The Lights Are On...

Chapter 17 - The Lights Are On…

"You've got to be kidding me!" Naruto exclaimed while all those around him covered their ears. At this point Naruto, Batsu, Sakura, Karin, Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, and the remainder of the Dolls were onboard Karin's family yacht en route to Hong Kong once more now that their business was complete. But Naruto had just recently been informed of just why Cammy didn't know who he was or anything about what they had all been through, "Amnesia? How?"

It was a little startling to say the least. The idea of amnesia never came to mind for Naruto because he had been with her the moment she had gone unconscious in the Shadaloo base. She had just gotten through talking to him before going under, and the next words out of her mouth the moment she woke up just so happened to be her asking him who he was and what he was talking about.

At least she knew her own full name though. That was something.

"How would we know Naruto-san?" Karin asked from a spacious couch in the game room of the yacht where the youngest members of the group were lounging around to converse on the matter at hand, "You were the only one that was there. No one else could have possibly seen what may have caused it."

Batsu held back a snorting laugh before making a comment as he tried to engage Naruto in a game of pool to mellow him out a bit, "What, did you drop her and hit her head while you were carrying her or something?" That crack resulted in Naruto breaking a cue-stick over his back while he was lining up a shot, "Ow! Fuck you!"

"Fuck you! That's not funny!" Naruto griped at his friend while he complained about the abuse to a disabled person. He then looked across the room at Karin who was giving him a dry stare, "Uh… I'll replace it."

A stiff nod came from Karin as she watched Naruto hand off the broken remains of the game playing tool off to Ishizaki, Batsu glaring daggers at him the entire time as he went back to trying to line up a shot on the other end of the table, "Let's stay focused here shall we?" For once she and Sakura were the civil ones amongst each other as Naruto and Batsu by now had started trying to hit each other with the billiard balls under the guise of taking actual shots, "Thus far our associate Cammy is the only one out of all of the girls to wake up, including the ones that have been returned to their homes. Who is to say that she is the only one suffering from her amnesia?"

The entire ending process of their little campaign against Shadaloo didn't leave Sakura with much of an easy feeling about her. Too many terrible things had happened for a complete feeling of success, and the amnesia of someone integral to their victory was just piling it on, "That's just terrible." She commented with a frown on her face, "She doesn't remember any of us. Do we have anything we can use that might jog her memory?"

"Other than her ruined clothes she wore before being treated in the village, no." Karin said, tapping a finger against her own chin in thought. There wasn't anything that they knew about Cammy outside of her background as a Shadaloo assassin, and even that was vague, "So… now what do we do? I do not think that bringing up her past would help her; we know nothing about it. For now we should just have an eye kept on her."

Everyone seemed to be in agreement on that point. Referencing Bison in front of her didn't do much other than get her to furrow her brow in thought. Even explaining who he was didn't do anything for her. She wouldn't take the accusation that she used to be a cold-blooded killer very well if that were the case.

A yell of frustration erupted from Naruto as he pulled at his hair and slammed his hands on the table. Apparently bouts of anger from very strong people were quite a common occurrence on that table because he didn't damage it in any way, "Why doesn't she know anything? The last thing I remember her doing is using Bison's machine to break his psychic link with them so that they wouldn't die when he did."

That was something he had neglected to mention back when he had originally started freaking out after being told that Cammy had amnesia, and the unanimous deadpan looks he received from everyone after he was finished talking spoke volumes as Sakura was the first to say something about it, "…Did she know how it worked?"

"She was winging it. They were all about to die in like thirty seconds."

A sigh came from Sakura as she held her temple. Dealing with Naruto ran the full gambit of really good to really bad, and that meant that sometimes he would omit certain things in the heat of the moment. Not that knowing this information any sooner would have helped anything, "You said she broke Bison's psychic link with them so that they wouldn't die. That's got to put some deep mental roots in their heads to work. She basically ripped the plug out of their skulls."

The imaginary visual image that stuck in the heads of Naruto and Batsu at Sakura's analogy got them both to cringe. Years of violent video games and movies intended for mature audiences would do that every now and again, "Well when you put it that way…" Batsu said, getting a nod of agreement from Naruto, "Man…"

"There's nothing we can do about it now." The reasonable, level-headed business-like logic of Karin came into play once again. Even if she too felt quite a bit of empathy for the situation of the Dolls, there wasn't much that they could do, if anything at all until they awoke.

If they ever did awaken. But those weren't the thoughts to have. They had landed in Hong Kong, they had sent them to the best hospital around where there were magnificent doctors there that were well-equipped to help them out, "Come on." Sakura said, getting up from her seat and motioning for the others to follow her, "Let's get going to the hospital." She dragged a disputing Karin to her feet and out the door onto the deck as Naruto and Batsu lumbered behind.

XxX

(Sometime Later – Hong Kong – At the Hospital)

They had made it to the hospital while Cammy was still in the middle of her tests with the doctors, thus they were forced to wait a bit before going in. While they were there, Batsu was also getting himself checked over for his week-old injury to his leg to make sure that everything was copacetic. Karin was outside for a bit of air as they had been there for a while and she despised the atmosphere of hospitals, thus leaving Naruto and Sakura sitting and waiting for the two of them to return in a waiting room.

In four years of spending time together in school, at home, while training, there were times when it was easy to tell that there was something wrong with the other one. Usually when one didn't have anything to say to the other it was a dead giveaway that there was something suspect.

But now neither of them were saying anything, and that meant that both of them felt rather bothered by something.

"How do you do it?"

The sudden question from the unusually reserved Sakura jolted Naruto out of the uncomfortable silence, getting him to turn towards her as he received a fraught look telling him that she really wanted his answer, "Do what?"

Fidgeting in her chair slightly, Sakura tried to find another way to word her question to be more descriptive without making her feel so dicey about it. Her eyes panned down to her lap where her hands were fidgeting with her skirt, "You said you saw Cammy kill Bison, but when you came down the side of the building you were grinning. And others said that you killed Vega in your last fight with him, but you didn't seem to care about that. I just want to know how you can deal with people dying so easily." She shook slightly in thought, "What we did… when that base blew up, everyone we beat up… most of them had to have been killed."

"I've seen decent people die in front of me I guess." Naruto responded with a shrug. He didn't know how to answer it. Death tagged along in one way or another with his entire life. He saw his first dead body up close when he was six, and he had his home village invaded with a full-scale battle going on between his fellow ninja right before his eyes at the age of twelve, "Guys like Bison and Vega… it doesn't bother me when they die. But Charlie, I didn't know him very well but he hung back so we could get away. And the only reason he had to do that was because I screwed up."

"So how do I get used to death? My whole body feels weak when I think about it. I couldn't make a fist for a whole day after we got back."

Why couldn't Ryu talk to her about this kind of crap? He was supposed to be something of a senpai to her wasn't he? Ask him about this kind of stuff. Ken didn't seem like the type to dwell on things too much so he might not have been the best choice to go to, but Ryu was responsible enough.

"You shouldn't get used to it at all." Naruto's answer to her inquiry surprised her a bit. There wasn't some big secret to it? How unexpected, "When someone dies it should always make you squirm Sakura-chan. Do your best all the time, but don't ever try to kill someone. You're a fighter and I'm a ninja so if you keep getting stronger eventually you're going to kill someone you fight. I have. And you might have to fight someone where the only choice you have is to kill them."

"I don't want to do that!"

"Then quit."

Sakura's face twisted almost instantly from outrage to shock that Naruto would say something like that to her, "I have to quit just because I don't want to kill anyone no matter what?"

"No, you have to quit because you're not gonna get an option sometimes!" It was times like then that made Sakura think that Naruto was probably smarter than he showed about certain things. When a fight started he was dangerous, even when he didn't act like it, "If it had been you that beat Bison what would you have done?"

Even Ryu tried to kill Bison when he had the opening. And Naruto had a huge point. Bison was a vengeful, drug trafficking, arms dealing, sociopathic, god-complex having, kidnapping, brainwashing, blackmailing stain on the fabric of humanity that had the power to crush an entire town in one move with his Psycho Drive and satellite.

The naïve schoolgirl part of her wanted to believe that if she had simply beaten him down and they ruined his Asian Shadaloo empire that this would simply end at that. But the part of her that had been dealing with Shadaloo since the turn of the year at the tournament, in the hospital afterwards, the attack of the Dolls on her high school that almost killed Ibuki and Naruto and kidnapped Karin, and everything that had occurred on their trip… all of that was a rather cold slap in the face, that there wasn't good in everyone.

And if you didn't make sure Bison was dead and gone, if you didn't incinerate that body beyond any sort of repair, then things would happen like what happened with Charlie. Bison simply would not give up the ghost and it cost them a life in return to take him down.

"I… don't know." Sakura admitted, a bit ashamed of her wishy-washy response, "Maybe if it was the heat of battle I might have killed him, an adrenaline thing, with responsive force or something. But I can't just kill someone in cold blood."

Her eyes turned to Naruto to see his blue eyes locked on her, hopefully not in disgust as the only thing she had really wanted out of him ever since the day they met and she found out that he was a skilled combatant was his respect as a martial artist. She was not let down when she saw him giving her a small smile before he rested a hand on her shoulder, "You know… I can't kill anyone in cold blood either. That's a good thing. At least that's what I think."

Now he was planning on killing Bison in cold blood and he wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep over it, but she didn't need to know that. There was an exception to every rule.

Another wistful sigh escaped Sakura as she placed her cheeks in her hands, "I need to train harder." She sounded absolutely despondent in her temperament as she said this, "When it came down to it I was totally useless at the end." She couldn't really be that far behind Ryu could she? When she fought him while he was brainwashed he tore her apart and almost killed her with a Shinkuu Hadoken.

"Yeah, well someone didn't die because of you Sakura-chan. Charlie died because I wasn't strong enough."

"Naruto, Charlie didn't die because you were weak. He died because of bad luck. How were you supposed to know Bison could have resuscitated himself back from a contact charge from the machine? Cammy stabbed him in the heart from what you told us. You didn't know she was going to try to fire it up either until she did it." Naruto merely let out a grunt and turned away from her, almost pouting as he tried to wallow in his guilt, "You big baby."

The two continued to wait a bit longer and were eventually rejoined by Karin and Batsu where they proceeded to wait for a bit longer. Batsu and Naruto wound up involved in a rather violent game where one would take turns trying to slap the other while they were unaware, amid much eye-rolling from the two girls that were trying to ignore them. But the very pink cheeks of the two boys slapping the taste out of each other's mouths on the sly was something that just attracted the eye.

After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor walked into the room holding a clipboard, "Your friend is done with her tests." He said, "Aside from the amnesia I can't find anything wrong with her. Her brain seems to be fine. Her reflexes are… incredible actually. Superhuman as a matter of fact."

"How's her mind?"

"She's as sharp as a tack honestly." The doctor continued to explain, "She knows her own name, can speak multiple languages, at least English and Standard Chinese from what I heard. She just can't remember anything. I can't find a reason to keep her in the hospital if she wants to be released. Either way, you can go in to see her now."

All of them looked at each other in regards to Cammy being released, but went on into her room to find her sitting in a bed staring out the window in her hospital gown with her hair out of the usual twin braids she placed them in normally. She noticed them enter and while she didn't know them, they were still the nice people that helped her when she didn't know anything, "Hello." She greeted amicably.

"Hey Cammy." Naruto said as he moved over to the windowsill and sat down on it while Batsu took a chair and the girls took the others closest to her bed, "How are you feeling?"

"Confused. Amnesia is very startling."

"…Other than that?"

To keep Naruto from bombarding the poor girl with the normal questions that a person suffering from amnesia got asked upon the revelation of their affliction, Batsu interjected, cutting Naruto off before he could start asking all kinds of dumb questions that she couldn't answer, "The doctor said that you can leave. There's nothing wrong with you other than the… well, you know."

"Where in the world will I go?" Cammy asked, a bit dumbfounded, "I don't know anyone. I don't even know who I am." The only attachment to anything she had in the world were the Dolls, and she didn't even remember any relationship with any of them, working or otherwise. All of them were still unconscious to boot.

Now that was enough of that sad, pessimistic atmosphere that seemed to have Cammy and by default everyone else caught up in it. Naruto himself might have had a reason to feel all down in the dumps, but that didn't mean that anyone else had a right to be.

"Gah, I've had enough of this crap." Naruto said abruptly, suddenly hopping off of the windowsill seat he had taken for the duration of their visit so that he could start pacing in front of Cammy's bed, "You don't know who you are… but we don't know much about what you liked or anything personal either so we can't really help you there. We can help you find out though. Things like stuff you like… so come on."

As Naruto grabbed a bag that was by Karin's feet that he handed to Cammy, Karin herself spoke up with a smile of satisfaction on her face, "I took the liberty of obtaining new clothes for you since all you had with you before your memory loss were fighting clothes. There is no need to thank me." She added proudly.

"No one even said anything." Sakura muttered at Karin's pretentious attitude at doing something nice for someone only to get a passive look from the girl and then a nearly unnoticeable scoff that worked Sakura's nerves, "I am not in the mood for this today."

"It doesn't matter what you happen to be in the mood for." Karin responded, "Your opinion is not important enough to matter to anyone."

As if something passed between the two of them, both girls stood up and started butting heads, pushing against each other back and forth, "You're lucky we're in a hospital and you have the money to pay your bills, because they won't have far to take you after I-. Ow!"

The tension ended swiftly after Sakura's yelp of pain that led to her holding her backside as she turned and glared at Naruto growling at him as he stared right back, unafraid and expectant of his own safety, eventually getting her to back down for reasons only known to the two of them.

Karin looked at Naruto with a raised eyebrow as if to ask if he really just stricken Sakura's butt with his open hand, and he hadn't been put through the wall yet which was something even more curious.

Batsu's jaw was utterly dropped that Naruto had just spanked Sakura and had gotten away with it without having to swallow his knocked out teeth like chiclets, "What the fuck did I miss where this ended up being okay?"

"Sakura-chan just knows how to keep her word." Naruto explained cryptically as he turned his eyes around the room and quickly averted his gaze from the bed with his face turning beet red at the sight of Cammy changing right in front of them with no modesty whatsoever, "…And I know how to leave a room. Come on Batsu."

Waving Naruto off as he stumbled towards the door while covering his eyes, Batsu remained right in his seat, eyes locked firmly on a clear view of Cammy's chest as she sat straight up and cross-legged while calmly looking through the collection of undergarments Karin purchased for her to find what she liked, "Hey, if she's cool with it I'm cool with it."

He was then promptly removed from the room via physical intervention from all three other teens as Cammy continued to change, oblivious to the disorder her nudity was causing. Force was required when Batsu began swinging crutches for the right to remain in the room.

XxX

(Later That Day – Hong Kong International Airport)

"This place is called an airport." Naruto said with a big wide grin for Cammy's benefit as they were out and about trying to get her some fresh air and help her out a bit with getting her bearings, "Airports are where people get on those screaming metal death traps called airplanes and fly thousands of miles to get where they want to go. Don't get on one. Planes scare the hell out of me."

"You're so weird." Karin, Batsu, and Sakura said in unison as they all stepped off of the rail transport that took them to the airport.

A deadpan look sat on Cammy's face as she walked along with them wearing her new clothes; a pink skirt, white casual sandals, and a white short-sleeved button-up shirt, "Yes… I know what airplanes and airports are. I still possess most general knowledge." Aside from Naruto apparently not understanding the concept of amnesia with his well-meaning attempts to inform her of things, they were all nice people, and they were her age as well.

It wasn't like she knew anyone else to compare them to, but they seemed way more lively than the people around her that walked the streets normally. The difference in nationality from their current environment was duly noted as Sakura, Batsu, and Karin were native Japanese and Naruto was supposedly of American descent from what they told her. Well from the unconscious accent she held whenever speaking she surmised that she was British, and they honestly didn't know but they didn't debunk her either so she was probably correct in that assumption.

"So all of you live in the same town and are friends with each other?" After a couple of hours of wandering around, shopping a bit, and listening to them tell her stories of the things they had gotten into while living in Aohura City, Cammy had figured that they were at the very least pretty close despite the marked differences in them.

"Well… we're mostly friends." Sakura replied with a pointed look at Karin who merely stuck her tongue out in retaliation, "But yes. I met Naruto first, then Naruto met Batsu which led to me meeting Batsu… then I fought Karin-."

Naruto then sharply interjected with his hands resting behind his neck, eyes closed all the while, "-Which lead to Karin hiring me for degrading missions to get back at Sakura-chan because she beat her." He missed the formation of an angry tick mark on Karin's head at the reminder, "But now Karin's nicer so yeah, we're all friends."

"I am your friend and no one else's." Karin corrected grabbing Naruto underneath his chin and shaking his head back and forth, "Being a friend of a friend does not make the other friend my friend. Understand?" She got a bit of a kick out of Naruto's blank stare indicating that he didn't understand.

A bit of a sad smile drifted over Cammy's face as she looked down while continuing to walk, "That sounds nice." The emotional conditioning that Cammy had been put through as one of the Dolls was clearly something that had been implanted in her because she wore her feelings on her sleeve now, "I couldn't tell you what it feels like though."

In a rare touch of insightfulness, Batsu was the one to pull the amnesia-inflicted young woman out of her bit of a funk in his own way, via changing the subject, "Dude can we take a break for a bit? These crutches chafe." He looked down at his cast covered leg and glared at it, "Six more weeks my ass. This thing is coming off in four." He complained as they walked through the airport terminal.

"Hey kids!"

The attention of the Aohura City crew and Cammy was obtained by Ken who was carrying a small carry-on travel bag, being followed by Ryu who was doing the same, "Glad to see you all could make it before we left." Ken said with a huge smile on his face, "We're about to get on out of here."

A frown crossed Sakura's face as she looked from Ken to Ryu, "So you're not going back to Japan for a bit before you continue travelling?" Ryu shook his head in the negative, eliciting a sigh from the poor girl, "Oh well…"

"Yeah I barely got him to come with me to America for a just a bit." Ken said, grabbing Ryu in a headlock and a noogie before being shaken off, "I finally convinced him when I said he needed to meet my girlfriend Eliza, and he agreed."

"It's been a few years since Ken and I had any time to catch up." Ryu said, rubbing his own hair back into place before smiling despite his serious façade, "It would be good to see how he's been living since we left our old master Gouken's tutelage."

"Trying to see if I'm slacking off?" Ken had a good chuckle at that as he gave his best friend a hard, good-natured pat on the back, "I guarantee when you see Eliza you'll see I have a good reason for it if I am."

Well there went her chances of getting some direct training from Ryu… again. Damn it.

"How about a match then?" Sakura suddenly blurted out before she knew what she was saying, but her mouth kept moving before she could even stop herself, "If I can win you have to come back to Japan to train me for a bit, but if I lose I'll never bother you about it again." She immediately covered her mouth to bite back a nervous squeak. Sakura had not intended to say that at all. It sounded better in her head, and apparently it sounded good enough for her brain to bypass the screening process when it came to talking.

Instead of answering immediately, Ryu looked a bit surprised at her request of a fight, especially since she didn't seem sure about it. That was just begging for her to get herself hurt, "…I'm afraid I can't do that Sakura." He said in return, actually surprising her back that he turned down a fight, "I can't fight someone that doesn't believe in themselves. If you don't have the will to fight your opponent then trying to force it will only end badly. I won't be a part of that. Next time maybe."

Upon being turned down so completely, Sakura's look of astonishment turned to one of reluctant acceptance as she nodded and backed down.

Someone else there wasn't going to let it go so lightly though.

"Next time, next time, next time…" Naruto started to say, looking none too pleased with the current turn of events, especially when that turn of events ended up with his friend feeling put out, "It's always next time with you. You didn't do anything the first time you met her two years ago, you didn't even bother sparring with her when you came to Aohura City to mess with me, and you won't even let Sakura-chan try to prove herself now when you're doing it again? Where does it end?"

Oh, it looked like Naruto was something of a hothead. Any answer Ryu gave the kid would only set him off more as Ryu wasn't much for eloquent social situations. It was a good thing that Ken was better with that, thus he tried to smooth things over, "Listen… training someone takes full focus on nothing but that so that your pupil's development reaches its fullest limits. You can't half-ass it with someone's instruction."

"Show her something then!" Naruto continued to stress, not willing to back down from this, "Sakura-chan swears by Ryu, but I haven't seen any reason for it. Yeah, I saw him win that tournament against Sagat, but so what? I bet I could beat him right now if we fought."

And that wound up with Naruto being dragged away by his ear by Sakura until they were a good distance away where she finally let go of him and gave him a rather stern look behind a promotional stand, "What do you think you're doing?"

Naruto rubbed the side of his head where he had just been pulled and explained his stance on things, "Look, either he's gonna prove that he's worth all of this you bending over backwards for him, or I'm gonna knock his block off." He dodged her second attempt to grab him before he said or did something stupid and ran back out into plain view before pointing a finger at Ryu, "So how about this? I'll fight you instead of Sakura-chan."

On the side, Batsu, Cammy, and Karin were raptly observing the scene unfolding before them. The temporarily disabled delinquent leaned in towards Cammy and started to explain for her benefit, "This kind of thing happens all the time. You get used to it after a while." Cammy just nodded and continued to watch.

"I could honestly live without it." Karin said with a sigh before she shrugged haplessly, "Oh well. If he wins this will more than prove that he's strong enough to be ranked highly in the world, and I can finally challenge and defeat him."

"You want to fight him?" Ken asked, bewildered at the brazen challenge from the younger blonde man, "Why?"

"For Sakura-chan." Naruto admitted before grinning sheepishly, "And because we never really finished the fight we were having back in Sakura-chan's backyard."

Ryu observed Naruto closely and the look of full confidence on his face before finally nodding, "Alright. We can fight. After all, you're right. We never finished our first match and I want to see what you can really do."

Sakura quickly interjected herself between the two, her arms extended to keep them apart as if they would have just flat-out rushed each other on the spot, "Hold on just one minute! I don't need anyone fighting for my benefit Naruto. If anyone's doing this I'll do it myself."

"He just turned you down. I'm defending your honor!"

"It's not your honor to defend, and he didn't even damage it!"

"Too bad. He already agreed. Everybody heard it. I'm fighting him."

"I'm fighting him!"

Though he was amused by Naruto and Sakura going nose-to-nose and looking as if they were about to scrap over which one of them got the fight with Ryu, Ken decided it would be much easier his way, "How about the two of you against Ryu and I? There's no need for either one of you to sit out if you don't want to."

Both Naruto and Sakura looked at him owlishly before choosing to converse amongst themselves, "What do you think? We've never fought as an actual team before." Naruto whispered, though if one really cared to pay attention they could have heard him.

"Is it that important? We know enough about each other's moves." Sakura argued in return as to why it wasn't a bad idea, "We can just wing it."

Winging it was pretty much the calling card of Naruto's entire career as a ninja, so he had no problems with that, "Sure. We've got chemistry right? We've kicked each other around so much we've got to know something about working together." At that they both turned around with looks of anticipation on their faces, "We accept. Bring it on."

Ken punched his fist into his palm, dropped his bag, and slipped out of the shoes he had been wearing, as did Ryu, "Alright then, I call blondie. He looks like he's fun to fight."

"Sakura is mine then." Ryu set himself into his stance at Ken's side as the two looked like mirror images of each other. Sakura looked excited to be fighting against Ryu, but an elbow from Naruto got her to focus, "Switch off when we need to?"

"I won't need to switch off, but yeah." Ken agreed before looking over to the kids, "Are you ready?"

Their answer came in the form of Naruto dropping a smoke bomb at his and Sakura's feet as a wild Hadoken came flying out of the screen that missed right between Ken and Ryu. It served the purpose of attracting their attention for long enough to get Naruto to slip out of their sight.

"Holy shit." Ken said in surprise at Naruto's absence, "Where the hell did he go? I didn't even sense him leave that area." He then noticed Ryu staring Sakura down intensely, "What's the matter bud?"

"That's not Sakura. The stance is off." Ryu said before he and Ken attacked in tandem, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Both men fired their ki blasts at Sakura, mixing them together to cover a wider area and make it harder to dodge.

Impact was made, but upon being hit 'Sakura' dispelled in a puff of smoke to Ken's surprise but not to Ryu's. At the next instant, a random pedestrian with a suitcase that had been walking through the terminal until right then suddenly turned and lunged over a distance towards the two men with astonishing speed. After getting close enough, the pedestrian transformed into both Naruto and Sakura who both launched attacks at their pair of opponents.

Imagine Ken and Ryu's surprise when they turned and saw an average businessman had dashed towards them and covered incredible ground as if it were nothing, then seen said businessman engulfed in a puff of smoke with their two teenage adversaries flying out.

They weren't surprised enough to refrain from defending themselves as they got their arms up in anticipation to block, but in this instance it didn't matter too much as both Naruto and Sakura scored with flying kicks that landed right through their guards and smashed them in their torsos.

Both Ken and Ryu were knocked back head over heels onto the ground while Naruto and Sakura landed in a slide from the outright speed they had been moving at before. The observing populace took notice and cheered wildly at the sneaky attack idea executed by both boy and girl.

Both Naruto and Sakura spared a second for a high-five before the brown-haired girl shivered a bit in place, "That felt way too weird." Sakura commented on being a part of a two-person Henge with Naruto, "I don't ever want to do that again."

"You did fine with it though." Naruto assured her with a grin as both of them watched Ryu and Ken get back up, "Not bad for the both of us not saying a word before I did that. All you heard was Konbi Henge (Combination Transformation) and you went right along with it. It was cool, 'ttebayo."

"Aww… someone's excited."

"Oh shush up Sakura-chan."

Naruto didn't wait for Ken and Ryu to get back into prepared fighting stances, choosing to bull-rush them while they looked unprepared for any follow-up attack. Neither Ryu or Ken were that amateur-esque however, and seamlessly broke into their original plan of splitting off.

Ken directly cut Naruto off with a blast of a Hadoken that Naruto slid underneath on the slick tile floor of the airport terminal, aiming at Ken's legs. Seemingly impressed at the young man's body mechanics, Ken timed Naruto's slide and jumped into the air before planning to land with a falling knee and a falling punch to smash Naruto into the ground.

Channeling chakra to his hands to quickly friction himself to a premature stop that forced Ken's falling attack to miss him completely, Naruto kipped back up to his feet, shoving a front kick at Ken's stomach that was blocked before using Ken's blocking arm as a base to deliver a backflip kick that Ken barely leaned his head out of the way of, "Whoo!" Ken felt the wind pass by his face on that one, but Naruto was airborne, and he had an immediate counter in mind, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!"

From his place on the ground, Ken launched at Naruto with a punch intensified by his ki to the extent that the end of his fist had a touch of flames on the end of it. He was soaring directly towards the midair Naruto that was descending right towards him.

"Oh hell no!" Naruto cried as the punch made contact and his body was burned by the punch. But then his physical form turned into a metal airport trashcan that had a hole punched clean through it and held touches of burns in it.

Ken landed and kicked the trashcan out of the way as it fell after he had finished his descent, "Damn it. How did he do that? Is this kid a wizard or something?" He then recoiled in pain when something hard hit him in the back of the head and landed on the ground beside him, "Ow! Was that a shoe?" He took note of the red woman's footwear that had just dinged him in the back of the head.

"All-purpose boot actually." The answer came from Karin as she looked a bit miffed that Naruto had managed to snake her shoe off of her foot with nary a fuss out of her whatsoever, "I do not see why you couldn't throw your own shoe Naruto-san." Whenever he threw random things he always seemed to take her stuff.

"I need my shoes." Naruto replied, a bit disappointed that the hard, sturdy sole of Karin's boot didn't knock Ken for more of a loop, "I'm the one fighting."

Carrying weapons into an airport wasn't a good idea, thus Naruto went without packing the vast majority of his gear for their excursion into town that day. No kunai, no shuriken, no caltrops, and no explosive notes. He had to improvise.

Speaking of improvisation, Ken backflipped behind the trashcan from before and kicked it with pinpoint accuracy at Naruto who dodged it with a jump to the side. Ken was anticipating such an action from the nimble little bastard, all he didn't know was which way Naruto would jump towards. Such a thing would tell him more than anyone could know at first glance.

After watching Naruto jump to the right, Ken quickly advanced on him only for Naruto to lash out with a swinging high kick. He used his right leg, something Ken anticipated as it was Naruto's dominant side judging from the way he dodged.

From the angle that Ken came in at, Naruto's kick never had a chance at hitting him and left the youngster wide open as he jumped at him, spinning in a full circle multiple times with his leg outstretched, battering Naruto's body thrice before kicking him away with force, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!"

Batsu cringed and even Karin winced a bit at watching Naruto's body fly away and roll along the ground from Ken's spirited kick combination, "Ugh, he was doing so good too."

"Ken Masters is the strongest man in North America." Karin stated as she finally got her boot back and began putting it onto her foot, "Possibly the entire western hemisphere. Even if Naruto-san hadn't made a mistake he wouldn't have dominated him outright." She then noticed Cammy silently paying rapt attention to both theaters of combat with a shine in her eyes she hadn't seen out of her prior and wondered what was going through the former assassin's head, 'Has she retained her knowledge on fighting?'

Meanwhile Cammy's eyes were affixed firmly on the fight at hand with an analytical focus on the every move of the combatants. She didn't even know how she knew to look for the things she was identifying in the heat of combat, but she was pinpointing the minutest things about each fighter's particular personal nuances when it came to fighting.

Sakura's skills were rooted in a mimicked version of the style used by Ryu and Ken. She could control the size of her base Hadoken while Ryu and Ken could not, but in doing so she sacrificed range in the projectile. Her physical strength was not up to compare with the others currently fighting and she didn't have the flashiest technique, but it clearly worked for what she needed it for. Her ability to quickly counter appropriately was impressive.

Naruto was all over the place. It seemed like his fighting style, whatever it really was, was overwhelmingly offensive, defense other than dodging and blocking be damned. There wasn't much finesse to it. He'd attempt to hit you, if it failed he'd try it in another way from another angle, and again, and again until he finally teed off on you. It was so spastic, with no rhyme or reason for some of the things he did, but it all flowed. It was as if he had painstakingly broken down exactly what random moves would work for him and stitched them together to comprise his fighting style. And that wasn't even taking into account his extra abilities.

Ken was faster than Ryu and focused on the physical arts, linking combinations more often despite the fact they used the exact same style while Ryu was stronger and had more power to punish his foes. Despite the furious effort being put forth by the two youngsters, the older fighters seemed to be keeping their heads about them, looking for weak spots before taking advantage of their first opening.

This was what Ryu was doing as Sakura did her best to deliver a shot that would bring him to his knees. Her best attempts to get in close with Ryu to negate her limited reach in comparison to the man were thwarted by his impeccable footwork that cut her off by backstepping and taking sharp angles to get to her sides.

But he refrained from knocking her block off for some reason, just stepping away and waiting for her next move. It was like he was just observing her instead of fighting her.

All of a sudden while blocking a furious flurry of punches from Sakura, Ryu swept her legs out from underneath her, knocking her to the ground before moving into a spinning back downward-aimed elbow that looked poised to finish her off with one fluid motion.

Angry at how he seemed to be just testing her, Sakura was active the moment she hit the ground and kicked up at Ryu's elbow attack, breaking the maneuver before using a masterful move that showed that she knew her own strengths well, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" She fired a quick blast from her back directly at Ryu with no room for him to move away and with his balance thrown off by her forcing his previous attack to fail.

No aim was really necessary at how close the two were together, and the Hadoken hit Ryu right in the chest pushing him back across the floor as if he had been pounded in the torso with a hammer. He sharply inhaled at that exact moment as Sakura got up to her feet, 'She really has improved greatly.' Ryu thought to himself as now he was forced to contest with the punches and kicks of a more confident Sakura.

Even when he chose to retaliate with counterpunches and kicks after blocking one of Sakura's own, she was in the groove of the fight enough to be able to amply protect herself and continue forth. Sakura's hands moved for another quick Hadoken to shatter Ryu's base, but fool me once shame on you. He was quick to knock Sakura's hands aside before she could finish channeling the ki and forced her to misfire towards the ground, kicking up dust and broken tile debris that momentarily blinded her.

Taking advantage of this, Ryu grabbed Sakura by her collar and scarf and turned around to hurl her over his shoulder judo-style, slamming her hard to the ground and knocking the breath right out of her, "That's it. I see it now." He said, backing away as Sakura coughed and hacked, standing up to continue, "You doubted yourself earlier when you first asked me for this match, but then Naruto fired you up and now look at you. You get it. I see the will in your eyes to win, so come at me!"

Without needing further incentive, Sakura leapt right at Ryu before swinging her hands down in a double hammer-fist attack that Ryu had to get his hands up to block, "Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop)!" Not done yet, Sakura grabbed onto his blocking arms and contorted herself in the air like a gymnast to position herself to slam her knees into the back of Ryu's head, "Don't underestimate me!"

"That's my line!" Naruto shouted from his portion of the fight where he was dodging harrowing attacks from Ken by the slimmest of margins. A kick that Naruto had to bridge all the way back to avoid led to him kicking out one of Ken's legs, giving him an opening to get some space between them.

"Stop running away kid!"

"I'm not running! It's a tactical retreat!" Naruto replied before making sure he had Sakura's attention, "Sakura-chan, tag!" She looked reluctant, but nodded and began running towards Naruto to intercept Ken and allow Naruto to take on Ryu.

"Oh no you don't!" Ken put a little extra burst into his legs to speed up just enough to where he could leap right over Naruto and Sakura with a full front flip to ensure that Naruto would still be running right toward him. He would be damned if he let them dictate the pace of the battle.

It was just feint however, as when they were about to pass each other Naruto grabbed Sakura so that they were both running towards Ken instead of merely switching dance partners. Naruto's hands flew towards his seal for Kage Bunshin and two clones started running towards Ken along with them.

He never really anticipated that they had been faking him out, thus it was a credit to him when he was able to block the attack of the first Naruto that flew towards him with a leaping kick. As he only had two arms, the second Naruto blasted him right in the stomach with a kick, and the third jumped up and punt kicked him right in the face.

Not to be outdone, Sakura finished up with a jumping spin uppercut done in her own way; her Shou'oken, as both she and Naruto cried out at the same time at the conclusion of their joint attack, "Sakura no Arashi (Cherry Blossom Storm)!"

Both youngsters came to a stop as Naruto's clones popped out of existence around them. Sakura looked at Naruto strangely with a satisfied smile on her face, "I can't believe that worked, and we didn't trip over each other's feet either."

Ken and Ryu had been knocked for loops by these two kids. If Naruto had fought toe-to-toe with Bison and had managed to win that obviously meant that he was strong, but who knew that Sakura was packing that kind of firepower. While directly fighting head-to-head they both would have brute forced her into submission, she was more than smart enough to know that she'd never win fighting like that and used some Naruto-style misdirection to compensate.

Blood poured from Ken's mouth that he wiped away while Ryu got back up holding the back of his head, "Well, well, well. Who knew our cute little kohai had this in her?" The blonde said as he cleaned off his hand on his gi pants. He'd have to change clothes and clean up before they got on the plane.

Ryu nodded with a hint of a smile on his face despite how challenging the fight had grown to be, "Allow me to fight Sakura for a bit longer. I'll finish up with her. Can you hold Naruto off until I subdue Sakura?"

A snort of indignation emitted from Ken who rolled his eyes, "Don't insult me, I bet you I'll finish Naruto before you finish Sakura. That was just round two you know. They had to stage a bit of a comeback to make this fight worth talking about. This time it's a whole different ballgame. I've got that kid's kryptonite."

Big words, but of course from Ken it wasn't any different from how he normally saw himself. If he said it that meant he believed it, and that was all the assurance Ryu needed. He nodded and the two began to wordlessly conspire on how to separate both Naruto and Sakura, because they had terribly efficient teamwork.

Naruto was the hummingbird, fast and hard to predict, always moving around and threatening an enemy until they left an opening while trying to deal with him. On the other hand, Sakura was the observant and more reserved one of the pair, able to hone in on the openings that Naruto could and would create. That much was evident from their single team combination that they had busted out on the fly.

"Do you have another one of those random combos we did up your sleeve?" Sakura whispered to Naruto as they both stood with their backs facing each other as they prepared for Ken and Ryu once more, "Because I think that was the cleanest hit I landed today."

"I don't know. That one kind of came out of nowhere Sakura-chan." He may have dinged Ken one or two good times just a moment ago, but Sakura was the one that had landed the lion's share of the damage when she attacked him out of nowhere, and with Ryu back in the fight, isolating one or the other was going to be a tall order, "You use their style, so how do they fight?"

Ryu heard Naruto's query to Sakura and decided that then was the time to attack before they could work something out, "Using similar moves doesn't mean that our approaches to fighting are the same as well!" Ryu asserted before launching a Hadoken to split them up.

Much to the credit of both Naruto and Sakura as a unit they weren't going to allow themselves to be bullied by a single ki technique, and both held out single arms to block the blast and split the defensive impact between the two of them, making it no more damaging than catching a hard punch in their hands. As Ken tried to rush in and try his hand at seeing if he could break them up with his fists, Naruto took a quick position behind Sakura who crouched for him and allowed him to make his hand-seals and inhale deeply, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

Ken dodged to the side to avoid the glowing bright blue mouth-based projectile attack, but a crouching Sakura fired off a Hadoken since he was in range for it. Ken jumped clean over it and intended to land down on both Naruto and Sakura with a diving kick. Naruto stepped up off of the crouching Sakura's shoulder and launched up at him in the air.

Drifting up past Ken's kick, Naruto grabbed the red clad warrior's shoulders and placed his knees on them, tightly around his head and neck to drive Ken down to the ground on his back, "Chiruochiba Osu (Falling Leaf Press)!" He didn't get to finish his anti-air counter as Ryu jumped into the air and kicked Naruto off of his friend's shoulders, freeing Ken from the forceful slam that would have focused all of Naruto's body weight on his upper body.

Despite being kicked off as Ken fell safely to the ground, Naruto backflipped through and landed on his feet before dropping down to one knee, holding his bruised chin, "Grr… I thought I had him." He said, punching the ground in frustration.

"That was close though." Sakura was back at his side again, patting him firmly on the shoulder, encouraging him to get back up and not to lose his temper, "Come on. I think we can actually win this one." That was all Naruto needed to hear as he cracked his knuckles and nodded before the two rushed out at Ryu and Ken once more.

Ken got up off of his back quickly after being freed from what would have been the most devastating attack that Naruto would have hit him with in the fight, "Thanks for saving my ass partner. These are some wiry brats."

"I'm excited that the next generation is this talented." Ryu said with an excited smirk on his face as he saw an incoming Naruto and Sakura coming their way. He bounced on his toes in anticipation of their approach and watched Naruto make a clone that jumped into the air to initiate the conflict once more, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Punch)!" He leapt up and hit his twisting uppercut that preempted whatever the clone was going to do.

The same motion allowed him to leap clear over Naruto, forcing Naruto to engage headlong into another hand-to-hand battle with Ken at a more furious pace than ever before. Ryu landed just as Sakura came to a stop, not wanting to run into a stiff attack. Ryu simply beckoned her forward, but she shook her head and wordlessly requested him to make his move.

A quick quirk of Ryu's lips was her only warning before he stormed forth and once again put her on the full defensive, blocking punches and kicks with brick-breaking force behind them. Every so often he would snipe at a weak point in her defense, periodically tagging the girl with sharp punches to the face and hooks and kicks to the body.

She almost preferred it when he had been taking it easier on her, but she quickly squashed that thought and kept fighting. It wouldn't do well to wilt now that the pressure was finally on her for certain.

Getting a second of breathing room, Sakura didn't hesitate to unleash a quick spinning jump kick that rotated her around twice, battering Ryu's guard, "Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Leg)!" She finished with an upward aimed side kick that almost took Ryu's scalp out had he not leaned out of the way, "Oh darn!" She knew she had made a mistake before she had even missed the last kick. It was a habit of hers to finish that move with one last kick for emphasis.

This time it bit her in a way that she just couldn't recover from as she very shortly thereafter found Ryu's fist seemingly trying its best to drive its way through her face. After being hit by him while he was brainwashed she knew he hadn't been hitting her as hard as he was really capable of, but after taking that blow the lights slowly flickered out in her head.

Her body flew a short distance and slid to a stop on the ground motionless. She didn't try to get up again simply because she was unable to.

Ryu exhaled sharply as he still stood in the strong position from the straight punch right to Sakura's jaw that knocked her out cold. He stayed there for a moment to observe and make sure that she was finished. He then wheeled around to where Naruto was fighting Ken and sat down on his knees to watch out the rest of their battle. He wasn't going to step into his friend's battle for something like this.

To Ken's surprise Naruto had no problems standing and trading back and forth even though he was taking the worst of the back and forth trading of punches and kicks. He would try for something off the wall like a kick that would not only allow him to get underneath a punch from Ken, but would also let him sit back on his hands and plant both of his feet in Ken's chest with a kick that would throw him off balance.

Naruto got back onto his feet and sprang at Ken, intent on taking advantage of what he had just done as he created four clones that surrounded Ken on all sides. Naruto first sprang off of one of his clones' back and shoulders to get air while the rest of them lined up an upwards kick that would knock Ken into the air, "U! Zu! Ma! Ki!"

The kicks never landed as Ken never let them get close enough to kick him into the air, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!" His whirling dervish of an attack dispelled all of the clones, leaving Naruto airborne and dropping with no one rising to meet him.

That was alright though. Narutp planned on landing with some impact anyway as he formed his devastating spinning blue ball of pure chakra in his right hand, "It's not that easy! Uzumaki Naruto is the greatest ninja in the world, dattebayo! Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Ken quickly dove out of the way, allowing Naruto to slam the Rasengan into the ground. That was what would have happened though, had Naruto not tracked him while he was moving. Naruto overloaded the Rasengan the moment before he would have touched the ground, causing it to expand and burst, pushing him off towards Ken, sailing through the air like a surface-to-air missile.

"That's how you do it teme!" Batsu shouted when Naruto was right on Ken without missing a beat, "Show him why we're a pair of finely tuned asskicking machines!"

An impressed Ken hunkered down, anticipating Naruto flying towards him for a brutal dropkick that would have sent him flying, "That was a good recovery. Very flashy too… but you blew your wad too soon on that one kid! Shoryureppa (Rising Dragon Destroyer)!" He had Naruto timed down to the very last split moment.

He threw one leaping uppercut that clashed with Naruto's legs and negated the boy's attack, throwing Naruto back into the air while Ken was sent back to land on the ground, but Ken immediately jumped back up with a faster, finisher of a sky-high twisting burning uppercut that caught Naruto directly under the chin and set him on fire for a split second before it was put out like a vacuum sucked all of the oxygen out of the flames.

It seemed like Naruto was floating through the air like moth before gravity took hold and he dropped to the ground, light burns lining his frame and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. He hit the ground as nothing but dead weight with an audible thud as the gawking public reacted vocally to the impressive battle as they started going back to their own business.

"Hmm…" Ryu hummed with an almost nonexistent nod , "I see. He's a very special young fighter."

Batsu slammed a crutch on the ground in frustration at the loss, "One damn mistake! He was doing great! I swear he could have won that fight!" He started hobbling over along with Cammy and Karin as Ryu carried the still knocked out Sakura over as well.

"He fought very well." Cammy commented. Several things she saw during that fight felt familiar, "Both of them did." She had seen both portions of the battle and was impressed by everything she saw, but watching Naruto fight dredged up fledgling thoughts of her going against him in the past. Nothing concrete though. As far as she could tell it could have just as easily been a daydream out of control.

"One mistake is all it takes." Ken said as he walked over to Naruto and crouched down, checking him to make sure that he hadn't hurt him anymore than just knocking him out. He noticed Karin had taken a spot by Naruto's head and had set it in her lap as she herself checked him over, "He's fine." She looked up for long enough to shoot him a quick glare before her attention turned back towards the beaten down Naruto, "Heh."

"Did you have to set him on fire?" Karin snapped while making sure that Naruto's eyebrows didn't get singed off of his face, "That seems a little much."

Hey, it was a fight, and Naruto had already proven to be as tough as nails. To knock him out you had to take that head of his out. No cumulative damage would do the job. You had to knock him O.U.T; out, no getting around it, "He was a tough out. I can only imagine how great this would have been if we had more privacy." How security never tried to stop them he would never know, "Besides, from how fast you just put him all nestled up in your lap it doesn't look like you mind too much."

"He is my investment." While her leering was a good attempt to hide her embarrassment at getting called out by Ken Masters, Karin still panicked enough to drop his head from her lap and onto the hard floor, "Oops."

Letting out a bit of laughter, Ken stood up and dusted off the legs of his gi pants, "Whatever you say. Just don't let that privileged girl thing define who you are as a person. Take it from someone else who grew up rich." He gestured towards Batsu and Cammy who was now holding an unconscious Sakura, "Remember that conversation we had back in Thailand."

Karin blinked and nodded for a moment as she remembered just a few days ago back before they had set out to return to Hong Kong to get everyone home

(Flashback – Two Days Ago – Northwest Thailand Interior – Small Village)

A rather bedraggled looking Karin sat on her knees, breathing heavily and looking quite defeated. While practicing by herself just outside of the village to pass the time, Ken ran across her and challenged her to a spar of sorts. Of course, seeing an opportunity to test herself against the most powerful fighter in the United States she simply couldn't turn that down and accepted.

As well of a fight as she put up, in the end she was still soundly defeated. Trounced even. And her frustration at the past few days coupled with her most recent defeat built up to something of a boiling point in her, "This is unacceptable!" She shouted as she stood up and threw a kick at a tree hard enough to fell the tree entirely, "I thought I was stronger than this!"

Waiting for the tree to safely fall to the ground with a cracking crash, Ken just observed her pacing about back and forth in a bit of a rage. This wasn't just because she had lost a fight, it had to have been pent up for quite some time.

"I'm supposed to be the best. It's all I'm allowed to be." Karin said quietly as she sat against another tree and slid to the ground to take a seat, "All I need is victory… and I can't even get that any longer. Ever since Sakura-san… and him. I haven't beaten anyone important."

Distraught teenage girls weren't really Ken's thing. He liked to blame training almost like a hermit with Gouken and Ryu for over ten years. He missed prime time hitting on girls in his teen years in exchange for getting that roundhouse kick just right under Gouken's watch. How he even got a girlfriend was beyond him.

Still though, for some reason Karin reminded him of himself; a wealthy family, trained extensively in the martial arts. Her attitude reminded him a lot of the way he used to be before Gouken's terrorizing training beat the entitlement out of him one punch at a time. Also like him she had people around her to more or less straighten her out. All he had was Ryu growing up. He counted three good friends for her.

Ken pulled up alongside her and sat down next to her against the tree, trying to play therapist, "Winning isn't everything that you should take from the matches you find yourself in." He said to her, "Ryu's the oldest rival I've got, and we've kicked each other around so much we've lost count of who's won more."

"Easy for the United States champion to say."

"I admit, it's kind of dumb for someone like me to talk about losing." Ken acknowledged freely, "But I wasn't a champion when I was your age. Tell me, who exactly have you lost to other than me to make you act like this?"

Karin held up two fingers for emphasis, "Kasugano Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto."

Ken kept waiting for more names to be rattled off, but Karin gave him nothing else. The silence between them dragged before Ken gave her a deadpan look, "That's it? Sakura and the Naruto kid that helped beat Bison the other day? That's it?" Karin looked confused but nodded. She had engaged in dozens of street fights in between those two defeats, but they still stung, " Those are the only people you've lost to and you're all down in the dumps about it."

"It is not just the losses that matter." Karin got up from the tree and started pacing around, wiping a smudge of dirt off of her cheek from her previous fight against Ken, "I've been fraternizing with them since then. Socializing with my rivals! That goes against all business sense!" She slammed another kick against a sturdier tree and stripped the bark clean off of it as if her leg had been a whip, "They're making me soft."

Soft? That girl didn't fight like she was soft, and from what he had seen of her interactions with Sakura that seemed to be a step short of being an outright blood feud at times that didn't really prove much of her case as going soft either.

But maybe it wasn't Sakura out of the two aforementioned that was making her soft.

Ah… kids.

As she continued to pace about, she stopped when she saw Ken grinning at her, and for the life of her she couldn't understand why, "And just what is so entertaining about what I'm saying." She would then go on to be thoroughly embarrassed for the next five minutes. Picking out openings and weaknesses clearly didn't end only on the battlefield for Ken Masters as she would come to find out.

(End Flashback)

"You're going to need people like them to keep you grounded." Ken looked down at Naruto before he started walking away, "Tell him he did great, that he needs to keep cultivating that way of fighting he uses. It's different." He was a terror. A tactical nightmare. A little more polish and no one would question whether Naruto was a diamond or not, there would be no rough about it. That would only come with time.

Meanwhile, Ryu was looking down at the unconscious Sakura being held up by Cammy who didn't seem to mind bearing Sakura's weight until she woke up. He reached into his travel bag and pulled out a small notepad that he placed on Sakura's person, making sure that she had it cradled, "I can't stick around to train her. I'm still not ready to take on any kind of pupil. But make sure she reads this if she's really set on me being the one to teach her something. It should help."

Not really knowing what else to do other than accept it, Cammy nodded. These people certainly were strange, and she was quite certain that watching the team battle gave her something of an adrenaline rush, all without her being the one fighting.

It was a bit startling though, that when Cammy saw openings in any of the combatant's fighting technique she visualized herself countering them with her own specific maneuvers. Did she even have fighting moves? That had to be something she tested out later because for right then Ken and Ryu were leaving them behind to clean up and board their plane out of the country.

"Oh my jaw… and the rest of my head." Naruto moaned in pain as he regained consciousness first and sat up from his place on Karin's lap. He looked around and saw Ken and Ryu walking further into the terminal after the crowd had dispersed, blending in and fading away through the pedestrians, "Damn, I lost didn't I?"

"You fought a very good fight Naruto-san." Karin told him as she helped him back up to his feet, "Are you okay? You were out cold for quite a few minutes just now."

Naruto continued to hold his jaw and noticeably winced as he spoke, "Yeah, I'm fine Karin. My pride hurts worse than my face." He frowned when he saw Sakura in Cammy's arms as obviously she hadn't fared any better either, "We just got our asses handed to us." He mumbled through his injuries.

"It's really not that bad." Batsu said encouragingly as he hobbled his way over on his crutches with Cammy following, "You might have lost, but you can say that you both laid a pretty good beating on a pair of world-recognized champions. How many people can say that they did some shit like that when they were sixteen?"

"You curse a lot." Cammy observed randomly, taking the air out of Batsu's sails as he tried to cheer Naruto up, "But he has a point. You both fought incredibly well Naruto. That was really exciting to watch. It looked like you had him when those copies of you surrounded him." A genuine smile peeked its way through on her face, as just watching the fight seemingly cheered her up.

With a thumbs-up gesture towards the amnesia-afflicted girl, Naruto looked in the direction that he had seen Ken and Ryu walk off in, noting that they were both gone completely, "I've got to get stronger. Definitely. All of us do."

"And we will." Placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder in a supportive manner, Karin's stare then turned icy enough to get Naruto to shiver, "I will not accept being left behind again the way you chose to do during the final attack on Shadaloo's stronghold." Naruto just nodded once while Batsu started backing away from the scary girl, "Good. Now shall we return home?"

"I was wondering… no nevermind."

Everyone stopped their efforts to leave the airport when they heard Cammy prepare to ask a question only to balk at doing so before she got it out. Naruto walked towards her, getting her to look away bashfully at being put on the spot, "What's the matter Cammy?" He asked as he took Sakura off of her hands only to watch her fidget with them, "Come on. Say what you were going to say."

Being reassured did nothing for her nerves, and once again it had to be brought up that Cammy's instinctual emotions when not suppressed were much closer to what a normal person's would have been. She was clearly uneasy about what she wished to talk about. She swallowed heavily and figured that not asking at all would be worse than asking and getting a bad response as a result.

"Well… I really don't wish to stay in Hong Kong by myself." She started to say, "The other girls are having their homes found and are being returned. Aside from that they aren't awake yet. Even if they were I don't know anything about them."

"So…" It was kind of obvious at that point what she wanted, and that she was scared that they would say no to her. Naruto simply took it upon himself to finish her thought for her, "Do you want to come back to Japan with us?" She looked away but nodded regardless, "That's alright with us."

That came as a surprise to Cammy, "It is?" Wow, did she really know them that well before she lost her memory? They did all feel familiar to her, setting her with a bit of ease around them, but she simply couldn't pinpoint why and from where or for what reason.

Karin - "Yes, of course. It only makes sense since you do not know anyone else outside of us."

Batsu - "Where else would you go? You can definitely come with us. Aohura City needs more pretty girls anyway."

Naruto - "You thought we were just going to ditch you here? No way. We're friends Cammy. We thought you'd ask us sooner but we didn't want to force it on you. You can come with us and stay as long as you want."

She didn't know what she had experienced with these people to get them to treat her in such a way, but it made her feel good. Things could have been worse for her than not having a memory Cammy surmised. She could have been in a coma like the other Dolls, or with someone that would mistreat and take advantage of her, or on her own God forbid.

Those things weren't things she had to worry about though. For now she had somewhere to go, and when the others gestured her forth to follow them to the rail transport to begin their trek back to Karin's yacht to return home she didn't hesitate for a moment to follow them with a content smile on her face. She was still nervous, but there was more optimism than hesitance.

XxX

As they left that section of the airport, a man that had been observing them all from the moment the team battle involving Ken and Ryu began took note of this with great interest in the youngsters that had unwittingly put on a show for the entire airport and for him as well, "And here I was hoping to see a little something amusing, but this was something incredible altogether."

The old man had slick grey hair and a long beard going down his face. He wore a long purple Chinese shirt with long sleeves, a purple sash around his waist, as well as a pair of dark blue pants and a pair of red martial arts shoes. He got up from the seat he had been in on a bench, picking up his suitcase as he walked his own way out of the airport.

"Children these days are so interesting." He commented to himself, "Maybe one of them will get strong enough to be marked as a target by me one day."

The man idly walked his way home through the streets of Hong Kong, refraining from using public transportation, not using a personal vehicle to traverse the large city. The walk was nothing for someone like him. Barely a brisk little stroll around town, suitcase in hand or not.

Eventually though, he arrived home and walked inside, shutting and locking the door behind him and dropping his luggage at the door, "I'm back, and it was quite a fruitful trip. I found who I was looking for and fought him." He said, getting nothing but silence through the house despite the fact that he was speaking as if he wasn't alone, "…You could at least ask me how my trip went."

More silence.

"Such an ungrateful brat…" The old man mumbled as he walked through the house and made it to an empty room meant for meditation. It was pitch dark inside, but he could clearly sense the presence of a figure within sitting in the middle of the room. Without hesitation he walked inside and fonged the sitting figure on the back of the head, "Greet your master when he returns home boy. What kind of apprentice are you?"

"I'm not your apprentice, you just made me start living here when I was thirteen. I never chose to learn a thing from you."

"Oh ho, and yet it didn't stop you from taking what you saw at first glance whenever I found it prudent to teach you your manners with force did you?" The old man said with a smirk as he brushed his wispy beard with a wave of his hand and tossed it over his shoulder, turning around to head back to the doorway of the dark room, "It is your choice though. You can be labeled 'apprentice' or you can be labeled 'thief'. Either way it doesn't matter to me as long as you continue to pull your weight around here."

"Hm."

The jab at integrity was not risen to, not that it had been expected at all. This kid was usually as cool as ice, "I saw quite a good fight today at the airport when my plane landed. Kids are getting stronger all the time. It's like you're all so eager to rush to your deaths in battle."

"Hm."

"Japanese children, sort of like you. I only got the name of one of them though; a strange blonde child screaming about being the best ninja in the world, or something like that. Naruto is what I believed they called him. Honestly… what parent named that boy?"

"…Naruto." That seemed to ring through to the boy in the room who had been mostly inexpressive until that point. Now though, he was thoroughly interested, "Gen… the boy you're talking about. Is his name Uzumaki Naruto?"

"Hm? Yes I believe so. He was very impressive." The old man Gen flicked the lights on when he reached the doorway, "Do you plan on taking another mission soon? Your special brand of assassination is in high demand these days. It seems everyone loves the flashy stuff Sasuke."

Now bathed in the light of the outlets, it was clear that sitting in the middle of the floor was a young man with dark hair that was spiky in the back with bangs hanging off of the side of his face framing his cheeks. At the moment he was shirtless, but it was clear that he was a very athletically muscular teenaged young man with a tattoo of a red and white fan on his right arm and a small tattoo that looked like three separate tomoe on the back of his neck and shoulder.

"I'm not killing anyone that doesn't have a good excuse to die. I'll do one more, but then I'm going on a bit of a vacation Gen." Turning towards the elderly warrior, he looked at him with red eyes that had three particular markings in each of them, "You said that those kids were Japanese right?"

"Yes. Does this mean that there is finally something that's caught the 'great' Sasuke's notice enough for him to care about it one way or another?"

Sasuke stood up and walked past Gen out of the room with a roll of his eyes, "You wouldn't understand it at all. If I told you you'd never believe me."

As the young man walked away back to his own quarters, Gen merely shrugged and went back to his own business, leaving Sasuke to his own devices. The boy had always been strange ever since he had first arrived in the country a few years ago, 'That child is as strange as they come, and those mutated eyes of his… such a terribly effective gift had to be given to him by the devil himself at the cost of his soul. That horrible Sharingan.'

'Naruto…' Sasuke thought to himself as he reached his room. There wasn't much more than the bare necessities inside, but there was one personal trinket sitting by his bed on the nightstand. A piece of blue cloth with a metal band on it engraved with a leaf; a leaf with a scratch right through the middle of it, 'So you're here too.' A small smirk came to his face as he clutched the headband tight enough to cut his palm on the edge of the metal and stain it with his blood.

He knew Naruto hadn't died.

When he woke up after their final clash of attacks, Sasuke found himself alone in a canyon in America, no Naruto around him. He thought for a moment that he had been carried somewhere far away by the falls of the Valley of the End and simply started walking north… and north… and north until he was finally picked up by people he couldn't understand.

After an interpreter came that somehow spoke his language, Sasuke learned that he was no longer anywhere near his neck of the woods. He adjusted well enough, learning many of the languages, finding a way to put his skills to use for money until being found in China by Gen, who took him in after soundly thrashing him and gave him work as an assassin; only jobs that Sasuke chose to accept though.

Still, he always looked for a way to reverse his fortune and return to the Elemental Nations in vain. But now he finally found that he hadn't been the only one dumped there by the twist of fate that was their battle, "Well it looks like the world isn't done with the two of us yet huh?"