The latest release from me! I know it's not an update to something else, but at least I'm writing, right? Anywhoo, I hope you like this.

Only saying this once, don't own Naruto.

"Sasuke! Stop right there!"

A sigh came over the comm system. "Why won't you just give up? My new allies have probably already destroyed the rest of your so-called 'rescue' squad."

"I'm not going to let you defect from Konoha! You know what happens to missing pilots when they're found!"

"I'm not going to be found, you fool." Sasuke's battlesuit turned to face Naruto's. "Now that the optics of my battlesuit have been fully enhanced due to my family's Sharingan program, I can use the weapon that fool Kakashi gave me at its full power!" Electricity coated his fist. Sasuke ran forward and drew his arm back, ready to punch.

"Battlesuit, activate thrusters, direction up, fifty-three percent power!" ordered Naruto. He felt his suit's jetpack spark to life, lifting him up and above Sasuke's attack. He came back down and landed on top of his friend. He attempted to punch him, but was blown off by one of Sasuke's shoulder-mounted high-power flamethrowers.

"Naruto, you're even stupider than I thought. I have tons of advanced weaponry, thanks to my Uchiha descent, and you think you can take me on with nothing?" (A/N that always bugged me. Naruto's the main character, and what does he get?)

"I'm going to stop you, Sasuke!" Naruto got back up. "I won't let you do this to yourself!"

Sasuke laughed. "You couldn't stop me if you wanted to." Both of the wicks for his flamethrowers lit. Naruto's battlesuit was consumed in flame. When it stopped, the chassis was mostly fused into one piece.

"And now to finish you off."

This time, the Chidori went right through Naruto's suit. Naruto tried to move, but a message appeared on his HUD.

Command System Freeze

Aw, shit, he thought. Naruto held his breath; he couldn't do anything like this. Hopefully Sasuke would think he was dead.

With the comms link broken, Sasuke's voice was broadcasted out of his battlesuit's speakers. It was very mechanical-sounding. "That'll teach you for trying to stand up to an Uchiha. Now I only have to kill Itachi and get the Mangekyou program, and I will be unstoppable."

All Naruto could do now was wait for someone to come and get him out of this thing. With the command system frozen and his battlesuit a slab of fused metal, he couldn't get out by himself.

(Two weeks later)

"So let me get this straight," said Naruto. "You're accusing me of endangering my life, butchering and burning my battlesuit, and letting Sasuke escape so he could go and make one of our enemies, who you also accuse me of being in league with, stronger?"

"In short, yes, those are the charges put against you. How do you plead?"

"How do I plead? I plead that this whole case is bullshit. You have no evidence to support any of that."

"Really now? What do you say to this, then?" A disk was inserted into a playback device.

"You need to make it look convincing, make it look like he got away even though you tried to stop him."

"I can do that. It's not hard. His weaponry will be easy to copy."

"Don't forget to mess up the battlefield a bit."

"I won't. There'll be plenty of scorch marks. Everyone knows he loves his flamethrowers."

Naruto could only listen in horror as the conversation went on. He didn't know who the one person was, but the second was him! He never said any of that!

"Congratulations, you have someone who can imitate my voice pretty well. Who is it?"

"Don't think that your tricks will stop us from hanging you as a traitor."

"Actually, you -can't- do that."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't hang a pilot unless there is indisputable evidence that he has committed treason."

"I believe that to be fairly solid."

"My voice could be imitated. Unless you have video records of me doing that, the worst you could do is exile me."

"Oh, so you know how to be a lawyer, too? Or were you supplied with lines from your secret ally?"

"I'm calling bullshit again. I don't even know where you get this idea."

"Well, Mr. Uzumaki, if that is your real name..."

(One month later)

"Hey, look, it's that guy who got exiled from Konoha. I heard that he killed five pilots and then drug seven more off to be reeducated to fight for some secret organization."

"I heard that he slaughtered three entire squads in cold blood, just to listen to them scream for mercy."

Naruto ignored them. It was the same everywhere he went. There was always some rumor or the other that accused him of some act of treason. He took a swig out of the mug of Iwa-made brew. It didn't matter anyways. He still had enough money to ride him out for another month. He could find a job in that time.

"I heard that someone is just an asshole and wanted him gone."

Naruto turned around. No one had every brought that one up before. The most likely owner of the voice was a redhead that had just entered the building, judging by the distance between her and the bar. She was wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit, complete with the clichéd oil stains. She was fairly attractive. She had good-looking, semi-pale skin. Her face was well shaped; not too angular, yet not too round. Her fiery red hair was done up in a high ponytail, which exited through the back of her baseball cap. She had odd red eyes that sparkled with the pride that she knew more than you about anything that used gears or microchips. Her nose was small. She looked about five foot eight, give or take two inches. She was slim, but not ridiculously so, and had subtle curves. Her hips were sort-of wide, and her legs were long. Last, but not least, she had an ample breast size, yet they stayed proportionate to the rest of her body.

She sat down next to him. "You done checking me out yet?"

"Depends. Which answer saves me from that wrench you have there?"

She laughed. "Haven't heard that one before."

"Yeah, well, lots of firsts seem to happen around me."

"Do they now?"

"First Genin-ranked pilot to make it to Chuunin-rank in a under a year, first pilot to take out a Jonin-rank pilot with no weapon attachments, first pilot to be exiled under a single piece of unreliable evidence...I could go on, but I don't really feel like it."

"Sounds like you're quite the soldier."

"Quite a bit of that was dumb luck. I never had enough money to outfit myself with good weaponry, and all the government-issue stuff that actually worked went to the genius-children of Konoha...one of whom defected seven months after enlistment."

"What about the stuff that didn't work?"

"I tried using a hand-me-down ME3 minigun once. It exploded and took off my battlesuit's right arm."

She snorted. "Konoha must not have many good engineers then."

"None that care about an orphaned soldier trying to make his way in the world. They all want to be the one that gave the well-known pilots the equipment that won the day so that they can become famous. That or they only supply their own families, like the Inuzukas."

She looked at Naruto, sizing him up. He felt as if she was window shopping, and he was a pretty new dress.

...Or, in this case, a shiny new toolbox.

"Howdja like to be a mercenary pilot?"

"That'd be great. Now I just need a battlesuit, programs to run it, and weapons. That'll be...hmmm...about two hundred times more money than I have."

"I can give that stuff to you for a cut of the money from each of your jobs."

"And put myself in debt to you for a few years of my life? No thanks."

"Aw, come on. No one buys my stuff, I got a spare battlesuit I made collecting dust, and I don't charge interest on my loans."

"My answer's still no."

"Don't you want to at least take a look at the goods before you make up your mind?"

"Not in particular."

"I can help you find the guy that got you exiled," she offered in a whisper.

Naruto didn't reply for a moment. "How?" he finally replied in an equally quiet tone.

"I have my sources. It may take a while, but I can figure it out."

"...All right, I'll look at your stuff. If I say yes-"

"When you say yes," she said confidently.
"-If I say yes, you'll help me find my man. Or woman."

"Or child?" she offered jokingly.

He rolled his eyes. "Or child."

She stood up. "C'mon, follow me. I'll show you to my shop."

Naruto got up and extended his hand. "My name's Naruto Uzumaki."

She looked at his hand hand grinned. She kept walking. "Tsumeki Kyuubi," she called over her shoulder.

Tsumeki led him into the back of her workshop. He marveled at all the workbenches; they were filled with things, be it scraps, half-completed things, or fully functional battlesuit parts.

At the back, she proudly showed him a battlesuit. It was twelve feet tall, the normal size for most battlesuits. It was painted orange and red, with several blocks of white.

"This is my pride and joy: Battlesuit model K. It's got advanced optical systems, mounts on both the arms and shoulders for weapons, good thrusters, cargo compartments on every limb, which are great for clothes and food, by the way. It also has a magnetic spot on the right and left hips for any melee weapon you choose to use. Inside, it has a brainwave reader. In case you don't know what that does, it means you no longer have to tell the computer to fire the thrusters or the shoulder-mounted weapons. Just think it, and it does it. The best part about this? Unlike that Shinobi-pattern shit you've been using, this baby has a sleep mode. Since I know you have no idea what that means, its got comfortable pads on the inside that, besides just making it heaven to pilot, make it so that you don't have to leave the battlesuit to get a good night's sleep. On top of that, it has a five hundred meter alarm. If anything the battlesuit deems a threat enters that radius, it'll wake you up. If a projectile enters the radius and its trajectory places it at hitting you, the thrusters will fire and send you up in the air, while it wakes you up." Tsumeki's voice was filled with pride as she listed off the functions of her creation.

Naruto let out a low whistle. "That's pretty nice. And you built it from scratch?"

"Of course I did! I'm no amateur!"

He sized it up. "Hmmm. It's good, looks like it has good joints..."

"The best. You could jump off of a cliff with this baby and it could absorb all the shock and not be any worse for wear."

"Mind if I take it for a test run?"

"Sure, go for it." As an afterthought, she added, "Let me throw some weapons on it so you can check it's accuracy and get used to using the brainwave reader."

"Engine running at one hundred percent power," said Naruto. "Temperature is normal. Weapons integrated with mainframe. Testing thrusters...all readings positive. All systems are green."

"All right Naruto, get moving and see how you like her."

Naruto lifted his left leg to start moving, but fell over when it shot up like a rocket.

"Holy shit!" he yelled.

Tsumeki laughed. "Battlesuit K has a sensitive motor system. Once you figure out how to use it, you'll be twice as fast as any other pilot out there."

Naruto mumbled curses and a few threats as he got up. "All right, let's take this a bit slower..." He got up and practiced moving around a bit. After he was content with his ability to move at a sluggish pace, he started to move a little faster.

"That's right! You're getting the hang of it!"

He moved a just a tad faster, and noted that he was moving the speed of a normal battlesuit. "Pop a target for me."

"Can do." A battlesuit-shaped hologram popped up farther down the range he was practicing on. The targeting reticle with '75mm shoulder RCLR, Left' under it in small print, which designated the gun on his left shoulder, followed Naruto's eye to the hologram's center mass. Naruto wanted it to fire, and it did. The round was a dummy, so nothing blew up, but upon zooming in on the hologram, he saw the large hole that had been punched through his chest, right where he had been aiming. (A/N for all you non-gun people, RCLR stands for 'recoilless rifle')

"Good accuracy," he commented.

"But isn't it?" she gushed. "That targeting program was a bit expensive, but it was -so- worth it. It follows your eyes, you know."

"I noticed. That's very handy. With the little experience I had with weapons and the Shinobi-pattern 'suits, you had to do it by eye."

"They're horrible people. It's a sin against modern technology to outfit soldiers with such shitty battlesuits."

"Pop a few more. I want to try the miniguns out."

Ten holograms appeared. Naruto moved his arms, which had the aforementioned guns mounted on them, to aim at two of them. The targeting reticles showed where his rounds were projected to hit.

"So the targets follow your arm-mounted guns?"

"Mmhmm. That was a whole other program, to get that. Much better than trying to align your eyes and your guns."

"This is probably true." Naruto gripped the bars that his hands were wrapped around. This functioned as the trigger, and the miniguns started firing their dummy rounds. He sprayed them back and forth for a moment before loosening his grip. The tide of rounds ceased.

"My diagnosis? Those guys are -dead-!" exclaimed Tsumeki. She was very excited.

"I have to say one thing, Tsumeki. This 'suit is a piece of work."

"You like it, then?"

"Are you kidding me? I love it! Shinobi-pattern has nothing on this!"

An excited cheer came over the comm system. "All right! I knew you'd think so!"

Tsumeki had taken Naruto to the second floor of her shop—once more, the clichéd living quarters. They were sitting down in what served as her living room/kitchen.

"So, I have two propositions for you. Pick whichever you fancy more. First, I could give you Battlesuit K, and you can give me a cut from each of your jobs. Or, you give me all the money from your jobs, I support you, buy your food and all that, and I'll use the money left over after the necessities to buy you better gear for Battlesuit K. When you're content that Battlesuit K is the baddest bitch on this side of the planet, you can tell me so, and I'll stop buying you stuff. You pay off the rest of your debt to me and we go our separate ways." She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "So which is it gonna be?"

Naruto didn't respond for a while. He was thinking heavily on it.

Tsumeki waited for about five minutes before she got sick of the silence. "Hello? Anybody home?"

"I'll go with the second one."

She grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that." She leaped out of her seat and ran to her computer. Naruto walked up to her as she typed furiously.

"You'll need an alias," she said suddenly.

"What? Why?"

"Because -all- mercenaries have an alias, whether it's a group name or a personal name. And you also might have trouble getting work as the legendary exile of Konoha."
"Point taken."
"So? What do you want?"

Naruto stared at the computer screen blankly for a moment. He briefly thought about an encounter he'd had with a foreigner a long time ago, and the language he spoke...

"The Red Hunter," he said.

"Red Hunter...I like it. Good name for the pilot of Battlesuit K." She typed that into the computer. "I like red," she murmured as she pressed enter.

"This shouldn't be too hard," he said as he walked into the town. "Just deal with some bandits. Tsumeki said they numbered twenty with three battlesuits."

Naruto was excited. This was his first job. Some bandits were ruling a town with an iron fist. The local government couldn't do a thing about it, and the army wasn't making any move to help. He needed to wipe the troublemakers out.

As he passed by some houses, he noted families looking out at him.

"He's here," said one.

"That must be the merc the mayor hired!" said another.

Naruto entered the town square. All of the bandits seemed to be congregated there. Of the three battlesuits, two were active. They were guarding one who Naruto presumed to be the leader and the pilot of the third 'suit.

"Hey!" yelled the leader. "What the hell? What are you doing here?"

Naruto didn't glorify him with a response.

"Answer me or get the fuck out of my town!"

"It's not your town," Naruto finally replied.

The recoilless rifle on his shoulder fired. It blew a hole into one of the battlesuits. Naruto saw the bloody remains of the pilot inside. He fired the miniguns on his arms at the second 'suit. It gunned its thrusters and slid to the side. It came at him, drawing a hammer crackling with electricity. Naruto jumped up and drew his sword from his right hip. As he came down, he split the battlesuit's head down the middle. The blood on his sword as he withdrew it told him that he killed the pilot as well.

"That's what you get for piloting Mk 1.5 pieces of horse shit," he mused. Mk 1.5 was the second model of battlesuit ever made. They were good for their time, but they couldn't stand up to anything made by Tsumeki. She was a mechanical genius. Naruto put the sword back.

He saw one of the bandits raising an anti-battlesuit rifle to bear. One burst from a minigun silenced him. He continued to cover the area with lead until all the infantry were dead.

"Well, that was an easy job." As he looked around, he noticed the third 'suit was gone. "Dammit," he swore, trying to locate it.

"Up here, asshole!"

Naruto looked up and saw it. The leader was maintaining flight. He was never good at aerial combat, and his RCLR wouldn't aim that high. His miniguns probably wouldn't help much, seeing as that was a Mk 2, a model known more for its maneuverability than anything else. Naruto would just have to trust Tsumeki's workmanship and hope like hell he could keep up with that thing. His thrusters activated and he climbed to the sky.
"You're trying to take on a Mk 2 in air combat? What a fool you are!"

Naruto ignored the taunt and tried to get his RCLR to lock on to his opponent, who was buzzing around like a fly. (A/N note that Naruto only has one shoulder-mounted weapon atm.) In the meantime, he used his miniguns to try to take him down.

The leaders right arm weapon began to glow.

Fuck, plasma! Naruto cut his jetpack to drop under the shot. His enemy laughed and continued to fire blobs of molten energy at him. Naruto continued to dodge and return fire. After a full minute of this, he got an idea. He pretended to be out of ammo for his miniguns, and drew his sword. The bursts of plasma started to come a little faster, and were accompanied by a laugh from the other 'suits speakers. For one dodge, Naruto moved too much, and his sword flew out of his hand.

"I got you!" His opponent flew in and crashed into Naruto, grappling with him. He smirked. Naruto ripped off the enemy battlesuit's head, revealing the pilot, who ducked inside. He stuck one of his miniguns in the hole he created and pulled the trigger.

The bandit leader fell back to the ground and crashed. Naruto landed much more gracefully.

Many townsfolk made their way into the square. "Thank you so much," said the one in the lead, whom was presumed to be the mayor. Battlesuit K opened its chestplate, revealing Naruto, who wore a red bandanna to cover the lower half of his face. He jumped out of the battlesuit. Naruto was wearing his pilot's outfit—a black tank top-like chest protectore and flat black pants.

"No problem."

"Here is your promised payment." He was handed a small device. Naruto accessed it and looked at the amount of money coded into it. It was the amount that he had been told he'd receive.

"Thanks much, sir."

"We will call upon you again if we ever need your help, Red Hunter."

"I'd hope so." Naruto climbed back into Battlesuit K. Before the chest panel shut again, he waved. "Ciao."

Hope you enjoyed it! Mind telling me what you thought about it in a review? I hope you will!

'Till next time!