Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court
Chapter Seven

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

No, I must reassert, the "Pay no attention to Kakashi's bells, go buy your own" strategy was a completely original way to pass the test. Stealing them from him early is still stealing them from him.

-oOoOo-

Sarutobi waited patiently for his jonin instructors to report as to their teams.

The jonin Gainax stepped up, shoulders back, her boobs jiggling, unrestrained as always, "Team One Failed!"

"Oh?" The Hokage raised his eyebrows, speaking beside his smoldering pipe. "Would you care to go into more detail? It's rare that so many genin with such personal wealth can't afford the extra training to pass a genin test with ease."

The female jonin nodded sharply, reporting in a businesslike tone of voice, "I gave the standard Water Clone test," she began, and all present nodded. It was a fairly simple and straightforward situation that could actually occur in combat. The jonin separated her students from each other briefly, then made three Water Clones and Transformed them into copies of her team. All then met together, and she gave orders to all to defeat the impostors.

The answer to this test was fairly simple and straightforward as well. Even on a brand new team that didn't know each other well enough to pick out the copies by fighting style and quirks (something that, having spent years in class together, even newly minted genin could theoretically do), the simplest answer was often best: pair up with your own double and defeat it. And since it only fought at one tenth of the jonin's power, a good genin could most probably do that just fine.

It was an easy test to pass, even without the special tricks, like canceling the illusions that disguised the clones, that happened from time to time.

"Oh?" The Hokage raised his eyebrows, back to smoking. It was even rarer that a team able to afford extra training could fail such an easy test.

The female jonin nodded grimly, fighting a scowl. "Rumiko Takahashi spent all of her time declaring all men to be perverts and beating on them indiscriminately with a mallet. I don't know if she could tell them apart or not, but my clones would dodge her blows while her teammates could not, so she spent the entire test almost exclusively attacking her own team. Masashi Kishimoto spent the entire time chanting 'If only I had a Sharingan. I could beat them so easy if I had a Sharingan!' and getting beaten by both his girl teammate and the opposing clones. The last is almost understandable given the other two. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is... not physically well developed."

She paused, and all those in the room nodded, as they'd seen the scrawny little kid.

Gainax inhaled to finish abruptly. "Well, considering his team I could hardly blame him for standing there chanting 'I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away!' over and over. Heck, when he'd gotten beaten up enough he went berserk and defeated the clone attacking him. He tore off its arm, dispersing it, and he might have done more had Rumiko not knocked him out with her mallet immediately afterwards, yelling about perverts."

Several jonin winced, and Gainax stepped backwards into line, her face stiff.

The Hokage sighed. No wonder her report had been so brief. It must have been terrible for the jonin to preside over such a comedy of errors. He made a note to give her several plum assignments to make up for this embarrassment.

"Team Two passed, as I told you, Hokage-sama," Madara Kuno sat back, totally relaxed and strumming a ukelele, grinning wide under his dark sunglasses. "I gave dem a modified version of da resisted Area Search test, an dey both defeated me an foun da prize!"

Sarutobi nodded, and the gathered jonin whispered among themselves, impressed. It was not often a new genin team could defeat their jonin, no matter what advantages they'd been given. The Hokage smiled his approval. "It looks like Team Two may go far. Next?"

All eyes went to the jonin Kosuke Fujishima, who rubbed the back of his head and laughed, embarrassed. "Oh, they passed. But we're going to need to replace Training Ground Thirty Nine. I didn't believe one of my genin when he said most of his jutsu were of the 'level the countryside' variety, and well... my mistake. I should've."

"And their individual performances?" the Hokage asked, eyebrows raised.

The nervous jonin laughed. "Well, that's the thing. I was doing a stress test, see how well they faced an impossible mission, and Thirty Nine seemed to be the way to go..."

The collected jonin nodded in recognition of that indisputable fact. Training Ground Thirty Nine, or the infamous 'Triple Thirteen' was justly respected as a very hard course to pass, even for chunin. It consisted of a trapped mine with countless intersecting shafts and tunnels. it was just as easy to get lost inside as it was to fall prey to the infinite variety of traps.

"And?" the Hokage pressed, curious.

The leader of Team Three laughed nervously once again, still rubbing the back of his head. "Well, that's the thing..." He swallowed, straightening. "Nothing seemed to go right for Gregg. Oh, he tried, and never gave up. Even despairing he was willing to push on to the end, but nothing he did seemed to work out for him. Celeste was tons better, and despite her listening to J-pop the entire mission held up her end well."

The Hokage noted what he was not saying. "And the third genin?"

"Jared?" Kosuke Fujishima laughed, nervousness tripling before he blurted out honestly. "That kid is a walking force of destruction. Nothing stood in his way for long. Not only is he a combat monster, but he's tricky and devious as well, and seems to have an unnatural ability to cause girls to fall in love with him. I had two chunin helping me watch over the exam to make sure nothing bad happened. The guy got caught in an explosion that collapsed the upper three levels. He's in the hospital now. But the girl... I swear she started stalking the boy halfway through the assignment, taking pictures of the redhaired genin defeating things and dramatically rescuing his team from moments of danger."

"Where is this chunin now? I'd like to hear her report, if possible," the Hokage inquired.

The jonin leader of Team Three laughed again. "Well, that's the thing. Last I left her, she was at her apartment setting up a shrine to Jared using all of those pictures she'd taken."

The collected jonin all sweatdropped.

"Team Four?" the Hokage suddenly changed the subject, calling out Kakashi to talk about his genin.

They all looked to where a scarecrow dressed in the Copy Ninja's uniform and mask stood where the jonin was supposed to be.

"Ah, well," the Hokage cleared his throat. "Well, to save you all from waiting four or more hours for this information, I will just summarize the earlier report. The team passed with an effectual use of information gathering. But during the test a team of foreign ninja penetrated our defenses and injured the Uchiha. He is being seen to now."

Most of the gathered jonin tensed. "And his attackers?"

The Hokage was grimly serious, "They are being hunted by ANBU even as we speak. Kakashi reports having chased them beyond the village wall. Our Hunter Nin will pick up the trail from there."

-oOoOo-

It was a dark and creepy basement, filled with lab equipment and bottles of unidentifiable things packed behind notes and the obligatory wires with arcing electrical sparks between them. All of this located, quite incongruously, under a bright and cheery candy shop.

"Earrings!" Azusa declared and she slapped down a pair of eyeballs extracted a mere few minutes ago from a certain Sharingan heir.

The creepy individual behind the counter did not question where she'd learned of him. It was better not to ask. The fact that she was there as a customer wanting him to provide services created a semi-cordial relationship, and he was happy to leave it that way.

"Hmm," the man picked up an eyeball to look at it through a jeweler's loop. "Sharingan eyes - very valuable. But they'd be worth more if the bloodline had activated."

"Hmph!" the figure skating legend crossed her arms and leaned back. "Don't be stupid. The Cheatingan can do anything, even spontaneously activate for no apparent reason!"

The man in a dark cloak startled and nearly dropped the orb when both eyeballs suddenly just switched from black pupils to the distinctive red and black swirl of an active Sharingan.

"I want them mounted as a pair of earrings," Azusa repeated.

The man gingerly set the eye down and got out his tools. There were many roles for missing ninja in this world. Only the stupidest ran around the countryside waiting to get caught. No, the clever ones, especially those who were not combat monkeys, quietly went to ground somewhere and started new, legitimate-seeming lives all over again. Some rare few joined other ninja forces, most actually joined spy rings, wanting to use their skills without any awkward questions. But some, especially seal masters like himself, just went for a quiet life - although seals were so valuable they could serve a few black market jobs on the side.

And seals could do anything, from imprisoning demons to violating space/time to carry extra equipment... or transform a pair of eyes into gemstones.

Again, he didn't ask how she knew about him. It was best to treat this as just another job.

Azusa just stood back and smirked as the man went to work.

Just because she was insane didn't preclude her from being a genius. The two often went hand in hand. In fact, it was Aristotle who said, "No great genius is without an admixture of madness." And Aristotle ought to know, since he'd hit the 'genius' mark so squarely on the head that for thousands of years other geniuses were still studying his work.

And, quite frankly, rising to the top of your field at a very young age, as Azusa had DONE, was not accomplished without great ability. And great ability was often a hallmark of, and another frequent bedfellow of, genius.

So she had mental quirks. So what? Einstein had been so absent minded he'd frequently walked into the wrong house when returning home. It got to the point where his wife painted the door of their house bright red to give him a clue where he lived. That CUT DOWN on the number of instances of him walking absently into the neighbor's houses, thinking they were his own, but did not eliminate them entirely.

Actually, so long as her little mania for grabbing cute stuff was satisfied, Azusa could be downright brilliant. It was a little known fact that the figure skating legend had perfect grades in High School. Funny how people thought she couldn't listen to a briefing. She'd HAD to know the rules of her skating contests to win so frequently! So, despite trying to pull the hair ribbons off of her entity (and she'd gotten them, too), she'd understood her instructions.

The childishness might not have been a mask, but it was not the only thing hidden among those curls. No, the brain lurking under those cute locks was all the more dangerous because people mostly assumed it wasn't there.

She was insane, but she wasn't stupid. You don't become the undefeated champion of ANYTHING if you're unwilling or unable to follow directions. There are times when judges don't look the other way when you're breaking rules. So, on occasion, you've got to follow them, and to follow them you've got to know them. And to know them, you've got to at least be able to listen, even when it LOOKS like you're totally focused on grabbing stuff.

Of course, just because she'd heard something didn't mean she'd assign any importance to it. People said silly stuff all of the time, absurd comments like "Don't grab that," and "Give it back!" And her entity HAD said something about 'splicing her personality with a shinobi's killing disposition' or something like that.

Azusa had been too busy stealing the entity's costume one bit at a time to think too hard about what her double meant by that.

-oOoOo-

The true secret of Anything Goes was adaptability.

But Ranma was starting to think it's true purpose really WAS stealing underwear!! The poor boy certainly found himself in those sorts of awkward situations often enough.

His team were arrayed outside the jonin lady's house, trying to get entry. Hinata had scanned the place and told them where the (admittedly few) pieces of underwear were stored - but also that the house was bristling with traps.

No problem, Ranma bragged, right before sending in Quatrus.

Ranma was skilled. He was blindingly fast, had finely tuned danger senses and had long since learned how to attune his chi to the environment to sense for traps.

His clone lasted all of a second.

Paling, the boy sent in another, then another. Until finally he ran low on chakra and was pushing on anyway, refusing to admit defeat, when he heard a woman descend to the ground behind him. So focused was he on the objective of trying to get a clone in past the first five steps inside the front door that he would've paid it no attention save for the fact that he felt his two teammates simultaneously fall to the ground at the same time.

The boy whipped around, already on guard ready to dodge attacks, when the freaky lady wearing a trenchcoat over a skirt and mesh top suddenly morphed into Akane...

... back in the Tendo house...

... and she was COOKING!!

Ranma fell screaming to the ground, paralyzed and unable to move, as Anko stepped up to him and smirked.

"Heh. Hell-Viewing Illusion. Works every time."

But the boy continued to scream without pause, as if he didn't even have to inhale to go on breathing. The horror on his face was intriguing, and the jonin paused to assess it professionally. "What has this kid been through that he's got such detailed and horrible fears?"

Anko thought about it for a moment, before deciding she had to know. Tying the boy and the two girls with him up quickly and professionally, she took them into her house, resetting those traps he'd triggered and quieting the silent intruder alarm as she did so.

Also, she was curious. What were these kids doing trying to raid her house? Usually when Jiraiya offered money for her panties they sent jonin, so that couldn't be it.

-oOoOo-

"So, the village hospital has a secret sub-basement? I'd say that I approve, but it all looks rather... creepy," Nabiki finished in disapproving tones, having followed Kakashi down into the basement. The jonin was carrying Sasuke over his shoulder, while Sakura trailed along behind them both.

What had drawn her attention, and the creepy comment, was the racks of bodies in tanks all along the walls of the chamber they had just entered. She noted ice crystals hanging off the seemingly glass tubes.

"We kept these leftovers from Orochimaru's research because, well, they were cool," her jonin instructor lay the insensate Uchiha boy down on a table, before going around to judge the quality of bodies in the various tanks. "They keep tissue samples fresh forever."

Sakura was rubbing her arms, unable to bear the cold permeating the chamber. "What are we doing here, Kakashi-sensei?"

Dang! And that fifty ryo would've bought her a new dress, too! Stupid Nabiki didn't have to charge so much for those simple bells!

And she'd had to pay for Sasuke's, too, as he was too out of it to do it himself. And, since she didn't have a hundred ryo on her in the fifteen minutes that mattered (Sakura didn't have even half the money on her) so Nabiki accepted a modeling contract instead. Who knew? Maybe in a few years she'd grow a pair of boobs worth photographing.

Kakashi wasn't paying attention, finding a tank and triggering a fast thaw. "When the Uchiha Clan got destroyed, we recognized that their parts were valuable. So we stored all of the bodies in case of a situation such as this: if Sasuke needed repairs."

Nabiki tilted her head in shocked disbelief. "Do you mean to say that you have, I dunno, HUNDREDS of Sharingan eyes preserved here, and didn't bother to transplant them to any active ninja?"

Kakashi lifted his head, puzzled, before shaking off that thought. "You know, it never occurred to us. But no. That would make too much sense. And... uhm, it would," the man struggled for words, before reading a piece of paper handed to him from off-screen. "Ah, yes. It would violate the sanctity of the Uchiha. No one has ever done an involuntary transplant of their eyes before, you see, and... it's impossible, for some reason. Really. It is."

"Whatever." Nabiki rolled her eyes. Like Sakura, she was rubbing her arms, trying to stay warm in the freezing cold air of the chamber.

Kakashi hauled a body out of the cold storage tanks, and started roughly handling her, trying to get a good look at her eyes. This was easy, as the woman blinked, opening them and staring at Sasuke lying on the table.

"Sa... Sasuke?"

Nabiki's chill now had nothing to do with the cold air.

"Who's THAT!" Sakura blurted out before she could.

"Mikoto Uchiha, Sasuke's mom," Kakashi answered blandly, paying no attention to the fact that the woman he was handling like a side of meat was obviously moving and alive.

"You stuck her in a tank when she's NOT DEAD?!?!" Nabiki's hair was frizzing.

"Not dead? Ridiculous." Kakashi swatted down the woman's hands from where she'd raised them, trying to reach out for her son. "Of course she's dead. All the Uchiha were destroyed, killed by Itachi. Sasuke was the only survivor."

Absently, he struck the woman on the back of the head so she'd stop trying to struggle free of his grasp to go see to her son.

Kakashi began rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he stared at Mikoto's now unconscious body. "Yes, I think this one will do nicely. Now all we've got to do is the transplant operation to transfer these eyes into Sasuke and he will be as good as new!"

"Actually, sensei," Nabiki fought hard to keep down her bile, and not throw up like Sakura was now doing over off in an icy corner. "Don't you think the eyes of a fully grown adult might be too big for Sasuke's skull? His head is not fully developed yet."

The jonin looked back down on the perfectly healthy woman he was carrying and rubbed his chin. "Hmm, you may have a point."

"How about that one?" Nabiki pointed to a cold freeze tube where the body at least had obvious wounds, desperately hoping this one was actually dead, since her teacher didn't seem to care about whether the bodies were actually deceased or not, so long as he could take their eyes to fix up the damage to his precious Sasuke.

Absently tossing the woman back into her tank, sealing it closed and activating it, Kakashi crossed the chamber to look at the body his genin girl had indicated, completely uncaring of the fact that the woman behind him was alive, had reawakened, and was struggling against the glass as the cylinder refroze her.

In fact, he seemed totally oblivious to that fact.

"Hmm, Shisui Uchiha, died by drowning," Kakashi muttered, ignoring the fact that the body in the tank had had its head ripped clean off and was still spouting several kunai from open wounds. "Obvious suicide, but frozen soon after. Died in late teens, so he should be alright for a size comparison to our little Sasuke. Yes, I think these eyes just might be alright."

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

People completely unable/unwilling to recognize a truth when it is staring them in the face is a classic Nerima-ism. Also, I was trying to capture a little bit of that magic shop dealer who insists that nothing he sells is magic, that he doesn't believe it mind you, even while he can see it function with his own eyes and just happens to have the remedy on hand.

It was too Ranma-ish NOT to use! And, of course, it helped me mock the Uchiha. Always a good thing to do.

And I just couldn't help myself with the team reports. That was just too cool NOT to do. But I don't expect I'll be using them any more. A pity, really. They could be quite fun. And a big part of that report was once again frustration at people, this time those who never bother to imagine there COULD be any genin test other than Crackashi's bell exam.

I think my favorite part of that was making those famous manga authors behave exactly like their most prominent lead characters. Well, the ones of their own gender, anyway.

I don't worry about detractors. Although it's frustrating, I can just picture them in their Sasuke-themed underwear. It's good for laughs.

Time Panther put it perfectly: "these aren't Ranma characters dropped into Naruto's world. They have been spliced in. So take Azusa's normal habits and give her the disposition of a ninja, a trained killer. I can easily see she would be ripping off body parts if she liked them."