Raging Of The Region...

Chapter 21 - Raging of the Region...

There wasn't really any time to get into the heavy questioning on what Naruto and Sasuke had been talking about the day before at the dark-haired boy's restaurant that he was managing. Naruto's outright fainting face-first through a table kind of put an end to that when a thoroughly annoyed Sasuke had kicked them all out.

Well if there was one thing that could be said about Kasugano Sakura it was that she was nothing if not incredibly persistent. And no, that wasn't a trait that she picked up from hanging out with Naruto, it was all her.

Since by now she knew full well that she was never going to get a straight answer from Naruto himself unless she drugged his ramen with some kind of truth serum she had to do the next best thing and find another avenue to find out what she was curious about. Puppy dog eyes were effective on Naruto when it came to getting him to do things, they never worked when she wanted him to talk about something.

But Sasuke apparently had no qualms with putting his and Naruto's past business out on full blast and it was because of him that some very sensitive information was coaxed out, so in that instance why would one keep trying to get water from a dry well when there was one that at least produced a trickle from its pump?

With that reasoning in mind, the next afternoon after finishing her chores at home and getting in a little bit of training she endeavored to return to the restaurant Genhanten. Wearing a white and red windbreaker top and a pair of short red summer shorts for her leisure time, Sakura tightened her white headband on her head to brace herself for an unkind encounter and entered the building.

Upon going inside she noted that the table had already been replaced. Hopefully Sasuke wouldn't make her pay for it a day after it had happened, especially when it wasn't her fault to begin with.

She managed to get some directions from the workers that were still setting up the Chinese eating establishment and she was sent towards an upstairs office with a shut door at the top of the steps. Knocking on the door, she got no answer at first, just hearing some thudding noises from within.

Hanging out with a ninja and a kunoichi as much as she did had her pick up the rather dubious skill of basic lockpicking. The most basic form of it as a matter of fact, because all she knew how to do was force a lock open on a basic doorknob with brute force. With a sudden movement, Sakura popped the door open and walked inside of the office, 'I hope I didn't screw up how that door closes from now on.'

Two visits to the restaurant and two things had probably wound up broken. That wasn't going to endear anyone to the manager.

But then Sakura had to dodge a barrage of shuriken thrown at her from within.

Rolling out of the way, she had her eyes affixed on the location where the attack had originated from all the way across the office. The entire floor was a wooden floor studio setup that was mostly empty except for some target posts that had been placed inside and a few tatami mats at the far end of the room. It seemed more like some kind of dojo than a place of business.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked impatiently from his place sitting on the floor on the mats, "We're not open yet in case you haven't noticed."

Throwing ninja stars at a visitor that he had already met coupled with that kind of attitude upon first speaking to them? Yeah, Sakura didn't like his attitude. He might have been from the same place her best friend was from, but they didn't have the same manners drilled into them as youths at all. Naruto's manners might have sucked from time to time, but at least he tried. This guy obviously just didn't care.

"I came to talk." Sakura said moving slowly enough that she couldn't have possibly been perceived as a threat even by the most paranoid basket-case, "That's all. There wasn't really a chance to do that yesterday with everything that happened."

"Naruto owes me 6000 yen."

"Right…" Sakura managed to grit out. Goodness, did this boy have a sociable bone in his body? This was ridiculous, "Well I was wondering if you could tell me anything about where you two come from. That Elemental Nations place or whatever you called it."

"There's not much to say." Sasuke got up from his place on the floor and walked across the room past Sakura to retrieve the weaponry he'd initially tried to pelt her with, "Other than what he already said anything else would go over your head. It's not really important now. At this point you're just trying to snoop."

"His parents? Family? Anything?"

"He never had any. I'm sure you know that much, I don't see why he'd have lied about that or tried to hide it."

Obviously Sasuke wasn't a fan of conversation from the way he was talking. He just wanted her to leave. How did Naruto consider him a friend not worth getting back for setting him on fire and allegedly shoving a hand through his shoulder?

"Okay, well then tell me about what happened to you two in Tokyo." She asked. Even though Ibuki was able to give a description of the person that was the only one to walk away from the scene, she still had no idea exactly what had transpired.

While it wasn't something that Sasuke was a fan of remembering, he was well aware of the fact that ignoring it didn't make it so that his crushing defeat didn't happen. And it had been a fate that had befallen Naruto as well, a fate that had put him completely out of commission for a month.

So it might have been the business of the people that had watched him nearly die two times… or was it three? He wasn't there, he didn't know.

After digging the last of his shuriken out of his wall, Sasuke turned towards Sakura with a frosty glance before sighing in exasperation and walking over to a desk situated in a corner of the room. He cleared the surface of it off as it seemed that he wouldn't be getting any work done today anyway and started thinking up a way to explain what had happened to them, "…You know how to fight, I can see it. And if you've dealt with Naruto for a decent amount of time then you aren't a bad fighter so let's put it this way. What's the worst beating that you've ever taken?"

Immediately Sakura's encounter with a brainwashed Ryu came to mind. Nothing she did worked and he seemed to be handling her with the greatest of ease. Even with Ken's help she couldn't do anything. All she was at most was a distraction to give Ken an opening to actually contribute to the battle. Thus this was the example that she gave to Sasuke.

"And he almost killed you." Sasuke said after hearing what she had to tell him about the fight in Thailand, "Well did you hit him?"

Sakura frowned and shook her head, "No, he avoided my attacks. I didn't land a single blow the entire time."

Sasuke held up a hand and stopped her right there from continuing. He had heard all that he needed to hear to begin making his point, "Well against Akuma our attacks did land." Naruto rag-dolled him and Sasuke set him on fire, but when it came to their heavier stuff it was like he was sick of just seeing what we had to offer and started fighting to finish them.

"He survived whatever you two did to destroy the arena?" Sakura couldn't believe that one. She'd seen Naruto's heavier artillery when using the Kyuubi's chakra and one attack from him was enough to turn the upper floors of a fortified Shadaloo military base into a fine gravelly rubble ready to be sprinkled on a dirt road.

"Naruto and I tore it to shreds, but I'm pretty sure Akuma was the one that destroyed the arena." Revealed Sasuke, "He beat me first with the biggest chak- err… ki attack I've ever seen. I didn't see what he did to beat Naruto… that damn Gouhadoken move…"

He was never going to forget that move. It was the last thing he heard the demonic man shout before his body was drilled with a burning, driving force that put him out mere moments later.

Now that sounded familiar, "Gou-what? Hadoken?" Sakura alertly noted before surprising Sasuke with how fast she was once she closed the distance between where she had been standing and where his desk was, "Did you say Hadoken?" Sasuke was confused but nodded nonetheless, "Did he fire it like this?" She then proceeded go through the motions to create and utilize her own Hadoken that flared out not too long after leaving her hands.

"It wasn't blue and it wasn't that pathetic, but yeah that was how he used it." Offensive comparison of Sakura's Hadoken technique to Akuma's aside, he was curious, "Where did you learn that from?"

Still quite mad at Sasuke for cutting down her Hadoken, Sakura turned away from him with her arms crossed over her chest as she walked towards the exit of the office, "Oh, well I guess I'll take my pathetic attack and go home." She taunted freely, making a show of strutting to the door, "Yep, since you ninja types are all with the keeping secrets and whatnot I guess I've got my own to keep from one of you now."

She turned around back towards the desk to keep going but found that Sasuke was no longer there. By the time she turned back to the door he was already standing in front of her path with his Sharingan on. All she could do was freeze in place as her eyes took on the three-tomoed pattern that also lay in Sasuke's eyes.

And all of a sudden the images of the futile battle that had been waged against Akuma flew through her mind. She could feel herself expend chakra in place of herself and what Sasuke felt Naruto had tried to use to combat their enemy. She felt the heat of the fire that Sasuke used to burn Akuma alive. She could breathe the debris and the smoke in the air that flew all about as they tore Budokan Hall asunder with every move. She felt the pain of every blow that Sasuke sustained and what Sasuke thought that Naruto had sustained.

All in a second, and then the genjutsu was over. The pain was gone, the exhaustion was gone. All of it.

"Calm down." Sasuke said as the brown-haired girl started hyperventilating. She had obviously never been in a genjutsu before. He probably should have taken it a bit slower, but screw that. If she wanted to see why he wanted to know what he wanted she could find out firsthand, "You're fine. It's a trick of the mind. But do you see now? A guy like that just showing up to kick us around and then leave?"

Getting her composure back bit by bit, Sakura nodded in understanding. That just didn't seem right. Too many questions behind it. And Sakura did indeed want to find the man was all about as well because whatever he had done to finish Naruto off should have by all rights killed the sunny blonde. What if he found out that Naruto was still alive? Would he come back for more?

"That was from your memories right?" She asked Sasuke as she moved past him and leaned against the doorframe, "That felt so real." Sasuke silently nodded, and that put gave Sakura another thought, "I'll tell you what you want so you can start finding what you need… but you've got to show me that fight with Naruto that you had. And you've got to show me a bit of Naruto's old home too."

Why the hell not? If they were both from the same place it seemed like a logical enough request.

With a shrug, Sasuke's Sharingan did a quick spin as he looked into Sakura's eyes and gave her another quick blast from the past that she physically recoiled from. It took significantly longer than the first time before she shook off her genjutsu haze after a few seconds and fixed him with a glare that he didn't like very much, "What's your problem?" Sasuke asked in a prickly manner, though he already knew what it was.

He had accidentally thought not only of the fight with Naruto, but in order to dredge up that point accurately he had to first think of pretty much everything that had preceded it including defecting to Otogakure to begin with and what his mindset had been at the time. So she pretty much had the whole backstory and the visual of the violent fight at the massive waterfall between the two huge statues to go with it as a garnish.

"I don't like you very much." Sakura said, shoving herself off of the doorframe now that her little mindtrip was over, "You have got some serious insecurity issues if you thought any of that was a good idea to do. What's wrong with you?"

"Whatever." Sasuke dismissed her scolding indifferently. There was actually a lot wrong with him and it wasn't her business. He didn't care what she thought as long as she wasn't going to try and fight him for it, "Are you going to help me or did I just waste all of that chakra for nothing?"

XxX

(Mid-Afternoon – With Naruto – Mountains of the Chugoku Region)

The directions of Naruto's previously dispelled clone from months ago directed him south from Aohura City. Deeply forested foothills where there happened to be no trail for dozens of miles awaited him and he was starting to get pissed off. Jumping branches in trees was way more of a workout going uphill than on flat ground and it was writing checks that his body currently didn't feel like cashing for him.

He wasn't getting tired, but his body was getting sore and he had listened to most of the songs on his MP3 player despite it being on shuffle. He'd heard 'Paul Revere' by the Beastie Boys so much that he could have probably recanted the entire fictionalized tale of Mike D, MCA, and King Ad-Rock by heart at that point.

But the power in his device had died by then, and it was probably a good thing that it had too because his clones were beginning to locate traps that had been set to stop and deter possible intruders. They hadn't tripped very many because they had seen them for the most part, but some of them were double-layered thus some of his clones were defeated. The trap with the poison darts was a vicious one.

Good. That meant he was on the right track and he adjusted his position according to the clones that had fallen into traps and those that hadn't.

Wait… if there were traps in the near vicinity and he was positioning himself towards the center of them then that meant that it was only a matter of time until he came across one of them himself.

"Crap…" Naruto muttered to himself right before a wire in the air was tripped by his presence and a thick series of sharp metal wire tightened and retracted inward from a hidden web that he had put himself into. He created a clone that gave him a boost and threw him high into the air just as the web of metal wires sliced and diced several trees and felled them all.

Landing on the trunk of a tree as it fell, Naruto rode it like a surfboard until it hit the ground where he then jumped off of it. That trap was way too nasty in comparison to the other ones that his clones had come across. He also needed to learn how to make that for himself because it was impressive.

It was a good thing his body had shaken off the stiffness that it had possessed the day before and even the night before when he had initially set out on his little excursion. If he had been caught in that they'd be picking up separate pieces of him that would have been diced and slingshot all over the woods. Even if his healing ability was available to him at the moment he wouldn't be able to heal getting cut up into several segments.

'Okay, from the way I've been moving with my clones I'm going smack through the middle of the bulk of the traps right now.' And since he was going straight up the gut when it came to the field of traps that explained why the one he had just tripped had been especially nasty. His clones had seen giveaways to the traps that they had run across, well the one Naruto had just seen didn't have any gives. Tripwires in the air? Seriously? He barely felt the thing break, as if it had been a gentle breeze or something.

So he had just messed with a trap that was pretty much the village telling outsiders that if you came that far you were pretty much taking your life into your own hands. As he kneeled down and checked out the now useless wire he touched it to find that rust had come off onto his fingers. It was a very old trap if the wire was that weathered. Either way he was moving in the right direction, all he had to do was keep an eye out for anymore traps.

XxX

(A Short Time Later - Glade of Ninjas)

It had been the most boring summer ever.

Two weeks after the ill-fated pursuit of Sasuke in Tokyo, high school let out for the summer break. And the following two or so weeks had been maddening for Ibuki because she still had three weeks left, and instead of making and keeping her own plans for the break, Ibuki already had her plans made for her.

She would be taking part in something of a boot camp of sorts to train the younger ninja in her village. There was no skipping this for her because she already got to go outside of the village for school anyway.

Every young ninja currently undergoing the training at the time were situated in a veritable field of tall even-heighted bamboo poles just outside of the village itself, each of them balancing on them with one point of contact without moving a muscle. At the moment they were all standing on their right legs and holding the exact same statuesque positions.

"Switch!"

Upon the barking of that order from the ninja in charge of overseeing the training, all of them switched to balancing upside-down with their left arms extending themselves upwards.

It was so boring! Ibuki needed something to break the monotony. She wasn't even getting anything out of this training. It might as well have been the equivalent of remedial classes to her. She trained harder when she did it by herself, and she trained way harder when she trained with her friends in Aohura City. She had shown Sanjou-sensei the results of her improvement and even he agreed to as much. Working with so many others did her good in the development of her skills.

But she was supposed to get the choice to do what she wished with herself completely after graduating high school. Until then she had to do what she was told and that was that.

Minutes dragged on and on toward the end of the hour, and eventually the sensei in charge called the exercise off and informed the youngsters that they could do what they pleased for the next two hours before evening training was in effect.

Everyone else was stunned by how quickly Ibuki vacated her spot atop her bamboo pole and returned to her quarters.

"Oh, I can't take this anymore." Ibuki exclaimed as she shut the door to her room with a sigh and pulled her facemask down, "I can't take three more weeks of this. I just can't. I want school to start up again so badly…" She then noticed her pet tanuki standing on her bed on his hind legs and she froze in place. Was this some stupid test?

If she was being tested she wasn't about to fail, and Ibuki prepared a fistful of kunai for throwing purposes as she looked up into the divots of her ceiling only to stop at who she saw sticking to the ceiling.

Now that he was discovered by who he came to see, Naruto fell from the ceiling to the floor with a quiet creak of the floor… and his knees.

"Naruto?" Ibuki looked at him owlishly, shakily raising a finger to point at him, "Y-You're supposed to be dead." A frown found its way to Naruto's face as he'd been hearing that a lot lately, but he just shook his head, bringing something else to mind that she narrowed her eyes at, "How did you even know how to get here?" She asked accusingly.

He wasn't about to tell Ibuki that her plan to blindfold his clone didn't work, so he was going to use the next best thing he had as an excuse, "Um… Karin tracked your cell phone's signal?" Pass the buck of blame. There was nothing wrong with that. Karin could probably do that anyway even if none of them ever thought to try it on Ibuki, so it wasn't exactly outlandish.

Without warning Ibuki began clawing her way through her special hiding place for the mobile device and pulled it out before holding it up in Naruto's face, "Damn it people can do that? Why didn't anyone tell me that? That's dangerous!"

Naruto set his hands on the girl's shoulders to get her to calm down. Now he felt bad for coming up with that crappy excuse, "Relax. You need a satellite to do it, and I think Karin's family has like seven of them." He was sure he was exaggerating that number, but he just wasn't sure, "And I'll be fine. It's not like I'm here for anything except to hang out with you for a bit. You weren't in town."

"I'm stuck in summer training camp." Ibuki said distastefully at her current circumstances, "Yuk. But aside from that-." She then slammed herself into Naruto full-speed, hard enough to knock him onto the modest-sized bed where she hugged him furiously, "-I'm so glad you're alright! Your heart stopped three times and started again somehow… I almost got you killed." Luckily her tanuki Don was fleet-footed enough to dodge before impact.

The mindset of the blonde was not what one would have expected it to be as the kunoichi held herself tightly against him. She almost got him killed? No she didn't. She wasn't even there.

"You didn't do anything." Naruto said, carefully trying to push her off of him. His body was as sore as all get out, and the display of affection while it was much appreciated came about from some semblance of guilt. Unnecessary guilt, "It was all that Akuma guy. If you'd have been there with me you would have wound up just like me and Sasuke. Numbers wouldn't have mattered against that guy."

"I know, but-." Ibuki stopped hugging Naruto when she was able to feel just how thick the medical wrappings he had on underneath his one-piece fighting suit were. She brazenly sat up from her position and quickly yanked the front zipper of the suit down to his supply belt where she could see all visible signs of Naruto's body heavily taped up, "Oh for fuck's sake. Naruto, why?" She lightly tapped on the tape and it felt like a protective shell, "If you've got to put three pounds of tape around your body just to protect yourself then you shouldn't go anywhere."

Naruto scowled up at his friend once she pointed out his attempt to patch himself up in order to get himself to the next stop so to speak. He didn't have three pounds of tape on either. It was more like one and a half pounds, "What's with all of you guys? Every single one of you have been saying that to me since I woke up yesterday."

"You only woke up yesterday?"

"Yeah, so? Remember the Geki ninja thing? I get up from injuries all the time in a day. What's the big deal?"

But this time he didn't get up in a day, it took a month. Was he unaware of just how twisted up he had everyone in regards to his health? So she did the only thing that made sense to get her point across at the moment. She headbutted him. Both of them cried out with a simultaneous 'ow' as she had forgotten about the metal plate on his headband which made it harder on her than it would have been otherwise.

As she mentally admitted to herself that such a thing wasn't the smartest move she could make, Ibuki rubbed her forehead and winced at what she was sure would develop into a red mark on her face later, "Ouch. I hate that stupid thing."

"Ibuki, could you get off of me now?" Naruto said as he squirmed uncomfortably beneath her. Now that the hug had ended he was well aware of the position that the two of them were in with the shapely brunette girl straddling his waist. He wished to avoid a very embarrassing situation that would be caused by a part of him involuntarily growing due to the circumstances that he found himself in.

Oops, too late. In his defense she was extremely attractive.

On the flipside, Ibuki's face turned rather red as well as she seemed to teleport across the room off of Naruto. Turning her back to him she tried to smooth out her clothes and hide her face from him, "I'm not that kind of girl just so you know. I was just happy to see you, that's all." Apparently he was happy to see her too, but she was going to keep that jab to herself.

It was awkward to say the very least, but it was still sort of flattering once she thought further past the physical reaction itself.

"Right." Naruto said, sitting ramrod straight in her bed with his legs crossed to cover any possible views of his business, "Ahem… well I wanted to say hi, tell you I was alright, all of that stuff."

Ibuki gave him a dry look and placed a hand on her hip as her tanuki ran up her leg to her shoulder, "Really? That's the only reason you came out here? You didn't run all the way cross-country up the mountains and through the woods and sneak into my village and room for some kind of spontaneous, romantic action?"

"…That's why I don't watch TV. Because that sounded really dumb. Why the fuck would I do that when I'll see you in school soon enough."

That dumbass was never going to get an actual girlfriend. He was so cute, but there was just a lot of concrete inside of his head surrounding his brain. There had to be an explanation for why he was the way he was. Who said something like that?

No wonder Sakura hadn't picked him up yet after four years of being close friends. It never made sense so there was probably a major backstory there on how either of them proverbially screwed the pooch in the past that she wasn't privy to.

And then there was Karin, who was trying to convince herself that Naruto was a commodity at worst and a friend at best when it came to how it worked with them. But when he was down and out over the previous month it was kind of obvious that she was clearly leaning to the right end of that spectrum from what she had seen throughout the rest of the school term.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't all his fault. But still.

"…Maybe you should start watching a bit more TV."

Just a suggestion. Maybe then he'd see some of this stuff coming?

Naruto rolled his eyes and planted his palms down on his knees before cringing slightly. He felt better than he did yesterday, the trip up to the Glade of Ninjas must have done his body some good with the exercise, but he was still sore, "Right. So I'll just hang out here until it gets late enough for me to sneak out and then I'll leave." He deduced as he zipped the front of his fighting outfit back up to its original position of just under his collarbone.

"You don't have to hide in my room Naruto." Ibuki told him with a rather pleased look on her face, "I've been telling Enjo about you ever since we met; about how you're a ninja, how you helped me against the Geki Clan that attacked us at your house, how you and our other friends help me train, how you got me to a hospital when I needed your help. Long story short, you're trusted enough to be here as long as I'm with you at all times."

Wow. That was cool. And unexpected. It was previously assumed that the other members of the ninja community didn't like the orange-clad blonde bomber at all. His past interactions with Guy would have professed as much since that man seemed to abhor him, "Really? Sweet. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some fun with that when I'm not so busted up."

Ibuki liked the way that worked out as well since she was the one that pitched it to her village leader Enjo to begin with, "I was going to ask you if you wanted to come up here during summer break so that boot camp maybe wouldn't suck so much, but then you went and got annihilated by the guy in the black gi. So that plan got scratched. Just as well. The training sucks and you would have gotten bored and gotten me in trouble."

Naruto opened his mouth to dispute her point but in the end found it useless. If the training that he would have wound up wasting his five week summer break to do did indeed suck then he would have gotten testy and he probably would have gotten her in trouble. Was he really that predictable? He thought he was supposed to be unpredictable.

"So… what are you doing for the rest of the day?" Naruto thought as Ibuki's tanuki Don ran over to him and lay down on top of his head. He then had to put a hand on his head to make sure the little raccoon-dog didn't fall off of his dome when Ibuki snatched him by his wrist and dragged him out of her room, "What the hell?"

She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it the moment that he had shown up. Naruto showing up… all she had to do was introduce him to Enjo. Ibuki could then use that to get out of the useless training at least for that evening to 'keep an eye on him' to assuage the paranoia of her superiors. And it was rightful paranoia because he had apparently infiltrated the village without anyone realizing that he did it.

Best to keep that to herself, or Naruto might have gotten his visitation rights revoked before he even got the chance to flex them out.

XxX

(Aohura City – Karin's Personal Manor)

Just when one assumed that they had seen the full scope of just what made Karin different from everyone else something else would happen that would show that they were always just scratching the surface.

Sakura, Cammy, and Batsu had their presences requested at her 'humble' abode that afternoon. Why? To bear witness to her digging up information on the transport of Mad Gear's growing armament.

The ways that they were beginning to enforce their will over Aohura City was getting more and more militaristic, not just in tactics, but in the equipment they used. Gone were lead pipes, wrenches, small switchblades, normal street gangster weapons. Now they were starting to use riot batons, army knives, and the day before in the street she had actually been forced to defeat more than her fair share that were wielding small firearms.

Needless to say she was quite disturbed by this trend as it also coincided with the group becoming bolder with how they approached their attempted domination of the city, so she put her vast resources into action to break down what the situation was.

"I don't see why you even care about this." Batsu said as he looked at all of the screens and wondered what he was watching. They were all situated in what seemed to be a control room with interactive projections of multiple large monitor displays and a touch function that he seemed to be clueless on how to work, "You're all nestled up in the 'burbs with a damn army outside watching this place."

Deciding to answer a question with a question, Karin never took her eyes off of the screens that she happened to be working on, masterfully weaving her hands to manipulate this and that, "Would you be deterred by the mercenaries my father hired for my protection?"

"No. I'd kick their asses. I doubt they can even shoot those guns of theirs half-straight."

"Exactly." Karin said, finally turning toward Batsu with a condescending smile that elicited a scowl out of him, "So what makes you think a pack of jackals like Mad Gear would not attack my home once they were properly armed? I only have one hundred men watching this property. You lot could defeat my guardians all right now if you fell out of favor with me and were forced to escape."

So sad, but so very true. Karin's father just didn't recognize that hiring mercenaries for her only made things in her everyday life more cumbersome. She was fine on her own handling her own problems.

Carefully observing her on-again off-again rival's work, Sakura noted that it was mostly her digging into her family's business holdings, most notably the shipping aspect of it, "Why are you checking over your family's shipping affiliates?"

"Several are Yakuza affiliated." Karin admitted, but none too proudly. Apparently it had been a connection that had lasted generations as her family was old money. Nothing she could do about it until she was in control of things and rest assured she would most definitely be doing something about it when it was her time, "That means smuggling is a pretty big deal. This is how Mad Gear managed to get their weapons, vehicles, and equipment into the country."

As the heiress brought up several private shipping manifests that had cargo that was sloppily unaccounted for or that had goods that made no sense, Cammy pointed at what she was able to see for everyone else to locate as well, "Every strange shipping detail is from Russia. I understand customs and whatnot being iffy up around the Kiril Islands, but to this extent?"

"Are you sure you have amnesia?" Sakura asked, poking Cammy in the side of the head as the petite assassin ignored her in order to keep observing what Karin was bringing up on the monitors, "You've got all of your world knowledge but you don't know anything about yourself. That's weird."

"As sure as I was a few months ago." Cammy replied, grabbing Sakura's hand to keep her from poking her anymore, "Please stop."

From Karin's perspective though, if one was aware of the political climate between Russia and Japan over the Kiril Islands it wasn't that hard to figure how it could wind up being a massive blind spot in national security.

A big enough bribe on both sides makes the right person responsible for preventing such a thing getting through blind in both eyes. If anyone knew what sway and influence was held by money it was definitely the Kanzuki Dynasty heiress. She personally took advantage of such a thing on a regular basis.

Well there was nothing they could do about such a thing now. The weapons were there. All they could do at this point was find where the tools of destruction were stored. Maybe once they did that they could get rid of them, because until then there were very few people that could do anything.

And the people that they previously figured could do something, the stronger fighters in Aohura City, well they were dropping like flies, "I can't believe that the Gedo High School Gang went down like that… in just one night?" Sakura recanted in disbelief. It was all over the place. Everyone that could throw a half-decent punch in town knew, "Daigo, Edge, and Gan weren't that weak."

For all of the big-talking tough guys in town they were the some of the ones that were actually able to back it up. And with an entire gang with them it was hard to believe that anything less than a whole strike force of goons would be enough to even have a chance at taking them down. Sakura had seen enough fights to know skill, and she had seen them fight (and had fought them) enough to know that they had it.

"Yeah it's a big tragedy, yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah. Since when are we the unofficial protectors of this place?" Batsu callously chimed in getting glares from all three girls as he tried and failed to operate the interactive projections, his hands and arms just going straight through them, "Can we watch TV? I'm bored to tears here. And where's Naruto?" Why wasn't that bastard suffering through this like he was?

Cammy opened her mouth to answer truthfully before Sakura spoke first, "Naruto's apparently smart enough to know when we've got something handled and he's at home getting some rest. There's no need for him to get himself killed trying to fight when he can't even lift Cammy without passing out."

That wasn't where Naruto was at all, but right then Cammy was being given the benefit of the doubt so she didn't feel the need to contradict that at the moment. Things were fine as they were.

"Well that was yesterday… and what if Cammy's heavy or something?"

Unlike with a notably injured Naruto the night before, Cammy had no qualms with socking Batsu in the stomach and felt some semblance of satisfaction when her fist sunk into his belly and he exhaled suddenly. These boys needed to know when to watch their mouths. Saying such things about regular girls would have been dangerous enough… well there was nothing about any of these girls that happened to be normal.

"I don't have any problemshitting a girl that can kick my ass." With a breathless cough, Batsu took a swing at Cammy who dodged right before Sakura got a palm in both of their faces and shoved them apart to keep them from getting into a fight around so much high-end equipment, "She started it." Cammy just shrugged and the two stopped as quickly as they seemed to be prepared to start, like siblings that had been separated from scuffling in the backseat of a car.

Rolling her sharp eyes at the assumed idiocy of her acquaintances, with a wave of her hands Karin brought up a new screen projection and attuned it to show normal television for the benefit of those that didn't like to do the thinking portion of being prepared.

Well she could serve to educate the fool a bit, thus she changed the channel to the evening news and smirked when Batsu let out a pathetic whine, "Just watch it. Perhaps you will see something useful, or at the very least you will be up to date on current events in the region." Was it mean to make him watch something that he didn't like? Probably, but she never claimed to be nice… and aside from that she could have been meaner and put the station on the TV Guide channel just to taunt him.

All was well and good, and things seemed to be productive with Batsu lulled into silent lucidity with the nightly newscast. Now maybe some work could get done.

"Uh-oh." Well that peace of mind didn't last very long, "Is anyone else watching this?"

"No Ichimonji-san." Karin replied as if she were a kindergarten teacher, "We are all trying to find out where Mad Gear are stockpiling their arms so that maybe something can be done about it before Aohura City really does get taken over by a militaristic group of-."

"Maybe you should be watching it then, because if the news was really supposed to be like this I swear I'd watch it every single night." Batsu pointed blankly at the screen of choice and directed the attention of the other females in the room.

On the screen there was a pink haired, scantily clad woman sitting on the desk of the news anchors waving a riding whip around in a bored manner, "Yes, it's still me; your replacement host for this evening's news, Miss Poison. Tonight's broadcast is brought to you by your local neighborhood social group Mad Gear with the one message that we've been repeating for the last half-hour. Yes, once again we're calling out that salacious hoodlum for hire Uzumaki Naruto. But he must be scared… sigh."

Oh man that wasn't good.

Calling out Naruto in such an open manner where everyone could see it simply was not going to end well. Makoto chasing him all over town was not the same thing. An aggressive move to try and force Naruto to fight was not the key. No, in order to goad Naruto into a fight you had to be passive about it. Give him a clear and open choice to either accept or decline, but ensure that he would lose face if he were to fail to meet the challenge.

Karin sort of made it work when she fought Naruto for a boatload of money. Dan made it work when he called Naruto out in the middle of the city park. This was on an exceedingly larger scale than that. Why the hell did Naruto have to be semi-famous?

Right… because Karin wanted him to be. Were they still on with that arrangement?

"I thought he was supposed to be some big tough guy." Poison continued idly before looking back at the male anchor who looked rather nervous, "I mean, you know who he is don't you?" The anchorman nodded swiftly and froze in place when Poison crawled on her hands and knees on the desk towards him, "You see? But I guess getting his head kicked in by Ken Masters and Ryu made him realize that he just didn't measure up. It's just as well. You can't send a little boy to do a man's job, now can you?" She finished in seductively close proximity to the anchor, almost touching noses.

Until the man swayed in place, bled from the nose, and fell back out of his chair, getting a smirk and a wink out of Poison when she saw the female member of the news team glare at her. And immediately Sakura and Karin didn't like her at all. Where was the modesty? The hussy.

And of course Batsu was stuck staring like an idiot. Why wasn't someone recording this for posterity? The news had never been so good before and it never would be again in his opinion..

"Well I guess I'll give our little friend one more chance to stop being a coward and come out to fight." Standing up on the desk, Poison gestured grandly for a wide shot to the ruined set with tons of broken up security guards and even a few police strewn about, "We're out of time tonight, so we'll leave a message. Tomorrow night Mad Gear is benevolently sponsoring an event at the Aohura Super Arena at 7:00 pm. Come one, come all for the last chance to see Naruto either accept the challenge of a lifetime or chicken out for good."

"One match against my main man right here. Hugo."

The camera panned around and up to get an upward shot of a titanic figure standing right behind the cameraman. The shot couldn't even get up over his head as his dark eyes stared down into the lens.

"The rules are simple." Poison grabbed the lens and tilted it back down as she stood in front of Hugo's legs and regained the focus of the segment, "You can defeat your opponent by rendering him unable to respond to a doctor or forcing him to surrender. If you leave the ring for any longer than a count of twenty you lose you scaredy cat, so don't get cold feet when you come face-to-face with Hugo here!" Poison emphasized by lightly tapping him a few times with her whip, "And of course if you die you lose… duh! Other than that, anything goes, so bring the kitchen sink if you want to sweetheart, it won't matter a bit! See you tomorrow… or not."

Rather cruel cackling from the pink-haired witch marked the end of the broadcast which cut out abruptly, leaving the screen dark.

Everyone in the room of Karin's manor sat silently before Sakura pointed at the now black screen, "So what should we do? They're asking for Naruto." As much as she didn't want him to get into a fight with whoever that Hugo person was if Mad Gear really chose to use him to challenge Naruto, he really wasn't going to just sit back and take it if they were putting his rep at stake. He was like that. He also didn't watch TV and his phone was broken so he probably didn't know what was going on yet.

Cammy then chose to chime in as it was now officially important for her to do so, "You see, that's going to be a rather big problem to begin with." And not for the different reasons that they all probably thought it would be for too, "…Because I don't know where Naruto is."

XxX

(Glade of Ninjas – With Naruto)

A jabbing feeling in Naruto's head prompted him to swat at nothing as he and Ibuki walked through her village as she showed him around. He at first figured it was Don who was sleeping on his head at this time, but ignored it in exchange for listening to Ibuki continue to prattle on as they walked and listened to the summer sounds of night birds and evening insects.

She seemed rather excited to be able to show someone else some things for once. He could only imagine. It wasn't like she had ever had a visitor that she could take on a tour, everyone there already knew where everything was, "And that's our smithy. That's where the weapons that we all use are created. I'd show you the armory itself, but then I'd have to kill you." She said with a grin before it abruptly dropped, "Seriously, I'd have to kill you."

Naruto held up his hands in a joking fake-disarming motion before getting jabbed with a playful elbow. He liked the place though. It really did remind him a lot of a hidden village with all of the low buildings and trained killers flying from roof to roof even though it wasn't that big in comparison. Other than that, yep it was just like home.

"So when are you kicking me out of here?" Naruto asked as they traversed the small dirt path between buildings, and dodged the little ninja kids running past.

"Technically you can stay as long as you want I guess." Ibuki replied with a shrug, "Like I said; as long as I'm with you you're welcome here. I really don't think there's anyone that would ask you to leave either. You've never done anything to us. As a matter of fact you've helped us by helping me."

That sounded absolutely wonderful to Naruto who exhaled in relief, "Good, because I need to do some rehab. My body still feels like I just walked up from ground zero." It was a weird feeling. He had never been able to tell it was there, but now that he was unable to heal so quickly it was clear that something was missing. He just felt off all around, "I don't want to go back to town the way I am right now."

Ibuki nodded before shooting a glance Naruto's way and narrowing her eyes on him, "If you're staying here for a bit just where do you think you're going to be sleeping?" That got Naruto to stop in place, because even if Ibuki was that kind of girl, and she had expressed openly that she was not, her bed wasn't big enough for anyone else but her.

"…Dibs!" Naruto shouted before leaping onto the rooftops as he ran on the way back towards the house that contained Ibuki's room.

Staring at him with her jaw dropped for a split second, Ibuki quickly found herself in hot pursuit to try and overtake Naruto and beat him back to her room, "Naruto you wouldn't take my bed, that's not the gentlemanly thing to do! And if you think I'm sleeping on the floor you're out of your damn mind!"

It was a chase, but it was mostly for fun. Naruto wasn't going to make Ibuki sleep on the floor if he had to stay in her room for the night. She'd probably just kick him out of it if he tried to anyway. It had been a long, long time since he had played a game of ninja tag, and while it was a childish game he could take a moment to indulge in it with a friend.

So sue him, because the vast majority of his other friends couldn't keep up with him once he left the ground and started making a ruckus on the building tops, so he just never did it, there was no fun in it.

Eventually Ibuki understood that it was all one big joke as well and kept on with the game, the two flying blurs vaulting over the small dirt roads and over the heads of the grounded populace that didn't give it a second glance.

But inexplicably the fun and games came to an end when an even swifter red blur cut between their merriment and managed to grab Ibuki by the back of her ninja outfit. It took a quick craning of the neck from the kunoichi to see exactly who the buzzkill was, "Guy, let go!" She complained as she squirmed while being held off of the ground with one hand, "You're treating me like a kid!"

"You're acting like one." Guy chided with his never-changing stern expression on his face, "You're darting around the village like a gnat. Aren't you supposed to be in evening training with the other young students to begin with right now?"

"The whole day of training is like a warmup to me. I'm not getting any better or learning anything, I'm just going through the motions there." Ibuki replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she was still being held by the back of her outfit, "I've gotten a better workout in the last ten minutes than I have all day."

Guy didn't need to look much further for what exactly gave her the workout as a soft set of footsteps landed on the rooftop and directed his attention towards the orange-clad shinobi Naruto. Of course, he should have known that if there was a disruption in the usually peaceful village it would have to be from this one.

While Naruto was well aware of Guy's bit of distaste for him that was still no reason to be hostile to someone that he didn't see as an enemy, "Hey Guy." Naruto greeted as he walked over and pointed at Ibuki, "Can I have that back? I kind of need her or else I'll get thrown into jail or killed… whatever they do to intruders around here."

"Killed." Ibuki specified bluntly as Guy still had her held up, "They'd kill you. You'd probably be thrown into a cell first… but in the end they'd probably still kill you." She then turned her head back to Guy, "Can you let go of me now so I can keep hanging out with Naruto or do I have to do something to get loose, because that seems like a pain."

"Uzumaki, you're here. Wonderful." The sarcasm was underlying but still detectable in small traces. Guy wasn't really pleased with an outsider like Naruto being in the Glade of Ninjas, but Guy himself was an outsider as well and was allowed asylum there so he couldn't or wouldn't raise a fuss over that. It was only fair after all, "You have business in this village?"

Naruto let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "Ah, I'm still recovering from a really bad injury. None of my friends want me to fight the Mad Gear gang in town so I decided to come out here to lay low for a bit. Ibuki said that it was okay for me to spend a little bit of time here, but as soon as I feel better and ready to rock and roll I'll be out of your hair." He finished with a grin and a thumbs up.

With a nod, Guy set Ibuki back onto the ground and ignored the indignant glare directed at him from the kunoichi who was readjusting her clothing, "I'm aware of the issues in Aohura City and of your injury that had been suffered in Tokyo a month ago. It's just as well that you don't fight Mad Gear. You could be in over your head here, it's best that I handle it alone."

"You can't do it alone." Naruto said, a bit stunned at how Guy was willing to go all lone wolf on him. He thought that it was ninja protocol to work in groups whenever possible, but there marked yet another strong difference in the kind of shinobi that this world expected and the kind of shinobi that was prevalent in his own original land, "Listen, I'll heal up soon enough. Then we can go back to town and put the boots to-."

"The last time you dealt with a dangerous group you wound up getting a good man killed in Thailand along with getting two close friends put in traction for months… one of them near death. Along with that over a dozen young girls had their minds more or less scrambled by what had taken place."

Naruto's jaw snapped shut and he quickly sobered up while Ibuki visibly flinched from the rather callous comment from Guy. While she hadn't been there she had gotten the later play-by-play from all of her friends in school, and that remark about how one of his friends nearly died was a straight reference to how she almost died from the attack of the Dolls.

From what she heard though, the one man that died in Thailand died as a result of an oversight made by Naruto that allowed the Shadaloo boss to almost literally come back from the dead and hold them up as explosives counted down. It was something of a noble sacrificial death. She hated those, and if Naruto was anything in the same vein she could only imagine how he felt about it if it he felt that it was indeed his fault that it had occurred.

Why did she tell the people in her village what had happened? Oh, because it was a cool story and she was incredibly proud of them. Her friends were strong enough to take part in destroying a world-reaching crime and terror syndicate. No other teenager in the Glade of Ninjas her age, hell most adults in the village couldn't say that they could come even close to pulling something like that off.

But it spread through the small ninja community like wildfire and of course Guy heard of it. She didn't think he'd take it that way though. No one else saw it that way. No one she had spoken to at least.

Guy persisted with his words though, feeling he had finally said something that had broken through Naruto's spirited façade, "Your track record with real threats… not the best." He said with his usual sharp gaze directed on the slightly shorter teenage ninja, "Just recently I only have to point to the incident in Tokyo as an example of what happens when you decide to take the lead on something."

"That didn't have anything to do with Mad Gear." Ibuki interjected abruptly, "Some psychopath came and tore the place apart to-." Naruto put a calming hand on her shoulder to get her to stop arguing a point for him.

He was perfectly capable of getting into his own yelling contest if that was what it came to, "You don't like me at all do you?" Naruto asked, staring right into Guy's eyes with an almost curious gaze, "You don't respect me either. That's okay I guess, I don't really care that much. I've got enough good friends."

"It's not a matter of respect." Guy replied, "How many times do you need to be burned? How many times do you need to come face-to-face with the dark ends of our lifestyle; the kidnappings, the assassination attempts, the deathmatches… how many times do you need to be confronted by the evils of the world before you grow up and take the life of a ninja seriously?"

'I'm sixteen years old you son of a bitch!' What did he want him to be, a drone? He didn't get it. Was this some more of that 'a ninja is a weapon' crap that saw Haku and Zabuza be all about back when he first met them? Ridiculous, "I love goofing off, I love spending time with my friends, I love most of the things about this world, and I love my life. Big deal! So what? That just makes me want to fight for it that much more when the time comes."

"It's a weakness." The fire was definitely there, but sadly it only seemed to add to Guy's reasons to dislike Naruto. He was too quick to be stirred emotionally, "Look at yourself. How can you make a rational decision if you get riled up even by something like this? You need control, discipline. Not wild and reckless abandon. Not only will you one day get yourself killed, eventually you'll get someone else killed because of it."

It was like picking at an open wound, going back to that point, "That's not going to happen again if there's anything I can do about it." Naruto asserted with a strong stance, "Haven't you ever made a mistake? Or were you just perfect from day one?"

Oh was that a twitch? It looked like a nerve had been stricken on the usual calm form of Guy, "That's not any business of yours." Guy said coldly, "I used to be a delinquent before my master found me and trained me in the form of Bushin-ryuu Ninpou. He trained me and disciplined me until I was ready to take the mantle of grandmaster from him in a battle to the death. Had I been unfocused I never would have put my heart aside and did what needed to be done to become the Bushin-ryuu Grandmaster. There can only be one at a time."

"Well that's where we're really different." Naruto stated, standing as tall as his five-foot-eight frame allowed him to do, "I never would have killed my sensei just to become grandmaster of some style. I wouldn't kill any of my friends, ever. So I guess I won't ever be a 'real' ninja the way you want me to be." He wouldn't have done such a thing even to become Hokage, "Too bad."

This was all starting to backfire on Guy. He initially planned on dressing Naruto down, but it didn't seem to do anything but reinforce that Naruto felt he was right in the way that he went about things. Along with that it was starting to get Guy's temper rising as well, bringing up his battle with the previous Bushin-ryuu master.

At this point the sharp ears of many of the village's warriors had heard the short back-and-forth between Naruto and Guy, and Ibuki didn't particularly like the attention for Naruto. She walked over to him and placed a hand on his bicep to direct his attention away from a confrontation, "Come on Naruto, let's go. It's not that important."

Heeding his good friend's request, Naruto turned away and made a dismissive hand gesture over his shoulder as he walked away, "Ibuki's right. Just as well… because you seem like a miserable grump. Gee I wonder why." Naruto concluded sarcastically, "I think you hate me because you wish you were me, at least a little bit. Did your whole 'ideal ninja' thing just screw up your relationship with your sensei, or did you have to 'put your heart aside' about another friend too?"

"Houzanto!"

Barely able to feel Guy move, Naruto was unprepared for the sharp elbow that was slammed in his back hard enough to knock him away from Ibuki, off of the rooftop, and through the air where he landed face down in a pond where he sank underneath the surface. That last verbal jab had better have been worth it.

"Naruto!" Ibuki was completely surprised. Guy never struck first. Did Naruto really get under his skin that badly that hitting him with such a devastating attack seemed to be a completely reasonable way to shut him up?

As a matter of fact he had.

Guy had taken Naruto's last comment bitterly. During the Shadaloo episode he had lost contact with a trusted friend, a good woman; Rose. Remembering how she had determined to destroy M. Bison at the cost of her own life he figured she must have tried as much and failed when he was unable to reach her after he had learned of Bison's defeat from Ibuki. Had he not endeavored to fight Bison in his own way perhaps they could have pooled their forces and she never would have suffered the fate that he figured she did… at least not alone.

And it brought up memories of Guy's close friend from Metro City. A man that had gone over the edge in his restless search for fights. Someone that he could do nothing for other than watch from a distance during his continued training in Japan. He could not simply leave and stop his friend Cody from making his aggressive mistakes, and eventually he was imprisoned like the criminals that they had sacrificed blood and sweat to defeat in their hometown.

Once again he could do nothing but press forward.

He was not about to take such loose words coming from Naruto just lying down. Perhaps many of his problems could be prevented if the boy merely knew how to hold his tongue, but then again Guy wasn't exactly planning to pull his punches either in regards to what he was saying.

A soaked Naruto slowly pulled himself out of the pond as the villagers gave him plenty of room to do so. He was growling in what many people thought was anger, but it was actually in pain. Guy's sharp elbow in his back hurt like hell, but he wasn't going to just lay down on the ground and roll around in anguish after getting sucker punched, "Okay Mister Perfect… I'm sick of giving you the benefit of the doubt to my friends when you talk about me, and you just hit me like it was some kind of good idea. So why don't you come on down here and we can settle this?"

The moment Guy's foot touched the ground from the roof he had jumped down from, every ninja in the village blurred up off of the ground level onto the surrounding rooftops to get out of the way and find a good spot to watch from. Neither Naruto nor Guy were villagers, they were both outsiders allowed in under the same agreement even though Guy was given more leniency for his own set of circumstances.

In other words they didn't have any reason to stop the two from fighting if that was what they were set on doing.

"That guy's crazy. Guy-senpai is going to tear him apart." One ninja Ibuki's age claimed.

"No way, don't you know who that guy is? This is gonna be a great fight!"

Normally Ibuki would have agreed with the second speaker, but Naruto was hurt. Very hurt. She knew it and Guy knew it. This was not a good idea at all.

Guy just stood and observed the wet dog appearance of Naruto in the budding moonlight, "Fighting me while you're injured isn't the best idea. I'm not going to pull my punches on you when they land." Guy's arms drifted into position for his usual high fighting stance, "A brash and arrogant ninja needs to be taught some humility."

"The way I am doesn't make me any better or any worse than you…" Naruto said as water dripped off of his frame. Still, he made pair of fists at his side and prepared for combat, ready to react to the first move that his opponent made, "It just makes me different. And if you don't like it, that's your problem."

But in reality it was also his tonight.

"Hayagake (Fast Run)!" Just as fast as ever, Guy wasted no time reaching Naruto with blinding quickness. Able to distinguish the slight nuances of Guy's movement despite the difficulty in seeing it, Naruto was able to jump over an attempt at a sliding kick from Guy. As friction drew Guy's slide to an end he quickly got back up onto his feet to continue to pester Naruto with his speed.

Naruto was able to shift his point of view to see Guy charge him again and prepared a countermeasure of a haymaker, but Guy came to a sudden stop just out of Naruto's range that forced the boy to cancel his haymaker attempt of be left wide open and at Guy's mercy. This still did leave him open for a counter by Guy, but it could have been far worse.

The Bushin-ryuu trained ninja peppered Naruto's face and body with accurate and intent punches, meant to pick their spots and hit with precision instead of volume to deal their damage. Each hit was meant for something specific. A backhand strike to Naruto's face to stun him, a low jab at his stomach to rob him of precious air and pick at his wounds, a palm hit directly to Naruto's face to try and smash his nose to knock him off-balance and disrupt his breathing patterns.

Guy was specific in his hand-to-hand combat. Everything he did was with purpose. He didn't have to get close to Naruto in order to force power shots forward simply because he chose not to. That wasn't his style. And that didn't leave Naruto with a whole lot of options to bully through and enforce his own will.

'Calm down.' Naruto thought to himself, though it was hard to do so as he took another short punch to the ribs, 'He's dictating the whole pace of the fight. You're playing into his hands, you know better than that.' Guy was good at minimizing the amount of danger that he put himself in while maximizing his own opportunities to attack an opponent's own sloppy forced openings.

Fighting off of instinct was great when a fighter was like Naruto; rolling with the punches and adjusting accordingly. But when an opponent had a set plan, Naruto's first go-to method of combat was not a reasonable method of dealing with someone that was smart and knew what they wanted. Guy was more of a tactician, and Naruto… well he was trickier about it than muscleheads were, but he was a powerhouse.

Still, he had fought enough smart finesse fighters to know how to handle them. He had faced off with enough strategists as opposed to reactionary fighters like himself to know what was up.

He had to take them out of their element, drag them into a dogfight, smother them in a style of battle that they weren't prepared to fight, and turn it into a battle of attrition if possible because most 'smart' fighters had to be smart because they couldn't take a beating.

First and foremost Naruto had to think about how he was going to put Guy in such a scenario. Backing off from the punching attack, Naruto narrowly avoided a wide kick directed at his body that had been premeditated by Guy in case Naruto had planned to get some distance. It was a miss, but it was still a smart move that warned Naruto that he had no path to get close to Guy and expect success.

Naruto made his cross-finger hand-seal but Guy seemed to be prepared with no concern in his actions, "Make as many clones as you'd like. You act as if I'm unfamiliar with fighting mobs and mobs of enemies." He cut his teeth as a ninja battling hordes of foes in Metro City back in America. He was an old hand at it. Thus he charged Naruto again with his Hayagake to overwhelm Naruto again.

Naruto's lips quirked slightly as one clone popped into existence next to him, "This clone isn't here to fight you." The original Naruto formed a Rasengan in one hand that his clone held its hands around to manipulate the chakra in a different way, "Rasenbakufuu (Spiraling Shockwave)!"

A sudden blue circle of a chakra wave flew out from the Rasengan in Naruto's hand like a blade that went outwards a full 360 degrees around both him and his clone, as if it were a sudden pulse of energy. Even the things that it didn't touch, like the grass on the ground below the wave happened to be blown. Guy quickly jumped over it and had no choice but to wonder just what would have happened had it hit him.

But he had to refocus as Naruto's clone launched into the air to take advantage of him. Not a bad move, but not good enough to get him off-guard, "Bushin Izuna Otoshi (Spiritual Warrior Izuna Drop)! Guy quickly flipped in a manner that allowed him to dodge Naruto's aerial punch, but Guy drifted over Naruto's clone's head towards its back where he grabbed it by the waist upside down. Flipping once more so that the clone's feet were in the air, Guy slammed it down onto the ground hard enough to crack it and dispel the body double.

Not wasting a moment after ridding himself of the clone annoyance, Guy quickly brandished shuriken that he threw Naruto's way. Naruto swayed his body out of the way of the metal stars and Guy honed in on this, seeing a weakness.

From what he knew about Naruto, the young man took any and all opportunities and excuses to move around a battlefield during a fight. He loved being in motion, but in this fight Naruto seemed content to waste as little movement as possible.

He had to be more hurt than he was letting on, so much so that the pain of the sporadic movement that would come from spiritedly dodging the shuriken just wasn't worth. No one diverted from a battle style that much without ample reason to do so.

'Let's test just how well his body is holding up.' Guy once again blurred all over the battlefield with his clear and present speed. If Naruto wasn't going to move and make himself harder to hit that was just going to be too bad for him, "Bushin Muso Renge (Spiritual Lotus God Warrior)!" Guy got close enough to Naruto to grab him by the shoulder and uppercut him in the stomach twice before kicking him away.

Guy caught up and got to Naruto's back before he could be knocked too far and continued his assault. Kicks and blows that Naruto's eyes were barely able to keep pace with thudded off of his attempts to guard his head and torso, but Guy also was able to slip in attacks that easily got past Naruto's endeavors to protect himself.

He had to start moving. But if he did that he would have just been playing into Guy's hands. On a normal day he would have been darting all over the place trying to keep up with his enemy and make him pay, but he was feeling just a wee bit sluggish and nonresponsive.

Next best thing then. If he couldn't keep up with Guy because of his body he'd make direct speed a useless advantage. But he couldn't do it in the middle of the village. It was a place more or less curtailed to allowing a ninja to move around freely.

Blocking a kick to the stomach from Guy, Naruto then ate a kick that spawned from a retaliatory backflip by Guy that freed himself. Naruto stumbled back with blood flying from his mouth, but he didn't plant his feet and tough it out. Instead he turned tail and ran away, something that came as a surprise not only to Guy, but to everyone else watching.

"Is he running away?"

"Well there isn't really any reason to fight this battle, so I guess it's a good idea to not stay there and take a beating."

"Aw come on… I wanted to see a finish."

Guy ignored the crowd save for only one of them. He watched Ibuki slip away from the rest of the villagers and knew that if anyone was aware of how Naruto took to battle it would be the one that trained with him often. The fight wasn't over.

Quickly giving chase, Guy ran after Naruto's trail, not that the boy was making himself hard to follow as upon turning a corner he saw Naruto turn another. He wanted Guy to tail him. How wily.

Never one to disappoint, Guy ran after Naruto but chose to stay on the building tops instead of going on the ground where Naruto could have prepared a booby trap. He wasn't going to ignore the fact that Naruto was still a ninja and fall into some kind of ambush. He needed to keep his eyes on him.

And he did. It was a short retreat, but Naruto eventually stopped in the middle of an open grassy field at the edge of the small village. Standing on the last village at the edge of town in case there was some kind of nasty surprise waiting for him, Guy observed the terrain, 'Why here?' He thought to himself, 'He has to know that he had more of a chance of stopping me in the more compact quarters of the village than out here. This is perfect for me.'

He didn't like it, but Naruto wasn't budging another inch. The two had a standoff until it was clear that Naruto was taunting Guy when he simply got down on the ground, laying lazily on his side and yawning, "You're the one that wanted the fight." Naruto said through his yawn, "If you're just gonna pussy out and sit on the roof I'm going to sleep. I've been traveling all day and most of last night."

"You're not taking me seriously?" Guy questioned, his temper having long since waned. At this point he was simply fighting to prove his point instead of out of sudden anger.

"Maybe you're not taking me seriously?" Naruto bluntly responded with a bored look on his face, "Look, I'm hurt. Any idiot that knows how I fight can see that. So what makes you think I'm just gonna keep letting you kick me around? I'm not that stupid." His posture displayed that he wasn't banking on Guy rushing right for him, but if he had chosen to move he could have made for some sort of evasive action if need be, "But you think I'm that stupid. So I really want to know, just how bad of a ninja do you think I am?"

It had to be pretty bad because it was the original basis for Guy's argument as to why he didn't like him. He blatantly stated upon their first meeting that Naruto didn't take the life of a ninja seriously. That he didn't have the right to call himself a ninja. He told Sakura in Hong Kong that he felt that Naruto was a boy playing ninja. All of that implied that he didn't have much respect for his skills.

So in Naruto's mind either one of two things were about to happen. Either Guy was going to illustrate how much he didn't respect Naruto as a warrior or a ninja by attacking him on terrain that he had chosen for whatever reason he had done so, or he was going to go back on everything he had said and he was going to remain on that roof. The latter would have been the smart play, but it would have proven that Guy was wary of whatever abilities Naruto had, that he didn't believe in his own set of skills to deal with him.

And this was the thought that went through Guy's head. It would either be his logic as a combatant or his standing amongst the Glade of Ninjas that his next move would deliver a hit to.

There was an entire village of their peers watching them. While the younger ones were just spoiling for a cool high level battle, the older ones had remained silent and had watched since they hadn't seen Naruto firsthand, having only heard of him through stories from Ibuki and rumor from elsewhere. They wanted to see what he could do, and they were reserving any judgment on him until they had.

The older and smarter citizens with more experience realized that Naruto had Guy somewhat in check here. At this point it was more of a battle of philosophies than a battle of simple fighting skills. Guy couldn't keep considering Naruto less than a real shinobi if he wasn't willing to attack him and show him as much. Exercising that much caution against an enemy, so much so that you refused to even get on the same level of the battlefield as them, didn't show the enemy's inferiority… especially if they hadn't been the one to provoke the fight.

Guy had painted himself into a corner, and he had to attack Naruto in order to save face. Naruto's actions in the middle of the field only illustrated this.

Turning to his side, Guy saw Ibuki grinning widely without even looking at him. She didn't have to because she knew that he knew exactly what was up. And with that he dropped down from his rooftop position onto the grass.

The second he did that, Naruto popped right back up off of the ground and didn't wait for Guy to get close and begin their pattern anew. It was time for his second new ninjutsu that he had developed. He'd see how Guy liked it when the ball was back in his court for once.

Naruto created five clones and all of them instantly put both of their hands onto the ground where they all began adding shape transformation abilities that Naruto had expanded upon repeatedly in regards to his multiple variations of pure chakra manipulation.

The bulk of his ninjutsu innovations had been him experimenting with pure chakra use from what he had learned from being taught the Rasengan. Well he had found a new way to use it.

All of the Narutos started adding pure power and spin out of their hands as if they were making a Rasengan, only underneath the surface of the ground. It took a moment… "Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!" But within five seconds a concentrated earthquake was caused.

Naruto's jutsu worked so that his chakra loosened up the ground in the form of a circle fifteen yards around his body to keep it from going any further and out of control, but when using more clones instead of using the jutsu alone his range extended six times due to the number that he had used to form the attack. Ninety yards of a concentrated earthquake that Guy had run right into the midst of.

The ground cracked and Naruto's actual blue chakra was visible through the cracks as heavy chunks of the earth began to jut up just higher than Guy's height, fray together, and warp the field of battle.

'That's why he left the village limits!' Guy thought frantically as he tried to keep himself as safe as possible. If he didn't keep himself on edge, he could have gotten his leg broken, or worse. As the battlefield continued to warp and change, Guy sought refuge on an upright spire as the tremors came to an end, but that was a tactical mistake.

He couldn't see clearly over the chunks that were barely taller than him, and the moment he reached the top to get a bird's eye view of the scene he was booted right off by Naruto who had been observing the change in the landscape that he had been creating. Guy did exactly what he figured he would do; he went to the point farthest from the ground.

Like a ninja-style game of king of the hill, the position that had before been occupied by Guy was then occupied by Naruto who watched Guy flip back through the air and slide down a crooked piece of raised soil.

Now the game had changed significantly. A ninety yard circumference around them had been turned into a craggy, hard to navigate mess. And from the look in Guy's eyes he didn't know quite what to do with what he had been presented with. Guy was an urban ninja, a former street brawler that had his street fighting refined to a ninja style. He more used to fighting in the streets and the cities. Naruto, while he had painstakingly assimilated to being an urban ninja, had originally been trained to fight in the fields and forests and mountains.

Naruto dropped into the pit of rocks and Guy tried to rush Naruto down. He still had the speed advantage and he wasn't about to let Naruto get the space to pull off another move like the Rasenshinsen. The thing about that was that there was no more need to try the Rasenshinsen. It was sort of a situation-specific jutsu. Maybe if he were fighting multiple opponents, but for a one-on-one fight Naruto had already done what he needed to do with that jutsu.

The bumpy, jagged ground slowed Guy's sprint down, and the raised crags gave Naruto places to duck behind to circumvent Guy's speed advantage. This wasn't good. Guy needed to get out. But as he neared the edge of the deadly shift in terrain he was set upon by several hidden Naruto clones.

The surprise attack was successful as Naruto's clones landed several quick blows, knocking Guy about. And just as quickly as they came the madly cackling clones left and hid themselves once again in the field.

A bloody-nosed Guy rubbed the newly formed bruises on his face and looked around. This time when they attacked again they were dealt with quickly. Guy's special shuriken were prepared to cut through stone, going through a few clones meant nothing.

But one of those clones didn't pop when they were hit. A shuriken barrage grazed one's cheeks and arms with deep cuts and it wasn't rendered to smoke. In the mayhem of the battle Guy had neglected to think that while Naruto wasn't much of a schemer he took calculated risks, such as throwing his own lot in with his Kage Bunshin for frontal assaults.

A straight haymaker right to the face flattened Guy and hit him hard enough to send his body careening through an upturned slab that his body destroyed, flying out of the other side as it collapsed and bouncing off of the ground several times.

"No holding back! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto created a horde of over two dozen clones surrounding Guy. One clone kneed him in the back while another decked him in the belly, all to set him up for several more clone to kick him directly into the air where they swarmed all over him in the skies like a school of piranha, punching and kicking Guy as they juggled him in the air and sprang off of each other to stay airborne themselves, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo)!"

The amount of blows couldn't be counted with the naked eye, and as Naruto's clones all dispelled and let Guy fall to the ground it left the original Naruto falling from the sky to end the completed combination. As Guy's body hit the ground, Naruto simultaneously ax kicked him in the body, compounding the force that both things would have generated separately.

After landing the final kick, Naruto's legs gave out and he fell onto his backside in exhaustion as he stared down at Guy's unmoving form. The older ninja was not unconscious, instead just staring up at the star-bathed night sky once he realized that his body wasn't going to allow him to get back up.

He lost? To Naruto? And Naruto wasn't gloating the way he figured he would. Instead the youngster was acting more mature than he expected, but he was fixing him with a rather nasty glare that he tried to ignore.

"I suppose… this is one of those moments that someone would say 'I told you so' and hold it over the head of someone like me." Guy said, his face unchanging. He shut his eyes and let out a sigh, "Very well then."

In Konoha and in the Elemental Nations overall Naruto got used to seeing as many different types of ninja as there were colors. Each one was unique and one would be hard-pressed to find a uniform group of them anywhere. That was why he had such an issue with Guy thinking that he wasn't a proper ninja. There was no such thing. And he didn't care about getting any digs in on his defeated opponent. He was done with the whole thing.

"Don't flatter yourself." Naruto said with a grunt of effort as he stood back up and began walking away, "I'm not some punk kid just looking for a thrill like you think I am. I just go about being a ninja different than you. It doesn't mean that it's right or wrong, just different. You don't get it. I'm not like you. I'm not Guy of the Bushin-ryuu." He didn't bother turning back as he muttered his last statement to himself, "…Sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you who you are."

With the fight being over, those that had been observing finally figured it safe enough to enter the scene did so to retrieve the defeated Guy as Naruto slunk off of the property that he had warped with his jutsu and his clones' assistance.

After getting out of sight as he had left the Rasenshinsen's damage range and was concealed by quite a few earthy uprisings, Naruto let out a pained groan and dropped to his knees. How did people that got into tough fights so much take not healing so fast? Honestly, without the Kyuubi to fix him up he couldn't keep up his normal day-to-day schedule of ripping and running without surcease. His body was compounding injuries and crapping out on him. Did everyone have to deal with that kind of bullshit normally?

A hand resting on his back let him know that Ibuki was there to assist him. He allowed her to sling one of his arms around her neck to help him stand up if he needed it, "You know that fighting against Guy was dumb. What if you would have reinjured yourself or gotten hurt even worse?"

"It was a matter of respect." Naruto responded a bit proudly. He also sincerely doubted that anything Guy could have done to him would have hurt him as badly as Akuma had done, "Okay… I think I'll be cool with sleeping on the floor now. Just as long as I get to sleep at all."

"I've got a bedroll somewhere in my room in case I get assigned missions where I have to travel." Ibuki informed him as they started walking back through the village towards the locale of Ibuki's lodgings, "You won't have to sleep on the floor floor." They made it to the door of the building where she left Naruto to walk for himself, "Go find it and get it set up. I'll be there in a second."

Once Naruto disappeared behind closed doors, Ibuki simply stood outside and waited as she leaned against a nearby lantern, the flame of which suddenly blanked out and made the immediate area that much darker. She showed no alarm however as she had been expecting something like that, "So what do you think of him master? He's cool like I told you he was, right?"

Silence greeted her for a moment before a figure stepped out of the darkness and came closer to her. A man clad in a black ninja top, orange grieves around his wrists with a claw attached to one of them, orange loose pants, and an orange full mask covering his head and mouth, " He is… unique to say the least. I can see why you found him interesting if he was the first ninja that you came across outside of our village."

"Naruto's a good person." Ibuki said with a satisfied grin. The people in her village seemed to like him. That was great. Maybe that would give her more leeway in the future to stay outside of the village more often, "Maybe if he hung out around here more you'd see why I trusted him after just one day Master Enjo."

"No need for that. You're a smart girl that can judge character." Enjo said as he walked back into the shadows and vanished as if he had never been there. But his voice drifted back into her ears after he had left, "…But tell your friend that he has some landscaping to do in the morning." All Ibuki could do was giggle slightly. That sounded like one of those D-rank missions that Naruto always did… the odd chores.

She doubted he'd be getting paid for it either. He was going to bitch about that one later.