Joseibi grumbled as she was carried back by the scruff of the neck in the jaws of one of the Haimaru brothers. She supposed that she could make the chakra shift to start the change back to human, but that would just mean getting dragged back in her human body.
That was a lot more embarrassing than being carried as a small, blonde fox.
Even if Kuromaru was taking them down a number of the more public streets.
She swore he was doing it on purpose.
Then the Inuzuka compound came into sight and the dogs padded around to the back where they found Tsume-sensei watching Kiba spar some man that looked and smelled familiar.
Ryoko was sitting in seiza as usual and watching the spar rapturously.
The dogs watched the fight curiously for a moment before Joseibi was plopped on the ground.
And then Joseibi did focus on the chakra through her body. It was different than using hand signs, but the various sort of mental and physical shifts she had to make to form and shape the chakra inside her was getting easier. With a slow and uncomfortable shiver, she turned back into a little girl about eight years of age and stood up to walk over by Tsume Inuzuka.
To Joseibi's eye, it looked a bit like whoever was sparring Kiba was only just barely avoiding each strike. Well, until she looked at his face and that showed that there was no concern at all as he diverted a blow at seemingly the last moment and returning it with strikes and trips that sent Kiba repetitively off balance and stumbling to recover himself.
"You're about a hundred years too early to beat me, kid," the man said at last as Kiba landed on his back hard at the man's feet.
"Damn it," Kiba snapped as he stood back up. "We'll see about that. Akamaru!"
"Hey, Tsume-sensei," Joseibi asked. "Who's the old guy?"
"Old guy?" Tsume asked, glancing down at her student. "He's about the same age as me."
"Right, Tsume-sensei," Joseibi noted. "Who is he?"
"Maybe I should wait to tell until certain full-of-themselves kits get it in their head to make a bit of an apology," Tsume noted.
"Oh!" Ryoko gasped, twisting about. "Imouto-chan, is it not excellent. This man is our elder brother!"
Joseibi's jaw dropped as she ran through the potential meanings of that statement.
"Imouto-chan?" Ryoko said, frowning slightly in concern. "Are you all right?"
The man turned aside casually as Kiba rushed in only to be deflected toward the side. He took her in visually and nodded at her as he casually snatched Akamaru out of the air and put a foot out into Kiba's path, sending the boy sprawling forward as his high-speed style was turned against him.
"You must be Joseibi," Ranma said with a smile. "Let me just finish this up, all right?"
The Hokage stared across toward the assorted chi-users gathered in his office for a second time. He looked between Kiima, her curse reactivated, and Akane Saotome carefully.
"I understand that some of you are leaving and some of you have just arrived," the Hokage noted.
"That's right," Akane said. "My husband is also here, but he went to speak to his sisters."
The Hokage nodded, he'd gotten something of a report on that from the Inuzuka clan home already.
"And I assume you would not mind if I take my leave," Kiima said. "I have been outside my home long enough."
"If you don't mind," Hiruzen said. "I'd rather talk to you about matters in the neighborhood of the Musk Dynasty."
"That is a matter for my people and Kodachi's," Kiima said. "Ninja need not concern themselves with it."
"Actually, we have an agreement with her," the Hokage said, looking toward Kodachi and Mokya.
Kodachi glanced toward Mokya and nodded.
"Mistress Kodachi has made a deal involving an exchange of services with Konoha," Mokya explained. "She instructs Ryoko Saotome in the use of chi and, in exchange, Konoha agreed to help her find and save her family."
Kiima's mouth twitched as she looked toward Kodachi, sipping her tea quite calmly.
"It's been nearly a week and she's failed to mention that," Kiima noted clearly.
"You hired mercenaries...outsiders?" Kiima asked.
Kodachi nodded and looked toward Mokya who nodded as well.
"Mistress Kodachi primarily requested aide in finding the place her son is being held," the girl noted. "As that is not in Musk lands. However, given the attack on the Leaf, she is willing to allow 'observers' along for the remaining liberation."
"Observers," Kiima said irritably.
"And how can we be sure that this isn't a first step towards more interference?" Mousse asked cautiously.
"At this point it is inevitable," the Hokage said. "You've made yourself known to who knows how many people. They will look for you."
He gestured toward Kiima specifically and the disguised Phoenix shuffled about nervously. The fact of her wings in her true form was something that she couldn't hide.
"We'll only be sending one team," the Hokage continued. "As both observers and to protect Kodachi who is our client."
"I would ask to meet the chosen individuals ahead of time," Kiima insisted.
"That is acceptable," Hiruzen said.
Hana walked into her home after delivering the message to the Hokage's office and had a confused expression on her face as she entered the front room and saw her mother, Kiba and the two Saotome sisters staring in shock at the fifth person at the table.
It was a red-headed woman of about thirty years old, no taller than five foot four inches and of a very slight build. Other than that, the woman was dressed pretty much exactly the same as the man that had been here when she'd left, right down to the hair style, though the color was now red.
The woman was setting some food down on the table and taking off an apron before sitting down.
"Sorry about this, I still like cooking as a woman more than a man," the woman said nonsensically. "I literally can't count the number of food or cooking related contests are only allow women to compete."
She rolled her eyes and sat down before looking up towards Hana.
"Did you get your message off?" she asked with a smile. "Got some ninja in animal masks on the way to make sure I'm not a threat?"
Ryoko stared, blinking and pointing, at her elder...brother?...sister?...sibling?
"Ano..." she said. "Y...you really do change into a woman."
"Yeah, and it only took you thirty minutes to say that," Ranma teased before looking toward Joseibi. "Between Pops and you, you'd think this would be less of a surprise."
"Yeah, that might be too much to hope," Joseibi said weakly.
"So, hold it, is this..." Hana started to say.
"This is Ranma Saotome," Tsume said.
"What is this a henge?" Hana asked.
It smelled real, but Henge's could copy smell if the maker knew how.
"No, it's a curse like the brat's here," Ranma said pointing toward Joseibi. "Anyway, they're going to be asking me to go speak to your boss in a bit so I'm going to go over the summary real quick."
"Summary of what?" Hana asked, experimentally taking a bit of the prepared food.
It wasn't the best food she'd ever tasted, but it was definitely passable. Actually, it tasted very much of a campfire recipe and would probably have turned out better in the wilds.
"You have your villages," Ranma said. "We have our schools."
Politics, Hana noted with a nod, important things to know.
"There are eight major schools of chi practice," she said, idly moving her hand over to the side of her plate.
Hana watched the movement and blinked as she noticed Ryoko's face turn a bit confused at the same time.
"There's the Musk Dynasty," Ranma said. "But with the exception of the dragon line, they're only half-taught. But they're strong in what they can do, so they're considered a major school."
She moved a free hand again as the one with her chopsticks brought some food to her mouth. Ryoko frowned and looked down at her own chopsticks in something like confusion.
"There's the Kuno family," the red-head said. "Kodachi's one of them. There aren't many of them, and a lot of them are insane, so they don't often get strong. But they can become false masters sometimes. An then there's Kodachi, who's trying to fix herself. They used to be demon hunters, but after a bit they started getting crazy."
Another motion and this time everyone saw Ryoko's chopsticks deflected aside as Ranma casually took another bite.
"There's the Seven Lucky Gods school," Ranma added. "And they have styles based on the seven Fortunes. They live somewhere that way."
She gestured vaguely and drove Ryoko's chopstick down to her own food.
"There's the Phoenix," she continued. "And you've seen them. They think they rule the air because they happen to be able to fly."
"Being able to fly would be a big advantage in aerial fights," Tsume noted.
Ranma snorted.
"I don't care if someone has wings, a flying horse or weird super powers," she said. "A well trained user of Saotome-Ryu owns the air and everything that's in it."
Ryoko's chopsticks ended up in her own mouth, empty.
"There're the Art schools," Ranma noted. "Rhythmic Gymnastics, Skating, Honor Guard, Morale Force, various Cooking styles...other stuff. Bunches of chi-adepts that adapted some performance art into a vehicle for fighting skill. The worst thing about these is that they don't seem dangerous until you fight them."
"That's five," Tsume noted, arching an eyebrow at Ryoko as it became increasingly obvious why some people felt less full than expected around the black-haired girl. "Who else?"
"Joketsuzoku, Anything Goes and Redeemed school," Ranma said. "And they're all sort of related."
"Ano..." Ryoko said. "H..how are they related?"
"The Grandmaster Happosai originated the Anything Goes school half by stealing techniques from Joketsuzoku," the red-head noted. "And then Pops created the Senken and old man Tendo created the Seirei Kata, and Cologne of the Joketsuzoku taught me and we took it all and made the Redeemed School."
She paused and thought.
"Joketsuzoku is almost as old as you chakra-wielders," he said. "An most of the chi-schools come out of it to some degree."
"I'm going to guess that Anything Goes isn't a good school to deal with," Tsume noted. "Or you wouldn't be calling your school the Redeemed school."
"Yeah," Ranma said. "Happosai wasn't interested in really teaching heirs and successors. He wants to live forever, I think. An he just teaches people that he can make use out of. He just about forces people down the path of false mastery. Pops and old man Tendo lucky. An he really didn't like it when he realized that the fighters of my generation had started correcting all the flaws he'd taught our teachers."
She frowned silently.
"We had a war for...two or three years that started while you were having the third Ninja War," she explained. "It lasted until just about the time we heard the kyuubi was seen. It just kept getting bigger and had so many sides until it was just Happosai and Pops against all the rest of us."
Ryoko froze with a piece of meat half-way to her mouth, successfully drawn from some plate other than her own. And then the morsel was taken out of her chopsticks.
"Y..you fought against our f..father?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," Ranma said. "He wouldn't go against Happosai, so he went against the rest of us. And he didn't like being passed up either."
"And he's still alive?" Joseibi asked.
"There were circumstances," Ranma said, thinking of the hostages Happosai had revealed. "And we forced their surrender, but it had conditions on our side. One of those was that Pops was forbidden from teaching anybody."
"B...but th..that does n..not mean fa...family does it?" Ryoko asked.
"Especially family," Ranma said firmly. "I lived through that, and I didn't want anybody else having to ever even imagine that crap...never thought I'd have young siblings to watch out for. He and Mom vanished a bit after the end of the war, so he must have known you were coming and already been planning on breaking his agreement. Shouldn't be surprised, that's all he ever did."
"Wh..what?" Ryoko gasped. "F..father al..always kept his promises."
"I spent four years of my life trying to untangle my love life because the guy engaged me at least three times to different people," Ranma said through half-lidded eyes. "Anyway, there's some ninja outside about to ask me to come with them, think I can get some hot water so I can go talk to your boss the right gender?"
"Hey, didn't our Mom have something to say about the girl thing?" Joseibi asked.
"Yeah, there was a seppuku contract Pops tricked me into signing when I was about three," Ranma said. "But she eventually said I'd fulfilled the contract and ignored the curse."
Joseibi stared at the red-head in disbelief.
"B..but, seppuku is an important tr...tradition," Ryoko protested weakly.
"It's a stupid tradition," Ranma returned.
"Told you so," Kiba said crossing his arms smugly as Ryoko glared at him in one of her rare moments of clear annoyance.
"I think that is all, Naruto-kun," Hinata said as she bagged up the last of the rotted eggs and old milk that they'd found about Naruto's apartment.
If Hinata didn't know better, it would have looked to her like someone came into Naruto's apartment and pulled all of the food in his refrigerator out into the room to rot. It certainly didn't make sense that he would do that, he was pretty frugal and careful with his food. In fact he didn't keep much food that could rot. The food was mostly instant ramen and a few things to add to it.
All the add-tos however were rotting.
But who would go to that sort of effort just to make Naruto waste food and make his room smell. That was a bit different than just harassing him when he was present.
She watched Naruto experimentally pull his mask down and take a sniff.
"Yeah, it really doesn't smell as bad any more," he said. "Uh, don't take your mask off yet, though, Hinata-chan."
"All right," Hinata said, taking her hand away from her mask and watching as Naruto left out the door to take the trash down to the cans.
She waited in the small apartment nervously pushing her fingers together and blushing as she kept thinking about the fact that she was in Naruto's apartment right now and helping him clean it up.
It was almost heaven.
"Well, what's this?" a man's voice said behind her, and she turned about suddenly to see a very strange looking man coming in through Naruto's window. "Does the little brat have a girlfriend?"
Hinata flushed brightly and held out her hands.
"No!" she said quickly. "I mean...Naruto's not a brat, he is very kind."
"And what about the girlfriend thing?" the old man asked.
"Uh...uh...uh.." Hinata said, the color in her cheeks rising quickly. "Maybe?"
"Ah, Ero-sennin," Naruto called out. "What happened to you, aren't I supposed to be your student and I haven't seen you since the whole giant toad thing!"
"Hmph," the old man said, apparently mildly offended. "I am Jiraiya, the Toad Sage! Not 'ero-sennin'."
"Ji..Jiraiya-sama!" Hinata said. "One of the Sannin?"
"See, kid, your girlfriend here knows who I am," Jiraiya said.
"Huh, wha...Hinata-chan's n..." Naruto stopped as hand covered his mouth and the old man started whispering quietly to him.
"I'm going to stop you there, kid," Jiraiya said with a smirk before looking over his shoulder at Hinata and winking at her perplexed expression. "Consider it a favor."
Then he stepped back and moved to sit heavily on the bed.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Naruto shouted as his mouth was released and he then turned to Hinata. "Uhh...Hinata-chan...sorry about him, he's kinda a pervert and...really, I hope you're not..um, upset."
"Wh..why would I be mad?" Hinata asked.
"Probably because he thinks girls hit him when he suggests the term girlfriend," Jiraiya said in a teasing tone.
"Yea...I mean, no!" Naruto said.
"See," Jiraiya said, still teasing. "He probably had a crush on some violent girl before he met you."
"Sakura," Hinata said quietly with a slight frown.
"Gah! What are you here for, Ero-sennin?" Naruto asked.
"I was wondering if you want to go on a mission with me," Jiraiya said. "But if you're busy..."
"What kind of mission, peeping on girls?" Naruto asked severely.
After a moment, he looked over toward Hinata and stepped over in front of her, bringing a smirk to Jiraiya's face and an increased blush to Hinata's.
"Actually, we're going to be looking for someone specific," Jiraiya said.
"Who is that?" Naruto asked.
Jiraiya looked around with a smirk, and let himself linger a bit on the wall that separated Naruto's apartment from the Suna ninja on the other side. She might be more or less exiled from her home, but she hadn't stopped being Suna despite that.
"Maybe later," he said. "In any case, since I have to do this favor for the Hokage, I was wondering if maybe you'd be interesting in helping me out and maybe getting a chance to learn a technique or two on the way."
"If you're looking for someone," Hinata noted very carefully raising her hand. "I am trained to be part of a search team..."
She almost fainted at her boldness despite how good she'd gotten at controlling those recently. But that would give her the chance to be closer to Naru...help out with this mission that the Hokage had set the legendary Sannin Jiraiya.
Jiraiya frowned at that, a Hyuuga would be useful, but he'd have to check with the old man first.
"I'll have to see about that," he said eventually.
"Excuse me a moment," Akane said, standing up. "Do you mind if I take a break for a moment."
"I'm sure you have things you want to say to your husband, Saotome-sensei," Hiruzen said.
Akane froze in mid motion and looked over towards him, the question to how the old man knew what she'd been thinking clear on her face for a moment.
Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled back at her and smoked his pipe idly for a moment before speaking.
"IF you haven't noticed," he said pointing to his hat. "Hokage."
"Right," Akane noted a bit embarrassed. "Somehow, I'm always forgetting how dangerous old martial artists are."
The others in the room looked toward her and the Hokage wondering what the exchange was. Well, except for Kodachi who continued sipping her tea before turning toward Mokya and casually gesturing.
"Master Ranma is coming," Mokya explained.
Kiima frowned and shuffled nervously in her seat at that.
"And how did she know that?" Akane asked frowning.
Kodachi cleared her throat in a manner that Mokya recognized as basically "run with it."
"I have to remind you," Mokya said. "That Mistress Kodachi is blind and sharpening her chi senses is one of the few things she can do constantly. That said...I'm not really sure how she knows either."
Akane rolled her eyes and turned to leave the room, seeing Ranma coming up the hallway escorted by a pair of Anbu that felt like they were around jonin rank.
Ranma looked back toward them and held out his hand to ask for a bit of privacy as he walked ahead of the masked ninja to meet with Akane, kissing her lightly on the lips as they came together.
"Well?" Akane asked expectantly, but with a trace of a smile.
"It looks like your going to have at least one ninja for a sister-in-law," Ranma said with a nod. "What's up."
"Liberation of Musk," Akane said. "Kodachi's hired Konoha and Kiima is fuming."
"As long as she doesn't start drowning people," Ranma said.
"Or brainwashing them," Akane added. "Do you sometimes think Mousse married her out of spite for Xian Pu?"
"I don't know, but I wouldn't say that to her face," Ranma said. "Or Mousse's. Or Xian Pu's."
"How's your mother," Akane asked quietly.
"She's probably dying," Ranma said slowly. "And from what they say about what the poison's done, it's probably best that she doesn't wake up for it."
"Poison, who would do such a thing to a person," Akane wondered. "Feed them something to drive them slowly insane."
"The pills were in a bag with Nabiki's mark," Ranma said reluctantly.
"Nabiki is dead," Akane said firmly. "And I'm not saying that she wouldn't do something like this if there was something in it for her."
"I'm the one she tried to sell into prostitution once," Ranma noted. "I think I know."
"She did sell you, Ranma," his wife corrected. "You just were a little bit stronger than they thought you'd be. Maybe some of her people are still operating her organization?"
"Maybe," Ranma said. "Hate to say it, but..."
"Yeah, I know," Akane said. "We knew what she was when we hired her to do our intelligence work for us. Should have been satisfied with Konatsu and Kodachi."
"Well, that was before Kodachi was a student," Ranma said. "And before she started trying to control herself, so...crazy-smart or evil-smart..."
"Ranma, whatever she was, she was still my sister," Akane noted firmly.
"Yeah, I'll avoid the 'e' word," Ranma said nodding.
"How do we handle this Musk thing?" Akane asked.
"From what I've heard," Ranma said grimmly. "They made an unprovoked attempt to kidnap one or more of my sisters...I think we're going on for the ride."
"Good," Akane said, nodding. "I was hoping you'd say that."
"Sharingan," Kurumi repeated with a frown. "I've heard of it, but never realized it could be used to learn how to channel chi."
"In all honesty," Kakashi said. "I don't think anybody's wanted to up to now."
"When we faced the witch in that village," Sasuke explained, "I was almost incapacitated just from being near her because I'm apparently balanced toward yin. It was a weakness that needed to be addressed."
It was a matter of fact description of his motivation that implied that they didn't need to look into it further.
Then he frowned.
"I'd hoped it would be enough to beat Ryoko," he said idly.
"It was, you missed a couple of chances," Kakashi noted.
"The surest sign of that was that you pressured her enough to come up with something new," Kurumi noted.
"Something new?" Sasuke said. "Kasai kaeri?"
"I heard something from Gai about that," Kakashi said. "I was wondering if you'd explain?"
"As soon as she learns a technique," Kurumi said, "she'll break it down to its components. Push her into a corner..."
"And she'll change the pieces around," Kakashi said. "And on the fly, something new. Born masters of inventing new techniques."
"It just comes to them," Kurumi said. "At sixteen Ranma Saotome learned a technique that has, for three thousand years, had a single, narrow point of use. Within six months, he had created at least three variations of it, all in the middle of battle. Even his mistakes get turned into effective techniques when he figures out what caused the mistake."
"They have to learn the principle first, though," Kakashi said.
"And she's learned one technique," Sasuke wondered. "The tree-climbing technique and how does that translate to breaking wires?"
"What happens when you use too much chakra in tree-climbing," Kakashi asked.
"It breaks the bark and forces you...oh," Sasuke said. "And the essential task is to stick to the tree...and she stuck to the fire."
"That said," Kurumi noted, looking from the young man toward Kakashi. "He shouldn't be learning from Kodachi without her knowing about it."
"Can you say particularly why?" Kakashi asked.
"Is this rehearsed?" Sasuke asked suspiciously as he noted the clean endings and beginnings of their speech, not talking over each other at all.
Both the elder warriors turned and smiled toward him, at least it looked like Kakashi was smiling under his mask.
"Kodachi's mind is unhealthy," Kurumi said. "The methods she takes to deal with it are rather extreme. Someone copying her completely would risk going down the path of a false master."
"Think about trying to wear a pair of glasses when your eyesight is just fine," Kakashi noted. "The glasses are designed to correct damaged eyesight, but eyesight that is already good is not improved, but damaged. Medicine for one person is poison for another."
"And it is worse than that," Kurumi said. "We channel chi, what flows through is is changed by us. If we are corrupt then we corrupt everything around us. You've already seen that with that witch you talked about earlier."
"Ryoko talks about a 'heaviness'" Sasuke noted curiously. "And I've felt that."
"That's when the chi is being forced unnaturally and is fighting against what is forcing it," Kurumi said.
"So if you're strong enough you can make chi do whatever you want?" Sasuke asked. "Without having to change yourself?"
"According to him and what you've just said you've seen what happens then," Kurumi said. "First you go mad, then you break. The the world is back to the way it 'wants' to be."