AUTHOR NOTE: To my readers, seeing as it never explains how the players learn to control their beyblades to the point where they respond to the player and do what they want them to, that will be a bit vague. Naruto will still practice so he gets better, but exactly HOW he learns to get Tyranno to respond to him won't be able to be as detailed as I would like. Please bare with me on that.

Naruto may not have known about this fighting top game that was done here, but still he had to admit the league-level quality parts he'd got from those two were good. A shinobi had to have an eye for quality equipment, no matter where they were. Take shoddy gear with you into the field, it could get you killed, after all.

He'd had to go get a beginner's guide to putting it together just to be sure he didn't end up breaking the pieces as he was putting it all together, but a few shadow clones transformed into dollar bills had taken care of that (but he couldn't rely on that trick too much since people would be after him for the money). Did the dishonesty of it bother him? Yes. But the lack of options hadn't left him much choice. And he intended to add interest to when he actually went back to pay for it after he managed to earn a bit of prize money from those Beyblade tournaments.

Speaking of Beyblades, Naruto clicked in the Bit piece with Tyranno's image on it that he'd removed from the generic and drab grey one he'd kept into his newly made one. The Beyblade itself was a black blade with orange highlights and designs. According to the book he'd gotten, it was a heavy assault and speed type. He'd considered adding the dual blade under the attack ring for extra offence that he'd taken from Queen, but looking it over, he'd decided against it for now. Needed to find a way to fix the design flaw of it, first. It was vicious and brutal, designed strictly to gouge, slash, shred, and all that kind of "fun" stuff...but the issue with the sadistic ring was that it was only designed to work in one direction, if it was jammed or hit hard enough to force it to make it counter-spin on itself, it'd cause his own blade shred itself to pieces from the inside out.

Again, Naruto may not have known about this fighting top game that was done here, but a shinobi had to have an eye for quality equipment, no matter where they were since taking shoddy gear with you into the field could get you killed.

"Well, Tyranno...what do you think?" Naruto asked as the transparent form of the Bit-Beast appeared behind him and looked at the blade before bobbing his head in an unmistakable nod.

Allowing the ancient reptile spirit to retreat into the medium, Naruto couldn't help but shake his head at the sheer stupidity of those two thieves. Seriously, if someone threw what the "prize" is away from them and gloated about it, it shouldn't have taken a lot of mental processing for someone to figure "Why not just take the prize and run while they gloat?". Guess there was nobody who was opportunistic here or something.

He knew the people here had their pride to protect, and they were proud of their beyblade skills; since it was as big a deal here as being a ninja was back home, so he understood it, but as they said: too much pride could be the death of a person.

And yes, he fully understood the irony of him saying that.

Looking at the battle top, Naruto sighed and put it in his pouch. He'd been practicing getting Tyranno to respond to him, but he wasn't sure just how good he was doing with it. More importantly, he needed to figure out how to get some food, a bath, and get his clothes cleaned up.

Walking away from the wrecked building he was using as lodgings, the Uzumaki stretched. Sheesh...he really needed to figure something out. Problem was, according to the government, he had no social security number, no passport, no license, absolutely nothing. For all intents and purposes, he did not exist. Made finding any type of work he could do impossible to apply for and earn a living...

"Well...time to find something..." he sighed. If worse came to worst, he'd have to resort to theft to get what he needed. This street rat lifestyle sucked, but he lacked the means for anything else unless he wanted to resort to criminal activities. The sheer lack of options was so frustrating!

As he was walking around an alleyway Naruto was wondering what he could now, but then he suddenly heard the sounds of a struggle and he then heard a girl yell and that caused him to rush in the alleyway but not wanting to be seen, he then hid behind a dumpster and looked to see what was going on.

As he did, a flash of pink got his attention. He blinked, then shook his head. Was that...? No, it was too dark a shade to be Sakura-chan. But the girl was in trouble. The apparent ringleader looked her over as she struggled, her arms twisted behind her back by some of the others.

"So help me, when I get out of this, you're going in the hospital!" the girl spat, her eyes somehow narrowed into catlike vertical slits, adding onto her appearance.

"Ooooh...kitty's got claws!" he laughed, roughly grabbing her face by the chin and making her look at him.

"HEY!" A new voice at the end of the alley shouted and the gang members turned to see who it was.

Standing there, eyes hard, was a teenage boy. He was clad in a slim, form fitting orange tracksuit outfit with black on the upper shoulders area and the color extending from around the neck and shoulders, down the front and sleeves, as well as around the waist; a white swirl on the left side, a red swirl crest on the back, orange pants, his feet were covered by black sandals that covered the instep and ankles, yet left the toes and heels exposed. Covering his head was short, blonde hair that stood up all over like the spines of a sea urchin, and a black headband with a metal plate attached to it that had the symbol of a spiral arrow engraved into it. He had some bandages on his thigh and a carrying case along with it and a small pouch on the back of his belt.

What really stood out were the pencil-thin, whisker-like markings on his face, three per cheek.

"Let. Her. Go." he said.

The thugs looked at him, then laughed.

"Bwahahahaha! Get a load of this boys. Some kid's trying to play hero?" The lead thug laughed, but Naruto took this as an opening and then rushed at the lead thug who stopped laughing and saw Naruto coming at him, "Get 'em..." Then ten of the thugs rushed at Naruto and punched the first thug right in the face and it blow sent him falling into a nearby pile of garbage.

Then the other thug attempted to punch Naruto but Naruto blocked it and then countered with a kick to the thug's waist knocking some air out of him, then Naruto grabbed the thug's arm and threw him at another approaching thug causing both of them to crash against a brick wall knocking both thugs out.

Then a fifth thug pulled out a knife and rushed towards Naruto, but he saw this coming and got low to the ground and did a sweep kick under the thug forcing him to drop the knife and punched the thug in the gut knocking him out, then a sixth thug tried to catch Naruto off guard with a haymaker but Naruto ducked and then chopped the back of his neck thus making the thug fall onto the ground knocking him out.

The last three thugs attempted to attack together as they each rushed at him to try to take a swing at him, but Naruto grabbed the first one and spun around and made sure to knock into the other two and when both where defeated he threw the last one right into the first thug right back into the garbage pile.

Tsking, Naruto turned to the last of them, the ringleader.

"D-Don-Don't come any closer! Or the girl gets it, see!?" The ringleader held the girl in a headlock with the knife one of his thugs dropped at her neck. Naruto bent down and grabbed a small pebble, then just flicked it at the ringleader. The pebble hit him right between his eyes with a surprising amount of force, making him let the girl go and Naruto ran towards the ringleader and dropped kicked him, sending him flying to the brick wall hitting a trash can and the leader fell right on his head, knocked out cold.

Naruto frowned. Honestly...these guys were pathetic (not that he was expecting much from them anyways to begin with), but seriously? Couldn't people in this world do or learn anything right unless it revolved around some fighting top game?! Hell, he could have taken these guys back before he even learned to fight at the academy, they were so weak! He hated wasting his time and skills slapping around losers like this!

Well...ok, helping that girl before anything happened to her was hardly a "waste", but still...

Speaking of, he went over to her. She had tan skin and cat-like features. Her hair was pink and her attire was composed of a pink Chinese-style outfit similar to what Tenten would have worn, with magenta highlights, a single yellow armband on her left arm, two red fingerless gloves, pink Chinese-style pants and pink colored shoes with magenta highlights. She even had a head bandana(which was pink) tied in her hair in a way so that the ends stuck up like cat ears. She also had golden colored cat-like eyes, which made her look like more of a catgirl.

"You ok?" he asked, getting a nod in reply.

"Yeah...thanks...um..."

"Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki." He introduced

"Mariah." She said, nodding. "where did you learn to fight like that? Most people settle things by beyblading."

"Excuse me if I had other priorities. Besides, are you really going to complain about how I felt learning to fight was higher on the list than beyblading considering the situation you were just in?"

Ok...she had to give him that. Looking at the out cold thugs littering the alleyway they were in, it was hard NOT to be glad this guy learned fighting skills as opposed to beyblading, otherwise she'd be in real trouble right now. "Fine. Fair enough."

"Eh...just got into Beyblade, actually. Wanted to see what the hype is about it, but...well...need lessons, hit a bit of a wall with practicing on my own..." he shrugged.

At that, Mariah perked up, a way to repay her rescuer coming to mind, "So...lessons, huh? I can help with that! But no way am I going easy on you!"

Naruto laughed. "Glad to hear it, Neko-sensei!"

The next instant, Mariah's fist connected with his gut. "Lesson one: Do NOT call me that!"

"Ok...Mariah-sensei, then." he amended. Sheesh...what was with pink haired girls and being violent? "Not my fault you look like a cat..."

She huffed at that. "Still stands not to call me that. So...how's your skill level, anyway?"

Naruto shrugged, then Mariah saw him pull out an orange and black beyblade, "Decent enough to where Tyranno here responds to me, but not sure just how good, though...only got to that point recently."

Mariah nodded, recalling how tricky it was getting a beyblade to respond to the will of the user back when she was learning that herself. Nearly made her quit the game all together, it was so difficult. She understood why this guy would want some assistance and help improving in that case. "Alright... I normally never do something like this, but I'm going to teach you everything I know about beyblade battling and I won't hold anything back, so let's get you and your beyblade into fighting shape."

Naruto wasn't all that surprised when Mariah pulled out a pink Beyblade with a Bit Chip depicting some kind of feline. Pink cats seemed to be her theme. "Ok...and I have somewhere we can go to practice." he said.

"Lead the way."

Nodding, the blond lead her back to his "residence". Seeing her surprised face at the ruined building, he shrugged, "Good place to practice without anyone bothering me." Naruto excused, getting her to nod as he lead her inside and left her for a quick second, when he came back, he was wearing something on his arm, it was white in color and it also had a large pink-colored visor lid while the shape was like a gauntlet mixed with a small vacuum cleaner with some buttons on its side to make it look like some kind of pod.

Seeing the pinkette stare, the Uzumaki elaborated, "Launcher."

"What was wrong with the usual rip cord launchers? A lot more simple than that bulky thing."

Naruto shrugged, "No idea. I didn't make this, just use it. Was a piece of left behind equipment that still functioned I found here, so why not? Took me a while learning how to do it, though...actually thinking of selling this thing." he said, tightening the straps on his arm.

Sighing, Mariah shook her head. Sheesh...why were people so stupid? They kept making things MORE complicated because they felt it made figuring that stuff out caused them look smart. Wouldn't simplifying a complicated thing do that better, then?

Well...either way, she had an agreement to fulfill. She attached Galux to her launcher and inserted her rip cord into it.

"Ok then. Three...two...one...let it rip!"

The two launched their beyblades and sparks shot as the metal attack rings grated against one another while the tops spun. Naruto's shoulder twitched and Tyranno smashed into the pink beyblade, forcing it back as his own top tried pinning Mariah's between itself and the wall. But just before it hit, Galux zipped away and Tyranno hit it instead.

"You use body signals too much." She informed, recalling her beyblade to her.

Naruto scowled, "Well, excuse me for this being harder than it looks."

Mariah held up her hands, "Hey, hey, hey...I didn't mean that in a bad way. Trust me I get it. It's tricky getting the beyblade to respond as if it were part of you the way your brain does with deciding on the way you move your limbs. Was in that body language phase myself. I know it's hard to do."

Naruto sighed, "...Sorry."

"Relax, it's ok. Like I said, been there. Easy to understand why you're frustrated." She looked at her beyblade, "again." she instructed as Naruto retrieved Tyranno and Mariah nodded, then went about gathering objects and using them to set up an obstacle course. "Ok...show me how good you are at commanding your blade. No body signals." she instructed.

Nodding, Naruto then tried the next step, having Tyranno move to the left without making any signals with his body. Launching it again,as Naruto watched his beyblade he unkowingly began to signal Tyranno to move left until Mariah smacked him on his shoulder, making the blonde Uzumaki lose his focus and Tyranno simply fell down on it's side.

"You did it again..." Mariah said. "Again, we're not stopping until you get the hang of this."

Naruto picked up his beyblade with a sigh, and loaded it into the launcher he wore before sending it spinning into the obstacle course again. Mariah was watching Naruto launch Tyranno and he watched his beyblade move around some of the obstacles, until it crashed into a empty peanut butter jar.

Naruto groaned as he thought he had it that time. "Uggghhh...I'm just no good at this! I'm used to fighting my own battles directly, not through some medium..." Naruto grumbled.

At that, Mariah perked up. "Wait...what? What was that?"

"I said I'm used to fighting my own battles directly, not through some medium."

The girl perked up, "I see...so that's it!"

"Huh?" Naruto asked.

"What you just said! You're use to being in the thick of it on the front lines of a fight, but now you feel like you're stuck barking orders from the rear while your blade does the fighting in your place, right?!"

"Yeah...really annoying..." Naruto sighed, then his eyes widened, "Oh!"

Mariah nodded, "That's where the bulk of your trouble with this is coming from! You need to get used to this proxy-type fighting with your blade."

Naruto grinned, ok...that took care of step one and realizing what his problem was. Now he just had to find a way to fit it. He nodded, before a thought struck him, "Say, Mariah...not to shift topics, but what were you doing when we met, anyway? Before those guys jumped you?" Naruto asked.

Mariah looked down and mumbled something.

"Huh?"

She looked up, blushing, "...I said I was looking into where I could go find where my old friend Ray was in town..."

"The tiger guy on the Bladebreakers?" Naruto asked, sitting on a crate.

Blushing worse, Mariah nodded.

Naruto sighed. It was almost like Sasuke and Sakura all over again!

"So what about you?" Mariah asked.

"Hm?" Naruto looked up, "Not much to know. Not from around here...never did this beyblade thing before." Naruto shrugged, keeping in mind just how much of an understatement his remark that he wasn't from this dimension. He sighed, that reminded him of how he had no way back yet...and how he couldn't remember how he got here in the first place.

"I gotcha. No wonder you wanted help with getting use to bayblading, then." his, for lack of a better term, mentor nodded.

"Yeah. Seen it a few times, but just don't get a lot of it. For instance, why add a second word onto the name of the beyblade?"

"That's usually for the sake of differentiating a Bit Beast from the beyblade it's in." Mariah informed, then blinked, "Do you even know what a Bit Beast is?" She asked.

Holding out his beyblade in his upturned palm, Naruto snapped his fingers and the bit chip glowed, and suddenly, the transparent, spiritual form of a massive, ebony black colored Tyrannosaurus Rex that was adorned with gleaming, burnt orange armor while it's claws and fangs were a nearly golden shade of yellow and had six gleaming green eyes starting at it's forehead and moving shortly down it's snout took up the room they were in. It roared at her, as if saying "You think?", causing Mariah to pale.

Naruto cleared his throat and the dinosaur went back into the beyblade. "Uh...sorry about Tyranno. So...back on topic," Naruto looked at the top he held, "in the case of things, I'd just call Tyranno by his name, but if I were to do something like add that retractable attack ring I have onto my blade, then I'd call my beyblade itself "Tyranno Switchblade" or something like that?"

"Huh? Attack ring?"

Pulling it out of his supply pouch, Naruto flicked the ring he'd gotten from Queen to Mariah and she caught it, looking the part over. "Design flaw, don't wanna risk Tyranno; so not using it until it's fixed." The ninja explained. Mariah nodded. Made perfect sense to her. If anything put Galux at risk, no way in hell was she going to add it to her beyblade.

"I see. And yeah, you're right about the beyblade naming thing." she said, handing the ring back to Naruto. Looking outside, Mariah frowned. Sheesh...it was getting late. "Hey, Naruto. I gotta go. Just keep practicing, ok? Be back later if I have the time and will help you out some more."

He nodded, "I understand. Thanks for the help."

Mariah nodded, going outside and running off, "In the meantime, try coming up with your own style for blading!" she called over her shoulder before she was gone.

Alone now, Naruto looked at Tyranno's beyblade. "...My own style for it...huh...wonder how that could go...?"