Gaara was having a unique problem.

He found that he liked Konoha too much to completely destroy it. Or at the very least he liked a few people in it.

Naginata didn't treat him like a monster. She treated him like a fellow warrior.

Naruto recognized what he was without being said, and treated him more like a brother than his own siblings did, though Temari at least attempted to treat him like one. Kankuro had long since been a lost cause in his opinion.

And Sasuke/Tsuki... while he didn't treat him like a monster or like a brother, he did treat him like a friend.

It was strange...he received a more open reception in a village he was ordered to destroy than in his own home. No one tried to kill him here, and no one glared at him.

In fact Team Four's Sensei, when he finally met the man, treated him like his own son. It was very...confusing. Yes, that was it.

Gaara had never felt the love of a family, even though Temari did try her best. His own father wanted him dead and saw him as little more than a tool to be used and thrown away. Kankuro was more interested in his dolls. And Baki could barely tolerate his presence.

Temari was the only one who even tried to get along with him.

And yet seconds upon meeting Ranma Saotome, the man grinned and shook his hand. He didn't even flinch at the sand that rose up, or the calm tone Gaara had when he threatened to kill him in a bloody and painful fashion. Instead the man laughed it off and said that he would enjoy seeing what Gaara would come up with.

It was...strange. Gaara actually felt at home around the man.

He could only hope that this Ranma didn't hold it against him when the invasion started.

"So basically you six have a full month to train and get stronger before you have to fight again?" said Ranma. He had watched the preliminaries, but he hadn't really paid much attention to them.

Well, aside from stopping Gaara anyway. He had beaten Gai to the punch and managed to save Lee's arm and leg. Hinata had surprised everyone but him as she kicked Neji's ass.

Ranma cricked his neck.

"Alright, I suppose I'll have to divy up teachers. Lee, you and Gai will work with Hinata. Naginata, you can train with Anko...she needs the help and she can help you with chakra. Tsuki, I have one of the Amazon Elders who knew your clan back when Madara was still alive coming in a few days to train you. She knows a few things about those eyes of yours that should prove useful. Naruto, you'll be training with Naginata and Anko as well as Asuma, seeing as it will be a while before I can show you how to use the that twister move of mine. Tenten, I have my former wife's current husband coming here to train you in the Amazon method of weapons. He's known to spam weapons out of his sleeves without warning and can even turn a urinal into a weapon... and no, I'm not joking."

Tenten was wide-eyed at that news. She couldn't wait to meet this guy!

"Until they all get here, all of you are free to use the poles. You all know the rules kiddies. You all get one day a week to take a break, but the rest we must train," said Ranma.

Ranma had done what most of the Iryo-nin had believed impossible. He had gotten Lee and Gai to take a break once a week instead of training themselves to the ground.

All he had to do was beat them in an all out taijutsu battle and tell them to take a break.

While Tsuki and Ranma waited for the Elder and Moose to arrive, she finally asked something that had been bugging her.

"Why do you consider jutsu to be cheating? I mean you don't complain when someone uses anything that's related to taijutsu, and you use KI yourself..."

"Tell me Tsuki-chan, how many of these shinobi focus on their taijutsu training?"

"After a certain point not many."

"And how many of them practice their jutsu to the point where they instinctively know how to cut down on the symbols? To the point where the amount of chakra necessary is at it's minimum?"

"Next to none."

"And that right there is the problem. When I first learned KI attacks, I never stopped practicing them until I had them down perfectly, to the point where it took a fraction of the time otherwise to use them. Shinobi don't even train themselves to that point. They just learn the jutsu, and once they get it down where they don't have to look up the handsigns, they move on to the next technique. Spamming fireballs is great, but most shinobi are lazy because a little bit of chakra and the bare understanding of the jutsu makes them think they're stronger than they are."

Tsuki nodded in understanding. Now she knew why Ranma had her practice her jutsu until they all became second nature to her. All of them had been half-assing their techniques, thinking they were 'good enough' once they could use them without failing.

Ranma had disagreed, and had them practicing their hand signs until they could cut them down at least by half. Naruto had become a master at the seal-less henge by the time they had gone to Wave.

"Besides, shinobi these days seem to think that a little henge and a few chakra suppressors make them master infiltrators, and are often killed when their jutsu fail them."

Another of Ranma's methods. They weren't allowed to use any chakra whatsoever when they went undercover to buy groceries. He often had Neji seal off all but a civilian's worth of chakra and had them go into various places using some of the oldest ninja techniques. If they were busted by an ANBU, then they had failed the test.

So far they could hide as a civilian rather effectively, and only got caught once every three exercises. Naruto and (now) Haku had been very effective at this technique.

"Hello Saotome," said Moose.

"Yo. Moose, your new student is currently outside on the poles. She has a thing for all things sharp and pointy, so she will be very attentive. Cologne, this is Tsuki-chan. She's currently under one of the many techniques to lock a curse form, and has agreed to stay like that until you say otherwise. She is also quite the little illusionist, but if you give her any new tricks be sure she actually masters them, not just gets them down. Shinobi have a bad habit of learning the bare bones of the technique without training with it after."

"Of course Ranma," said Cologne. She had come mostly to check on her grandchild.

Cologne looked at Tsuki-chan.

"So...you are the boy who was hit with the Spring of Drowned Girl as a prank."

"I've come to terms with my new identity as a cross-gender shinobi. I actually prefer being a girl half the time."

"I heard from Ranma that you have a crush on Naginata."

"I found a copy of the Amazon Tribal Law by accident, and I know that before I may court her I should get strong enough to at least match her in battle."

"I trained her child. Matching Naginata will be no easy task."

"Nothing worth doing is worth taking the easy way," said Tsuki, quoting Ranma when told of her doujutsu.

"Since I am aware of what those eyes can do, I will be showing you the techniques and then we shall get them down to the point that you know them to their core. Are we clear?"

Tsuki shivered.

"Ranma has threatened to beat me black and blue if he ever caught me abusing my eyes when I could learn the technique honestly."

"Good. The Sharingan is a useful tool, but in the end that is all it is. A tool. Your clan abused them and it lead to their downfall."

Moose looked at Tenten, who was watching his technique with stars in her eyes. The Hidden Armory Technique was one of the few allowed to both genders, and he was a master of it.

"Teach me please! Do you have any idea what a pain it is to haul these massive scrolls just to bring out my arsenal?" she begged.

Moose smirked. He would not go easy on the girl just because Ranma had called him.

Asuma took full advantage of the shadow clone jutsu, and had Naruto abuse the hell out of it. The fox would heal any brain damage that came from the memory overload.

He had a limited amount of wind techniques, but the ones he showed Naruto how to do, the boy absorbed like a sponge.

It wasn't unusual for him to come into training to find Naruto and his clones continuously training those five techniques until they could get the hand seals down to at least three.

About a week into training, Asuma was joined with Jiraiya, who had come with him to find the runt.

"So that's Naruto? Why is he a girl?"

"Show of solidarity, according to her. And we call the girl form Naruko," explained Asuma.

All the others were in girl form for the event, so Naruko had decided to make a month long appearance as well.

"Oi, Asuma-sensei, who's the old guy?" shouted a clone.

"This is Jiraiya."

"Jiraiya the Ero-Sannin? Ranma said he was a seals master," said Naruko.

"Hey! I'm not a pervert... I'm a SUPER pervert! Get it right!" he said in annoyance.

"What's the difference, besides the fact that most perverts are closet ones?" asked Naruko.

Asuma choked back a laugh.

Jiraiya had no ready comment to that.

"So why is he here anyway?"

"He's here to teach you, so I can help Shika."

"Okay. Just so we're clear, I already have a summoning contract," said Naruko.

"Which one?"

"Wind Riders."

"Wind... You're kidding right? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a common contract, let alone one that rare?"

"Not if another contract owner lets you sign it," sing-songed Naruko. She flew through the signs and said "Summoning jutsu."

A small wyvern came out of the smoke.

"What's the message?"

"No message or mission, just proving a point to the toad sage," said Naruko.

"Gotcha. You do know that you can summon one of us to help with wind element training right?"

Naruko blinked, then rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

"I forgot."

"C-rank jutsu level is for basic training. B if you wand advanced and we'll reverse summon you back once you're ready for mastery."

"Gotcha. Thanks Ryu-chan," she said.

The wyvern vanished in another puff of smoke. Jiraiya was still staring.

"How did you get the one you want on the first try?" he had to ask.

"Ranma-sensei said that once we learn how to do a jutsu, we had to practice it until using it becomes instinctive. It's better to know a few jutsu really well and have the hand signs cut down to a minimum, then a thousand jutsu with barely any knowledge of how to cut back on the cost."

Jiraiya actually approved of that approach. Most shinobi learned the bare basics and slung their jutsu around willy-nilly and ended up dead. Learning a few well enough to cut back on both signs and cost was a much better approach. Hell, his life was spared once because he had the summoning jutsu down to an art!

"Tell you what, how about I teach you a jutsu made by the fourth Hokage?" he said. Chances were that would be easier than trying to hook the kid with the Toad summoning contract.

It took Naruko two weeks to get to the second stage, and that was because she practiced the Rasengan's first stage until she could do it one-handed. She finally managed the second a few days before the tournament.

Naginata chatted with Anko most of the time, since this was really more of a formality. They did spar a lot, though she finally got the hang of using chakra...even if it took a week of cursing and headaches for them both to get it right.

When introduced to Cologne, who considered Ranma her grandson by default, she impressed the woman with the fact that she had a cursed scar yet didn't let the foul being inside it taint her spirit.

Cologne immediately started researching ways to remove it without harming Anko too badly.

For Lee, he had hand-to-hand training with Ranma every day. Surprisingly, Lee was a natural at KI and Ranma speculated that perhaps the reason why he couldn't use chakra except the bare minimum was because his body was naturally predisposed to KI instead.

Unlike the others, Lee didn't need the explanation as to why he had to practice the same techniques every day, with the occasional new one thrown in. He saw it as taijutsu training...you had to keep practicing until you got it right. There was no such thing as a short cut.

The days whittled down until the tournament. One by one, Ranma's students were preparing for war, whether they knew it or not. In the village, the sad, lonely song of a child lost in the darkness continued to remain unheard, as Gaara sought to have his existence proven once and for all.