Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender

The cold forested path was practically dead silent with the tapping of footsteps being the only exception. Out of all those in the travelling group, Appa's heavy feet created the loudest impact on the winter ground. Upon the furry beast's head was his best friend, Aang, who was sitting cross-legged with his staff resting on his lap and Momo hanging lazily off his shoulder.

Despite his usually happy and outgoing personality, he didn't really feel like speaking out since the general atmosphere still had a lingering tenseness to it. It wasn't hard to see why as he looked to his friends and the women Naruto had fought just minutes prior.

Naruto, Sokka, and Katara were walking at a steady pace right in front of the large bison while the female fighters in green made sure to keep their distance. If one were to use the sky bison as a unit of measurement, he would say that the women were about three Appas ahead of the rest of them. It was from that distance that the still slightly ruffled and shaken warriors periodically sent small glances back to the island's newcomers while harshly whispering amongst themselves.

"Think they're still scared?" Naruto calmly asked to his friends.

Sokka rolled his eyes. "No, I bet they're filled with so much happiness that they just need a moment to themselves. " He said with obvious sarcasm.

"Afraid or not, at least they're leading us to their village. That means they're at least a little okay with us, right?" Katara asked.

"Either they tolerate us, or they're so scared that Naruto's going to invade and burn down their village that they'll listen to anything he says." Sokka replied.

"I doubt they think I'm going to trash their village." Naruto said. However, he wasn't so sure about that when he met the eyes of one of the glancing women before she flinched and quickly turned around.

"Well, what did they say to you after everything calmed down?" Aang questioned the blonde.

"The leader of their group just told me her name was Suki, I asked if it was okay if we could take a break at wherever they're from, and then she nodded and started walking off." Naruto said.

"That's it?" Katara asked.

Naruto lightly shrugged and nodded. "Pretty much," Naruto said before rubbing his chin in thought, "Although she was still really fidgety just like the others, more so when their village was brought up."

Katara sighed and looked ahead. "Hopefully we can straighten things out when we get there."

Sokka seemed to think to himself before saying, "We don't have to do that right away."

"What do you mean?" The blonde asked.

"Well, they are more likely than not terrified of you and will probably obey whatever you tell them to, so why not play overlord for a day?" Sokka replied.

"And exactly what would I get out of that besides striking fear in people that don't deserve it?" Naruto blankly asked.

"I'm not suggesting we rob them or anything, you know I would never want that. I'm just saying that maybe by your order we can, perhaps, have a little feast or two?" Sokka suggested with fake innocence and a spark of hope of his eyes.

The other three just gave the warrior a deadpan expression. "Just for food? Seriously?" Katara questioned.

Sokka crossed his arms. "Just throwing ideas out there! A guy sometimes just wants to more variety in his diet, okay?!"

Naruto rolled his eyes at his friend. "What we have is fine, Sokka. It's nothing to occupy a village over."

"You already destroyed all of the jerky with that ball of spinning death, the fruit from the air temple is gone, our reserves are wasted, and the only edible thing you can create out of thin air is ramen." Sokka said while patting his now slightly growling stomach from the thoughts of food.

"First of all, I already said sorry about the jerky. Second, any extra food, even the supply from the scrolls and my own stash, was devoured by you because you kept on complaining that you were starving. Lastly, what is wrong with ramen?!" Naruto ended with a shout.

The women ahead heard, but decided to ignore the yell not wanting to get on the shinobi's bad side.

"Not all of us can live on just ramen, Naruto!" Sokka yelled back.

"Blasphemy!" The blonde passionately retorted before looking at his other companions. "You guys are on my side here, right?"

Aang simply gave a small nod and smile. As long as he didn't have to defy his vegetarian lifestyle, he was okay, especially since the noodles were awesome!

Katara only shrugged in indifference. "Having something different once in a while is fine too," She began before lightly glaring at her brother, "But that doesn't mean we're going to take over a village because of it."

Sokka gave a small scoff and pout in return. "Fine, do what you want."

Katara lightly shook her head at her brother's antics before noticing the first signs of civilization in the distance.

"We're almost there." She noted with Naruto, Aang and Sokka nodding to themselves as they looked on as well.

From what they could see there wasn't much to behold. It's not like it was a big city bustling with activity, yet it still held its own unique ambiance. The main part where they assumed most of the populace resided was two lines of identical wooden buildings parallel to each other ascending uphill with a noticeably larger building at the top of the small slope. This two or three story building seemed to be a sort of meeting hall or perhaps even the home of the village leader, but they couldn't be exactly sure.

Behind the larger structure was a valley that continued miles away and was held between the large snow-covered mountains that made up a majority of the island. Dotted on what little they could see of the valley, on the surrounding hills both close and far, and whatever else was a part of the neighboring landscape were multiple wooden houses, all with a similar style in architecture. Some were different, however, since they actually passed a few family homes and even small farms that were sometimes cottages or some form of longhouse. From what little properties they passed, they could see that they were already drawing attention, but it wasn't surprising since they were strangers, wore different clothing, and were being escorted by their resident protectors who were prominently dirty and looked to have just gotten done with a fight. The worried looks on their faces, though, made their interest of the newcomers rise exponentially.

Seeing a giant furry monster casually walk by may have also played a small factor in their curiosity.

As their group neared the main part of their village they saw a small stylized wooden archway serving as the entrance. Connected on both sides of it was a basic wooden fence that expanded out until they reached the main left and right flanks where it met a large wall completely made out of connecting logs that were securely placed into the ground.

What really caught the group's attention, besides the gathering crowd in the open area, was a tall and painted wooden statue of an unknown person. They couldn't make out any distinguishable features since the figure's back was facing them and the paint was chipped and faded, but they did notice that the person proudly wore a similar uniform as the women guiding them and even held the same fans they saw earlier.

"Seems like a nice place." Aang commented.

His friends nodded. "Yeah, let's just hope that we don't get kicked out." Naruto replied.

It was at this point that the chattering of the crowd became more apparent to all of their ears. Nothing could be clearly heard, but the rise of volume and voices that joined in showed them that they were very much curious about their group. Seeing their eyes comically widen upon noticing Appa was pretty funny they had to admit. The children's eyes were more in awe while the adults were of caution.

All of the villagers seemed to wear very similar clothing. Their coats that kept them warm this winter could be somewhat compared to those of the Water Tribe except these locals looked to favor a lighter tone of blue. The only exception was the green-clad female fighters of their village's militia. An exact number of them couldn't be made, but there seemed to be a few dozen or so.

Eventually they all passed the archway and a voice spoke out above all of the rest.

"Suki, who are these people and what happened to all of you?" Said an old man at the front of the crowd. If it weren't for his stern gaze he would otherwise look kind and grandfatherly with his gray bushy beard and equally gray hair on his slightly balding head.

"Oyaji, we have run into a bit of a…situation." Naruto heard Suki say while his group stopped near the entrance.

Oyaji glanced at the young strangers. "I noticed." He simply replied.

"It's a little more serious than you might think…" Suki muttered.

The elderly man raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Suki looked to get a little more uncomfortable while trying to process what she was going to tell him before she turned and called over one of her fellow messy subordinates and whispered something into her ear. The unnamed girl nodded before rushing passed the chattering crowd and into one of the nearby buildings. A brief moment later she came back and handed Suki a rolled up piece of paper.

Suki nodded her thanks before unrolling it and presenting it to Oyaji. His eyes narrowed in confusion upon glancing at the wrinkled picture and looked back up to her in curiosity. He noticed her blue eyes appeared to be fairly desperate with a bit of fear in them.

Without speaking she simply pointed at the image on the paper before pointing to the blonde she escorted to the village.

Oyaji seemed a bit more confused before his wrinkled face paled and seemed to age before everyone's eyes. He shakily turned towards Naruto who actually began to happily wave at him with a bright smile.

Oyaji quickly turned back toward the young woman and whispered, "Suki…are you implying that he is-"

"Without a doubt." She quickly and quietly replied.

"And you fought?" He asked without much emotion.

Suki nodded her head and looked down. "None of us stood a chance."

A few drops of sweat rolled down the man's forehead. "What does he want?" He quietly asked.

"I'm not sure. After detaining the rest of his group he…well…sort of fell out of the sky…" She started before noticing his incredulous look, "I'll explain later. He then instigated a fight with us…we didn't get a scratch on him. He had his chance to strike us down, but all he asked was if he and his friends could rest here. I'm not entirely sure of all of his motives, though." Suki replied.

Oyaji nodded to himself and looked to be in deep thought. Well, if all the man wanted was for him and his companions to rest and nothing else, then who was he to deny him? If that's all that would come from this situation then he would say the island got off lucky. Not much was known about this man or where his allegiance was held, but if the eyewitness accounts of his abilities were anything to go by, then he would have to be extremely careful.

Coming to a decision the elderly man signaled to Naruto and his group to approach him. With little facial response the blonde made his way towards Oyaji and the rest of the villagers with his friends following.

"All you require is a place to rest?" The old man asked.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, if you don't mind. Sleeping on the ground for a couple of weeks straight gets a little uncomfortable." He said with a small smile.

"Oyaji, why are you letting them stay here? Shouldn't we be more cautious of outsiders?" One of the local shopkeepers sounded out from the front of the crowd. Those around him seemed to agree as they looked at the strangers more intently.

Oyaji turned to the man. "Just trust me."

"But what if they're from the Fire Nation?" Another random man asked.

"We can guarantee none of us are from the Fire Nation." Katara chimed in calmly.

"And how do you expect us all to believe- Koko, what are you looking at?" A random female warrior said as she interrupted herself and looked down at the brown-haired little girl standing next to her.

Naruto's group and the surrounding villagers all focused on Koko as she held a familiar paper in front of her face with a calculative eye. Oyaji and Suki's eyes widened before the latter quickly checked the side of her kimono where she thought she securely placed the bounty poster.

Was she just pickpocketed by a little girl?

"Hm? Oh, I just saw Suki and Oyaji looking at this, but it looked like they didn't want anyone to see. Then I saw Suki pointing to the guy with the weird yellow hair." The little girl innocently replied before handing the poster to the warrior that questioned her. "Why were they looking at that old picture of that demon guy, though?"

Oyaji, Suki, and the four others that were part of the earlier scuffle could only watch on helplessly as people gathered and looked at the poster. Many of them stared at the image before looking back to the man with the 'weird yellow hair' as Koko simply put it. One by one the villager's eyes widened as they started to make the connection from what their leader and Suki's actions hinted at and were severely hoping their crazy guesses were wrong.

One young man in particular looked to the old village leader and seemed to question him with his eyes as he quickly pointed back and forth between the poster and Naruto. While Oyaji didn't say anything, his averted and nervous eyes were enough to answer not only him, but the rest of the citizens that were observing.

Immediately the young man's eyes bugged out even more before he surprisingly started yelling out in fear and crazily waved his arms in the air. What Naruto and his friends didn't expect, though, was a large amount of foam to suddenly build up in his widely open mouth, making him look rabid. In the next instant his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he dramatically fell to his knees and then proceeded to land flat on his face unmoving.

No one really paid him any mind as everyone started backing away from Naruto in fear.

"Way to make a first impression. Remind me how you're going to unite everyone against the Fire Nation again?" Kurama suddenly piped in.

"Shut up, it's a work in progress!" Naruto mentally retorted.

"Look, none of us want any trouble. If you wish to rest here, fine, go ahead. Just please don't do anything that would harm anyone." Oyaji said in tired resignation.

Naruto sighed. "I can promise you that I never intended to cause trouble for anyone. I don't hurt people for no reason." He said holding his hands hoping to ease them all.

"Then why did you fight Suki and the other Kyoshi warriors?" Asked Oyaji.

The blonde looked a little sheepish and rubbed the back of his head. "Uh, would you believe me if I said I was bored and haven't had a fight in a while?" He replied.

"I find that unlikely." The village leader blankly said back.

"Wait, they're named because of Kyoshi? I know her!" Aang suddenly shouted from atop Appa's head.

Oyaji looked to the strange and tattooed young man and lightly scoffed. "You mean you know of her. Avatar Kyoshi was born here four hundred years ago. She's been dead for centuries!" He said in annoyance.

Aang gained a contemplative look before he looked at his friends. The silent question he asked them all as they looked at each other was met with shrugs and small nods. If the Fire Nation knew he was back and was hunting him down already, then why not start revealing his identity to those that should be friendly?

Aang cleared his throat and for once looked a little serious, although his face still held a small smile. "I know her because I'm the Avatar." He calmly said.

Everyone seemed taken back by his words.

Suki stepped forward. "That's impossible! The last Avatar was an airbender that disappeared a hundred years ago." She said with obvious doubt.

Naruto deadpanned at her. "And what exactly does he look like right now? He doesn't exactly fit the looks of an earth, fire, or waterbender. I mean, his freaking arrow is practically giving you directions."

She focused on the bald young man for a moment before looking a tad bit sheepish and blushed a little under the face paint. "That still doesn't prove anything." She said.

Naruto merely crossed his arms and turned to the airbender. "Do a thing."

Aang raised his eyebrow. "A thing?"

The blonde nodded. "An airbender thing. Y'know, a thing airbenders do. That type of thing. Do it." Naruto quickly replied as he looked at the young Avatar expectantly.

Aang mentally shrugged before standing up on his furry friend's head and slightly crouched as he proceeded to jump dozens of feet into the air with a gust of wind flowing outward. All of those not used to the sight were frozen in place with their jaws opening wide in shock as they watched on. Their gazes were glued onto Aang as he appeared to be a small dot in the sky before he ever so slowly hovered back down with his staff being twirled above him like a propeller.

Eventually he landed next to Naruto who was wiping away some of the dirt that got on his shoulder. Aang smiled at everyone and even got a small pat on back from Naruto for his efforts as the blonde addressed those around him. "See? The Avatar in all of his bald glory. That proof enough that we're friendly here?" He spoke.

"It's true then…" Oyaji muttered in amazement.

Naruto flashed him a grin. "Yeah, and the Avatar wouldn't travel with people that would hurt the innocent, right? Please tell me I'm right, I don't know much about the past Avatars."

Katara and Sokka finally felt safe to step in line with their friends.

"Right, the Avatar is the one that brings balance to the world and keeps the peace," Katara said to Naruto before looking at Oyaji with a smile, "Hi, I'm Katara, and this is my brother, Sokka. We hope that we didn't make a bad first impression. We were just stopping by to do something Aang wanted and Naruto didn't fight the others to harm them. He just has his 'moments' every now and then." She said making Naruto's eyebrow faintly twitch.

Oyaji, bringing down his shock a little, said, "Aang, Naruto?"

The airbender cheerfully waved. "I'm Aang, that's Appa, my sky bison, and this is Momo." He introduced his animal friends earning a groan from the beast in the background and a chirp from the lemur as he glided to his friend's shoulder.

Naruto then brought up his hand in a small greeting. "And I'm Naruto, the…what was it I heard? Demon guy? Where did you get that from?" He asked.

The shinobi then felt a tug on his pants and looked down to see the little girl named Koko holding the paper he saw earlier to him. Some of the people, especially the girl's mother, were silently having a minor panic attack seeing her confront the man. He didn't exactly calm their nerves yet, Avatar companion be damned.

The Kyoshi warrior that was holding the poster earlier for the crowd to see quickly looked down to her empty hand she was positive was holding something a second ago.

How the hell did she…?

"Is this really you?" Koko asked as Naruto took the bounty poster.

"Never seen one of these before. Let's see…highly dangerous…Purple-eyed Demon…ten times your own weight in gold for death or capture…enemy of the Fire Nation…Well, that explains it." He mumbled to himself before Sokka grabbed it and whistled to himself.

"Wow, the Fire Nation really doesn't like you." Sokka said.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Oh no, what ever shall I do?" He said sarcastically and looked back to Koko, "Yeah, I guess that's me. Afraid the demon or the guy with the weird yellow hair is going to bring death and destruction to your peaceful village?" He finished in monotone.

She cocked her head. "Are you?"

"Only to the Fire Nation, those that want to hurt my friends, and complete assho- I mean, people that are mean." He said hastily as Katara began to give him a threatening eye at the last part.

She cocked her head again. "Where's your purple eyes?"

"You want to see them? You sure you won't be scared?" He questioned.

She nodded excitedly.

He shrugged. "Alright then."

He crouched down to her level to give her a good look and shut his eyelids. Koko waited with a baited breath as she slowly saw Naruto reveal violet eyes with black rings that seemed to pulse with power. The little girl and those that were lucky enough to catch a glimpse were nearly hypnotized by their radiance.

Koko leaned in closer. "Wow…they're so pretty…" She whispered, "How do you do that?"

Naruto cracked a smirk. "Secret," He whispered back before looking to the crowd, "You Kyoshi warrior people should recruit this one! She's fearless!" He shouted before deactivating the Rinnegan and patted the girl's head as he stood back up.

This seemed to ease the tension as everyone got closer to the newcomers.

Oyaji found his voice again. "While it's still hard to believe, why are you passing through here and traveling with the Avatar?"

"We're on our way to the North Pole to get baldy here a waterbending teacher. This is all one big trip to get him to master the elements to eventually kick the Fire Nation's ass and end the war." Naruto said before getting flicked in the ear by Katara.

"Ow! What was that for?!" He asked rubbing his reddening ear.

She gave him an all too familiar look. "Language. There's kids around." She simply proclaimed.

"So much like Kya I swear…" He muttered while lightly pouting.

Ignoring the chastising, everyone besides Naruto's group were surprised at this. "You're going to end the war?" Oyaji questioned.

"That's the gist of it. For what happens in-between, we don't know. Anything can happen with this lunatic here." Sokka said while gesturing to Naruto.

"I should be offended, but there's a huge part of me that can't help but agree." Naruto offhandedly said with a shrug.

"With your alias I can't be surprised. Taking on an entire Fire Navy fleet by yourself isn't exactly something a sane person would do." Oyaji blankly said.

Naruto shrugged again. "Insanity every now and then keeps me sane, and those pricks deserved it anyway. They attacked the Southern Water Tribe which is where Katara and Sokka are from, so I just gave them a little slap on the wrist." He said calmly.

Everyone looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. Destroying multiple elite navy ships was a slap on the wrist?

"So that was why you attacked? Because they harmed their tribe?" Oyaji asked.

Naruto took on a more serious look. "Damn right. I didn't know anyone in the tribe at the time, but we all grew close after I arrived. Learning only a little bit about the Fire Nation made me dislike them, but it's when I found out why they attacked that really pissed me off." He said with a sneer.

"What were they trying to do?" Suki enquired.

"They were there for me." Katara said, getting everyone to look at her. "I'm the last waterbender from the South Pole and they were there to…um…make sure there wasn't any more benders." She said while looking down at the memory.

Sokka and Aang gained angry looks, especially from the former, and Oyaji and his people narrowed their eyes at the thought.

Calming down, Naruto said, "Thankfully no one was seriously hurt and the firebenders were repelled. That's why I attacked them later on down the road, not because I'm bloodthirsty, but because they screwed with the people I consider family. Hopefully this proves the point that we're on your side here. I don't attack those that don't deserve it and I especially protect those precious to me. That's why our group with the returning Avatar are going to set things right for everyone."

Oyaji nodded and slowly held out his hand to the shinobi. "Welcome to Kyoshi Island." He said with a grandfatherly smile.

Naruto and his friends smiled as the shinobi firmly grasped the island leader's hand and shook it.

All uneasiness seemed to withdraw from the atmosphere and everyone started becoming friendly once more. People started properly introducing themselves to the small group with cheerful greetings. While a part of them all, more so the adults, felt a little weary, they knew they could trust their leader's judgment. They didn't stay out of conflict for so many years by picking the wrong person to lead them after all.

Out of nowhere, though, the same young man from earlier apparently got a second wind, and after being filled in on the Avatar being there, he was back to his over-the-top reaction with foam filling his screaming mouth before he fell and started gurgling on the unforgiving ground.

All activity paused as they all blankly glanced to the twitching villager.

"Um…is he okay?" Sokka asked.

Suki sighed and looked at the prone guy with pity. "It happens…"

Sending each other questioning glances before shrugging, Naruto and the rest of the group continued their interactions with the villagers.

"Are you sure about this?" A timid Aang asked as he looked across the clearing at Naruto.

"How much fighting experience have you had?" The blonde responded.

"Uh…" Aang sounded as he tried to think of any instance of conflict.

"Exactly." Naruto said as he stretched a little. "I think it's about time we got a little serious, especially since from what I understand, you pacifistic Air Nomads are taught to only use direct combat as a last resort. While that would normally be well and good, going on the offensive is going to be a more common thing now, so we need to polish your fighting abilities and be as prepared as possible. I've only seen you do some little airbending things every now and then along the trip, but now we got to get your skills combat ready."

"How ready?" Aang asked.

"As ready as you can be. We're heading into a war, so fighting is inevitable, especially since as the Avatar you're being hunted down and have a sort of obligation to handle threats to keep the peace in general. This doesn't mean you're alone in this. You know you got Sokka, Katara, and I watching your back and I'd say we make a kickass team." Naruto explained with a smirk.

Aang nodded and looked around at said team. A safe distance away was Sokka doing some light hand-to-hand sparring with a Naruto clone. From what he heard earlier they would eventually move on to using their weapons, Sokka his club and Naruto his kunai or sword.

A little bit away from her brother was Katara streaming some water around her body as a warmup to enhance her 'feel' for her bending. After a few minutes of repetition she would eventually start some of her own sparring with a waiting Naruto clone who was simply leaning back against a nearby tree.

Both of them seemed to work with plenty of energy despite having to train so early in the morning. The sun was barely rising and the air still held a cold crispness to it that was apparent with every visible breath. They had to make up for the day before due to traveling and the events that transpired when they landed on the island. More time out of the day was taken up from mingling about with various people and surveying the area for a while. When nightfall was approaching they would eventually be led to the big building to stay on the top floor. It wasn't fancy, but it had plenty of room for a few futons and had a nice view of the main village. Oyaji was even gracious enough to feed them that evening which they were all thankful for, especially Momo for his own pile of nuts and Sokka for obvious reasons. Appa wasn't left out, though, as he was guided to a cozy barn that was close by and was given all the hay he wanted before he turned in to rest for the night.

Being the Avatar's animal guide had its perks.

"So what are we doing?" The airbender asked with staff in hand.

Naruto then got into a position that made him look like he was bracing himself. "Give me your best shot. I'll take it head on." He said.

"What? Why?" Aang asked in surprise.

"I want to see what you really got power-wise. I've done this with everyone I helped train, Sokka and Katara included, just to gauge them when they go all out. After that is when we work on individual skills with sparring and exercises." Naruto replied.

The airbender nodded in acknowledgement and prepared follow Naruto's orders, but he was obviously hesitant in doing so.

Naruto saw this and said, "People aren't always going to be nice, and simply talking things out won't be an option. There are people out there that want your head, Aang, mine included, and possibly even Sokka and Katara when their association with us is found out."

Sokka suddenly stopped mid strike and quickly turned his head to the duo. "Wait, what do you mean people are going to- ah!" He shouted as his legs were kicked right under him, leaving him flat on his back.

"Never let your guard down." The Naruto clone said while looking down at Sokka, earning him a glare in return for his troubles.

Ignoring the small commotion, Naruto continued. "Anyway, I know your culture is against fighting and everything, but this is your opportunity to cut loose without being in an actual fight for your life. Don't worry about hurting me either. You know I've taken much worse than a blast of air." He said.

Aang nodded and got into his own position to prepare his attack. "If you say so." He said.

"Just think of something to motivate you." Naruto said.

"Like what?" Aang asked.

"Close your eyes." Naruto ordered with the airbender complying. "Alright, picture someone you care about and imagine them being distracted in a fight and are about to be struck down by some bandit with a sword going in for the kill. There is already blood on his weapon, no hesitation in his eyes, nothing in his way, and you are too far to get up in his face to intervene. The only way to stop him is to blast his ass away, no matter how bad he gets hurt. He's getting closer…closer…and you have to attack…now!" Naruto shouted.

Aang seemed to have a powerful imagination since his face was scrunched up with conflicting emotions before Naruto gave the green light to attack. When the last word was spoken Aang was already in mid-swing with his staff, its two rear fans popping out with air manipulation to give a boost of power. With a grunt of exertion Aang shot a strong gust of wind at Naruto's direction without opening his eyes.

Naruto was expecting to probably, at the most, be knocked down on his ass a good few feet behind him. What he got instead was a face full of Avatar fury and was instantly launched back crashing through the thick system of snowy trees without the chance of even letting a shout escape his mouth.

All activity stopped with Katara and Sokka turning to the damaged parts in the foliage where their blonde friend flew through.

Slowly opening his eyes, Aang saw that his training partner virtually disappeared from his spot. "Naruto?" He called out in innocent confusion.

Katara stared at the forest for a few seconds before shrugging it off. Naruto's done worse to himself training so there was nothing to really worry about.

Even if Sokka knew it himself too, it was certainly nice seeing Naruto being knocked around for once. "It's not so funny the other way around, is it you- ow! Come on, I thought we were on timeout!" Yelled Sokka now rubbing the growing bump on back of his head where the Naruto clone just whacked him lightly with the handle of his sword.

"No timeouts in war." The clone cheekily said with a grin.

The morning was just like any other at this time of year. Snowy slush was covering the ground and leafless trees in the surroundings, it was peacefully quiet, and the sun provided a beautiful glow to cast upon the island just as it rose behind the mountains.

Yes, this was the perfect setting for a good warmup run with her girls in Suki's opinion.

This was the usual ritual for the Kyoshi warriors as Suki and a dozen or so of her sisters-in-arms were jogging at a brisk pace down their standard pathway in the forest surrounding the main village. They were without their makeup at this point in time, not needing it anyway since they weren't in uniform, instead opting to simply wear light and loose clothing to make the workout comfortable. A little ways away behind them were some of the younger trainees being guided by a few of her subordinates. Since the trainees were obviously not experienced or well-trained, along with their ages being at their early teens, it's not hard to believe they wouldn't be able to keep up with the senior members such as herself. The cold morning temperature also played a part in making any physical activity a little more difficult, but it toughened the body and built character. Suki knew this; after all, she's been doing this since she was eight years old.

"Hey, Suki?" One her fellow warriors asked between fairly labored breaths.

"Yeah?" She replied looking over her shoulder.

"Not much was revealed yesterday after the Avatar's group showed up and I didn't really get a chance to talk to them. I heard you guys fought, but what exactly happened?" The girl asked.

"Just some stuff." Suki quietly replied as she looked forward.

"Really? Come on, you got to be able to give us more than that, Suki!" Another proclaimed.

Suki rolled her eyes. "Fine, while my group was patrolling near the beach we saw three strangers now known as the Avatar and the Water Tribe siblings, Katara and Sokka. Just as a precaution we had to confront them in order to question their presence here." She said.

"Did they put up a good fight?" One of the group questioned.

Suki shook her head. "They didn't fight at all. We completely surprised them and were able to detain them without any trouble."

"Then why did you and the other girls look like you got done wrestling a platypus bear?"

Suki sent an annoyed over her shoulder, making the still jogging girl who just spoke to hold up her hands in defense.

The leader sighed. "Everything was fine until that Naruto guy came flying out of the sky."

All of the girls raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I thought that was some kind of joke?" A girl in the back asked.

"Nope. The guy literally fell hundreds of feet from the sky and somehow didn't get injured whatsoever. Don't even ask how he did it because I have no clue." Suki said.

Despite their bewilderment, someone continued the conversation. "Um…so he's the one you all fought?"

Suki nodded. "Yes."

"Well, how did that go?"

Suki slightly flinched from her spot at the front, but still kept up the pace. "Uh…well…he sorta…destroyed us." She muttered just enough for them all to hear.

"Define destroyed…"

Suki heavily sighed. "We didn't get a hit on him at all. He fought us all at the same time, blocking everything we sent at him with our fists and swords with his own. He would bluntly hit us, nothing too damaging, and just wore us out until we couldn't fight anymore. It's like he wasn't tired at all. Even after everything calmed down when we saw his face, there was no signs of exhaustion or even sweat whatsoever!"

All of the women gained expressions of surprise and even some awe. "Are you serious, Suki?"

The warrior leader looked back at her friends very seriously. "Completely. That guy…is something else."

One of the girls hummed to herself and looked to the sky in thought. "So he's some sort of super soldier that can fall out of the sky like nothing, fight our best with no trouble, and seems to be a stamina freak." She looked to be contemplating to herself even harder at the last part. Those around her were curious of her thoughts, but eventually a very minor blush made its way onto her tan cheeks. Needless to say it wasn't hard to figure out where her thoughts were leading to.

"Ichi, focus!" Suki shouted, breaking the poor girl out of her trance.

The girl named Ichi nearly lost her footing, but was able to recover and send an embarrassed and sheepish look to everyone looking at her.

"Sorry…" She mumbled.

Everyone shook their heads in exasperation and continued forward to their usual finish line at their dojo. Although they'd be lying if some stray thoughts weren't now making their way to their subconscious…

As their speedy trek went on for a few more quiet minutes, they all suddenly heard some faint rustling noises to the left of the path. Suki held up her hand to stop everyone in their tracks as they listened on and tried to see the source, but couldn't clearly look through the thick forest. At first it sounded like a few twigs were being gently stepped on, but as time progressed it sounded like something large was stampeding through the forest.

Before they could react, a blur of black exploded through some branches, sending snow and small pieces of wood flying all around. Their clothing and hair swayed from the breeze that came upon them as whatever crashed to the other side of the path passed them.

Once the mystery object made a loud crash signifying its explosive stop, the Kyoshi warriors only blinked and looked to the path of destruction that went deeper into the forest to their right.

"Um…investigate?" Ichi asked.

"Investigate." Suki blankly commanded as they all calmly started walking on the newly made trail.

'Welp...it's been a long time since I've been hit that hard…really should've stuck to the ground with chakra. Might be getting a little too lax over the years.' Naruto thought with closed eyes as he sat messily in the snow against a now heavily cracked tree.

"It's pretty refreshing in a way and oh so satisfying. It gives a good sense of nostalgia from the good old days of getting your ass handed to you, doesn't it?" Kurama suddenly spoke lazily.

"Not really, no…" The blonde inwardly replied in monotone.

"I think it does!" Shukaku exclaimed and sounded like it sighed wistfully. "A blast of air, a bunch of broken wood launching everywhere; doesn't it just take you back to the chunin exam invasion? Good times…"

"Uh…sure…whatever."

"Is he dead?" A feminine voice sounded out, catching Naruto's attention.

"No, he's breathing. At least I think he is." Another voice said.

Wearily opening his eyes, Naruto was shown the sight of a group of young women all wearing similar workout clothing with the same tone of green that he'd started becoming accustomed to seeing in the last day. One of them in particular was closer to him to examine his state.

'Huh…must've been hit harder than I thought if I couldn't even notice them. Damn, I'm getting lazy.'

He lazily raised a hand up in greeting as his vision fully cleared. "Good morning, um, who are you?" He grumbled with a slightly strained smile.

"Uh…good morning?" Suki said back with a bewildered look. "And I'm Suki, the one you fought yesterday, remember? Are you okay?"

"Never better, and really? You look completely different without any makeup." The blonde stated.

"So I've been told…do you mind telling us exactly how you ended up like this?" She asked.

Naruto started to answer as he made his way back to his feet with Suki standing as well. "Well, I was just trying to see how powerful Aang was, and apparently-" He placed his hands on his lower back and stretched, popping it with a few audible cracks, "-Those tattoos aren't just for show." He said and sighed in relief as he got rid of some tension in his bones.

All the girls stared at him in puzzlement. "Well, anyone could've told you that. He is the Avatar." One of them said.

Naruto shrugged. "Just because it's his apparent destiny to become powerful doesn't mean he's invincible at the beginning. He is an airbending master, I'll give him that, but there's still a lot for him to learn."

"From what I understand, you're all going to the North Pole for a waterbending teacher, right? Why doesn't that girl, Katara, just teach him?" Another asked.

"She's not exactly a master or anything. She's pretty good, but it's nearly all self-taught with years of messing around in the snow. Aang will most likely be able to do the same, but he needs a master." Naruto replied.

"And after that I'm assuming you'll teach him earthbending?" Suki questioned, remembering how he buried her and the others underground.

Naruto shook his head. "Negative. I'm not a master, and sure as hell not a qualified teacher of traditional bending, so we'll be heading around the Earth Kingdom for that I guess. We're just going to see what comes in our path."

"Really? With all the rumors of your power, I'd assume you would be a master of your given element." Suki said with her eyes suddenly lighting up in interest. "Speaking of your power, are any of those crazy things like replicating yourself and controlling gravity true? I've even heard about you suddenly teleporting from when you attacked those Fire Nation ships. And what about your eyes? How do they change color?"

Naruto smirked with mirth in his eyes. "A curious one, aren't ya?"

She sternly nodded her head with the girls behind her becoming very interested as well.

"Well, I'm not a master because of some special circumstances, I may or may not be able to somehow clone myself and control gravity, and about my eyes…I guess I'm just awesome like that." He finished offhandedly.

Everyone just looked at him blankly with no clear amusement at all.

"Not even a hint, huh?" Suki muttered.

"Maybe I can indulge a little bit." He said as he held out his gloved hands in front of him, gaining everyone's completer attention as they all leaned in to look closer.

With agonizingly slow speed that made the girls more and more impatient by the second, Naruto carefully maneuvered his hands close together and moved his fingers in an interesting manner. Right before their minds exploded from suspense, Naruto completed what he was setting out to do and proudly did the old childhood illusion of making his right thumb separate from its respective hand and move with his left hand.

"Ta-da!" He lightly cheered with a smile.

Once again they all looked at him blankly, but this time he noticed there was clear annoyance in their eyes and twitching eyebrows.

"Uh…ta-da?" He tried again with less enthusiasm.

"You are so lucky I know I can't hit you…" Suki said.

Naruto chuckled to himself. "Heh…sorry. Just messing with you. I actually-"

A sudden cracking sound grabbed his attention to the tree he was just sitting against behind him. With the damage it suffered from stopping a flying Naruto just minutes prior, it seemed to finally give out and slowly break apart at the impact location. Ever so slowly the tree snapped in two with the top half falling away from Naruto and the others before crashing down on the snowy ground with a loud crash that shook the earth beneath their feet.

The Kyoshi warriors stared at the fallen tree, then to the stump, and then to the blonde shinobi.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Suki asked, momentarily forgetting her frustration.

"Yeah, I'm fine. While it wasn't part of the rumors you've heard, one of my special traits is that I have a really, really fast healing ability. And like I was saying before, I actually don't care what people know about me at this point, so I guess I can show some stuff at another time." He said.

"I'll hold you to that then." Suki said with a smile.

"Alright then. Now if you don't mind, I got to get back to training with the others. Have a good one, ladies." He said as he started to walk by the group of female fighters.

"What are you doing exactly?" Suki asked as he passed her.

Naruto suddenly started spinning a kunai that appeared out of nowhere on his index finger by using its ring on the handle. The blonde gained a devilish grin and looked back to her. "I just tested out how strong Aang's airbending is, and as you saw I underestimated him. Now I'm going to see how well he can evade." He said while now firmly grasping the sharp weapon.

The girls could only hope their returning Avatar wasn't hurt too badly.

"Also as a sneak peek, I'll leave you with this." He said as he somehow replaced the regular kunai with his three-pronged one. Not wasting another second he threw the unique weapon into a branch on a tree a little further away. Without warning he disappeared from his spot in a yellow flash of light and appeared where the kunai was just embedded, kunai now in hand. From his standing position on the branch, he couldn't help but smile foxily at all of their shocked faces.

With a final two-fingered salute he suddenly vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Where the hell did those come from?

With jaws agape and eyes shimmering in surprise, the group of fighters didn't know how to react.

"I swear he's going to drive me insane…" Suki managed to mutter.

"This is breakfast?" Naruto asked as a full platter was quickly set on the long table he and his friends were sitting on the ground next to.

In front of them was a myriad of baked goods that could make any small child hyperventilate in excitement. Pastries with icing and small cakes were prime examples of the wide variety of satiable sweets available to them.

With starry eyes and a grumbling stomach, Sokka looked at all of the food in childlike wonder. "This place is awesome!" He lightly cheered to himself.

His bald companion was in similar spirits. "All right! Dessert for breakfast!" The young Avatar exclaimed as he reached for one of the sugary treats close to him and immediately started digging in.

"Only the best for the Avatar and his friends." Said the man who served them with a smile and bow before he left them to their meal.

"Thanks!" Aang messily called out to the retreating man in gratitude with a mouth full of sugary dough, not noticing the hand of his lemur friend reaching from under the table to get his own fixing.

"It's a bit different, but that's not a bad thing." Katara said as she took a bite out of her own treat with a delightful smile.

"Definitely not a bad thing! This has been a dream since I was a kid!" Sokka cried as he started to stuff his face.

Swallowing his first bite himself, Naruto said, "We're not making this a habit. I don't need you all getting fat on me now. Besides, it's not like we can eat like this all of the time anyway. We're not going to stay here that long, that's too risky."

Aang waved him off. "We'll be fine. We can spend some time here no problem. Besides, they love me here! Haven't you seen how happy I'm making this village? They're even cleaning up Kyoshi's statue in my honor!" He said as he caught a glance out the open window behind him. The sight he was referring to was the small group of people huddling around their idolized Avatar's statue and cleaning any dirt and other kinds of gunk off of it. There was even an old man repainting the whole thing to give it its once prestigious appearance.

"Someone's getting a big head. Does a certain Avatar need a little extra training to get him thinking straight?" Naruto asked with a seemingly innocent smile.

Aang felt a shiver run down his spine. "Um…no, that's fine. I think I've had my fill for the day." He said with a nervous grin.

"Oh, does that mean you didn't have fun this morning?" The shinobi asked with his smile still present.

"Uh…was getting sharp and pointy things thrown at me for long periods of time supposed to be enjoyable? Because if it was, I think we have different ideas of fun." Aang replied.

Naruto wiped his of some lingering crumbs on his chin. "It's definitely fun, at least for me, and helps you learn to dodge projectiles better. Sokka, don't you think so? You've had some good times, right?"

Sokka rolled his eyes. "The only time it was fun was when we used snowballs for the same purpose years ago, and I was the one throwing them at other kids."

Katara's face grew a big grin at that. "I loved doing that too."

"That's because you could launch a bunch of them at all of us with your bending…cheater." Sokka mumbled which only got his sister to stick out her tongue in response.

"Why couldn't I get snowballs?" Aang asked.

"Because they were kids at the time. They're all grown up now and I'm not going to go easy on them anymore, especially not for you. Being the Avatar screwed you over on that one, bud, and you're old enough to handle it. This morning was only the beginning." Naruto responded as he calmly took another bite out of his cake with a malicious glint in his blue eyes that two of them had unfortunately seen before.

Aang sighed and saw that the siblings were giving him a resigned look and wondered what that meant. Sokka summed it up when, with faraway eyes lacking emotion, said, "There is no escape…no hope…only pain..."

Aang became increasingly nervous. "W-what?"

Sokka's thousand yard stare stayed on his face. "In time…they always understand in time…" He said as he took a much slower bite out his food as he glassily gazed on into space.

"Okay, Sokka, you're kinda freaking me out now." Aang whispered.

Katara sighed. "Let's just say that when Naruto wants to work you hard, you better give it your all…or else."

"Or else?" Aang inquired with a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

"Just…do your best and don't question him, especially since this isn't kiddie training anymore for us, not like you ever went through it anyway." Katara warned with a small shudder.

Sokka's twitching eye certainly wasn't calming the airbender's nerves. "Snow…so much snow…why would penguins do that…?" He shakily muttered to himself.

Aang hesitantly turned to Naruto. The blonde had the same look in his eyes, but now had a carefree smile.

"Should I be worried?" Aang asked.

Naruto shrugged. "You'll see."

'Great…' The one that bore the arrow thought in trepidation.

"Really? The great and humble Avatar is actually doing that?" Naruto asked.

Katara rolled her eyes with a scoff. "He calls it being a simple monk apparently."

It was only about an hour after their sugary breakfast that found the blonde and the waterbender mingling around the village. They were currently checking out what the small shops and stands the community had to offer to replenish their supplies for their inevitable departure. Prior to this they had all taken turns washing away the sweat and grime from their morning training in the small bathhouse on the first floor of the building they were staying at and were deciding what to do for the day.

Aang's plans weren't too hard since he was quickly taken away by some of the younger fans he made on the island. These newfound admirers were mostly little girls around the age of eight and some in their early teens that practically screamed at the sight of the airbender.

Immediately annoyed by the high pitch of their joy, Sokka took off in a random direction saying he wanted to look around some more and maybe get an extra workout.

At the time Naruto was still getting ready, so Katara opted to wait for him and offer to start getting their supplies prepared, which he easily accepted once he emerged from the building.

Now while doing some shopping, Naruto and Katara were vacantly staring at Aang doing some armless pushups near the Kyoshi statue by blowing a strong stream of air out of his mouth, earning him some shouts and applause from his little female fanatics. The airbender easily ate up all of the attention with pride and had a big smile plastered on his face when he stood back up.

"Simple monk, huh? Well, I guess you can't really blame him. Even with someone of his title, he's still technically a kid who loves attention. Although it's been a long time since I've seen fangirls." Naruto remarked.

"I wasn't like that when I was a kid." Katara said, mostly to herself as she stared on.

Naruto snorted. "Uh huh, sure you weren't," He cleared his throat, "Take that, and that! Bow before my awesomeness as I rain down snowballs of death from the heavens, for I am the water goddess!" He mockingly exclaimed with poor imitation of his friend as he tried to speak with a high-pitched voice.

Katara blushed and roughly nudged Naruto's shoulder with her own. "I wasn't like that!"

Naruto chuckled. "You definitely had your moments. Every time you progressed at all with waterbending you always wanted to show everyone you bumped into."

The girl pouted a little. "You did too."

The shinobi shrugged admittedly. "You got me there I guess. I was a lot like that as a kid too, but that was when I was really desperate to get attention." He suddenly chuckled deeply as he thought of something. "You got to admit that some things just have to be shared. Remember the snowman army?" He cheekily asked.

Katara suddenly tried to fight a fit of giggles. "How can I forget? We learned to control dozens of snowmen to surprise attack dad when he was out in the dark." Some laughter then managed to escape her mouth. "I never knew his voice could get that high!"

Naruto laughed a little himself. "That was great, though I'm pretty sure I almost died of asphyxiation by laughter, Kya and Gran Gran too when we they found out. Totally worth it from how scared he got for a few seconds."

"The illusion that gave them all glowing eyes and creepy voices might've really done it in the end." Katara commented.

Naruto smirked. "Yeah, the Sharingan is just awesome sometimes."

"Hate to intrude your conversation, but are you going to pay for all of that?" A voice asked to the side of them.

Naruto and Katara turned back the middle-aged man running the vegetable stand they were next to. Looking down at the fairly large basket filled with many assortments of food in her arms, Katara said, "Oh, sorry. We were just distracted, of course we're going to pay." She looked to her blonde companion expectantly.

Naruto blinked and was silent for a second. "Oh yeah, right, right." Reaching around his back pocket he procured Gama-chan in all of her money-filled glory and took out a few gold pieces, placing them on the wooden counter.

The man took notice. "Oh, they aren't that much! That is way above their value." He said.

Naruto looked at the pieces in his hand and mentally waved it off. "Don't worry about it, just keep the change. It's not a problem at all."

The man's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

"I insist." The blonde replied.

Gaining a grateful smile, the man said, "Thank you very much, um, Naruto, was it?" The shinobi nodded. "Okay, then Naruto, thank you. Such kindness is very much appreciated." He finished with a small bow of the head.

"You're welcome. Have a nice day." The blonde replied as he and Katara started to walk away to look around more for other potential shops.

"That was nice of you." Katara stated as she fell in step with the blonde.

"Yes it was. Trying to gain the favor of the locals, are you?" A new voice asked.

The two looked to their right and saw the leader of the resident warriors walking towards them fully decked out, makeup and all.

"Hey, Suki. Having a good morning?" Naruto asked as he and Katara stopped walking.

"Yes, although you certainly made it interesting flying through the forest like you did among other things. Other than that, everything else has been normal. The girls and I got our morning exercises done and now we're free to do whatever for now. Some are working on their forms back at our dojo while a few are on patrol." She replied earning a nod from Naruto.

"Hi, I don't think we've properly met, with the blind-folding and all yesterday. I'm Katara." The waterbender said with a smile as she held her hand out, the other firmly holding onto the basket of produce they just bought.

Suki smiled in return and grasped the other girl's hand with her own gloved one, giving it a friendly shake. "Nice to meet you. Like you heard, I'm Suki, leader of the Kyoshi warriors. No hard feelings about yesterday. We were just being careful."

Letting go of Suki's hand, Katara said, "Don't worry about it. It wouldn't have been much of an issue if someone didn't pick a fight for no reason." She said glancing at her favorite ninja with a mild glare.

The ninja in question merely put on an innocent front and suddenly found some birds in the sky interesting.

Suki looked at them in amusement. "It's okay, no harm done. Getting some food for your trip?" She questioned.

Both travelers nodded. "Yeah, we're really low on stuff we needed, so stopping here was pretty much necessary. Being able to rest a little is a plus too." Naruto replied.

"I only know that you're heading to the North Pole, but do you have anything else planned before then?" The battle-garbed women asked.

Naruto cracked a cheesy smile. "Nope."

Suki curiously raised a delicate brow. "Really?"

"We sort of thought being surprised by what appeared on our path would be more fun. Besides, none of us really know what's exactly out there. Naruto's the only one that's been out of the South Pole besides some of our warriors at Chameleon Bay. Even then he told us he didn't explore much." Katara said.

"I see. Well, that sounds fun. It's more about the journey instead of the destination, right?" Suki asked with a smile.

The waterbender gave her own in return. "Right. None of us have ever gotten the chance to travel outside our home and now we're going to go all over the world. It's great!"

Suki chuckled and looked at the blonde. "Going to leave a trail of chaos behind you, Mr. Demon?" She asked in mirth.

Naruto closed his eyes in thought and took on the look similar to a fox, something Katara was used to and never got tired of, and one that Suki would admit looked a little endearing. "Not sure. We haven't been traveling that long at all and so far we've dealt with the prince of the Fire Nation attacking the Water Tribe, finding an ancient temple of a destroyed culture and burying their dead, saw Aang go ballistic with his Avatar mode or whatever, experienced being chased by a giant sea monster in Aang's case, being smacked by it in mine, and fought a few warriors of one of the more sophisticated places we've visited. Other than that I'd say the trip hasn't been that eventful, but hey, you never know what'll happen." Naruto said indifferently.

An awkward silence filled the air and the white-faced warrior looked at him with a completely emotionless expression. "What?"

Naruto waved her off. "Stories for another time."

Suki continued to stare before shaking her head and gained a mischievous grin. "Anyway, now the reason why I came to find you." She stated earning curious gazes from the duo.

Without missing a beat, Suki turned around and faced the narrow alley between the two buildings she walked from. "You still have him?!" She yelled.

A couple of seconds went by before another Kyoshi warrior peeked from around the corner with her own silly grin on her pretty face. "Yeah, just give to the word!"

"No, don't give the word!" A worried voice yelled out from behind the building.

It was a voice that two of them knew well. "Sokka?" Naruto and Katara said in unison.

"There's no escape, you've got to honor the bet!" Suki called out.

"It was hardly a bet at all! Naruto, help me out a little! They've taken boomerang hostage! She's probably all cold and scared without me!" The young man desperately pleaded, still hidden from view.

"If you made a bet, you can't go back on your word, Sokka! You've learned that plenty of times with your poor track record over the years with your dad, Bato, and I!" Naruto replied.

"Come on!" Sokka exclaimed.

"Just face the music!" Katara shouted out, becoming increasingly excited for whatever happened to her brother.

"You heard her, bring him out!" Suki ordered to her underlings.

"Don't you dare drag me out there! I'm not going to- whoa, what's with the sword?! I thought this was peaceful!" Sokka worryingly yelled to another apparent Kyoshi warrior in hiding.

"Move!" Another feminine voice ordered.

"Okay, okay, fine!" Sokka responded with an audible and defeated sigh.

"I doubts it's that bad, Sokka! Just suck it up and- huh…didn't see that coming." Naruto trailed off.

Next to him Katara had her mouth wide open in shock mixed in with extreme amusement that showed that she was trying so hard not to burst out laughing. Her sudden surprise also almost made her let go of the basket of vegetables before hastily catching it out of reflex.

Now making his way to them with slow and begrudged steps was Sokka, or at least someone that sort of looked like the boy they knew so well.

Instead of his normally blue dominate outfit, he was now sporting one of the tones of green that the Island and the Earth Kingdom wore proudly. White face paint adorned his visage, golden tassels hung from his green headband, and the warriors' golden insignia was shining on his dark forearm bracers that went along with the rest of the sturdy armor that hugged the green kimono protectively.

Normally anyone wearing this would've walked with a sense of pride, but for Sokka it was a little humiliating. In his opinion the traditional uniform the rest of the women here wore was way too girly, which in retrospect wasn't too surprising at all.

As Sokka and the two other warriors that were meant to keep him from running joined the other three, Naruto held a calm façade. He didn't reveal any wavering emotion as the boy he saw grow up finally stopped in front of him with an embarrassed blush making its way through the white paint.

They all stood there in silence for a few moments, each passing second making the tension on the young tribal warrior's shoulders heavier.

When an unknown amount of time went by, Naruto calmly looked towards the happily fidgeting waterbender and evenly said, "Congrats, you finally got that sister you wanted."

Katara couldn't take it anymore and started to let out all of her contained laughter, making her sides ache and tears threatening to escape the corners of her eyes. Hearing herself being as loud as she was, she tried quieting herself down by planting her face firmly into the side of Naruto's chest, only somewhat muffling each giggle that escaped.

Naruto's let out some chuckles of his own as he instinctively wrapped an arm around Katara and lightly patted her shoulder as she tried to calm herself down, all while Sokka held his held down in shame.

Letting some time pass, Naruto finally questioned Sokka. "Okay, what happened?"

Suki quickly took control. "Oh, not much. Boomerang boy here found our dojo and wanted to see if he could break the guard of our fighting style after seeing us work a bit."

"And that's where the bet came from?" Naruto asked.

Suki and the other girls nodded. "Yeah, he said he could land a hit on the first try and we made a little wager."

At this point Katara finally managed to quell her laughter as she faced the others with Naruto's arm still around her shoulder, not that she really noticed; she's been used to such contact over the years. "And I take it he lost?" She asked while sending a satisfied smirk to her older sibling.

Suki's grin grew. "Yep. He tried to overpower me, but our style is made for that. "

Naruto looked at Sokka. "I guess we're just going to have to work on that then."

"So how long is he going to wear that?" Katara inquired.

Sokka flinched a little while the other warriors all smirked fiercely. "For the remainder of your time on the island." Suki revealed.

Naruto smiled amusingly. "That's awesome."

"So unfair." Sokka mumbled.

Suki looked at him. "Like I said earlier, you should be honored. Only those that have earned it usually wear these clothes."

"Yeah, yeah, can I please have boomerang back now?" He asked with a hint of sadness.

Suki rolled her eyes. "Fine." She said and looked to one of her girls. "Give it back."

One of the warriors reached into her kimono and took out the boomerang that was still secure in its sheath. She quickly tossed it without warning and headed right towards the back of Sokka's head. The girl was about to call a warning, but saw Sokka quickly snatch it out of the air without even looking before he started coddling it like it was his own child.

The warriors looked at this strangely before glancing at the other two curiously.

"The boomerang is practically a part of him so they're somehow always in sync. Don't question it." Naruto simply stated.

Before they could respond another voice shouted at them.

"There you are!" All of their heads turned and saw an eager Koko anxiously running towards them. Following close behind her was a group of her peers dragging Aang with them by each of his arms. He held his usual smile and didn't seem to protest at all.

"You looking for me, Koko?" Suki asked the small girl when she got close.

After stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she showcased an excited smile. "Actually, we were looking for him!" She proclaimed as she pointed a finger at the blonde shinobi.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why me?"

"Aangy just got done showing us some amazing airbending tricks, and he told us you can do awesome stuff too!" Koko exclaimed.

Naruto and Katara looked at the child for a bit before looking to their airbender friend. "Aangy?" They flatly asked.

Aang smiled sheepishly as Koko continued.

"So could you show us some stuff too?! Please?!" She begged with shimmering eyes.

"Aang already told you I would?" Naruto asked.

She nodded enthusiastically which made Naruto sigh in resignation. Sending Aang a mild glare, he decided. "Well, I don't want to disappoint a bunch of kids. Fine, I guess I can show a thing or two." He said making the children start celebrating amongst each other.

"In fact," Naruto started, getting everyone's attention on him, "Since the great and mighty Avatar personally recommended me, how about he helps me out with the demonstrations? A little friendly fight perhaps?" The shinobi said with squinted eyes and a shit-eating grin.

Aang's face lost a little of its color and he felt like he was about to break out in a sweat. "Huh?" He meekly sounded.

"Yeah, just a nice spar to pass the time and even help you improve a little. We didn't get to fight this morning, so I'd say this is a good excuse. That is, unless you want to say no and make children cry since their Aangy didn't want to entertain them?" Naruto said.

Aang became increasingly worried as he saw that all of his fans around immediately gave him looks that he just couldn't deny. Knowing that there wasn't any way he could get out of this, he tentatively nodded.

"Well, that settles it then. I remember there being a decent enough clearing near the entrance to the village, so we could hold the spar there. Does noon sound good?" Naruto asked.

Aang nodded once again. "I guess."

"Don't worry, no one's going to get hurt…hopefully. Just make sure not to hold back, you know I can handle it just as I know you can too. I already saw you can at least dodge pretty well from earlier." The blonde said.

The Avatar released a small breath and fought down a shudder from the recent memory of having kunai and shuriken thrown at him. "Fine. Let's not go crazy, though. We don't want to end up destroying anything."

Naruto nodded. "That's alright. We'll just take some shots at each other, but nothing too big…maybe. This is to show what we could do, and I already told Suki earlier I would show more of my more unique abilities. I won't go too hard on you with what I have, and this is a good opportunity to become stronger yourself by dealing with stuff you're not used to."

"Okay." Aang agreed.

With the spar now officially planned, Koko turned to her friends. "Get everyone else! We're going to see Aangy fight!" She ordered. The children nodded and took off in different directions to tell the rest of their close peers, herself following closely behind.

Suki followed suit and turned her subordinates. "Maybe we should let some of the other girls watch too. I'm sure they're just as curious as us." She said with a grin.

The two women matched her expression and took off in the direction of their dojo.

With only the five of them left, Aang was able to now look closely at the seemingly familiar Kyoshi warrior. "Wait, Sokka?"

"Ugh…yes…" Sokka confirmed in annoyance.

Aang's face was blank for a moment, but quickly turned into vast delight. "Nice dress." He said

Everyone else started laughing once more, continuing off from minutes earlier, while Sokka once again held his head in defeat, cursing himself for the finding the warriors' place of training.

"Okay, we need to lay down a few ground rules." Naruto proclaimed as he stretched his arm while looking across the clearing at Aang.

The airbender nodded, staff firmly held in his hands. "Like what?"

Naruto thought to himself a bit. "No killing shots, although that's more for me so go ahead and try whatever, no majorly injuring attacks, once again more so for me, when one of us wants to stop then we'll stop with no questions, no sage mode for me and no glowing Avatar mode of death for you since that would probably get out of control, though I doubt you can access it right now, and no hits where the sun doesn't shine. I don't want to accidently be the one that truly ends of age of the airbenders."

Off to the side Koko turned to Suki. "What does he mean by that?"

Suki mentally flinched and simply said, "You'll know when you're older."

Koko could do nothing but cross her arms and pout where she sat.

"That's pretty much it, really." Naruto said while readying himself. "This is just a friendly spar after all."

"And everyone else is safe?" Aang asked gesturing to their audience.

Naruto looked to his right where in part of the clearing were a few dozen spectators were sitting in what looked like bleachers he conjured up with some earthbending. The people he could spot were Suki and a fraction of her Kyoshi warriors with some not in uniform, Aang's fangirls, Katara and Sokka, and even some other villagers that had their curiosity's peaked; this included Oyaji.

"Don't worry, they'll be perfectly fine. I set up a barrier before they even got here. Watch." He said before taking out several shuriken and quickly threw them towards one young man in particular that he recognized as the guy that was foaming at the mouth yesterday.

When the guy saw the sharp and deadly stars launch towards him, his instincts kicked into action as his eyes widened to epic proportions and a scream started to emerge from his throat along with the bubbling froth. When he was about to go into full freak out form the shuriken suddenly bounced off an invisible surface, making them clink down onto the ground harmlessly.

Seeing the weapons fall still on the dirt, the man realized that he was frozen between calm and scared shitless. This became more obvious when he saw everyone staring at him with his mouth still wide open in fear, his body midway through a dramatic flinch, and bubbly drool leaking out the corner of his mouth. With nothing to go crazy about anymore, he very slowly closed his jaws and wiped away any foam outside his mouth before lifting the back of his shirt over his head like a hood hoping to hide his embarrassment.

"How did you do that?!" Aang yelled.

Naruto gave him a foxy grin in response. "The sealing arts are a powerful thing, my bald friend."

"Well, whatever it was, a little warning would've been terrific, you maniac!" Suki yelled. Seeing one of the people she was supposed to protect about to get hit with those weapons nearly gave her a heart attack.

"Sorry! At least you saw some cool stuff before the fight even started, right?" Naruto responded.

Suki stared out at him for a little bit before sitting back down and shaking her head in exasperation. Turning to Katara sitting next to her she said, "Do you have to deal with this all the time?"

The waterbender smiled sheepishly at her. "Not all of the time, but he does have his moments. You learn to love it eventually."

"Uh huh…" She muttered.

"You ready?!" Naruto shouted.

"As I'll ever be!" Aang replied back, his staff held ready to attack or defend.

Naruto smirked. "Good."

Once the word left his mouth he quickly threw a kunai to get things started.

Aang easily saw the deadly piece of metal fly at him and went into action himself. Focusing his airbending on the bottom of his feet he launched himself into the air, allowing him to front flip right over the projectile. As he descended he grabbed his staff with both hands and struck it down on the ground in front of him when he landed to send a powerful burst of air at the shinobi in retaliation.

Seeing the visible stream of air race at him, Naruto firmly planted his feet on the hardened winter ground before he used both arms to will a wall of solid earth a few feet taller than his person to appear in front of him, blocking Aang's attack and only slightly ruffling Naruto's hair as the winds blew around him.

Any experienced shinobi could tell this was like Doton: Doryūheki (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall), but to regular earhbenders, it was merely a simple wall of protection. When it came to using elemental jutsu Naruto was able to replicate them easily enough with his bending, the exception being lightning since there was only four main elements in this world, although he's heard that controlling lightning was connected to firebending, but he hasn't been able to look into it yet.

With Naruto able to replicate the jutsus through bending, he didn't have to focus on making hand seals or naming the method out loud in order to use them. He only had to control the element to his liking of the known technique and was able to perform it after some practice. However, since his chakra now coincided with chi in his body, the energies to bend and use jutsus simply mixed and made all techniques something more. This caused any otherwise normal forms of jutsus and bending to be enhanced in their own ways due to chakra now working alongside the chi in order to execute them. As a result jutsus, at least the elemental types, were created and controlled easier by bending, and were simply more powerful. Even regular forms of bending he could pick up that weren't jutsus had a little more bite to them. In this case the protective wall was not just earth that could be controlled and knocked down by any competent earthbender, but was now sturdier and was only able to be controlled by Naruto unless a majority of his energy left the respective elemental object.

While being hit by a blast of air wasn't the best way to showcase the strength of the wall, it would be able to hold its own around twice as long as any regular wall bended similar to it.

Feeling the attack pass over, Naruto had the wall sink back into the earth where it came from. "Nice try." The blonde said.

While Aang didn't show it, he was slightly annoyed by the failure of the attack. Blasting air was practically his entire arsenal, so his efforts being waved off like it was nothing was pretty disconcerting. He really wished he had other elements he could call upon on like he was eventually going to, but for now he had to do with what he had.

Not wanting to waste too much time Naruto made ten small boulders lift from the ground all lined up next to each before launching them at his opponent with each punch he threw forward, using both arms periodically.

Aang hastily dodged the incoming rocks by quickly moving aside to let some pass, along with sending a concentrated stream of air at others to slow them down enough to fall or change their flight path.

When the last rock was taken care of Aang started to rush in and sent sharp arcs of his respective element as he did so.

Opting to not use an earth wall to protect himself, Naruto instead weaved around them and dodged in a myriad of ways such as ducking, jumping, and rolling out of the way. Now crouching on his knee the blonde saw Aang closing in fast and held his hand out before clenching his fist.

This brought the desired effect of making the ground in front of the airbender quickly turn into sand, although it was certainly faster than he expected. The hard dirt shifted into its softer material so fast that Aang nearly maneuvered around it, but unfortunately for the young Avatar he barely got a foot buried into it before he had a chance to jump over the trap.

Not wanting to be stuck in the sand trap Aang shot air through the sole of his captured foot and shot himself backwards, sending a few clouds of dirt to manifest in the air.

Seeing a newfound weapon, Naruto summoned three fairly large blobs of sand and had them floating in front of him ready to use for whatever his mind could conjure up.

'Huh, it's not that big of a difference, but the sand is actually easier to control.' He thought.

"You're welcome." He heard Shukaku say.

"You're helping my control? Actually that's not hard to believe, what with your experience with Gaara and all."

"Indeed. In fact, I'm feeling a sandy funeral is in order for nostalgia's sake. Sound like a plan, Uzumaki?"

"Uh, no…I don't think killing Aang is exactly a good idea here. This is only a spar. Besides, he was the one that taught me that marble trick you like so much."

"Oh yeah…he shall be spared then."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Glad I have your noble permission to not kill my friend." He sarcastically thought.

"As you should be." The sand demon said before going back to whatever it was doing before, the sarcasm going clear over its head.

Focusing back to the fight Naruto sent the three bodies of sand right at Aang, one right down the middle while the other two went to flank him on either side.

Seeing the new threat at hand Aang quickly made the fans in his staff emerge, turning it into a glider, and shot off straight into the sky.

However, his hopes of getting away from the sandy threat were shattered when he looked behind him and saw that he was now being pursued. What he didn't expect was for the bulks of sand to join together to create something that looked much more threatening.

"Wow, it's a dragon!" One of the children yelled in awe from her seat among the onlookers.

She wasn't the only one to be impressed and somewhat fearful of the reptilian-like beast. Those that weren't used to seeing feats such as this were truly enamored by the sight. Even some of the very few earthbenders on the island in attendance watched this with slacked jaws.

Anyone would've been enraptured by the look of the beast, really. It had a large snout with flared nostrils that would've released fire if it was an actual dragon, two long tendril whiskers waving on said snout, sharp teeth within massive jaws that could easily gobble up the flying airbender, hollow black holes where its eyes would be, two arms with clawed hands on its underbelly, and large graceful wings on its back perpendicular where the arms emerged. This was where the biggest details of the dragon ended since its lower body was one big trail of loose sand that followed its every movement.

On the ground Naruto stood there with a fair amount of concentration showing on his face, but with a smirk plastered on it nonetheless.

'Ah, it's great to fuck with people sometimes.' He thought when he was able to slightly pick up a yell of fright as it echoed in the sky.

He wasn't really going to hurt him at all with his intimidating creation, he just wanted to see what Aang would do.

In the air with comically widened eyes, Aang flew in whatever direction to get away from this sudden monstrosity that looked like it wanted to eat him. He looped, zigzagged, and went in whatever kind of direction in the open airspace that he could think of to get away, but none of it was helping.

Just seconds away from possibly giving up on the fight, Aang's eyes lit up before he quickly shot right towards the blonde on the ground, the dragon following him just as fast.

'Alright, something different.' Naruto thought wondering what exactly the airbender would do.

As Aang closed in he used the velocity of his descent to his advantage and retracted the larger fans on his staff. Grasping the front end of the device, he sent a mighty swing that launched a noticeably large blade of wind down at blonde by using the small fans that were still open for use. Right after he executed the attack he quickly made his staff a glider once more and headed towards his starting spot in the clearing to immediately land.

Having to break his control over the sand to deal with the plunging attack, Naruto gave a large smile towards his friends, one they, including Suki, caught.

'Well, they wanted to see some crazy stuff, well, besides the barrier and dragon at least, so might as well get started.'

Looking back up to the coming threat Naruto got into proper position before sending out a huge gust of wind reminiscent of Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough) as it was supposed to and met Aang's attack head on.

Suki instantly stood up in shock along with a few others. "He can airbend?!" She shouted in disbelief.

They all watched as opposing forces crashed into each other momentarily before snuffing out altogether. It was right after both of the wind attacks disappeared that the now crumbling dragon was just about to impact on the ground with of all of its heavy weight at a fast speed, and with Naruto clearly in its path.

"Naruto!" Suki and a few others in the crowd, even Aang from where he stood, called out in alarm right before the dragon smashed right where the shinobi was standing, exploding in large clouds of sand and shaking the area violently.

Everyone in attendance could do nothing but try and hold themselves in place as the quakes in the earth and the dirt in the air receded. The time it took for this to happen felt like hours as they were all standing in attention safely behind the invisible wall of protection. As their view of the temporary battlefield started to become clear they were able to see numerous piles of uneven sand covering where the blonde formerly stood.

Suki nervously tried to gauge the situation in order to figure out what to do next when she noticed Katara and Sokka, the latter still garbed out in their traditional uniform, sitting as calm as could be with no trace of worry on their faces.

The siblings noticed her anxious expression and in unison pointed towards Aang.

Suki turned to the airbender and was quickly surprised.

"What the…?" She let out.

Others noticed and looked where she was and gained startled expression themselves.

Aang saw them all looking at him weirdly with the exception of the water siblings and didn't know what to make of it. For a second he only stood there until he was startled by a tap on his shoulder and jumped forward in a jolt before turning around.

Naruto was standing there with a stupid grin and crossed arms.

"Naruto? Wait, what- you- I thought…?" Aang stammered.

"Are you honestly surprised?" Naruto asked flatly.

Aang stared at him for a little bit before sheepishly saying, "I guess I really shouldn't be. I just expected you to jump out of the way or something."

"Oh I did, but I did it in a way that wasn't completely boring. We're sorta putting on a show, so I figured why not make it more dramatic?" The ninja shrugged.

"Uh, okay? Um, are we still fighting?" Aang asked.

"Oh yeah," Naruto said with a smirk just as he decided to lift up his infamous facemask securely up over his nose, "And it's time to get a little more serious." The blonde turned towards the crowd. "Prepare your fragile hearts!" He shouted.

"What does he mean by that?" Suki muttered to herself.

Koko scoffed. "Maybe you'll find out when you're older." She uttered causing Suki to send her a pointed look which the small girl ignored.

"Now then," Naruto said as he jumped back a ways away from Aang, leaving some space between them, "Time for some diversity."

The masked blonde cocked his fist back and shot a fireball at the unprepared Avatar.

Eyeing the ball of flames in surprise, Aang quickly moved to the side to let it pass, feeling the warmth it gave off as it did so. To him it seemed the small attack was a mere warmup…no pun intended.

"Fire too…" Suki whispered as she plopped back down onto her rocky seat. "What in the world is going on…? Is he the Avatar…or a co-Avatar…or…or…?"

"He's definitely not the actual Avatar." She heard Sokka coolly say. "That title officially belongs to Aang. Naruto's something different; someone you'll be extremely grateful to have on your side."

"Then what is he?" Suki shakily asked.

Katara smiled without looking away from the spar. "He's Naruto."

A few more fireballs were sent towards Aang who, with a small bit of effort, was able to dodge around them. Not wanting to be the only one attacking, the Avatar fired his own bursts of his respective element at the shinobi once the last bit of flames passed him by.

Naruto did some dodging and weaving as well and met Aang's barrage with his own fire one. Both elements never really made any contact on either of their bodies or had any outward effect, only swaying the blonde's hair and clothes, and heightening the temperature around Aang.

After exchanging blows at each other long enough in the blonde's opinion, Nartuo sent a particularly larger wave of flames by delivering a sweeping kick in the air.

Noticing how dangerous it would be to dodge, Aang held both palms forward and tried to overpower the incoming flames with a tunnel of wind.

The forces met powerfully against one other and fought for dominance for a mere second before the stronger attack from the Avatar was able to keep it at bay. Although, since wind normally fuels fire the flames from the shinobi's efforts burst in the air and created a temporary wall of red and orange before disappearing in a quiet roar. However, that's all Naruto needed as a distraction before he was in the air high above Aang thanks to a chakra enhanced jump.

Without hesitation Naruto started throwing pieces of metal that gleamed in the sun down towards his bald adversary. Aang was getting ready to move at a moment's notice but was confused when he wasn't necessarily the target of the weapons.

One after another, Aang saw the objects Naruto threw sink deep into the ground around him. Five impacts total was what he counted and saw that they completely encircled him. From Naruto's point of view he could see that the kunai he let fly to the earth came together in the shape of a star.

When Aang looked at them closer he recognized them as kunai, something he was growing a fear of because of the earlier morning, which normally wouldn't be much of a problem, but the instant he saw they were the ones with the three blade design he couldn't help but feel a sense of dread.

Those feelings were with good reason as in the next instant Naruto's body vanished from the open sky in a flash of yellow and appeared at the kunai facing Aang's front.

What happened next was what really got the Avatar's adrenaline pumping. Upon reaching one of the five points he set up, Naruto starting going on the offensive by relentlessly sending waves upon waves of attacks, teleporting to another spot after each one. Naruto didn't go too hard on his friend, but he didn't let him get a breather either. More fireballs, small boulders, bursts of air, and even bullets of water were added into the nonstop onslaught.

Totally ignoring the distant cry of 'Water too?!' the two continued their squabble. Aang was using every bit of whatever acrobatic ability he held as he did his best to escape harm from every single thing Naruto propelled at him. When he saw there was no hope of dodging, he would send small blades of wind to negate the attacks altogether, or like earlier, at least make them change their course of flight. He was doing valiantly so far, and lasted longer than what Naruto thought, but eventually he knew the young Avatar would tire himself out. Aang obviously knew this as well when sweat started to drench his face and his movements became more sluggish. Looking at him, it would only take one little mistake to end this spar.

This mistake soon came when one of his shots of air missed Naruto's own which resulted in him losing his footing and being pushed back a few feet by his own element. With his guard and focus briefly lowered, there was no chance of getting out of the way of an oncoming boulder careening for the middle of his torso.

Once the small ball of rock impacted, Aang was harshly bashed back, getting the air knocked out of him and forcing him to let go of his staff. His orange and yellow-covered back slammed into the ground before his body rolled a few times from where he impacted. Once his movement stilled, a small audible groan escaped his mouth as some of the pain now became apparent with adrenaline no longer streaming through his body. Feeling his sore limbs and even sorer chest, he knew he'd definitely feel this in the morning.

"I think it's safe to say we're done for today." He heard Naruto say next to him. It was a little hard to see the blonde from his prone position, but that was only because the bright sun was shining directly behind him, letting a few rays shine down into his eyes with every movement. He could, though, pick up a grin on his now uncovered whiskered face.

"Yeah," Aang's voice was slightly strained, but gave his best smile nonetheless, "Sounds good."

Naruto gave him a throaty chuckle in response as he helped his friend to his feet.

"Ow!" The duo heard from where the spectators were. Turning their heads they saw Sokka now out of his seat and holding both hands over his nose as his eyes clearly showed he was in pain. Katara was standing next to him shaking her head in what looked like disappointment and even some embarrassment.

After a moment Katara met Naruto's eyes and pointed to her brother with one hand while knocking the air in front of her with the other.

Getting the message Naruto said, "Oh yeah."

Forming a hand seal and a mutter of 'Kai' the barrier deactivated and allowed everyone behind it to approach the former combatants.

"Enjoy the show?" Naruto asked with a foxy smile.

"Yeah!" The children chorused before anyone else could get a word in. That seemed to break everyone else's silence as Naruto was suddenly bombarded by a wave of voices. Obviously Naruto couldn't reply to anyone specific since most of their ramblings were incoherent, so after a few seconds of being yelled at he held up a hand and managed to get everyone to become silent.

"Okay, good. I know what you saw was way out the ordinary and that you have questions, but you have to ask them one at a time." The blonde stated.

The crowd looked at each other not knowing who would go first, so Koko took it upon herself to get her shot in when she could. "How can you bend more than one element if you aren't the Avatar?!"

With everyone's attention on him Naruto had to take some time to think of how he would answer.

"Well…while I don't care if people know I can do this, it's the how that I'm kinda hesitant about." Naruto

"Why?" The girl asked with innocent eyes.

"Because it's not really something any regular person can properly understand. And those that can are the people that I completely trust and allow to know about my secrets, secrets that can't be comprehended unless I help in a…let's say, special way. Right now that's only Aang and the rest of the Southern Water Tribe."

"What do you mean by special?" Oyaji added.

Turning toward the village leader, Naruto said, "Well, it's by use of one of my more complicated techniques. This particular technique, though, requires me to use my eyes to make it work."

"Those purple ones?" Oyaji replied.

Naruto blinked and sheepishly smiled at him. "Uh…actually…it requires the other set."

"Other set?" Suki questioned.

"Yeah…um…I'll just show you. No harm done in showing I guess." The blonde said as he sent chakra to his eyes, changing the sapphire color to a deadly red.

Everyone was once again shocked by something the blonde showcased. At this point they honestly weren't sure if their hearts could take anymore phenomenon being witnessed.

"I…um…" Suki didn't really know what to say.

"For your sanity, don't look to deep into it. The less questions the better. If you wanted to know everything about him, you wouldn't have time to live your own life." Katara said while nudging the shaken Suki in the shoulder.

"Uh…okay…but what technique did he use on you to help you understand?" She managed to ask the waterbender.

"Once again that's something only those I deeply trust can know." He said with an apologetic gaze, enrapturing everyone further with its crimson color.

She nodded, not minding his secrecy at all. The things this man could do practically demanded some anonymity. Not wanting to become crazy just to sate her curiosity helped too.

"Back to using all the elements, I guess I can say that my chi is unique. I'm the only one with the kind of energy I hold, I'm sure, which allows me to do what you saw. It's a lot more complicated than that, but like I said there's information has to be withheld." The shinobi said.

"Isn't it just like the Avatar's chi, though?" A random villager probed.

"No, it's still different from Aang's. We can both bend multiple elements, but only I can do those other things you saw."

"What were those abilities? The two that you used to escape from being hit by the dragon and moving around like that at the end of the fight?" Asked Oyaji.

"That would be the Shunshin, or body flicker for the dragon, and the Hiraishin at the end. Both require my unique kind of chi and allows me to move to places pretty much instantaneously, but the Hiraishin requires special seals for its use like the ones on the kunai you saw me throw. They act as a beacon for me to go to and also covers a lot more ground to travel to than the Shunshin."

"How much more?" Suki asked.

Naruto smiled foxily. "Anywhere the world."

And there goes everyone's shocking reactions again. 'Maybe I should stop before their minds snap?' The blonde thought.

Naruto coughed into his hand. "So, um, anything else?"

"How were you able to beat Aangy?" One of the other little girls asked.

Aang slightly blushed and a few people managed to break out of their shock to laugh a little.

"Aang isn't used to fighting yet, and hasn't been trained to use any other elements besides air. With my experience and abilities, he didn't really have much of a chance. No offense, Aang." He said looking at the airbender.

"None taken." He said while rubbing his chest.

Naruto took notice. "Still hurt?"

"A little, but it's not bad." Aang responded.

"Here." Naruto said as he walked in front of him and put a green glowing hand onto his chest. Feeling the healing chakra flow through his body Aang couldn't help but sigh in relief.

"Thanks." He breathed out as the soreness left him.

People looked like they were going to question the act, but were cut off by Sokka's current nasally voice. "Healing abilities too. Don't question it. You'll sleep easier."

Hearing the sound of the young man's voice, Naruto asked, "Need some of this too?"

Sokka poked his throbbing nose. "Yes please."

After lifting some pain away from Sokka's face the questions didn't go much farther than what was already asked. The big ones were taken care of and everyone not in cahoots with the Avatar's group felt like their minds had taken enough trauma for the day.

All that happened for the rest of that afternoon was some idle chatter as they made their way back to the village. Once they got there everyone split off and went about their daily lives, most of them going to prepare lunch.

For Naruto and his friends, they joined Suki and some of the other Kyoshi warriors at a small teahouse to have their own lunch. The comforting tea and small bits of innocent conversation was just what they, especially Suki and her girls, needed to relax their minds.

Not much happened for the rest of the day. More shopping was done for the coming departure from the island, when exactly, Naruto wasn't sure, but would be within the next few days. Aang was also dragged away by his fangirls again, but was warned by Naruto that if he saw him getting a big head from the attention, he would be humbled by another spar.

Needless to say, Aang was determined to only see this as spending time with new friends instead of trying to feel on top of the world like in the morning.

The Avatar wasn't the only one to be approached by a group of excited children, though. Naruto eventually found himself surrounded by a group of his own fans and was asked to play with them. Seeing the looks they sent him made it impossible to say no, so he agreed and spent the next couple of hours showing some little bits of bending and participating in games like hide and seek. He even dragged Katara with him since she didn't have much to do.

Sokka spent the rest of his day in the room where they stayed due to overeating at the teahouse and upsetting his stomach. This didn't kick in until after Naruto left with the kids, so he couldn't get him to use some of his healing magic.

That's how he found himself laying on his futon for the remainder of the day and through the night along with a near comatose Momo who overindulged himself with the various sweets that were left behind on the table.

Naruto, Katara, and Aang eventually came back to their room when it was getting dark. While they were curious of the out of commissioned Sokka and Momo, they didn't pay them much mind before they relaxed for a while and eventually turned in to sleep.

Anyone would agree that the return of the Avatar after a century would be pretty big news, especially since the world has been plagued by war in the same timeframe. The Avatar travelling with the infamous Purple-eyed Demon and seemingly cooperating with each other would be even bigger news.

That's why it comes to no surprise that such information would hardly be tightlipped, if at all. Upon reaching this stage in what is guaranteed to be quite a journey, Naruto and his group would be lucky if word about their position didn't reach the wrong ears within several days.

Unfortunately, due to the glorious efforts of a small girl native to Kyoshi Island spilling the beans to a local fisherman, who in turn told a shopkeeper at a port town he had to travel to in order to sell his wares, who then spoke to a man in red attire he sold his fish to, who then told his notorious boss upon their metal warship, such precious information couldn't be withheld long enough to make it to a few days.

It didn't even make it to one.

"The Avatar is on Kyoshi Island?!" A scarred young prince shouted in astonishment, his fish dinner momentarily forgotten.

"Yes, Prince Zuko. From what I've heard, the Avatar arrived on the island just this morning." The man who brought the food coolly said as he bowed.

Zuko nodded with his face blank, but there was an obvious hint of satisfaction held within his eyes. "Leave us." He ordered.

The server bowed once again and left the metal room with a semi loud clank as he securely shut the heavy door.

"You're going to go after him?" Iroh asked from his seated position.

"What do you think? We have to take advantage of any possible chances of capturing him." Zuko replied.

"And what of that man? You just heard that they're travelling together, like we saw further south. Do you really think you'll be able to face him?" Iroh carefully asked, hoping his nephew would really take his decision with the utmost of care.

"I'll figure something out!" The prince retorted with a snarl on his face. Just the thought of what that man did with that mysterious power didn't exactly calm his nerves.

"And you're sure of this?" The former general questioned.

"Of course I am! Ready the rhinos for our arrival to the island. I'm letting the Avatar get away this time and I'm not letting some demon stop me!"

"Is what you say accurate?"

"Yes sir. Just moments ago a messenger hawk sent by our man on Zuko's ship delivered news of the Avatar's whereabouts. It seems that all of our suspicions of the Avatar travelling with the Demon are almost completely positive."

"Is that so? And Zuko is surely to pursue his target?"

"Yes sir."

"Excellent."

"Your orders?"

"Prepare my ship to immediately set a course for Kyoshi Island. I'll decide if we need larger support later. Prepare yourself, we have an Avatar and a demon to deal with."

"Yes, Commander Zhao!"

Chuckles of satisfaction left the commander's mouth as he saw one of his soldiers leave his barracks to carry out his orders. With fingers interlocked under his chin as he gazed upon the map on his desk, he couldn't help but smile dangerously.

"The Avatar, a demon, and a banished prince all in one place. Things just got a lot more interesting."

Chapter End

AN: Wow…it's about time I got something out…damn.

Sorry everyone, but when the brain's running empty on ideas, there isn't much I can do. All I can offer is my apologies for making you all wait so long. I wanted to get this out on its one year anniversary, but sadly that's not how it happened :P

Don't have much to say except for a couple of things.

Be prepared for whenever an update comes out. I have no schedule at all and I'm going to be pretty busy soon with my second year of college coming up.

I also want to give you all a big thank you for the support you've all shown! Seeing how much of a following this story has is insane! I never imagined this story would grow to what it has over the past year and it's simply amazing!

So thank you all, readers old and new, because you make this so much more enjoyable! I just hope that this chapter sates your hunger because I honestly don't think this was my best. If you like it, yay! If you don't, oh well, life goes on.

Oh, and if you would be so kind to leave a review, that would be very much appreciated ;)

Just keep on keeping on, my lovelies, and have a great morning/afternoon/evening/whatever the hell you're doing!

Until next time you beautiful people!

Later!