The Grab Bag

XXXXX

Soldiers of the Darkness

XX

"Ranma No Baka!"

Ranma froze up as he heard the tell-tale shout. What had he done... No, what did Akane think he had done this time? Turning around slowly, he gulped slightly at the sight of Akane's blazing aura. Despite the fact that, logically, he could beat her down with both arms and one of his legs tied behind his back, he always found himself terrified of Akane's strange rages over the oddest things.

"WHY the HELL didn't you tell me P-chan was Ryoga? You damnable, utter BASTARD!" Akane screamed in his face. "I bet you two were laughing at me all the time, you... You... You sick, demented little pervert!"

Ranma's face paled. "Shit... Er... That is, that completely wasn't my fault."

"Wasn't your fault? WASN'T YOUR FAULT!?! Of course it was your fault! You knew, and you didn't say anything! I hate you! As far as I'm concerned-" At this, Akane pulled a giant hammer seemingly out of nowhere- "The engagement is OVER!" Smashing Ranma into the hemisphere, Akane glared at his rapidly dwindling form.

Behind the wall, Nabiki grinned. She hadn't expected selling Akane the reason WHY Ranma seemed to hate P-chan would turn out so interesting. Turning to walk away, she froze in place as she felt eyes boring into her back. Looking back slowly, she sweatdropped as she saw Akane, still holding the mallet and flaring her aura.

"Where are you going? You didn't say anything either, you know..."

Nabiki gulped. "Um... Y-you wouldn't hurt me, would you sis? Come on, it's not like I encouraged them... And you can stop walking towards me with deadly intent right about now... IEEE! Run away!"

XXX

Ranma shook his head. Ow.. that landing had really... freaking... hurt...

As he stared at his stomach in horror, he reached to the object poking through it. Yes... an iron cross. Pulling himeslf up, he groaned in pain as the cross dragged through his intestines. Once he finally pried himself off, he rolled down, clutching his gut. As he landed on the ground, he groaned. Of all the bad, unlucky landings he had ever had, this was the worst.

Trying to move his legs... Nuh. They didn't work. Dragging himself to the old, dilapidated church that he had ben skewered upon so recently, he propped himself against the wall. Wincing, he probed the wound to see how bad it was.

The cross had apparently broken right through his spine on its way through, tearing his guts up on the way as well. As if that wasn't enough, he was fairly sure a few internal ograns had been smeared on the roof on his way down.

Sighing, Ranma fell back against the church wall, tears stinging his eyes. He had to accept it... He was going to die, out in the middle of nowhere, next to a ruin of a church that had, obviously, fell into disrepair ages ago. It wasn't even that he was going to die that made him so sad and angry- He had known he was going to die sometime, anyway. What hurt was that he wasn't going to go out in a blaze, but just flicker down where nobody could see.

Damnit! NO! He couldn't die yet- He was to young, and there was so much more to learn! So many more fighting techniques, so many martial arts styles... He couldn't just stop!

Dragging himself forward, Ranma pulled himself into the church. Didn't all these places have ancient relics or whatever in them? He had to find one... Hopefully one of those 'Wish Granting' artifacts that had been so much trouble for him in the past.

XXX

In the darkness outside the universe, one not-quite corporeal form turned to another one. This is the one, then?

The second form nodded. Yes, he is. I beleive he will make a very good addition to our armies... Once we 'save' him.

The first form grinned, sickly green light shining from the gaps between jagged teeth. Good- I would hardly want to make a mistake here.

As the second figure laughed, the first one slowly faded away.

XXX

Ranma's vision was going dark. It seemed his time had finally come. Although he had dragged himself as hard as he could, even his amazing endurance was starting to come to a halt. Growling, he tried to force the dark mist to recede.

"I... Won't... Die! No matter... the price... I will live!"

Really? What will you do if you live? What will you give?

Ranma's head turned slowly towards where the strange, echoing voice seemed to come from, but his vision had finally failed him- all he could see were blurred outlines.

"I... I'll do... Anything."

Anything? The voice seemed amused. Well, that's interesting...

A spike of cold ran down Ranma's spine, before an intense, great cold spread through his entire body. For a moment, he thought he had died. Then he looked up, and saw the being that he had made a deal with.

Green flashed between black, jagged teeth. I do so hope you live up to our bargain.

XXX

 

XXXXX

Fluke

XX

tap tap tap

Around the corner- Through the gate

tap tap tap

Laharl gritted his teeth when as he came to a halt. The Summoning Circle his minions had warned him about pulsed with a pallid fervor, the robed demons surrounding it turning to face him slowly. Their leader, taller then the others, strode to the front.

"It is too late, little tyrant. Our god comes before us now, and nothing you can do will stop it!" Gesturing dramatically, he pointed towards the Circle. "Behold our lord and master- Behold, the Burning Beast which will devour your very soul as it laughs at your pitiful attempts to stop it!

"Behold, the Kyuubi no Kitsune!"

XXX

Naruto sneezed, letting the fox's chakra loose with a crimson blast.

"No, no Naruto- You have to hold it longer, and pull more of it out." Jiraya sighed. "Sheesh, we've spent two years and you've still only managed three tails. Try again."

Naruto growled at his perverted sensei, but did as he was told and drew forth the chakra, letting it swirl around him. Ignoring the discomfort, he pulled another tails worth... Another still... One more left, and he would be able to tell the Ero-Sennin to fuck off...

Right as he felt the chakra start to pull lose, a sharp tugging started, right around his navel. Ignoring it, he pulled the chakra harder... And harder...

Jiraya blinked as lightning stuck where Naruto stood, and a vortex appeared, sucking him in. Taking a moment for what just happened to sink in, Jiraya paled and started sweating.

Tsunade was going to KILL him.

XXX

 

XXX

Fluke pt 2

XXX

Naruto was falling.

Around him, stars swirled through what appeared to be a purplish, red sky. Or maybe it was a reddish purple one? Naruto couldn't tell- The color was shifting, swirling around him like... Like he was in a whirlpool of slightly congealed paint.

Hey, nobody ever said he was a poet.

As Naruto tried to figure out what was happening, he failed to notice the dot of dark light rapidly approaching him. As such, he didn't have any time to prepare himself for landing.

thunk. "... Ow."

Naruto sat up, rubbing his head idly. Looking around, he blinked at his surroundings. Seven guys in shrouded, concealing robes, and a kid wearing a pair of shorts and a some kind of ragged cape. Blinking slightly, he stood up.

"Um... Where the hell am I?"

The kid stared at him for a moment before breaking into a disturbing, high pitched cackle. "This is your god? That kid, in the orange jacket? Well, just to be nice, once I've killed you all, I'll let your god live, as my vassal."

Naruto blinked. "Okay, let me rephrase that- Where am I, and what the hell's going on?"

One of the robed figures broke out of his deadpan. "Master Kyuubi, this insignificant half blooded menace has violated your sacred temple, and forced us to summon you to our aid! You must strike him down!"

Naruto sweatdropped. I have a temple? Wait, Kyuubi? What the hell is going on? And then he was drawn from his musings as he felt a pulse of energy from the kid. Looking up, his eyes widened.

The kid had little phantom flames flickering around him, and his eyes were a wide, luminous red. "Insignificant? INSIGNIFICANT?! I'LL SHOW YOU INSIGNIFICANT!" The kid reached up, and pulled a sword out of his cape. A sword twice as big as he was. Naruto's eyes widened a bit more. He HAD to learn how to do that. And then once he did, he could be all Whoopa! on Ero-Sennin's ass next time he didn't teach him a jutsu, and he'd be the most awesome Hokage EVER, and-

"OVERLORD'S WRATH!"

Naruto blinked and looked up. Then he began frantically dodging as enormous balls of flame lunged at him and the robed figures. And then some more fireballs came, and Naruto dodged them too. And some more... And some more...

A few minutes later, the last of the fires flickered down. Naruto panted, trying to ignore the charred remains of the robed figures laying around him. Looking up, he thought he saw a slight flicker of suprise in the evil-kid-demon's eyes for a moment, before the kid grinned widely, displaying fangs that rivaled his when he went Kyuubi.

"Well well," The kid drawled, "It looks like you might make a decent vassal after all. Of course, I do have to keep up appearances, no don't I?" He chuckled before, suddenly, his image flickered away. Naruto only had a moment to blink before he felt himself being heaved up by the collar and thrown through the roof of the temple. Moments later, he felt a surge of air behind him. As he tried to spin around, he felt a blinding pain in his back as he was smashed back towards the ground.

"Nightsever."

XXX

Laharl grinned at the fool in the orange jumpsuit. Did he really think that he'd get away with letting his minions try to waltz into Laharl's netherworld? Picking the older looking boy up with his cape, he turned around. Walking outside, he grinned as he saw Etna and Flonne sitting next to the portal with a picnic basket.

"Wow, Prince," Etna grinned as she looked at the body in his cape. "I didn't know we were taking prisoners. What're you going to do with him?"

Laharl snorted. "Prisoner? Hardly. This," He gestured back at Naruto's body, "Is my new minion. I'll have to browbeat the Dark Assembly into making a contract for him, but it shouldn't be that hard. Eternal servitude in return for his life, my protection and three square meals a day is something that most demons would get on their knees and beg for."

Flonne pouted. "Laharl, you know enslaving random people is wrong. What have I told you?"

"You mean besides 'Everything needs to love' and 'I know you have a better person somewhere inside you'? Sheesh, have you forgotten that I'm a demon?"

Flonne's pout deepened. "Laharl..."

Laharl blinked, and looked away when he saw that Flonne was using the 'Puppy dog eyes' again. "Er... Right. ANYway, what did you two bring to eat?"

Flonne brightened up. "We have sandwiches, and salad, and fried chicken, and tea, and roast cabbage, and..."

 

xXx

Doppelganger

XXX

Naruto stared up at the ceiling. It had been a week since Team Seven had returned from their mission to Wave Country. A week and five days since he had first met Haku, and she- He, Naruto corrected himself, Haku was a boy- Was already dead. By his own hand.

"Don't you get it? Zabuza doesn't need a broken tool. You've taken away my reason."

Lifting his hand up, he looked at it. It was clean, scrubbed and scalded and sanitized until all the blood was gone, and blue veins stood out against the suprisingly pale flesh.

"Please..." Shining black eyes stared into him, through his soul. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, but... Please, kill me."

He still saw her- Him- held peacefully in his arms as his blood slowly drained away. He hadn't told anyone, but in that last moment, he had felt like it was only the two of them. He didn't tell anyone about the single chaste kiss given to him moments before the bright black eyes lost their luster. Who could he tell? Nobody would have understood it. In those final moments, he had become closer to his enemy then he had been to anyone else.

And he had killed him.

Turning onto his side, Naruto closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

XXX

Kakashi eyed Naruto carefully from his perch on a light pole. For a moment, he wished that his Sharingan was as all powerful as everyone seemed to think it was, and that he could simply look into his cheerful student's mind and see what had been troubling him.

It had been after the Battle of the Bridge, as he called it in his own mind, that it happened. Kakashi KNEW that something had changed in Naruto during that fight. It wasn't so noticeable, really, unless you knew the boy. He still smiled, still played obnoxious pranks. But he had stopped hitting on Sakura, and wasn't challenging Sasuke to random contests of skill any more. He was paying attention to Kakashi's lessons, and was, much to Kakashi's well-hidden suprise, soaking them up like a sponge thrown into water. His teammates had noticed too, Kakashi knew- Sakura seemed far too cheerful about it, often commenting loudly on how nice it was that Naruto had stopped flirting with her when she knew he was in earshot, and Sasuke seemed troubled by Naruto's recent behavior too.

All in all, Team Seven's pecking order had been thrown into the blender, and their teamwork suffered for it. Kakashi looked at the three passes in his hand once again. It was a stretch, but maybe the trails of the Chunin exam would force the three back into how they were...

"Yo!" He shouted, grinning slightly as his genin threw their usual glares at him. "I'm sorry, but I got lost on the road of life after an old lady had me save her kitten from a grocer, and then I had to help her carry her tree home..."

"Liar!" Two voices cried out in unison, and Kakashi grinned. That was more like it...

"Oh, then you don't want these passes into the Chunin exam that the old lady gave me as thanks for the help?" Kakashi flourished the passes before sighing. "Such a pity... I'm sure that Asuma's cute little genin will appreciate them..."

XXX

Sasuke scowled at Naruto's back, struggling not to crush the slip of paper in his hand. He was fairly sure that he'd snapped. He'd seen him, holding onto the Hunter-Nin's body like a doll, or- Sasuke shuddered- A lover.

It was a well known fact that the pressures of Shinobi life screwed with people's heads. When his clan had been alive, he had heard stories about Itachi being 'Such a bright, cheerful lad' before he was assigned to Anbu. And there were other examples too- even as early as Genin and Chunin, some shinobi started showing mental disorders that prevented them from advancing any further. In fact, supposedly some of the most dangerously insane Shinobi never technically made it beyond genin before they went missing nin.

Sasuke would be damned if he let insanity take his first real friend away from him though. It had already taken his brother.

And Sasuke would never admit to the pang of jealousy he had felt when he saw Naruto holding Haku's corpse, or to the thought that he had buried deep within his mind-

That should have been ME.

XXX

Sakura felt like if she had to deal with another minute of the homoerotic sexual tension, she would scream and start killing people.

It was like something out of one of Ino's crappy manga- Sasuke had taken a lethal blow for Naruto, and Naruto had avenged his death before giving him a kiss goodbye, at which point Sasuke woke up. It was unbearably sappy, and she could read the two boys like a book.

She pushed her jealousy away. This sucked. She worked hard through acadamy to get Sasuke to notice her, and he had turned out to be gay. And for Naruto, who seemed to be trying to ignore Sasuke's noble pining for him.

Oh well. At least watching Ino's expression when she found out would be amusing.

XXX

 

Okay, that last one has potential~