Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox

Written by Neon Majestic

(DISCLAIMER: The Naruto franchise and the characters therein belong to and were originally created by Masashi Kishimoto.)

OoOoO

CHAPTER 55 – Matatabi the Cat

"Wheelie time! Go, go, go!" several of Mizuki's gang members hollered as they raced their motorcycles along the thoroughfare, scaring the daylights out of passersby and other motorists. They rushed along with fiendish delight, all on their way back to the warehouse district where they would now have fun for themselves after having cruised through the town at high speed.

"All right!" Mizuki, at the head of the crowd, shouted. "Let's make this town ours again!" and the declaration was met with loud cheers from his followers, even as they now entered their designated roadway to get to the warehouse where they would have their victory party.

OoOoO

"Crap..." Kiba hissed as he and Shino huddled behind a wall while, dangerously close by, the motorcycles zoomed past their hiding place. "They came back early..."

"But at least we managed to get out of that warehouse before they saw us," said Shino. "In any event, we need to let the others know our warehouse doesn't have Naruto or the girl."

OoOoO

Shikamaru's phone buzzed lightly as the message came in from Kushina. "Kiba and Shino haven't found Naruto or the Hyuga kid," he whispered to Choji.

"Oh, okay...and I'm just sending off a message that we haven't found them either," said Choji, holding up his phone with which he was texting. "Where ARE they, anyway?"

OoOoO

Monjin's arm-blade was dripping blood as he stood back and examined the captive Naruto. The former Kyuushingai was bleeding from several cuts and slashes Monjin had administered to him in the past few minutes, and his breathing was labored.

"Hmph...a tough one, aren't you?" Monjin spat. "Well, that's all right. It'll just mean more time to kill you, anyway."

The noise of a motorcycle pulling into the warehouse entrance caught his attention, and as he turned he beheld Mizuki rolling in. "I assume you had fun out there?" he asked.

"I sure did," Mizuki said gleefully as he dismounted his bike. "You should've seen the people—some looked ready to piss themselves when me and my people came crashing through! And..." He beheld the bloodied Naruto. "What the hell have you been doing?"

"Having my own brand of fun—interrogation," Monjin said coolly. "He hasn't talked yet, though. Stubborn bastard."

Mizuki cocked an eyebrow. "Well, not that I mind this display or anything, but do you think you could keep from killing him a little longer—at least, until after my guys are done setting themselves up?"

"Why?" Monjin asked.

"Some of the guys want to have a bike show outside, and they were kinda hoping to get a chance to see this punk strung up, as the main attraction," Mizuki explained.

Monjin looked at Naruto and considered the suggestion. "Fine, then. Go ahead and set up. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue getting the info I want out of this guy."

"You're the expert," Mizuki shrugged, and he turned and walked back out even as Monjin readied himself to face Naruto again.

And in the midst of his own silence...Naruto was cursing the two of them in his mind.

OoOoO

Crouching around the corner of a small building adjoining their selected warehouse, Sai and Ino watched and listened as the gangsters laughed and chattered boisterously, even as, under the light of illegally-connected fluorescent light-bulbs and blazing fires inside several metal barrels, five of their burly male members roared past, around, and over several mounds of the junkyard hangout's garbage piles on their modified motorcycles. Along the sidelines, several male and female gang members who weren't cheering on the race were dancing together to the beat of the latest techno tunes, the electronic sound reverberating around them since it was being blasted out of rigged-up boom-boxes.

"How do these guys still hear after all this?" Ino loudly whispered in Sai's ear.

"At least they're distracted enough so we don't have to worry about getting caught," Sai whispered back. "Have you messaged Kushina-san yet?"

"Done," and Ino held up her phone to verify it. "Damn it, though...where's Naruto?"

OoOoO

In an effort to show off, one of the bikers pulled a wheelie on his ride as he raced toward a makeshift ramp that would send him flying over a garbage pile. He flew high in the sky, then landed on both wheels on the ground before tearing off along the makeshift track, even as the other riders shot into the sky from the ramp seconds later. Moments after this, the lead rider swerved around a corner, angling his bike until his body was dangerously close to the ground to make the turn, and then blazed across the finish line.

"Awesome, dude!" the winner's supporters cheered, while others booed and picked up pieces of nearby garbage to throw at him.

Meanwhile, keeping their heads low, Suigetsu and Jugo hurried from one alley to another. "Damn it, why do we have to creep around like this? This is our kind of crowd—we could blend in easily!" Suigetsu argued.

"Not if they know we're not members of the group," Jugo countered. "Not because you have the look of a thug, that doesn't mean you'll be accepted by thisbunch of thugs, if they don't know you. Anyway, quit griping about that—have you sent off our message?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Suigetsu—and then his phone buzzed and he read the message he'd gotten. "All right, Sai and Ino haven't found them yet either," he reported. "That just leaves Sasuke and Tenten."

"Somebody better strike pay-dirt soon," Jugo muttered.

OoOoO

Amid the chaotic partying, several dancing couples were making the most of the techno beats as they simultaneously took occasional swigs from some questionable-looking bottles. Not far away, Kin sat and watched the festivities with a bored expression on her face. "I wonder if those Akatsuki guys are done with that Kyuushingai punk...I wanna go back in there and continue beating him up," she muttered to herself. "Ah, well, I guess I might as well take a drink..."

Picking up an unopened bottle from the large pile that the gangsters had brought together, she popped off the cork and walked off to enjoy her drink by herself. By and by, heading further away from the noise, she found a secluded spot and proceeded to chug the bottle's contents.

—and suddenly she found herself being grabbed by the neck and her back being hauled against a wall, with a hand gripping his throat tightly. "Wha…!" she managed to croak out, even as the bottle flew out of her grasp from the sudden violence.

Right there in front of her, pinning her tightly to the wall, was a clearly miffed older blond woman. "One chance. Make it count, or you won't wake up tomorrow," she hissed. "The blond kid with the whisker-marks on his face, and the Hyuga child. Where are they?"

"Hey, who the hell do you think you are?" Kin demanded—then suddenly found it hard to breathe as the grip on her neck tightened, and her hands automatically went to her assailant's wrist. "Awk…!"

The woman held up her free hand, which was clothed in a wrist-length glove...and as she touched her fingers to the heel of her palm, three claws popped out of the top of the glove. "You had your chance." Her voice was foreboding as she clenched her fist and raised the claws to strike.

Kin's eyes widened in swift realization. "No, wait!" she choked out. "We let the Hyuga kid go! She isn't here! It was Kurama the Fox we wanted, and he came, so we let her go!"

The woman brought her claws dangerously close to Kin's eye. "Where is Kurama the Fox now?" she asked, her grip on Kin's neck tightening slightly.

"Urk...warehouse...number...27!" Kin wheezed. "Over...there...!" and she raised one hand and swiftly pointed to the left.

"Thanks." And then the infiltrator pulled back her clawed glove and shot her elbow into Kin's face, knocking her senseless, and then dropping her to the ground before turning and trotting away.

No sooner had Kin's attacker left, than another female gangster came around the corner and saw Kin unconscious on the ground, her bottle of booze lying not far away. "Poor kid...couldn't hold her liquor..." and she shook her head sadly.

OoOoO

From around the corner where they'd been hiding, Sasuke and Tenten watched as the blond woman knocked out Mizuki's flunky and then hurried off in the opposite direction from them. "Who's she?" Tenten whispered.

"Hmm...I think I remember her...from the Hyugas' party," Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Better put Kushina-san on alert."

OoOoO

Kushina's phone buzzed, and immediately she looked at it. "A message from Sasuke-kun..." She frowned as she looked at what the message said. "Blond woman...wearing clawed gloves..."

Her eyes widened in sudden realization and her fingers moved furiously on her phone's keypad.

OoOoO

"Blond woman with clawed gloves is ally..." Jugo read the text message that had just come in from Kushina. "So someone else is here concerning Naruto?"

"Well, if this lady is on our side, all the better," said Suigetsu.

OoOoO

Yugito stooped down behind a bush a little distance away from Warehouse 27's entrance, keeping as close to the shadows as she could. Looking left and right, she observed a couple of thugs stumbling about drunkenly, raising bottles to each other in varying ridiculous toasts and then downing the stuff before tottering off. Eyes narrowing, she looked around again to ensure no new persons were coming near her position...then, quietly, she stalked toward the entrance to the warehouse.

And right in the middle of the warehouse floor, there was Naruto, chained to the supporting column, looking battered, bloodied and dirty, and in front of him was a man with a blade attached to and extending from one arm, who was in the process of drawing the tip of said blade across one of Naruto's arms, Naruto himself being clearly too weak to even muster a cry of pain.

Yugito moved swiftly. Running on the tips of her toes, she sprinted forward, leaped, and sent a flying kick to the torturer's head, knocking him off-balance. "That's enough!" she snapped.

For his part, the man swiftly jumped to his feet. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?" he demanded.

"I'm this guy's friend, that's who I am," Yugito replied frostily.

"Grr...you've got some nerve to interrupt me like that," the man declared, rubbing his head where Yugito had kicked him. "If you intend to get in my way, I don't care if you're a woman, I'll kill you along with this piece of garbage right here!"

"Good luck." Yugito readied herself.

"Oh, so that's how you want it, is it?" the man snarled, readying his arm-blade. "All right, then...I'll at least give you the courtesy of knowing the name of the person who's going to cut you down. I'm Monjin, of the Akatsuki group, and I'll bring back the light of justice to this land by killing the Kyuushingai and anyone who supports them!"

"Oh, is that so?" said Yugito. "Then let me see this 'light' that you're talking about. And since we're exchanging names..." She activated the claws in both of her gloves. "You're talking to Matatabi the Cat of the Kyuushingai."

"...oh...so you're one of them, too?" Monjin smirked. "That just means fresh meat for me to slice up."

"Assuming you can," Yugito retorted.

Letting out a yell, Monjin rushed at Yugito and slung his blade at her—but she promptly stepped into his personal space, grabbed his arm by the elbow and under his armpit, and flung him over her shoulder. "Ungh!" Monjin grimaced as he hit the ground.

Yugito immediately jumped out of arm's reach and readied herself, sparing just a moment's glance at the wounded Naruto. "You...you've been torturing him..." she whispered.

"So? What of it?" Monjin asked scornfully as he got back up. "I've still got enough in me to torture you, too, if you want."

Yugito shook her head. "If this boy's mother could see this right now...I guarantee she'd take her time to make you suffer. I'll just do the merciful thing and kill you quickly and painlessly."

Monjin readied himself for combat again. "Try me."

For a long moment the two just stood where they were, staring each other down. Yugito's glove-claws were extended from the top of her knuckles, and her mouth was set in a grim line. Monjin's arm was upraised over his head, his arm-blade at the ready.

Then they charged.

Monjin struck forward with his blade again, but Yugito narrowly dodged aside and lunged forward with her claws, slashing him in the stomach. Monjin grimaced in pain as he felt his skin being slashed, but as he doubled over, Yugito sent two more slashes to her opponent's face, then spun around and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to Monjin's head, knocking him down.

"Why, you...I'll kill you..." Monjin rasped angrily. His face was badly scratched on both sides, and the skin on his midsection was torn away and bleeding.

"Well, you're not doing a very good job of it so far," Yugito said indifferently. "Akatsuki must've been desperate to bring a guy like you on board with them."

Letting out a scream, Monjin dashed at Yugito again, this time swinging his arm-blade in a back-handed movement. Yugito crouched low under the attack, however, and kicked out at one of Monjin's legs, sending him tumbling and crashing face-first to the ground. Monjin attempted to get back up—but Yugito was far faster, and she slammed her foot down on his head, crushing him into the ground.

"Don't bother getting up again," Yugito said coldly—and she shoved her glove-claws right into the two sides of Monjin's neck, ripping them out seconds later. Monjin thrashed about even as Yugito jumped back while the Akatsuki member's blood sprayed about...and then his thrashing slowed and was still.

Sighing, Yugito pressed the tips of her middle and ring fingers on the heels of each hand, and a moment later her glove-claws retracted into position. "Light of justice...right..." she whispered.

"Oi, lady!"

Hearing the sharp hiss from the warehouse entrance, Yugito turned and saw a pale-skinned boy and a blond girl—and she recognized them from Uchiha Sasuke's group on the hill earlier—hurrying toward her. "Ugh...this is messy," the boy flinched on seeing Monjin's corpse on the ground.

The girl, however, was more concerned about Naruto. "Oh, no...Naruto, what have they doneto you?" she whispered, a hand over her mouth in horror. "Sai, help me with him!"

"Got it, Ino," Sai nodded, and he stepped past Yugito and toward Naruto's still form. "Damn it...he needs a doctor, now!"

OoOoO

"Ow..." Kin groaned and shook her head, clearing the darkness out of her senses. "Damn it...can't believe I got hit like that..."

Clarity returned to her. "Oh, crap—I gotta warn Mizuki-sama!"

OoOoO

Back among the riotous party-makers, a young woman approached Mizuki and curled her arm around his shoulders. "So, Mizuki-sama, got anything special lined up for tonight?" she purred.

"Maybe…" Mizuki smirked at her.

"Aw, no fair, Mizuki-sama! You're gonna have fun without me?" a second girl pouted and clung to Mizuki's arm.

"Now, now, I'm not that selfish…there's plenty of me to go around," Mizuki grinned.

"MIZUKI-SAMA! MIZUKI-SAMA!"

Mizuki glanced up as Kin ran in his direction. "We've got trouble, Mizuki-sama!" Kin exploded.

OoOoO

Sai slashed at the lock holding Naruto's chains together with Monjin's arm-blade, this having been disconnected from the dead man's wrist, but the lock wouldn't budge. "Come on, come on, you...!" Sai swore under his breath.

Meanwhile, Ino was rapidly pressing buttons on her cell-phone. "Okay...I just sent the word to Kushina-san. The others should be getting the message shortly," she reported. "And..." She turned to Yugito. "Who are you, exactly? How'd you manage to find this place?"

"The name's Yugito. And I found this place thanks to good information," Yugito replied.

"Yugito…Hinata's trainer?" Ino immediately recalled Hinata having previously mentioned the woman.

"Explanations can come later," Yugito said firmly. "Right now, getting Naruto out of here is first priority." She looked at Sai, who was still hacking away at the lock with the blade. "Any luck, fella?"

"Just...a little...further...there!"Sai announced triumphantly as one more slash tore the lock away from the chains, and then he hurriedly pulled them off the barely-conscious Naruto. "All right, let's get you out of here, Naruto..."

"Ungh..." Naruto's grunt came out as a barely audible whisper. "You...came..."

"Save your strength, Naruto," Ino urged him, gingerly slinging one of his arms over her shoulders even as Sai, on the other side of Naruto, did likewise with the blond boy's other arm. "Just hang on, okay? We're going to get you to a doctor..."

"NOBODY'S GOING ANYWHERE!"

The group's heads jerked up as, right at the entrance, several sinister shapes poured in. Moments later, they were surrounded by thugs, with Mizuki himself stepping in from their midst. "Aw, hell..." Ino whispered.

"Long time no see, Yamanaka chick," Mizuki hailed Ino directly. "Just where do you think you're going, huh? Be good little children and put that Kyuushingai back where you got him, would you?"

"Eh? Kyuushingai?" Sai started, then looked down at Naruto. "Naruto-kun?"

"Oh? So at least one of you didn't know...oh, well, not that it matters much, since you're all going to die anyway," Mizuki shrugged. "Okay, boys and girls," he addressed his gangsters, "no guns, got it? We don't want to shoot each other by accident. But..." He reached into his belt and pulled out a huge hunting knife, grinning nastily. "Everything else is fair game."

"Got it, Mizuki-sama!" The other gangsters promptly pulled out whatever firearms they'd been armed with, emptied them and then tossed them aside, then in turn pulling out a multitude of other weapons instead, including bats, pipes, knives and chains.

Yugito activated her glove-claws. "All right. Who among you wants to die first? Come right ahead."

"You're brave." Mizuki snapped his fingers. "Get them!"

"Nightmare Hawk Stomp!"

Before any of Mizuki's gangsters could move, a dark figure hopped off the back of one of them and stamped down on Mizuki's head, flattening him face-first on the ground. As the gangsters took in this development, Uchiha Sasuke flipped onto his hands and bounded toward Yugito and the others, landing smoothly on his feet and spinning to face the thugs. "Get them!" Sasuke barked.

Seconds later, several other figures darted into the warehouse and punched and kicked at the other gangsters. Ino and Sai gaped as they took in what was going on—Kiba slammed his fists into two gangsters' faces, Shino grabbed a thug around the neck from behind and kicked the man in the back of one leg to force him to the ground, Tenten flew in the air and delivered a spinning kick to a female gangster's face, Jugo slammed a gangster in the neck with his bicep and knocked the punk to the floor, Suigetsu tackled a thug and brought him down hard to the ground, Choji barreled into two thugs and knocked them down, and Shikamaru tripped up another female gangster.

Mizuki was only now getting back up, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "So...more rats are coming out to get killed...that's quite fine by me," he growled.

OoOoO

Still waiting atop her location on the hill, Kushina looked out over the warehouses. "I've a bad feeling…" she whispered.

OoOoO

Yugito, Sasuke, the injured and barely-conscious Naruto, and their friends were close together in the very center of the warehouse, while Mizuki and his thugs were surrounding them from all sides. "Lady...you seem to know Naruto pretty well," Sasuke whispered to Yugito. "Can you keep watch over him? Let us take care of this trash."

"As you say...but be careful," Yugito whispered back.

"Heh, heh, heh..." Mizuki interrupted their discourse. "What're you guys going to do now? We've got you trapped."

"Oi, Mizuki, why don't we just shoot them right now? Our guns are still here on the ground," one thug called out.

"No! Didn't you hear what I said?" Mizuki barked. "They're still able to move around, aren't they? And suppose you miss and shoot one of us instead just because they manage to DODGE our shots? Besides..." He licked the blade of his hunting knife and grinned. "Guns aren't quite as personal...or as satisfying...as when you do the kill up close."

Yugito crossed her arms over her chest. "And what, exactly, makes you think you'll win? We're not exactly outnumbered here—these kids are perfectly capable of fighting for themselves, and I..." and she indicated Monjin's corpse. "...just killed your Akatsuki ally. I'd think now would be the time for you to run home screaming to your mother."

"Funny." Mizuki's grip on his knife tightened. "But YOU'RE the ones who're trapped. You're on our turf, and there's only one entrance and exit out of here, so the only way you'd be able to escape is to get past us—and, of course, that's not gonna happen. But first things first, we're going to teach you all some manners...because there's no way out of here for you, except maybe in body bags. Now, then, guys...let's show them some hospitality..."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha."

Already advancing on the group of teens, the gangsters stopped when they heard Sasuke laugh. "Heh, heh, heh, heh…you know…I'm just taking stock of something...I'm actually about to have fun beating the tar out of the lot of you."

"Enough stalling—GET THEM!" Mizuki roared, and at once the other gang members charged at the little group, their weapons at the ready.

Sasuke's grin became just a little wider. "Let's go."

The first gangster to reach the group swung a crowbar at Tenten's head—in response, Tenten ducked and sent a punch to the man's ribs, causing the thug to double over before another fast punch to the jaw knocked him down. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Sai snatched up the fallen crowbar, then reared it over his shoulder and swung it hard and fast at the next three punks coming in his direction, slamming the iron tool right across their faces, knocking out teeth and blood and sending all three to the ground. Another punk, wielding a knife, closed in on Shino to stab his thigh; however, Shino was far faster and responded by jumping to one side, avoiding the knife-stab, and slammed his elbow right on the back of the gangster's neck, sending him crashing face-first to the floor.

Another thug, standing head and shoulders above Suigetsu, thundered toward him with fists clenched and ready to punch; however, Suigetsu nimbly jumped onto and bounced off of the man's knee and swung his leg at the guy's face, smashing his nose. Another two thugs rushed at Jugo, one clutching a metal bat and the other wielding a lead pipe; both of them swung their weapons at the orange-haired youth, who merely stepped forward and grabbed their wrists and then countered by kicking them in the crotch, first one and then the other, and both crumpled to their knees in pain before Jugo, yanking the bat and the pipe out of their hands, tapped them on the head with their respective weapons, dropping both of them.

Elsewhere in the fight, a gangster slung a huge chain around Choji's neck, and he got pulled back forcefully as the gangster wielding the chain tried to choke him with it. Seeing that the stout boy was restrained, several other thugs rushed forward with murder in their eyes, their weapons upraised and ready to use—but they didn't expect to see Choji forcefully pull himself back down so his feet were on the ground again, while at the same time reaching behind him with both hands and grabbing his would-be captor by his head; nor did they expect to see said would-be captor being thrown over Choji and flying right at them seconds later, arms and legs thrashing wildly, before the thug crashed into them, knocking them all down to the floor in a messy heap.

Kiba, already moving everywhere as fast as he could to evade attacks, now reached down and grabbed a fallen chain, before spinning and slapping a thug in the side of the head with the chain. The thug got hit so hard that he spun and stumbled a few feet back, but Kiba didn't stop—he spun in the same momentum and swung the chain at a female gangster's knee, hitting the girl right on the kneecap and causing her to cry out and fall to the ground in pain.

Reaching down and grabbing two chains that had fallen from a few of the punks, Shikamaru swiftly wrapped the chains around his hands like makeshift gloves. Then he became almost a blur as he ran among the gangsters and punched them, one after another, in the face; those that he hit felt their jaws swell or break outright, along with teeth being forced to fly, and they crumpled to the ground, groaning in agony. Three female gangsters, seeing all this, immediately turned to flee—and ran headlong into Ino, who'd secured herself an iron pipe and now swung it hard into their faces, slapping all three in the one blow, then swing back and hitting one on the side of her head, before thrusting forward and hitting another in the stomach, and then kicking the third in the face, dropping all three in mere moments.

Another gangster had sneaked up behind Yugito, who was still keeping watch over Naruto, with a knife in his hand, and he took the opportunity to thrust the business end of the knife at the woman's back. Almost before it could touch her, however, Yugito sensed her danger and shifted to one side, causing the knife to miss altogether; she then elbowed the attacker hard in the ribs, forcing him to bend over forward, before spinning and sending a crushing punch into his midsection and then delivering an uppercut to the face that knocked him backwards and onto his back.

In the meantime Sasuke, finding himself surrounded by several other punks, swiftly took up an iron pole and spun on the spot, spinning the pole out at various angles. This had the effect of slapping the nearby thugs in their faces and chests and in their sides and on their arms and legs, knocking them all down and causing not a few of them to suddenly scream out in pain as they felt certain parts of their bodies get sprained or broken from the force and speed of the iron weapon hitting them.

Now Sasuke spun the pole over his head for a moment before bringing one end of it down to the ground with a lour ping. He straightened up and turned toward Mizuki, who throughout the melee had stood by seething quietly. "Your turn," he declared to the gang leader.

OoOoO

END CHAPTER 55

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NEON MAJESTIC: The battle royale has begun—and now, time for Sasuke vs. Mizuki! Chapter 56 is next!

EDIT: Brought forward the first part of Chapter 56 and placed it on the tail end of Chapter 55.