Inner Ranma (Ranma 1/2-Naruto crossover)

[Nekomata-sensei]

Inner Sakura is a representation of Sakura's past incarnation, partially awakened by the emotional anguish caused by the teasing Sakura endured in her early life from other girls. It's a separate personality without the memories that forged it, only having memories from observing Sakura's life through her eyes, and it's instincts, opinions, and feelings are based on Ranma's, from Ranma's life experiences, only not taking on a very masculine identity because she doesn't remember being male yet.
Inner Sakura believes herself to simply be a separate personality of Sakura, created by MPD from Sakura's stress, in actuality, the cause for her separation from Sakura is more because of the neko-ken in her past life, the neko-ken being a nature spirit that merged with and protected Ranma, taking over his body when the fear overcame him, and mostly leaving him alone because of the fear. Inner-Sakura believes her purpose is to encourage Sakura, giving her confidence and protecting her from feelings of lonliness and help her counter oppression, she believes Sakura's mind has moulded her from Ino, with slight changes due to Sakura's own suppressed inner nature, and thus models her own behavior off of things she thinks Ino would have done in many situations, causing her to change from Ranma's habbits over time, by Sakura's experiences and observances of Ino, even after Sakura and Ino become rivals rather than friends.
Sakura's initial wishes to become a kunoichi had nothing to do with her parents, or Sasuke, but actually from vauge fighting instincts and honor left over from her past incarnation as Ranma, her desire to protect and face challenges and train herself. As at the point she choese to join the academy rather than go to non-ninja primary school, she was still of one mind.
The true nature of inner-Sakura starts being questioned by Sakura during the missions to rescue Tora the cat. Because Inner-Sakura starts showing an irrational fear of cats, and Sakura and Inner-Sakura begin sharing nightmares of the neko-ken training, Inner-Sakura having more distinct memories of the training itself, and Sakura actually having memories of being in the neko-ken.
Carrying Tora back after the mission to wave, Sakura meets and merges with the cat-spirit of the neko-ken in her own mind while Inner-Sakura is cowering scared in the dark recesses of her mind. This causes a substantial ability increase that Sakura and Kakashi both notice as it happens, Sakura more substantially, Kakashi just noticing that Sakura's energy levels suddenly went up a step breifly, and then hid themselves better than they ever had, and Sakura's movements suddenly became more graceful and cat-like, and she seemed to show increased perception. For Sakura it's almost overwhelming the increase in senses, especially hearing and the introduction of vision into the infrared range (heat-vision), and the increase in smell and balance, and the sudden increase in strength, speed, and energy. She also gets a vauge understanding that she just merged with a cat spirit of nature, and talks with Kakashi about it while waiting for Tazuna, Naruto, and Sasuke by the gates.
Kakashi confirms that whatever Sakura merged with is indeed a benevolent and safe nature spirit, because he can sense that it's charka isn't evil youki, but good energy more like that of a good summon, like the slug summons, but he's confused as to why the spirit bonded with Sakura, and what poor Tora had to do with it, other than perhaps giving Sakura a greater sympathy for cats, he's also confused because Sakura didn't go through any rituals normally needed to bond with a spirit in such a way, nor did the spirit have any of the advanced inteligence and launguage speaking capabilities of normal spirits (found in the Naruto world).
Speaking to Kakashi later, while on the trail after the others go to bed and after the fight with the two demon brothers, Sakura has had more time to ponder what's happened and understand the cat-feelings and vauge memories. She manages to explain that the cat-spirit has something to do with a past incarnation, and is from another realm, which has different life-energy than this one (ki rather than chakra), and this is the reason it's capabilities are different from their world's spirits, although it can only use their world's energy while in their world, so it's abilities are limited, but she understands it's bonded with her soul, and it's like a playful kitten, but a rather powerful and wise one, with and understanding of things, but not a concrete understanding of nature or a real analytical mind, more of an empathic understanding of things.
She also tells Kakashi of the pit dreams, and reluctantly of Inner-Sakura, which they determine to be the representation of Sakura's past-life, which never fully bonded with the neko-ken. Sakura is embarrased that her past life seems to have been as a boy, by the memories of the pit and early neko-ken experiences. Inner-Sakura is also shocked by the revelations that she's really the personality from Sakura's past-life, changed by experiences, and that her personality came from a boy, and partially, stubbornly, rejects her masculinity (in much the same way as Ranma rejected his femininity). They determine that Inner-Sakura's past name was Ranma, and nick-name her Ran-chan, and that her father was the gluttonous old man who tossed Ranma into the pit, and that Ranma was being raised as some sort of fighter, but with especially harsh training, and possibly primitive rituals, if that's what the neko-ken was.
That night, Inner-Sakura has more Ranma memories as dreams, these ones more passive and not relating to the neko-ken, but mostly of early life, including a vauge one of Nodoka and Genma, some vauge training memories, of less dangerous or stressful training, some memories of stealing for food, and some memories of 'Ucchan', whom she knows instinctively is a girl, but the Ranma of the dreams seemed to have thought of as a boy at the time. Sakura's dreams revolve more around the cat-spirit, and it's 'life' wandering the earth before the neko-ken, and it's experience finding Ranma and the cats, battling away a demon trying to possess Ranma, and merging with Ranma to protect him from furthur demons and future tortures by his father, giving him greater strength and abilities, although not as much as it could have given if Ranma had fully accepted and bonded with it like Sakura, especially in it's own world where it's familiar with the life energy of the world, since it's weaker in the Narutoverse, and knows this instinctively.
Sakura puts her hair in a ponytail that morning, at Inner-Sakura's suggestion, as a token of sorts to Ranma's memory. Naruto likes Sakura's ponytail, and makes comments about it, which annoy and embarras Sakura and Inner-Sakura.
The battle with Zabuza sparks another memory for Inner-Sakura and the cat spirit, Ranma's death. (This) Ranma died during the failed wedding, in girl form, because her ki was completely exhausted from not recovering fully or eating at all since the battle with Saffron, when the bombs start getting thrown around, getting in the way of a bomb that had been headed for Nodoka and Kasumi. This memory awaken's 'Ran-chan's' fighting skills, and Sakura, instinctually giving a brief bit of control of the body to Ran-chan, ends up taking out the water clone the instant it appears within their midst, although this doesn't sway the patterns of the battle. That night brings a lot more of Ranma's memories, including of the curse, and vauge memories of fights in Nerima and on the training trip, giving Ran-chan a greater understanding of Ranma's fighting style, which she tells Sakura about the memories and about the curse the next morning and insists that Sakura will have to train in the fighting style, Anything Goes, even if a lot of the techniques, based on ki, won't work right in the ninja world, the philosiphies of the style, and the pure physical parts, will work excellently.
Sakura shares these furthur developments with Kakashi when they get a chance to speak alone after Sakura exhausts herself before Naruto and Sauske at the tree climbing training. Kakashi even speaks with Ran-chan (who Sakura gives control to temporarily) for the first time, hearing about the dreams from Ran-chan's perspective, and he's intrigued by the curse and the fact that Ranma's cursed form has the same hair and eye color as Sakura, even if her other characteristics are different, especially as Sakura's hair and eye color, and onna-Ranma's, are slightly abnormal traits gained from their mothers in both instances. He also confirms that Jusenkyo's magic couldn't have come through the dimensions, but speculates that dying in girl form caused Ranma's soul to be female during reincarnation, and that the Jusenkyo magic left Ranma as she died, rather than changing her back, and that if Ranma had stayed on as a ghost in her world, she would have been stuck as a female one, and that Jusenkyo's magic must have been very powerful to do this. Kakashi then has a discussion about Anything Goes, and it's theoretical merits vs. standard Leaf Taijutsu styles, with Sakura, and concludes that it sounds like a very good style for her to learn as a ninja, but she'll have to modify it to make a more lethal version, as leaving enemy ninja alive is a lot more dangerous than leaving enemy martial artists alive in Ranma's world.
Sakura starts training to do conditioning the next morning while at the bridge, doing excersizes she remembers doing as Ranma, and mixing in use of the tricks she learned from mastering tree climbing, subtle bits of chakra control to add explosive power with chakra to her movements and do things like jump high or stop quickly or leap suddenly at high speed. She does this partially controlled by Ran-chan, and partially on her own, to get the instincts to be her own, especially for the katas, letting Ran-chan do it once right so she can get the feel of it, and then working it out on her own and repeating it correctly until Ran-chan is satisfied to go on to the next kata or excersize. She comes back just as exhausted as Naruto and Sasuke because of this, and shocks everyone by eating more than Naruto and Sasuke, but without throwing up, showing a bit of Ranma's past traits bleeding through subconciously, but she's more polite about her eating from habbits of Sakura and that had later been put in Ranma, although still surprisngly fast about her eating.
Sasuke and Naruto question her a bit about her training, Sakura just revealing to them that she was doing a bit of conditioning and taijutsu katas on the bridge from a 'unique and rare taijutsu style she heard about'. After the others go to bed, Sakura shows her katas to Kakashi.
Over the week, Sakura and Ran-chan have more dream-memories, although they start to have normal dreams as well, the memories not coming as fast without additional triggers, Sakura starts getting down some of the basics of anything goes, but with chakra use, and picks it up faster than normal due to instinct bleed over from Ran-chan, although her conditioning isn't making as much progress as she'd like, her speed has improved noticeably from using chakra for her movements from the tree climbing training and making more efficient movements for speed, and getting the explosive movements better than her previous wild brawling style taijutsu, which had developed from not putting much effort in, and her anything goes memories conflicting with her very mental fighting style combined with ninja taijutsu training.
During the bridge battle, Sakura takes out 1/4 of the water clones, Sasuke had meant to take out them all, but Sakura beat him to some of them. Sasuke notices that Sakura's skills have improved a surprising amount, and aknolwledges this slightly, causing Sakura to go all shoujo manga bubbly excited about having her strength acknowledged by Sasuke, and remains about as useless as Naruto cannon for the rest of the battle, although she does surprise Zabuza by managing to stab him with a kunai in the mist, causing Kakashi to not have to injure himself and get his blood on Zabuza's weapons, which makes Kakashi able, later, to deal with the thugs with a jutsu, like Naruto suggests. Also, when Sasuke is injured, Sakura can tell he's not dead by sensing his faint chakra, from her senses granted by the cat spirit, and she quickly and safely removes the senbon, awakening Sasuke, and she lets Naruto know he's okay. Zabuza and Haku still die in the same ways.
Kakashi acknowledges the growth of his whole team after the battle. But Sakura has noticed something during the battle that she didn't notice in Naruto cannon. She noticed the evil and powerful chakra of the kyuubi, and could tell it came from Naruto. She confronts Naruto about it, but he doesn't entirely understand it at first himself, at least until he really thinks about it, then realizes it's the kyuubi, and becomes very nervous about it, but comes up with the claim that it's a bloodline, which Sakura doesn't believe, because she recognizes the evil energy.
Sakura thinks Naruto is possesed or something, and tells Kakashi what she felt and her conversation with Naruto, and that he needs to excorsize Naruto. Kakashi 'checks up' on Naruto, having a conversation with him about the seal and taking a look at it to make sure it isn't damaged or anything, and reassures him about it's purpose and why he was able to use the Kyuubi's chakra when he was angry, and tells him that they'll have to come up with an explaination Sakura can accept, or Naruto will have to tell her the truth, but that Naruto has to tell her, because it's a village secret that nobody else can tell about, and if Naruto does tell her, he also has to tell about what kind of secret it is.
Naruto is at first hesitant, but decides to tell Sakura the truth. At first, Sakura is horrified, but Ran-chan is sympathetic, but the sympathy soon bleeds over to Sakura, and she re-assures Naruto that she doesn't care, and that she thinks he's a great person for having to deal with that, and the prejudice it probably gave him, as she realizes about it. The moment turns comical with Naruto asking for a date and Sakura's subsequent refusal, and afterwards Sakura tells him about Ran-chan and the cat-spirit, and her own recent discoveries about herself, and how she slightly understands what Naruto has been through, because Ranma was treated horribly growing up as well, even if he had a father, the father wasn't very caring, and hurt Ranma more than nurtured him. Naruto thinks Ranma's curse and fear of cats is amusing, and that the cat-spirit is 'cool'.
Sakura insists Naruto should train and meditate to use the Kyuubi's power only when he wants and to keep the Kyuubi from controlling him, and they make a lot of comical attempts on the way back, and after getting back to Konoha, at training together and getting Naruto to meditate properly, which turn more into lessons about the basics of ninja and trying to improve Naruto's limited vocabulary of ninja terms and understanding of the mind and chakra and demons.
Naruto finally makes it into the chamber of the Kyuubi, and quickly gets out after a short conversation, and tells Sakura about his experiences in his mind-scape. Sakura guides him in changing his mindscape, organizing it and making it nicer, and building up mental defenses to protect him from the Kyuubi's influence, and they finally manage to help Naruto tap his own reserves of youki mixed from the seal, and Sakura helps him learn to control it and the increased senses and instincts while in his youki channeling form (not the direct Kyuubi chakra he uses in cannon for summoning and taild states, just using Naruto's own mixed chakra/youki that the seal creates that Naruto normally used only when angry, causing a slight physical transformation). Sakura even manages to replicate Naruto's slight transformation with one of her own, channelling more cat-spirit chakra through her body and mixing it with her own chakra, causing her to gain reflective slit pupil eyes and more cat-like features. Sakura also switches her hairstyle to a braid, and becomes a bit more practical about her looks and clothing, and she trains with Naruto more, mostly to get him up to speed in taijutsu, and to have a taijutsu sparring partner, since Sasuke won't train with her.
They also have comical arguments about not dating.
All of team 7 end up sparking Garra's intrest...
And I have to leave the internet now, that's the end of this post for now...

[Key]

Not bad. The only problem I see here is the matter of Sakura's hair color being the same as onna-Ranma; then again, Rumiko never did decide on a hair color in the manga. Otherwise, bravo!