Ranma no Kagakusha.
Rumiko Takahashi owns Ranma one half.
Well the number of reviews I got wasn't very encouraging, but at least all of them were well thought out. My promise to you is that if you deliver me a good review, I'll private message you back with either an answer to your question or my opinion on what you said. Nathan's goals will become clear in this chapter.
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Ranma arrived early the next day, eager to learn what the strange man he had met yesterday wanted to see him for. It was far earlier than the first time he had seen him since Ranma had to sneak out before everyone woke up. He had heard Kasumi entering the kitchen just as he left but he was sure she hadn't noticed him.
Ranma had just started to run through his advanced katas when he felt Nathans presence heading towards him through the main entrance of the park. He wound down almost immediately, thinking back to the night before.
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Nabiki siddled over to Ranma, her usual grin displaced by a disgruntled frown that she had worn ever since the night before when she couldn't get any answers from him about Nathan, it was easy to keep quiet since Ranma didn't know anything about him at that point.
"Ranma," Nabiki practically growled out, "I want to know who that man that just defeated your father is, now."
Ranma gulped, but steeled himself and brought his thoughts around to the advice Nathan gave him on the way to the Tendo's
'Ranma, if anyone asks you to do something that you really don't want to do, ask them for something that you know is equally repulsive in return.' Ranma remembered the way that the old man seemed to talk more to himself than anyone else, often looking like he was reminiscing while he doled out more and more advice that, while it didn't seem to make any sense, Ranma instinctively knew it would work.
Ranma looked up from what he was doing and stared into Nabiki's eyes, "Ten thousand yen." He mumbled, smirking the entire time at Nabiki's shocked expression.
It didn't last; her shock soon broke as she hit the floor laughing. She managed to catch her breath, but didn't bother getting up as she addressed him, "Saotome, you're in no position to be asking for money, especially since your debt just doubled recently." She swore as she realized what she had just revealed to him, hoping he wouldn't catch on.
Her hopes were dashed, "How exactly did that happen?" Ranma asked slowly.
He watched as Nabiki started stuttering out a reply, Nathan's advice came to him once more, 'If someone starts stuttering, it usually means they are stalling for time to come up with a lie."
"Well… when your friends broke up the dojo during the wedding it added to your bill, and there were a lot of damages." Nabiki regained her composure during the sentence, sounding completely sure of herself by the end.
"But wasn't it you who invited them to the wedding? Wouldn't that make them your responsibility?" Ranma thought out loud, not trying to incriminate Nabiki, just voicing his confusion.
Nabiki visibly paled at that, "Ummm, never mind Saotome." And she walked off, trying to seem like the whole event never happened. She was still mad, but in a situation like this it was better to leave with your dignity in tact. She got to her room before she realized that Ranma had just gotten the better of her. She would never hear the end of this.
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Ranma had just finished his cool down and patiently waited for Nathan to catch up to him.
"Ranma! Good timing my boy, good timing. After yesterday I didn't expect you for several hours yet. I just got here myself." Nathan panted as he ground to a halt.
"What do you mean?" Ranma asked.
"Well I had waited here yesterday for hours yesterday; I didn't know when you would come so I got up early and headed here as soon as I could." Nathan described.
"Oh, by the way, did you do something to my dad in your fight? The old lout won't go near sake since you gave him some of yours." Ranma stifled a small chuckle as he thought back to the first time in history that Genma Saotome had ever refused sake.
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"Saotome, come inside, let's resume our game of shogi and celebrate! Kasumi, can you bring us the sake? Make it the finest bottle!" Soun ran inside, determined to switch the board back to his favor before his friend could shake himself out of his stupor.
Genma rushed in as soon as he heard sake mentioned, he really needed something to wash out his mouth after swallowing some of that strange mans swill.
"Here you are father." Kasumi bowed submissively, holding out the bottle of sake Nathan had given Nabiki two days ago.
Soun looked questioningly at the bottle, "Saotome, did you buy this? I don't remember seeing it before."
"It wasn't me Tendo, I can't afford that kind of sake." Genma appraised the bottle behind his glasses.
"I believe Nabiki brought it home." Kasumi supplied as she hurried back to the kitchen.
"Remind me to thank her latter. Well Saotome? Let's commence the celebrations!" Soun cried as he poured them both a generous helping and setting down the bottle with a sweeping motion that knocked one of Genma's tiles off the board, ensuring that it would stay out of play until his soon to be drunk friend noticed it was missing.
"Cheers!" Genma and Soun exclaimed in unison, clashing their glasses together and downing their contents in a single gulp.
Soun immediately developed a content, look on his face, while Genma had apparently decided to skip content and move straight to ill. Soun didn't notice his friend's volatile state as he bellowed out, "Thank the kami Saotome, this is the best sake I've ever had!" he looked more closely at his friend when Genma started gagging, and therefore managed to get out of the way when his friend lost his lunch all over the shogi table.
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"… and he tried again with two more kinds of sake before he just gave up and asked Kasumi for some tea. He hasn't touched the stuff since." Ranma finished.
Nathan, instead of looking amused at Ranma's story, let out a long tired sigh and motioned Ranma to sit next to him on the bench. He took awhile to compose himself before he could speak.
"Ranma, when I was arranging to meet you some of my associates told me things I didn't want to know. It goes against my moral code, my code of honor to know things about potential allies that know nothing about me. They told me only two things before I reminded them of my opinions on that. One was that your father is a known criminal and alcoholic, and the other was about the middle Tendo's habit of blackmail and extortion. When your father attempted to kill me yesterday I took a measure of revenge on him. You see, I abhor alcohol because of what it does to people, they become addicted and it becomes their crutch. When I offered Genma that sake during our battle it contained something of my own design. A chemical that, when mixed, would cause someone to vomit violently when they consumed liquor of a certain alcohol percentage." Nathan stopped his rather long winded speech when he saw Ranma gazing at him questioningly.
"Ummm when mixed with what?" Ranma asked, musing over what Nathan had just said, 'A friend… that doesn't know about the curse… that won't be scared off…"
"Another chemical I made, when I entered the city Nabiki Tendo approached me and I gave her a bottle of fine sake, saying it was for her father and Genma. The second chemical is tasteless, and they are both harmless unless mixed together, but if someone ingests both then they can't drink liquor for over a month. I'm sorry Ranma." Nathan concluded, looking down at the ground, alike to a young boy ashamed of himself for what he's done.
"Why are you sorry? Genma not drinking for a month means no more loud complaints about hangovers, or drunken plans that end up causing trouble. If I had of known you sooner then the neko-ken wouldn't have happened." Ranma laughed, trying to break his friend's bad mood.
"Did you say neko-ken? That thrice damned technique still exists?" Nathan peered at Ranma, his sorrow forgotten in favor of rage, he started again in a much calmer voice, "Say cat for me Ranma." Ranma's wince at the word cat didn't go unnoticed.
"Ca… cuh ca cu cu caaaa cat." Ranma finally got the relatively simple word out of his mouth, trying to suppress the shudders it brought on.
Nathans face lit up, "Good job my boy! I've only ever met one other victim of that technique and he fainted at the mere mention of the word. And Ranma, the reason I apologized was because I have just taken out your father's only crutch in a very violent manner, the next month will be rough on him. But, after seeing what he put his own son through I'm almost willing to retract my regrets."
"Now would you like to know why I bothered coming here in the first place?" Nathan continued at Ranma's nod.
"I came because of your abilities Ranma, you are one of the first people in centuries to be able to wield your ki so masterfully at such a young age. As such, I have a proposition for you. I have some ki techniques I would be willing to share with you, since I do not practice the art I can't use them myself, you would have to learn them on your own. I will tell you how it can be done, and you can try it. If not then I will die, taking the knowledge with me to the grave, you are the only hope of these techniques seeing the light of day." Nathan finished his stirring speech, staring bravely into Ranma's eyes.
Ranma was sold the moment he heard he was getting some new moves, and everything else Nathan said just added on to it. Ranma would finally have his own techniques, and by the way Nathan said it, they were extremely powerful, "I'll do it, but if you don't mind my asking, what will you get out of it…" Ranma trailed off as he heard a faint rustling in the bushes behind his knew sensei, "Look out!" He yelled.
Even as his father, who must have followed Ranma to the park, jumped Nathan, the seemingly unaware man took his hands out of his pockets, Ranma noticed he was wearing gloves that weren't there before, they were mostly metallic, but the joints where the knuckles were was made out of an unidentifiable substance that reminded Ranma of rubber. Around the wrists of the gloves was a ring of spikes. Nathan turned towards Genma and grabbed him around the arm the overweight martial artist had attempted to strike him with. Genma yelped and dropped to the ground, his hair standing on end and his wrist smoking slightly.
"These are gloves I have been working on for quite some time; they collect ambient static electricity and store it in the spikes here." Nathan explained, sounding like he was talking about the weather, "I can use them to stun people by touch, or send small cords of lightning at them over a distance, and at full charge they can even generate plasma."
"What's that?" Ranma asked, staring at his comatose father.
"Plasma is the least well known form of matter; the other three are solids liquids and gases. Like earth water and air. If you heat a solid enough it turns into a liquid, then into a gas, then into plasma. A plasma is like a ball of lightning, but is really just a lot of particles that have a lot of energy. Here, watch and learn." Nathan put both gloves together at arms length in front of him, fingers splayed. He then moved his palms apart but kept his fingers touching each other, and before Ranma's eyes a small ball of light formed, dancing in the air between Nathan's hands, occasionally shooting off random arcs of electricity only to nullify against an invisible force field.
"What's keeping it from shocking you?" Ranma asked.
"Electro magnets that activate when I start making the plasma. You know Ranma, with a lot of training and one of the techniques I know, you could do this with your ki. Except a lot larger, the ball in my hands now could power an efficient home for a year; with your amount of ki you could power Tokyo for the same amount of time." Nathan forced his hands back together, dispelling the dancing globe of pure energy.
"Ah, Mr. Saotome, I believe you wanted to 'discuss' something with me?" Nathan addressed Genma as he groggily got to his feet.
"You will not subvert my son!" Genma coiled himself in preparation for another attack but paled as Nathan readied another plasma ball and prepared to hurl it at Genma.
"Are you sure you want to be hit with the full force of a lightning bolt at point blank range? It takes much less current than this to stop the heart. In fact it takes about half this to flash fry you." Nathan tensed himself and sneered more menacingly than Ranma would have expected from him.
Genma stood up straight and didn't make a move. He had seen lightning before and knew it was useless to run. Electricity tended to go for the closest thing to it, and Genma happened to be just that.
Nathan dispelled the force of nature but kept his hands clasped in preparation, "Mr. Saotome, your son has agreed to become my student and learn some personalized techniques. And after all I've done for your family I would have thought you could show a bit more gratitude."
"What do you mean?" Genma grumbled suspiciously.
"You don't know?" he continued at Genma's negative response, "Well a few days ago I met a Miss Nabiki Tendo, and since I knew you lived at her residence I gave her some money to help out. Hold on. "Nathan pulled out a tally book "Ah yes, it was fifty thousand dollars, or roughly five million in yen." And he smirked as Genma's eyes widened and Ranma's jaw dropped. He could practically see the conclusions forming in their heads. Money grubbing teenager is given a large amount of money from a stranger for her family, what would she do? What else.
Nathan laughed heartily as Genma sped of back to the Tendo household.
"Nathan, was any of that true?" Ranma asked.
"Enough of it that Nabiki is going to be in one heap of trouble by the time you get back." Nathan managed to get out between gasps.
"So what about those techniques?" Ranma asked, his eagerness shining through.
"Well, what can you do already?" Nathan asked, sitting back down on the forgotten bench.
"Hn?" Ranma asked unintelligibly.
"Lets run through a checklist. Aura manifestation?" nod, "basic ki missile?" nod, "physical enhancement?" nod.
"Alright, now what are your special techniques? Keep in mind, I've probably never seen them before, so try to explain them each a bit." Nathan squirmed a bit to get comfortable, and then motioned for Ranma to demonstrate.
"Well there's the mouko takabisha, I make a ball of ki in my hands and infuse it with my confidence. Then theres the hiryo shouten ha, it involves makin my opponent real angry and then gettin really calm, then I lead them in a spiral and hit them with an uppercut, the cold ki I make and the hot ki they make, plus the spiral, sends them into a tornado. And the last one I can think of is the kachu tenshin amaguriken. I pump ki into my arms so they can go faster. With it I can hit something 50 times a second." Ranma demonstrated each one as he went, wrecking two trees as he went, one was fried and the other pummeled to death.
"That's perfect; it seems you have all of the right abilities to learn what I have to teach. I was sure I would never find a martial artist of your caliber in time to pass on this knowledge." Nathan clapped his hands together and put the special gloves in his pocket, then stands and begins to walk.
"I have a question. Why do you keep talkin like your gonna die soon? I mean you may be old but you're not on death's door or anything."
Nathan half turned his head and looked back at Ranma from the corner of his eye, "How old do you think I am Ranma?"
"I dunno, you look about as old as my pop. I'd say fifty?" Ranma was getting nervous because of the way Nathan was looking at him.
Nathan laughed, but it was unlike any laugh Ranma had ever heard from the seemingly middle aged man. It was bitter and regretful and more like a sob for every second it went on. It conveyed every negative emotion that a laugh shouldn't represent and Ranma already hated it more than he did Kodachi's psychotic shrieks.
"Ranma, I could only wish to live until I'm fifty. Awhile back my career was in politics, a very stressful line of work. It turned my hair grey from lack of sleep and gave me wrinkles from the constant frowning. I'm thirty six, and every doctor I've seen doubts I'll live another year." Nathan continued to laugh, almost sounding hysterical, the transformation in his personality was so abrupt that Ranma could only stand there, shocked, as his new sensei broke down, "Since my early twenties I've had a mutant form of lung cancer, it's completely dormant now, but research on it told the specialists that if they tried any conventional form of treatment it would awaken and kill me within a month. The government gave me a large settlement to keep quiet about it so as not to cause a panic. So I decided to do something fun with the money, these techniques are completely experimental. I don't know if they will work, but if they do I know how. I came to you for the chance to observe the last, unexplored, form of energy. Ki."
Nathan collapsed on the bench, panting, still chuckling in the most unnerving way possible.
Ranma didn't know what to say, it was a lot of information to process at once. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but was stopped.
"Just go home Ranma, you need some time to think. And I need to recover my wits. If you do agree to help me then, when I die, my money will become yours. Thirty million dollars, enough to live off of for generations on end. Go home and get some rest." Nathan stumbled out of the park. His laughter was gone, replaced with a morbid smile.
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Damn this was hard to write. I hope you managed to read it all the way through though because the end was what I'm really proud of. The techniques will be revealed in the next chapter, and now that I have some free time it will be posted much sooner than this one. If any of you were going to review just to say that Ranma couldn't possibly understand Nathan because of the difference in intelligence, consider this. I don't know the french language, I can't speak french, but, I can understand enough of it to know what someone is saying to me in french. Ranma is simply figuring out what the words he doesn't know mean by using the context of the conversation and the words he does know. If none of you were thinking about this then you should have been for the sake of your intelligence.