Authors Notes- Thanks you soo much for reviewing! I really appreciate it! And now, as you wished, on with the story!
Disclaimer- I own none of this! Just my computer….
Are thoughts
"Is talking"
The Meeting
As soon as her kunai were out and in her hands the boys reacted. As if by an unspoken agreement the one in the orange scooted back towards the girl protectively and placed himself in front of her, probably to block her from attacking, Sakura thought. While the orange one was moving back the one in red was moving forward. With nearly inhuman speed he's almost as fast as Kakashi-sensei! He was behind her and when she whipped around to face him he was not there. Forcing her senses outward she detected him from the top and when she turned to greet that attack he blurred and was behind her. Wrapping his arms around her and securing her so that there was no hope whatsoever of her attacking him with the weapons in her hands, much less her hands themselves.
"Ranma, be careful!" came the cry from behind them, so she knew then that this boy who was pinning her had to be this Ranma person.
"Lower your weapons and swear you won't hurt anyone and I will let you go," came the voice hissing in her ear, its menacing undertones quite clear.
Nodding her head, Sakura was about to place her kunai on the ground, when suddenly the wooden walls surrounding the area splintered and with an ear splitting crash broke. Out of the debris stepped a girl wearing something so scanty that Sakura thought it had to be painted on her. This girl had long purple-blue hair with two buns on the top of her head and pieces of hair hanging down in front of her ears. She was carrying two balls that looked extremely heavy on sticks and was swinging them around like no buddy's business. She was wearing a skintight outfit of possibly Chinese origin judging from the designs on it and its patterns.
The girl's glare, is she Chinese? swept through the place and landed on Sakura, or more appropriately on the boy, his names Ranma right? She then switched her gaze to Sakura and when Sakura looked she saw that there was plenty of anger in those orbs. Of course, I barley get here and now I'm being targeted by someone. Great!
Then the angry girl spoke, "Who you? Why you in Shampoo's Arien's arms?"
From the side with the girl on the porch came the indignant shout, "He's not your finance!"
"Psh!" The girl easily brushed off that remark. "Answer! Who you? Why you here?"
Sakura was about to launch into the long, tedious story of who she was and how she came to be here when a boy or is it a girl? No that most definitely has to be a boy. With shoulder length black hair wearing glasses and a white robe came through the hole in the wall screaming something along the lines of "Shampoo, oh Shampoo where are you? I will protect you! Shampoo! There you are!"
A very small old lady who was hopping around on a stick followed him. At this point Sakura was starting to get kind of uncomfortable, since she was still being restrained by this boy, although rather loosely since he was probably sure by now that she wasn't going to attack them. She was also surrounded by all these people that she didn't know and quite a few of them looked rather hostile.
She was just getting ready to break free and get the heck outta this weird place when Shampoo apparently got fed up with waiting for an answer from Sakura and moved forward with a speed that Sakura knew she could deal with. The girl was fast, she had to give her that, but she wasn't as fast as others that Sakura had seen, and she knew without a doubt that she could handle this speed.
She didn't move at all except to place her kunai back into her holder which, judging by the surprised expression on Shampoo's face, the girl didn't expect her to do. To a casual observer she simply stood there waiting to take a beating that would certainly cost her dearly if she didn't move. Yet this was not what she was really doing. She was psyching herself up for battle, whatever form of it that she was going to face. Well she didn't know much Taijitsu she definitely knew some Ninjitsu and she was doing some of that right now. Her hands, while they looked like they were standing still, were actually moving very fast. Since she had perfected her control of her charka she was able to form seals fast and on more than one occasion, with only one hand. Right now she was in the process of making Kawarimi on Jitsu.
Surprised gasps echoed from the crowd around the girls and a shout from the girl on the porch could be heard. They obviously thought that the purple haired girl was attacking an innocent who was defenseless. Sakura knew much better, she may appear innocent but by no means was she defenseless. In actuality she was far from it.
Shampoo's attack did not waver nor stop. She is obviously a trained warrior, otherwise who else would continue attacking when their opponent appears to be helpless? With a sudden burst of speed that had the Ranma boy startled she dove in for the proverbial, or liter in this case, kill. Even if Ranma had wanted he couldn't have pulled out of the way in time, although judging from his expression he wasn't worried about his own safety, just the safety of the girl who was still standing there pacifistically in his arms.
Then Shampoo's attack hit. She crushed her weapons into Sakura. Hitting her forcefully in the stomach as well as the shoulder. After watching the girl wince at the pain, ('she should expect that when she didn't move' Shampoo thought) as well as cough out some blood, a major indication of how hard and vicious Shampoo's attacks were a strange thing happened.
Sakura suddenly turned into a log.
Shampoo stopped in surprise and possibly a little fright if Sakura was guessing right. Apparently no one had ever pulled this trick before. Hm apparently this world doesn't have the same ninja principles as mine does. I wonder how this world is run anyways... While Sakura was watching her opponent for a change she was already forming a new seal. One that she had seen Naruto perform a variation of many times over. She only hoped that she could do it as well as her teammate did.
When Sakura was still up in the air after switching herself with the log everyone else on the ground had varying expressions on their faces. Ranma had shock and disbelief written on his, as well as, was that a hint of envy? No certainly not! The boy and girl on the porch were mirror copies of each other's amazement. The boy with the long hair was a study in hanging jaws, if his drops any more it will most definitely touch the ground! The old woman however was simply sitting there as if this was afternoon tea and not a battle; she obviously knew something yet wasn't going to reveal it.
Suddenly Shampoo sensed a presence from above. The girl, what was her name? was coming down now from the sky. How she had gotten up there was a mystery and more importantly she appeared to be a worthier opponent than Shampoo had originally thought. Where had she learned that trick with the logs? That was a move worth knowing. The girl was moving her hands now; Shampoo realized that that was what she had been doing earlier when she appeared to be doing nothing. How foolish of her to not notice it, she was warrior! she was supposed to notice these things.
The girl landed on the ground right where Shampoo was, forcing both her and Ranma to dodge out of the way, Ranma still with that annoying log. The pink haired girl suddenly stopped moving her hands and shouted out "Bunshin on Jitsu!"
Shampoo was ready for an attack of hundreds of fists or maybe moving earth, or some such attack that was normal here, yet this was a shock.
Sakura grinned with happiness. While these clones of her where not real flesh and blood no one needed to know that. They were only shadow clones able to attack and inflict damage but they were not as powerful as the ones that Naruto made which were actual flesh and blood and could take a beating and keep on ticking. This however would simply 'poof' when hit hard. With this great success still fresh on her mind Sakura took a millisecond to look around. On either side of here were two clones. Now all five of the girls were standing in a crouched position with kunai in their hands, smirks (or as close to a smirk as she could get it, since Sakura never really had time to perfect the smirk that people like Sasuke-kun were so famous for) identical on their faces, and the sun shinning off their headbands.
As if given an invisible command all the girls surged forward as one, except forming a strategic circle to corner the opponent in and allow them to press the attack from all sides. Ignoring the gasps from her spectators Sakura moved with a fluid grace that had earned her many a compliment from Iruka-sensei, don't think about home your in a battle! Surrounding Shampoo she prepared to strike when suddenly the little old woman was in the center of the fighting.
"Stop this foolishness at once! Shampoo how could you attack this girl like that? Has she done anything to rouse your just" a slight stress on that word "anger against her? Hmm? Well, I'm waiting?"
"No great-grandmother, Shampoo upset, that all. See pink-hair in arien's arms, shouldn't have attacked. Should have waited till later."
The great-grandmother turned to look at the Sakuras. "All right which ever one of you is the real one. This has gone far enough. Mt granddaughter has stopped attacking you so kindly remove whatever you have done to yourself so you will stop looking like a clone."
At the authoritative tone in her voice Sakura stiffened but then remembered that this lady was not from her world and that she, Sakura was alone and adrift in this new world, so listening to a lady advocating a peaceful settlement would be appropriate. Although she was a little troubled with how the girl answered her grandmother, attack her later indeed!
So she released her charka and the shadow clones disappeared leaving only the real girl in their place. "Um hi! My name is Sakura and um I just got here..so..um, yeah." The flustered shinobi remarked.
Without warning the girl, Shampoo, Shampoo, Shampoo, remember her name! moved. Instantly crouching into a defensive stance lest she be attacked again Sakura was stunned when the girl only turned to the boy, Ranma, remember this cause it is beginning to look like your stuck here! and suddenly glomped him like this was the only thing that would keep her living.
"Ummm…" A very startled Sakura managed to get out…"What's with her?"
"Ah never fear that is just my granddaughter expressing herself," the old lady responded.
"Pink-hair stay away from Shampoo's arien!" The girl in question said, shooting her a glare that was filled with venom, and then turning to the porch, "stay away to pervert-girl!"
"Hey!" The girl from the porch said. "Its not pervert-girl, its Akane! Get that through your head! A-ka-ne! And I'm not a pervert you Chinese freak!" And with that she stormed over to the girl who had just mere seconds ago dropped Ranma, who scooted away as fast as he could without attracting attention, and watched her drop into a battle stance that clearly spoke of years of training. "Come get it pervert-girl! Shampoo no afraid to take pervert-girl on. Beat pervert-girl too!"
The girl whose name was apparently Akane, remember it cause you will need it later! Simply got into a battle stance as well and when Shampoo charged whipped out a mallet from absolutely no-where and sent the girl flying into the atmosphere. "Well that takes care of that little problem!" She proudly stated.
"Whoa!" Was all that Sakura could manage.
"Ah Shampoo. Don't worry," the lady reassured the shell shock girl, "this is a rater common occurrence. You will get used to it eventually. My name is Cologne, and I am that girl's great grandmother. I am also an elder of an Amazon tribe. But that is not the point. I see that you are from another world and for one of such an age you know much. I will enjoy seeing you at a later date and I may just find you worthy of teaching. Until then, ja!" Jumping away on her stick the old lady left Sakura simply more confused and wondering what type of world she had landed in. "Come on Moose! Hurry up and stop hugging that tree!"
Smiling brightly the girl with the mallet turned to Sakura. "Hi! My name is Akane Tendo and apparently you aren't from around here. So why don't you come to the porch and sit and tell us all about it. I can promise you that none of here will hurt you." She shot an angry glare that the pigtailed martial artist.
"Ok." After walking to the porch and sitting down Sakura started her tale. Leaving nothing out of her tale she told them all about Kohana, Team 7, everything basically up to and including their recent mission against Zabuza and Haku. She told them all bout her perverted sensei, (Ranma snorted at this point, and after saying something like "Happy's got competition" he fell silent) about her over energetic teammate Naruto, as well as the love of her life Sasuke-kun. They listened with rapt attention to her story and when she was done they started telling her a little bit about themselves.
"Well I'm Akane Tendo and that guy over there is Ranma Satome, Ryoga is the guy with the headband, except he apparently has wandered off by now. Oh, don't worry about him; he just happens to be chronically lost. He can take care of himself. Ranma and I are finances by the way, which is why he lives here. Yeah, well the jerks got a few others as well." At Sakura's disbelieving look she elaborated, "Ukyo Kuonji, who is an okonomiyaki chef and another marital artist, she got engaged to Ranma by his stupid dad wanting a free meal. Shampoo, you already met her, she happens to be a Chinese Amazon who now demands that Ranma over here marry her after defeating her in battle. Moose follows Shampoo around hopping that one day he will defeat her so that she will marry him, although the guy can't actually hurt her, he's too much in love with her to do that. He also is a little ("cough, much!, cought" from Ranma) blind without his glasses so he tends to think of other things as his 'beloved Shampoo' when they aren't on.
I have two older sisters, Kasumi and Nabiki, and a dad as well as Ranma's dad living in my house. That basically sums it up, other than the fact that nearly everyone you will meet here will be a martial artist. So you kind of have to watch your back. Yeah I think I got it don't you Ranma?"
"No Akane, you left out one important thing. The curses." Was the reply.
"You guys have curses here? Wow, what type?" Sakura asked.
"Um a few of us went to these training grounds and kind of fell in," a sheepish Ranma explained, "so when we are doused with cold water we turn into who ever or whatever drowned in the springs. I happen to turn into a girl, Moose turns into a duck, and Shampoo turns into a-a-a c-c-c-c-a-a-a-a-t-t-t-t-t." The last part came out with obvious effort.
At Sakura's questioning glance, Akane simply said, "Bad experience when he was a kid. His dad did some pretty weird and unspeakable things to him. But he's mostly over the cat thing now, we hope."
The sound of a door was heard opening in the background after a comfortable moment of silence. "Hi everyone I'm home. Dinner will be ready in a few. Oh, who's this? Well you simply must stay for dinner, yes, oh please say you will."
At Sakura's nod of consent the nice lady walked away. "Um which one was that? Kasumi or Nabiki?" She asked.
"That was Kasumi," Ranma informed her. "She's the nice motherly figure here. Nabiki on the other hand is a money hungry fiend who will try and milk you for everything you've got. She does it a lot with Kuno, the neighborhood rich kid who thinks he's a samurai."
"Hey I heard that!" Came the shout from inside. "That's going to cost ya!"
"See what we mean! She's a money fiend!"
"Extra!" Was the reply from the house.
As the tantalizing aromas of food wafted over them Ranma said, "Well let's go and eat. You had better eat fast cause me and pops eat fast. Just to give you fare warning."
And with that the three got up from the porch and walked into the house, knowing that they would have to explain where this pink haired stranger came from, and yet at the same time they were filled with a sense of peace, for the moment, till an angry panda came out of the house and started on the food, not caring that he was eating everything in site. As Ranma rushed to defend the honorable food, Akane and Sakura calmly walked to the table chatting away about things in each of their worlds and how different each was from each other.
Well I did it! Another chapter out! I feel soo proud! Anyways thanks again to you guys for reviewing. And yes Danica, I also had the urge to laugh like that especially when writing. Its not very good cause everyone in the vicinity looks at you strangely. Well, ok, so I'm in my room when I write, but yeah I did laugh when I wrote the end of the prelude. Laugh however isn't strong enough, more like cackled.