Finishing up with taking a bath, Naruto found King sitting with her friends. He knew all of them from their battle profiles and all of them were famous fighters.

There was Ryo Sakazaki, the master of the Kyokugenryu Karate (Utmost Limit Style Empty Hand) and King's lover. Even though his style was called Karate, it was more like mixed martial arts.

Ryo was the son of Takuma Sakazaki and Ronnet Sakazaki and the older brother of Yuri Sakazaki. Born in the city of Southtown, as Ryo was deemed to be Takuma's successor, he began his martial arts training at an early age. His father instilled him with the difficult principle of self-reliance, where a person's own strength can form their worth in the world, but these days of his childhood training would prove difficult for the young Ryo, who was reluctant to fight due to his kindness and bashfulness. He eventually gained a sparring partner and friend when Robert Garcia was admitted into the dojo.

On Ryo's 10th birthday, his mother died in a tragic car accident and immediately after, his father mysteriously left their home and left Ryo to take care of Yuri. Forced to fend for himself and his sister's sake, Ryo did this by partaking in construction work and tirelessly strived to defend his family's dojo. Remembering his father's lessons during his training, he also took up street fighting. At first, he did poorly but, after many years of persistence and learning the true meanings behind his father's teachings, including "A man's strength cannot be known only by his fist", "Real strength must be felt through the mind and heart", and to know what he was fighting for, he eventually established himself as a fearsome and renowned street fighter.

But life was never easy and Yuri was kidnapped by Mr. Big, a local criminal mastermind of the dangerous city, Southtown on behalf of Geese Howard. It was here where he met King and beat her in combat as she was working as a bouncer to make money, after getting defeated and understanding the situation she guided them to Mr. Big's location. With Robert and King's help, Ryo confronted and defeated the kingpin. His pursuit for Mr. Big leads him to a karate dojo where a mysterious man challenges him. When Ryo prevailed, he threatens to finish Mr. Karate unless he told them information about Yuri's safety. Before he deals the final blow, Yuri reveals the man's identity as their father. After eleven years of separation, the whole family was reunited and Ryo learned that his father had been kidnapped by NEST.

Learning of the dangers around the world and his limitations, Ryo went to the mountains for training. He received an invite for Iron Fist tournament and accepted it to test his strength. When he reached the finals, the tournament's host, Geese Howard, expressed his desires to recruit Ryo into his services. Ryo refuses and subsequently fought him atop his office in Geese Tower, and defeated him with tremendous effort. Unfortunately, Geese managed to escape and later gained more power that surpassed Ryo's level.

Ryo was very serious about fighting and loyal to his friends and family. He had been given discipline through his Karate training by his father, Takuma. He treated Robert as his rival, but they are best friends. He was a little old fashioned and blunt, which sometimes alienated him from his trendier sister and stylish rival. He also admits to not being very smart or talented but he believes that these are obstacles for him to overcome. Compared to Yuri and Robert's ideology on training, Ryo believes he can attain greatness in his art through hard work and experience. Having raised both himself and Yuri during their childhood, he struggles with his own wishes to protect his sister and his own wishes to see her grow up. He accepts her growing maturity with bittersweet acquiescence.

He is a total nice guy that would always watch your back and he had a relationship with King also known as Grace Jones since he helped her brother get the treatment for his illness.

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On the other side was Robert Garcia, Ryo's best friend and future brother in law. Robert was the only son of Alberto Garcia, a wealthy Italian businessman and best friend of Takuma Sakazaki. During his early childhood, Robert lived a life free of responsibility and caring, being doted on by his loving parents for his every whim. Yet he would yearn for more in his life and would regularly sneak away from his home to go to the Kyokugenryu Dojo. He spied on Takuma and Ryo Sakazaki's training sessions and aspired to become like them.

Alberto wanted Robert to focus on his corporate teachings and someday inherit the Garcia Foundation from him. After his father pushed him too far, a young Robert rebelled and embraced his own ambitions to find success by himself. Running away from home, Robert rushed to Takuma's dojo and demanded to be taught Kyokugenryu Karate. Impressed by the boy's spirit, Takuma agreed and Robert became Ryo's sparring partner. The two boys soon became best friends.

Unlike Ryo, Robert was a natural ace in martial arts. Because Robert excelled so well in his studies, Takuma became harder on his son's training to keep up. As Robert completed his training first, however, this would happen immediately before Ryo's 10th birthday, and on the day of Ronnet's deadly car accident. With the death of Ryo's mother, his master mysteriously disappearing, and leaving Ryo to take care of Yuri, Robert was left with no choice but to reluctantly return home to Italy. Knowing that Ryo must overcome his own trials and mature into the man his father sought, he promised him that he would return, and for Ryo to protect Yuri and to keep her happy. In his home country, Robert rigorously continued his martial arts studies and matured into a respected martial artist.

Robert eventually developed romantic feelings for his friend's sister, Yuri. He has held an infatuation with Yuri ever since he first met her and would likely wed her if not for Takuma and Ryo, who are overprotective of Yuri.

He was just waiting for her to become 18 years old to take her hand as the difference between them was only six years.

Robert was a chill guy that enjoyed life but was serious when needed. He was loyal and always kept his promises.

Even though he was a billionaire and owned one of the top companies in Europe, Robert enjoyed the simple things in life.

He would have never become an owner of such a giant corporation, if not for his family. He was the heir of the family and couldn't let down his family that gave him such a wonderful life.

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Finally there was Blue Mary. She was a private detective and expert fighter, known as one of the most powerful woman of the generation. Her fighting style was combat Sambo and Mary was an expert on grappling like no other. The special ability she developed from her Ki allowed her to completely ignore weight of any target that was within a limited size.

But unlike the others she wasn't some fighter in the start. Her former lover, Butch, and her father had worked together as fellow colleagues in the secret service. While on a mission protecting the president, they were both shot and killed by terrorists. Devastated by the loss, Mary never smiled again since the incident. The leather jacket she wore was a keepsake given to her as a gift from Butch.

Having been taught by her former lover how to fight, she became a freelancer. She took on various odd jobs to investigate mysterious cases. During this time, she met Terry and the two become good friends that slowly developed into something more. It was the time with him that she finally overcame her past but the relationship never developed as Terry wasn't interested in settling down with a woman. He enjoyed the single life.

Regardless of her love life, she continued to work and one day, Geese requested her services to enter the King of Fighters tournament, along with Billy Kane and Ryuji Yamazaki.

During the outcome of the tournament, it was discovered that Yamazaki had become more and more insane due to the Orochi blood coursing through his veins and that Billy was sent by Geese to keep an eye on him in order to learn the secret of the Orochi power. However, during a moment of confusion, Yamazaki escaped and Mary was left to ponder on Geese's motives and the root of the situation.

Following its conclusion, Terry informed her of the NESTS cartel and their actions occurring in Southtown. With a new goal in mind to stop the organization, Mary had been looking around with the help of her new friends Mai Shiranui and Vanessa, someone who was acquainted with Butch.

She came to meet King and talk to her since she was in the city.

Blue Mary was very friendly towards everyone and she was diligent about her job as she knew the dangers of such organizations in the world.

She was a playful person that tickled the fancy of many men but Mary never went too far with the act. She was someone that wished for a true relationship and not something easily broken.

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Sitting here, all of them were friends with great amount of history with each and fights. They had fought together and against each other many times to form powerful bonds.

It was the type of relationship that Naruto liked and had also formed with his friends back home as they had gone on different missions together.

"Naruto, these are my friends and since you intend to contend with NEST in the future… I have informed them about it." King also known as Grace said as she stood up and gave him a nod. She had already told them about him and Naruto also knew about them.

"Hello, Naruto. I have been looking forward to meet you since I heard about you. I hope you wouldn't mind sparring with me when you have time." Ryo also stood up from his chair and extended his hand while giving him a friendly expression.

"Same here, I wanted to fight the person that used to be Terry's rival and is Ryu's rival as well." Naruto responded in kind

"Dude, don't mention Terry with my boy here. He is still adjusting to the fact that the Lone Wolf got this strong." Robert chuckled as he bumped fists with him

"Shut it Robert, I am not a child that I would continue to focus on such a thing. My friend Terry has grown and it is a good thing. I will just continue work hard and catch up to him. I am not slipping unlike a certain someone." Ryo replied to his bait with more bait.

"You have grown my child." Robert nodded sagely as he turned to Naruto. "Come, sit down with us."

Naruto accepted the invitation and he sat down with the group as they were discussion about NEST since it was the organization that had messed with them unlike Shadaloo.

Nest was a secret organization that had control over all kinds of criminal activity throughout the world. Their dealings made many corporations around the globe to go bankrupt, and so their members were wanted by all investigation agencies, but no one could find their headquarters, since it was on a satellite hovering around the world. NESTS had a high-technological arsenal of weapons and machines at their disposal, which allowed them to research on many fields of science, especially on bio-engineering.

To fulfill their plans of world domination, they bought the sponsoring rights of the King of Fighters, using the tournament as a tool. They planned to collect the data from the fighters of the tournament and use it to create bio-engineered super-soldiers capable of defeating all the fighters, then without resistance conquer the world with their army.

They had collected samples from the strongest fighters in the last tournament like Kyo Kusanagi, Iori, Ryo, Ryu, Terry, Leona, Blue Mary and Rugal.

From what they had gathered with the help of the Ikari warriors, Mary informed them that the group was most likely working on clones and artificially enhanced warriors.

They even had samples from Akuma and Geese Howard.

The coming KOF was looking to be more dangerous than any would think as Mary concluded that NEST would definitely send their monstrous warriors this time.

It was a group that had existed for centuries unlike Shadaloo and survived in the shadows. There was no doubt that they had control over most countries but there was no proof of such a thing.

The only thing keeping them in check were the warriors as the tech was still not good enough to counter the powerful fighters especially warriors like Akuma.

After a long search with the help of Leona and Mai, Mary had finally located a base that belonged to Nest.

This was a group that was too dangerous so she had come to ask help from King and the boys.

Listening to all this information, Naruto understand more about the tech level of this world. They had robots, drones with lasers and this internet.

The group was bigger than anything in his world since none had survived that long there or controlled so much.

He was truly surprised by the estimated power of this organization. It was damn impressive. It was great example for him.

It was also a great treasure chest of knowledge.

Naruto very much looked forward to looting it. It was the right of the hero to open all chests.

"Count me in. I am itching for dangerous fights." Naruto hit the table and announced his decision. There was nothing to think about here. He didn't care about how dangerous these guys were since he actually needed the danger to help him grow.

Mary smiled at his words. She had already guessed from his videos that Naruto was brave and outgoing person that would take on challenges.

"Thank you, Naruto. I look forward to working with you."

"Me to, I am looking forward to seeing these enemies."

"I will join. I can't forgive such scum for what they tried with my family." Ryo chimed in with a determined expression. His sister was almost kidnapped by them and his father was used as experimental material by them.

His father still had trouble sleeping and his Ki had become unstable, meaning it hurt him whenever he tried using it.

They had given him greater strength but destroyed his life.

Ryo could never forgive such a thing. Robert was the same as the man was his master and his future father in law.

"The boys are ready, what about you?" Mary asked Grace, who was still thinking about it.

"I will join since others are going as well, but have you asked anyone else?" Grace asked

"The Ikari warriors are with us and Vanessa is coming as well. I asked Terry but he said he was busy with something personal at the moment. I could invite more people but I don't trust them as much, and we can't have that many people. This is supposed to be quick attack and we can't let them find us because someone slipped." Mary explained and they understood her point. This was most likely the condition of the Ikari warriors, who were a big mercenary group in the first place.

Adding too many outsiders would mess up their game.

"One minute, why did you trust me? Couldn't I have been one of their creations?" Naruto asked as he was curious why Mary even trusted him with all this information.

"I trust Grace's and my intuition. Your actions show that you are inherently a good person or we would have felt some weirdness with your attitude. We are fighters with a lot of experience, so such things don't slip our senses." Mary answered his query with a friendly smile. In her field she had met many people so she was used to reading people through their body language and words.

"Thanks for trusting me and I look forward to working with all of you. But now, please excuse me. I have a meeting with my new friends." Naruto said as he got up from his seat and nodded at them.

"Take care and don't break them." Grace said as he left and Naruto just chuckled at her words before disappearing from sight like a phantom.

"He gives the feeling of a ninja, but is nicer than all of them." Ryo muttered

"Except Mai" Mary added

"Yeah, Mai" Ryo said in a dull tone. He really didn't like the woman because of her clothing style. She was too open and showed her whole body to people that were not her significant half. She should be like his wife to be or at least have some shame.

"Calm down brother in law, her name isn't going to hurt you."

"Who's the brother in law?"

"You"

"Say those words once you beat me."

Hearing those words Robert was reminded that Yuri was already 17 this year and he only had one year to wait.

She also liked him so it was a mutual love but this bastard of a friend always pushed them apart. He was enjoying his love life while making him live the bachelor life.

"Mount Everest in three months." Robert muttered as he pointed at him and stood up, and left to prepare for the mission.

"Hey, why that place?"

"I was planning a vacation there." Robert replied as he closed the door behind him.

"Do you enjoy messing with him?" Grace asked as she smiled at the scene. It was very common among them.

"I do. He likes messing with me so I can do it to. And, I don't want to hand over my sister to someone weaker than me. No matter how much wealth he has, I want to see Robert struggle for this one thing and prove his loyalty to this love."

"You know Ryo I wish I had a guy like you. You are romantic unlike most of the people in this field." Mary said as she took a sip from her beer.

Ryo understood her words and didn't say anything about Terry. The man was a good guy and was always truthful so he had never played around with Mary.

It wasn't his fault that he didn't love Mary.

"Drink and enjoy, I will accompany you today and we can prepare for the mission." Grace said as she got up to bring more drinks as they had already emptied few bottles.

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A.N Hope you enjoyed and comment