Last Man Standing...

Chapter 19 - Last Man Standing...

Every single day.

It happened every day.

Naruto would sleep through most of his classes, wake up for lunch, eat, go back to classes, sleep some more, wake up for gym, and that was all he did all day. No teacher could really say anything because he wasn't really failing any classes, mostly because he cheated on every test with liberal use of clones and the mental feedback he would receive, learning what they learned when they dispelled.

It got on the nerves of those that knew how he did it relentlessly, but they couldn't really do anything about it. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was Naruto's hard-earned technique, and he could wantonly abuse its properties any way he wished.

He could have at least stayed awake to give off the illusion that he cared about school in the slightest, but only Sakura really knew that the only reason he even went to school in the first place was because he was forced to when he first showed up in Japan, and then he only went to high school after the last year of middle school because Sakura was planning on going and he wanted to hang out with her some more so he enrolled as well.

The thought of going to a university was the farthest thing from Naruto's mind, which was a damn shame because he had the money to pay for it without a scholarship and he could definitely cheat his way through college too if he didn't want to put the effort forth. It would have been no sweat.

But that was the future, and it was still quite a ways off. They were sixteen after all. If it really became an issue of importance, Sakura, Karin, and even Ibuki were sure that they could rope Naruto into going to college somehow. In the meantime school had just let out and the lot of them, sans Karin who had been picked up in her limousine, were walking home.

"Why in the world do you have that tattoo Naruto?" Kei asked, drawing attention to the leaf tattoo on his upper right arm. It was hot enough that Naruto was sick of wearing his uniform jacket and wrapped it around his waist for some ventilation towards his upper body, thus bringing his tattoo into discussion, "I still don't understand why you got it. Do you actually want people to think you're some kind of Yakuza?"

"It's a leaf." Naruto defended, poking at the tattoo in question, "If you see a leaf on some guy's arm and you think he's a gangster you've definitely got more serious problems than him, dattebayo."

Why a leaf? Naruto never really told anyone why a leaf, and he usually wore clothes that covered it so it wasn't really an issue with any authority figures.

"You forgot about the one around your belly button that shows up and disappears randomly." Sakura chimed in, getting a glare from Naruto for bringing that one up, "Come on Naruto, you're acting like I haven't seen you without a shirt on like a million times already. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. It's weird, so of course I remember it." She said idly, not knowing that she'd stirred up a miniature storm.

"Ibuki hands off! Personal space!" Naruto was doing his best to keep what little self-respect he chose to hold by keeping a grip on his shirt to keep Ibuki from prying it up to ogle his torso.

Not giving up in the speedy, small-scale hand duel with Naruto, Ibuki pressed the issue, "You have a tattoo on your stomach and I've never seen it before? Talk about stingy. Now I'm pretty sure all of our other friends have seen you shirtless but me, so how is that fair?"

"Screw that! Let me see you shirtless and maybe you'll have some ammo to use here!" That got her to let go and give him some space with a cherry red blush on her face. He wasn't some department store mannequin. Seriously though, if she was cool with him seeing her shirtless he would certainly be down with that. That would certainly be worth letting her see his seal and giving the long explanation on what it was.

Mercifully, Naruto's phone went off and directed attention away from his 'body art' and the newfound interest it seemed to generate. And it was his personal phone too so it wasn't about work, "Hey Cammy, what's up? Do you need something before I get home?"

"No, I'm fine. This is about you though." Cammy said over the line in a calm but inquiring voice, "Naruto, do you know someone named Sasuke? He was here trying to find you earlier, an hour ago. He looked like he had come a long way too, because those clothes he wore… they weren't local, from China if I had to guess."

Naruto's heart dropped into his stomach at the utterance of that name and everyone with him saw it, but he quickly gathered himself. There could be other people named Sasuke, "Sasuke what?"

"He didn't say. He had black hair, was our age, and he left a blue headband that looks just like yours. You know; the one you always wear around. He pinned it with one of those kunai knives that you always carry."

A nervous lump in Naruto's voice was swallowed before he could bring himself to speak again. How was that even possible? Sasuke, the Sasuke that he had fought four years ago at the Valley of the End, the last person from his home that he saw before waking up in this different world. He was there too?

His mouth felt dry. He was quite certain that he looked a sight to the girls judging from the worried expressions on their faces, but he just didn't care. The mortified look on his face was well within reason.

"Naruto? Are you still there? You didn't hang up on me did you?"

"Naruto?" Sakura asked him, tugging on his arm to try and snap him out of it, "What's wrong?"

Shaking his head to assuage her for the moment, Naruto coughed and talked to Cammy again, "Um… he didn't leave you a way to get in contact with him did he? An address, a phone number, anything?" Why didn't she call him after it had happened?

"No. He said he'd come back after he finished a job of sorts that he had in Tokyo. I would have told you sooner, but nothing suspicious happened afterwards, and you were in school. Getting you in trouble just because someone stopped in for you didn't seem like something important enough."

Ah hell… well she didn't know who Sasuke was. It wasn't anything she could have known without him telling her, and Sasuke hadn't been a topic to bring up to anyone else ever. But it was officially problem-solving time.

Sasuke went to the apartment an hour ago. He had a job in Tokyo. Uncharacteristically, Naruto's mind began pasting together the times and different methods to get out there from his town. The train to Tokyo didn't stop at the station in Aohura City until 4:15 pm, driving would take longer, and running all that way would not only take longer as well, but it was a pain in the ass from his own personal experience.

Something in there clicked, and he had no time to waste. Train was the only smart and timely way out of Aohura City, especially since Karin was the only person anywhere near town that had a faster means of travel to a place that far off.

"Cam I'll be back sometime tonight. I'm going to Tokyo." Naruto said abruptly to his roommate, "Sakura-chan'll be over in a bit to check on you. Call me if there's something that you forgot to tell me." As he hung up he noticed the look on Sakura's face at how he had just volunteered her for something, "Please Sakura-chan? It's on the way to your house."

She wasn't upset at being asked to do something so simple. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that Naruto was going to run off to the capital just like that without her? Without anyone? It didn't add up. Things had been normal and then he got that phone call and he turned all serious, "Naruto, what's the matter? Talk to us."

Of course he gave her one of those damnable reassuring grins that screamed that there was something wrong but he didn't want anyone to know about it. Damn it, she told him about doing that crap around her, "Nothing's the matter Sakura-chan, I've just got something to do. Really."

Something to do? Bullshit.

She gave him a hard stare before finally waving him off, and he wasted no time before taking to the rooftops, rushing in the direction of the train station.

Also wasting no time, Ibuki locked eyes with Sakura and got a nod from the girl before the kunoichi grinned and took off after him in pursuit. Ibuki was the only one that could keep up with Naruto over any kind of distance, so even if Sakura did want to chase Naruto herself he'd have lost her in a matter of moments.

At least whatever Naruto was into wouldn't be dealt with alone. And if she was going to go to Naruto's apartment they were definitely going to be finding out just what the big issue was since they hadn't heard Naruto's phone conversation with Cammy, "Are you coming with me Kei-chan?" She asked her normal female friend who had been there the whole time simply observing.

"Uh… yeah." It wasn't even a question of if she was going or not. Naruto was weird, had been around them for years, and other than the hard to believe demon in his body thing they didn't know much about him, "There needs to be some kind of normal perspective amongst you people."

XxX

(Aohura City Train Station)

School let out at 3:50 every day and Cammy called him around 4:00 while he had been walking home, so that left Naruto more or less fifteen minutes to make it across town to the train station. Something he did with great haste as he had no time to spare, making it just in time as it was being boarded by everyone heading to the big city. Sasuke had to be on that train if he was going to Tokyo.

Amidst the crowd of people commuting to and from Aohura City boarding and getting off of the train, Naruto used that confusion to knock out a train worker and Henge into him, getting on for free and allowing himself the chance to move throughout the coaches freely. The guy hadn't done anything wrong, true, but sometimes if you wanted to make an omelet you had to break a few eggs. He'd wake up soon enough and everything would be cool.

The train departed right on time and began speeding towards Tokyo before Naruto could really begin searching.

As he walked through the aisle and casually scanned through the people sitting in their seats he didn't even know where to begin, but he knew one thing for sure, he had to find Sasuke before that train let out because if Sasuke made it to the city streets he was never going to catch up to him and he had just wasted his afternoon and evening for nothing, not even mentioning that he'd have one hell of an explanation to give once he got home.

He already knew that there would be questions from everybody after he got back. Sakura wasn't going to let something like that just slide. Neither would Karin once she found out. Batsu would probably be back from his training trip in a few days and when he was and he found out he'd hound him too. Cammy was his roommate and she was the one that picked up the message for him in the first place, so he definitely had to explain some things to her. And Ibuki was a ninja, and by nature a ninja had to be nosy and into information-.

"Hey Naruto."

"Hey Ibuki."

Wait… speaking of Ibuki…

Naruto grabbed the girl from where she had been casually sitting in an empty set of seats and pulled her towards a crew area, luckily one that was empty because Naruto had knocked out the guy that was meant to oversee that section of the train, thus they had privacy.

Privacy for him to have a mini-freakout, "What the hell are you doing here?" Naruto asked a low, hissing whisper of a voice, "Did you follow me?"

"Yeah. I even saw you knock that poor guy out." Ibuki said with a shake of her head, "Did you have to transform into that hot blonde girl version of you just to lure him somewhere private? That was demeaning to women." It was definitely a kunoichi move though so she wasn't going to knock him for that. It was just weird and seriously out of place for a boy ninja to seduce a guy… she'd have to pick on him about that later.

"Heh, you saw that." Naruto said with a sheepish chuckle before he regained his focus, "No. Damn it Ibuki go home. Won't you get in trouble if you aren't back in your village by a certain time?"

"Pssht, screw that." Ibuki quickly waved off Naruto's lame excuse to make her leave, "I'd much rather get a look into the dark and seedy past of the mysterious, fascinating, and slightly degenerate ninja-for-hire Uzumaki Naruto. And besides, the train's moving already. What are you gonna do, throw me off of a speeding bullet train?"

Cringing at that thought, Naruto shook his head. Even if he were enough of a jerk to hurl his favorite female ninja off of the bullet train, the damn thing moved 200 miles per hour… so no. She was too pretty to go splat on the Japanese countryside.

So she was along for the ride. Well at least that would leave one less explanation to give later.

Ibuki poked and prodded at Naruto's transformed appearance and frowned at how good it was, "Man this is so unfair. How do you do this stuff?"

"I've got to focus to hold it and keep my chakra steady to stay like this." Naruto said, letting her get her fill of checking out his Henge, "Fighting with it on is hard to do because it directs your focus, and in my village a good ninja can tell if you've got one on anyway so sometimes it doesn't matter."

A sound of understanding came from the bubbly kunoichi before directing brown eyes upward into train-attendant Naruto's false visage, "So tell me, what are you doing here? You ran off pretty fast."

"I'm looking for someone, now come on." He grabbed Ibuki's hand and directed her out to walk back amongst the people again, "This actually helps me look a bit less suspicious. Just be cool. If we can move from car to car without being seen when we do it we can make it look like we're just looking for your seat." Getting a nod from Ibuki the two of them began search for Naruto's person of interest.

XxX

(Elsewhere on the Train)

'Why did they have to come with me?' Sasuke asked himself as he tried to be calm and stare out of his window, watching the landscape speed by. Across from him in the adjacent seats, sharing the area with him he had Yun and Yang, 'Damn you Gen… why'd you have to tell them I was coming to Japan?'

"Man…" Yun said, looking around the train with a frown on his face, "Isn't there someone that's supposed to come around with a cart to ask us if we want something to eat or drink? I'm hungry."

Yang rolled his eyes at his twin brother's attitude, "We left like ten minutes ago. Give 'em a bit to get set up bro." Despite saying that, he had to pat down his own stomach as he was pretty hungry too, "Hey Sasuke, what are you going to Tokyo to do anyway?"

"You know what I'm going to Tokyo to do, remember?" Sasuke said as if it were a chore to talk about it, "You're both not dumb. You know what I do. You even told Chun-Li about me, remember?" He said, putting a bit of a glare on the two of them.

It was all their fault that he wound up getting some name notoriety. Somehow his name came up when they had been talking with Interpol agent Chun-Li, and she was interested as she was trained a bit by Sasuke's landlord Gen. Anyone that Gen actually tolerated living under his roof had to be somewhat interesting.

And that led to her snooping around his assassinations. He even had to fight her a few times. Never fun. And he couldn't copy her best special moves either. Not only did she not use hand-seals which no one in this world seemed to in order to manipulate their chakra/ki, but her fighting style required more physical ability with his legs than he had. Her kicks were sometimes too fast for him to even see.

"We said we were sorry about that." Yun defended weakly, glad that at least he wasn't using his Sharingan to stare them down. Those stupid red eyes of his were scary, "And yeah, but we want to know exactly who you're after in Tokyo. We thought you were looking for Uzumaki Naruto, but he doesn't seem like any kind of gang leader to me, especially one that would need to be assassinated."

Sasuke shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest nonchalantly, "I'm looking for Naruto for personal reasons. But this job isn't about him. There's a nasty little militia being built up in that region right now, but they're not going to stay there. Tokyo's too big of a city to try and dominate like that without getting into a straight up gang war with Yakuza influences. They're dangerous though, and I need to find and take out the ringleaders before they move and I have to find them again, or else things'll get harder for me to finish."

A militia? Like a private citizen's army? Wouldn't that be something that would be left up to the JSDF to handle? But it wasn't like Sasuke was taking on the whole group by himself. He was just going to put down the ringleaders.

Wait. That would mean that he might need their help!

And with that both Yun and Yang started grinning, getting Sasuke to raise an eyebrow at the spirited brothers and their behavior. He didn't even want to know. At least they were finally shutting up and letting him get some peace and quiet. He didn't want to have to try and block them out for the rest of the trip. He'd already had to do it for the first thirty minutes of it.

Whatever. He just wanted to get the mission over with and done so he could look for Naruto again. Four damn years. Four years, and he had no idea what had happened to his former Team 7 teammate. He figured that he had lost the fight due to how his right arm had been so badly injured once he woke up, but not waking up in Konoha was major, and then realizing that he was somewhere else completely nearly caused him to go into shock.

But that was then and this was now.

And right now as his eyes looked around the train he couldn't shake this paranoid feeling that he was having. You didn't ignore a feeling like that, because when you did you wound up dead. He remembered most of his marks verbally remarking on having such feelings right before he assassinated them.

Going off of this sensation, Sasuke looked around and found that despite it being the end of the day, there weren't very many people that looked like the common commuting crowd that one would see riding such a thing at that hour. There were many of them with no briefcases, business-casual wear, travel bags, nothing.

And he noticed that many of them were looking his way.

If his reputation in underground circles as an assassin stretched further than Hong Kong they probably knew he was coming, even if they didn't know what he looked like. The fact was that he was dressed in Chinese clothing and he didn't exactly look like the friendliest person that anyone could ever meet.

And as a few of these out of place characters stood up Sasuke had to sigh. He hated just doing jobs outside of Hong Kong, let alone outside of China altogether. It made it harder to get closer to his more attentive targets who had people around them. Did this mean that they had already been onto him from the start?

Somehow he knew that this was Yun and Yang's fault…

"You guys didn't use my name when you went asking around for Naruto the other day, did you?" Sasuke asked, barely keeping from gnashing his teeth in frustration. This was why he did things solo! He did not play well with others!

"Not a chance." Yang said, proudly rubbing underneath his nose at how he and Yun had kept from putting Sasuke's name out there dangerously, "We know better when you're here to take down some Mad Gear bigwigs, so we didn't use your name at all."

Yun followed up with a nod of his head, loudly backing Yun up so that Sasuke didn't call them idiots again, "Yeah at the most we just said that there was some scary guy from Hong Kong that was interested in finding someone that seemed out of place in Japan, a fighter-guy, maybe a gang leader or something… I don't know, but we never used your name."

After hearing that apparently Sasuke was there to take down some Mad Gear leaders, that was enough to get quite a few people's ears burning. Thus they stood up to address this. Sasuke of course wanted to wring a pair of necks that belonged to some Chinese kids, but other neck-wringing took priority when they started drawing weapons; small lead pipes, daggers, even switchblades.

That couldn't have been what he had really been hired to stop… they didn't seem very militia-like. More like regular thugs. Hey, maybe they were commuting. If they were a part of the real-deal group that his employer was worried about then they were the absolute bottom of the totem pole, not even grunts, probably pledges looking to actually be members later.

Quickly jumping up onto his seat for a better view of the entire train car, Sasuke lashed out with a barrage of shuriken that hit a few of his would-be attackers in their throats and chests, killing a few that got hit in the most vital of areas and wounding the others.

Needless to say the normal people on the train started freaking out when the bodies started hitting the floor.

After seeing Sasuke move so suddenly, Yun and Yang were out of their seats and cleared the aisles with swift flying kicks that knocked other enemies into each other, "What the hell?" Yun said as he started defending himself. Dodging a few stabs and swings of a knife, he grabbed the man's shoulders and flipped over his head before chopping him in the back of the neck and turning his attention to the others, "It's starting now?"

"You don't ever say the name of your enemy out loud in their territory you idiots." Sasuke was strictly relegated to nothing but hand-to-hand fighting and careful weapons usage. No ninjutsu he could pull out to fight with would be safe for the civilians in the vicinity and he wasn't about to have the blood of innocents on his hands.

"We're not even in Tokyo yet!" Yang replied as rolled underneath the swing of a pipe and pushed off into the air, delivering a fast series of rising kicks to the face of his victim that slammed him in the ceiling where he took more kicks and was easily rendered unconscious, "Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh)!"

"This is a train to Tokyo!" Sasuke yelled as if he were talking to three-year olds as he grabbed two foes by their necks and drove them back down the aisle far enough to push them straight through the tightly shut metal door at the end of the train car, knocking them out.

Unfortunately their bodies didn't clear the space to the next car and fell underneath the train… as if he cared. They shouldn't have tried to join Mad Gear, they shouldn't have drawn weapons on him, and they shouldn't have attacked him period…

…That was three strikes and as far as he was concerned that made them three time losers.

Turning back to the interior of the train, he saw that Yang and Yun had finished up with their foes, having been notably more merciful than he had been from the looks of how they were all still alive. Unconscious but alive. And the looks from the normal people on the train, still shocked and frightened by what had just occurred and horrified at how a sixteen year old boy had killed three men, wounded four more and had thrown two underneath the train.

"I'm going to a different car…"

XxX

(With Naruto and Ibuki)

The little act of theirs seemed to be working so far, with Naruto leading on the misplaced high school student, played by Ibuki, looking for her friends on separate cars they managed to get through two different cars of the ten.

Ibuki though, seemed to be playing up the ditzy schoolgirl thing to the hilt just for kicks as they walked past everyone's seats, "Oh, we never should have skipped today just to go all the way out there! If I lost them and we don't get back together I'm dead sir!" She exclaimed desperately while clinging to the Henged Naruto's arm. Wasn't the whole point of doing this to not draw attention?

"It'll be okay miss." Naruto said, trying to sound as professionally adult as possible. Rather hard to do as he wasn't professional, nor was he an adult, and he had one of his arms clasped tight in Ibuki's grasp between her breasts, "We'll find them before the ride ends, I promise."

"You're so kind." Ibuki said, feigning a swoon, "Do you live in Tokyo? Maybe if we don't find them you can give me a ride home yourself? I don't know the transportation system that well honestly." So not cool. She was definitely messing with him now, "I'd be very grateful."

Well if that was how it was going to go down who was he to change things up any? It wasn't like he was suffering any getting his arm shoved against her boobs. But if any more blood rushed to his face his Henge was going to be disturbed and fall, "You're enjoying this way too much." Naruto said under his breath, and for the life of him he couldn't tell why. Was messing with him really that much fun?

"I don't know what you're talking about… I'm just doing my part." Ibuki replied slyly, "You know… selling the deceit and what not."

Yeah sure. That was believable.

Both Naruto and Ibuki froze in place though when they heard loud radio chatter from a train employee that was near the end of the car, "There's danger with a group of troublemakers on the train. Be on the lookout for gatherings of passengers that don't have any signs of meaningful traveling purposes. They've been riding the rails back and forth all day with no signs of ever having gotten off at any of the stops. Threat is anticipated. First priority is passenger safety."

They thought that the radio message was meant to expose them, but once the loud radio message went through the handhelds of the employees on the train, some older teenagers and punkish-looking young adults stood up and showed that they far outnumbered the three train security members that could have stopped them, and they were armed with rudimentary melee weaponry to boot.

"Yeah, you heard the man." One of the punks said, "The first priority is passenger safety, so if you don't want a bunch of these innocent folks to get hurt unnecessarily you should just stand down and let us do what we came to do. All we want is to kill one pesky little gun-for-hire that we figured was gonna be on this train this afternoon, that's it. No concern to any of you."

"Kazegiri (Wind Gili)!" A sudden motion from Ibuki ended with her using a bicycle kick to punt two of the thugs into the air, smashing their heads into the unforgiving ceiling where she herself flipped up before she bounced off of and sprang herself at two more enemies that she pummeled with kicks, knocking them all out.

The remaining dozen thugs on the train car looked at the regular looking high school girl that moved like an assassin, "What the hell? Is she the one we were supposed to be on the lookout for? I thought it was supposed to be a guy!"

"Rasenrengan (Spiraling Serial Spheres)!" Naruto blasted two of the thugs from behind with a Rasengan in each hand that sent them barreling into their comrades as he let his Henge fade, revealing that he had changed into his fighting gear before arriving at the train station and taking on the disguise of a train worker. There wasn't enough room to make clones and have them be useful, so he had to handle things himself. No problem.

Ibuki finished off the downed enemies that had been knocked down by the collateral damage done by Naruto's Rasenrengan via landing on their heads respectively and driving them into the floor as they tried to get back up, "Naruto…" Ibuki started to say, shaking her head with her hands on her hips in a chiding manner, "Who'd you piss off this time?"

"Me?" Naruto said in disbelief, "How do you know it was me? Why can't it have been you? You're sort of a gun-for-hire too." That and he was pretty sure she hadn't been doing nothing the entire time he and the others had been on their grand tour of southeastern Asia.

"Because they're not from the Geki Clan. Those are the only people that would want me dead and these clowns were like low-level street thugs. That would be in your wheelhouse of making enemies." Ibuki reasoned, though Naruto had recently stepped up in regards to his enemy-making. Now instead of simple street gangs he made enemies out of major crime syndicates ala Shadaloo.

"It couldn't have been me." Naruto calmly rationalized back, tapping his temple in thought, "If they've been riding the train all day looking for the mercenary that they want I'm definitely not the one. I decided to get on this train right after school let out. That was just an hour ago." It was a snap decision, so how could anyone laying an ambush have scouted that out?

One of the thugs that had been soundly thrashed by the ninja pair happened to still be conscious and went for a gun from where he was laying on the floor, managing to pull it out and cock it. Naruto and Ibuki heard the sound of the firearm being prepared and wasted no time before both speedily punt kicked him directly in the face, sending teeth flying all over and knocking him to the far end of the train.

His hand was still on the gun though, and he tried to weakly lift his arm to point it at his targets again before he found his attempt to do so stopped by Naruto's grip on him. A tight grasp with Naruto digging his fingers into the soft spots on the underside of his wrist forced him to drop the gun to the floor while Naruto had him held up against the back wall by his collar, "I hate guns… any loser can shoot somebody."

"You don't know who you're messing with." The captured man mumbled through his missing teeth and swollen face, "Mad Gear's gonna take over the whole country… one region at a time. A bunch of punk kids can't beat the bosses. And when we get our heavy weapons shipped in not even the JDSF (Japan Self-Defense Force) can stop us."

A confused Naruto looked back towards Ibuki, "What's Mad Gear supposed to be?" He then frowned when he noticed that Ibuki was in her normal brown ninja attire, "…Did you just change in front of all of these people?"

"Oh calm down. I did it so fast no one saw a thing." Ibuki said, waving off any accusations of being an exhibitionist or something, "Seriously, you'd have to have eyes that can see the world in slow motion to have even caught a flash of skin when I switched clothes." Rubbing the back of her neck and making sure her bandanna was secure around her head she thought hard about the groups that she knew of, "I don't know anything about any Mad Gear group. From the name I don't think they're native to Japan anyway."

Shrugging Naruto decided to ask the guy in his grasp only to note that he had passed out. Damn. Well wasn't that just peachy.

Ibuki stood over the other beaten Mad Gear members and motioned Naruto over to her to tie them up with some of his ninja wire, "This can't be all of them. They're just covering one car, that's stupid if they're lying in wait for someone. You've got to cover your bases. That's Ambush Tactics 101."

"You had that class too?" Naruto idly queried before getting back on track, "Fine. So we're clearing train cars now?" That was going to sidetrack him in his search for Sasuke, but this was begrudgingly more important to make sure that these clods didn't hurt any passengers trying to find whoever they were looking for, "Thirty minutes to Tokyo, so let's get started then." By the time those doors opened this train needed to be safe.

XxX

(Aohura City – Karin's Personal Manor)

"-And I just told Naruto that the person that came by looking for him was going to Tokyo today for some kind of job and that he'd come looking for him again later." Cammy explained as she sat on a chair in Karin's entertainment room, "Then he said that he was going to Tokyo right then. That's not normal is it?"

Sakura frowned from her spot in another chair where she was sitting next to Kei, her lips pursed in thought at what she had just been told by Naruto's new roomie. She thought to take this to Karin as well for something of a meeting of the minds, "Well he's a hothead and everything, but he wasn't mad. And he never just cuts and runs off at the drop of a hat like that."

"Who is this 'Sasuke' person you spoke of?" Karin asked, not knowing anyone like that by name. It wasn't anyone she knew of. Cammy motioned for something to write with and Karin managed to get her a notepad and a pen. It took less than a minute for Cammy to draw up a rough composite sketch of Sasuke's mug shot from what she could remember, "I see…" It was remarkably well detailed. Who knew she could draw?

On the table in front of the girls happened to be the headband that Sasuke left in order to prove that he was someone that Naruto knew. It was most definitely something that was made just like Naruto's accessory of choice, right down to the insignia on it.

"Is it from a gang?" Kei asked aloud, "We don't know anything about Naruto before he came to Aohura City, so maybe he was a part of some kind of gang or something… in the past of course." Because he definitely wasn't a part of one now. But it would definitely explain the tattoos; the one that everyone close to him knew he had on his arm and the one that only Sakura had apparently seen on his stomach, "Maybe that's why he doesn't really talk about anything he did before meeting us?"

Most people would tell stories or share past experiences… but Naruto never did. He never told any stories about him being a ninja, which was what made it hard to stomach at first that he was one. Even to that very day there was some skepticism because of his lack of background. The whole 'Iruka-sensei' thing Sakura got out of him the other day last week was the closest anyone had ever gotten out of digging up something.

A frown adorned Karin's face once she picked up the headband and studied it as if it held some kind of answer, "He holds no gangster tendencies, either from this country's culture or from America's. I just don't see it." Sasuke used the same kind of weapon that Naruto used regularly, and he even disappeared from sight without a trace according to Cammy, "Perhaps this person was a ninja alongside Naruto-san?"

"He did say that he was an old teammate of Naruto's." Cammy recalled, though much hadn't piled up and pieced together yet, "But if Naruto's been here for years why show up now? Is he here to take Naruto back to their home? Perhaps he was in exile and his time is up."

"Well if they didn't want him for four years they can't have him now. Exile or not." Not a chance. In Sakura's opinion if that was indeed the case, and Naruto was dropped in Japan by himself for four years with no link, no attachment, no nothing to his place of origin, then it wasn't on them to decide it was time to bring him back, "Not if he doesn't want to go."

If that was what was happening then Sakura hoped that the reason Naruto went to Tokyo was to tell this Sasuke character to just shove it, that he wasn't going back. Who would exile Naruto anyway? He was as loyal as they came.

Or maybe it was like that thing that Ibuki told them about. The other reason that Naruto could have been in Aohura City with no link to his ninja background. He could have been a runaway.

The shinobi and kunoichi both repeatedly hammered home the fact that for a ninja, abandoning their clan or secret village was a crime punishable by death depending on the number of secrets one contained. Well having a demon in your body that could fuel your powers seemed like a pretty big damn secret. Definitely something worth killing over. So maybe Naruto was heading out to face his fate head-on and fight it off as best he could.

No matter which way things were going to shake out, Uzumaki Naruto was the most pain in the ass best friend that could have ever possibly existed.

"Well are we going or not?"

Everyone turned towards the doorway of the room where Karin was standing with her phone in her hand, "Naruto-san is very traceable as long as he has his cell phone on him if you have forgotten as much." With that she left the room to make sure that Shibazaki prepared the helicopter for a trip to Tokyo, "I hate Mondays…"

There had better have been some answers waiting too once they arrived, because Karin's patience was wearing thin with all of this cloak-and-dagger crap in regards to Naruto and his previous activities in life. It was like peeling a damn onion with all of the layers that came with him.

XxX

(Tokyo, Japan – Chiyoda Ward – Tokaido Line Shinkansen Station)

By the time the doors to the bullet train opened up and the frightened passengers spilled out and the police poured in, every Mad Gear member had been subdued or disposed of either by the party of Sasuke, Yun, and Yang, or by Naruto and Ibuki.

The groups responsible for defeating the hooligans on the train waited until everyone else got off in order to avoid any attention, waiting for the platform to mostly clear before getting off and trying to go about their own way.

As this occurred, Naruto had a rather disgruntled look on his face. Because of the whole Mad Gear mess he had missed his chance to find and corner Sasuke on the train, if he was there to begin with. But with a left turn of his head a look crossed Naruto's face as if he had seen someone that had been brought back from the dead.

Standing between Yun and Yang looking around for an opening to leave the station without any eyes on him stood Sasuke. Though his attire was different to fit the environment he'd been spending his time in, it was unmistakably him. He had the same indifferent look on his face as ever, and that same damn haircut. No doubt, "Sasuke…"

Hearing Naruto's barely audible statement, Ibuki looked in the same direction that he did only to go slightly wide-eyed at the sight of Sasuke, "Wow, that's Sasuke?" She hadn't been expecting anyone that good looking. While Naruto was a rougher brand of good-looking that was harder to appraise for one that didn't have her innate skill to do so, Sasuke was a flat out pretty boy, 100% bishonen status, "What village do you come from? Can I go?"

If there was a place that produced two different shades of hot boy like Naruto and Sasuke there would definitely have to be more, and that was a place she wanted to check out.

Feeling a pair of eyes on him, Sasuke turned towards Naruto and locked eyes with him. He looked different in the fact that he looked bigger and stronger, something to go along with his growth in age, but he didn't have time to inspect this at the moment, 'Crap… how the hell did he-? Ugh, it doesn't matter right now. I don't have time to do this, I'm late.' Business before personal issues, and Naruto wasn't his business right now.

Without a hint of warning that Naruto's eyes could spot, Sasuke vanished from his spot in a swirl of wind and leaves, a Shunshin, but Naruto had dealt with actual teleportation techniques in the recent past and he could see through the little sleight of hand to locate where Sasuke had gone to in an attempt to escape. Not wasting another second, Naruto went right after him, jumping over the crowds of people as he went to exit the station and give chase.

"Hey!" Ibuki shouted at Naruto before going after him as well, "Wait a second! Naruto, I'm supposed to keep an eye on you!" As she made it outside and saw the orange of Naruto taking to the rooftops she made to follow him before she had to duck a kick from behind.

Yang slid to a stop in his inline skates right in front of her after missing his kick that had been aimed at her. This was so not what she needed right now. She could already feel Naruto and that Sasuke guy moving farther and farther away and it was making her antsy that she could lose the blonde bomber.

Standing straight up, she tapped her foot on the ground impatiently as she waited for Yang to either get out of her way or attack her. As long as this whole thing sped up so that she could get moving. She had a perturbed look on her face that just screamed that she was saying, 'Well? I'm waiting.'

Having seen that look multiple times in the past from a girl he liked in his neighborhood, Yang was still sort of reluctant to stand in front of an agitated woman, but he stood his ground regardless. Fighting skill notwithstanding, if he got his butt kicked by an untrained girl when she was upset with him what in the world was going to happen when he tried to tangle with a trained one that was upset with him?

"Look kid, your name was Yun or Yang right? Move out of the way." Ibuki said with a displeased appearance, "I don't feel like kicking your ass right now. I need to catch up with Naruto."

Kid? She couldn't have been that much older than him and she was calling him kid? That wasn't going to fly, "I can't let Naruto catch up with Sasuke." Yang said with a shrug, "Not right now. It's not a good time. You guys are going to screw everything up if you confront him now. Can't this wait?"

He and Yun already screwed up Sasuke entering Tokyo under the radar so that he could properly do his mission. Yes, they ran damage control on the train, but his element of surprise was blown and he wouldn't be getting it back. He needed to make sure that he and his brother tagging along with Sasuke on his trip wouldn't be remembered as the time that they made him fail a job.

But for Ibuki, no it couldn't wait.

Clearly, because Naruto had run all the way across an entire city within thirty minutes and snuck onto a train to meet up with this Sasuke he wasn't just doing it because it caught his fancy at that exact moment. And with having to beat down dozens going onto upwards of one hundred punks on a train she wasn't in the best of moods either. That time on the train with him was supposed to be her time to hang out with Naruto by herself outside of school.

Ibuki shifted into a fighting stance and pulled her facemask up over her mouth and nose. She clearly meant business, "In that case since you aren't getting out of the way I hope you'll be alright with getting some bruises."

In return, Yang reluctantly put himself in his Chinese Kenpo stance and cracked his neck to the side in preparation to face off with the teenage kunoichi, "...Alright, let's get this started."

XxX

"Sasuke!"

Well wasn't this scene sort of familiar?

Sasuke stood on a water tower of a rooftop with his back turned to Naruto who was on the surface of the different rooftop behind him, a pretty long drop to the streets sitting between them in their current urban setting in the streets of Tokyo. Different from a waterfall, most definitely, and it was nightfall so it wasn't really a mirror of their previous showdown, but it was close enough.

And once again just like the last time, Sasuke turned around to face his orange-clad Team 7 teammate in the staticky night air. A storm was building, "I told your roommate I was going to come back after I finished my mission, which I'm still in the middle of."

It was really him. Naruto was instantly overwhelmed with how good it was to find that he wasn't alone and that he hadn't been the only one that wound up in this world away from the Elemental Nations.

That failed to manifest itself in his first words though as he pointed at Sasuke accusingly, "You son of a bitch! You shoved a hand through my chest, set me on fire, and piledrove me headfirst into waterfall rocks! What the fuck was that about? And now you're just gonna give me that look? I should be beating the Sharingan out of you right now!"

Same old Naruto.

"Hm." Sasuke grunted out indifferently. That was a completely different situation compared to then, "Well it's not like I can run off to Orochimaru now never to be seen again, so just let me go and when I come back then we can talk. I'm busy right now."

Naruto wasn't having any of that though, "Then why didn't you wait until you were done before dropping the bombshell on me that you were alive and in this world? You thought I'd just sit down and wait for you to roll back into Aohura City after hearing that? You're a dumbass!"

That caught Sasuke off guard. Enough so to break his usual aloof persona. And when Sasuke had his cool disrupted he went to the next default standby of his when it came to his emotions; irritation and/or anger, "Tch… whatever. I'm out of here. Go back to your apartment and I'll be there tomorrow."

"What's wrong with right now?" Naruto shouted before Sasuke ignored him and jumped off again. Were they really going to have to pick up right where they left off? He wasn't sure these building rooftops could take what they would wind up dishing out if they were to do a round two.

The sound of hard wheels rolling got louder and louder and Naruto turned around to see Yun soaring across the gap separating rooftops on his skateboard. He was aiming his trajectory right at Naruto and had the biggest grin on his face as Naruto dodged and he slid to a stop, "Still as fast as ever. Not that fast, but you dodged me again so I'm getting excited about fighting you now."

Naruto's blue eyes moved from Yun to where Sasuke had been standing only to find him gone again. With a click, Naruto snapped his jaw shut irritably before letting out a low growl. This guy obviously didn't get the hint from the day before, "Okay…you want to fight me so bad tough guy? Show me what you've got?"

The exuberant young Chinese fighter didn't need to be given any kind of go ahead to attack Naruto, and did so with gusto, "Oh man, I love a good fight!" One lunge had him cover the full distance between Naruto and himself so fast that an afterimage trail moved with him to disguise which one of the moving Yun figures happened to be the real one, "Zesshou Hohou (Lunge Punch)!"

He didn't see what was so special about Naruto, and he wasn't about to let this guy mess up Sasuke's mission… any more than he and Yang already had anyway. He'd kill two birds with one stone and break this guy down while simultaneously keeping him away from what Sasuke was in Tokyo to do. Beating someone he was interested in would have to prove to Sasuke that he was strong and wasn't just some useless kid.

Naruto bit his thumb and made a few hand-seals before slamming his hand onto the ground, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" A large puff of smoke kicked up concealing Naruto from view momentarily.

Yun then drew to a sudden stop as a trio of large human-sized toad sat where Naruto had previously been standing, just looking at him lazily and croaking with their throats expanding and retracting. He didn't just want to punch some frogs so he stopped, his fist just inches away from probably killing one of them on impact.

"That coward…" Yun said to himself, adjusting his cap on his head as he looked away from the toads and tried to find out where Naruto had gone so quickly, "You've got to use animals as shields to help you run away?" He then heard a pop noise and turned around only to see a shock of yellow and then a sharp pain.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto used the powerful blue orb of chakra to slam Yun into the roof harshly, cracking the foundation harshly with his entire body. Naruto looked back at the two remaining toads as he had been transformed as one and made a hand-seal that sent them right back to wherever they came from before glaring down at Yun, "Who was running away jackass? I don't run from anybody, dattebayo."

Several people in various locations around the world sneezed at that very moment.

All the downed martial artist could do in return was groan from where he was facedown. He found it painful to even breathe due to the damage that the Rasengan did upon hammering him down into the ground, 'Oh man… I haven't been hit like that since I pissed off Chun-Li during her time of the month. I swear he broke like seven of my ribs with that…'

That was the price one paid for choosing to antagonize the 'greatest ninja in the world' in Naruto's mind, and with his point proven Naruto spared Yun one last glance before taking off after Sasuke. He hadn't wasted too much time dealing with his cocky adversary and he could still see the shadowy figure of Sasuke moving in the distance towards some large gathering place in the distance. An arena he supposed.

Why?

What Naruto hoped wasn't an ominous flash of lightning struck the ground miles away from the city as he gave chase to Sasuke. The last time it started to rain in this situation things didn't end very well.

XxX

(Outside of the Train Station – Across the Street from Kitanomaru Park – Ibuki vs. Yang)

An axe kick from Ibuki hit nothing, much to her surprise. She never even saw Yang move to dodge the attack, but he stood behind her in the exact place where she had started from, choosing not to counterattack as she was ready for him.

"That's my Kaihou technique." The dust was still settling from his speedy sudden movement, showing how quickly he had switched places with her, "When it comes to moving in a straight line, I'd say there's no one our age at all as fast as me or Yun." Yang said, cleaning his ear out with his pinky, "You're fast, but you're not as fast as me. That's what I see anyway."

Okay, that struck a nerve.

"You want to see how fast I am?" Ibuki stated in a frighteningly calm manner, seemingly smiling behind her facemask, "Your blood is going to hit the ground before you even feel the cut, because I have a speed technique of my own; Kasumi Gake (The Haze)." Yang rolled his eyes at what he perceived to be a bluff until Ibuki's smiling image became nonexistent and seemed to dissipate.

"No way." He said to himself with a dropped jaw before having to block a flying kick from a different position from Ibuki's bare foot. She pushed off of his block upon contact and made enough space to throw a single kunai at him.

Yang moved his head and got a cut on his cheek for his trouble before rapidly rolling forward into the area where Ibuki was planning to land. Timing his movement just right, he sprang out of it into the air with a barrage of pedaling kicks, "Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh)!"

Ibuki covered up and took the kicks as both youngsters were driven higher into the air where they broke apart and landed staring each other down once again. Yang officially believed her now when Ibuki said that she was just as fast as he was. That meant that it wasn't a matter of merely detaining her anymore, he actually had to try and defeat her or risk getting beaten himself.

The two chased each other in blurring patterns all over outside of the train station before clashing and battling with punches and kicks underneath the streetlights illuminating the public area. Grabbing a wayward punch from Yang, Ibuki moved to his side with her other hand drawn back to deliver a strike that she was charging with enough ki to be visible around her fist.

In order to escape Ibuki's grapple of his arm, Yang flipped to put the limb back into a more comfortable position before delivering a side kick to Ibuki's stomach to free himself. A twinkle went through his eye as he saw his opening and delivered a forceful double-handed palm strike right to Ibuki's chest, "Byakko Soshoda (White Tiger Twin Palm Strike)!" Knocking her back through the air and into the street.

The female ninja cringed and held her chest as she looked up and saw the headlights of a car coming at her. At the blaring honk of the vehicle's horn she quickly got up and dodged the car only to have jumped into another lane where she dodged that one, and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile Yang sat down on the edge of a concrete planter and watched with interest as the unforgiving Tokyo multilane traffic gave Ibuki no quarter. It was awesome, like real world Frogger. Eventually realizing if she got all the way across the street she could elect to run after Naruto and Sasuke instead of having to stay and fight, Yang got up and timed it just right to sprint right out into the street directly at Ibuki who was still concerning herself with making sure that she didn't do her best impression of a bug against the grill of some car or truck.

"Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!" Yang repeated excitedly as he realized that he had a straight shot to her with no errant traffic in sight, "Tenshin Senkyutai!" He rolled forward one strong time before an unaware Ibuki was caught directly under the chin with a rising kick. Yang jumped up after her and delivered repeated kicks with one leg before switching to longer and more devastating looping kicks, finishing with one strong high kick to her face that knocked her across the street into the park down a grassy hill.

After taking such a vicious series of attacks, a rather nasty tumble down a grassy hill felt like a massage in comparison until she came to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill in an open field, 'Oh, a massage sounds so good right now.' Ibuki thought pitifully as she slowly started to stand back up through the pain, 'I wonder how good Naruto is at giving them. I really need one on the train ride back to Aohura City.'

Standing at the top of the hill was Yang, looking down at her with his arms crossed, "You're pretty tough. That was one of my best combos. But you're on rubbery legs now. I think a good wind could blow you over right now, so I guess I'll just knock you out and call it a night." He said as a few wet drops fell from the sky onto his face, "Oh, that's just great. It's starting to rain."

The inclement weather picked up and the moderately cool late spring/early summer downpour felt golden when it touched down on Ibuki's bumps and bruises, as if it was revitalizing her and giving her a second wind, a wake up of sorts.

"You're not seriously going to try and still fight me are you?" Yang asked her with a frown on his face, "You're literally going to be fighting an uphill battle. I've got the high ground, you don't have a chance from there." He had a point. Not only was she going to be making her move uphill, it was up a grassy hill at the start of a rain. She'd never get any kind of decent footing, especially barefoot as she was.

Not heeding the warning at all, Ibuki was not about to merely concede defeat so easily. There was always retreat, but surrender was not an option at all for a ninja such as herself, and she wasn't about to consider either to begin with.

Dropping a smoke bomb, a barrage of shuriken flew out at Yang that he managed to duck and sway out of the way of safely. The throwing stars were dangerous and annoying, but nothing like that would hit him at all. She'd have to do better than that or else this fight was as good as over and she was just dragging it out.

Ibuki leapt out of the cloud of smoke with a beautiful corkscrew flip that amazingly landed her up on top of the hill, sending her right over Yang's head. He had no idea how she managed to get that high. A regular jump wouldn't have gotten him that high, let alone a showy move like hers. In shock he lashed out with a backhand strike, but Ibuki blocked it with one hand and positioned her other one down at Yang's wide open torso as she built up her ki in the fist, enough so to have it glowing before she delivered the punch, "Raida (Lightning Strike)!"

The ki exploded outward upon contact and visibly shot out the other side of Yang's body before he went flying down the hill, stunned beyond comparison and flat on his back staring up at the sky as precipitation fell onto his prone body.

He let out the manliest scream possible when he saw Ibuki directly above him after having leapt, with her pelting kunai and shuriken all at him. None of them hit him, merely outlining his body and pinning him to the ground by his clothes as she landed lightly with a knee on his chest to keep him down and a kunai to his neck, "Who doesn't have a chance now?"

All Yang could do was gulp fearfully at the deadly weapon being held at his throat. He hoped that Yun would never find out that he'd been soundly beaten by a teenage girl. No way anything would have happened to his brother that would be as humiliating as that, right?

XxX

(Nearby – Nippon Budokan a.k.a Budokan Hall)

The famous old arena was full of activity, despite the fact that no reservation for an event had been set or promoted. As a matter of fact there was no one within two miles of the building and the main floor was mostly dark, only light enough to see the masses around. The staff had been persuaded to avoid work that night so that not even security was there.

On the floor level of the Budokan Hall as the rain poured down and the thunder started to boom overhead from the ongoing storm outside stood many assorted types of young men, all standing around and waiting.

There were hundreds of them, of all shapes and sizes. There were adult tough guys, teenage delinquents of varying severity, disenfranchised and rebellious young men and women alike. People from all walks of life, and their attention was attracted to the end of the arena when the doors at the end were thrown open with enough force to echo out through the entire building.

In walked a muscular man with an air of authority, wearing a yellow sleeveless military outfit with a red scarf underneath the neck of his outfit, red gloves on his hands and red beret on his head. He had heavy combat boots and a military harness with grenades strapped all over his person. In his hand there was a staff. A diagonal scar sat across his face starting from above his right eye to the left side of his mouth.

Flanking him on all sides seemed to be his personal guard of men dressed just like him only in dark outfits and lacking berets. He came to a stop in clear view of everyone and turned towards them with his hands locked behind his back. Observing the crowd he looked around before choosing to speak, "You are all here because you are tired of what is spoonfed to you every day by those in charge. You are here because you want to be the catalysts for change. You are here because you understand that change can only occur with radical, martial action. And this is why I am here, to enact that change."

He began pacing back and forth, looking over those there before him that evening, "What better place for all of you to devote yourselves to the beginning of a utopia than here? The center of the governmental problems in your country. A few miles away the representatives that you voted for to represent you, to bring about the change that you believe in, they're taking your money every single day and just twiddling their thumbs, and for what? Nothing's changed!" He shouted with a booming voice that got a few people to flinch, "No… the only way to get something done right is to do it yourself, which is what we're going to do."

"You are all the beginning of something, of the army that will change the entire world." The man continued to speak, gaining a more convictional tone as he carried on, "There is no better place in the world to start. A country yearning for change, a country with true fighting spirit that has been quelled for far too long, a country where by the time the world realizes what happened it will be too late to stop us. We'll be well on our way, and it won't stop here! We will turn this entire world into the utopia that the people need!"

"And I; Rolento F. Schugerg… will be the man that leads you. The man that leads Mad Gear into the future. It is up to us to put the world in order, to put the world at peace, and we will crush anyone fool enough to get in our way." The speaker, Rolento grinned raised his fist and staff into the air, "Our numbers are reaching the thousands in Japan alone. We have brothers and sisters in cities all over the country. So with that being said, are you willing to join us and make a difference?"

A loud and raucous cheer went up from the spectators as they began chanting for Mad Gear and for Rolento, the reason that they were all there that night; to meet one of the prime leaders of the infamous Mad Gear that nearly took over an entire state in America five years prior.

Rolento seemed to bask in the praise and grinned widely as he gestured to them, "For now we train. You all need seasoning in urban combat which we will see much of, but when our full armory arrives, and when the time comes for our forces to pool and begin making its push, no armed force in Japan will be any match for us. The police will cower, just as they do for us now, and the military will buckle under the might of true battle-tested soldiers!"

Hearing that droll was beginning to make Sasuke sick from his place in the rafters of the arena. As far as he could see these people, sick of their lot in life no matter what it seemed to be since a lot of them didn't seem to be that bad off, felt like engaging in violence, merely swayed by the words of some charismatic recruiter for his own private army.

Either way it didn't matter to him. After he killed this man, and then the last of the ringleaders of this little underground 'revolution' these sheep losers would scatter to the winds and that would be that. Mission accomplished, national catastrophe averted, Bob's your uncle.

"Why are you here listening to this idiot?" Naruto whispered from Sasuke's side, surprising the Uchiha teen. No one had been able to sneak up on him in years… but then again he hadn't really run into a single shinobi in the last four years. He really hoped that Naruto was just that much better instead of him being that rusty when it came to detecting others with relevant stealth ability, "These guys are really believing this crap."

"A lot of people want to be important." Sasuke said lowly as he started estimating just how many there were. If he had to fight the lot of them he was pretty sure that he could still handle them. Taking on Rolento though would be a far more difficult task.

Naruto didn't get it and merely shook his head as members of Rolento's guard began breaking the people up in groups and moving them out so that their training to be useful members of Mad Gear could begin, "What makes anyone think that they'd be important in something like this? It's just a terrorist with a more direct approach."

While he agreed, Sasuke had the time to think over just what Mad Gear's pull was in regards to the masses, "The easiest way to feel important is to dominate people that are weaker than you, to make people afraid of you. The easiest way to do that is to join a gang. The easiest way to justify joining a gang is if it's a group that claims to have a noble purpose of some kind, but that's all this is. It's no better than any Yakuza or Triad group. It could wind up being way worse actually."

At least the Yakuza, the Russian Mafia, and the Triads were about making money. Mad Gear wasn't about that. They really wanted control of the country and beyond. Yes, it was prudent to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible. Things like this could get worse very quickly.

This was the last thing that Naruto needed; to deal with another militaristic group that wanted control, and he was there to see this one in its infancy, during its rise.

Yeah, like hell.

"So when do we kick his ass?" Naruto asked, punching into his palm as he looked down at Rolento watching the last of his recruits be escorted out. He seemed way too pleased with himself. That needed to change.

"There's not going to be any asskicking." Sasuke said intently as he dropped down from the rafters via ninja wire that was pinned up in the support beams along with him, "I'm just going to kill him and leave." The trajectory of his silent swan dive would end with him severing something quite vital on Rolento. At least it would have had the man not blocked what would have been a fatal stroke of the kunai with his staff.

With a clang, Rolento prevented Sasuke from killing him and knocked the ninja back. Sasuke cut himself free and landed on the ground in a crouch, his eyes never leaving Rolento who seemed to be smirking, "So the information extracted out of that sniveling senator wasn't false after all. He hired a foreign assassin to take me out… and I don't think you're alone either." He pulled out a remote detonator and held it up so that Sasuke could see it, "How unfortunate for your ally."

Sasuke's eyes widened as Rolento hit the button and an explosion rocked the beams that comprised the rafters above them. He looked up in dread and grit his teeth as the metal fell from the ceiling to the ground with a terrible noise, 'Naruto!' He thought as twisted metal began littering Budokan Hall.

Rolento elicited a heated glare from Sasuke as he laughed, holding his face from the humor of it all, "This is why you build an army. There is power in numbers. Nothing in this world is more powerful than a well led group that believes in a cause. It's simply unstoppable. One or two men can't change anything, can't do anything important. No, you need numbers."

Before he could gloat much further he wound up taking a harsh punch right to the face that knocked Rolento right on his ass, sending him sliding across the hard floor of the arena. He looked up with a scathing glance at Naruto as he wiped the blood from his mouth.

"What you need is a beatdown." Naruto asserted with a sneer on his face, "Do you know how close you came to blowing me up just now?"

His little numbers theory was now working against him. Now Rolento had two very pissed off trained killers primed, with at least one primed to rip his throat out. This was not looking good for him at all. He knew that his men had to have heard the explosion.

But as the echo from the fallen metal beams and the explosion died down, all three of the arena's inhabitants heard muffled gunfire and explosions from outside the grand arena's walls. Rolento's men were fighting. And from the sounds of the panic they seemed to be losing… either that or defeating another large group.

All three felt an oppressive force outside. For both Naruto and Sasuke it was easily the most powerful thing they had ever felt in their lives. It was walking killing intent personified, that was the only way to explain it that they could find. No living creature could possibly produce that kind of feeling. It had to be fake.

Sporadic gunfire began to die down in the amount that was heard as it began to get louder, like it was getting closer and closer. The desperate cries of the men outside eventually stopped and all three of them looked at each other. From the look on Rolento's face it wasn't anyone of his, and from the looks on Naruto's and Sasuke's they weren't expecting a lick of backup to help them.

The tension was so thick that none of the current combatants could even swallow their saliva that had built up.

And then the doors were blown off of the hinges hard enough to fly all the way across the empty arena into the stands, shattering the chairs and the concrete behind and beneath them. Not a single one of them moved an inch, feeling that the wrong move would be the last move that they ever made as the person walked in.

It was harshly muscled man with deeply tanned skin and flaming red hair put up in a spiky and upright ponytail that made him look like a demon. The sharp pointed teeth, the sincerely hateful look on his face, and the pure crimson eyes didn't help keep him from looking like a demon either. He honestly seemed to be more monster than normal man. He was barefoot, wearing prayer beads around his neck and a tattered black gi with a red kanji of 'ten' on his back.

So he was the source. But who was he? Why was he there? And what in God's name did he want?

In one of his hands there was a horrifically beaten member of Rolento's militia with a rifle barrel jammed through his belly in a horrific sight. As if the man was garbage, the devil-like man hurled him at the top wall of one of the sides of the arena, cracking the wall with the impact of the man's body.

And then his eyes panned across Naruto, Sasuke, and Rolento, with all three of them still freezing in place, like animals under the gaze of a predator… all three of them waiting to see which of them were damned so that if it wasn't them they could make their escape.

"You." The scarily powerful man uttered in his dark and grizzled voice, "Leave." He said, his eyes locked on Rolento, "You're not worth my time." At first, a bit of Rolento's bravado started to swell up. He wasn't important? Who did this fool think he was talking to? And then he must have overstayed his welcome, because the man's patience apparently began to run thin, "Leave or die! It's as simple as that!"

And Rolento hightailed it outside faster than he had ever moved in his life. In the halls leading to the exit he could see the devastation this man had wrought, and when he got outside things only got worse. He had completely lain waste to every single potential recruit he had just convinced to join him. Guns didn't matter, explosives didn't matter. He decimated them all for choosing to stand against him.

If that monster didn't want him, and instead wanted Naruto and/or Sasuke it was all the better for him. It would take care of a problem for him. So as he ran through the arena parking lot, ignoring all of the death and the outright destruction of the transport vehicles that had been meant for his soldiers to take them to the same location intended for him, Rolento grabbed his small radio and quickly got the desired frequency on the line, "Pick me up in Kitanomaru Park now! There's no reason to stay in Tokyo any longer it's time to begin getting our new blood ready!"

He needed to get himself and his operation as far away from Tokyo as he could in case this demon decided to change his mind and come for him. This was manageable. As regrettable as it was, recruits like the ones he had just lost were most easily replaceable. He could probably get more in the next place he went to during the settling of his new base of operations for the time being.

But inside the arena retreat didn't seem to be an option for Naruto and Sasuke, as the man hadn't taken his eyes off of them yet.

"You two. You're the ones." His voice was as cold as ice and just hearing it made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end, "Fight me. Show me just how strong you both are. I want to see it. Your real powers." Neither of them could breathe too loud without feeling like they were walking on the edge. And he was ordering them to fight him?

Sasuke's Sharingan had already turned on out of sheer instinct minutes ago back when Rolento had been sharing in their situation as well, "Our real powers?" He pointed at his eyes, "This is my real power. The Sharingan, you're seeing it."

"You shouldn't lie… it makes you seem weak. Should I dismember you to demonstrate this firsthand and teach you a lesson boy?" Such a brutal proclamation, and neither of them doubted he would do it for a single moment. Sasuke's hand drifted to the seal on his neck and Naruto's hand rested over his belly at that statement, "Yes. You can't hide such powerful potential from me."

One was dark and twisted, the other seemed like pure hatred in energy form. And both of them sang to his destructive soul. It called out to him in a more blatant manner than Ryu's Satsui no Hadou that he did all within his power to suppress.

"If you don't attack me with all of the strength you can muster then you two won't last ten seconds. I can assure you of that."

"You had better listen good brat." The Kyuubi chimed in from Naruto's mind, "Cast away your stupid inhibitions of losing control and for once try to cut loose. I can assure you that it is the only way you will come close to defeating this creature."

Immediately the red chakra began to pour out from Naruto's body. Wasting no time starting in its usual flaming orange cloak form it immediately turned to the bubbling complete fox outline version complete with two tails waving in the air behind him.

Sasuke observed this small transformation and a smile actually came to his face reminiscing the last time he had seen something similar from the blonde, 'Unbelievable Naruto… you actually managed to take that power and go farther with it.' It was more powerful than the last time and it seemed to be growing in intensity.

His own Cursed Seal began to spread from his neck across his body looking like a black flame before it covered all of his flesh and turned his skin grey. His hair grew out down to his lower back, turning more ashen in the process, and as he tossed his shirt to the side two massive wings that looked like webbed claws sprang from his back. On his face a black star-shaped mark appeared across the bridge of his nose.

'But then again, it's not like my own control of my gifts didn't grow either.' Both boys looked at each other and narrowed their eyes challengingly, remembering the last time they had seen one another like this. Nothing between them was done yet, and they'd be settling up later. But at the moment there was a necessity to team up and destroy a threat to the both of them, and that was what they were going to do.

At least that was what they had intended to do. Seemingly moving like a ghost, as if he were untouchable, their devilish foe drifted directly between the two of them. While they were still glaring at each other both Naruto and Sasuke had their visions filled with the view of their foe.

Both of them never saw him lash out with a pair of strong punches that sent them both flying like missiles away from him into the lower banks of the arena that contained the upper level seats. Their bodies smashed holes into the walls and neither of them got up at first.

"That's not enough power. Don't insult me with that pitiful showing!" Waves and waves of red power began flowing from the mysterious enemy's body with enough intensity to put cracks in the concrete from the sheer intensity of his aura, "I know of you Uzumaki Naruto… the strongest fighter under the age of 18 in Japan. You're just a babe in comparison to the might of Akuma. And Uchiha Sasuke, apprentice to the former assassination master of the Chinese government Gen. The red-eyed devil of Hong Kong. Your master is powerful, but his body is too feeble with sickness to be a sporting challenge for me. Apparently yours is as well."

So the man's name was Akuma. And he knew who they were? How could neither of them have ever caught wind of such a destructively powerful person getting information on them and discovering their identities?

The first to pull himself out of the hole in the wall was Sasuke who brushed debris off of himself with his wings. His body was littered with cuts from the broken concrete, but he was still standing, "That old man isn't my master, I just live with him and he makes me earn my keep with missions like this. And while I might specialize in quick and unseen kills, I can fight face-to-face just as well."

Though he said that, Akuma's punch would have probably ruptured several internal organs had he not blocked his body at the last second with his wings. Even then he still had blood trailing from his mouth via the internal injuries, and on the back of a wing he had a horrid fist mark.

"Show me then." Akuma demanded, not an ounce of emotion in his face other than hatred.

"Actually someone wants a piece of you first."

From underneath the ground at Akuma's feet, two of Naruto's tails burst through the cracked concrete and grabbed Akuma's body. He seethed in anger and unleashed a terrible burst of power to disrupt Naruto's tails and free himself, but he then found himself socked with a red chakra third tail that shot out of the hole that he had plowed Naruto into.

The punch from the chakra tail knocked Akuma into the stands, destroying an entire row of chairs with his body before he popped right back up and stared at Naruto as he was now free of the wall that he had leveled the boy into previously. Now with three red waving tails of chakra, Naruto's presence was intense enough to begin scorching the surface of the concrete floor.

One punch.

One clean punch from Akuma nearly killed him.

One punch broke his ribs and punctured his lung. He was beginning to choke on his own fluid filling his chest before the Kyuubi took advantage of his distressed state of panicked drowning and gave him even more power than he had ever received before. And he readily took it. He took it to save his life and to brutalize the enemy that callously attempted to end his life.

Akuma's eyes stuck on Naruto's form with great interest, 'That's better. I know you have more though. Show it. I'm interested in you little one. You have no desire to shut out the dark side of you, but you fear your inability to control it. This is what holds you back. I see that the only way to get more of it out of you is to force you to draw upon more.'

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

Sasuke took advantage of Akuma not paying him any attention and fired off a massive fireball three times his size from his mouth. To Sasuke's delight it was a direct hit and engulfed the entire area of chairs in an inferno, burning the whole section mercilessly as it was fueled by the twisted chakra of the Cursed Seal of Heaven.

He had to rub his eyes in disbelief though when Akuma just walked out of the blaze as if he had been strolling through an autumn gust. He glared at Sasuke from his elevated position and quickly placed his hands in the proper position before firing off an orange flaming blast of ki from his hands, "Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Surge Fist)!"

Sasuke quickly took to the air with his wings and bore witness to the ground where he had been standing being blown apart as if an explosive tag had gone off down there. He scoffed irritably at yet another opponent having no hand-seals that he could use to copy their technique, but that was a mere trifle at the moment.

Upon seeing Akuma attack Sasuke, Naruto leapt all the way across the arena and barreled into Akuma, tackling him right back into the fire created by Sasuke, willing to drag him into a blood and guts up close and personal grudge match to get his victory. From the air, Sasuke was amazed at how Naruto hurled himself and their foe directly into an intensely burning fire. It was incredibly reckless.

But he was then almost knocked from the sky as a wave of power emitted from Akuma and put the flames all out with the exception of a few fires here and there. Once again he stood unharmed for the most part with his hand around Naruto's neck lifting the demonically-fueled child off of the ground. For his part Naruto was growling at Akuma with pure blood red eyes and clawing into his arm with both hands deep enough to cut down to muscle.

Not only that, but the intensity of his chakra was beginning to burn the portion of Akuma's arm caught in the vicinity of Naruto's chakra cloak, "Very interesting." In response, Naruto freed his throat enough to unleash a deafening roar that formed a bright orange spherical span of devastation around himself and his enemy. It was powerful enough to crumble the entire foundation of that portion of the arena and turning the rows that already had the chairs ripped out of them and had been heavily burned in a fire to rubble, bringing it all down around both Naruto and Akuma.

From the air, Sasuke looked down at the clouds of dust and debris rising up from Naruto's berserker counterattack and nodded to himself. Even in his current level 2 Cursed Seal form he would have been hard pressed to get up from Naruto's roar at that range. It was five times stronger than when he had used it on him at the Valley of the End from the amount of chakra behind it.

A sickening crack elicited from the wreckage and into the air shot a glowing orange blur until it plowed straight through what was left of the ceiling to Budokan Hall. Sasuke's eyes widened as he was clearly able to see that it had been Naruto and looked back down to where Akuma's gi top was obliterated and his body was covered in light flesh wounds, still with that same look on his face as always.

Akuma tilted his neck sharply and cracked it before jumping into the air faster than Sasuke had ever seen anyone do before. He was able to dodge the kick that was directed at him but Akuma wasn't done as that was just his rising attack. As Sasuke flew back out of his range he mentally commended the youngster for dodging, but he wouldn't prevent what was next.

"Zankuu Hadoken (Air Slashing Surge Fist)!" From only one of Akuma's outstretched arms flew dozens of purple Hadokens that shot Sasuke out of the sky like a fighter jet. The smoking Uchiha ninja crashed and burned on the ground in a heap as Akuma landed back on the ground with enough force to smash a crater in the already heavily damaged arena floor, "Too bad. You two could have been a challenge, but you don't embrace your darkness enough."

"All a ninja does is wade in the darkness." Sasuke said as he stood back up and began building lightning in one of his hands. A Chidori that quickly warped from blue to black in its appearance. Instead of using it to charge Akuma down, Sasuke put his second hand behind his first and aimed them at Akuma, "Habataku Chidori Senbon (Flapping One Thousand Birds Senbon)!"

Akuma's eyes widened in surprise as Sasuke let loose a spray of infinite long black needles of electricity. Akuma rapidly began to dodge as fast as possible and Sasuke's enhanced electric senbon pulverized everything that they hit in volume. Akuma was only able to avoid them for so long with Sasuke's ability to track his movement and adjust accordingly.

Stopping his own movement once he saw that it was futile to try and outrun the technique, Akuma's entire body flashed red before he fired a mammoth blast of purple ki at his younger opponent, "Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist)!"

Where Sasuke's jutsu did its damage in sheer volume of the uncountable number of senbon that he fired, Akuma's was just abusively overwhelming and it overtook all of his attack and still flew right for him full steam ahead.

Once again Sasuke covered up and blocked with his wings but it did no good as he was hit full-on and pummeled with the technique that sank against the stands, creating a massive Hadoken-shaped crater at the end of a trench the length of the attack that was carved in the ground.

The once proud arena now looked like a bombed out hovel that would collapse any second due to the destruction dealt by the physical nature of the combatants. Not a single thing was where it had been when the battle started. Not a scrap of property wasn't completely destroyed.

The entire roof was then shredded, torn apart, and cut to pieces like a ginsu knife on an aluminum can and from there stared in a creature that was no longer human. It was Naruto's body covered in a dark red exoskeleton of chakra. He looked like a fox demon with the ears on top of his head and the four wicked tails waving behind him.

It was a barbaric transformation. The smell of blood was clear, evidently mixed freely with the powerful chakra covering his body. It was disgusting.

Instead of fear though, Akuma only felt dissatisfaction at what he saw one hundred and forty feet above him. The torrential downpour of rain that was no longer being blocked by the nonexistent barrier riddled his face that would have stung a normal person like it was hail, but it elicited not even a blink from the master of the Satsui no Hadou. Even when the possessed Naruto leapt down to rip Akuma limb from limb he showed no dread whatsoever.

Even though you would have to find a way to decapitate such a monster to kill it. A thing like that was possible for Akuma, but he had a far more fitting death for one that lost himself to power that he should have been able to control if he truly considered himself strong.

Akuma looked up as the berserk monster came right for him. From the look on his face he seemed disappointed and didn't move an inch as Naruto fell closer and closer, "Still not enough… still not enough!" Just before Naruto landed, Akuma's entire body began to channel his dark ki for one technique, "You let your power control you… you're no warrior!"

"As you are you mean nothing to me, and now only death awaits you! Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder)!"

And he had such high hopes for the battle with Naruto and Sasuke. They had so much potential, but in the end they weren't ready at all.

Curiously enough, with the ferocity of Akuma's following attack, perhaps his most forbidden technique, even against an out of control Naruto going on four tails of chakra, the Kyuubi was the one that felt the pain before feeling things go dark as well as the boy that he had taken control of.

The Kyuubi thought to itself, because Naruto wasn't aware enough to listen, that perhaps in its haste to try and break free from its living prison at the first opportunity it had that a grave mistake had been made.

XxX

(Thirty Minutes Later)

The helicopter of Karin's current party of herself, Sakura, Cammy, and Kei were drawn to the smoke and emergency attention being paid to the Nippon Budokan. There was no way not to be drawn to it. Originally having stopped there because it was where the signal to Naruto's cell phone died, when they arrived and circled the scene from above they found that it was no longer standing at all. It was merely a heap of twisted metal and assorted building materials.

And that was where Naruto's trail ended.

From the air they could see dozens of police vehicles ranging from normal squad cars to special teams, as well as countless ambulances to tend to those that were injured but still alive, and far too many bodybags to warrant counting. As morbid as it was and as scary as it was they didn't stop there. Neither Naruto nor Ibuki would be in any of them. No way either of them had been killed. The chance of such catastrophic trouble was way too low for one of them to have died there in comparison to some of the other things that had seemed more dangerous. Just heading off after one teenager couldn't have resulted in something like this.

Flying past into the park through the rain it was easy to see the telltale orange suit of Naruto lying on the ground in an open field with Ibuki sitting over him. Though Ibuki seemed fine he seemed to be a pure mix of red and orange. That wasn't right.

With haste the chopper landed nearby and when they arrived close enough and stood over Naruto they saw him unmoving, with the top skin on his entire body simply not there as if it had been stripped off. A gruesome sight to say the least.

The least prepared of them for such a scene, Kei, immediately turned away from it and felt her legs give out on her, 'What the hell happened here?' She felt too sick to her stomach to turn around and make sure it was real.

Karin simply stood in place unable to move, while Sakura herself walked over to Naruto and got to her knees, if only to see if it was really him. It didn't seem possible. Something like this didn't happen to Naruto, never to him. He was supposed to just hop back up, even when he was defeated. He was supposed to open his eyes, complain about how much he hurt and about how he had that fight in the bag, and then he would laugh it off and say he'd win next time.

That was the way things were.

He wasn't supposed to look like he was about to be on death's door.

Meanwhile Cammy had seen Naruto. She had gotten an eyeful and the sight would be burned into her brain for eternity even if she got amnesia again she figured. But then not too far away she spotted Sasuke's heavily injured body sitting against a tree, non responsive. Both Yun and Yang were there as well, assisting him as best they could, seemingly fresh off of removing a steel rod from impaling his shoulder. He was still alive it seemed, if not horrifically wounded.

If Naruto was dead it was his fault. The one that came snooping around inquiring about him. This was his endgame wasn't it?

Without saying a word she made a fist at her side and rushed at Sasuke with murderous intent. Yun and Yang felt her move and made to cut her off and stop her despite their own battle-weary states, but it was unnecessary as Cammy found herself taken down to the ground with Ibuki sitting on her back and holding her down despite her attempts to struggle and get back up, "Let me go!"

"None of them did this." Ibuki said, relenting her grip when Cammy stopped struggling, "It wasn't them. None of them did it. I saw the person that did it walk away from the arena." After the Nippon Budokan had been demolished, Ibuki double-timed it to its location only to see a man more devil than human walk away into the shadows. All she could really make out was his unnatural skin and his demonic red hair, "That was the person that did everything."

She sounded completely beside herself, as if she were a coward for not stopping the man. But she couldn't even move. The moment he felt her presence and Ibuki made eye contact with his solid red eyes she was paralyzed, and she couldn't bring herself to scream, run, fight, nothing… until he was gone.

As if he didn't find her to be a threat at all. Not even important enough to crush when he probably could have without much of a fight.

And when she had regained her senses she ran into the annihilated arena grounds and got Naruto and Sasuke out before authorities arrived and they got some unneeded attention.

Sakura had her head placed against Naruto's chest where she felt the faintest heartbeat from him that she had ever heard, 'He's not dead.' From the way he looked it was nothing short of a miracle that he wasn't. She looked up at the nearest person to her which was Karin and stopped what she was about to say when she saw the distressing look on the face of the heiress and she couldn't tell if it was just the rain or if it had tears mixed in.

But alive or not, he wasn't waking up. And that was a rather serious problem... for everyone.

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

{Character Profile}

Name: Rolento F. Schugerg

Nationality: Germany

Gender: Male

Age: 34 (Birthday: November 15)

Height/Weight: 5'10/178 lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: Order, discipline.

Dislikes: Weakness, laziness.

Hobbies: Setting up traps, ambushes, grenade throwing.

Rivals: Guy, Cody, Sasuke Uchiha.

Fighting Style: Special Forces Training

Current Techniques: Patriot Circle, Stinger, Mekong Delta Air-Raid, Mekong Delta Escape, Mekong Delta Attack.

Hyper Techniques: Take No Prisoners, Steel Rain, Mine Sweeper.

Background: Formerly an executive member of Mad Gear during its previous heyday in the United States, Rolento is a former Red Beret and uses past connections to give the resurrected organization weapons and vehicles for both transport and combat. He is a charismatic person that is looking to recruit an army to help him achieve his goal of obtaining his own utopia nation, free from the world's ongoing hypocritical problems and politics. Very military-oriented due to his background he demands order and will not allow his underlings to be mere thugs and hooligans, desiring a trained fighting force. He has built influence around the Pacific since the fall of Mad Gear's last great base of operations in Metro City and has chosen Japan as the setting for his next move.

Name: Akuma

Nationality: Unknown, presumably Japan

Gender: Male

Age: Unknown

Height/Weight: 5'10/176½ lbs.

Bloodtype: Unknown

Likes: Martial arts, training, Satsui no Hadou, strong opponents, becoming stronger.

Dislikes: His brother Gouken, weaklings, anyone who interferes with his training, his master Goutetsu.

Hobbies: None

Rivals: Ryu, Gen, M. Bison.

Fighting Style: Nameless art powered by the Satsui no Hadou.

Current Techniques: Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist), Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Surge Fist), Zankuu Hadoken (Air Slashing Surge Fist), Goushoryuuken (Strong Rising Dragon Fist), Tatsumaki Zankukyaku (Hurricane Scythe Kick), Hyakkishu (Hundred Devil Attacks), Ashura Senku (Asura Flashing Sky).

Hyper Techniques: Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder), Shin Shun Goku Satsu (True Instant Hell Murder), Tenshou Kaireki Jin (Heaven Shocking Sea-Plowing Blade).

Background: The younger brother of Ryu and Ken's master Gouken, both he and his brother trained together learning the same nameless art. While training, a dispute on the art's true nature erupted between the two brothers and Gouken left to search his own path and establish his own dojo as he renounced their style's murderous background. Akuma embraced it though, and continued to train under their master to use the fighting style as it was intended. Eventually embracing the Satsui no Hadou during his travels to truly master the style, he renounced any compassion or desire for peace, developing a desire for fights to the death with his opponents. He managed to master it to a further extent than his master Goutetsu due to giving in to all of the dark urges that the Satsui no Hadou forced upon him and returned to kill his master in battle. Many years later after losing a battle to his brother Gouken, he got his revenge and killed him in a rematch.

To this day he continues to seek out worthy challenges, living for the day where he finds an enemy that has the potential to kill him in battle. This has led to him allowing several powerful opponents to live in the past such as Ryu, in the hopes that they let the darkness within them grow so that when he seeks them out again they may pose him a grander challenge.