“Where the hell were you, Saotome?” asked Nabiki, glaring at the youth entering their apartment.
“Um … out?” he said uncertainly.
“But I thought you said you were going to watch Naruto-kun?” stated Mihoshi, “and that under no circumstances should I say such to Nabiki.”
“… Right,” grumbled Ranma, as Mihoshi smiled and went back to watching television.
Nabiki’s eyes narrowed. “You followed Naruto.”
“I had to, Nabs,” sighed Ranma. “I mean, us being here’s such a big change. What if it did something and he got whacked tonight.”
“And this had nothing to do with a giant scroll of secret super-powerful techniques?”
“Secret my ass,” grumbled Ranma. “I found half of them going through the—Eep!” he stopped, slapping his hand over his mouth before he said anymore.
Nabiki narrowed her eyes. “Saotome, are we alone?”
“Well, Mihoshi is there on the couch and—”
“I mean,” Nabiki glared harshly, “are any ninjas looking in on you after that stunt you just pulled?”
Gulping loudly, Ranma closed his eyes, letting his senses expand. The ninja around the village were very good at hiding their chakra. Even the Academy taught that on some level.
Hiding from someone who could sense the environment on a different level—chi—was a different story. There really wasn’t that much of a difference between the two, but it was a difference that no other ninja save for perhaps Nabiki—and only because he had started training her—knew about.
It was how he could slip into the Uchiha grounds, how he could avoid any sentinels, any traps that looked for chakra. Something that works on sensing AM doesn’t work as well as sensing FM. Even the ANBU didn’t know about that difference yet.
And it was how he knew that aside from Naruto in his own apartment—likely celebrating his promotion—no one else was around. Damn my luck! “We’re clear,” he mumbled.
“What techniques have you found?” she asked.
Sighing, he motioned for her to follow him, leading her to a small utility closet they never used—the Uchiha stuff fit well enough under the sink. Opening it up, Nabiki’s eyes went wide.
Scrolls! Ranma had taken out the shelves and pushed it back, sealing off exposed wires and such to put in pigeon holes, each one labeled either with a class, element, or jutsu type. “These … these,” Nabiki gasped.
“Found them just lying about,” said Ranma. “I mean, sure I found a few in hidden areas, plenty of traps—acid, kunai, something that resembled Akane’s last attempt at miso soup—but I got around them. And they had some pretty good stuff.”
Nabiki nodded slowly. As she looked around the cramped … library seemed to fit … she felt herself reminded of how Ranma could be a perfect genius with anything related to martial arts. The fact he had done all this to an unused closet so he could house stolen scrolls fit that profile.
And there were a lot of scrolls. Techniques were listed from E to S-class, all five elements, all types of ninjutsu. If nothing else, it showed Ranma could at least file things pretty well.
So she asked the first question that came to mind. “And why would the Uchiha make scrolls? Their Sharingan is an instant-copy-machine.”
Ranma just shrugged. “Not everyone had it, so they probably wrote it down for the weaker members.”
She nodded slowly. It made some sense. After all, Madara and any ‘help’ he had on the Council had been made to seem to care more about the possibility of the bloodline continuing. And Uchiha who had it surely would not have worked bakeries.
Add to it that unlike the Byakugan, it didn’t seem to always be a dominant trait; you would want to have scrolls so the ‘weaker’ Uchiha could learn and be assets to the clan.
“You didn’t offer this to us to learn … why?” Nabiki asked, trying to regain control over their talk.
“Ya never asked,” he replied with a shrug.
She could only glare at him, wondering what other things he hid that she ‘never asked’ about. If anything, she knew he had probably gone through all of these on some training ground, hidden from prying eyes and pulling off moves that would have had Uchiha parents and any other viable bloodline drooling over the prospect of him fathering a child with their daughters. It was part of what made Ranma, Ranma.
“So then … I take it Mihoshi and I have a nice new project for during our time between now and the final team exam.”
Ranma nodded quickly, probably nervous due to his ingrained reactions when Nabiki slipped into her ‘Furinkan Ice Queen’ mode. Hell, Mihoshi had only barely passed her genin exam—mental focus was never her strong suit, at least as long as they had known the former Djinn. And that was with Nabiki harping on her to study and Ranma dragging her to the practice field to work. They knew that before becoming a Djinn, she had been something called a Galaxy Police Officer.
So either she knew people who were high up and had no trouble sending under-prepared family members into possible death sentences, or at one time, she had been something.
The Nerima Two were counting on the latter. If she had been something once before, they could only hope that spark would blossom once more and get them home.
“Well, we’ll probably be on the same team,” Ranma offered. “It ain’t like we ain’t balanced.”
She could only snort at that. Ranma had power and skills, Nabiki had the brains for strategy and probably more planning than Saotome in a battle, and Mihoshi had … more luck than Sailor Moon during a single anime season.
Nabiki had hoped for an uneven class, a way to keep Mihoshi safe and practicing here so that perhaps they could leave before Pein showed up. But if Mihoshi was on missions … with them … and with Saotome’s penchant for drawing in strong opponents…
Same team? Depending on how Mihoshi or her fellow genies worded their making of this reality, it could be the most likely scenario. A team by themselves would cause the least amount of ripples at this point.
Of course, these were the same Djinn that tried to send Mihoshi here as punishment until they got home without a way to do so. Hell, they still might have handed her a method but no way to use it. It made her wonder if perhaps Ah! My Goddess had it right when they portrayed that wishes never worked out the way one intended. “And what exactly did you learn that isn’t … here?” she asked, waving at the assembled scrolls.
“Not much,” he said with a heavy sigh. Only Ranma Saotome would be depressed that possibly fatal techniques on a scroll he’d only have one chance to review were already known to him.
“Kage Bunshin?”
Ranma pointed to a scroll five holes up from the floor, labeled a B-Rank kinjutsu. “I can do ten now,” he murmured, going to a section with no labels, likely filled with blank scrolls.
And only Ranma Saotome would think to write down forbidden techniques to keep in what was essentially a pilfered library. Not that she wasn’t worried about the fact Ranma could maintain ten shadow clones to practice who knows what—and with the scrolls and anime, it could be anything—but she was more worried about someone finding out sensitive information was readily available in a genin’s rundown apartment.
She’d just gotten that nice bed, damn it! She didn’t want it burned or trashed by some missing-nin-wannabe. “We really need to secure these,” she muttered.
“Already on it,” he smiled, grabbing a handful of blank scrolls and making his way out of the closet. “I think there were a few security seals I could use, probably shouldn’t use one off the Forbidden Scroll,” he finished, mind drifting off as ideas exploded in his mind.
“Why?” she asked, as he set the scrolls on the ‘borrowed’ table.
Smiling, Ranma formed a familiar seal, creating three clones, which set about filling in the scrolls with what he remembered. “Cause it results in a very big bang if not diffused right.
“Well … that and I ain’t sure I could pull it off right.”
She nodded carefully, glad he wasn’t going right off and trying such things. Her chances of survival would take a massive nosedive if something bad happened to him. And should she ever make it home, her chances would be zero if the fiancées learned that Ranma had died with her. And that didn’t include what Nodoka Saotome would do if she learned her precious manly son was dead because of Nabiki’s wish.
Well, they did have a few days before Genin orientation. Studying up on some techniques no one would expect from a freshly minted Genin. Not that she’d master them—and it was a safe bet Mihoshi wouldn’t—but since the anime or manga never showed the how the other teams proved they could work together.
But the test was pretty simple: attack the jounin as a team to show you could function as a group and an individual. If nothing else, it should work, as long as their Sensei wasn’t an utter moron or sadist intent on ruining their chances.
Right?
Lei Zi sighed as he looked at the summons.
He had been selected to be a Jounin Sensei for a trio of fresh from the Academy rugrats. Not the easiest assignment, but it could be used to keep his skills sharp, perhaps even find some new recruits for his ‘other’ mission. Only time would tell. Hell, he had yet to receive his missive from the Hokage about just which team he would be teaching.
Oh, he understood why. He was after all one of the ‘public’ members of what had once been ROOT. Simple assignments would forever be scrutinized by his ‘superiors’, unsure if his loyalty laid with Danzo or Sarutobi.
But to be saddled with some wet-behind-the-ears students would prove a distraction, a way to bring more attention to himself, or a way to get back into Sarutobi’s good graces and thus be a larger asset to ROOT.
The sound of flapping wings drew his attention to a bird entering his window. That alone was only possible under two conditions: it was a messenger bird and it carried a ROOT seal inside of its beak. Any other things seeking entry to his apartment would have set off some very bad wards and likely been on the receiving end of a very strong lightning jutsu.
Plucking the scroll attached to the bird’s legs carefully, he went over what it said, never paying attention to the fact that bird disappeared soon afterwards in a puff of smoke.
It was the ROOT way.
His eyes went wide as he read the coded message: Danzo would have a mission for him in the coming days.
That meant the Genin Team would be a wasted effort. But luckily for him, a good portion of them always failed the test Sarutobi had the Jounin conduct. What would be three more?
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(Posted Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:22)
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