Hope For The Best...

Chapter 10 - Hope For the Best...

With a map sprawled out upon a great table, Naruto began marking it up fervently with a huge grin on his face as he did so, "Alright, I know geography isn't everyone here's strongest subject, but check this out." He said as he began to show the start of his work in progress of planning out his massive trip.

On this day, Naruto, Sakura, and Ibuki went over to the home of Naruto's benefactor Karin so that he could tell her his plan that he would be enacting at the soonest convenience to his person. Batsu eventually joined the party as well since he wanted to see if Naruto was really going through with such a crazy idea.

He also used this time as a platform to tell his closest friends about the secret within him.

Now either they didn't grasp the brevity of just what the Kyuubi represented (And how could they? It had never attacked their homes) or they didn't understand that it was much more than just a freaky orange power boost, but for the most part other than a few strange looks until it was clear that he was being quite serious, Naruto's friends did not really push the issue much further than that. Maybe they didn't believe him, and it was admittedly very farfetched for what was even considered extraordinary in this world, but it was left at that.

"It's funny that you're talking about geography not being everyone here's strongest subject…" Batsu remarked as he sat back lazily in his chair, "Do you even have any strong subjects… and gym doesn't count." He found a small measure of victory in Naruto's momentary glare before he ignored him in favor of the map.

Sakura was looking over the places on the map where Naruto happened to be circling and seemed to get a little excited herself at how energetic he seemed to be about this, even by his standards, "Actually, Naruto's good at history and geography for some reason. It's the only class he doesn't blatantly cheat in."

Mostly because he had been planning out how this trip was going to go for the better part of four years. How was he going to go around in a strange world to look for something when he didn't know the first thing about it? Luckily for Naruto it didn't require him to study constantly. General world history and geography was something pretty easy to retain. No wonder Iruka-sensei always bitched him out when he failed it. All he had to remember was that this dead guy did something relatively interesting at some place during this numbered year.

And since most of history was just people kicking the hell out of each other it made it interesting. Why didn't he start learning this crap in the Academy in Konoha? Could he have acted like he was smart too if he had done that?

Ibuki, still in school clothes as she detested wearing her ninja garb, peeked over Naruto's shoulder as he was busy labeling and designating which places he would travel to all along the world map, "Wow… do you even know how to speak the languages in half of these countries Naruto?"

"I can speak English." Naruto said with a shrug, "Anyone I need to talk to would probably know it, right? I can speak some Mandarin too for when I go to Hong Kong."

"How much?" The nosy kunoichi asked with a sly grin on her face as she rested her chin on Naruto's shoulder to keep looking over the map a bit more comfortably.

"Enough to get me out of jail." He replied before taking a moment to think about it, "Or get me thrown into jail… it's not much of a difference really." He knew enough to know when he was in trouble and in Naruto's mind that was all that anyone needed to learn of any language. Not exactly the best for international travel, but then again how much did he really know about that? In the Elemental Nations everyone spoke the same language.

Sakura grabbed for the map and scanned over it before asking the question that everyone had neglected to comment on since learning of the trip in the first place, "Naruto why are you even going on the trip? There's got to be a real reason you're doing this."

"I told you already that I'm looking for something." Naruto's answer didn't seem to please Sakura as she narrowed her eyes at him and sternly crossed her arms over his chest, "One secret at a time… because you really won't believe this one." He grumbled before rolling his eyes, "If you're going with me like you say you are then you'll find out what I'm going for when I find it, so just chill out."

Well that was enough to accept for the moment. He was right. She was going, so that meant that she was going to find out what about this she needed to know. She could be patient until the trip started. Naruto's secrets weren't something that one could just simply comprehend easily if the Kyuubi revelation had been any indication, "So who else is going besides you and me?"

"I can't…" Ibuki sighed desperately, "Sanjou-sensei and master don't even like me coming to school. I'll ask, but there's no way I can get them to let me go all over the place for something that's not a mission." She said, dejectedly setting her chin on Naruto's shoulder and setting the side of her head against his.

A tick mark formed on Sakura's head at the rather intimate gesture that Naruto obviously didn't comprehend as such, but it wasn't any of her business in the end. Naruto was basically an adult, having lived alone for as long as she knew him, and he could do what he wanted… or have happen to him whatever may come his way.

But as Naruto was used to Ibuki's antics by now and saw nothing strange or really intimate about how close the two of them were since he had been doing things akin to that with Sakura for four years, he simply let it be and offered a helpful solution, "Well, maybe you can let me talk to them. There's a chance I can talk them into letting you go."

"You aren't allowed in my village Naruto…" Ibuki deadpanned in return, cheek still sitting against his in a familiar manner despite her tone, "They let you go scot free last time because you really don't know where it is. I had to blindfold your clone when I took him there to stand in for me during our date. If I hadn't they would have started sending assassins after you or would have made me do it myself." She got no response from him and figured that he was thinking about something until she turned her head and found that instead of Naruto her cheek was sitting against the cheek of a scarecrow, as Naruto had moved all the way across the table next to Sakura, "Oh come on!"

Naruto was leaning against Sakura, his head on her shoulder with his eyes wide while she had him in a hug and was patting his shoulder, "She would have turned it down right? Ibuki wouldn't accept a job to kill me, right?"

For some reason the involuntary twitch in Ibuki's eye made it hard for Sakura to fight down the smirk that her feminine instincts told her happened to be appropriate for her victory as a woman when Naruto chose to come to her for some semblance of safety and comfort.

There was also an unexplainable need within her to fan the flames of Naruto's mounting paranoia, "It's okay Naruto. She wouldn't have said it if she would have accepted it… even though it sounds really suspicious to bring up. I mean, what do I know about it? Come to think of it, what would most ninja do in a similar situation?"

'Oh Sakura-chan…' Ibuki thought with a tick in her jaw at watching Naruto freak out even more in Sakura's grasp. Apparently despite not belonging to any village Naruto knew that a ninja that was a friend would still kill him if the order was given to do so, 'That was just… so unfair. Playing on Naruto's background to get him away from me.' That wasn't even the hard-to-believe thing about it though since she would have done it too if given the opportunity, 'Wait! She doesn't even like him that way!'

Yes, Sakura was aware that it was rather unfair to pull Naruto out of a situation she was uncomfortable with him being in, even if he himself had no problems with it. But it was her duty as his best friend to protect his innocence and screen any women that would endeavor to be with him. From personal time spent with Ibuki it was evident that she was a little boy-crazy, concerning herself often with cool, handsome guys in their conversations.

No… her best friend deserved someone that could find something more substantial in him than that, even though the number of women in the world that could deal with the particular brand of insanity that Naruto's life brought forth had to be under one-hundred in a full population of over six billion.

Besides, he was like a puppy or something. Sakura could easily see why Ibuki was glaring daggers at her due to the fact that she had 'rescued' Naruto from her tender mercies only for him to find himself in Sakura's own.

But the fact of the matter was that she had been doing this stuff with him for years and Ibuki wasn't going to take her spot in the physical comfort department without a fight. And damn that made it sound like Naruto was her boyfriend. So with that, she let him go so that he could get back to planning his trip.

Meanwhile Batsu just took notice of the whole scene that in real-time couldn't have taken any longer than thirty seconds and determined to slap Naruto across the head later and not tell him why. If he was that thick in the head an explanation wouldn't have gotten through anyway, "…Well I'm definitely going. How many times in someone's life do they get a chance to go all over the place and raise hell?"

"No hell's going to be raised." Naruto replied to his closest male friend, "I told you, I'm just going around to look for something a bit out of the norm. Why do you think that would that end up with any trouble?"

"Because it's you that's doing it." Batsu asserted with a raised eyebrow. Once again, he figured that Naruto should have realized this by now, "Getting on the first fucking flight with you out of the country is probably gonna be a story I can tell my grandchildren one day."

Nothing he did was simple or easy, even chores and everyday errands. Case in point; Karin had paid him for a mission to retrieve her dry cleaning a number of months ago. It ended with an entire block of delinquent gangsters that figured they had a vulnerable Naruto to take advantage of being lain to waste in the streets and on the sidewalks, and a full wing of the local hospital being filled.

How did people learn of this? The local evening news of course… because they were live and on the scene as it was happening.

Naruto opened his mouth to respond and begin an argument about the fact that he was exaggerating and that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that he was right about what he was saying (an argument that he would have lost within three minutes), when a loud shout echoed out from another room from deep within the corridors of Karin's Aohura City residence.

"THAT IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! WHO DO THIS LOT THINK THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE DEMANDS OF? I WILL TAKE THEIR HEADS MYSELF!"

This was followed by the loud sounds of stomping that got ever closer and more intense as Karin returned to the room with all of the others. Sakura by this point had put as much distance between herself and the doorway to the room as possible in case Karin was in the need to vent whatever frustrations she had on the person she deemed as her chief rival; which was Sakura.

However Karin just stomped past the room and for the second that she was visible in a fuming blur of red and blonde had a very heated look on her face. It was the first time that any of them had legitimately seen her angry before. There were times when she had been mildly agitated by the things going on around her, slightly irritated, but never angry.

It didn't take much longer than that for her skinny, glasses-wearing steward Shibazaki to enter the room and adjust his glasses before addressing the teens, "It seems that Kanzuki-sama is suffering some confidential familial matters. I'm afraid I will have to ask you all to leave. It's a personal matter that she wishes to deal with on her own."

The loud series of crashes from deeper within the residence more than likely indicated that this would have been the best option available for those that were visiting.

XxX

Karin's personal training room, complete with combat droids to practice fighting enemies, a large screen to watch available footage on certain fighters, and all sorts of other state-of-the-art equipment currently happened to be inhabited by the owner of these things looking to blow off some steam in a semi-productive manner.

The Kanzuki Dynasty heiress was busy kicking away at a very advanced heavy bag with the density of a person suspended between the floor and the ceiling with a memory material that would stay indented with the impact of her last kick until she attacked it again, a method of measuring the damage that she could inflict.

A whistle caught her attention and kept her from continuing to do her best to wreck her own equipment with brute force, "I guess you do train your butt off even if you are waiting on me to be the best fighter in the world."

"I would like you to leave Naruto-san." Karin said stiffly before she got right back to kicking the bag once more, "I am quite certain that this is not the mood one would wish to have me in for a social gathering."

From elsewhere in the room where Naruto was pretty impressed at the fact that Karin could seemingly lift three times her own body weight as evident by the weights still on the bar from her last use. He could only imagine what her leg strength just so happened to be, because if that bag was supposed to simulate the makeup of a human body it looked like she'd be bruising spines with the kicks she was throwing from the front.

"Yeah, well you're not going to get out of that mood unless you vent." Naruto commented to her, moving past her numerous strength training devices to walk closer to her and her striking technique tools, "Trust me, I know about being mad. And kicking that bag isn't going to do it unless it's the thing you're mad at and you can make it scream in pain."

Karin stopped kicking and turned around, radiating anger for some reason, but since Naruto didn't feel killing intent it wasn't directed at him… yet, "Am I to understand that you are volunteering for this service?"

Naruto took a step back and held his hands up, "I was just thinking something along the lines of a light spar. Just some going-through-the-motions stuff, and you can tell me what's wrong. I'll listen." He noticed her glowering darkly at him and added something, Uh we are friends, right?"

Karin's brown eyes kept up a glare for a moment before she huffed and relented, looking away as she flipped her blonde curls over her shoulder, "Yes… I suppose we are. And this is what friends are for are they not? To listen to the problems of others?" Naruto grinned and nodded in return, getting her to motion for him to follow her to a sparring ring where she usually fought very expensive combat droids to test her technique in actual combat, "Very well. I guess we can go slowly through our kata as I speak."

Both of them fell into fighting stances within reach of the other and slowly began working through the choreographed motions of their respective moves, both defensively and offensively, "So." Naruto started as Karin practiced the motions of a combination of hers while Naruto made the moves to defend technically in return, "Tell me what's wrong. I might be able to help you out you know."

"You think that you can assist me?" Karin asked in a disbelieving tone of voice as she stopped her offensive kata and switched to a defensive one in return, "And what in the world makes you believe that you can help?"

"Because I'm a ninja with superpowers that does weird stuff for money."

"Oh yes. Of course."

The girl seemed honestly embarrassed that she had seemed to forget about that fact and seemed to parlay this by badly botching her following martial arts motions, getting a few snickers out of Naruto until a rather sharp jab indicated that she was still not in the frame of mind to be joked around with. Hence she continued the explanation of her woes, "My family is being threatened. There is an organization known as Shadaloo that is requesting many unreasonable demands from my father's resources or else."

"Or else what?" Naruto asked, wondering just what this 'Shadaloo' group figured they could do to a family that could buy an entire country just for the standing armed force in it. In other words threats were not the wisest course of action when it came to persuading the Kanzuki Dynasty.

"They plan on dealing great damage to my family's holdings." Karin had a pronounced frown on her face as she kept working out her stress and aggressions in a reserved manner with Naruto, "They have already done something to send a message, infiltrating and sabotaging the assets to one of my father's more prevalent businesses based out of Tokyo. It is going bankrupt… and it will cost us millions. It was merely a warning though."

Naruto nodded and tested to see how much of a spot this held in her mind, quickly shifting from a high attack to a low sweeping kick that would have knocked her down had they been fighting at a higher speed. Karin acknowledged her lack of attentiveness and they reset themselves to go again, "So is your dad going to play ball?"

"Of course not." Karin replied with a bit of pride, "As if the Kanzuki Family would acquiesce to the demands of a group of thugs and criminals too worthless to make their own fortune in this world. It is merely the audacity of these nothings that incenses me so greatly." The strength and intent behind her attacks seemed to ramp up slightly, increasing the pace a bit as she began to think about it, "I want to find these fools and punish them for their insolence."

"You can come with me on my trip."

Hearing that got Karin to slip and actually punch Naruto in the face for real, getting him to clutch at his nose and pat it down for blood. Flinching as this was not Karin's aim whatsoever, she fell out of her stance and decided to draw attention away from what had just happened, "You… you are serious about that offer, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, tilting his head back as he continued to hold his nose, "You might as well. I'm going all over the place. I'm pretty sure with your connections you can dredge something up somewhere about these Shadaloo people if you're really looking for a way to get them off of your family's back."

As she had been taught from childhood to do whenever presented with a purely beneficial offer from someone, Karin observed Naruto closely for any sign of deceit or ulterior motive in inviting her along only to find nothing, 'Of course I found nothing. Naruto-san is an earnest figure.'

Too earnest to be a mercenary ninja, but there was something nice about that.

"If you are indeed offering me such a thing then what kind of friend would I be to decline?" Karin said with a secure and prim look returned in full to her face and body language, "If I did indeed refuse to accompany you it would be quite clear that you would be suffering a supreme lack of worthwhile companionship."

Naruto deadpanned a look at her as by then the Kyuubi had long since stopped the bleeding from his nose, "…Sakura-chan and Batsu were going to go even if you didn't."

"I stand by my previous observation."

"Of course you do…"

XxX

(Sometime Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"Commander Bison we are in position to begin the operation." A female's voice stated in an almost robotic manner with a German accent. In a place overlooking much of the nearby high school's campus a pair of young women were observing the vicinity, one with chin-length brown hair through a pair of binoculars while the other with short orange hair was in short-wave contact with their superior, "Preparing to secure high-priority target now."

The pair of attractive young women both wore tight-fitting black bodysuits that covered their entire bodies and over them wore tight black long-sleeved, legless turtleneck leotards with shoulder pads, black military caps, and short yellow ties along with pairs of red mechanical-looking gauntlets that went up to their elbows, brown bands around their left biceps, and black boots.

"Juni. You and Juli are only meant to procure the target… alive. I require her alive. Do not kill her or allow her to die or the mission is a failure. This is why I have dispatched you two to take care of this instead of Killer Bee."

"But you have still dispatched Killer Bee… in the same place Commander." Juni returned still in the same dull and lifeless tone of voice as before, "Would it not be better for us to assist her with her mission and have her assist us with ours thereafter?"

"I'm amazed… *laughs* that even after the years of training and work put into you that you would still have an innate instinct to question my orders."

"I apologize Commander Bison." Juni said given the first opportunity to do so, "I did not mean to speak out of turn to you. You clearly have reasons for such that I clearly cannot comprehend."

"It is simple. From what Vega has told me, Killer Bee is the only one out of all of The Dolls that can stand against this opponent. Even if they were not busy keeping guard over me and I sent the other eleven of you to combat him together there would be a great chance that you would all be defeated were he to unleash the power that Vega spoke of him using. Killer Bee is superior to you all, thus she is the only one capable of combating this Uzumaki Naruto child."

Juni merely nodded, not feeling offense or any other emotion at Bison's outright slight of the skills of her and her partner, "Understood. Are we cleared to begin?"

"You are. Do not fail."

The transmission ended and Juni turned towards her brown-haired partner Juli who looked at her and held up a detonator, "The charges were set earlier this morning and have been armed." She said in an equally emotionless German-accented voice, "Detonating." She then pressed the button on the detonator and both of them began to move from their vantage point towards the school.

XxX

It had been a week and Sakura still wasn't used to what had befallen her. Naruto seemed to be mostly okay with it, as did the rest of her friends but there was just something grinding her gears that she would simply have to get used to.

Apparently the earlier remark that had been made by Karin months ago to switch schools to Naruto's was not empty… because she was right there in their class. Right there in their class, right between the lot of them in herself, Naruto, Ibuki, and Kei, sitting at her own personal desk brought in and transported from class to class simply for her complete with comfortably cushioned seats and leisure compartments.

Oh, and the students seemed to be falling over themselves to listen to everything she said, whether they were in the same class, same grade, or not. As if she needed another servant there… because she had also brought her own in that department as well.

"I can't believe how absurd my luck is." Sakura said to herself during the second-to-last class of the day while busy doing bookwork, "I mean, how in the world do people that we've met outside of school manage to transfer here and make it into our class inside of school without fail? First Ibuki-chan, now Kanzuki-san."

Ibuki looked up from her own work and smiled at Sakura before responding, "Well I just went to the principal and said that the only person I knew in the city was Naruto. He didn't really like that, but he said I was cute… so I took advantage of that."

'Dirty old man…' Sakura thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, "What's Kanzuki-san's excuse?"

Karin at least acted like a regular student as she was diligently doing her work until she noticed Sakura's question. At that point she merely smirked and made a hand motion of her thumb, index, and middle fingers rubbing together. The thump of Sakura's head off of her desk let the heiress know that her unspoken statement was understood, "Naruto could at least act like he cares." Sakura remarked, pointing behind herself to where Naruto was asleep, head down on the desk.

"That's not even Naruto." Kei explained much to Sakura's surprise, "Naruto hasn't been around since lunch. That's a clone. You can tell because during gym class it didn't play dodgeball. It acted like it was, but then slipped away while they were picking teams."

"He still does that?" Sakura commented, poking at the sleeping clone's head that was using a book as a pillow getting it to shift around but not to awaken, "Come on, he didn't even do his classwork in here today."

Ibuki raised a finger to get everyone else's attention before speaking, "Actually he did. He already had the answers somehow and then he went to sleep. You just can't see it because he's sleeping on it." He was probably drooling on it too, but points weren't taken away for a little drool, "How does he keep doing that? I have to cheat the old fashioned way." She then noticed the teacher delivering a sharp look her way and straightened her posture out, "I mean; I never cheat! I'm a model upstanding student that does not want to be kicked out of school sensei!"

A yawn came from Kei, the same as many of the students in the class who were doing the same as the long brown-haired girl set her own head on her desk and started shutting her eyes, "All I know is that he's making that look really good right now."

And in fact Naruto's sleeping did seem to be catching on with the rest of the class. Everyone started feeling drowsy inexplicably, even the teacher who had taken a seat at her desk, not able to stand anymore without risking falling out on the floor.

Something was wrong. But by then it was too late. No one that had the power to solve the problem could do so any longer. As amazing as the fighters of the class were, they were still human, and breathing in the gas that was being pumped into the building was enough to render them unconscious.

The entire school was dead silent due to the fact that the main ventilation system had been lined with charges set to release the gas into every room and hallway without fail; gas that put every single person that had breathed it in right to sleep where they sat or stood.

And a trio of figures made their way through the halls straight to the classroom where Naruto, Sakura, Karin, Ibuki, and Kei were. Juli and Juni walked into the classroom, looking around and making sure that there wasn't a single figure stirring before nodding to each other and proceeding to scan over the students, "Target identified." Juli stated as she walked over to Karin's unconscious form and hefted the girl over her shoulder, "Kanzuki Karin, direct heiress to the Kanzuki Zaibatsu."

Juni confirmed this in their target information that seemed to be accurate; the classroom and time on her schedule synched up, it was a girl that had the same appearance listed. Yes, this was the right person, "Mission complete. Move to extraction."

As the two girls exited the classroom they momentarily moved aside to allow a third young woman to enter as they were leaving.

This girl was blonde and wore her long hair in a pair of twin braids going down her back with a pair of bangs framing her face that had a thin scar on her left cheek. She wore red mechanical-looking gauntlets like the other Dolls Juni and Juli, but her uniform was different. Her tight long-sleeved, legless leotard was light blue in color instead of black, as was the military hat she wore on her head. Unlike the other two girls she wore no form fitting bodysuit underneath it, exposing her bare legs all the way to the top of her thighs which were painted with two diagonal blue lightning bolt patterns per leg. She had red gauntlets like the others and a similar band around her left bicep only it was grey instead of brown.

"Killer Bee." Juli said, gesturing into the classroom and pointing at the sleeping Naruto, "Your target is there. He doesn't seem very powerful."

The blonde girl in the special uniform, codenamed Killer Bee, walked calmly into the classroom as she approached the sleeping Naruto's desk, "Powerful or not… Commander Bison would not have sent me after him if he were not worth the resource." Not taking any chances she crept quietly towards Naruto's back even though he was sleeping before lunging towards him and quickly grabbing his head and neck to break it in one swift move, "Target termin-."

And then Naruto's body dispelled in a puff of smoke.

XxX

(Moments Ago – With Naruto – On the Roof of the School)

'Okay Kyuubi…' Naruto thought to himself, deciding that since he was skipping and wasn't really planning on doing anything other than skip class he would try to converse with the biju that made him special, 'Let's chat.' He thought aloud intentionally as he lay on the roof, staring up at the blue sky and the clouds, 'Come on. There's got to be something you want to say.'

"Oh, and what would you like to talk about? Or what do you expect me to speak of? Maybe you would like to hear about the pattern that I figured the drips of water in the sewer of your mind. Sixteen years of drip… drip… drip, drip, drip… drip. Yes… I have so many topical things to talk to you about."

A deadpan expression came over Naruto's face, but he kept his cool. He had to think of this from the Kyuubi's side of things. It had been imprisoned for over a decade and a half inside of his body, it obviously wouldn't want to be cordial to the 'warden' because he wouldn't have been if he had been in the same situation, 'Alright then. I'll start. We made it here four years ago and I can't remember what the hell did it. All I know is that it happened during the fight with Sasuke. Why can't I remember the exact points of the battle?'

It should have been something he could dredge up on command. Fighting Sasuke was the very last thing he did in the Elemental Nations before being sent to this world. You would think that one would easily remember something like that.

"This is understandable. Your 'friend' set your body on fire and drove you headfirst off of a cliff into rocks before I chose to give you more power than usual to deal with the trauma done to your spine." The Kyuubi had no qualms when it came to answering this at least, "You were still aware of your goals in that battle, but your methods of achieving it became clouded due to the intensity of my chakra. You can remember bits and pieces as if they were blurs yes?" Naruto nodded in the real world and then scowled at Kyuubi's next words, "I can't see you nod from inside your body stupid."

'So do you know how the whole thing ended? Because I can't for the life of me.' Naruto continued from his previous point, ignoring the Kyuubi's jab at his intelligence, 'I remember a freaky-looking Sasuke with wings or something sticking out of his back and then it gets all hazy.'

"…You don't honestly just expect me to give you the answer so easily do you?" Kyuubi chuckled as it could just feel the scowl forming on Naruto's face. Pushing this kid's buttons happened to be its only source of entertainment in its prison, "Not when I get nothing out of it. Like I said; I'm not some tool to make your life easier, no matter what that insufferable bastard Yondaime Hokage would have liked to believe I could have been. You will get nothing from me for free unless I find some value in assisting you. And I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in telling you what you want to know right now."

Naruto sucked his teeth, but figured there was nothing he could do about that. The ending to his little duel at the Valley of the End against Sasuke had been weighing on his mind for years as he never knew just how it had ended, 'Whatever.' He said to himself, loosely stroking the crystal necklace that sat underneath the dark blue uniform shirt he wore to school, 'So when we leave, which country do you think we should go to first to search for answers on how to maybe get home?'

"Whichever country you would prefer to release me in."

'Yeah… I don't think the North Pole or Antarctica are countries, and those are the only places I'd even consider letting you go if I was that crazy.'

Dark chuckles emitted from inside of Naruto once again, getting him to roll his eyes, "You keep forgetting the fact that I don't want to go… 'home'. I like it here. No way to enslave me the way I was in the Elemental Nations… this would be a dream world for me if I were to finally get free."

'I don't want you to be a slave, but I can't let you go.' Naruto thought with a frown. The Kyuubi really hated the people in the Elemental Nations, 'Well can you at least tell me why you don't want to go home so much? You sound like this problem of yours goes way before you were sealed inside of-.' He stopped when he felt the sensation of a sharp jolt in his neck. But nothing had happened to him directly, he was just lying down. It had to be his clone.

But that wasn't a playful attack from a friend. No friend would attack his neck hard enough to dispel a clone.

Getting up, Naruto felt a sinking sense of dread in his belly and ran towards the side of the building where the window to his classroom of that period was. With a practiced ease he contorted himself over the ledge and slid his way down the wall using chakra to keep from outright falling until he stopped himself with the ledge of the intended window he originally intended to observe through.

There he saw the entire classroom unconscious with one lone person standing over his desk, the smoke that signified the defeat of his Kage Bunshin still wafting up towards the ceiling. Casting a scrutinizing gaze on the person in the room he saw it was a girl. She was a rather shamelessly dressed girl in a blue leotard that exposed all of her legs, with blonde hair in two braids down her back. From the thin scar on her cheek she was definitely someone that had run into her touch of trouble in life for sure, and she had perhaps the coldest look in her blue/green eyes that he'd ever seen on a person.

Colder than even Orochimaru's who still held the title for scariest person that Naruto had ever met in his entire life. But at least Orochimaru's eyes showed life, however twisted the intent behind his gaze seemed to be. This girl, her eyes were dull and listless… like a doll's.

The two of them had something of a stare-off until she picked up the empty desk that had inhabited his dearly departed clone and threw it right at the window Naruto was crouching behind. Naruto managed to jump over it as the furniture crashed through the glass pane, allowing him quick entry where he stopped to stare at the girl that was standing in the middle of the classroom's rows of desks.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes, only to see the girl set herself in a fighting stance, 'Ugh. Why does this crap keep happening to me?' Another assassin? Really? He didn't get this much trouble when he was actually a ninja, "Get out of my school and my town before you wind up getting your ass kicked. I don't like fighting girls, but most of them can kill me so I'm not holding back on you."

"The current standing mission of operative 'Killer Bee' is to kill Naruto Uzumaki." The girl said in English in a robotic, emotionless tone of voice, "Commander Bison's orders are not to be disavowed. You will die here and your body will be recovered to study the strange power within you. Running is useless."

Oh, so it was indeed an assassin after him. At least this one was better looking than the last person that tried to kill him, and she didn't have a stupid claw on her hand.

However she was also not one to play around either, because she came right towards him, weaving through the desks filled with the unconscious students to reach him and begin fighting him.

'Fast!' Gritting his teeth, Naruto leaned back out of the way of a swinging front kick aimed at his head that he couldn't believe this girl actually managed to get that high considering the difference in height between the two of them. That was some serious flexibility.

Before Naruto could lash out with a punch and retaliate, the girl used a hand-springing flip in conjunction with her first kick to evade Naruto's move by using the back of one of the slumbering students as a base to escape him with. He would do nothing that would harm anyone in this classroom, and while Killer Bee wouldn't kill them she was not above using them to assist her in this fight.

At this point, Naruto figured that she was just going to keep dancing and weaving in and out of the student body in order to keep him from attacking her to the best of his ability. As long as they fought in the classroom he was screwed, but jumping out the window was a bad idea as they were five stories up and to leave the class alone with this person who would do who knew what to them if he tried to change things with a retreat was not the best idea.

Luckily Naruto always carried weapons on him. He didn't have to get close to change the scope of the battle as long as he had shuriken handy, and his aim wasn't nearly terrible enough to hit any of the sleeping students.

Naruto let fly with a few of the metal throwing stars and managed to corral Killer Bee away closer towards the door to the classroom that was still open from her entry. Her eyes stayed on him but had to stray away for a moment in order to locate the small projectiles that had been thrown at her so that she could dodge them. It was for just a moment, but when she turned back to Naruto she didn't see him, only a desk sitting in the place where he had been.

Using a Kawarimi, Naruto switched himself into a crouch in front of Killer Bee just out of her field of vision. But her reflexes were grand and she already had her hands up defensively to circumvent the impact from the bull rush of a punch that Naruto had planned on delivering to her upper body. Still it was enough to send the petite assassin back through the door until she used the doorframe to stop herself from going any further.

A still advancing Naruto wound up eating a kick to the face for his troubles due to this and let out a growl, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Three clones popped into existence and went right at the girl who chose to beat a hasty retreat into the hallway as she was quickly pursued.

Naruto took a moment to check his friends over only to notice that Karin and Ibuki were missing from their seats. He quickly pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number, hoping that he had been bought some time. He didn't have a lot of it to dwell on that though, because the girl in the hall was no joke whatsoever, able to avoid the spitfire attacks from his clones with her speed before taking them out systematically.

In the open hall he'd have a better set of openings to get at her and he had to press his advantage while he had one since this girl was seemingly aiming to take his life.

XxX

(Elsewhere on Campus)

Juni and Juni were both moving on their way out of the school, walking through the quad that separated the gym from the main building towards the back gate of the school where deliveries were made and where faculty would park. First however they had to make it through the outdoors area where many of the students chose to eat lunch during their allotted time.

Juni carried an unconscious Karin over her shoulder as the two silently and robotically made their way through the grassy, foliage-filled area. It was a very popular place for students to hang out during the summer months during breaks in class, which meant that some would know it like the backs of their hands.

Most of those people didn't have the ability to hide and ambush opponents with alarming efficiency even from an area they knew nothing about.

From one of the trees in the area of the quad, a silent figure dropped down from the leaves and directly attempted an attack from behind on the two kidnappers, only for them to notice the approach coming at them, both Juli and Juni turning to defend themselves.

However as both girls struck out with sharp knife-handed attacks to kill their attacker in one move, all they hit was a short-range generated afterimage instead of a person, and Karin who had been over Juni's shoulder was now gone and replaced with a large wooden tanuki statue.

A sigh of relief came from behind them and they turned to see Ibuki wearing her brown ninja-garb complete with the pants that revealed the outsides of the upper portion of her thighs and her bandage-wrapped feet that she fought battles in. She currently had Karin over her shoulders, having used her afterimage technique Kasumi Gake (The Haze) to create an opening to get the red-clad blonde student away from them.

"Sorry." Ibuki said, pointing at her black facemask that was pulled up over the bottom half of her face, "But I wear this mask as a part of my bodysuit underneath my school uniform for functionality. Even though I hate my ninja clothes I have to wear something from it at all times in case I get attacked. It does more than just protects my vital areas from sharp objects, it filtered out your knockout gas through the fabric. I just acted like I was asleep until I could figure out what you two wanted."

If Kei hadn't informed her that Naruto's clone was actually the one in his seat she would have blown her cover in the classroom to protect him, but since he was indeed a clone she used it as a diversion to slip past the third blonde assassin and beat the two others outside to shadow them and wait for an opening to get Karin back.

The two emotionless young women looked at each other before turning their attention back to Ibuki, "Killing this girl is not a mission objective." Juli said in English despite her German accent shining through.

A nod came from Juni as the two set themselves in similar fighting stances facing Ibuki with their backs to each other, "However she is standing in the way of us procuring what is our mission objective. I do not believe she'll move aside without application of force. This is grounds for termination."

Ibuki could understand English just fine and had prepared for a fight ever since she had set Karin down against the trunk of a nearby tree, 'There's something dangerous about these two… you know, aside from the whole 'assassin and kidnapper' thing.' Looking into an opponent's eyes she could normally figure the pace that they would try to set in battle.

Naruto was a fast starter and would try to overwhelm you quickly from the outset.

Her sensei Sanjou was a wait-and-see type, at least when it came to sparring with her as he would not make any attacking move until he was certain that Ibuki's own attacks against him would fail, even when he was striking first in battle.

Fighting against the other ninja students in her village it was something she had come to use to size an enemy up the first time she fought against them, but it wasn't working here. There were no tells in the eyes of these girls, not in the orange-haired one or the brown-haired one.

"Spiral Arc!" Juni started first with an aggressive attack that had her diving at Ibuki's legs with a dropkick as if she were sliding on air.

Ibuki hand-sprang out of the way only to get attacked next by Juli who came directly at her. She was fast enough to get her feet back under her to defend herself against a pair of knife-handed strokes aimed at her neck before she missed a kick as the second assassin jumped right back away from her, allowing Juni the room and freedom to close the distance once again and attack.

Choosing to dodge and find a better circumstance to fight the two off with, Ibuki chose to jump out of the line of fire from the advancing Juni, but the girl showed that she was able to leap in a similar manner, "Cannon Spike!" In the middle of her jump, Juni aimed a single leg upward at the kunoichi for a kick while Ibuki blocked.

The kick pushed her away, but the flexible female ninja quickly retaliated accordingly, reaching for every single weapon she had on her. If she could defeat or kill one of them she could definitely beat the other on her own, "Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!" Flipping back to disguise her coming movement, Ibuki began throwing swift barrages of kunai at Juni. She wasn't going to dodge them all.

Not on her own at least.

But she didn't have to as Juli dove into the scene and tackled her orange-haired partner out of the way of Ibuki's attack before throwing her right into the air at their enemy.

Ibuki scoffed to herself as Juni sailed over her head. She had used everything she had in the arsenal she carried to school with her, intent on taking at least one of them down and defeating the other simply with unarmed fighting.

Juni's missing of a second Cannon Spike courtesy of Juli's assistance allowed Ibuki another opening to try and fight one of them alone for a moment. She ran at Juli as quickly as she could, not bothering to try and disguise her movement as she was on the clock to deal some significant and possible fight ending damage to one of the girls before the other stepped back in to double team her again.

Juli seemed ready for her, but Ibuki was done being passive and quickly assaulted her with a trio of sharp spinning-heel kicks, "Tsumuji!" The latter two of which smashed Juli's body through her guard. Ibuki followed up with a vicious jumping punch that snapped the Shadaloo operative's head to the side with a little blood drawn for good measure of her efforts.

Another punch was blocked and a kick was caught, but Ibuki simply backflipped and got herself free as Juli ran towards her to try and get her pound of flesh back in return for the smashing attacks that had been landed on her person, but right before she was going to step into another up-close battle, the brown haired German girl simply jumped back instead of continuing forward.

Nonplussed at the sudden breaking away of her most opponent, Ibuki was almost caught off-guard by Juni's sideways approach and barely got her arms up in time to block a power shot directed at her head.

She went sliding across the grass until she was able to regain her footing where she saw Juni rushing directly at her again, seemingly preparing an attack until the girl seemed to blur directly out of her path, allowing Juli to use her feint as a shadow to cover a second attack, "Sniping Arrow!" A fast flying kick that made Juli seem as if she were gliding across the air like a javelin drove into Ibuki's stomach and propelled her back to the ground.

As Juni moved in to finish her while she was down, Ibuki spun around on her back, using her legs like the propeller of a helicopter to kick her away and get back up, glaring at the two who stood back to back staring her down again. At the moment she was really yearning for the days when she had to deal with the faceless Geki ninja clan members sent after her as opposed to these two, 'Ugh. I really hope that Naruto's having better luck with the girl that killed his clone than I am with these two.'

XxX

(Inside the School Hallways – Naruto vs. Killer Bee)

Well, Naruto had figured that once the fight got into truly more open space he would have had a marked advantage when it came to sheer volume of attacking as was his way. But this girl was ridiculous.

She was like a leopard or something. She had to have cornered the market on soldier pills or whatever the hell people in this world used when they wanted to run faster, jump higher, or whatever (He didn't watch much TV, especially commercials, so sue him) because her lateral movements were the fastest he'd ever seen. Even faster than Vega's.

While Vega was still speedy, he wasn't overwhelmingly so since he had dangerous reach with his claw and anyone that could deal with his speed still had to get past that thing if they wanted to feel safe. This was nothing like that. She was a purely close-range fighter because of her lack of reach.

And man, it was like she was absolutely fearless.

Hopping back to gain some distance, Naruto found that his short-range backstep evasion wasn't good enough for this girl who seemed to be like a blur. If he weren't moving at a similar speed he might have not seen her at all. But he had, and he felt he was getting her timing down. He had the advantage even if she could match speed with him. He still had the numbers advantage.

His fingers subtly formed his signature hand-seal for barely a moment. It was all he really needed really; a product of years of practice and use of the jutsu. On cue, a surprise close sprang into sight with the predetermined strategy of taking the quick girl's beautiful legs out. It hurt him deeply to have to do something to visible appendages so pretty, but he couldn't just stop and ogle someone that was trying to kill him.

The moment it sprang into existence, the clone already had forward momentum and used it to slide along the shiny tile floors on its back to bowl her over. One of Naruto's favorite surprise maneuvers.

But those robotic eyes of hers might as well have belonged to an actual machine because she didn't waste a single movement, hopping off of the ground towards the original Naruto just high enough to avoid his clone. Before she stepped a single foot back onto the ground she spun through and slammed a glowing blue elbow into his chest prior to knocking him backwards with a backfist, "Axle Spin Knuckle!"

Either there was some serious energy thrown into that punch, or those gauntlets were made of something way harder than good old-fashioned flesh and bone because Naruto stumbled back sucking wind the entire time with blood coming from his busted lip, 'How did that little lady put that much power into one move? It felt like a battering ram!'

Killer Bee's attempts at a follow-up attack were dashed. Naruto's clone had not been dealt with, and it was fortunate for his own physical well-being that this was not the case as the chakra-constructed doppelganger saved him from a second attack by throwing a kunai at the back of the emotionless blonde teen girl's head.

With her back still partially turned from the backfist strike she had hit Naruto with just a second ago, she was able to see the weapon thrown at her head, getting her to lift her red gauntlets and block, deflecting the projectile away.

Of course, a little burning feeling of pain in the pit of his chest never stopped Naruto from taking advantage of an opening when he saw one. Still clutching at his torso, Naruto jumped at Killer Bee and kicked the poor girl in the back of the head.

A victorious feeling washed over him when he looked forward to see his lone Kage Bunshin preparing to spike her with a Rasengan, but that feeling of victory turned to one of horror when, being propelled forward, Killer Bee hand-flipped forward into a leg vice around the clone's neck and threw him directly at Naruto.

Naruto had to roll to the side to dodge his clone's body, dispelling as it hit the ground and amazing Naruto at her reflexes to counter what would have had to have been the coup de grace of the fight. His evasive move to avoid being hit with the 150-plus pounds of clone left himself wide open to a counterattack from a ruthless enemy that had him targeted all the way.

"Stupid brat, can't you feel that energy she's charging up? MOVE!"

The authoritative and frantic bark of an order from the Kyuubi inside of him forced Naruto to do as instructed out of sheer shock and fear of the power behind it. It had been a quiet spectator throughout the fight thus far, only choosing to interject right at that moment.

It was a good thing that it had too.

"Spiral Arrow!"

Because Naruto would not have spotted Killer Bee hurtling at him with her fastest attack, legs and body straight as she corkscrewed through the air like a drill. Her legs were pushing a barrier of some sort of strange energy around the soles of her boots where her attack was focused.

And when Naruto dodged he found out just what it did. Her point of impact against the lockers on the wall compressed and crushed them inwards as if they had been hit by a car. Not just the two she landed on, but a shockwave of energy expanded out on impact and coursed through the other lockers nearby, either busting them open or denting them up something fierce as well.

"Holy shit!" Naruto exclaimed upon seeing the damage that would have happened even if he had been laying against a locker when Killer Bee's attack him. There was a massive crack on the wall behind the lockers and he could see bits of it chipping off, "What the hell was that? That wasn't chakra/ki!" Whatever that was, when it had exploded outward from her body after delivering that screw kick he had managed to feel it.

There had been a marked difference from what he had become accustomed to as far as chakra or 'ki' as it was called in this world went. There was always some kind of a feeling of warmth from chakra, and that chakra turned to a feeling of heat the more intense it was, the most intense chakra he had ever personally felt being that of the Kyuubi when he had fought Sasuke, having grown so intense that his left arm had been rendered worthless.

That little bit from the battle he could recall, because when he woke up in America he couldn't move his fingers and could barely lift his arm at all even though he had been healed.

But whatever power this was, it felt cold. Like a chill had flown up instead of a wave of warmer air that he usually associated with shockwaves and energy backlash.

"If I were you I would start worrying about what else she can do with that power instead of why it doesn't feel like normal chakra." The Kyuubi warned, trying to sound nonchalant despite the urgency in its tone just moments ago, "If that last move had hit you the paramedics would be sifting through the slush that remained of your internal organs."

'Exaggerating…' Naruto thought to himself as he warily faced down the operative Killer Bee once again, 'A Rasengan wouldn't even do anything like that to me.'

He could almost feel the vulpine-based biju roll its eyes in his head, "And how exactly would you know? You're telling me you've hit yourself with that accursed Yondaime technique before? If you wanted to kill yourself that badly you could have simply told me so. At least I'd have enjoyed it."

'I haven't hit myself with it before…' Naruto thought dryly before he wound up being kicked in the face by the girl he had momentarily taken his full attention off of, 'Gah! Thanks for the warning, but if you're not going to help again could you shut up and let me focus?' He finished yelling inside of his mind as a second kick was shoved right into his belly, "Oof!"

"My mission is to destroy you Naruto Uzumaki." The Killer Bee girl said to him in English before jumping into the air and flipping forward with a forceful driving kick in mind, "Cannon Strike!"

Naruto was able to dodge, again taking notice as one of this girl's attacks hit the ground with the force of a pavement-busting jackhammer from whatever power she could temporarily generate to fuel her special techniques, and quickly formed another clone to take advantage of this.

It ran at her, and Killer Bee, expecting it to simply attack her from the front as she had studied information on Naruto that told her this was his main habit in using clones, lashed out with a kick. This was a mistake, as Naruto's clone jumped clear over her and bounced off of the ceiling before using its body and the crown of its head to dive at her like a human missile. A missile that drilled her right in the face.

"Whoo! How do you like that?" So he might have stolen the basis of that combination from E. Honda. So what? At least the part where he rose up into the air was faster than the sumo wrestler's own version… though that was probably because of the ceiling that he used for momentum. Either way he needed to come up with a name for the rebounding-missile-suicide-Kage-Bunshin attack because it was a keeper, "Go to sleep angel-face!"

She did not go to sleep. As a matter of fact she sat right back up. She stood right back up. She got right back into her fighting stance and didn't even flinch despite the horrible black eye she was sporting and the deep bruise on the right side of her face from where Naruto's clone had driven its skull into her.

And if the lockers weren't already mangled he might have taken that moment to bang his head into one.

What was it with his life? Why did every ultra-cute girl he wound up meeting always end up wanting to at some point inflict varying degrees of bodily harm on him? Why was every girl he met in any significant manner more than capable of ending his life either purposely with their own hands or inadvertently by their own personal baggage that was out of their control and would spill over to him? Why couldn't one just want to date him for once? How about that? That would be a fucking refreshing change of pace… a date instead of possible death or permanent disfigurement.

But no. Here he was once again, fighting perhaps the most attractive woman he had met since winding up in this world (It probably had something to do with a combination of her uniform and the fact that he didn't often see European or American women, because that was what he guessed she was), and guess what?

She wanted to kill him.

A marked step up from simply wanting to kick his ass as other females did; but the same principle concept applied, which was rather simple. It was merely a hot girl, and said hot girl wishing to hurt him.

And apparently she had concrete in her skull or something, because his divebombing clone took her head out but didn't put her lights out, so also going along with the running theme of Naruto's current life she was also one seriously tough cookie to boot. And it didn't look like she was going to show that she had felt it at all. He couldn't see any pain in those eyes, or anger, or peril… or anything really. It was weird.

"What the hell did I do to this 'Byron' guy or whatever his name is?" Naruto asked, speaking English since that was what Killer Bee had chosen to converse with him in during the few times she chose to speak, "I don't even know anyone like that."

"Commander Bison." Killer Bee said as if she were correcting him, "Shadaloo had interest in you. You turned down Vega's offer to work for the commander, but he discovered something interesting inside of you; your strange power. I am to retrieve your body so that it can be studied."

She had watched all available footage on Naruto in preparation for her mission and had noted that thus far in their fight he hadn't used the red energy that he had shown during the tournament or that Vega had reported had almost killed him in the hospital afterwards, 'What is he waiting on? Perhaps he can use it in specific bursts of attack the way Commander Bison can use his Psycho Power to keep opponents privy to it from adjusting accordingly to fighting him on those terms.'

So this girl was with the same people that Vega worked for? And they were Shadaloo, the same people trying to extort Karin's family?

Wait, why the hell was this chick just after him then? Karin went to the damn school too and she should have been way more important to a group like that than just offing little old him for some prospective power they knew nothing about. Ninja Etiquette 101 states that battles should be fought only in the instance of greater gain.

Now he had failed Ninja Etiquette 101 several times in the past, but some of that crap sticks the third time around and it stuck with him to this day.

And in the stupid list of overlapping priorities securing VIPs came first before exterminating targets. Acquisition before demolition. That was day one stuff.

"Your bossy blonde employer wasn't in the classroom with you when the fight began genius. She did come first. Who says this woman did all of this by herself? She could have killed her and moved the body before attacking your Kage Bunshin thinking it was you."

Naruto's blood ran cold for a second at that thought, but swallowed the lump in his throat as the two combatants stood at a standoff against one another, waiting to engage in another burst of offense, "What happened to Karin? She wasn't there when we started fighting."

"She is currently being escorted off of the grounds by other operatives." Killer Bee said in her monotone, seeing no harm in doing so as Naruto was about to die by her hand anyway, "But this is of no concern to you." With that, the small talk was over in her mind and she went forward to attack again.

"The hell it isn't." Naruto said, dropping a smoke bomb from an inside supply pocket of his school uniform that filled the hallway. Killer Bee stopped short of the smoke and prepared for Naruto to counter while she couldn't see him, but nothing occurred for a few seconds until she heard a loud shattering of glass from down the hall and around a corner.

The blonde emotionless assassin followed Naruto's trail and saw that the window had been broken through and Naruto had escaped and had formed multiple clones that were scampering all about the premises.

Was he really going to try and chase after Juli and Juni? He was in the middle of a fight to the death and he cut loose and simply ran away, not to save himself but to attempt to rescue another. Was he even aware of how far Juni and Juli could have gotten in the short amount of time they had been fighting even if he knew where they were? He would never catch them.

XxX

(Moments Prior – Outside of the School – Quad Area – Ibuki vs Juli/Juni)

Okay, this was not turning out for the best as far as Ibuki went. Blowing her entire payload on Kazumi Suzaku was not the best idea, but she never believed that she would miss as she had Juni dead-to-rights with the move.

With nothing to keep the two girls at range eventually they both closed in on her and started kicking her around with their two-on-one advantage. Their teamwork was impeccable. Once the two girls got rolling they didn't miss a beat and she was tiring. She sincerely wished that whatever they did to Karin would wear off so she would wake up. Juli and Juni were beating her all over the place and she could definitely have done with the help.

Juni rushed Ibuki's way and while she was prepared to defend herself she was not prepared for Juli to pull her attacker back, swinging her around once to give added momentum to a kick. Ibuki avoided this, but the two seamlessly transitioned into a rolling attack with both of their bodies that carried them right in front of her before one of them freed their legs and gave her an upwards mule kick to the face, "Psycho Roll!"

'I can't take much more of this…' Ibuki thought groggily to herself backstepping away from the advancing pair until they pincered her off again and forced her to flip out of their frontal and rear assault, 'I can't hit them with my best moves. One is always keeping the other from getting hurt. I can't finish.'

And while they had been picking her apart over time she didn't have that luxury. She had to defeat one of them quickly before they wore her down, and that point was nigh.

"Ah! Stop this if you can!" Finally she was given an opening and went for the kill when Juni attempted a wide open punch that Ibuki managed to block by grabbing the hand at the wrist, throwing it back to break her posture and allowing her to place her own fist against the orange-haired girl's stomach, but not for a punch, "My strongest personal technique! Yoroitoshi (Armor Piercer)!"

She charged up her special ki attack Raida in the fist and released it in a concussive blast that sent a charge of lightning-like energy right through Juni's body. That was just to soften up the final point of attack as she seamlessly charged up ki in her opposite elbow in a similar manner for the real pointed sure-fire kill shot.

But as Juli came up behind her she was forced to waste the finish of her technique on stopping her. She darted away from where she had Juni to where Juli was about to break her neck with a double sledgehammer shot and shoved an elbow strike into her torso before releasing her second ki burst on her instead, delivering the same effects as the first punching blast to her partner.

Both moves took just over a second to complete, but even then Ibuki's mind moved fast enough to know that this was not enough to win. She had hit her opponents enough to know by then that they were wearing very sturdy uniforms that were made to resist things that could pierce them, hence the use of her technique named 'Armor Piercer' to kill one. But without landing both of her attacks on one person both moves had the same effect as a normal Raida.

And one Raida by itself used as a standalone wouldn't kill anyone wearing body armor. It simply wouldn't generate enough internal trauma to ensure a victory if that were the case. The normal Raida portion of the combo was meant to stir up and soften up the intended space of damage for the immediate follow-up elbow blast that would be stronger and would already have ample opportunity to negate armor due to the first move.

All it really did was send both of them flying away from her, but both girls came right back at her from opposite sides, neither of them showing that the very destructive attacks even caused them any bodily harm. No facial expressions whatsoever. Like machines in human form.

This time though on the approach towards her, contrary to what Ibuki had come to expect in their attack pattern, Juni did not reach her first, stopping short when she saw Ibuki turn to face her and defend herself. The turning of Ibuki's back for the momentary action of fending off Juni who did not attack let Juli finish getting within range.

A desperation spin kick to try and react to Juli getting within her personal space only resulted in the girl ducking under and switching sides before delivering a hard sliding backhand strike that hit home right in Ibuki's stomach. The short jab was used to hold the swift ninja in place while Juni's short-range speed got her behind Ibuki on the other side, trapping her completely between the two of them.

Caught between the two girls, Ibuki suffered through a hellish barrage of punches and kicks that were well-aimed at her hardest to protect areas that she couldn't cover while being beaten by two people. They really did fight like assassins of the highest caliber. A knee to the back from Juni preceded a hard punch to the stomach from Juli before the two backed off a step and used twin Sniping Arrow flying kicks to drive into her chest and back, the same focal point on opposite sides, "Death Cross Dance!" Both trained killers cried out at once.

Ibuki went ramrod straight, her head turning up to the air to let out a deep gasp from behind her facemask as the two jumped away from her and let her sink to her knees. She had ribs that were absolutely shattered in both her front and back and felt air crushingly difficult to come by from that point forward.

Juni and Juli walked up to her and stood over her fallen body, noting that she was still alive and breathing, though it was coming in a clearly belabored manner, "You were foolish to interject yourself into something you had no business with." She said as she grabbed Ibuki and picked her up by one of her arms to prepare to deliver a killing strike, "All enemies of Shadaloo will be killed indiscriminately."

"Ibuki!"

Before this could be done, Naruto rushed into the area running at top speed, catching sight of his friend at the mercy of two other women different from the one he had fought inside before he chose to take a deep breath and fire an attack, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

The attack went towards Juni and she dodged before moving forward to take care of the nuisance before her, "Spiral Arrow!" Her version of the corkscrew driving kick was far slower than Killer Bee's in comparison, but it was fast enough to hit a bull-rushing Naruto.

And dispel him in a puff of smoke.

Juni got up from her dive and looked around in what would have been a curious fashion if her eyes could have portrayed any feelings, "I thought that the Naruto Uzumaki boy was to be taken care of by Killer Bee. Was she unable to locate and kill the real-?"

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

While she was looking around curiously after defeating Naruto's clone, her partner was left alone. The defeat of the clone gave Naruto all the information he needed including the location of the trouble and the current situation at hand. This allowed him to prepare a Rasengan well in advance and blindside Juli with it, forcing her to relinquish her grasp on Ibuki and go flying until her body smacked off of the side of the gymnasium building with a resounding smack of body meeting brick hard enough to crack it.

With blood from his rapidly pumping heart pulsing beats in his ears, Naruto cradled Ibuki up gingerly as his eyes surveyed the scene and located Karin. With a sneer on his face he quickly made his way to her location still safely underneath a tree and prepared to defend the two girls from the last remaining assassin. Luckily he had left that 'Killer Bee' girl in the dust inside when he made his escape and began his search for Karin.

He looked down when he heard Ibuki gasping and coughing in his arms and pulled down her facemask in case it was adhering her breathing process in any way. From the hold he had on her he could feel the copious amount of broken ribs that she had.

But before he could set her down and prepare to defeat Juni in quick order the way he had just finished off Juli, Killer Bee made her presence known once more, carrying Juli over to Juni who addressed her fellow femme fatale upon her arrival, "Killer Bee. Is Juli dead?"

"No." Killer Bee said calmly, unloading the burden onto Juni before setting herself back in a stance to fight Naruto, "Naruto Uzumaki has inflicted grave injuries on her, but she is not going to die. We should reach the extraction point in well enough time to prevent that. Now stay back. You'll only be in the way."

Gritting his teeth and judging his options here, Naruto was cursing his fortune or lack thereof until the faintest sounds of sirens could be heard.

This was noticed by the persistent and dogged team of assassins standing against him, as Killer Bee narrowed her blue/green eyes at him, "What have you done?"

"I called the police when you left the classroom to run from my clones into the hallway." Naruto said, not letting any relief settle over himself yet. But seriously, he made that call fifteen minutes ago on a whim, not because he thought they would actually help him. Now he was grateful for the foresight to do so, "You should run now unless you want to be around here to fight off half of Aohura City's police force. They think you're terrorists after what I told them about everyone in school being unconscious."

This was not amusing in the least to either Juni or Killer Bee, but Naruto had a point. They needed to reach their extraction point without the monstrous heat that would come with being seen as terrorists on them, and that would be difficult enough with Juli being unable to move, fight, or run. They didn't need to add on the factor of letting the police get a good leg up on catching them by sticking around to fight and kill Naruto or take Karin from him.

Who knew how long either of those things would take? And each second was precious in this case.

Both girls wordlessly disengaged and began to flee the scene with their wounded comrade in tow while Naruto glared at them heatedly to see them off in case one of them decided to come back and try their luck.

Neither did, and as he heard the sounds of tires coming to a stop in the parking lot near the back gate he sank to the ground with Ibuki still in his arms. It was obvious that every time her lungs expanded and retracted in her chest it came with the feeling of being jabbed in said organ. For all he knew she might have had a torn or ruptured lung. And he didn't have any healing skills nor any way to keep her comfortable.

Naruto really hoped that some ambulances came with those cop cars. They should have because when he told the emergency call that the students were unconscious he never said they were asleep. He didn't have the time to explain much about the situation other than the important parts, "You're gonna be alright Ibuki." He told her, "The hospital isn't that far from here, we'll get you there in no time."

In return, Ibuki let out a pained cough, staining her lips red with her own blood, but she still mustered a weak smile for his benefit, "I guess sensei was right… I do need to start training harder huh?"

They both sat there for a while before Naruto sighed and made a clone to watch over Karin until she had awoken while he himself got up and started heading for the hospital. The police weren't worried about going over there rather than clearing the school buildings and checking to make sure everyone inside was alright. It would be faster if he took Ibuki to the emergency room himself.

All he knew was that an enemy had definitely been made that day for Shadaloo. He had faces that he could put with the name of the organization when it came to Vega and the Killer Bee girl… and he also had a name that had yet to have a face. He had never had a group that wished his death before... but it seemed that even in this world there were people that wanted his life and wanted to figure out a way to use the power of the Kyuubi, even when they didn't know what it was.

Only here Naruto wasn't some kid without the means to defend himself from his foes. What he couldn't figure out himself that was what the technology of this world and his connections were for.

Here Naruto wasn't going to be stuck waiting around for his enemies to find some way to get at him properly, he could go looking for them himself. He definitely had the money to do so, he'd been stockpiling it for his own reasons for years doing jobs of vary difficulties and pay-grades.

He wasn't going to let the bad guys hurt his friends that did nothing to them in the first place just because they could.

Maybe... maybe for once he actually could be the hero he always figured a ninja could be when he was a kid? He didn't know. He was definitely sure of one thing for certain though.

"Whoever this Bison guy is, he better hope I never find out where he is."

XxX

In the back of a large transport vehicle, trucking its way down the highway out of Aohura City, the three female killers sent to accomplish their missions were in the midst of debriefing their master. Two of them were at least. Juli was laying on an observation table being checked over by an on-site Shadaloo medic.

"The mission was a failure commander." Killer Bee said, her face already sporting bandages covering her nasty bruises and a salve for her black eye suffered from Naruto, "I was unable to assassinate my target. Along with that both Juli and Juni were kept from their objective by a female ninja and Naruto Uzumaki."

Juni followed up immediately through the vehicle's comm. device, "Our apologies. Instead of simply fighting, Naruto Uzumaki called the local police at the first opportunity and only acted to keep Killer Bee occupied until they arrived. Once he discovered that they were not alone he chose to rescue the Kanzuki heiress and interceded on our assignment."

The two heard nothing but silence as the medic continued to work on the injured Juli. While the females in the vehicle might not have felt such, he did in fact feel fear and the silence of one M. Bison in response to being told of a failed mission struck fear in his heart. Perhaps the man would kill him and the driver to take out his rage? He definitely wouldn't kill one of the Dolls as they were too valuable to do such a thing to out of petty anger.

However Bison merely began laughing in a frighteningly booming manner that got the medic to shake in place, "Hahahahaha! Even with your failure, there is still success. The Kanzuki Dynasty will see this as a show of evidence that Shadaloo is serious about carrying out its threats against them should they not comply with my demands. This is the original intent of your mission Juni. However Killer Bee… you failed. You did not kill the boy. You did not retrieve anything from him worthwhile. Upon your return you will be punished."

Killer Bee merely nodded to herself, prepared to accept her fate but feeling the need to explain herself nonetheless, "He was more skilled than my collected data led me to believe commander. Instead of adhering to most of the patterns seen on record he seemed to create several new ways to attack me that I have never seen-."

The oppressively booming voice of Bison fired right back, not even letting his emotionless warrior finish speaking, "No excuses! Failure is failure and I do not accept failure in direct missions for me!"

Well hell, if these crazy Dolls weren't going to feel fear or show any intimidation, the medic would just have to do it for all of them wouldn't he? Hence why he stammered his way through a defense for the blonde killer, "Actually Master Bison, the girl Juli, she has a very particular friction burn on her skin from an attack dealt to her by Killer Bee's target. There is still some residual power on her skin in the wound that I've managed to contain. It isn't much, but it is something. And Killer Bee has the boy's blood on one of her gauntlets."

"I see. This is good. Well then Killer Bee, count yourself lucky that even in failure you've managed to succeed. But the next time I order someone's death, it had better be carried out at all costs. Am I understood?"

"Yes commander." She replied automatically as the transmission shut out. Killer Bee then turned towards the doctor who was still sweating at the conference with Bison, "Why did you say anything to the commander? If what you had to say wasn't to his liking he would have punished you as well." More than likely he would have had the man killed… probably by her just for the hell of it.

The medic just shook his head and wiped the perspiration from his brow, "You Dolls… when he broke you of your free will Commander Bison also took away your ability to think outside of the box." She herself could have come up with that excuse to save herself from Bison's wrath if she took the time to think about more than what she was supposed to do, "Even in fights against your enemy you don't do it. I saw it just now. When you fought the boy you didn't adjust the way he did. Even if you are the more technically skilled fighter against an opponent like him you weren't ready for the strange things he tried when his normal methods didn't work."

Naruto fought like a lunatic as far as Killer Bee was concerned. If the fight had carried on he wouldn't have survived. She was certain that she would have killed him like all the rest. Anyone else wouldn't have had the dense mindset to even try half of the dumbass things that he did to attack her or defend himself with. Dumb they were, but in the end she was unable to kill him, and it wasn't him that was going to be walking around with a reminder of the fight on his face for the next week.

She didn't understand him. The way he fought, the way he carried himself despite how skilled he clearly showed himself to be, his actions in certain situations, nothing. For the first time she could rightly remember she was truly confused by Naruto Uzumaki.

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{Character Profile}

Name: Juli

Nationality: Germany

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Height/Weight: 5'4/108 lbs.

Bloodtype: N/A

Likes: M. Bison, World Domination (for Bison), Juni.

Dislikes: N/A

Hobbies: Missions for Shadaloo.

Rivals: All who would stand against Bison.

Fighting Style: Puppet Style

Current Techniques: Sniping Arrow, Cannon Spike, Axle Spin Knuckle, Reverse Shaft Breaker, Spin Drive Smasher.

Hyper Techniques: Psycho Charge, Psycho Roll, Death Cross Dance (with Juni).

Background: Formerly a young girl named Julia captured years ago from a family of doctors assisting a Mexican Native American tribe, Juli was brainwashed and conditioned to become one of 13 assassins for Shadaloo known collectively as The Dolls. Due to M. Bison's conditioning The Dolls are all emotionless and loyal killers. Bodyguards that follow his every order akin to robots. In the criminal organization hierarchy they are high ranking members only standing beneath Bison himself and his right hand men (such as Vega and Balrog). This is merely because they possess no leadership skills or free will. Between herself and Juni she is apt to delivering finishing blows, usually using Juni as a distraction to set up powerful moves. Her codename is German for the month of July.

Name: Juni

Nationality: Germany

Gender: Female

Age: 16 (June 10)

Height/Weight: 5'3/101 lbs.

Bloodtype: N/A

Likes: World domination (for Bison), M. Bison, Juli.

Dislikes: N/A

Hobbies: Missions for Shadaloo.

Rivals: All who would stand against Bison.

Fighting Style: Puppet Style

Current Techniques: Spiral Arc, Cannon Spike, Mach Slide, Cannon Strike, Hooligan Combination, Earth Direct, Psycho Streak, Spin Drive Smasher.

Hyper Techniques: Psycho Charge, Psycho Roll, Death Cross Dance (with Juli)

Background: Juni is another of the kidnapped young girls trained to be soulless assassins for Shadaloo. German in nationality, she is emotionless and is only concerned with following the orders dealt to her by her superiors, same as the other Dolls. Much like her partner Juli and her superior 'sister' Killer Bee, Juni chooses to engage in hand-to-hand combat unlike the majority of The Dolls who specialize in the use of some sort of weapon. Between herself and Juli she is the faster of the two, usually choosing to fight an opponent directly to give Juli openings for a blindsided double team attack. Her codename is German for the month of June.

Name: Killer Bee (Cammy)

Nationality: British

Gender: Female

Age: 16 (January 6)

Height/Weight: 5'4½/101 lbs.

Bloodtype: B

Likes: Collecting fighting data, M. Bison.

Dislikes: Sympathy towards her from her targets.

Hobbies: Assassination missions for Shadaloo.

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki

Fighting Style: Shadaloo assassination techniques

Current Techniques: Spiral Arrow, Cannon Spike, Axle Spin Knuckle, Hooligan Combination, Cannon Strike, Spin Drive Smasher, Cannon Revenge, Reverse Shaft Breaker.

Hyper Techniques: Gyro Drive Smasher, Killer Bee Assault.

Background: The most imposing of the Shadaloo assassination squad The Dolls, Killer Bee is the most powerful of the available female assassins. Unlike the other Dolls there is no knowledge of her background prior to her work in Shadaloo and she often works assignments alone, choosing to kill her targets with her specialty of hand-to-hand combat in direct conflict whenever possible. She differs greatly from the other Dolls aside from her lack of known origin however, as she shows a more in-depth mastery of the assassination hand-to-hand fighting style and even a spark of M. Bison's Psycho Power within her to power her more potent techniques. This makes her far more dangerous than any of the others as even with the few shared attacks between them Killer Bee's techniques are far superior in sheer raw power. This is why she is only used for missions that require the complete touch against targets that need to be disposed of.