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Chapter 5
We Were Once Brothers
AN: I have attempted to start this chapter eight times. My computer hates me. Thank you, open office, for providing a free alternative to Microsoft's crashes. I now no longer have to pay money to have my word processor crash.
This chapter is dedicated to the random pained screaming I hear every night, and to the wish that it'd leave my head and go somewhere else.
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"What do you mean my eternal rival is already gone, along with his student?" Gai asked, giving a "nice guy" pose. "I, the magnificent Maito Gai, must speak with him!"
"He's gone to an undisclosed location for secret training." The clerk at the desk spoke with a jolly voice that can only be achieved when giving others pain.
"But I didn't get to tell Sasuke about the Sharingan!" Gai complained, drooping.
"I'm sure he already knows that technique." The clerk answered, confused.
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"So, that was a nice use of Transformation jutsu. You really freaked them all out!" Haku remarked, giggling, as they left the city proper to search for a proper, out of the way training area.
"Not quite. I actually managed to copy that technique." Ranma said, seriously, while thinking to himself.
"You copied a bloodline?" Gaara said skeptically, "How?"
"I don't know. It was as if some energy within me felt the Sharingan and knew it could become... complete, somehow, if it were to manifest itself in that way." Ranma said, thinking it over, trying to find a better way to express the feeling he had.
"That's..." Haku began, before realizing something. "Oh no!"
Gaara figured it out at the same time. "That doesn't mean..."
"Oh yes." Ranma said, evilly, "It's time for some training. I need to learn this technique, you know!"
Gaara and Haku both groaned. Ranma's training sessions always included something stupid and painful – like being hit with giant boulders (Gaara managed to avoid this training with his sand shield) and sticking your hands in a fire (Haku managed to avoid this training with his ice mirrors).
The only consolation that the two had is that Ranma tended to be nicer in his girl form...
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"So. You have a new technique to teach me?" Sasuke asked, staring not at his mentor but instead at the three Sound ninja training lightly below the high cliffs he and Kakashi occupied.
"Yes. You have to match Gaara. He's already beaten Rock Lee, so you need an edge. His main power is in his sand, so I need to teach you a method to defeat it." Kakashi answered, staring not at his student but instead at his newest novel, Make-Out Violence. "There's no time to teach it to you regularly – activate your Sharingan and copy my technique."
"Sharingan!" Sasuke had turned around, and missed the similar shout that echoed from far below.
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"Huh. I can already tell that even with this, I can't copy a bloodline. Oh, well." Ranma said this as he dodged needles at high speeds while staying well away from the crashing wave of sand bearing down upon him. "But..." He dashed in, just in time to grab Haku as the younger boy flew out of a mirror. "I can see things that even I shouldn't be able to. It's a nice technique."
"Are... we... done... yet...?" Gaara was out of breath. Even attempting to attack someone like Ranma took a lot of chakra.
"No!" Ranma said, gleefully, "We need to discuss something..."
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AN: It is at this point I resume writing, after a week of literally not having enough time to write a word. Expect some strangeness as I forget exactly what I was doing in the words above.
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Gaara rested on top of the hotel he and his partners occupied. Instead of sleeping, he usually meditated, in an attempt to keep the evil Shikoku from taking over his body. But this badly hidden ninja was getting on his nerves.
"Come out. I know you're there."
The only Sound ninja to pass the third exam preliminary stalked out from behind another chimney. "I know you three aren't really Sound ninja. I should kill you right here. Or maybe... I should just tell the examiner and have you all disqualified!"
"It's a pity..." Gaara said, slowly, considering his words, "It's a pity you won't be telling anyone anything." As he spoke, the claws of sand grabbed hold of the ninjas arms, and the Sound Genin was just a second too slow to scream.
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Haku stared at Naruto over a bowl of Ramen. "How's your training going? My team leader is pushing us hard."
"Ah, it's not going well at all!" Naruto responded with frustration, "Kakashi-sensei won't teach me a thing, and the replacement he found was beat up by these two perverts!"
"That's strange. Why don't you get them to teach you, if they were strong enough to beat up your trainer?" Haku asked.
"Good idea!" With that, Naruto sped off into the night, heading for the nearest bath house.
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"Another Tendo arrived in the village today? Yes, she's my relative. Please send her here in the morning. She might be a little confused, actually – she's not a ninja. Yes. Yes. Just give her directions, then!" Ranma shouted into the phone, sitting on the couch in the small hotel room, trying to ignore the sound of Gaara torturing someone above his head. With a sigh, she slammed the phone down. "My 'mysterious past' is really coming back to bite me. Well, I have to help her out – Kasumi's on a mission."
Ranma stalked over to the window. "Keep it down, will ya! I'm trying to sleep!"
Gaara and the sound ninja both turned to Ranma confoundedly. Gaara loosened his grip on the other ninja's neck.
"But we were..." Gaara began to explain, but was cut off.
"Shut up! I – Am- Trying – To – Sleep! Understand?" Ranma glared a death glare, almost slaying the offending noisemakers instantly.
Gaara weakly nodded, while the Sound ninja just mumbled "Yes, m'am."
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Time passes slowly
Time passes fast
Time is going quicker when you're coming in last
Try to remember
Try to forget
Time hasn't quite left the building yet.
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"Ladies and gentlemen! The event you've all been waiting for! The third exam!" The announcer was really yelling his head off, Ranma thought. Trying to take his mind off of it, he looked at the other seven ninja waiting to take part in the tournament.
'Heh. It looks like it's just Konoha ninja and Sound ninja left... except that most of the Sound ninja aren't really from the Sound... Huh, it's a different examiner this time. What happened to the other guy?'
The announcer motioned for the ninja trainees to move to the low balcony to await their matches. "Alright, since Uchiha Sasuke doesn't appear to be making it on time, we'll go to the first match right away. Take your places!"
Ranma stood opposite the Sound ninja, who was glaring angrily. 'The poor guy,' Ranma thought, 'He hasn't yet fully recovered from Gaara strangling him. Pity. I might have gotten an entertaining fight out of him.'
"It's the kind of fight that makes one's blood boil! The fight between comrades!" The announcer prattled on, and Ranma had to suppress a laugh.
"Begin!"
"I'm prepared... This time..." The other ninja rasped, and Ranma merely responded by activating his Sharingan.
"I'll..." Both ninja shouted at the same time. "You can't trick me!" Ranma kept exactly in time. "Argh!"
"Resonance!" The Sound ninja shouted, activating his deadly tone, while at the same time Ranma shouted "Counter Resonance!"
The Sound ninja smirked, until he realized his foe was unaffected.
"You..." The Sound ninja began, Ranma deciding only to mouth his words instead of saying them aloud, "You used my technique with an opposite tone to cancel out the waves! You bitch!"
Without any useful techniques, Ranma's opponent merely stood there fuming until Ranma suddenly disappeared.
"An illusion?" The ninja smiled as he saw slight footprints in front of him. 'Invisible, but not too smart. I can still see where her feet are!' He swiped a gauntleted hand as soon as the footprints stepped within range, but his fist passed through air.
"You didn't think it would be so easy, did you?" Ranma's voice echoed from all directions. The footprints continued stepping right through his body. "I'm not so weak as that."
Ranma shimmered into view behind the ninja like a mirage at the distance. "You lose."
The examiner was barely able to arrive before Ranma permanently disabled her enemy, declaring it a victory on Ranma's part.
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Ranma, instead of going to the low balcony, stalked up the stairs to a higher level, sitting down in an empty seat. "I wish you'd let me bet on myself."
Nabiki chuckled. "I'm not so weak as that..." Nabiki grinned. "Nice job, though. It's great to see that, even in this new world, nothing's really changed."
Ranma didn't respond, merely holding up a small mirror, reflecting not his own image but that of his brother, Haku...
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AN: I need to go to sleep. Let this crappy entry pass, ne? I'll work on it next week, peoples. I know I didn't reference nabiki at all until that sentence, figure it out.