Untitled Ranma/Naruto crossover fic (New: Ch. 23 to 32)

[Vasey]

I also would personally not describe kawamiri like Ranma's doing a short ranged version of the Yellow Flash's signature move. Tactical apperate/disapperate ability is cranking it up a tad much, especially as you don't follow through on that and probably shouldn't.

I used the replacement technique like that because it's exactly how it appeared to be in the Naruto series to me. Do you remember Sakura's little burst of them against Zaku? It looked like a time-space technique, to use the Naruto terminology, to me but one that was generally quite easy to sense and pick off for an attacker. Ranma's just fast enough that Anko couldn't keep up.

As for the rest, I can see where you're coming from, but I must disagree. Three new students hardly warrant the attention of several jounin in such a way. They're just not that important. For all their talent, at this point, after being cleared by Ibiki, they're just another three students starting out in the ninja world. Konoha seems to be rather easy-going when it comes to the secrets of their ninja - just look at the number of 'clans' with secret techniques that haven't been snaffled up by the others - and it'll all come out in the wash during missions anyway, so why waste the veyr valuable time of elite ninja on them? Remember, the services of the elite, which all jounin are by definition, are expensive enough that an entire nation, albeit a poor one like Wave, couldn't have afforded one. Those guys are worth their weight in gold.

Also, it would require significant reworking in many places to deal with Ranma and company being wary of the ninja from the start rather than getting their wake-up call from Orochimaru. In fact, it would pretty much break the missing-nin Hyuuga story arc entirely, because Ranma wouldn't play around and get sloppy like he did if he was wary of ninja. It's far more work than something that won't have any real long-term impact on the plot is worth in my eyes.

[FOG3]

By all means it's your fic. Just saying, and I have to admit what you did fits the overall tone better, under most likely implementations, now that I've actually gotten through most of the chapters. Not that I couldn't make it just work. I might shoot you what that'd look like over the weekend, more for my own practice then anything else.

Honestly as far as I'm concerned you can give yourself a pat on the back, you did the deceptively difficult thing of keeping it all working as designed.

I would point out the Hyuuga incident where Ranma was disabled involved an oversight in information that wouldn't have been corrected unless he received a full briefing on Hyuuga capabilities, which is independant of the nature of their initial indoctrination. I think there is some miscommunication here otherwise on what I was commenting I'd do differently, but to a certain extent that's to be expected and part of why I put it as what I'd personally do.

Personally I must admit now getting up to the point you're posted to I'm not entirely sure what value Chidori would be to Ranma, and thus the discussion. You've already declared one of the more obscure Yamasenken moves a S-Class technique that does basically the same thing, only Ranma style. So for him Chidori, which is under Fire Element if I'm not mistaken, is redundant at best.

[Vasey]

By all means it's your fic. Just saying, and I have to admit what you did fits the overall tone better, under most likely implementations, now that I've actually gotten through most of the chapters. Not that I couldn't make it just work. I might shoot you what that'd look like over the weekend, more for my own practice then anything else.

Hey, I'm not offended or anything remotely like that. Just explaining the reasoning behind my decisions so far. As for writing your own version, be my guest, but wouldn't you rather spend your energies on a story that you can straight-up call yours? Maybe it's just me but I hate the idea of being compared to other people and their work - it's why I've studiously avoided Innortal's crossover to avoid any influence.

Honestly as far as I'm concerned you can give yourself a pat on the back, you did the deceptively difficult thing of keeping it all working as designed.

Thanks. Quite the praise.

I would point out the Hyuuga incident where Ranma was disabled involved an oversight in information that wouldn't have been corrected unless he received a full briefing on Hyuuga capabilities, which is independant of the nature of their initial indoctrination. I think there is some miscommunication here otherwise on what I was commenting I'd do differently, but to a certain extent that's to be expected and part of why I put it as what I'd personally do.

Being fully briefed would very likely have changed things. If I recall correctly, Ranma was given a fairly dire warning to be careful with the Hyuuga, but it wasn't quite 'and if they touch you, you'll be buggered ten ways from Sunday' which is about what it'd take to sink into Ranma's head. But Ranma's Ranma - he's traditionally sloppy and overconfident in the initial scrap before he picks it up in the rematch, and I wanted to keep some of that flavour, at least this early on before he's started developing as a character.

Personally I must admit now getting up to the point you're posted to I'm not entirely sure what value Chidori would be to Ranma, and thus the discussion. You've already declared one of the more obscure Yamasenken moves a S-Class technique that does basically the same thing, only Ranma style. So for him Chidori, which is under Fire Element if I'm not mistaken, is redundant at best.

I thought chidori was an A-rank technique? But, anyway, no, the move Ranma used isn't as powerful as the chidori. It was highly effective against Hiro because he's not got the same superhuman toughness as a Nerima-class fighter. Its effectiveness drops considerably as you move on up the league table while chidori, well, if it hit Ranma he'd be dead. You'll see in chapter 21 if you haven't got there already,

[FOG3]

Hey, I'm not offended or anything remotely like that. Just explaining the reasoning behind my decisions so far. As for writing your own version, be my guest, but wouldn't you rather spend your energies on a story that you can straight-up call yours? Maybe it's just me but I hate the idea of being compared to other people and their work - it's why I've studiously avoided Innortal's crossover to avoid any influence.

My hobby is figuring things out. I prefer to tinker with things. My biggest weakness with writing is always that I can create solid frameworks, but have trouble populating it beyond the skeletal A to B, and occassional interaction here and there.

The work I call my own tends to be non-fiction in nature. I know some tricks, and am decent with what I can do but honestly I have the wrong personality type for it. I'm good at distilling and analysis, not embellishing.

I thought chidori was an A-rank technique? But, anyway, no, the move Ranma used isn't as powerful as the chidori. It was highly effective against Hiro because he's not got the same superhuman toughness as a Nerima-class fighter. Its effectiveness drops considerably as you move on up the league table while chidori, well, if it hit Ranma he'd be dead. You'll see in chapter 21 if you haven't got there already,

While I hadn't got to Chapter 21, you did make a big point of the Hokage declaring Ranma's Yamasenken maneuver definitely S-Class, emphasized it was the highest class, and had Ranma emphasize he hadn't really mastered it. I don't want to sound condescending, but you did kind of paint yourself in a corner there.

As far as Chidori it's a concentrator technique using the limb itself as a kind of elemental focus, and thus it's level depends upon user. Kakashi's is S-rank. I messed up the Five elements for Naruto-verse are: Fire, Lightning, Wind, Water, and Earth so lightning has it's own bracket. This still creates the problem associated with elemental affinity unless Anko didn't take advantage of the existing test and guessed wrong. Using the element one does not have an affinity for will lead to power limitations. Uchiha's are Fire affinity, so unless you have a better explanation for why Sasuke's is only A-Class there is a hurdle there. Of course, as I said before there's nothing stopping him from creating his own using his elemental affinity or worse comes to worse get Kakashi to teach him Rasengan which wind element in the way Ranma is using it should enhance his control of.

[Vasey]

Ah, we're talking about different things. The particular move Ranma used isn't as powerful as the chidori; the overall school, however, is, for the possibilities if nothing else. Kakashi can smash his hand through your chest; Ranma can cut you in two from a distance. S'all quite deadly in the end, unless you're some sort of monster.

[FOG3]

Fair enough.

So who is going to be the Team Ranma medic, given Konoha policy since the last Nin war dictates all Konoha teams have one medic? With Mousse's characterization in this would seem to make him the appropriate choice if you one was not attached.

Personally I think 3-4 man teams are too small to be deployed in independent units with dedicated medics, but then Narutoverse is kind of lacking in scale.

I mean even if you assumed you had a full Academy class like Naruto's of ~30 students each year moving along and the average age was 12 to go genin you'd pretty much tops 38 years out of them before they're reserve, at best. Creating a per village/country force upper limit of 1,140 Ninja. Only assumption in play being the Academy is the bottleneck all must pass through to achieve genin, which all evidence points to for Konoha. This being a rather extreme over estimate as the Ninja Academy is a one room school house arrangement instead of a class and it takes more then one year to train them meaning the actual force would be a fraction of that. Three year standard basic course for instance leads to a force of 380 Ninja total per major village.

Plus if anything we've only seen zero or negative population growth related to this. In most families only one heir is shown to replace a pre-existing able body, while we know that Ninjas are routinely attriting even under the present system of no declared war either to injury, death, or defection. Plus it's clear only a fraction make Chunin, a fraction of that make Jounin, and a very small fraction of that are really good at it.

In real life this would put forces on them to either increase their forces or seriously increase quality. As is it is convenient for storytellers like Naruto's to maximize named characters by keeping the scale very limited.

[camk4evr]

I mean even if you assumed you had a full Academy class like Naruto's of ~30 students each year moving along and the average age was 12 to go genin you'd pretty much tops 38 years out of them before they're reserve, at best. Creating a per village/country force upper limit of 1,140 Ninja.

According to Kakashi the jonin instructors test each team to reduce the number of graduates so that only 9 genin actually become ninja (for each graduating class) and the rest get sent back to the acadamy.

Only assumption in play being the Academy is the bottleneck all must pass through to achieve genin, which all evidence points to for Konoha. This being a rather extreme over estimate as the Ninja Academy is a one room school house arrangement instead of a class and it takes more then one year to train them meaning the actual force would be a fraction of that. Three year standard basic course for instance leads to a force of 380 Ninja total per major village.

No, it's not. The acadmy is a multi-room building like a modern school. You might want to reread Naruto or rewatch the early episodes of the series

[Mitchell]

Um... I'm pretty sure that policy came AFTER Tsunade was make Hokage. Remember Tsunade suggested it but it was denied IIRC for exactly the same reason you outlined. That is a four man team is a bit to small to have a dedicated medic-nin and cut back on firepower.

Though I'm only half remembering this so I might be wrong.

Fair enough.

So who is going to be the Team Ranma medic, given Konoha policy since the last Nin war dictates all Konoha teams have one medic? With Mousse's characterization in this would seem to make him the appropriate choice if you one was not attached.

Personally I think 3-4 man teams are too small to be deployed in independent units with dedicated medics, but then Narutoverse is kind of lacking in scale.

I mean even if you assumed you had a full Academy class like Naruto's of ~30 students each year moving along and the average age was 12 to go genin you'd pretty much tops 38 years out of them before they're reserve, at best. Creating a per village/country force upper limit of 1,140 Ninja. Only assumption in play being the Academy is the bottleneck all must pass through to achieve genin, which all evidence points to for Konoha. This being a rather extreme over estimate as the Ninja Academy is a one room school house arrangement instead of a class and it takes more then one year to train them meaning the actual force would be a fraction of that. Three year standard basic course for instance leads to a force of 380 Ninja total per major village.

Plus if anything we've only seen zero or negative population growth related to this. In most families only one heir is shown to replace a pre-existing able body, while we know that Ninjas are routinely attriting even under the present system of no declared war either to injury, death, or defection. Plus it's clear only a fraction make Chunin, a fraction of that make Jounin, and a very small fraction of that are really good at it.

In real life this would put forces on them to either increase their forces or seriously increase quality. As is it is convenient for storytellers like Naruto's to maximize named characters by keeping the scale very limited.

[FOG3]

According to Kakashi the jonin instructors test each team to reduce the number of graduates so that only 9 genin actually become ninja (for each graduating class) and the rest get sent back to the acadamy.

Wait didn't at least four teams apply for the chunin exam from Konoha? Who was held back a year on the chunin exam then?

That if right would indicate a max active force of 342 (start @ 12, retire @ 50) with a more likely max of 252 (start @ 12, retire @ 40), unless the Academy is graduating multiple classes per year.

No, it's not. The acadmy is a multi-room building like a modern school. You might want to reread Naruto or rewatch the early episodes of the series

Really? Isn't it just Iruka and the tri section lecture hall room, after the one guy was taken down? I admit it has been a while, but if it's only 9 genins class or year that's actually worse then I thought.

Um... I'm pretty sure that policy came AFTER Tsunade was make Hokage. Remember Tsunade suggested it but it was denied IIRC for exactly the same reason you outlined. That is a four man team is a bit to small to have a dedicated medic-nin and cut back on firepower.

Could have sworn they kept mentioning it as a war winning strategy in the Third Nin War. The problem for me isn't so much "firepower loss." It's you now are demanding 1/3 to 1/4 of your nins will be higly competant combat medics, which by all indications I saw their training program is unable to produce. It'd be much more reasonable to have a medic-nin corp who could attach a medic-nin as appropriate to individual squads or be a organic asset at least one organizational step up, if not two, with the networking to make it work right. They operate way to far from support facilities to be half-assing medical.

Plus 3 man squads are inadequate. You need at least that many to have a sustainable watch in the field. So you lose a guy or the the single sentry gets taken out, and you're all about to take a dirt nap.

[Ezvir]

]Wait didn't at least four teams apply for the chunin exam from Konoha? Who was held back a year on the chunin exam then?

Neiji/Tenten/Lee; Kabuto's team and probably a couple of other teams without named characters.

That if right would indicate a max active force of 342 (start @ 12, retire @ 50) with a more likely max of 252 (start @ 12, retire @ 40), unless the Academy is graduating multiple classes per year.

They probably have 2-4 graduating classes per year; after all the chuunin exam is every 6 months and naruto failed graduation 3 times and still was more or less the same age as those graduating with him. Or maybe it just wasn't thought through and makes no sense.

Upthread you talk about the Chidori and the Uchiha affinity being fire, Sasuke is stated to also have lightning affinity in addition to fire.

[Vasey]

To b fair to Konoha and Tsunade, training a ninja from each squad in medical techniques doesn't really reduce their combat effectiveness all that much. The named medic-nins we see are just as deadly as their compatriots who haven't been trained in that way as well as being able to do the whole healing bit. Given that they seem to mostly rely on family schools, jounin whims, and individual genius to train ninja beyond the academy it wouldn't surprise me if the elected medics were on average far better off than their clanless peers.

[FOG3]

At the very least a medic nin gets more dedicated chakra control training, and the scalpel trick. Given Byukagen is held in such high regard, the scalpel trick really shouldn't be played down. All the most important muscle groups run all over the place, so even a person trained in a less then thorough manner can seriously mess someone up.

As both Sakura didn't really have any indication they started out as anything special and Kabuto doesn't appear to have a bloodline or similar power up there's probably more to it then that. Brilliance by itself is not enough to utterly eclipse a experience nin like Kakashi.

[Mitchell]

Um what? Kabuto has 'The Old Blood' aka the crazy NON-Naruto regeneration and was the personal student/son of a high powered medic nin PLUS training from Orochimaru.

Besides the Scalpel Trick is NOT COMMON. Tsunade was shocked Kabuto could pull it of. Its INCREDIBLY high ranked for Medic nins. I HIGHLY doubt that most medics in the 4 man teams are going to pull that stunt of unless they find a medical genius.

[FOG3]

Um what? Kabuto has 'The Old Blood' aka the crazy NON-Naruto regeneration and was the personal student/son of a high powered medic nin PLUS training from Orochimaru.

I note a lack of anything that powers him up in terms of fighting capacity there. Regeneration is not a factor in his eclipsing Kakashi. Nor does the fact he has access to so and so indicate that much.

Orochimaru's personal guard got taken down almost 1 for 1 by Konoha genins/freshly minted chunins, and unlike Kabuto they had curse seals.

So what exactly do you actually have challenging the strength of medic-nin approach and defending that they inherently drop team firepower in Naruto-verse?

Besides the Scalpel Trick is NOT COMMON. Tsunade was shocked Kabuto could pull it of. Its INCREDIBLY high ranked for Medic nins. I HIGHLY doubt that most medics in the 4 man teams are going to pull that stunt of unless they find a medical genius.

Really? Then riddle me this. How did Kakashi's medic-nin in flashback do the eye transplant if they can't even use a chakra scalpel? No medical tools were seen and he had it fully functional same day besides.

I would say you're mixing the highest skill possible ala Kabuto with being able to do it period. As I pointed out even a less then thorough treatment would mess someone up rather quickly and easily. The hanging question of course being whether they'd be willing to do it. It's not like the Byukagen I'm comparing it to is the legendary one-hit kill Dim Mak attack, they hit a lot before it really does something. If you prefer we can settle on just they know how to use a knife better.

I would point out I've already stated I don't think they should be an organic asset at the team level, due to skill concerns for purely medical tasks due to their not having field hospitals or helicopters to med evac them. Thus those that go out do not have to render First Aid for Second & Third Aid is unlikely, thus they have to fix it more or less all by themselves. Of course, the whole child soldiers concept isn't exactly the greatest idea in terms of those factors.

[ValkyrieHamster]

So...When's the next chapter? :3