Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto, property of Masashi Kishimoto, nor do I own Ranma ½, property of Rumiko Takahashi. This disclaimer will be in effect for the remainder of the story.
Invictus
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul."
-William Ernest Henley
Chapter 1
To Break, But Not Bend
Emotions, strong emotions, are what can save or destroy, build or break the world. The stronger the emotion, the more difficult it is to control, the more impossible it is to resist.
It is strong emotions, emotions of hatred, of regret, of friendship, of love, of brotherhood that fuel this tragic battle that raged beneath the sky and above the earth.
These emotions, these thoughts were poured into their hearts and their fists, their souls and their power.
At this impasse, neither one will back down, can afford to back down.
I can't look back.
I have to move forward.
I have to win.
"NARUTO!"
I can't give up.
I made a promise.
I have to win.
"SASUKE!"
Terrible energy raged forth from these emotions, fueled by the curses these boys bore on themselves. The wrath of an ancient, malevolent demon fox and the corrupting power of a wicked man roared through the world.
No more words could be said between them. No more words were needed.
Everything that needed to be said had been.
True feelings, true beliefs, and understanding had come about.
Now, at this impasse, these two souls, like brothers, can do nothing now except decide who is, once and for all, the victor.
I have to break through!
"RASENGAN!"
I'll cut my way through!
"CHIDORI!"
Wind and Thunder, backed by the evil of Demon and Man, struck at once, and the strong emotions these two carried were unleashed, in an effort to determine a final victor.
The swirling maelstrom of viciously vibrant, malicious purple-black shadows warped the reality around them, bending it with these emotions that were too powerful to hold inside.
They pushed and pushed, desperate to decide a winner, and their emotions stretched their souls and their strength to the limit, until they had reached the breaking point, the end of their strength.
But neither was willing to surrender the victory, neither one could afford to.
Their eyes met once more, over the clashing force of their attacks, and they felt the overwhelming power they were creating, the backlash of this battle that was annihilating the area around them.
Memories, tens, hundreds, thousands of them came crashing down upon them.
-Laughing, crying, joking, bickering- like brothers-
The vision of a girl, a pink haired girl with soft green eyes and a mercurial personality appeared before their eyes, once more pleading with them.
"Stop it you two!"
But they would not falter.
Not this time.
Their wills were unbreakable, their powerful emotions too great to sustain.
And so it was that at last, an amazing, but perhaps inevitable conclusion arose...
For the world itself broke underneath the strain of their emotions.
---
Close in distance but too far away, the Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi felt the awful tremors as the world began to buckle before the overwhelming emotions of the two boys he had been given to mold and to shape, and had failed to.
"This... chakra... it's too great... there's no way that this should be possible!" Kakashi breathed, feeling the strain that the world was being put under as he raced forward.
His summon, the ninja dog Pakkun looked worriedly at his master. "What do you think's going on between Naruto and Sasuke?"
"I don't know." Kakashi said quietly, feeling helpless as his feet pushed on and on, on and on in a meaningless effort.
Suddenly, the strain ceased in a vicious blast of hateful white light that purged everything in sight, and Kakashi feared he'd gone blind as the whole world became nothing, nothing at all-
Is this death-
And then, without so much as a whisper or a bang, the light vanished as if it had never existed.
A moment later, it began to rain down hard, beating down upon Kakashi's silver hair, dripping down his forehead protector as the Copy Ninja realized he had frozen in place.
Pushing himself faster and harder, the Copy Ninja arrived at the Valley of the End, the border of the Fire Country.
There, he found the lingering traces of an epic battle- debris strewn about, the ground scorched and blackened, the once unceasing, deep river burned and blasted until the riverbank was dry and all that was left was rain to try and fill the gaps.
But he couldn't find the combatants, not even a trace of their persons remained anywhere on this world.
Kakashi sighed softly, because no one could hear him but Pakkun.
It would be a long walk back.
---
"RANMA! You get back here right this instant!"
Ranma Saotome, the sixteen year old Heir to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts was-
"-IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!"
The black haired, pig-tailed boy gave a taunting grin as he ran along the top of the walls, his long sleeved, red Chinese shirt with white cuffs and blue-green, lightweight training pants allowing him swift movement on the wall where he was running.
"Nyah nyah, can't catch me Akane!" he taunted childishly, as he stuck his tongue out at the girl following him.
The short haired blueheaded girl behind him growled ferally, and hurled her bookbag at him. "You could at least try a sample of my cooking!"Akane Tendo shouted furiously, her school skirt swishing as she ran.
A great deal of the time, Ranma was hit by Akane's bookbag (or any other object on hand that she could throw at him) because of distraction. And it rang true today, as any other.
Today's distraction just happened to be a bit more... distracting.
It came in the form of two voices that rang out... boy's voices, young ones, full of desperation and anger and sorrow.
"NARUTO!"
"SASUKE!"
Ranma, paused and slowed down, trying to find out where the voices were coming from. Unconsciously, the hairs at the back of his neck stood up and he felt a chill, felt his danger sense screaming that something was terribly wrong in the world.
"RASENGAN!"
"CHIDORI!"
And Ranma had barely skidded to a halt when a massive wave of white light poured out across the horizon, as if to boil away the sky. Like an awful cleansing tide, it burned at the sky, turning everything in his field of vision into nothing more than white noise.
A second later, the bookbag smashed into the back of his head.
---
All across Nerima, all across the globe, it was felt by those capable of feeling it.
The raw, untamed, unbridled emotions that flowed out, the sheer force of will, and the terrible power that roared forth because of it.
It was like being caught in a maelstrom, or being paralyzed and helpless before the unending tides of the ocean. Raw, snapping lines of power were being caught in a tempest, swirling around a single focal point.
Inexorably, the world buckled under the strain-
And righted itself, as though recovering from a backlash of tremendous, awful force, as though a massive gate swung itself back on its hinges.
---
Ranma groaned, opening his eyes slowly, cautiously. "Damn it Akane, it's bad enough those lights had to blind me, but you didn't have to hit me!" he cursed, standing up slowly, brushing himself off. Despite his irritation, he glanced at Akane and made sure she was okay.
But Akane wasn't staring at him, but straight ahead, where their home, the Tendo Dojo was.
"R-Ranma..." she stuttered slowly, staring in horror.
The pig-tailed boy turned and looked, steel blue eyes wide with shock as he grasped what he was seeing.
Slumped against the wall of the dojo was a young blonde boy in a very bright, very outlandish orange, blue outlined jacket with a long white collar and matching orange pants. The jacket had a particularly vicious hole torn in it and several bloodstains, and the boy himself looked awful, like he'd been through twenty battles in a row.
Against the opposing wall, exactly opposite of the blonde, was a pale, dark haired boy wearing a blue, short sleeved shirt and white shorts. He too, looked like he'd seen a rather brutal time of it. His face has several bruises and there were small pieces of rocks and dust on his raven hair. What was most disturbing was the burn marks on his right arm, as though he'd plunged his hand into raw lightning.
Around both boy's foreheads was a metal forehead protector with the symbol of a leaf with a spiral at the center inscribed upon it, tied together by a bandana.
"Oh my God..." Akane breathed softly, her hands quivering, her face turned a ghostly white. "We... we've got to get them to Doctor Tofu."
"Right." Ranma said, trying to keep the shakiness in his system out of his voice. "I'll grab the one in blue. He's taller."
Akane normally would have snapped at the reminder of Ranma's superior strength, but at the moment, her kind nature won out and she hurried over to the boy in orange, pulling him onto her back with a short grunt. Ranma did the same with the paler boy.
Together, they lugged the boys to Doctor Tofu's clinic.
---
"I've... I've never seen anything like this." The brown haired, spectacled Doctor Tofu breathed softly, hands wringing nervously against the green gi he wore. "The first boy... the one in orange? That hole in his jacket as small shards of bone and lung fluid, as though his lung had been recently ruptured. But the flesh underneath it is perfectly healthy." Pausing, the doctor pointed toward the boy's left arm.
"However, one of his arms seems to have been dislocated and was unusable. I've set it back, but it was a nasty injury."
Ranma blinked and stared in surprise, while Akane gasped in horror.
"Who could have done something like this?" she whispered softly.
Sighing, Doctor Tofu rubbed his glasses against his clothing. "Then there's the other one. That one's right arm has the same sort of damage I'd expect from someone who grabbed onto a bolt of lightning. And from what I can tell, he's suffered some pretty harsh blows at speeds I've never heard of a human being capable of."
A dark look crossed the doctor's face and he motioned them with one weary hand over to the pale boy. "And there's something else. Look here." With a smooth motion, Doctor Tofu pulled down the collar of the shirt, revealing three black tadpole marks arranged inside of a circle.
"You see that? I'm not really sure, but I think it's acting a lot like a pressure point technique, and draining away at the boy's ki. Though why... I'm not sure." Doctor Tofu finished darkly, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I found these on the blonde boy."
The doctor tossed a small, round beige pouch onto the table, as well as a dark blue holster filled with shuriken that spilled out, gleaming in the artificial lights. The two forehead protectors were already lying on the table as well.
"Why would they have weapons? What do you think happened to them?" Akane asked quietly, looking first at Doctor Tofu, and then shooting a longer, questioning glance at Ranma, who wore a troubled frown on his face.
"We'll find out when they wake up." Ranma replied tersely, fists tensing. He didn't know why, but something about the two boys, young as they were, gave off the impression that they were tough. The fact that they were armed wasn't easing his mind at all.
"Hm... boys that young carrying real live weapons." Doctor Tofu rubbed the back of his head, obviously bewildered. "It's baffling."
"Maybe we should let them tell us before we jump to any conclusions." Akane said quietly, biting her lip tightly.
Ranma regarded her for a moment, before sighing, and nodding. "Alright."
---
In the dream, he was back at the hospital rooftop, back fighting Sasuke, back when he wasn't bound by a promise, and was free to fight without any thought except one.
Victory.
In the dream, it proceeded like his memory- the flames of Sasuke's Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu technique dissipated away as he formed the Rasengan, blowing the inferno away in moments. Sasuke formed the seals for Chidori, and in moments the chirping of a terrible chorus of birds filled the air.
Neither one cared they could kill the other.
Sakura did, though. Sakura who was the one who they protected, guarded with their lives. Sakura, who threw herself between them in a vain attempt to bring sense back to Team Seven.
In the dream, it all went wrong after that.
He didn't know which one of them hit her first- nor did it matter, as they felt it, felt the blows pierce her pale, lovely skin, felt her body crumple and sag, and suddenly there was blood, blood everywhere, soaking into his hair, his eyes, mixing with his tears-
And Naruto Uzumaki jolted awake, eyes snapping open as he felt sweat roll down his body. He didn't know where he was, and he felt the lightness on his body, realizing that someone had stripped him of his weapons.
"Hey... are you alright?" a soft, gentle voice asked.
Blinking, Naruto found himself meeting a pair of doe brown eyes and a kind smile. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly, more out of surprise than rudeness.
"I'm Akane. Akane Tendo. And you're inside of Doctor Tofu's clinic." She replied slowly, allowing Naruto to get a good look at her. She was older than him, probably in her late teens, and didn't look like much of a fighter. "What's your name?"
"My name's Naruto Uzumaki." The blonde replied quietly, somehow lacking his usual loud bluster as he felt the drain on his body wearing on him. He felt like he could sleep for a week, and then eat ramen for two weeks straight after that.
"Are you in pain?" Akane asked, concerned as she leaned forward, watching his facial expressions carefully.
"I'm alright." Naruto replied. After a moment, he realized something was missing from his forehead.
"Where's my forehead protector!" Naruto blurted out, scanning the room nervously. His forehead protector was more than a symbol of his status as a genin- it was the best gift anyone had ever given him.
"You mean this?" Akane asked, pointing toward the table where two forehead protectors, as well as Naruto's weapons were strewn across. "We had to take it off of you."
"Oh, okay." Naruto said easily, nodding his head as another thought crossed his mind. "Where's Sasuke?"
"You mean the other boy?" Akane questioned, and a spark of hope lit inside of Naruto's heart. Maybe he still had a chance at bringing the Uchiha home. "He's resting in another bed, see?" she moved aside a curtain, exposing the still unconscious Sasuke.
"Heh... looks like that bastard got it worse than me." Naruto grunted, struggling to move his body into a sitting position.
"Hey! You shouldn't be moving around like that!" Akane chided, moving her hands forward to push him back down.
"No... I'm alright." The blonde responded tiredly, finally managing to pull himself into a sitting position with a grunt of exertion.
"Are you hungry? I could go get you something to eat." Akane offered kindly.
"Ramen please!" Naruto said eagerly, the exhaustion on his face falling away as he spoke, replaced by the usual eager grin when he wanted his favorite food.
Surprised by the blonde's eager, rapid response, Akane smiled a bit wider and nodded. "Alright. I'll be back in a bit, so just try to get some rest."
---
"Great grandmother? What is wrong?" Shampoo asked quietly, unnerved by the elder's taciturn manner ever since the white light had swept across Nerima. The blue haired girl leaned forward, her pink, flower printed Chinese style clothing looking a little ragged, a result of her falling down during the incident.
"Something strange is afoot." Cologne murmured, more to herself than to her descendant. She had placed herself atop her old, knobbled wooden staff, her long white hair reaching just barely to the ground as her tiny, wrinkled body sat still, clad in her usual green, red fringed garb with the Chinese symbol.
As she spoke, the door opened, and in stepped one of the less frequent visitors to the Cat Café, Akane Tendo.
"What Kitchen Destroyer want?" Shampoo questioned rudely, placing her hands on her hips.
"I need a couple orders of ramen." Akane said, ignoring the urge to rise to the Chinese girl's bait. The Amazons from China weren't normally her favorite people to visit for food, but injured people's needs come first. It was too bad that Mousse was in his duck form (noticeable because of the loud quacking in the back of the kitchen) because at least she and the near blind boy were somewhat friends.
"Wait a moment there Akane." Cologne hopped toward the girl with a curious look on her face. "You wouldn't happen to know what's going on, would you?"
"Nope. Could I have that ramen?" Akane lied, not wanting to have to endure Shampoo's endless croons about her "Airen (husband)", Ranma, and could especially see avoiding her glomping the pig tailed boy.
Cologne looked at her guardedly, and for a moment, Akane feared that her ruse had been discovered. The moment passed without incident, however, as Cologne motioned Shampoo toward the kitchen.
"Two orders of ramen, coming up!"
---
"Great grandmother?" Shampoo whispered softly, the ornaments keeping her hair in buns swishing in the breeze. "Why we follow Kitchen Destoryer?"
"Because, child, she knows more than she's letting on." Cologne replied easily, eyes watching Akane as she took the metal encased ramen toward the Tofu clinic. Akane didn't suspect a thing, completely unaware that her bluff had been easily seen through by the Amazon elder.
There was the slight rolling sound of wood as Akane opened the door to the clinic.
"I'm back!" she declared, holding each encased ramen tight in both hands as she shrugged off her shoes. There was no reply.
Frowning, Akane slowly opened the door to the room where the boys were being kept, and where Ranma was supposed to be watching over them.
As she opened it, she heard Ranma's familiar voice shouting, "Quite buggin me! I don't know where that dumb tomboy is, and I don't care!"
"Ranma!" Akane snapped, and set the ramen down. The pig tailed martial artist turned, looking at the girl with shock and not a little bit of fear. Which was duly deserved as suddenly there was a Ranma shaped skylight in the clinic and a boy flying through the air (which was common enough for Nerima).
Naruto opened his mouth once, twice, trying to make words, looking like a fish out of water. Finally, he managed a shaky, "Scary..."
Akane smiled suddenly, as though she had not just knocked a young man through the roof with a single blow. "Sorry about that. Here's your ramen!" she said cheerily, presenting him with a steaming bowl of ramen goodness.
Any fear Naruto was feeling instantly dissipated as he gave into his one true love.
It was Akane's turn to be shocked as in a matter of moments, Naruto presented her with a completely clean bowl of ramen, smiling widely, his face messily covered in the soup and various vegetables, meats, and seafoods within the ramen.
"More please!"
Before Akane could respond (if she could, that is), another voice spoke out, quiet and full of sarcastic disdain.
"Figures, dead last, that you'd be stuffing your face instead of asking where the hell we are."
Naruto scowled and turned toward the now conscious Sasuke, who was sitting up against his bed with a smirk, offset by the fact that his face and clothing were badly damaged.
"Aw shut up, bastard." Naruto said irritably, before turning towards Akane, deciding to finally question his exact location. "Hey, where are we, anyway?"
"The Nerima district of Tokyo." Akane said plainly.
Naruto and Sasuke, in a remarkable display of team unity, looked at each other once, and then turned back toward Akane, and in unison shouted (roughly) the same thing.
"WHERE?"
"Where the Hell is that?"
Author's Notes
Techniques
Rasengan- A-level ninjutsu technique. The user focuses a set amount of chakra into their hand, and then releases it into a controlled, wildly spinning ball of chakra, disrupting their own chakra flow by forcing the Rasengan into the opposite flow (if one is right, then it flows left, etc.), which gives the technique its force. The resulting blow is like a concentrated hurricane.
Chidori- A-level ninjutsu technique. The user grabs their wrist, and focuses chakra until it becomes visible, usually as blue lightning. It's used as a swift, powerful finishing blow that requires a great deal of speed and the Sharingan (Copy Wheel Eye) to complete. It gets its name from the chirping sound it makes when it strikes.
Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Flame Type: Powerful Fireball Technique)- Ninjutsu technique in which the user gathers chakra in their hand and mouth, using the chakra in the mouth to spew out the flame and the chakra in the hand to control it. Though powerful, the user is unable to move and is vulnerable to attack.
Alright, first off- no, Naruto and Sasuke are not all powerful and can wipe out the Nerima Wrecking Crew (henceforth known as NWC) in one go.
Since this does have Ranma ½ elements, there is going to be romance, but mostly on the Ranma world, and definitely no crossover pairings, except maybe for a few one-sided romances which are the core of Ranma ½.
Oh yeah, and there is zero yaoi in this story.
This could be set in the middle to the end of the anime series, or even after the manga ending. Frankly, it doesn't matter too much. I'll probably be using after the manga though, just so many of the people in Nerima have a more equal footing with Naruto and Sasuke.