"OneShot" Wong

Just Won't Die Naruto



    Two combatants faced one another.
  They were standing in the middle of a the battle ground of a circular open-
roof stadium. Thousands of people were sitting in the stands, watching the two 
of them intently, awaiting for either one of them to make the next move.
  Both combatants were very young, somewhere in their early teens. Standing near 
them was an man wearing blue, the referee overseeing the match.
  One combatant wore a mostly-orange outfit and had spiked blond hair. He went 
by the name Naruto.
  The other was clad in an off-white outfit and wore what looked like bandages 
around his right arm and leg. He went by the name Neji.
  The one named Naruto looked badly hurt as he struggled to stay standing. 
  Naruto held his hands up by his face as if getting into a meditative pose.
  "I've hit all your Tenketsu points," Neji smirked, "You won't be able to use 
your chakra. It's useless,"
  If one looked at Naruto, it looked as if he was trying to gather ki and 
channel it through his body. In that world, chakra and ki was similar. Where 
chakra came from within, ki came from within and without. 
  "Why do you fight against your fate that hard?" Neji asked.
  "Because, you called me a drop out!" Naruto replied.
  "Ahhhhhh!!!!" Naruto let out a battle cry as he gathered as much energy into 
his body as possible,  An orange aura started to form around him, surrounding 
him and enveloping him. 
  The boy named Neji's eyes widened in absolute shock at what he was seeing. 
This was because he truly believed his opponent could no longer channel energy, 
him having struck Naruto's Tenketsu points which was used to channel energy in 
the first place.
  The referee standing near both boys took a step back, shocked at what the 
young boy was cable of.
  Dust flew everywhere as Naruto's body continued to absorb energy. Neji brought 
his arms up in front of himself to protect himself from the tiny rocks swirling 
about in that whirlwind of energy surrounding Naruto, unmoving as he continued 
to watch in surprise.
  All of a sudden, a bright light formed in front of Naruto. The light was so 
bright that everyone in the stands including the two combatants instinctively 
shielded their eyes from its brilliance.
  When the light disappeared, Ranma stood between both young combatants. It just 
so happened that that particular point in time was when Ranma appeared on that 
world. 
  "I have arrived!!!" Ranma shouted in triumph, throwing both hands up in the 
air.
  In one of his hands was the box that he had used to send him to this world. 
After having gotten rid of Happousai, sealing him up in a cave and placing wards 
on it that would prevent the lech from getting out, Ranma had made his way to 
Joketsuzoku where he retrieved the divine object that existed on that world for 
him to eventually find after the Nerima Massacre. Since the Nerima Massacre was 
never going to occur, that didn't mean Ranma shouldn't use the object to his 
advantage.
  At that very moment, he was very glad that the box had worked. Unfortunately 
for him, it didn't send him to the world he had expected, the world of 'Angels 
and Evangelions' as he liked to refer to it.
  There was a reason why Ranma had appeared at that world. It wasn't because the 
young boy had somehow summoned him there. It wasn't because the energy the boy 
was channeling had somehow drawn Ranma to that world. 
  It was because Ranma had forgotten something very important.
  He had forgotten that Urd, during the time she was God, as a preventative 
measure against someone causing Third Impact on that world and assuming the role 
of God and overthrowing her, had sealed up the 'World of Angels and 
Evangelions'. The pathway to that world no longer existed. No one can go to or 
leave that world, any versions of that world.
  No one had really paid much attention to her when she mentioned that, not even 
Ranma. 
  That was why Ranma was at that world, because the world he was trying to get 
to's path was sealed and Urd had, purely by random, created a path to this world 
instead in its place.  
  "Where the hell am I?" Ranma asked himself, looking around. 
  He noticed that there was a young boy in orange near him, sitting on the 
ground, staring up at him in shock. Ranma's entrance into the world had 
surprised Naruto so much that he stepped backwards and tripped over his own feet 
and fell down onto his backside.
  Ranma regarded Naruto for a moment, not recognizing him. Noticing the shocked 
look in the young boy's face, Ranma realized that Naruto must have seen his 
entrance into this world.
  "Sorry, kid, didn't mean to surprise you like that," Ranma smiled.
  He looked around curiously, wondering where he was. He ascertained that he was 
standing in the middle of some kind of stadium, as if he had appeared at the 
most inappropriate time, during some kind of event.
  He shrugged. It couldn't be helped.
  Looking around some more, he noticed Neji standing nearby, regarding him 
intently through pupil-less eyes. He noticed those bandages on the boy's right 
arm and leg. He wondered if that was some kind of fashion statement that boy was 
making but didn't think much about it. What was Ranma to say since he wore his 
hairstyle in a pig-tail.
  Ranma noticed that something seemed wrong, that he was not on the world where 
he had expected to appear. He could sense it. There was a feeling of ki floating 
about that was not all that evident in the other world.
  Sensing the ki all about, he looked toward the young boy.
  "You!" Ranma said in surprise, "You're the one that's generating all that ki!"
  Naruto said nothing, still in a state of shock.
  "Good job," Ranma smiled, proud of the kid. For a kid to be able to generate 
that much ki, he must be an extremely dedicated martial artist. 
  He liked the kid already. He liked anyone that was dedicated to martial arts. 
Actually, that was untrue. He didn't like Ryoga all that much and he was every 
bit as dedicated to martial arts as Ranma.
  "What form of summoning is this?" Ranma heard Neji said in surprise, standing 
in a very defensive stance, ready for anything.
  Naruto managed to gather his bearings. His eyes widened as he realized 
something, that he had somehow inadvertently summoned someone. 
  Quickly hopping to his feet, Naruto realized the battle was still going on.
  Naruto shouted toward Ranma while pointing toward Neji, "I'm your Master. I 
have summoned you here to do my bidding. I command you to defeat my opponent," 
  Ranma looked at Naruto, "Huh?"
  "I'm your master!" Naruto said, "I command you to defeat Neji,"
  Ranma looked at Naruto. He looked at the young boy Naruto was pointing to and 
then back at Naruto.
  Ranma burst out laughing, clutching at his stomach.
  "So funny!" Ranma continued laughing, "My sides hurt!"
  Naruto shouted toward the sky, "Argh! First that giant frog! Now this guy! How 
come no one wants to listen to me after I summon them?!"
  "What's going on here?" Ranma asked curiously, "Did I interrupt some kinda 
fight? If I did, I'm really sorry,"
  "Of course!" Naruto shouted, "We're in the middle of a fight! I summoned you 
to help me!"  Naruto had no idea how he had summoned Ranma but didn't want to 
look a gift horse in the mouth, "You're supposed to do as I tell you!"
  Ranma made a shooing motion toward Naruto, "Shoo. Shoo. Go away,"
  Neji smirked, "I have no idea you've managed to learn summoning techniques. It 
seems like I've underestimated you. Well, even though it seems like you can 
summon, it seems like you can control your summons," 
  Neji continued to smirk, making a quick gesture toward Ranma.
  Naruto turned around to look at Ranma and noticed Ranma was walking in the 
direction of a door that exited the stadium.
  "Ah!" Naruto shouted, running after Ranma, "Where do you think you're going!? 
I summoned you! You can't leave me hanging like that!"  
  Ranma turned around to face Naruto, "What the heck are you talking about, kid? 
You didn't summon me,"
  Naruto said, "My name's Naruto, not 'kid',"
  Ranma regarded the kid for a moment. 
  He started laughing as he rubbed the top of Naruto's head, "You're funny, kid. 
I mean, Naruto. I like you. Take care," 
  Ranma sensed several incoming projectiles aimed straight toward Naruto and 
caught it. 
  He glanced at Naruto and noticed he had his arms up protecting his face which 
made Ranma realize that the young boy seemed to be very skilled in martial arts 
to be able to notice the attack. Of course, it seemed like Naruto was too 
inexperienced to know how to react to it yet.
  Ranma looked down in his hands and realized he had caught three shurikens, all 
three thrown by Neji. He glanced toward Neji and noticed a determined look on 
his face. 
  Neji, having realized that Naruto had no control over his summons and decided 
he should end the match by attacking Naruto directly. However, he didn't expect 
the summon to protect Naruto.
  "It seems like your summons is willing to help you," Neji spat in annoyance. 
  He was using the Byakugan, a special technique from bloodline, that allowed 
him to observe the flow of energy coursing through Ranma's body.
  "Who is that guy that Naruto summoned?" Neji asked himself, noticing the 
outline of Ranma's body and the flow of energy going into Ranma. 
  From Neji's point of view, all he saw as an outline of Ranma's body. However, 
what he saw he couldn't understand. He had expected to see nothing more than an 
image of the 'charka' flowing through Ranma's body like that of a circulatory 
system. That was how everyone's chakra could be seen. Instead, Neji saw nothing 
but chakra. All he saw was an outline of Ranma's body filled with chakra, not a 
single indication of a system for it to flow through. It was as if there was no 
set path for the chakra to flow through Ranma's body.
  And what surprised Neji even more was that the chakra wasn't contained to just 
the outline of Ranma's body. He also saw chakra from everywhere as it seemed to 
flow into Ranma's body, as if the body was absorbing chakra.
  "Impossible!" Neji said. 
  How was that possible? Chakra came from within. From what he saw of Ranma, it 
seemed like it came from without. What really shocked him was that if that was 
true, then the person Naruto had summoned had an unlimited supply of chakra, 
able to absorb it from his surroundings instead of having to generate it from 
within.
  Neji's lips became a thin line. How was he to battle against someone who had 
an unlimited supply of chakra? 
  Although confident in his abilities, Neji wasn't an idiot. His skills lied in 
closing off chakra openings in a person's body and manipulating his person's 
chakra. How would he be able to battle someone who could generate chakra out of 
every portion of his body?
  Neji glanced toward the stands where he noticed someone looking every bit as 
shocked. There was a man in the audience that shared the same bloodline as Neji 
that was able to see the flow of chakra as well. Many audience members were 
staring at astonishment at the turn of events, shocked at how Naruto, a 
fledgling ninja, could use an advanced technique such as summoning.
  Ranma seemed oblivious to all of this.
  "Kids shouldn't play with sharp things," he tossed the three shurikens back 
and Neji, striking the ground by his feet. He didn't know if the young boy would 
be able to catch it but didn't want to risk finding out that he couldn't. He 
didn't want to accidentally hurt Neji.
  "Who are you?" Neji asked, wondering what kind of being Naruto had summoned, 
"I am Hyuuga Neji,"
  "Ranma Saotome," Ranma answered.
  "I don't wish to fight with you," Neji said, wondering if diplomacy would 
work, "I don't know how Naruto managed to summon you. My fight is with Naruto,"
  Neji noticed Ranma seemed to have no inclination to listening to Naruto's 
command. He knew something about summoning, that for a summoned entity to listen 
and follow a summoner's commands, the summoner himself needed to be strong 
enough to earn some for of respect so that the summoned would choose to follow 
orders.
   Ranma glanced toward Naruto and noticed the young boy was breathing heavily. 
He had no idea what Naruto had been through but had a funny feeling that he was 
the underdog in this fight. He had trouble remaining standing, his legs buckling 
as they struggled to keep Naruto standing.
  Naruto had expended so much chakra before that he was at the brink of 
exhaustion. He had wanted to summon his last remaining chakra to attack Neji 
all-out but had somehow wasted all of it summoning someone that didn't seem to 
want to help him out.
  "Help me," Naruto said in a weak voice.
  Ranma regarded the boy for a moment. There was something about Naruto he 
liked. He noticed the kid had a lot of spunk and heart. Heck, it was a surprise 
how someone in bad a shape as he was right now could remain standing.
  "Please," Naruto said, knowing that the person standing before him was his 
last trump card. 
  Ranma thought about it for a moment. He glanced toward Neji for a moment 
before turning back to Naruto.
  "Fine. I'll help out," Ranma smirked, "Only because I like you,"
  Ranma turned toward Neji, a smirk on his lips. He knew Neji was a powerful 
martial artist and was curious as to just how good a young boy like he could 
possibly be. He had no intention of hurting the boy. He would go easy on him.
  Ranma got into a battle stance. Behind him, the sound of Naruto could be heard 
as he fell to the ground, exhausted, unable to move, his body no longer able to 
listen to him.
  He made a gesture for Neji to attack him.
  "No hard feelings, kid, but it looks like I'm gonna be your opponent,"

  Unable to movie, Naruto looked up at the sky.
  "The winner, Uzumaki Naruto!" the referee called out loudly so that everyone 
in the stadium could hear, gesturing toward the unconscious Naruto lying in the 
middle of the field.
  Naruto was laying on his back, drifting in an out of unconsciousness. Because 
he was the last remaining fighter conscious in the battle, the win was his.
  The stadium broke out in cheer for Naruto, surprised at how an underdog like 
Naruto had managed to defeat a powerful opponent like Neji in battle. Naruto was 
considered the winner because, despite being unconscious, he had managed to use 
his greatest technique and summon Ranma to finish Neji off. 
  Extremely hard to control, summons were considered great 'weapons' should the 
summoner be able to control it. Because summons were considered a weapon in the 
battle, there were no objections to Ranma taking part in the fight. This was 
because everyone observing considered him a 'weapon' of Naruto's.
  Naruto tried to sit upright but was too hurt to do so. His body ached 
intensely and refused to move. He couldn't believe he was still conscious. Of 
course, he forced himself to remain conscious so that he would not lose the 
match. 
  Ranma walked up to where he lay and looked down at him, a smirk on his face.
  "Wow, you're still conscious," Ranma said, impressed, "You're one tough little 
kid, aren't ya,"
  Naruto glanced toward Ranma's arm where he saw an unconscious Neji tucked 
under it. Barely able to move, all Naruto could do was give Ranma a thumbs up 
and smile.
  Ranma smiled at Naruto before he turned his attention onto the referee that 
was standing nearby.
  "Is there a hospital around here?" he asked, "I'll take him there,"
  Ranma noticed that Naruto was hurt and figured he should help the kid out and 
bring him to a hospital or such. He was not a bad guy that he would leave some 
kid in need of medical help unattended.
  "Um, don't worry, I will take him to the infirmary," the referee said, 
offering to take Naruto for him. 
  "Here, you should just find this kid a bed," Ranma handed Neji to the referee, 
"He's not hurt but he won't be waking up for several hours. I put him to sleep,"
  "Okay," the man said.
  Ranma cast Neji a look of respect at how good a martial artist the young boy 
was as he watched the referee carry both Neji and Naruto off the open field.
  Neji had managed to surprise him, dodging several of his half-heart attempts 
at attacking him. Before long, Ranma got bored and used some of his real speed 
to get in close enough to press Neji's sleep pressure points and end the match 
peacefully.
  "What did I popped in on?" Ranma asked the referee, glancing around at the 
silent spectators in the stands. They were all talking to one another as they 
tried to figure out what had just happened.
  "The Chuunin selection tournament," the man answered, "It's a tournament to 
decide which Genin participants will become given the rank of Chuunin,"
  "Chuunin? Genin?" Ranma asked, "Whatever. I don't really care. It's none of my 
business," Handing the sleeping Neji to the referee, Ranma added, "This Neji 
kid's pretty good. He's got a lot of potential to become an excellent martial 
artist. I dunno about Naruto because I didn't see him fight but it seems like 
he's got potential to,"
  "Who are you?" the referee asked, "I'm aware of summonings, but I've never 
ever seen humans summoned before,"
  Ranma asked, "How come you keep thinking I was summoned here? I'm not some 
kind Angel or nothing,"
  "Angel?" the man asked.
  "Nevermind," he said, "Anyway, where am I? I don't recognize this place,"
  "This is Hidden Leaf Village," the referee said, "You're in the Fight 
Stadium,"
  Ranma muttered, "Gee, that sure helps. Say, you wouldn't happen to know where 
I can find this thing called the nanban mirror, would you?"
  The man shook his head, "I've never heard of it before,"
  Ranma sighed. How come he wasn't surprised? Things always seemed to work out 
that way. How come things couldn't turn out nice and easy? Why couldn't it be 
something like 'Yes, you can buy one at the convenience store down the street'?
  Not knowing if the nanban mirror existed on that world, and that perhaps the 
guy before him simply wasn't aware of its existence, perhaps he needed to know 
the right people to ask.
  "Do you know of anybody that might know?" Ranma asked, "You not knowing 
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Perhaps you can suggest someone to me that might 
know,"
  The man said, "Well, the Hokage might be able to answer your question,"
  "Who's the Hokage?" Ranma asked.
  The man made a gesture toward an old man sitting in a chair in the middle of a 
large booth located about the stands. The booth looked like it was for important 
people because it gave the best vantage point for observing whatever events that 
took place in the stadium.
  "Thanks, I'll go ask him," Ranma said.
  Not knowing anything about the Hokage and that there have been many rivaling 
villages that wanted to have the Hokage assassinated, Ranma jumping toward the 
booth where the Hokage was seemed like a hostile move.
  Just as Ranma had managed to step into the booth via front opening overlooking 
the entire stadium, several puffs of smoke suddenly appeared from out of nowhere 
surrounding Ranma.
  "What the?" Ranma asked.
  All of a sudden, shadows appeared from out of the smoke as they dashed at him, 
and grabbed Ranma, tackling him to the ground. Rolling around a few times, Ranma 
suddenly found himself lying flat on stomach in a prostrated position.
  There were nine people kneeling over him. Two held his wrists, two held his 
elbows, two held his shoulders, two held his ankles, and two held his thighs. 
Ranma noticed that eight of them were dressed in dark clothes and wore animal 
masks. The ninth one didn't wear masks. He had thick eyebrows and a black bowl-
cut hairstyle.
  "Kinda going overboard, aren't we?" Ranma smirked.
  "Who are you?" the ninja with the bowl-cut asked, "We don't take kindly to 
assassination attempts,"
  "Please, let me go," Ranma said politely, "This is all a misunderstanding. I 
also don't like being in the prostrated position,"  
  "Who are you?" the guy asked again.
  "Let me go," Ranma found himself getting angry, "I'll ask nicely one more 
time,"
  "Let him go," came a voice.
  Ranma suddenly felt all the hands release their hold on him.
  He got up to his feet as he dusted his clothes. Looking up, he found himself 
looking toward an old man sitting in a chair in front of him. The old man was 
the Hokage that the referee had gestured to before.
  "Your minions seem to jump to conclusions pretty quickly," Ranma said, "I 
wasn't here to assassinate you,"
  "Minions?" the bowl-cut man said, "You think someone as cool as myself, the 
amazing Gai am not a minion? That's amusing,"
  "Who are you?" the Hokage asked, his voice clam but cautious.
  Ranma glanced in the direction of the man sitting next to the Hokage. He 
noticed the man was dressed in similar fashion as the old man but his face was 
covered by a veil, only his eyes visible. 
  They made a brief moment of eye contact.
  "How do you do?" Ranma nodded toward the man. 
  The man said nothing, turning his gaze away to look forward and out the booth 
and down toward the stadium below.
  "Not all that talkative, huh?" Ranma said, turning his gaze back toward the 
Hokage, "Anyway, I'm not here to assassinate you if that's what you're worried 
about. I'd just like to ask for your help,"
  "Help?" the Hokage asked.
  "Yeah," he said, "I was wondering if you know of this thing called the nanban 
mirror,"
  "Nanban mirror?" the Hokage asked, "I've never heard of it before,"
  "It might not be called that around here," Ranma said, "It's this small hand-

held mirror that allows you to teleport anywhere you want. All you need is a 
teardrop to activate it,"
  The Hokage looked at Ranma for a moment but shook his head, "I'm sorry, but 
I've never heard of something like that before. I've never even heard of an 
object that exists that would do something like that,"
  Ranma regarded the old man for a moment, looking into his eyes.
  "Well, it seems like you're telling the truth," Ranma said, sighing, "Damn,"
  "Are you in trouble or something?" the Hokage asked.
  "Nah," Ranma shook his head, "At least not yet. Would you happen to know of a 
way to open up portals?"
  "Portals?" the Hokage asked, "Well, there might be a place where you can check 
out,"
  "Really? Where? What place?" Ranma seemed hopeful.
  "There's a village called the Hidden Mist Village located east of here, in the 
Wave Country," the Hokage said, "The Wave Country is a tiny island. The only way 
you can get there is by crossing The Great Naruto Bridge,"
  "The Great Naruto Bridge?" Ranma asked, "Does it have anything to do with that 
boy named Naruto?"
  "The bridge was named by a man named Tazuna," the Hokage continued, "He built 
it to connected The Wave Country with the mainland. Naruto was one of the 
members of the team that saw to it that the bridge was built,"
  "What about this village you speak of?" Ranma asked.
  The Hokage said, "There's an information guild located in that village where 
you might be able to find out what you need to know. The village specializes in 
exports and imports so many people from all over the mainland visit that 
village. It is the best place to go to get some information,"
  "An information guild, huh?" Ranma said, "You think they might know?"
  The Hokage shook his head, "There is no telling. However, I believe it's a 
good place to start,"
  Ranma smiled, "Thanks. I really appreciate it,"
  The Hokage regarded Ranma intently.
  "What?" Ranma asked, "Do I have something on my face?"
  "You are unlike any kind of summon I have ever seen," the Hokage said, "You 
seem to stay around far longer than need be. You have defeated Naruto's opponent 
for him and I figure you would have gone back,"
  "Gone back?" Ranma asked, "Gone back where?"
  "Back you your realm," the Hokage state.
  "Why do you think I'm looking for the nanban mirror?" Ranma asked, "So I can 
go back home. And what makes you think I'm some kind of summon?" 
  "That's interesting," the Hokage stated, "You can be summoned to this world 
but you can't go back? I never knew something like this could happen,"
  Ranma scratched his head, "How come I have the funny feeling we're speaking on 
two different wavelengths? I'm not a summon or familiar or minion that that 
little Naruto conjured. It's purely coincidental,"
  "Most interesting," the man with the bowl-cut that called himself Gai had 
said, "He doesn't realize he's a summon,"
  "Argh!" Ranma threw his hands up in the air, in annoyance, "You know what? I 
don't care. I don't need to prove nothing to no one,"
  The sudden movement made everyone standing around think it was a hostile 
movement toward the Hokage. They quickly bumrushed Ranma, intent on taking him 
down and preventing him from attacking the Hokage.
  Instantly, Ranma was wrestled to the ground.
  "Goddamn, I'm not an assassin!!" Ranma said, finding himself prostrated on the 
floor once again, "If you minions think I'm some kinda goddamn summons that 
Naruto conjured, then why do you think I'm an assassin as well?!"
  Annoyed, Ranma rolled around while on the floor, throwing off everyone trying 
to hold him down. With a quick rising whirlwind rising kick, he swept all but 
one of his opponents off their feet, sending them falling down on to floor.
  The one that managed to dodge his rising kick was the bowl-haired guy that 
wasn't wearing an animal mask like all the others.
  "It seems like you're better than the others," Ranma smirked.
  "Of course," the man laughed, "A simple attack like that would not be 
effective in someone like myself, the amazing Gai as everyone refers to me,"   
  Ranma regarded the man with the bowl-cut that had called himself Gai.
  "Enough," came the Hokage's voice, "Gai, stand down,"
  Gai could be seen gritting his teeth before straighten up and bowing toward 
the Hokage and stepping off to the side.
  Ranma smirked.
  "I apologize for the Anbu and Gai," the Hokage said, "I sense no hostile 
intentions coming from you. A person of your character can't possibly be an 
assassin," 
  The Anbu were the term used when referring to those eight people wearing the 
animal masks.  
  Ranma dusted himself again as he got back up to his feet, "It's okay. It's all 
a misunderstanding. People do do that from time to time, jump to conclusions. 
However, that's strike two for the gang. If they do it a third time, I will 
fight back,"
  He said that in a very calm and collected voice. He said so matter-of-factly, 
in a tone someone would say when giving the weather.
  "Heh, 'do do'," Ranma snickered at the word. Unfortunately, him doing so 
basically messed up whatever 'cool' factor there was in him basically warning 
everyone that he would fight back.
  Ranma bowed politely toward the Hokage, "Thanks for the information. I'm gonna 
get going now. It was nice meeting you,"
  "Would you like to stay and watch?" the Hokage asked, "I believe you might 
find it entertaining,"
  "Stay and watch what?" Ranma asked.
  "The Chuunin Selection Tournament," the Hokage answered, "It is a tournament 
where Genins fight one another to see whether or not they can move up to the 
rank of Chuunin,"
  "It's like that Naruto and Neji fight?" Ranma asked.
  The Hokage nodded.
  Ranma thought about it for a moment, scratching his chin.
  After a minute of contemplating, he then shrugged.
  He might as well. He had just arrived on this world and he was in no rush to 
get home. It wasn't as if time was against him. Sure, he was starting to feel a 
bit homesick and kind of wanted to go home, that that didn't mean he couldn't 
stay around and see how this world worked for a bit.
  "Okay, I'll stay and watch,"
  "What's going on? Hurry up and start the next mach!"
  "How long are you going to keep us waiting?"
  "We want to see the next match start!"
  Those were some of the chants Ranma was hearing as he was walking down a 
corridor that lead to the stands. Not allowed to observe from the booth, he had 
to watch the tournament from the stands like everyone else.
  Stepping through the opening, Ranma saw several young boys and a young girl 
standing by a railing of a balcony that overlooked the stadium grounds. Their 
backs were toward him, everyone completely unaware of him.
  Looking over to the left, he saw a pair of stairs that led down which seemed 
to lead to the stadium grounds. To the right, Ranma noticed a pathway that led 
to the stands where the audience sat.
  "Ah, these kids are the combatants," Ranma said to himself, noticing that they 
all seemed to be the same age as those Naruto and Neji boys.
  He regarded the group of kids for a moment. They all looked like extraordinary 
children, possessing the potential to become extraordinary adults.
  "That boy's got power," Ranma said to himself as he looked over toward a red-
haired boy that seemed to be carrying a very large gourd slung over his back. 
The boy Ranma was referring to was a boy named Gaara.
  "Whoever his opponent is, if they're equal in skill, that's gonna be an 
interesting fight to watch," Ranma smirked.  He looked down the row of children 
standing about and became very surprised 
when he saw Naruto standing among the group. His clothes were dirty and a bit 
torn and there were scrapes on his body as he leaned against the railing. 
Ranma couldn't help but feel quite a bit of respect for the boy. He figured the 
boy had gotten so hurt he would be recovering in the infirmary. For him to be up 
and about meant he was one tenacious kid.
  "He must have a high constitution to be up and about so soon," Ranma 
commented.
  Naruto was having a conversation with a boy his age with his hair done up and 
back and into a point. 
  The boy Naruto was talking to was a boy named Shikamaru. He was a boy that had 
a very unique ability where he could manipulate his own shadow. If his shadow 
ever managed to make in contact with another person's shadow, it gave him the 
ability to control his opponent.
  "What the heck is that Sasuke doing?" Shikamaru was in the middle of the 
conversation, "Is he planning on not showing up?"
  "Whatcha talking about?" Naruto replied, "He's definitely going to come,"
  "Ahhhh!!" Ranma shouted at Naruto.
  Naruto shouted out in shock, startled out of his wits. He quickly turned 
around and took a step backwards instinctively. Unfortunately for him, he was up 
against a railing when he did so and ended up tipping backwards over it.
  "Oopsie," Ranma chuckled, reaching out and grabbing one of Naruto's arms 
before he fell down off the balcony and all the way down onto the stadium 
grounds. Although Ranma had no idea how tough Naruto was, he didn't want to risk 
the boy getting hurt from the fall.
  "You!" Naruto shouted out as he found himself staring up at Ranma as Ranma 
held him over the railing, using his free arm to point. He had never suspected 
to see Ranma around. He figured Ranma had gone to say something to the Hokage 
and then went back to his own realm like all summons did after their job was 
done.
  Ranma grinned, "Yep, we meet again. Heh, I find it funny how you can be 
expected to fight against someone like that Neji person when you leave yourself 
so open that I can sneak up on you so easily,"
  He pulled Naruto up onto the balcony as Naruto glared at him.
  "Who's this?" the boy next to Naruto asked. After a moment, the boy recognized 
Ranma, "Hey, he's that person you summoned, isn't he?"
  "I'm Ranma," Ranma introduced himself.
  "I'm Shikamaru," the boy said.
  " Nice t'meetcha," Ranma said, nodding toward the young boy in 
acknowledgement. He noticed the boy seemed to have a good head on his shoulders 
and seemed very observant, a person that would eventually be a good leader.
  Shikamaru said, "You're a really good fighter. I saw you take down Neji like 
he was nothing,"
  Ranma shrugged, "That Neji kid's pretty good. He impressed me with a few 
moves. I didn't expect him to be able to dodge a few of my moves, even if I did 
execute 'em half-assed,"
  "You move faster than anything I've ever seen," Shikamaru said.
  "Heh, if you think that's fast..." Ranma didn't bother finish the sentence.
  "Ladies and Gentlemen," everyone heard the referee in the middle of the 
stadium make an announcement, "The contestant for the next match has arrived 
yet! Therefore, we will push this match back and begin with the next one!"
  The crowd in the stands started booing.
  "What's going on?" Ranma asked.
  Naruto said, "I'm not too sure. It seems like Sasuke's match against Gaara was 
pushed back,"
  "Sasuke? Gaara?" Ranma asked.
  Shikamaru jerked a thumb toward the young boy with the red hair that had a 
large gourd strapped around his back, "That's Gaara over there. He's a pretty 
scary guy. Sasuke is a very skilled fighter who knows the Sharingan, a technique 
that allows him to see all forms of attack and gives him an edge,"
  "And now, the next match!" everyone heard someone say over a speaker system, 
"Kankuro and Aburame Shino! Come Down!"
  Ranma looked around the group of kids, wondering which one was which.
  "I forfeit," one of the boys standing near Ranma said. The boy had something 
that looked a bit like a life sized puppet strapped to his back that was wrapped 
in bandages.
  Glancing over, Ranma noticed a boy with fuzzy hair wearing shade whose face 
was partially covered by the collar of the jacket he wore. By the look of the 
way he seemed a bit relieve made Ranma realize that that boy must've been the 
other combatant.
  "You hear that?" Naruto turned toward the fuzzy haired boy, glad for him, "You 
win. Kankuro just forfeited. Aren't you happy?"
  "Ecstatic," the boy said in a soft voice, giving off no indication that he was 
happy or sad about the quick outcome of the fight. His voice seemed dripping 
with both sarcasm and relief, if that was at all possible.
  All of a sudden, a young blond hair girl standing near Ranma opened up a giant 
fan. She hopped off the balcony and rode on top of the fan as it floated down to 
the middle of the stadium field.
  Ranma regarded her, as she glanced up in his general direction, her gaze 
straight toward the boy named Shikamaru.
  "Aw man! Why do I hafta fight a girl?" Shikamaru muttered under his breath.
  "All right, Shikamaru, go for it!" Naruto cheered for the boy, giving him a 
shove, shoving him a bit too hard, sending him tipping over the railing and 
falling down to the ground down below.
  Ranma reached out to grab at Shikamaru but was too late. He watched as the 
young boy fell down and landed on his back.
  "Ouch," Ranma smirked, "That looked like it hurt,"
  Ranma watched as Shikamaru got up and glared at Naruto before reluctantly 
walking toward the center of the battle field to face his opponent, the girl 
with a giant fan.
  "What's Shikamaru's skill?" Ranma asked, "It seems like that girl seems to 
have a skill with that giant fan. Does Shikamaru have a special skill as well?"
  Naruto said, "He has The Shadow Binding technique. It a technique where he 
uses his shadow to capture yours. If that happens, he can control you for a 
short period of time,"
  Ranma whistled, eager to see how the fight would turn out.
  "Wow, impressive. I never knew a technique like that ever existed. I hope I 
get to see it in action,"
  "I dunno what that fan girl can do," Naruto added, "I assume it probably using 
that fan of hers. She knows about Shikamaru's shadow technique so she'll be on 
the lookout for it,"
  Ranma smirked.
  "This is going to be interesting,"

  "Hey, how does Shikamaru manipulate his shadow like that?" Ranma asked Naruto, 
finding it rather amusing and weird that he was asking a young boy how fighting 
techniques worked. It should be the other way around.
  Ranma had been watching Shikamaru go about trying to use his shadow to capture 
his opponent's shadow. He noticed that the shadow that the young boy could 
manipulate only moved at a certain speed and could not twist and turn all that 
sharply. The girl with the large fan seemed to be good at dodging and avoiding 
it.
  Naruto turned away from the action, "He uses his chakra to control it,"
  "Chakra? What's that?" Ranma asked, "It sounds like a kind of dance,"
  "It's not a dance!" Naruto shouted at him.
  "What the heck is it?" Ranma asked, "Do you know what it is?"
  Naruto laughed, "Of course I know what chakra is," 
  Ranma smirked, "So what is it?"
  He found it rather amusing that Naruto seemed to firmly believe he had 
summoned him and continued to believe that Ranma was there to serve him.
  Naruto scratched his head as he tried to think of a good way of describing it.
  Ranma burst out laughing, "You don't know,"
  "It's....it has something to do with your body," Naruto said.
  "Wow, that's a pretty detailed explanation, thanks," Ranma said sarcastically.
  "Let me finish," Naruto said, "It's internal energy. You can use 
chakra for anything, like walking on water and making yourself stronger and 
faster and such,"
  Ranma scratched his chin, "Sounds a lot like what you're describing is ki,"
  "It isn't ki," Naruto said, "Chakra your produce from within your body while 
ki comes from outside your body where you take it in. Here, let me show you,"
  Naruto, healed of having his Tenketsu points pressed and once again able to 
produce chakra again, held his hands in front of him in an almost meditative 
pose.

  "Ahhh!!!" Naruto said.
  Ranma's eyes widened as he sensed great energy seeping out from Naruto's body. 
It had a lot of raw power to it that seemed to lack precision. It was the same 
kind of power Ranma had when he was young, pure power with little precision.
  It wasn't until after Ranma had lost his friends and family did Ranma work at 
controlling his ki with razor-sharp precision.
  After a second, Naruto, too spent from his battle with Neji, stopped trying to 
generate chakra, breathing labored.
  Ranma regarded Naruto in surprise. It seemed like Naruto knew something about 
ki. Most boys his age had no idea what ki was or how it worked. Naruto's skill 
was far beyond the knowledge of martial arts of normal boys his age. 
  "Very impressive, very impressive indeed," Ranma smiled admirably, "Actually, 
from the way it sounds and looks, it seems like you simply give ki a different 
name in this world. Ki can and does come from within as well as without. Ki and 
chakra are one in the same,"
  "No," Naruto said, "It's called chakra. Ki is something different,"
  "No it isn't!"
  "Yes, it is!"
  "No it isn't!"
  Ranma regarded Naruto for a moment before shrugged, "All right. Whatever you 
say. It bothers me none if you call ki coming from within the body something 
else,"
  "Ah!" Naruto shouted, his attention elsewhere, "He's got her!"
  "What?" Ranma looked toward where Naruto was looking.
  Looking down at the stadium field, Ranma noticed that Shikamaru seemed to have 
managed to use his shadow to capture the girl's own shadow and now had control 
over her body.
  "How the hell did he do that?" Ranma asked, scratching his head.
  "I don't know," Naruto answered, "Because I was too busy talking to you, I 
missed it,"
  The boy standing on the other side of Naruto, the one with the shades, said, 
"Shikamaru managed to use the shadow of the girl's fan to alter the direction of 
his own shadow,"
  Ranma thought about it for a moment and then suddenly realized what must had 
happened. Shikamaru seemed to have goaded the girl into throwing her fan, timing 
it perfectly so that his manipulate shadow would pass underneath the thrown fan 
as it flew toward him. When it touched the shadow of the fan, he was able to use 
it as a pivot point for his shadow to make a sharp turn to capture the girl's 
own shadow.
  "Wow, that kid's got a good sense of strategy," Ranma said, impressed with the 
kids of this world. Neji, Naruto, and now Shikamaru, all only children, 
displayed great potential as martial artists.
  They all watched intently as Shikamaru and the girl walked toward one another, 
moving in a mirror image of one another.
  "Ah, the opponent's body mimics Shikamaru's body," Ranma said, "That's means 
there's a weakness to that technique. He can't hurt his opponent without hurting 
himself. He throws a punch, his opponent will throw a mirror image of the same 
punch. Then again..."
  "It's more of a binding technique," Naruto said, "There are ways around it 
like having a throwing weapon in your hand when you bind your opponent. That 
way, you can throw your weapon while your opponent throws nothing since there's 
nothing in his or her hands,"
  Ranma smiled as he said, "That's just what I was about to say,"
  They all watched intently to see what would happen next.
  "I give up," Shikamaru suddenly said. 
  "What?!?!" everyone gasped.
  Ranma smirked, liking Shikamaru even more. It seemed like winning a battle 
wasn't all that important to him. Winning wasn't everything, a mentality that 
children didn't realize until adulthood. Heck, Ranma didn't start thinking like 
that until he was an adult.
  "Definitely leadership," Ranma said to himself, referring to what Shikamaru 
would be good at. He noticed the young boy had good sense of strategy and 
mentality for leadership.
  "Winner, Temari!" the referee said, gesturing toward the surprise girl. Temari 
was the girl's name.
  The crowd burst into cheer. While they had been eager to watch the fight 
between two different combatants, the match between Shikamaru and the Temari had 
been a very good one.
  "Why did he give up?!" Naruto said to himself, climbing over the railing to 
talk to Shikamaru, "This pisses me off. I'm gonna go give him a lecture,"
  Running up to Shikamaru, he shouted, "Idiot!"
  "Shut up, you super idiot," Shikamaru retorted.
The girl walked over to where Ranma and the others were and jumped up onto the 
balcony, impressing Ranma with her jumping skills.
  Ranma snorted as he heard the boys shout at one another, throwing insults 
toward each other. It seemed Naruto was annoyed that Shikamaru had given up and 
had wanted to see him beat that fan girl up.
  Glancing toward where the girl was as he stood by that red-haired boy with the 
gourd, he decided he should congratulate her. She was a very skilled fighter and 
it looked like the battle could have gone either way.
  "Hey," Ranma was, "You're Temari, right?"
  The girl turned her attention toward Ranma. She blushed at the sudden sight of 
the handsome young man standing before her. He looked like he was sixteen, only 
slightly older than her and had this aura of confidence to him.
  "Um, yes," she responded, regarding Ranma for a moment.
  She recognized him as that fighter Naruto had summoned that had easily 
defeated  Neji. She knew Neji was a very powerful opponent and to have seen 
Ranma defeat him so easily meant Ranma must be significantly stronger. She 
didn't get a good look at what Ranma looked like when he was fighting Neji and 
never realized how cute Ranma was up close.
  "I just wanted to say good job," he smiled warmly, "You did really well,"
  "Um, thanks," she said, still blushing.
  Ranma noticed the red-haired boy glaring toward him with malicious eyes. There 
was definitely evil intent in the boy's eyes. Ranma could sense it, like the boy 
wanted to attack him for no apparent reason.
  Ranma smiled, "You're Gaara, right? I'm Ranma. You sure look eager to beat 
someone up, huh?"
  "You'll be next after I'm done with my next opponent," the boy replied in a 
cold voice, "I look forward to killing you and proving my existence,"
  "Is that a threat?" Ranma's voice became cold, "I don't like being 
threatened,"
  Gaara smirked, not one bit intimidated.
  Ranma glared at the boy for a moment before he shrugged.
  The red-haired boy named Gaara snorted in contempt toward Ranma as he turned 
his gaze back toward the stadium grounds where Naruto and Shikamaru continued to 
argue.
  Ranma turned toward the girl whom seemed to still be staring at him. She 
turned her gaze away when she realized she was staring. She was surprised that 
Ranma didn't seem one bit intimidated by Gaara. There was a pervasive aura of 
malice to the boy that everyone around Gaara could sense. Did Ranma sense it as 
well and not care?
  "You're a really good fighter," Ranma said to her, "Congratulations on your 
win,"
  "Um, thanks," was all she said.
  He walked off to stand of by where he was before.
  "Who fights next?" Ranma asked the fuzzy haired boy wearing the shades.
  As if on cue, a whirlwind seemed to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the 
stadium grounds, picking up leave and dirt and swirling about. It continued to 
swirl for a minute before the winds causing it suddenly died down, leaving 
behind two individuals standing where the swirling leaves once were.
  "Ooh, what an entrance," Ranma whistled, impressed.
  He regarded the two individuals, noticing one of them was an adult and one a 
young boy. The adult had white hair and had one eye covered by the bandana her 
wore. The boy had short spiky hair and a cool demeanor to him.
  Noticing how the boy with the gourd strapped around his back, Gaara, became 
suddenly excited, Ranma ascertained that the boy down below must be his 
opponent, Sasuke.
  Sensing great power from the boy named Gaara as he walked off to go meet his 
opponent on the battle field, Ranma wondered how powerful the boy down below, 
Sasuke, was.   If Sasuke was as strong as Gaara, it was going to be a great 
fight.
  
  


<new stuff>


  Ranma approached the man that came up the stairs. He was curious as to who 
that man was. He had been accompanying the young boy, Sasuke, when they appeared 
in the middle of the battlefield in that whirlwind.
  "Hi, I'm Ranma," Ranma smiled as he introduced himself.
  "I'm Kakashi," the man said. He had been on his way up the stairs to go to the 
booth where the Hokage was to talk to him about Sasuke and apologize for showing 
up late with him. Afterall, the match had to be pushed back until now because 
they were late.
  The two of them regarded one another. 
  Ranma noticed there was an air of mysteriousness to Kakashi. He was curious as 
to why one of his eyes was covered up by that bandana he wore. It sure looked 
cool the way he wore it. He could sense a great amount to fighting skill from 
the man, far greater than that of Naruto. It led him to believe that he must be 
some sort of sensei that taught martial arts to the children. 
  "So, you're Ranma," Kakashi said.
  "You know me?" Ranma asked, surprised.
  "I heard Naruto somehow summoned you," Kakashi said, "I wasn't around to see, 
but I heard you defeated Neji quite easily. Neji is a very talented young 
fighter,"
  Naruto smiled happily, "He's my minion!"
  Kakashi chuckled as Ranma just glared at the boy. It seemed like Ranma wanted 
to argue but found it fruitless to argue against a young boy since it would 
eventually turn into a 'Am not!' and 'Are, too!' match. Win an argument like 
that against a young boy would never happen.
  "Well, it was nice meeting you," Kakashi said, "I must meet with someone,"
  "All right," Ranma said, "Likewise,"
  Ranma eagerly stood by and watched as the two boys faced one another. 
  "So, this match is gonna be between Sasuke and Gaara? That kid with the gourd, 
Gaara, I can tell is really strong for his age," Ranma stated.
  He snorted in annoyance, "Yeah, that's Sasuke and Gaara. The whole crowd seems 
to be here to see them fight. Frankly, I dunno what's so special about it.,"
  "Lemme see for myself," Ranma said.
  The match between Sasuke and Gaara started. The two of them quit their 
conversing to watch intently. Ranma noticed that sand seemed to come out of the 
gourd that Gaara carried and surround him, leaving Ranma to believe that it 
might act as some kind of protective barrier. When Sasuke threw a few throwing 
stars toward Gaara and the sand suddenly formed a clone of Gaara and caught the 
projectiles, it confirmed Ranma's assumption.
  "Hm, it seems like that Gaara controls sand," Ranma said, "That's a mighty 
interesting skill. Does it take a lot outta him to manipulate sand? It seems to 
take a lot outta Shikamaru to manipulate his shadow. Does the same apply for 
sand?"
  Naruto said, "No. The sand moves on its own. Gaara doesn't really have control 
over the sand. It constantly protects him whether he likes it or not,"
  He remembered seeing how the sand moved around at protecting him during a 
previous battle against a young boy named Rock Lee.
  "Hm, interesting," Ranma said, wondering what Sasuke was going to do. 
  The two of them watched as Sasuke dashed in, intent on attacking Gaara head 
out. Ranma smirked, realizing that Sasuke seemed a bit like himself, preferring 
the straight-forward approach.
  Ranma found himself a bit surprised as he saw the barrier of sand form around 
Gaara to protect him, and Sasuke suddenly change his approach, quickly circling 
around his opponent and attacked him from behind.
  Gaara was sent flying through the air where he ended up sliding to a halt a 
short distance away from where he had been standing.
  "Hm, that Sasuke kid's pretty quick," Ranma stated, realizing Sasuke's plan. 
  With a single glance, Ranma noticed Sasuke was trying to goad the barrier of 
sand into thinking he was going to attack and committing itself to blocking the 
attack, leaving opening in the barrier for Gaara to be attacked from a different 
directly.
  He watched as Sasuke did that again, dashing in as if to attack head-on once 
again, quickly changing directions and attacking Gaara from behind as the 
barrier of sand committed itself to protecting Gaara in the front. 
  "It seems like the same trick doesn't work," Ranma smirked, noticing the sand 
quickly shifting itself to form a barrier around Gaara's back.
  That seemed to have been Sasuke's expectation as he shifted direction again, 
circling around his opponent and attacking him from the front now.
  Ranma couldn't help but get excited, "This is so exciting!"
  It was definitely a high-level fight. He found himself being reminding of the 
kinds of fights he and Ryoga used to get into when he was young and that got him 
a bit pumped up. It was natural, being a guy and all. Whenever a guy saw two 
people fighting, they couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement.
  Also, Gaara had rubbed him the wrong way with that threat and he wanted to see 
him get beaten up. Sure, Ranma himself would probably not do so but he had no 
objections about seeing someone else do it for him.
  Never really having seen two people fight, usually the one actually doing the 
fighting instead of watching, Ranma was completely unaware that his battle aura 
was starting to flare.
  Everyone in the balcony turned their gaze away from the battle down below and 
looked toward Ranma as he watched the battle. They all looked shock at the sight 
of seeing a person's battle aura. Ki was swirling around Ranma, visible to the 
human eye.
  To everyone, Ranma looked like Naruto when Naruto was forcing himself to 
produce chakra. Only Naruto had managed to somehow produce chakra that was 
visible and Naruto had no idea exactly how he did it. Seeing Ranma doing it at a 
subconscious level made Ranma seem all the more powerful. Afterall, Naruto had 
to really push himself to produce visible chakra, and that was only because his 
back was to the wall and he had nothing else to lose. Ranma, on the other hand, 
seemed to be producing it simply from being excited watching the battle.
  Ranma sensed everyone staring at him and looked at them.
  "What?" he asked, his aura dissipating and disappearing.
  "W-what was that aura surrounding you?" Naruto stammered, asking the same 
question everyone else wanted to ask.
  Ranma said, "Oh, you saw that? Sorry, I didn't realize I was getting so 
excited about the match that my battle aura started flaring up,"
  "Battle aura?" Naruto asked.
  "Y'know, Ki," Ranma said, "Or as you put it, chakra. Sometimes, if I get 
excited or pissed or whatever, my aura starts flaring up and my ki becomes 
visible,"
  None of the children said anything.
  Ranma turned his gaze back onto the battle, not wanting to miss anything. When 
he looked, he noticed that both combatants had stopped what they were doing and 
were staring right up at him. It seemed like they had seen Ranma's aura coming 
from the balcony and had been curious as to what it was.
  Looking around, he realized that the entire stadium was looking at him. Never 
having seen such a display of power, no one really knew how to react but stare 
in surprise. It was very much like how everyone found themselves staring at 
Naruto when he did something similar when he was fighting against Neji. 
  Only because of Ranma's appearance did people seem to have forgotten what 
Naruto had done. 
  "Sorry, I didn't mean to distract everyone," Ranma gave a meek laugh, "It 
won't happen again,"
  A sound could be heard coming from the field. 
  Looking down, everyone noticed Sasuke flying through the air where he slammed 
against the wall on one end of the field. It seemed like Gaara, while very 
curious about what had just happened, didn't let it distract him, and seized the 
opportunity and attacked Sasuke.
  Everyone caught a glimpse of Gaara. One of his hands was extended in the 
direction of Sasuke as sand could be seen flowing toward him and surrounding him 
after it had formed into and been used as super-long stabbing weapon.
  Ranma looked over toward where Sasuke was and noticed a large quantity of 
blood flowing from the young boy's right shoulder, seeping out from between his 
fingers as he clutched at the wound with his working arm.
  "Oh oh, I think it's my fault that this happened," Ranma said to himself, 
believing he had accidentally distracted Sasuke long enough that Gaara could 
capitalize on it and seriously hurt him.
  Ranma felt very bad about himself as he watched Sasuke struggled to get up, 
clutching at his shoulder, his face contorted in pain. He coughed a few times, 
bringing some blood up with it.
  It seems the match is over, Ranma thought. There's no way that Sasuke can 
continue on with a wound like that. If he does try to continue on, he'll be at a 
serious disadvantage since his right arm's now useless.
  Ranma watched in concern as Sasuke struggled to run away, still clutching at 
his shoulder as a wave of sand chased after him, trying to stab at him. When 
Ranma saw Sasuke get stabbed through one of his legs and go tumbling onto the 
ground, he turned toward Naruto.
  "Hey, someone should stop the match," Ranma said, "He's gonna get killed at 
this rate,"
  He looked down and noticed Naruto watching the match intently, his knuckles 
white as he gripped the railing tightly. Seeing so made Ranma realize that 
Naruto didn't want this to happen, that it seemed like he was secretly rooting 
for Sasuke and didn't like how the match was turning out.
  Glancing over toward the referee overseeing the match, he noticed the man made 
no effort to stop it, not even after Sasuke got stabbed through the left 
shoulder and found himself lying limply on the ground in a puddle of blood.
  "Hey, what is this?" Ranma asked Naruto, noticing Sasuke struggling to get 
back up to his feet, as if to continue on fighting until he died, "Is this some 
kinda fight-to-the-death kinda fight? That Gaara kid is murdering Sasuke,"
  He watched in horror as Sasuke was stabbed again by Gaara's sand, the sand 
shooting out dagger-like protrusions from it and striking Sasuke as he tried to 
stagger away, this time stabbing through his other leg. 
  "Hey!" Ranma shouted out toward the referee, "What the hell are you waiting 
for?! Stop the goddamn match!"
  The referee seemed to notice that Sasuke was completely outmatched. He made a 
motion toward Gaara to prevent him from continuing his offense toward Sasuke 
anymore. Unfortunately, Gaara seemed to have other plans as he used his sand to 
attack at the referee, using it to stab at him in similar fashion as he had done 
so toward Sasuke. 
  The referee skillfully dodged the attacks but was forced to back flip several 
times to a safe distance away from the boy. With the referee unable to do 
anything to stop Gaara, Ranma realized Gaara had a perfect opportunity of 
killing his opponent, no one between him and his wounded opponent.
  "Oh shit!" Ranma said, sensing the killing intent coming from the red-haired 
boy, "He's gonna kill him!"
  Without hesitation, Ranma hopped onto the railing, and angled his body toward 
an open location between Gaara and the wounded Sasuke. Kicking out with great 
force and bend the railing backwards, Ranma flew through the air and came to a 
sliding halt right in front of Gaara.
  "Enough!" Ranma said, "The match is over!"
  He didn't care what he was interrupting. He didn't care if this was a life-or-
death match. There was no way he would stay idle while someone murdered someone 
else. While having seen his fair share of death and suffering, he didn't condone 
death upon everyone.
  Gaara didn't seem one bit interested in listening to Ranma's plea. Instead, he 
responded by having the sand surrounding him stab at Ranma. Unlike Sasuke or the 
referee, Ranma didn't one bit worried about the amount of damage it could cause 
to the human body should he get stabbed.
  Instead, he just remained in a fixed location, dodging rather effortlessly 
every single attack. As he did so, the entire audience stood up and watched the 
sudden turn of event. The match had already been decided, Gaara being the 
winner, so Ranma no longer worried about his interference disqualifying Sasuke.
  Gaara could be seen getting frustrated as Ranma seemed to effortlessly dodge 
all his attacks. Although he didn't make any motions aside from just standing 
still and basically Willing the sand to do his bidding, his face showed signs of 
annoyance that his attacks seemed useless against the new arrival.
  "Bakusai Tenketsu Revised!!!" Ranma shouted, jamming a finger into the ground.
  All of a sudden, the ground below Gaara exploded upward. The rocky shrapnel 
struck Gaara and sent him flying upward, a look of surprise on his face. Luckily 
for him, the sand stopped attacking Ranma and retreated back where Gaara would 
land and created a cushion to soften his fall, catching him and allowing him to 
land on his feet.
  "No hard feelings, kid," Ranma said, a bit regretful of having to attack a 
young boy. He told himself that the ends justified the means. If he needed to 
hurt someone to save someone, he would not hesitate.
  He regarded Gaara and noticed that portions of his face was cracked, as if he 
had a porcelain facemask on that just got chipped. Bits and pieces of it fell 
off to reveal some flesh underneath for a moment before the cracks sealed 
themselves up. The chipped pieces could be seen landing by Gaara's feet, 
dissolving into sand and being assimilated with the sand surrounding the boy.
  Ranma smirked as he saw this.
  Hm, it seems like that Gaara kid has some kinda thin layer of armor made of 
sand covering him at all times, Ranma thought. I guess I hadn't noticed it 
before when Sasuke hit him because I was too far away while watching the fight.
  Ranma gazed in the direction of the booth where the Hokage was, wondering what 
was taking so long for him to send someone to the battlefield to halt the match. 
Glancing back in the direction of Sasuke, he saw Kakashi kneeling over Sasuke's 
wounded body.
  It seems like I'm not the only one that realizes the match has gone too far, 
Ranma thought.
  Ranma relaxed as he turned toward Gaara. He looked a bit surprised when he 
noticed Gaara clutching at his head like he was having a massive headache.
  "Hey, you all right?" Ranma asked, wondering if it was his fault the young boy 
seemed to be in pain. 
  Ranma wasn't aware that the excitement of the of fighting extremely powerful 
opponents made Gaara become more and more bloodthirsty. A boy that lived a 
painful past, he believed that the only way to prove to himself that he still 
existed was to battle and kill. The thought of killing someone strong like Ranma 
made his blood boil with excitement and him unstable.
  Unexpectedly, Gaara suddenly surrounded himself with sand, enveloping himself 
in a sphere-like cocoon around eight feet in diameter.
  "Whoa? What the heck's he doing?" Ranma asked, scratching his head. Seeing 
about how one person could manipulate his shadow to control his opponents, Ranma 
knew he had to be cautious about the unexpected. Who knew what kind of 
techniques this Gaara boy had?
  More curious than cautious, Ranma walked over to the sphere, taking care not 
to get too close.
  "Whoa, this kinda reminds me of when I fought with Saffron when I was young," 
Ranma said to himself. He remember how Saffron took on the form of an egg to 
transform himself into a much more powerful form.
  Taking a cautious step forward and closer to the sphere, dagger-like 
protrusions shot out from the sphere in an attempt to stab Ranma. Instinctively, 
Ranma reacted quickly enough to jump back out of the way, landing a safe 
distance away.
  "Proximity," Ranma said to himself, "It seems like the sphere of sand only 
attacks if you get within a certain range,"
  Not really wanting to mess around with the sphere, looking as if he had 
suddenly lost interest in what it was, Ranma turned around and began walking 
toward where Sasuke was as he struggled to stand back up.
  Kakashi was kneeling over him trying to prevent him from hurting himself more 
trying to get back up.
  "You're pushing yourself too much," Kakashi said.
  "N-no, I-I'm not through yet," Sasuke gritted his teeth. Before he managed to 
get back to his feet, he fell back down, both his wounded legs unable to support 
his bodyweight.
  Ranma walked up to Sasuke.
  "You should rest," Ranma said to Sasuke.
  The boy looked toward Ranma. His eyes widened as he recognized him as the 
person whom he had seen with the flaring aura. That had distracted him just long 
enough that he Gaara was able to capitalize on it and land wound him.
  Sasuke let out an annoyed breath, angry at himself. How could he had gotten 
distracted enough to let Gaara hit him? He didn't even get the chance to try out 
the new special technique Kakashi had taught him on his opponent either.
  Naruto could bee seen running up to the three of them.
  "You're all beat up, Sasuke," Naruto said, smirking, "It seems like you 
weren't strong enough to defeat Gaara,"
  "Hmph," Sasuke snorted derisively, trying to get up again, much to no avail.
  Ranma regarded the young boy and his wounds. No vital areas had been struck so 
he would be fine given some rest. He might have some scars from the battle but 
that would be about it. He had received no wounds that would be debilitating to 
him later on in life.
  "We better get you to an infirmary," Kakashi said, throwing Sasuke's left arm 
over him and helping him up. He didn't want to carry him because it would make 
Sasuke look pathetic in front of the observing crowd, to be carried out of the 
battle field like an invalid.
  Ranma jerked a thumb toward the sphere of sand, "I dunno what that Gaara kid's 
doing, but I'm sensing some wickedly serious vibe coming from that ball over 
there. Hey, get away from there!"
  Naruto, out of curiosity, had approached the sphere of sand. When he got in 
too close, it started attacking him in a similar fashion as Ranma. Luckily, 
Naruto managed to dodge most of the attacks, only receiving some glancing blows 
that caused only superficial cuts before he quickly ran away to a safe location.
  "Moron," Ranma snickered, wondering why Naruto approached it when he must have 
seen Ranma do the same thing and get attacked for doing so moments before. It 
was as if Naruto wanted to find out for himself that he would get attacked 
instead of believing what he had seen.
  When he saw Naruto picking up rocks and throwing it at the sphere, Ranma 
started laughing, very amused with how Naruto reacted to the situation.
  He has the right idea, Ranma thought with a bemused smile. That's probably 
something I would've done as well.
  "Whoa!" Ranma said in shock when he saw Naruto shout something out and 
suddenly replicate himself. 
  Ranma found himself starting at four exact copies of Naruto as all four of 
them went about picking up and throwing rocks at the sphere. And what really 
surprised Ranma as that he couldn't tell which one was the real Naruto. Heck, he 
couldn't tell if all four were the real ones or one was real and the other three 
mere clones.
  "Naruto, quit it," Kakashi said, "Leave it, whatever it is, alone,"
  Suddenly, a loud explosion could be heard coming from the stands. All of them 
turned their gaze toward the noise. Looking at the stands, they noticed that 
everyone in the stands were fast asleep.
  "What the?" Ranma said, the first to notice something was out of the ordinary. 
He cast a glance up toward the booth where the Hokage was and noticed several 
shadows dancing about, crossing paths in the stands as a battle erupted 
throughout the stands. He noticed that there were several guys wearing animal 
masks fighting one another.
  "Whoa, what's going on here?" Ranma asked. 
  Kakashi seemed to have realized that something big was going down, turning his 
attention toward Naruto. The first thing that entered his mind was that it was 
an assassination attempt on the Hokage, meaning he needed to take action 
immediately but not while he had his hands full with Sasuke.
  "Naruto," Kakashi gently placed Sasuke back down on the ground, "Watch over 
Sasuke! Get him out of here and to safety!"
  "W-what's going on here?" Naruto asked, noticing that something was wrong. 
Sasuke looked like he was about to ask the same question as well.
  "Go!!" Kakashi said in a loud and commanding voice.
  "O-okay," Naruto said, doing as he was told. Now was not the time to ask 
questions.
  He reluctantly slipped himself under Sasuke's left arm and helped him to his 
feet. Together, they slowly made their way for a door located near the back of 
the stadium grounds that lead directly outside the stadium.
  He had no idea what was going on but believed that he should offer some form 
of help where it was needed. It dawned on him why all those people in the animal 
masks seemed to have mistaken Ranma for an assassin, because assassination 
attempts on the Hokage were common. Perhaps an assassination attempt on the 
Hokage was happening this very moment.
  "You need help?" Ranma felt like he should offer.
  Ranma found himself talking thin air for Kakashi was no longer there, having 
set off to tend to the anarchy that had erupted in the stands. Whatever it was, 
it got all the Anbu, the people in the animal masks, all riled up because they 
seemed to be all fighting one another.
  Ranma just stood there scratching his head for a moment, wondering what he 
should do. 
  After a moment of contemplation, he decided that he should watch over Naruto 
and Sasuke. He felt partially responsible about the condition Sasuke was in and 
wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to him should he need someone to watch 
over him. Sure, Naruto might be competent enough to see to Sasuke's safety but 
Ranma had no idea the extent of Naruto's abilities.
  Wanting to following after Naruto, Ranma accidentally ran in too close to the 
sphere of sand for it stabbed at him countless times. Luckily, Ranma dodged the 
attacks without much effort.
  "Jeez," Ranma said in annoyance, glaring at the sphere.
  He decided to kick a few rocks in its direction, the rocks bouncing off 
easily, before dismissing the sphere of sand and its purpose and heading off 
after Naruto. 
  Ranma caught up to Naruto as he nearly half-dragged Sasuke away from the 
stadium in no time.
  Because of Sasuke's injuries, it made it really difficult to get away from the 
stadium quickly. Also, the fact that Sasuke seemed to be fighting against 
receiving Naruto's help also made running away all the slower.
  Naruto and Sasuke were making their way down a street heading in a random 
direction away from the stadium. They had no idea where they were going but 
there had heard what Kakashi had told them, to get out away from where they were 
and to safety. 
  Although they wanted to ask him what had happened back at the stadium they 
knew that it was best to do as they were told and not ask questions.
  "Hey," Ranma said as he caught up to them.
  "Ranma!" Naruto seemed relieved to see him.
  "I figure I'd come an watch over you," he stated. He didn't bother to mention 
that he also felt like he should be obligated to help out since it was probably  
his fault Sasuke was in the shape he was in anyway.
  Ranma smirked for a moment. If he did take Sasuke, Naruto's belief that Ranma 
was summoned by him and was therefore his minion would be further reinforced. Of 
course, now was not the time to try and convince him otherwise.
  Sasuke regarded Ranma curiously. He didn't know what to make of Ranma.
  Ranma looked to be a little bit older that him and Naruto seemed to know him. 
He had heard that he was summoned by Naruto and had defeated Neji without 
getting touched. 
  "Hey, what's that?" Naruto shouted, dropping Sasuke to the ground so he could 
point.
  Ranma glanced in the direction Naruto was pointing. Because they weren't all 
that far away from the stadium, they were able to see what looked like a 
transparent barrier that was the shape of a large cube rising up into the sky 
over a building attached to the stadium. The building itself happened to be the 
building that contained the booth where the Hokage sat.
  Ranma squinted as he could see four individuals standing by each corner of the 
barrier. He surmised that it they were somehow the ones putting up the barrier.
  "Hm, I wonder what that's for," Ranma asked himself.
  "Hey! That's the Hokage in there!" Naruto said, pointing toward an individual 
standing inside that cube barrier. 
  Ranma recognized the attire the Hokage wore. He noticed the Hokage was facing 
someone wearing similar attire. He noticed that the guy the Hokage was facing 
had been the person sitting in the seat next to him in the booth.
  "You're right," Ranma answered, "That is the Hokage,"
  It seemed like his assumption was right, that it was an assassination attempt 
on the Hokage. He surmised that the barrier was there to prevent anyone from 
coming to his rescue so that the person within the barrier would be able to 
fight the Hokage uninterrupted.
  "Looks like they're gonna fight," Naruto said.
  "That's Orochimaru!!!" Sasuke shouted, becoming visibly furious as he 
recognized the individual facing the Hokage.
  "What?!?" Naruto's eyes widened in shock.
  "Who's Orochimaru?" Ranma asked, "He must be a bad guy. I mean, really, with a 
name like that, you hafta be a bad guy,"
  Naruto and Sasuke said nothing. There was a 'cool' factor to Ranma because he 
seemed to possess immense power, but it seemed like it was cancelled out by the 
'weird' factor he had just gotten with a statement like that.
  He caught sight of Sasuke as he seemed to be struggling on his own as he tried 
to walk back toward the stadium with two wounded legs. 
  "Where do you think you're going?" Naruto asked.
  Sasuke ignored the question, too busy concentrating at fighting back the pain 
as he tried to make his way toward the stadium.
  Ranma smirked, impressed at Sasuke's tenacity and resilience.
  "It seems like Sasuke has some beef with this Orochimaru dude, huh?" Ranma 
asked toward Naruto.
  Naruto nodded. He headed over to Sasuke and shouted at him, "You can't fight 
in this condition,"
  "Shut up, Naruto," Sasuke sneered, his voice full of annoyance, "I don't need 
you telling me what I can or can't do,"
  "Hey, who's this Orochimaru guy?" Ranma asked, curious. 
  "He's a bad person!" was all Naruto could come up with.
  Looking back toward the stadium, Ranma said, "So you think he's up to no good? 
If that's him up there on top of the stadium building with the Hokage, perhaps 
he's here to kill him,"
  "We hafta save the Hokage!" Naruto shouted, "He needs our help!"
  "Like he needs someone like you helping him," Sasuke snorted.
  "Like you're any better!" Naruto countered.
  Ranma laughed. From his brief encounter with the Hokage, Ranma had ascertained 
that he was perhaps the strongest person since his arrival on this world. The 
thought of Naruto thinking the Hokage needed his help was rather amusing. But 
then again, one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. A single individual can 
change the course of history and perhaps save the world. Afterall, Ranma had 
done so on several occasions.
  "Let's go help the Hokage out!" Naruto shouted.
  Ranma jerked a thumb toward Sasuke, "Didn't that Kakashi person tell you to 
watch over Sasuke a minute ago?"
  Naruto was gone.
  Ranma sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He glanced down toward Sasuke 
as Sasuke gazed up at him, regarding him intently, not really knowing what to 
make of Ranma.
  Offering a hand to Sasuke, "Take my hand. I'll get you away from here,"
  He should see to it that Sasuke be safe. Afterall, for all he knew, Sasuke 
could be a special boy that that Orochimaru would take hostage should he have 
the chance. Perhaps that was why Kakashi wanted to make sure someone watched 
over him.
  Sasuke regarded Ranma for a moment before he reached out and took Ranma's 
hand. This surprised Ranma because Sasuke seemed like one of those strong, 
silent types, wanting help from no one because it looked like a sign of 
weakness.
  "Who are you?" Sasuke asked.
  "My name's Ranma," Ranma answered.
  "Did Naruto really summon you?" Sasuke asked, his voice dripping with 
skepticism. He didn't know much about summonings, only having read about it in 
books. Also, didn't summonings only hold true to animals?
   Ranma shrugged.
   He didn't care if people believed him or not. He had tried a few times to 
convince people that he wasn't summoned here but they didn't seem to listen. He 
found it easier to just go drop the subject right on the spot.
  "Sorry you got hurt," Ranma stated, "I feel it was my fault that this happened 
to you. I must've accidentally distracted you when I got excited,"
  Sasuke snorted in annoyance, more toward himself than anyone else. He couldn't 
believe he really did get distracted like that. It was because the aura he saw 
looked very much like the aura he had seen Kakashi form in his hands when he was 
trying to show him a technique to learn specifically for his battle against 
Gaara.
  "You think Naruto will be okay?" Ranma asked.
  Sasuke didn't bother answering, which lead Ranma to believe that the boy could 
take care of himself.
  Ranma glanced toward the outskirts of the city where he caught sight of a 
giant three headed monster that looked a bit like a three-headed hydra. It was 
gigantic, standing probably taller than a hundred feet as it went about 
attacking random buildings located around the barrier wall surrounding the 
entire Hidden Leaf Village.
  "Whoa," Ranma said, pointing, "Check that out,"
  Sasuke looked toward where Ranma was pointing and had a look of surprise on 
his face, "What's going on here?"
  Ranma laughed, "You tell me. I dunno anything about this village. Does this 
village have enemies like other villages or monsters? It seems like this village 
is either being attacked by a monster or being invaded and that's a form of ruse 
to draw people's attention,"
  The hydra, Ranma assumed, was most likely a ruse. It seemed like there was an 
assassination attempt on the Hokage at this very moment and the hydra was 
attacking to draw attention away from the assassination attempt.
  "I have to go warn someone!" Sasuke tried to get to his feet, falling down 
when the pain prevented him. Ranma caught him by his good arm and threw it over 
his shoulder to keep him standing.
  "You ain't going no where," Ranma said, smirking, "You're in no condition to 
help anyone. I'm sure that someone will get word out that this village is being 
attacked,"
  Sasuke wrested his arm away from Ranma and staggered to the ground, feeling 
the need to do something, anything.
  "See? You're in no mood to go anywhere," Ranma said, a bit stoic, "You're too 
hurt to do anything. We need to get you away from here, away from all the 
trouble. I'm here to help you but how do you expect me to help you if you don't 
want any help?"
  "I don't need help from anyone," Sasuke snapped.
  Ranma shrugged. He watched as Sasuke continued to force himself back to his 
feet, much to no avail once again. He wanted to help Sasuke out but it seemed 
like Sasuke was stubborn in thinking he didn't need help. Believing the best way 
to learn was the hard way, Ranma decided to let Sasuke figure it out himself, 
that he was in no condition to continue fighting against his wounds and try and 
move.
  "You're gonna cause damage to yourself at this rate," Ranma said, crossing his 
arms in front of his chest, "The wounds you suffered are very bad, but not 
deadly. You're gonna permanently debilitate yourself if you keep forcing your 
body well beyond what it can do,"
  "Ahhhhhh!!!" came a screaming voice.
  Ranma and Sasuke gazed in the direction of the stadium as one side of it 
collapsed outward as if something very large inside crashed against the wall, 
massive clouds of dust picked up from it and covering the area. They saw Naruto 
running straight toward them, a terrified look on his face as if he was running 
for his life
  When the dust cleared up, Ranma and Sasuke found themselves looking at a giant 
four-legged monster with a huge bushy tail that was probably just as large as 
that serpent wrecking havoc to the outskirts of the village behind them as it 
seemed to chase after Naruto. 
  The monster looked a lot like a giant badger that was covered with tattoo-like 
scribbles marking its entire body, even its tail.
  His eyes widened when he recognized a figure whose lower body seemed to be a 
part of the monster, embedded in the monster's forehead. It was Gaara. Little 
did Ranma know that he was looking at the legendary demon monster, Shuukaku, a 
monster living within Gaara all this time, finally set free when Gaara had 
cocooned himself in that sphere of sand around ten minutes.
  "Whoa, that Gaara kid transformed into that?!" Ranma gasped, instantly 
reminded of his encounter with a child-like Saffron assuming the form of an egg 
and emerging as a full-grown adult version of himself. Remembering that made 
Ranma believe that Gaara seemed to have undergone a similar process, 
transforming into something more powerful and sinister.
  "Well, at least now we know what Naruto's running away from," Ranma smirked, 
feeling the ground shake with very stepped the monster took. He couldn't help 
but feel his heart race, him having not gone up against giant monsters of that 
caliber before. 
  When he realized Naruto was running straight toward them, he turned toward 
Sasuke, "Still don't want my help?"
  Sasuke seemed to be at a loss of words.
  "I'll take that as a yes," Ranma said.
  He quickly picked up Sasuke in his arms, Sasuke wincing in pain from being 
handled so roughly. Ranma didn't really care, confident that Sasuke could 
withstand a bit of pain. When Naruto ran right by him, he quickly took off after 
Naruto as the monster chased after them.
  "What the hell didja do?" Ranma asked Naruto as they ran down the street, the 
monster closely behind. Although the monster was gigantic and was able to cover 
entire city blocks with a single step a terrified Naruto sprinting for his life 
was no slow-poke. Unfortunately, the monster was easily catch up to Naruto.
  Ranma, able to sprint much faster than that, kept easy pace with Naruto.
  "I did nothing!!!!" Naruto shouted, believing he was at fault for the sudden 
appearance of the monster, "Really!!! All I did was throw a few rocks at that 
sphere Gaara was in as I was running by it and that monster suddenly appeared 
out of it!!!!"
  "So it is your fault," Ranma said, smirking.
  "I didn't know something like that was gonna happen!!!" Naruto shouted.
  Ranma grabbed Naruto, tucking him under and arm and leapt away as a giant paw 
came crashing down upon where they were running. Naruto and Sasuke found 
themselves staring up at Ranma in shock as Ranma ran down the street, the 
monster continuing its chase. He took off in a massive sprint, taking a lead 
over the monster to create some distance between them.
  "Yep, it's definitely trying to kill you or us," Ranma ascertained. He didn't 
want to jump to conclusions about the monster's temperament. For all he knew, it 
could have been a giant pet wanting to greet Naruto. However, realizing that it 
seemed evident it was trying to attack them and kill them, Ranma could take 
actions.
  Ranma came to a sliding halt, turning around to face the monster.
  He dropped Naruto and Sasuke on the ground.
  "Naruto! Take Sasuke and run!" Ranma shouted toward them.
  Naruto was wide-eyed as he just stared up at Ranma, a look of fear on his 
face.
  "Now!!!" Ranma shouted.
  Naruto nodded, not wanting to ask questions. He quickly turned toward Sasuke, 
noticing the shocked look in the boy's face. He quickly grabbed Sasuke, throwing 
him over his shoulder, not caring one bit how rough he was being toward him, 
before taking off in a mad sprint away from the chasing monster.
  Naruto stole a glance backward to see Ranma's back as he stood defiantly to 
take on the giant monster, glowing blue as his battle aura flared brilliantly, 
an arm extended forward in the direction of the monster, hand wide open.
  He sensed a great burst of energy coming from Ranma as he saw a massive ki-
blast shoot out from Ranma's extended hand, the ki-blast sailing right by the 
giant monster's right shoulder, arcing upward before it disappeared beyond the 
clouds high above.
   The monster came to a skidding halt, surprised at that magnificent display of 
power. 
  As Naruto continued to glance backward, he was shocked at what he had seen but 
didn't stop running.
  "What the heck was that?!"  






<new stuff 12/18>








  Ranma realized he had gotten the monster's attention.
  "C'mon, catch me if you can," Ranma turned around, heading off in a different 
direction, away from where Naruto and Sasuke were heading. 
  He wanted to lead the monster away from the two children.
  Gazing in the direction of the giant three-headed serpent attacking the 
outskirts of the city, he smirked, coming up with a plan.
  Ranma took off in a sprint in the direction of the serpent, smiling as he 
noticed giant badger-like creature chasing after him.
  The monster's speed was very impressive as Ranma found himself jumping as the 
monster swiped at him with claw-like paws, craters being formed on the ground 
from the impact. 
  "Man, I hope this works," Ranma said, a bit worried.
  In front of him was giant serpent with three heads as it proceeded to destroy 
buildings. Ninja's could be seen jumping between buildings in what looked like a 
dance as they threw shurikens at the monster, their projectiles doing no damage 
to it as they seemed to bounce of the monster's thick, scaly skin. 
  Behind him was the giant badger-like monster hell-bent on killing him, 
continuously swiping at him, missing him all the while as Ranma timed his jumps 
perfect to dodge all incoming attacks while on the run.
  Ranma ran right up to the serpent and made a sharp right turn when he got 
close enough to actually touch the scaly underside of the serpent. 
  The badger-like monster ended up crashing right into the three-headed serpent, 
hitting it such force that the both of them ended up tumbling over and over 
themselves, rolling right through and destroy several building in the process 
where it crashed into the large wall that surrounded the village. The wall that 
surrounded the village protected it from the wild animals that inhabited the 
dense forest area located just outside that wall as well as acted as a giant 
gate to prevent an invasion. It was stood around a hundred feet tall, every bit 
as tall as the monsters, and were extremely thick, around ten feet thick, all of 
it made of stone. However, despite how strong the wall was, it was nothing 
against the impact of both monsters crashing into it.
  A large portion of the wall toppled over as both monsters crashed against it, 
thousands of bits and pieces of rocks shooting out like shrapnel as the monsters 
broke right through it. 
  Both monsters came to a sliding halt several hundred feet outside the village 
where they crashed against the side of a mountain, a gigantic pathway created 
from all those trees that were destroyed leading from the broken wall all the 
way to where both monsters now lay.
  Wanting to get a good vantage point of what was happening, he triangle jumped 
against several buildings that lined the wall and landed on the top of the 
walls, landing right by the gaping hole the monsters had created when it crashed 
against it and broken through.
  "All right!" Ranma said, throwing an arm up in triumph as he saw both monsters 
suddenly start fighting one another, clawing and biting at each other like 
mortal enemies, destroying massive amounts of forestation as trees were 
destroyed and flattened beneath their enormous bodies.
  He noticed several people figures standing by him on the wall as well. He 
recognized them as those that had been attacking the serpent with shurikens when 
he came sprinting down the street straight toward it.
  "Pretty smart, huh?" Ranma smirked, referring to himself and that rather 
ingenious plan of his to manipulating two monsters into fighting themselves. The 
way the thought about it, why bother defeating opponents using brute strength 
when it was much easier doing so using the mind.
  "Who are you?" one of the ninja's asked. Because it was their jobs to patrol 
the village wall, they never saw Ranma in the stadium and weren't aware of him.
  "Um, a friend I guess," Ranma gave a smile.
  Ranma watched as the guy he was talking to was instantly vaporized as a large 
ball of fire engulf him and a portion of the wall he was standing on. Although 
he hadn't been standing all that close, extreme heat could be felt as the 
fireball shot right by him.
  "Whoa!" Ranma said, turning his gaze in the direction where the projectile had 
come from. He found himself surprised that the three-headed serpent was no more, 
torn to pieces by the badger-like monster within seconds. Blood from the dead 
monster could be seen trickling down the pathway like that of a river.
  He found himself staring at the monster as it stared back at him from several 
hundred feet away. He watched as the monster's belly suddenly expanded as if it 
was taking in a deep breath.
  "Holy shit!" Ranma shouted, jumping off the wall as several massive fireballs 
incinerated the area of the wall where he had been standing and other portions 
of the wall, incinerating the half dozen hapless ninjas and the portion of the 
wall they were standing on in their wake.
  Falling down the hundred or so foot drop, Ranma landed softly on his feet and 
gazed in the direction of the monster, only to see several more fireballs 
rocketing toward him and other portions of the wall to finish off the remaining 
ninjas.
  Knowing that the fireball was way to large to dodge, Ranma did the next best 
thing, shooting a ki-blast directly at the projectile. When both projectiles 
struck one another, a massive explosion erupted, massive winds being produced 
from it, sending Ranma flying bodily backward where he skillfully flipped in the 
air and landed on his feet around twenty feet back from where he stood.
  "Ha!! You suck!!" Ranma shouted, almost laughing, caught up in the thrill of 
the life-and-death situation. 
  He saw the monster taking in a deep breath.
  "Oh shit!" Ranma turned around and started running away, narrowly missed by a 
fireball as it missed him and incinerated several hapless building directly in 
its path.
  "I've got to do something or the village's gonna be destroyed," Ranma said to 
himself.
  He quickly triangle jumped of a couple buildings still intact and landed on a 
still-standing portion of the wall. Realizing that he needed to do something 
fast or risk even more damage to the city, he extended his hand toward the 
monster.
  "No hard feelings, but you gotta go down," Ranma said, realizing the monster 
taking another deep breath to let loose another volley of projectiles, "But you 
need to go down now!"
  Ranma let lose several massive ki-blasts in quick successions from his 
extended hand, striking the monster in the chest area. The first blast knocked 
the monster back, stunning it. The second one ended up forcing the monster's 
front legs off the ground. The third and forth ones ended up knocking the 
monster back further on its hind legs where it ended up falling backwards onto 
its back.
  "Suck on that!" Ranma cheered. The cheer didn't last long as the monster 
quickly twisted on the ground and got back on its feet and fired off a volley of 
fireballs in Ranma's general direction.
  Once again, Ranma dove off the wall and back down to the ground again as the 
fireballs narrowly missed him. Unfortunately, it seemed like the monster was 
rather smart as it anticipated him doing so, aiming a fireball right at the spot 
where Ranma would land before Ranma had even jumped off the wall.
  Ranma was struck hard by the last blast, not incinerated simply because he saw 
it coming and realized he could do nothing but bracing himself for a world of 
hurt, instinctively shooting a ki-blast right into the fireball as it nearly 
enveloped him.
  The explosion of the ki-blast and the fireball sent Ranma spinning 
uncontrollably through the air in a wide arc across the sky where he crashed 
against the middle of a street located several block within the village, 
bouncing off the ground where he slammed against a pole and through it before 
coming to a stop after smashing through a store's front window and crashing into 
the back wall of a store.
  Ranma found himself dizzy from spinning around through the air like that as he 
looked around, trying to get his bearing, trying to figure out where he was. His 
head hurt and his body ached but he was otherwise okay. It felt like he had been 
punched square in the face by a really pissed off Ryoga. 
  "Goddamn monster," Ranma muttered, spitting out some blood.
  He quickly got to his feet and made his way out of the store via the broken 
front window. Upon stepping out, he caught sight of the monster making its way 
into the village via the broken down wall.
  "Damn, that thing's tough," Ranma stated, wondering what the monster's weak 
spot was. It had taken four very powerful ki-blasts right in the chest and 
seemed to continue on as if unfazed.
  "Hm," Ranma wondered, "I guess it couldn't hurt to try,"
  Ranma pointed his hands toward the monster as it came running down the street, 
shooting a ki-blast right between and past its two front place and hitting the 
area between its hind legs, its private area. Ranma had always wondered if 
animals could become easily as incapacitated getting hit in that area as humans 
could. The blast did nothing more than cause the monster to fall down to the 
ground for a second before it proceeded down the street again. 
  "Well, I guess that answers my question," Ranma said, quickly jumping out of 
the way as the monster shot out a fireball toward him. Ranma found himself 
starting to get annoyed about being shot it. He didn't like being shot at.
  Quickly leaping out of the projectiles way, Ranma landing inn the middle of 
the street where he proceeded to jam his fingers several times into the ground, 
shouting "Bakusai Tenketsu Revised!" over and over again.
  Down the street, the ground below the monster erupted upwards. Due to the 
monster's thick hide, it seemed more of an irritant than anything else.
  Realizing that that technique didn't seem all that useful against a monster 
that large in size, Ranma found himself ducking for cover as the monster shout 
another fireball toward him, incinerating the building which he had emerged from 
before.
  "Goddamn!!" Ranma started getting pissed, "Quit shooting fireballs at me! How 
would you goddamn like it if I did it to you!!"
  Ranma held his hand forward and shot out a few good  ki-blasts right at the 
monster, hitting it mostly in the chest area, sending it backwards where it fell 
onto its back as if it had been shoved, not struck. 
  "Damn, this things really freaking tough," Ranma said, watching as the monster 
started getting back up once again, knocking down several buildings as its 
appendages and arms flailed about to get itself back on its feet.
  "Man, I wish I had a Utility Belt and some kind anti-monster pills," Ranma 
smirked.
  He laughed at his own joke but stopped all of a sudden when he caught sight of 
Naruto. The young boy was standing on a building overlooking the giant monster 
as it proceeded to get back on its feet.
  "Oh, that kid's crazy," Ranma said, realizing exactly what Naruto was about to 
do.
  Ranma watched in surprise as he didn't see one Naruto hop off the building and 
landed on the monster's head, but several dozen, jumping off landing on the 
monster in rapid succession as if in a single-file line. Before long, there were 
several dozen Naruto on top of the monster.
  "Man, that kid's sure got guts" Ranma smirked, "All right, that sounds like a 
plan,"
  Ranma ran forward to join him as the monster was momentarily distracted as it 
whirled around, shaking itself loose of its hitchhikers. Most of the Naruto 
were thrown off quite easily, disappearing in a puff of smoke when they hit the 
ground and the sides of nearby buildings that were still standing but some held 
on fast.
  Leaping high in the air, Ranma landed on the monster's shoulder and quickly 
climbed his way to the top of the head. There, he saw several Naruto clinging 
onto the monster's back as if his life depended on it as it continued to shake 
around.
  Ranma made his way to one of the Naruto. While not all that worried about the 
fact that he was standing on top of a giant monster, Ranma took care to stay low 
to lower his center of gravity to give himself better balance. 
  "You guys are crazy! Didja know that?" Ranma found himself shouting over the 
sounds of buildings being destroyed as the monster continued to shake violently.
  He noticed that Naruto seemed to be breathing very heavily, as if creating all 
those Replicants of himself had taken quite a bit out of him. Then again, 
considering he had been fighting Neji not even a half hour ago and had to 
basically carry Sasuke to safety, it was understandable that he was tired.
  "What are you talking about?" one of the Naruto's answered, "You're right up 
here with us!"
  "My reason is that I have complete disregard over a thing called self-
preservation," Ranma grinned, "What's your excuse?"  
  "Because, the real me isn't here!" that Naruto answered, freeing one hand and 
pointing in the direction of a nearby building where a lone figure was standing, 
watching everything.
  Because he released one hand to point, he ended up getting thrown off the 
monster where he slammed against the building, disappearing in a puff of smoke. 
Ranma couldn't help but feel very relieved when he realized that these were all 
clones, cannon fodder so to speak.
  Glancing in the direction of the building, he noticed another huge batch of 
Naruto jumping off and landing on the monster, raining down upon it by the 
dozens.
  "What the hell's he doing?" Ranma asked, contemplating jumping up to ask 
Naruto that question face-to-face, "Isn't he gonna burn that chakra thing of his 
out if he continues doing that?"
  Ranma suddenly found himself thrown off the monster's back and falling down to 
the ground below, suddenly feeling an immense weight press down upon him as the 
monster rolled on its back, rolling on top of Ranma in the process before he 
could react and jump out of the way. Ranma had been to distracted wondering what 
Naruto was up to jump away until it was too late.
  When the monster rolled itself all the way around and back onto its feet and 
off of him, Ranma found himself staring up at the belly of the monster as it 
stood above him, Ranma's entire body embedded into the middle of the street. 
  Ranma said nothing, a look of surprise on his face. 
  A 100-plus-foot badger-like monster had just rolled over him, something he had 
never experienced before until now. That was a good enough reason to be 
surprised if any.
  While basically unhurt form the experience, Ranma tough enough that the ground 
below him would give out before his body would be crushed, he was still 
disoriented. There was no way anyone could have a 100-plus-foot monster roll 
over him and not be disoriented.
  Ranma blinked several times, trying to gather his bearings. When he found 
himself looking up toward a giant claw as the monster tried crash it down upon 
him, he quickly rolled out of the body-forming crater and toward the side, the 
claw narrowly missing him.
  "Holy crap, that was a close call!" Ranma said to himself as he rolled to his 
feet to face the one of the monster's legs. When he noticed that the individual 
claws themselves were larger than him was tall, he gulped nervously.
  Looking up, he noticed the monster looking right down on him with malicious-
filled eyes, snarling at him and displaying massive razor-sharp teeth. As they 
looked at each other, Ranma noticed the upper portion of Gaara sticking out of 
the monster's forehead. 
  "Could that be his weakness?" Ranma asked himself. He noticed Gaara seemed to 
be doing nothing, as if he was possessed or perhaps in a deep trance.
  Ranma jumped out of the way as a giant claw slashed at him, missing him by 
inches.
  Why couldn't I be fighting some kinda vegetarian-looking monster, Ranma 
thought to himself as he jumped out of the way as the monster slashed at him, 
landing a safe distance away. Why do the things I fight against always hafta 
have claws and fangs? Why can't I be fighting a creature that looked like a 
koala bear or such?
  Noticing that Naruto seemed to be up to something as he continuously produced 
clones of himself and having them jump of the roof he was on and onto the back 
of the monster, Ranma realized that he should not run away and risk luring the 
monster away.
  "What the hell is that kid doing?" Ranma asked, "And what the hell did he do 
with Sasuke? I hope he didn't ditch him in some drainage ditch or something,"
  Naruto had dropped Sasuke off with Ikura-sensei at the academy. Ikura was his 
old sensei from when Naruto and Sasuke went to ninja academy together, before 
the two of them had graduated. Sasuke was in good hands.
  The monster, annoyed with having many Naruto clones on top of it, shook itself 
violently, throwing off all the Naruto that had managed to land on it and hold 
on for dear life. Puffs of smoke could be seen everywhere like fireworks as 
countless Naruto crashed against the pavement and nearby buildings and 
disappeared.
  "Naruto!!" Ranma called out toward Gaara.
  Naruto looked down toward Ranma upon hearing his name.
  Ranma pointed toward Gaara, "Go after Gaara! I'll distract it!"
  Naruto looked at where Ranma was pointing and nodded, as if he had seemed to 
understand what Ranma was implying. While Naruto had had his own plans, to waste 
all of his chakra so that he could tap in the special chakra buried deep within 
him to summon a giant toad for help, he figured Ranma might have come up with a 
good alternative.
  Ranma ran toward the side as the monster kept continued to focus its attention 
on him, intent on getting its revenge on the foolish mortal that dared to 
attack. He ran around it in a way so that the monster ended up with its rear end 
facing the building the building Naruto was standing on.
  "Holy shit!" Ranma's eyes widened as he saw the monster take in a deep breath, 
readying itself to shoot a fireball out of its mouth and toward Ranma at an 
extremely close range.
  Ranma ran forward, dodging the fireball, running underneath the monster's 
underside and out from under the monster's back legs where he triangle jumped 
off the building Naruto had been standing on and landing on the monster.




<new stuff 12/22>





  Once on top of the monster, Ranma saw Naruto making his way toward Gaara.
  "Attack him!" Ranma shouted out toward Naruto.
  Without needing to be told twice, Naruto did just that. He ran up to where 
Gaara was and punched him with all his might.
  Ranma winced, feeling sorry for Gaara as the boy's body ended up arching 
backward, his head blown backwards so the he found himself looking skyward 
before springing back to its natural position again.
  The monster jerked its entire body as it had been suddenly struck hard, 
Naruto's punch seemingly having more of an effect on the monster than Ranma's 
own ki-blasts.
  Unfortunately, the sudden jerking of the monster threw Naruto off its back.
  Realizing that he and Naruto were been standing on the back of a hundred foot 
monster, and Naruto had just been shaken of, Ranma quickly assumed that a fall 
of that height could kill him.
  Ranma made a quick dash up the monster's back and leapt off, angling his body 
straight in the direction of where Naruto would be as he fell so he could 
intercept him.
  Catching Naruto and landing safely on the ground, Ranma gently placed Naruto 
on his feet as the young boy looked up at him, a surprised.
  "Um, thanks," Naruto said.
  Ranma quickly said, "Get yourself out of here! I'll finish the monster off!"
  "But-" Naruto looked like he was about to argue, like he wanted to help.
  "Now!!!" Ranma said in a booming and commanding voice, frightening Naruto into 
breaking out in a sprint away from where Ranma was. 
  Ranma watched Naruto run away, forced to dodge a few times as the monster 
covered from Naruto's attack as it slashed at him once again. When Ranma was 
satisfied Naruto was safe, he turned his full attention on the monster, looking 
up toward Gaara as he could be seen on the monster's forehead, his upper half 
sticking out of it.
  Leaping up high into the air, Ranma landed on the monster's snout and quickly 
ran up and onto its forehead.
  For a brief moment, Ranma and Gaara made eye contact. Ranma noticed the glassy 
look on Gaara's face which seemed to indicate that he wasn't even aware of where 
he was, as if he had been possessed and his lower body took on the form of that 
badger-like monster.
  Ranma gave Gaara a slightly smile. 
  "Sorry, kid, no hard feeling," he said.
  With that said, Ranma slapped Gaara right in the face.
  
  Ranma found himself standing over Gaara as the young boy lay on his back in 
the middle of the street. Surrounding them were remnants of sand as it seemed to 
float off an disappear is if taken away by the winds.
  After Ranma had struck Gaara, the monster reeled in pain as if it had been 
struck directly, falling to the ground unconscious where it seemed to melt away 
into nothing but sand.
  The monster had one weakness, that being Gaara. So long as Gaara was in that 
trance-like state, the monster was able to take form. This was because the 
monster was actually a part of Gaara's subconscious. Simply attacking Gaara and 
knocking him out of that trance-like state was enough to defeat the monster.
  "Damn, that monster was made of sand?" Ranma asked himself, "That sure 
surprised the heck outta me,"
  He looked down at Gaara as the young boy looked up at him, a bit confused as 
to what was going on.
  "You caused quite a bit of trouble," Ranma smirked. The fact that he had just 
been fighting for his life against the monster that was Gaara didn't seem to 
bother Ranma one bit.
  With the monster no longer a threat, Ranma turned his attention toward the 
stadium where he noticed that the cube-like barrier was no longer up. This lead 
him to believe that the two combatants inside seemed to have taken the battle 
outside the barrier.
  Ranma glanced toward the side where he saw two figures. They stepped into the 
street from a dark alley. Ranma recognized the both of them from before in the 
stadium. One of them was the girl with the giant fan. The other had markings on 
his face and had what looked like a doll wrapped in bandages strapped around his 
back. He was the boy who had forfeiting the match before Shikamaru and the fan 
girl fought.
  "You two his friend?" Ranma asked, jerking a thumb toward Gaara.
  Gaara was conscious but seemed very disoriented, as if he had no idea where he 
was and needed time to gather his bearings. A quick glance into his eyes and 
Ranma ascertained that this was a young boy with a very troubled past.
  The two individuals regarded Ranma, not really knowing what to do. They had 
been observing Ranma from a good distance away, worried about getting to close 
to the action and getting hurt in the process, where they had seen Ranma 
basically single-handedly take down the monster.
  "Um, we don't want any trouble," the girl with the fan said nervously. She 
knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the two of them would not be able to  
take on Ranma, "We just want Gaara back,"
  "If you don't give Gaara back to us, we'll be forced to kill you," her partner 
said dumbly.
  Ranma narrowed his eyes, "Is that a threat? I don't like threats, even if it's 
from some young kid like yourself,"
  "N-no, it isn't a threat!" the girl said, stepping forward between her friend 
and Ranma, remembering how Ranma wasn't one bit intimidated when he and Gaara 
exchanged words. 
  Ranma crossed his arms in front of his chest, "It sounded like a threat to 
me,"
  "We just want to have Gaara back," the girl said, "It's clear that he's been 
defeated and can't harm anyone anymore," 
  Ranma looked down toward Gaara as the young boy was sitting upright, rubbing 
at his temples like he had a massive headache.
  For a brief moment, their eyes made contact, that enough for Ranma.
  There was a moment of awkward silence as Ranma seemed to drink in a wealth of 
information as to who Gaara was and what made him tick. He found out things 
about the boy that made him actually feel sorry for him. The boy seemed to have 
had a very troubled past, the son of a father that wanted him killed. Possessing 
no friends or having anyone that cared for him in his life, the only thing he 
knew was how to kill. 
  "You think you have a troubled past?" Ranma asked Gaara, a hint of coldness to 
his voice, "You make me laugh,"
  Gaara found himself just staring up at Ranma, wondering what the comment 
meant.
  "You didn't have it rough. I had it rough," Ranma asked as if angry at the 
boy, "You're just a young boy that has gone through some hard times. Try going 
through hard times for several decades, then you'll be in my shoes,"
  Gaara said nothing.
  "Just a word of advice, kid," Ranma said, "It's stupid feeling sorry for 
yourself. There's a lot more people out there that's had pasts a lot worse than 
you've had it. You can choose to let it consume you, you will eventually miss 
that one moment that'll change your life for the better and make you glad you're 
alive,"
  Gaara continued to remain silent. 
  Ranma knew he was getting through to the young boy. They were somewhat 
similar, kindred spirits trying to fight against incredible odds. The only 
difference was that Ranma had been through it before and made it through to the 
other side intact.
  "It's still not too late for you to realize that there's more to life than 
killing," Ranma turned around and started walking away, walking in the direction 
of the stadium.
  "Who are you?" the girl asked toward Ranma's retreating back.
  "Think of me as an older version of Gaara. The only difference is that I 
didn't let my past consume me,"
  Ranma, curious as to the Hokage's welfare, had decided to head on over to the 
stadium. Afterall, that was where he last saw him.
  "Ranma!" came Naruto's voice.
  "Hey," Ranma greeted the young boy that came running down the street.
  He noticed a man walking at a leisurely pace behind Naruto as Naruto came 
running up to him. The mean looked to be in his middle-ages and had a large mane 
of white hair, his bangs held back by what looked like a headband made of stone. 
He had two red lines on his face that came down from his eyes that reminded 
Ranma of an eternal stream of tears.
  The man had a huge scroll attached to his back. It made Ranma wonder what it 
was with people carrying large things over their back. There was Gaara with that 
large gourd, that guy with the large doll wrapped in bandages, and that girl 
with the large fan. And now it was this guy with the large scroll.
  Ranma sensed a great presence to the man, as if he was powerful enough to take 
on several Kakashi.
  "Look who I met?" Naruto gestured toward the man that walked up to them.  "How 
do you do?" Ranma bowed, "I'm Ranma,"
  "I am the amazing Gama-Senin!" the man said, did a little pose, "In the north, 
in the south, in the east, and in the west, the legendary three ninjas' white-
haired frog summoner. The handsome man that can silence even a crying child! I 
am the legendary Jiraiya!"
  "Huh?" Ranma said, seriously reminded of that person, Gai. He seemed have a 
rather eccentric personality. In a sense, the man kind of reminded Ranma of an 
older version of Naruto, a bit off the wall personality-wise.
  There was a moment of awkward silence as Ranma looked at the man named 
Jiraiya.  
  Naruto cleared his throat, jerking a thumb toward the man next to him, "I 
bumped into Jiraiya while I was running away from you and that monster like you 
told me,"
  "Okay," Ranma said.
  "What happened to that monster?" Naruto asked, "I saw it from a distance where 
it suddenly disappeared,"
  "I defeated it," Ranma smirked.
  "You did?!?" Naruto asked.
  "Yep," he said.
  "How?" Naruto shouted in disbelief.
  Ranma shrugged. He didn't care about going into details about it, "I did 
nothing special. I simply hit Gaara and the monster just fell to the ground. 
Before I knew it, I found myself swimming through sand as the monster seemed to 
instantly melt itself into nothing but sand and disappear,"
  "Wow!" Naruto said.
  Jiraiya regarded Ranma intently as he said, "You must be a very powerful 
person to have been able to take on Shuukaku,"
  "Shuukaku?" Ranma asked, "Who's that? The monster?"
  Jiraiya nodded, "Yes. I recognized the creature. I haven't seen him in around 
fifteen years. I was very surprised to see you holding your own against him when 
I arrived,"
  Ranma said, "When you arrived? I didn't even notice you,"
  "I was nearby watching you," the man said. He had been near the outskirts of 
the city, about to take on the three-headed serpent when Ranma showed up. When 
he noticed Ranma seemed to be holding his own against his opponent, Jiraiya had 
decided to stay back and observe, not wanting to distract Ranma from his battle.
  "I bumped into him while running away like you had said," Naruto added.  
  "You're a very powerful young man," Jiraiya stated, "I've never seen someone 
uses techniques like yourself, emitting chakra like the way you did,"
  Ranma shrugged. He was never all that good at taking compliments, afterall.
  He then jerked a thumb in the direction of the stadium, "As much as I'd like 
to hang around and talk, I think we should go check on the Hokage. Hopefully, 
he's still all right. Whoever that Orochimaru guy you and Sasuke had said, 
hopefully, the Hokage can hold his own against him,"
  "Orochimaru!!!" Jiraiya's eyes widened at hearing the name, "He's here?!"
  Ranma smirked, "I take it you know who he is? I dunno who he is but Naruto and 
someone else pointed out that they saw him and the Hokage fighting on the top of 
the stadium. I think we should go check him out and see that he's all right,"
  Jiraiya didn't hang around to hear Ranma finish his statement for he took off 
at a sprint toward the stadium.
  Naruto and Ranma looked at one another. They both turned toward the stadium 
and took off running closely behind Jiraiya. Ranma took care to keep his pace 
down to keep pace with Naruto's.
  "I take it he and this Orochimaru know one another?" Ranma asked, still 
running.
  "I guess," Naruto said, "I only bumped into him a minute ago. I never got 
around to mentioning it to him until you did,"
  "He seems strong," Ranma stated, "That Jiraiya person. Heh, it seems like this 
world's full of strong people,"
  Naruto answered, "I dunno if he's really strong or not. I've never seen him 
really fight or such, but it seems like he really knows a lot, even more so than 
Kakashi-sensei and Kakashi-sensei's taught me most of what I know up until 
recently. He seems really good at summoning frogs,"
  "Frogs, huh?" Ranma smirked, "That's an interesting technique,"
  "That's what I was about to do," Naruto stated, "I was trying to use up all my 
chakra so that I can summon Gamabunta to fight against that monster Gaara had 
turned into. Gamabunta's this huge toad,"
  Ranma said, "That doesn't make sense. Why were you trying to waste all your 
ki? Is there some other kinda ki you can tap into after you wasted all your ki? 
And no, don't even bother asking, I'm not gonna refer to it as chakra. You can 
call it chakra. I'm gonna call it ki,"
  Naruto said, "Anyway, I found out I have two levels of chakra so if I use up 
all my regular chakra, there's another level of chakra I can use that only I 
seem to be able to use. It's with that chakra I can summon,"
  Ranma smirked, "I'd like to see it one day...if I stay around long enough," 
  Naruto didn't hear the comment as he ask, "I saw you shooting these balls of 
chakra from your hands. Can you show me that? Is it hard?"
  Ranma chuckled, "It's not necessarily difficult for someone like myself to do 
but I dunno how hard it is to learn from scratch. I learned it so long ago that 
I don't remember if it was hard or not to learn,"
  "Can you teach me?" Naruto asked eagerly, "I'd love to learn something like 
that,"
  Ranma shrugged.
  "Maybe..."

  The Hokage's lifeless body lay as several people stood surrounding him, 
staring down at him in disbelief. They were all standing on the rooftop where he 
and the guy named Orochimaru had fought. Standing among the crowd was Kakashi 
and Gai and Jiraiya and Ranma. Everyone looked down at their dead Hokage, a 
sense of great sadness in their hearts.
  Naruto was not there, having spotted the dead Hokage and having run off to be 
alone, so no one could see him cry.
  Jiraiya looked sad as well but seemed to be able to steel his emotions fairly 
well.
  It turned out that the Hokage had sacrificed his own life to defeat Orochimaru 
and protect the village. He had not been assassinated as so many believed, 
killed by Orochimaru. Instead, he had chosen to sacrifice himself to defeat 
Orochimaru and defeat him.
  In a way, one would assume that the man that survived the battle to the death 
was the victor, that being Orochimaru. However, given the circumstances, he lost 
the battle, walking away from battle no longer possessing the ability to use 
chakra, the use of his arms destroyed in the battle. He might as well be as good 
as dead without the use of chakra in a world like that.
  There was a smile on the Hokage's face, a look of peace on his visage, as if 
he had accepted his death readily.
  Ranma looked down at the Hokage. He gave the old man a smile.
  "At least he died doing what he believed was right," Ranma stated. 
  "What makes you say that?" the bowl-cut man named Gai spat, "And who are you 
anyway?"
  "The young man's right," Jiraiya said, "If you look at his face, you can tell 
that that's the face of a man who wasn't killed but of a man that sacrificed his 
life willingly and allowed himself to die,"
  Ranma felt a bid sad. Even though he had only met the Hokage a short while ago 
and only talked to him briefly, he liked the old man. There was something about 
his character that he liked. Besides, the man helped him out and did Ranma the 
favor of telling him where he should go if he wanted information to try and get 
back to his own world, without expecting anything in return.
  Ranma asked, "Anyone here know what happened?"
  Everyone looked at one another, not really knowing what to say. This was 
because Ranma was a complete stranger to the group and no one there seemed to 
know where he came from. One didn't know if they could trust him or not.
  Jiraiya said, "I'm interested in knowing what happened as well. Don't worry 
about Ranma here. I'll vouch for him,"
  No one seemed to be aware of Ranma's role and how he had defeated Gaara by 
himself. While everyone had been aware of a monster wrecking havoc to the city, 
the arrival of Jiraiya made everyone believe Jiraiya had been the reason of the 
monster's recent disappearance.
  Kakashi explained what had happened and what he believed had happened. It 
seemed like the Hidden Leaf village was invaded by countless ninjas from both 
the Hidden Sound and Hidden Sand village. 
  "This village was invaded?" Ranma asked, "How come I didn't see explosions and 
such? All I saw were two large monsters, one that looked like a badger and one 
that looked like a three-headed serpent,"
  "It seems like their appearance were mainly as a smoke screen," Kakashi 
answered, "We were invaded by a couple hundred ninjas from both invading 
villages. The monsters were around to distract us from the Hokage's 
assassination attempt,"
  Ranma smirked, "It seems like not many of you guys were manipulated into 
shirking your posts to fight off the monsters, huh?"
  "We had our own problems," Kakashi answered, "We were busy fighting off 
countless ninjas that seemed to be showing up from no where to deal with 
monsters. I guess we're lucky Jiraiya was around to take care of our monsters,"
  Ranma said nothing, doing nothing more than simply shrugging.
  He didn't care if no one acknowledged that he was the one that took care of 
the monsters. So long as he knew he defeated the monsters, that was all that 
mattered.
  "Actually," Jiraiya said, "I wasn't the reason why both monsters were 
defeated. You should thank our new arrival here,"
  Everyone looked at Ranma, and then at Jiraiya, and then back at Ranma again.
  "You took care of both monsters?" someone next to Kakashi asked, a man that 
had a beard that reminded Ranma of Gendo Ikari for some reason.
  "Actually, I probably wouldn'tve done it without Naruto's help," Ranma lied. 
He would've found out of the monster's weakness on his own without much trouble. 
Naruto simply confirmed Ranma's assumption that attacking Gaara's body while he 
was sticking out of the monster's forehead was its weakness.
  Jiraiya smirked toward Ranma but said nothing, as if he knew that Ranma 
could've defeated the monster all on his own. Ranma noticed Jiraiya smirking and 
got the funny feeling that Jiraiya was a lot more perceptive than he let on.
  Ranma glanced around and noticed many of the people seemed on the verge of 
tears. 
  He glanced down at the Hokage, "You guy's shouldn't be all sad that he's dead. 
He's gone to a much better place,"
  "Even if that's the case, we can't help but start missing him already," 
Kakashi stated in a soft voice, "I guess you wouldn't understand because you 
don't know the Hokage like we've known him. He was a very good man,"
  Ranma said, "Oh, I'm sure he was a good man. I could tell,"
  "What are we going to do?" one ninja asked, "With the third Hokage gone, we 
now need to find a fifth Hokage,"
  "Fifth Hokage?" Ranma asked.
  "The four died saving the village in similar fashion as the third," Jiraiya 
said, "The third stepped down when a forth was chosen. However, when the fourth 
died, the third assumed the role as Hokage again. Now that he's gone, we need to 
find a fifth,"
  "Ah," Ranma said, "That makes sense,"
  "We need to find a fifth Hokage," Kakashi said softly, "It won't be long 
before word leaks out about our village being without a Hokage and at a 
vulnerable state and neighboring villages aside from the Hidden Sand and Hidden 
Sound villages thinking that now would be a good time to invade. The 
restoration of this villages power is of high priority. We need a strong leader 
to rely on,"
  Most of the people instinctively looked at Jiraiya. 
  "I'm pretty sure the village elders will be making a decisions within a day or 
two on who should be chosen as this village's new Hokage," Kakashi stated.
  Everyone continued to regard Jiraiya.
  "I'm not the type for it," Jiraiya said, holding a hand, already knowing what 
everyone was thinking, "I'm not cut out to take on such a role as this village's 
Hokage,"
  "Well, who could?" Kakashi asked.
  Jiraiya smirked.
  "I think I know someone who could,"

  


<new stuff 12/25>





  Ranma entered a ramen shop.
  A young female waitress spotted him and quickly approached him.
  "Welcome," she smiled warmly. She looked to be around Ranma's age, perhaps a 
bit older, but not by a year at most.
  Ranma was there because he was hungry and needed some food. Despite the fact 
that the village had been attacked by two monsters, even though one actually 
killed the other eventually, Ranma found it surprising how little daily life 
around the village seemed to have been effected, which was why the ramen shop 
was still opened. One would think in the case of an invasion, shop owners would 
close up and evacuate the city.
  "Hi," Ranma said, "How're y'doing?"
  "I'm fine," the girl said.
  "I'm Ranma," he said, bowing politely.
  "I'm Kari," she bowed back.
  "Kari, um, I was wondering if you can do my a favor," Ranma said, giving a 
meek smile.
  "What kind of favor?" the girl asked curiously, regarding Ranma for a moment. 
  "Well, I have no money," Ranma began, "But I'm really hungry. I was wondering 
if you or the shop owner might be able to give me a meal for free, if it isn't 
too much trouble,"
  The girl looked at Ranma, surprised at the request. It wasn't every day that 
someone would show up at the shop and genuinely ask for a meal. 
  "Sure, have a seat," she smiled, "I'm sure we can do something to help you 
out,"
  "I'll be happy to wash dishes or something if you need help," Ranma said.
  The waitress waved a hand dismissively, "Oh, don't worry about it. As a matter 
of fact, everyone in this shop's in a really good mood,"
  "Oh?" Ranma asked.
  The girl nodded, "Yes. Everyone working today was so worried that our 
restaurant was going to get wrecked during that monster attack,"
  Ranma smirked, "I guess you guys got off lucky,"
  "Yes, very lucky," she concurred.
  "I have no idea what happened to that monster, but whoever got rid of it, we 
owe them our thanks," she said.
  Ranma just smiled. He found it really nice that he didn't have to tell them 
that he was actually the person that saved their shop from the monster in order 
to get himself a free meal. It helped reinforce his mentality that people were 
kind enough and were willing to help out a stranger if he or she simply asked 
nicely.
  "Anyway, are you really hungry?" the girl asked, "Would you like me to bring 
you out a lot to eat?"
  "I'm interested in eating enough so that I can make my journey east," Ranma 
answered.
  "Oh? Where to?" she asked.
  "Hidden Mist Village," he answered.
  "Hidden Mist Village?" the girl asked, "Over in Wave Country? That's a long 
trip. You're not going to be able to make it there after only eating one meal,"
  Ranma said, "That's no problem. I can find my own food. It's just that while 
I'm here, I'd like to see if I can eat a normal meal instead of basically 
hunting for my own meal while I make my journey,"
  Ranma planned on leaving for hidden Mist Village after he was done eating. 
There was no reason for him to hang around on this world longer than need be. He 
had his own problems, afterall. 
  "Please, have a seat," the girl gestured toward a random empty seat, "I'll 
help you out. What would you like?"
  "Um, whatever's fine," Ranma said, "I just don't wanna really be a bother. 
Heck, surprise me with anything. I won't mind,"
  The girl smiled as she headed off for the kitchen, "Okay. I think I've got 
something you'll like,"
  "Thanks," he said, sitting down.
  Ranma glanced around the small restaurant and noticed how empty it was. He 
wasn't all that surprised since this village was attacked not even an hour ago. 
Something like that would most likely make people stay in their homes for a day 
until they felt it was safe to come out again.
  He noticed a familiar looking figure sitting by the counter.
  "Naruto," Ranma called out.
  Naruto turned around from his bowl of ramen when he heard his name. He looked 
surprised when he spotted Ranma.
  "Ah! What are you doing here?" Naruto pointed.
  "I was about to ask you the same thing," Ranma answered, getting up and 
approaching Naruto, "But judging from the way you're stuffing your face, it 
seems like you're simply eating,"
  He took a seat next to Naruto. Taking a quick glance at him, he noticed Naruto 
seemed to have had a really good cry not too long ago and was well on the way to 
recovery. Whoever the Hokage was to him, it seemed like a good cry over his 
death was just what he needed.
  "I'm here to grab a bite to eat," Ranma stated.
  "Same here," Naruto said, his voice soft, "It usually helps me forget 
whatever's bothering me,"
  "You mean like the death of the Hokage?" Ranma asked.
  Naruto said nothing, returning to his eating. 
  Before long, he finished eating his meal. It never took long for Naruto to 
finish his meal. Had he been alone, he would've finished his meal, paid, and 
left. But since Ranma was around, there was no reason for him to leave.
  Ranma said, "Anyway, I'm sorry about what happened to the Hokage. I've only 
met him for a few minutes but he seemed like a really good man,"
  "He was a very good man," Naruto said between gulps, "Sure, he was old, but I 
don't think it was his time,"
  "Oh, I'll hafta disagree," Ranma said. The Hokage had died smiling. It meant 
he accepted death. The moment one accepted death, then it was their time to go. 
It was the way things worked. 
  "What?" Naruto said.
  "You don't understand," Ranma said, "You're too young to understand,"
  Naruto countered, "And you would understand? You're only, what, two years 
older than me, if that,"
  Ranma chuckled, "If you say so,"
  Naruto went back to eating.
  "Oh yeah, I have a funny feeling Jiraiya's gonna be coming around looking for 
you in a day or so," Ranma added.
  "Oh? Why do you say that?" Naruto asked, "What, does he want to teach me some 
new technique or something?"  
  Ranma shook his head, "Not quite. He was mentioning about him going out to 
look for a person named Tsunade and that he plans on having someone come with 
him,"
  "Tsunade?" Naruto asked, "Who's that?"
  Ranma shrugged, "Beats me. I wasn't paying all that much attention. He was 
mentioning about how he plans on going on to find this woman named Tsunade 
because she'll be a perfect replacement for the Hokage,"
  "What?!?" Naruto shouted, "I can't believe how cold everyone is. The Hokage 
was assassinated not an hour ago and people have already started talking about 
finding his replacement?"
  Ranma smirked, "Heh, that's the way the world works. Also, the Hokage wasn't 
assassinated. I saw his face. It seems like he choose death over actually 
getting killed by that Orochimaru guy,"
  "Choose death over getting killed?" Naruto scratched his head, "That doesn't 
make sense,"
  "Don't worry about it," Ranma said, "It's not really all that important 
anyway,"
  Naruto shrugged. He then asked, "So, Jiraiya plans on searching for this 
Tsunade person, huh? Why would he want me to come with him?"
  Ranma said, "I dunno if he will or won't ask you to tag along. It's just that 
I have a funny feeling he would. And I'm usually good with my gut feeling. And 
who knows, he'll probably teach you some techniques along the way,"
  The mention of technique made Naruto quickly turn toward him.
  "Speaking of which, what were those balls of chakra I saw you shooting out of 
your hand and toward that monster before?" Naruto asked, "Can you show me how to 
do that? Those were incredible!"
  Ranma said, "They're ki-blasts. Since chakra and ki are the same, they're 
exactly as how you described it, balls of chakra,"
  "Yeah, but how did you do it?" Naruto asked, "Can you teach me to do that? I'd 
love to learn something like that,"
  Ranma smirked. He found it amusing how Naruto seemed to have completely 
forgotten that he was very sad over the Hokage's death.
  "Sorry, but I can't," Ranma answered, "I wouldn't mind teaching you a few 
things because I'm pretty sure you're a quick learner, but I can't,"
  "Why not?" Naruto had expected that answer but still seemed very disappointed 
nonetheless.
  Ranma answered, "I'm leaving. I'm heading out for Hidden Mist village right 
after I'm done eating. I guess I'm lucky to have bumped into you because that 
gives me the chance to say goodbye,"
  "You're leaving?" Naruto asked, "Why?"
  "I wanna head home," Ranma said, "I don't belong here,"
  "How come? I still don't get it," Naruto persisted, "This is a nice village. 
Sure, it got invaded and you had to fight off this giant monster, but you 
happened to show up here on the wrong day,"
  Ranma laughed. 
  He then said, "It's different. I have a home to go to. I like being home,"
  "Oh," Naruto said, "So, how come you're going to Hidden Mist Village?"
  "The Hokage mentioned about there being some information guild being there 
shortly after I showed up," Ranma answered, "I need get some information that 
might help me get home and that's the place where I should check. Anyway, I'm 
heading out after I'm done eating so I won't be able to teach you anything,"
  Naruto's eyes lit up, "Hey, how about if I come with you? I'll come with you 
to Hidden Mist Village,"
  Ranma said, "You? Tag along with me?"
  "Yeah," Naruto