A Bijuu In His Pocket...

Chapter 34 - A Bijuu In His Pocket...

"I don't get it." Naruto said aloud as he walked through the weathered stone hallway of the martial arts temple that played host to the Second World Warrior Tournament. The day was over, the sun had fully set and night had fallen, thus it was time to show the fighters that had decided to stay to their rooms for the night, "I mean yeah, this whole tournament is kind of brutal, but unless fighting for our lives on TV is the big endgame here I don't get it."

And he doubted that this was the only reason the lot of them wound up being tipped off to the existence of the tournament.

In Naruto's arms he held Cammy, who was still asleep, but seemed as if she only needed a touch of rest to help her to recover from the beatdown from Sagat that eliminated her from contention. Walking with them happened to be the third of the four fighters that qualified from the Pacific side of the qualifiers, E. Honda.

The good-natured sumo had his light blue yukata fully over his shoulders covering his body instead of down around his waist in its battle position while he walked ahead of his scrappy blonde friend, "What does it matter? I've got your back kid. No one's getting a shot at your neck outside of the ring as long as I'm here!" He finished with boisterous laughter and a hard pat on Naruto's back that got him to stumble forward.

Naruto gave him a slight glare due to the fact that he had an injured and sleeping girl in his grasp and didn't really feel like dropping her, but quickly relented. All the man was saying was that he was willing to help in case something terrible happened.

It was reassuring and all, but other than that fact, Bison and Shadaloo in general held no large grudge or any foreseeable issue at all against E. Honda. Other than E. Honda's own reasons of wanting to put an end to Shadaloo peddling biochemical drugs to sumo wrestlers including a few in his stable, he had no reason to run up against them and make himself a target.

As the attendant leading them through the temple stopped by a room he bowed to Naruto and E. Honda before speaking, "This is one of the rooms we have available. You may each decide which of you stays here."

E. Honda gestured to Naruto to take it, and Naruto walked inside, setting Cammy down on the modest bed before taking her boots off, "This'll be her room when she wakes up. Could I get the room next to it just in case?" Upon his request the attendant nodded and gestured for both of the men to continue to follow him, "I'll be back in a little bit Cam. After you wake up we can go get something to eat." He said to her quietly before getting up to leave.

After walking five more feet, Naruto stopped at the very next open room and looked around at the very minimalist setup inside, "Well this looks to be you kid, so I'll catch you later?" E. Honda asked as Naruto walked slightly inside and pulled out a scroll that had both his and Cammy's suitcases inside. He'd give her hers later. Right now as he shut the door to the room he needed a nap like no one's business.

The bed wasn't as high-quality as his, but it was a martial arts temple. It wasn't supposed to be a damn Tempurpedic mattress. Even so, it still felt heavenly when his back touched down on it and his head hit the pillow. He hadn't even bothered to kick his sandals off first.

Naruto stared at the ceiling for a grand total of ten seconds before he shut his weary eyes and tried to get a quick rest.

Now he didn't know if it had been five minutes or five hours, but before he knew it he felt a foreign presence suddenly appear in his presence and his eyes opened to the bald head, brown skin, and solid white, pupil-less eyes of Dhalsim looking down at him.

It was lucky that Dhalsim had the power to teleport because if he didn't possess said ability, Naruto would have headbutted him when he sat abruptly out of surprise and let out a yelp, "Why would you do that?" Naruto shouted at him with a glare, "Knock like a regular person fool!" Ooh, if he'd have had a knife under his pillow… Mr. Mystic Man could have said goodbye right then.

If Dhalsim was put off by the young man's shout of a greeting he didn't show it, "Are you ready for the ritual?" He was covered in bandages that protected the burns that Sasuke had inflicted on him hours ago, but his face didn't show any expression of pain either.

Muttering to himself about rude awakenings, Naruto stood up and nodded, bones still feeling a bit battered from the two punishing bouts that he had endured that day, not even counting the wrist that Cammy had snapped.

What time was it by the way? It was pitch dark outside when he had gotten into his room to begin with, but now he had no idea. His sense of time was askew.

But that wasn't important. It didn't matter how much he hurt right then. All that mattered was healing the Kyuubi. As much as they had their differences and didn't see eye-to-eye, when it came down to it they were all that they had when there had been nothing else.

"Let's do this." Naruto consented, fishing his cell phone out of his pocket in the dark. Thank goodness he had sprung for a tough model with the day that he had just gone through. With the press of a few buttons he had Chun-Li on the line, "Hey yeah. Could you come and keep watch over Cammy for a few hours? She's still sleeping."

"Mmm… so was I." She wasn't cranky but from how she yawned she did sound quite tired herself, "But I guess I can pick up where I left off in her room. The bed's big enough for me and her." Naruto liked to think that he did an admirable job keeping his mind out of the gutter when she said that, "I'll be there in a minute or two."

Well that was one thing he could take off of his mind, "Great. I'll probably be busy for a few hours… or until morning, I don't know. Thanks." Before he even hung up, Dhalsim had a hand set on his shoulder. Man this guy was impatient, "Fine, let's go." And just like that, both he and Naruto vanished in Dhalsim's Yoga Teleport.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan)

There had been something of a little viewing party for the tournament at Karin's personal mansion and the entire day had been spent by the Aohura City crew watching their friends get kicked around by the best fighters in the world and each other. There was nothing like watching it all happen on a high definition screen the size of a movie theater screen.

The matches had ended hours ago, and now it was the aftershow with analysts trying to talk about what they had just seen as if they could possibly comprehend the incredible feats of the fighters that had shown their skills all afternoon long, but that didn't stop the youngsters from sitting around and talking about it themselves.

"I can't believe Ryu lost." Sakura said, shaking her head in disbelief from her seat next to Kei who was holding onto Cammy's cat. She had figured that he was going to be primed for another showdown with Sagat in the finals… or maybe Naruto lest she forget that the former 'God of Muay Thai' would have to get through her best friend first, "I thought that he had the Satsui no Hadou under control."

In another sofa with his girlfriend and Sakura's friend Hinata sleeping against him, Batsu rolled his eyes, "That's what you're stuck on? Yeah, he was scary as hell when he almost torched Ken with that Hadoken, but come on, Naruto's going on to day two. Show some excitement for that why don't you?"

Sakura shot him a half-hearted glare, she was happy that he had advanced, but she didn't say anything as Karin sat in her own throne-like chair in a proper fashion for her station, "As impressive a feat as it is, especially with an injured hand, we should not forget the fact that this is all orchestrated by Shadaloo. All of our friends are injured and exhausted to various degrees."

It was true. If ever there was going to be a time to attack, it would be at night when the cameras were gone. They had spent all day trying to destroy each other, and even if it occurred off-screen, there probably wouldn't be a better time to take down anyone left there.

Still dressed in her school uniform, Ibuki was pacing around the room with her hands behind her back just thinking about the entire situation, "But they're all together. Between Guile, Blanka, Ken, Ryu, E. Honda, Sasuke, Cammy, Chun-Li, and Naruto, do you really think a bad guy would risk trying to go after them even then?"

Granted she'd never met half of those people, but she'd heard of them and that they were friends of her friends. She'd also seen them all in battle today, and if all of them found themselves in battle against one man there wasn't any way he'd manage to bring them all down. It just didn't make any sense.

"It depends on how strong he is after his body was destroyed." Sakura mused to herself, catching her friend Kei's confusion from her place next to her. That was right. Neither she nor Ibuki really knew anything about the last episode with Shadaloo, "In Thailand he took everything that Guile, Charlie, Ken, Ryu, and I could throw at him. I don't know how Naruto and Cammy subdued him for as long as they did by themselves because with all of us together we barely ruined his body. If this is anything like then, I'm not sure."

"Then we should go right?" Ibuki said, turning to the entirety of her friends and trying to appeal to them, "What if something really does go wrong and they need help? Kanzuki-san's got a bunch of ways we can get to Thailand by tomorrow afternoon. We can make it."

Yeah, she'd probably get into trouble with her village, but screw that. She had missed out on helping her friends against the psychopaths in Shadaloo the first time due to injury, and now that it was happening again she was going to be a non-factor for a second time?

This well-meaning desire to show up and back up her friends wound up being quickly quelled by Karin though, "We will not be going anywhere. Do you remember the reason that Naruto-san chose to train and compete in the tournament to begin with? He chose to go directly into the maw of the enemy to prevent the reach of the criminals from reaching out at all of us. Were we to fly out first thing, what would the reason for entering even have been?"

Naruto didn't have any interest in winning tournaments outside of the few times when Karin was able to coax him into sanctioned competition. An intimate knowledge of Naruto would reveal that he didn't have anything to prove to anyone, and really only did it in the past for the prize money.

The only reason he entered was to ensure that any grievances Bison held against him remained just between them, and Cammy went with him because she was just sweet like that. Were it not for that, Naruto probably wouldn't have cared one way or another about the Second World Warrior Tournament. According to Sakura he didn't give two craps about the first one even though she notably tried to persuade him to enter.

Still, Ibuki didn't like the passive approach being pitched by the wealthy young woman, and she took offense to being more or less told that everyone was meant to wait and stand down on the homefront until someone came home, "So he's just supposed to play your white knight, going off to slay a dragon while you sit back in your castle and wait for him?"

Karin's gaze on the teenage kunoichi turned downright frosty in return despite the red that momentarily marked her cheeks at the knight/princess comparison, "I do not think I like what you seem to be implying of me. Perhaps you should clarify in case I am mistaken."

"You know exactly what I'm saying." Ibuki didn't back down a touch in the face of a glare that had made hardened businessmen sell out their company's assets to her for her father's sake in the past, "You probably see Naruto as some kind of asset more than anything else, and him winning the tournament makes things all the better for you right? And your family was getting strong-armed by Shadaloo weren't they? Sending Naruto out to kill off the leadership of the organization would certainly benefit you wouldn't it?"

If her lineage had not been so completely refined to teach her restraint in situations such as this, Karin probably would have slapped Ibuki for insinuating such a thing, "You are forgiven for such a callous statement. I believe I will attribute this to a momentary lack of judgment."

"You can call it whatever you want sister, but bewitching someone like Naruto and sending him off to fight your battles for you isn't fair at all."

"Excuse me? Bewitching him you say?"

"So you're not using his attachment to the people he cares for to get him to do what you want?"

"I would never do any such thing! How dare you! I did not want him to go to begin with! Perhaps he is merely being the upstanding ninja of his own accord that we know him to be, unlike some jealous, shifty kunoichi we all know."

"First of all, 'upstanding ninja' is an oxymoron of a statement if I've ever heard one. And second of all; shifty? How am I shifty Little Miss Business Shark? People like you are way more treacherous than a ninja!"

As things seemed to begin escalating, Batsu's eyes opened wide and he held his sleeping girlfriend a bit closer with a touch of excitement in his face, "…Catfight." He muttered low enough for no one else to hear him. He saw such amazing things.

The pair of rival maidens were standing chest-to-chest with each other, trying to melt the other's skull with the power of their stare. Killing intent wasn't quite there, but intent to cause great harm did indeed happen to be there. But before either of them felt the need to back up and square off with the other, they were both eased away from each other calmly when Sakura slowly pushed them apart.

"Alright everyone calm down." Sakura tried to say with a strained smile on her face, "We're probably all still just jazzed up from doing nothing but watching fights since we got out of school today. No one wants to fight tonight, do they?" Such a brave girl.

Despite acting as the voice of reason that she tried to be, much to her confusion both Ibuki and Karin turned their glares onto her, getting her to carefully back away a few steps just in case.

"Sakura-san, one of us will find an actual reason to deal with you at a later time. At the moment Ibuki-san and I are the ones with a pressing issue."

"Yeah Sakura-chan, don't be so eager to get in the middle of this. Enjoy the peace while you can."

While disappointed in the lack of catfight due to Sakura managing to at least defuse that much, Batsu still found himself markedly interested even when he noticed that Kei had moved herself and the kitten far out of the possible line of fire to sit next to him and Hinata to get a better view, "So I'm new to this kind of thing. What exactly is happening?"

Kei made an effort to keep her voice as quiet as possible lest she disturb the beehive she was right in the middle of, "Well Ibuki took the most direct offense to Karin spending an exorbitant amount of time with Naruto to the extent that she felt comfortable making a move on him. Meanwhile Ibuki has had less opportunity herself and has had to resort to more direct actions when she's had the chance with him."

"And what's with both of them turning on Sakura? She seems confused about it."

"That's easy. Sakura's so far ahead of the other two in her day-to-day relationship with Naruto that basic intimacy doesn't have much of anything to do with them anymore. It's way past that even if Naruto and Sakura don't recognize that they're not just friends. Karin and Ibuki do, and see challenging Sakura in that department as far more dangerous than trying to pick off one another. Both of them don't want anything to do with her in something like this yet."

"Ah, I get it. You know this is really funny."

"It is really funny. It's like Animal Planet but with people."

"So it's like reality TV?"

"I don't think it's quite that mindless."

XxX

(With Naruto – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

It was definitely past midnight, that much was for sure. The sound of night creatures, of crickets and all sorts of evening animals, filled the air while Naruto and Dhalsim sat in the middle of a wooden bridge in the center of a beautiful garden. They needed a place of absolute tranquility for Dhalsim to do what he needed to establish the needed link with Naruto's mind.

Facing each other in their seated positions, Dhalsim reached out and placed a hand on the top of Naruto's spiky head, "Ease your mind child. I trust you are aware of your own subconscious as a separate plane of your existence?"

"Yeah…" Naruto said, a bit uncomfortable at the contact, "But I really only visualize myself in there when I'm sleeping or forced unconscious, like a dream. The rest of the time when I choose to speak to the Kyuubi I'd either think out loud or it would talk to me first."

"Do not worry." Dhalsim calmly assured Naruto, shutting his rather intimidating eyes as he began channeling his spiritual energy between them, "I can assist you in reaching this place while awake, but once inside I will need you to guide me, otherwise I risk being lost. The place we seek is a very small portion of your brain, and without proper guidance I can find myself lost in your mind with no way to find the correct place. Now relax."

It was a bit difficult to do something like that when his head was in the grasp of a strange man, but Naruto eventually reached a state of relaxation and felt himself nod off into lucidity. The next thing he knew he found himself in the flooded tunnels of his mindscape with Dhalsim at his side, marveling at what comprised the young man's mind, "Well… here we are."

Dhalsim could see that.

It was a bit amazing. Normally most people would have a mental construct of their home, or of a place where they felt safe, but this was the exact opposite. A leaky sewer system didn't exactly scream mental stability.

Looking down at the water that surrounded his ankles in a bit of annoyance, Dhalsim levitated himself out of it, eliciting an eye-roll from Naruto who deemed it just showing off. If it really bothered him that much he could have just walked on top of it, but there was no need because it wasn't real, "Lead on child. I will follow."

And lead on Naruto did, with a practiced ease of someone that knew the way by heart. It was a good thing too, because all of those damn tunnels looked the same.

"Such a weakling."

Naruto's eye twitched at a faint-sounding taunt that was rather common from his tenant, but shrugged it off and continued on. If the Kyuubi could insult him it was probably feeling better, so maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.

Rounding the bend that led down the more cramped corridor that would lead them to the cage of the grand beast within him, Naruto started to feel odd. It was the feeling people had when there was an unfamiliar presence in a room with them, but it wasn't Dhalsim.

Speaking of whom, he seemed to be aware of it as well, "So you feel it then? This is the taint I've been speaking of that rests within you."

But what was it? If Naruto had to put his finger on it, it felt similar to the aura from… Akuma and Ryu. Son of a bitch, "What did that bastard do to me? Putting a ki-nuke of a time bomb in my head? Beating me into a coma wasn't enough?"

"I do not believe that this is the case at all." Dhalsim said, resting a hand on the outraged Naruto's shoulder so that he could maintain his focus, "Ki powered by anger and hate this oppressive should have killed you were it not for the source within that seemed to stanch it significantly. But it had to go somewhere inside of your body, and it found something to leech off of it and gain strength."

Something inside of him leeched off of the Satsui no Hadou, and it wasn't the Kyuubi that did so? That had to be one of the most alarming things he'd heard in quite some time, "What are you talking about?"

"Your own insecurities and reservations. Your personal hang-ups." Dhalsim listed freely, "These are prime areas of the mind for hate and anger to fester and grow. You try to think about other things instinctually. No person wishes to dwell on such matters because it can destroy their psyche to do so. This is why I requested that you find your fears, because facing them would be the easiest way to bring this… thing within you to light to be dealt with, before it becomes too powerful to expel."

"What thing?" Naruto asked as they stepped into the open chamber where the bars of the Kyuubi sat, "I don't feel anything around here but this feeling, you, and me!"

"Exactly."

…Did Naruto just hear his own voice from inside of his own mind? Okay, that was a new level of crazy that he didn't think he'd ever reach.

Peering into the dark from behind the bars of the Kyuubi's cage, out stepped a second Naruto, dressed the exact same but with pitch-black eyes, red pupils, and longer blonde hair that held a dark red tint to it. This Naruto held a confident look on his face that went beyond any kind of self-confidence and into the realm of complete assurance that he was in no danger.

"You might not believe it…" The warped version of Naruto said as he slowly continued to walk forward, "…But getting nearly toasted by Akuma was the best thing that ever happened to us. As much as I hate him and want to pull his head off of his shoulders he's done something very special for us."

Dhalsim backed away, standing warily as Naruto followed his cue and did the same, prepared for the worst, "That's weird. Nearly getting killed and hurting the Kyuubi don't seem like good things to me."

"But they were." The second Naruto continued to speak, finally stopping his progressive steps when he saw Dhalsim and the original Naruto on the defensive, "It finally gave me the power I needed to go about doing what we needed all this time!"

"And what did we need?"

"The will to do what was necessary to benefit us! Everyone else be damned! Who cares?" The Dark Naruto started radiating power. The Kyuubi's power, "When I manifested due to Akuma's power there had been so much damage done to the Kyuubi by it that it was forced to rest after it healed us enough to wake us up! So I simply bided my time inside of its cage, siphoning off the chakra it was producing to heal itself in order to gain strength and take my form."

That was why it was taking so long for it to wake up? Because this leech kept taking the chakra it was dedicating to healing for himself.

"Don't you get it? No matter what we do there are always going to be people that want to hurt the things close to us to get to you and I! In this world we've got Shadaloo and Mad Gear and lunatics like Akuma that want us dead! What good does having friends do if they're so useless they can't help us? But you don't have the sack to throw it all away, even when it would save our lives!" Dark Naruto seemed to be growing angrier by the second until he finally chuckled a bit and calmed down, "That's where I come in. I'll make sure no one ever hurts us again. We'll never feel pain again after I take over your body."

Take over his body? No, no, that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back right there, "Look uh… evil me? I can't let you do that." Naruto tried to reason. The dark version of him kept saying 'we' so he had to consider him somewhat important to do that, "Besides, how would you even make sure we never feel pain again? That seems kind of impossible. I hurt myself eating too fast sometimes."

"I'm not talking about physical pain. We've never cared anything for that." The Dark Naruto said, all semblance of good nature removed from his face at that point, "I'm talking about the kind of pain you can't bandage up and move past. Our heart. We feel pain in our heart because there are things you can't live without. So it's simple really. In order to protect us, I'll just destroy everything important to us. Our loved ones; they're the only things keeping us from being unstoppable. That makes them a weakness, and that means they have to die."

Naruto froze in place at hearing what basically amounted to him so casually dismissing the lives of everyone he knew, "…Do you mind saying that again? I think I misheard you."

Dark Naruto had no problems getting his point across, "I'll kill everything that makes our heart weak, to make sure that we keep getting stronger. So strong that nobody can ever do anything to us again… but I have to start with you, 'cause if I don't you'll just fight me the whole way. You understand where I'm coming from, right?"

"He is the manifestation of all of your hate, anger, and fear." Dhalsim told Naruto, moving in front of him to act as the stunned ninja started drifting back to reality, "But only one of you can benefit from the presence of the creature within you. Only one of you can exist in control in the end. Defeat him."

The Indian mystic knew full well which Naruto he would rather have in control. There was no question that the real Naruto was the only one that could be allowed to exist on this night.

"He can't beat me!" Dark Naruto said with a laugh, "I am him, just with a real killer instinct!"

Dhalsim merely shook his head and reinforced Naruto's will once more with his words of conviction, "Do not listen to him. Simply remember what I told you. Face your inner horrors, bring them to light, and he will not stand."

Moving in blurry images, Dark Naruto got himself close to Dhalsim as he continued to speak. A strong hand closed around his neck just before either he or Naruto were really aware of his movements. Dhalsim tried to struggle, but the bones in his neck began to give underneath the crushing grip of the blond destroyer.

"See? We've trained hard for this tournament haven't we?" He said as he turned toward the real Naruto that had been slightly knocked away by the act, "If you'd just grabbed Chun-Li around her neck like this she would never have done as much damage as she did. If you'd just grabbed Cammy like this you could have broken her neck before she broke your hand. You're always letting us get hurt because of the people we're attached to!"

"But we're not attached to him are we? And he's just butting in."

"That doesn't matter!" Naruto rushed forward at his twisted counterpart as he hurled Dhalsim away to defend himself. Both Narutos struck at each other with their hard cast-covered broken hands but proceeded to block each attack with their good ones, holding each injured limb in a progressively crushing grip, "If you were really me…" The real Naruto said through the pain of having his injured hand steadily crushed, "…If you were really me then you wouldn't ever say anything like that! You know what we're afraid of losing!"

"Exactly!" Dark Naruto spoke in a similarly strained tone, "Why keep them if we're so afraid of losing them? Cut them loose and make us stronger! You should know what I'm talking about! Without the Kyuubi powering you, could you even keep them safe? Even with it could you do so?"

"Yes!"

"Prove it!"

Both of them broke away from each other before Dark Naruto smirked and started tearing away at the cast on his arm before flexing out his hand. Blinking in surprise, Naruto narrowed his eyes before forming a Rasengan in the same hand and shredding the cast straight off of his arm. This was all in his mind. Injuries meant nothing here, "Get out of my head."

"Make me."

As Dhalsim recovered in the dirty water covering the floor, both Naruto and Dark Naruto started clashing all over the chamber, with the only thing allowing him to track their movements being the streaks being cut through the water as they moved.

'No…' Dhalsim thought as even inside of Naruto's mind he couldn't find his voice to speak out, 'This is not the kind of battle that can be won with your fists!'

Fighting like this was just making it all worse.

XxX

(Real World – Inside of the Temple – Fighters' Quarters)

The room was silent as the pair of females in Cammy and Chun-Li slumbered, resting and regaining their energy from a very hard day. Without warning however, Cammy's eyes popped open, peering into the inky darkness of the room.

Looking down to her side where Chun-Li had been sleeping right next to her, Cammy idly noted that the Interpol agent was a serious cover hog, but that was grossly unimportant as her body seemed to stand on autopilot, 'No. Come on, stop it. Don't listen to that man! I don't want to listen to him!' As she got up she left Chun-Li alone. That was not her target. The orders that she had been given were very specific.

On went her boots and gauntlets before she quietly crept out into the hall into the room next door, only to find it empty. But with Naruto's belongings on the floor it was clear that this was his room. So where was the man himself?

Leaving his room after feeling the need to grab a replacement hat, she started searching the premises until she came across a combat monk that bowed to her after her impressive performance in battle earlier that day against the strongest man that Thailand had ever produced in Sagat.

Cammy's face was emotionless though as she spoke in the form of a question, "Naruto Uzumaki. Do you know where I might find him?"

With a nod, the monk pointed in a general direction, "In our tranquility garden. You can find him there with the Yoga Master that also fought today. They seem to be in a meditative session and do not wish to be disturbed though." When Cammy simply walked past him, the monk took it in stride and gave one parting bow as the girl went off to follow his directions.

She wanted to turn around. She wanted to go back to her room that she had woken up in. She couldn't even bring herself to move her arms to pinch herself in case it was all a dream. And as she stepped out into the night air and took in the specific sounds and smells she knew for certain that this was real, and that this was happening.

'Why won't I stop?' Moving through the garden she came ever closer to the ornate bridge that spanned across the large pond in the center of the area and made out two figures sitting there in the moonlight seemingly meditating, 'How is this even possible?'

This was far different from the times that her body would just instinctually move in combat for a technique that she never knew she was privy to, nor was it even like when she blanked out during her match with Blanka or during the longer stretch during the one with Sagat. She was fully aware of everything that she was doing, but her body didn't seem to be connected to her mind.

It was as if she were on the outside observing herself against her will. And she watched herself as she walked up behind Dhalsim and past him as he remained unresponsive to her very presence. He was of no importance to her objective either. No, her target sat only inches in front of him, in an equally prone position to do nothing to retaliate against him. He seemed almost asleep.

Cammy raised her hand, the metal of her red gauntlet shining in the moonlight as she prepared to end Naruto's life in one move. As quick as a whip her hand lashed out to break his neck in one smooth chop, but the bottom end of her hand never reached him.

Her wrist was stuck in Naruto's firm and steadily tightening grasp before she could ever touch him. Naruto let out an audible breath before slowly opening his eyes that were discolored from their usual blue to red with a dead-black sclera to each of them. He seemed to be looking up at her, not with a pained confusion, but with a look of a man that was disappointed but had expected as much, "I knew you would come back to haunt us one day Cam."

Though in her mind Cammy was stunned by how uncharacteristically cold Naruto had spoken to her, her body didn't seem to care and tried to pull away from him to try another avenue of attack. She got her space, but not by escaping his grip. Instead she was punched free by Naruto, who hit her hard enough to smash her through the railing on the side of the bridge into the shallow pond that it had been built over.

Naruto's body rose from its seated position and he cracked his neck as he turned to face Cammy who was picking herself up out of the water. Something was very wrong. Naruto's body language was all wrong. His face didn't show any sign of surprise at Cammy being there to take his life, but a smirk popped up instead, "I just knew one of you would be the death of us. I didn't think it'd be directly though."

'Naruto what are you talking about?' Cammy thought before her body crouched down to prepare to attack him again, 'Don't stand there, run! I won't stop until I kill you!' She launched herself into the air at him before putting every bit of force she could behind a ki-charged falling straight-legged kick, "Cannon Strike!"

Naruto jumped out of the way as Cammy kicked clear through the bridge again, putting herself back in the water. Before she could choose a side of the bridge to get back on from, Naruto appeared in the water, still smirking at her in a very unsettling manner, "To kill our heart we'll have to start with killing you."

A tilt to the side by Cammy's head belied just how devastating hearing him say that to her happened to be, 'Do you… do you really mean that?'

Holding a Rasengan in one hand, Naruto's smirk turned into a grin as he held it out, "Let us show you what we can do when we just don't care anymore." With that, he slammed the Rasengan into the pond and threw up enough water in a blast that Cammy was unable to see him dash forward and drill her with an uppercut straight to the torso.

The months of training had made Naruto strong. So very strong. And that had been the cleanest blow he'd landed all day long to prove it.

That one single hit held within it enough force to break through an entire support beam of the bridge with Cammy's body. She skipped off of the surface of the water until she rolled through and got her legs back underneath her. Shaky legs though, as her body still felt the pain of the earlier beating she had taken from Sagat. With that pain though, came an opening for Cammy to actually speak, "…Can't… stop."

"I can't stop either Cam." Naruto said, rolling out his shoulder as he walked back into the open, "This is what needs to happen. Either you're going to kill us, or we're going to kill you." He slowly rolled through several hand-seals using his cast-covered hand before stopping and inhaling deeply, "Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon)!" From his mouth he fired a wide sweeping wave of pure chakra that ruined the beautiful pond in a powerful blast that rocked the temple grounds.

As scared as she was, Cammy had to marvel at the new scope of the technique that turned that portion of the property into ruined scenery, 'It's three times the size that it used to be. He really could have killed me with that.' But this wasn't Naruto, even if he used Naruto's moves. Not the Naruto that took her in, that she had lived with for eight months.

There was something very wrong that couldn't possibly have been accounted for when she was assigned this task to kill the person she cared for the most.

Once again, Cammy swiftly rocked and weaved forward to get within range to keep fighting. Posting herself on one arm, she swung both of her legs at Naruto's head in a brutal attempt to kick him, forcing him to block with his good arm. Taking advantage of this, Cammy quickly righted herself before stepping forward with a nasty straight punch that hit Naruto in the face and knocked him back.

Moving forward to continue her newly reinvigorated onslaught, she was stopped cold when Naruto reared back and headbutted her right in the face, dropping her where she stood. With blood trailing from his lip he sneered down at her before kicking her forcefully in the side, back onto dry land out of the pond.

"You think I care that you're hurt?" Naruto said, walking to her and lifting a leg before stomping down hard on the small of her back, "Not when this is going to end with you dying! You're a threat, and even if you weren't you're a weakness to us! We don't need anyone dragging us down!" He emphasized with another stomp, "I'm doing this to protect us!"

Who was this 'us' and 'we' he kept referring to?

Cammy rolled out of the way of a subsequent stomp and quickly drew a small knife from her boot before lunging at Naruto's throat to catch him. Instead of ending his life, she stabbed into the thick cast on his hand that she had been the earlier cause of. In one sharp move of his arm he broke the blade of the weapon and used his free hand to grab Cammy by the throat. Her attempts to struggle were stymied with a series of terrible knees to her tender body.

With one hand he had her held clear off of the ground, squeezing the life from her as he glared at her, "I knew that killing you on Karin's yacht was the right idea, but our bleeding heart had to give you a chance. He had to add another precious person. Another person to cause us pain! We will not take the pain of failing the people we love, I'd rather kill you myself than have to watch you die!"

"Sonic Boom!" From behind, Naruto suffered a blow from a crescent-shaped spinning ki blast that burned and cut into his outfit and skin, knocking him to the ground and freeing a broken up Cammy from his death clutch. With a glare, Naruto spit onto the ground and stood up to face his attacker from behind, "That was a Sonic Boom that hit you kid, not a tank."

"Guile." Naruto drawled lowly before quickly rushing at him, "You should wait your turn!"

"Ataque de Rolamento (Rolling Attack)!"

Before Naruto could even get close to try and initiate an attack on Guile, he had to contort his body out of the way of a green and orange buzzsaw spinning at him through the air that flipped to a stop to reveal that it was Blanka, with his arm still held in a sling from the injuries he'd suffered that day.

Much to his annoyance, Blanka seemed poised to fight him as well.

"I wasn't going to kill you two at first, but I'm seriously thinking about it now." Naruto said, looking between the two men that stood on either side of him, "Butt out. This isn't any of your business." While they were friends, they weren't as close to him as Cammy was.

Guile narrowed his eyes at Naruto. Something seemed very off with his fellow blonde, but that didn't seem important compared to what he had been doing. The blast in the garden attracted a lot of attention, "It's not my business? You've got a lot of nerve to say something like that after you've been messing with mine. At least my business didn't have me attacking my allies to kill them."

"Why would you try to kill Cammy?" Blanka asked, barely able to rein in his feral temper. He had spent enough time around things that wanted to kill him to know the feeling of bloodlust when it was abound, and there had been nothing but the intent to kill coming from Naruto, "You're friends."

"None of you understand a damn thing." Naruto said again, shaking his head, "But you will. Right before you all die."

"Try it brat!" The mission was to stop Naruto from maiming or killing Cammy until they could find out what was going on. At the moment she was on the ground barely able to muster the strength to crawl one way or another. She was vulnerable, "Sonic Boom!"

Another shot fired that Naruto scoffed at and dodged before having to dodge swipes of razor-sharp claws from one of Blanka's hands that cut one of his arms, spilling blood onto the ground. Mercilessly, Naruto kicked Blanka's bad shoulder, getting him to howl in agony before he was knocked to the ground and dragged along it by his long orange hair as Naruto ran with him.

With a yell of effort, Naruto threw Blanka forward, his body ragdolling off of the ground as Naruto jumped into the air to finish him with a stomp that would crush something on him, but he was intercepted in his descent.

"Flash Kick!" A flipping ki-charged kick from Guile stopped Naruto and knocked him back into the air even as he turtle to protect himself, "What's wrong with him?" Naruto never fought that brutally, even when he was fighting to kill.

Landing back on the ground, Naruto had heavy bruises and abrasions on the backs of his arms from Guile's Flash Kick and felt the arrival of two more people to the scene, "E. Honda… Chun-Li…" He said in a low tone of voice as if he were warning them, "Go. Away."

"Can't do that kid." E. Honda said, pushing the shoulders of his yukata down around his waist, prepared to fight, "Just calm down and stop. Tell us what's wrong."

He didn't say what was wrong, because whenever he told someone the problem from his point of view they wouldn't understand, and they would see that he was in the wrong. For what? For protecting himself from heartbreak by taking the chance of it happening out of the world's hands?

No. It didn't matter how many of them stood against him. This body was his now, and he could finally begin doing what he had to do. Every last one of them was injured. Hurt worse than he was by far. And since he was the Naruto in closest contact with the Kyuubi he had a little extra something to throw onto his combat efforts as well.

All four fighters took an involuntary step back when a stiff red aura started drifting out of Naruto's body, taking the form of a fox around his frame. Taking a deep breath, Naruto used his sharpened nails to tear into the cast on his arm and cast it aside as he could feel the pain in the limb subside swiftly.

"Emotions like love are strong." Naruto said with a forlorn smile even through the Kyuubi's chakra that fueled him, "But nothing makes you weaker than losing the things that you love. So what's the use?" He lifted a hand and pointed at Cammy, "She's first. Then it'll be Sakura-chan, and Batsu, and Karin, and Ibuki, and Ken, and all of you!"

Why was this happening?

At that moment, there was a harsh choking sound as Dhalsim, who had been in his meditative posture on the bridge, lurched forward with blood spilling from his mouth.

XxX

(Moments Before – Naruto's Mindscape)

"Naruto stop!" Dhalsim cried out as Naruto continued to do battle with his dark mental construct, "This is not the way to victory!"

If the damage done to the mindscape could reflect damage dealt to one's actual mind, Naruto probably would have had brain damage by that point. Craters had been knocked into the watery floor and on the walls. Entire pipes had been torn from their tracking all the same. Both Narutos were equally imaginative in coming up with ways to devastate the other.

But no matter what happened they seemed to know each other's moves by heart. It was a stalemate of sorts. No matter how many clones Naruto tried to make, Dark Naruto made the same. No matter how big a Rasengan Naruto presented to fight with, Dark Naruto would gleefully match it.

"Well what do you want me to do?" Naruto responded during a lull in the fighting, "How else am I going to get this pretender out of me? This is my body!"

"He's the embodiment of your darkness, given form by the influence of the dark taint that plagued you! Fighting only makes him stronger! Enhances his sway over you! I did not bring you here to fight!" Dhalsim urged, trying to bring the meaningless battle to a close, "He is your mirror image! He cannot fight you without your consent first, and fighting is what he wants! Every punch you throw gives him more control of your body!"

Control of his body? But the real Naruto didn't feel like he had lost control of anything. How would he even know though?

Dark Naruto let out an audible sigh and shook his head, "Cat's out of the bag now I guess…" He said before booming toward Dhalsim in a burst of water from the ground. As a reflex, Dhalsim lashed out with stretchy arms to subdue him, but it was to no avail as Naruto weaved around his ranged melee attack and prepared his own, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Straight in the center of the chest, the spinning ball of chakra took a short moment to grind into Dhalsim before shooting him off like a cannonball straight into the pipe-laden wall, pulverizing it upon contact.

Standing back up straight from his Rasengan thrust, Dark Naruto had a deep frown on his face as Dhalsim crumbled out of the wall and fell facedown into the water, "You're right. A fight is what I want. And if he doesn't consent to fight I can't start anything with myself. But that doesn't go for you. You always did piss me off."

Seeing Dhalsim get taken apart by his own signature attack made Naruto want to jump ahead back into fighting, but above all else he remembered what he was told. Fighting would only make things worse, "Why?"

Ignoring him, Dark Naruto just shook his head as if he still couldn't see what Naruto was fighting him for. This was for their own benefit, "Oh come on. We were afraid of losing the Kyuubi, well we don't have to worry about that now with me in charge! We'll never lose that power again, and I can control it better than you can. I'm your hatred, I can take it."

Naruto almost snarled at his dark manifest in return, "You know the power isn't what I care about! If you were really me you wouldn't even bring that up to try and get me on your side. The power isn't why I'm worried about losing the Kyuubi. If I never got to use its chakra again so what? I'd just find a way to work around it, the way I have been since you've been stealing its chakra to form yourself."

"The Kyuubi is a source of power, you know that! Don't lie to yourself and say that's not what we're afraid of losing!" Dark Naruto held up a hand that seemed to draw the Kyuubi's chakra to it, "We were never any safer, any stronger, any more able to do anything we wanted than when we fought Bison and took him down with our full strength. With the Kyuubi, and with me in control we'll be unstoppable."

"No, you're wrong. It's not just power, the Kyuubi's the only link I've got left to home, it's been with me since the day I dropped here even when I didn't have anyone else! Even if it's a bastard to me I'm afraid of losing it because even if we hate each other it's always been there, even when I didn't know that it was! Always looking over my shoulder and having my back even when I didn't want it to! The sick part is that it's the closest thing to actual family I have…"

"Don't you say that! Don't try to make it seem like it's one of our friends!"

"Why? Because you can't kill this one you coward?"

"I'm doing that for us! No matter what we do we can't get away from it!" Dark Naruto insisted with a swipe of his arm, "In Konoha there was supposed to be a gang of freaks after us for no reason other than who we were, and the same thing keeps happening here!"

Patience was wearing thin on both sides, and Naruto's jaw locked in a determination to finish this any way he had to. Before he could step forward though, Dhalsim's weak voice reached his ears, "…Don't fight. The only way to solve this is to come to peace with your dark side."

That was right. And Naruto had gotten Dhalsim hurt, hopefully not for real, due to his playing into the hands of his darkness and giving it strength. He had to hash this out diplomatically, "What's your point?" He said to his doppelganger.

The mostly peaceful exchange continued much to his berserk dark side's chagrin, but he wouldn't let his will be broken when he had a point to make, "Any enemy we make will come for our friends, and they already have. We've been lucky. All of our friends have almost been killed at one time or another by enemies after us. People will use them to hurt us. They're doing it right now. Well I won't give them the satisfaction. I'd crush them all myself than let them be used against me."

When what you thought gave you strength turned into your weakness you had to cut it loose.

"Listen to yourself!" Naruto stormed forward and grabbed his inner darkness by the collar, "You don't get it! You're the worst case scenario! You want to talk about what we're afraid of, what we could never take happening! Well you're the worst of all! There's nothing I'm more afraid of than you!"

That gave Dark Naruto pause in the face of the half of him that he had previously been aspiring to kill and take full control from, "W-What do you mean? I told you already, I'm you. How can you be afraid of yourself?"

He was doing this to make sure that the two of them were safe.

Roughly releasing his other half, Naruto ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. This was it, "Seeing you and hearing you talk to me made it clear. I'm afraid of all of that stuff. I'm scared of losing the Kyuubi, but it's not because I'll miss its power, it's because over the last few years I've gotten attached to it. I'm afraid of my friends dying or being used to hurt me, but I believe in them. They're all strong enough that I shouldn't ever have to worry about them."

He could deal with all of that. On one level or another all of the people in his life were warriors, fighters, martial artists, ninjas, whatever they wanted to call themselves respectively. Needless to say, putting their bodies and lives at risk came with the territory and they were all aware of the possibility of death.

But there was one thing that always gave him pause, "I never want to be the reason that they die." Naruto told himself, "I don't want anyone getting hurt fighting my battles for me, I don't want anyone I love dying because I screwed up like I did with Charlie. But the worst thing is exactly what you said you would do. I almost lost control of myself fighting Bison, I would have hurt Cam had he not been the bigger threat, and against Akuma I actually did lose control."

If he faltered enough that he truly ever found himself unable to distinguish friend from foe, he didn't think that there was anyone that could stop him. Until running across Akuma and being defeated at his uncontrollable worst this was why he felt the need to go back to his world. He had trained himself in the mountains around Aohura City to the breaking point. He had gone past the limits of his control out there, and if he had ever gone on a complete rampage he had deduced that there was nothing that could be done to keep him from tearing apart anything he came across.

And now he found that his dark side wished to have full control with cognizant thought, and he wanted to do the very last thing that Naruto would have ever wished to happen; to make himself the one responsible for bringing about his friends deaths. No.

"The way you're doing things is wrong." Naruto said, "It's not something we ever want to think about, but killing off our friends won't take away our weakness. You sound like Sasuke-teme all those years ago right now." Dark Naruto really was part of the real Naruto because he visibly flinched at that comparison, "Are we a quitter?"

"What? Of course not!"

"Well then don't cop out on who we are, because this definitely isn't it." Naruto said with complete belief, "Don't buy into any of that power at all costs crap. We know better. Every single relationship we've had with everyone close to us in this world made us who we are, gave us something special that we wouldn't have gotten by ourselves. Thinking of them dying because of us still makes me sick to my stomach, but what you're doing is the same thing as giving up on what makes us."

XxX

(Meanwhile – Real World)

Standing on the rooftop of one of the temple buildings overlooking the garden scene that had destroyed his resting time, Sasuke stared down at the sight of Naruto beating the daylights out of all of his friends.

An attempt from Guile to sweep his leg while E. Honda launched into the air to crush the youngster beneath him ended with Naruto stopping Guile's leg with a chakra claw and moving out of the way with the use of a chakra tail pulling him, allowing E. Honda to crater the ground with his weight.

"What the hell is going on?" Sasuke thought aloud. Jumping in would do absolutely no good if he didn't know what was happening to begin with. Blanka was out of it, Chun-Li seemed to be on her last legs so to speak and Guile and E. Honda seemed to be getting pressed to the fullest extent to try and stop Naruto.

Looking down nearby he managed to see someone he could actually ask out of sight of the actual fighting and dropped down by a downed Cammy who turned to him defensively as she slowly stood back up to face him in her fighting stance.

Raising an eyebrow, Sasuke wondered once again just what the hell was happening. He didn't even look like or exude an aura that indicated that he wished to fight with her, so why was she acting so strange?

"…Can't stop…" Cammy managed to somehow grit out past her programmed mission, "…Brainwashed… help before I kill him." Or before he killed her, "…Knock me out."

Right. He could do that, if she wouldn't try to defend herself when he did, but that wouldn't solve the problem because she'd probably just try to kill Naruto again when she woke up. Luckily he had the ultimate brainwashing tool, and she was looking right into his eyes. This would be quick.

In the span of a second he could see exactly what was going on inside of her. It was uncanny how similar to a genjutsu the brainwashing was, only it came from within instead of an outside source. There was a foreign energy inside of her around her brain. Someone had done something like that to her physically?

It would have been impressive if it hadn't been scary to think about a genjutsu that one could never expel the chakra from.

But in a moment it was over. As uncanny as it was, Sasuke couldn't remove it due to the nature of it not being set like a conventional genjutsu, but he could rewrite the intent of the encoding to basically nullify it.

Cammy's eyes fluttered and her legs gave out as her body fell back to her own full control as if she were a marionette that had just had its strings cut.

"There. That should work." Sasuke said, letting her know, in case she hadn't realized it herself, that the job was done, "Now what's wrong with the dobe?" He wasn't looking too much like a 'dead last' right then, that was for sure.

Getting the bearings to her body back, Cammy still seemed a bit out of it even as she shook her head. She didn't know, but she really didn't like it. Whatever was going on was alarming to say the least. This wasn't who Naruto was.

XxX

"You can't win!" Kyuubi-charged Naruto stated as his foot shoved itself into the sizeable belly of E. Honda. As he doubled over he grabbed the man by his topknot to pull him further down into a forceful punch to the face that knocked the sumo out cold.

Even four-on-one with everyone at full strength, taking down a Naruto using the Kyuubi's chakra and fighting with complete abandon to their well-being would have proven to be a tall order, but with everyone physically debilitated as severely as many of them were it was a solely futile effort.

Around the garden that had been reduced entirely to a torn up mess of grass and dirt, the other combatants were strewn about with varying degrees of injury. Blanka was nearly unconscious with one of his arms nigh useless, while Chun-Li couldn't find it in herself to get back up and keep, "Naruto stop." She said, with a cough, "I don't understand."

"That's right, none of you understand!" Naruto shouted right back at her with his abnormally colored eyes, "You'll never get it, and I'm sick of explaining it! I don't have to justify myself to any of you! This is how it has to be!"

Guile, the overall healthiest of the party, still stood ready to fight, hands up and sights set on Naruto, "I see what you meant before about the whole obsession thing. It's a really ugly look." He ran and jumped at Naruto who also bounded high into the air to meet him. Slipping a chakra claw launched his way, Guile managed to hook an arm around Naruto's waist and hurl him at the ground.

Taking a bump off of his back upon contact, Naruto jumped right back up to his feet and charged at Guile as he landed, "Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!" Naruto fired dozens of tinier-than-normal chakra projectiles from his mouth that Guile impressively weaved his way through before unleashing a Sonic Boom right in Naruto's face.

Naruto's chakra tail anchored him in place after taking the hit, but it only led to him taking a lightning-quick Flash Kick right underneath the chin, "One!" As Naruto flew into the air he landed and threw a second one that kicked him in the back, "Two!" A third resulting kick unleashed a strong crescent of energy that nailed Naruto in the air one last time, "Strike! Flash Explosion!"

Who knew that losing in the tournament so fast would serve to be a good thing in the end?

"There's something wrong with the way you're fighting kid." Guile said, feeling the shoe being on another foot compared to the last time that the two of them had met, "Your fists are mute. I think that's worse than my fists being filled with rage. Come on now, what are you doing this for?"

"Because I need to."

"You don't need to do anything. What responsibility do you have that makes you try to kill your friends? You don't have to do it, you don't even want to do it. This isn't like my thing with Charlie. At least there I want to get revenge, but you were right, I've got more important things to worry about." At that, Guile opened his arms and exposed his chest as Naruto got up off of the ground, "But if you really want to kill us, if you really think that you need to do it, prove it and kill me right here."

That was a bad idea according to everyone else that was still awake enough to hear what was going on. The merciless beating that Naruto laid on them gave them no quarter or pause until that point when Guile somehow started hitting him. What changed? Even the red glow around his body was gone as well.

Naruto held up his right hand that started to crackle with purple energy, "Metsu Rasengan (Destroying Spiraling Sphere)…" The purple energy began to solidify in the form of a bright and unstable spinning ball, but just as it started to grow in size it started to decrease and lose its purple coloring, "No."

His eyes started to change their color back to normal and his posture began to slump as he swayed in place and one of his hands reached to hold his throbbing head. It was like a breath of relief had passed over all of the temple grounds at that very moment.

Once the tension dropped, Chun-Li slowly stood up and walked over to stand next to Guile as she held her aggravated injuries and looked around at the downed Blanka and E. Honda before observing the staggering Naruto without saying a word.

Guile had no inclination to remain so silent though, "Do you reckon this is over?" So much so did he want her to say yes, because he hated the idea of getting hit with a regular Rasengan. He might have been able to survive one of those though. Whatever that purple Rasengan had been made of, it would have blown his heart out through his back. The energy that formed it seemed to be all but gone though, as he couldn't even feel it from within Naruto's body any longer, "Whatever's wrong with him I mean?"

This was a different Guile than the one Chun-Li had been forced to become accustomed to since the ill-fated trip into the Thai jungles to rid the world of Bison. This one seemed confident again, he seemed focused. Daresay even in control of himself.

"I think so." Chun-Li said, slowly taking a step in Naruto's direction, "Naruto, are you going to kill us the second we drop our guard?"

"…No." The low voice of the aforementioned blond teen said as he slowly lifted his head and looked up at them all with quite a large amount of shame on his face, "I don't know what to say. If I tried to tell you what came over me I don't think you'd understand or believe the first half of it." Looking around at just what he had done while he had been embattled with himself, he cringed, "I didn't kill anyone did I?"

"You did not." Dhalsim said as he walked up from where his body had remained from the very beginning. He was visibly hurt as well, with blood trailing from his mouth, but once again from looking solely at his face no one would ever know as much, "Even when your dark side had stronger control over you, your inhibitions still held fast enough for you both to keep him from truly unleashing your full wrath."

Dark sides? Control? Yeah, that went over both Chun-Li and Guile's heads as they moved to try and rouse E. Honda and Blanka, but rest assured there would be a stiff line of questioning that one Naruto would not be able to dance his way out of if they could help it. Not after everything that had happened tonight.

That was a freak-out for the ages for sure. That kid snapping was dangerous, he made for one scary bad guy.

A sigh of relief came from Naruto as he saw E. Honda and Blanka begin to stir. Thank goodness for that. Turning back to Dhalsim, Naruto gratefully thanked the man, "I don't know how I can repay you." Despite how troublesome it seemed at times, Dhalsim had come through for him despite how roundabout it had all seemed, "If there's anything I can do for you, if you ever need my help for something-."

Dhalsim held up a hand to stop Naruto from further showing his appreciation, "That is unnecessary. I did not do this because I expected or wished for something in return. I did this because I felt it was the right thing to do. I could not allow something like that to further fester inside of you, not in someone such as yourself."

The mystic would not say as much as he had alluded to it months ago when they had met in India, but had Naruto not been ready to face himself and admit to what petrified him this could have ended infinitely worse.

"What are you going to do now?" Naruto asked when Dhalsim turned and started to walk away, "I hurt you in there." He wasn't nearly fool enough to think that the dried blood from his mouth was there for any other reason other than getting leveled with a Rasengan inside of his mind. Spiritual links and all that.

"It is nothing that won't heal. I no longer need to be here." Dhalsim said, "I have helped you, and I have been eliminated from the tournament. There is no reason for me to linger here any longer."

He still had questions though.

Once the problem inside of Naruto's mind was resolved and they were both cast out into the real world, he felt yet another presence and heard an unfamiliar young man's voice inside of Naruto's head that told Naruto that he was proud of him, as if he were a father speaking to a son.

This boy was just one mystery after another. But this was one that he would not find himself a part of. No, he had played his part in the life of Naruto already.

With that, not even waiting for a goodbye or giving one himself, Dhalsim teleported away and out of the garden. What a strange and straightforward man. Guys like Ryu and Guile were downright cordial compared to him, but as Naruto had come to learn, this did not make Dhalsim a bad person. Not at all.

"Naruto."

Such a quiet voice. And he knew exactly who it was from as he turned around and faced his 'roommate', his friend, and the girl that his dark side had almost killed, "Hey Cam."

Even after she tried to kill him he still referred to her by that affectionate shortening of her name. But of course to be fair he had tried to kill her back, and his retaliation had been utterly brutal. Still though, her heart involuntarily swelled up when he spoke to her.

Both of them just stared at each other for the longest time until they spoke simultaneously, "I'm sorry." The stereo apologies surprised the both of them as they felt that they had been the one to truly wrong the other, "Don't apologize to me Naruto. I attacked you first. I couldn't control myself. The Bison person… he put me under his control somehow." She saw Naruto's eyes blaze over in rage before she tried to quell it, "But Sasuke did something to stop his brainwashing."

Sasuke… and he didn't even stick around to be thanked for it. Jerk. Trying to be so cool all of the time. Still, he owed him one for that no matter what the bastard would say about not needing or wanting anything from him in return later.

Still though, now that it was all over, Naruto knew exactly how he had treated Cammy in their conflict, even when she told him that she couldn't stop herself, "Cammy I… I mean to say… about what I did and, it wasn't really me, but it was me, so… I don't even-."

"It's okay." Cammy stopped him from trying to sputter out an apology with a small smile on her face despite clutching at her pain-wracked body, "We're not so good at apologizing, you and I." For different reasons of course, but the point still stood, "I just want this to all be over."

'You and me both.' Naruto thought, looking around to where E. Honda was up and holding his head. Blanka was being helped back up by Guile and Chun-Li. Everyone looked spent, and with good reason. It had to be past two a.m. at that point, "Right. What now?"

Guile held Blanka up under the jungle man's good arm to support his weight as he answered, "You still have a match tomorrow, so you should sleep. We can wait to bust your ass about what this was all about later. We'll see to these two, you two go."

"No one should really be alone right now at all." Chun-Li said in follow-up. Even with the small window of time after Cammy's loss where she was left alone, that was still enough for Bison to apparently reactivate her and send her on the warpath. Now that it had failed they had all dodged a bullet and had to react as if he'd try something again, "You two stay together, and if one of you freaks out again the other one had better come and find us."

Naruto nodded and supported Cammy in a similar manner as to how Guile was assisting Blanka as the two walked away.

"Those are the weirdest kids." E. Honda commented as he pulled his very dirty light blue yukata back over his shoulders now that the fighting was over. He'd probably be washing rubber scuff marks off of his backside for days because evil Naruto kicked his ass so hard, "They almost killed each other and now they're going to watch each other's backs again?"

"Just because they're weird doesn't mean it's a bad thing." Chun-Li said in their defense as she led the group of men along back inside one of the temple buildings. There had to be some monk doctors that had heard all of that ruckus and could help them. For God's sake it lasted for hours.

"Are you saying that it wasn't a bad thing tonight?"

"Oh shut up Guile, you know what I meant."

XxX

After cleaning up a touch of the dirt and residue from fighting off of himself and depositing Cammy outside of her room, Naruto moved one door over and walked into his own room, feeling a deep need to drop down into his bed on his face and not move again until someone forcefully woke him. Fighting with himself and all of his friends at the same time was damnably exhausting.

Hopefully one of his friends wouldn't choose his wake-up call as the time to try and get one of their hits back on him because he really wanted to try and enjoy his rest as much as he could.

Well he didn't have time to do any of that as not too long after he had started to stretch and yawn while preparing for his slumber, he felt Cammy's presence standing in the doorway just looking at him.

Tired or not, it didn't matter if Cammy was there. Naruto with his sandals kicked off and with the top half of his fighting outfit bunched at his waist by his belt stood in his mesh shirt just looking back at her owlishly, "What's up Cam?"

She shook her head and didn't answer at first before she walked in calmly and began to speak, "I don't want to be by myself again." Nothing good had happened whenever she had been by herself on this trip, "Would it bother you if I stayed here?"

Naruto looked around and shrugged before he took off his mesh shirt and threw it to the side, "Alright, sure." It wasn't like they hadn't slept in the same bed once before, "Come on." After hopping into bed himself and laying down on his back, Naruto watched Cammy shut and lock the door and then get into bed at a more reserved pace than he had, gingerly even, "You alright?"

"Mostly." Cammy said, cringing a bit as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her boots and gauntlets off. As she did so she inhaled sharply through her teeth as if she were hurting, "Just a bit of discomfort."

In the moonlight shining through the window Naruto could see the bruises on the higher areas of her arms and reached out to touch one. He did that to her. Dark side or not, it was still his dark side, a part of him.

"I'm okay. Honest." Cammy said as she felt Naruto's hand linger on one of her shoulders, "It isn't anything I'm not used to." She turned her head back as she felt Naruto sit up to get a closer look at her, as one bruise in particular trailed up past the back of her shoulder underneath her leotard, "I don't need any sympathy from you Naruto."

"It's not sympathy, now let me see." After a short bout of banter, Cammy acquiesced to the request and let Naruto pull her leotard down past her arms to her waist, exposing her upper body as he used a finger to trail the large discolored bruise on her bare back he had dealt her hours earlier, "How much of this was Sagat and how much of this was me?"

"It doesn't matter." Swinging her legs up on the bed, Cammy laid herself down on Naruto's arm and reeled herself in against him as she set her head against his shoulder. Naruto's cheeks started to flare red at being pressed up against the bare-chested young woman for about half a second before he settled down and held her around the waist. Without saying anything else on the matter, Cammy placed his other hand on her body, high enough to play at one of her breasts.

She didn't stop him from doing so. In fact, she encouraged the contact of his fingers teasing at her nipple, twisting her body enough to allow him freer access.

His hand traced down her trim stomach and back up to the side of her chest, letting him take in the feeling of how soft she was, taking great care not to press on her too hard lest he harm her tender body.

If she didn't have any problems with it why should he? She didn't ever have problems doing anything around him come to think of it.

Brushing his fingers lightly across the area on her back that held one of the nastier bruises that Cammy had suffered over the course of the day, Naruto once again felt Cammy's body quiver from the touch and felt the need to plant a kiss on Cammy's cheek.

Her eyes opened back up and peered up at him while he did the same down at her. The smile on her face came back a bit and she pushed herself up a bit on Naruto's chest, "My mission that was given to me by that Bison man wasn't specifically to kill you. His exact order was for me to find and kill the person I cared for the most. I went to you first for a reason."

That was flattering, and kind of scary, but mostly flattering.

Lemon Start

"Oh Cam…" Naruto said with a touch of appreciation on his face for the girl. He didn't stay her hand when she cast away the belt at his waist and helped him out of the rest of his fighting outfit before he helped her shimmy out of the remainder of her leotard. Even as she straddled his waist, Naruto simply watched her in awe as to how comfortable she was with him in such an intimate situation, "Heh, I can't say I saw this coming tonight."

"I don't see why we shouldn't. There isn't anyone else in the world I think more of than you." Besides, if it was him it was alright, "Who else would it be but you? Who else do you possibly think I would trust enough to do this with?"

Naruto's eyes drifted between Cammy's rather modest and perky breasts and her face as he held onto her thighs to keep her level on top of him, "First time for everything huh?" Laying beneath the cute female soldier, Naruto felt his member come to life as she shifted around and rubbed herself back and forth against it.

Cammy didn't know anything about seduction, that was more Ibuki's forte, but that was never her charm to begin with. She was just so sincere with everything she did and straightforward to a sometimes painstaking degree. There was something endearing about that. She didn't emote very often, but if one paid attention it was easy to see that she actually wore her emotions on her sleeve. As if she had nothing to hide, and would be an open book to you if you simply talked to her.

Naruto's cock was slick with Cammy's juices from her 'prep work' and it seemed that it would be now or never as it were, thus Naruto signaled her that it was time to give it a try with a firm pat to her backside. With that, Cammy shifted into position and without a moment's hesitation pressed Naruto's length down inside of herself with something of a shocked gasp at the sudden feeling of being filled up.

Her hymen was a non-factor and probably had been for as long as she had been fighting. With the way that she fought with regular use of splits and the developed flexibility of her body it wasn't to be worried about.

It was kind of surprising that Cammy had cast away her virginity without a second thought, any attempt to ease into it, or anything like that, but then again not really once Naruto thought about her character. If she had decided upon something, that would be it, and she wasn't going to look back on it.

This was no exception.

Her chest heaved up and down as she tried to adjust to the feeling and wait out the unfamiliar sensation from the abrupt penetration, but once it subsided her body got into gear as she set a slow and grinding pace that Naruto found agonizing as he set his hands on her hips and helped her move, seemingly trying to get her bearings.

It wasn't done purposefully to tease him, Cammy wasn't like that. She was simply legitimately curious. Every move she made, every rock of her hips, every deliberate motion up and down that she took was meant to teach her what she liked and what she thought felt good.

Clearly she had managed to hit her stride and find her spot when she started rising up and down at a quicker pace, chest jiggling as she turned her head up to the ceiling. She mouthed silent words with no sound to them, though slight whimpers did come from her as Naruto had adapted to the situation and started pumping back up into her every time she came down.

Cammy's nails scratched into Naruto's chest hard enough to draw blood from where she had been steadying herself, but that didn't do anything other than to spur him on for more of her. A little scratch or five meant nothing compared to the pleasure going on at the moment.

Reaching farther up on the girl's back and underneath one leg, Naruto almost lost himself to the moment as he forced her back against the cold, hard wall of the temple room. She let out a sharp yelp at the impact that shifted from pain to pleasure from Naruto fucking her against the stone.

Goosebumps rose on her skin from the cold against her bare back even as she shivered from the delightful heat pulsing inside of her pussy. Her slick inner walls were wrapped so tightly around Naruto's cock that she swore she could feel his heartbeat even connected as they were.

Naruto pushed Cammy's elevated leg up from down at his waist to up over his shoulder, pulling a breathless gasp from her as her eyes went wide. Even rendered as helpless as she was in her current position, if sex was normally that good she'd relinquish dominance of herself anytime. It was worth it.

"Come on Cam, sing for me. Let me hear that pretty accent of yours again." Naruto said quietly, pressing his forehead against hers before giving her a rough kiss that she moaned into while he continued to thrust into her.

"Can't stand…" Cammy muttered just before a scream tore from her throat as he kept plunging deeply inside of her pussy. The one leg she was standing on her tiptoes with was about to collapse as the jolts of ecstasy coursed through her and caused her tensed muscles to spasm.

With a short grunt, Naruto swung Cammy off of the wall and back onto the bed, both of them rolling around with each other dangerously before he wound up back on top of her, pinning her wrists down as she writhed beneath him, trying to initiate more friction, more motion. She just wanted more, she didn't care what form it came in or how she got it from him. Just having him inside of her wasn't enough anymore.

With her legs spread almost bashfully, Cammy looked up at Naruto demurely, waiting on him to go as she breathed softly to catch her wind back. She did not have to wait for long for him before he sank himself right back into her.

Giving control over to him was probably the best move she had made that night. Where she had been unsure and basically experimenting with what she figured felt good, Naruto was apt enough to go straight for the kill so to speak. Cammy couldn't help but let out a series of loud and ecstatic screams as Naruto repeatedly assaulted her most sacred spot with every portion of his length.

Her body ached from the damage wrought to her throughout the day, but a little kinky side of Cammy liked it, "Naruto, I-! Ah!" She cried out, wrapping her arms around his spiky head and pulling him into the crook of her neck, "God you're killing me! Don't stop!"

Naruto indeed did not stop, driven forward by coaxing such passionate shouts from the usually docile angel-eyed assassin that came freely. Pulling himself free from her grip, he pinned Cammy down to the bed again with one hand holding both of her wrists over her head as she shook her loosened blonde locks in vain to try and wriggle about.

Each pump of Naruto's hips forcefully drove him into her up to the proverbial hilt, with his hands on her waist pulling himself as deeply as he could go time and time again. Naruto nipped at Cammy's lips and he felt her start to tense up. Shutting her eyes tightly she softly whispered 'no' repeatedly before cringing and wailing out in cue with her climax.

She had never screamed like that for anything in her life, the sound of it reverberated off of the stone walls of the room. Her nerves down below were demanding that she continue cry out as Naruto continued to churn his cock inside of her, making her feel weightless in her rapture.

Don't be silent and reserved. Reward Naruto for his hard work. Let him know that you have never felt anything so good in your life. That he made you feel this way. That your rapture was due to him. This was what Cammy thought to herself as Naruto continued to fuck her.

His own buildup to blissful release pending, Naruto reluctantly pulled out of Cammy and shot his seed to the side. It was confusing to her as to why he did so until she realized that this had been so spur-of-the-moment that they had had no protection. Responsible, but part of her was somewhat disappointed. Everything else had felt absolutely wonderful, and she figured that allowing Naruto his orgasm inside of her would have been just so as well.

End Lemon

The two teenagers were in something of a daze for the longest time. The whirlwind of events and feelings swirling within them both ever since the early afternoon had spontaneously led to the two of them sharing such a moment together.

Sitting up with a slight smile on her face, Cammy pulled her knees to her chest and smoothed some of her long hair out of her face, "Well…" She didn't seem to know how to articulate herself, mind still slightly hazy, "Should I keep my door locked at home from now on, or are you still going to behave? Not that a locked door by itself would stop you."

"'Behave' my ass. I should be saying that to you." Naruto said, gathering himself once more as he grinned at his lovely roommate, "You were kind of loud there Cam. I didn't think you could get that noisy."

Having the good sense to realize in hindsight just how loud she actually had been, Cammy blushed a bit, concealed by the darkness of the room, "I didn't know I'd enjoy it that much." She defended weakly before gesturing for Naruto move next to her in bed. It was cold in there and she was stark naked. She now knew from intimate experience that Naruto always ran hot, and that was what she wanted.

Sleeping was pretty redundant for Naruto at that point as the night was basically over. The sun would have to start coming up in a matter of three hours, but cuddling with Cammy was as good a way as any to try and get as much rest as he could.

Getting back at the head of the bed, Naruto set himself on one of the pillows and let Cammy scramble next to him before throwing the blanket over them both, setting her head on his chest and intertwining her legs with his. She was so petite that she could sleep on him with no problem to him. He'd enjoy it until morning, she would too, and everything would be just fine.

Someone could try and come through that door to victimize her again… they'd be leaving devoid a few organs for sure. He was not in the mood for anymore stupid games tonight. He was exhausted, felt a cranky snap coming on, and had a vulnerable girl in his arms at the moment.

"Nobody's gonna hurt you Cam. Never like what he did again. I promise." No one would hurt any of his people close to him. He'd fight himself to keep such a thing from ever happening. And right then no one was closer to him than her.

With that, Naruto could feel Cammy smile into his chest even though she didn't say a word. After all, he always did keep the promises he made to others didn't he?

"Indeed you do boy." A voice said inside of Naruto, sounding like one of begrudging respect. He tried to call out mentally for the Kyuubi, but got no response. Whatever. It had to be tired too. Everyone could deal with all of this tomorrow.