Double Jeopardy...

Chapter 18 - Double Jeopardy...

Things were very civil after everyone's return to Aohura City. The routine became such once again and everyone fell right back into step after their return from impromptu 'Spring Break' of sorts that they had taken, and they were preparing for the rest of the school term to wind down and for summer to begin anew for the month that they would be off.

Of course, now going to school had a new hazard to it that Naruto had not been prepared for upon his homecoming.

Rounding a corner of the stone wall that sat around the high school, Naruto clad in his school uniform turned around and began dodging a rapid flurry of punches from a girl with messy black hair in a karate gi before taking off his bag and using the strap to catch and trap his attacker's arm, allowing him to throw her back and run.

"Why the hell does this keep happening to me?" Naruto yelled as he hightailed it down the street, schoolbag flailing behind him over his shoulder as he did so, "Every Friday for the past month? Go away!"

"Stop running away you coward! I thought you were strong!"

Sakura, Ibuki, and Kei watched as Naruto sprinted down an adjacent street in a blur with a surprisingly fast and smaller one keeping closer than one figured a person could, "Did that karate girl catch him leaving again?" Kei wondered aloud as they made it out of sight, "I thought he was taking a secret way out this time."

"He did." Ibuki revealed with a frown as she had been the one to help him find a not-so-obvious way out of the school to avoid this strange Makoto girl that only seemed to want to kick his ass, "I don't understand how he could have blown it, but don't underestimate her. That girl is just too aggressive." She knew as much better than any of them. The urbanized kunoichi had been the one to soothe the savage beast that was Makoto's taste for fighting while her friends had been away.

Throughout all of that she found out that she was one scary-strong person, and from the times when Ibuki had to spar with her to try and make her forget about her self-imposed mission to find and defeat a famous fighter for publicity to her family's dojo she learned that lesson hard.

"I can only imagine…" Sakura mused aloud as she continued her walk home with her friends, "If this is what she's doing now, I wonder how bad it'll be when summer gets here." How did she even keep getting to town as well? That was another point that needed to be brought up. She was a year younger than they were and she had the money to catch a bus from her home to Aohura City every week, "God… he'll need to get a safehouse or something."

Ibuki's eyes lit up at the thought of Naruto needing to lay low somewhere else for a bit and she quickly interjected, raising her hand excitedly, "Ooh, ooh! I can see if I can take Naruto with me back to my village for the vacation. That's a good place for him to duck his head down for a bit." It would also be nice to introduce someone else into the monotonous hell that was going to be her having to do her normal ninja-in-training routine.

They always thought that she was just lazy about her training, but that wasn't true at all! She trained just as hard if not harder than everyone else. It was why she was granted the concession to come to regular school; because she had shown and repeatedly proven herself to be head and shoulders above any other possible student.

"Wait. Didn't you say that if Naruto knew where your village was they'd have to have him killed?"

"Duh, that's why I'd ask permission for him to go first. I wouldn't just take him."

XxX

(Later That Afternoon – Sakura's House)

"Would you stop fidgeting already? You know the drill by now, if you don't want me to cut something you want to keep then stop moving around." Sakura told Naruto as he sat in front of her in a chair in the kitchen by the back door of her home, a barber's cape around him as she went to work on his far wilder than normal hair with a pair of scissors, "Is that what you want? Do you want to have to go bald?"

"We've been here forever Sakura-chan." Naruto defended with a whine as clips of his hair fell all in front of his face, "I'm still all fired up from giving that Makoto girl the slip." She couldn't try to actually look for him again as she had to get back home. The chase had wasted too much time to fight him even if she did wind up catching him, "I think I'm training her by accident too, because I think she's getting faster."

With a roll of her eyes at her best friend's insight, Sakura blew stray hairs off of Naruto's head before continuing to dutifully groom him, "Why don't you ever go to a barber Naruto? I've been cutting your hair for years."

The first time she did it back when they were twelve was out of the rawest necessity possible. Naruto had gotten to looking like a sheepdog his bangs were so low over his eyes. It was actually what had motivated Sakura to cut her hair short since she was able to handle Naruto's so well to his liking.

"Because I don't trust anybody around my back with sharp blades." Naruto said as if it were obvious.

Letting some weird guy he didn't know go to town on his hair while his eyes were off of him? No thanks. People could get killed like that. It wasn't like people didn't know who he was. And he did not trust a clone to do it either.

First of all he didn't know how to cut hair to begin with. Second of all, and probably even more important, even if he did know how, whenever performing domestic acts his clones were totally juvenile, and one of them would probably screw him over while they were cutting his hair for shits and giggles.

You've got to make your own fun after all.

"Well who cut your hair before me silly?"

"Iruka-sensei found the time to do it usually." Naruto recalled fondly. When he was in the Ninja Academy the man would usually chase Naruto down when he was looking too shaggy and would proceed to cut his hair, after liberal application of rope to prevent escape of course, "Before that, I don't remember who did it."

Now there was something that grabbed Sakura's interest. Naruto's old teacher. He never talked about anything that happened to him before arriving in Japan and Aohura City. She had gotten used to it even though it still bothered her, but now there seemed to be a crack in that door once again.

"Alright, we're done." Sakura told him after checking him over a few good times to make sure it was all even. His spiky locks were back to their normal length, much to Naruto's satisfaction as Sakura handed him a mirror to let him see himself, "If you want a better job done you'd better go pay a professional to do it."

Without any other prompting needed to hop out of the chair, Naruto got up and rid himself of the barber's cape, making a clone to begin sweeping up his hair that was on the floor, "No, this is good Sakura-chan. Thanks. Do you want to go train now?"

"Yes, yes, and yes." Sakura wholeheartedly agreed, opening the door to her backyard as Naruto went outside with her, "That little book Ryu gave me has some seriously good stuff in it. You should see it. Some of those exercises it tells me to do are total killers, but I can totally tell that they're working. It's only been two weeks!"

Naruto was happy that Sakura was happy with her current method of training. While her ultimate goal was to earn Ryu's recognition as a powerful fighter, eventually obtaining the right to be trained by him, she was good with getting tips and help in the form of the book he had given her after she had been defeated by him.

"So this Iruka-sensei…" Sakura said as she began to stretch out to loosen herself up before they got started, "Was he your real teacher like a schoolteacher, or was he the person that trained you to be a ninja?"

"A bit of both really." Naruto chuckled as he started limbering up and cracking his knuckles and finger joints for his hand-seals, "Our system was kind of like Ibuki's. You had to go to school to be a ninja where they taught you all kinds of stuff until you were able to pass a graduation test. Most of us do it when we're twelve, but you can do it earlier if you're that good."

"So you get your fighting style from him!" Whoever this Iruka guy is, he had be the man that taught Naruto his hand-to-hand fighting style. He could teach someone how to fight the way Naruto did? He was either completely insane or he was an evil genius. Probably an unholy combination of both, "That's incredible! I can't even think about what your style looks like when it's mastered."

A confused Naruto blinked and scratched his head before trying to clear some things up, "No… Iruka-sensei didn't teach me how to fight. He instructed kids on getting into ninja shape and how to move. Basic stuff. We pretty much all gave ourselves our own technique in taijutsu stretching out from the basics unless you had a clan."

In the middle of stretching out her knees and hamstrings, Sakura furrowed her brow as she put together what Naruto was saying, "So no one taught you how to put together your punches and kicks, or your arsenal of fighting moves?"

Naruto realized early on that in pure taijutsu competition against other kids they all got tired while he was still just warming up… so he took advantage of that with a never-ending attack that he started putting some polish to once he made it his own. All killer and no filler, "Other than one person that taught me two of my ninjutsu, no. A ninja sensei isn't really supposed to give us moves, they were really supposed to teach us how to be good ninja."

"That's so sad… you never had a real master either."

"It's not sad." Naruto replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked down at his friend warming up, "You don't need a trainer to be strong. You didn't need Ryu to train you and look at you."

"But my moves suck." Sakura said with a pronounced frown, "You pick on my Hadoken all the time. I don't do it right. It doesn't go that far unless I keep from charging it, and when I do that I can't even aim it."

"Your moves suck compared to what?" Naruto verbally fired right back, "Just because you don't do them like Ryu and Ken… put your own spin on it damn it. Don't be cookie-cutter. Come up with your own way to use your attacks. That's what's holding you back; you want to be like them too much. You can make your regular Hadoken way stronger than Ken and Ryu can, even if it is slower and doesn't go as far as theirs. Use that."

Sakura stopped stretching and sat down in the grass looking up at Naruto before smiling a bit at how serious he felt about this, "It sounds like you've thought about this a lot Naruto."

"I used to want to learn my second sensei's signature technique because it was a strong ninjutsu." There was a time when he was a kid where he would have begged Kakashi or Jiraiya for a jutsu, but after creating several of his own he didn't have that desire any longer. He could do it himself, "But now I'd rather be styleless than learn someone else's moves. I've got my own. I'd rather do whatever I want, whatever I think will work when I want it to. All of the fighting moves I know… I'll use them any way I feel like."

"You're your own master I guess." Sakura giggled before getting up and patting her cheeks to fire herself up, "A quick spar. No heavy stuff today, okay? Tomorrow's Sunday and I don't want to be too sore to hang out with Kei-chan."

"Whatever you say Sakura-chan." As they both stood in their fighting stances in their socks, Naruto could only think about how he'd been doing for so long, 'I'm way stronger than I was when I first came to Aohura City. All of the fights I've been in kept me sharp and all the people I've seen let come up with enough new techniques all on my own.'

And Sakura was about to see one or both of his newest ones. He had started developing them during the trip and started training to learn them upon the end of it. Thank goodness he had clones that could work on the mechanics of a jutsu while he was at school. Everyone always thought he was sleeping because he was a lazy-ass... no, it was because the mental backlash from his fatigued and dispelled clones knocked him unconscious.

How else would he have fallen asleep at midfield the other day during soccer in gym class? He didn't have narcolepsy or anything.

But just wait for her to give him an opening. She'd never know what hit her, and then she'd bow down to his awesome ingenuity and originality. Just say go already. It was time to get that spar underway. He was so ready for it.

"So how's Cammy getting along this week? I haven't seen her since Wednesday."

Oh fuck, Cammy. He forgot about her. That wasn't good.

"Shit!" Naruto immediately chose to forgo sparring and ran back into Sakura's house like a bat out of hell, "I can't believe I didn't go get her! I was supposed to go home first before anything else after school was over! Stupid karate girl chasing me all over the neighborhood!" He shouted, his voice clear for all to hear through the open door. It took another few seconds before Naruto came running back out with his shoes back on his feet and his bag slung over his shoulder, "Got to go Sakura-chan! I'll call you later okay?"

Shaking her head in exasperation, she watched Naruto rocket off of the ground into her tree and then onto the rooftops as he sped home, "Why'd he have to be the only one that it was possible to leave her with?"

XxX

(Naruto's Apartment)

Naruto's feet touched down on his landing on his floor of the apartment complex and he quickly opened the door, pasting a huge smile on his face to try and play off the fact that he was two hours late getting home, "Cammy, sorry about that. There were some things that happened and…" He trailed off when he saw Cammy sitting on the couch watching TV as if nothing was wrong.

That was cool, but the fact that her clothes were pretty torn up as if she had been in a fight wasn't cool. Her dark green blouse had a few dirt stains and frays, and her black skirt seemed mighty disheveled. The only thing that didn't seem messed up was the red beret that was sitting in her lap. And she was totally calm with it, just staring at some weird game show that was on TV until she noticed that he had come in, "Oh. Hello Naruto."

"Hey." Naruto said as he kicked off his shoes at the door and noticed that Cammy's were there too. Was that a bloodstain on one of them? Nonetheless he walked in and sat down next to her on his couch to get a better look at her, "What did you get into today while we were at school?" He asked warily, 'Please tell me you didn't kill somebody out of instinct.'

At the utterance of his question, her face took on a pout and she crossed her arms over her chest, "I was going around Aohura City to get my bearings and learn where things were by heart, the way you all told me I should have. You have some very rude people here."

That was all Naruto needed to hear. There was no need to explain anymore, "You met one of the gangs didn't you? Yeah, sorry about that." It wasn't that he was concerned about Cammy's well-being. Hell he was more concerned about the idiots that thought that the petite western-looking girl was easy pickings, "Don't go around the arcade area unless you actually want to fight. They like to think they own turf around there."

"Well that's good to know. I'll remember that."

"…Why didn't you change clothes when you got back?"

"I was going to… but then I sat down and started watching this show. It's really kind of funny and this is the third straight show like this. These tasks don't look that difficult, but none of these people can do them."

"That's because they're all normal Cam."

"Ah, I knew that."

Upon returning to Aohura City there was an immediate problem that needed attention before anything else. The problem of course being the location of Cammy's lodging for the duration of her choice to stay in Japan.

The obvious first choice was Karin's home. It was huge, with way more space than she would ever use. An easy call, right? But her family checked in with her like no one's business after the little stunt at school with the Dolls trying to kidnap her. No way they'd allow a guest to stay with her that they knew nothing about, and any background on Cammy's actual origin that they could give them would only end poorly.

Batsu lived with his mother, and they didn't have room for a guest, even if his mother would have tolerated a girl her son's age living under her roof with him. More drama than was needed on all fronts.

Sakura lived with her mother and her younger brother, so once again there was no room for a guest.

Thus it fell to the only one of them that lived alone, had tons of space since he didn't really own much, and had absolutely no supervision or prying eyes that could get past that reinforced, booby-trapped front door.

As far as roommates went, Naruto could have done far worse than Cammy. She was a good girl, and even though he had to clean out the extra room that he'd been using as a bit of an armory (no big deal because that's what sealing scrolls were for) and buy a bed for her to boot, the company was nice for the two weeks that she had been living there.

There was of course an adjustment period, as Naruto had to get used to the fact that he had to wear pants around his home now, and he also had to get used to not being the only person that had to use the bathroom in the morning so he couldn't just sleepily slog in there without being fully aware. He had done so twice, and Cammy was an earlier riser than him. It led to some awkward moments when he caught her in the shower.

For him… because Cammy had little to no shame when it came to her body. She didn't brutally kick his ass out or anything, she just calmly told him that she would be out in a few minutes, not even sparing him anything more than a passing glance.

Those things and other facets of sharing a home with another person were things that had been, and still had to be worked out. But for the time being things were going as well as could be anticipated. She was a pretty quiet girl and she was rather serious about most things, not to a point where she was obsessive or a buzzkill to be around, but she tended to focus on anything she was doing quite easily and get absorbed into it.

Like the TV show they were watching. Kami, he hated cable TV…

Hey, that was how he could find out what kind of things Cammy liked. If there was something that could get her attention to the point where she could block out the other inconsequential things that were going on around her they could start getting her some hobbies or general interests.

"These shows suck." Naruto commented, motioning towards the remote in Cammy's hand, "Change the channel. If I want to see people act like jackasses I'll make clones and tell them to study." Cammy turned to him, giving him an inquisitive look to which he gave her a flippant hand gesture, "Just do it. We're gonna find something cool for you today, and we're not leaving this room until you see something you like."

Well if he insisted, and from how he didn't look like he was going to get back up until he got what he wanted, Cammy did as requested if it really meant that much to him. It wasn't like she had anything that she could really do until Karin obtained an identity for her with matching ID, "Okay… what else is there to watch then?"

XxX

(The Next Day – Aohura City Arcade/Shopping District)

Sunday wasn't just his day off from school, it was Naruto's day off from working and training. Ibuki was in her village until the weekdays again, Sakura was spending the day with Kei, Karin had flown back to her family's compound in Tokyo to visit them, and Batsu had ditched school early for the last two weeks to go on a training trip with his father, who was actually extremely strong.

Naruto knew because he had fought him a long time ago back when he was a crazy principal kidnapping students from all over the city in some major conspiracy. Another story though…

But that left Naruto friendless with the exception of Cammy, and they still didn't know what she liked. They had watched so much TV the previous day, by the end of it Naruto felt like chucking the set out of his window. Eventually though, he fell asleep on the couch while Cammy threw a sheet on him and left him there for the night. How embarrassing.

And none of it bore any worthwhile fruit. Cammy still didn't seem to get too into anything that they had seen, be it any kind of commercial for anything or the topic of any sort of show outside of marginal interest. Not good enough, and today didn't seem to be turning out to be any better.

The girl was like a brick wall in that regard. Maybe sending her with Sakura and Kei for the day would have been a better idea? They were all girls, they could have come up with something that she liked, right?

He was a ninja, not a damn sociologist. How was he supposed to break down things that Cammy might have found fun?

However it was clear she didn't like video games though, because when Naruto had wandered into the arcade to play a few games… and when a few games turned into a dozen or so, she was long gone by the time he looked up and realized how much time had passed.

That was a new low; being ditched for being boring by a girl with amnesia.

It didn't take long to find her though. Clones were very useful in that regard, and with a pinpoint lock on where Cammy was, Naruto went right to her, finding her standing at the window of a storefront, looking inside as if a spell had been cast on her. More normal clothes for her; on this day she wore a black button-up blouse with a few buttons undone at the top, a pair of small red shorts, white shoes, and a red beret, "Cammy. You could've said something before running off."

She didn't register that he had said anything to her at first until she realized that someone had said her name. Turning in Naruto's direction, she snapped out of her wide-eyed glance just like that, "Oh. Well I did… but you weren't listening so I just left. You didn't seem like you were going to be moving anytime soon." She then pulled out her cell phone that had been given to her by the others to check the time, "And I was right. It's been forty-five minutes since I left you playing video games."

Oh. Well that was his bad then. Naruto's attention then swung towards the store that Cammy had been looking into, "A pet store?" He asked rhetorically, getting a nod from Cammy who returned to looking through the window, "You like animals?" That didn't really seem like an assassin kind of interest to have… unless the pet was a cobra or a Forest of Death sized animal or something like that, "You don't want a cobra do you? I hate snakes."

Cammy looked appalled at the thought of owning a snake as a pet, "Not a chance. How can I hug a snake?" That had to have been a joke. He couldn't have been serious. Why in the world would she have wanted a snake? A sheepish expression on his face from being rebuked told her that he had been serious in his questioning, "That's not what I was looking at."

He moved next to her for a better point of view where he saw a clear view of a mess of kittens, looking absolutely adorable. Naruto himself had to block a very unmanly 'aww' from passing through his vocal cords… and while he wasn't particularly a fan of cats, kittens were different. They weren't old enough to be outright mean to him yet.

But it would grow to hate him, just like all of the others did. All cats were ingrained with an instinct to cause him pain and misery.

"You want a cat?" He had never seen Cammy nod so eagerly before. Damn. Naruto did not want a cat around his house. But it would have been the first definite thing since coming to Aohura City that would have made her legitimately happy. What a conundrum. He needed to stall, "…I don't know if the landlord allows pets. I've never seen any around my place."

Score. Pass the buck to the next guy. The perfect way to avoid problems and awkward conversations.

"Well could you check just in case?" Son of a bitch… a heartfelt request. And it wasn't like he was broke and needed to save his money. While he wanted to keep saving for another exploratory excursion to search for a mystical way home, hopefully one without an entire criminal organization trying to take his head off, buying a freaking cat and a few starter goods to help her take care of it wouldn't have dented his monetary reserves.

And it wasn't like Cammy had anything else to do during the day while he was at school for the last few weeks of it. So as much as it hurt him, he'd have to see if it was possible for him to have pets at his place, "…Yeah, sure." Naruto said, trying to keep the dejected tone out of his voice as Cammy pumped her fist victoriously and started looking for which one she wanted to take home once it got cleared.

She'd pick the one that would grow up to be the meanest to him, he was sure. Oh well, it could have been worse.

She could have been a snake person.

Why couldn't girls ever be toad lovers? He could get her a gigantic toad just like that.

XxX

"Is that the guy? That's the guy right? Every little bit of asking around we did says that this guy is the guy." An impatient looking young man with a pink kung fu shirt, yellow wristbands that covered his forearm up to his hands like fingerless gloves, and black pants leaned against a railing. His brown hair cascaded directly outward in a series of impressively spiky bangs that extended a few inches in front of his head, "So let's go tell Sasuke already Yun."

His colleague, Yun, looked just like him facially, but that was where the similarities ended. He had long brown hair in a single braided ponytail down his back, covered by a blue baseball cap with a yellow visor. He wore a sleeveless white kung fu shirt with long front and back tails to it, dark blue pants, and similar wristbands to the other young man's.

"You go do that. I want to see just what makes this guy so special." Yun held a pretty confident look on his face as he had a skateboard propped up under his foot, "Sasuke usually doesn't give a crap about anyone or anything, so what's with this Naruto guy that makes him want to find him so much? Aren't you curious Yang?"

Yang loved his twin brother dearly, but he was just too predisposed to fly off the handle at times. It was annoying, "He already didn't want to bring us because he said we'd make a mess of things. Do you really want to prove Sasuke right?"

They had 'befriended' Sasuke in China not too long after he had began to live with Gen, the old man that took part in training the two of them in the advanced aspects of their respective martial arts styles, and he repeatedly kicked their asses at the same time whenever they tried to test themselves against him. Thankfully he never used any assassin moves against them, but it established who was the alpha out of the lot of them.

Sasuke wasn't particularly the most sociable guy, but he was never outright nasty to them… it was more like he tolerated their presence at first and eventually got used to them enough to where he wouldn't try to periodically leave the room or inch away from them in public. If anything they felt that Sasuke was like their third older brother that they kept trying to catch up to. But if they were ever emotive enough to tell him that he'd just roll his eyes and walk away.

Aloof bastard.

"Well I'm pretty sure Sasuke didn't want to come all the way out to Japan to waste his time." Yun wasn't going to be convinced that leaving Naruto alone was the best option. It would really piss off the assassin that was Sasuke when he found out that Yun had screwed things up, but he wasn't having any of that, "Be right back." With that he began pushing off on his skateboard, weaving through pedestrians and ollying over random obstacles in the direction where he saw Naruto walking off with some girl.

"Wait!" Before he could reach out and grab his impulsive twin, Yun was gone, "Damn it." Yang muttered, snapping on a pair of inline skates to go after him quickly, "Sasuke's gonna kick our asses straight back to Hong Kong…"

XxX

"What's a good name for a cat?" Cammy thought aloud as she walked back home with Naruto. In her whimsy over the possibility of owning a cat she didn't seem to notice that Naruto was one step away from banging his head into the sturdiest object he could find.

Naruto let out a desperate groan and ran a hand through his hair, "Don't you think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself?" He said, trying to get her to stop chattering about a damn kitten. Cammy might not have said so much in one sitting since they'd met. She must have really been excited, "We've still got to find out if the landlord even allows animals."

"I think I can convince him if he doesn't." Cammy muttered, punching into her palm with a gleam in her eye, "I'm not sure, but I'm certain I can be very persuasive."

"No." Naruto stated, firmly grabbing her hand and lowering it down out of its fist form, "You're not beating the crap out of the landlord… he'll just kick us out when he gets out of the hospital." And if he said no Naruto would act outraged but would do a mental victory dance for dodging the cat bullet. In return Cammy begrudgingly nodded. It wouldn't do to get her friend kicked out of his home of four-plus years over a pet that she didn't even have yet, "We'll just ask him."

"Whoa, I didn't know he had a sister. She's really kind of cute too."

That voice was accompanied by the sound of wheels clacking on the grooves of the sidewalk, and Naruto and Cammy dove away from each other as a blur on a skateboard passed through where they had been walking.

"Another gang member?" Cammy ventured as a guess as the skateboarding young man with the long black braid powerslid to a stop a few yards away, "Why do they keep coming after us? Do you really have that many enemies?"

While he was getting used to having people want to kill him or beat him up, that didn't mean it was any less annoying. Still though, "I don't know who this guy is. I never fought him before." Unless there was some new blood rising in Aohura City, this wasn't anyone from there. The clothes were kind of a giveaway as well.

Stepping on the end of his skateboard to shoot it in the air before catching it, Yun let out a chuckle and grinned their way, "Hah, that's great. You were able to get out of the way in time. That's perfect. At least I know you aren't a slowpoke. It would suck if I came all the way from Hong Kong and you couldn't dodge that…"

Naruto raised an eyebrow at hearing how far this person came just to apparently mess with him. Man if he lived in a hidden village it would be way harder for people like this to get to him.

"And your sister could dodge it too." The boy from Hong Kong said, tilting his hat in Cammy's direction as a form of salutations, "The name's Yun."

"Cam's not my sister." Naruto said as he kept a wary eye on Yun. Both he and Cammy began moving to get an angle on each other to attack Yun if it really became necessary to do so. It was a good thing that the one useful thing she retained memory of was her skill in fighting… that and the fearlessness that came with it, "She's just my roommate for right now. Why are you here to fight me?"

Yun tapped on the bill of his cap before abruptly pointing out at Naruto, "So how'd you do it huh? It's been four damn years and me and Yang couldn't get him to give two craps about anything, but he'll drop everything and come looking for you just like that? Who are you anyway?" Naruto just tilted his head and gave him a quizzical look as Cammy just looked between the two of them, "Don't give me that look! You know what I'm talking about!"

Not only did Naruto not know what he was talking about at all, he was just confused enough to not care about fighting any longer. The aggression had been sapped from his body by his own puzzlement. Thus he simply walked over to Cammy and grabbed her hand before walking away, confusing her even more because she had been prepared to defend herself if need be, "Wha-? We're not fighting him?"

"I don't even know who he is, who he's talking about… anything. He's weird." Naruto said as he walked past a stunned Yun who had been expecting a fast-paced explosion of physical confrontation… not the object of his challenge walking away, "I don't fight crazy people."

"You fight crazy people almost exclusively."

"You be quiet. You haven't been around here long enough to know that yet. Do you want to ask the landlord about your cat or not?"

"Yes please."

Getting ignored as the pair of blue-eyed blondes walked off down the sidewalk, Yun turned around and began shouting at Naruto's back, "Hey what are you doing? You're missing a perfectly good opportunity to throw away a few years of the physical prime of your life in a violent street fight!" He stomped his foot on the ground before planning to go after them on his skateboard again to goad him into a fight when a pink blur scooped him up and kept going forward before jumping over both Naruto and Cammy's heads.

Both of them seemed prepared for another possibility of a physical altercation as Yang stopped in front of them with a bit of an apologetic look on his face, holding Yun under one arm as his brother cursed at him in Chinese, "Sorry about that. We just wanted to meet you and make sure you were who you said you were. Hothead here figured that involved fighting you."

"We can beat this guy Yang, he doesn't look that tough." Yun said as he tried to break his twin's tight grip but only got swatted on the top of the head, "Ow! He doesn't!"

"You don't look that tough either you jerk." Naruto shot back, forcing Yun to begin struggling more and more to get free and try to get at Naruto, "Yeah, get out of that and I'll kick your ass in fast-forward."

Cammy tapped him on the shoulder and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "Didn't you just say you didn't want to fight?"

Being caught acting contradictory to his own words, Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Yeah, but I'm mad again now."

Yang rapped Yun on the head again to get him to chill out before setting him back on his feet, "Well we're gonna leave, but since you're really this Naruto guy we're definitely going to tell our friend that you're really here. He wants to find you for some reason."

"To kill me?" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes. That was the reason that most people seemed to want to find him. Either that or to just beat him up, but he was starting to group the two reasons together.

"No… he would have just said it back before we left if he wanted to kill you. He's blunt like that." Yun answered nonchalantly, readjusting his baseball cap properly back atop his head, "…Honestly, we probably would have tried to stop him too if that was what he was coming all the way here for."

Yang reached out and gave Naruto some pats on the shoulder with a grin, "Don't worry about it. He actually seemed excited to come looking for you… it's hard to tell that he was, but I think he was."

"Still don't see why though…" Yun muttered before setting down his skateboard and taking off swiftly, leaving his brother as well as Naruto and Cammy behind, "Whatever."

"Later Uzumaki Naruto." Yang said with a half-assed wave before taking off and following Yun on his skates just as quickly.

They both disappeared from sight and left Naruto and Cammy looking after them before turning to each other, both just as lost as the other on exactly what was the point of what had just occurred, "I don't want to raise a pet in such a dangerous environment." Cammy told Naruto sternly as they started walking again.

"It's a cat Cammy, it's not a damn child or something!"

XxX

(The Next Day – Tamagawa Minami High School)

A yawn came through the receiver on Naruto's cell phone as he was currently in the middle of a conversation before school started that day, "You really call early. You do know it's like 6:45 here don't you? You're an hour ahead. I haven't even eaten yet." A female voice said over the line.

"Whoo. One hour." Naruto sarcastically responded, glad that the 'strongest woman in the world' wasn't there face-to-face with him at the moment, otherwise he might have paid for it, "Anyway Chun-Li, I need your help. These two guys from Hong Kong came here yesterday and said they were looking for me for someone."

"Triads?"

"…No." How was he supposed to respond to that? And anyway, no actual serious big-time gang operated in Aohura City. Yakuza didn't touch the place. It was the most useless market for any kind of criminal activity. It was the perfect urban center of boredom if you could ignore all of the super-strong, ki-technique hurling teenagers fighting in the streets all the time, "They were named something like Yun and Yang."

"Oh hell… I was wondering why I hadn't heard from those two in a few weeks. I know who they are… but why would they want to look for you?"

Naruto's phone was on speaker so that his surrounding friends could hear the ongoing conversation, and at this point the interest of everyone in the room was piqued even if they tried to hide it accordingly, "What are they dangerous or something?"

Ibuki pouted and flicked Naruto's ear as he was leaning near the phone and didn't notice her, "Did you piss off more international criminals? Last time it didn't go so well for everybody sitting here if you remember correctly."

"I didn't do anything to anybody in China!" Naruto replied, waving his arms indignantly, "I didn't even do anything the first time to set Shadaloo off! People seem to want to travel abroad just to fuck with me! I'm not even important like Karin's supposed to be!"

"Uzumaki-san!" The homeroom teacher admonished, getting Naruto to meekly nod and mutter an apology.

"I am important." Karin asserted, crossing her arms over her chest as she sat in her place next to Naruto with prim posture, "I don't know how to put this, but I am kind of a big deal."

Sakura looked mostly unresponsive from her desk with a hand on her cheek and a bored expression on her face, "Really now?"

"People know me." Karin continued, mostly for the benefit of the other students around her that treated her as a major deal and were paying rapt attention to her since she seemed to be addressing them… not so much though for her circle of friends that didn't seem to care, "I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books, and my manor's personal study smells of rich mahogany."

"That's nice… I don't care though." Chun-Li said over the phone, thus she missed Karin puffing out her cheeks indignantly, "Anyway Naruto, like I said, I know who they are. The Lee Brothers are more or less harmless."

"One of them challenged me to a fight." Naruto argued in return, "That Yun kid seemed to really think he could beat me down."

"So what?" Kei interjected from her seat next to Sakura, "You get challenged by someone every single day. You're getting famous for some of the people you've fought. When was the last time you went to that website we showed you from before and checked your ranking?"

"Yeah, but Yun and Yang are seriously tough. I should know. They try to get me to spar with them all of the time. They're not some run-of-the-mill punks. They're actually really prominent figures in Hong Kong's underworld, and they were trained by a friend of my father's; Hong Kong's most feared assassin. Good kids really even though their benefactors are noted crime leaders. Anyway, whatever they're there for it isn't to kill Naruto. I can vouch for that. I'd stake my own life on it."

That sounded way better than having an entire organization that wanted him dead. Naruto nodded, not that Chun-Li could see it and stroked his chin in thought of a new question, "Well do you know anything about a third person? They said someone wanted to see me."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. Look, don't freak out about it. They're weird and a serious handful, but they wouldn't deliberately harm you guys… outside of trying to see how strong you were with a fight. I'll talk to you soon okay?"

"Alright, bye." The phone conversation ended with the tap of a button and left a more chipper Naruto than there had been when he had woken up that morning. Optimism was back in his outlook for the near future as he leaned back in his chair, grinning upside down over Ibuki's desk, "Well I got way better news than I was expecting. Maybe I've just got fans… or maybe a big time client is looking to hire the best ninja in the world and was scouting me out first?"

"Yeah, yeah, down boy." Ibuki replied with a good-natured smile, pushing his head forward out of the airspace over her desk just as the bell to start the day rang, "Just… don't let your guard down too much. Things like this are never that simple, you know?"

"They can be." Naruto said with an affirmative spin on his point of view, "Like right now. Most people would think that having the only guy friend that I have that doesn't want to beat me up every day out of town would be bad, because then I'd be surrounded by nothing but girls and I'd turn into a sissy." Oblivious to the glares he was now receiving from all four of his female he continued, standing up on his chair as he was starting to get into it, "But not me. No, Uzumaki Naruto is the greatest ninja in the damn world! And like my last sensei told me once, a great shinobi doesn't fall to the graces and the wiles of women! Eyes always on the prize!"

A cheer went up from all of the other boys in the class while every girl tried to bore a hole through Naruto with their eyes, "You'd think losing a fight would make him drop the whole 'greatest ninja in the world' thing." Sakura remarked with her head down as Naruto was standing directly behind her on his chair and desk.

"Well in theory he did not lose a fight to a ninja so I guess his statement still stands." Karin commented, trying to ignore Naruto's loud idiocy, 'This is my closest confidant?'

"What's the prize Naruto?" One of the other male students asked, swept up in Naruto's grandiose monologue.

"Detention!" The teacher said firmly from the front of the classroom with a twitch in her eye, "Is that the prize? Because that's what you're getting today." Naruto just stared back at the woman with a slacked jaw while still standing on his elevated platform, "…Class started before you began your little speech. Of course if you have a problem with that you can take it up with the principal."

Naruto was about to take it up with her by way of further running his mouth, along with the liberal use of strategically placed curse words, but getting his legs kicked out from beneath him by Karin sitting next to him got him to fall back into his chair where Ibuki held his mouth closed from her seat behind him, "No… no… he's fine. Go ahead and start class sensei." Ibuki chirped in disarming cheerfulness as Naruto wriggled futilely to get himself free.

XxX

(Naruto's Apartment)

A curious Cammy had infiltrated Naruto's bedroom and had found something interesting, infiltrated being a more elaborate word than simply saying that she just walked in through the open door some time after he left with Sakura for school that morning. Due to the fact that she hadn't planned on leaving the apartment that day, Cammy was dressed in what she deemed to be comfortable; a green legless and sleeveless leotard akin to her battle gear that she wore before as a Doll.

Much to Sakura's vexation on the day that they got the former Shadaloo assassin situated in Aohura City, and not helping to disprove her theory of Naruto being a secretive pervert very apt at hiding it, he had absolutely no problems going out and getting as many of them as Cammy wanted in whatever colors she wished since she only really wore them around the apartment. A housewarming gift apparently.

Right then though, Cammy was wondering how in the world he sealed all of those weapons of his that had formerly populated what was now her room freely. How many different kinds of ninja magic did Naruto possess? It was mind-boggling, "I don't get it." She said to herself as she unfurled one of several scrolls and only saw a sealing array that she didn't know the meaning to, "How did he place all of those weapons into these things?"

There was a knock at the door that thankfully got her to stop wondering over the secrets of the sealing scroll before she got impatient and just ripped one up to see if that was how she was supposed to get the weapons out.

Hopping up from where she had been crouched on the floor by Naruto's bed and his pile of storage scrolls, Cammy jogged to the door and checked through the peephole, catching sight of the person standing outside before opening the door. She felt no ill intent from him, nor did she see any intended aggression in his body language, "Yes? Can I help you?"

It was a young man with spiky black hair, upright at the back almost like the tail of a fowl. He had dark eyes and was admittedly rather handsome if Cammy actually cared for that sort of thing. He wore a pair of black pants and black sandals. Strange. They had the same kind of sturdy support around the heels and ankles and traction on the soles that Naruto's combat sandals had. In addition to that, he had on an open black long-sleeved Chinese-style shirt with a high collar and a white tanktop beneath it with a dark blue sash around his waist.

The thing that got Cammy's attention and held it with authority happened to be the sharpness of his eyes. She already knew that in the time it took for her to merely size him up he had done the same and had formed a preemptive opinion of her and possibly how much of a threat she was. This person was a fighter.

He had a cool, calm expression on his face as he tried to peer past her into the apartment, only for Cammy to shut the door a bit if he happened to be casing the place, "Well I'm looking for someone. An old teammate of mine. I found out that this was his address. This wouldn't happen to be Uzumaki Naruto's place would it?"

This person knew Naruto. And yet Cammy still couldn't find any intent to harm the blonde in anything on this stranger. If she had found it she would have sent him away already… or in worst-case scenario removed him with extreme force and prejudice, "He's not here right now. Naruto won't be back for a while… more than several hours I'm afraid." To her surprise he just turned around and walked away, "Wait. What do you want Naruto for?"

"It's not important if he isn't here right now." The young man said as he casually strolled towards the railing overlooking the outside, "If Yun hadn't been screwing around yesterday he and Yang could have told me he was actually here sooner while I was working. Just tell Naruto that Sasuke was here." He turned around just enough to let Cammy see him smirk as he jumped up onto the rail, "I've got to go to Tokyo to finish my job but tell him I'll be back soon."

Before she could stop him from doing so Sasuke leapt from the railing, and by the time Cammy reached it and looked down there wasn't a trace of him, with the exception of something pinned against the outside wall underneath where she was standing with a kunai; a blue headband with a metal plate on it decorated with a leaf insignia. Just like the one that Naruto wore regularly except it had a mark slashed horizontally through it.

So this person really did know Naruto. The headbands must have been some method of identifying one of the same brood or something along those lines. And here she thought it was just some personal touch of his. An accessory that he liked to have on him at all times.

Cammy pried the kunai free and took it and the headband back into the apartment to wait until the afternoon for high school to let out. Naruto really couldn't get out of there fast enough for her tastes on that particular day.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Japan - Uninhabited Island - Kiga Cave)

A worthy opponent. That was all he wanted. The fight itself wasn't enough, nor was it enough to know that he was the strongest. He wanted to test it and prove it in battle against foes that could possibly take his life the way that he wished to take theirs.

Ryu... if only he would accept the Satsui no Hadou into his life... if he did then that would be the fight to end all fights. A true encounter to test his mettle and set his blood as a martial artist to boil. Until then he would never have a worthy opponent. He hadn't since killing Ryu's master and his own older brother Gouken two years ago.

Well it seemed like it was time to find a prospective challenge again. The world was vast.

Surely there was someone out there with the strength to match up and make an entertaining fight against the 'Supreme Master of the Fist'.

There had to be someone out there with enough power to stand up to Akuma.

Omake: Cyclonic Youth

(Four Days After the End of the Trip Around Asia)

After that day's school, Naruto had gotten a phone call and then departed quickly, Sakura in tow, with the greatest haste imaginable for the two of them to have. They hadn't even taken the halls to get outside, Naruto just opened a window and they jumped out to clear the stone wall surrounding the property.

Such behavior wasn't that surprising from Naruto, he did things like that just to get a rise out of some of his classmates until its effects wore off, but from Sakura it was something else entirely.

Ibuki, Kei, and Karin had borne witness to this strange act of solidarity from the two and didn't know what was up. As a matter of fact, they had been acting weird since they had walked into class that morning.

So when Ibuki and Kei who had chosen to hang out for a bit after school and go to the arcade and shopping district of Aohura City, they didn't really expect to see a veritable army of Naruto clones carry several very large cases of drinks each, with Naruto and Sakura directing the march down the sidewalk as if it were a parade procession, "What the hell are you two doing?" Kei asked, locating the original Naruto because he was with Sakura herself.

Naruto had a two liter bottle of some kind of liquid that seemed to be glowing between blue and purple inside of a dark tinted plastic, probably to hide just how startlingly bright the glow was because the tint did very little to hide it. And at the moment he was downing it gulp by gulp with wide eyes while Sakura had a can and was watching him do so until she noticed Kei, "Kei-chan, Ibuki-chan! Hey!"

Ibuki just watched the litany of Naruto clones carrying cases and caught notice of what they were, "What is this? What's Cyclone?" Kei just paled at hearing the word 'Cyclone' and seemed a bit frightened.

"No." Kei said, walking up to Sakura and trying to pry the can out of her hand in vain because Sakura was twenty times stronger than her, "No, no, no, no, no… they stopped selling that in Japan. You two can't have that."

"It's fine." Sakura asserted, though there was a slight jitter to her that was quite abnormal, "We're not twelve anymore Kei-chan. We're mature and we know how to handle ourselves now."

"Then why do you have so much of it?" Taking advantage of a slight opening, Kei snatched the can out of Sakura's hand only to find that it was empty as she looked back at a smirking Sakura, "That's addiction! You two are addicted! And you were doing so well! Three years clean!"

Ibuki poked at Naruto and tried to take the two liter bottle he was drinking down like an open drain from his hands only to find his grip on it was iron-tight, "No one's answering my question. What is this?"

"The greatest/most dangerous soft drink ever made." Sakura and Kei said respectively before Kei rolled her eyes and continued to explain, "Cyclone is a soda that was made in America, and now it's illegal there and in six other countries because the caffeine levels were unhealthy. Absurd unhealthy. We all used to drink it when we were younger… for six terrible months." The commercials were just so persuasive.

Sakura shook her head in amusement and gave Naruto a few hearty pats on the back, "Aw, those times were great. Remember? That was how Naruto and I really became good friends." What she didn't mention was that they weren't the only ones that enjoyed it. Other Aohura City punks did too, and it led to them all nearly tearing the city apart for those six months with repeated aggressive street fighting, followed by a three month lapse where they were the consensus laziest children in all of Japan, "We would drink this stuff and just train all day."

"And night…" Kei followed up dryly, "…And into the next morning. And longer. Then you'd both black out under a tree in the park for twelve hours straight and go do it again. Great summer." She finished sarcastically, "Not again. How'd you even get that much?"

"Naruto did a job for a guy that owned a surplus warehouse and he chose to get paid in Cyclone because he had soooo much of it since it's illegal for stores to carry it nowadays." Sakura said, grabbing Naruto's cheek as he ignored her and finished off the rest of his two liter, breathing heavily to catch his breath that slowly began turning more and more aggressive.

From her point of view, Ibuki didn't really see what the big deal was. They didn't seem to be acting that much differently. Sure, Sakura was a lot more animated than usual from how she was teasing Kei and refrained from holding still for longer than half a second, but that wasn't so bad. Naruto had just taken at least eight straight servings of this drink of theirs without taking a single breath. He seemed totally docile.

If they had been that bad before maybe they had indeed outgrown it.

And then Naruto placed the bottle back to his lips and randomly blew into it until he forced it to explode loudly, getting everyone to cover their ears as he began to shake uncontrollably before letting out an indignant yell, "RAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!" He then slammed his head directly into a streetlight post and dented it with his skull enough to make it bend slightly, and then his mini-freakout ended just like that, "Okay, I'm good."

"Good God…" Ibuki muttered at seeing Naruto just walk off like he hadn't slammed his head into pure metal at full impact, "Are you okay?"

"You see? He's more mature now." Sakura said with a grin, pointing at Naruto and the nasty blue bruise on his forehead that he was ignoring in exchange for starting in on a new can of Rush, "When we were thirteen he would have tried to flip a parked car into the street or something after drinking all of that. This is way better." Sakura finished before joining Naruto on the walk back home, "You'd better share a case or two with me Naruto!"

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

{Character Profile}

Name: Yun Lee

Nationality: China (Hong Kong)

Gender: Male

Age: 15 (September 9)

Height/Weight: 5'8/136 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: His twin brother Yang, steamed meat buns.

Dislikes: Slackers, century-old eggs.

Hobbies: Skateboarding.

Rivals: Yang Lee (friendly), Sasuke Uchiha (friendly), Chun-Li (friendly), Naruto Uzumaki.

Fighting Style: Kung Fu based on Bājíquán.

Current Techniques: Zesshou Hohou (Lunge Punch), Kobokushi (Tiger Twin Palm Strike), Zenpou Tenshin, Tetsuzanko (Shoulder Charge), Nishokyaku (Flying Twin Kick).

Hyper Techniques: Genei Jin (Illusion Team), You Hou (Hoisting Roast), Sorai Rengeki (Continuous Thunder Lance Attack).

Background: The older of two honored twin brothers separated from their parents at birth, they were taught the basic martial arts by an acupuncturist grandfather and were given a more refined and destructive fighting style by the legendary assassin of the Hong Kong underworld Gen. The Lee Brothers themselves are prominent figures in the Hong Kong underworld, but for more positive reasons than for anything else, known as local keepers of the peace in their neck of the woods. Yun is the more energetic and outgoing of the two brothers; quicker to anger and to action. A very mobile young fighter, Yun always has doubts that any of his opponents are ever fast enough to keep up with his motions and fighting techniques and is quite confident in his ability to out-quick any adversary.

Name: Yang Lee

Nationality: China (Hong Kong)

Gender: Male

Age: 15 (September 9)

Height/Weight: 5'8/136 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: His twin brother Yun, movies.

Dislikes: Impatient people, smelly tofu.

Hobbies: Inline skating.

Rivals: Yun (friendly), Sasuke Uchiha (friendly), Chun-Li (friendly).

Fighting Style: Chinese Kenpo.

Current Techniques: Tourouzan (Mantis Slash), Kaihou, Byakko Soshoda (White Tiger Twin Palm Strike), Zenpou Tenshin, Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh).

Hyper Techniques: Seiei Enbu, Raishin Mahhaken (Lightning Quake Devil Breaking Fist), Tenshin Senkyutai.

Background: Yang is the younger twin of the Lee Brothers. Along with Yun and due to the financial backing of their wealthy underworld godparent benefactors they own a restaurant in Hong Kong where they centralize their community-pillar operations from called Shinryuken. Their training with Gen diversified their fighting styles and allowed the brothers to branch out into different focuses of fighting. Both brothers enjoy the prospect of battle, but Yang is more level-headed than Yun, able to think things through. He is still prone to getting overly worked up and swept up in his brother's own excitement, but he would still be considered the thinker of the two… for what that would be worth. Yang's speed is similar to Yun's, but he specializes in motion-stopping attacks that force his enemies to slow down, making them easy targets for follow-up moves.

Name: Sasuke Uchiha

Nationality: China

Gender: Male

Age: 16 (July 23)

Height/Weight: 5'8/149 lbs.

Bloodtype: AB

Likes: Tomatoes, developing techniques, fighting skilled opponents, hawks.

Dislikes: Sweets, big-talking weaklings, teamwork.

Hobbies: Training, taking walks, working assassination missions outsourced by Gen for living money.

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki, Gen, Fei Long, Chun-Li.

Fighting Style: Ninjutsu/Self-developed fighting style based on dozens of effective hand-to-hand techniques seen over the years.

Current Techniques: Kunai/Shuriken, Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu), Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu), Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu), Shishi Rendan (Lion's Barrage), Chidori (One Thousand Birds), Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon).

Hyper Techniques: Katon: Gouryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu), Taka no Ame (Hawk's Rain), Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press).

Background: Formerly a ninja of Konohagakure no Sato on the same team as Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke was brought to a different world through similar mysterious means during their battle years ago. Eventually settling in China where he was able to make a well enough living based on his skills as a shinobi, Sasuke eventually caught the attention of legendary assassin Gen. During a fight where Sasuke was handily defeated by the old man, Gen was greatly impressed by Sasuke's abilities and the boy's ability to perfectly mimic some of his fighting moves at a mere glance. Since then Sasuke has become a feared name in the criminal underworld of East Asia, as an assassin that only pursues missions that meet his morals, usually destroying wicked men. He waits patiently for an avenue to return home and dutifully trains his body and skills for the day when it happens.