Local Legend's...

Chapter 1 - Local Legend's...

The month long summer vacation had ended and school was back in session, much to the chagrin of the vast majority of students in Aohura City.

A loud yawn came from Naruto as he and Sakura sat outside under a tree for the duration of their lunch. Well… Sakura was sitting under the tree. Naruto was sitting in the tree, out of sight of anyone that didn't already know he was there. This more or less only meant Sakura knew he was there, and anyone that wanted to find him would have to come to her first. She'd pretend that she didn't know he was there and would give him whatever message anyone had for him later, all the while Naruto was up in the tree or somewhere high and out of view depending on where they ate listening to every word only known to her.

Huh… so maybe he was a ninja after all.

A smile came to the aspiring female fighter's face when she saw another girl walking up to her spot under the tree. In between a sip of her juice, Sakura waved at her friend, "You took a while getting out here Kei-chan. Lunch only has ten minutes left."

Chitose Kei was a girl Sakura and Naruto's age that wore the same uniform Sakura did. She had long brown hair and a yellow band in it. Unlike Sakura she had absolutely no tomboy traits whatsoever. Naruto honestly didn't know how the two were such good friends since Kei was the exact opposite of Sakura; she detested fighting, and unlike Sakura seemed to take in things like boys and clothes. Sakura liked clothes, but the only boy she was interested in much to Naruto's never-ending annoyance due to having to deal with it was Ryu.

Kei smiled and sat down under the tree, pulling out a bento box in a hurry so that she had time to eat something before time ran out, "I just heard a super-weird rumor…" She looked around while breaking apart a pair of chopsticks, "Speaking of which, do you know where Naruto is? It kind of involves him." She knew he was around there close by somewhere and she could have just said it and he'd hear it, but it seemed too much like talking about someone behind their back, and doing something like that about a friend wasn't cool.

Sakura's eyes drifted upwards momentarily and the leaves rustled as an upside down Naruto stuck his head and upper torso out of the leaves, suddenly scaring the rather normal girl when she saw him calmly sipping on a juice box, "Yo."

"Yo yourself." Kei said, getting her heart rate back to normal after Naruto's appearance raised it. Man he was the weirdest American she had ever seen, and it wasn't just the ninja thing either, "Why are you in the tree?"

Naruto stopped drinking and looked around at the two girls below him, "…Because it's more fun than being on the ground." Kei threw a wrapper at him that bounced off his forehead in response.

A small laugh came from Sakura before she turned her attention back to the main topic at hand, "So back to whatever you were talking about Kei-chan. What's the rumor involving Naruto? Is it another high school's punks coming to call him out again?"

"It doesn't matter if it is." Naruto said, narrowing his eyes at Sakura, "You never help me when they do."

"You never need help."

"…Not really the point."

Sakura rolled her eyes while Kei shook her head in the negative and continued, "It's not a gang this time thank goodness. It's just one guy really. And he's not demanding that you face him and he's not out looking for you like everyone else always does. He's in the town plaza breaking bricks, doing demonstrations, and calling you out. He wears a gi and everything. He even threw a Hadoken (Surge Fist) as a demonstration."

"A fighter with a Hadoken?" Sakura got her hopes up immediately upon hearing that, "Does that mean that he came back? How long is that person supposed to be in the plaza? Please tell me he's not leaving anytime soon!" Ryu was a wanderer for certain and he wasn't going to hang around anywhere for too long if he didn't have to. It was what made finding him so hard the previous year for the schoolgirl.

Kei gave Sakura an amused smile, knowing full well of her noted interest in Ryu while Naruto made a gagging gesture with his hands. A swat to the shoulder stopped that though, "You're in luck then. I heard that the guy said he wasn't leaving a public area until Uzumaki Naruto stopped hiding in the shadows and came out to face him like a man instead of waiting to attack him from behind like a mouse."

"Hiding in the shadows?" Naruto hated people calling him out and saying that he was ducking them. He most certainly did not, he'd fight anyone face-to-face… even if he knew he was shirking his ninja responsibilities to win without having to resort to head-on fighting. But he hadn't fought any other ninja so far so it was cool, "…I'm in school. Doesn't this guy know that?"

And just like that, Sakura's expression dropped, "Haah… It's not Ryu. First of all even if he was looking for Naruto he'd never do anything that brazen to get him to come out, and he definitely wouldn't insult Naruto's fighting style. He'd just look for him. Demonstrations aren't really his thing either."

"More important things to worry about here." Naruto said, his attention raptly on Kei at this point and not dealing with Sakura's Ryu deprivation issues, "This isn't good. If that guy keeps talking for too long he's gonna screw with my business." He needed that money. He almost had what he needed to get started and every little bit helped. He got dry looks from the pair of girls and felt the need to defend himself, "Hey, just because you guys are too cheap to hire me for stuff doesn't mean people in this town don't do it either."

Kei gave Naruto a deadpan look in between taking bites of her food, "Just how many people in Aohura City need a professional ninja?"

Naruto grinned and pointed to himself, "I'm more than just a pair of fists you know. I do gardening and landscaping, household repair, a little construction here or there, animal care-."

A smirk came to Kei's face at that point, "So you're basically saying that you cut grass, you're a cheap source of manpower, you dig ditches, and you walk dogs. Am I wrong about any of that?"

Naruto turned his back and sat in a gloomy manner, poking his finger into the dirt, "D-rank missions pay the bills too… I can't always kick ass." At that point his cell phone went off, getting him to turn back around to the girls as he fished it out of his pocket and flipped it open, "Batsu? What do you want? Aren't you in school right now?"

Ichimonji Batsu. Another one of Naruto's friends and he was something of a street punk, but that was only by proxy of what he got mixed up in. He had a brawling style, even less polished than Naruto's, but his use of ki to back up his fighting made him one of the most dangerous people Naruto knew. Apparently he had taken instructions from an online ninjutsu combat instruction page to learn his fighting style, and this was eventually how the two of them met.

Because Batsu was very interested in anything involving a ninja, and Naruto was hiring himself out as a ninja. When they met, Batsu was very underwhelmed by Naruto's presence and the hotheaded young man apparently let Naruto verbally have it on how he wasn't a ninja and how it was false advertising. Naturally, Naruto took exception to this, and then they fought.

And then they wound up friends despite attending different schools.

He proceeded to put the phone on speaker so the girls could hear the conversation.

"It's called lunch retard. But whatever. You hear about the guy downtown talking about you?"

"Yeah." Naruto said with a touch of confusion, "You know about it too?"

"How can anyone not know about it? Everyone has to go through that place to go across town and it's not like the guy's quiet. You should hear some of this stuff. Someone's spoiling for a fight with you."

"Kami, I'm in high school!" Naruto yelled loudly to no one in particular, "If someone's going to talk shit they should at least give me time to get out of class first before they keep saying more!" Naruto growled when he heard Batsu chuckle over the line, "Stop laughing. If it was you, you'd be all grumpy and pissed too."

"A friend of mine is coming with me to check this out afterschool. You're probably going to be there with bells on aren't you?"

"You'll be seeing me there for sure, dattebayo." Naruto said full of intent at this point. He didn't even want to hear anymore about what this guy was saying. Looking at his two friends he punched his palm, "Man I can't wait for school to let out…"

XxX

(Later That Day – Downtown – Aohura City Town Plaza)

"Why are you here?" Naruto said in a disenfranchised voice as he, Sakura, and Kei headed within the park where the plaza was located at the center of. Someone had met up with them on the street just as they crossed the street to get into the park itself.

The reason for Naruto's, and to an even higher extent Sakura's, feelings on the matter was the fact that it was Karin that had found them and met up with them. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, the blonde heiress responded, "Well naturally, you work for me. And if there's some fool out there slighting your good name he's slighting my own as well. I'm just here to make sure you defend both your honor and my own."

"You have honor?" Sakura quipped with a smirk at the jab on her rival.

"More than you copycat." Karin retorted without missing a beat. The copycat jab got a bewildered look from Sakura before she growled at Karin who continued to goad her, "Keep mimicking a real fighter and maybe one of these days someone will believe you actually are one."

As fun as a catfight between the two would be, this was neither the time nor the place for one, "If you two henhouse hens are finished clucking, could you help me look for Batsu so I can go kick some ass?" the two girls continued to glare at each other, but they were silent. Naruto turned towards Kei, "Did these two really go at it that hard last year?"

"You should have been here Naruto." Kei said, remembering that she hadn't really taken Sakura serious as a fighter until she had gone up against Karin in her tournament.

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura heard someone call out to her and broke her glare with Karin to see a girl with a princess-style haircut, colored brown with a white headband on. She had, orange wristbands, a blue school uniform skirt and a blue sleeveless vest with a pink bow on over a white short-sleeved shirt and she was waving at Sakura excitedly, something that Sakura found infectious, "Hinata-chan!"

One more time Naruto felt a stab at the memory portion of his brain due to the name, but once again the name did not fit the person he had originally placed it with.

Wakaba Hinata was nothing like the Hinata from Naruto's time in Konoha in more than just appearance. As one of Sakura's best friends that went to another school, Naruto knew her fairly well. This girl liked fighting and was very energetic. How she was trained, Naruto had no idea and Sakura's explanations were very vague. Naruto was starting to think that too many people knew how to fight for his own good and it was his fault for living there.

Hinata ran over to Sakura and the two squealed and hugged, annoying Karin at the display of affection before Hinata turned around and motioned back to where she had run from, "Come on Batsu! You're so slow! I found Naruto-san, and look! Sakura-chan and Kei-chan are here with him!" She spared a look at Karin and stared for a moment before blinking her big brown eyes, "…I don't know you!" She said brightly, getting Karin to cross her arms and roll her eyes.

From the wall of people that had formed a crowd ahead of them, out walked Batsu with his hands in his light blue school uniform's pockets smirking at Naruto with his short, spiky dark hair and dark eyes, "Well look what the cat dragged in. You finally came 'out of hiding' Naruto?" He said with a chuckle, "You've seriously got to get a load of this guy." He saw Naruto's face and chuckled again, "You're mad now, but you really won't be when you see him, I guarantee it."

He motioned for Naruto to follow him while Sakura, Kei, and Hinata chattered. With no one really she wished to be around out of the girls to talk to, Karin went to follow Naruto and Batsu through the crowd, though doing such irked her to push her way through the commoners.

At the front of the thick wall of people by an ornate fountain, Naruto and Batsu stopped, one smirking and the other just gawking at what they were seeing. Karin was quick to catch up and even she placed a hand by her mouth to laugh a bit when she saw what the other two did.

Being observed by the crowd was a man with long brown hair tied into a ponytail and sideburns, a traditional karate gi and 4 oz. gloves on wearing a black undershirt underneath his gi. The thing about the gi and the gloves was the fact that they were bright pink.

After breaking a stack of bricks to the applause of the crowd, the man began picking up photos of himself from a stack that he had and started quickly signing them and handing them out to everyone at the front of the crowd, "Yes, and now you can see the strength of Saikyou-ryuu (The Strongest Style)! I can see how many of you are interested in learning my self-made devastating art! You love it! I can see it in your eyes! And since you all do, I'll give all of you here a 50% discount at my dojo! Just 3395 yen a month! Apply now and you'll get a free Hibiki Dan imitation gi t-shirt!"

Naruto and Karin's eyes twitched at the man's display and the people applauding him, "He only broke like four bricks." Naruto said in disbelief at how popular the man seemed to be as people seemed to be cheering him on.

"Strongest style…" Karin said to herself, thinking along the same lines as Naruto, "What a gaudy name." She watched him do the same again with overdramatic effect added, "This is not a demonstration, it is just a promotional spot for this degrading fighting style." She turned to Naruto and spoke directly to him, "He just wants to fight you to get his fighting style popular around here."

"See what I mean?" Batsu said, elbowing Naruto in the side, "You aren't even mad anymore are you? I was about to go out and nip this clown in the bud after all of the stuff I'd been hearing from a girl in school about you all day, but I saw this guy and figured you'd want to do it yourself." He then gave Naruto a pat on the back, hard enough to knock him from the crowd, "Go get em teme!"

Naruto stumbled out and turned back to glare slightly at Batsu before shrugging. There wasn't any reason to be mad, he was going to do it soon enough anyway.

The man caught sight of Naruto stumbling out from the crowd and a gleam came to his eye as he walked over to Naruto and threw an arm around his shoulder, "So you're brave enough to approach me yourself to declare yourself my disciple are you? Well never fear! I never turn away a student… as long as their checks clear!" He turned and displayed Naruto to the whole crowd, "And you too can be a powerful and respected fighter the way this young man will after training in my Saikyou-ryuu style! Just wait until Uzumaki Naruto gets here! He'll bow to the combat prowess of my skills firsthand!"

And there was his opening. Naruto smirked and slipped out of the man's grasp, "But I am Uzumaki Naruto." He said, watching the sheer confidence on the man's face turn to confusion and then to skepticism, "Oi… what's with that face?"

"No way you're Uzumaki Naruto." The pink-clad fighter said, pointing at Naruto in an overly accusing manner, "My sweet little cousin Ran told me that Uzumaki Naruto was the number one consensus most dangerous man in Aohura City and the whole Chugoku region! People know that name from here all the way to Chiba! There's no way in hell that the most dangerous in the west half of Japan is a kid."

Ran… Batsu knew that name, "You mean Hibiki Ran? Freshman? Always has a camera with her? Nosy as hell?" He asked the man as he stayed in the crowd with Karin. If it was the same Ran then he went to school with that girl. He could see the resemblance in more than one way because they acted alike too.

"Yes!" The man said before bursting into dramatic tears cascading down his face, "That's my baby cousin! Such a dear girl, she gave me this scoop on Uzumaki Naruto, and even took all of these pictures of me for my soon-to-be dojo's publicity!"

Batsu blocked a laugh with a snort and pointed out at Naruto who was standing, tapping his foot impatiently, "Well I hate to break it to you, but Ran's never seen Naruto before. That's really Uzumaki Naruto. Right there." The crowd, those of which had seen Naruto in the past began speaking up as well about how that was indeed Naruto.

Rolling his eyes at the gobsmacked look on his would-be opponent's face, Naruto began unbuttoning his uniform top, taking it off in favor of the white t-shirt he had on underneath it as he tied the uniform top around his waist, "So I heard you've been looking for me. Who are you anyway?"

That seemed to set the man off, putting a tick mark on his head, "You haven't heard of me? What, have you been living under a rock or something kid? I'm Hibiki Dan! World renowned fighter extraordinaire!"

"Who?" Naruto said, squinting his eyes at Dan and scratching his head.

Dan stomped his bare foot on the ground repeatedly in something of a little tantrum, "How don't you know who I am? I just beat Sagat last year! You can't tell me you didn't hear about that!"

Naruto, Karin, and Batsu all face faulted on the ground before standing up and shouting at the same time, "You beat Sagat?"

The last man perceived as the very best fighter in the world, Sagat was called "The God of Muay Thai" and went unbeaten for over twenty years since winning his title as a teenager. He lost in the final battle of the World Warrior tournament to Ryu, but that was Ryu… and Naruto had seen him fight. Both of them. Sagat was a monster of a man and the most talented hand-to-hand fighter he had ever seen. Ryu somehow beat him and Naruto didn't even want to feel like he was taking this Dan guy seriously.

"That is absurd!" Karin exclaimed in complete disbelief, shaking her head and her blonde, curly locks around only for everyone in the crowd besides them to nod, "Really? This man defeated Sagat? The Sagat?"

Batsu had his phone out and was checking on the internet at that very moment before his beady black eyes went wide, "Uh… I'm checking the site where they track fighters and their recorded streetfighting wins and losses… and it's true. This guy has a win recorded over Sagat." He held up his phone to actually show the list of recorded fights Dan had. Honestly if one were to overlook the win he had over Sagat it would be kind of pathetic. It was the only name win that he really had, "…And this site is noted for being the most factual out of them all, no rumor-centered stories, only hard evidence."

"And now I'm travelling around showing the world how great my technique is!" Dan asserted proudly pointing to himself with his thumb, "The technique that was good enough to get me a victory over the God of Muay Thai! And you're next Uzumaki. A legend like myself can't overlook the up-and-comers either."

"Yeah dude…" Batsu interjected again in order to address Naruto, tapping away on his phone to do a bit more research, "You're ranked. In Japan you're ranked as the number 74 best fighter of the country out of top 100."

That utterly confused Naruto, "Wait, I'm ranked? I don't prizefight. I'm a street fighter at best."

A shrug came from Batsu, "What do you want me to say? You're ranked. They even have your recorded win-losses against other people in here. Apparently more than a few people that you beat up had some kind of notoriety somewhere. They even have your wins over this girl right here, me, Sakura, and others from around here. You've fought almost everyone worth a damn in Aohura City by now for one reason or another."

"How in the hell did they get any of those things?" Naruto shouted, feeling that his privacy had been quite invaded. He never told anyone that he had beaten anyone other than those that were his friends, and that was only whenever the topic came up.

"Everybody's got a phone with a video camera, a regular camera, or at least internet access these days dumbass." Batsu said, having no patience for the fact that Naruto was a technological invalid for the most part, "It's not that much of a stretch that not only someone knows you beat somebody, but four out of five times if you did it in public there's probably a video of it somewhere. Have you ever Googled you? Maybe we should try it later."

Karin tapped her chin in thought over the ranking after first disputing with herself why herself or Sakura hadn't been in the top 100 despite winning her own share of street fights and getting to the finals of her tournament last year, "That actually does make sense though. You do go everywhere in Japan." And with Naruto's luck he probably beat up more than his share of people as well even when he didn't have jobs that involved it. Naruto's luck usually revolved around violence of some sort.

But no matter who this person had beaten, he had still called Naruto out, and Naruto was ready and raring to go, bouncing on his toes to limber up and prepare. Dan likewise set himself into a fighting stance that looked like Ryu's only looser, "I hope you're ready for a beating kid!"

"*chuckle* You're gonna need an extra six-pack of courage to step up to me, dattebayo!" Naruto said in reply as he set himself into a fighting stance to prepare for Dan, "You called me out, so you can tell me when to start."

"Fight!" Dan said before running right at Naruto, screeching with an obnoxious battle cry.

It threw Naruto off guard for a moment before he realized that they never made rules… which obviously meant that there were no rules. Around Naruto's left wrist was a small sleeve-like band that held shuriken on the wide sides of his wrist. It was usually concealed by his jacket, but not today. He quickly grabbed a shuriken from the pouch in it and threw it right at Dan, expecting him to dodge it and preparing to go with however Dan moved to evade.

Dan did not evade.

The shuriken hit Dan right in the upper right chest and stopped his attack run right in his tracks as he grabbed at the metal throwing star and started instantly whining, "Gah! Did you just throw a ninja star at me! Ow! Who does that?"

"A ninja." Both Karin and Batsu deadpanned.

Dan poked at the shuriken several times, flinching in pain and choosing not to pull it out himself before looking back over at Naruto, "Hey! Who told you that you could use weapons?"

Naruto looked around vacantly before shrugging, "Who told me that I couldn't use weapons? Now stop whining and fight me already!"

"That's it kid!" Dan said, flexing and trying to be threatening to Naruto and failing miserably, "You're asking for the thunder? Well Dan is bringing it right to you! Dankukyaku (Severing Air Leg)!" Dan rushed at Naruto and jumped at him, delivering a knee strike that was blocked, followed by a long kick with the opposite leg that was also stopped and a final kick that sent Naruto stumbling back despite the fact that it registered no injury on Naruto's person due to the guard of the young blonde. After Dan landed he turned and posed to the crowd, "Yeah! Feel the power! How'd you like that ki-?"

He turned around to face Naruto again only to get socked right in the face hard enough to spin back towards the fountain like a top, being stopped by the stone rim of said fountain keeping him from falling into the water.

Dan cracked his jaw and spit some blood out of his mouth, "Hey! I had my back turned!"

Naruto stomped his foot tantrum style, "I don't care! You beat Sagat didn't you? Take me seriously and fight me like you fought him or I'm going to kick your teeth down your throat! Don't underestimate me! I might be a kid, but that doesn't mean anything!"

Standing back up off of the fountain, Dan narrowed his eyes at Naruto and started channeling visible ki to his right hand, "Alright junior. You asked for it and you're right. If I don't go all out how else will anyone know that my style is the best? It works two ways for me to fight you properly, so you win. You get the Hibiki Dan signature move! Get ready to feel it kid! Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!"

Dan threw his attack at Naruto with one hand and it looked just like a perfect Hadoken, unlike Sakura's which had more marked differences from the real deal. It actually alarmed Naruto and how good it looked.

…For the five feet that it flew before dissipating.

Karin probably would have laughed if it hadn't been so pathetic, "…Performance anxiety I presume." She commented to Batsu who could only nod dumbly.

Naruto just stood and stared before turning towards his two friends at the front of the crowd, noticing that the person he was looking for was not amongst the pair, "Oi! Sakura-chan! Are you watching this at all?" He yelled, trying to get the girl's attention wherever she was in the crowd.

"I can't see Naruto! Nobody's moving! What's happening?"

A grin came to Naruto's face as he cupped his hands over his mouth to project his shout better, "You don't have the worst Hadoken I've ever seen before anymore!" Dan animatedly fell to the ground upon that declaration from Naruto.

Hearing Naruto start to laugh at him and his fighting skills, Dan got angry and pointed at Naruto, "At least I have my own attacks! What can you do except crawl around and hide like a roach under the fridge? Tell me what you can do."

Naruto stopped laughing, a chuckle coming out every now and then as he responded, "Well I can't do a Hadoken either, so I guess picking on you isn't fair. But I can do this though." He formed the ram hand-seal and then formed three more, stopping on the dragon seal and inhaling sharply before exhaling and spitting, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

From Naruto's mouth flew a blue wispy ball of blue energy that managed to fly straight towards Dan who was smart enough to jump away and dodge it, showing that he was actually well conditioned from the height of his jump. The attack from Naruto flew and exploded off of the head of the human figure at the center of the fountain, knocking the head of the statue clean off

"Whoops." Naruto said, looking mortified at the public property damage of his jutsu, "My bad, I'll fix that later for fr-." Before he could finish, Dan fell from the sky and landed with a punch that snapped Naruto's head to the side and sent him stumbling, the crowd gasping at the clear impact of the landed strike.

"Hah! How do you like that?" Dan verbally taunted before slightly backing off and cocking his arm back with a hand full of ki, "Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!" This time he was well within the range of the attack and the ball of energy slammed clean off of Naruto's open torso, sending him flying back through the crowd of people that he bumped into with force, "Yeah! Looks like another victory for Hibiki Dan!" He posed to the crowd before he felt movement from Naruto, "Come on, that was full force. Who pops right back up from that?"

Naruto coughed and thumped his chest with his fist before getting back up from the ground, "That was it?" He asked, looking over himself and not even seeing any damage done to his clothes, "Sakura-chan's Hadoken at least burns me a little bit when it hits. That was like a punch with ki. It didn't even hurt any worse."

The crowd scattered away to get a better view once Dan ran towards Naruto and the two began to exchange actual strikes. Starting with a stiff straight punch, Dan missed Naruto who retaliated with a side kick to the body to knock him off balance. Naruto went to make his hand-seal for some Kage Bunshin help, but Dan didn't let him begin a special technique, punching Naruto in the face and breaking his focus.

Trying to form clones several more times didn't bear any fruit, except for when Naruto used the Kage Bunshin hand-seal to block a kick from Dan, 'So maybe he doesn't suck.' Naruto switched from trying to use a jutsu to simply fighting hand-to-hand again before he screwed around and got his teeth knocked out by this guy. Slipping away from a side kick, Naruto grabbed the kick with one hand and pulled himself towards Dan to strike him hard in the face with a backfist that had momentum behind it.

Blood flew from Dan's nose and he huffed out of it to clear his sinuses of the red, spraying it all over, including on his and Naruto's clothes and face. Naruto jumped back from the exchange and wiped Dan's blood from his own face in a bit of disgust before finally making the cross hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!"

Dan's jaw dropped when twenty Narutos stood between him and the original and rushed him. He soon recovered though and began taking them in the order that they reached him, blocking their strikes and forcing them to come to him, refusing to let himself get surrounded by the group as he cut into their numbers. A punch to one's stomach and a kick to one's head that dispelled two clones and Dan jumped right out of the soon to ensue pileup before he was stuck.

Three clones jumped into the air after Dan only to be met with a Gadoken that hit one clone and knocked it into the other two, dispelling all three. The crowd began to cheer as Dan landed and started fighting off Naruto's clones again until they all dispelled en masse, creating a large smokescreen.

"Rah!" Naruto dove right through the smoke and delivered a skull-shaking shot to Dan's face that shook him and forced him to recoil right down to his foundations. His knees shook and nearly buckled Naruto struck him so hard. In Naruto's other hand he formed a Rasengan to put the fight to bed right then and there, Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

"Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!"

The two attacks met and exploded in a blast, knocking both combatants away from each other. Naruto flew into the fountain and slammed off of the statue, landing in the water face down, submerging and then resurfacing, staying there momentarily before pulling his head up and gagging on the water. Dan, despite being thrown away much harder, had an easier landing with a crowd of slow-moving spectators to break his fall. Naruto popped up, pissed off that he was thoroughly soaked and ran a hand through his wet hair, "Okay. I'm definitely awake now. Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

Dan jumped out of the way of the attack and the crowd scattered and hit the deck, finally giving Sakura and the other girls a chance to see the fight clearly with Karin and Batsu.

"Come on Naruto!" Batsu yelled at Naruto as he saw his friend jump out of the fountain to attack Dan again up close, "Stop screwing around and knock this motherfucker out!" The wild haired boy was fidgeting impatiently, "He fought me harder than this. Why's he just dicking around here?"

Sakura wondered the same thing as well until she saw people getting closer to the fight once again to watch Naruto and Dan go back and forth, missing their strikes, "That's it." She said as if she found out a realization, "There are too many people around here."

"What does that have to do with anything Sakura-chan?" Hinata asked curiously, "Naruto doesn't seem like a shy guy that plays things close to the vest like that." From a few past meetings where Naruto would routinely use his abilities for even the most rudimentary things like getting up to get himself a drink it was clear that discretion was not the better part of valor for Naruto.

Kei had to nod in agreement, "Naruto's a total showoff kind of person. He loves stuff like this; fights in public where people can see him. He'd almost be as obnoxious about his fighting as this Dan guy is if it weren't for the fact that Naruto can totally back it up."

Naruto stuck to walls regularly, walked upside down on ceilings in the hallway at school just because he was bored, and he tried to skip school before by leaving a clone in his seat. He would have gotten away with the last one too if his clone hadn't been just like him in every way, attention span included, and fell asleep in class. When the teacher smacked him with her ruler 'Naruto' vanished in a puff of smoke.

"No it's not that." Sakura disputed, pointing out how much closer people were moving still, "Look." They just wanted to get a better view, but it was messing with Naruto whenever he tried to back off to begin a jutsu or thought of using weapons, "It doesn't bother Dan because when he throws his Gadoken, it's never going to go out of control. Naruto's spitfire and all of his bigger attacks are dangerous."

Frowning at the thought of Naruto holding back so that he didn't hurt anyone, Karin spoke up, "Uzumaki is a total bleeding heart. If someone gets in his way, they should have just been faster. It's their own faults for standing too close to a fight if he hurts someone."

"You know Naruto's not like that." Sakura said, narrowing her eyes at Karin, "If these people don't get out of his way he's not going to use his big moves." She looked back at the battle with Naruto trying to knock Dan around, but every time he was about to deliver a punishing blow or wished to smash him into sweet unconsciousness, his setups would steer Dan back enough to get him close to the people. The circle seemed to be getting tighter and tighter.

"He has 'big' moves?" Karin asked with a raised eyebrow and an interested look. And he wouldn't use said big attacks as long as there were people around? Well she was curious, and Naruto's propensity to think of others was not going to keep her from sating it. That could be remedied very quickly. Karin cleared her throat and held up her wallet from her schoolbag, "Everyone that stands back away from the fight and gives them a properly wide berth of at least forty feet all around, I will pay them 5000 yen each!"

Eyes panned away from the fight and even Naruto (and the three clones he had helping him) as well as Dan stopped to look at Karin in shock. Skepticism appeared on many people's faces until she rolled her eyes and reached into her wallet to pull out a large wad of banknotes.

Hinata blinked at the sight of everyone stepping back like obedient dogs and looked at Karin who had a pleased and victorious look on her face, "Wow… you do know that this is like at least seventy people, right? That's 350,000 yen."

Karin looked at the amount of money she still had in her hand and looked into her wallet before frowning, "Shibazaki, could you go to the bank for me and withdraw enough money for upwards of seventy people?" Almost seeming to appear out of thin air, Shibazaki appeared, scaring the hell out of the other four spectator friends of Naruto. He bowed and took her bank card before making off to head to the nearest place to withdraw from, "There we go." She said in a pleased voice, "Now you'd better stop holding back Uzumaki-san. I won't hire weak people to represent me." She said in something of a sing-song voice.

"Fine." Naruto said with a grin, "I've got space to cut loose now. No holding back! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique)!"

The large space between the crowd was filled by nothing but copies of Naruto, completely surrounding Dan on all sides, "W-What the hell is this? It's mirrors! It has to be mirrors! People can't do this kind of thing!"

"Man it's been a while since I tried to use a lot of clones like this at once." Naruto said as all of his clones seemed to be smirking, cracking their knuckles, and looking at Dan with squinted eyes, "Let's see your 'Strongest Style' block this!"

The clones started to rush Dan and grab a hold of him. He managed to take out several, but compared to the dozens in the plaza it was no good and eventually his arms and legs were bound by the Kage Bunshin. They then threw him into the air and like a swarm of bugs taking off from an apple the others started launching into the air after Dan who was flipping head over heels. The first clones to reach him kicked him down to the others that punched him higher back into the air, letting other clones boost up off of their shoulders when they were dropping to the ground to get a higher jump over Dan where they kicked him down again, and this just went on and on and on until it was clear he could no longer continue.

Naruto dispelled his clones and let the quite thoroughly beaten up Dan fall to the ground, unconscious and covered in bumps and bruises to say the very least, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo). Remember, I'm Uzumaki Naruto… and to you and everyone else, the greatest ninja alive." Naruto said with a smile before turning to the crowd with a displeased look on his face, "The next time you see people winging balls of concussive ki or chakra around, get the fuck away from them you idiots!"

A Hadoken that could sustain itself at a distance would have been tagging fools left and right if Dan's could have lasted longer than five feet. And those idiots just kept moving closer and closer despite the fact that over a dozen people had been injured during the fight. So he felt that he was in the right when profanely shrieking angrily at them, shooing them all away from the scene to get away from the crazy blonde teenager.

After properly scolding the present populace to his heart's content, Naruto put his grin back on and turned to Karin, "Thanks for the open space by the way. His special moves really sucked, but his basics were pretty solid." Training with Sakura cleaned up his hand-to-hand fighting in close with no maneuverability, but he'd always be partial to the hit and run moves that comprised his main strategy.

Still stunned as she had never seen the full scope of Naruto's Kage Bunshin creation capabilities, Karin had to take a moment to snap out of it and put her normal façade back on, "O-Oh. Do not mention it Uzumaki-san." As they spoke and she got her swagger back, Shibazaki was in the background paying everyone, "You had to save your job after all. Good work by the way." She walked out and poked at Dan with her foot, getting a groan from him, "This person defeated Sagat? I do not believe it."

Naruto gave her a deadpan look as the others walked out to join them, "I don't know if I should take that as you calling me weak or what." He then found himself in a headlock from Batsu, "Hey! Get off of me jackass!"

"Heh…" Batsu said, sneering at Naruto while giving his friend a noogie, "You see what happens when you hold back? You make a fight harder than it should be. You should have been winging shuriken and using spitfires until you ran out of weapons and energy."

"There. Were. People!" Naruto said, lifting Batsu off of the ground and throwing him off of his shoulders. Naruto clicked his teeth in annoyance when Batsu just rolled through it and landed on his feet, "I don't want to kill anybody." He spared a look down at the Dan, "Even this guy. My bigger moves… that one was the nicest one. They get worse."

Sakura's eyes went wide, "Your attacks get stronger? But that combination had to have been more than a thousand hits. That was amazing." He said he hadn't made that many clones at once in years, and he had never even thought to go that far to fight against her. She didn't know how to feel. Happy that he cared enough to make sure she stayed alright, or upset because he didn't ever find enough of a reason to fight like that against her.

"That wasn't even close to my worst Sakura-chan." Naruto said with a pronounced grimace, "The last time I actually went all out…" The last time he had been forced to go all out it had been a fight that was more or less to the death that had dumped him in this world, away from his home, "…Well, I just… nevermind."

"Well…" Hinata started before laughing spiritedly, "That was awesome! You punched and kicked that guy so many times I lost count! He's out cold!" The petite girl's bright mood broke Naruto's funk just like that.

Naruto smiled before his brain seemed to take a moment to buffer and he spoke half-robotically, answering her question, "I hit him 817 times." He then noticed the others looking at him in shock, "What?"

"I didn't even know you could count that high." Batsu jibed, getting a small giggle out of Kei before the older boy took an elbow to the belly from Hinata for being mean to the victor of the day.

Karin had a blonde eyebrow arched in interest at learning more and more about Naruto and his strange abilities while Sakura just came out with it and asked the question that was eating at her and her rival, "Naruto how do you know that? Nobody was counting those."

"One or two of my clones counted. I think they got between 830 and 750. 817 sounds good though, right?"

"They didn't say anything to you before they dispelled."

"Yeah, I know." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as they all began to leave the plaza, "It's weird. When my clones go away I think I get their experiences back, like a flash of déjà vu. It's creepy if it's something that I wasn't there for… like when Kaede-sensei hit my clone in class."

They all kept talking amongst themselves while Dan lay there on the ground, finally waking back up and groaning in pain, twitching every now and again, "Ugh…I… gurk. I'm still the man… I'm still the man. I'm… blacking out again." He said before going limp, "…3395 a month… free gi replica shirt…"

XxX

(Later That Afternoon)

After the trouble in the plaza downtown, the lot of kids went to a small burger place to get something to eat (Karin had sent Ishizaki to go get her something more suitable to her refined palate.). There, Naruto had gotten a good eyeful of this website that ranked fighters around the world; .

Looking at Kei's laptop with a dropped jaw, Naruto sat between Karin and Batsu while Sakura, Kei, and Hinata sat on the other side of the booth. He didn't know quite how to feel about what he was seeing, "I'm famous?" He was well-known to an extent, the way he had always wanted to be when he was younger and still did pretty much. The funny thing was that it didn't seem like it at all, but if people were calling him out that had to count for something, "I don't feel famous."

"You are not famous moron." Karin said, bursting his bubble before either his head started to swell or he zoned out to daydream about his 'fame' at the table. She took a bite of her fancy looking food brought to her by her butler, "You are well-known in certain circles, but you are not famous. No one outside of this town that does not actively train knows who you are, and even if you went to the mainland I doubt that five people would know your name."

"His name's kind of cool and sticks with you though." Kei lamely added, getting a shake of the head from Karin, "Hey Naruto are you done yet? You've seen your little profile already."

Naruto waved her off as he was barely listening at that point though, instead checking to see how complete this whole thing happened to be as he read his results aloud, "…212 recorded one-on-one fights, no proven losses." He then frowned, "No notable victories."

Batsu barked out a laugh at hearing that and dodged a french fry thrown at his head from Naruto, "So basically, they're saying that your record is padded. You have a lot of fights against nobodies, but you've never been seen losing so they had to give you some kind of credit. Look."

He pointed out Naruto's list of past opponents and the vast majority of them didn't have a name, just being noted as 'random opponent 1' all the way to the end of the number of Naruto's mot recent fight against an unnamed opponent. There were well over 150 of these. Batsu then held back a snicker as Naruto scrolled lower and read the comments left on his profile page by site contributors in chronological order from the latest one written.

-How many stupid fuckers voted Uzumaki Naruto high consistently enough to get him in the top 100 in Japan? He's never even fought a tournament match.

-#74 my ass. He should stop kicking around nobodies if he actually wants someone to rank him for real.

-Uzumaki is just a violent delinquent kid with ki abilities. He's more of a sociopath than a fighter to look out for. If he stepped up and fought someone with some name notoriety then maybe he'd deserve it, but 200+ fights against nameless tomato cans isn't helping his case. He might as well beat up a punching bag on camera for all most of his wins are worth.

-I'd love to see any of you win 200 fights straight against 'nameless tomato cans'. I'd love to see any of you win a single fight period. There's a reason you're all here posting on this website talking about guys like him instead of having us talk about you. I think Uzumaki could take some of the top 20 if he ever had the shot. He is like 15 after all. Just how well traveled do you expect him to be?

-Exactly. He's greener than a blade of fucking grass. If he wanted to be a real fighter he should have just forgone high school to train. He's wasting his own time and effort now with school if he's trying to do both at once. It's just stupid.

-How is he green? He's been on the radar for three years. Eventually he had to break through to the top 100. All fighters under the rank of 20 are pretty much future prospects, washed up old contenders, and journeymen. I'd say Uzumaki's a prospect.

-The second he takes on a real fighter he'll get slaughtered. I heard Hibiki Dan was looking for him. I can't wait until the results from that surface up. Being unbeaten is all he has. The first time he loses there's no reason to keep him in the top 100. Boot his bogus ninja-wannabe ass out!

Naruto shut Kei's laptop much to Batsu's chagrin as he was still reading the comments. They were the best part of the page in his opinion, "Aw, come on. Some of those were kind of funny. At least let me read the archives from last month." He turned to the others and the table when Naruto handed Kei's laptop back to her, "Some people have enough time to argue over some guy they'll never meet in person I guess."

Sakura noticed that Naruto was uncharacteristically silent and reached out a hand to grab his forearm and get his attention, "Naruto are you alright? What are you thinking?"

He looked at his brown-haired best friend and audibly clicked his teeth irritably before answering, "I was just thinking that I could probably find all of these people and kick their asses for talking shit about me."

"That's pretty much what the internet is for Naruto…" Kei said, placing her laptop back into her back for safekeeping, "…Slandering others anonymously. Finding these people and beating them up isn't going to change that. It would probably make it worse."

"I can just imagine the reaction comments now." The thought of Naruto beating up some web contributors and then reading what they'd post about him next thoroughly amused Hinata. And then thinking of his possible reaction to that had her giggling in fits, "You'd be better off just not going back to that site again. It'll only make you madder."

"At least he's ranked…" Batsu added, even though he didn't mention the fact that he himself was ranked #99 in Japan. He was rather proud of that fact and he wasn't stupid enough to read the comments on him like Naruto.

Sakura then gave Naruto a soothing smile to try and make him feel better, "You don't really even care about being ranked or not at all anyway. Being the best isn't why you fight right? You told me you do it to protect the people you care about."

"From what?" Karin interjected, holding her cheek in her hand in a bored manner as she looked at Sakura, "What exactly is there to protect any of you from? There is no real crime in Aohura City. Yakuza don't stray seriously over here, and no one is stupid enough to try and attack me. So there's no danger."

"…You obviously don't hang out around Aohura City enough then…" Hinata remarked as she took a sip of her drink, thinking back to just how much trouble she got into with Batsu not too long ago. His hiring of Naruto to help them actually got him acquainted a bit better with her. Naruto actually travelled around so there was no telling what he could eventually or had already stepped into at some point.

Danger never exactly occurred in Karin's presence, but that didn't mean it didn't happen at all, "Why do you hire me for bodyguard work all the time then?" Naruto asked the well-to-do heiress, "You must really like my company then. But that's impossible, because you kind of hate me don't you?"

Karin's cheeks turned red, but one couldn't see it due to one being in her hand and the other facing away from anyone in the booth's sight. It was a good thing, or else the others might have gotten the wrong idea, "I do not hate you per se Uzumaki-san. I just dislike you with great intensity. Hate is a word I would reserve for Sakura-san here." In return Sakura stuck her tongue out at her, getting Karin to smirk haughtily right back at her, "It is better to be safe than sorry in any case. This is why I ask you to accompany me to so many places."

That, and it rightly ticked off Sakura when she requested Naruto's presence for work when she knew that they were either in school, on the way to school, or on the way home. It was something of an art form in her mind to call him at just the right time, so that Naruto wouldn't be upset but Sakura would be. Almost like she could feel Sakura's ire for her bothering them through the phone like she was there in person.

"No, you do not do your job just to protect others." Karin ventured to guess, getting a good look at Naruto as if she was trying to see something underneath the surface, "If you did then you would probably be some goofy vigilante super-hero type. You seem like that kind of person." She then remembered the way Naruto's eyes lit up when she told him that he was fighting her for 1.5 million yen, "I would say that you do it for the money. But judging by the way you live it is not for yourself. However you do not have any family living with you, or any that anyone knows of. Shibazaki started checking into your background when we first started corresponding and he found no record of you until three years ago. So what do you need money for?"

"Naruto lives by all by himself with no support and pays his own way through school." Sakura interjected in Naruto's defense, "He works all the time around town and even further out than that trying to make money to keep himself going. Sometimes he doesn't even ask people to pay him if they really need his help or if they can barely afford him." Her friend was a good person. There wasn't anything greedy about Naruto except when he had a smidge of ramen within his grasp. Then he was a glutton, "If he ever gets hurt in a fight and can't do his jobs anymore then he'd fall into the red. That's probably why he works so hard."

Karin ignored her though, keeping her full attention to Naruto as she stared right into his emotive blue eyes. She'd find an answer there. Naruto's eyes gave him away more often than not no matter what the issue at hand was. And he seemed to be just daring her to truly look for what he was thinking, "So tell me what it is that you truly want." She said to him intently, "Whatever it is, I can more than likely get it for you… if I feel like it."

'I want to find a way home.'

He wanted to say that out loud, but he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from whispering it out. No one here could help him with that. And no one there would believe him either or understand in the slightest.

"Yah… what's with the heavy atmosphere?" Batsu said, brazenly stealing Naruto's fries and breaking the stand-off stare between the two blondes at the table, "I don't know if you two are going to fight or kiss." Drawing his attention away from Karin, Naruto took his fries back from Batsu and held them out of his reach when he tried to scramble for them. It would have ended in a scuffle more than likely if every girl on the other side of the booth didn't proceed to kick them hard in their shins to stop them from being stupid, "Alright! Damn… but seriously. Are you going to do anything about that crap people are talking about you? The only thing you can do to fix it is look for tough fighters and beat them."

"I don't want to look for tough fighters and beat them." Naruto replied, chewing on fries once he figured it was safe to do so, "That isn't going to get me any money and I don't care about my ranking… even if a bunch of nerds like to talk smack on a message board." He didn't use the internet anyway unless he needed to… and he never really needed to unless he and Sakura had a project for school… as a matter of fact even then she was the one that always did the research when they worked together.

"Still going ahead with that excuse about the money is it?" With a smirk on her lovely features, Karin's predatory tone got everyone's attention and suspicion, "Okay. How about this then? You are interesting. So I will fund whatever your endeavor just so happens to be for which you need so much money. Just so long as you do something for me."

Naruto stared at her suspiciously before sighing in resignation, "I think I know what you want… and I guess it's okay." Karin had a victorious look on her face at this point until he spoke again, "As long as you're paying I guess I can take you with me." Karin's elbow slipped off of the table in surprise and her chin crashed onto the hard surface out of surprise, "That's what you wanted right?"

"No!" Karin exclaimed, rubbing her chin as she started pointing, poking Naruto right in the chest repeatedly, "I want you to actually make an attempt to advance in the rankings. I want you to make an attempt at becoming world-class, not just known throughout the country, but the entire world. That is what I want from you! Because if you are seen as one of the best in the world… then what would that make me when I beat you?"

Well now Sakura definitely smelled a rat, and she didn't like it, "So let me get this straight. You want Naruto to go around and actually try to get higher up the ladder? And you'll pay him for it? Just because you want to fight him and beat him? Why don't you just keep training to try and beat him now? Or travel around to win your own fights?"

Batsu had to agree, he liked the idea himself if he thought that he could really stack up when it came to high-profile conflicts like that. But he would rather stay in Aohura City with his mother than do such a thing even if he was able to, "Why would you give him money for this?"

"Because if I lost our fight, I want to know that I lost to the very best there is." Karin then flipped her curly hair back over her shoulder and stood proudly, "And when I eventually do beat him after he becomes elite I will give him anything he wants." Karin calmly confirmed in return, "Anything at all. Because by then I will have improved enough to defeat him in return, and prove that much like the Kanzuki family in all other things I am world-class myself. And I cannot put a price on that."

Batsu just stared her down like she was insane, "…You are one rich, bored little brat. You know that right?" He asked, not getting any retort from Karin who simply didn't care about his opinion one way or the other. Hey, she had just met him that very day, "You're going to pay him for this?"

The reasoning was eventually broken down by Kei who had sat in abject silence to soak it all in, "So you want Naruto to go around fighting and winning against good fighters until he becomes known as good himself just so that you can fight him later and beat him… and take his spot or a high spot around him." Karin nodded, seemingly having no shame in admitting such, "How high do you want him to go exactly?"

"Until he reaches the world rankings I will not freely fund him, being ranked high in Japan means absolutely nothing to me. I will simply give him what he needs to get around and challenge other fighters wherever he desires to travel, and only if I know who he is seeking beforehand. I will not have my generosity taken advantage of." Having Naruto raise his own stock before just challenging him after he did so was the simplest way imaginable to get herself a notable win.

Hinata blinked her big brown eyes and then took a sip from her drink that was nearing the bottom, "Why Naruto and not Sakura-chan then? Isn't she your actual rival? You two really don't seem to like each other so wouldn't you want to beat her instead and get something out of it that way?"

A scoff came from Karin, "I can beat her anytime I wish, and she is not interested in fighting for anything other than to get the recognition of Ryu. She will never be relevant enough for me to get much notoriety from defeating her, even if I sponsored another entire tournament."

"I feel like you just insulted me seven different ways just now." Sakura deadpanned. She wondered how Karin would like another super-charged Hadoken to snack on instead of her fancy food.

"That is because I did."

"…I don't have a response to that Kanzuki-san, but when I do…"

"I'm in." Naruto interrupted before the two could actually get into it. Eventually he wasn't going to be around to stop it and those two were going to beat the hell out of each other… and probably tear up a good chunk of property in the process. But that was neither here nor there, "I'll do it. How much will you give me for each fight?" Paid travel was a great start in his venture to search around for what he was looking for. And a little fight every now and again never hurt anyone.

Making a 'hmm' noise as if she were actually thinking, Karin tapped her chin before giving Naruto a sugary sweet smile, "It depends on how impressive your performances are. I would never short-change you, I assure you of that."

Naruto apparently didn't even realize what he had gotten himself into, but Sakura could and hoped that Naruto was prepared for some serious repercussions, "You just made a deal with the devil Naruto, I hope you realize that." Such a disarming smile from her blonde rival as Naruto shook her hand, "You should have just signed your soul over to the Shinigami. It probably would have just cut out the middleman."

Omake: Sakura's First Hadoken

(Two Years Prior to Current Storyline – Early Evening – Aohura City – Sakura's Backyard)

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" 13 year old Sakura's hands shot out with one vertical palm touching the other one that was placed upside down, although from her hands erupted no concentrated blast of ki despite her putting her all into the movement, "Haah…" Sakura moaned as she slid to the ground onto her knees and put her face into her red combat gloved hands, "Why? I know I can do this. So why is this so impossible?"

"Yo Sakura-chan." Naruto said, popping out from the leaves of a nearby tree in her yard upside down, scaring the life out of Sakura. Unlike Sakura who still wore her school uniform afterschool, Naruto rushed home and changed out of that stuff as quickly as he could into a green t-shirt and a pair of olive cargo shorts with white shoes, "Want to play some video games?"

"I'm not really in the mood right now Naruto… sorry." Sakura said miserably, shifting to sitting on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest. She felt him land on the ground and walk up to her, getting her to look up at his rather concerned face, "I think Tsukushi's inside if you want to play him. He's better than me and he wants a rematch with you anyway." She said, trying to convince him to let her be for the time being.

Not that it worked though, as Naruto stooped down to her level to get a face-to-face view with her, "What's the matter? You were fine at school and when I left you to go home, so tell me what's up." He then grinned wryly, mostly to himself, "Seriously. Who am I gonna tell if it's something bad?" Well it wasn't anything that was really embarrassing, but it was still something she didn't like admitting, so she mumbled it out under her breath, "Huh? I didn't hear you Sakura-chan. Speak up."

"I can't use ki!" She shouted with a slightly red face at admitting such. An alarmed Naruto fell right onto his backside before getting himself back together and sitting cross-legged in front of her, "There. I said it. I've been trying to use it for years, but I just don't know what I'm looking for. No dojo in Aohura City actually knows how to do it because they can't and I guess I really can't either."

That was it? Naruto smiled at her and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder, "Well of course you can use ki Sakura-chan! If I can use chakra, you can use ki by now. It's the same process to feel it and you've been working out and training your focus ever since I've known you."

"But… but I've never done it. I can't feel it."

"Well… do you even know what it feels like?"

Sakura blinked upon realizing that she had never felt ki before. But wait a minute… there was something wrong with that, "Wait. Doesn't ki come from inside of me? My own energy right? So how could I know what it felt like?"

Naruto held out his hands for her to take, much to her confusion until he explained, "My sensei did this for me when I was a kid to show me what chakra felt like. Now come on. Give me your hands."

"You still are a kid." Sakura remarked, looking at Naruto's hands in a suspect manner. But then again, what was there to be suspect about? Naruto used ki, or chakra since that was what he called it and wouldn't ever be swayed to call it what everyone else did (Americans were weird), and it was obvious that he knew what he was doing with it. At least he knew more about it than she did if nothing else, "Okay…" She said tentatively, placing her hands on Naruto's and letting him grab a hold of them.

Upon grabbing Sakura's hands, both kids closed their eyes. Naruto began breathing slowly and focusing his chakra through his body. Sakura was also trying to focus, thus she felt Naruto's chakra flow off of him and into her to feel. A quiet gasp left her lips as she was overwhelmed by the feeling, "That's ki? But it's so strong! There's no way I've ever felt that before!"

A sheepish Naruto laughed nervously. He forgot that he was supposed to have more energy than almost any living being, "Ah, that's my fault. Sorry. I wasn't really trying to control it." Intentionally ebbing his chakra to lessen the intensity, Naruto fixed that problem, "There. How about now?"

It was like comparing a raging river to a gentle stream for Sakura when Naruto cut back on his chakra output, "It feels comfortable." She said with a smile, "It's really warm. It feels like a coat or something." She was then abruptly cut off from the feeling, getting her to snap her eyes open, "Hey, why'd you stop?"

"So you can try it now." Naruto said in reply, "If you don't get it or forget what you're supposed to be looking for, I'll still hold on to help you out okay?"

Sakura nodded and closed her eyes again with determination, looking for that feeling inside of herself that she had just felt from Naruto. It took a while, but eventually she found it centered around her heart and felt her body flush with the rich inner energy, "I did it." She said, laughing to herself a bit, "I feel it! Did I do it right? Is this it?"

Understanding her delight at accessing her own power, Naruto couldn't help but laugh right along with her as he could feel the ki going through her, "Yeah! You did it Sakura-chan! That's it!" The two just kept laughing, Sakura in pure excitement of finding her ki and Naruto because he was just as happy as she was over the matter.

"Well what do we have here? What are you two doing?"

Both Naruto and Sakura stopped laughing only to find Sakura's mother leaning against the open backdoor frame of the house. She had long brown hair and a kitchen apron on over her normal clothes along with a sly smile on her face, "You two look mighty comfortable with each other. Sakura honey, I didn't know that you and Naruto were that close. Then again, he is the only boy that ever comes around here so it makes sense."

Wondering what Sakura's mother was talking about, both Naruto and Sakura looked at each other before looking down at their hands that were still joined. An self-conscious blush sprang to the cheeks of both children before they hastily separated hands, "Mom, Naruto was just showing me how to feel ki!" Sakura hastily defended.

"Is that what kids are calling it today? I just call it holding hands." Sakura's mother teased, getting a good laugh out of the embarrassed look on her daughter's face and the mortified one on Naruto's, "Well if that's the case then go ahead and show each other all the ki you want." She turned around, shaking her head and planning to leave with one last remark, "I wonder if Naruto's birthmarks are hereditary…"

"Mom!" Sakura cried out loudly, trying to vigorously get her attention before she shut the door and left it at that. There was no way she was going to get teased over her choice of best friend after such a breakthrough, "Naruto really showed me how to feel ki! Seriously, just watch! Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Sakura hastily fired a blast while in the form needed to do so, only in her rush to get her mom's attention to alleviate the humiliating situation she didn't notice that she aimed in the direction of the still seated Naruto who despite only being three feet from Sakura was mentally miles away at the moment with a flushed red face.

A flushed red face that was then hit with a blue and purple flashing version of Sakura's Hadoken, knocking Naruto flat on his back and out cold to boot.

Sakura let out a helpless squeak and ran to Naruto, grabbing his head and checking over his singed face, "Ahh! Naruto! I'm so sorry, that was an accident! Please wake up!" By then her mother had made it back outside to see her daughter holding onto Naruto's shoulders, shaking him for all she was worth to try and revive him, "Don't be dead!"

"Sakura, he'll be fine." Her mother insisted, though her eye twitched when Sakura stopped shaking him and his head tilted back limply, "You might kill him if you keep shaking him though."

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{Character Profile}

Name: Batsu Ichimonji

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Age: 16 (Birthday: January 1)

Height/Weight: 5'7/141 lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: Ninjas, his mother, justice.

Dislikes: Dogs, unfairness.

Hobbies: Eating fast, working part time jobs selling milk and newspapers to help his family.

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki, Kyosuke Kagami.

Fighting Style: Derived from Imawano style Ninjutsu of combat

Current Techniques: Kiaidan (Energy Compression Blast/Guts Bullet), Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick), Ryuuseikero (Falling Star Kick), Suiseikero (Comet Kick).

Hyper Techniques: Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Hot Blooded Hyper Energy Compression Blast/Burning Super Guts Bullet), Imawano-ryuu Mozu Otoshi (Imawano Style Flowing Drop).

Background: Rather foul-mouthed, belligerent, and impulsive, Batsu is still a rather kind person despite a rough exterior. Having a strong sense of justice, Batsu finds himself in trouble more often than not for one reason or another, getting him the brand of something of a delinquent. Usually centered in his own mischief and trouble, his issues eventually overlapped with Naruto's leading to them meeting and becoming friends, with Batsu sometimes employing Naruto (for a discount) to assist him. Batsu has a decent arsenal of moves that he makes good use of despite a lack of formal training, though he has a propensity to spam the distance attack he has given the pet name of "Guts Bullet" from time to time whenever he is angered in combat or particularly distressed by an enemy.

Name: Hinata Wakaba

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Female

Age: 15 (Birthday: April 12)

Height/Weight: 5'1/90 lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: Rare things, hand-to-hand combat, cakes.

Dislikes: Dirty things, insects.

Hobbies: Singing and dancing, various afterschool clubs, origami.

Rivals: None

Fighting Style: Undeterminable

Current Techniques: Kikou Shoutei (Energy Cultivating Palm's End), Shouyouken (Sunrise Punch), Enbukyaku (Blazing Dance Kick), Renkyakudan (Consecutive Leg Blast).

Hyper Techniques: Hisshou Rengekken (Assured Victory Constant Punching), Rasen Enbukyaku (Spiral Blazing Dance Kick).

Background: A smart girl who excels in most sports. A childhood friend of Sakura Kasugano and a schoolmate of Batsu Ichimonji, Hinata is proficient in martial arts on par with national level fighters. It is a mystery even to her closest friends just how she received her training as she is quite tight-lipped with any explanation others try to pull from her. Quite energetic and at times a bit of a smart-aleck, she's a cheerful person that despite her combat skills rather enjoys her regular life as a schoolgirl, not looking for too much more outside of that. Fights a speedy, pestering, counter-centric style, chaining combination attacks into heavy specialty moves. Noted friendly sparring partner of Sakura for years.

Name: Dan Hibiki

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Age: 25 (Birthday: November 25)

Height/Weight: 5'9/163 lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: His father, taunting.

Dislikes: Seaweed, small-time crooks, Sagat.

Hobbies: Tile breaking, singing karaoke.

Rivals: Sagat (one-sided), Naruto Uzumaki (one-sided).

Fighting Style: Saikyou-ryuu (The Strongest Style)

Current Techniques: Various taunts, Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist), Dankukyaku (Severing Air Leg), Koryuuken, Saikyou Ryuubougo (Strongest Current Protection).

Hyper Techniques: Hisshou Buraiken (Certain Victory Villainy Fist), Shinkuu Gadoken (Shaking Sky Self-Taught Fist), Haoh Gadoken (Supreme King Self-Taught Fist), Koryuu Rekka (Dazzling Dragon Raging Fire).

Background: Began training as a fighter for revenge against Sagat, as in retaliation for a fight in the past where Dan's father gouged Sagat's eye out Sagat proceeded to kill Dan's father. Trained under the same master that taught Ryu, the past winner of the World Warrior tournament, but was expelled before completing his training when his motives for training became clear. Dan developed his own fighting style based on his teachings and from Muay Thai. Eventually finding Sagat, the two fought, with Dan coming out victorious. Dan does not know however that Sagat took pity on him due to his drive for vengeance and let him win. Most fighters do not take Dan seriously due to his demeanor and weak looking (and weakly impacting) attacks or they find him amusing. This has led to a few upset victories over competition that Dan was far overmatched against.