Ninja House Party...

Chapter 2 - Ninja House Party...

It had been a little over a week since Naruto's 'Deal with the Devil' as Sakura had so aptly anointed it. In that amount of time, Karin had not called Naruto about any work, nor had she even summoned him to her mansion to go over his game plan for how he would be trying to rise through the rankings. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he took advantage of the free time available to him and merely trained, spent time with his friends, and worked, splitting his time between the three things evenly for the most part.

And at the moment on that Sunday since he had the day off from school and had decided to give himself a day off from taking jobs he was heading to Sakura's house in a pair of orange athletic shorts, a black t-shirt with a satellite image of a hurricane in dark colors, and a pair of black sandals. The good kind, the kind that had support like the ones he wore back in Konoha. Chances were, he was more than likely about to do the former two things that he had spent the entire week doing (hanging out with a friend/training), only this time with her.

CRASH!

Hearing a very loud smashing noise, Naruto ran in the direction of it since it was coming from the direction of Sakura's home. Rounding the corner and reaching the street that had the side of her home, he stopped when he came upon the tall wooden fence that closed off backyards in that neighborhood.

There was a jagged hole punched right through it twice the size of his head. Looking through the hole with a grin on his face he saw a human-sized dummy right by the fence strung up from a tree branch near the fence that was pretty much untouched, and Sakura standing twenty feet away, her hands still extended from what Naruto presumed was a Hadoken, a mortified red blush on her face at being seen after such an attempt. Well things would still be alright for her as long as he didn't say anything.

"You missed a Hadoken didn't you?"

Damn it.

Naruto shoved his entire top half of his body through the hole and wriggled himself through for shits and giggles just to pick on Sakura a bit, "What happened?" He really wanted to know just in case the explanation was even funnier in reality than his imagination made it. Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from him getting Naruto to roll his eyes, "I already know, I just want to hear you say it."

Sakura was wearing a red windbreaker jacket with a white stripe going down the sleeves and a pair of black leggings that stopped at her thighs for her casual clothes, "You know how the more power I put into my Hadoken the less distance they get?" Naruto nodded knowing that when decently charged up, Sakura's Hadoken barely went further than Dan's variation of the attack, but he sure as hell wouldn't want to be hit by one, "Well when I just fire it I get better distance. I just can't aim it when I do it that fast."

"Oh don't worry, I can tell." Naruto quipped before Sakura fired a Hadoken and hit the dummy Naruto was standing next to, "Hey, you got it that time."

"I was aiming at you."

"That's not nice Sakura-chan."

Shaking her head with a playful scowl on her face at his pout, Sakura walked over to Naruto and popped him in the shoulder lightly for him messing with her. Reaching up, she messed up his hair further until he moved her hand away. She let out a laugh before looking at the massive hole in the fence, "Um Naruto… could you fix that for me really quick?"

"Really quick?" Naruto repeated in a skeptical voice before whining outright, "Sakura-chaaan it's my day off. I don't want to fix your wall right now… for free." He added in the end, getting her jaw to go quite slack.

"You're charging me!"

"This isn't the first time you did this." Naruto said, not budging on the matter as he crossed his arms over his chest stoutly, "I fixed your stupid fence five times already since you started using ki… for free. And now I'm just supposed to fix it because I was here for it? No way."

"You've got clones." Sakura tried to stress, pointing out Naruto's free work force, "We could just hang out while they fix it."

"I am not your one-stop shop for cheap labor. Not today, dattebayo." Naruto then felt Sakura latch onto his legs tightly, getting him to squint his eyes at her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Naruto please fix the fence!" Sakura more or less begged him, not letting go of his legs, "If mom sees this when she gets home she'll ground me for weeks for doing this again. Come on." A puff of smoke engulfed Naruto and Sakura then found herself hugging the training dummy, "How do you keep doing that?" She asked as she stood back up and let the dummy fall to the ground.

"You left my hands free when you hugged me." Naruto responded from his crouched perch up in her tree by the fence where he had gotten the dummy for his Kawarimi.

And now he was just a hop away from getting himself out of Sakura's yard and far away from the house if she chased him away. She couldn't fix that fence herself, and she didn't get enough money to actually pay Naruto to fix it. Naruto was kind of expensive. She could probably only barely afford to buy the wood if she needed to.

"I'll fight you for it!" Sakura abruptly blurted out, getting Naruto to tilt his head in confusion, "I'll fight you and if I win you have to fix the hole for free. Come on. Bring it on."

Well he hadn't actually gone up against Sakura in a while. The last time he fought her they kind of tore up the grass in the backyard and took out more than a few of the tiles on the roof of her house. He could still hear Sakura's mother yelling at them after it was over, "No. What do I get out of it?"

"You can have the knowledge that you beat me." She ventured with a smile.

Naruto returned the smile wryly as he seemed to sit in the tree like a cat, "I always beat you. You've got to do better than that if you want me to fix the stupid fence Sakura-chan. I don't want to fight today, it's my day off."

"I'll take you to the ramen bar you like and buy you whatever you want."

"Deal!"

Sakura palmed her face, but still pointed to the shed in the far corner of the backyard where the wood was kept. She might as well help him… because if her little brother Tsukushi got home and saw the hole in the fence he would still snitch on her and she'd still get in trouble.

XxX

(Hours Later – Downtown Aohura City)

Naruto could be seen through the curtains of a ramen bar eating happily and sitting next to a distraught looking Sakura as she tried to convince Naruto to stop at five bowls before he bankrupted her.

The person watching him from a safe distance atop another building nearby took note of Naruto's rather gluttonous appetite and disengaging attitude, "So this is the ninja from Aohura City?" The figure said stoically with a frown on their face, "This guy… I wonder how legit he is."

The frown that was on the person's face deepened when he saw Naruto and Sakura walk outside and try to cross the street, ending with Naruto getting chased by a motorcycle rider all the way down the long road and around the corner at the end of it with Sakura trying to follow him, "Wow. Well he's fast like a ninja. *laughs* I guess I'll find out later."

XxX

(Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

On the way home after the rather chaotic series of events that followed Sakura treating Naruto to lunch/dinner, Sakura exhaled in an audible huff of sorts, "Boy that escalated quickly." A somewhat scuffed up Sakura said as she and a dirty and smudged Naruto walked up to his apartment building, "I mean, that really got out of hand fast!"

"It jumped up a notch." Naruto uttered, scratching the dried blood from a head wound suffered during the previous fight off of his face.

"It did didn't it?" Sakura thought in amazement. Having never been there in person for most of them she sure hoped that wasn't how all of Naruto's gang fights went. Pure insanity. Aohura City's police force absolutely sucked if he got away with all of that on a regular basis.

"Yeah…" Naruto admitted with something of an impressed tone, "I thought Batsu was going to kill that one guy." Today was not normal. It actually brought a special brand of crazy… and it was supposed to be his day off. Even his actual fights against gang weren't that tough… today was not one of those days because his opponents were all trained and rather skilled from his experience of dealing with them before. If not for some timely intervention it would have been four-on-one and he'd be on a strict ramen broth diet for the forseeable future.

"I saw that! Batsu put that guy with the eraser hair and the knives in the hospital, I swear he had to have. Did he throw a motorcycle?" Sakura said with wide eyes at recalling watching Batsu pick up an entire 500 lbs. racing bike over his head to chuck it at some of their opponents to help Naruto and her in the fight. Even one of her other friends got involved to help out.

Naruto's eyes brightened in memory of just how ridiculous everything got in under three minutes, "Yeah, there was fire and explosions, Batsu threw a motorcycle, and I'm pretty sure I accidentally copped a feel or something. By the way, where'd you get a grenade?"

"That wasn't a grenade, that was a full-power Hadoken." Sakura said, remembering how impressed she was by herself. The damn thing didn't go far at all, but it was bigger than her entire body when she threw it. Her brain then glossed over something Naruto may or may not have said, "Wait, what was the last thing you said?" Naruto instantly averted his face away from Sakura's so she wouldn't see his expression, "Seriously, what happened after I lost you when you ran? That whole thing was like the perfect storm."

A red blush sprang to Naruto's face, remembering the chain of events that led to the massive clusterfuck of a fight in town as they made it to the opening by the stairs that led to Naruto's floor of the complex, "There was a lot of stuff you guys weren't there for Sakura-chan. Thanks for getting Batsu and your friend Natsu though. I really needed the help." It really was a long chain of events starting with him running from that motorcycle outside of the ramen stand.

"No problem. Anytime." Sakura replied, focusing more on her rather utterly ruined outfit from the events of the afternoon. She didn't know if she had been better off hedging her bets with the hole in the gate, or going home with those totally messed up clothes, but there was no way she was taking her clothes off in Naruto's house and walking home in his baggy crap. Besides, her mother would remember what she was wearing earlier that day and she'd never keep the secret for long, "I'll see you in school tomorrow Naruto. Bye."

Naruto waved goodbye as Sakura started off of the property and stopped to stare for a moment when he saw a bloody handprint going down her back and stopping on her backside, "Whose blood is that?" He asked belligerently, getting her attention once again.

Sakura looked onto her back as best she could and frowned before shrugging, "Not mine." With that she just continued on to her house and Naruto went up to his floor.

Opening the door to his place, Naruto kicked off his shoes, walked in, and shut the door behind himself before quickly shrugging off his quite beaten up clothes, leaving him in yellow boxers with green frogs on them. He needed a shower to get the blood and dirt and whatnot off of his body after the free-for-all he and his friends had wound up in downtown, "…How was I supposed to know? " He muttered to himself, remembering what exactly lit the powder keg earlier as he stepped into his shower with the water running, "…Crazy bitch tried to run me down."

After he had sufficiently cleaned himself of the remnants of battle, he stepped out of the shower and threw on his pajamas as he left to his room to attend to his much neglected homework. He could slack off later in the year, but not right then. He needed some goodwill with his teacher at the moment.

Leaving to the living room area to grab his backpack that he hadn't touched since he had dropped it there the day before on Saturday, Naruto stopped cold once he reached the room. The reason being because he saw someone in the connecting kitchen raiding his fridge, though their body was out of his view due to the door of the refrigerator and the table in the kitchen in his line of sight. At that moment Naruto did some mental deductions.

Sakura? No. She had just left. If she was going to come in she would have come in right then. Even though she had a key she never used it unless she was certain he wasn't there. Good girl to not abuse the responsibility of the key.

Batsu? No, not him either. If it was Batsu then he would have been way louder and Naruto would have known even in his shower despite the fact that his apartment complex had some thick walls. Besides… Batsu lived all the way on the other side of Aohura City, and after the scrum they had gotten into that day it was more than likely the first thing he did was go home to get a shower, some muscle rub, and some rest, same as Naruto and Sakura.

Karin? Pfft, yeah right. Karin didn't have a key, but that probably wouldn't have stopped her from somehow getting in anyway. She probably would have ordered his landlord to open the door for her… rich girl. But she definitely wouldn't be in his fridge if she even had been there. She didn't eat 'commoner' food and she'd verbally tear into anyone that tried to make her, if not physically tear into them.

So he didn't know this person. Great. That meant that he didn't have to feel sorry for what he was about to do with the lamp he picked up off of the table nearby.

At least he wouldn't have felt sorry for it, if not for the little tanuki that dashed out from underneath his couch and latched firmly onto his groin with its teeth.

In hindsight, Naruto liked to believe that the yell he let out at that point wasn't as high-pitched as it seemed to him immediately upon leaving his throat, it had to have been a bit more masculine than it sounded. Men didn't sound like that.

Alarmed by Naruto's yell, the figure at the refrigerator looked up from behind the door with an onigiri sticking out of her mouth. From that point she simply chewed on the rice ball and watched Naruto freak out and roll around all over the apartment trying to get the tanuki off of his privates. When Naruto finally realized that he still had the lamp in his hand and raised it to strike at the bastard tanuki, the female in the kitchen made a sharp whistle that called the animal off.

However as the tanuki jumped off of him, Naruto had already swung the lamp at it and wound up hitting himself in the testicles with the lamp for his troubles. This was just not his day at all.

The tanuki ran into the kitchen and hopped up on the person's shoulder as she made fond kissing noises to it, "You're such a good boy Don. Protecting me when my back is turned." Hearing the feminine voice over the sounds of his own rampant cursing and shouting, Naruto blinked the tears of pain out of his eyes to get a good look at just who was in his house.

From the legs up, he got his view. Cloth bandages wrapped around the back part of the person's feet, their shins, and their ankles. From that point up they wore brown baggy pants tight where the bandages started, but loose everywhere else. Around the waist, the pants exposed the outside of her thighs and some of the insides almost all the way up to the hips where the belt of the pants were tied. Tucked into the baggy pants she (yes, most definitely a she by now, he was certain of it) wore sleeveless upper garment and from the v-neck of the garment she had a facemask that was pulled down at the moment, probably so she could eat, and had brown arm guards. She had black hair with three sharp bangs sticking out of the front of her brown bandanna on her head and two long ponytails sticking out of the upper back of the bandanna.

She wasn't attacking him though. There must have been no need to add injury to injury (…to injury) in this case. He hadn't even dressed his wounds from the street fight earlier, "Could you grab me an ice pack from the freezer?" Naruto asked, and thus received when the girl threw one to him. She was a ninja, or at least dressed the part, but at the moment he felt cold relief on his nether region, and that wasn't a bad thing, "Why are you in my house?"

The girl sat up on the counter in Naruto's kitchen and crossed her legs as she fed the rest of her rice ball to the tanuki on her shoulder, "I heard that there was a clan-less ninja in this part of Japan and I figured that I'd just pop in to say hello… so hello!"

"A ninja breaking into my house? To say hello?" Naruto said as he dragged himself into a sitting position in his living room couch, "Really? What do you want?" He narrowed his eyes at her, "If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get."

The ninja girl hopped off of his counter and waved her arms in front of herself defensively, "No, no, I'm not here to kill you or even to fight. I really did just want to meet you."

"Why?"

"I want to hire you."

Hire him? That was kind of weird wasn't it? She was a ninja… so why would she need another ninja? It didn't make any sense, "What can I do that you can't? Wait, I don't even know who you are. I definitely don't work for someone I don't know."

"My name's Ibuki." The girl said cheerfully as she pointed to the tanuki still eating on her shoulder, "This is Don. Sorry about the whole biting your junk thing. He's my pet. You walk quietly, I didn't even know you were there even when you didn't know I was here." She walked over to where Naruto was sitting and grabbed a chair from the kitchen to sit down in once she figured he probably didn't want her that close. From the way he was moving his hand towards the edge of the couch cushion he probably had a weapon under the cushion, "So let's talk business Uzumaki Naruto."

Used to people he never met knowing who he was by now, Naruto still didn't move his hand away from a position where he could quickly use his kunai, "What does a ninja want with a ninja anyway? And why can't you just ask your own clan to do this?"

Ibuki laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck in an almost Naruto-like fashion, "I kind of ran away from my village."

"You're a missing-nin?"

"A what?" Ibuki replied in confusion before continuing to explain, "I didn't leave for good. Just for a while to have a bit of fun. It's so boring there. All I've ever done since I was little was just train, and train, and train. I just wanted a bit of a break. Maybe I could meet some cute boys outside of my village or something."

Naruto made a noise of skeptical understanding as he looked at her with squinted eyes, "Uh-huh… and why do you want to hire me?"

"I'm being chased and I need backup." Ibuki admitted, her face turning from the pretty easy-going, sweet look from before to one that was serious. Yeah, he hadn't even seen her fight or even move outside of walking to a chair, but that was a ninja's reaction to being pursued by someone dangerous, "So I want to hire you for protection… or assistance when they attack me. I'm not getting scared back home just because of some loser Geki ninja punks. So watch my back would you?"

After Ibuki finished talking, Naruto simply sat there and stared at her for a bit before getting up, grabbing her by the hand and escorting (pushing) her to the front door, "It's late, I'm all beat up, and it's my day off. I even put it on my answering machine that I was taking a break today. So try again tomorrow afternoon after school. Good luck with the whole ninja assassins coming after you thing."

He managed to get Ibuki to the door before she realized that he was kicking her out and she managed to stop herself once he opened his door by pushing back against the doorframe to try and resist, "Wait! You're kicking me out? Can't you help a girl in need? Don't you have some kind of nindou that goes against this or something?"

Naruto strained against the young kunoichi in an effort to shove her out as he wanted no part of this today, "My nindou is that I never run away and I never give up or go back on my word. Well I'm not giving up on kicking you out, and I'm not going back on my word when I say I'm going to kick you out." She was pretty strong though, and had the leverage… and her tanuki was scratching his face up, "You never told me why you broke in either instead of just knocking on the door or calling the business number."

"About that." Ibuki said, still struggling to stay inside the apartment, "When I said I was being chased… I meant on the way here too."

After about fifteen seconds of continued pushing back and forth, Naruto's brain kicked into gear and registered what Ibuki had just said to him. That statement got Naruto to stop trying to show her the door. Naruto simply walked past her outside and looked over the ledge of his floor of the apartment complex to see about fifteen shadowy figures on the rooftops across the street from the building.

Naruto calmly took a deep breath despite the running commentary going on inside of his head, 'AAAHHHHH!' He turned and walked back to his apartment where he moved Ibuki out of the way and shut the door, locking it and making sure the blinds and curtains to his windows were all shut. Once that was done, Naruto turned to Ibuki and started crying animatedly, "Why did you bring them to my house? Now they think I'm with you."

Ibuki moved back towards Naruto's couch and plopped down on it where he had been sitting before, "Sorry. There wasn't anywhere else to go. They caught up to me outside of Aohura City, I couldn't lose them with all of the lights downtown so I ran to the safest place I could think of; another ninja's house." She idly reached under the couch cushion and pulled out a fuuma shuriken, unfolding all four sides and marveling momentarily at it, "Overcompensating for something cutie?" Her response was Naruto's pajama shirt being thrown over her head while he walked back into his room, "Hey!"

"This can't be happening." Naruto said to himself as he shut the door to his room and started changing into his actual fighting gear; an orange one-piece jumpsuit with a hood he kept down that was loose in the pants with a blue belt that held his equipment and bandages around his ankles. He pulled on a pair of blue 4 oz. gloves that Sakura had bought him for his birthday so that he'd stop messing up his hands all the time and walked back out, pointing at her accusingly, "You. You put this evil on me. How do I make them go away?"

"Kill them?" Ibuki said, shrugging in confusion, "I don't know. I've never fought this many Geki clan ninja at once before. My sensei told us that our clan is derived from a Geki ninja that left them, so they hate us and want us destroyed. They probably think you're with my clan or something since I came here. We can't stay here, we won't make it until sunrise, I can promise you that." At that point the power was cut out, "See?" Ibuki chirped 'helpfully'.

"Damn it!" Okay, that certainly wasn't good, "What is with this day? Is it 'National Let's-Screw-Naruto-Over Day'?" It had to be a bad moon or something because this was ridiculous. Naruto walked into his kitchen with Ibuki following him and she watched him go under his sink in the cabinet to pull out a false wall that led to a small, dark crawlspace, "Come on. I guess I can't let you get killed by those guys out there."

"Really?" Ibuki said as her tanuki Don ran through the space to wherever the exit on the other side was.

"Yes damn you." Naruto replied, gesturing for her to go as he went to grab his good sandals from by the door, "Just do it already." He couldn't even charge her for the service because they'd have tried to kill him too. And with that he followed her in and shut the doors to the cabinet as he was the last to go through.

XxX

"You're a really nice guy you know that?" Ibuki said as she and Naruto ran along the moon bathed rooftops with her tanuki Don hanging on to her shoulder tightly, "I was expecting someone all gloomy and serious like most of the ninja in my village, but you're kind of cool."

"Why are you not taking this seriously!" Naruto snapped at her, looking back over his shoulder to see that the black-clad Geki ninja were beginning to give chase in earnest, all with claws on their right hands, "Shit, should we just stop and fight?"

Ibuki pulled her facemask up over her mouth and raised her eyebrow at Naruto, "Why are you asking me? Aren't you supposed to be the famous one here?"

'Not for real reasons!' Naruto thought to himself, actually thinking better than to say that out loud, "We can't just run away all night, and I left my damn phone in the apartment."

"Smooth."

"Oh shut up lady, this is your fault anyway." Naruto said with a twitching eye, "So between the three of us we've got the baddest ninja on the face of the planet in myself, a… whatever you are, and a gigantic rat to fight fifteen of these guys."

Don hissed at Naruto for being called a giant rat while Ibuki addressed her own rundown from Naruto, "I'm a kunoichi-in-training by the way."

"What!" Naruto shouted as they kept running, "But in my village I graduated way before this. How are you still in-training? You don't seem to suck at this."

Ibuki took offense to that as a tick mark appeared on her forehead, "Hey, we all can't be geniuses like you. Your village must think you're pretty hot stuff to give you free reign to do what you want. I'm a freshman in my high school back home. They don't really let us skip grades in ninja school no matter how good we can fight so we can learn about the outside world. People get killed like that... even though the education sucks."

'High school?' Okay, just when Naruto thought he had a decent enough handle on this world it just kept getting weirder and weirder, 'Ninja high school? Sure, why not?'

"Duck!" Ibuki tackled Naruto to the rooftop to avoid a large shuriken thrown at his head, "Man that was close." She stood back up and stood in a fighting stance as the first of the fifteen caught up to them, "You jerks have been chasing me for days, so show me what you've got! I've got someone to watch my back now!"

Naruto jumped back up to his feet and stood back to back with Ibuki when he saw Geki ninja coming from his own side of things, "Right! It's just fifteen guys! We can kick their asses easy, right?"

"Absolutely! Now let's do this!" Ibuki and Naruto both threw a barrage of shuriken all over to scatter the Geki ninja and began actually fighting once they had them good and separated. The first move Ibuki made had her show absurd short-range speed when she afterimaged right at someone in a sliding move, rolling through into a handspring and seeming like she kicked off of air to grab a hold of her first opponent's neck from behind. Two more Geki ninja tried to react, not caring that their comrade was a hostage, but Ibuki used him like a human shield and put the two others down with kunai that hit them in the head and neck respectively, "Kubi-ki (Neckbreaker)." With a sharp crack, Ibuki dropped the lifeless ninja and moved on.

The next one got close enough to start a close-range fight with her that had Ibuki dodging claw strikes until she felt comfortable to counter, and counter she did with a fist charged blue and full of ki, "Raida (Lightning Strike)!" The punch landed low, right in the opponent's ribs, but after the point of impact, the ki jolted outward like a bolt of lightning into the opponent and out through the other side, blasting him away from her.

Four more ninja appeared on all cardinal sides of Ibuki out of nowhere, bringing their claws from four sides in a pincer swing, but she simply shot up into the sky and let loose her next move, "Kasumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!" She let loose a lightning quick barrage of deadly metal projectiles, riddling them full of weaponry like training dummies… except they bled.

Naruto on the other hand got himself surrounded rather quickly due to his desire to fight in close, "Damn it! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto formed a ring of clones around himself that drew kunai and defended him from the claws while the original jumped into the air in the center of the ring and made a trio of hand-seals, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" He fired one shot that nailed an opponent in the head, breaking his neck from the force of the chakra projectile.

Three other Geki ninja that had been fighting with Naruto's protective clones and had beaten them jumped into the air to murder him with their claws only for that Naruto to disappear in a puff of smoke, leaving an opened fuuma shuriken in his place with a wire attached to it. With a sharp tug of the wire it began to spin at a deadly velocity and cut the ninja down out of the sky.

The original Naruto then yanked hard on the wire and pulled it back towards himself while three more Geki ninja advanced on him. He jumped over the deadly spinning blade and let it cut down two of the enemies while the third one got through. Maybe a half-assed, half-suicidal version of a move he saw Sasuke do, but he didn't have Sharingan damn it, and he'd take what he could get.

The last Geki ninja attacking Naruto swung a claw at him in a rapid, deadly wall of violence. Lifting a kunai to block that barrage would have resulted in the loss of an arm so Naruto just backstepped for all he was worth, holding his right hand behind his back and out of sight until it was too late for the enemy to react to Naruto's move as he dug in his feet and drove his right hand forward with a nasty little surprise.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto's Rasengan smacked the claw and shattered it. The strike broke the Geki ninja's balance in addition to the claw and Naruto spun through with his move to bring it back again, this time grabbing the ninja's collar to drag him into the devastating jutsu for much more damage, "Go to sleep!"

And go to sleep he did, as the angry red spiral mark that tore through his clothing and left an impression on his chest belied the internal injuries that the Rasengan dealt him, sending his lifeless body flying into two more Geki ninja approaching to try and reinforce. All of them fell brutally from the rooftop and would not be getting back up from the angle they landed at.

"What kind of moves were those?" Ibuki wondered, making her way over to Naruto after the rooftop seemed completely cleared, "Half of those moves were totally in-." She stopped talking once both of them sensed another presence and put one last ambushing Geki ninja down with a pair of kunai, one from Naruto in the chest, one from Ibuki in the head, "There. Are we done now?"

"Duck!"

This time it was Naruto that tackled Ibuki to the rooftop to avoid a claw attack from one more waiting in the shadows to finish them in case of failure. The claw slashed him across his back but he was able to get her down safely, with the tiles giving way and the two ninja sliding off of the roof to land in a bush below, Ibuki on top of Naruto, "That was close! Thanks for the save by the way. I owe you one." She said, winking at him before noticing him grimace, "What's the matter?"

"We landed in a thorn bush…" Naruto whispered out in absurd amounts of pain at this point, "Ow…"

Ibuki quickly hopped up to give Naruto some relief from his place in the thorn bush and looked back where the enemy had been only to find the man dead on the rooftop where they left him. Smiling at figuring that Naruto put him down while in the process of saving her, she turned her attention back to Naruto, "Does your back hurt?"

"Yes." Naruto whispered without hesitation before he felt Ibuki grab onto his wrist and forearm and a look of fear came to his eye, "What are you about to do?"

An apologetic look graced her face as she held on tightly to Naruto's arm, "I know this is probably going to sting a bit, but I need to get you out of there before you get infected or something okay? On three. One. Two-."

XxX

(Sakura's House)

"OWWW! MOTHERFUCKER! WHY DON'T YOU JUST THROW ME BACK IN FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH!"

Sakura sat up in her bed with a start as that loud noise from outside split the air. The sleepy girl got up out of bed and walked over to her window, lifting it up to get a good look at the seemingly still night, "That sounded like Naruto…" She kept looking around for a moment before shaking her head and shutting the window.

She was going back to bed. If he didn't call then there wasn't a problem.

And even if there was that yell meant he was alive and well enough to bitch and complain about it. She'd figure out exactly what was up tomorrow morning.

XxX

(Later – Naruto's Apartment)

Laying face down on his bed with the top of his fighting outfit pulled down. Naruto's face was stuck in a pillow to muffle his indignant yelling while he slammed a fist on the bed. Ibuki sat on the edge of the bed with a pair of tweezers picking the remainder of the dozens of thorns Naruto had out of the back of his neck, torso, arms, and legs.

"Stop whining you big baby. For a famous fighter and ninja you really act like a kid." Ibuki said, finishing picking thorns out of Naruto's back and grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol for disinfectant, "If you didn't like that then you really aren't going to like this." And with that she poured the alcohol on his back, more specifically on his large claw slash wound. The splash damage managed to get his thorn holes too, but that was not the important thing.

"I think I hate you…" Naruto whined into his pillow as Ibuki dressed his wound, "I've never said that to anyone before, and I just met you tonight, but I think I might hate you." As she finished placing the bandage on his back and gently pat it down, Naruto let out a sigh of relief since that meant his pain was all over, "Thank you…"

"No, thank you." Ibuki said, standing up and bowing to Naruto who turned his head to the side to look at her, "You really helped me out tonight."

Naruto nodded in response, "No problem." Yes. Yes problem. This crap compounded with everything else that had happened that day wasn't going to heal by morning. Sunrise was three hours away. What a day off, "You needed the help. And I told you, I'm the greatest ninja alive." He finished with a grin/wince. He certainly didn't feel like the greatest ninja alive, but if he said it enough it would eventually be true, right?

"Really, you've been super-helpful." Ibuki continued, getting to her knees and bowing again once more, her head rising with a sweet smile, "So I was wondering if you could do one more thing to help me for a while. I kind of need a place to stay for a bit."

Why did no one ever tell him girls could be so absurdly dangerous… and troublesome…? Wait. Shikamaru had been telling him that all along. He really should have taken the guy with the 200+ IQ's word for it.

"I do not think that is possible anymore young lady."

Ibuki's smile twisted into one of slight horror and Naruto just lifted his eyes to the doorway of the room where he saw a tall muscular man wearing a red gi, tan pants, glasses on his face, and a red bandanna on his head, "Damn it, how many of you guys are going to break into my house tonight?" If he wasn't a ninja he'd have gotten sick of the whole thing by now, "Are you here to kill me too? Or get me killed too? Those are the only two options I've gotten all night long." Naruto mouthed off despite looking rather vulnerable at the moment.

Laughing sheepishly, Ibuki turned around to sit down, rubbing the back of her head nervously, "Ha ha ha… hi Sanjou-sensei… what brings you to Aohura City?"

"You." The man Sanjou said sternly before sighing, "You snuck out of the village Ibuki. Not only is this forbidden but you've just seen how dangerous it is to do so by yourself. It's time to come back home with me. You're given enough liberties at your request because you are a splendid student. Are you really this set on flaunting the rules we've set?"

"Sensei…" Ibuki said looking quite pitiful, "It's just… I want to see a bit of the world. Even if it's not that far, even if it's just for a little bit. This… this was actually really great."

"No it wasn't great!" Naruto snapped from his place on the bed while Don curled up to sleep right by his head, "I got clawed in the back, dattebayo!"

"Right." Ibuki said while pointing at Naruto, "It was mostly great, except for having to fight the Geki ninja, but even that had its points to it. Aohura City is such a nice place. It's so interesting here. I even met a ninja that doesn't have to stay in his village and he's my age. And he's so good. You should have seen the fight sensei. I think he could have beaten them all by himself."

"I did indeed see." Sanjou said, "You almost got him killed at the very end. You need more seasoning Ibuki."

"That's why I want to go out more often." Ibuki continued, not relenting on her own stance even against her sensei. The fight got her blood boiling and she hadn't fully settled down yet, "I appreciate everything you guys have done for me, really I do, and I'm loyal… but I just want a little more… I don't know, free will? Can I at least go to a regular school?"

Sanjou didn't seem to budge much during the conversation except for a slight softening of his face, "This is something to be taken up with Master Enjou. But you must return with me now. This is your first offense and like I said you are one of the brightest young ninja we have. You should not be reprimanded too severely." He then gestured towards Naruto, "You cannot impress upon this young man anymore than you already have."

"I think I'm allergic to tanukis." Naruto said with a sniffle.

Ibuki looked from the very wounded Naruto to her sensei and let out a sigh as she stood up and grabbed Don from Naruto's bed, "Alright. I'll go." She said in a defeated voice before turning to Naruto himself, "Thank you for everything you've done tonight Naruto. I really appreciate it. You're a really good friend, and you're my first friend on the outside."

"Take care of yourself Ibuki." Naruto said, still laying down with a smile on his face, "And don't take your village for granted. This guy here; I don't know him, but he seems to care a lot." Sanjou nodded and spared Naruto a ghost of a smile.

Sanjou gestured for Ibuki to follow him out of Naruto's house and she did so, stopping at the doorway of Naruto's room and waving at him with a sad smile before leaving with her master. The door to the apartment clicked shut and Naruto felt that he was left alone.

Well… that was the most hellacious day he had in quite some time. He didn't know exactly how much of this to tell his friends, possibly thinking about omitting the part where he fought over a dozen trained assassins and took a claw to the back.

And now he was never going to get any sleep. It was less than three hours to sunrise and he was all jazzed up from the chase and the fight, plus his back felt like someone was holding him over an open flame, and the fact that now that she was gone he came to the realization that Ibuki was hot.

Yeah he was never getting to sleep now that-.

"Zzzzzz."

Nevermind.

XxX

(Four Days Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"It's the truth Sakura-chan." Naruto said as he walked through the halls after lunch with Sakura and Kei. He wished Batsu was there. Not only would that kid totally believe him, he'd probably be upset that Naruto didn't call him with all of the ninja running around the place, "I don't know what you two are laughing about. You saw the scratch on my back from the claw. I've been telling you the same story for days."

"We also fought one hell of a street fight on Sunday." Sakura said, calming down her laughing long enough to speak, "So what seems more believable? That you got really hurt during that fight and didn't notice it until later when you got home, or that you coincidentally met a ninja running from a platoon of ninja assassins and got hurt fighting them in an old-school full moon rooftop showdown?"

Kei put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and chuckled gently, "Yeah Naruto. You told Sakura-chan and me the story every day since Monday morning and I've got to say, nobody can be that unlucky. That's running a gauntlet from hell."

"Uzumaki!"

Naruto cringed and turned around to find himself looking at the rather burly, bald, mustachioed principal of their school that didn't really like Naruto, figuring him more of a delinquent that just didn't do much in school to be openly labeled as one. Still, the kid didn't fail exams… even short answer tests. It was like he was looking at the answers right in front of him from the books or getting them told to him somehow, but that was impossible as he was watched like a hawk.

"Yes?" Naruto responded, not wanting to do something to cause the man to burst a blood vessel, "Did I do something?" He seemed to ask too innocently for his or anyone else's good.

"Did you do something?"

"If you can't prove it then no I didn't."

The man palmed his face with an audible smack, moving his hand to show the print left on his face, "I don't care right now… we have a new student and you're the one that's going to show them around. To the main office with you."

"What? Why me?"

"Fine, you can just go back to class and sit for the rest of school then instead of giving a tour for the rest of the time."

Naruto was already at the end of the hallway by the time that sentence was finished, "Later Kei! Bye Sakura-chan! I'll catch up to you guys when the final bell rings!" He then rounded the corner and headed to the main office, "Whoo! Free permission to skip. This week is looking up."

With a big closed eye grin and a spring in his step, it didn't take long before Naruto rounded the corner to the main office to pick up who he was supposed to be giving a tour to, deciding to make a first impression to the new student with some oomph behind it, "Yo! I'm looking for the new kid here! I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'll be giving the tour today to show you where stuff is. What's up?" He said in a friendly, yet very boisterous manner until he opened his eyes and saw who was sitting outside in the lobby. He then promptly paled and pointed in shock, "No way! Why are you here?"

Sitting on the bench dressed in the school's uniform and no bandanna or any ninja wear at all this time was Ibuki, who looked herself over before answering Naruto, "Well can't you see from the uniform? I go here now." She stood up and walked over to him, circling him thrice before patting him on the back, "That healed up really good if it still doesn't hurt."

Naruto whirled around and faced her with an accusatory stare, "Don't change the subject! I thought you had a school back in your village! You're not supposed to leave, right?"

Upon hearing that breakdown of her situation, Ibuki smiled brightly, "Master Enjou is allowing me to go to a normal school as long as I get up early every morning to train, and I figured out which school you went to so…" She trailed off in the end.

"Goddamn it, it is too easy to find me." Naruto muttered to himself miserably and Ibuki couldn't help but nod in agreement, "Why here? Why my school?"

"Well, you're the first person I've met outside of my village that I didn't have to fight." Ibuki seemed to fidget while trying to find the words to express what she was trying to say to him, "You had my back. You're a trustworthy person. I'm not sure I'd feel this comfortable if I didn't have a friend with me."

How mad could someone really get because someone wanted to go to a school? Not very all things considered, even if the someone wound up directly or indirectly throwing him into the night from hell. And Ibuki was a nice person. In the end, Naruto simply didn't have it in him to alienate someone who wanted to be his friend. Hell, he never figured he'd even have that option. It just went to show how different this world was from his own.

"Alright, let's go then." Naruto said, getting Ibuki's face to brighten up, something that got his own to do the same, "But you're a ninja, so we're doing this the ninja way. I hope you're good at making traps because that's what we're doing today all over the school. Non-lethal." He added for clarification purposes.

However Ibuki already knew what he was hinting at before he even added the last part. She gasped and hit him lightly on his shoulder, "You're bad." But she did a lot of the same when she was in her village. Maybe now more of her prank traps would work on people that weren't ninja themselves? As long as they didn't get caught of course, "…I like that."

Yes, shadow clones were nice for making mischief around school in Naruto's opinion. They were obedient, and since they had your mindset they went about the tasks with just as much vigor as you would have yourself. But there wasn't anything like having a partner in crime. Kei wasn't really capable of being sneaky, Sakura was too much of a good girl to help Naruto out, and none of Naruto's other friends went to his school. But Ibuki seemed to be just his speed in that department.

Maybe she'd be fun without the dozens of attackers chasing her?

Oh who was he kidding? She'd probably be fun with a hundred attackers chasing her.

Omake: Escapades in Aohura City

(A Few Hours After Naruto Fixed Sakura's Fence – Downtown Aohura City)

Sakura held up her wallet, breathing out a sigh of relief that she was able to stop Naruto at just six bowls. She had expected at least twice that and now she had some money left over… and her fence was fixed. An appropriate sacrifice to the demon that more than likely dwelled within Naruto's belly, as that was the only way she could reason as to his appetite for even his favorite food, "Are you full?" She asked him upon seeing him stride out of the stand with a content hand on his stomach. Naruto nodded happily, "Thank goodness. So now what do we do? Remember before you answer that half of my money was just spent on your gut."

Naruto, who was walking around with the chopsticks from the meal sticking idly out of his mouth as he chewed on them, just fell into step beside Sakura with his arms behind his head as they started walking down the street, "I don't know what to do now. Arcade? I haven't kicked your butt at something in a while."

"Pass." Sakura thought aloud contemptuously. Naruto had to be cheating at all forms of video games whenever they played. A normal person's fingers should never be able to move that fast without being accused of button mashing. Damn him and those hand-seals. And he said that he wasn't even that good at them, "Movie? I don't know what's playing these days though."

"Nothing you'll like." Naruto replied right back, "Hey, why don't we go mess with Karin? I know where she lives now and we can prank the hell out of her." He offered up with a saucy grin with chopsticks stuck in between, "Her house is so big we can trap a place and she probably won't get hit with it for days."

That almost got Sakura to stop and think about doing it before remembering that Karin lived outside of town. Even if they caught a train in time they'd have to walk forever to get there after disembarking. And then getting in and out of the property in one piece was another thing. She wasn't a ninja like Naruto and she didn't think even he was logically considering his own chances of success in that venture. He was going to get himself fired or call down her wrath if he was really willing to try that, "Well we'll think of something to-, *gasp* I know! We can go shopping!"

"Fuck no! You should have called Kei or Hinata if that's what you wanted!" Naruto barked out louder than he had meant to, getting the attention of everyone around him, "Um… I mean, no." Sakura proceeded to pout before the sound of an engine revving caught their attention and the two turned around to face the sound of the rather indicative noise.

Turning around, both of them saw someone on a black racing motorcycle, wearing an entire leather bike outfit with spiked skulls on the shoulders of the jacket and a skull design on the front of the all-encompassing helmet. Upon being sighted by the two, the rider revved the engine again twice.

"Naruto did you make a biker gang mad at you?"

"Aohura City doesn't have real bikers does it?"

"Well we're looking at one right now."

The two friends locked eyes and nodded before taking two very large steps away from each other to figure out if Naruto was indeed the point of interest. From the wheelie that was then popped in his direction it was quite evident that it was indeed the case.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" Naruto repeated over and over as he turned around on his heel and took off down the street before the bike's front tire hit the ground again and it took off after him.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled after him with a bit of worry. He was fast, but he couldn't outrun a motor vehicle on an open road. Still, she did her best in chasing after the two on the sidewalk but at a markedly slower pace.

"Sakura is that you? Where are you running to?"

Hearing her name called out by a familiar voice, Sakura stopped and looked for the source, her eyes brightening when she saw exactly who it was, "I need your help really quick! Come with me please!"

XxX

Wracking his brain to try and figure out who he might have upset that rode bikes gave Naruto no answer as to why this was happening, but survival instincts kicked in as he eventually rounded the corner.

He was lucky that the streets were too crowded further down the line for the biker to stay on the road and properly keep up with him, but that then meant that they just hopped the motorcycle onto the sidewalk to chase after while Naruto ran on top of the backed up cars in the street. Naruto turned his head when they got side to side and paled when he saw the biker take a chain from their belt and prepare to swing it at him.

"What did I do to you?" Naruto shouted before diving directly right, slamming his body into the bike and knocking his assailant off of the vehicle, ending with all of them catastrophically crashing into tables and chairs outside of an ice cream parlor. Fortunately no one was harmed with the exception of the two involved.

Picking himself up from underneath a patio table and chairs, Naruto held his head and looked for the nearby biker who had gotten up first due to their padding to check on their bike. The biker looked at Naruto and the two simultaneously dropped into fighting stances, "Seriously, I don't know you. What the hell do you want?"

"You beat up my brother." Was the deep sounding reply, though it sounded like a totally fake voice intentionally trying to sound male. Naruto did not pick up on this and figured it was just some guy trying to get him back for a previous street fight.

"I beat up a lot of people's brothers, but if I beat up yours then he was the one that picked the fight with me." Naruto said in cheeky fashion before frowning, "Now take off that helmet so I can kick your ass the right way."

Before the two could start fighting, Naruto had to dodge a small army knife that was thrown at him. Turning to face the person who threw it he couldn't help but palm his face, "Kami… what do you guys want?"

The boy with his hand still outstretched from throwing the knife had his tongue stuck out slightly askew and wore a baggy purple school uniform with the jacket open to show a purple turtleneck underneath. On his head was a purple sweatband and he had his blonde hair styled up in a tall series of spikes that looked kind of like an eraser. Yamada Eiji, or 'Edge'. The dirtiest fighter Naruto had ever gone up against in Aohura City… and that was saying something since he was a ninja!

The next was an extremely burly and hulking young man with spiky brown hair and a white headband. He wore a green uniform with one sleeve missing and with a belt made of rope over bamboo slides that seemed to look a little like rudimentary armor for one's torso. Isurugi Gan. No high school student should have been that big. He stood almost a foot taller than Naruto and was definitely more than twice the width.

The last of them was the most normal looking in comparison, but from Naruto's past experiences he was the most dangerous of the three. Slicked back spiky black hair sat upon his head with a scar going horizontally down and across his left eye. He wore a blue school uniform with no modifications or perks added to it, but he was just as tall as Gan and muscular in his own right. More so than Naruto anyway. Kazama Daigo.

Naruto was 'acquainted' with all three of these young men because they were in and ranked highly in the only high school gang in the city that was actually well organized and adequate as a unit. Daigo happened to be the 'Boss of Gedo High' where all of these boys were from, and they had run across Naruto once every so often, first during Batsu's multi-school spanning trouble that he found himself in and then sporadically after that point forward. The gang picked fights with Naruto due to who he was and when he beat up the lower-tier members Daigo would take offense and then they would fight. It was like an ebb and flow kind of situation.

Fighting just one of those guys when they were on point held its own slew of troubles for Naruto, he really didn't wish to fight all three of them at the same time. Clones would not be enough to keep the heat off of him since they were actually good.

Aohura City had way too many people that were good at fighting for it to be one of the smaller cities in Japan. It was kind of like Konoha with all of the tough people walking around that you could bump into around any given corner, only it was the wild wild west between the different factions within the city limits. No real camaraderie in important times like back home because there were rarely any times that important.

"Uzumaki?" Edge said upon seeing him, "What the hell's going on out here?"

Naruto growled at the eraser-headed boy and shook a fist at him, "You threw a knife at me and you don't even know what this is about? You've got problems!"

Edge grabbed his collar and adjusted his uniform, smirking at Naruto with his tongue hanging out to the side manically, "I owed you anyway…"

"Whatever." Naruto said before pointing at the helmeted biker, "This asshole started chasing me down on that stupid thing. I don't want to fight you guys, so just let me deal with Kamen Rider over here since he won't let me leave. I'll be out of your face in a minute."

"You talk too much. Shut up." The biker said, still standing in a trained fighting stance and faking a man's voice (not to Naruto's knowledge), "Or better yet, keep on talking. I'll shut you up myself."

Daigo looked between Naruto and the biker before stopping on the biker, "Akira. What are you doing picking a fight with Uzumaki? I've told you about going around with your own little vendettas because of me. I can handle myself."

"But Daigo-nii." The biker Akira tried to argue back, "He keeps on messing up your gang and hurting you guys. Edge and Gan are my friends too. What about them?"

"Alright, listen up!" An impatient Naruto barked, walking up to Akira directly to face the helmet and pointing in its face, "I don't start these fights, so if you really want a piece of me you can-." Naruto poked Akira in the chest indignantly, but upon doing so felt it to be squishier than he expected a man's chest to be. He repeated the action several more times in confusion before putting his hands directly on Akira's chest, "Hmm. This doesn't feel right."

"Uzumaki get your hands off of my little sister!" Daigo bellowed at Naruto. Edge and Gan stepped back as this was quite uncharacteristic of him. He was usually very calm, the calmest amongst them. Apparently Akira was his limit.

"Sister?" Naruto repeated questioningly, "No way. If it looks like a guy, talks like a guy, fights like a guy-."

"-Feels like a guy?" Edge cut in, trying to hold back some laughter.

Not getting the joke, Naruto shook his head while looking at the three gang members, "No… he doesn't feel like a guy, but then again it could be because the biker jacket is super-soft. It's good, maybe I should get one. Where'd you-?" Naruto was about to ask Akira where 'he' got the jacket but looked to see that Akira had taken 'his' helmet off.

And Akira indeed was not a he, Akira was a she with shoulder length brown hair and a gentle looking face that was twisted in pure embarrassment right at that moment, "You pervert!" Akira then smashed a totally unprepared Naruto in the head with her helmet, sending him flying into another set of tables and chairs.

Naruto picked himself out of the pile of patio furniture with a nasty cut bleeding down from his hairline, "Ow…"

Daigo kicked one of the knocked askew chairs out of the way and started walking towards Naruto with Gan following and Edge doing the same only with more satisfaction, "I can't let this stand Uzumaki. You cannot violate my little sister like that." Even Akira started walking towards him. Even though she was now more silent and reserved without the helmet she still had a burning aura of anger around her, "Unforgivable kid."

And then Akira's motorcycle flew through the air in projectile-style and hit Gan and Edge, knocking them for quite a loop to say the very least.

Daigo and Akira's jaws dropped while Naruto just looked on in complete amazement, "Holy crap! Who threw a motorcycle?" And with that he found himself hoisted up to his feet from behind by Sakura and another girl with shoulder length black hair that he didn't know, but she was wearing a red warmup jacket and red warmup pants for the volleyball team of her school which wasn't Gedo High, nor was it Naruto and Sakura's school, "Thanks. Who are you by the way?"

"My name's Natsu." The new girl that stood taller than Naruto said as she glared up at the offending Gedo High kids, "I'm Sakura's friend. Never met you, but I've heard about you… and from more than just her too. So I figured I'd try to help. This seems just as good a reason as any to fight."

At that point, Batsu strode into view, dusting his hands off and wiping oil onto his pants, "You can't stay out of trouble can you?" He said to Naruto, working his arm around in a stretch, "Fuck, I think I tore a muscle throwing that stupid thing."

"Ichimonji." Daigo said as Gan popped right back up from being hit by a motorcycle and pulled Edge to his feet as he was still disoriented and stumbling about, "So you're with Uzumaki today? And the two women to boot." He looked over at Naruto who was dabbing at the blood going down his face, "You've got some friends kid."

Naruto looked around between Sakura who was fussing over how beaten up he looked already, Batsu who had made it to their side and was placing some fingerless orange gloves onto his hands in preparation, and Natsu who even smiled amusedly at him and shook her head as she produced a volleyball(?) from seemingly nowhere, "Yeah, they're pretty damn good." He admitted.

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

{Character Profile}

Name: Ibuki

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Female

Age: 15 (Birthday: December 6)

Height/Weight: 5'4/101 lbs.

Bloodtype: A

Likes: Boys, her pet tanuki (Don), J-Pop, sneaking up on others.

Dislikes: Exams, Guy's nindou, the lack of technology she has access to in the mountains.

Hobbies: Too busy training to have one.

Rivals: Guy

Fighting Style: Ninjutsu

Current Techniques: Kunai/Shuriken, Kubi-ki (Neckbreaker), Raida (Lightning Strike), Kasumi Gake (The Haze), Kazegiri (Wind Gili), Tsumuji, Hien (Flying Swallow).

Hyper Techniques: Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow), Yoroitoshi (Armor Piercer), Yami Shigure (Dark Drizzle), Hashinshou.

Background: Ibuki is a beautiful young girl trained in the combat arts of her clan and raised since childhood in a village entirely composed of ninjas. She eventually grew bored of the same monotonous lifestyle and attending a school filled only with ninja like herself and wished to try living like a normal schoolgirl. She rather resents her lot in life of not having full control of her own destiny and finds her ninja clothing ugly, much rather preferring the normal clothes that civilians wear. Her constant companion is a pet tanuki named Don. Ibuki's fighting style is centered around speed and misdirection that makes good use of her slim athletic build to work herself into positions that opponents aren't readily equipped to deal with.

Name: Akira Kazama

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Female

Age: 15 (Birthday: March 3)

Height/Weight: 5'3/Unknown

Bloodtype: AB

Likes: Motorcycles, her big brother Daigo, her Gedo High School friends (other members of Daigo's gang), cats.

Dislikes: Chatter, noisy people, water and swimming.

Hobbies: Cooking, mechanics

Rivals: None

Fighting Style: Taikyoku-ken, Tai-chi-chuan

Current Techniques: Senshuubu (Cyclone Dance), Houbu (Releasing Dance), Gairimon (Elbow Gate), Ha no Renbu (Destructive Barrage).

Hyper Techniques: Kikou Kai (Spirit Cultivation Cluster), Ten no Renbu (Heaven's Consecutive Dance), Haten Mueishuu (Destructive Heaven's Shadowless Kick).

Background: Akira is the younger sister of the "Boss of Gedo High School" Daigo Kazama. A silent girl that rarely speaks her thoughts aloud, she is rather docile and gentle… without her biker outfit. When wearing the outfit she finds it fit to disguise her true gender, allowing her to act more tough and commanding. She has developed high levels of skill in Chinese martial arts and even uses her biker outfit (helmet and all) as a weapon in of itself when in combat.

Name: Daigo Kazama

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Height/Weight: 6'6/196 lbs.

Bloodtype: AB

Likes: Enka music, hero movies, being a leader.

Dislikes: Caterpillars, dishonor.

Hobbies: N/A

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki, anyone that threatens his gang.

Fighting Style: Undeterminable

Current Techniques: Musou Zuki (Unique Thrust), Musou Riken (Unique Reverse Fist), Kikou Kai (Spirit Cultivation Cluster), Musou Gen (Unique Kick), Daichi Zuki (Earth Stab).

Hyper Techniques: Shin Musou Seiken Zuki (True Unique Superior Fist Thrust), Shin Kan no Senaka (True Massive Back), Kou Kikou Kai (Hard Spirit Cultivation Cluster).

Background: He is the older brother of Akira Kazama, a student, and the leader of Gedo High School's roving gang. He has firm control over his underlings, even the wilder ones like Edge, due to his strong personality, magnetic charisma, and superior fighting ability with free use of ki based techniques. Daigo is a very honorable young man that excels in his studies despite his 'extracurricular activities', and he takes that honor to the battleground more often than not, never fighting unfairly.

Name: Eiji "Edge" Yamada

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Age: 15

Height/Weight: 5'8/132 lbs.

Bloodtype: AB

Likes: Army knives, fighting video games.

Dislikes: His real name, putting in effort, ghosts.

Hobbies: Checking his clothes over.

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki, Batsu Ichimonji

Fighting Style: Dirty gangster tactics

Current Techniques: Uragiri (Backstab), Batou (Abuse), Hakai (Destruction).

Hyper Techniques: Souzetsu na Uragiri (Grand Backstab), Chimatsuri (Bloodbath).

Background: "Edge" is a student at Gedo High School and a member of the school's gang under Daigo Kazama. Most easily distinguished by his high, towering hair style and his colorful purple school uniform he is quite eccentric and somewhat vain. In combat he is very irresponsible, bordering on full sociopathic when it comes to battling an enemy. Never a part of a fair fight, Edge will use his absurd number of army knives that he keeps on his person against anyone. An easy way to distract him is to mess with his clothes, such as wrinkling them or disheveling them significantly. Both Naruto and Batsu routinely take advantage of this trait during fights to easily subdue him in one-on-one combat, thus his ranging hostility for them.

Name: Gan Isurugi

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Height/Weight: 6'6/253 lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: Rice balls, eating in general.

Dislikes: Studying

Hobbies: Eating at a fast pace, one-day-jobs such as road construction or moving

Rivals: Naruto Uzumaki

Fighting Style: Based on sumo wrestling.

Current Techniques: Teppou Zuki (Gun Stabbing), Kashiwade Yaburi (Clapping Smash), Ooran (Raging Storm), Oosenpuu (Giant Cyclone), Ganseki Kudaki (Rock Breaker), Aranami Shiko (Destructive Wave Stomping), Buchikamashi (Face Strike).

Hyper Techniques: Midare Teppou Zuki (Unruly Gun Stabbing), Funkazan (Volcanic Eruption), Setsuhou Otoshi (Avalanche Smash).

Background: Gan is a student of Gedo High School and a member of the school's gang like many of the male students. A very large and fun-loving young man with absolutely immense physical strength, something he takes great pride in. He is incredibly simple-minded and holds no real tactical skills, a dunce far beyond any other person that could be deemed 'simple-minded', simply making him a charging brick house in battle. Gan's fighting style makes use of his large size and lack of overall intelligence with his use of sumo wrestling skills to repel and viciously counter any weaker opponent's attack. Can take an ungodly amount of physical punishment from his present-day foes and must usually be outsmarted to be defeated.

Name: Natsu Ayuhara

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Height/Weight: 5'11/Unknown

Bloodtype: B

Likes: Cake, effortful people.

Dislikes: Liars, people that bully the weak, little bugs.

Hobbies: Volleyball, fighting with Batsu, cooking.

Rivals: Sakura Kasugano (friendly), Batsu Ichimonji (friendly), Shoma Sawamura (friendly)

Fighting Style: Volleyball

Current Techniques: Jikkon Serve (Soulful Serve), Suberi Jushin (Sliding Receive), Kaiten Jushin (Rolling Receive), Kanzen Fusagu (Perfect Block), Tokkun Spike (Intense Spike).

Hyper Techniques: Makyuu Tenjou Serve (Magical Ball Ceiling Serve), Hiyakudatsu (Fire Serve).

Background: A student of Gorin High School and a childhood friend of Sakura Kasugano, Natsu is something of a tomboy, acting more like a boy in many cases than a girl. Added on to her sharp personality and imposing height for a girl and many boys find her rather intimidating though her actual personality is more of a sisterly figure than anything else. A fighting buddy of both Batsu and Sakura, Natsu is rudimentarily trained in hand-to-hand combat and is knowledgeable in the use of ki, though she uses these things with her own twist. Natsu's fighting style is mostly dependant on her volleyball skills, with her using an actual ball as a medium for many of her attacks.