-Urasoe no Machi-

-Evening-

Naruto grabbed his rumbling stomach, grimacing. The sun was starting to set, and he had been at this for too long already. Lights were flickering on throughout the town, and certain stores set torches alight near their sign, which seemed to be something of a tradition here. It was still bright out, but the alleys were falling into deep shadow, which just helped him move about more easily.

Spreading his clones through the city for information, Naruto had heard an awful lot of griping, but that was about it. A few random thugs which he'd beaten into submission, but, hey, that was certainly nothing new. The problem was that, whoever these weirdos they were looking for were, they blended in reasonably well. It was a fairly large town. He still wasn't sure what he should be hunting for, exactly.

Naruto's use of the Shadow Clone technique afforded him a few benefits. One of them was that he wouldn't have to feel bad for grabbing a bite to eat, since his clones could still be out and about, covering the town. He was starving.

Luckily, salvation was in sight. Naruto's spirits soared as he saw it. A ramen booth, the curtain obscuring its inside was decorated with an octopus tentacle stuffed into a bowl of delicious, salty broth. Smoke and steam were billowing from the rear of the booth, and it smelled absolutely divine.

He needed no further prompting. He dashed to the booth and shouldered his way inside.

He was in heaven. As he pushed through the curtain, he was blasted in the face with a solid wall of hot, savory air, each breath hinting at a different ingredient just waiting for him to come and get it.

Naruto needed very much to be on the outside of as much ramen as he could be as quickly as possible.

Stepping through the cloud of steam, he finally got a good look at the inside of the place. Five stools at a high counter that separated the customers from the cook. There was only one other customer in the place, stuffing his face and slurping noisily. He already had a few empty bowls in front of him.

The cook was a weathered-looking older guy with a round, bulbous nose, wearing a headband to keep the sweat out of his eyes in the hot, humid air. Judging by the look of it, that headband was dying a hero's death, day by day, in execution of its duty.

Naruto stepped up and grabbed a seat three down from the other customer at the end, smacked a hefty wad of money onto the counter, and called out, "Heya! I want one of anything you can give me! I'm starving, so just keep 'em coming, alright?"

The old cook gave him a weird look. If Naruto didn't know better, he might have confused it with the way people used to look at him back when everyone in Konoha hated him, but that didn't make sense. One of the nice things about going out on missions far away was that absolutely no one in a town like this knew who he was.

Still, the guy looked a bit worried about something, nodding glumly before grabbing the empty bowls from in front of the other customer and returning to work.

Naruto waited, reminiscing on recent events. It had been a long, long year, and honestly he wasn't sure where things stood right now. Team Seven were great friends, even though Sakura couldn't be here with them now, but the death of the Hokage felt like it sort of signified the end of all the normal stuff. All three of them were Chuunin now, and Kakashi himself was being pushed around by people wanting him to be Hokage. He'd heard they were even hunting his master, Jiraiya, of all people.

Naruto smirked. What a joke that would be.

Then his smile dropped from his face. After all this was over, would Team Seven even take missions with each other any more?

Thoughts wandering, a minute or so passed, with only the noises of the shop to fill the air. Pans sizzling, water boiling, knives hitting wood, and the slurping and chomping from his right. Eventually, though, his thoughts were interrupted as the cook plopped a bowl in front of him. Naruto looked up.

"Thanks, man! Smells great!" he said.

The cook just gave him that worried look again, glancing down at the table before rushing back to his tools. When Naruto looked down at his bowl, it was nowhere to be found.

Admittedly, he had been distracted, but he had been sure he'd been given a bowl. Weird. Another minute passed before the cook returned carrying a replacement.

"Awright, yer food's ready, kid," he began, voice a bit strained and thick with an unfamiliar accent, "Just be careful, 'cause-"

"Hey, thanks a lot! I got it, it's cool!" Naruto interrupted. Oh, steamy, wonderful, salty ramen. "Yep, you gotta start with seafood in a town like this!"

Naruto clapped both hands together and closed his eyes in a quick prayer of thanks. "Itadakimasu!"

When he opened his eyes again, the bowl was gone.

"Wha- what?! Hey, what's the big deal?!" he shouted.

The cook just gave him another odd look, his nervousness seeming to intensify, then disappeared back to the kitchen without another word.

Naruto was bewildered by this exchange. His bowl had been taken in just a second, and he hadn't seen or heard anything. It couldn't have been the cook, because he hadn't had the bowl with him afterwards. It couldn't have been the other customer, because he was sitting at least six feet away and hadn't stopped slurping and chewing for a single moment in that time. In fact, it was even louder now, if anything. Struck by a sudden suspicion, Naruto examined the other occupant of the shop carefully.

At least, he tried to. Naruto's eyes went wide when he looked at the guy. The diner was young, not much older than himself, if that, with black hair and wearing a tattered straw hat. That was hardly all that unusual.

What was unusual was that Straw-Hat's cheeks were stuffed like a chipmunk's, each one stretched out to at least the size of his own head, so large that Naruto couldn't make out the guy's eyes.

Naruto cursed, mentally. This was what he got for letting his guard down. He'd been in a fight since the moment he stepped into this shop, and he hadn't even known it until just a second ago.

This dork wanted to take his dinner and just keep on eating like nothing had happened? Well, screw that.

Let's get dangerous.

Naruto sat in an almost meditative silence as the next bowl arrived, his cold, hard gaze tracking it as it came. Hot, salty noodles heaped with fish would be his battleground today. Eyes still locked on the bowl he gave a slow, small nod to the cook, releasing the man back towards safety.

It was just him and the slurping diner now.

"Aaahhh, I dunno what happened to those other bowls," Naruto said in a carefully measured voice, his salty menace matched only by the soup that he had been denied, "but I can't wait to dig into this one." He paused for a beat, waiting. "Whoops! Almost forgot. Gotta say my thanks."

Naruto clapped his hands in a solemn prayer, the ominous noise ringing out inside the cramped confines of the stall. This time, he kept his eyes open. "Itadakima-"

There! An arm shot past like a speeding arrow, and Naruto's hand darted down with reflexes honed from a year of catching flies for training, snatching the arm mid-flight by the wrist just inches from his bowl.

"AH-HAH! Caught you, you son of a bitch! Thought you could get away with- Holy Shit!"

Straw-hat's arm was stretched out like some sort of tentacle, bridging the six or so feet between them as if it were nothing. The guy turned to face Naruto, his cheeks still stuffed to bursting.

"Ah, showwy, mah han' shliffed." He apologized.

"You- what? Your hand slipped?" Naruto asked in disbelief. Straw-Hat's fingers were still wriggling desperately towards his bowl of ramen. "Bullshit! You're still going after my food, man!"

"It'sh shtill shliffing."

"STILL SLIPPING?! Oh that is it! You asked for this, asshole."

Naruto stood, still holding the arm, and advanced on Straw-hat, who also stood in a hurry while desperately finishing his remaining noodles.

Naruto stepped forward, leg shooting out in a roundhouse kick, causing Straw-hat to duck awkwardly, stumbling underneath the attack. As Straw-hat staggered backward, Naruto was tugged off-balance by his grip on the surprisingly strong mystery diner, causing him to lurch forward.

No matter. He'd pulled his punch, so to speak, so he wouldn't accidentally kill the man. Straightening up, he attacked again, letting himself get a bit faster. It was only after another couple of more enthusiastic jabs at close range failed to land that Naruto revised his opinion and began to get serious.

At that moment, Straw-hat twisted in a way that looked accidental, and his overstuffed cheek knocked into Naruto's face, sending him reeling. The two combatants stepped back for a moment, hampered by the close quarters.

Naruto was pissed.

"You son of a bitch. We're taking this outside! You're not getting away from me!"

Straw-Hat somehow took a deep lungful of breath, and that was when it all went wrong for the poor ninja.

"NOODLE BEAM!"

Without further ado, Straw-Hat sprayed an intense stream of pressurized soup from his impressive cheek-reserves. The attack was an absurd parody of other water-element jutsu Naruto had been forced to deal with on a couple of occasions. Luckily, his practice allowed him to dodge the worst of the attack.

Well, at least he managed to avoid swallowing any.

Well, mostly.

"Hrghptthhbth-GAH-glck-aaghpthbbt!" Naruto spluttered, helpless in the face of the full-force ramen bombardment. There just wasn't enough space to dodge! Eventually, though, the spray relented.

"Aw man!" said Straw-Hat, "What a waste. Sorry about that!" Then, he dashed from the stall, bursting through the curtains into the night.

Naruto immediately scrambled back to his feet and set off after the man, noodles in his hair and murder on his mind.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE, YOU ASSHOLE!" he shouted, bursting out of the shop.

"Hey, I said sorry! I'm not actually supposed to fight while I'm here," Straw-Hat called back. "Thanks for the meal, by the way! I don't really have any cash that they'll accept here."

"Any cash that they- wait, no!"

A quick glance behind him showed the cook dashing off into the back-alleyways, and he sure as hell had Naruto's money, too. Cursing his luck, Naruto hesitated, then turned to dash after Straw-Hat.

"Damnit! That was my dinner!"

"Yeah, it was pretty good, huh?" Straw-Hat called back without a hint of irony.

"Screw you, jackass!" Naruto responded.

"I'm Luffy, by the way. Hey, it was nice meeting you, and all, but I really hafta go. See you some other time!"

"No, I already told you you're not getting away from me, you- AH!"

Luffy's arm shot out, stretching to absurd lengths into the distance. With a strange snapping sort of noise he grabbed onto a far-off building in the direction of the harbor.

"Bye!"

Then he was gone, rocketing off towards the horizon. Naruto slowed to a stop, jaw hanging open in astonishment.

What the hell?

He had to tell Sasuke about this.

Maybe he'd leave that one part out.

Well, first he needed to wipe the soup out of his eyes.