Ranma of the Sand

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing, and in fact, Naruto and Ranma seem to own me. Seriously though, they are owned by Kishimoto and Takahashi respectively.

"….." denotes speech

Italics denotes thought

The sun was barely noticeable on the horizon, serving to barely light the tips of the building in the Sand Village. The only people out were the sand ninjas that guarded the walls on the entrance to the village or the drunks who were slowly and laboriously making their way home to their angry wives. Yet in the quiet, foul murder was being plotted by two men dressed in the standard sand ninja garb.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Tobio asked his scarred partner while keeping a vigilante eye out for any of the guards.

Akame lifted his gaze from the scrolls in front of him to glare at the bald man. "No, we shouldn't be doing this, but if we want to be more than mere agents to Akatsuki than this is the only way to do it." Sighing, he got a pair of binoculars from one of the pouches and passed it to Tobio. "Make sure the way is clear."

Grunting his acknowledgement, Tobio pressed the binoculars to his eyes ignoring blood from the guards whose equipment they had looted. Scanning their pre-arranged path, he noted that the path was indeed clear. Grimacing that their apparent luck, he looked back toward his fellow conspirator and waited for him to finish packing up.

Akame, after was seemed like an eternity to the both of them, finally stood up and nodded. The binoculars fell from Tobio's hand, and before the binoculars even made it half way to the floor, they were gone, with two corpses being their only witnesses.

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Ranma was having a very boring day so far. The morning had started out decently enough, but instead of having some miso, which Kasumi knew he loved, she instead decided to try her hands on some western dishes like scrambled eggs and french toast. It was delicious none-the-less, but he would have preferred miso. After that it was a mad dash to the school, a beat down on all things Kuno, and the mind numbing bore that was school. The only thing that was making this day passable was the duel he had planned with Mousse later.

Still, it wasn't much of a duel anyways. Mousse had reached a plateau a while ago, and their fights were getting mostly repetitive. In fact, a training trip might be in order in a while. He really hadn't spent any time training recently, and the downtime was boring the shit out of him. Besides, he thought, it won't be like I'm missing much here. Nabiki is leaving at the end of the year, and Akane is starting to look at colleges to apply to. I still don't know if I want to go, after all I barely even care about my grades now, what's to make me start caring about them later?

Groaning, Ranma snapped back to reality when Ms. Hinako called him to answer the question on the board. Lifting his head from his desk where it was cradled in his arms he glanced at the board. There was some math equation up there that he really couldn't understand, or care to understand anyways.

"Twelve," he guessed randomly hoping that she would just let him get back to his thoughts.

"You are correct Ranma," answered the child-form of Ms. Hinako brightly.

That got his attention, perhaps he was better at this school thing than he though.

"What… really?" he asked just to make sure.

"Happo Goju-en Satsu!" she cried which answered his question as he felt his energy being slowly sucked out of him.

"No Mr. Saotome, the answer was three seventeenths, and you would know that if you were paying attention. You really should start concentrating more on this or else you're going no where in life," Hinako lectured him as he gladly let exhaustion claim him and greeted the Sandman.

I wonder why they call sleep that… was his last though before he lost consciousness.

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It wasn't too hard to get past the guards around the Kazekage's tower. The Sand's forces were spread out too thinly doing whatever missions they could get their hands on, to properly guard their leader. It was a testament to how much their attack on the Leaf had cost them, and the slow attrition due to the Wind Country's negligence of them.

Akame and Tobio had no difficulty stealthily getting to the Kazekage's room, who at this time would still be asleep and an easy target to those wanting the power of the bijuu. With their kunai out, they walked toward the highly ornamented door with the symbol of the Sand on it, and slid the door open.

"You made a mistake thinking that you would leave the Sand with your lives," the Kazekage, Gaara of the Sand, said while still being seated at his desk. "Especially considering that you already murdered two of my men."

Akame, cursing loudly, reached for some explosive notes and hurled them straight at the Kazekage's desk. "Tobio, distract him while I get the scroll ready," he commanded while reaching for the scrolls in his pack.

Shaking, Tobio put his kunai away and started performing seal. "Dammit, you said he was going to be asleep. He's a fucking jinchuuriki! We could die!"

"You're right, you both will die," Gaara intoned calmly still seated in his desk with a gourd by his side. Then the room exploded.

"EARTH ELEMENT: ROCK LODGEMENT DESTRUCTION!" Tobio yelled as he slammed his hands on the ground causing the ceiling to collapse on the area over the desk. Not wasting time, he quickly moved to perform more hand seals and with of "EARTH ELEMENT: SPLITTING EARTH FORCE!" the ground cracked and moved to swallow and crush the Kazekage.

Panting, Tobio stood in the crumbling room at the ready half watching to see if Akame was ready with the scroll, half waiting for Gaara to stumble out of the wreckage.

"Goddammit, hurry up Akame! I took him down, now hurry before he gets up!"

"Almost ready! Just watch to make sure that he doesn't interrupt…there done!" he cried with a grin as he got his chakra ready to power the seal.

With his chakra gathered, Akame moved to activate the scroll seal when he was abruptly stopped by an intense pressure coming from the other side of the room as the dust exploded outwards revealing Gaara standing there with the sand holding him over the floor and shielding him from the wreckage in the ceiling. Dust, papers, rocks, and ink flew toward both of them as the area around Gaara cleared.

A yelp help drive their attention to the bald man desperately trying to perform another jutsu. With a casual movement, Gaara extended an open hand toward the man who was quickly encased in sand and screaming. The fist closed, the screaming stopped, and red mist floated through the room.

The droplets of blood splattered all over his face brought Akame out of his trance, and quickly putting Tobio's fate out of his mind, he pressed his palms over the scroll, to discover to his horror that the ink and the blood had changed the seal.

As the scroll started growing brighter, his vision got obscured by sand. He couldn't bring himself to care as the darkness consumed him. The last words he heard were the muffled "Desert Coffin" as the sandman consumed him.

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He woke up to the not so gentle shaking by his uncute fiancée. She was muttering something he really couldn't make out. Groaning, he brought himself back firmly to the land of the living, and looked toward the concerned face of Akane.

"Seriously Ranma, you shouldn't be so apathetic toward school, or what else are you going to do with the rest of your life?" she questioned him, mirroring what Ms Hinako had told him earlier.

"You know what Akane, I don't know, I really don't know," he answered her while staggering to his feet. He still hadn't fully recovered from Hinako's energy drain, and almost tripped if Akane hadn't caught him at the nick of time.

"Geez, you'd also think that she would keep you awake so you could actually learn something too," she giggled as Ranma mocked glared at her. "Now just lean on me as we walk to lunch."

"Now just what kind of man needs a woman to help him walk around," he asked her while pushing himself off of her and slowly getting his balance into place.

"The kind that turns into a girl with cold water," she muttered darkly. However, she quickly grew more concerned as Ranma noticeably struggled to remain upright. "You sure you don't need help?"

"Nah, all I need is some food and I'll be back to normal. Just as long as it's not food you cooked, or I'll probably die!" he laughed at his little joke as he stood up right and puffed his chest out, only to stop as he felt a sense of impeding danger standing right behind him. Turning around he smiled weakly at his glaring fiancée as he sweat-dropped heavily.

"Well if you're healthy enough to crack jokes, then you're healthy enough to walk to lunch on your own," she growled walking toward the door. Once there she stopped and turned to him. "Are you coming or not?"

"Yea, sure," he answered cautiously as his body glowed brightly and suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Blinking in shock, Akane looked around the room for any signs of the pigtailed martial artist. Seeing all the windows closed and the only entrance being blocked by her, she stood there in a stupor.

"Ranma….," she whispered at last to the empty air.

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He blinked, that was all he could do. One moment he was in the classroom with Akane heading out to lunch, the next he was… here, in this room with a hole in the ceiling, in the floor allowing you to see the room below, holes all around the walls leading outside, rubble all around, 2 huge piles of sand, the smell of blood, and a red-haired kid. He chose to focus on the kid, with the sand floating all around him, all other details being ignored for the moment. Something was nagging at him that this didn't feel right, that there was something very wrong going on in this room, but he couldn't for the life of him figure it out.

He was about to do another, more thorough, scan of the room when fear suddenly assaulted him like never before. It clutched at his heart and stopped his body from working. His eyes quickly found the source, the raccoon eyed boy. Damn! Damn, damn, damn, damn! I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die….. what is this, who is this kid? He doesn't look more than fifteen, and yet, I'm scared of him, why? Why can't my body move? Damn, I'm still weak, I'm gonna die, why can't I fight back?... I'm gonna die! NO! I can't die, I won't die, not here, not ever!

Steeling himself, Ranma tried to fight off this irrational fear, and succeeded only in moving his body back, crawling backwards toward the wall through one of the huge piles of sand. His hands met the rough texture of the sand, and an odd, wet, sticky, smooth thing which his mind immediately labeled as 'wrong' and refused to analyze it any further. Instinctively, he knew what it was, he just couldn't deal with it right now, however, his instincts took over and the idea of fighting wasn't even entertained. He quickly turned around and made a mad dash toward one of the holes in the wall upsetting the rubble and causing it to fall to the ground. Unfortunately, the shrieks that emerged quickly showed him his mistake, as a crowd of villagers had gathered to see what had happened with the Kazekage in his tower.

The fear was instantly replaced by a different feeling, one that suited him better. Finally using the skills he was famous for, he spotted a little girl that was running toward falling rubble unknowingly, probably not understand what was going on with the crowd. Without hesitation he threw himself out the window and using everything he knew of mid air combat, made himself fall faster, only barely passing the falling stones. The ground cracked under him, but he was only focused on the girl, and in an instant he knocked her down and with gritted teeth and closed eyes braced himself to be hit as he shielded her.

When nothing happened, he opened his eyes and saw the confused face of an eight year old girl staring right back at him. Looking up, he saw that all the stones were being held in the air by large chunks of sand. Even further than that, he saw the red haired kid floating down on a sand cloud face as impassive as ever, however no fear stabbed at him this time.

"Lord Gaara," the little girl muttered, and he followed her eyes to the guy who had barely made landfall.

Then there was a sudden influx of sand and he was forced to close his eyes. When the wind died down, he opened them to find that he was surrounded by a veritable army wearing basically the same uniform. They all had their eyes on the kid… Gaara, is what the girl called him, who had his eyes on him.

"Take care of the bodies in my study. Study whatever remains of them, I want to know where they came from. Find the two they killed and give them a proper burial," Gaara commanded, and surprisingly some of the uniformed men obeyed. However his words finally struck home, and he consciously knew what exactly the stains were on his clothes now.

Pushing himself off the girl, he threw up and let himself lose consciousness for the second time that day.

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Staring at the pigtailed youth, Gaara almost missed the flinch the group gave when the he suddenly moved. However he was no threat, and within moments he was unconscious.

His next target was the little girl who was still sprawled on the floor. Walking up to her he knelt down next to her and gently helped her to her feet. When she finally stood up, she beamed at him and ran off to do whatever it was little girls do at this early hour.

Finally noticing the looks his subordinates where giving the unconscious kid, he addressed them. "Get a medic-nin, and have two guards stationed outside the room." Looking around the crowd he spotted his sibling and beckoned him forward. "Kankuro, I want you to keep an eye on him in the room. He came with the group that tried to assassinate me, yet he protected the girl. I want to know who he is and where he's from. Find out where he's from, and try to be gentle, as far as we know he is no enemy."

Kankuro nodded at his brother's odd request, but was going to follow his orders to the letter. He was moving toward the unconscious youth when his brother called out to him once more.

"One more thing Kankuro, I'm going to borrow your room, mine appears to be broken. Make yourself comfortable somewhere else for a while."