Naruto, Ranma 1. Prologue: Choices and a New Beginning

1) The Characters and Stories of _Naruto_ and _Ranma ½_ are Copyright © Masashi Kishimoto and Rumiko Takahashi respectively, and are used here without permission or license.

2) No claims to the above copyrights are made by the author of this work.

3) This is a work written for non-commercial use ONLY, and is written for the purpose of the enjoyment of fans.

4) This work is the expression of the author, and the depictions of the characters and stories of _Naruto_ and _Ranma ½ _herein are in no way represented to be a part of _Naruto_ or _Ranma ½_ as depicted by the original authors and copyright holders.

Beginning Notes: Wow, my third Fanfic. To those of you familiar with my other fics already you may be wondering why I'm starting a new one when I haven't updated either of my other two in a couple of months. My reasons are simple; I'm working on the next chapter for The Dark Side of the Moon but have run into a spot of writer's block that I'm steadily getting over and Alice has been utterly silent when it comes to Dragonfly despite having finished playing through AC: Revelations. You may also remember that in my "Announcement Chapter" I mention that I was working on another fic Idea that came to me when I didn't have a computer. Well, here it is...

Thanks go to CaedesPlerique for pre-reading this for me and being patient with my caffeine induced rants and ramblings as we hammered out the finer details of this fic's background. This wouldn't even be half as good as it is without your help.

Prologue: Choices and a New Beginning...

**-**o-o-o-o-o-

Pain.

It was the first thing Ranma became aware of as the sensation of 'non feeling' left him as he felt... whatever it was he'd been caught in finally let him go. He didn't know how long he'd been caught in it, but there had been a distinct impression that he was somehow moving 'backwards' during the entire experience.

The next thing he noticed was that he was also extremely tired, as though he'd gone a week without sleep while being chased across all of Japan non-stop by his fiancées. Through the fog of his painful and exhausted state he noticed that it was raining wherever he'd landed, triggering his curse. The grey blur of the sky above was all she could see as she felt, more than saw, the large raindrops slowly drench her from head to toe.

From a distance she could hear the hurried sound of footsteps coming closer and someone shouting, but her sense of awareness was slowly slipping away even as she felt strong hands grip her by the shoulders and a blurry shape move in front of her view of the sky. The last thing she thought before her vision went completely black was, _'Damn it Kuno... What have you gotten me into this time...?'_

-o-o-o-o-o-

Awareness slowly returned to Ranma. The first thing he noticed was the massive migraine that felt like it would split his head in two. The pounding was enough to prevent him from thinking very clearly, and he decided that it might be a good idea to keep his eyes closed for the moment, just in case. Continuing to feel out if he had any other injuries to the best of his abilities, the only problem he discovered was that his normal reserves of Ki were bone dry, and there seemed to be something preventing him from drawing in more from the environment. Further thought on his status was hindered by the foggy state of his mind and the pounding in his head.

Deciding that now might be a good time to try and see where he was, Ranma cracked his eyes open slightly and noticed that it was dark, for which he was very grateful. Even so, there was enough ambient light where anything more than a squint would have sent the pain in his head to new heights at the moment. Not wanting to aggravate his pounding head more by moving Ranma settled for squinting at the ceiling as he felt out his immediate surroundings. His view was somewhat blocked by his hair, which somehow came far enough down his forehead to get into his eyes. By the room's meager lighting he could just make out the red highlights, indicating that he was still a she. It was odd, but not totally unexpected, as she didn't know where she was at the moment and unless they knew about the curse, whoever had found her wouldn't know to change her back. The throbbing in her head stopped the redhead from thinking too deeply on the 'how' of her hair being long enough to get into her eyes.

Wherever she was had obviously changed, since she was lying on a mattress with sheets pulled around her instead of a grassy field. The mattress was stiff, but she'd slept on worse over the years and even though the sheets were a bit rough it sure as hell beat using a burlap sack. The hospital gown she was wearing gave her an indication of where she was, but she'd still look for some proper clothes as soon as possible...

Opening her eyes further as her headache faded enough to allow it, Ranma heaved herself into a sitting position. Swallowing hard to prevent herself from throwing up from the sudden vertigo, she was able to take in her surroundings more thoroughly. The only light in the room was coming from a crack under the door to her left, and just looking at it caused her head to pound even more. Turning her attention away from it and letting her eyes adjust to the surrounding darkness she could see that there was a window to her right with its curtains pulled, but she could tell that it was night outside. She could also make out an open door across from where she was, through which she could see a toilet.

'_I hope they have hot water...'_ she thought...

Ranma swung her legs over the edge of the bed before attempting to stand up. Stumbling slightly as her feat touched the ground, she had to steady herself before slowly making her way over to the bathroom. Something seemed to be wrong with her sense of balance, and while enough time had passed where her migraine had been reduced from unbearable to uncomfortable, she still wasn't able to think very clearly beyond her immediate goal.

Reaching the sink, she was too focused on her objective of finding hot water to notice that she had to jump to grab the edge of the counter to turn the faucet on. Also overlooking the fact that she needed to reach in order to put her hand under the steadily heating stream of water, the redhead waited patiently for the change to trigger...

And waited...

Nothing... No subtle full-body-tingle like she normally felt when the curse activated. No sudden feeling of certain pieces of anatomy disappearing while others showed up in different areas...

The water was steaming when she finally pulled her hand out to look at it in shock, before she screamed at the top of her lungs...

-o-o-o-o-o-

A lot can happen in five minutes. This was something that Ranma already knew quite well considering the life she'd lived up to this point, but this had to be close to the top of her list. Nowhere close to her fight with Saffron or Herb, but it was still up there with the day to day fiancée wars...

"What The Hell Did You Do To ME!"

"Miss, Please calm down and explain what's wrong. And also, if you could put the mop down..."

When she screamed she had apparently been loud enough to alert half the building, seeing as seconds later at least three doctors charged into the main room followed by a squad of nurses. It was at this point that she also finally realized that her body was several sizes smaller than was normal, making her panic even more. One of those initial doctors was currently unconscious from the reflexive spinning jump kick she delivered to his head when he reached for her. The other two were currently in front of her with the nurses and several more doctors hanging behind as backup while sporting bruises of their own, testament to their attempts to restrain her after the first had failed...

"Like _hell_ I will!"

Her escape from the room hadn't been easy as she'd needed to knock out at least three nurses just getting to the door. Adrenaline was surging through her system, clearing away what was left of her migraine and providing a much needed boost to help her escape in the absence of Ki. She'd almost been caught at the door, but her smaller than normal size actually helped her when evading the reaching arms.

"Miss, I assure you that we don't want to hurt you, but if you make this any more difficult than you already have, we won't hesitate. Now if you could please calm down..."

Her final escape wasn't clean though. Apparently these doctors had some training in the past, because they were fast enough to catch up to her. She was still incredibly fast. Considering that she knew Cologne and Happosai, the fact that she was about as tall as either of them at the moment didn't mean all that much for her speed, given her training. What did matter was that the adrenaline coursing through her system hadn't been nearly enough to make up for her current inability to use Ki.

The mop she was presently wielding like a spear was commandeered from a night janitor, and used in an attempt to gain some distance between her and her pursuers when she tipped over its bucket and used it to cover as much of the floor in water as possible. It managed to trip some of them up, but not enough and not for long enough to give her more than a little breathing room.

"I'll calm down as soon as you tell me WHAT THE HELL YOU'VE DONE TO ME!"

Shortly after that she had been chased to a waiting room before they managed to corner her, causing the present stalemate. This had been going on for several minutes already, and the few who had attempted to get close to her had either been beaten back or knocked out with her mop. She did allow her assailants to drag off their wounded, so long as they didn't make any moves to try and capture her themselves. It didn't stop her from having the feeling that if these people stopped underestimating her because of her size and really got serious, she'd suddenly find herself having a much harder time keeping them away.

"What in the Log's name is going on here!"

Ok... this was a new voice, and Ranma noticed that a path was opening up through the crowd of hospital staff in front of her to allow an old man wearing a red and white robe and matching cone hat with the kanji for 'Fire' printed on the front through. As he got closer one of the doctors backed up slightly to turn and bow to the man.

"Thank Goodness. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her Hokage-sama..." Even as the doctor said this, Ranma tensed. Her whole focus was directed at the old man as the situation was explained to him, only keeping enough off of him in order to detect if anyone else would try and make a move to restrain her again. They treated him like he was in charge, and despite his advanced years he held himself with a presence that spoke of power and long years of experience. Not as much as the Old Goat or the Ghoul, but enough to set her on edge. She felt her initial adrenaline high starting to wear off and she wasn't anywhere near being one hundred percent to begin with. Without Ki, she would be all but helpless against him if he decided to fight...

He turned towards her with a frown and they engaged in a staring match. His frown only deepened when she didn't even flinch at the killing intent she felt him begin directing at her after a few moments. It was subtle, and relatively amateurish compared to the range of intents she was capable of producing with Ki. Potent as it was though, it wasn't intense enough for anyone who knew what it was to take it seriously, and nowhere near the level she had been exposed to when she fought Saffron. It was more along the lines someone would use to try and punish a disobedient child.

Sometime during the last few minutes before his arrival and during the standoff she had made the connection that she wasn't simply smaller. She was younger. Anyone who was actually her current age of three or four would have been a shivering mess at the intent he was directing at her as the stare-off continued, but she showed no reaction at all. She noticed that everyone else in the room had noticed the sudden change in her behavior. She wasn't panicking anymore, and that put them even more on edge.

"Might I inquire as to what might be bothering you Miss...?" he said, finally breaking the stalemate of wills.

"Nuh uh, you first _Old Man_..." She said with particular emphasis to the last part, waving her mop threateningly to help get the point across. The threat was a bluff of course, made even more ineffective by her now younger body, but his probe for her name reminded Ranma _way_ too much of the old ghoul for comfort... and if the sudden twitch of his eyebrow were any indication, he liked the name just as much as said 'Old Ghoul' liked hers.

"Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato."

"Saotome Ranma, Heir to the Saotome Musabetsu Kakouto Ryu..." If they were using Formal titles, then she might as well use hers and hopefully rattle them up a little more. She seemed to be successful as murmurs spread through the gathering, though the old man showed no outward reaction. In the meantime she filed away what she had learned from his statement. Hokage must be some sort of position he held, instead of a name like she'd first assumed. _'Pretty high up, considering how everyone seems to differ to him...'_ Konohagakure no Sato was obviously a place considering it meant 'Village Hidden in the Leaves'. He'd unknowingly answered part of one of her questions, but she didn't let it show. She still had no Idea of where exactly this 'hidden village' was after all...

"Good. Now, Saotome-san, if you could please put the mop down and _Calmly_ allow me to escort you back to your room, we can try and sort all of this out in a civilized manner..."

She was having a hard time not believing him. On the one hand, something had locked her curse and set her body back by over a decade, and the former, at least, likely had something to do with these people. Now that she was calmer and thinking with her head on straight she realized that if that was the case then they obviously didn't know what had happened in the first place considering how they had reacted to her. On top of that, the old man seemed to have a grandfatherly air about him that made it hard not to trust him.

"No funny business?" she hesitantly asked, still not willing to trust him.

"No funny business..." he returned with a smile.

She hesitated for another moment before flipping the mop around so that the handle was resting on her shoulder. She would trust, for now, but she wouldn't trust absolutely yet...

"I'll hold ya' to that Old Man."

-o-o-o-o-o-

The trip back to the room had been rather uneventful as she walked next to the old man. The only real incident had been when someone had reached to take her current weapon of choice from her, only to receive a welt on their wrist for the trouble. Her escort hadn't looked happy about it, but she'd made it quite clear that she wasn't getting rid of it yet. The message was obvious, '_I'm trusting him, but the rest of you, Back Off!'_

He had been conversing quietly with one of the doctors the entire way back and the doctor handed him a file folder when they reached the door. Now they were comfortably seated, Ranma back on the bed and the old man on one of the chairs. The mop was leaned against the wall within easy reach of the redhead.

"So, Saotome-san..."

"Ranma." she interrupted.

"Pardon?" he said, slightly confused.

"Call me Ranma... Saotome-san's my mom..." she said, folding her arms in an attempt to get her point across, but only managing to look cute because of her current age.

"Right... Now Ranma, would you mind explaining what that was all about. And also, it would be nice if you could explain how you are the heir to such an oddly named Taijutsu style from a clan I'm unfamiliar with." His eyes had taken on a sharper gleam than they'd had before and his face became an unreadable mask, reminding Ranma of the middle Tendo sister when she was fishing for information.

"Taijutsu? No, I'm a martial artist." She rolled her eyes at the look he gave her that clearly said 'Humor me', "Ok, ok... You want the short version, or the long?" she said with a sigh as she leaned back into the pillow and tried to get a bit more comfortable.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow at her response to his initial question, "Let's start with the short, and if I think I need to know more, you can tell me the rest..."

Ranma shook her head as she collected her thoughts to begin the rather obvious interrogation, "Ok... First of all, I think I should tell ya' that I'm actually eighteen... Don't ask, I don't know myself at the moment." She said, catching her interrogator before he could ask the obvious question, "Second is that I'm actually a boy. How that's possible is I got a curse that turns me into a girl with cold water when I was sixteen while on a martial arts trainin' trip my old man took me on that started when I was five or six. Hot water is _supposed_ ta' change me back, but for some reason it ain't workin' right now..."

The man in front of her simply leaned back into his chair and started rubbing his nose between his fingers like he was getting a headache and she began twiddling her thumbs, trying to look innocent. She could sympathize, seeing as he wasn't the first to have this particular reaction when people learned about her life.

"Ok... I think... I need to hear the long version..." was all he groaned out...

-o-o-o-o-o-

The sun was just starting to peek above the horizon as Ranma finished her story, starting with the beginning of the training trip, glancing over everything except the highlights, before reaching his arrival at the Tendos' home, covering the insanity of the next two years, and finally finishing up on the latest fiasco with Kuno that had landed her here. Throughout the experience the man called Sarutobi Hiruzen sat quietly in front of her and only asked a few questions, like how her father could have thrown her into a pit full of starving cats while wrapped in fish products, or how her mother could have thought to hold her to a suicide contract over something as vague as being a 'man among men' that she'd been tricked into signing when she was only a child, among other things.

"So, this Kuno Tatewaki somehow got his hands on a 'wishing stone' and asked that 'the foul sorcerer', aka: you, be 'banished across space and time', all for his delusion that your female form and this Tendo Akane girl are madly in love with him but bewitched by your male form to be unable to show him their 'love'?"

"Hey! It's not like I wanted any'a that!" Ranma defended as she folded her arms indignantly in front of her. This hadn't been the first time the Hokage had had a hard time believing the craziness that surrounded her life, but she'd think that he would start to have taken her word for it after the third time. Or the eighth... or the...

"It's not that I don't believe you. I am simply wondering how an artifact such as that could end up in the hands of someone as you described him, instead of someone who would have used the power of its wish for something more... sinister." Sarutobi returned while rubbing his chin, apparently trying to think of how what he'd just asked was possible himself.

"Beats me, Kuno's always been crazy. Wouldn't surprise me if it fell out've his cereal box one mornin'..." Ranma shrugged, "Last time he got his hands on somethin' that could grant wishes he got it cuz' he was the millionth visitor to a temple or somethin'... then he used the three wishes it gave him on a bunch a' stupid stuff..."

"Yes, you told me of that incident." the old man deadpanned.

"Right." she nervously chuckled, "Where was I again? Oh right, banished by the insane Kendoist..." She paused for a moment to think, "Well, after I felt myself get caught in whatever his wish had done. It was like I was in a void of... eternal nothingness...? No light, sound, smell, touch. Heck, I couldn't even feel my body, like the only thing there was my mind. Don't know how long this was going on, but the one thing I _could_ feel was that I seemed to be drifting '_backwards_'... Next thing I know, whatever it was let me go an' I'm tired and in pain but I can see the sky above and feel the grass under me while the rain triggers my curse before I pass out, wake up here, and freak out when I find out my curse is locked."

The man sitting in front of her took this all in with a slight frown before pulling out the folder he'd been given and flipping through some of the pages inside. "Alright, that fits." She heard him mumble before he looked up and addressed her directly. "Now I think it's my turn for some explaining..." Ranma took this as a good sign when she saw the shift in his demeanor. She was finally going to get some answers...

"I am unfamiliar with this 'Tokyo' place you come from, nor have I ever heard of a country called 'Japan'," he began, causing Ranma to frown, "but you are currently in Konohagakure no Sato, located in Hi no Kuni, and the largest of the Five Great Hidden Ninja Villages in the elemental nations..." he paused for a moment as Ranma took this in and started cursing under her breath as she cross checked the locations with everything she knew about geography and came up empty.

"Two weeks ago," he continued, "I received a report from one of my Gennin teams that they found a child in need of medical assistance when they arrived at one of the training grounds. That 'child' was you apparently." He paused to read over some of the papers before continuing, "From what I have been told, and what this says here, you were apparently in an advanced state of Chakra Exhaustion when you were brought to the hospital. What little Chakra you did have left was slowly 'leaking' away somehow, and there was a foreign energy putting too much pressure on the little amount of Chakra that you did have, preventing it from recovering at all."

"Don't know what Chakra is, but I noticed I couldn't use Ki when I woke up... Wait... did you say that was two weeks ago?" Ranma absently interjected as she rubbed the back of her head in thought.

"Yes... you have been here in a Chakra Exhaustion induced coma for two weeks."

The response caused Ranma to shudder before cursing under her breath, _'Coma? Don't know how that happened or what "Chakra exhaustion" is, but two _weeks_? That should have been m__ore than enough time for the Old Ghoul to find a way to come and get me. If she can't though...?'_ Apparently he wasn't done with his own questions yet though.

"You have mentioned this 'Ki' multiple times before. When you told me about the 'Shi-Shi Hokodan' and how you made your 'Moko Takabisha' technique as well as this 'soul of ice' ability of yours... If I might ask, what is it?" the old man was giving her a questioning look, and it took her a moment to realize that he really didn't have a clue what Ki was.

"Ki is life energy," she told him in a tone that said that this should be common knowledge, "It's everywhere, you just need to know how to draw in enough to be able to use it. Though most Ki adepts where I'm from try an' keep a reserve on hand fer' emergencies. Everyone always has some circulating through their system, even if it's only a little..."

'_Except for when I woke up...'_ she thought,_ 'I was completely dry then...'_ Ranma's thoughts trailed off again.

The Sarutobi's frown just deepened as her explanation continued, before he began rubbing his forehead, "Foreign energy, right..." he muttered while looking at the papers again, "Well, since you don't know what Chakra is, allow me to explain." Ranma's attention instantly focused to a razors edge, though she noticed that he noticed and was apparently slightly unsettled by the sudden shift. "Chakra is a mixture of physical and spiritual energies that any individual produces. A person can increase how much of either that they produce through training. If you use too much however, it will become exhausted, possibly to the point where you will die in extreme cases."

"But, I don't even know how to use 'Chakra'... how could I exhaust mine?" Ranma said in a whisper. She was troubled by this piece of information. She believed what he said, but what she'd just learned only made it even more pressing that she try and learn as much about Chakra as she could. If she was using it without knowing...

"I'm getting to that..." the old man said impatiently, "But back to what I was saying. You were brought in while suffering from an advanced state of Chakra Exhaustion and your 'Ki', as you call it, was preventing your Chakra from recovering normally, as well as blocking all efforts to provide you with an infusion."

Ranma waited patiently as he shuffled through the papers again while collecting his thoughts, "Standard practice for when something like this happens is to apply a temporary seal designed to expel a broad range of foreign energies, but apparently when they did that there were some unexpected... complications."

"Complications?" Ranma cringed. She didn't like how he made that sound.

"Yes..." Sarutobi continued in a tone that clearly told the redhead that he was only half paying attention to her. He was reading over the papers as he talked, telling her that he didn't know this beforehand. "Apparently the seal used reacted normally, but after its application your body began involuntarily absorbing more... 'Ki'. To prevent this, another more permanent seal specifically tuned to expel the, at the time, unidentified energy was applied."

He hummed to himself as he read over the papers for a moment. "In the absence of your Ki preventing it from recovering, you were able to recover slightly on your own, but you were still hemorrhaging chakra at a rate the doctors were uncomfortable with. When they attempted to identify the cause, another seal that had been applied to you before you were even found was discovered to have been damaged in such a way as to continually draw on your chakra despite being in an inactive state. Further tests revealed that the reason this already existing seal was overlooked at first is due to the fact that it's made from your... Chakra... Circulatory... System...?"

He was looking at her in thinly veiled shock now as she blinked at him in returned non-comprehension. "Chakra Circulatory System? You mean my Ki Paths right?"

It was his turn to blink at her before a thoughtful look came over his face, "I think it might be safe to assume that what you call your 'Ki Paths' and the Chakra Circulatory System are one in the same, considering that that is where the energy you identify as Ki was channeling through your body before it was expelled." Looking down at the folder again, the Sarutobi's demeanor turned grim, "The damage to the seal, by its very nature, extensively damaged your Chakra circulatory system. The doctors did what they could, but a full recovery will still take several years..."

Ranma winced slightly at the news. It was a pain, but she knew that if she could be allowed to use Ki again she could cut that time down to a fraction of its original estimate. After all, she had recovered from injuries that would have taken a normal person months to heal from in a matter of days. Why wouldn't she be able to heal damage that was said to need years to recover from in a few months? At the moment she had a different question on her mind though...

"You've talked about these 'seals' before... How do they work and what do they do?" she asked curiously.

"Many things..." the Hokage said as he took on a lecturing tone, "The shortened description is that they work by channeling chakra through a drawn or carved matrix to produce various effects that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve without them. Seals can do many things, from refrigerating containers to allowing a simple slip of paper to explode with enough force to destroy buildings, as well as many, many more possible uses. The limits of a seal are only imposed by the proficiency of the creator and their imagination."

"So... What'd the damaged seal do?" Ranma asked. She was curious now. These seals sounded a bit like the Sutras and what-not that priests used where she was from. Only these people had apparently taken it to a whole different level and could do much more than spout nonsense about good luck and all of the other fake bylines they used to sell charms to tourists. The priest who had tried to help seal that one Oni had been a little better, but he still hadn't known all that much about what he was doing...

"I don't know..." he said, frowning as he looked over the notes again. "This seal is one of the most complex I have ever seen in my life... I don't think any seal master that I know of, myself included, would be able to reproduce it even should we have the complete formula. The damage suffered to it makes some parts unidentifiable, but..." He paused, looking over the papers more thoroughly again, "I think I can reasonably say that whatever it did involved a transformation of some... kind...?"

The implications set in and pieces of the puzzle previously unknown settled into place. Realization slowly dawned on Ranma, and she did something she probably should have done much earlier. Like, right after he had told her Ki paths had been damaged.

Sensing the Ki in another person only required the individual to possess a great enough command over Ki to be able to use it. The more Ki a person could use, the easier it became to sense the power of individuals around them from further away.

Examining your own Ki Paths was another matter. That didn't need any Ki at all. Instead, it required a certain disposition and way of seeing things, as well as a basic understanding of meditative techniques, that most normal people didn't have. Everyone from Nerima of a certain level of martial arts ability and above had had it by requirement, but Ranma had always had a talent for it that allowed her to sense more than simply how much ki she had, or how much pressure she built up in order to unleash her more devastating techniques. She was able to sense _how_ it passed through her, even to the point of being able to subtly manipulate how it flowed in certain ways that the others couldn't. It's how she was able to heal so much faster than even the other martial artists, what allowed her to learn the Soul of Ice so quickly after learning to control her emotions better, and figure out the components necessary to form a Ki blast when she was making the Moko Takabisha. Right now though...

"No... No way... No, no, no, no..." _'Th__is can't be happening to me!'_ the redhead mentally screamed. She knew that she was cut off from Ki at the moment, and had been peripherally aware of a strange, weak and insubstantial energy that was filtering through her system that she was beginning to identify as Chakra, given what had been explained to her and how it 'felt'. Now that she was paying attention though, she realized that her entire system was burnt out or otherwise damaged. It was strange, in a way, seeing as the damage actually seemed to pressurize the new energy enough to where she thought she could begin to manipulate it. She refrained for the moment, in difference to trying to keep herself from panicking...

"Is something wrong?" the Hokage asked, snapping her out of her mounting panic.

"No... Nothin's wrong at all... I just figured out why I can't change back..." She managed to force out while faking a smile. He had said that her Ki Paths, or her 'Chakra Circulatory System' as he called it, had been damaged and would take a long time to heal, but the extent of it was beyond anything she had thought possible. Add that to what she had just learned...

"Oh? Would you care to explain then?" he said with obvious interest, but also obviously having come to a similar conclusion as her.

She took in a couple of deep breaths to calm down before answering, "I think... that that damaged 'seal' might actually be my Jusenkyou curse, and until my Ki paths heal... I'm stuck."

A heavy silence filled the room for a few moments before the Sarutobi broke it. "You seem to be taking this quite well now that you know the most likely cause of your problem..." he said in a low voice.

"This won't be the first time I've been stuck as a girl, and this time I know that I'll be able to change back without havin' to jump through too many hoops..." Ranma bit off, "It's just goin to _take_ a little while before that _happens_..." Her voice was laced with venom, but internally Ranma was frowning. Something didn't quite sit right with her about that statement, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what...

"Ah yes... The 'cat's tongue' and the incident regarding your 'Prince Herb' and his magic water..." her companion replied, electing sharp a nod from Ranma. He cleared his throat, most likely in an effort to break the tension.

"Now then, back to where we were before..."

The old man Hmmm'd a little, taking up the folder again. "Right then... After they stabilized you and unknowingly discovered your curse the doctors did what they could to heal the damage, but there wasn't much that could be done other than let you recover on your own. You were in a comatose state and the doctors didn't want to risk giving you an infusion of Chakra due to the abnormal means to how you suffered from chakra exhaustion, but it was believed that once you recovered enough you'd come out of it."

"So I just laid in bed for the last two weeks?" She concluded with a slightly disgusted look on her face, having calmed down enough were she could start thinking more rationally again. Idiot father and seppuku contracts or no, she'd been training for so long that _not_ doing any training for that long didn't sit well with her.

"It would appear that way." The Hokage agreed as he looked over the papers again, "Now this is interesting..."

"What?" She asked, trying to not sound too interested. By how he said it, she guessed that whatever was 'interesting' wasn't necessarily bad, but with her life the way it was, it could really mean anything.

"Apparently in the absence of your Ki blocking it your Chakra has grown rapidly from the level we would expect from an infant or toddler, but within the last few days the rate of growth slowed down significantly, so much so that the doctors project that you will have Chakra reserves at a level somewhat below average for someone of your current physical age when the growth finally slows to a more normal pace." The old man hummed to himself again as he continued to read.

"So... all I need to do to let my 'chakra' grow is not pressurize it with my Ki?" Ranma quietly asked, more to herself than to the old man. Her tactical mind was already working out the logistics of having two possible power sources to work with, instead of just the one she knew how to use. These people seemed to know a lot about this 'Chakra' stuff, so she'd need to find someone willing to teach her more.

"It isn't quite as simple as that..." the Hokage said after a few moments, apparently catching onto what she was thinking and bringing her out of her musings. Her only response was to frown and gave him a look that clearly said to explain.

"You will remember that you still have a seal placed on you that prevents you from drawing in 'ki'?" she thought for a moment and remembered he had said something about that earlier before nodding. "Well... Right now, it is the only thing preventing you from slipping back into a coma and... dying..." he said...

Ranma only blinked at him a couple of times before what he said sank in. She had a feeling that he wouldn't lie about this, but...

"Explain." was all she said, trying to use the Soul of Ice to keep her emotions in check. It only partly worked, as there was no subtle chilling effect in the absence of Ki, but it still achieved the other part of its purpose. He shivered slightly at the frigid tone of her voice, but at the moment Ranma could care less.

"Because the seal that apparently makes up the true form of your 'Jusenkyou curse' is damaged, you are steadily losing chakra, sort of like a Hemophiliac would lose blood should they be injured..." he began, looking her in the eyes as he explained, "Despite the fact that your reserves have grown remarkably in the last two weeks, I would feel confident saying that this is only because it did not have to contend with your Ki as your body attempted to compensate for the constant drain it is experiencing. At the moment, you are still only able to produce barely more than enough chakra to keep yourself alive and conscious, and should the seal be removed..."

He paused for a moment, sighing slightly before continuing, "Should it be removed, there is a very strong likelihood that your Ki will once again overwhelm your chakra reserves, hindering your ability to produce chakra again. You would once again be losing chakra faster than your body could replenish itself, and..."

Ranma slowly nodded in understanding as he trailed off. She didn't need him to finish his explanation, and an icy pit began to fill her stomach the more she thought about it. She knew that she had no control over how much ki she would absorb, so long as her reserve was below a certain amount. Normally it wasn't an issue because she tried to maintain a much larger store of ki on hand. Well above that bottom line. Should she get into a particularly intense fight though, one that pushed her to her limits like when she fought Saffron or even Herb, she would drop below that line, and her body would automatically begin drawing on more Ki from the environment without her even needing to think about it. With the normal reserve of Ki she maintained being completely dry...

In the end she had two options. Wait for her body's natural healing in the absence of Ki to repair the seal enough where it stopped leaking, or learn how to use Chakra and train with it until hers was strong enough to compensate for her body's attempts to draw in more Ki...

Both would take years either way she chose...

They sat there silently for a few minutes, taking everything they both had just learned in while trying to figure out what to do next. It was Ranma who broke the silence first.

"So... what now?"

"If I may make a... suggestion?" the old man asked hesitantly.

Taking Ranma's silence as assent he continued, "When the doctors tested you and discovered the seal that acts as your curse, they were able to record its formula here." The Hokage said, laying his hands on the now closed folder, "As I said before, from what I saw it is far more complex than anything even the best seal-masters alive would be able to produce or even duplicate even if they had the formula, and therefore I highly doubt that anyone would be able to find a way to remove it."

"What's your point old man?" Ranma said as she became a little irritated. She knew that she would more than likely carry her curse until she died, but she still didn't like being reminded of it.

"My point is, that it is highly likely that the seal will repair itself enough to become functional again much sooner than it will take to stop leaking. Possibly in only a few months from now even. There is enough information here regarding the functions of the seal that, from what I saw, I may be able to isolate its trigger and make another seal to interface with your 'curse' and seal you in one form or the other."

"What? Like lock me in my guy form?" Ranma asked, letting a little hope enter her voice. Strangely, though, the hope she felt at the prospect wasn't as intense as she would have expected. She'd have to think about that later...

"Possibly..." Sarutobi said, but he was shaking his head, "Considering what you told me about every other potential cure you have tried, however, I rather doubt that it will be that straightforward..." her face fell at this, but he wasn't done talking yet, "I won't know for certain until I have more time to study the formula, so I wouldn't give up all hope just yet... However, even if I am only able to find a way to seal you in your current form, I would suggest accepting it anyway."

"And why would I do that?" Ranma said a little indignantly. She was still on the fence about this, but if he _could_ find a way to lock her as a guy...

Again, the prospect of that strangely didn't have the same mental emphasis behind it as it had before as she thought about it...

"The means through which you came here are beyond anything I know of being able to reproduce, meaning that you will be stuck here for a very long time at the least..." he said in a manner that had a finality to it, "Add to that, that even though Konoha is a ninja village and out job description implies that we expect the unexpected, it is also home to one of the largest civilian populations in the elemental nations, and in general, they are much less tolerant of things that they don't understand... Occasionally violently so..."

The last was said in a growled whisper that Ranma was sure she wasn't supposed to hear, but the message was received none the less. She just wondered what had happened where normal people would react like that. Not even her curse and all of the other strangeness of Nerima had caused what could be considered the 'normal' population to do something violent against the NWC. Anyone who went to Fuurinkan High was exempt from that rule of course, but they were all at least half insane to begin with...

"Either way you decide, once you are cleared to leave the hospital you will be placed into the orphanage here unless someone from your own home manages to find a way to come and collect you before then..."

"Now then," The Hokage said as he stood up after a moment of silence, "I was originally coming to the hospital to attend to some other matters before I was distracted by the scene earlier this morning, and I have spent much more time here than I originally intended, so unless you have any more questions, I need to get going..."

"Right... Questions..." Ranma mumbled as she scratched the back of her head and thought it over... there were a few, but she had the feeling that Old Man Sarutobi would be back sooner or later, and they could wait until then.

"No... I'm good for now."

The old man started chuckling slightly in a knowing manner before nodding and turning to walk out the door, leaving Ranma to her thoughts...

-o-o-o-o-o-

It had been six days since Ranma had woken up in the hospital. The doctors had informed her that since she had come in with such an abnormal case of Chakra Exhaustion they wanted to keep her for a week for 'observation'. The Old Hokage had come and visited her once or twice during that time and answered a few more questions, and she'd learned a little more about the world she now found herself in as well as how the whole 'ninja village' thing worked along with some of Konoha's history. She was convinced that she was in an entirely different world, as she'd managed to convince her only visitor to find a map for her to look at once, and she'd gotten good enough grades in Geography where she knew that she didn't recognize anything. She'd also drawn up a rough sketch of Japan and a slightly larger and rougher one of the continents of Earth for the Hokage to look at and he'd confirmed their shared suspicions...

Unfortunately, in her opinion anyways, she had failed to convince him to bring her some normal clothes to wear instead of the hospital gown. He had agreed to find something in her size that she wouldn't mind for when she was released though...

Ranma stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom attached to the room she was staying in at the hospital, doing something she'd been putting off for as long as possible. She'd be leaving the hospital tomorrow to go and stay in an orphanage for 'an indeterminate period of time' as the Sarutobi had put it once when she'd asked. The old man had hinted that he'd made some progress with her curse seal during his last visit, but it hadn't actually sounded all that promising for certain results. So she figured she had a choice to make...

She was assessing the changes her body had undergone. She was younger; physically maybe three or four years old. She'd already figured this much out but now that she had the time for a full assessment she decided that she was probably closer to four, but not quite yet. Oddly, the only thing that hadn't shrunk with her new age was her hair, which was still bound in a braid by the dragon whisker, but it now came down to her shoulders in a sort of fan before the braid started, reaching about halfway down her back. It was a bit more feminine than she would have normally been comfortable with, but save for the Hokage everyone else thought she was really a girl, and changing her hairstyle might raise some questions at the moment. All things considered, these weren't exactly "normal" circumstances either.

Mentally, she was confused. There was a part of her that held on to all of the memories of when she was eighteen, and with them came the experience to make judgments based off of them that no three year-old would ever be able to make. At the same time however, now that she was paying attention, she noted a distinct difference in how she saw the world around her compared to before. Her already short attention span was now tinted by a childlike curiosity that she vaguely recalled possessing from the hazy, fragmented blur of memories before the Neko-ken. She would still appear extremely mature for a child to someone unfamiliar with her or her situation, but at the same time she didn't act quite the same way she had when she was eighteen either.

She had talked about this apparent regression with the Hokage, and he thought that it may have something to do with the fact that, even though she had the memories of an eighteen year-old, her brain was physically that of an admittedly well developed three year-old. That mixed with the absence of the hormones puberty had drenched her body with meant that there was a very high possibility that she should expect more changes as her younger body finished adjusting.

And that was another thing...

Two weeks of not doing anything had worn away at her conditioning. She was still incredibly fit. Definitely more-so than someone would expect a three-about to turn four-year old to be, but she would still work on getting her conditioning back up to where it was before. She'd made some progress during the last few days, but she wouldn't be able to make any major gains until she could really let loose while not being confined to a hospital room. Granted, she still wouldn't be able to work on the most advanced levels of her mastery of the Saotome style for quite some time, but she would still take what she could get for the moment.

Another mental checkmark crossed her list as another issue came to mind. The transition she was making from exclusively using Ki for her whole life, to having chakra running through her system was... unsettling.

She had decided that the feeling of chakra was 'weird'. There was no other word she could really put to it. Simply the feeling of not having any Ki running through her system at all was strange in and of itself, but when she added in that now a decidedly _different_ type of energy had taken its place...

It was like there were feathers lightly brushing her skin at times, and at others she would feel something that reminded her of being drenched in water on any normal day in Nerima, despite the fact that nothing similar had happened to her during the entirety of the week. Add in the fact that Chakra barely responded to her emotions and it truly became unnerving at times. She had grown used to the ebb and flow of life energy as it rose and fell with her emotions. Now there was simply...

Nothing...

Her thoughts drifted as she continued staring at her reflection until finally coming back to the last conversation she'd had with the Hokage and remembered the real purpose behind this self assessment.

"_Think of this as an opportunity to start over."_ He'd said after telling her once again that he didn't know of a way to get her home when she'd asked for something like the tenth time. _"After all, none of the people from__ your old life are here now, and not everyone gets to relive their childhood..."_

"Start over?" she said as she reached out and touched her reflection in the glass. It was tempting. Oh so very tempting...

To take his offer and make an entirely new life for herself here in Konoha would be like the ultimate slap in the face to everyone back in Nerima. But the fact remained, if she did this, which parts of her old life did she want to keep, which ones would she want to throw away, and which ones would she change either for herself or out of spite for everyone who'd ever wanted to coerce or control her...?

She wasn't a person who was prone to deep thinking, but being confined to her room with nothing but low level katas to do unless she was being visited by the Hokage, or the doctors and nurses checking up on her, for the last six days had given her an abundance of time to think about her life. She didn't like a lot of what she saw, but she also realized that at the time she couldn't have done very many things differently with all of the obligations and her own honor confining her to a figurative straightjacket's worth of options. Sure there was her own fair share of mistakes to consider, but at the same time it was also the people around her that had taken advantage of those mistakes who had been controlling the rest of her life without her even realizing before.

The first such situation that came to mind was how Ryouga had taken advantage of her honor in not telling Akane that bacon breath was also her 'precious P-Chan' while the pig proved that he didn't have any honor himself by sleeping in the tomboy's bed without her knowing. Then there were all the times she'd allowed Nabiki to take advantage of her to make a little money, the ten-yen battle being one of the more glaring incidents she could think of. She didn't want to even start with the Amazons and all the times they had attempted to manipulate her in some way, either with or without the aid of magic...

The list went on and included practically everyone she knew save for Doc. Tofu and Kasumi. Even they were guilty of it once or twice and were only spared her opinion of everyone else because when they did it, they usually believed that what they were doing was truly in Ranma's best interests instead of for selfish reasons. In the end Ranma decided that enough was enough if she ever did find a way back to Earth. Her honor was still important to her... But with so many of the people who had surrounded her on a daily basis attempting to control her through dishonorable means and often using her own honor against her...

A knock at the door drew her out of her thoughts. Turning away from her reflection and walking into the main room she saw the door opening to admit the Hokage.

"How are you today Ranma-_chan_?" he asked with a friendly smile as he walked over to his usual chair by the window.

"I'm alright I guess..." she said without the usual twitch at the 'chan' suffix as she hopped up onto the bed and crossed her legs.

The old man raised an eyebrow at the lack of reaction to the playful barb and her somewhat distracted behavior. She couldn't blame him really. He'd figured out early on that she hated being called 'chan' and they had made a sort of game at it as she rarely called him anything but 'old man' which he equally disliked.

"Remember what you told me about the Jusenkyou Curse seal?" she said after a moment to collect her thoughts. This wasn't going to be easy, but in the end it was _Her_ choice, and that made all the difference in the world...

"That because it was damaged I didn't have enough information to see if I could seal in your male form until your pathways healed enough to allow you to change again?"

The confirming nod he received from Ranma only caused him to frown.

"How hard would it... would it be to lock it as... as I am?" she asked with no small amount of hesitance, swallowing hard. She had to remember why she was doing this. It wasn't an easy decision, and by no means was she making it lightly, but her mental assessments of herself, her life and how she _wanted_ to change them without her father, mother, Mr. Tendo, the Amazons, and everyone else to distract or try and choose for her had been illuminating...

"Am I to assume that you..." He trailed off when Ranma nodded jerkily with her eyes closed tightly as she bit her lower lip. She couldn't keep the tear from leaking out of the side of her eye. "If I might ask... Why?"

"I thought about what you said..." she said, taking in a deep, calming breath. "About how I should... Should see this as an opportunity to... start over."

Her guest waited patiently as she collected her thoughts again and tried to push down the genuine fear that was attempting to overwhelm her. This was a different type of fear from her phobia of cats though. It was fear of the unknown. Fear of what her future held for her that came from the realization that _she_ was the one who controlled her life. Up until now it had been directed by those around her and that had made it somewhat predictable. Before, she was going to marry Akane and inherit the Tendo Dojo where she would teach Martial Arts, among other things. Even though there had been so many different factions attempting to control her life she could still see that that had been the most likely outcome when everything was said and done and the dust settled...

Now though, _she_ was taking her life into _her own hands_. It was _hers _to do with as she liked, and even though that realization made her feel liberated, it also was the source of her fear. But she had made her choice...

"If... if I'm going to start over, I want to _really_ start over... I already grew up as a boy once, but I didn't... didn't really have much of a 'childhood'..." She ignored the snort the Hokage gave that last statement. She'd told him about everything, and that included the early years of the training trip. "I... I don't have all that many good... memories as a boy..." She failed to suppress a shiver, "and the few I do have don't really make up for everything I've been through..."

"But..." the Hokage hesitantly began after a moment, "I was under the impression that you hated most anything to do with your female form, most of all being 'locked', as you put it..."

Ranma shook her head, "I've done a lot of thinking over the last few days and... It's not so much that, as much as... as I don't like having the _choice_ taken away..." she paused for a moment, thinking that that didn't sound quite right, but it was close enough for now and the old man urged her to continue.

"When... When I _wasn't_ locked, everyone would always be hounding on me to change back as soon as possible, even... even if I didn't want to at the time..." She managed to choke out through the tears that threatened to spill at a moment's notice, the last being said in a whisper, "When I _was _locked though, it was even worse because they'd _still _be after me to find a way to change back as soon as possible even though I _couldn't_... It... It was never really _my_ choice to be locked or if I wanted to change back in the first place. It was just what everyone either wanted or expected me to do... and I... I never really got used to the idea that I was a... a girl half the time..." Silent tears ran down her face as her willpower faltered slightly and Ranma struggled to get her emotions in check again. The Soul of Ice wasn't appropriate for a situation like this...

"So now that you do have a choice in how you want to lead your life...?" the Sarutobi said more than asked.

Ranma nodded and took another shaky breath. "With the life I had before... I never really figured out who I was, but now... Now I know who I want to be..."

"I want... I want to know what it would take for you to lock me as a girl..."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Ranma was beyond nervous as she followed the man wearing a dog mask and a long, black hooded trench coat through Konoha's streets. It was just after dawn at the moment and she had been released from the hospital less than an hour before. Her current guide had shown up to give her the clothes the Hokage had promised her and lead her to where her curse would become who she was. At least that's how she thought of it anyway...

The clothes were a comfortable and practical loose red T-shirt, brown cargo shorts and a pair of slightly scuffed sandals. They were second hand, seeing as she'd be moving into an orphanage later in the evening and she agreed with the Hokage when he said that she didn't want to be too much better dressed than the other children.

As it stood the only things she had to her name were the clothes on her back, the dragon whisker and the clothes she'd been wearing when Kuno banished her, which were now much too big for her to wear for the next few years.

Looking around she noticed that Konoha was definitely an appropriate name for the city she now found herself in, as there was hardly a space that wasn't occupied by buildings or roads that didn't have trees scattered around it. The air was clean too, telling her that this world didn't have a very heavy industrial presence, but that only made her wonder where they got all of the manufactured things she'd seen so far. In the distance she could see the Hokage monument Sarutobi had told her about with the four heads carved out from the surface of a mountain. It was a bit over pretentious in her opinion, but in the end she didn't think she was one who should really judge.

Her stoic guide remained silent for the most part as they walked through the main road, towards a tall tower like structure with the Kanji for 'Fire' embossed on a circular plaque about half way up. They entered the courtyard in front of the tower and Ranma followed him through the front doors and the halls beyond, moving downward and passing through several checkpoints where she was sure she would have been stopped without her guide, until they stopped in front of a plain wooden door which the dog-masked man opened.

Ranma swallowed as she entered the room and nearly jumped out of her skin before entering a ready stance when the door shut loudly behind her. The room itself was dimly lit by oil lamps along the walls. Stranger still was the floor. The stone surface was covered in intricate runes and strange symbols drawn out into a sort of pattern that she couldn't identify. In the middle of the array was a void roughly a meter in diameter with a stool sitting in the center.

"So this is the brat with the 'curse' you dragged me in here for?" a voice said from the corner behind her and to the right. The unexpected noise in the positively creepy scene made her whirl around, shifting her ready stance to a more aggressive one as she faced the would-be adversary.

The effort to look intimidating was largely lost on the white haired man standing in the corner next to the Hokage, and he simply snorted as he walked up to her and bonked her on the head.

"Doesn't look like much to me though... I don't know why you're going to all this effort Sensei."

Ranma slipped out of her stance when it became clear that these people weren't enemies and let the adrenaline rush slowly drain away as she rubbed her head where the stranger's knuckles had made contact.

"That isn't your concern, Jiraiya." The old man said as he finished drawing another symbol on the floor. Turning to her he asked, "Are you ready, Ranma?"

The redhead suddenly found her throat very dry so she nodded instead.

"Alright then... to begin, you'll need to sit on the stool and take your shirt off."

She did as she was told, crossing her arms to cover her now bare chest regardless of the fact that it would be almost a decade before she hit puberty again. Both men immediately set to work with brushes and ink; The Hokage painting out even more intricate patterns inside the previously void area while the man called Jiraiya started drawing on her skin, starting at the small of her back and working until her whole back and lower torso was covered in symbols before moving down, painting over her pants and exposed legs.

She tried not to shiver whenever the wet brush touched her skin during the whole process, out of fear of messing up whatever it was that they were doing. It seemed to take hours, but eventually the two men reached a point where their work joined in the middle and they stood back, the old man stretching and causing his back to crack loudly in several places.

"Alright Ranma..." he said as he looked her in the eye, "This is your last chance to back out. Once the seal is complete it can't be removed or deactivated without killing you... Are you sure you want to do this?"

She swallowed hard as she locked eyes with the elderly man, trying to work some moisture into her mouth so she could speak. This was the point of no return. After this... there really was no going back...

"Do it." She finally croaked out, squeezing her eyes shut.

She heard the old man walk behind her and Jiraiya back up until he was next to the wall. She didn't dare move out of fear of causing something to go wrong, and for the next few moments all she could hear was her own breathing and the sleeves on the Hokage's robe shifting.

"_Fuuin: Jusenkyou Fuuinjou_"

For the next few moments Ranma could actually _feel_ the ink flowing over her skin as whatever it was that was happening played out. It all seemed to be centering itself on the small of her back and she resisted the urge to scratch it.

Seemingly as soon as it began, it was over and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding... before white hot pain branded itself across the skin of her back as liquid fire flooded her ki paths.

She involuntarily shrieked at the sudden pain and fell off the stool as she reached around her back to put out whatever fire had been ignited there, only to feel cool, smooth skin under her fingers even as the pain subsided. She sat there on her hands and knees, shivering as the aftereffects of the pain faded away before she saw the Hokage holding out her folded shirt for her to take.

"How do you feel Ranma?" he asked as she took the garment and put it on. It almost sounded like there was uncertainty in his voice, but she couldn't really be sure...

"I feel alright..." she said distractedly as she finished pulling her left arm through its sleeve and pulled the shirt down to cover her stomach.

"Good... now, if you could follow me up to my office we can finalize the paperwork admitting you into the orphanage..."

-o-o-o-o-o-

It was several hours later when Ranma found herself standing in the Entry of the Hokage Tower, waiting for her assigned escort to show up and take her to her new home.

It had taken a lot longer to go over all of the paperwork necessary to admit her into the orphanage than she had expected. Add on top of that, that once they were done they needed to come up with a convincing cover story for her existence. It was nearing four in the afternoon by the time they finished when they had started sometime around nine AM...

"Ah... you must be Ranma." Came a voice to her left. Turning, she saw a young man with short, spiky black hair wearing a pair of aviator's sunglasses and what she recognized as standard Konoha Ninja attire walking towards her. "I'm supposed to escort you to the orphanage..."

"Nice of you to show up..." She quietly said while giving him her patented grin that so infuriated Ryouga, only resized for her new body. He had apparently heard her but didn't show any sign of being put off by her attitude. Instead he just raised an eyebrow.

"Ah... Sorry. I got here as quickly as I could. It's nice to meet you Saotome-kun." He replied with a slight bow. "Now, if you don't mind, there is apparently someplace you need to go, but don't know how to get there..."

Ranma just chuckled as she took his outstretched hand. Years of experience or no, it didn't change the fact that she was now only three years old again, in body at least, if not in mind quite yet. The strangeness of his much larger hand almost completely swallowing hers would still take some getting used to...

They turned and walked out the doors, only for Ranma to pause just outside and take in a deep breath.

Yes... Today was a good day. This was her chance to be who she wanted to be and no one would tell her otherwise...

This was the beginning of her new life...

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Prologue

-o-o-o-o-o-

Jutsu Appendix:

_Fuuin: Jusenkyou Fuuinjou_ - Sealing: Jusenkyou Seal lock

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Notes: Ok, here's the prologue for my new Ranma/Naruto X-over "Amongst the Leaves". Right now I'm just setting the stage for things to come and I have no intention of going over everything that happens between now and the time Ranma graduates from Ninja Academy in detail. It'd just take too long and be too tempting to make Ranma overpowered just to make it exciting enough. That said, if you're paying attention you should be able to pick up on at least the general idea of what Ranma experiences as she grows up again in the next few chapters and even more later on as the story continues. Just remember that not everything is always as it seams and to look "Underneath the underneath" as Kakashi would say.

Now on to Jutsu; I will be putting an appendix at the end of each chapter where I use an original Jutsu, giving the Jutsu's name and a brief description. I will not, however, repeat any jutsu that have already made an appearance in the Jutsu Appendix even if they are used in more than one chapter unless I am asked to.

I don't plan on using too many that aren't already seen in Cannon, but for those I do I would like the input of the readers to help me out. I only have a passing understanding of the Japanese language gained from reading far too much Fanfiction with its occasional dealings with the language as well as watching _way _too much subbed anime and actually listening to what the characters are saying while I'm reading the subs, so it's fragmented at best and outright nonexistent at worst.

That being said if I use a Jutsu name or phrase that simply isn't right and you have a greater knowledge of the language than I do please leave a review and say something. I _will_ go back and change it when I get the time. Heck, leave a review even if you don't take issue to my poor excuse for an understanding of one of the (In my opinion at least) most interesting languages in the world. Contrary to popular myth, I do actually read my reviews and enjoy doing so. I just don't directly reply to them.


	2. Chapter I: Teamwork

1) The Characters and Stories of _Naruto_ and _Ranma ½_ are Copyright © Masashi Kishimoto and Rumiko Takahashi respectively, and are used here without permission or license.

2) No claims to the above copyrights are made by the author of this work.

3) This is a work written for non-commercial use ONLY, and is written for the purpose of the enjoyment of fans.

4) This work is the expression of the author, and the depictions of the characters and stories of _Naruto_ and _Ranma ½ _herein are in no way represented to be a part of _Naruto_ or _Ranma ½_ as depicted by the original authors and copyright holders.

Beginning Notes: Well, here's Chapter one. Hope you enjoy it. If not then you're entitled to your own opinion, but please keep it to yourself unless you have something constructive to say.

Thanks go out to CaedesPlerique for pre-reading and plot advice, as well as to everyone who left a review. I loved reading them, even though I ask everyone who asked questions to please wait for the story to progress for the answers. As Caedes' review said, most of the points raised by the reviewers have already been or will be discussed to some degree or another by us as we work out the details. This means that more than likely any questions about character interactions, motivations and/or future abilities will eventually be answered by the story itself.

Thank you for your time. Now on with the Show!

**Amongst the Leaves**

By: Almech Alfarion (Child of Fire)

Chapter I: Teamwork...

**-**o-o-o-o-o-

It was a typical morning in Konoha. The sun was shining from just over the horizon, birds were singing their joy for the new day and the early risers were already well into their morning routines.

"_Gai Sensei!_"

"_Lee!_"

Ranma just ignored the distant calls as she danced over her home's roof, going through her katas. The morning dew made her footing a little tricky and she needed to be careful not to slip and fall as she went through the familiar motions. The redhead's thoughts drifted as the sun continued to rise, her long, tightly braided hair flailing wildly as she dueled with an opponent that existed only in her mind's eye.

She had had a dream about Pandas last night.

She hadn't dreamed about her past life in several years, but she just _knew_ that this one had been about her birth father. The white and black bear had been dancing around in a way that was decidedly non-bear-like with a tall, mustachioed man wearing a brown Gi whom she couldn't quite remember the name of. The idea that his name rhymed with 'noon' briefly flickered across her consciousness before being dismissed. The cause of their apparently drunken celebration was lost to her as soon as she woke up.

Ten years of growing up again and forming new memories was a long time to dull the details of some of the less important, or more unpleasant, aspects of her previous life. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that the mustachioed man and his involvement with her birth father had been related to both categories, from her point of view anyway. It wasn't that she couldn't remember the details if she tried, it was that she didn't really feel like expending the effort to remember something she had decided years ago that she might be better off forgetting unless she needed to. They were always there though, ready to be dredged up if she needed them however unlikely that might be.

Instead there were more important things to remember. Like the day she had met her best friend in the whole world, her first real birthday party that she could remember in her entire life or... the day when she realized her adoptive parents actually thought of her as their own daughter...

Ranma stopped when she began to hear movement coming from the apartment below, freezing in mid punch with her leg already drawn back in preparation for a backwards roundhouse. Letting go of her stance the redhead turned in the direction of the rising sun and breathed slowly, letting in the fresh air as she concentrated on her chakra and how it flowed while placing a leaf on her forehead. She stood there for several minutes, more in a state of meditation than actually practicing her control, with the freshly picked foliage simply sticking to her brow before releasing her chakra's grip on the leaf. Ranma opened her eyes and watched it slowly drift to the ground.

Giving herself a satisfied nod, the redhead turned and hopped off of her apartment's roof and onto the small balcony below. Sliding the door open she paid careful attention to not disturbing the room's still sleeping occupant as she slipped out of her sweaty Gi and headed to the bathroom for a hot shower.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Ranma-honey, would you please go get Sakura? If she takes much longer she will either need to skip breakfast or be late."

"Yes mom." Ranma sighed, sitting in her bathrobe and looking longingly at her half finished breakfast which was still twice the size of the other members of her family. She briefly contemplated using the Saotome eating techniques to finish it off, but squashed that idea almost as soon as it came. The Harunos had made it quite clear shortly after adopting her that if she wanted to "eat like an animal" then she wouldn't eat at all.

Standing up from her chair Ranma made her way over to the bedroom she shared with Sakura, her still damp and currently unbound hair cascading past her waist in a red waterfall. "Oi! Sis!" the redhead said just loud enough where she knew it would annoy the other girl. She grinned when she heard the humming from the other side stop abruptly, "Stop preening in front of the mirror or we'll be late!" Grinning wider at the angry thumps of Sakura walking over to the door she braced herself for the retort.

"I Know Ranma! We're not kids anymore, so you can just..." The door opened revealing a pink haired girl wearing a red and white outfit with a Leaf printed Hitai-ite tied on her head like a hair band. The girl that was her sister in all but blood saw her standing there, grinning triumphantly with her unbraided hair and bathrobe. Ranma just started giggling when she saw the tick form above the other girl's temple.

Working quickly to avert further argument the redhead slipped around her, lightly shoving her out the door and closing it behind her while simultaneously engaging the lock. She began laughing manically at the enraged scream of "RANMA!" from the other side.

Five minutes later she emerged, dressed and with her hair bound so that it fanned out loosely until just below her shoulders before becoming a tight braid that reached the small of her back. She wore a red thigh length sleeveless cheongsam with its skirt slit high on both sides to allow for freedom of movement. A gold embroidered oriental dragon wound its way around her, circling around and up from front to back before coming over her left shoulder to rest its head just below her collarbone. Tied around her waist was a long black sash knotted on the left side, the trailing ends dropping to just above her knees while a curved metal plate etched with the same image as the one on her sister's Hitai-ite turned hair-band was attached to it over her right hip. Covering her forearms up to a few centimeters short of her elbows and held in place by a series of buckles were a pair of vambraces; thick padding layered underneath plain metal plates to help absorb greater impacts when blocking. A matching pair of shin guards covered her lower legs and knees. Tight black pants reaching just past her knees and a pair of black sandals completed the ensemble.

Looking down at herself for a moment, there was only one thing she was really uncomfortable with. Much to her annoyance, and consequently the envy of many of her female classmates, her figure had begun developing early. She could only think of one other girl in their class who could give her a run for her money in the looks department so far, but given the girl's withdrawn nature her fellow early bloomer had taken to wearing oversized clothes before she even developed. She never suffered what Ranma had gone through on an almost daily basis for the first three months after puberty hit her like a freight train hauling estrogen, and still went through from time to time whenever another boy began to 'take notice'. She had tried to let them down easily, but being one of the few girls who weren't members of the "Uchiha Fan-club", and consequently the first among them to begin developing, more than a few of them had been... Persistent.

Luckily _most_ of them had gotten the hint before she resorted to breaking bones.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts Ranma rushed back to the kitchen and ate as quickly as she dared while pointedly ignoring the annoyed looks her sister was giving her. The redhead finished her breakfast with plenty of time to spare before they needed to leave and Sakura caught up to her, grinning as she stood at their apartment's door, a few minutes later.

"Oh sure, rub it in will you..." was all the pinkette grumbled before they both went out and walked down the four flights of stairs to reach the ground. The two walked through the streets of Konoha, chatting amicably. Well, mostly it was just Ranma pretending to listen to her sister rant about Uchiha Sasuke and how great he was. To be honest, she never really understood what the other girls in their class saw in the prick...

It went on like this for a few minutes before they entered a side market and Ranma saw Sakura stiffen slightly out of the corner of her eye. _'Oh here we go again...'_ she thought, looking further down the road to see the sign of a familiar flower shop. Rolling her eyes as her sister started to speed up her pace Ranma watched in amusement as a blond girl in a purple outfit with her own Hitai-ite around her waist like a belt walked out of the shop and paused at the sight of the pink haired girl.

"Good morning, Sakura." she said with some hostility.

"Good morning, Ino." was her sister's equally hostile reply.

For a moment both just stood there, looking at each other as Ranma hung back and tried not to laugh before they continued walking side by side in the same direction. Despite still being several meters behind them Ranma's ears picked up the entire exchange clearly and noted that if anyone that didn't know them had been listening in, they would never guess that the two girls were the best of friends.

"Hey now, none of that." she said, catching up and draping her arms over each of their shoulders. Both looked at her a little sheepishly but she just grinned. "We're all ninja now. No need to be so hostile to each-other."

Ino just snorted at the joke while Sakura rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, Ranma, we know." The blond said before dislodging herself from under the redhead's arm and flashing them both her own grin while pointing at Ranma, "I don't know about Sakura, but I for one won't let you beat me anymore!"

"Is that a challenge?" Ranma removed her remaining arm from her sister's shoulder, standing upright in one of her deceptively casual ready stances. She felt a satisfied thrill when she saw the other girl tense at the sudden change and had to hold back a feral grin, favoring her usual one instead. They had been paired off enough during class for the Yamanaka to know that her guard was anything but down. The grin widened when she saw Ino's own posture shift slightly, a tell the redhead knew meant the blond was getting herself ready.

"Right! Last one to the academy buys lunch!" Ino yelled before turning and running towards their destination with hardly any warning. Ranma and Sakura both let out indignant squawks before chasing after her.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"GOAL!"

Ranma slid into the classroom door a full three seconds before the other two girls. Not even breathing hard from the 'jog' she watched in amusement as Ino and Sakura fought over who would be through the door next. As usual, both made it at the same time before slumping over and beginning to make an impressive attempt at hacking up their lungs after trying to catch up to Ranma.

"I... win..." Ino managed to pant out after a while.

"What... are you... talking... about... Ino...? My... toe... clearly... entered... the class... before yours... by... a centimeter..." Ranma just shook her head at her sister's response before walking up to them and holding her hand out, palm up.

Ino looked at the hand dumbly for a moment before groaning in defeat. "Fine..." was all she said before standing back and holding out her own hand in a fist, Sakura mirroring her actions.

"_JAN-KEN-PO!_"

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Alright everyone, settle down..."

Ranma listened to Iruka-sensei with mild interest as he said how proud he was of all of them for passing their exams and went on to explain their new duties now that they were gennin. It was all fairly interesting, if someone had the patience to watch paint dry that is. The only reason she was even paying any amount of attention to the scared instructor was because today was the day they were supposed to be assigned to teams.

Instead, she occupied the majority of her mental energies working on the puzzle that had presented itself after her, her sister and her sister's best friend's arrival. Somehow, despite having failed the exam a week before, Uzumaki Naruto had shown up for the meeting with a Konoha Hitai-ite, inadvertently caused a somewhat humorous incident involving himself and the Uchiha Duck-butt, resulting in a beating at the hands of the majority of the class' female members. Well, it was humorous in her opinion anyway...

The latter wasn't an uncommon response to one of his many pranks on said water-foul haired youth gone horribly wrong, but the fact that Iruka-sensei had yet to call him on the former was noteworthy. It could only mean that the blond boy was somehow _supposed_ to be here.

For the life of her she couldn't figure out _how_ he had become a Ninja after failing the test but in the end the redhead decided that it didn't really matter all that much as Iruka began calling out teams.

"Team one will consist of..."

Ranma listened with slightly more interest as the first teams were called out, thinking about who she would want to be on her team, weighing what she knew of her classmates' personalities and their abilities. _'Definitely not the duck ass...'_ she thought as Iruka called out Team Five, which the only member she caught the name of was her Sister's. While he may have been skilled, the Uchiha's attitude would probably drive her to violence against his person eventually. _'Or the Midget... The guy's got heart and I only give him crap when he _really_ screws up, but...'_ She didn't really feel like discrediting Naruto's capabilities outright despite history being against him. It was sort of her fault he was as good as he was with seals after all, despite his almost nonexistent grounding in the basics of everything else.

On the other hand she suspected that he had a small crush on her despite the more obvious one he had for Sakura. She _really_ didn't want to deal with what might happen if he shifted that over to her. The redhead knew that his crush on her sister was mostly a bid for attention, and her sister's popularity and... unusual, hair color lended greatly to that. Ranma, on the other hand, was difficult to approach because of her fixation on training and martial arts, added to the fact that the last boy to be 'persistent' in trying to hit on her had remained in the fetal position for nearly fifteen minutes...

He hadn't bothered her in that way yet, _'t__hank god,' _despite being on more or less friendly terms with each-other, but Ranma suspected that if they were put on the same team then it was only a matter of time. They were barely teenagers for goodness sake, which also constituted her main argument against the, in her words _"dumb, moronic and just plain stupid"_, idiocy she saw as Ino and her Sister's competition to see which of them the Uchiha prick would choose first.

"Team Seven will consist of Uzumaki Naruto..."

_'Please don't have me on that team.'_ Ranma thought, crossing her fingers under the desk.

"... Haruno Ranma..." the redhead groaned and laid her head on the desk in front of her.

_'Just great. The only thing that could make this worse is if...'_

"... and Uchiha Sasuke."

Several Indignant shrieks were heard throughout the room while Ranma simply settled for groaning again as she banged her head against the desk repeatedly. The somewhat feral looking boy sitting next to her started chuckling quietly as the puppy sitting on his head whined and covered his face with a paw.

"Sure, laugh it up biscuit breath." The redhead growled out while her face was still firmly planted into the wooden surface in front of her.

"Sorry Ranma, I wouldn't want to be on the same team as them either." He said, though he didn't sound apologetic in the slightest.

"Team Eight will consist of Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino." Iruka called out. She saw Kiba smirk at his team placement out of the corner of her eye and couldn't help but be a little annoyed.

"Sure you are..." was all she said before deciding to ignore him for the rest of the meeting.

"Team Nine is still in circulation, so Team Ten will consist of Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji. That's it for teams-"

"Iruka-Sensei!" Ranma more or less zoned out after recognizing Naruto's voice as he complained about being placed on the same team as the Uchiha. The instructor went on to explain to the blond that teams were divided up to represent a more or less balanced strength and with Naruto graduating with the lowest scores while the Uchiha had the highest they were placed on the same team.

"You will be introduced to your Jounin instructors this afternoon. Meeting adjoined until then."

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Raanma-chan!"

Ranma could only sigh even as her eyebrow twitched at the "Chan" suffix. She recognized the voice to be one Uzumaki Naruto even before she turned around and visually confirmed that the person calling to her was her orange wearing... teammate. _'This is going to be harder than I thought.__'_ She reflected as her eyebrow twitched again at the eyesore approaching her.

"Ne, ne! Since we're teammates now we should eat together!"

_'Thank god that's all he wants.'_ she thought with no small amount of relief. It hadn't gone unnoticed to her that their brooding 'teammate' had made himself scarce right after they were dismissed so it stood to reason that she was simply the easier to find. But then...

"Sorry Midget, but Ino owes me and Sis lunch today." She genuinely apologized before heading off his expected complaint, "You're free to join us if you don't mind listening to 'girl talk' but you're buying your own food, got it?"

He visibly winced at the implications, and she deftly ignored the slightly annoyed twitch at his nickname. "Ehehehehe... Sorry, Ranma-san. I think I'll head over to Ichiraku's instead." He said, obviously not wanting to listen to three girls supposedly prattle on about makeup and boys for the next hour, before waving goodbye and walking away. Ranma just sadly shook her head at his back before turning around again and heading towards the restaurant they had decided on earlier.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"They're late!"

"Shut up Midget! We know." Ranma was as irritated as her teammate about the lateness of their Sensei, but was otherwise passing the time constructively as she went through a few katas. The exercise usually gave her mind free reign to wander and the topic it had picked this time was lunch. Not that the "Korean" BBQ was anything special. It was that Ino had apparently extended the same offer she gave Naruto to her own teammates with the difference of them actually taking her up on it. Sakura's teammates had likewise declined for their own reasons.

The look of disbelief on Chouji's face, mirrored by the one of despair on Ino's when she ordered as much food as him had been priceless. The conversation they had been having ceased momentarily as the male contingent of Team Ten wondered how the hell she could eat like she did and not be a balloon. Her sister and her sister's friend simply rolled their eyes as Ranma answered that she burned a lot of calories training as the other two girls ordered their own rather large portions, but still not matching Ranma or the Akimichi.

After that, aside from Ino and Sakura lamenting every five minutes or so that she was on the same team as Sasuke instead of one of them, lunch had been relatively uneventful before it came time for them to all head back to the classroom to be picked up by their Jounin Sensei. That had been three hours ago and every other team had already been picked up while Iruka-sensei had gone home shortly after. While she didn't mind the time practicing, she was a little unnerved by the curious glances her Uchiha teammate was giving her from time to time while trying to not appear to be doing so.

Movement from Naruto caught her attention as she executed a spinning combination that left her hovering in the air for several moments longer than physics should have normally allowed for. She watched her blond teammate curiously as she transitioned seamlessly, in a seemingly impossible manner, from one form to another as the blond chuckled somewhat menacingly as he pulled out a... deck of cards?

"Are those what I think they are?" she asked somewhat warily while modifying her kata to take her further away from the Uzumaki without overtly appearing to be doing so. His own response was to chuckle again as he stood on a chair, attaching one of the cards to a chalk eraser and wedging it between the door and its frame. Looking at what she could see of the card from a distance she noticed that it was a "joker" that looked like it was playing a horn of some kind. Her eyes widened, understanding the significance of the illustration mere moments before a gloved hand appeared in the opening, knowing what would happen even if it missed. Disregarding her kata altogether the redhead clamped her hands over her ears as the door slid open and was spared having her eardrums ruptured from the air-horn blast the card gave off when the eraser dropped and bounced off the person's head.

The silver haired man who had been at ground zero wasn't so lucky, as he got the full report point blank. His apparently gravity defying hair was somehow only ruffled somewhat in the sound-borne shockwave produced by the card even as the unexpectedness of the noise caused him to stumble slightly. Ranma lowered her hands while taking in the aftermath. Naruto was rolling on the floor clutching his sides, laughing, while their Uchiha teammate was rubbing at his ears.

"How should I..." the elder ninja still standing in the door paused for a moment, as though thinking while rubbing at his ears before continuing in a slightly louder tone, his single visible eye regarding them with annoyance, "How Should I Say This... My First Impressions Of You Guys Are..."

"I Hate You... Very, Very Much..."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Ten minutes later they were all seated on the rooftop. Their Sensei was still rubbing his ears every now and then as he sat, leaning on the railing across from them. The eye that wasn't covered by his Hitai-ite was still glaring at them slightly but other than that no other emotion was visible courtesy of the mask that covered his nose and everything below it.

"Let's see, why don't you introduce yourselves." He said.

"And how should we do that, _Sensei._" It crossed Ranma's mind for a moment that she probably shouldn't antagonize him, but those thoughts were ruthlessly squashed under her own desire to get even for being made to wait. Naruto had already had his fun, and now it was her turn as she gave the one eyed man what she knew was her most annoying smirk.

Her efforts apparently struck a nerve as his eye narrowed ever so slightly. "Oh, I don't know. What you like, hate, your dreams and hobbies. Something like that."

"Hey, Why don't you introduce yourself first Sensei?" her ever-orange teammate asked. The silver haired man's single eye swiveled from its inspection of her to lock onto the blond, making said boy shift somewhat uncomfortably under the attention, but otherwise held his ground as he pasted what Ranma knew as his own trademark grin on his face.

"Me?" the Jounin asked, his eye now swiveling to look at all of them, "Well, I'm Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention of telling you my likes and dislikes. As for my dream..." his eye turned upwards to watch a bird for a few moments before finishing, "... I have few hobbies."

Ranma just deadpanned as she turned to her teammates, "So all we found out was his name..." agreement came from her blond teammate while the third member maintained his stoic exterior before they turned back to their Sensei. The eye looked a tad smug to Ranma now...

"Now it's your turn." He said before directing the eye to look at Naruto, "You first."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" He began while fiddling with his Hitai-ite, "I like pranks and Cup Ramen, but I like the Raman at Ichiraku's even more! I hate the three minute wait for Cup Ramen after you put in the hot water. My hobbies are making new seals and eating and comparing cup ramen! And my dream is to become greater than all the Hokages! I'm going to make all the villagers recognize my existence."

The Hatake's only response to Naruto's enthusiasm was a slight raising of his only visible eyebrow. "Ok, next."

Ranma sighed as the eye focused on her again, taking a moment to think about her answer a little. "I'm Haruno Ranma." She resisted the urge to add "Sorry about this" for old time's sake before continuing, "I like martial arts, food, learning new techniques, my Best Friend, my adoptive parents and my Sister." She took a moment to think about what she disliked, half forgotten memories of her former life flickering across her consciousness, "I dislike perverts, people who jump to conclusions or judge before getting to know someone, idiots who blame everyone but themselves for their problems, and greedy cons that manipulate others to make life easier for themselves."

Their Sensei almost audibly blinked at her before she continued, "My hobbies are cooking, training and hanging out with my sister and friends. And my dream..." This was the hard one. She hadn't really given it all that much thought, but now that it was in front of her...

It used to be to be the best martial artist in the world, but that had changed as much as she had. Her skill in martial arts became a means to an end instead of the end itself and the goal had been lost somewhere along her road of life. Thinking back over everything that had happened in the last ten years along with everything that happened to her before that, half forgotten memories coming into sharper focus under the scrutiny, one thing stood out. It wasn't related to her career choice in any sense, and so far as she knew there was no way to really fulfill her wish, but...

There was one person from her past that Ranma now realized she hadn't really known nearly as well as she now knew she should have, given her relationship with her adoptive parents. The relationship they had had been strained due to circumstance, and she rarely saw more than one or two facets of their personality before being 'banished' all those years ago...

"I guess... I'd like to see my birth mother. Find out what sort of person she's like..." Ranma mumbled out just loud enough for everyone to hear. Naruto was staring at her with wide eyes now as Sasuke actually gave her a glance before going back to his inspection of the horizon over the top of his knuckles, pretending that nothing had happened. The Hatake's only reaction was raising his visible eyebrow again.

"Ooookaay...?" the Jounin said after a moment of silence, "Last guy."

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are many things I hate, and there aren't a lot of things that I like." said the boy with hair that reminded Ranma of a duck's ass, "Also, I have an ambition that I have no intention of leaving as just a dream. The revival of my clan, and to... kill a certain man."

All Ranma could do was send the boy a deadpan look at his response, an action that she noticed was mirrored in the Hatake's eye. It had been only slightly more informative than their Sensei's, and the hints of revenge she caught in his tone rather forcefully reminded her of a certain pig from her former life.

Silence hung in the air again for a moment before their Sensei broke it. "Alright, you three all have unique personalities. I like that. We're going to begin a mission starting tomorrow."

"What kind of mission is that, Sir?" Naruto asked in a somewhat overenthusiastic way while doing a salute.

"First, we're going to do something that we four can do." continued their Sensei, almost as though the blond hadn't said anything.

"What what what, What is it?" Naruto asked again. Ranma sent the boy a sidelong glance which went unnoticed. While she didn't particularly dislike him, his... enthusiasm, could become a bit much at times.

"Survival Training."

The words hung in the air as Naruto looked confused and the Uchiha continued to maintain his stoic exterior. For Ranma's part, all she could do was look at their sensei, deadpanning as she wondered if he was a moron.

"Survival Training?" Naruto asked as though he were confused by the prospect.

"And what's so special about this training if it's a mission?" Ranma took up the torch, only with a little more comprehension when compared to her teammate. Her eyebrow began to twitch as she folded her arms across her chest. She could perfectly understand the concept of training during a mission. After all, one of the philosophies that her birth father instilled in her that she decided to keep was the concept that 'Anything and everything is training, or could be turned into such'. What she was having difficulty wrapping her mind around was why they would have a mission where all it was _was_ training. Especially right out of the Academy.

"I'm glad you asked." Said the Cyclops as he began to chuckle.

"And...?" Ranma asked, her eyebrow beginning to twitch a bit more violently now as her annoyance mounted.

"Well," The Hatake began, waving his hand in a somewhat dismissive manner, "If I say this, I'm sure you three are going to freak out." he said before becoming serious again, if somewhat overly so, and resting the side of his face in the hand he had been waving around, "Of the twenty seven graduates, only nine are going to become Gennin. The other eighteen will be sent back to the Academy. In other words, this training is going to be a very hard test with a dropout rate of sixty-six percent."

Ranma simply deadpanned at the Jounin again even as she saw the look of abject shock coming from her orange teammate while the Uchiha's only reaction was a slight narrowing of his eyes. If this test was a measure of their skills all she could think was _'bring it on...'_ Her own skills were unquestioned in her mind, and it was only the niggling feeling in the back of her head that told her that somehow it wouldn't be that simple that kept her from dismissing it outright. It also didn't help that the overly dramatic way he said it made it hard for her to take the Jounin seriously in the first place.

"See? You three are freaking out!" the Hatake said, once again in his 'amused' persona. How he could come to that conclusion considering that only one of them had openly displayed their shock was beyond Ranma.

"No Way! Then what the hell was the final exam for?" The Uzumaki crowed.

"That?" the Cyclops said, his single eye regarding them with boredom now, "All that does is weed out those who aren't qualified to become Gennin." Ranma was finding it hard to get a good read on the man to decide how competent he really was, a task made all the harder by the fact that the only thing she really had to go off of was the single eye. The way he switched between moods was more than a little unnerving and flowed together too naturally to be an act, other than the little drama he put on when telling them they had a one in three chance of actually becoming Gennin that is.

"Anyway, I'm going to determine if you pass or not tomorrow at the training grounds. Bring your shinobi equipment and meet at five A.M.!" All Ranma could do for a few moments was stare blankly at him as she considered what he had said. He was being too casual about the whole thing and the fact that she had failed to get a good read on him unnerved her. Senses left unused for ten years in the absence of the insanity that had plagued her life in Nerima began stirring, telling her that she should expect anything during the next forty-eight hours and especially during the test itself...

Scanning over her teammates quick she noticed that both of them were having a hard time concealing their emotions. Both were shaking in either determination or anger, Ranma had a hard time deciding if it was just one or both.

Movement caught her eye and the redhead once again found her attention drawn to the masked Jounin as he stood up and turned to walk away, "Now then, meeting's over." He said with a wave of his hand before seemingly remembering something and turning to face them with his only visible eye again, "Oh yeah, don't eat breakfast. You're going to throw up if you do." turning once more and beginning to walk away for real this time. All Ranma could do as the Hatake left was raise an eyebrow to his parting suggestion. If he thought a little exercise would make her throw up then he was sorely mistaken. Now the others on the other hand...

"Well," she said as she stood up and stretched in a way she knew from experience would cause a few nosebleeds in years to come, "I don't know about you guys but I'm hungry." As if to confirm this her stomach choose that moment to growl its ascent even as she watched the Uchiha rapidly divert his attention away from her assets out of the corner of her eye. Naruto wasn't so careful as he openly stared at her chest for a few moments before she coughed tersely, her eyebrow twitching again. "Eyes up Midget. My face is up here."

"Er, yeah." The blond said, shaking his head for a moment as though to clear it. "How about Ichiraku's?"

"Hmm... Ramen sounds good. What say you Uchiha-san?" she turned to address their quiet teammate and only got a grunt for an answer before he stood up and began walking away.

"Well that was rather rude..." she said, deadpanning at the duck-ass' retreating form, "Come on Midget, I want to go break my old record."

Naruto followed her in relative silence for the short walk from the academy roof to the ramen stand, if bouncing around and humming to himself could be counted as silence anyway. Entering the currently empty establishment and hopping on a stool Ranma made her presence known.

"Oi! Ramen-guy, paying customer here!"

"Ah! Ranma, how have you been?" said the ageing owner as he came out of the back, followed closely by his daughter. "And Naruto! The usual?"

The blond just rapidly shook his head up and down as Ranma ordered her first bowl of shrimp ramen.

_'I don't care __what they would say back in Nerima. The Neko Hanten has _nothing_ on Ichiraku's...'_

-o-o-o-o-o-

Ranma twisted and spun as she went through one of the more advanced katas in her personal 'library' of techniques. The only differences between what she wore now and the day before were that her cheongsam was white with a flowing sakura blossom pattern and the holster for kunai and shuriken bound to her right thigh. Five A.M. had come and gone with them all showing up at the training grounds and once again their potential Sensei was late. Ranma hadn't had a problem with the early hour being an early riser from long years of habit, while her Uchiha teammate seemed to be similarly predisposed as he stood looking into the distance. Naruto on the other hand was all but dead to the world as he dozed lightly from his seated position. It was just after eleven A.M. now and the silver haired man had yet to make his appearance.

"Hi fellows, good morning." Said a bored voice from somewhere behind her. Spinning rapidly around and ducking into a defensive stance it took Ranma a moment to realize that their Sensei had finally shown up as her blond teammate somehow went from all but unconscious to fully awake and screeched at the Jounin about being late.

"A black cat crossed my path, so..." It was an obvious lie, but Ranma had to wonder how the man made his single visible eye "smile" like that. It just wasn't natural. Coughing into his hand at the annoyed looks the three of them were giving him the Jounin became serious again, "Let's move on..."

Moving over to a nearby group of training posts he pulled a clock out of his pack and set it on top of the middle one. "Alarm set to twelve P.M." the Cyclops said, pressing down on the button on top before pulling out a pair of bells, "Today's goal for you three is to get one of these bells from me. Whoever can't will have no lunch."

Ranma narrowed her eyes as he pointed over to the three training posts before continuing, "I'm going to tie you there, and eat lunch in front of you."

An audible gurgle was heard sounding from both Naruto and Sasuke's stomachs while Ranma just smiled as she locked her fingers behind her head. Everyone was looking at her now with either annoyance in the case of her teammates or curiosity from the Hatake. Turning to her teammates she decided to answer the silent inquiry. "All he said was that we would throw up if we ate breakfast. He didn't tell us that we weren't _allowed_ to."

"And the reason why you didn't follow that advice?" the one eyed man asked, eye-smiling at her.

Ranma just flashed him a grin. "If a little exercise was going to make me throw up I either haven't been working hard enough on my conditioning, or I somehow got the crazy idea to go on an all day extreme training bender with bushy brows and Maito-san." She said, watching the Jounin almost imperceptibly shiver.

"Anyway," she said to try and divert attention from herself, thinking she would ask the man about how he knew the green freaks of nature later, "If there are three of us then why are there only two bells?"

"Since there are only two bells and three of you, at least one of you will be tied to the post." The Hatake said, giving them that eye-smile again, "So when the timer goes off the person who doesn't get the bell will fail since they failed to complete the mission. That person will go back to the academy." Ranma's eyes narrowed at the man as he became serious again, his eye regarding them with a hint of boredom. "It might be just one, or all three of you. You are allowed to use whatever means to try and take a bell from me, including your kunai and shuriken. You won't succeed unless you come at me with the intent to kill."

"What!" The Uzumaki screeched, "But, you could get hurt! You couldn't even avoid an eraser."

"In society, those who don't have many abilities tend to complain more." The one eyed man said as though he was talking to himself, but the message was clearly meant to be heard. "Just ignore the guy with the lowest score."

Ranma noticed Naruto's attention suddenly focus out of the corner of her eye. _'Uh-oh...__ If there's one thing the Midget hates more than being called a failure, it's being willfully ignored.'_ She thought as she turned her attention back to the Jounin,_ 'He's obviously provoking him, but why?'_

"We're going to start after I say 'Go'." He said, apparently ignoring how the blond boy was silently seething. Suddenly there was movement and Naruto was charging at the grey haired man with a kunai drawn. Ranma had a feeling that of the three of them she was the only one who actually _saw_ what happened next as the elder ninja _Moved_. Charging at the boy before he had even taken three steps in his direction, the man was little more than a blur to even her trained eyes. She could still track his movements easily enough, and the motion didn't hold a candle to her old top speed, but it was still a bit disconcerting.

Tracking and analyzing his movements almost instinctively, Ranma watched as the green and grey blur reached out and grabbed the hand that held the kunai by the wrist, twisting it in such a way so that the point of the knife was aimed at the back of the blond's head. "Don't be so hasty." said the Jounin in a low tone, all but abandoning his previously bored demeanor, "I didn't say 'Go', yet."

Ranma backed up slightly to open more ground between the Cyclops and herself in case he decided to focus on her. Sasuke did the same almost at the same time and Naruto was released from the hold he was in. _'This just got interesting...'_

"But, it looks like you have the will to kill me now." the... opponent, said, back in his bored manner while chuckling a little, "I think I can finally start liking you three. We're going to start."

"Ready, Go!"

-o-o-o-o-o-

Ranma watched the ensuing "fight" with some degree of amusement as her blond teammate tried attacking the Jounin, even as the tactical portion of her mind dissimilated the elder's movements in an attempt to analyze his fighting style. The man wasn't really even trying as he dodged around while reading from that orange book he had pulled out at the beginning. All in all, it sort of reminded her of the fights she had had with a certain tomboy in her previous life and it was more than obvious that the Jounin was holding back considerably.

Suddenly the man was behind Naruto, holding his hands in the position of the Tiger seal. Her hiding spot close to the top of a tree was too far away to hear what was being said as more than a low murmur. Regardless of the danger of having a fire jutsu shoved up his ass at point-blank range, she didn't want to give her position away prematurely even if it was to save the boy.

"_Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Oji: Sennen Goroshi!_" The cry was heard clearly regardless of the distance and suddenly Naruto was flying through the air, screaming and clutching his backside while the Hatake stood in his finishing stance. Ranma couldn't help but regard the dueling pair below with slight exasperation as the blond landed in the river._ 'So it was just a really powerful ass-poke...'_ she thought sarcastically.

A few moments passed as the masked man went back to reading his book before a pair of shuriken came flying out of the river. She watched as he almost negligently caught both throwing stars on his fingers. A moment later she saw Naruto crawling out of the river. Words were exchanged and the elder man turned his back to the boy and began walking away.

Movement from the stream caught her attention and suddenly there wasn't just one Naruto, but eight. It only took a moment for the redhead to realize that they weren't the insubstantial afterimages of the regular Bunshin, but that each one had a real body. _'Clever little Midget.'_ She thought as the silver haired man just stood there for the time it took the group of seven blonds to charge him, _'Can't do a normal Bunshin to save your life, but you somehow ge__t your hands on a solid clone technique. Is that how you passed?'_ She almost hadn't caught the last one sneaking around behind, even as it grabbed onto the Jounin to hold his arms out. It was fairly obvious that the older man somehow _had_ missed this one, but the surprise only lasted for a moment as six of the clones grabbed onto his legs before all of a sudden they were all holding onto another Naruto.

_'Silent Snap Kawarimi...'_ Ranma thought, noting the lack of hand-seals or calling out the technique even as the group of Narutos proceeded to beat the crap out of each other in the ensuing confusion before getting the bright idea to dispel and leaving a very battered, albeit singular, blond behind. The glint of something small on the ground next to a tree caught her eye. Naruto had apparently seen whatever it was as well as the boy charged and reached for it, only to be caught in an ankle rope trap set under the tree. _'Probably one of the bells then. Poor guy is shit out of luck today it seems...'_ the redhead thought as she watched the Jounin drop down from the other side of the tree and pick it up. She had been analyzing the two combatants the entire time and not once had she seen the elder man drop his guard despite the almost lazy way he had been going about it. It almost reminded her of her own style, but the foundation was obviously different than that of the Musabetsu Kakouto Ryu.

The Hatake was saying something to Naruto again, presenting a front of dropping his guard, but Ranma knew from her own experience with such tactics that he was anything but. The ploy had apparently fooled her third teammate as a grouping of kunai and shuriken erupted from another tree to her left, giving his position away. Ranma only shook her head as the surprise tactic failed utterly and revealed that the man had pulled another silent Kawarimi, this time replacing himself with a log.

Ranma was on the move in an instant, using Chakra to enhance her movements to jump from branch to branch in much the same way as she used to use Ki. So long as she had altitude she had an advantage that almost no-one in Konoha knew about. The attack from Sasuke probably shifted the Jounin's attention from Naruto to himself, and she wanted to continue observing her potential Sensei's style as much as possible before engaging him herself.

Something started to feel off as she continued her search for longer than she thought she should have. Momentarily coming to a stop on a low branch Ranma looked around her surroundings and almost missed spotting the silver haired man standing with his book in a small clear area ahead and to her left. A soft wind blew through the trees with the man upwind of her location, and that's when she realized her mistake as the absence of something caught her nose. Spinning around to protect her unguarded flank she only had time to see the real Kakashi with his hands in the "Rat" seal before the world around her blurred out of focus as she lost her balance and fell off the branch, heading head first towards the ground.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Uhhhhnnn... My head." It was hard to think. Thoughts came slowly and the ones that formed were muddled.

"Get Up Boy!"

Her head pounded at the harsh voice. Wait, Boy? _'I'm a girl aren't I?'_

Things were steadily coming into focus. The smell of wood, the feel of tatami mats underneath her, incense burning nearby... Comforting smells... Familiar smells... _'But from where?'_

"I said Up! Or are you a weak little girl?" The voice again. An older man. Somehow she should know this voice yet didn't remember from where. It was hard to remember much of anything at the moment.

"I'm anything but weak." She managed to growl out as she opened her eyes.

It was at that moment when she first took in her surroundings that a paradox made itself known to her. She was in the Tendos' dojo, the door was open to let in a stream of sunlight and fresh air and her birth father stood between the door and her present position on the floor. The scene had played itself out more than once during the early parts of her stay in Nerima, but there was one distinct difference.

She was still only thirteen years old.

That fact by itself was fairly easy to shrug off. After all, being someone with experience in insanity she had once had a misfortunate run-in with a certain type of magic mushroom that could change a person's age depending on how large they were when you ate them. What wasn't so easy to shrug off was that she was still wearing her white sleeveless cheongsam embroidered with pink sakura petals, black shin length pants, sandals, weapons holster, her arm and leg Guards and the sash with the metal plate with Konoha's insignia riveted to it. To top it all off was that her hair was still in the odd fanning braid style she had favored ever since finding herself in Konoha all those years ago. Overall it was much longer than Genma would ever have allowed her to have it and as a whole far too feminine as well.

All of this added together with the clarity of thought she was used to having rapidly returning, along with her memories in tow, led her tactically inclined thought process to one conclusion even as her "Mother" walked in through the open door and began a disappointed commentary on how "Unmanly" she was being if she let her "Father" continue to beat her so soundly in their spars.

_'Genjutsu.'_

From what she understood from the theory lessons about Genjutsu at the academy it was fairly easy to make someone believe their surroundings had changed so long as you had the Chakra control and mental faculty to pull it off. It wasn't so easy to alter how someone perceived their own body or the clothes they were wearing, and then there was the temporary memory loss to cover up the ten years between now and the last time something like this had been possible. The latter was tricky to pull off sometimes, even for the best. She didn't doubt that both weren't within the silver haired Jounin's abilities but... _'He's probably going easy on me because I'm only a Gennin.'_ She thought, smirking mentally as she analyzed her surroundings. It was all accurate to the time when she left Nerima, down to the signs of damage recently repaired from the failed wedding attempt's aftermath.

Only paying peripheral attention to the dialogue coming from her "mother" she was able to discern the technique's most likely purpose as the illusionary woman finished off by saying that she was disowned from the Saotome Clan for her failures. _'Probably meant to shock or demoralize the victim. I must say that if my mind had picked any other subject besides this one or the Cyclops was more "thorough" with the illusion then it probably would have worked too.'_ She was somewhat glad that she had won this game of proverbial Russian roulette.

It wasn't so much that her "Manliness" was a big issue for herself. She had more or less gotten over that particular mental hurdle years ago when she decided to live for herself. Therapy to take care of some of her other... issues, helped too, but that was beside the point. What the real issue here was, was that even after all these years she still didn't want to be a disappointment to her birth mother. Genma by himself was out of the equation. He wanted nothing less than perfection and then some; impossible standards to live up to even if she had been capable of pounding him into the ground every time they sparred on top of defeating Saffron and everyone else before him.

Nodoka, however, was her mother. Somehow when Akane had reprimanded her all those years ago for not wanting to get to know the woman, citing that she wasn't able to have the same opportunity with her own anymore, Ranma had taken those words to heart without even realizing it. Her mother was the person who had given her life and had been more or less her sole caregiver for the first few years before she was taken away on the training trip by Genma, even if she couldn't remember that, _'Damn Neko-Ken'_. There was something about the woman that made her want to prove herself. Even if she was a girl now instead of the, *shudder*, "Manly Man" her mother had wanted her to be she still wanted to at least prove to _her_ that she was strong even if Genma would never accept it.

As much as she wanted to reminisce though, there was still a bell to obtain and a test to pass. Reaching within herself, Ranma took control of the swirling chakra and began to make it rapidly spin and twist within her coils. Forming the "Ram" seal with her hands the redhead let the inner energy build.

"Kai!"

-o-o-o-o-o-

Reality local slid home to her perception with the release. Less than a fraction of an instant later Ranma was moving upwards in order to gain more of a height advantage among the trees even as her senses adjusted to the "change" in her location. Quartering and re-quartering her surroundings it only took her a moment to locate the silver haired man as he crouched on a branch several meters below her, reading that infernal orange book again._ 'So he isn't going to take __me seriously is he?' _she thought with a growl.

"Ninja tactics know-how number two, Genjutsu. I see you broke out of that easily enough." He said as he stood without raising his gaze from his book.

"Unfair advantage." The redhead retorted as she moved among the upper boughs to get a better angle on him, "If you'd used a bit more power or my mind chose something else to try and torment me with you'd of had me."

"Ah, I see." He said, even though he obviously didn't, while turning in her direction, still without taking his attention away from the book. If he thought he was going to lure her into thinking he wasn't paying attention then he was in for a surprise. "Well then, I suppose it's your turn."

Her only response was to use the branch in front of her as a springboard to launch herself in his direction like a missile. The look of comic surprise from the eye was priceless as she sped towards him, arm raised to deliver a classic haymaker. The move was so telegraphed that it was any wonder that the man simply leaned his head to the side and moved to deflect the rest of her.

What he didn't expect was for her to open her hand at the last moment and grab onto his shoulder, allowing her to transfer all of the momentum she had built up into lashing out at his side with her foot instead. He blocked with a grunt, the impact of her heal with his palm no doubt causing it to go numb. Using her still considerable momentum along with the new pivot point allowed her to twist around almost impossibly to deliver another kick with the back of her other foot aimed at his head while simultaneously sending a knife-hand strike aimed for his kidney. Time seemed to slow after she released his shoulder from her inverted position, still twisting with her back to him. The flow of chakra through her body altered to her will and she felt her center of balance shift drastically in preparation for her next attack. Somehow he managed to block both strikes but wasn't prepared for normal physics to be so wantonly abandoned as she stayed air-born for longer than she had any right to. Her other foot came straight down, aimed for his head once more.

The limb impacted with all the power of Akane's mallet and the Jounin was forced to erect a hasty cross guard with both arms or be brained. The thick branch underneath him audibly protested to the abuse and she used the momentum of the strike to carry her higher.

Ranma could only smirk at what she saw below. She'd made him put that damn book away...

-o-o-o-o-o-

Ranma could only sigh from her position leaning against the training post as she nursed a few small cuts and a light bruising. Naruto was to her right, tied to the middle one for trying to eat lunch before getting a bell, and the Uchiha was at the next post beyond that looking as broody as ever, if not a bit worse for wear also.

Despite everything she still hadn't managed to get a bell. She and the Hatake standing in front of them had fought for several minutes before she spotted an opportunity to grab one of them. She had been pressing him too. The Jounin was also nursing his own assortment of bruises and she'd even managed to get one or two pressure point attacks in. The man was still holding his arm a bit stiffly from the pain strike to his shoulder, but he had somehow still been barely fast enough to avoid the worst of her offense and she suspected that he had still been holding out on her...

It was all for naught though, as the moment she reached for that "shiny" through the opening she'd made in his defense, intentional or not, he performed another silent Kawarimi and she was left grappling with a log. She hadn't seen him at all for the rest of the time it took for the bell to go off, but she surmised that he had gone after Sasuke next. She found the boy buried up to his head seconds before the timer sounded after all, and she highly doubted that it was voluntary.

"Your stomachs are growling, eh?" said the Jounin as he stood with his arms crossed. Ranma could only roll her eyes. Yes she was hungry. One, she was _always_ hungry, and two, it had been several hours since she had last eaten. She wasn't nearly as bad off as her teammates who had foregone breakfast though, so she had to give them credit for their misery.

"By the way, about the results of this training..." the redhead's attention focused as the man continued, "None of you need to return to the Ninja Academy." Ranma's eyes narrowed on the silver haired man even as Naruto began excitedly asking if they'd passed. Her crazy sense was screaming at her that the other shoe was about to drop. It would be too easy. After all, none of them had gotten a bell and Naruto had broken the rules...

"Yeah, you three... Should quit being Ninja!"

Silence...

"Quit being Ninjas? What do you mean?" Naruto asked after a moment, flailing as best he could from his restrained position. "We couldn't get a bell, but why do you have to say we should quit?" For her part Ranma was silently seething. If this man thought that she would quit... No, she was in this too deep to back out now.

After all, she still never lost... in the end.

"It's because you three are just kids who don't even deserve to be Ninja." The Hatake casually said. Something in the way he said it must have set the Uchiha off as the next moment the duck ass was charging the man. The guy was admittedly fast, but Ranma knew it wouldn't be enough even before a parody of what happened to Naruto before the test played itself when the elder man's form blurred. Moments later the Uchiha was face down in the ground with one of the Jounin's feet on his head and his arm held behind him in a pain hold.

"See, you all are just kids." the Jounin said. Silence revisited the clearing for a moment before he looked up from the black haired youth. "Do you guys think being a ninja is easy?" he seemed to be radiating menace as he said this, and the redhead couldn't help but feel that he was speaking with a voice of experience, "Why do you think we're training by breaking up into groups?"

Ranma took a moment to seriously think about the answer to that question instead of blurting out her first response of "I don't know". Something about the way he was talking made the martial-artist-turned-ninja think that this might be another test. It didn't take her long to figure it out, it was just so obvious now that she actually took the time and the question was presented to her. Ten years ago she never would have thought of it, being more or less a solo act unless she was fighting Taro or one of her other strong opponents for the first time. After all, asking for help wasn't 'Manly'. In the end she had always been the last one standing though, and would need to finish the fight by herself. Now though, she had had time to learn and grow without Genma's influence tearing her away before she had time to make any friends to equally share her successes and failures with...

She started chuckling humorlessly at her own _personal_ failure, leaning against the post a bit more and looking at the sky. The silver haired man was looking at her inquiringly and she decided to answer.

"Teamwork..."

"That's right. But it's too late even if you notice now." The Hatake said, still radiating menace, "If all three of you came at me at once, maybe you could have gotten a bell. But that's too bad."

"But, if we're supposed to use teamwork then why are there only two bells?" her florescent-orange teammate asked. "No matter what one of us would fail!"

"Of course." The clearly still angry man said, "This test tries to put you three against each-other. In this situation, we select those who can prioritize teamwork before themselves. That was the purpose, but all of you were pathetic."

His attention turned to focus on her, "Ranma, you were too concerned about maintaining your own advantage and observing me for a weakness to help out your teammate, even though Naruto was losing right in front of you." Ranma could only nod dejectedly at the reprimand. It was true after all. Turning his gaze to her orange teammate the Jounin continued, "Naruto! All you did was work on your own. To make it worse you let what I said before we began cloud your judgment and you forgot one of your biggest advantages." The blond swallowed as the Hatake's eye turned down and he finished with a great deal more menace, "And you... You assumed that those two would only get in your way, despite knowing that they both have skills you don't, and tried doing everything yourself."

"Missions are done in groups." He said, turning his head up again, "It's true that Ninjas need well-developed individual abilities, but it is teamwork that is much more important. An individual action that disrupts the teamwork will result in danger or even death for the teammates. For example..." Reaching into his pouch the silver haired man pulled out a kunai and held it to Sasuke's neck, "Ranma! Kill Naruto or Sasuke dies!"

Ranma hardly had time to register what he had said as the immobile Naruto began to freak out before the knife was pulled back. "That's what will happen." The man said as he began twirling the throwing knife around his finger by the ring on its end. "When someone gets taken hostage, you will be faced with a difficult decision, and someone will die."

Putting the kunai away the Jounin released Sasuke and stood up, turning to walk over to the stone a little ways away. "In every mission, you put your life on the line. Look at this... the many names carved onto this stone." Ranma felt a pit start developing in her stomach. There were only so many things that a stone with names carved on it could be, few of them good. "All these names are those praised as heroes in this village."

The redhead ignored her blond teammate as he said that he wanted to be a hero and have his name put on the stone. She had a feeling that she knew what types of "heroes" were put on it after all...

"But they're not just normal heroes." the silver haired man said over his shoulder, all but confirming her theory.

"So what kind of heroes were they." Naruto asked, still too excited for his own good. Silence was his only answer so the blond continued his prodding, "Come on, what were they?"

"Those who were K.I.A." The older man said, this time not turning around.

"K.I.A.?" The orange pre-teen asked, apparently having no idea what that meant.

"It means Killed In Action, Midget..." the redhead said with a sigh as she looked at the stone. If anything could take the wind out of the excited blond's sails faster Ranma had yet to see it.

"This is a cenotaph." The Hatake said, "The names of my friends are carved here as well."

A heavy silence fell for a few moments before the Jounin turned to look at them with his eye again before beginning to walk back in their direction, "I'll give you one more chance. However, the battle for the bell will be much harder after lunch. Eat only if you are up to the challenge. But! Don't let Naruto eat. That's his punishment for breaking the rules and trying to eat lunch early. The person who feeds him will fail immediately." The look in his eye told them that he was prepared to carry out that threat if he needed to. "I'm the rule here. Got it?"

All three of them nodded in understanding before setting about having lunch. Looking at her bento Ranma could only hold back a groan as some deity somewhere seemed intent on mocking her today. _'Why in the world did it have to be rice, a fish and two__ pickles?'_ She knew that Old Man Hokage had put everything she told him into a file on her before she even entered the academy, but the intimate details of her life before her arrival in Konoha were all classified. Only she or the Old Man had authorization to review the whole thing unedited and she trusted him enough not to give out that information without informing her first. The number of people that were in the know, including herself and the ageing Sarutobi, could be counted on one hand and she knew that that list didn't include the Cyclops.

She figured that the contents of their lunch was simply coincidence, as it could easily have been something else, but Ranma's apatite had been somewhat subdued by the revelations of the past few minutes and only picked at her food while her Uchiha teammate didn't seem to have any such reservations. Instead, the redhead tried to get her mind away from her previous failure by figuring out a plan for the three of them to take on the Jounin and get the bells.

Key-word being tried. Naruto's stomach growling every few seconds wasn't helping very much and was steadily reminding her of her own hunger...

"I'm okay even if I don't eat!" the blond said, trying to laugh it off, but the continued growling of his stomach told another story.

"Here" Sasuke said, holding out his lunch for Naruto to take. The absurdity of the offer with Naruto still being tied to the post caught Ranma's attention.

"Hey... Didn't he say not to do that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and putting the oversight to the side for now in favor of figuring out the boy's motives.

"Don't worry. I don't sense him nearby." Was the boy's response, prompting Ranma to scan the area as well and come to the same conclusion. "We're going to get the bells together. It will only be trouble if he's hungry."

"Good point." Ranma thought about the situation for a moment and came to a decision, "But he should have my lunch. Unlike you I ate breakfast, and I know I can fight on an empty stomach." Sasuke seemed to consider her for a moment before nodding his head in agreement. With the confirmation Ranma jumped on top of the post Naruto was tied to and more thoroughly scanned their surroundings, even going so far as to take a few experimental sniffs at the wind. There was no sign of the silver haired man anywhere. Nodding to herself she jumped back down and picked up a clump of rice with her chopsticks, willing herself to ignore the puppy-dog look her orange teammate was giving her. The morsel had barely entered his mouth before there was an explosion of smoke in front of them.

"You Three...!" The clearly enraged Hatake appeared through the cloud causing Naruto to choke on the rice. The event was so unexpected that Ranma almost let out an undignified squawk, but held her impulses in check as she dropped into a low stance as the overpressure from whatever technique had been used made her hair whip about. Preparing herself to attack the redhead briefly registered that Sasuke seemed to have gotten into his own stance and Naruto was too preoccupied with swallowing and clearing his airway to do little more than flail ineffectively against the rope binding him.

"Pass."

Ranma ate dirt as the lunge she was about to execute converted into a spectacular facefault. Propping herself up with her hands the redhead spent a few moments to spit out a few clumps of grass before looking at the eye-smiling silver haired man in disbelief as her orange teammate gasped for air, finally managing to choke down the food. "Care to run that by us again?" she said, doubting that she could have heard correctly.

"You pass." The Hatake repeated, chuckling a little as he looked at the three of them. "You three are the first." he said with a hint of pride, "Everyone else before you were morons who would just do whatever I told them."

"A ninja must be able to look underneath the underneath. In the world of ninjas, those who break the rules are called trash. But you know what?" The silver haired man was looking at them seriously with his eye now, "Those who don't take care of their friends and comrades... are lower than trash."

_'That's his creed, isn't it.'_ Ranma thought as she looked at... her Sensei in a new light. _'He lives by those words just as much as I live by my Martial Artist's Oath.'_ The reality of what just happened was finally setting in and she couldn't help but loose a bit of the pride that had once dominated her personality, only there was none of her old arrogance in the smirk she was directing towards the Jounin. Looking at her teammates the redhead saw that Naruto was having trouble holding back tears as the Uchiha smirked in his own way.

"The training ends here!" the announcement broke her thoughts and she turned her attention back to her sensei in time to see him giving them all a thumbs up, "You all Pass! Team seven will begin missions starting tomorrow!" Ranma's smirk only widened at this announcement as the Midget started cheering about becoming a ninja.

"Let's go" the Cyclops said before beginning to walk away. Sasuke immediately began to follow him out but the redhead held back, her sensei's words still fresh in her mind and remembering that Naruto was still quite expertly tied to a wooden post.

"Hold still Midget." She told him as she walked around to where the knots were. Giving them a once over Ranma realized that it would probably take too long to get through all of them. Instead of wasting time she opted to pull out a kunai and sliced through the coils easily, causing Naruto to fall to the ground in an undignified heap.

"Thanks, Ranma-san." The blond laughed as she gave him an arm up.

"Don't mention it Midget, now let's go catch up to the others!" She said before running after the other half of their team.

"Oi! Sensei! Uchiha-san! Why don't we all go get some barbeque to celebrate!"

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter One

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Notes: Ok, Chapter one... I'm not really sure what to say about this one.

Well, to start with I think I'll say a few things about certain less than original ideas used here...

First off is Naruto using cards for seals. I have read two separate fics that use playing cards as a delivery system for seals. The first one is _Reload_ by Case13, the second is _Naruto Uzumaki: Seal Master_ by King of the Void. I liked the idea, and after giving it some though decided to go with it myself. It's not only extremely practical in that that a deck of fifty two cards probably costs less than ten Kunai, but also that I know for a fact that if you throw them right they can cut through fruit and vegetables (Look it up on Youtube if you don't believe me). That can do some serious damage to a person if you think about it... As for why Naruto is interested in seals in the first place when he wasn't in cannon, I'll leave the story to explain more of that but for now it's mostly just a hobby for him and he isn't all that good at it yet.

Now to Silent Snap Jutsu... The idea is extremely common throughout Naruto Fanfiction, but the terminology isn't. The general idea is that the person using the jutsu is skilled enough in its use where they don't need to use either hand-seals or verbally announce that they're using a jutsu in the first place. They just do it... The exact terminology "Silent Snap" is from the fic _ANBU_ by God Amongst Mere Mortals...

To those of you who I know will wonder why I decided to jump ahead to the Academy graduation instead of covering the last ten years in more detail, it was actually a subject of much debate between me and my pre-reader, CaedesPlerique, for a while before we both settled on this point. In the end, it really boils down to that the prologue was just that, a prologue. It was meant to somewhat stand alone from the rest of the story and introduce and set up the general atmosphere for how Ranma and her overall mindset would begin developing through her second childhood.

This is actually the third version of this chapter (discounting less substantial edits to a full overhaul), the first one being scrapped after I finished cleaning up the Prologue for continuity reasons, and the second picking up right away with Ranma staying in the Orphanage, but was also scrapped before I finished it. The reason I tossed that version instead of using it is because I just couldn't figure out how to write it all out and keep it at least somewhat interesting to read without making Ranma way too overpowered compared to the other members of the Konoha 12 (Too smart, skilled, etc...) way too fast for the story progression (And writing a montage just didn't seem appropriate). I've read way too many Naruto fics that go into the Academy days in mind numbing detail, and they mostly follow a common formula with some variances depending on the author. In the end, unless there is some substantial event that occurs during the Academy which would change the story completely from that point forward, or the story is _about _the Academy days for some odd reason, it generally boils down to "[Character] goes to school, learns about being a ninja, deals with Naruto's latest prank gone wrong and goes home"... I figured that with Ranma being introduced so early on then any significant events that change things would just as easily be represented by the altered interactions of the characters and whatever introspective I deem necessary for providing context. Many of the ideas I used in the second draft have been recycled into the general history I have drawn up to guide her interactions with the other characters though, so you will see the effects of her influence both present and past as the story progresses.

Thanks for reading and please leave a review!


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Naruto, Ranma, Adventure