Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Steps of the Celestial Dragon ❯ Part 4: ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Date : 030609

Disclaimer : All Ranma and Jin Yong characters and concepts belong to respective creators and owners.

Ranma suffers from the Ultimate Moxibustion Point. To correct the problem, he uses the Nanban Mirror to travel to the past. But will this action truly help him? A part of the Timerunner series ...

STEPS OF THE CELESTIAL DRAGON

Part 4:

Status: Rough Draft ...

Ranma had left.

There was no point in staying at the monastery any longer if he could not be cured. Currently, the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist was on his way to the largest Buddhist Temple in the region where a cure to the Ultimate Moxibustion Point lay.

An hour ago ...

"Remember, Ranma. The I-Ching Tome may not be the only cure to your current condition. The Tendon-Altering Sutra at Shaolin Temple is also another viable alternative if you can get the abbot to translate it for you," the abbot looked in sympathy at the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist's despair.

"Translate it?" Ranma questioned.

"Unless you can read Sanskrit. The Tendon-Altering Sutra did not come from our lands. A hundred years ago, a monk from India went on a journey to visit the Buddhist monasteries in China. Suffice it to say, he met the abbot of the temple and they talked about a lot of things including martial arts and its connection to body health and true enlightenment. After a month, the meeting concluded and the monk returned back to his homeland. Before he left, he gave the abbot of the monastery a scroll on how to increase and manipulate the body's inner force and chakra reserves through meditation and body positioning. That scroll was the Tendon-Altering Sutra and it would increase the power of any inner force user many times over. This has resulted in many attempts to steal it in the past. As a result, the monks of that temple are most suspicious of strangers especially those who show up asking for it. I have written a letter to the abbot of the temple telling him about your situation. Give it to him. That's all I can do for now," the abbot handed to him a brown envelope which the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist quickly tucked into Hidden Space.

The journey went on uneventfully for several hours until Ranma's stomach began to groan loudly.

'Time to eat,' he thought and began to forage for food in the wild.

Now all the wilderness survival skills that he had built up during his martial arts training journey in China with his 'Pops' had begun to come in handy. The first thing he needed was some water so he went to look for a nearby river to use. Luck was with him, for he heard the sound of rushing water after half an hour of searching. Next on the priority was food, so he got ready some of the fishing equipment. As usual, when a source of water was present nearby, the Jusenkyo curse activated, leaving the martial artist wet and in female form.

Feeling annoyed at the usual transformation into a girl from the curse, the martial artist got out a kettle from Hidden Space. She dipped the kettle into the river and began to build a fire. That was when things began to go wrong.

"My, my, my ... what a pretty little beauty, you are," a male voice remarked sinisterly from above.

Ranma glanced up to see a man in blue, silver and red silk wardrobe standing on one of the nearby tree branches.

At any other time, Ranma would have been more than ready to pound the living daylights out of the young man currently gazing at him in a lecherous manner but at this point in time, Ranma did not feel so confident in taking him on ... without her ki.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Ranma quickly employed the Saotome Secret Final Technique of running away to fight another day.

The only thing was it didn't turn out to be quite so simple. The lecherous young man was easily able to keep pace with the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist all throughout the chase through the seemingly neverending forest and Ranma was rapidly getting tired. Ranma could feel the young man closing in like a cat getting ready to pounce on a mouse. She dodged to the left and some of the earth came loose beneath her feet.

There was a sense of vertigo as her feet lost purchase on the slippery grass and she fell to the valley below ...

Death had never seemed more certain as it did then with the ground rushing up to meet him ...

Ranma opened her eyes to find herself lying on the ground in a dark cavern.

"Awake already?!! Good! I'm really hungry!" a voice in the cave shouted.

Sensing danger, Ranma dodged just in time to avoid a claw-like fist raking the ground where she was moments ago. Deep trenches follow the claw-like fist as a long white-haired figure clad in rags leaped from the ground towards her. Ranma's eyes narrowed at the insane old man growling at him. Sensing the enormous ki potential from his attacker, Ranma weaved to the side and just in time ... before the deadly old man struck again. There was a powerful explosion as a section of the cave wall exploded from her opponent's deadly attack.

Slipping into the Subtle-Ripple Treading Step, Ranma was easily able to avoid the old man's powerful attacks despite the lack of ki. Finally, after fifteen minutes of a cat-and-mouse game, the old man seemingly had enough and threw a powerful dark ki-based attack that distorted the very surroundings at Ranma. The size of the ki blast ensured that the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist would be unable to dive for cover. Instinctively, she quickly braced herself for impact. The blast knocked her clear through the cave and the old man in rags was upon her in a second.

The sound of a second explosion rocked the cavern and the last thing Ranma saw was another old man knocking away his deadly assailant.

Ranma opened his eyes to find himself lying on a coat in a cave.

"How are you feeling?" a voice called him from the side.

An old man turned to look in his direction.

"Feeling like I had gone through ten Ryogas and twenty Taros ..." Ranma answered.



The old man looked at Ranma calmly.

"Perhaps there is a way that I can help the both of us with our current predicament. You need external ki for you to work your martial arts technique where as I have plenty of it but no real way of escape since the lower part of my body is paralysed. I believe that I can remove that ki block from you but there is a price," the old man explained.

"Price?" Ranma asked again.

"There is a good chance that I would end up destroying the very foundation of your martial arts system. You would have to start retraining in whatever martial arts you knew from before, Ranma," came the old man's answer.

"Retraining?" Ranma trembled a little in dread.

"Yes. Retraining as in from scratch," came the much dreaded explanation.

"But would I have access to my inner force?" Ranma asked again.

"Yes, you would. What I am doing would free up your inner force pathways immediately," the old man answered.

"What are you going to do?" Ranma asked apprehensively.

"Wait and see," the old man answered.

Ranma felt a sudden flow of ki from the palms of the old man and she was thrown into the air. Using a combination of hand movements, the old man struck Ranma at several key points across her body only to spin her around again. She dropped to the ground again in front of the old man.

"I, Su Sing He, the first disciple of Master Wu Ya Zi, the founder of the Carefree sect, has transfered all forty-five years of the Northern Darkness martial arts training into you, Ranma. You are now my sole heir. The Second Subset and Fourth Subset of the Northern Hand of Darkness are now yours. Use it well ... and stop Ding Chin Chiu ..." the old man continued before falling unconscious.

'Oh no ... Looks like he's out cold. I had better get him out of here ...' Ranma thought before leaping upwards to the hole he fell through with a ki-powered jump.



"Looks like Ding Chin Chiu is already here. You are no match for him in this state at the moment."

"So what's the story behind the Northern Hand of Darkness?" Duan Yu asked.

"It's quite a long story. The Northern Hand of Darkness has seven subsets in it with each subset being practiced requiring a different level of understanding and inner force mastery. Legend has it that a long time ago, the creator of the style wrote them into seven volumes to be divided equally amongst his students after he passed on. Each student only learned one subset of the Northern Hand of Darkness unless said student decided to exchange it with another fellow student. So the only way to progress forward in the style was to share one own's knowledge with the others. The old master did that to avoid divisions and internal squabbling amongst his pupils after he died for the Northern Hand of Darkness manuals. Who knew that after he passed on ... that the whole situation would become worse instead of better? All the different sects and martial arts groups now warring and fighting against each other for the complete knowledge of the Northern Hand of Darkness."