Naruto did not know what the jutsu was that hit him. He felt reality swirling and distorting like it was trying to pinch him out of existence. Darkness exploded around him and his senses were dulled and cold as if he'd been bathed in ice.
A horn? Naruto leapt from his position, prone on the ground, without thinking, narrowly avoiding a contraption that barely missed hitting him. Naruto stared. He had no idea where he was. Mechanized carts - they were called cars, weren't they? - were travelling on the smoothly paved road below. There were so many of them that Naruto could barely believe it, even though he was seeing it with his own eyes. There weren't any nations with the infrastructure to support this many vehicles, especially ones that seemed to be powered by some sort of combustion. If they had been chakra powered, Naruto would have understood it.
He came down on the thin metal plate that covered the front of one of the cars. The metal dented and the car jolted under his feet. The honking alarm screamed out from under him and the man inside screamed obscenities, half of which Naruto had never heard before. This surprised him; not the obscenities, but the fact that he'd never heard them before. He heard more vulgar comments every year on his birthday than he could possibly imagine.
He leapt away from the car onto the area that seemed to be reserved for pedestrians. It was so crowded that he jostled several people as he landed. He wondered what was going on. Why were so many people out and about? Was there some sort of festival?
"Out of the way!" A man in a business suit shoved Naruto out of the way with a heavy briefcase. Naruto, still confused, dodged through the throngs of people massing about. It seemed like it would never end. He thought about going to the rooftops, but the buildings here were so high that they were obscured by the clouds and seemed to be made almost completely of glass. He was sure that walking on the buildings would cause them to shatter under the strain of his weight.
Naruto pushed his way through the crowd and into a building. It was some sort of convenience store. There were many brightly packaged objects, one of which he recognized immediately: ramen cups.
"Don't move!" a man shouted at him. The man was dressed all in black and was wearing a mask. He was carrying something. Naruto had never seen anything like it, but was fairly certain that it was some sort of projectile launcher. He instinctively reached for his equipment pouch.
The man pulled the trigger. The glass door behind Naruto shattered. Naruto had not even seen the projectile, but he had heard the explosion that had propelled it. Not even the most skilled jounin could throw a kunai as fast as this thing had launched its payload.
Naruto wondered if the attack had just been a warning shot. Perhaps this man was this villages form of the ANBU. Perhaps the weapon's accuracy was bad enough that he had missed. It didn't matter. Naruto had no choice but to defend himself.
Naruto threw a shuriken at the man as a distraction then started performing hand signs. He stopped before completing the jutsu. The man hadn't even tried to dodge. The shuriken had pierced his throat and knocked him to the ground. In a moment the man would be dead.
"This is the police! Put your hands in the air."
Naruto didn't hesitate this time. He dove to the side, rolling between the aisles. A series of explosion propelled projectiles went off, firing at him from the entrance. Peering through the shelves, Naruto saw a group of men enter. They all wore matching blue outfits. Some were overweight, but that didn't matter. With their weapons, they could easily take out a ninja if they took him by surprise.
The men began fanning out, they would surround Naruto if he didn't do something. He created a shadow clone and sent it jumping towards the window. It was fired at almost immediately. The glass shattered and the clone disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"What was that?" One of the uniformed men asked. It was more of a distraction than Naruto needed. He leapt out of hiding and grabbed the man from behind, holding a kunai to his neck and using him as a shield to protect himself from the other men.
"Drop your weapons, or your friend is finished!" Naruto called. Only the man he was holding dropped the weapon from his fat, stubby fingers. The fat of his neck practically covered the kunai.
One of the men turned to point his weapon at Naruto who in turn whipped the kunai into the barrel of the weapon as it fired. The weapon jerked back and the man screamed as his finger was broken.
"You're surrounded. Let the officer go and turn yourself in." This man's hands were shaking. There was little danger from him. There was only one man who seemed calm enough to be a threat. This man holstered his weapon.
"Calm down. We don't want any unnecessary injuries. Everyone lower your weapons."
"But, sir!"
"Look at the robber. Who do you think stopped him with a ninja star? This boy is obviously very skilled and dangerous, but he also seems to only be defending himself against idiots who are shooting without thinking."
"Look what he did to me!" the officer with the broken finger complained.
"Only when you fired your gun at him. He's probably just scared. Look at the way he's dressed. He's probably a foreigner and doesn't know that we're police officers." The man turned to Naruto. "Will you please come with us to the police station and give your statement about what happened here?"
"A witness statement or interrogation?" Naruto asked.
"You have not yet been charged with any crime," the man responded. He did not seem to be lying, so Naruto carefully released the man he had been holding. Everyone seemed to relax. The man he'd used as a hostage rubbed his neck, quickly backing away from Naruto.
Naruto went to the man with the broken finger. In a single fluid movement, he took the man's gun and dislodged his kunai. from it. He swore when he saw how it was dented and tossed it aside. It had always been difficult for him to get decent equipment. There was only one store in all of Konoha which gave him decent prices. He went over to the dead body of the thief and, despite protests from the police officers, retrieved his shuriken, cleaning it on the thief's clothes.
"You can't do things like that."
"It's mine, and quality equipment is hard for me to come by," Naruto responded, putting the shuriken into his equipment pouch.
"This is a crime scene. Any disturbance will make the investigation more difficult."
"This guy obviously had no chakra control and there are surveillance devices." Naruto indicated towards the cameras jutting out of the walls and ceiling. "I admit I killed this man. Taking my weapon back will not harm anything."
The officer sighed, "It's procedure. We have to follow it."
"I'm keeping my shuriken," Naruto replied soundly.
The officers led Naruto outside and asked him to get into the back of one of their vehicles.
"I'd rather walk." Naruto did not like the look of the back seat of the vehicles. Everything was covered in a metal mesh. He could easily break through it if he had to, but didn't want to risk it in case it was made out of some sort of chakra dispersing material like the walls of Konoha.
"It's a long way. It would be better if you came with us."
"I'm not sitting in a cage. Besides, with all the traffic, I could easily outrun your vehicles." The streets were even more packed now with the police cars blocking the way.
"Get in or I start charging you with interference in a police investigation." Naruto decided that it was better to go voluntarily. Considering their weapons technology, he did not want to see their torture implements.
---
Naruto sat in the windowless room for almost an hour. It was an old trick. It would get impatient people to crack as soon as the interrogator entered the room. Naruto had heard that once Ibiki had left a man waiting for three days, with nothing but a glass of water before bringing him a meal and making him spill everything. He was a witness, not a criminal, so they would not be so cruel to him would they?
A dark skinned woman with glasses and a crisply pressed suit entered the room and sat across from him.
"I'm Dr. Baylin. Sorry for the wait. Things are busy right now. Could you please fill in these forms?" She handed him some sheets of paper.
"What's this?" he asked. He couldn't read a word of it. He recognized the characters, it was all written in romanji but it seemed to be written in a different language. "I don't understand this."
"Can't you not read?"
"Of course I can read, but this is all gibberish."
"How about if I read the questions, then you can write the answers."
"If I can't read your words, then how would you read mine?"
"We might have someone who can translate them. This first field is for your name." The woman pointed.
"Oh, yeah," Naruto said sheepishly, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki." He grabbed the woman's hand and shook it. He picked up a writing implement that had been put next to the papers. It took him a few moments to realize that the button at the top would release the nib of the pen and that there was already ink inside of it. He wrote his name in the space provided, putting the romanji above it for Dr. Baylin's benefit.
Dr. Baylin looked at his writing for a few moments, then turned towards a mirror that covered a section of the wall.
"Get someone who knows how to read Japanese." Turning back to Naruto, she said, "How did you come to America?"
"I don't know. I was hit with something. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the middle of a street and people started shooting at me," Naruto answered.
"Where do you come from?"
"Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves."
"And where is this Konoha?"
Naruto stared at her blankly, "You've never heard of Konoha?"
"No, I haven't. Is it famous?"
"Of course it is. It's one of the five strongest ninja villages."
"What exactly is a ninja village?"
"A village of ninjas. Isn't that obvious?" Naruto scowled. Either this woman was messing with him, or she was a complete idiot. There was no way that she could have not heard of Konoha.
"This ninja village, where exactly is it?" The woman looked at Naruto with a confused stare.
"In Fire Country," he answered simply.
"And where is that?"
"East of Wind Country. West of Water Country."
"Could you show it to me on a map?"
Naruto sighed and pulled a scroll out of his weapons pouch and unrolled it on the flat metal surface of the table. The woman was about to ask him something when he bith his thumb and swiped the blood across the seal of the scroll and several objects popped out, including a compass and a map which he unfolded and lay in front of her. He didn't bother pointing out Fire Country. It was big and right in the middle.
"How did you do that?" the woman asked, in a state that Naruto now recognized as shock.
"How did I do what?" he asked. He had no idea what was confusing her.
"You made those things appear out of paper. That's impossible."
"Are you stupid or something? It's just a sealing scroll. Even academy students can do this."
"Where did this stuff come from?"
"It was inside the scroll."
"It couldn't fit inside the scroll. There was nothing in there when you unrolled it!" She was getting hysterical.
"Of course not. It was sealed. Naruto turned away, disgusted. No one had ever accused him of being intelligent, but this woman made him look like a genius.
The door opened. It was the man who had kept his head during their confrontation.
"Dr. Baylin, you may take your leave. I'll take things from here."
"I..."
"Now, please." Intimidated, the woman left, slamming the door behind her.
"Academic people have trouble accepting some things, but she's not stupid. You just flustered her."
"And you don't get flustered?"
"I've seen enough strange things that I refuse to allow it. I am Inspector Arman." He dropped into the chair Dr. Baylin had vacated, rocking dangerously backwards as he thought. "Can you show me how you did that again?"
Naruto resealed the items that still sat on the scroll, then unsealed them again.
"You satisfied?"
"There's no trick to it then. Is this something to do with being a ninja?"
"It requires chakra," Naruto confirmed.
"And you use chakra for ninja skills, like that decoy you used back at the crime scene."
"Yes."
"Can you show me how you did that?"
Naruto formed the modified tiger seal and created a shadow clone while calling out, "Shadow clone jutsu!" An exact replica appeared beside him, grinning.
The inspector raised an eyebrow slightly and stood up. He walked around the table and stared at Naruto's clone.
"Whatcha looking at?" The clone asked, staring rudely back at the inspector.
The inspector poked the clone. "It's solid."
"Yeah, but a good solid hit will dispel it."
"Do you mind if I..."
"Just not between the legs. I remember everything that happens to the clone."
"Better if I didn't," the inspector decided, "They might think I was beating a witness."
"I'll show you then," Naruto threw the clone into a wall. The clone disappeared.
"You have other abilities, I assume."
"Yeah."
"Could you teach us some of them? It wouldn't have to be too difficult, but those techniques could be very useful when capturing criminals."
"Ha! That's funny; asking the dead last in his academy class to teach you. I barely understand it myself. I couldn't teach anyone if I tried unless they were already a genius."
"Try me," the inspector challenged.
"Okay. This is the easiest jutsu I know," Naruto said, performing the hand signs and transforming into an exact replica of the inspector.
The inspector blinked slowly and then nodded. "So, how did you do that?"
"I just focus my chakra, imagine what I want the henge to look like and perform these hand signs to mould the chakra to perform the jutsu."
"And what's this chakra you keep talking about?"
"It's energy that comes from inside you. Every living thing has chakra."
"I don't understand."
"That's what Sakura says about me. I don't really know how it works. I just do it."
"I see. You really aren't that good of a teacher, are you?"
"I've only ever been able to teach anyone one jutsu, but I always get in trouble for doing it."
"Could you teach me this 'jutsu'?"
"Nah. Everyone I've ever taught it to already knew how to use chakra," Naruto replied.
"Interesting. Are you any good at fighting?"
"I'm only a gennin, but I can take any civilian or bandit. I've actually beaten some jounin."
"Those are ranks?"
"Yes, gennin is the lowest rank... unless you count academy students, and jounin is the highes rank, except for some exceptions like the Sannin." Naruto explained.
---
"So, what do you need my help for?"
"Underground fighting rings. They're dangerous. People die and no one points out the ones running them. I want you to enter some and show them that it's not worth the trouble."
"You are going to bet on me aren't you."
"I've got to pay you somehow. You've come from some place far away, probably due to some strange ability like the ones you showed me. I'm betting you don't have anything we'd consider to be legal tender."
"Gama is full of money," Naruto said, showing the full frog-like package.
"Full of money that's good wherever you came from. We don't even recognize the name of your country. Do you think we'd recognize your currency?"
Naruto sighed, "So you're saying that if I help you, I'll get to eat."
"And don't go around telling people about this. It's not exactly a legal way to deal with these guys.
"I suppose you'll want me to not kill any of them either."
"You got it."
"But you want me to scare them so badly that they'll never want to fight again."
"You're not as stupid as you act."
"One question... Will there be a lot of room?"
"See for yourself." The inspector led Naruto into an alley and knocked on a metal door in some sort of code. The door opened. It was an empty warehouse. The floor was sunken into the ground with a metal catwalk around the sides. Crates and broken planks littered the ground below.
"One observer, and one fighter," the inspector told the burly man guarding the door.
"Bringing your son to watch you fight, eh?" the bouncer chuckled, "Better not disappoint him."
"I'm not the one fighting."
"Then you're crazy. That kid will get clobbered in his first fight."
"I hope the guy who makes the odds think the same thing. If he does, this boy's going to make me a fortune."
"I've heard that before. Ain't never been right yet."
"Are there any rules for this fight?"
"Bare knuckle combat. No weapons in, but anything down there is free game."
"You should hold this then," Naruto handed the man his weapons pouch. Now that he knew this man, he knew he could trust him at least this much. Besides, none of them knew about chakra. This would be a piece of cake. Naruto bounded over to a gate where participants were waiting to fight. Many of them were showboating, but obviously had no skill. Others had skill, but no chakra control, and therefore were hopelessly slow and weak.
"Kid, go home to your mother. I'm not into making little boys cry," a muscular man said. Naruto looked at him for a moment.
"You're too bulky. You couldn't hit me even if there were two of you and both my legs were tied together."
The man's brow furrowed in anger. "Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm going to teach you a lesson your papa should have taught you long ago."
"My dad died the day I was born. Unlike you, though, he was a person worth learning from."
A bunch of the other fighters laughed.
"That's it. You and me are next." He turned towards the master of ceremonies, looking for agreement.
"No."
"Why not, kid? You scared?"
"No, but you wouldn't stand a chance. I could take everyone here blindfolded. In fact, let's do that, then maybe the fight will last long enough for the spectators to get a show."
It was more than the burly man could bare. He threw a right hook with all of his bulk behind it at Naruto. Naruto caught the man's wrist.
"Save it for the fight. It's not worth the trouble when fighting a cripple."
"Do you really want to do that?" the master of ceremonies asked.
"If you think I'm bluffing, announce the fight. I will win."
"Ladies and gentlemen. A new contender has riled up the fighters beyond what they can reasonably bear. He has challenged them all at once, and he will fight them blind folded. This will either be a display of skill as of yet unseen in this bloody ring, or a massacre that will leave him begging for death! Place your bets!"
Naruto leapt down into the ring, turning around to view the entire fighting area and memorizing the obstacles before pulling his forehead protector down over his eyes. He stood there listening and waiting for the fight to start. The crowd was shouting, working into a frenzy. Naruto heard the sound of a series of feet marching down the metal stairs. He waited as twenty competitors surrounded him.
"Let the fight begin!"
Naruto felt the pressure of the fist coming towards him. He didn't move. He just focused chakra on the back of his head to reduce the damage he would take from the strike. He barely felt it. Sakura's blows were much more impressive. The man had learned his lesson though. He was screaming in pain with a broken hand.
"Are you all ready? You'd better not blink or it will be over."
Someone threw a punch at Naruto. He grabbed the man's arm and swung him around, slamming him into the people surrounding him. Most of the participants were already out of the match. Naruto sat down and yawned.
"Maybe I'll take a name. You might actually be worth fighting if I'm asleep." The whistle of a board flying through the air sped towards him. Naruto dodged, kicking upward and shattering the board. His attacker screamed as splinters sprayed outwards. "If I started using lethal force, would that make you guys get serious?" Naruto asked, spinning and slamming his fist into a man's chest. The man toppled backwards, gasping for air. No one else approached. "I guess it's time to finish this then." Naruto formed an army of shadow clones, immediately hengeing them into rats. The rats spread out, biting everyone who was down in the arena. Some of them got dispelled, giving Naruto a glimpse of his opponents locations. He quickly knocked them out and then repositioned his forehead protector to its original spot.
The arena was silent, and then people began to scream as rats poured up the walls towards them. The rats didn't actually attack anyone, but the people had already seen the rats topple powerful fighters and didn't want to stick around to be eaten by the rodents. Naruto dispelled the henged clones and leapt back up to the observer's area to see how much they had won.
"How did I do?" he asked the inspector, who was sweating nervously.
"I think you taught them a lesson." The building was empty, except for the unconscious fighters. "Look at the odds they had against you. One-fifty to one. Considering I bet fifty bucks." The inspector went to the betting station and emptied it. "This should be enough to cover it. Ready for the next one? This one was kind of a dump."
Naruto nodded. This was going to be a rather fun mission.
"Fifty-fifty split sound good to you?" Inspector Arman suggested, splitting the thick wad of bills in half. Naruto took his half without complaint. This would have been a c-rated mission in Konoha, so he would not have made anywhere near this much for it.
---
The next place was in the basement of a high class hotel. It was much nicer in the fact that it actually had seating. There was a board listing the order of participants, and no amount of prodding would get Naruto the chance to take all of the competitors at once.
He waited for his turn, watching the fights. At least these people knew how to fight, even if they were horribly slow. His name was called and he entered the ring.
"Due to the competitor's confidence, this will be a cage match. No one goes in or out until one of the competitors is unconscious." The crowd cheered at the announcement.
Naruto jumped down into the ring and waited for his competitor. Once they were both ready, chain link fences lowered to surround the fighting area.
"You had to force a cage match, didn't you!" his opponent complained. The man was wiry and long limbed, and his face was locked into a permanent frown. His long hair clung to the sweat on his shoulders.
"I win more money that way," Naruto replied.
"Only if you win."
"You're not even a challenge, so why not. I'd have let you use a weapon if it would have increased my winnings. Should I blindfold myself? That might increase your odds of winning to one in a million."
"Anger makes a fighter stupid. Don't think that I'll fall for any of your mental tricks."
The crowd was getting impatient.
"I guess I'd better give them a show," Naruto said, "Get ready. My first attack will be my last."
The man got into a fighting stance and waited for Naruto to make a move.
"Harem jutsu!" Naruto was replaced with ten beautiful and naked women. The crowd went wild.
"What the -" He didn't get to finish.
"One thousand years of pain!" It was the same attack Kakashi had used on Naruto during the bell test. Naruto clasped his hands together with index fingers pointing out. He slammed these fingers into his opponents anus hard enough to send him flying into the side of the cage. When he landed, his head struck the ground hard enough to knock him out. Naruto's female clones disappeared in puffs of smoke, leaving Naruto standing there over his opponent displaying a victory sign.
He returned to the stands to await his next match. "If I really scared them, enough that they would tell their friends never to come one of these, would that be enough?"
"You have a technique that can do that without killing them?"
"Unless they have a heart attack or something."
"Sounds good."
"Will you come with us please?" Two men in suits approached Naruto. "Our boss would like to talk with you." The one who was talking subtly revealed the gun at his waist.
"He want to fight me as well?"
"He has certain, concerns, about your method of fighting and whether it is really appropriate for this establishment."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"He thinks you cheated," the inspector told him.
"Whatever. Let's see this boss of yours."
Naruto followed the men to a private booth above the rest of the audience. A large man was there, sitting in a comfortable chair and smoking a cigar. He was wearing a black suit and had a red rose on his lapel. His beady eyes looked at Naruto shrewdly.
"Do you know what the rules of this establishment are?"
"If it ain't a part of my body, I ain't allowed to use it to fight."
"That's right, and yet, what I saw out there were twelve people in the ring, eleven of them were on your side."
"Eleven bodies, all of 'em mine. So what's the problem."
"The problem is that what you just said is impossible."
Naruto glanced across the building and pointed to a man hidden on the opposite side. "Him hitting me is impossible. What I did was just skill. It's not my fault if the fighters do not know how to use their bodies."
"If this is true, prove it to me."
"Multi-shadow clone jutsu." In a moment, each shadow clone had henged into a copy of one of the large man's guards and disarmed them. Meanwhile, Naruto henged into the big man, pulling him out of his chair and spinning around so that the snipers would not know which of them to shoot at. "Believe me now?"
"I see you have some ability which would be useful to my organization."
"I doubt your organization will last long. After my next fight, there won't be any dry pants in the house."
"Are you insinuating that we will all be so afraid of you that we will wet ourselves?"
"Assuming you don't faint first."
"And how do you intend to do this thing?"
"Easy. I'll reveal what I really am." Naruto released the men and jumped down into the crowd, preparing for his next match.
"Change the order. He fights every fight. I want to see what he can do."
"As you wish, Don Peretti," the mafia enforcer replied before taking out his cell phone and calling the computer guy who would change the order.
Naruto was called into the ring. He faced a large man who had won his last fight.
---
"Hey fox!" Naruto rattled the cage within him, waking the sleeping beast, "Wake up."
"What makes you dare to wake me from my rest?"
"I want to cause some fear and mayhem, and I want to use your chakra to do it."
"Ha, ha, ha... There's hope for you yet." The kyuubi's chakra leaked out of the cage and into Naruto.
---
Red chakra surrounded Naruto, dense enough to be visible to the naked eye. Naruto's eyes became red and the pupils became vertical slits. His hair took on a more reddish hue. His nails became black claws and his teeth became large fangs. A single tail made of chakra whipped out behind him, flapping about dangerously. Wherever the tail struck, a scorch mark was left.
The entire crowd was shocked at his transformation, but not nearly as much as the man standing across from him who was now trembling fearfully, his pants dripping from a sudden loss of bladder control.
Naruto released a wave of killing intent as powerful as he could muster. He had not even moved and the screams filled the room. men and women rushed out of the building. A shot was fired at him by one of the hidden snipers. It missed. Naruto turned and glared in the direction of the bullet. The gun fell from the rafters as the shooter turned to run. Naruto grabbed his opponent and tossed him into the fleeing crowd before creating a demonic-chakra oodama rasengan. He leapt into the air and came down, slamming the rasengan into the rind, leaving a crater that fell just short of where the nearest person had been standing. Everyone in the stadium was knocked to the ground by the shockwave.
Naruto calmed himself, letting the demonic chakra dissipate. He knew that if he continued to rampage, he'd soon go into the second tail. Eventually he'd be unable to control himself. As it was, he'd done enough damage.
Naruto went to the inspector and shook him awake.
"Scary enough for you?" Naruto asked.
The inspector nodded dumbly.
Naruto began to feel dark tendrils of chakra wrap around him. Everything around him disappeared as reality warped. His body was squeezed as he was sucked through the fabric of reality.
---
"Are you okay?" Sakura asked Naruto, "We were worried about you. You just disappeared."
"I got sent somewhere, like a summoning jutsu," he explained, "The people there didn't know about chakra and had never heard of Konoha."
"How did you get back?"
"I don't know. I just got sucked back here the same way I left. The only thing I did was use Kyuubi's chakra to scare some people."
"Maybe that world rejected you and it was only the jutsu that was keeping you there and it couldn't handle the power of Kyuubi's chakra." Kakashi suggested, "Or maybe the jutsu was temporary and just ran out of chakra to feed it."
"Either way, welcome back, Naruto."