Opening Day...

Chapter 5 - Opening Day...

Winter had a strange sort of comfort to it when one was sleeping. Cold mornings were turned into times when one was stuck underneath the warmth of their covers and sheets to avoid the bite of the open air, especially when one didn't particularly have heat like Naruto did. Hey, Hi no Kuni back in the Elemental Nations always had pretty nice weather. It didn't really get cold there. Not like Japan.

But in order to deal with the lack of heat, Naruto had developed a habit of deep sleeping. People that tried to awaken him by knocking on his door at this time of the year would often refer to this as his hibernation. Mostly because he slept like a rock beyond eight hours or more at a time, and if you woke him up prematurely he would be very cranky for most of the morning afterward.

"Wake up Naruto-san."

"*snore*…"

"*sigh*… Wake up Naruto-san!"

"AAAHHH!" The shout in Naruto's ear early in the morning shot him out of bed like a rocket as he stuck upside down to the ceiling of his bedroom, looking around with a crazed glint in his eye, "You can't have the hat! It's mine so fuck off! You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands you hear me? Go be a kage like I did if you want the damn thing you wannabes!"

"What on earth is a kage supposed to be? Is that something significant?"

Naruto's eyes focused and he looked down from his ceiling to find Karin looking up at him curiously with Shibazaki next to her, having flinched back from his sudden movement, and Ishizaki looking into the room from the doorway as Naruto's room was crowded enough with three people in it, let alone trying to fit his large mass in as well.

What incredible misfortune. Naruto was having a fantastic dream only for it to be interrupted by the physical mortal embodiment of what he believed to be the devil in a red school uniform underneath a leather coat. What a fitting color for Karin to wear. It was far too early for this crap… at least he thought it was. He didn't know what time it just so happened to be actually.

"How the hell did you get into my house?" Naruto asked, still sticking upside down to his ceiling, "The door is triple-locked." An added measure after Ibuki kept breaking into his place sometimes just for kicks. She could have just asked to come in, but she found it more fun to just fuck with him by tinkering and breaking through his security measures. Karin was not one to pick locks though, and he doubted that any of her two attendants could either.

Karin smirked up at him with her hands on her hips in a superior manner, "The landlord opened the door for me when you refused to wake up to my knocking."

Of course he did. Naruto gave Karin a dry look to show that he wasn't particularly surprised about that. All that money and influence she had was definitely useful for inserting herself into any facet of his privacy that she saw fit to interject herself into. He accepted this though, "Okay… next question. Why are you here?"

Upon hearing Naruto's second question, Karin's pretty face twisted into a frown as she continued to look up at him, her brow now twitching, "I cannot believe that you forgot about today. Unbelievable."

"What's today?" Naruto asked before noticing his state of dress, simply a pair of boxers. And Karin apparently had no shame when it came to looking right at him, like she didn't even care. He didn't know quite how to feel about that, embarrassed or insulted, "Do you mind?"

"Not really." She returned matter-of-factly. Karin had gone with him into a bathhouse full of damn sumo wrestlers. If there was ever a time to be mortified by the male frame that would have been the time; not while looking at Naruto in his home even though it was a better sight, "Now go and get yourself ready for the day. We need to reach Tokyo by two in the afternoon to sign you in." Naruto gave her a clueless look that got her to roll her eyes before answering his unasked question, "For the tournament. It was, or should I say is, today."

What surprising news. So surprising that Naruto fell from the ceiling onto the center of his bed, breaking the boxspring… and potentially his neck from the angle that he landed before depositing himself backfirst on his bed looking up at the ceiling, "Ow. Okay everybody get out so I can get dressed… after I figure out if I broke my neck or not."

"If you broke your neck you are still fighting by the way." Karin informed him as she walked backwards out of the room, getting a lift of the arm and a thumbs up from Naruto for her comment, "Oh, look you can move your arms. At the very least you are not paralyzed. Now chop-chop. We have seven hours to get you to Tokyo and signed in."

"Cool I guess." Naruto said as he grabbed his orange fighting clothes and walked into his bathroom, "Hey, can I bring somebody?"

XxX

(Later That Day – Tokyo, Japan)

The ride in Karin's chopper was slightly more crowded for their trip back to Tokyo for the tournament. There was also more tension in there this time as well because the bulk of the trip had Karin and one of the people Naruto wanted to bring shooting glares at each other on and off throughout the flight.

Yeah, he thought it would be nice to bring Sakura just in case Ryu showed up to this little tournament. He doubted that a big-time drifter/fighter like Ryu would stop wandering and would return to Japan for a little open tournament, but it was the thought that counted.

For the other two riders in the helicopter, Naruto and Batsu, the whole female feuding between Karin and Sakura stopped being funny twenty minutes into the trip and turned annoying from that point forward.

Batsu offered that they just kiss and make up and get it over with.

Naruto then had to make a human chain of Kage Bunshin to keep him from falling to his death after the girls threw him out. He had never seen them work together like that and it was honestly a little scary.

Luckily no other incidents occurred during the flight and everyone arrived safe and sound, because not everyone would probably be leaving that way… i.e. Naruto.

And now in an outdoor courtyard at the front entrance of an arena they were stuck in a pretty long line at least sixty deep to sign Naruto up for the tournament he had been directed to compete in at his benefactor's behest. Naruto let out a yawn and looked around trying to size everyone standing there up. He didn't particularly see anyone worthwhile. There were a few maybes, but in the end if there were any people of interest he didn't see them.

Even Karin had gone somewhere to wait for him to sign up since she did not want to be stuck in a line full of commoners. But Sakura and Batsu stayed in line with him for whatever reason. Good people, to not leave him there all by himself in the crushingly boring set of circumstances he found himself in. A yawn slipped from Naruto's mouth and Sakura nudged him to make sure he wouldn't fall asleep on them, "Why are you guys in line with me anyway?"

"I'm fighting." Batsu said with a shrug, getting a look of surprise from Naruto, "There's no real reason not to. I'm here. I'm in the line anyway. It's not like I'm rusty or anything. I train with you all the time. It could be fun." And the money wasn't really anything for a kid in high school to sneeze at. It wasn't anything for anyone to sneeze at really, "If I won I could probably get mom a nice vacation or something."

"I'm in too. I want to see how much better I've been getting and this is a great chance for it." Sakura interjected with quite a bit of spirited enthusiasm, "It's kind of funny though huh? I don't even know what kind of tournament setup this is and I'm jumping right into it. What does that say about me?"

That made Naruto realize something else as well, "Wait, Karin didn't tell me what kind of tournament this was either other than the fact that it's open entry. Damn it. I told her about this kind of crap." Of course he had never really taken the initiative to ask her or look on the internet for the information himself, but he wasn't about to bring that point up.

Batsu would have hit Naruto on the head, but doing that might have started a large-scale brawl amongst the testosterone-filled populace once Naruto retaliated in kind as he knew his friend would, "Well just find everything out once you get up there. Does it really matter? You fight and you either win or you lose. As long as that's the basis then who cares?"

"I like to be prepared though." Naruto mumbled lowly.

Taking the moment to pick on Naruto, Sakura patted down his supply pouches and pinched his cheek when he started growling at her for the indiscretion, "Prepared? You look like you're prepared to fight a war instead of a tournament. Why did you bring weapons?"

"I fight with tools." Naruto said as they nearly reached the front of the line, "You know that. I've been throwing stuff at you since middle school. You complained less about it back then than you do now." Why try to use chakra when you could just stab somebody? That was the way he felt about it.

"I always tried to get you to stop using them though." Sakura replied, tightening her white headband around her forehead as she kept looking through the crowd, hoping to spot her inspiration for beginning her more intense training. But her attention was stuck on her close friend and his use of potentially lethal weapons, "You don't need to use those things to win. We've seen that they can be beaten and they just kill unnecessarily sometimes."

Naruto let out a loud groan for a topic he had probably been over more times than he cared to return to, "They're part of the way I was trained to fight. No style is really better than any other Sakura-chan… just different. I don't even use my good weapons on people I don't want-, I mean have to kill anyway."

"You don't have to kill anyone Naruto." Sakura said with a pout. Her chosen method of fighting was potentially very powerful, but she would have never tried to kill anyone. Naruto from his way of speaking had obviously killed people even if she had never seen or heard of it. The job he did kind of meant that at some point someone would have had to have died. She didn't like thinking about that. Naruto was not a killer as far as she was concerned.

And again, it was a conversation he didn't want to have either because it wasn't something he could make her understand, "…You just keep on thinking that for as long as possible." It wasn't something he wanted her to understand either. Killing and death were far more taboo in this world than in his own, even if certain amounts of violence were encouraged… like the kind of violence he was about to be engaged in.

Upon reaching the small sign-up desk, Naruto gave the person behind it signing people in a smile and pointed to himself confidently, "Uzumaki Naruto, signing up for the tournament. I'm ready to roll and kick some ass, dattebayo!"

"Fantastic." The very uninspired person doing the desk and paperwork replied as he began to have Naruto sign his name and other info down before passing another form forward that he was meant to sign, "This is going to require your signature saying that any injuries, permanent disability, or potential fatality that you incur during the C9 Grand Ace tournament is in no way the fault or the responsibility of any of the tournament's sponsors nor the C9 corporation themselves and that tournament competitors are not to be persecuted for the things that will happen to you and them. And that any actions taken and consequences occurred during the event are your own responsibility due to your own freedom of free will to be here or not. Compete at your own risk."

Ooh goodie, a release form. That sounded very promising.

Damn it, Naruto's entire job from the age of six and up should have come with a damn release form… not that he could have really sued anyone or pressed charges in Konoha or anywhere in the Elemental Nations. It was a might-makes-right kind of world.

Kami he missed not having to deal with all of that red tape.

Rolling his eyes, Naruto signed his own name on the paper and passed it back only for the man to ask another question, "Any next of kin or emergency contacts to notify in case of catastrophic injury?"

Naruto just pointed his thumb over his back at Sakura and Batsu, "Just them I guess… oh, and Kanzuki Karin if you know how to reach her too. She's around here somewhere and I'm not giving out her contact info." He noticed the man's eyes go wide at the reference of Karin and Naruto figured he shouldn't get used to the whole name-dropping thing, it was a bad habit and he hated people like that, "So what now?"

"Qualifying round. Follow this person to get to your match."

Now?

All three of the youngsters from Aohura City looked at each other before just deciding to go with it. Naruto followed a person in through the front door of the arena, through the halls, and into a secondary venue set aside for lesser events where there were apparently already some observers to watch the elimination process take place. Before they walked through the doors to enter the man decided to pass along the rules to Naruto, "Alright, so there's a five minute time-limit for this fight. There won't be any time limits in the actual tournament, but we're trying to get the numbers down so if the fight goes all 15 minutes both competitors are eliminated. Ways to win are by forcing your opponent to surrender or by incapacitating him. We don't care how."

"No ring out?" Naruto asked, knowing that these tournaments more than likely had rings or some kind of way to keep things under control.

The man laughed and opened the door for Naruto to go through, "What ring?" And when Naruto looked through he could indeed see no ring, just a speculated area where fighters were supposed to do the fighting with metal guard rails to serve as some sort of formal barrier between the crowd and the combatants. The place was mostly dark in the crowd with all of the lights being focused on what was meant to go on in the designated area for combat, "Good luck kid."

Well there was no time like the present to get it done, and Naruto walked out through the masses to stand inside of the ring by himself, punching his gloved hand into his other palm as he waited for his opponent, "Huh. I guess you sign in on one side of the place or the other and they take you to this room to fight whoever signed in at the same time on the other side. Tricky way to pick elimination matches."

After a while, the doors on the other side opened and a cavalcade of kabuki instruments began to play as his opponent walked through the crowd that was cleared for him. A man with white facepaint and long red hair attached to a headband that seemed to have small horns in the front walked out adorned in ornate robes. Upon reaching the ring he took the robes off, leaving him in baggy white pants, blue wristbands, and blue boots with yellow pads on the front. Streamers were being thrown from cheering fans as he broke into a pose after entering the fighting space.

"Dude what the fuck?" Naruto asked belligerently as the man in facepaint began to stretch himself out and the crowd gave applause as the kabuki music continued to play, "He gets a whole entrance? What about me? I had to walk in like some nobody."

"You are some nobody!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Naruto shouted back at the anonymous heckling audience member, getting several people near him to recoil at the angry-looking young man, "I'm finding a way to get some damn entrance music next round. This isn't fair." He muttered to himself as the P.A. system came on to introduce the fight.

"Introducing first, from Aohura City just a few hours away; he stands five feet eight inches, and weighs in at 154 pounds. The self-proclaimed 'Greatest Ninja in the World', please welcome Uzumaki Naruto!"

Naruto stretched his legs out during his introduction and raised his hand over his head as light applause came from the people that didn't really seem to care that he was there. Okay, so his opponent must have been famous and he was just the other guy that he was meant to beat to advance. That pissed him off a bit.

"And his opponent hails from Parts Unknown!" Naruto rolled his eyes at that while the fans just seemed to eat it up all the more, "He stands five feet nine inches, and weighs in at 194 pounds! Fresh off of his impressive performance in the CWA's Crash Carnival World Tour where he finished third overall! This is The Great Oni!" Upon the conclusion of the announcer's over the top introduction, the face-painted man shot some sort of green substance into the air from his mouth that dissipated in the air and caused raucous cheering from the crowd.

"Alright…" Naruto said to himself not knowing what to say at that point, "I don't know this guy, but who cares? Let's do this."

"You don't know him?" One of the spectators closest to Naruto said in amazement, getting a hapless shake of the head from Naruto for his trouble, "Man, he's like the best professional wrestler from Japan. Don't you have a TV?"

Once again, Naruto shook his head and kept bantering with the fan, "I do, but TV's boring compared to the stuff I actually do. So he's a fake wrestler then? That's cool I guess." After uttering that, the whole place went silent and everyone stared at Naruto in abject shock to the point where it began to unnerve him, "What? What'd I do?" He then saw The Great Oni glaring at him rather heatedly, more than one should be for a simple fight like this, "What the hell are you glaring at?"

"You called him a fake wrestler." The fan from before pointed out as to why Oni was mad.

"So? Wrestling is fake isn't it? Like people know who the winners and losers are supposed to be beforehand." That was what Naruto kept hearing whenever anyone brought up wrestling around him at least. He never really watched it himself even though he felt he probably would have liked all of the pageantry since he never really spent much time at home. And then people started booing him outright, "Come on, what did I do now?"

The fan was holding the bridge of his nose and shaking his head at Naruto who had incurred the wrath of the fight fans, "Yeah, those are rumors. I don't know where you got that from."

Oni walked forward, adjusting his wristbands on his arms before pointing at Naruto, "I'll show you just how 'fake' wrestling is boy…" He finished, turning his voice upward in a kabuki-like manner.

Preliminary round fight, begin!"

To start, Oni sprinted at Naruto, diving at him and missing when Naruto moved. Though Oni caught himself and did a direct upward handstand on the guard rail as he stared at Naruto from upside down. Expecting an attack of some sort, Naruto just stood back and watched him only for the man to remain in the same position not moving. Well if he wasn't going to attack then Naruto would do it himself.

The speed of Naruto's rush surprised Oni to the extent that he pushed himself off of the rail into the air to try and circumvent Naruto's attack with a flying stomp. Naruto dodged and had to jump over a follow-up sweep from Oni before kicking him right in the chest, sending him sliding back along the ground into the metal rail.

With a grin on his face, Naruto did his own little bit of posturing, creating a Kage Bunshin and facing off with it before it threw a fake punch that barely tapped his face. Naruto sold it as if he had been shot and fell to the ground 'unconscious' with his tongue hanging out. His clone quickly covered him and counted to three before dispelling.

Poking fun at wrestling. Smooth.

Angrily, Oni stood up looking as if he wanted to break Naruto's neck should he get a hand on him for his little act and flipped onto the guard rail before launching off of it high into the air to crush Naruto with an outright splash.

Playtime was officially over as Naruto knew he was coming and jumped to his feet to dodge. Oni saw Naruto dodge and turned his splash into a full roll in Naruto's direction that resulted in a rising mule kick to the face.

Naruto got kicked back hard enough to knock over the metal guard rail and gamely spit out some blood before sitting up and seeing Oni charging him down. He then realized that this tournament had no rules and pulled another guard rail in front of his body before kicking it out at Oni, forcing him to stop his charge and stop the guard rail with his hands.

Then Naruto walloped him over the top of the head with another heavy metal guard rail and Oni dropped like a stone.

The crowd went silent as Naruto dropped the now useless guard rail down on top of the fallen Oni and nudged him with his foot, getting no response. Shrugging to himself, Naruto walked away through the crowd since his opponent seemed to be beaten and there wasn't any reason to hang around in there anymore.

"The winner and advancing to the main tournament; Uzumaki Naruto! That was a complete physical dissection ladies and gentleman, not the cleanest win, but damn that ending was ugly…"

Naruto heard the announcement as he reached the door and let a grin slip onto his face as he made his way out to find Batsu and Karin waiting there. Batsu had a bruise or two on his face but seemed to be mostly fine as well, "Did you win your fight too?" Batsu nodded with a smirk and bumped fists with Naruto over the pair advancing, "Where's Sakura-chan?"

"There are only two auxiliary rooms aside from the main arena for preliminary fights to take place in." Karin pointed out with a bit of disappointment in her tone, "This one and the other one on the other side of the building. Guess where I was while you were fighting your fight Naruto-san." She sounded most displeased that she had selected the wrong room to wait on Naruto's fight.

Slightly offended at his own match being overlooked, Batsu crossed his arms and turned away from Karin, "Hey, my fight wasn't bad. I think for jumping in cold with five minutes after deciding I was actually going to do this I did pretty good. Next time I'll fight even better."

"Be that as it may, it is still irrelevant. I have no stake in your performance exactly." Karin remarked, "Good for you though." She said, getting Batsu to hang his head at getting overlooked, "No, I came to make sure Naruto-san did not decide to slack off and lose this tournament. I expect nothing but victories. You have the skill."

"Yeah, whatever." Naruto said, cleaning out his ear and not really listening. It was just going to be the same old shit he'd been hearing all fall and winter long anyway. 'You have to win to make me look good as your sponsor.' Or perhaps, 'If you win that means I win. And if you lose… well just remember that I hate losing.' Yawn. Threats only worked the first few times… not after more than twenty, "Come on, I want to go see Sakura-chan's fight-." He started to say before the P.A. system cut him off after opening the doors back to the room again.

"Winner, and advancing to the main tournament; Kasugano Sakura! How about it folks? A fifteen year old schoolgirl from Aohura City and look at that skill! Hmm, who else is from Aohura City in this tournament?"

Wow, her fight must have been even easier.

Able to see Sakura soaking in the cheers from the perverts that wanted to see her school uniform get torn in the matches, Naruto's eye twitched slightly at what the announcer had said, "Ow… my pride." He then turned towards Karin, "Why aren't you fighting again?"

"Because I have you to fight for me."

"It's not the same-… ugh, nevermind. Hold on a second." Naruto said before pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, throwing a few elbows to get the more rabid male fans out of the way, "Move… get out of the way… make a hole… just trying to get to my friend here… don't make me cut you." He reached the ring and heard some boos due to the fact that he had a Y chromosome before flipping the audience off and picking Sakura up over his shoulder in one move.

A mortified Sakura looked at Naruto's back in surprise at the smooth lift, wondering what in the world he thought he was doing, "Uh, Naruto what are you doing?"

Naruto just gestured his head towards the crowd and the door, with the mass of humanity blocking the exit, "If you think you can get through them without anyone trying to cop a feel I'll put you back down. Otherwise I was just going to scare 'em all away."

Well while she didn't want to be mean to the spectators that had just cheered her on to victory, Sakura took a good hard look at the lot of them and how their eyes weren't particularly leaving her… some of them grinning in a lecherous manner. Stupid school uniform. It seriously brought out the worst in men, "…Yeah, okay. Get me out of here please."

"Yeah, alright. Hold your skirt down Sakura-chan… or don't." Naruto told her before he started jumping over and on top of the heads of fans as he reached the exit door and set her down, getting a hard punch on the shoulder for his skirt comment. At least he gave her a warning that he would have gotten an eyeful. Jiraiya wouldn't have said a word and would have had his eyes turned to the right to get as much of a panty shot as he could have before putting her down, Naruto was at least respectful of his best friend.

"So… we're all in. That's great." Batsu said, kind of fired up now that the preliminaries were over as far as they were concerned. No more scrubs to fight, and he hadn't gotten to fight all-out in almost a year, "…Now what?" Naruto gave him an 'I-don't-know' look in return.

Karin flicked Naruto on his ear getting a cry of pain out of him before putting in her own thought, "You could maybe go to the main arena where the tournament officials are putting together the brackets as we speak as they have been since the moment I walked in the door. Just a thought." She said as she turned on her heel to head to the exact place she had been previously speaking of.

"Smartass." Both Naruto and Batsu mumbled as they and Sakura followed Karin to the main arena to figure out how the entire tournament would be broken down, "If she knew this much about the damn tournament then why isn't she fighting?" Naruto whispered to the others, getting a few snickers out of Sakura.

"What was that Naruto-san? Did you just say to dock your wages for insubordination?"

"I'm being good! Damn…"

XxX

(Four Hours Later – Main Arena)

Apparently more people showed up to enter the tournament and eventually had to be turned away. Aside from that, the numerous fights that didn't have victors due to reaching the five minute time-limit cut the tournament down extensively.

So the kids from Aohura City and Karin's two butlers found seats while they waited for the actual tournament to begin. Batsu had left and returned with an exorbitant amount of food to eat since he had missed lunch, Karin simply sat in between Shibazaki and Ishizaki who served as her buffers for the common folk (including the people she had come to the tournament with), and Naruto had been sleeping almost right from the moment he sat down. Sakura at first tried to stay active while waiting for the tournament to start, but the boredom was too much and eventually she fell asleep as well, using Naruto's shoulder as a pillow for some semblance of comfort.

Karin spared a glance in Naruto and Sakura's direction and frowned at the sight of the two sleeping before choosing to address Batsu who was steadily chowing down to keep his energy up for his soon-to-be fights, "Ichimonji-san." She said, getting his attention while he was barreling through a bag of chips, "Just why are Naruto-san and Sakura-san so close? Is it just the fighting?"

A part of Batsu didn't see why it mattered, but it was kind of apparent that Naruto and Sakura were closer than boys and girls usually were without having ever dated or anything of the like and could see how it seemed curious to someone like Karin. How many normal friendships could she possibly have had if the stories of the Kanzuki Family were as true as she made them seem? It was a question he could at least try to shed some light on, "Well, Sakura was Naruto's friend years before he met me or anyone else that he'd even loosely call a friend. His first one he had in Japan actually. It's kind of a big deal to him."

"Why?"

"Look at Naruto." Batsu said, pointing at his sleeping blonde friend before reaching at his eyelid and opening them to show Karin one blue eye that didn't seem to disturb his slumber, "He's a total Yankee. Blonde, tan, blue eyes, well-built kid even back then. The complete stereotype, like he just jumped off of the screen of an American movie or something. That's not even adding in his whole attitude and all that get-up-and-go he has whenever his ass is actually awake. He's sort of weird. A lot of people in this country don't like that the way they would in America, cultural differences. He just really doesn't fit in." Shibazaki let out a sneeze at that exact moment, turning away from the conversation at hand, "See? Like that guy. I bet he hates Naruto hanging out with you."

Karin sent a look Shibazaki's way that he didn't turn back around to meet, choosing to make himself look busy by adjusting his glasses and his suit, "So what exactly do his looks have to do with anything?" Karin asked Batsu, "He didn't have friends in Japan at first, now he has more than a few doesn't he? It doesn't explain why he and she are so close."

"Yeah it does." Batsu replied with his mouth full of food, taking a moment to swallow lest he choke while trying to speak, "Loyalty for one; he's like that with everybody. For another thing she lives right around the corner, probably two or three blocks away. They would have stayed friends even if Sakura wasn't into fighting. It didn't hurt that she was though… it seems to be how he winds up making friends with everyone else."

"Really now?" Karin said, sounding interested at that point, "And how exactly does that work out? Win or lose, whichever side winds up on the short end of the fight they would have some ill feelings toward the victor. So how did fighting get him friends?"

"It got me as a friend." Batsu said with a shrug as he took a sip of a soda he had bought, "We fought each other first before we were cool with each other. Then he helped me with some trouble going on around my school and that's how it all started. That's kind of how it worked with you too right? You've fought him before, haven't you?" Karin took a moment before nodding, "See? It's weird isn't it? It's like when you finally hit him with your best shot and he gets back up you want to ask him how the hell he did it. And from there it's kind of hard to hate the kid."

Well it was kind of true. Karin wanted to despise Naruto when they had first met, but she had found it nearly impossible to do once she started coming across him regularly. So now she held what she liked to refer to as an indifferent tolerance for him… which was her closest way of saying in public that she considered him a friend.

At that point she noticed that Batsu had stopped eating for the moment and had moved in front of the sleeping Naruto and Sakura with his phone pointed in their direction, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Taking a picture of this to send so that me and Hinata can fuck with them both about this later." Batsu said as his phone made a shutter click sound effect to let him know that the picture was taken and stored in the memory of the device, "Look at this." He said with a chuckle as he showed the shot to Karin, "They look way too comfortable for where they are."

After taking a moment to observe the real scene and the picture that had been taken of it, Karin pursed her lips before reaching at her foot to take off her shoe, "They certainly do don't they?" She said before winging the shoe and hitting Naruto right in the corner of his forehead, stirring him from his leisurely slumber with a start as his body snapped to readiness and he looked around only to see Batsu holding back laughter and Karin smiling innocently while putting her shoe back on, "Did you have a nice rest?"

"I kind of did actually." Naruto said, looking around to regain his bearings and stirring Sakura from her sleep as well as he rubbed the sore spot on his head, "Hey, did a big bug fly into my head just now? Or a bat from the rafters? Something hit me hard."

"Don't know what to tell you man." Batsu said, busying himself with finishing the rest of his food so that he didn't burst out laughing, "Maybe Sakura headbutted you in her sleep?"

"Oh. Okay." The still reawakening Naruto and Sakura looked at each other and blinked once before Naruto's brain finally kicked on its logic portion, which was coincidentally the last system of his mind to turn on after waking up, "Wait… Sakura-chan's on the wrong side. She couldn't have hit me from there. Which one of you assholes hit me?"

"Maybe I hit you. What would you do about that kid?"

Upon hearing the gruff voice from behind them, Naruto stood up on his chair and turned around to face the person down, "If you were in the tournament I'd wait until we fought then I'd stomp you. If you weren't I'd find out if fighting would get me kicked out… then I'd stomp you." He then realized that he was facing down a rather familiar face-painted sumo that he hadn't seen for months, "E. Honda? Are you here to kill me?"

The large, rotund sumo laughed deeply before patting Naruto on the head, not knowing his own strength as he got Naruto to sit back down with the motion, "No I'm not little one." He said, getting a pout out of Naruto for being called little one, "I came to observe the tournament. Maybe to see someone impressive to note later." He lifted both of his arms that were covered in soft casts, "I can't necessarily fight like this can I?"

"Sorry." Naruto said with a flinch at seeing that he was still injured from their fight a few months ago. He didn't really mean to do that much damage, but getting squashed by a 300 plus pound man kind of warranted some overkill.

"No need to apologize for what was done in a fight." E. Honda said, dismissing Naruto's concern, "The injury will be fully healed within two weeks or so, I just couldn't get clearance from my stable to compete in this tournament." He looked around and saw Naruto's friends, but frowned when he realized Karin was with him and that Sakura was still way too close to him after waking up from their nap, "Uzumaki this is not respectable action to be taking around your beloved."

"What?" Naruto said in confusion before E. Honda gestured his head toward Sakura and then at Karin, finally giving Naruto time to catch on, "Are you kidding me? Didn't we go through this when I kicked your ass in the bathhouse? Karin's my boss and she kind of hates me… and this is Sakura-chan. She's my friend from home and she's in the tournament too." Sakura waved to E. Honda after being introduced as Naruto then pointed at Batsu, "And this is my buddy Batsu… and I'm gonna kick his ass if we end up fighting."

Batsu flipped Naruto off with his finger right in front of Naruto's face in response, pulling it back when Naruto bit at it, fully intending to snap the digit off entirely, "Ah, you bastard. I'm gonna knock your teeth out when it's finally time." The two butted heads, pushing back and forth as they seemed to be just a hair under coming to blows in the stands.

E. Honda looked over the lot of them and saw that they were all so young. There wasn't going to be anyone else getting involved in the tournament that would be their ages, and if what he saw and felt from Naruto during their fight was any indication it would be a very impressive showing to say the very least. Thinking that put a grin on his face, "I'm looking forward to seeing just what you all have to offer in the ring children."

At that point, the main lights went out in the now pretty much filled arena and the lights down in the fighting area took precedence with a large board on the screen hanging above the ring where the names set to fight in the first round were set. Apparently the lineup had been worked down to sixteen fighters which was good with everyone from Aohura City. It was Saturday and they all had to skip for one day just to show up there.

"Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the C9 Corporation Grand Ace Fighting Tournament! Over the course of this one evening we will crown a tournament champion where the winner will receive 5 million yen for their efforts! It's winner-takes-all and you are all here to bear witness to this great event!"

"Finally." Karin said, speaking only loud enough for the others to hear as the crowd began to cheer at the sight of all of the strobe and colored lights waving all over the place," I thought they were never going to begin the way things were going." As E. Honda took a seat in the row behind the place that the party from Aohura City had taken up, Karin turned towards Naruto, "Remember Naruto-san. I do not care who you wind up competing against. I want nothing less than victory."

"I'll beat whoever you want." Naruto said in an exasperated tone of voice, "Just stop saying that already. I get the point. I'll kick ass until my legs are broke, don't worry."

"That's all I ask of you." Karin said, sitting in her chair with an air of satisfaction around her, "Easy no?" Naruto rolled his eyes, but her message was received loud and clear just as it had been for months.

"For our first matchup tonight we have first and foremost a young girl from Aohura City. A fifteen year old fighter and a high school student to boot, please welcome Kasugano Sakura!"

Upon hearing her name called, Sakura felt her heart jump up in her chest a little bit and smiled before giving Naruto a hug for mutual luck as she got up to head down the stairs to the open floor to fight. And once again the cute schoolgirl factor got her a massive amount of cheers once she jumped over the black barricade that encompassed a massive amount of the floor for a larger, more secure fighting ring.

"Hey! Come on and introduce me already! It's dark down here!" A loud, boisterous voice shouted, drawing attention to a darkened stage at the end of the arena.

Upon hearing that voice, up in the stands, Naruto palmed his face hard and hoped that it was just some random guy with a very obnoxious (to Naruto at least) voice, "Oh Kami no… please not him. You've got to be kidding me. Why is he here?"

The announcer cleared his throat before introducing the person that had shouted for him to do so, "And her opponent! On his campaign to show the full power of the Saikyou-ryuu fighting style of which he is the creator and the master of! Everyone please welcome the dangerous, incomparable, Hibiki Dan!"

The lights at the darkened stage flashed on as loud, blaring techno music began to play. A platform rose up on the stage to reveal a kneeling figure covered in a cape, and when they rose and threw it off, it was of course Dan in his usual pink fighting gi as he pointed at the ring and ran right towards it, flipping over the barrier and landing before playing to the crowd that seemed to be loving the pomp.

Sakura watched the entire scene with a deadpan look on her face as Dan ran circles around the ring, making an ass of himself as far as she was concerned, "This is the guy that Naruto beat right after school started up for the new semester… the one with the wimpy Hadoken."

Dan's ears picked up Sakura's comment and he turned towards her, pointing boisterously at her, "That's a different move! Mine is the Gadoken! Get it straight little schoolgirl!"

It was the same move… just his sucked. But that wasn't really important at the moment to Sakura, "Careful." She said with a smirk as she stood in her fighting stance ready to wipe this guy out, "You might hurt yourself trying to take on this 'little schoolgirl'."

"Ha!" Dan said, rubbing his nose smugly, "You don't have a chance sweetie. I haven't lost a fight in years."

"You lost a fight six months ago to my best friend…" Sakura responded as if she couldn't believe the ego on this guy. What a blatant lie… right to her face, "I was there in Aohura City when Naruto beat the pink off of your gi."

"A fluke!" Having that little spot on his record brought up was obviously a sore spot to Dan from his stomping vehemently on the concrete floor, "I had a stomach virus when I fought that Uzumaki kid! But no one ever talks about that! And you're his friend? How'd a rabid dog like that get a cute girl like you to spend time with him?"

"Rabid dog? Naruto's a total teddy bear when he's not all fired up." Sakura said with her hands on her hips, standing up out of her stance, "And if you want to talk down to my friend you can do it after you beat me… if you're man enough." She finished with a bit of a taunt.

Chuckling to himself, Dan decided that enough was enough and it was time to give the people a show, "Oh, don't tug on Superman's cape. Bad things happen when you do that. You're going down!" He shouted as he got into his own fighting stance and saw Sakura get into her own that looked like his only her legs were further apart and her hands were set tighter than his to react to whatever she needed, "Wait… That looks a lot like my stance. Ah, so you're an aspiring student wishing to learn from me are you?"

And just like that, Sakura felt like puking at the mere thought, "No way! That's not supposed to be based off of anything you did, it's supposed to be based off of Ryu's! It's not my fault you use your own versions of his moves! Did you study under the same master at one time or something?" Bah, she didn't care. She could see why Naruto didn't particularly care for recalling his one and only meeting in the past with Dan. If he was able to get her this flustered then what was Naruto feeling like by the time their fight began?

Whatever, the quickest way to shut Dan up would clearly be to render him unconscious. Wow… Sakura was starting to think like Naruto. There was something wrong with that.

But she seemed to be okay with that as she attacked Dan head-on with a direct punch that Dan stepped aside narrowly, catching a spinning backfist on the rebound that smashed him in the nose and sent him stumbling back holding the now bloody appendage, "Ow! Damn it, why is it always the nose?" He said, his voice muffled by his hand as he managed to dodge Sakura's follow-up attempts to strike him again. If there was one thing Dan knew how to do it was take a punch and dodge them as well.

Sakura had to take a few steps back to stay out of the way of some return kicks from Dan and some punches from his hand that did not have a firm grip on his nose to keep the blood from freely spilling out. Having seen Naruto fight Dan months ago it was in her best interest to remember that Dan had solid basics and she was fully susceptible to being caught with a surprise move.

Getting his confidence to rise at getting Sakura to step back on the defensive, Dan decided that it was time to step it up now that he was sufficiently warmed up, "Koryuuken!" Dan attempted a jumping uppercut with a slight rotation, but Sakura wasn't fool enough to stand in the way as Dan got substantial hang-time with the attack, "Hey, you were supposed to try and counter that somehow!"

Right before Dan landed, Sakura charged forward, getting a running start to meet him on the ground where she unleashed her own jumping uppercut with a more authoritative spin behind it, "Shou'oken!" The uppercut landed right underneath Dan's chin and popped him up into the air to land flat on his back, "Ha, got you right out of the air with that one!"

Dan rolled backwards from his place flat on his back and back up to his feet glaring at Sakura, "That was another one of my moves? How'd you learn this stuff?"

"I got a bit of training from Ryu." Sakura said with a smile, "So those moves are kind of knockoffs of his techniques, but they work for what I need them for."

It was kind of disconcerting to Dan that a girl that had to be around ten years younger than him had gotten such skill with techniques the likes of which he trained with for years only to get kicked out before mastering. She hadn't mastered the moves either, but she had polished them up enough to fit her well to the point where it was difficult to tell that her technique was imperfect.

"You could have been trained by Gouken himself, but you won't beat me!" Dan said before rushing right at Sakura, shrieking almost like a girl as he charged her and the two engaged in more direct combat. Sakura blocked his first punch and blocked an attempted leg kick by tactically swatting Dan's kicking foot away with her non-targeted one. Not giving up, Dan attempted two cross punches only to miss and get knocked back with a double-fisted punch to the chest.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura unleashed a quick burst of her shorter-than-normal range Hadoken and watched in a bit of satisfaction as it connected and knocked Dan back, sending him rolling away like a ragdoll, "And that's how you finish a fight!"

That was indeed not how one finished a fight, because Dan was not finished. He stood back up, albeit shakily, not willing to lose so easily in front of so many. He was Hibiki Dan. He beat Sagat, and that meant something damn it!

"Hey!" Dan shouted at Sakura, getting her attention before she could exit outside of the barricades, "I'm not out of this yet! It's time for my best move! The Shinkuu Gadoken (Shaking Sky Self-Taught Fist)!" Dan built up an incredible amount of ki before unleashing a massive one-armed distance blast of his Gadoken.

And much to Sakura's surprise and chagrin it didn't merely dissipate after moving only five feet max. It went further and was locked onto her. The speed it was moving and its size wasn't going to give her a chance to move so she did the best thing she could and covered up in preparation for the blast to hit. She had shut her eyes, but after a few moments nothing had happened. No pain, no nothing.

"Epic fail!"

After hearing a doubly taunting shout from the stands from both Naruto and Batsu who were visibly laughing their asses off from their seats, Sakura opened her eyes to see that the Shinkuu Gadoken had still dissipated before hitting her despite its improved range.

Dan was completely beside himself, "Of all the lucky, copout b.s. technicalities!" He shouted seemingly to the heavens, "Why God why? Why couldn't you give me five more feet of range, just this once! Why?" He wailed to the rafters of the arena, dropping to his knees with tears pouring from his eyes.

With Dan wide open due to his own dramatics, Sakura charged him down intent on ending the fight right then and there. After getting close enough, Sakura hit him with a short jumping uppercut that popped him slightly into the air. She followed up with a second jumping uppercut that knocked him higher and finished with a third spinning jump uppercut that had her ki charged behind it, "Midare Zakura (Tumultuous Cherry Blossom)!" She cocked back her second previously unused fist with everything she had while in midair with Dan to drill him with one finishing punch that sent him flying well over the barricade and into the crowd.

Sakura landed on the ground and looked into the crowd where they scattered and let Dan smash into and bust up a few seats as he lay there motionless with a completely look on his busted up face.

Seeing that the fight was officially over, Sakura grinned widely and threw her hand into the air energetically despite the energy she used to make sure she'd finish Dan off then and there. She'd get it all back quickly within a few moments of sitting back down, "Yeah! I'm not getting stopped tonight until I win the whole thing!"

"The winner of her first round match and advancing to the quarterfinals; Kasugano Sakura!"

Still fired up from the fight and the win, Sakura ran up the stairs, getting past the other spectators to return to her seat where her friends were, jumping at Naruto with a big hug that forced him to stand up and catch her, almost losing his balance but he still managed to get caught up in her good mood, "You kicked the crap out of that blowhard!" Naruto said, putting a hand on the top of Sakura's short brown hair, "That was awesome! I knew you were getting better!"

Karin smirked as she remained seated in her own chair, having just watched her rival have quite a bit of success. Granted, Hibiki Dan wasn't really a banner victory for anyone decent, but the majority of the people watching didn't really know that, and mass perception was a major deal when it came to being a well-known fighter, "Well done Sakura-san." Karin said, "Maybe the next time we fight I can actually get some gratification out of my victory over you."

Sakura turned around and pulled her eyelid down at the blonde heiress, "Says the girl that isn't even fighting tonight. You probably just thought that I'd beat the skirt off of you… again."

Almost rising to the challenge on the spot, Karin recomposed herself, remembering the reason for the season so to speak, "Ah, there's no need to fight you here. I have a representative in Naruto-san to do my fighting for me in this tournament. If you two are to fight he will handle you accordingly. Of that I have no doubt."

'She still doesn't get the point of all of this…' Both Naruto and Sakura thought as the next fight was going on while they conversed. And Sakura gave Naruto a look that was labeling him as an enabler. In return he just shrugged back at her with an expression that said all he needed to say on the matter; she pays.

Batsu though, had no reservations about speaking aloud due to the fact that he himself had never brought the topic forward in Karin's presence, "Having a representative do all of the legwork for you isn't the same thing as doing it yourself even if you get the same result." He said as another fight began, despite the fact that none of them were paying attention to continue hashing out their own dynamic, "How would having Naruto beat Sakura solve anything? You wouldn't be the one doing it."

Shaking her head, Karin merely chose to instead pay attention to the fighting down in the ring. It was quite obvious that these people had no understanding of the intrinsic worth that a representative had. Naruto's victory was the success of his benefactor, her, and his defeat was the failure of his benefactor as well. She was tired of explaining that to people.

'Freaking brat…' Batsu thought to himself as Karin was apparently ignoring the lot of them as Ishizaki served her a drink. Whatever, if Naruto was going to work for someone like that it was his problem. It shouldn't have grated on him personally.

But it resonated with Naruto. This was like the whole Konohamaru complex only Karin accepted it and ran with it. Naruto walked directly in front of her and stood there until she made eye contact with him, "I like the money you're paying me for all of this and everything, but you've got to figure this out Karin. There's something more important than winning."

"Well maybe you can show me somehow." She responded with a slight sarcasm in the inflection of her words. Naruto was usually a pretty idealistic guy, so he obviously believed what he was saying. She couldn't see it though. She had to be successful at everything she did no matter what, she had no other option. Her father watched her every endeavor just waiting for an excuse to not award his fortune to his daughter. To find some kind of fault or weakness with her, "Excuse me if nothing short of undisputable victory is acceptable to my family."

That sounded like she was madder than she wished to let on, but it was okay to Naruto. He was more or less hinting to her that she was ignorant about something that was right in front of them. No one liked to hear that, he knew that he never did and still didn't.

"Okay, I will show you." Naruto said with a confident grin, "I'll show you just what's more important than just winning anything you do. Winning's important, but without the other thing it doesn't really matter because you'll just lose when things get tough if you don't have what I'm talking about."

"A winner is a winner." Karin said resolutely, "If you are a born winner then it does not matter if one has what you speak of or not."

"The following contest is the next first round matchup in the C9 Grand Ace Fighting Tournament! Introducing first, from Aohura City; 17 years old and clearly skilled enough to be here tonight by virtue of his victory earlier in the preliminary matches, Ichimonji Batsu!"

Batsu sighed and pulled a pair of red fingerless gloves onto his hands as he walked out of the row and down the stairs to the open space on the concrete floor upon being announced as the participant in the next match, "Well here goes me. But feel free to keep on arguing." He said to the others as he waved over his back at them, "I'll just win this whole thing while you all keep at it."

"And his opponent, from Las Vegas, Nevada all the way from the United States of America! He is the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world! Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Balrog!"

The jaw of Batsu dropped as from the other side of the arena came a very tall and muscular black man wearing blue boxing trunks with white trim, and a torn white short-sleeve shirt underneath a blue tanktop. He wore red boxing shoes on his feet and red boxing gloves on his hands with his hair fixed in thick cornrows, "You've got to be kidding me…" Batsu said, palming his face as this turn of events, "What the hell is someone like Balrog doing here?"

XxX

(In the Stands)

"Oh this is not good for Ichimonji-san." Karin remarked, an intrigued look on her face as she was now watching with interest, "What would a boxing champion from America be doing here in Japan for this tournament? It isn't even that prestigious an event."

"So this guy is supposed to be good?" Naruto asked. He knew that to be a champion this man had to be skilled. But Naruto's belief in his friend's own skill was strong. Titles didn't mean anything as far as he was concerned, "Batsu can beat him."

A frown adorned Sakura's face as she put a hand on Naruto's shoulder, "I'm not really too sure about that Naruto. The only reason Balrog lost his title was because he was banned from boxing. He kept permanently injuring his opponents and even killed one before in the ring. He could kill Batsu if he hit him clean enough."

That was bad news because Batsu wasn't exactly the most elusive fighter. He was an acrobatic brawler at his core and against someone that could kill him with a good enough shot that simply wasn't going to fly for him.

"I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just saying." Sakura continued, "He's really got to protect himself out there or this could get bad in a hurry. I'm worried." At that moment a large hand was placed on her shoulder from behind, getting her to turn and see that it was E. Honda.

"Have some confidence in your friend." The injured sumo said with a smile, "Anything can happen in a fight, and though it is alright to be worried, don't undermine his efforts by refusing to believe in him." He was personally very excited to see just what the other fighting friend of the boy that had defeated him was capable of.

XxX

(In the Ring – Batsu vs. Balrog)

Yes, Batsu was currently mentally going over his recent actions in the previous days and weeks, trying to find what he had done wrong to cause such karmic backlash against him. While Balrog seemed to be smirking and licking his chops at fighting a kid, "Oh yeah. Time to get paid. This little tournament's gonna get me a nice payday. 5 million… can't wait. That's a fortune."

Upon hearing Balrog's comment to himself in English, Batsu felt the need to comment on his to-be opponent's lack of understanding of the currency exchange rate since he understood the language, "Uh, hey. 5 million yen isn't really that much money dude."

Balrog stopped imagining all the money he would be swimming in after whipping these nobodies and started paying rapt attention to Batsu, "What?"

"Yeah…" Batsu said, a shiver going down his spine at the slight glare coming his way from the dangerous boxer, "5 million yen rounds out to like 60 thousand U.S. dollars or something like that. It's not that much money the way it sounds if it was 5 million dollars."

Sixty thousand dollars? That was chump change as far as Balrog was concerned. And he entered a tournament in his spare time for that? Absolutely inconceivable, "Damn it! Why didn't anyone tell me that?"

Because it wasn't anyone else's problem but his…

And he looked like he was about to take it out on Batsu just for being the one to break the news to him, "Maybe knocking out your teeth will make me feel better about this kid…"

Part of Batsu told him to back down. To just walk away, concede the issue, and sit down in the stands before he got himself hurt.

It was a very small part of him and its opinion meant nothing in the face of the overwhelming portion of Batsu that did not like being talked down to and challenged by anyone.

"Oh yeah? Well maybe if I hit you in the head enough your stupid ass will actually learn how to count currency?" Batsu replied to Balrog's threat heatedly before feigning an epiphany, "Oh wait, that's probably what's wrong with you in the first place you punch-drunk punk bitch!" Thank you American TV and movies for assisting with the formation of that insult in English.

"Yeah… you're dead kid." Balrog said as he put his hands up and angrily began stalking towards Batsu to punch some manners into the boy. Didn't he know who he was dealing with there? Because if he didn't he was damn sure about to learn.

Too bad Batsu wasn't in the mood to be taught anything by anyone's fists at the moment. And he wasn't about to let the boxer get close enough to try. Batsu held out his left fist before punching it with his other hand to release a wild energy blast that went flying at Balrog, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!"

Balrog narrowed his eyes at the attack and scoffed, dashing forward with one large striding step and punching the projectile attack head-on, sending it flying away from him and into the crowd where people had to scatter to avoid being hit with it, "You ain't keeping me away with little light tricks."

XxX

(In the Stands)

Sakura's jaw was dropped at seeing someone deflect a ki blast with a punch, "How is that even possible?"

Naruto's teeth clicked irritably as he continued to watch the fight below, "Batsu's Kiaidan isn't like a Hadoken, or even like my spitfire move. When it's done right it's tightly compressed, a bit like my Rasengan. When it hits something solid it doesn't just burst like our attacks do, it keeps going until it runs out of energy and gets weaker the further it goes. You can knock it away if you can hit it harder than it's moving."

Karin could understand the explanation. The Kiaidan's strength and distance relied on momentum generated by the ki needed to form it and would never be stronger than the moment it left Batsu's hands. The further it went the weaker it would get, and it wouldn't explode the way a more volatile attack could. There was no doubt that Balrog had incredible physical strength, and if there were anyone in the tournament with the power to knock away Batsu's Kiaidan at will it would have to be him.

So his only distance attack wouldn't give him any kind of advantage as long as he didn't have an angle on Balrog. It was worse for Batsu than they had originally speculated.

XxX

(In the Ring – Batsu vs. Balrog)

As Balrog moved closer, Batsu kept trying to hit him with a Kiaidan to no success as Balrog kept on punching them away before finally reaching Batsu. The boxer started swinging away with hooks and crosses that Batsu desperately ducked and swayed out of the way of lest his head wind up in the fifth row.

He couldn't backstep his way back out of Balrog's range however. The man had incredible footwork to keep up with the backpedaling Batsu who tried to respond with a high kick, only for Balrog to block it and shrug it off, shoving his shoulder into Batsu's entire body and knocking him back and to the ground. Balrog grinned and rushed towards Batsu in a sudden burst of speed as he rolled through the shove and got back to his feet, placing one gloved hand on Batsu's back to pull him in and having the other one cocked back to deliver an uppercut, "Dash Low Smash runt!"

Batsu felt as if Balrog had punched a hole right through his torso as he had been lifted off of his feet, hanging in the air on Balrog's fist, spittle trailing from his open mouth as he desperately tried to suck in as much air as he could.

Pulling his hand back, Balrog let Batsu fall to the ground, but he landed back on his feet, stumbling backwards as he held his stomach. That punch had to have broken some ribs, "Come on now, you're no fun. I don't even have any of your blood on my gloves yet."

Batsu stopped stumbling around Balrog and stepped towards him before uncorking a return uppercut of his own, fueled with his ki to turn his punching arm red. Balrog got a guard up and blocked it, but it sent him stepping back this time, recoiling at the surprising force that Batsu generated. That little punk had some ridiculous raw strength for someone his size.

"Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" A diving, driving kick from Batsu smashed into Balrog's guard once again, surprising the fighter as it seemed like Batsu was fighting more viciously now that he was injured. It was like dealing with some kind of berserker as after the kick, Batsu began pounding away on the boxer's guard with punches, a few actually getting through to hit him on the sides of his body.

It was pissing him off because the punches actually really hurt, and he was hitting him around his guard the way a boxer would. Balrog always hated the pipsqueaks that would pepper his body when he was guarding his head, but he had a little something for that. It wasn't exactly legal in the boxing ring, but this was a fight without rules.

"I'll pulverize you! Dirty Bull!" Balrog grabbed the attacking Batsu's shoulders to hold him in place before delivering a pair of headbutts right to the face that stopped his offense. He stomped harshly on the stunned Batsu's foot and cocked his arm back for what looked like a punch, only for him to smash Batsu in the face with his elbow. The only thing that kept Batsu from doing a full 180 and falling to the ground on his face, spinning like a top was the fact that Balrog still had his foot pinned underneath his own. He did fall to one knee though, with Balrog's foot being the only thing keeping him even partly upright as the man laughed at the damage he had just inflicted.

There was nothing technical or pretty about how Balrog had just pummeled Batsu. He hadn't done anything that remotely looked like boxing and it looked like he had beaten Batsu unconscious were it not for the fact that he could feel that Batsu had a weak grip on his boxing shorts.

"Are you still trying this?" Balrog said before putting a hand on his head to laugh down at Batsu in disbelief, "Since when do kids like getting beaten up so much? You're the best punching bag money can buy, you know that?" He continued to laugh, reaching down to grab Batsu's collar only to stop when the sound of a quite solid thud echoed out through the arena. In the middle of a laugh, Balrog's voice shot up to a squeaky high pitch and his knees began to shake because Batsu had just punched him directly in the testicles with the hardest uppercut he had ever been hit with, cup or not.

The thud was the sound of the cup cracking.

Balrog gently held his groin area and slowly shuffled away from Batsu, hunched over in pain as he did so and spouting threats in the highest falsetto possible as he tried to walk it off.

Meanwhile, Batsu stood back up, his face all sorts of bloody, but with an angry sneer on his face, "No rules right?" Not waiting for any sort of response, Batsu charged Balrog down and delivered a punishing uppercut that knocked Balrog into the air as he began to channel all of his ki as he held his left hand out in front of himself, "Now block this! Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Burning Super Guts Bullet)!"

The punch that let the Guts Bullet loose was so intense that Batsu left the ground to get the force needed to make it work. A blazing red massive ball of unstably compressed ki flew through the air wildly before rising up above the falling Balrog and slamming him into the ground with an explosion.

Balrog's body, propelled even harder by Batsu's super-powered Kiaidan, left an indentation in the ground where he lay face down. Smoke wafted up from his body as burns permeated his motionless frame and the crowd let up a cheer at the come from behind victory.

"It's… it's completely improbable folks! The former world heavyweight boxing champion Balrog has just been defeated by 17 year old Ichimonji Batsu! Give it up for the winner!"

This announcement and the pure shock value of the incident did nothing to really help Batsu on his way back to his friends as enthusiastic fans gave him hearty pats on the back all the way up the stairs. Pure murder on his broken ribs.

Upon reaching his row of seats where everyone had been sitting, instead of sitting back in his chair and allowing the others to congratulate him and whatnot, Batsu lay down on the floor on his back, letting out a few grunts of pain in the process. Naruto, Sakura, and Karin just stared at him blankly until Karin motioned for Ishizaki, "Ishizaki, please bandage Ichimonji-san's ribs and provide him with some painkillers."

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Arena)

An extremely handsome man in a very expensive looking suit sat in his seat, surrounded by beautiful women as the entire row he was sitting in, as well as the row in front of and behind him were all clear. The man had long light brown hair kept in one single long braid down his back and blue eyes that seemed to be amused as he shook his head at the sight of Balrog being carted off, "Idiot." The man said about Balrog, "I'm not his babysitter… so it's not my problem, but he'd better hope that Bison doesn't care if he makes an ass of himself or not."

He held out his hand as a glass was placed into it by one of the women and another filled it with wine, "Vega are you enjoying the show so far?" One of them asked him, seemingly fawning over his good looks.

Sparing the woman half a glass before taking a sip of his beverage, Vega let off a scoff as if it was not worth his time to comment, 'This 'show' is worthless to me.' He thought to himself instead of openly voicing it, 'I'm looking for talent. For someone to maybe recruit, but it's all been ho-hum. The boy that defeated Balrog couldn't duplicate that feat in a million years. And everyone here is so unflatteringly unattractive. It's repulsing.'

Vega himself could have entered this tournament firsthand to really find if there was anyone worth recruiting, but it would have been a waste of his time as far as he was concerned. A small-time tournament like this would pose him no challenge and all he would have done would have been to work himself up for nothing. But it was so boring.

These fights were ugly and had little flair to them with a minor exception of the first match with the girl that was pretty cute, not nearly as beautiful as himself of course, that the crowd seemed to love. Where was the flash? Where was the showmanship? Did these people have no sense of style? As the tournament continued on after Balrog's loss, Vega was getting more and more irritated.

Until he saw something that put a little glimmer of hope into his eye.

"The winner of his first round bout and advancing to the next round, Uzumaki Naruto!"

"I'd better get some goddamn theme music next time if you gave that jackass Dan a whole entrance with pyro and lights!" Naruto's loud and irritated voice shouted over the cheers of the crowd. As his beaten and thoroughly trounced opponent was taken away by doctors, Naruto jumped up on the barricade and played to the fans, "Best ninja in the world, dattebayo! I don't need a clan, I'm the man!"

Well this was certainly intriguing. A ninja was he? That was interesting to Vega for his own reasons first and foremost. The way he seemed to handle his opponent as if he himself had been bored with it told quite the story to Vega. He had a flair for the dramatic, or at least was rather boisterous, and unlike that loser Hibiki Dan he seemed to be able to back that up with action.

To say the least, Vega liked what he had seen. He just needed to see a little something more before he decided to make an offer, "I think Bison might be pleased with this one."

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{Character Profile}

Name: Balrog

Nationality: U.S.A.

Gender: Male

Age: 31 (Birthday: September 4)

Height/Weight: 6'6/225 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: Women, bourbon, money.

Dislikes: Fish, hard work, math.

Hobbies: Gambling

Rivals: Anyone that messes with his money.

Fighting Style: Street Boxing

Current Techniques: Dash Straight, Dash Upper, Dash Low Straight, Dash Low Smash, Buffalo Head, Turn Punch.

Hyper Techniques: Gigaton Blow, Crazy Buffalo, Violent Buffalo, Dirty Bull.

Background: Balrog was once a great boxing champion and renowned prizefighter, winning the world heavyweight championship at his peak. He was banned from boxing in the midst of his title reign for accidently killing an opponent in the ring to go along with other previous incidents of maiming his other opponents and his noted brazen use of illegal maneuvers. From that point forward he turned his skills towards earning himself easy money as the top enforcer of a shadowy criminal organization (Shadaloo), following the orders of the head of the organization and running criminal errands at his will. He is a selfish, temperamental, arrogant, sadistic thug with insatiable greed. To obtain money and fame Balrog has no problems with cheating, stealing, and killing in order to get what he wants as honor is not something Balrog recognizes. Despite his rather high placement in Shadaloo he is not particularly smart or cunning, mostly up there in the pecking order due to his ability to follow orders and execute pretty much anything asked of him.