Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I started a Hands Across America movement to influence this to change. We got about as far as the end of the driveway, because people found out what the entire thing was for and walked away.
Chapter 43: The Darkness in Us All
"I will not remain bedridden at a time such as this." Karin disputed resolutely despite the fact that she was indeed stuck in bed with her larger butler Ishizaki pinning her to the bed and underneath her covers by her shoulders with his sizeable bulk, "There is much work that needs to be done, and I require more intensive training. My improvements were not enough to defeat that detestable woman and keep her from ruining my home."
Shibazaki just let out a sigh and adjusted his glasses on his face. Karin was never hurt as bad as she currently was, but when she required extended rest and recovery time the way she currently did she was an absolutely horrible patient. He couldn't imagine where she'd gotten that attitude from. It was like the girl was allergic to rest.
The work ethic was incredible for a seventeen-year old girl, but the persistence was at times a bit much.
"You are in no condition to even walk without assistance ojou-sama." Shibazaki said, "Working and training are far beyond you at the moment. You need to recover your strength. If you cannot even remove Ishizaki from holding you down, you cannot do anything."
She glared at her chief attendant but had to concede the point. Any other time she would have by now freed her arms and headbutted her way free of Ishizaki's efforts to keep her down before apologizing, thanking him for his care, and going on about her merry business.
But now she couldn't even budge him.
"Whoa."
Turning across the vast bedroom to the door, all eyes fell on Naruto who was busy watching Karin be held down in her own grand bed.
"I can come back if this is a bad time." He said, rubbing the back of his neck as Ishizaki got off of his employer to allow her to save some face, "I came to see how you were doing after the… well, you know. You were there."
"Quite." Karin said dryly, pouting to herself with her head set down on her pillows, "I have never been so thoroughly beaten and humiliated in my entire life. I am not one that is used to suffering defeat as you well know Naruto-san."
"How did you get in here?" Shibazaki asked as Naruto walked past him in the room. Ah, so that was where the stubborn streak from hell that she seemed to have developed came from. Naruto was notorious for never remaining in medical custody any longer than it took him to find a way to escape. That would not be happening today if he had anything to say about it.
In return, Naruto gave him a strange look at the odd question, "You turned off the security system, all of the merc guards are supposed to be dead or quit, and there's a gigantic hole on the side of the house." How was he not supposed to get in there?
There was something of a point to that logic. They were pretty much the only security left for protecting Karin, and as the other night had proven, even with a gun, the two of them were absolutely useless in stopping someone of their level in combat for even half a second. Anyone that could take down her entire armed guard could tear through them like tissue paper.
As painful as it was to admit as her caretakers, Karin was extremely vulnerable. Even if this particular assassin never came back, it wasn't like Juri had been the only person that would have seen her as a target for some purpose. Even if she fought it tooth and nail they would have to consider moving her back to her family's estate until further notice so that she could be safe.
"Shibazaki. Ishizaki." Karin said, mustering up whatever authority she could from on her back, unable to move out of bed, "Leave us for now." They looked to argue when she gave them equally stern looks, "If neither of you are doctors I have no idea what reason you would need to remain here for. If security is your concern, you should know by now that this man would never allow harm to come to me."
There was that unconditional trust of hers in him again. Admittedly it wasn't unconditional. He'd earned it several times over in the past. That still didn't mean that Shibazaki had to like it though.
Even so, he nodded stiffly and left his young mistress alone with her confidant. She was a smart young woman, and she could pick her associates wisely.
The door was shut and Naruto kept walking over to and around Karin's large bed that she was resting. All of the girls were basically confined to beds and chairs due to their injuries suffered from Juri, but they seemed fine for the most part. The look of complete disapproval of her current situation showed that Karin was too.
"So, I don't know which one of you girls to worry about more right now, but you're kind of winning 'Little Miss VIP.'" Naruto said, taking a seat on the edge of her bed.
"I feel so fortunate." Karin said sarcastically with red involuntarily staining her cheeks. Eventually she frowned and turned her brown eyes his way as she noticed him trying to size up just how injured she was, but she was covered entirely by beddings beneath her neck, "I will be fine. Shibazaki is over-exaggerating with his concern over my condition. I am stable. You have gotten up from worse in the past."
"Don't even try to compare yourself to me about something like this." Naruto said in return, "Do you know how hard it is to kill me? Someone couldn't kill me with a sure-kill technique that actually hit me."
"Trust me, I am well aware of this." Of course she did. Half of her last summer was spent fretting over his comatose form until he woke up out of the blue one day and got right back in the saddle, "But I cannot remain prostrate. I cannot be allowed to look weak. It will make my family look weak."
"I don't care about that, I care about you. Get some rest damn it." Karin looked away from him, but only to hide the complete reddening of her face at hearing him bluntly state such a thing, "You're all adorable when you're huffy and tenacious, but your organs are supposed to be slurry if you don't remember. I'll live here until you heal if I have to."
"And why in the world would you want to do something like that?"
"Because you don't have any guards, there's a gaping hole in the side of your house, and I could probably hurt you with a hug right now."
As she sat up in her silver pajamas and bunched her covers around her waist, a sigh escaped Karin at the realization that even her closest confidant wouldn't allow for her to try and push her current limitations by getting out of her prison of a bedroom. She could probably use a hug right then, whether it would hurt her or not.
Turning to look at him again, Karin pulled an edge of her bedding to the side and pointed down at the bed itself, much to Naruto's initial confusion, "If I am to remain here to rest, you will have to be the one to force me to."
He didn't want to force her to do anything, but then again she wasn't challenging him to make her stay. She was saying that she really wanted to have his company for a bit longer. The closest thing he would ever see from her relating to a pleading look.
Oh, he couldn't say no to his vain, prissy boss lady, especially with the demure little smile she gave him once he got into bed with her and allowed her to curl up against him.
"I am not made of glass Naruto-san." Karin groused slightly when she could barely feel his arms around her body, "You are well aware that I am tougher than this." She wanted some affection damn it. He was basically the only person in the world that would provide it. Her parents wouldn't and never really had in the past. Her body hurt, as did her pride, and she wanted to be able to let her guard down with Naruto.
"You're warm too Rin-Rin."
"I have been mostly restrained to my bed for two days by order of my doctors."
"Is that your way of saying that you know?"
For the first time in a few days Karin smiled as she threw an arm over Naruto's torso and set her ear against his chest. Such a strong heartbeat. That could easily become her favorite sound in the world, "It can be taken as such." She said, calmly relaxing against him, "I hate that I love this so much. I should not be so content in showing such weakness."
"It's not weak to like being with somebody." Naruto replied, fingers running over her bare back underneath her pajama top. God she was soft. He felt like he'd break her if he was negligent with his strength, but he knew better, "I'm glad you're okay."
A rather devilish chuckle came from Karin as she pushed herself up enough to look at his face, "Hmm… now do you see what it is like for us to see you so direly injured? It is not enjoyable is it?" She said, setting herself down to kiss his cheek before getting comfortable next to him again, "Like I said, I am fine. Or I will be fine anyway."
True enough. Her wounds would heal, her home could and would be rebuilt, and she would find a way to be stronger the next time. But Juri Han was an extremely dangerous woman. Karin had no idea how she managed to be driven off, and Cammy didn't either. All she knew was that Sakura had done something to ward her away.
"Naruto-san I want you to be careful." Karin said, setting her head in the crook of his neck as she shut her eyes, "I do not have a good feeling about this. I think there is more to this than we are able to see." Her home was assaulted and they didn't try to take anything? There was no attempt to steal anything of value or to kidnap any of them.
A fight was all that woman wanted, and she seemed to revel in every last second of it. What kind of enemy was that? A battle for destruction's sake? Was there anything else to it, or did she just want to fight for no other reason than a whim? She seemed to want to kill Cammy for some personal vendetta, but she could have attempted that when Cammy had gone home the next day.
Instead of waiting for when it would have been smart and easier with her being alone, Juri attacked with Cammy, Sakura, and Karin all in one place, and tore through all of her security detail in the process.
She was beginning to fret and for some reason Naruto could feel it as easily as if it were the wind blowing on him outdoors. He put a kiss on her forehead and held her close to calm her down. Everything was going to be okay. This wasn't even as close to being as bad as it could have been, "Just get some rest and heal. Don't worry about a thing."
XxX
(Some Time Later – Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)
"There's a crazy bitch hunting the best ki-using fighters in the country and no one told me!?" An alarmed Dan shouted at the top of his lungs, getting the students of his dojo to cover their ears at the volume. Even Blanka held his ears and curled up into a ball to escape the screeching noise, "What the fuck? I thought we were cool!"
Naruto did not get a welcome return upon coming back to Aohura City the afternoon after he had helped ruin the floodgates and render the S.I.N. dam in India useless. A six hour trip through time and space didn't really prepare him to find every other woman in his life pummeled to hell.
Ibuki was dropped off in the mountains and Batsu was dropped off at home, as was Naruto, and it was there Naruto found pretty little Cammy quite roughed up and bandaged on more than a few places on her body, and that was just what he could see around her clothes.
She'd taken a fair share of wounds and a few cuts to say the least. She couldn't even lay down on the sofa in the living room comfortably without wincing every time she shifted around on it. Even holding Agent Jack seemed to hurt. The poor thing, couldn't even enjoy cuddling her kitty cat she was so hurt.
And then he'd found that she wasn't the only one that had taken a monumental beating. In fact, hers hadn't even been the worst as he found out the next day.
Sakura had gotten off the lightest. Bruised ribs, a concussion, a few nasty marks and discoloration on her face that would be there for a few days until she got her normally cute complexion back. She'd also suffered a very nasty case of exhaustion, but Cammy had told Naruto something that warranted checking into with her later after everything else got settled on the homefront. He went to go see her at home, but only got to see her for a bit from her open window because she was still getting bed rest on demand from her mother.
She gave him a smile upon seeing him and told him that they'd had it rough for a bit, but that she'd be back on her feet and as right as rain in no time. She was clearly on painkillers because even stuck in bed and looking wounded she was way too cheerful for just getting her ass beaten badly enough for a doctor visit.
Before she closed her eyes for a midday nap however he'd gotten a touch of bad information from her. Out of the three girls that had gotten hurt, the one that had taken it the worst was Karin. She'd suffered actual life-threatening injuries, ruptured organs, as a result of the little home invasion of her property.
The best doctors in the country were apparently in her mansion that was currently being planned to be reconstructed, watching over her and making sure she remained in good condition. But she was tough, and she'd be fine as well with time.
His ladies weren't the only ones that had been attacked though. Upon hearing what had happened, when he'd hit the streets afterwards the first place he'd gone to was to inform Sasuke, only to find out that Sasuke had already been somewhat aware of it due to the same woman hurting Akira a while before the others.
So when Naruto stepped into Genhanten that day Sasuke to tell Sasuke about it, the latter was already pissed without him even having to say a word. Needless to say he already knew. And that whole conversation was unpleasant, but it wound up with Naruto getting a travelling partner for the day at least while he made the rounds to warn anyone with potential in town to be on the lookout.
"Because you're not even close to being the best fighter in the country." Sasuke simply looked like all he wanted to do was leave, as if just standing inside of Dan's dojo was making him weaker by the second. Being surrounded by all of that weakness had to be infective, "You're not even the best fighter that lives in this dojo."
"I'm telling you now, so calm down." Naruto said, trying to stop Dan from being too much of a spaz. Sasuke probably would have kicked him through the front window of the dojo if he got fed up enough with him, "It hasn't been going on for that long, so now you can at least get ready for it."
In reality he'd only come to warn Blanka. If good fighters were what this Juri woman was looking for she'd definitely leave Dan alone. Blanka wasn't safe though, because he was actually awesome. Which seemed contrary to what being awesome was actually supposed to do for you.
"You're some kind of super-assassins right?" Dan said, running up to both Naruto and Sasuke and grabbing their shirts, "Do something about it! I'll pay! I can't have this happening right now, I'm too young to die! My dojos are taking off all over the region! I-… I mean, I can't take the time off to hunt this crazy bitch down right now! I've got super-important training to do! I can't be bothered to-!"
Both Naruto and Sasuke punched him in the face to get him to let go of them. One purposefully hit him harder than the other and felt a momentary peaceful smile pass over his face before he hid it underneath his usual stoic expression. It can be left up to the imagination to guess who.
Naruto kicked Dan's body on the ground once to elicit a groan from him and ensure he was still alive/awake, "He's a super-assassin. I don't kill people for money." Did it piss him off about what happened though? Of course it did.
If some sadistic chick with a desire to hurt fighters ever felt froggy enough to try and leap at his girls again or any of his other friends he'd handle it then with extreme prejudice. But waging a manhunt or a womanhunt for this person wasn't in the cards at the moment.
"I'll kill that bitch for free." Sasuke said rather darkly, "The next time I see her I'm snapping her spine like a twig." Naruto backed away from Sasuke and even Dan crawled away on the floor. Too much, even for him, "What? You don't want payback dobe? What about what she did to your little girlfriends?"
"My 'girlfriends' are all grown women and some of the best fighters in the world." Naruto replied bitingly. Was he trying to imply that he didn't care? Big mistake, "They don't need me to get payback to make myself feel better. I'm sure Akira loves it that you're getting defensive and homicidal over her, but don't take it up with me teme."
"Say that again and I'll punch another hole through your chest you joke."
"Go ahead and try it. Grow your little wings while you're at it so I can rip them off again and shove them up your ass."
"Don't fight in my dojo!" Dan shouted as he kept crawling away out of the line of fire. The killing intent between the two had been steadily rising to an almost paralyzing extent, "…Unless you've got the money to pay for my renovations and add-ons. We need a hot tub, and tanning beds to attract the ladies to join!"
Naruto and Sasuke proceeded to have a rather tense stare-off until Sasuke turned around and walked out of the building altogether, "I'll deal with you later. Nothing's over yet. I'm finding Juri, I'm making her suffer, and then I'm showing you where you stand compared to me once and for all."
Naruto flipped him off from behind and shook his head as he watched him go, "…Jackass wants to go hunting, good for him." If what everyone thus far had told him about Juri was true, sooner or later he wouldn't have to look for her at all. She'd show up herself.
"Look." Dan sat up on the ground, two fist-shaped bruises on his face from both Naruto and Sasuke, "If you two are ever going to fight again, tell me so I can get a video camera and put it on Youtube. Do you have any idea what that kind of publicity would do for my chain of dojos?"
"…Just tell Blanka to watch out okay?"
XxX
"Mom… I'm fine." Sakura urged as her mother fretted over her by the front door. She was going to go back to school today come hell or high water. She'd spent enough time in bed doing absolutely nothing but resting from her exhaustion, "I won't train today like I promised, but I can't keep missing school. My grades are going to drop."
Sakura's mother didn't want to hear any of that, "Two days ago you couldn't hold your eyes open. Yesterday you couldn't hold a glass of water. Today you're going to walk all the way to school?"
"Yup!" Sakura chirped brightly, pulling on her shoes and picking up her schoolbag, "I can't lay around forever. I've got to get up and go eventually." And that eventually was today. As far as Sakura was concerned, exhaustion was just an excuse to keep from working hard, "I'll be fine mom, I promise."
Sakura's mother easily freaked out over many of the things that happened to her due to her penchant for fighting. It was just that Naruto had traditionally kept her safe from most of the potentially dangerous things that could have happened to her until it got even bigger than what he could handle alone. Sakura learned very quickly after things got as big as the whole attempt on Karin's life from the Dolls in school around a year ago that she didn't have to tell her everything, thus she didn't let her mother in on everything that had contributed to her most recent injuries.
Or that strange feeling that she'd had to kill her enemy at all costs with her full power that she didn't even know she had. She definitely didn't need to spill that to someone that didn't know anything about complete rage or wanting to kill someone so much it caused her physical harm to refrain from doing it.
A knock came at the front door that startled Sakura's mother, but Sakura herself could already sense who was behind it. Jumping up with her shoes on and ready to go, Sakura pulled the front door open to see her ultra-close friend Naruto standing there. A contrast to the usual of her ending up at his house to rouse him from bed, "Good morning Naruto! I didn't think I'd ever see-."
She stopped when she noticed Naruto leaning in and observing her face uncomfortably close. He wasn't saying anything and he was giving her that squinting look that he always did when he was focusing extremely hard on something he didn't understand. What there was about her face that he didn't understand, she didn't know.
Eventually he gave up and got out of her personal space, "I don't see it." He said with a shrug, "Don't sense it either."
"Sense what?" Sakura said, going outside to begin setting out for school with Naruto after that little moment of weirdness had passed, "What's the matter? You finally lose it from waking up so early?"
"Ha, funny." Naruto deadpanned before casually throwing his hands up behind his head, "Cam said that you did something to drive that Juri person off. Something about your skin getting darker, your ki being all dark and violent. But I really can't feel anything."
"Well that did happen." Sakura frowned at the thought of getting absolutely destroyed by an opponent that outclassed not only her, but two of her other friends with ease.
What gave her even more pause was the thought of the feeling that reverberated through her body once that power sprang free from her.
It felt so… good. Even then, the memory of something she knew was so bad sent a shiver down her spine. Enough to put goose bumps on her arms and visibly affect her otherwise… in ways that those around her could see if they were paying attention.
Turning his head to the side, Naruto had to block a nosebleed at the sight of Sakura's shirt tightening at her breasts, 'Okay, why did Sakura-chan get turned on just now?' Really turned on, for no reason. It wasn't even cold outside on that day, so arousal was the only explanation available. He stared at her nipples so hard that he actually wound up walking face-first into a pole, "Ow!"
At least now he had an excuse for why his nose was bleeding.
Seeing Naruto make a battering ram out of his face snapped Sakura out of her own thoughts, especially when she saw blood spill down Naruto's face, "Naruto, are you alright? You didn't break your nose or anything did you?"
"No, I'm fine." Naruto said, holding his nose to keep from dripping any blood on his shirt, "So what happened?"
"I don't know. It's just that woman… she was absolutely despicable. She knew how much of a horrible person she was, readily acknowledged it, and didn't even have a reason for it other than just because she could." At least other bad guys had goals. Bison wanted the world. Rolento wanted to build a utopia.
Juri just wanted to raise hell just because she could. Because she liked doing so.
It made her so angry she had to bite her own finger at the thought of it. How could a human being be so callous without trying to justify themselves, or with an overreaching goal for their actions? She almost wound up bumping into something herself had Naruto not caught her and pulled her into his arms, putting a red blush on her face at being pressed that tightly against him, "Naruto, wha-?"
If he wanted to hold her that close he didn't have to be so abrupt about it.
"You almost ran into that guy." Naruto said as the person in particular walked past them. He was a very muscular old man with a very long white ponytail and a straw hat, wearing a pretty old-school haori, "Sorry about that. She's been a little out of it for a few days."
As he looked down at the teenage twosome, Gouken's eyes lingered on Sakura for a moment. He had been able to trace the source of that dark power a few nights ago to that town even though it had subsided. For someone like him it was simple to follow the lingering taint of the Satsui no Hadou.
The blond boy had come across it before in his own way, but now it was cast out. Impressive. But the girl, she was the one that had the current troubles with it. How did such a sweet little thing ever come across learning enough of his style branch to run into the Satsui no Hadou by consequence of such?
He couldn't just outright introduce himself to them though. Not only because even he recognized that it would have been strange, but because they were both clearly on their way to school, and it was important to obtain an education, 'What an interesting pair of children.'
The man turned around to the two of them, and for such a large man with a stern face had a very easygoing smile as he tilted his hat their way, "It is of no concern child. No harm done." Returning his smile with an additional nod, Naruto took Sakura the rest of the way to class.
What a cool old man. Most of the old people Naruto ran into were all crotchety and didn't like him much, even when he didn't do anything. Even when they didn't say anything about it he could usually feel it from them. But he didn't feel anything from that old man.
"And you don't see anything wrong with that?"
With what? He didn't feel anything.
"Exactly. You didn't feel anything." The Kyuubi persisted, trying to get his point across, "When do we ever feel nothing around a person? Do you know why we are able to sense the people around us? It's because I can sense even the slightest malice and ill thoughts in a creature. Your little girlie there has it in the deepest reaches of her heart, but that old man… nothing."
That just didn't happen. Everyone, no matter how minor it was, had a malevolent presence about them.
Except for that old man.
But when Naruto turned back to look for him again he was gone, '…Is it wrong to have that paranoid feeling again?'
"Naruto." Sakura said unsurely, directing her gaze momentarily down between them, "You're still holding my hand."
And indeed, while in the middle of his conversation with the Kyuubi, Naruto had been absentmindedly holding his best friend's hand all the way down the street, "Oh. My bad." It was just… he was so used to being close to her that it didn't register that he'd still been holding her after keeping her from walking into that old man.
He let go, and Sakura frowned when he did. She was just letting him know that he was doing something odd compared to how he usually acted, but she never told him that she didn't like him holding her hand. It made her feel like a little girl again, when she was in awe of his mere touch due to the chakra he had. She felt safe back then, no matter what. And that was something that she really felt she needed these days.
"Hey." Sakura poked Naruto in the shoulder as they walked through the front gates of their school, "When you had trouble controlling your Kyuubi powers, what did you do?"
The way he tried to get control wasn't really the best way that he'd recommend for anyone else to try with circumstances similar to his, "I went way out to the mountains and kept using as much as I could so I could train to control it better." It was still a work in progress of sorts, "…You don't want to try that do you? It's not really easy."
"Heh."
'Oh be quiet you.'
A thoughtful look came over Sakura's face at the thought of such a brutally direct method of dealing with her problem. How Naruto-ish. But she didn't think she could get mad enough to dredge up whatever had happened to her again. That had to have been a once in a lifetime thing.
Hopefully.
XxX
(Karin's Personal Manor)
Since they'd seemed to hit a temporary lag in the case of the exploded living animal cells case (Guile named it), Chun-Li sent a call in the direction of her favorite pack of slightly younger brats and wound up getting Cammy on the horn since she was normally the one at home during the day in Japan.
After being told of how someone had blown right through them and had attempted to kill her, it didn't take much urging from Chun-Li to fly on out to Japan just to find out what exactly was going on in their neck of the woods.
As she and Guile walked through the premises that had served as the site of the battle alongside Cammy, Chun-Li let out a whistle at the sight of the destruction wrought on the property, "And one person did all of this while three of you were here?"
"She was extremely powerful." Cammy said, still feeling the phantom impact of Juri's kicks smashing off of her body, "For the most part none of us were able to touch her until she got arrogant and Karin managed to set her up for all of us." Actually, even after that she was still arrogant, but was far more surgical in how she decimated them.
"Juri Han." Guile said, recanting what he could recall from memory in regards to her file that they'd pulled up on the way to Aohura City, "A South Korean national and a world-class practitioner of Taekwondo. Something of a genius since she was basically considered the best in the world at it by the time she was 15, but then…" He sucked his teeth and shook his head, "…Shadaloo. Long story as to what got her family their wrath."
Enough said. Bison had a knack for screwing and twisting up people way past what he needed to do to get what he wanted. There was no kill quite like overkill for that man. And he could hardly be referred to as a man. He was more of a monster.
"From there she disappears." Guile said with a snap of his finger, "That was a little over four years ago. Kind of impressive that a kid like her could do that as young as she was."
"I'm fairly certain I could do something like that at fifteen if what I can do now is any indication." Cammy said, referring to being able to disappear off of the grid without a trace as if it were something normal, "I'm only seventeen now… I think. That's what everyone tells me at least."
Chun-Li gave the sweet little scar-faced assassin a pat on her beret-clad head, "Most children aren't isolated from birth and conditioned into adolescence to be emotionally bereft super-soldiers though. You don't count as a regular girl dear." Was she pouting at not being counted as a normal girl? That was adorable.
"You sure about that?" Guile said as he could see the massive gouges in Karin's lawn as they walked up the upper portion of her driveway to reach her mansion, "I'm starting to think there's something in the water these days if all of these brats are getting the power to blow up tanks and whatnot."
"Extraordinary will always be just that though." Chun-Li said with a smile at the thought of the special youngsters she knew. It went past just the group of kids that they knew. Yang and Yun had it in Hong Kong, and Aohura City was a hotspot for kids with vast potential. But even so, "You can't find it everywhere-."
"-But it can turn up anywhere." Guile finished in her stead, "You need new made-up proverbs. You're starting to run out of them."
Construction was in its early stages, but apparently the front doors to the mansion were not the first things to be repaired as they walked straight inside without having to deal with such a thing. Even though she was supposed to be in bed, Karin was up and overseeing the construction to her own home, as was to be expected for someone like her.
"I am lucky that I have already had this land for a few years already." Karin said to herself with a sigh as she looked over the blueprints of the place and all of the places that had suffered catastrophic damage, "Two and a half years is enough time to wait for renovations is it not?" At that point she noticed that she had company and greeted them, "Oh, hello. What brings you here?"
Cammy walked up to her and got dangerously close, putting her hands on her to seemingly check her over, full-body. A mortified look came over Karin's face as Cammy even groped her chest,
Guile kept a stony face while Chun-Li seemed to be doing her best to keep from laughing at the blunt actions of the resident Shadaloo femme. Well at least she was only keeping such familiar touching and contact to her close friends. Karin didn't seem to be enjoying it though, however she was too stunned at it to do anything about it.
Karin's mind finally turned back on long enough for her to grab Cammy's hands and stop her actions dead in their tracks, "E-Excuse you." She said with as much pride as she could muster given the circumstances. If she weren't so hurt she probably would have retaliated rather violently.
Cammy backed away and nodded to herself, "You're still far too injured to be doing physical things. Why are you up?"
"This is hardly 'physical'." Karin said with a roll of her eyes as she tried to block out the memory of Cammy's hands basically molesting her, "I am not doing the work myself I am merely supervising it. Even though if I were working I would have finished cleaning up the foyer by now!" She shouted, making sure that everyone working in the room in question could hear her on purpose.
Where was Naruto when she needed his handy clones? They would have had it a quarter of the way finished by now. But how much did he really know about rebuilding houses? Oh well… you didn't always have the best around to pay for, and they were far past the her paying him for physical labor part of their relationship by now.
Looking around as Karin started to take them through to get a daytime look at just what had occurred there, they eventually came to the most ruined room of the house where not a single part of it hadn't been damaged by the fight.
"That Juri woman did all of this and none of you were killed?" Chun-Li asked. There didn't seem to be a foot of space that hadn't been cut into and/or burned with intense ki, "How?"
Even Guile had to admit, he'd have exhausted himself firing as many Sonic Booms as it would have taken to somehow mimic the destruction wrought onto the room, "How long did that fight last for her to do all of this?"
"A very long time." Karin said, remembering just how long they had been tormented for.
But Cammy shook her head, "It did, but all of this is the result of one attack from her. And that's not the most incredible thing." She said, walking to the only spot on the floor that didn't have a mark on it, "Sakura stood up in front of it and stopped it without moving from this place."
XxX
(Later That Day – Tamagawa Minami High School)
"I told you guys it would be easy to sneak back into the gym while everyone was running laps outside." A gym clothes-clad Ibuki said, leading the duo of Sakura and Naruto into the empty gymnasium of their school, "We've got 45 minutes guys. We're good to go. Rip this place up!"
Sakura didn't look very ecstatic, but it was her idea to see if she could trigger that angry state again to find out just what it did for or to her. She asked Naruto for help since he was used to angry, hateful energy running through his body, and Ibuki so that they could get away from the watchful eyes of the gym teacher that didn't trust them since they made his class look laughably casual.
Naruto checked outside of the doors heading outside before sprinting over to the doors that led to the hallway so that he could check to make sure they were as clear as could be, "It was easy to get back in here because I've got clones that can Henge into you two." Ibuki just stuck her tongue out at him in turn.
If she was really as strong as Cammy alluded to her being, it probably wasn't a good idea to do this in school. Or anywhere in town as a matter of fact.
But this was Sakura-chan. And he could and would never say no to Sakura-chan. She was smart enough to know herself, and she never asked him for anything even though she knew he would do anything for her, and she really seemed shaken up by whatever this thing was that she'd done a few days ago.
She assured him that she just wanted to see what it felt like in a calm state where her life wasn't at risk. She assured him that without a fight going on she'd have a clearer head to work with logically. That was fair enough.
"Okay." Naruto said, sitting down on the bleachers with Ibuki while Sakura stood in front of them. He wasn't really good at the whole teaching thing, but he had to try, "So the easiest way to pull up power like whatever it is you told me about is by getting mad. So get mad."
Sakura held her arms behind her back uncomfortably as she looked up and forward at her pair of friends, "I don't really know how to get that mad." She admitted as if it were something strange, "I've been really annoyed before, you've done it to me a few times, but I think the other night was the first time where I was really ever that angry with anything in my life."
Ibuki raised an eyebrow on her delicate features in a bit of intrigue, "Come to think of it, I've never seen Sakura-chan enraged before. She's usually really upbeat."
She was a very emotional girl. It was just that all of those emotions were traditionally positive. Ibuki could even readily recall several recent times when her own first thought was to kill someone instead of just defeating them and subduing them. Sakura never did that. The prospect of killing horrified her, even against the villains that they faced he detested killing as a possible solution.
Not knowing how to get mad? That was definitely a new one though. A girl that loved martial arts and was extremely competitive, but was a pacifist that never got enraged.
For someone like Naruto, it was extremely easy to get mad. There were plenty of things around that pushed his buttons. Things that he faced down regularly enough to know exactly how he felt about them. So all he ever had to do was think about the Kyuubi's chakra, and everything that pissed him off in order to make it work. It was easier to do on some occasions than others, and the more tired he was the simpler it happened to be. It also never hurt that he could rage-train in the mountain woods beforehand to tire himself out prior.
A tired Naruto was usually an extremely irritable Naruto for various reasons.
"Get tired and mad." Naruto amended after thinking about his own ways to make accessing the Kyuubi's chakra easier, "If it's anything like mine, that'll work."
"Okay?" Sakura said, still a bit unsure but willing to go with a certain portion of it all, "So, do I go through my training exercises or-?"
"That'll take too long." Ever impatient, Naruto waved off that thought. She might not even get tired from it, "We're just gonna make you mad, and it'll probably make you tired while we're doing it too."
"How?"
"Well the first idea was that we were gonna kick your butt." Ibuki suddenly said, warning Sakura into a defensive stance, "You don't even look that surprised about it. We didn't say anything about that on the way out here did we? I could have sworn we were careful about talking that whole thing this morning."
"What whole thing?" Sakura asked in return, "We were in homeroom, Naruto was watching your butt while you were fishing through your schoolbag this morning, and you suggested that as the plan. Of course I figured it out. I was right there when you came up with it, even if you never said anything else about it all day." She sounded a bit irritated at some part of what she'd just said.
Ibuki turned to the male sitting with her on the bleachers and raised an eyebrow, "Did you really do that?"
"Yes, you're hot and we sit close enough that I can get away with it." Naruto said, crossing his arms red-faced at having to talk about ogling one of his pretty female friends in front of another one, "Can we get back to the reason we're in here now?"
"Yeah, yeah. You're lucky I don't feel like teasing you much today." Ibuki jumped up onto her feet and smacked her own behind one good time to mess with Naruto since she knew he was watching, but she also noted that Sakura was glaring at her a bit, 'Okay, maybe we don't have to fight her to make her angry.' "Naruto, fighting her isn't smart. She's still hurt."
She was, but Sakura didn't want to come off as weak in front of her friends. If she was strong enough to walk she was strong enough to do anything else she needed to, even fight hard enough to draw her own power out.
The thought of Sakura still being hurt did come to Naruto's mind, and he was skeptical to fight her in case they reinjured her… even though fighting her was the first and seemingly easiest idea he had to get the job done, "Well did you actually come up with something that'll work in forty minutes?"
To answer that question, instead of sitting back down on the bleachers, Naruto's lap was her chosen seat, "Give me a minute to think about it." She said, gently tousling Naruto's hair with her fingertips. From where she was sitting she easily managed to hold Naruto's head against her breasts while doing so.
"Can you think about it somewhere else?" Sakura deadpanned with her hands on her hips to hide her own ire at how forward the teenage kunoichi always seemed to be with Naruto, "Like off of him?"
"Why would I do something like that?" Ibuki said, not budging from her spot one bit. She even put Naruto's arms around her waist as she looked down off of the bleachers at her more morally stringent friend, "I've got the best seat in the house, right here." Noting that Naruto was giving her an odd look, Ibuki just whispered 'trust me' to him, "Naruto doesn't mind. We've had way more fun than just me sitting in his lap before."
"I don't want to hear about this." Sakura said, turning around with her arms crossed, "Can we just do what we snuck away from class to do? This isn't the place for you to get all touchy-feely with him."
"And when is it?" Ibuki retorted, allowing some of her own displeasure at her own romantic situation bleed into her speech, "The only time I ever get to spend any real time with him is at school, unless he does something all romantic and maverick like sneaking into my village and bedroom in the middle of the night, and I can't expect something like that at my every beck and call like you can."
She was originally doing it on this occasion just to anger Sakura enough to make it easier to trigger her distressed state. But quite honestly she herself was getting a bit tired of the judgmental remarks from Sakura, Karin, even their normal Kei who had absolutely no stake in Naruto's affections.
All of the other girls that cared for him had access to Naruto so much that she felt they took it for granted. Any hour in the day or at night, if they needed him or wanted him they could easily get to him. Just a single call and he'd be right there for them in mere minutes.
Ibuki couldn't have that. She could call to talk, and that was it outside of school unless she or him managed to pull some shenanigans to skirt around the authority of her ninja village. She loved that he made the efforts to see her such as travelling miles and miles away, sneaking into her home and her room, making her feel so special. But it seemed like the others didn't understand that. Naruto understood, which was why he accepted her as she was.
It was originally supposed to be an act to antagonize Sakura, but in reality she was the one getting a bit miffed and affected by what she was doing.
Sakura's face heated up at the thought of calling Naruto up and him appearing in her window in the dead of night. And from there her mind wandered forth, "I-I would never make him do something like that!" She eventually sputtered out defensively.
"I wouldn't either." Ibuki said softly, before smiling a bit, "But still, he'd do it for you without you even asking, if you'd just…" She shook her head and gently stroked Naruto's whisker-marked cheeks, "You don't know how lucky you actually are Sakura-chan. You've got it so much easier than me. It's not hard for girls like you or Karin, or even Cammy to get him to love you. But it's the easiest for you, 'cuz you were first."
Even as the subject of the conversation, for once Naruto had to keep his mouth shut. He didn't know what to say. There wasn't any 'it'll be alright' or anything like that he could spout to ease things down. Ibuki was a powerful kunoichi, but she was still a teenage girl and she got self-conscious just like anyone else.
How could he stop her from baring her heart like that, even if it wasn't directly to him?
"I don't love him like that." Sakura said quietly as if reciting a longstanding mantra to herself instead of defending herself to someone else, "He doesn't love me like that." That was the way it was. That was the way it always had been.
Ibuki just shook her head at Sakura, and not for the first time after discussing this topic with her, "I don't know what happened with you two before I met you. It has to be something if you won't admit it. But if you don't claim him and you won't even try, you can't say anything to me." And with that she lowered her face down to Naruto's and kissed him without a second thought to the matter.
God, she could do that every single day if life allowed it.
Sakura just stared with her mouth slightly open, unable to come up with anything she could say. Especially with the spectacle she was currently present to. He wasn't her boyfriend, he was her best friend. She told herself that every day for years. She even made an effort to turn her attention to another, but comparatively Ryu was infinitely more distant. He didn't seem to care about anything past getting stronger as a fighter, but Naruto cared about her from the beginning unconditionally.
Why was she the only one that had a problem with letting him know that she cared for him beyond being friends? None of the other girls had an issue with it at all. Even prickly Karin found it far easier to admit rather openly that she was enamored with Naruto.
And it hurt to think about him being someone else's, even when she kept trying to tell herself that they were friends… that it was his choice in the end. She was the one that looked at him first all those years ago and saw something special when people would have rather ignored him. He was in her heart damn it, and by proxy he was in the heart of her darker side as well.
"She will not take what belongs to us!" Sakura heard in the back of her mind, the words steadily getting stronger as they continued, "Someone weaker than us cannot have something that has always been ours!"
Sakura hardly noticed it herself, but her breathing quietly sped up and her chest heaved up and down even when she reached for her head at the splitting pain that came to it.
"We are the strongest! Uzumaki Naruto belongs to us and no one else! We can and will crush anyone that has any problems with us taking what we want, and we will start with that harlot ninja-girl! Right! Now!"
Pink ki began to form around Sakura's hands and she shifted into her stance to begin charging a Hadoken. The sudden shocking spike of her ki, beyond even the levels for her Shinkuu Hadoken, snapped Ibuki out of her reverie with Naruto once he focused back on reality as well and set her aside on the bleachers.
Sakura couldn't charge that much ki so quickly. It was more than she did for her strongest attack, the strongest attack that Naruto was aware that she could do.
Her body was engulfed in a shroud of dark red energy that made her form within seem evil and shadowed. Her glowing red eyes were only accentuated by this.
"Is this what she was talking about?" Ibuki asked, feeling a desire to disappear. To curl up in a ball and hide until the storm subsided so to speak. This was the girl she spent every day with? Impossible, "How… how could she think she could control something like this?"
She wouldn't stop staring up at her. It was like her gaze itself was trying to rip the life right out of her.
Naruto slowly started to stand up and walk down toward her. This was just like what radiated out of Akuma every second that he had been around the crushingly powerful warrior in their one run-in that he'd never forget; the Satsui no Hadou.
It made his organs quiver. But he wouldn't be wary. Not of his Sakura-chan.
"Be careful brat…" The Kyuubi urged, knowing that any warning he gave Naruto wasn't going to stop the boy from moving forward. She didn't know how to tear his soul apart like Akuma did. Only a mastery of the power would allow her such. Even so, she was now fully capable of turning him into a human ragdoll and overpowering him as he was now, "She will destroy you if you make a misstep here."
"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said as he carefully continued to move down to her, "Are you alright?" Was she even in there?
"Don't you come any closer to me." She threatened, stopping him in his tracks once his foot touched the gym floor, "Don't get any nearer with that pitiful output of power or I'll crush you just by standing here." To emphasize such, the floor beneath her cracked and dipped inward just from the increased intensity of her ki. Even the walls began to rattle, "I mean it."
Pitiful? Bullshit. Even on his own he had crushing levels of chakra, and everybody knew it. Still, she seemed to mean it from the killing intent flying off of her.
Naruto momentarily chewed on the inside of his cheek in contemplation before deciding that he wasn't just going to stand there, 'Alright, give me a quick boost.' Deeply concentrating as hard as he could to dredge up the Kyuubi's chakra without being in need of it or in any sort of stressful situation, Naruto eventually started blazing with fiery orange chakra around his body.
"Be on your guard."
Whether or not the warning was valid, he had been the one that allowed her to become this emotionally distressed on his watch, and he wasn't going to let her be alone like that, even if she was scary with power that she clearly couldn't control.
"Not enough." Sakura said, not even sparing him a glance away from her tunnel-vision focus on their kunoichi friend, "You know it's not."
In response Naruto took several deep breaths before his chakra cloak somewhat solidified into a bubbling red fox form as a tail emerged. It still got no reaction, so focusing even further, Naruto yanked yet another tail forth, his whisker-marks darkening and his canines becoming more pronounced as his eyes took on a wilder red tint.
That was enough to finally get Sakura's attention as she turned to him and slowly walked his way, her volatile dark red ki shroud subsiding enough for Naruto to see that her skin had darkened slightly. She was two skin tones tanner than his own form for some reason.
Before he knew it she'd thrown her arms around his neck and pushed her face into his collarbone, "There it is, that presence of instinctual hatred." She said to Naruto as she reveled in the feeling of her ki melding with his. It was chaotic bliss, "…You want to tear me limb from limb right now don't you? My power being this close to you… you can only perceive it as a threat.
It was true.
The very first thing that came to Naruto's mind due to the influence of the violent chakra hazing his mind over was to rabbit punch her and end her life while he had the chance. The thought of doing that to her just enraged him more. Thus to keep from ever acting on those impulsive and violent flashes he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her against him intimately.
"You don't need to say it." Sakura continued in her darkly seductive voice that he'd never heard from her. She was like a wholly different person, "I know because I feel the same way. I want to destroy you… so badly. But I can't. We can't. Because we understand each other like this better than we can any other way. We're just too dissimilar normally."
The bonding of their ki and chakra swirled up in a vapor to the ceiling and seemed to be slowly eating through the ceiling as if it were acidic. Ibuki had no idea what to make of what she was seeing, but she didn't dare move. It felt like she'd draw the wrath of two predators upon her if she so much as twitched a muscle, 'They're smothering me with all of this energy.'
"Sakura-chan." Naruto growled out, barely able to control himself from doing… something to her. He didn't know what it would be, "This isn't you. Go back to normal. You can't control… whatever this is."
Sakura laughed huskily and pulled her head up to press her nose against Naruto's and look him in the eye, "I don't want to control it. I feel good like this." She said to him, "You're mine. You know you're mine. And I'll move whoever I have to out of my way to keep you. No girl will take you away from me. If God reaches a hand down to pluck you back to wherever you came from… I'll tear God's arm off with this power."
No, this wasn't the Sakura he'd grown up with for years. She was getting drunk off of how good she felt under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou.
And he was getting drunk off of how good she felt under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou.
Even looking into her eyes and knowing that the power she was using was evil, all he wanted to do right then was tear her clothes off and take her right then and there. He was far past wanting to hurt her. He wanted to dominate that power and the girl along with it.
Going into the Kyuubi's chakra cloak made him hypersensitive to all of the malice and hate that came with the Satsui no Hadou, and the fact that he'd always been attracted to Sakura to begin with had that sensitivity manifest itself into something akin to lust.
Naruto's claws started to sink into Sakura's sides, but instead of cutting into flesh they only scratched into her gym shirt, "Come on… I understand you, and you understand me." Sakura said in a whisper as she shivered slightly at the sensation of Naruto's claws dragging lightly across her stomach. The same claws that were dangerous enough to rip into her were simply teasing her flesh at this point, "You can do it. It's what you want. It's what I want. Take me if you're strong enough."
"No…" Naruto said, fighting with himself to keep from throwing the girl on the floor and pouncing on her on the spot, "…Not like this. This isn't you." She was making it so difficult to keep himself under control.
"Isn't it?"
"No."
"If I sound like Sakura, feel like Sakura… taste like Sakura…"
She slowly moved herself forward to kiss Naruto, coyly brushing her lips across his for a split-second before almost bashfully pulling away as if she were shocked. Before she could attempt it for real, a wall to the gym burst open with a large man flying in, "Sekugoshoha (Warping Strong Pierce Wave)!" He was almost impossible to follow until he reached Sakura and Naruto and separated them with singular palm strikes that forced the two away from each other.
The sudden separation of the two malevolent energies forced a shockwave to blow through the gym and burst out the windows near the ceiling, even cracking the walls in some places.
As the reverb started vanishing in the room, the muscular old man from earlier that day sighed and slowly stepped out of his stance from his previous attack, "That was simply too close. That almost got out of hand…"
He'd been giving some distance until he could rightly determine whether or not that girl was truly under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou. Needless to say, she was. And when he felt a second power flare up right by it he realized that there wasn't anything in that town capable of keeping both of them in check. The second was normally more controlled, but the first one was making it act up.
Almost to the point where two kids did something under terrible circumstances.
Naruto's head was swimming. Between all of the pheromones clouding his mind and the Kyuubi's chakra, and Sakura… he barely knew which way was up. Taking pity on him, the Kyuubi drew its chakra back to let Naruto easily clear his mind up, "What the hell just hit me?" It didn't hurt, it just threw him away with complete ease of motion.
Sakura felt similarly, but when she saw that she was no longer basking in the lovingly anarchistic glow of Naruto's chakra, the previously contained rage and hate that had been stilled by his presence came back full force and Sakura's Satsui no Hadou ki burst from her body, "And who do you think you are?"
"It is not who I am that is what matters little one." The old man said, calmly shifting stances into a ready position as he turned on the balls of his feet to face Sakura, "But for the sake of introductions you may call me Gouken. What matters however, is what you were about to do, or what that vile energy pouring from you was about to force you to do with that boy. Now what is your name?"
"The girl that's gonna kill you!" Sakura said before speedily blurring forward like a phantom, as if she were sliding across the floor.
The Ashura Senkuu.
Gouken had seen that speed technique and knew full well about it. Hers paled in comparison entirely against Akuma's, because it was instinctual and she had never truly trained to use it before. If he had his way she never would, because it was exclusive to the dark powers spilling from her.
Sakura wound up right behind him fist positioned to punch straight through his torso from behind, but as she struck true to end his life, Gouken's elbow of one of his arms moved behind him to block all of the killing blow safely, "It's no use!" He said before leaning a shoulder Sakura's way and hitting her hard enough to knock her down across the floor. Her body smashed into the wall and she angrily pulled herself out, "You cannot defeat me, even if you were at my level of skill due entirely to how you are fighting. Your body is simply unused to attacking with the intent to kill. You hardly know how, no matter how much of a rush the Satsui no Hadou gives you."
Finally with his wits about him, Naruto recognized him as the strange old man from earlier, only without the hat and haori, "Don't hurt her!" Naruto shouted, moving over to Gouken to reason with him, "I can calm her down, just give me a chance!"
Gouken just shook his head, "If you're saying that based off of the show you both put on from before you would be wrong. The Satsui no Hadou fuels the dark desires of the user, even if the person is as pure of heart as your friend. The only reason she had been 'calm' before was because you were about to give her what she wanted."
Thankfully he didn't have to verbalize just what that was as Naruto knew what he'd almost done right then and there. It most certainly would have been dark. She shook his will, and normally hers would have also been stronger, but both of their self-controls faltered in that moment together for some reason.
"Be at ease boy. I will not harm her." Gouken told Naruto as Sakura got back up, still as angry as ever, "Make sure that your other friend is alright. She hasn't moved since I've entered the room and she seems as if she can hardly breathe."
And indeed, Ibuki was curled up trying to shield herself from all of the killing intent that Sakura and Naruto had previously been throwing between the seats of the bleachers. She seemed completely terrified just to be there.
In the motion of a Shunshin, Naruto reappeared up to Ibuki's side, but she hardly registered his presence there, instead keeping her eyes on Sakura and Gouken, "Ibuki! Snap out of it already!"
"So much hate…" Ibuki said, speaking of Sakura, "… Does she really hate me that much because I like you? And that old man… I can't feel anything from him. That doesn't even seem possible. No living being has no ki to them at all."
You could sense birds in trees if you were good enough. Hell you could sense the tree itself if you knew what you were doing! But to feel nothing?
She was freaked out. Overwhelmed would be the best way to describe it. Ibuki had never faced the level of power that the others had. She hadn't stood in front of Bison with his Psycho Drive, an enraged Sagat, or even Vega at his most powerful. She hadn't been around Ryu's devilish dark ki. The closest she'd come to an imposing presence was a passing glance at Akuma's back just before he vanished.
"That's not Sakura-chan." Naruto tried to reason with her, but Ibuki wasn't having any of that. She knew better.
"Yes it is. It's not a part of her that we've ever seen, but it exists, just like it can in everyone else." Ibuki said, shaking her head. Was this her fault? Oh God, "Everyone has darkness Naruto. You do, I do, she does. I just never thought… it was this strong." She didn't want anything like this to happen, to come from one of her closest friends.
Sakura looked up over at Naruto consoling a distraught Ibuki, and that only angered her further, "He's with her… again. Kill her, and that will be one undeserving weakling out of the way."
She threw her hands together to charge her energy and started gathering massive amounts of rainbow-colored ki that started drawing in small debris from all over the room, "He's MINE!" Sakura shrieked as loudly as she could with her ki barely able to be held in her hands, "Tenmetsu Shinkuu Hado-!"
"I am your opponent little one, don't take your eyes off of me." Gouken suddenly appeared behind a shocked Sakura and tapped her on the back of the head with two glowing white fingers that rendered her unconscious. She would have fallen to the floor had he not caught her with an arm underneath her breasts to stop her from falling forward.
Depending on which way she'd been facing in concern to the rest of the campus she probably would have blown the entire school away with that Hadoken had she fired it.
Such a shame. A child as pure as her tainted by the Satsui no Hadou, and not by choice like Akuma. The power from her anger subsided and her skin tone returned to normal, but the back of her clothes had the kanji for spirit carved into her shirt.
"Love can be just as dangerous an emotion as any other." Gouken said, saying a small prayer for the battle he had just fought against the distraught girl, "And as teenagers, people are more susceptible to a vulnerability of this sort than at any other time in their lives."
Ibuki let off one great shudder as the paralyzing pressure of Sakura's hatred left her all at once. She took a deep breath and held her chest with tears pricking at her eyes. That was the closest she felt like she'd come to staring at death in her life. Even when the Dolls had almost killed her she hadn't felt as helpless.
"Are you going to be alright?" Naruto asked, getting a nod out of the kunoichi after a second or two. With that he jumped down to Gouken as he seemed to be heading to the door with Sakura, "Thank you. I don't know who you are or what you did, but she's back to normal now."
Gouken just nodded and looked down at her, "This is the dark side of our fighting style. Those with true potential in it always find themselves at this crossroad. One is easier to embrace than the other, and it's the only side that you've seen thus far unfortunately."
"Your fighting style?" Naruto asked curiously.
"Years ago I trained two young men named Ryu and Ken, and started to train another man named Dan… but that did not work out." Gouken stated matter-of-factly, "Which one of them had a hand in developing her method of fighting?" He doubted it was Dan, because that man was probably never going to be strong enough to scratch the surface of real power.
Naruto wanted to say that no one did, because she did it all herself, but she emulated Ryu and used the way he fought as a base, constantly seeking advice and acknowledgment from him for her growth, "Ryu did. But I won't ever call him her master. He hasn't taught her anything himself."
"I see." He could tell that it was something that annoyed Naruto, but he didn't bring it any further than that, "Well perhaps I should see to her development. I cannot let someone that is not even properly trained to handle the allure of one side over the other to her own devices. One Akuma is enough."
Someone actually wanted to train Sakura? She'd been barking up that tree with Ryu for years to no avail. But the master of the man that she wanted to be her master wanted to help her? Naruto wished he could say yes for her, but it wasn't his place.
"I'll tell her when she wakes up." Naruto said, extending his arms to take Sakura from Gouken, "It might cheer her up." She didn't hurt anyone… but the gym was toast and they needed to get as far away from there as they could in a hurry, "How is she supposed to find you?"
Gouken hesitated at first due to the fact that he could vividly remember how dark Naruto's chakra had been when he'd tapped into the Kyuubi aspect of it, but the boy was quite obviously the closest person in the world to her, "I can find her. I can find the both of you very easily actually. Don't worry about that."
He handed the girl over to the youngster and with that he left through the doors leading to the hallway, as if there wouldn't be a hundred questions asked when or if someone saw him there.
While Naruto looked down at the slumbering Sakura, Ibuki carefully made her way down and watched Gouken as he left, "IS that old man for real? Can we trust him?"
"Not really."
"But you said Sakura would love for him to train her."
"I know, and she would… but even if I didn't want him to, even if that guy was bad, and even if he didn't give me Sakura-chan, do you really think we could stop him without destroying the entire school first?"
And that was the ten million yen question. He knocked a Kyuubi-charged Naruto and a Satsui no Hadou-engulfed Sakura away at the exact same time as if it was child's play, and he hadn't even been trying to harm them for a moment.
"That human is just as powerful as the Akuma man. It is just nearly impossible for us to sense due to the nature of his power and how blank it feels." Kyuubi told Naruto informatively, "He would not be able to shut me off the way that he did to the girl since you have actual control, but he could handle more of me than you are currently willing to attempt to use."
Thinking about things like that made Ibuki wonder if she was really ready to graduate from being a ninja-in-training after all. She readily acknowledged that Naruto was more powerful than her, but here he was saying that he basically couldn't think of a way to beat that man. Not as he was.
What was with all of the powerful people in the world?
"So I guess we should go back to class now right?" Ibuki asked before looking around at the gym and cringing. They were probably going to catch all of the heat for that one since there wasn't another group of people at the school that could possibly do that.
Naruto looked down at Sakura, over at Ibuki who still seemed quite shaken up by everything that had happened, and then at the room that they were going to undoubtedly get bitched out over the second people came back to check it out, "…Hell no we're not going back to class. We're going home."
"Ugh, I don't want to go back to the Glade of Ninjas already."
"…I meant my apartment Ibuki."
"Oh. Okay. Yeah, let's go do that."
XxX
(S.I.N. Department in the Chugoku Region of Japan)
"Seth, this eye is an overhyped piece of crap." Juri said, kicking at the steel walls of the room she was in. Her foot left a deep, devastating print where it had landed as she pulled it out and continued to pace around testily, "I knew it couldn't stand up to any real heavy lifting. Not that I needed it to smoke any of those girls to begin with, but how is a girl supposed to cut loose and strut her stuff if the Feng Shui Engine can be overused that easily?"
To be fair, she'd run through about six different street gangs, an entire platoon of over fifty mercenary guards with firearms, and then three extremely high-level superhuman fighters that actually took some serious effort to defeat, all without pause or surcease. But then again that was also because she was just having too much fun kicking the ass of every would-be tough guy (and girl) that she could find.
On a screen in the room the very inhuman appearance of Seth was front and center for Juri to see, smiling in a normal, confident manner as if he expected her grumpy attitude, "The eye will adjust to your, ahem, tendencies over time. You were the one that wanted to go out into the field after surgery without properly testing it."
"True." Juri admitted, holding a hand on her hip as her foot tapped the floor impatiently, "Even so, I expected your crack team of scientific minds to come up with something a bit more durable. You know I play rough."
"Even so… the ki signatures you've brought to the safe point are very promising. One more than the other two you managed to get."
"You're talking about 'Little Miss Bleeding Heart' that lost it when I told her why I do what I do right?" Juri said with a chuckle, remembering how she pushed Sakura's buttons enough to nearly make her bring down the mansion with one attack, "That was a pretty impressive freak out if I do say so myself. I should know something about violent rampages after all."
She didn't seem that special at first, but that all changed rather quickly.
"I wasn't able to absorb any fighting technique worth supplanting into my own from them though. I already possess moves far superior to anything that they could give me anyway, so the only use they have is in regards to the BLECE Project. I need the most powerful, resilient natural ki that I can find as a base for keeping it all together."
"You want me to kidnap the brunette?" Juri asked before getting a hopeful grin with a manic look on her eye, "I can kill Killer Bee first though right?"
"We need to run tests to see if hers is too volatile to use. It's already clear that she couldn't control it when she used it on you. Collect more ki signatures in the meantime. I've heard there are superior fighters there that you've yet to come across, and I would be remiss were I not to say that I'm quite intrigued if any of them has anything to add to my dominant abilities."
"More wanton asskicking and fun times? You've got it." This was the most fun she'd had on assignment since joining S.I.N. to begin with, "What else could I really ask for out of this job?"
"I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself. I'll be expecting more top-notch results from you."
Character Profile
Name: Gouken
Nationality: Japan
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Height/Weight: 6'2/240 lbs.
Bloodtype: Unknown
Likes: Martial arts, his disciples (Ken and Ryu), his deceased master Goutetsu, dumplings.
Dislikes: His brother Akuma, Satsui no Hadou.
Hobbies: Teaching students.
Rivals: Akuma
Fighting Style: Martial art rooted in Ansatsuken.
Current Techniques: Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist), Senkugoshoha (Warping Strong Pierce Wave), Tatsumaki Gourasen (Tornado Strong Spiral), Hyakkishu (Hundred Devil Attacks), Kongoshin (Diamond Body).
Hyper Techniques: Kinjite Shoryuuken (Forbidden Rising Dragon Fist), Shin Shoryuuken (True Rising Dragon Fist), Denjin Hadoken (Lightning Blade Surge Fist).
Background: Impossible to tell his age via records, Gouken is the older brother of Akuma who trained along with him under their original master Goutetsu. While the power-obsessed Akuma's method leaned heavily toward the killing side of the style, Gouken focused on the peaceful and spiritual portion and developed his own branch of the techniques. After witnessing Akuma kill their master for not fully embracing the dark side of their arts, Gouken set out his own way, founding his own dojo and eventually training Dan as his first student before casting him out upon realizing his motivations for training.
He adopted an abandoned orphan baby Ryu, training him as a son, and later took on Ken Masters as a student. Eventually he was found and challenged by Akuma and soundly defeated him, but refrained from killing him even at Akuma's insistence to do so. Eventually after sending an adult Ken and Ryu out into the world to continue their growth on their own, Akuma returned stronger than ever before and defeated him with the Shun Goku Satsu, presumably killing him in front of Ken's eyes who proceeded to bury him.
Gouken survived via the use of the extremely potent Power of Nothingness, a state of tranquil serenity beyond normal comprehension. With it he emptied his soul from his body during Akuma's final strike, but wound up in a death-like coma due to imperfectly performing the technique. It is the complete opposite of the Satsui no Hadou, only able to be used by warriors in his style with a pure heart that can find a way to replace their hate and anger with compassion and mercy.
Whoa…. And I'm done.
Nothing worth mentioning to say today. I hope you enjoyed and I hope I entertained you for a few minutes. Now go find something else to occupy your free time… or something else to help you whittle away the hours at work.
It depends on who you are really, and what kind of job the latter has. And everyone reading this knows which one they are.
Kenchi out.