There were a few places Nabiki could imagine being in besides right now, places that were certainly worse than what she was experiencing. After all, she had a good selection of items in her room for the ditz to whisk them to, places much worse than say… in front of the Hokage and ANBU.
There was one issue called Rise and Fall of the Silver Millennium, a retcon piece produced by the author or the Sailor Moon series. And while the possibility of learning magic—and finding out where the valuables were stored to procure later—was an intriguing offer, the possibility of being killed, reborn, killed, restored, killed, restored… well, you get the point; it wasn’t a bright prospect. Besides, their luck would have her—the likely sister of Endymion, engaged to him—the likely brother of Serenity.
Then there were the La Blue Girl manga—thankfully, that senior had come up with the funds hours before to pay the fee for the Urotsukidoji manga and videos he had put up for collateral and thus she never had to worry about ending up there. Sure, the idea of learning Injutsu was nice especially considering its use in controlling men and breaking through the Glass Ceiling but the fact she might get attacked by demons, enemy Injutsu users and such made that a very poor possibility.
There were tons of other worse possibilities, just as there were better. She wouldn’t mind being in Bleach, if for no other reason than the neat sword skills she might get. But it had its bad points too.
Of course, none of those equaled to the possibility of being tortured for information because they got caught after Ranma applied his proposed cure to Yakumo—not that the path leading up to that had been anything easy.
Damn Idou not liking its power being cut… she ranted internally. Right before they had tried to hit the chakra redirection points, the inner demon manifested and attacked. Fortunately, Yakumo trusted and liked them too much for it to try and burn them alive as it had her parents as in the anime—though the anime was a bit lacking in those points such as time frames and acts—but it did cast a powerful genjutsu to try and eliminate them.
They had survived—thanks to the fact the Nekoken was close enough to an inner demon for Ranma that it resisted and broke through the genjutsu and impaled the Idou with ki-claws.
That was what allowed Nabiki the time to convince Yakumo to stab it with her palette knife.
Hopefully it was gone for good, because she had absolutely no desire to fight that thing again, and she would never talk about what she experienced in that illusion. But it had been enough to alert the ANBU looking for the heiress to their location.
So here they were, sitting in the Hokage’s office, surrounded by their parents, ANBU, and the parents of Yakumo—who hadn’t been burned alive at this point—as the medic-nin completed their checkup of the girl, thanks to her happy chatter about how she’d be able to be a real ninja now and how the duo had only meant to help her.
That was probably why they were before the Hokage with their parents and not in a cell before Ibiki thankfully.
“It is as she claimed, Hokage-sama,” said one of the nameless medics. “Her chakra pathways have been altered, reducing the chakra flow to her head while adding to her body.”
Ranma just snorted, making Nabiki wince and hope the gender-changing boy didn’t get them sent to the nice lava-surrounded prison. She was too young in either life to be literal jailbait. “I don’t do crappy work.”
“Undo it this instant!” proclaimed Yakumo’s father.
Ranma snorted again. “Can’t; it’ll wear off in a few weeks though, so she can get some intense physical training. When it does, she’ll feel a little weak but she wouldn’t be so frail,” he finished.
“And I can become a full ninja!” Yakumo cheered happily.
“Perhaps, you could explain this… technique for us, Ranma,” offered Sarutobi, hopefully holding off a potential pitfall. True, the Kurama clan didn’t want Yakumo’s gifts hindered in any way. But if this did lead towards the girl achieving her dream to be a shinobi—something Kurenai’s reports were putting in doubt—he wanted the possibility to be explored.
“Sure,” Ranma said with a smile, as he went through the entire process—from the embarrassing method of scanning her chakra flows to hitting the points.
“And the powerful genjutsu the ANBU detected?” asked Sarutobi, noticing that several of the Kurama clan members stiffened at that.
“Ah, some weak-ass demon,” said Ranma, scratching the back of his head. “It didn’t want us helping her like that, so it tried to kill us. So we killed it right back,” he said with a smile. “I got it from the front and Yakumo knifed it in the back,” he said proudly.
“She… she killed it,” stammered one man Nabiki remembered from the anime: Unkai Kurama.
“It… it was trying to hurt my friends,” Yakumo said quietly, before her face perked up. “And a ninja never lets their friends get hurt if they can help it!” she finished, her voice filled with pride.
“I see,” said Sarutobi with a smile. He had been approached by the Kurama clan about that very issue: Yakumo’s inner demon. In fact, when he had hear the heiress was missing, that alone had been his greatest fear. That somehow it would get loose and destroy not only any possible assailants but the girl as well.
And now it might be a mute point. Yakumo was now the recipient of an experimental—but oddly for a genin, highly thought out—technique that would allow her to perhaps develop her taijutsu skills. The demon might be dead or at least weakened to never be a threat to Yakumo herself. And it was quite obvious that the Saotome boy—assuming he survived whatever questioning Nodoka would put to him later that night—was pretty skilled in energy manipulation, something he might seek to expand upon later and ask Nodoka to allow the boy to study some medical jutsu texts.
Once again, the latter was all continual on Nodoka allowing her son to survive the night. There was a saying in Interrogation and Torture: if you wanted information, use Ibiki. If you wanted information and the enemy to be forever scarred mentally, use Nodoka. Considering her hard-lined stance against her child learning certain jutsu until he became a Genin, he wasn’t hopeful on seeing if the boy could be the next Tsunade. Although … his female form is definitely developing faster than other girls…
He quickly shook the thoughts out of his head. The Hokage most certainly did not want to debate about that sort of ‘surpassing’. “And may I ask how her… issue came to you?”
Nabiki sighed as she raised her hand, as if she was still back in school, hoping to keep Ranma quiet enough not to spill anything important while coming up with a response that wouldn’t alienate Yakumo. “I did some research into genin teams and learned that as a rule, they tend to start out as three-person teams based either to even out abilities or built around a specific purpose, such as tracking or investigation. As far as school records show, Ranma and I even out in the departments of ninjutsu and taijutsu.”
“Wouldn’t be if Mom would let me study those scrolls,” sulked Ranma, earning a disapproving glare from his mother and forcing him to try and sink further into his seat. It wasn’t his fault that his Mother stalled all avenues for him to learn some cool ninja techniques until after he became a genin.
“But genjutsu is our main weak point at the moment,” continued Nabiki.
“And how did you discover Yakumo?” asked Sarutobi.
Here, Nabiki just snorted. “As if there is a single secret at the Academy I don’t know about. Schools are the worst place for secrets, Hokage-sama,” she replied.
“So you decided to recruit a third person on your own, despite the fact neither of you have passed the exam?”
“I can tell at best there will be two extra people passing, one if Naruto gets screwed over again,” she explained. “And since from what I gathered, extras are placed in a holding queue until an opening comes up, I decided to look outside for a possible third member. I saw Yakumo, learned enough to discover while she’s great in genjutsu, she’s weak in everywhere else, and asked Saotome if he knew of anything to help her.”
“And now she can learn to kick ass!” Ranma cheered happily.
“I see,” said Sarutobi, looking thoughtful. Nabiki however seemed to be the brains of the outfit, definitely some intelligence if she could pull this all off. Not to mention discovering a hidden fact about how genin teams were constructed. If he had to guess, he believed she would also know about the ‘unofficial second test’ the teams underwent.
In a way, they had already passed that as well. Written exams would be easy for all three, given what he knew of Yakumo’s study habits and the duo’s Academy grades. Practicals would also be easy, given that Yakumo would likely receive a similar pass to what Rock Lee had received last year, unless Ranma’s cure allowed her to develop minor ninjutsu abilities as well.
All three worked well together as a team, defeated a superior enemy… All they were missing at the moment was a Jounin sensei.
The three seem to have formed a strong bond, a bond… yes, that might work well. “Ranma, are you certain the technique will wear off in a matter of weeks?”
“Oh yeah,” said Ranma. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s pressure points.”
He would later have to ask Nodoka just how Ranma came to that knowledge. If he was right, she would be questioning Ranma herself after they were done here. “And you want this, Yakumo?” Sarutobi asked.
She nodded happily. “I want to be a Leaf Ninja, Hokage-sama,” she replied respectfully. “If this will allow me to do it, then so be it. Plus, I’ll have great people helping me,” she finished, turning to the duo.
The Hokage nodded, deciding his initial thought was correct.
Now he just needed to send the kids away and discuss it with the parents … and hope the Kurama clan didn’t demand a huge penalty from Ranma not just for the untested technique … but for getting their heiress naked. Right; no suggesting Jiraiya as a jounin-sensei.
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(Posted Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:09)
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