just go with it.

"Cool… cool." He didn't really know how else to converse with the man other than make small talk, and it was getting to him, "Alright look. I know you probably don't really respect me, but I do respect you." Something changed in Ryu's expression once Naruto said that and continued on, "You're a big deal to a lot of my friends and you're important to Sakura-chan, so I want us to-."

"-You think I don't respect you?" There was legitimately surprise on Ryu's face upon hearing Naruto say such a thing. So much so that he had to forego his usual manners and etiquette of listening to others all the way through to interrupt, "What in the world makes you think that? I have respect for you."

No way. The absolute last guy in the world that Naruto figured would see him like that actually thought he was worth a damn. Even other ninjas didn't think that. He knew. He'd hung out in the Glade of Ninjas long enough to know that Guy hadn't been the only one that didn't like the way he did things.

Thus Naruto started listing off things on his fingers, "Well I don't really fight fair. I'm told I can be a bit… what's a good word for 'annoying'? I try to use the 'dark power' in me that you fight at all costs, even when it gives your best friend an opportunity to knock you out. And there are other reasons too."

To Naruto's surprise, Ryu simply smiled, "True, your method of fighting isn't something I'm partial to, but as far as dirty fighters go, you could be far worse. The fact that you are at ease with the power within you and accept its presence in your life is something I envy honestly. I wish I could trust myself to train to harness it in such a manner."

"You probably can by the way." Naruto interjected matter-of-factly, "I'm just saying. If you really wanted to you could probably do something about that. But you were saying?"

Shoving that away for later thought, Ryu continued with his thought, "I really don't have anything else to add. We may not agree on many things, such as my capability to train others properly, but you're a fine young man… once you get past some personality faults, but we all have those." Naruto ignored the bluntness of that comment and accepted it as the compliment that it mostly was, "Sakura has very good instincts in picking her friends."

"Yeah she does. I'm-." Naruto said none too modestly with a grin on his face before it vanished just as quickly as it appeared, "Wait a minute…" His instincts, '…Oh, this is either going to be the best or the worst idea I've ever had.' "…I have to go to the bathroom." Naruto deadpanned, pointing in the nearby direction of the temple building where they had resided overnight.

Who would have guessed that a martial arts temple as old as this one would have had plumbing? Resourceful monks.

However the abrupt declaration came out of left field and threw Ryu off, "Now?" A nod from Naruto, "You fight in ten minutes. I have to get you back."

"It'll take two to pee." Naruto asserted, "Three if I take my gloves off and wash my hands." In return Ryu just stared at him blankly until Naruto pointed at the nonexistent watch on his wrist, "Either way we've got nine minutes now. I don't want to get punched so hard that I piss my pants. I heard that kind of thing can happen."

That was an entirely realistic possibility, as frightening a prospect as it was.

Ryu knew such a thing could happen, and he would never tell anyone how he knew it was possible, but he did know. Thus on second thought-, "…Go pee. And wash your hands too. It's respectful to your opponent."

XxX

(Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan – Downtown – Arcade District)

"Whew." Batsu led the two girls with him through the very crowded sidewalks of the city leisure area, "This place is more packed than I've ever seen it." It was a tough time just trying to work their way through the throng of humanity blocking their way. And Batsu was somewhat sore that he had to park his jeep a mile away because the roads were closed, "This is your fault Sakura. Why did you have to go home after your school let out? Everyone else from there came straight here."

It was easy to pick out because of all of the kids that wore the uniform of Sakura's high school visible. It was easy to see that there were students from every school out there. It seemed like anyone that had ever gone to the arcade district in their downtime was there just to take part in the festivities.

Batsu's griping aside, it was rather annoying having to squeeze through so many people from the perspective of Sakura and Hinata. Batsu was having less trouble since he was able to navigate through by basically just shoving folks that didn't keep the flow of traffic moving. What were they going to do? At best someone would do nothing but verbally rebuke him, and at worst someone would try to hit him. Even in the kind of testosterone-filled crowd that drew fight fans he wished a dummy would try to smack him one.

"Wow." Sakura said as they neared the square and saw it full of people, even in the streets, just looking up at the titanic screen situated atop one of the shopping areas, "I don't get it. What's with all of the people?" While they did have a much higher fighter ratio than most other cities in Japan, that still didn't make sense as to why everyone would be out there.

"You might not realize this because our group is pretty closely-knit and no one in this town seems to care about fighters fighting…" Batsu started to say as he quickly shimmied up a nearby streetlight to scope over the crowd to try and pinpoint something, "…But we're kind of famous here. You, me, Naruto, rich girl, pretty much everyone we hang out with."

"Including Dan?"

"Yes, including that idiot." Batsu said a bit disgruntled at having to admit such before he shook it off, "And Naruto's been from here for a long time. It's a big deal for someone from this town to be out there. It shows everyone that the fighters in this town aren't just a bunch of ki-trained street punks and are worth something."

And right on cue somewhere in the crowd a random fight broke out.

"Ugh…" Batsu palmed his forehead at his heartfelt explanation being shot down by some of the stupid kids their age that thought it would be prudent to get into a rumble at the massive gathering. Before he could bemoan his loss of looking cool, a shuriken struck the post just above his head. Instead of freaking out he merely followed the path of its trajectory and waved at who he saw, "Alright let's go."

Hopping down from the pole he led the way through the crowd again, with him, Sakura, and Hinata blatantly ignoring the low-level scruff that had broken out moments before. It seemed that everyone else in the crowd was too. Who cared about that when there was fighting with actual consequences behind it taking place on the TV?

Eventually, Batsu led them to the sight of Ibuki in her school uniform, crouching down on the back of a motorcycle. Even though the driver of the motorcycle was hidden behind the skull-emblazoned helmet and leather gear, by now all of them knew that it was Akira.

"Hey Ibuki-chan." Sakura said as the kunoichi dropped off of the back of the bike and gave her a quick hug, "Hello Kazama-san." Akira nodded her helmeted head in stiff acknowledgement of the greeting, "Where's Kei-chan and Kanzuki-san?"

"Kei-chan went home, but Karin said she wasn't going to stay down here standing in the crowd like some commoner." Ibuki said with a shrug, remembering how Karin had left about ten minutes ago with her aides to do who knew what, "She didn't go home though, because a limo didn't drive through the crowd right to her side to pick her up and a helicopter didn't drop from the sky to lift her out of here."

Hinata blinked in confusion as to what that implied. A helicopter couldn't just land in the square, even when it wasn't full of people, "But the street is closed. She has to walk to where there are parking spots like everyone else."

"No she doesn't." Everyone, including Akira, replied dryly, with Hinata just accepting their refusal of her statement.

Let it be known that she did not know Karin well enough to know the kind of person she was the way the rest of them did.

"Whatever. Whatever." Ibuki simply waved it all off cheerfully before shooting Akira a rather impish grin, "So Akira-chan~." She basically crooned the poor girl's name out, "Who do you have your heart set on winning this last match?"

As if she needed to ask. She was just messing with the teen motorist's head. To note, Akira had not been wearing her helmet the entire time they had been there. They had arrived to see Sasuke's entire battle with Ken, and only when Ibuki drew attention to how intently she was watching Sasuke did Akira put her helmet back on to keep anyone from seeing her face.

"I want Sasuke-ku-. I mean, Uchiha-san to win." Akira said, amending her sentence in the middle of it, "I still want to wrap a chain around Uzumaki's neck and drag his body down the street by the back of my bike." She finished rather menacingly.

Wow, that wasn't scary at all. While the other girls just stared at her strangely, wondering why wearing that damn biker outfit made such a docile girl like Akira so bold, Batsu just rolled his eyes, "Are you still mad about us beating up your brother's gang back in the day? We were all fourteen back then, and every high school's best fighters were kicking the crap out of each other."

"It humiliated him." Akira said with a bit of a pout, "…Losing to a school kid." Once again, everyone ignored the fact that they were still all classified as schoolchildren, so that meant absolutely nothing.

It was ignored because there was something entirely new to pay attention to.

The crowd had to move as a rather spacy three-tiered stage was pushed through the lot of them with an extremely comfortable-looking chair sitting atop it. Situated in the chair itself of course was Karin, looking around with a quite bored smirk on her face as her primary steward Shibazaki stood by her side attentively, "Thank you Ishizaki." She said to her very large butler that had pushed the eyesore of a stage into the vicinity as he bowed and went to stand similar to Shibazaki on the other side of her chair.

"Oh my God…" Sakura mumbled as she walked closer to the setup and looked up at the wealthy young girl with her hands sternly on her hips, "I don't believe you. You brought a chair and a platform from home, just because you didn't feel like standing in the crowd?"

"Of course not. Don't be absurd. Who in the world carries their own personal stage around?" Karin looked almost offended at the accusation, "I purchased both of these things moments ago on a whim." She concluded, as if that made it any better. Her eyes panned around to the general public looking to take a seat somewhere on one of the levels, "Sit on my platform and pay for it dearly."

The rather icy tone and the fact that most people knew full well that she could physically back such a thing up kept them from sitting down. It didn't work on everyone though, as both Sakura and Batsu quickly got up onto the level just below Karin's top part, much to her chagrin, but they ignored her attempts to glare holes in the backs of their skulls. And then Ibuki, Hinata, and Akira followed suit.

"Fine. You are acquaintances, thus I will not destroy you for such blatant disrespect."

"Oh thank you so much for sparing me." Sakura stated sarcastically as she temporarily refrained from sitting down in order to continued verbally sparring with Karin, "Because it's worked so well before in the past that you haven't tried it again in more than two yea-. OW!" A quick pain administered to her backside had her wheel around to see Batsu holding up the offending hand, "Did you just-?"

"Well Naruto isn't here to do it so I thought I'd cover for him." He explained, waving the fingers on the spanking hand before getting laid out with a punch to the face from both Sakura and Hinata. Not particularly the smartest thing he had ever done.

Having taken her own seat on the stage along with Akira, Ibuki merely sighed at the half brain-dead idea of Batsu's. Honestly, he couldn't have expected any other outcome for such an action, "Batsu should know better. The only one that can touch Sakura's butt and get away with it is…" She trailed off when she felt subtle killing intent coming from right behind her courtesy of Sakura. Good girl as she was, she was getting prodded quite a bit today, "…Oh look, Cammy's on the screen!"

It was a good save. And indeed Cammy was on the massive screen, seated with the others and wearing her civilian clothes with quite the uncomfortable expression on her face at having a camera more or less shoved into it.

Who knew? Out of all of the things that Cammy had been exposed to for months since losing her memory, the one thing that really made her uncomfortable was having a camera lens sent her way. She seemed to be holding herself back from either pointing the damn thing away from her or outright breaking it.

"Wow." Ibuki commented, "She'll run around in public in that leotard of hers no problem, but she can't take being filmed at all." No one would have ever pegged Cammy as one for being camera shy until she started winding up on TV.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

A part of Chun-Li wanted to indulge Cammy and shoo the cameras away, but this was better. If something happened while the cameras were on them there was a better chance that Bison would pay for it later.

Still, it was rather funny to see Cammy stiffen up whenever she was aware that there was a camera on her. The girl just did not like the idea of being the center of attention at all.

"Here we have four of the fighters from the tournament that have remained behind to view the second day of competition." The event emcee was finally out of his broadcast booth and standing alongside the roving crowd camera that had found Chun-Li, Guile, E. Honda, and Cammy, "So what's the reason you've all remained behind? And why are people that were opponents in such intense matches sitting together now?"

E. Honda had no problem with the cameras and thus had no problems serving as the mouthpiece for the lot of them, "Heh, well we didn't fight each other did we? And what's wrong with that? Who else are we going to hang out with until this thing is over?"

That was actually a really good point. Who else were they going to spend any time around until the event was over?

Regaining his composure, the man went down the line to Guile only to think otherwise when he saw the no-nonsense look on Guile's face. It was basically an early-warning for them to leave him the hell alone, and it was a warning that was well received as the crew just outright skipped him altogether.

"Well let's get some expert analysis! How about you little miss?" Moving on down the line, the next up was the seemingly bashful Cammy, "Who do you have winning the final match? Sasuke Uchiha or the fighter you qualified out of Japan with in Naruto Uzumaki?" The moment he put the mic in her face to get her answer she grabbed his wrist and probably would have done something rather violent had Chun-Li not stopped her from doing so, "Uh…"

"Sorry about that." Chun-Li apologized for Cammy's sake, getting her to loosen the crippling grip the girl had on the announcer's arm, "She's not much for the media."

"…I can see that." Well the attempt to get the fighters to talk about the final fight certainly backfired. That was the charm and the risk that came with live TV though, and he had to roll with it to save some face, "The excitement of the coming battle must be getting to the poor thing, not that anyone can blame her! This is what we've all been waiting for!" His voice started to trail off as he got farther away down the row and out onto the stairs to leave.

A sigh of relief that Cammy didn't know she had been holding in escaped her as the camera moved away and the announcer man worked his way back to his post before the fighters could make their entrance. God she hated cameras… and microphones. Basically, she wasn't fond of anything that could capture proof of her existence in general.

"Thank you." She said to Chun-Li with an embarrassed look on her face, "I almost did the Blanka and Sagat thing again didn't I?" The spontaneous snaps of Special Forces brand violence. Only since she was aware of it she must have been getting better adjusting to her mindset.

Although that really meant she just hated the prospect of the media in her face if she was still willing to take someone's arm home with her even knowing that.

Even Guile had to take a touch of pity on the young girl, though he still sat with his arms folded over his chest like a hardass, "I know people say it's good to go with your instincts, but you've got to learn how to hold those little urges of yours back or you might kill someone. Someone that you weren't trying to kill."

"Be nice." Chun-Li chided, smacking Guile on the back of the neck and ignoring his warning growl.

"And now it's time for the main event! This is why we're all here ladies and gentlemen; to determine the champion of the Second World Warrior Tournament! After two days of the best fighting you'll ever see anywhere we're finally down to two, and here comes participant number one now. Based around Hong Kong, he qualified out of the Eurasian region to earn his place here today! Posting three straight victories over Dee Jay, Dhalsim, and U.S. Champion Ken Masters to reach the final round, welcome Sasuke Uchiha!"

Sasuke calmly walked back into the courtyard that he had last been in just around an hour ago, with fresh new clothes to replace what had been destroyed in his last fight against Ken. He didn't react to the announcement of his own name in any way whatsoever, much like every other time he'd been center stage during the tournament.

He just wanted the dobe out there so he could handle his business and get back to what he did best; Sasuke stuff.

Things like going back to Hong Kong for a spell and dealing with Yang and Yun marking out over how he won the whole thing, gauging his chances of killing that miserable old sack of shit Gen, and then he'd go back to Tokyo and continue running the restaurant there and taking assassination missions that would be way more lucrative with a world title to his name.

A nigh blinding shock of yellow at the crest of the hill led to the crowd buzzing as Naruto descended the hill with the hood to his outfit over his head and his headband undone to allow his yellow bangs to hang over his eyes. It got a raised eyebrow from Sasuke, but he quickly understood why he was doing it and it brought a smirk to his face quite early.

Someone had clearly learned something from the last round of fights. That was just fine with Sasuke. It was only natural. After all they'd had two days to watch each other do battle with a unique variety of opponents and there was no doubt that there had been nothing that could have torn their eyes away from the fights of the other short of a natural disaster.

"Introducing next, competitor number two, qualifying out of the Pacific region, and coming to us from Aohura City, Japan. En route to the finals he overcame challenges from Fei Long, Chun-Li, and the legendary Sagat to stand before us now! This is Naruto Uzumaki!"

Unlike normal competition matches that he had been a part of, Naruto didn't acknowledge the announcement, didn't raise a hand up or anything of the sort. He just stood punching into his palm with one of his gloved fists, eyes shaded by his hood and hair, "One more time?"

"One more time." Sasuke echoed in agreement, setting himself in an extremely disciplined stance, ready for the battle.

Naruto cracked his neck to the side before putting up his own dukes in a decidedly less sleek-looking posture, preparing himself for war so to speak, "Yo, you want to ring the bell Apollo?" Naruto disarmingly jested in a bad slurring accent.

In response, Sasuke just vanished in a Shunshin before reappearing on Naruto's right side, his hand poised for a deadly knife-hand strike, "Ding. Ding." Sasuke deadpanned as he lunged forward only to get his hand stopped by Naruto's forearm smashing against his own, "Hm."

"You're gonna be saying that a lot before I'm through with you today teme." Naruto said before he and Sasuke simultaneously pushed the other's arm down and began exchanging hand-based maneuvers.

Naruto's movements consisted of simple blocking and responding with various makes and types of punches that he had learned over the years, while Sasuke utilized more elaborate flowing hand moves to try and slip one through Naruto's guard to hurt him while parrying Naruto's own moves with pinpoint taps to sharp areas that diverted the direction of his attacks. Sasuke couldn't quite hit Naruto with his precise strikes that required clean hits to be effective, and Naruto's punches kept outright missing inside or outside because of Sasuke's technical defense.

Both Naruto and Sasuke shoved each other back with failed haymakers and banged shins with twin high kicks. The moment the offending legs from each fighter landed, Naruto leaned forward and caught Sasuke on the forehead with a lightning quick metal-plated headbutt to the forehead.

Really, he should have seen that outcome coming. He did remember who he was fighting didn't he?

If Sasuke could track his hands and feet so that he couldn't land anything with them, why not use his head?

A low growl rumbled from Sasuke's throat at getting caught by such a stupid brawling excuse of a technique before they sprang off in opposite directions, hurling shuriken at each other and missing.

Sasuke landed on his back foot and used it to jump back in Naruto's direction before breaking into a forward roll, moving until he was right at Naruto's feet where he bounced into a rising kick that Naruto had to lean back out of the way of to avoid. Shifting his body in midair, Sasuke swung his body into a twist to try a spin kick. It once again failed when Naruto blocked it and pushed him away.

Streaking forward, Naruto formed a Rasengan in one hand and thrust his arm forward with the nasty blue ball of condensed chakra for Sasuke to duck underneath it, 'Nice try.' Sasuke thought to himself, but he still saw a glow even though the Rasengan passed over his head, 'No…'

In Naruto's second hand he had formed another Rasengan and prepared to slam it downward to crush Sasuke into the ground, but Sasuke showed his speed advantage and made himself a ghost just as Naruto pulverized the rock beneath them, "Rasenrengan (Spiraling Serial Spheres)!"

Sasuke's red Sharingan eyes were wide in disbelief as he gave his own face a few pats to make sure that he was still in one piece, 'He can use that jutsu with more than one hand at a time?' Slowly a chuckle worked its way forward, "I like that. Now I've got one for you." Sasuke then quickly formed a Chidori in his right hand and moved his other hand toward it as if he were going to split it.

Naruto grit his teeth at the thought of risking a double duel of Rasengan vs. Chidori and rushed forward with both Rasengans in hand only to realize that he'd made a mistake when Sasuke dropped the second hand.

He figured that since he could make a Rasengan in both hands Sasuke could do the same with Chidori, under the old assumption that anything technical he could execute Sasuke could do better.

Wrong. There was no double Chidori coming. It was a feint to soften him up for the true move.

"Chidori Eiso (One Thousand Birds Sharp Spear)!"

Naruto had to lean his body just out of the way as the Chidori in Sasuke's hand expanded out at his chest, barely letting the jutsu miss past him. Naruto slowly craned his head back in Sasuke's direction to see his dark-haired former teammate smirking at him.

"You can dance can't you?"

"That's the gayest question you've ever asked me. Ever."

"…Die."

Simple flicks of Sasuke's wrist had the Chidori Eiso keeping Naruto in a dangerous situation. The speed at which he was moving his hand around had the extended Chidori blade rapidly trying to carve Naruto up, forcing him to do everything he could in order to avoid it. Several Kage Bunshin creations mixed with Kawarimi saved him from being sliced into at least two pieces until Sasuke somehow managed to hold Naruto up at blade point.

"Any last words dobe?" Sasuke threatened, figuring that Naruto wouldn't surrender and he'd have to basically impale him to win. He could live through getting his throat pierced couldn't he? They were about to find out.

Instead of feeling threatened, Naruto just held his hands up disarmingly with a wry smile on his face, "You do know that I haven't really been here this entire time we've been fighting, right?"

What the hell was he talking about, he wasn't there? He was standing right there in front of him. Unless…

No wonder he'd been fighting so conservatively. Outside of the Rasengan attempts it had been a markedly more reserved pace that Naruto had been fighting. Very uncharacteristic of him.

"No…" Sasuke said, his eyes temporarily snapping back to their normal onyx color out of disbelief, "You didn't. You son of a bitch, you're a-?" And as 'Naruto' nodded, he knew exactly what he was referring to now, "Where's the real you so I can butcher you?" He seethed in suppressed anger.

"Bathroom in the living quarters. Good luck with that by the way." The Naruto clone chuckled, not caring that it was one step away from getting a very violent conclusion to its short existence courtesy of a livid Uchiha Clan member.

He had been made to look like a fool, on live TV, with a worldwide audience watching him take on one solitary Naruto clone that would have been destroyed with one hit had he just realized that it wasn't real and he wouldn't have had to pick his spots the way he would have had to with the highly durable real Naruto. And he'd stooped low enough to show part of his repertoire to it over the course of a few minutes.

And somewhere inside of Sasuke, something snapped. Sharingan turning back on and spinning full blast he shouted out loud as the black marks of his Cursed Seal involuntarily spread across his body. He shouted loud enough for no one to mistake what he had said, "I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU!" Hopefully the worldwide censors managed to get that.

"Heh, good luck with that too."

With that, the clone met quite the brutal end as Sasuke didn't waste any time immediately bolting for the stairs, much to the shock and confusion of the audience and the announcer, "Err… where is Sasuke going? And where did Naruto go? What the hell's going on around here?" A minute or two later his answer came in the form of an explosion slightly in the distance in the direction of the main temple buildings, "Get some goddamn cameras over there! We're not missing the best part of the final round!"

In the crowd though, Naruto's friends were just as confused as anyone else in the arena. Guile was the first person brave enough to actually speak up about it, "What the hell just happened?"

It took a moment, but Ryu, who had joined them after he had returned with Naruto to the courtyard, eventually deduced just what had happened after backtracking in his mind and fought the urge to hit something inanimate, "…I think I know."

XxX

(Aohura City – Downtown – Arcade District)

The one that was the least familiar with Naruto and his techniques voiced her thoughts first once the courtyard wound up vacant and the cameras on the ground started rapidly running off somewhere else at the shout of the announcer, "What's happening?" Hinata asked, rubbing the back of her neck-length hair while tugging on Batsu's sleeve, "Where'd they both go?"

Ibuki had to focus to keep from giggling uncontrollably. Someone was really starting to fight with his head, "Oh, I like that. That Sasuke guy's going to try to kill him even more now, but that's just great. Ow!" She held her shin as Akira had given it a bit of a kick for getting a laugh or two out of the situation, seemingly at Sasuke's expense.

"Using his copies to bend the rules." Karin said to herself before a small and thoughtful smile formed on her face. She knew the advantages that the jutsu presented outside of creating a numbers advantage, "What a novel way to draw out a bit of experience in fighting his opponent without risking doing it himself."

Sakura had bit of concern in her eyes as the cameras quickly travelled toward the smoke rising from the main portion of the temple, "Why can they fight outside of the courtyard? That doesn't make any sense. No other fight went outside of it." Shouldn't the fight have been over? A disqualification or a count out or something?

She couldn't materialize why she wanted the match to end. It was guaranteed to be a great fight, so why couldn't she just enjoy it?

"Actually, yeah they did." Batsu interjected, "Naruto and Sagat started fighting at the stairs, in the crowd, and wound up at the top way outside of the arena before Sagat blew up that little building up there, and nobody even tried to get them back in the courtyard or threatened to stop the fight."

That was true. There could have been people in the building that Sagat blew up, and he could have killed them. Consequently, when Naruto jumped into the audience he could have hurt many people as well, especially if their fight had continued amongst them. And earlier in the tournament Balrog destroyed an entire section of wall with one punch that could have brought down an entire stand's worth of spectators.

"There's no referees in this thing, and no security aside from the martial arts monks that I really doubt could stop anyone in the tournament." Batsu continued to say once he saw that everyone had caught on to his point, "Who's going to stop them from doing whatever they want, and going wherever they want? I'm honestly surprised this didn't happen sooner."

Then again, to their knowledge no one else tried directly cheating like that before either. Everyone else was a direct kind of fighter, relying on direct martial arts more often than not to defeat their opponents in head-on conflicts.

But man, the smoke was pouring out of the true inner temple grounds. And that was why the actual fighting of the tournament had thought to be restricted to the front courtyard of the grounds, so that the entire place didn't get obliterated.

XxX

(A Few Minutes Earlier – Naruto vs. Sasuke – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

Sasuke could hear the blood pounding in his ear with every heartbeat he was so angry. The Cursed Seal had not receded back to its spawning point on his neck either. He was going to crush Naruto. He was going to make it quick, and he was going to make it oh so humiliating when he brought it to an end.

His footsteps smacked off of the stone floors of the temple interior, as he resisted the urge to shout out Naruto's name in rage to draw him out. No one else in the world was so insufferable that they could cause such a stirring of negative emotion.

Yang and Yun were annoying, but not enough that he'd ever contemplated beating their brains out with a blunt rock. Chun-Li was tenacious in her attempts to keep tabs on and limit his assassin movements in Hong Kong, but that was her job and even respect for Gen couldn't stop something like that. Even Gen himself couldn't evoke pure fury from Sasuke the way Naruto could.

They were former comrades yes, but they simply could not get along with each other on a consistent basis and it had always been that way. When it was needed they could get along. When it wasn't needed their relationship could range from simple off-key one-upsmanship to outright being at each others' throats.

Like now.

Sasuke stopped at the common bathroom for the entire sect and didn't bother making a plan before entering. He didn't really enter traditionally at all if his creation of hand-seals before he even stopped by the door was anything to go by. If Naruto was in there he was going to burn for it, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)!"

Simultaneously kicking the door open as he launched a massive amount of fire from his puffed out cheeks, the sheer force of the jutsu was enhanced by the Cursed Seal pumping up the intensity of his chakra.

The resulting spray of fire from Sasuke covered the entire vast bathroom wall-to-wall, from the front door past the sinks, past the toilets, and touching the back wall in the showers before an explosion occurred within, actually rocking Sasuke out of his fireball-shooting posture.

Nothing in there survived. Not a chance. Any trap that Naruto would have set for him upon entering had to have been decimated, and hopefully Naruto as well if the idiot had been waiting inside. There were no rules, and Sasuke hadn't pulled his punches against any of his other opponents thus far. If he wasn't strong enough to live he'd die, simple as that.

Sasuke stood staring into the vile inferno that engulfed what was now an open-air bathroom with a touch of regret. Not because he had destroyed a significant part of the temple in his pursuit of victory/vengeance, as large as it was and as much work probably went into it in a place that didn't even have electricity it was just a room, but more because he had allowed himself to lose his temper.

Anyway, with the money the monks were making off of sponsoring the tournament they could build a bathroom in each of the monk's rooms separately.

Smoke billowing behind him, Sasuke walked away from the bathroom entrance, perusing the halls once more in search of his opponent, 'Come on dobe, you can't hide from me.' The sound of the flames masked the sound of a metal wire snapping, but Sasuke's eyes were able to see the trap coming in slow motion.

Several kunai-launching mechanisms sent an outrageous barrage of kunai at Sasuke, but he was able to evade volley after volley. There was no way he was carrying that much weaponry on him. He had a holster on his thigh and a pouch on the back of his hip. Unless he was packing several different scrolls on his person, and had them set up in advance as 'trap setup scrolls', he'd never have had that much.

And with great haste, Sasuke stormed toward Naruto's room. He didn't know where it was, but he definitely knew where it wasn't, and there were only so many rooms available for visitors to the temple.

A shock of yellow prompted him to stop on a dime in a doorway where he saw Naruto standing just inside, holding more wires to activate traps. Clone or not he was about to get it. The look of complete shock on Naruto's face gave Sasuke great satisfaction, though whether it was because Sasuke had been moving even faster than he had been outside or because he was doing that and he was utilizing the Cursed Seal was a mystery.

Either way, Sasuke immediately shoved the soles of his shoe right into Naruto's belly, kicking him harder than he had ever kicked any other living thing in his entire life. Naruto's body flew out of the window opening and landed outside, rolling on the rough ground in a heap before coming to a stop facedown, his hood knocked off of his head, "Ow… goddamn it. I hate you so much."

Yeah, that was the real one for sure.

And Kami, that felt way better than it should have!

The cameras arrived just in time to catch Naruto flying out of the window as if he'd been launched from a slingshot. Many people from the stands surrounding the courtyard had also followed the production crews and kept themselves at what they thought was a safe distance to see the action up close and personal instead of over a screen. Sitting on top of and hiding behind large stone walls, hanging through stone wall openings to catch sight of everything.

"It looks like we've caught up with our fighters, and Naruto Uzumaki is down and dripping blood on the ground from his mouth! Internal injuries anyone?"

"Shut. Up." Naruto grounded out before spitting a glob of blood onto the hard ground. His body was still out of sorts from the fights he had yesterday, the fight against Sagat an hour earlier, and the joyride his darkside had taken in it the previous night. He could swear that he could hear a voice in the back of his mind that he hadn't heard in quite some time.

"And I thought you were getting your ass kicked last round. You can start calling on me whenever you want you know. I am awake now."

It could have just been a reaction to getting hit with the battering ram that was Cursed Seal Sasuke's foot, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. Sasuke was coming for blood, and hallucinations due to a swimming head had nothing to do with helping him out.

This was so rich from Sasuke's perspective that it had to be fattening. Holding onto the doorframe of the room still inside of the temple he planned to vault out of the window and land in a nasty stomp or a knee smash right on Naruto's back, looking cool for the cameras as was his prerogative. Although that didn't necessarily work out either when he slipped on the floor and crashed into the bed hard enough to overturn it.

"Gah! What the fuck! Why is there a shine on the floor?"

Outside as he was given time to pick himself back up due to Sasuke's accident, Naruto chuckled painfully while holding his ribs, "Ahahaha… ow." If this hadn't been a damn deathmatch he would have gotten a few more laughs off of that one. Naruto let go of himself and started making hand-seals, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

From Naruto's mouth flew one volatile ball of blue chakra right at the sight of Sasuke that he saw getting up through the window, causing a blast on the inside of what used to be his room. Sasuke managed to jump through the window just before Naruto's jutsu flew inside, with the explosion catching the back end of his clothes.

Feeling the burn from latent flames, Sasuke hurriedly put them out with a few pats but wound up taking a series of rapid punches to the stomach before taking a heavy blow right to the face that knocked him back against the temple wall with a thump, splitting his lip but still eliciting a smirk from him, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

This was all Sharingan illusion, as Naruto had indeed looked into Sasuke's eyes as he launched the attack even though it had landed. In reality, Sasuke was saying this, but was doing so while holding back the cough that he wanted to let out due to the body shots, but it did its job in making Naruto second-guess how hard he hit him.

'What the hell? I know I drilled him with that last punch!' Before Naruto could begin attacking anew, Sasuke dodged whatever he might have tried going for and somehow wound up right above Naruto, dropping with an axe kick that busted the stone ground when Naruto managed to avoid it, 'Crap!'

Still stuck in Sasuke's Sharingan genjutsu and its subtle bewitching, he might have moved, but he moved in the direction that Sasuke suggested him to move in, thus Sasuke was upon him without even having to really track his movements.

Nonplussed by Naruto's speedy avoidance, Sasuke lunged right at him and battered him with several rapid-fire punches to the face before planting his foot off of the exact same surface, kicking Naruto harshly to the ground, "What's wrong? Lost your mojo?"

"Shut up." Naruto said, scrambling back on his hands to keep from staying down on the ground. He stood up and looked ready to fight again even with multiple new cuts opened on his face, "You're still using that stupid seal, even after I told you what it'll do to your body and mind all of those years ago?"

"I'm still standing." Sasuke said in mocking defense of his actions, "And what about you, with that red chakra that turns you into a crazed monster? I saw you fight Akuma with it back in Tokyo just before we both nearly died. If that's what happens to you, I don't want to hear you say a damn thing about what the Cursed Seal can do to me."

"It's the Kyuubi's chakra inside of me!" Naruto snapped, finally having shrugged off the temporary genjutsu haze he'd been caught in with the help of a little blunt skull trauma courtesy of Sasuke to knock it out of his skull, "That's what the red chakra is! It's not some curse some sick old snake man slapped on me in the woods!"

"I don't care." Sasuke just seemed to shake it off as if it weren't important. Or maybe that was just the heat of the moment? "It's not like whatever's got… the Kyuubi you say? Well whatever's got it stuck inside of you, it's just some curse some other idiot prick slapped on you to make you some kind of beast or a monster. So whether it worked or not, what's the difference?"

Either way, hearing that 'monster' comment struck a chord with someone within earshot of the remark as Sasuke again moved faster than he believed Naruto could keep up with. A sudden rush abruptly filled Naruto's body, initially shocking him, but the sudden revitalization of chakra and stamina allowed him to bat Sasuke away before he could truly attack him

The right side of Sasuke's face suffered a nasty mark from the strike that Naruto lashed out with instinctively. That hadn't been a punch, and it hadn't been a kick. Matting blood against his hand he looked over at Naruto and saw what had been the cause of the surprise retaliation, "Hm. Really, the Kyuubi huh?" Interesting. He always knew that it was something strange, "About time you kicked it in. Bring it on."

It took a second for Naruto to realize just what had happened, as he hadn't felt the chakra in over six months. He hadn't trained with it, nor fought with it, but the red highlight that he now saw the world with he quickly picked up on just what was going on, especially when he felt something of a fifth appendage at his back that wasn't physically attached to him.

In order to test this out, Naruto used his memory of how to utilize it and sent a red chakra tail shooting off at Sasuke with the intent to pummel him into mash.

"I hate that thing!" Sasuke shouted, jumping over the faux-tail that had been hurled his way before flashing through hand-seals, "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!" Sasuke launched a volley of smaller fireballs from his mouth at Naruto only to scoff when Naruto blurred out of existence in dodging them.

Posting himself on his hands in an evasive handstand, he avoided Naruto going for a rabbit punch from hell that would have probably done more than finished the fight. From his handstand though, he mule-kicked Naruto right in the stomach. Damn, he was no-sight aiming for the head.

Still though, it knocked Naruto back until his chakra tail dragged a trail through the ground to stop him before launching him right back at Sasuke as if he were shot out of a catapult, and in one hand he had a Rasengan formed with a red shell around its exterior, "Shui Rasengan (Vermillion Rasengan)!"

'No, no, no, no, no, no, no!' Sasuke thought to himself as Naruto hurtled his way, Rasengan leading like the warhead of a missile. Thus he stepped it up solely for the purpose of outright avoiding the Rasengan. There was too much horizontal space that the jutsu plus Naruto's chakra cloak covered for him to dodge it traditionally.

The black marks quickly spread across his body to gray his skin as his hair lengthened and grayed as well. A black star mark formed on the middle of his face and webbed hand-like wings sprouted from his back, punching through his shirt that lifted him off of the ground in one mighty flap to take him out of Naruto's trajectory.

Therefore the earthbound Naruto missed, and he along with his highly destructive jutsu found itself sent into the side of a temple wall.

With a mighty rumbling explosion of dust and stone debris, Naruto's Rasengan obliterated the entire western wall of the main temple building where the monks spent most of their time during the day. Where they ate, trained, and meditated indoors en masse.

A lot of the tournament hosting money was going to have to go to rebuilding that wall.

From his view above the battlefield, Sasuke looked down at the place that Naruto had just annihilated upon his missed attack. He could see the smoke and fire from where he had set an entire community bathroom ablaze, and the trail of destruction they had wrought since leaving that place.

No time to dwell on that. His life was far more important than some stupid temple full of fighting monks.

From the interior of the temple, Sasuke could see multiple Narutos rising from the debris like the undead and he decided that they had not been too destructive. As far as he was concerned, if one of them was getting back up they weren't being destructive enough, "I forgot how annoyingly tough you were." Sasuke said to himself as he formed a black Chidori in his hand, "Habataku Chidori Senbon (Flapping One Thousand Birds Senbon)!"

From his hand, the sound of wings flapping sped up and eventually sounded like the buzzing of a Vulcan firing. From the original dark Chidori in his hand, Sasuke held his arm out and fired off long, thin black electric needles with the volume of rain falling from the sky, pulverizing everything that they hit.

Sasuke didn't risk just aiming at the clones that popped into smoke once they were destroyed by his widespread attack. He chose to take away any possibility of Naruto hiding more in waiting, and he shot at the ceiling of the already devastated temple building, causing it to cave in.

His eyes were cold and showed no regret, no remorse for what he was destroying. Why should he have? There was only one person in there at risk of being harmed.

And there were no rules.

XxX

(Aohura City – Downtown – Arcade District)

For the first time since the battle began everyone standing in the plaza watching on the massive screen above found themselves stunned into quiet. Seeing Naruto's red chakra and Sasuke's transformation got them buzzing, but watching the sudden violent turn of the battle, and the degree of their conflict escalating before their eyes, no one had anything to say.

There wasn't anything to cheer about. Most of them had never seen anything so destructive come from two people that were more like living weapons than human beings. A formerly strong and noble-looking temple of the combat arts was being reduced to rubble in the wake of their battle, and a lot of it was coming from the man in the sky.

The brave cameramen kept things rolling, getting shots all over the area of Naruto's clones fleeing and trying to get some kind of attack off on Sasuke whom they couldn't reach with anything in their repertoire fast enough to keep him from gunning them down. From where he was he had a bird's eye view, and with the Sharingan he didn't miss a single movement.

The camera microphones picked up the people freaking out and panicking at the wanton destruction as they started fleeing, running past and in front of the cameramen as fast as they could to get away from the frightening scene. What the hell had happened?

"This is absolutely staggering! Who can stand up to anything of this magnitude? All of Naruto Uzumaki's copies are being systematically decimated by… whatever the technique Sasuke Uchiha is using against them! Everything has spiraled out of complete control!"

As the announcer kept shouting for the benefit of the play-by-play for the people at home and the cameras picked up Sasuke turning all over while firing his seemingly never-ending jutsu, the feed abruptly cut out and the screen projected nothing but black, dead silence, and a technical difficulties sign.

Ibuki waved her own hand in front of her face before keeping her eyes peeled on the screen, as if she were trying to soak in everything she'd just seen, "Okay. There's no kill quite like overkill I guess." She tried to joke about the situation only for it to fall flat. She was really starting to see just how they had leveled an entire arena in Tokyo if that was the kind of firepower that Sasuke alone was packing.

"What the hell was that attack supposed to be intended for?" Batsu asked, a bit disbelieving at the last move Sasuke had used, "I don't think I could stand up to that and take a hit from it, even if I used the Burning Vigor technique." Those black energy needles were an army-killer of a maneuver.

"I don't care…" Sakura said under her breath, quiet enough that no one could hear her speak, "I just want it to stop before..." She had a very unsettling feeling in her chest, and it had only gotten worse watching Naruto and Sasuke fight, 'That was the way they looked back during the first time when they fought.'

The crowd started murmuring and outright jeering at the loss of the live feed. As scary as all of that was to see happening, it was still awesome, and as far as they knew one hell of a fight was still going on far, far away. And their only portal to seeing it had been cut off. No one could pick it up on their phones either. Every method of obtaining the tournament was completely out.

Whatever had happened screwed up every bit of outward broadcasting.

"Do they really hate each other that badly?" Karin had to speculate. It had been a physical encounter from outset, and it had only escalated from there. She had never seen such an aggressive conflict before, "I don't know what to make of what we just saw. I do not believe I've ever personally seen him in so ferocious a battle."

By now Sakura had pulled her cell phone out and had dialed a number in her contacts rapidly. Long-distance call or not, it didn't matter, "Pick up, pick up, pick up…" She muttered frantically.

"Sakura this is really not a good time!" Chun-Li's voice stated over the receiver on the other end with loud rumbling in the background, "Why are those two so pissed off at each other? God, these two aren't as strong as Sagat or Bison, so why are they doing so much damage to everything?"

"What the hell's happening?" Sakura snapped, finally having had enough of not knowing what was going on. And Sakura never openly cursed, cueing stunned looks from all of her friends around her.

XxX

(Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

In no other situation would he have tolerated the thought of anyone moving past him and ignoring his presence. In any other place or setting, had so many of the worthless peons populating the stands of his tournament ran past him without recognizing his presence he would have slain a handful of them just because. Just for being so weak.

The fools. The cowards. They couldn't even be bothered to risk their necks in the slightest to stick around and watch such a brilliant display of destruction from his two finalists. He had put together such a wonderful exhibition of strength, and they weren't even recognizing how incredible it was.

Even the announcer he'd hired was heading for the hills. Even the monks! It didn't seem as if anyone wanted to risk their necks, even if they would have seen something amazing. The philistines.

But he knew just what he was seeing, "…This is delicious." Bison said to himself as he walked through the throng of fleeing people, going in the exact opposite direction that they were all running from, "I can't wait."

It was just about time for him to drop in and make his presence known. Killing both of the finalists in one fell swoop would certainly send the message that he intended to. What a banner day this was turning out to be.

"First Sagat-." Bison said, pausing to teleport himself up onto a still intact rooftop to get a better look at Sasuke wreaking havoc over the temple grounds from above with his attack, "-And now these two. All of this before sundown. I must be on some sort of roll."

He began channeling his Psycho Power around his entire form, far past any battle-ready technique he would use on a whim in a battle. This was going to be a massacre. It was going to be quick, and with Sasuke seemingly unaware and making such a lovely target for him he would be the first to die. Killed in one shot, his technique overpowered by Bison's incomparable strength.

Just lovely.

His entire body began to glow blue as the ceiling of the building he was standing on collapsed in on itself with nothing more than the initial release of his power, "Final…" He started to say, hovering in the air and bending his knees as he charged up everything he had for one attack and prepared for takeoff, "Psycho… Cr-!"

All the while he never noticed a shadow that had been watching him and the entire tournament from its outset. And this person was not about to allow Bison to interrupt a battle between two fighters with such potential to grow, not to feed his own insatiable ego. Not when he wanted to kill the brightest of the two of them in fair combat himself, something that Bison's craven actions would never allow.

Which meant quite simply that Bison had to be removed from the equation altogether.

"Shin Shun Goku Satsu (True Instant Hell Murder)!"

Bison never saw it coming. And his screams of pain from the blindside attack went unheard over the chaos of the pressing battle that had everyone's attention stolen. It was over in an instant, and no one would ever know.

"With the unabashed evil in your soul you never had a chance against even the Shun Goku Satsu…" Akuma said as he stood on the empty, soulless husk of melting flesh that used to be Bison's body with one sandaled foot, "…But trash such as yourself deserves nothing less than the absolute worst. You are weak for not relying solely on your fists, and now suffer and burn for the past sins you have committed."

Bison used machines and science to enhance his own already incredible powers and sustain it. He feared death and cheated it with his technology and contingency plan after contingency plan. Such a pitiful mindset. The true fighter did not fear death. They stared it in the face and lashed out at it!

As far as he was concerned, Bison was a slave to his own evil powers. Not worth being referred to as the strongest, no matter how formidable he was in battle. Human garbage, if he thought himself important enough to warrant the right to interrupt a pure display of martial spirit the likes of which his eyes were currently affixed to.

This tournament was not the waste of time he originally figured it would have been. It had played host to many unique fighters, though lesser they were, but he saw several diamonds in the rough that with the right coaxing could one day give him the true battle to the death that he wished for.

Ryu's Satsui no Hadou had shown itself to take great strides… all he needed to do was embrace the will to win at any and all costs, and he would be the perfect challenge.

And then there were two other quite interesting eggs, one of whom he could have sworn he'd killed months ago for resorting to insolent barbarism when he let his furious power take control of his senses. He survived the Shun Goku Satsu. How intriguing.

Akuma quickly faded away back into the shadows just as quickly as he had emerged from them. He needed to find a better place to see them fight. This was to be fascinating.

XxX

"I don't want to be 'that guy' or anything, but should we stop this?" E. Honda asked from where he was taking cover a safe distance away along with everyone else, even Ken as he had been rudely interrupted from his healing session by the systematic obliteration of the temple, "This is awesome and everything, but these two are fighting like they've got some kind of a-."

"-Blood feud?" Chun-Li offered as a label for whatever was up with Naruto and Sasuke. She was still on the phone with Sakura and the other kids in Japan calling her due to the dead feed, "They destroyed the power supply that ran all of the equipment, and half of the buildings in this place. What did they do to each other to start this?"

Ryu had a feeling that if he had gotten to fight Sagat it probably would have ended up like this as well, but even so, it was an impressive sight. He so very much wished that he had managed to advance so that he could have a real battle against one of them, especially after seeing what he was seeing now.

'It would have been a grand challenge.' He thought to himself before another portion of building collapsed, exposing several Naruto clones that tried to attack Sasuke in vain, 'I have to have a match with one of them.'

"Who's winning?" A voice over the phone in Chun-Li's hand droned irritably in Batsu's voice due to it being on speaker, "All we can hear is popping and crackling and you guys yelling."

"Should we stop this?" Cammy asked aloud, hiding behind a wall near Guile, "Do something?"

"Yes!" Sakura's voice sounded out over the phone, "It sounds like a warzone over there!"

Guile scoffed and pulled himself to stand on top of the fragmented wall to get a better view. Now this was something he could get into. What a fight, "Girl, get real. This is man business. If any of us tried to stop this, one of them or both of them would probably turn on all of us and then get back to tearing each other apart."

Looking up at Guile, standing fearlessly atop the wall looking like a war hero, Cammy climbed up part way to tug on his pant leg for attention, "Do you really think they hate each other that much?" Upon utterance of her question, Ken, Guile, E. Honda, and even Ryu smirked and all but Ryu let out a scoff of sorts.

"This isn't about hate." Ken said, limping gingerly while holding his thickly bandaged body protectively, "You girls aren't getting it. Look at that!" He gestured out to Naruto's clones taking cover and trying to retaliate as best they could as if they were pinned down soldiers on a beach, "They're not doing this to each other because they want each other dead."

That might have wound up being the ending, but that wasn't the goal.

"Well that's what it looks like." Chun-Li contested, "So tell me oh enlightened one..." She snapped sarcastically, "…Why is this happening then? What's the point of going this far?"

Ken opened his mouth to answer but something about her tone didn't rub him the right way, thus he chose to outright shut her down by not saying anything, "You know what? No. Watch. If you don't know what I'm talking about without me telling you, saying anything about it won't help… freaking chicks."

XxX

(Naruto vs. Sasuke)

Sasuke kept on firing Chidori Senbon, as more clones kept taking their chance on coming out of their few remaining pitiful hiding places to try their hand at attacking him. Where was the real one? This was getting old.

Before he could keep attacking, all of the remaining Kage Bunshin all dispelled of their own volition, confusing Sasuke until he heard a sharp whistle and turned around toward the ground to see a bloody, grime-covered two-tailed Naruto standing in a place that had formerly had spectators until they had all headed for the hills, "So stupid."

"Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!"

Sasuke prepared to fly evasively when he saw Naruto begin to shoot two dozen blue chakra projectiles with red tinting from his mouth, but stopped himself when they all halted in the air before they could ever reach the range to do any kind of damage to him.

"What's the matter?" Sasuke taunted from above, "Does your little long-range jutsu have a limit to how far they can go?" As a show of superiority he charged a Chidori up in his right hand once more, preparing to rain down hell onto the original Naruto this time, "Mine doesn't."

Instead of moving or panicking at his failed attack the way one would have expected him to, Naruto just rolled his red eyes and pointed up, indicating to Sasuke that he should look up.

Curiously, Sasuke did just that and could have sworn that he'd seen the shadow of hell hovering above him.

Hanging in the air above his head, there were oh so many more spitfire orbs holding just as still as the ones that Naruto had fired right in front of his eyes. He was surrounded.

When did he find the time to-? Of course. When Sasuke was committing Kage Bunshin genocide.

When Sasuke was taking them all out he wasn't looking up, he was looking down. Why would he have looked above him at all? Naruto had to have used his clones' valiant efforts in battle and subsequent destruction as cover to carefully slip into Sasuke's blindspots, filling the air above him with those damned mini-bombs. Who would look up when one could fly and everything of importance was below them? No one would have seen this coming.

As he counted them, numbering them in the multiple dozens, Sasuke had to couple that together with the amount of clones he killed on the ground numbering even higher than the chakra balls in the sky and came to the conclusion that this was Naruto's checkmate. The sheer amount of chakra he had to burn through to do this had to drain even him.

Naruto stopped the last ones right in front of him on purpose to shut the door on the trap.

No way. That was impossible. Naruto's chakra control was complete shit. Always had been and always would be. There was no way he could do anything that elaborate!

Not a chance.

Not Naruto.

No way.

They were just midair mines, 'They have to be.' Sasuke told himself as he tried to deduce an escape route out, 'Naruto can't control all of these. It's impossible.'

"Karin's really smart." Naruto said out loud from his place on the ground as Sasuke remained in the sky, slowly panicking at what was around him. Even with two tails he was still coherent enough to speak normally, "Yeah, I started coming up with this after we busted up Shadaloo in Thailand and before you showed up in Japan. I was working on this, but no matter what the spitfires would just explode or vanish before they could be useful."

"What's the point, or are you just going to bore me to death instead of try to beat me?"

"The point IS…" Naruto got around to it, waving his chakra tails, "During one of my bodyguard jobs for her I told Karin stuff about how sometimes using enough of the Kyuubi's chakra can enhance some of my jutsu by layering my chakra with its chakra, and she asked why I didn't just try to do that with this. I said it was usually instinctual, and she said to train with it. So I went to my junkyard where I do my serious training and I did... until Akuma wiped the floor with us."

Sasuke just stared down at Naruto, life or death situation notwithstanding, "You are an IDIOT! If I die these are my last words: you're fucking retarded."

"Yeah, I'd agree with you this time actually…" Naruto said, chakra tails still swishing as he snapped off a series of hand-seals and held the last one, "…If using the Kyuubi's chakra and staying in control didn't take a ton of focus to begin with, and I didn't come up with this second part and how it's supposed to work all on my own." The spitfires began to move around in the air, much to Sasuke's complete horror, "Apparently the Kyuubi's chakra is really reactive to the source when it's outside of my body. The fight with Vega showed me that, and my mind is crystal clear right now. My focus is all on the jutsu, so guess what I can do with the tails?"

"I. Hate. You."

"I know. And I'm gonna pretend I care for about three more seconds. Shinkoshoku no Hanabi (Crimson Fireworks)!"

Sasuke shouted in anger at getting caught as the swirling chakra balls imploded toward him at the behest of the direction of Naruto's chakra tails and exploded in the air in a torrent of blasts that crackled off one after another.

Naruto's red eyes didn't turn away from the aerial bombardment at all, as he panted softly in a bit of fatigue at expending so much energy. He'd split his chakra between so many clones even before he'd began setting his trap, and then there'd been the chakra he poured into the trap itself. But as he looked at the attack itself he had to think of one thing.

'Worth it.'

Sure it had taken a lot of time, effort, chakra, and a ton of his own bodies, but he'd managed to avoid the only thing Sasuke had in his arsenal that could have decimated him without him having a fighting chance and subsequently turned the tables on him. It was actually easier to trap him because he flew. He would have never expected an attack he could never see coming from above him.

'I am never going to set that up as good as I just did ever again.' Naruto thought to himself. Talk about the perfect storm, 'I could never keep control long enough to make even half that many. Why can I control myself better now?'

"Don't get used to it. I repay my debts. You more or less saved my ass last night, just like you said you would. One hassle-free power-up of this magnitude is the least I can do, and it's the most you're getting."

'Kyuubi? You really are awake. And thanks. It's still starting to hurt a bit though.'

"Of course. Do you have any idea how much of your own chakra you pumped into the last series of moves you made? You used most of yours, and it's getting replenished with my own. And it hurts like hell doesn't it?"

'…Yes.'

"Welcome to my world for the last six months. But we can banter later if I feel like it then. For now you've got a blasted Uchiha to finish off."

Sasuke's body descended rapidly from the sky but did not culminate in a crash, despite his tumultuous fall that resulted in him landing on his feet diagonally in a slide. Blood from his various wounds dripped freely onto the ground, most notable of which being that one of his wings had been blown clean off and the other one seemed to be barely hanging on to his body.

What was left of the appendage that was a hallmark of his second-stage transformation twitched involuntarily. Whatever was left of the remaining wing's muscle control was lost after he had landed, and at this point it hurt him far more to have it attached than to just rip it off, which he did. Gross.

"You're still standing?" Naruto commented, still breathing somewhat heavily, "No, you're still in one piece?" Well, not in one piece, because both of his wings were gone.

"It could have been worse." Sasuke said, voice masking the obscene amount of physical agony he was in, "I could have not had the wings, and then I would have had to take all of that myself."

The moment all of the hanging spitfires closed in on him and started detonating one after the other he curled his body up inside of his wings and used them to absorb the brunt of the damage. Not without casualties of course, as his wings no longer existed. Of course if he'd never had the wings, none of that would have ever happened to begin with.

Even so, after everything that had happened, and everything that they had subjected each other to, despite how much pain both of them were feeling. Sasuke had a smile on his face.

As did Naruto.

Neither of them wanted anything more out of the fight than proving without a shadow of a doubt that they were superior to the other. There wasn't any grand reasoning or overbearing purpose behind their respective reasons to fight. And the threat of Bison possibly attacking him at any time couldn't have been farther from Naruto's mind.

It wasn't about good or evil, or protecting anyone, or even earning or losing anything as a result of a victory or defeat. It was bragging rights, and a sentiment of 'I'm better than you and everyone knows it' that they'd never had and probably never would have again.

They didn't want to kill each other, though if it happened it happened, and if one died they knew that the deceased would understand that while there was nothing personal… it was all personal. It was completely personal.

'He's got to be running on fumes. I know I am.' Naruto thought to himself, subtly flexing out his right hand, 'It's time to finish this once and for all. I've got to keep him from backing off and using another long-range ninjutsu. I don't think I can take another one.'

In the same vein, Sasuke was doing the same thing, and neither was looking away from the other, 'Kami I'm so tired… but no more ranged attacks. If I lose sight of him again I'm finished. I've got to put him down with one good move.'

'A good gust of wind'll knock him over… I just have to make sure this jutsu hits.'

'I'm faster. I've always been faster. And I can see everything. No matter what he tries, I'll strike first. I know I will.'

'The time it'll take to make a clone'll have him on me before I can start charging the big guns. I'll just blow him away in one shot with what I've got! '

'If he tries that double-handed crap like earlier I'll charge up a second one myself and punch it through his skull!

Neither was surprised when a Rasengan and a Chidori fired up in their respective right hands, nor when a second of each appeared in the left hand of both of them. Though both raised an eyebrow, neither of them said anything about it. They expected as much, but they were both still smiling.

"See you in hell Sasuke-teme."

"You bet dobe."

Sasuke launched himself at Naruto while his blond counterpart did the same. No more tricks or sleight of hand. No backing up any longer. In the minds of both it was either one of them or the other.

Why the hell was this so familiar?

With a booming ripping and tearing noise, they clashed Chidori with Rasengan in both hands, trying to strike at the core of the other and simultaneously engaging the opposite jutsu. But the moment they got in proximity to collide, the dual twin attacks formed a titanic dome of rejecting energy that centered around the two and carved out a deep bowl in the ground.

It wasn't bright and flashing. It was dull in a black color, but thick and opaque, almost as if it were solid.

And no one had any idea what was happening inside.

XxX

"…Should we stop the fight now?" E. Honda asked, not knowing just what he was seeing. One minute they were in the middle of an old-school standoff, and the next moment they were covered in that black dome, "Is that a technique that one of them came up with?"

Ryu was now over the novelty of a good fight. Yeah, he got over it right when a gigantic dome formed out of absolutely nowhere. And the energy signature was strange. He'd never felt anything like that before.

Wait… a dome with an odd energy signature out of nowhere that covered Naruto in the middle of a vulnerable moment.

Crap.

With no time to lose, Ryu sprinted out from where everyone had been safely taking cover to watch the fight, "This could be it! This could be part of Bison's plot! This isn't Naruto or Sasuke! I can't tell you what it is or what it's for!"

He didn't need to say another word before everyone else leapt into action from where they had been hiding and followed his lead, even the recently injured Ken.

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

"Sonic Hurricane!"

"Kikoshou (Spirit Energy Blast)!"

Everyone with a ki blast in their arsenal fired their best shots at the orb, even the wounded Ken with a far weaker Shinkuu Hadoken than Ryu's powerful blue beam variation, and did so at the closest range possible/neccesary, but it just seemed to absorb it and continued to expand, ripping away more ground with it, forcing them to all get their distance lest they meet a similar fate.

"It didn't do anything!" Cammy told them all, having seen it all happen a ways away along with E. Honda who had also refrained from physically attacking it, "Nothing worked! How are we going to get Naruto out?" What was that thing made of?

The orb didn't seem like anything from that world. And they couldn't break it open to get to their embattled comrade and his rival.

"Messatsu Gou Hadou (Anniilator Great Surge)!"

A purple ki beam that completely dwarfed everything that everyone else had thrown at the orb combined rocketed out of the side of one of the remaining temple buildings and punched straight through the orb on both sides, forcing it to violently explode in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind.

Everyone had been knocked away by the orb bursting and directing all of its pure pressurized force outward. Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy, Guile, and E. Honda all went flying with enough force to knock them unconscious, and all was still.

XxX

Akuma lowered his hands from the Hadoken posture, palms smoking from the sheer intensity of the ki he had just fired and stared at the massive scar in the ground that had been cut into it by the otherworldly orb.

He had no clue as to the origin of the blasted thing, but he knew one thing. He could not feel Naruto and Sasuke's energy within it, and that simply would not do. Whatever it was, one way or another it was going to take them away.

To where he had no idea, but he felt he could see inside for a split-second, and he knew what he saw. A setting entirely foreign from any place in the world he had seen in his travels. Another land entirely. And it meant to take them.

No, he would not be relinquished of his potential challenges. Even by an unseen force that he could not describe. He had no patience for anything that would snatch his sources of interest away from him.

"If even God apparently believes that he will stand in the way of my goal of battling and destroying the strongest warriors in existence…" Akuma muttered to himself as he disappeared from the scene altogether, "…He will find himself struck down by my hand as well."

XxX

The sudden cataclysmic shot of ki melted the borders of the crater that had been formed by the orb, and the ground was still sizzling in the open air.

Chun-Li's closed eyes stirred and twitched to the sounds of the wind crying and the sound of her phone ringing. Slowly she opened them and sat up on the ground to see her party of fellow fighters strewn all about in similar straits, 'What the hell just happened?' She thought to herself as she crawled over to her nearby phone and picked it up to answer it, "Hello?"

"What happened? You just hung up all of a sudden."

Chun-Li blinked in confusion and looked around before holding her head in pain, "Ah… I don't remember? Seriously, the last thing I remember is seeing Naruto and Sasuke run at each other and that's it."

"…Is it over then?" Sakura sounded very concerned through the phone.

She couldn't hear anymore fighting, nor did she see anything other than a big-ass crater in the ground thirty yards away, "Uh… maybe. Normally big craters the size of a football field mean that something's over. At least the last one I remember seeing did."

"Ow…" E. Honda droned as he rolled over onto his rotund belly to push himself up, "I think I broke my arms again. What just kicked our asses? And why is there a big pit in the ground?"

"Dunno." Chun-Li said as she moved to the others and started rousing them from their forced 'sleep', "Where are the boys?"

"Murphy says: if there's a huge crater, they're probably in the crater. Just sayin'." Thank you Batsu. Because that wasn't the first place anyone thought of looking. It was worst-case scenario, which was why nobody brought it up, "OW! I don't need all of you hitting me!" All of the girls probably let him have it for stating the obvious as well.

Ryu helped Ken stand up and assisted him in walking over to the edge of the crater so the two of them could look down. Ken let out an impressed whistle, "Okay. I don't get how this happened. I remember they were about to slam two attacks into each other and then everything's blank, which doesn't make any sense."

"Agreed." Ryu tried to dredge up just what had happened, but his memory of what happened stopped right where Ken's did, "The Rasengan and Chidori were powerful, and they were using them in both hands, but I cannot see those two things causing something like this. Do you see them?"

"I do." Guile said, his voice echoing out as he chose to slide down into the deep crater to locate Naruto and Sasuke, "…Jesus." He muttered once his feet touched the bottom and he started digging through the rubble where he saw something orange, "There we go kid." He said as he grabbed Naruto's arm and pulled him free.

Covered from head-to-toe in his own blood, his own sweat, and the dirt from his surroundings, Naruto's entire suit was shredded to tatters, the top half above the belt torn down to hang down over the garment piece to expose his body to the elements. His hair was stained brown and dirty red. He was out cold and his red energy was gone, but he was still alive. From the looks of him he'd need time to recover like no one's business. Luckily he would get it.

And Guile figured he might as well fish Sasuke out as well. It wasn't hard to find him, as he was buried similar to Naruto only a matter of feet away. He had two rather brutal wounds on his back where his wings had been torn off and there was a possibility that they were going to scar, but his skin and hair colors were back to normal. He too, much like Naruto, found himself in the embrace of unconsciousness, though still amongst the living.

"Nobody's dead!" Guile shouted up from within the crater as he tried to figure how he was going to carry the both of them out at the same time.

"…"

It took him a minute or two to get them situated safely on his back, and in that span of time no one had responded to what he'd told them, either positively or not. It was easy to irritate Guile, and being ignored took near the top of the list in ways to piss him off.

"Hey!" Guile yelled as he climbed out of the hole with the two beaten and broken teenagers on his back, "Are you all deaf, or does that crater just have really shitty acoustics?" His barb fired, once he reached the top he realized what had everyone's attention.

On the ground lay Sagat with a massive hole punched through his chest. Standing crouched down next to him was Blanka who had been somewhere in the jungle around the temple since the fight with Naruto's dark side ended the night before.

Ryu just shook his head with a touch of regret in his eyes, "Blanka found him. Not too long ago. He just brought him here."

"Didn't know what to do." Blanka said quietly. No one else amongst them spoke Portuguese, so he had to use another language. He spoke better Japanese than the rough English he needed to use to communicate with everyone there though. He shook Sagat's shoulder all the while though he knew it was useless. The man was never going to wake up, "Tried to shock him back… but Sagat… heart gone. Can't restart what not there. Lots of organs gone. Scary man in uniform kill him. Sagat fight him to death. Sagat lost."

Cammy kneeled down and picked up Sagat's large motionless hand, holding no malice for the beating he had given her only twenty-four hours prior. The man was dead, and he died trying to take down the evil man that truly tried to hurt her and her loved ones.

They were square as far as she was concerned. Death evened up all scores between them.

"You guys… tell me. Is Naruto alright?" They forgot that the phone conversation was still going the entire time. So they all knew that Sagat was dead. What a disaster of a day. Things just escalated higher and higher during the two days, "Um… I'm sorry, but it's just that everything cut out so no one can see what happened, and the phone call cut out after some big boom, and now you're saying Sagat was killed. God, Sagat of all people is dead! Just tell me something! Anything!"

Ryu walked over to Naruto and placed his hand on Naruto's neck and then Sasuke's to find pulses for the both of them. Steady, if not a bit weak, but that was to be expected, "He's fine Sakura." He told her, "Just fine. Despite no lack of trying, neither Naruto nor Sasuke killed the other. We'll get him to a hospital and they'll see to him."

They had to give Sagat's body over to a coroner as well. He deserved to be buried. He deserved to be treated as the man he was; as the hero of Thailand, that taught the people to fight for their honor. Because no matter how he lived in his later days that was how he died, whether anyone else would ever know of the dark parts or not, it didn't matter.

But there was still one question left to ask. One that no one had figured to bring up with all that surrounded them.

"So hey." Batsu said, apparently hijacking Sakura's cell phone again to speak to them, "We're not really the only ones that can hear this. There are hundreds of people all around us right now, totally eavesdropping, and we're not scaring them all away right now because it wouldn't be fair, 'cause all kind of want to know… just who won?"

"Who won?" Chun-Li repeated with a raised eyebrow. She could almost see the ruffian youngster holding back Sakura with one hand for as long as he could until she finally got fed up and hit him before taking the phone back.

"Yeah. Who won the final round? Who won the tournament? We didn't see it. It cut out and nobody could pick up a feed anywhere to tell us what was happening."

All everyone on the field of battle had to do was look around for just a second to come up with an answer. The formerly beautiful grounds of a proud martial arts temple had been turned into modern ruins, with pieced apart buildings that used to stand strong and solemn, a devastated front courtyard with a destroyed entrance archway that used to be grand, a garden that had been transformed into a torn up grassy lot, and a section of jungle outside of it that would be marked as the land where Sagat made his final stand.

Two days had resulted in all of this.

At this point no one even cared about Bison anymore. Everyone that had a set place to return to just wanted to leave and return to where they belonged.

"Nobody won." Guile eventually said, handing off Naruto to E. Honda to carry and shifting Sasuke to distribute his weight on his own shoulders. It was time to get to the rental cars if they were still around and start back on the road to Bangkok, "Nobody won at all. Let's all go to the hospital and then go home. I've been acting like an ass for nine months and I've got a wife and daughter to apologize to."