aghostownwhereibelong.
yall PLEEASSAAAASE bear with this fight scene.
also, double upload.
ain't really much else to say... how's your day going?
enjoy
may the story continue...
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6:38 PM/01/04/20
"...one. The match starts now!".
Tatsuki immediately got into an orthodox karate stance Ichigo knew to be nekoashi-dachi, the ball on her right foot planted on the ground while the rest of it hovered above it.
Tatsuki appeared to be taking an immediate defensive in Ichigo's eyes, likely opting to see what Naruto's first action would be.
At thinking of Naruto, Ichigo's eyes quickly drifted to the boy and they observed his stance.
Naruto looked like an utter fool.
He was just standing awkwardly with his legs set too wide apart, and his hands in front of him like he was a sumo wrestler with lower back problems.
He was clearly confused, and Ichigo saw found that he shared that confusion, wondering why anyone would even agree to this fight.
Ichigo hadn't seen too many Kung Fu practitioners in his life, but he wasn't sure if that was the stance of a Kung Fu practitioner.
The two teens were about five feet away from each other, no one doing anything for a while, Tatsuki, because she didn't know what Naruto knew, she planned on going on the defensive for long enough to gauge his style.
Naruto has absolutely no idea what he's doing, and he was honestly trying to emulate some of the energy from much earlier when he was fighting those strange abominations. He didn't really know if he could count on it though.
Tatsuki decided take two careful steps towards him, feinting an offensive play by invading his space a little, and Naruto responded by jumping back another foot.
Naruto switched from his awkward posture to an orthodox stance, his hands still out in front of him.
Ichigo found that Naruto now resembled a Karate stance by the name of Kokutsu-dachi, his legs were actually still wide legged, but clearly better coordinated than he was expecting.
' What was that weird change just now? ' Tatsuki observed Naruto closely, peeking at his guard to try to find an opening. She eventually decided to test him again, this time opting for an actual attack.
Naruto saw his opponent rush at him quite fast, his heart jumped at his throat as he flinched in response.
And because of that, he wasn't able to see her shooting her arm out towards his chest.
He fist landed true with a *THUD , but she wasn't done yet.
Another hand shot towards his abdomen* THUD * her left, another to his chest again, her right * THUD , and another, towards his diaphragm, her left again.
Naruto was absolutely shocked, he didn't even have the time to react, much less think, ever since Tatsuki had rushed him and let loose a barrage of such powerful hands.
He started to doubled over after the last hit, he didn't know where he had been hit but it hurt like hell.
Naruto almost fell over completely, but he felt the power of a kick landing straight in his upper sternum, propelling him backward.
His back hit the wet grass, and he clutched his stomach in pain. Naruto's eyes bulged wide, he couldn't breathe.
" * hgghh * * hgghh *", were his attempts to try to catch his breath, but he couldn't seem to suck in the sweet air that had the audacity to be present everywhere BUT his lungs. Yeah... may be a bit in over his head here.
Tatsuki gawked at her felled opponent in surprise, expecting him to have much better reflexes than this.
"Good thing I didn't really hit you TOO hard". Tatsuki said with an apologetic wince on her face.
She began walking towards Naruto to try to help him up when Ichigo pipes up," Whoa, maybe this was a worse idea than it looked like. He's literally WHEEZING".
"Yeah, I hit him in the diaphragm, thats gonna happen Ichigo!."
Tatsuki turned her head to Ichigo, still walking towards Naruto, "Yeah, but still I don't think you guys should be fighting anymore." Ichigo stood up and began to gather their things.
His friend stopped her approach briefly, annoyed at the conclusion her bright-headed friend came to,"Ya know what Ichigo, that MIGHT just be a good idea!".
"Whatever let's just go-", Tatsuki didn't get to hear if that sentence was finished, for her world was turned on its back all of a sudden.
THUDD , Tatsuki hit the ground reflexively guarding her head but still shocked at the sudden change of view.
"What the-", another sentence lost to the wind as the master of interruptions stood tall over his opponent.
Naruto dropped to his opponent, and sat his rear on her thighs, holding her right arm to her belly with his in a fist ready to strike.
"Rule Number 1 of Naruto's Combat Rulebook: Never Let Your Guard Down!!." Naruto declared with a huge grin on his face.
"Wha-how did you get up so fast?." She was genuinely confused, considering it wasn't even 12 seconds ago that he had doubled over. "And how did you knock me down!?".
"A simple leg sweep. And I just got up, I dunno". Naruto stood up, offering her his hand standing from her shoulder.
An opportunity arose.
' He's clearly in healthy shape, AND he isn't bad at catching people off guard either. So he shouldn't be TOO mad if I take advantage...' Tatsuki decided.
She reached out with her left hand, then suddenly positioned herself to do a leg sweep of her own! All while pulling down on him to encourage imbalance.
Naruto wobbled as he felt a strong kick come in at an angle from behind his calf, strong enough to punt a baby across a couple parking spots.
THWACK , her leg came in contact, but she found that he seemed to have grown his feet into the ground.
Her kick didn't work at all!
' Shit!! ', Tatsuki tried to stand back up, but was pulled aggressively towards her opponent.
Naruto primed his hands once he pulled her towards him, visualized his target, then unleashed a slew of jabs in similar fashion to Tatsuki earlier!!
When the first punch landed on her sternum, she jolted back with almost as much speed as the next punch that landed, then the next, then the next, then the next, until she grew unable to count them due to the pain.
Ichigo gawked as he saw what he thought was at least 7 punches land Every.Single.Time. When Tatsuki grew her bearings and began to stumble backwards, he pulled her back into close quarters, and resumed his onslaught of jabs!!
Two. Five. Eight. Twelve. It honestly could have been a trick of his hands sheer speed, but any way Ichigo looked at it, his hands were still frighteningly fast.
Tatsuki managed to throw her arms in front of her chest in defense, catching a fist, and she backed up quickly to regain her focus.
' HOLY SHIT what was THAT!? He's a completely different person now!! '. It was the first time that Tatsuki had felt ACTUALLY intimidated in a very long time!
From the way he looks now, she would have been a LOT more cautious with her approaches.
A calm energy descended over Naruto as he exhaled slowly, assuming something resembling Tatsuki's stance from before.
Naruto slowly un-furrowed his eyebrows and moderately relaxed his muscles from his face to his feet in sequential order, his entire body succumbing to an expression of supreme focus.
'FOR WHAAT!? ' Tatsuki questioned in mental incredulity.
She understands that one must be focused in a battle, but she couldn't believe that Naruto was so invested in this principle. 'It's honestly frightening. I can tell that he's not at all a rookie '.
Tatsuki stood a good 6 feet away from her opponent. She took a moment to breathe and ground herself, but made sure to never take her eyes off of the boy in front of her.
Tatsuki placed a hand to her chest, still stinging a lot due to those punches. ' Wing Chun? '. She noted that, even though they were jabs, the probably looked like they hurt a lot more than they actually did.
' If Ichigo pulled off something like that, then it would definitely hurt some more.' Tatsuki got back into position, hands at the ready. ' * sniff , the young woman took in the cold winter air, trying to calm her heart down.
' From what I could gather, his technique is a bit spotty, like he isn't an seasoned expert, but a REALLY gifted martial artist '.
Tatsuki was searching for another opening, planning on trying bait him again, but aiming to be more successful this time around.
Naruto's eyes were trained on Tatsuki, and his body was completely directed towards her, so she decided to try to take advantage of this stance's weaknesses.
Tatsuki advanced cautiously, but with practiced haste as she scrutinized his form while growing closer to him.
He didn't move an inch, she didn't even see him blink, nor breathe in the time it took to get within leg reach.
' I'm really not seeing any actual openings here '. Tatsuki lamented the difficulty that was finally baring it's teeth in light of Naruto's apparent skill in hand-to-hand combat.
Then, she flipped a switch, and rushed to his side but maintaining distance to be able to foresee any imminent strikes.
Naruto reacted slowly, his body turning in slow motion from her perspective, so she threw a right hand to his center mass, intending to provoke and overreaction.
Naruto ended up parrying her right hand with his right, pulling a 180 to her position, closing off any visible openings.
Tatsuki moved quicker this time, leading with a kick to his inner leg.
Once she found her target, she threw a right hook at her opponents face in feint, letting him react before landing a spinning back kick on his abdomen.
'* UHF *', Naruto took the hit in stride, opening his guard in subtle fashion.
She saw his guard down and went for the kill, a front kick flying from her body like a strike from hell, * THUK * on target.
Tatsuki shifted her weight so that it landed on his foot, and threw out her left hand towards his center, aiming for the diaphragm again.
THUK , On target again. One more, her right hand struck out from her hip, aiming at his chest*THWACK , then she got even closer, performing a reverse roundhouse kick and aiming at his skull!
Tatsuki used the height and distance to her advantage, as well as the flexibility that came with being a martial artist, and surmised that their proximity was too much for Naruto to defend himself from.
Naruto's only reaction was to lean backwards, successfully dodging the kick with his own flexibility.
However, Tatsuki has anticipated this, and quickly regain posture, charging towards Naruto, wielding a right hand with his name on it.
Naruto recovered slower than her, giving her ample time to set up a powerful lunging punch straight towards his stomach again!!
THUCKK , the punch generated a surprisingly immense amount of energy for Naruto, and Tatsuki readied her final strike, a left hook given extra power by tugging Naruto towards it, aiming for his jaw!
Tatsuki soon found out what her opponent was planning, for she could never have anticipated him ducking under the swift hook and out, hooking his arm under it before she could retreat it, and using an unforseen amount of power to toss the young girl from behind him, to over his back, then his head and unto the grass.
Before Tatsuki could realized what happened, she was quickly put in an arm bar.
Naruto's technique was imperfect, but Ichigo could see he knew where to apply pressure, and it was showing in the way Tatsuki started to yelp,"*RRRGH* ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!!". Tatsuki had tapped as hard as she could on one of Naruto's limbs, and he ended up letting go.
From the way he was pushing, she would have thought he was going to break her arm if she had let three seconds pass before she gave in. But, she'll never know since she gave up.
"Damn it, I don't think I actually saw one Kung Fu move from you, asshole!". Tatsuki quickly stood up and massaged her elbow.
Naruto stood up to level with her,"Welp, I actually lied about that! Sorry!".
"Ugh, it doesn't even matter, your clearly good at something!".
Tatsuki looked towards the sky, it has already gotten much darker than when they arrived. "We should head back to your house,. Ichigo before your family starts to worry."
"I'm way ahead of you, I already texted Yuzu that we're coming home. You guys alright after all that?".
"Yeah, I'm fine. I didn't expect to lose this bad though. Are you sure you lost your memory?". Tatsuki questioned Naruto as they walked into place, side by side with one another.
"Yeah, only knowing a couple things about myself is evidence enough for you. But now that you mention it, something popped into my brain after that fight just now".
The trio were well on their way back to the Kurosaki Home, strolling through the evening breeze,"What did you happen to remember?".
"Well, I don't think I'd really call it remembering, but I guess the feeling of fighting someone is familiar to me. It kinda gives me thrills! Like, my heart starts to pump and my brain moves faster, and my hands start trembling too." Naruto described his newfound love for battle with glee.
"Honestly, it helps a lot to not think of what I'm going through right now. Everything is so alien, and some of the things that I've seen in this world are really scary. It honestly has me watching my back being out here. Hey can we speed up a little bit?."
Naruto started to walk faster, and the two childhood friends were none the wiser to where his sudden fear had stimmed from.
"Hey-Naruto, wait up!" Tatsuki exclaimed as she and Ichigo jogged ahead to catch up to the boy.
"Yo, whats wrong dude? You started to talk about creepy shit all of the sudden." Ichigo said as soon as he got to Naruto's side.
"Yeah, even I'm started to get creeped out." Tatsuki started check her surroundings.
It had gotten dark. They were only there for about 16 minutes, and it took them a while to get there, but the only trace of the sun were the orange, pink and blue tints to the edges of the winter dusk.
"Well, its nothing, just a couple of nightmares that I can't reme-*click *-can't remember." Naruto had become distracted with a sound to his left, Ichigo's friend had taken out an object shaped similar to the one he had seen before.
It clicked a couple more times, so he assumed the sound came from there. "What's that sound?" Naruto huddled close to Tatsuki to try to peek at the object.
"Wha-back up dude? I'll show you the pictures, you don't gotta invade my personal space."
"What's that sound?" Naruto asked whilst backing up a couple inches, the only indication that he was listening to her previous statement.
"It was the camera. Of my phone."
"Do you know what a camera is Naruto?".Ichigo asked.
"No."
"Really? I guess I should have guessed that by now, huh?."
Tatsuki tapped on her rectangle a couple of times and presented Naruto the display.
"Ya see that thing that looks kind of like an eye? Where my finger's pointing? That's an application called a 'Camera'. You can tap on it*tap, and make these things called 'pictures', where you get to capture the things you see in real life and store them on the phone."
Tatsuki explained the mechanics of her application, and Naruto walked with a confused expression.
"Dude, you still don't get it?!".Tatsuki exclaimed in frustration.
"Just tell me what the sound was!" Naruto was feeling his own frustration at this situation.
"It was from my PHONE. It came from my CAMERA. Which makes these things called PICTURES. It's basically like a memory!". Tatsuki pocketed her phone, willing to completely drop the discussion.
"So, you said it was like a memory. Are you saying you can make a memory?".
"Nevermind Naruto, lets just talk about something el-","Waaaiit a minute, i think he's getting it." Ichigo turned to Naruto and prepared himself for a REALLY simple explanation of something REALLY simple.
"You've got the right idea man, think of a memory, but you can hold it with your hands and look at it whenever you want. That's called a Photo. A memory, in physical form, that you and anyone can look at for however long."
Naruto adopted a pensive expression.
He appeared to be getting the hang of the explanation.
"So like, i can make a photo of a memory? How do I do that?".
"Well, all you need is a phone. It's that thing that I showed you earlier, and what Tatsuki has in her pocket right now. Once you go in the camera app, wherever you look you can make a photo, and just have it to take photos." Ichigo summarized.
"Hmmm... I think that makes sense!". Naruto lied. He decided to ignore the fact that he still misunderstood somethings, but decided to drop it for the sake of their collective sanities.
"Great! Now can we get on you two? It's getting really cold."
Tatsuki shrugged her purple coat (to Naruto's complete and utter surprise and confusion) closer on her shoulders.
"Yeah, lets walk home you guys."
"Now that you mention it, it is a little cold, huh?". Naruto chuckled light-heartedly.
"Wait a minute, why are you only wearing a SHIRT AND PANTS?!"
Naruto looked down at himself, and saw that he was indeed only wearing a shirt and pants. The sleeves were rolled up on his arms, so thats probably why he was cold.
"YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE SHOES?! Ichigo, you really have this kid walking around here BAREFOOT?!". Tatsuki berated Ichigo in earnest concern over Naruto, taking her coat off and putting it around Naruto's shoulders.
"WELL YOU TWO JUST RUSHED OUTTA THE HOUSE, SO I DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO REALIZE HE WAS COSPLAYING AS A HOMELESS PERSON!!". Ichigo retaliated in full.
"WHATEVER, put these your arms in these holes Naruto, you should be taking MUCH better care of your patients! I'm disappointed in you Ichigo!". Tatsuki said.
"Rrggh!! Shaddup already! Let's just hurry the hell up home!".
Ichigo was a little disappointed that Naruto wasn't taking care of himself, especially under his care, but he quickly shrugged it off.
He wasn't gonna let Tatsuki shove a responsibility onto him that wasn't even entirely his!
Regardless, Ichigo was still denying the fact that this affected him.
The trio made haste to the Kurosaki Clinic, breaking into a light jog to try to make it home for dinner time.
Naruto was just as enamored with the sights and smells of this place as he was walking on his way to the park.
He saw many rows of tall lights in a lot of places, grass in some areas with rock in others. The air was crisp and chilly, refreshing, but it stung at his nose and made it feel invisible.
Naruto looked back behind him, the colors seemed to be retreating from the sky. There were a few of them, orange was the brightest it got the further he looked. Everything receded into blue coming closer to them, and the sky still had a lot of vibrance left.
Naruto was astounded when he looked directly upwards, stars of varying colors-blue, green, white, he even saw RED stars!
Some stars were bigger than others, but there were a LOT of them. And he saw that if he looked close, some of the distant sky even looked purple! And green!
Naruto marveled at the wonderful colors above his head, allowing himself to be dragged along by the hand of his new friend Tatsuki Arisawa.
Snow had started to fall over the town, and Naruto had to admit, he was surprised for a minute because he didn't know what it was.
They had reached a familiar part of town, and Naruto looked where he was going again.
"HEEEY! WHERE WERE YOU GUYS?!". He saw Yuzu waving her hands around like she was surrounded by a swarm of bees.
"Sorry! We were out in Tsubakidai Park for s while, we didn't know it was gonna take this long!". Ichigo rushed to explain to his little sister, leading everyone to the entrance of his house.
"Well, your lucky that I haven't finished dinner yet!*twist, creeek* If your going to be outside for this long, can you at least keep us updated Ichigo?*Ka-chunk* We were worried!". Yuzu took the coats of everyone and sat them down in the living room.
"Speak for yourself Yuzu." Came the remark from Karin, who was secretly watching for her big brothers arrival.
"Where's Dad?".
"He said that he had to some errands to run, he's not gonna be home for dinner." Yuzu then equipped an apron and proceeded to continue cooking. "Dinner will be ready in about..twenty minutes?".
And with that, the house started to settle again. Naruto and Tatsuki had been given a spare change of clothes to put after showering, and it took Naruto a little while to get finished in comparison to Tatsuki.
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About an hour later, everyone had finished eating dinner.
Isshin got back when Yuzu started washing he dishes and he got into a conversation with Naruto and Ichigo.
"So, do you know where your going to be sleeping tonight Naruto?". Isshin asked, donning a polite smile.
"Nah."
"Well, we have three options for you then! If Ichigo's okay with it, then we could get a mattress in his room for you to sleep in for the night, or you could crash on this couch here. The third option is the hospital bed, but I'm actually not sure about that considering your not unwell."
"I'm fine with him being in my room." Ichigo stated.
"Welp! Then it's settled!". Isshin declared."Let me see about getting you a mattress to sleep on!".
And Isshin did just that, setting up two beds on top of one another in the middle of Ichigo's room.
And not much later, everyone slowly settled into sleep. Tatsuki said goodnight and went into the twin's room for the night.
For the the first time again, Naruto was going to experience what it was like to crave sleep.
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OWARI/FIN/DAS ENDE/THE END.
