It had been a while since he started traveling, he was finally free from the engagements, free of his rivals, and free to make his own life. All due to Ryoga's stupid plans, you see Ranma was currently sporting the body of a twelve year old. How did this happen you ask?
It all started about six months ago…
Flashback
Ranma threw another punch-kick combo powered by ki as he tried to get the cure for his current condition from Ryoga, who had put some of the age-reversing mushrooms in Akane's cooking, which had been force fed to him by said girl.
Lo, and behold everyone's surprise when he had de-aged back to a twelve year old.
Ranma had attacked Ryoga, intent on getting the mushrooms to cure himself back. Unfortunately the mushrooms had been destroyed during the battle. When this happened Ryoga had been beaten to a pulp by an enraged Ranma, before he got beaten by Akane for 'picking on Ryoga'.
Ranma had been saved from any other problems when his mother showed up. She had been enraged at what had been done to Ranma. Nodoka had then broken the engagements, argumenting that she had had enough of everyone taking advantage of her son, and that from that moment forward any promises made by Genma, past, present or future regarding Ranma would be void.
End Flashback
Ranma Saotome was currently walking through a forest in China, he had been traveling for a while, he could feel his goal was close.
"Why is he in China of all places you ask?"
Well he was currently looking for a cure for his curse….again. Although this time around the information came from Cologne herself. Amazingly the old amazon, seeing Ranma could no longer marry Shampoo decided to adopt Ranma into the tribe instead.
Being a tribe member had it's perks, as Ranma found out. Cologne gave him directions of a place where an old ninja clan that had a way of sealing curses. The ninja clan had left Japan, and settled in the outer region of the Bayankala mountains past Jusendo, and Mount Phoenix. The only way of reaching such a place was going through Jusenkyo, and Jusendo which had been a really perilous task since all the place was now flooded, who knows what would have happened to him if he had fallen in.
Fortunately he had called in a favor from Herb, who was happy to help, since Ranma had been kind enough to get rid of Saffron. After Herb had dropped him off on the other side Ranma had thanked him. Herb had offered to come with him since Ranma would need his help to cross Jusenkyo on his way back, but Ranma had politely turned down the offer telling him he wouldn't come back the same way so he didn't need to worry. And so Ranma continued his voyage.
Ranma was now about two days travel into the weird, and dangerous forest that lay behind Phoenix Mountain. So far he had encountered giant carnivorous insects, giant snakes, and giant Tigers. Basically all the predatory animals he had encountered were pretty much giant here as were the plants, the forest was composed of the highest trees he'd seen.
As of the moment he was unscathed only thanks to the fact that he had unsealed his father's forbidden techniques, though he didn't dare use some of the most powerful techniques fearing his younger body wouldn't be able to withstand them.
About half a day later found Ranma's luck running out, you see, currently Ranma was traveling via the branches of the giant trees at full speed, a huge viper hot on his tail. "Man, why me?" he thought as he barely escaped being devoured by the giant snake as it lunged at him. The fact that the snake snapped a large tree branch as thick as a buss wasn't lost to the martial artist.
Ranma reevaluated his options; one, running was getting him nowhere. Two, using the Umi Sen Ken was out of the question since he was currently using most of his ki to dodge the damned animal. Three, he couldn't waste too much ki knowing, or was that NOT knowing what other dangers were lurking in the forest.
"That only leaves one option." mumbled Ranma. 'I didn't think I'd need to use this one of my new techniques so soon.' he thought as he used the Soul of Ice to lower his body temperature, while he summoned a hot aura around his body. Just as he was doing this, the giant viper turned towards him, not loosing a second it lunged towards him, it's huge maw open wide ready to swallow him whole. Ranma smirked as the giant snake came into range, he snapped his arms backwards at high speed.
"Eat this! Hiryu Shoten Ha Revised: Howling Dragon's Devine Assault!!" cried Ranma as a whirlwind shot from him towards the snake's open maw.
The tornado hit the snake, engulfing it, pushing it back toward the forest floor, but the tornado didn't stop there. The snake's was cut by the vacuum blades that were hidden in the tornado, the only testament to their existence was the deep cuts that appeared all over the snake's body. By the time the tornado ceased to exist, and the wounded snake was freed, surprisingly still alive, it's prey was long gone.
Meanwhile Ranma was again traveling through the forest; amazingly the attack hadn't taken too much energy. "Finally got rid of that thing, thought I was a gonner for a moment back there." mumbled Ranma as he stopped in his tracks. In front of him the forest ended, and opened up into a large clearing, about fifty feet from the forest edge stood his destiny. A small town by the looks of it; the town itself was surrounded by a worn out palisade. Ranma dropped down, and started walking towards the town, as he reached the broken gates he got a bad feeling. Stepping through the gates he recognized the Japanese style buildings, indicating it was his destiny, but the town seemed to be long abandoned The buildings were run down, and the style looked to be from last century.
"This sucks" he mumbled as he walked down the deserted street.
'Weird' he thought, as he noticed the place looked like it had simply been abandoned.
He kept walking through town until he felt it, a presence was right up the street, and around the next corner. Ranma ran towards the presence feeling as it started to move away quickly. As he turned the corner he caught sight of a cloaked figure before it turned right, rounding a corner, and out of sight. Ranma ran faster feeling the presence was putting distance between both of them. Ranma took to the roofs intent on recovering the ground he had lost.
As he landed on the roof he was surprised to see the figure standing atop a roof top waiting for him about two blocks away from him, as if it was waiting for him to follow.The moment Ranma took a step forward the figure turned, and ran…or rather roof hopped away.
"Wait! I'm not going to hurt you! I'm just looking for someone who can help me!" shouted Ranma.
Not loosing another second Ranma followed trying to keep up with the cloaked figure. 'Man he's fast!' thought Ranma as he pumped some ki into his legs raising his speed. After a few minutes of running, the figure led him towards a large property at the far edge of town. The figure entered the large house through the open double doors that made up the main entrance to the house.
Ranma landed on top of the main gate of the property, stopping as he felt the presence had stopped moving after entering the house. After studying his options for a couple of minutes, and decided a direct approach was best to show he wasn't here to fight. Ranma was about to jump down towards the ground but stopped as his danger sense flared up, and just in time too as he detected several traps scattered all over the place.
Ranma smirked, he'd show the person he was following he wasn't that easy to fool. He then proceeded to jump all the way to the main door using a bit of his ki effectively avoiding all the traps in the courtyard. This was quite a feat since the main door was about fifteen meters away from the main gate.
He cautiously entered the house, every step calculated so as not to set one of the many traps he expected to be around the house.
"Are you coming in or what?" asked a voice from a doorway a few feet infront of him. Ranma looked up to see the cloaked figure regarding him. By the sound of the voice it was an old man.
"O.k." Replied Ranma as he walked towards the man who turned around, and entered the room. As Ranma entered he found himself in a small living room. There was a small table in the middle of the room, on was a pair of tea cups, apparently freshly made.
Of to one side there was a bed, on the other side of the room there was a dek with several scrolls lying open, a few books, were open too. Beside the desk there was a tall book shelf that held a large variety of books, and scrolls.
"Please, sit down traveler." The man said as he walked towards the desk while taking the cloak off.
While he sat down he studied the man, now that his cloak was off, and set on a perch on the other side of the desk. The man seemed to be in his late thirties to early fourties, he had light blonde spiky hair, and deep blue eyes much like his own, but they seemed to hold something more. The man wore a simple grey tunic, and leather boots. But what surprised Ranma about the man was that the man exuded an aura of power far greater than Saffron's own.
"Quite a technique you used against Manda out in the forest. That should keep the damned viper out of my hair for a couple of days." said the man as he sat, and motioned to the drink on the table in front of Ranma. "Please drink, you must be tired after your long trip…." The man said leaving his sentence hanging as if prompting for a name.
"Ranma Saotome heir to the Saotome school of martial arts." Ranma answered, a smirk coming to his face showing off his confidence at his title.
"Nice to meet you Ranma, you can call me Arashi Uzumaki."