Urban War Game...

Chapter 22 - Urban War Game...

The morning after the fight with gave rise to a very sore waking Naruto. He felt better than when he had woken up the previous day from his coma, but he still felt like crap. He had then been asked to fix the field at the edge of town that he had ruined the previous night against Guy.

Thank goodness for clone labor.

And even with that the process still took a lot of time and left him even achier than normal.

It was then that he was turned on to a very welcome chance to rest. The Glade of Ninjas had good doctors of course, but that didn't help him since he was technically as well-off as he could be with the exception of the lingering pain. His sanctuary came in the form of a special hot spring that the village used to speed the recovery time of their injured ninja. He needed a bath regardless, and this was only that much better.

The moment he sank into the water he could swear that he had an out of body experience. Simply a fantastic feeling. For the first time since waking back up he wasn't in pain. He could have almost cried if he were sappy enough to do such a thing over a stupid bath. He would do no such thing though, he was manly.

But he did space out while thinking of his current problems. His problems with Mad Gear… his problems with Akuma, the guy that broke his foot off in his ass… the whole Sasuke situation… and the Kyuubi.

His mind was stuck on the last thing when he started to nod off, eventually going straight to sleep. Lights out.

And once he shut his eyes and faded out he found himself unconsciously drawn back to the Kyuubi's cage. There was still blood in the water, it had only been a day after all, and that meant that things were still pretty bad.

When he looked inside of the cage he saw the great beast itself still sleeping and not soundly either. The Kyuubi's breathing was still labored and ragged, and it still didn't look as hale and as hearty as it usually did. The scary factor that Naruto had to admit it usually had going for it was basically nonexistent. It really was healing from something serious. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that for the time being his ability to heal was shot.

While he had already been assured that the Kyuubi could not die from such an injury as it was still a biju, it was still an uneasy thought. It made him kind of sick to think of losing one of the things that kept him connected with home, even if that something was an angry mass of energy that seemed dead set on taking over his body and breaking free. A prisoner wishing to be free of their warden was normal and understandable.

Naruto sat down in front of the cage, ignoring the shallow water he was in. He just stared inside with a deep frown on his face, "For what it's worth… I'll make sure nothing like this happens to you again. I know you probably don't care, but like I said you're my comrade from Konoha. And whether you hate me or not we're stuck together." He shook his head, not knowing quite what to say, "I don't know. I want to start over. Maybe when you wake up we can try."

He got no response. Not because he was being ignored, but because the Kyuubi was utterly exhausted due to using so much energy to fix itself and the more subtle damage that had been done to Naruto as well. It was asleep.

There was no reason to remain introspective and Naruto left his mind behind to return to the real world and the spring that he was in. For now all he could do was focus on restoring himself as best he could. Maybe getting himself back to full capacity would allow the Kyuubi to heal up faster… maybe. He didn't know.

Upon opening his eyes again, his comfortably numb body was able to feel a foreign pair of hands on his back. Girl hands too, thank Kami. He knew what girl hands felt like so he was able to distinguish. They were the hands of a girl warrior too because while they were small and gentle he could feel some consciously restrained force in them.

Well that only meant one thing.

"Ibuki?"

"Yeah Naruto?" He knew it. There wasn't anyone else that it could have been. No one else in that village knew him, especially any girls, and he wasn't good looking enough to have groupies think he was handsome from just one day of seeing him in a fight.

"…Why are you here?" Naruto was trying to remain calm, but he was stark naked under the water that came to his chest. That would have been embarrassing enough were it not for the fact that she was touching on him.

"Aside from the fact I live in this village and I can do anything I want?" Ibuki jested, eliciting a grunt from Naruto for her attempts at being a smartass. She let out a laugh, being completely at ease unlike yesterday when the situation was markedly less, "I figured you would need help reapplying your medical tape after you were done, and then when I got here you were spacing out so I got in too. You didn't notice at all."

Looking over at the rocks surrounding the spacious spring, Naruto saw Ibuki's shed clothing over by his own along with the rest of his equipment, "Why are you washing my back and my hair?"

"Aw, well look at you trying to act like a prude." She knew he wasn't complaining about it, otherwise he would have done something by then, "Well it's a time-honored way to show trust between warriors. Are you scared that a girl's washing your back?" A grin spread across Ibuki's face as she leaned forward and set her chin on his shoulder, "What, you never took a bath with Sakura-chan before?"

What kind of damn question was that? Those two met when they were twelve, not when they were three. The time had long since passed for when something like that would have been cute or acceptable. Needless to say at the age of sixteen he still would have been all for something like that should the situation reasonably present itself, but for the sake of his moral fiber…

"N-No, are you crazy?" Naruto full-body stiffened up when Ibuki set her chin on his shoulder because her body got close enough to press up against him a bit, "You're getting kind of comfortable aren't you?" The girl didn't answer. She merely let out a content sigh that got him to begin mellowing out too.

He didn't know why; if it was the bath, if it was some kind of ninja technique of hers, or what. Either way he just started letting himself drift a bit along with her. It was comfortable.

While there was definitely a sex thing that one could attribute to the entire situation, the initial stress from the whole thing had faded. Her legs were now firmly attached to his sides by the thigh, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck while he just weakly kicked through the water enough to keep them moving, "Ibuki why are you always so cool to me?"

A good question that she thought of as the two of them drifted.

"You're a cool person most of the time, and I know you think I'm attractive." She could literally feel his cheeks turn red from the accusation, eliciting a giggle out of her that made things a bit worse because he could feel her breasts rubbing against his back, "It's okay. It's because I wish I was you I guess. I don't know." She replied honestly, "I feel like if I stay close to you and Master Enjo can see just how special you are like our other friends do and I do… maybe I could be allowed to live more normally, maybe even in a real city like a regular girl."

"Well why don't you just try to take your ninja graduation exam?" Naruto asked. Ibuki told them all in the past that once she was able to do that she'd be free to choose whether she wanted to operate as a ninja in the village or go out and live her life being assigned missions from a distance, "Do you think you can pass it?"

"I don't know." Ibuki mumbled. It wasn't that she had a confidence problem or anything. She knew that she was far stronger than the other ninja students. But that was also why she was hesitant to take the exam. If it hadn't already been suggested that she take the exam by her sensei or by Enjo himself was that because they didn't think she was ready for it? Was it that much harder than she was prepared for, "Do you think I can?"

She let out a surprised whine when Naruto slipped out of her grasp momentarily to dive his head underwater to rinse his hair. He reemerged elsewhere closer to the rocks, apparently ready to get out, "I think you should go for it. If it's what you want you can't be scared of it. And I'll help you out too if you need it, dattebayo. I'm pretty sure everybody back in town would."

"You really think so?"

"You've got to be willing to risk it all the way if you want to get anywhere as a ninja. I learned that during one of my own tests."

Maybe Enjo and her sensei Sanjou were just waiting on her to come to them about taking her exam? Another one of their tests to show how much she had grown by taking the initiative or whatever obscure, clandestine goal they were trying to get her to reach through her individual actions.

Either way, talking to Naruto was enough to make her think it was worth a try once she worked up the nerve and was sure of herself that she was ready. But why was he now giving her that serious looking straightforward stare?

"So how is this gonna work when we get out of the water Ibuki?" Oh, he was just embarrassed. Did he think she wouldn't like the way he looked or something? He really was cute to her because he didn't even know that he was.

"Meh, at this point does it matter?" She replied casually, and she had a point. They had just been pressed right against each other, "I'll tell you what. Show me that tattoo that Sakura-chan was talking about the day you got hurt and I'll get out first so you don't feel all self-conscious about it. You can look as much as you want."

"…Deal."

XxX

(Aohura City – Sakura's House)

"Pick up. Pick up. Pick up." Sakura kept repeating to herself as she kept trying to get through on her cell phone. The previous night after the gauntlet had been thrown down by Mad Gear via Poison, calling Naruto out to a fight the next evening, Cammy informed them that Naruto was not in town at all. He had gone to Ibuki's ninja village, and none of them knew where that was, "Why won't she pick up her phone?" The brown-haired girl whined pitifully.

Naruto's new phone hadn't been reactivated from yesterday since he had blacked out in Sasuke's restaurant and had cut his day's plans short, so calling him did nothing. That left Ibuki's phone, and while she knew the kunoichi had to hide the device, she had to check it sometime right?

Ugh, yet another call that went straight to voicemail. That was the tenth one since last night.

"Yeah, Ibuki. If Naruto isn't dead from whatever he's doing in your village can you get him back here say… before 7-ish tonight?" Sakura said, pacing about in her bedroom back and forth, "Because Mad Gear's called him out, and they're making this whole big thing about the best fighters in town being scared of them, and Karin says if someone doesn't fight the guy that the challenge is for Mad Gear's going to use it get stronger and get more recruits. And that's bad. So if you get this could you please get Naruto back here and on the hop? It's at Aohura Super Arena. See you soon, bye."

Upon hanging up the phone Sakura felt like flinging it into the wall, but she refrained from doing so because she knew she'd put it straight through the wall if she did. Instead she tossed it onto her bed and jumped onto the bed as well, shoving her face into the biggest pillow she had to let out a muffled yell.

Why did life have to be so hard as a fighter when all she wanted was to be considered good enough to train with Ryu? Because that of course involved her getting involved with dangerous and power-hungry types that saw skill and wished to manipulate it toward their own ends or destroy it.

Why did her best friend have to have a neon lit bullseye on his chest that every lunatic in the Pacific Rim felt the need to take a shot at? Because he was the strongest person she knew… and that was why she found him interesting to begin with back when they were twelve. Thus that meant that others would feel the same for more nefarious reasons, not her innocent little schoolgirl reasons of thinking that he seemed nice and that he looked like he needed a friend.

"Yo!" Sakura's messy headed little brother Tsukushi came barreling into her room. He ran up to his older sister's bed and poked her in the side as she was still face down in her pillow cursing her rotten luck, "I heard about those guys that called Naruto out. Don't they know he's still dead?"

Sakura turned her head on her pillow towards Tsukushi and sighed, "It was a coma, he was never dead… legally. And no they didn't know. No one outside of us knew." She was surprised Tsukushi was able to keep his mouth shut about it, "He's out of it now and he went to visit one of our friends who lives somewhere secret. They think he's just been hiding the whole time and that's probably what they'll say if there's no fight tonight."

"I thought Naruto wasn't a gangster."

"He's not one Tsukushi. You know that. You've known Naruto since you were four, that's a mean thing to say."

"Sorry, but they're sure treating him like he's one. I mean calling him out? Really?"

Sakura's head popped off of the pillow as an idea had been shoved into her head. Mad Gear was a gang at heart. They could dress it up as a militia group all they wanted to, but they were just a bunch of roughnecks. They were calling out Naruto like he was some kind of boss. Well when oh when did the boss of any kind of organization ever fight the first challenge that came their way?

As much as she hated it, as much as Naruto deemed it an inconvenience despite the business it gave his freelance work, his reputation was a pretty big deal. People knew who he was. The everyday direct challenges had pretty much stopped since the G9 Tournament in January, and they had only lessened more so after their little group of friends' fighting skills seemed to leave the average of Aohura City behind.

They had all gotten better over the last six months, noticeably so because of what they had to improve just to survive against, but for anyone paying attention Naruto really was Aohura City's ace. There was no one stronger than him in the city and everyone that it mattered to knew it. Therefore who was Poison to call him out? Who said that they got to simply leapfrog the rest of the city. Get in line.

Yeah, if they wanted to fight the real deal they had to get through someone else first to prove that they were worth Naruto's time to fight... At least that was the spin that they could give to the masses that night in the arena. A substitute would be used and if nothing else it would buy time, and Karin could articulate and talk the biggest game to justify why Naruto wasn't there the moment that the topic came up.

"Thank you little brother!" Sakura exclaimed, giving Tsukushi a hug and a kiss on the cheek that he deemed gross as she jumped up and grabbed her phone before running downstairs, "Tell mom I'll be out until late, I've got a problem to solve!"

Still rubbing off the cheek that Sakura had kissed him on, Tsukushi shrugged to himself about what that had been all about.

Oh he didn't care. He was going to go back to playing video games.

XxX

(That Afternoon – Chugoku Expressway – 12 Miles Outside of Aohura City)

As a large 18-wheeler truck barreled down the highway moving underneath overpasses with two large trailers being dragged behind it, three Mad Gear transporters sat inside the cab of the truck. One driving, another riding shotgun, and the third of them riding in the back marveling at a brand-new, fresh out of the case submachine gun, "Oh man I love this militia." He said as he looked around for one of the three bullet-filled magazines that he had taken along for the road, "We aren't even supposed to be able to own guns in this country, period. But look at these things man."

"Hey would you put that thing away?" The man in the side passenger's seat said, turning around to look at the man in the back, "You're acting like a fucking kid. We can't get caught with this crap man. We aren't in Aohura City yet. We might have that place's law locked down but if it gets out that we've got guns, especially in numbers like this, the whole party'll be over before we even get it started."

"We're gonna run this country within six months." The gun-toting member said, still waving the gun around, "Boss Rolento and Sodom-sama have got us primed and ready. All we need to do now is ship the rest of the weapons into town, wait for the other shipments to reach the brothers in the other cities and it'll be time to take this straight to Tokyo. A real rebellion of the people."

"Yeah…" The front passenger said, "We can make this country any way we want it to be. That's going to be our utopia." And then they'd move on to the next place, and the next place, and the next place. If this method could work in Japan it could probably work in many other places as well. Only time would tell, but spirits were high, "I can't wait to be a man in charge." He laughed.

Two of the three men shared a laugh but noticed that the driver seemed rather vexed. The man from the back got up and leaned forward over the side of his seat, "Hey, what's the matter with you? We're almost there, about to get paid. It's a good time."

As this was uttered a horn went off from a car that passed by the truck in another lane, thus putting a vein forth on the annoyed head of the driver, "I'm going fast enough and I'm in the slow lane. What are these idiots honking at me for? That's the twelfth one in three minutes." Another horn went off and the driver had taken enough. He rolled his window down and shouted out at the person that was driving alongside him, "WHAT?"

"There's some guy walking on one of your trailers! The back one!" With that, the car pulled forward, leaving the truck behind.

The men inside of the truck didn't believe that for a second. How in the world did someone get on the back of their truck? But it proved to be true when they got a glimpse at one of the side mirrors and saw that there indeed was someone standing on the top of the truck.

Did someone have a death wish or something? This was about to be handled, "Kiyo, go ice that idiot." The driver said. With a nod, the man in the passenger's seat grabbed a riot baton from underneath his seat and opened the door all the way so that he could use the open window to get on the top of the truck's cab.

Upon getting high enough to see clearly he saw a teenager in Chinese-style clothes seemingly inspecting the coupling of the two trailers with his back turned to the front of the truck. As quietly as possible, he carefully crept from the roof of the truck to the top of the trailer and then until he got within lunging distance of the weird kid.

He dove right at the brat hoping that he would knock him down between the trailers and underneath the wheels, but he got nothing but air and almost fell in between the trailers himself. He lost his baton for certain. The landing sound of feet on metal got him to push off of his stomach and turn around to see the dark-haired, dark garbed young man standing straight up and staring at him.

"I wonder just what you're smuggling in this truck." Sasuke said as the Mad Gear member carefully stood back up so that the wind didn't knock him down. The man had no idea how Sasuke was just standing there, but he wasn't going to be standing for much longer, "You idiots are getting a lot of new toys to play with in Aohura City."

Feeling like he had his balance under him, the man walked carefully towards Sasuke to attack him. The assassin-for-hire just waited for the man to get close enough to where he felt safe enough to try taking swings at him. Every punch missed until Sasuke grabbed him by the face and held him tightly around the forehead, "So where is this thing going?"

"Your mother's house."

Bad answer.

Sasuke immediately began using the lightning release manipulation he had obtained from years of breaking down the concept of his Chidori. He used it to begin shocking the man in his grasp for a few seconds. His yells were lost to the open wind until Sasuke cut the power and turned the electricity off, "Want to try that again? Or do you still think being in Mad Gear automatically makes you a tough guy?"

A few coughs came from the recently electrocuted man as he continued to grip at Sasuke's wrist to try and pry himself loose, "Freak!"

"That's what weak people say when they try to act strong… and then find out that they aren't that strong." Sasuke responded before charging electricity in his other hand so that the sound could get some intimidation going, "I need a location. Where are you keeping the weapons?"

The answer didn't come as from the same passenger's side, the man with the submachine gun got up over the trailer and started firing his gun at Sasuke and the captured man. Sasuke turned his captive towards the gunfire to take the bullets intended for him before he jumped into the air over the top of the truck with lightning crackling around his lower body, "Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press)!"

He landed on the hood of the truck with crushing pressure that smashed it, all the while discharging electricity into the damaged engine. The twisted metal of the hood jutted up in front of the truck's windshield, obscuring the vision of the driver who started skidding all over the four-lane highway, causing cars to swerve or be smashed by the 18-wheeler.

It quickly came to a stop, blocking off the entire highway due to the vehicle's length and the driver and gunman came spilling out of the vehicle quickly. The gunner quickly fired at Sasuke only for him to bail out off of the hood and to the driver's side where he kicked the door shut and caught the driver's arm in the door. Eliciting a cry of pain from the man, Sasuke kicked him in the stomach when the door opened back up and knocked him away.

Once again, the submachine gun toting Mad Gear gang member swung around the smoking front of the truck only to see a swirl of wind and leaves where he had expected to see Sasuke standing. He ran over to his injured comrade who had a broken arm and helped him up with one hand as he kept aiming around with the second one, "Where did he go? Who the hell was that guy?"

"That was the assassin from Tokyo." The injured driver said, cradling his arm to his body, "He's a dead ringer for one of the two Boss Rolento told us to keep an eye out for. The other one's Uzumaki. It's kill on sight for this guy though. He doesn't have a name to profit from like Uzumaki does." He let out a pained grunt and looked around in a frightened manner, "I need a gun. I need a gun from the back right now. Cover me."

Both of them ran towards the back trailer to procure a firearm for the second man while the first kept looking around with a hair-triggered look in his eyes.

Upon making it to the back of the truck, both of them froze when they saw Sasuke sitting on the top of the trailer looking down at the two of them with strange red eyes that they were certain that he didn't have before, "You know what I like about Japan the most? The gun control. It's so hard to get a firearm here. Gun control is strict in Hong Kong too, but it's like so what? Every crime group there seems to have one. There aren't even that many guns here to begin with. That means that it really is the strong that makes things happen here."

Instead of firing blindly at Sasuke, the man with the gun just waited nervously. Sasuke's Sharingan had implanted a suggestion in his head that shooting at him right then wouldn't end well. He was scared enough of the superhuman assassin that he figured the thought was his own. His lack of knowledge on the Sharingan didn't help either.

"Strength is valued here, but guns are just smoke and mirrors in regards to that." Sasuke continued, still staring down at the men, "You think you're stronger than me with that thing in your hands don't you?" He finished with a smirk, "Is that why you joined Mad Gear? Because you wanted to feel strong and important?"

The injured man was even more scared than his friend due to his lack of a firearm, and that overrode Sasuke's attempt at subtle Sharingan persuasion as he used his good arm to grab the gun from his ally and pointed it at Sasuke, "Shut up already and die!" He started firing, but with one arm his aim was terrible and it was child's play for Sasuke to dodge over the side of the trailer.

The original gunman now felt naked without a weapon and made a break for the back of the rear trailer which he quickly opened and jumped inside of to get another gun for himself.

On the outside, Sasuke didn't go around, instead choosing to slide underneath the truck trailer. He was spotted by the injured driver who moved to fire at him, only getting off several rounds before his magazine came up empty.

A quick move was just what the doctor ordered, and Sasuke had luckily stolen a good one from Gen back when he had been younger and had taken his routine beatings from the man to 'get some respect kicked into him', "Gekiro!" Sasuke delivered an upward-aimed dropkick and continued to kick and kick repeatedly in a pedaling motion before he flipped out of the attack and landed on the ground.

The airborne man and gun dropped to the ground and didn't move again, and Sasuke walked to the back of the truck to find the last remaining Mad Gear member fumbling with trying to load another submachine gun fresh out of the case with a magazine he had on him.

In his haste, the magazine dropped from his hand and he looked up over at Sasuke and froze in fear. He just started backing away farther and farther into the trailer to put as much distance between himself and his pending doom as he could.

Sasuke jumped up inside and slowly started walking towards the last man standing on the Mad Gear side of things. One man had been killed and another had been knocked unconscious. That meant that this man needed to have the information he needed on where the major weapons cache for the gang was located. Then he could start tracking down where the Mad Gear bosses Sodom and Rolento were holed up, "So where was this thing going before I got here?"

"Stay back!" A desperate charge forward, using the gun as a club failed when Sasuke just punched him in the chest and knocked him into one of the large containers in the trailer with a metallic thud, "Stay away from me!"

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke just kept walking forward, "No, I'm sick of being nice about just asking you losers for this information, because killing you isn't my mission. The only way this genjutsu is going to end for you is when you tell me what I want to know. Magen: Kasegui no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Jutsu)." Direct eye contact with Sasuke's spinning red orbs caught the man in something that he had never been prepared to experience in his life.

"AAAHHH!"

XxX

(Sometime Later – With Naruto – Glade of Ninjas)

"-And then I just walked right into the dome of mirrors and got stuck right along with Sasuke." Naruto recanted tales of his past to his kunoichi friend as they both took the walk back from where Naruto had been helping Ibuki train instead of her just going off and going through the motions with the other students, "I thought getting in the middle of the fight was a good idea at the time. Don't give me that look."

The look was a flat one, as Ibuki had been listening to Naruto's story of his first ninja incident and could only wonder something as she heard the whole thing, "Who in the world passed you as a ninja?" She asked as they walked down the hall back into her quarters, "I seriously want to know. How did getting inside of the dome your friend was trapped in seem like a good idea to you at all?"

'I technically failed my test, but you don't need to know that.' Naruto thought to himself as he entered the girl's room and sat down on the accommodations that had been made for him on the floor last night, "Hindsight is 20/20."

"Not a good excuse Naruto." Ibuki argued to end that leg of the conversation as she lay down in her bed with a content sigh, "You see? Wasn't that bath more comfortable the second time around after you stopped being so skittish? I don't bite."

"No you don't bite, you stab. That could be worse." Naruto quipped as he lay down on his futon beside Ibuki's bed. He turned his head so that he could look underneath it where he saw the tanuki Don playing with Ibuki's cell phone, "You keep the phone with Don when you hide it?"

Reaching under her bed, Ibuki picked up the little animal and rested him on her stomach, petting him idly as she continued to lay on her back and look up at the ceiling, "What's a better hiding place than one that moves around constantly?" She saw the device in Don's paws light up and took it from him as her phone had been on silent the entire time, "Wha-? Thirty-seven texts and fifteen missed calls?"

Well wasn't she popular? While she was dealing with that, Naruto felt the need to catch a quick nap after spending a lot of the day using his clones to help train with Ibuki. It wasn't as taxing on his body and it let him get some much needed rest that he was going to continue right then and there.

"Uh oh."

Oh hell. Whenever someone said 'uh oh' out loud around him it meant that something was about to try and involve him in some bad situation. It never failed.

Ibuki swung her legs over on Naruto's side of the bed and stuck her phone down by his ear, "Naruto, you need to listen to this right now. Something's up in your neck of the woods."

Raising an eyebrow, Naruto took the phone from her and waited for the message to restart that she wanted him to hear, "Yeah, Ibuki. If Naruto isn't dead from whatever he's doing in your village can you get him back here say… before 7-ish tonight?" That was Sakura's voice, "Because Mad Gear's called him out, and they're making this whole big thing about the best fighters in town being scared of them, and Karin says if Naruto doesn't fight the Hugo guy that issued the challenge for Mad Gear they're going to use it get stronger and get more recruits. And that's bad. So if you get this could you please get Naruto back here and on the hop? It's at Aohura Super Arena. See you soon, bye."

After the message ended, Naruto shut off Ibuki's voicemail and looked at the built in clock on the phone, "Fuck." He sat up and showed the time to Ibuki, "It's past five right now. It took me almost twelve hours to work out how to get here to begin with. I'm never gonna make it."

"Not true." Ibuki said as she got up from her bed and started making sure that Naruto had all of his things gathered in his travel pack, "How do you think I get to school every day on time? I can point you in the right direction, but I can't go with you. You'll get back to Aohura City way faster if you just do what I say."

Naruto was initially confused as he figured that the directions that his clone's directions gave him happened to be the path that Ibuki took to school every morning. But he cast that aside and decided to trust her. If anyone knew how to make the cannonball run from her village back to Aohura City why wouldn't it be her that did.

Ibuki of course saw him perk up and felt the need to bring him down to earth at the cost of possibly bursting his bubble, "…But you've got to go now if you want to even have a shot at making it by seven." She had to be realistic with him. Pumping him up for no reason would only hurt more in the long run.

She threw the pack at Naruto and wasn't displeased when he was already standing to catch it and sling it securely over his back. He seemed annoyed, though by what Ibuki wasn't sure; either because his little getaway of sorts had been interrupted, or because it had been interrupted because someone was publically picking another fight with him.

Once he was ready to go, Ibuki quickly led Naruto out of her room and outside of the building where they took off towards the north end of the village to get started setting him out on the path of her shortcut to Aohura City.

They came to a stop just before entering the deep forest where things got repetitive and hard to distinguish, "Okay, as you probably know from when you came out here compasses don't work because of what the village did to make it hard to find the place. You also can't see the sun or the stars through the leaves in the forest to give position." From the twitching eye he was presenting her with, he already knew these things and was wondering what her point was.

All Ibuki did was walk to the base of a tree and feel around the trunk until she pulled up a thin wire that was tied to the trunk and held it up for Naruto to see, "Okay, I'll bite. What the hell is that supposed to be?"

"My hidden way to find your way back to Aohura." Ibuki said brightly as she dragged Naruto over to it and placed the metal wire in his hand, "Hold on to it and follow it through the trees. It'll take you right back to the woods outside of town. It's tied to a tree on the other side just like this side here."

Oh that had to be complete bullshit. There was no way a simple and cheap trick like that was how she got to school without getting lost every day. For Kami's sake, it had to be more complicated than that. She was a girl, therefore she and her plans had to be complicated by nature. It was an irrefutable fact that he had learned by spending so much time with an honor roll student example of one for four years.

But when he tugged on the line he found that it came up from the ground and started leading a trail up to where it was still slacked on the forest floor. He walked forward a bit and tugged some more to find that it continued onward.

Turning towards Ibuki she was smugly rocking back and forth on her heels and toes with a satisfied smile, "I've got one of those to every town I've found in any direction outside of the Glade of Ninjas. It's my own system and I'm the only one that knows how to find them since you can't really see them." The trick was to use way more wire than she needed to get to the other side. Still, Naruto was just standing there staring at her blankly, thus she shooed him away, "Well? Scat already. Time's a wastin' Naruto."

Naruto gave her a nod and a hesitant smile before taking off as fast as he could while holding on to the wire as it led him through the woods like a lifeline, "Later Ibuki! I'll call you when all of this is over!"

"Don't get your butt kicked again!" She yelled after him as his rapid pitter-pattering footsteps through the grass and leaves got farther and farther away.

XxX

(Aohura City – Aohura Super Arena – Near Bell Time)

The arena was pretty much filled. It was actually impressive just how fast an event like this got organized. It had been just a hair under twenty-four hours and the place looked legitimate as far as an actual sporting attraction went. There were all kinds of television cameras there to capture the fighting for their respective stations and websites.

There was a long dark ramp that led to a open area of arena surrounded by metal guard rails. In the center of that was a large 20x20 ring that was elevated three feet off of the ground with three ropes stretching around the four sides of it between the four corners.

Standing right outside of the ring on the floor happened to be Sakura, Batsu, Karin, and Cammy looking around and waiting for something to happen. While everyone else looked to be calm for the most part for their own reasons, Sakura looked a bit jittery, "I really hope this works." She then shot a bit of a glare at Cammy, "I can't believe you let Naruto get away."

"I don't know how you would have expected me to catch up to him." Cammy replied, trying to assuage the blame going her way, "It's not like anyone else here could have done it if they had been in my position." None of them could jump on rooftops and follow him so it was a moot point to try and blame anyone.

Batsu was leaning his arms and head down on the corner of the ring canvas lazily as he seemed to be waiting, "Look. There's nothing we can do now. Stop complaining."

"Ichimonji-san is correct." Karin stressed, looking around impatiently with her hands on her hips, "It is not like we are unprepared for this situation." How couldn't they be prepared? Sakura had been ripping and running all over town making calls since noon so they could get something together, "There is a plan of action in place." And she already knew what she was going to say well in advance as an explanation, so as far as she was concerned things would be okay.

Cammy raised a hand in order to ask a question and did so when attention was cast towards her, "I'm just wondering… why is it up to a group of teenagers to deal with a problem like this? Aren't there adults that are supposed to be able to handle happenings like this for a living?" A good question.

Sakura sighed and ran a hand past the headband on her forehead and through her short hair, "There are… but they get blitzed before they can get out and handle it. You see what happened to the cops in town right? They've been down since the start. And everywhere else just thinks it's another gang thing in Aohura City so they don't care."

"It will be just another gang thing." Batsu boasted with a smirk, "They'll get beaten just like every other big gang that tried to take this town over has gotten beaten. It's just gonna be a little tougher this time than the other stuff that happened in the past in this town because they're way bigger. It's impossible to take over Aohura City; there's always someone else strong to fight and a lot of them are ki-wielding fighters. That's why the Yakuza stay away from here."

They knew already, the generalized explanation for why crime was so low in Aohura City despite the gang population being so high… at least Sakura and Karin knew already. They weren't sure about how much Cammy really even cared. Repeating the same things they had known for years was going to do little for them.

"Be that as it may, we must handle one problem at a time." Karin stated firmly, taking control of the situation. While Sakura was a smart girl she wasn't much of a tactician, and Cammy wasn't really the type to say more than she needed to at any given time, "Before anything else we deal with this first. Should things go badly tonight every weakling commoner with aspirations of power will think the easiest way to obtain it will be to join Mad Gear. And then they will have their army, willing and ready."

This entire show was just one big commercial for the organization, to show off how powerful Mad Gear was, and how if you wanted to be considered a part of the best you would have to get in on the ground floor while the getting was hot. Because they were convinced that they were going to change the entire country.

And it would probably work easily if things went bad for the kids that night. Alas… Karin was well aware that the vast majority of the general population were all sheep and to them perception would be reality.

They had to come out on top in some way this evening. And that was just fine with her too. Victory was paramount for her in any endeavor she aspired to undertake and this was nothing different. All she knew how to do to begin with was win.

Loud, attention-grabbing music began to play over the speakers of the arena as many bright blue, purple, and pink lights started flashing at the top of the formerly dark rampway. This revealed many Mad Gear banners and group insignias had been hung around the arena in the dark that now stood visible to all. As the crowd began to react and cheer to the sudden activity, Poison confidently strode down towards the ring, soaking up the catcalls and the fans reaching out over the guardrail to try and touch her.

She didn't mind it at all. As a matter of fact, upon reaching the ring she got up on the apron and crawled along the length of it to the grandstanding approval of the male fight fans in attendance. If this was what Mad Gear was all about they were all for it. Even Batsu was giving a few wolf-whistles. Enemy or not, hot was hot.

With a gesture of her hand to a ringside attendant she received a microphone before getting through the ropes and into the ring, "Welcome to tonight's special attraction match, brought to you by Mad Gear of course!" The cheering had never died down from the moment she had come out, "As you are all probably well aware of by now, I; your lovely host for the evening… well you can call me Poison!"

Looking around at the crowd that was very much behind the pretty woman showing a hell of a lot of skin, Cammy frowned, "This does not seem to look very good at all." Things could only spiral out of control in town if things went badly tonight.

The gaze of Poison drifted toward the bottom corner of the ring where a few out of space kids seemed to be standing. Of the four of them there she knew that three of them were on 'the list' of fighters that were either to be recruited or disposed of: Kasugano Sakura, Ichimonji Batsu, and Kanzuki Karin.

The last one there, the mystery blonde girl with the twin braids, the red beret, the scar on her cheek, and the green showy leotard she didn't know, but Poison instantly didn't like her. The girl could probably steal attention away from her if she cared to try, but she didn't seem to care about anything going on at the moment from the look on her face so there was no need to try and stir up that potential beehive.

But the others were all noted acquaintances of the target of the evening's festivities, Uzumaki Naruto.

"So where's the brat of the hour?" Poison asked as she cockily strolled around the ring, "We told him to go to the TV studio last night, and we were even nice enough to reserve this arena tonight just to get him to fight. I guess someone decided not to sack up and come out here tonight."

"Yeah, where's Uzumaki?"

"I thought he was supposed to be the strongest person in the city!"

"Boo!"

The crowd began to predictably turn on the absent Naruto due to having been expecting a big-time fight that night. They had paid good hard-earned money for their seats so they could see something amazing, and half of the main event no-showed.

As the jeers grew, Sakura turned towards Karin who seemed to be impatiently drumming her fingertips on the ring apron. Apparently she was getting a bit testy, "Well it looks like you're on. Are you sure you're up to this?"

A confident smirk surfaced on Karin's face at her on-again/off-again rival's query, "Sakura-san if there is anything I am quite certain of my ability to do, it is that if I am properly motivated to do so I can make anyone do anything that I want them to, no matter what it takes. So fear not." Karin cleared her throat and like magic her large personal attendant Ishizaki appeared, kneeling down by her side to allow her to step on his hands so that she could allow him to lift her onto the ring apron.

Sakura and Batsu rolled their eyes at the display. While she wasn't as lewd about it as Poison was, Karin still had quite the ego and penchant for the dramatic.

In the same vein she was handed a microphone of her own by Ishizaki. Where he got it no one knew, but that was largely irrelevant because apparently it was jacked into the speaker system as well.

With Ishizaki holding the ropes open for her, she stepped in the ring and held the microphone up to her mouth, "Naruto-san desired to come here tonight and face his challenge the way he faces all of his challenges. The way all of the people here have probably seen him face said challenges at one time or another. I simply advised him otherwise."

Poison let out a laugh at the younger aristocratic female who seemed to be rightly secure in what she was saying, "And who do you think you are little girl?"

"I am his sponsor. His benefactor if you will." Karin stated as she leveled a glance on the masses that seemed to make the lot of them recoil from her aura, "As you capricious, fickle fools probably do not know is that being a strong fighter financially means nothing. Fighting by itself does not pay one's bills, it does not put food on one's table."

"Word." Batsu chimed in from ringside, raising his hand along with Sakura. Both of them still lived at home with their parents and they were considered to be strong. Being strong didn't mean jack. Every fighter they knew aside from Ryu had an actual job… and he was more or less a drifter. Naruto derogatorily and jokingly referred to him as a karate bum.

Ignoring Batsu's interjection, Karin continued, "-Therefore most of the truly stronger fighters in the world have a primary source of income that does not involve fighting. I am his." True enough, because the bulk of Naruto's funding came from her, "I persuaded him that coming out to fight a largely unproven commodity as an opponent would do nothing for him. After all, what does he have to gain from listening to the challenge of a no-name person such as yourself?"

That raised a tick mark on Poison's head. Being called a no-name by some haughty little rich girl did not sit well with her. Apparently her mere presence had some semblance of control over the audience to boot because she had shut the majority of them up, "What did you just say?"

"I did not misspeak. You heard me clearly." Karin taunted openly, "Why should I allow Naruto-san to fight you or your envoy? He has nothing to gain whatsoever, which means that I do not either. It is simply bad business all around. Prove something to justify a fight with him and then perhaps I will let him come out to play."

"So you're just going to keep hiding him?" Poison asked, her eye twitching in annoyance at how things were going, "Wow, I didn't know the 'Ace of Aohura City' was such a coward that he'd allow his prim little manager to get him out of this fight."

"Cowardice has nothing to do with it. This is my prerogative as his representative." Karin continued in a bored tone as if justifying Naruto's absence was mere child's play. It technically was. She could talk down two armed superpowers from going to war if she were directed to, so convincing the crowd that this fight had no reason to take place should have been simple enough.

"Well use your prerogative to get him out here to fight Hugo. It's that simple." Poison countered deftly, "It's what the people want to see."

Crowd response was the last thing Poison could resort to in her attempts to generate a fight? It might as well have been checkmate, "There's no contract binding him to this contest, it's completely unsanctioned. If you cannot find him on the streets and attack him there the way everyone else does then you have no right to demand his presence as if he owes you something."

Poison didn't want to hear any of that crap. She wanted Karin to slip up on a point so that she could begin tearing her apart over Naruto. She wanted to tear down whatever name value Naruto had to build Mad Gear's, "And what makes you think you're the one to tell me we don't have the right?"

Wagging a finger in a chiding manner, Karin spoke matter-of-factly for the benefit of those that were still unaware of why she was able to say these things, "That young man is sponsored by Kanzuki Karin of the Kanzuki Dynasty. I direct his actions when they count. That is all you need to know." Seeing a bit of an opportunity to get one over on the absent Naruto, Karin then turned to the crowd with a shine in her eyes, "…One could say that I own him."

XxX

(With Naruto – Deep Mountain Forests En Route to Aohura City)

Still holding onto Ibuki's shortcut wire, traversing it as he continued to run as fast as he could while being guided by the object, Naruto's rapid footfalls were the only out of place thing that could be heard in the forest's tranquility.

As he rushed between the trees at the directed guidance of the metal wire, Naruto spontaneously felt the need to yell out loud, if only for the benefit of the nocturnal woodland creatures abound in the area, "Nobody owns Uzumaki Naruto! They just rent him!"

Instead of the normal hooting of owls and the nighttime insect noises he got a loud response of the deep growling variety. He then had to wonder if there were any bears in those mountains or what. It didn't matter, they couldn't catch him anyway.

XxX

(Aohura City – Aohura Super Arena)

This was not working the way it had been anticipated to at first.

Damn it, the little bitch could mediate Naruto's way out of the fight so casually. She had just turned the entire crowd around. Now many of them were wondering just what gave Poison the right to call Naruto out and expect him to come. Nobody else got to do that. If anyone else wanted a piece of him they had to do the legwork to track him down and fight him on the spot.

Poison was losing the crowd and she knew it. This was not what had been expected to happen at all. And the cameras were still rolling. She had to get something out of this broadcast or it would be an abject failure, "Well fine! If proving something is what we need to get a fight with your golden boy that's just fine with us. Tell you what, send us anyone you want right here right now and Hugo'll crush 'em. Just to give you a taste of what your boy-toy would have gotten if he had come here tonight."

Make your adversary belligerently push for an agreement in order to save face. An agreement that in the end costs you nothing. A compromise that really isn't. Aggressive business-shark mediation complete.

Karin shrugged and turned right around toward the corner of the ring that housed her group of acquaintances, "Ichimonji-san."

"Yo."

"Do you feel up to a battle tonight?"

"Absolutely."

Karin gestured for him to hop into the ring which he did without a second thought to the satisfaction of the crowd who desired to see some action, "There. An adequate substitute has been found for the evening. Consider it an olive-branch from me to you, to ensure that your event is not an outright bust." With an airy laugh, fueled only by her victory in the verbal spar, Karin dropped the microphone and walked away from a seething Poison.

Watching as Karin left the ring in a very satisfied manner while Poison was angrily chewing on her riding whip, probably desiring to use it on Karin, Sakura turned to Cammy with a deadpan look on her face, "I think that felt better to her than sex would be."

"I doubt that." Cammy responded, barely getting the context of the statement and getting Sakura to palm her forehead, "But she did ensure that Mad Gear didn't get what they wanted tonight. That's something."

Nodding in agreement, Sakura tugged on Batsu's pant leg to get his attention as he started stretching out in the corner, "Batsu are you sure you can handle this? Your leg."

"Meh, my leg healed a while ago before I even went training with my dad. I'm fine." Batsu replied as he stopped stretching and slid a pair of red fingerless gloves onto his hands, "It's not like there's much of a choice eh? I can do this for sure. I've fought guys bigger than me before. They all don't seem very big when they're lying flat on their backs looking up at the lights."

Finally having calmed herself, Poison found a way to take some solace in the way things worked out. While it wasn't Naruto out there it was someone else on 'the list' in Ichimonji Batsu. They could use that too, "Well tonight it looks like we've got a stand in for Uzumaki! We're getting a fight tonight!" Hearing the exuberant host of the show getting fired up again lit a new one underneath the fans, "Introducing first from right here in Aohura City, The hot-blooded maverick delinquent of Taiyo High School; Ichimonji Batsu!"

Batsu ignored the cheers and jeers as he didn't particularly care about any of that. It was time to get himself into a fight and he was ready to roll, "Come on, speed it up already. I want to keep the fight time in your broadcast's time slot. My mom's favorite show is on tonight."

Oh he had no idea. With a wicked little smile on her lips, Poison gestured grandly back towards the entranceway as loud, slow, and plodding music began to play, "Introducing next, his opponent! Representing the Mad Gear organization he stands over eight feet tall and weighs in at 506 pounds! Only one person in this building needs to be scared of him right now so make some noise! This is Hugo Andore!"

The crowd went crazy in awe of the size of the dark-haired, pink-clad giant that walked towards the ring, stopping on the ramp to bellow loudly and show off that he was rippling with muscle. Batsu could swear that he could feel the man's footsteps before he even got inside of the ring.

Sakura and Karin were stunned into silence while Cammy was wracking her brain to try and think of a weakness that Batsu could use based solely off of preliminary observation. Other than 'be faster' she had nothing, and that barely mattered because they were in a ring and Hugo was gargantuan.

Batsu felt the ring shake as Hugo climbed up onto the apron and stepped clear over the top rope to enter the ring when Poison proudly went to his side and guided him toward the center of the ring. Batsu walked toward the center as well where he was then forced to look up almost three feet at Hugo's head. Good lord, how did one even go about getting that big to begin with?

"Hah…" Batsu stammered, cursing Naruto for not being in town when someone called him out, "You didn't look this big on TV last night… and yes, that's what she said." He added for the nearby Poison's benefit.

"Yeah, I got it kid." Poison merely found it amusing that he would try to alleviate his nerves with a joke and all Hugo did in response was grin down at him in an innocently intimidating manner as if he didn't know he was so scary, "That was a joke Hugo. Isn't that cute?"

Hugo reached out and gave Batsu three pats on the head that he swore made his neck crack, "Aww… shit." Batsu said, stepping back to rub his now sore neck, "Is there a time limit that I can last to make this thing end?" Poison just shook her head no, "…Didn't think so."

So he had to beat big ugly or get smashed flat like a pancake?

Poison moved away and stepped outside of the ring with the microphone still in hand, "You all know the rules! Let's get it started, Fight begin!" The bell then rang to signify the start of the match.

And Batsu saw his life flash before his eyes as Hugo instantly jumped into the air and shaded out the overhead lights with his considerable mass. He didn't hear the reasonably high-pitched shriek of terror that elicited from his own mouth.

With a resounding crash, Hugo hit the canvas, but immediately got up enough to see that Batsu wasn't underneath him. Instead Batsu had bailed out of the ring and was pacing around back and forth aggressively while Sakura, Cammy, and Karin watched on.

"I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb! Why'd I agree to this?" Batsu growled to himself, running his hands through his spiky black hair, "What am I gonna-?"

"Boy you'd better get back in that ring right now."

Not only Batsu, but all three of his present female friends blinked at the gruff voice. Only Batsu knew the tone of it though and responded accordingly, "Dad?" Turning around he saw a man that had walked a path straight through the crowd to get to the front row, "What are you doing here?"

Batsu's father was a large man that stood a full head and a half over his son with bulk and muscles to match, even clearly apparent under his light brown suit with black shoulders. His arms were absolutely enormous, his hands larger than a normal person's head. He was balding, but had bushy long white hair and a beard with a thick mustache as well and red eyes. Around his wrists he had heavy metal bracelets and his fingernails were sharp like claws. He didn't seem very much like the kind of person that would be anyone's father.

As intimidating as he looked, Batsu walked right over to him like it was safe to do so. Until he got rapped over the head hard enough to send his straight to the floor, "I saw you on TV you idiot! This is on half of the stations available in the damn region! I came to see your little friend that helped you and your classmates beat me up all of those years ago since he was the one being challenged here, but I arrive and find you in the ring."

"Yeah I know it wasn't a good idea dad, but-." Batsu was cut off from an explanation when he got picked up by his shoulders and shaken back and forth like a ragdoll.

"I don't want to hear your excuse boy, I'm here for a reason!" Batsu's father shouted as he shook his son so fast he was a blur.

Cammy had an eyebrow raised in curiosity as she had no idea who that person was and why Batsu was letting him discipline him in such a brutish manner, "Batsu's father?"

Remembering that Cammy hadn't been around for nearly long enough to know the whole story, Sakura gave her the condensed version, "Imawano Raizo. Back when we were fourteen, right around the time when Batsu and Naruto first met there were a string of kidnappings going on around the city. Batsu's mother was one of the people taken. So basically me, Naruto, Batsu, Hinata-chan, and another kid from his high school teamed up and got to the bottom of it. Batsu's dad was the principal of the high school that was behind it. But he was being brainwashed by someone else, so we fought him, snapped him out of it, and then we beat the real mastermind."

It seemed straightforward enough. One thing stuck out to Cammy though, "Batsu beat up his own father that had been overseeing the kidnapping people and didn't have any problems with it?"

"Batsu and the rest of us didn't know it was his father until afterwards and he snapped out the brainwashing." Sakura continued to explain, "He's scary strong for this town. Seriously. It took all five of us to beat him when we fought him back then." As if his ears were burning, Batsu's dad turned towards Sakura who started nervously waving, "Hi Principal Imawano, ha ha ha…"

Using the momentary distraction, Batsu gave his old man a headbutt right in the face to get him to let go before he decked Raizo in the stomach hard enough to give him an opening to get out of his reach, "Damn it dad, I'm in a fight here!"

"You could have fooled me, I thought you were in a timid deer contest the way you faced your opponent!"

"He's fucking huge! He'll snap my neck like a celery stick if I let him grab me!"

"So you're just going to fight scared? What did I spend all month training you for if you were just going to act like a street punk at the first sign of an actual fight? Don't you remember what you told me to get me to train you to begin with?"

Batsu's anger faded and he stopped to remember why he had come to his estranged and notably powerful father for help after the return from Hong Kong and the Shadaloo episode. His leg had still been injured as a result of his defeat at the hands of top Muay Thai kickboxer Adon, but he cut the cast off of his own leg early just to get back to work.

"When it came down to it I was useless old man. From all that happens in town I thought I was strong, but then I had to sit on the sidelines and watch the ones that really were. We saw such powerful people… and in the end I didn't help at all. I had to watch other people that were actually strong help my friends when I couldn't do anything. That's not going to happen again. I came here to ask you for help with that, but if you say no it doesn't matter. I'll do it without you if I have to, but the fact is that next time I'll be the playmaker instead of just the hindrance."

And he spent over a month killing his body and stretching his ki to its limits to learn a technique from his father that would let him make good on everything he said that day.

Turning away from his father, Batsu looked back inside of the ring where Hugo was waiting. Poison had the microphone in her hand still as the host of the show and used it to speak, "You know, I should be counting you out of the ring right now, but the fight's barely a minute old." She taunted.

With a scoff, Batsu unbuttoned his blue school uniform top and cast it off towards his father who caught it. Underneath that shirt he had been wearing a sleeveless mesh armor shirt with metal around the collar and the shoulders.

"Fine." Batsu said, cracking his knuckles, "I did say all of that stuff didn't I?" He smirked and hopped back onto the apron, "Stay out of my fight you old teme, no matter what happens. This one's mine for better or for worse."

Raizo just scowled at his son's back as he climbed into the ring once more, "Feh… I wasn't planning on it anyway. If you can't win after what I taught you to do then it's your problem, not mine."

"Such a loving father." Karin sarcastically commented, only to freeze when Raizo affixed her with a piercing glare that got her to close her mouth and turn away from him in an effort to get some warmth back in her body, 'That man is the principle of a school?'

Sakura leaned in towards the heiress with a smug little smile, "I told you he was a scary guy."

Meanwhile in the ring, Batsu jumped onto the top turnbuckle and stood there displaying balance and defiance, "Okay big man, sorry about that. Let's try this again." He said with a fire in his eyes.

XxX

(With Naruto – Deep Forests En Route to Aohura City)

Naruto's body was burning, but he wasn't going to stop. The sun was down and he knew it was well past seven as he could begin to see city lights over the crest of the hill he had been running on. Now that he could see that, he let go of Ibuki's lifeline and took to tree-hopping again as the faster method of travelling on foot.

He seriously wished he had activated his new phone and had brought it with him before leaving his apartment the night before. This was the time where calling someone and letting them know he was on the way would have been appropriate.

The great, relaxed feeling from the healing hot spring sessions with Ibuki had dissipated due to his strenuous workout given to him by barreling through the woods, full-pace, on his way back to town. His overall body still felt up to snuff thanks to the medical properties of the spring though, and that was all he needed to keep going.

While he wasn't really concerned, he had to get back home anyway. His lack of concern stood with the fact that even though he wasn't there he still had his good friends within Aohura City's limits. As long as they were there, nothing Mad Gear did would succeed. Sakura, Batsu, Cammy, Karin… hell even Sasuke had to have some kind of sense of good in his body.

But Aohura City was his city. The way Konoha had been his village back in the Elemental Nations. And if anyone wished to threaten the security of the people in it, quite a few of whom were his friends, it was his problem.

As if any of his people would just roll over and let Mad Gear take over anyway. That city was tougher than it looked.

XxX

(Hidden Warehouse in Aohura City)

A line of trucks were set inside of the massive storage facility, but there was one spot noticeably missing from the would-be convoy. Rolento stood in front of the trucks and gazed at them intently as Sodom walked up behind him to look at what the man was staring at, "What's the big deal with a missing truck? We've got enough weapons. Nine shipments out of ten are great, especially for what we paid."

One shipment detained didn't mean anything if the people stuck in the capture kept their damn mouths shut the way they were taught to. The American samurai didn't see what the big deal was. They had protocol for such a thing.

"Authorities didn't stop the truck." Rolento said, keeping his voice calm as he started to pace through their warehouse. It had more crates and operational vehicles than ever before as they walked past everything, "Not a single thing was removed from the back. Of the three sent out to bring in that shipment one is dead, one was beaten unconscious, and one is missing. Not only that but there are reports of attacks on street teams all over town."

"So?" Sodom once again asked. The street teams were weak. They were people that wanted to join Mad Gear but had no importance or fighting skill. They were the lowest grunts of the low, "They suck. That's why we send out street-sweeper teams to take care of the actual threats. The regular street teams are just there to get experience and attract new members."

"Not only that, but I just found that Uzumaki Naruto is not present at the arena to face Hugo."

Now Sodom understood what the problem was, "So he's the one out there doing this?"

Rolento nodded, "He and that assassin worked together in Tokyo. Not only that but he openly describes himself as a ninja; a warrior specializing in stealth attacks." He didn't notice the eyes of Sodom's mask light up at being told such a thing.

"I know what a ninja is asshole." Sodom interrupted, hiding his excitement at possibly getting the chance to meet a real one aside from when he had been beaten by Guy. This one would actually be a domestic Japanese ninja… as far as he knew anyway.

"Then you should be able to read the writing on the wall." Rolento snapped as he kicked an empty metal transport crate hard enough to knock it over onto its side, "Uzumaki and the assassin from Tokyo are bypassing Hugo and choosing to try and hit us directly."

Sodom stroked his chin underneath his mask and helmet before he got the gist of what he felt Rolento was about to propose, "You want we should start hunting for these brats?"

Rolento had hoped that the assassin (Sasuke) might have been dead, but he had never held his breath over it. He was never going to find that person until they resurfaced. Since he knew Naruto wasn't dead he tried to initially hunt for him, but he was unable to locate him. Well that had changed. Either one of them or both of them were out and about, and currently active from the looks of things.

So there was no time to waste. Both of those brats had to die in short order. No wimpy street team that stumbled across them would be even close to being good enough to put either of them down.

"I need you to go out with the street-sweepers and comb through the hotspots to find our two friends." Rolento said, "I need to get our forces amassed. We already have the weapons we need to outfit our best in all of the other locations around Tokyo. We are going to prepare to mobilize and move as soon as possible."

"I've been waiting to go out and get something done myself." Sodom said, holding his hands on his twin katanas, "We're clear to do whatever we want, right?"

"If it flushes out one or two of those rats I don't care what you do. Just don't incur heavy losses. We need our forces in good health, it's important." Rolento concluded as he went to his office to begin getting things in order for the very near future, "This will be opening up sooner than you're probably expecting my friend."

"The sooner the better." Sodom chuckled out as he departed the warehouse to assemble the 'troops'.