One month after they became an official team, Team 4 was finally called in to act as back up. Kurenai, who had finally decided to let her team take what should have been a simple C rank, had a run in with the Demon Brothers ten miles outside village limits.
Since the two were rumored to travel with Zabuza of the Bloody Mist, the Hokage decided to err on the side of caution and send in Ranma.
The month of intense training did wonders for the gender-bent team. Sasuke walked around with pride in his skills, Naruto was much more coordinated, and Ranma was kept under control training his new vic...er, students.
The fact they had yet to take any missions at all didn't bother him one bit. The demonic paperwork from hell caused by Saotome had been missing of late and he was loving every minute of it.
Today they were in their female forms, all three of them. Sarutobi found it amusing that Naruto, in a show of solidarity, kept up his henge for hours as a girl and pulled it off. It helped that Ranma was all too happy to show him the little tricks females knew to make it seem more real.
"Team 4, AKA Team Gender-Bender. And no, I didn't come up with that one. It's the nickname the ANBU labeled you after the first time you ran around in female form," said the Hokage dryly.
The three stood up straight.
"You three have been tasked with backing up Team 8, which is led by Kurenai. And Tsuki-chan, I'm sure if you ask right and explain the curse issue she'll help you with your illusions. She is one of our best Genjutsu masters."
Tsuki perked up at that.
"Naruko, you'll be happy to know Kiba will be there, and so long as property damage can be blamed on the bad guys go nuts."
The perky blond cheered. The Hokage clearly knew the gender-bent boy too well, particularly when he realized Naruto would start emulating Ranma's bad habits.
"Ranma, please try to keep the bridge in question intact and the client alive. Other than that, pin the blame on someone else for all I care. The lack of paperwork caused by you is heavenly," said the Hokage.
"Will do Gramps," said Ranma flippantly.
When they left, one of the ANBU finally spoke up.
"Sir, why do you allow Team 4 to get away with calling you such disrespectful names?" asked Squirrel.
"Ah, but you misunderstand. The fact they merely call me Gramps or Jiji is still a sign of respect," said Sarutobi knowingly.
"How do you figure, sir?" asked Bull.
"Think about it from my point of view. It's either let them call me Old man, grandpa or other names like that...or let them get really creative. At least they try to listen to me and tone down the damage when I ask," he said sensibly.
The two ANBU sweat dropped. When he put it that way...
The girls whistled a foreign song Ranma taught them that had most of the older women around them giving them looks. Not good ones either.
Why you ask? The song Ranma taught them from a foreign sailor he met when he came the Elemental Countries was 'The Good Ship Venus'. (If you haven't heard of it, look up My Wish Order Brother. Deidara sings it in Chapter 16.)
Ranma had taken an entire day to drill into them appropriate travel gear and how to create sealing scrolls. This also included an hour-long rant to Naruto why a hundred cups of instant ramen were not included.
Funnily enough, for someone who had never used chakra in his life (KI was only half chakra), he managed to do the impossible in only a month's time.
He got Sasuke up to mid chunin in chakra pools and taught him how to spam fireballs out of his mouth for over an hour. Ranma also promised them some of his more awesome techniques like the one that even Lee would beg on his knees for if he found out Ranma knew it. The caterpillar brow kid was a speed junkie with his weights off, and if he found out Ranma knew the 'Chestnuts Over an Open Fire' technique he would be hanging around the house more than he already did.
Ranma still hadn't forgiven Gai for kicking that tiger into his room last week. It was just lucky the man knew about the issue he had with cats, because the collateral damage could have been ten times worse than it was.
The three 'girls' practically ran to the destination. Ranma would have shown them how to water walk across the massive open expanse, except he had no idea how. Instead he turned it into a stamina exercise and had them swim the way there. Two of the three were already in their curse forms, so it wouldn't matter much, and Naruto was learning how to hold his henge under extreme circumstances. It was a win-win either way.
Kurenai did a double take when she saw the three kunoichi there in the doorway.
"They sent you?" she said in surprise.
"Well yeah, we're registered as a back up unit since we didn't get a full three-man squad," said Ranma.
"How is that possible? What happened to Sasuke?" asked Shino.
"Is Kiba anywhere nearby?" asked Tsuki.
"No. Kurenai has him increasing his stores by tree walking for the next three hours. Hinata is out helping him," said Shino.
"In that case, the truth is that the idiot cursed me with some powders around five years ago and I end up becoming a girl whenever I get hit with cold water. Tell anyone and you're target practice," said Tsuki immediately.
Kurenai looked at Ranma's girl form.
"You gave Naruto the Jusenkyo powders?" she said in annoyance.
"Yup. Best thing I ever did from what I can tell. He only uses them for special cases. Plus if he hadn't, Sasuke would still be an avenging emo," said Ranma.
"Alright then. Here's the situation then..."
Kurenai outlined the issue with Zabuza and what she assumed was his apprentice. Ranma nodded in time, having read the BINGO book that Anko got him for his birthday last year.
"Alright then. Kurenai, can you teach the kids those chakra control exercises you showed your team? I have no idea how to go about it. In exchange I'll show Hinata a few tricks and help her with her Jyuken, and help Shino over here increase his stamina."
"Deal."
Ranma went to Hinata and had her attack to see how good she was at her family style.
She was left disappointed. The Jyuken didn't suit someone as timid as Hinata at all. So he taught her a few Chinese Kenpo moves instead, and the girl quickly grasped the concept. She didn't even stutter once until Naruto came around with food.
In the meantime, while she ate some food, Ranma got Shino started one some advanced forms of his family style, which was one of the few he actually recognized. Shino was surprised at this fact, but pleased as well.
The fact that even as a girl Ranma didn't react to his massive hive crawling over him was a plus in his book as well. Ranma was one of the very few villagers who greeted them like normal people and didn't freak out about the human hives. In fact he went out of his way to chat with Shino's father, Shibi, which amused the man.
Sasuke ran into the apprentice when he was collecting plants for dinner. One of the things Ranma had them do for a week was learn poisonous varieties and edible ones. They had to memorize each plant and he quizzed them. If they got it wrong, then they had to eat a tiny sample just so they could recognize it if they ate it again. He always had the antidotes on hand as well.
The irony was that when the ANBU and Hunter nin heard of the practice, they went to his house for notes.
The good news was that living with the insane teacher was making him far stronger than he remembered his brother being at the same age. Sure, Itachi was a jounin by the time he was 13, however Sasuke couldn't remember a time he actually fought a taijutsu master without the Sharingan.
If that didn't make him stronger than his brother, he didn't know what would.
The 'girl' who was gathering herbs stared at her when she deftly picked edible plants around the area.
"If you're looking for herbs used to heal, there's some good ones about three feet from that willow," said Tsuki.
Haku blinked, and saw she was correct.
"I don't recognize you from earlier."
"We just got here. Coincidentally, what element does Zabuza use most? Our sensei wants to know so we can pin the blame on collateral damage on him," said Tsuki.
Haku blinked twice, surprised by that question.
"He's called Zabuza, Demon of the Mist. Do I really need to explain?"
"Our sensei can cause a lot of collateral damage and he really hates filling out the paperwork for it. It's one of the questions we're supposed to ask," shrugged Tsuki.
"In that case tell him its water," said Haku amused.
"Prepare to be stuck in curse form the entire fight. Got it."
"Curse form?"
"We have a name for our team in Konoha, and this is our first official mission."
"What?"
"We're Konoha's 'Gender-bender' team, because each of us can turn into a girl whether by curse or a really good henge."
"Why tell me?"
"You told me the element, I thought I would give you fair warning about our teacher," said Sasuke.
"...Fair warning?"
"Our teacher is known for causing enough paperwork to make a Kage cry tears of blood. Last time he was forced to catch the Fire Daimyo's Wife's cat because of some idiots, the collateral damage and paper damn near overtook the office...and that was before someone took pity on him and caught the cat. Most of the damage was caused by this weird ass condition that happens whenever a cat gets too close to him. And then he ran around the village destroying shit until he calmed down."
Haku's eyes were naturally wide at this information.
"Why didn't anyone stop him?"
"Because the only one who can even come close to matching him when he's like that is Might Gai, and that man is a serious nut job...who happened to be out of the village at the time of the incident."
Tsuki got up, carrying her large basket full of edible plants.
"Anyway, good luck getting the herbs you need."
"Thanks. By the way, I'm a guy."
"I know. Like I said, our entire team is full of people who can shift genders without thinking. If we couldn't tell a feminine guy from a girl after a month of that, we should quit the shinobi life."
Haku had nothing to say about that, because really, how often do you come across an entire team that can switch genders?
(Never...unless you write fanfiction and find it amusing as hell to see Sasuke forced to become a girl and deal with that time of the month and the look on Kakashi's face when he realizes he's perving on an underage boy.)
"Oh man, why did it have to be water element? That's a bitch to fight with and cause damage. Why couldn't he be fire or wind?" complained Ranma.
"What's so bad about water?" asked Kurenai.
"Spent most of my life avoiding it, to be honest. At least until I came to terms with my cursed form," said Ranma.
"I have a better question!" said Kiba.
"Go ahead dog breath," said Ranma.
"Are you really the same Saotome Ranma who keeps ending up with a shit load of marriage proposals that you can only get out of through martial arts practices no one has ever even heard of?" asked Kiba.
"Yup. And let me tell ya, it took forever to break the ones I left home. My pops was a real jerk, always promising me to people just to get out of debt."
"How did you manage it then?" asked Shino.
"Found out by accident that my mom got sole custody a day before she left and that the idiot didn't even have the right to give me away like that. Once I learned that, any engagements made by the moron immediately became null and void...well, except for the one that I got by complete accident because neither of us spoke a word of Chinese."
Seeing he had their attention, Ranma elaborated. Naruko and Tsuki got some popcorn from out of nowhere, because Ranma's stories were always vastly entertaining to hear.
"It was like this...a month after I got cursed because Pops couldn't read Chinese and took us to some obscure training ground he had only heard of, we ended up in this village full of Amazons. Amazons are these women who can kick anyone's ass barring Gai or a few rare taijutsu nuts in the village because they are just that good. Anyway they were having this competition that day and when the fight ended, we found out the hard way that the food we were eating belonged to the winner as their prize. The girl wasn't happy about it, so I challenged her like an idiot without knowing a thing about Amazon law. I won and ended up getting what they call 'Kiss of Death', which basically meant the girl had to kill me to restore her pride."
Kiba raised a hand.
"Why didn't they try to keep you for breeding purposes?"
"Because at the time, I was in my curse form. To put this in perspective, can someone hand me some hot water?"
Tsuki tossed him a small thermos. It was the same one Ranma had given her for training purposes. Ranma dumped it on his head, revealing a man instead of the red-haired bombshell.
"WOAH! How did you do that?" asked Kiba.
"The female half is my curse form. Get hit with cold, turn into a girl, hit by hot, return to normal. Took me years to give up on finding a cure."
Suddenly Kiba turned to look at Tsuki.
"So tell me...are there any other people who are cursed in the village?"
"Yeah, why?"
"So does that mean the kunoichi beside me eating popcorn is really Sasuke?"
Tsuki choked.
Naruko patted her on the back with a good thump. Once her normal color returned, the girl glared at Kiba.
"What makes you ask?" said Ranma, grinning.
"Because the only person I know of that would reek of tomatoes, fire and that unique carnation scent is the Uchiha," said Kiba grinning.
"Dammit! Dobe, I am going to murder you!" snarled Tsuki, looking at Naruko.
"Give it a rest Teme. It's not like we can't curse him with something completely embarrassing later."
"Wait, what?" said Kiba suddenly.
"Like I was saying, because I was in girl form at the time, I got the Kiss of Death, which resulted in the girl whose name was Shampoo, to follow me everywhere trying to kill me. Eventually we got the mistake cleared up with the village, but there was a bit of a problem with what to do with me. So, after years of speaking legalize to get out of marriages I didn't even want, I came up with a brilliant solution. I would become part of their village as an honorary member and train with them for ten years before I could leave to live my own life. Considering I had just taken out a mountain a week before, they were more than happy with that deal."
"Wait, was that after you took out that Saffron guy?" asked Naruko.
"Yup."
"Sweet..."
"So, any questions?"
"Yeah, why did these two talk like they could curse me for mentioning the fact Tsuki is Sasuke?" asked Kiba.
"Gave Naruto a box full of powdered Jusekyo spring water as a joke. First thing he did with it was hit Sasuke with a water balloon that had been spiked with Spring of Drowned Girl. Funniest damn chase I've seen in years!" said Ranma gleefully.
"Dude, you gave Naruto a box full of powdered curses?" said Kiba incredulously.
"Considering he developed a way to really make people suffer and has only three people with it to date? Kid's a lot more forgiving than I am," said Ranma.
"Only three? I would have assumed he would have used half of them up by now," said Kurenai.
"Sasuke, Ibiki and Mizuki."
"He got Ibiki?" said Kurenai incredulous.
"That was an accident! I didn't know the powder wasn't the instant itch one!" said Naruko.
"Still, pretty damn funny to see Ibiki of all things turn into an animal when hit with cold water. Anko still hasn't stopped laughing her ass off when I told her what really happened," said Ranma.
Kurenai rubbed her forehead, trying to dispel her current headache.