Hi everyone. Sorry bout the long wait...and boy do I mean long wait, but it couldn't be helped. I had my computer taken away by my parents for several months and when I finally got it back I managed to get a nasty virus within days of its return. That combined with school, work, and my recent engagement to my long time girlfriend has kind of forced FF onto the back burner. But I return to you now with what you've all been waiting for. I do hope you enjoy. And before you send a scathing comment to me after reading this chapter please read the author's note i'll post at the end of this chapter.

As you well know I own nothing but the plot of this story, and even that's questionable.

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Ranma and Naruto never got a chance to continue their conversation before dinner however. Happosai had returned home for a few minutes. He’d steered clear of Naruto but Ranma hadn’t been so fortunate. A splash and a grope later Ranma was headed off to the bath. By the time he was out dinner was about to start.

Dinner that evening was an interesting affair. All members of the Tendo and Saotome families had managed to make it there that evening. Happosai didn’t count as a member of either and he wasn’t there anyway, having gone off to terrorize the greater female population.

Soun and Genma had stumbled in just in time for dinner with the help of Genma’s wife Nodoka. The not so subtle threat of her unwrapped but sheathed katana had been enough to keep the inebriated men moving under their own power from where she’d found them in a local bar. But once they’d noticed the new addition at the table at least a portion of their mental faculties returned. Enough, at least, to sit up strait and manage a semi decent conversation.

Both Akane and Nabiki had ventured back downstairs for dinner as well. The former was obviously extremely reluctant to do so. She was still a tad bit jumpy and avoided Naruto as best she could. If she couldn’t avoid him she ignored him, refusing to even acknowledge his presence. Instead she focused herself on Ranma. While she wasn’t as enthusiastic about beating him as normal he still managed to get punched twice before the families had even managed to get settled around the table. (A new table that is. The Tendos had several spares packed away incase of emergencies.)

The later Tendo daughter had hardly let her attention waver from their house guest since she’d returned from her room. While Naruto found the attention rather unnerving at first he’d compared them to other stares he’d gotten before and found it to be sub par. Nabiki, for all her bearing and icy cool looks, just couldn’t hold a candle to people like Orochimaru, Itachi, and Sasuke. They had truly been some of the most disturbing. After comparing her to them he was able to easily ignore her less then desired attention.

Conversation around the dinner table seemed to constantly return to one of two topics. The engagement between Ranma and Akane, which Naruto figured was the usual topic of choice, and himself. Naruto was forced to expand on his earlier story, that of a wandering quarter Japanese kid from Okinawa out to wander the world and sell his skills.

Just about everyone bought the story. There were exceptions however. Naruto knew Ranma was taking it with a grain of salt. The pigtailed boy already knew the story wasn’t completely correct. He just didn’t know what was and what wasn’t right. Naruto wasn’t really surprised that Nabiki wasn’t buying it either. The girl picked apart his stories like a certified detective, asking for details and quickly linking time lines and locations together.

Naruto wasn’t sure exactly when it became a cat and mouse game between the two of them but once he was aware of it he was positive she was the cat. So, being the good little mouse he’d suddenly found himself to be, he led her on a wild goose chase of stories and information until the conversation was a safe enough distance away from him that he could pull out and not risk himself further.

When Mrs Saotome suddenly took up the conversation, which Naruto had somehow guided to cooking, Nabiki caught his eye and nodded ever so slightly. The blond returned the nod and then, reverting back for a moment to his old self, gave her a wink and a cocky half smile that said quite simply “thanks for playing”. She glared at him knowingly. He could almost feel her determination to root out the truth behind his lies. He continued to smile as the conversation wandered back towards the two love birds of the house.

They were still on that same topic five minutes later when, as Naruto was finishing off his sixth cup of sake, Nabiki fired off a question he was wholly unprepared for.

“Do you have someone special in your life Naruto-kun?”

The blond covered a wet cough, nearly choking on his last mouth full of the rice wine, but managed to swallow. This gave him time enough to pull himself back from the shock and answer.

“Not really. It’s been a long time since I had anyone truly special in my life.”

Nabiki smiled in false sweetness as she moved in for the kill. “That’s too bad. You’d think a guy that travels as you do would have a girl in every port.”

That comment drew Nodoka’s attention, just as Nabiki had guessed it would. “Such a fine young man like yourself must have many young lady friends. It’s only manly.”

Naruto shook his head. “Nope.”

Nodoka looked confused. “Really dear? That’s just not proper. Certainly you don’t...swing the other way?”

That sent Naruto reeling. He rocked back as every eye at the table turned toward him to catch his response. He could see Nabiki’s half hidden look of triumph and knew she’d take it further unless he rebuffed Nodoka’s statement. Again he shook his head. “No no. Nothing like that Mrs Saotome.” He glanced down at his empty sake cup for a moment. How could he tell it and still keep in line with his story?

“I...I used to have a very special girl back...on Okinawa.” He began without looking up from his cup. “We loved each other dearly. We even decided to marry, when the time was right of course. She knew she couldn’t have any kids. It was for love.” Naruto took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Hinata...died. She got sick. I was there when she died. At her side. I haven’t loved anyone else.”

Naruto looked up and gave Nabiki a rather half hearted smile, letting her know she’d scored one but at a price he hadn’t wanted to pay. Nabiki, however, failed to acknowledge the point to her side. Only the rise and fall of her shoulders and a faint tick in her right cheek showed she was alive at all.

Every other female at the table seemed touched by his words. Akane was looking down at her hands as they twisted together beneath the table, Kasumi was misty eyed but smiling as she poured more sake for her father and Mr Saotome, and Nodoka was nodding sagely.

The males were another story. Mr Saotome seemed unmoved by his words. Mr Tendo, on the other hand, had a far off look in his eyes as silent tears rolled down his cheeks. Naruto was fairly certain the man was fondly remembering his own wife. Kasumi’s role as the caretaker of the home and the various reactions he’d gotten from the girls throughout the day had clued him into the fact that Mrs Tendo was no longer among them. So far he had managed to avoid the subject but it seemed he’d hit a nerve with his own story.

Everyone, with the exception of Ranma, seemed to have lost visual focus with their surroundings. Ranma was the only one who was actually looking at someone at the table. Although his head was barely turned in her direction, Naruto could see Ranma’s eyes lingering heavily on Akane’s bowed head. There was a story there Naruto was certain. Possibly the main reason behind Ranma’s strange relationship with the violent Tendo daughter.

The blond sighed and held out his cup as Kasumi turned the Sake bottle in his direction. The clink of ceramic on ceramic seemed to jolt most of them out of their trances. Nodoka was the first to recover fully. She offered a motherly smile to him and put down her cup of tea.

“My apologies Uzumaki-kun. I am sorry if what I said tarnished the memory of your love.”

The blond shook his head ruefully and allowed a matching smile to drive the sadness from his face. “Accepted but unnecessary Saotome-san. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption on your part. I did not specify any reason for my lack of female company. In truth I have not felt the need for such company since...Hinata.” Naruto stopped and pursed his lips as he realized what he’d said. If he was lucky the subject would be dropped.

And indeed it was. Dinner continued on peacefully. This by itself was enough to be considered unusual in the Tendo home but then Naruto didn’t know that. All he knew was that when Kasumi began gathering dishes with Mrs. Saotome’s help a collective sigh seemed to roll off the dinner group. A tension Naruto hadn’t noticed seemed to relax and disappear from the group as the dishes disappeared and people began to separate and go their own ways. The fathers retired to their shogi board, Kasumi and Mrs Saotome contented themselves in the kitchen, Nabiki went back to alternately watching the tv and reading a manga, and Akane vanished back to her room as soon as she could.

Ranma quickly seized the moment and motioned Naruto back out to the dojo. Once there Ranma finally managed to get his mouth moving in time with his mind and began asking his questions.

“I can’t figure out how you do it,” he said as the two of them settled on the hard wood floor facing an open sliding door that looked out over the yard. “I’ve been working it out in my head and I can’t figure out how you manage to get your ki to do even the most basic of those moves you showed me. I don’t even think the old hag or the letch could do what you do. And they’re over 300 years old.”

Naruto smiled ruefully. “Well lets look at what you can do. You obviously know how to augment your muscles with your chakra, or ki if you prefer. You can use it for several other techniques as well. Your multi-punch and energy blasts are not something I’m familiar with.”

He scratched his hair line and seemed to ponder something for a moment. “Why don’t we just start from the beginning.” Naruto turned towards his younger friend. “Can you show me your ki? Can you produce an aura?”

“Sure,” Ranma said. He concentrated and a hazy blue corona sprang into life around him. The blue spirit fire shifted and flowed as far as ten inches from his body in some spots. Naruto nodded. He held out a hand towards the spirit energy.

“May I?”

Ranma nodded his consent.

The blond brushed his hand through the outer edges of the aura, causing it to ripple and flow around his fingers. Ranma bore down slightly in concentration as the foreign ki just under the surface of Naruto’s skin connected and began interacting with his own.

He’d had contact with other people’s ki before and knew the sensations well. The pressure and heat created by two different ki interacting wasn’t really uncomfortable, it was just annoying and forced him to control himself better. In battle however the pressure could often spike and begin to hurt but that was rare.

Only two people had caused him intense pain due to aura clashes. Saffron and Herb had both had something different about their ki. With Herb Ranma had guessed it was his dragon ancestry. Saffron had been another matter. The Phoenix godling had had so much ki that his control had suffered. Where as Ranma’s ki was like a bathtub full of water, Saffron’s was like a mountain fed lake. Because of this his control could afford to slip. He didn’t have to worry about running short of energy.

Ranma clenched his jaw in pain as he suddenly found a third person who could cause the pressure to spike past the annoying and begin to physically hurt. The pigtailed martial artist watched as the blond’s ki began to manifest around his hand. The energy was several shades brighter then his own and seemed to burn with an intensity he had never seen before.

Naruto saw the grimace of pain on his friend’s face and pulled away. Instantly Ranma’s jaw muscles relaxed and he dropped his aura.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to hurt,” Naruto said.

Ranma shook his head. “I’m fine. Wasn’t nothin I couldn’t handle.”

Naruto nodded.

“Um, so did you see anything?”

The blond nodded again but didn’t say anything. Again Ranma could see that he was busy thinking. What he didn’t know was that there was also a conversation involved.

‘His chakra seems unrefined for some reason. It’s like crude oil.’

“An apt term brat,” Kyuubi rumbled. “His energy does indeed seem sluggish and uncontrolled compared to your own. Even when you were a cub you had better control then him. And that is indeed saying something”

Naruto ignored the barb and continued. ‘I wonder if he’s missing a step somewhere. The power is there but its not ready to be used. Even with hand signs it wouldn’t work properly.’ He began running through what he remembered of his teaching scrolls. As he did a suspicion began to form.

He looked back up at Ranma. “Could you form a ball of ki for me?”

Ranma concentrated and a blue orb about eight inches across came into being in his palm.

“Can you tell me how you do this? In as much detail as you can.”

The black haired teen rolled his shoulders as he thought about it. “I pretty much just reach down and tap into my personal, er, well. I use force of will to bring it up and shape it how I want and to keep it going. It’s easier when you use emotion to add to your ki. It intensifies it and allows it to be handled easier. Ryoga uses his depression and man can he pack a wallop.”

Naruto blinked. The way Ranma was describing it it sounded a lot like how he used chakra when he was in his Kyuubi induced rages. It was pure emotion, will, and instinct. The fact that Ranma could apparently do what he did without adding his mental chi and hand signs and without having to go into a berserker rage was incredible to say the least. Even if he was using chi on some level to mold his ki it was obvious he wasn’t fully integrating the two.

The blond nodded as pieces of the puzzle began clicking into place. The boy wasn’t using chi to stabilize his chakra, or ki as he called it, to allow it flexibility and adaptability.

Chi was the second half of chakra. Ki, commonly known as life energy, was produced by the body. The more fit and in touch with your body you were the more ki you produced. Ki was the power behind Jutsu. The more ki you pumped into it the bigger the effect tended to be.

Chi, on the other hand, was mental and spiritual energy. Chi developed through experience and mental disciple as well as through spiritual experiences. Chi was the guiding force behind ki. It allowed you to shape and mold ki easier and made it pliable enough to be directed with hand seals.

Usually people had an abundance of one and very little of the other. Your starting amount tended to be based on parentage and sex. People like the Uchiha, with their bloodline, tended to pass power on to their children better then others that didn’t have a bloodline. This, combined with the fact that men often had more ki than chi and women more chi than ki, determined how good a base you had to work with.

There were, of course, ways to get around deficiencies. Naruto’s old friend Sakura, who had no bloodline or ninja heritage in her family tree, had been at an initial disadvantage compared to people like Sasuke. The one thing she did have in her favor though was the fact that she had a good base of chi at her disposal to begin with. This gave her superior control over her ki and offset her small ki reserves.

Likewise Naruto had always had massive amounts of ki and much smaller amounts of chi. That was why he’d always favored area effect ninjutsu over concentration intense genjutsu; he didn’t have the control over his ki that was required for such jutsu. This was offset by the fact that he could afford to waste ki because he had so much of it.

As they’d trained and aged their deficiencies had lessened. Sakura had become more powerful and Naruto had gained more control. Neither one of them had erased their problems completely but they had gotten better.

As far as he knew you couldn’t access ki without the help of chi. The two were that interconnected. More often then not people simply grouped them together and called the combination chakra.

Naruto looked up at his new friend. Ranma certainly wasn’t deficient in ki. The boy practically radiated it like a miniature sun. And from just the little he’d heard about the boy’s life he knew he wasn’t lacking the experience necessary for a strong chi signature either. The problem seemed to be in the mixing of the two. He obviously mixed them to some degree, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to do very many of the things he did.

The blond opened his mouth to give his answer but quickly snapped it shut again when he felt the presence of two of the household approaching, each from a separate direction. Both were obviously trying their best to remain hidden. One, which he pegged quickly as Nabiki, almost made him laugh at her amateurish approach. She was obviously not well versed in true stealth but, from a regular person’s view, she could probably pass as a sneak. He wrote her off as a threat. If she heard it probably wouldn’t matter since the information didn’t pertain to her and probably wouldn’t make sense anyway.

The other person was much harder to track but was still miles behind a good jounin, even on a bad day. From the feel of it the other person was probably one of the fathers. After a moment of thought Naruto concluded that it probably wasn’t Mr Tendo. The man hadn’t struck him as particularly sneaky. Somewhat untrustworthy but not sneaky. That left Mr Saotome. He noted quickly that Ranma hadn’t shown any sign that he’d sensed either of their presences approaching. Nabiki’s approach lent itself to sight more then voice but Mr Saotome seemed to just want to listen in. After all crawling under the floorboards doesn’t give you great attack options.

Naruto took a chance, hoping Ranma would understand what he was trying to communicate without speaking. He held up a hand then quickly placed a finger against his mouth in the universal signal for silence. Ranma opened his mouth to say something but Naruto shook his head which stopped the younger boy nicely. Naruto pointed at the floor between them then curved his hand, acting like he was putting it under a table.

Ranma blinked, glanced at the floor, and then sat up straighter. Ranma pointed to the floor, mimicking Naruto, and then mouth ‘who’. Naruto sighed mentally, glad that he’d gotten the point across. He pointed at Ranma and then tucked his arms in close like he was holding a baby. It was the only way he could think of to signify ‘father’.

It was good enough for Ranma apparently because his lip curled up in a grimace and he made to stand. Naruto quickly stopped him with a hand and asked him silently to wait. When Ranma looked like he was going to argue Naruto smirked and gave the boy a wink.

Judging by where both of the eavesdroppers were neither could currently see Naruto, though that would change in just a few moments with Nabiki, so he swung his feet out over the ground below and planted them there with nary a whisper. One quick seal later there was a second Naruto sitting exactly where the real one had just sat.

Ranma was sitting very still as he tried to soak up as much of his new friend’s technique as he could. The appearance of the clone made the boy’s eyes grow a hair wider but otherwise he didn’t react. The clone motioned to Ranma to talk to him. Ranma hesitated, suddenly unsure how he was supposed to talk to someone that was there but...well...wasn’t real. Both Naruto and the clone smirked at him, enjoying the confusion emanating from the younger boy but after a few seconds the clone took it upon himself to continue the conversation. Asking Ranma about his life was an obvious topic so the clone stuck with that. Ranma replied as best he could while continuing to observe the real Naruto.

With his cover in place Naruto performed another short series of hand seals. Upon completing them he sank into the ground like it was nothing more than water. Ranma struggled valiantly to continue talking normally as he saw Naruto disappear. Here was yet another technique that was completely beyond his experience. His mind began to whirl again at the thought of all the things his new friend could teach him; a grin of pure glee spreading across his face as he continued to talk.

>> >

Naruto positioned himself carefully, bidding his time as the elder Saotome maneuvered his way into position directly under the spot where Ranma and Naruto’s clone sat chatting. The man was obviously highly practiced in the art of silent movement which was amazing for someone of his girth and lazy nature. He was easily the most sneaky non-ninja Naruto had ever seen which was, at the moment, the only reason, aside from being Ranma’s father and primary trainer, that Naruto even bothered to notice him.

The man was clearly not a shining example of fatherhood or of society in general. He’d been forced home from a bar by his wife(not a good sign), had tried unsuccessfully to steal food from his son(a heinous crime in Naruto’s book), had been as stupid and stubborn as a rock in regards to his son’s life and love interests(the fight in the empty lot and Ranma’s brief explanation afterward came to mind), and last but not least his current attempt to listen in on a conversation not intended for his ears.(a bad attempt by Naruto’s standards) Oh yes, Naruto felt that any action on his part here, sort of killing or severally damaging the man, was well deserved.

So it was with great relish that, just as Genma settled himself comfortably into position, Naruto reached up through the ground, latched onto Genma’s dirty old gi, and yanked downward.

Genma’s reaction time was normally very good. It had to be to deal with Happosai and his son. But in this case he wasn’t nearly fast enough. He had enough time for a startled “huh?” before he was yanked under.

>> >

Ranma leapt from his spot on the floor of the dojo when he heard the startled cry of his father coming from just beneath his feet, hardly noticing the clone he’d been talking to vanishing as he did. He stepped out into the yard and bent over to look underneath the building. He didn’t initially realize what he was seeing but after about two seconds his brain caught up with his eyes and confirmed that yes indeed, that was his father’s head sticking out of the ground.

>> >

Nabiki heard her ‘uncle’ yell but didn’t know exactly where the yell had come from since her eye was trained on Ranma and their guest through the lense of her camera. Last she’d seen the old man he’d been playing with her father on the porch. She snapped one more shot of the two boys then lowered her camera to figure out where the noise had come from. When Genma sounded surprised it usually meant something big was brewing.

But when she looked back at the boys sitting in the dojo she found only Ranma, who was no longer sitting but jumping out the door as she watched. She blinked in surprise. In the half second it had taken her to lower the camera from her eye Naruto had vanished. Her eyes flicked over the rest of the yard from her vantage point on the far side of the yard from the dojo but couldn’t spot him. Nabiki wasn’t normally one to get nervous over something like this but something about their guest unnerved her ever so slightly. It wasn’t the fact that he passed around big American bills like they were nothing, although that was strange. It was something else, something her long neglected martial arts skills sensed about the boy. She couldn’t put a finger on it and that, more than anything, is what unnerved her. So having the boy disappear like that wasn’t something she really felt comfortable with.

Nabiki flipped her hair back from her face as she mentally chuckled at the thought of the ‘Ice Queen’ showing nervousness in public. Her long crafted persona would have come crashing down faster then a house of cards in an earthquake if she’d shown it.

“Nice lense, what is that a 10X zoom? Very nice.”

Even with her long practice at being an ice queen Nabiki wasn’t immune to surprises. Oh sure she didn’t scream but one only had to see the air she got when she jumped and the sudden frizziness of her hair to know she’d been completely and utterly surprised.

She turned around shakily to find the target of her short search standing right behind her with a megawatt smile on his face.

“Even with a 10X zoom I doubt you can get a good close up at this range,” Naruto said as his smile turned cheeky. “And I really think you’ll want to get a picture of this.”

A gentle hand on her lower back boosted her out of her hiding place towards the dojo where Ranma was now laughing uncontrollably on the ground. The sight of her ‘brother’ helped shake her out of her daze somewhat as the two approached the side of the dojo.

“Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu.(Earth Jutsu: Inner Decapitation) One of the first ninjutsu I ever experienced,” Naruto said as they stopped in front of Ranma who was just barely beginning to contain his laughter. From here Nabiki could easily see what the fuss was about. After a moment of observation her cheek twitched upward ever so slightly. A moment later her camera was up and taking pictures every few seconds. Nartuo noted that the camera hid the middle Tendo’s smile very well which was probably her intention.

Below them, just underneath the dojo’s floor overhang, was Genma Saotome’s head...firmly lodged in the ground along with the rest of his body. His grunts and muttered comments as he tried to work himself free of the earth’s clutch looked not so much intimidating as funny. The balding man’s head, his bandana horribly tilted out of position, looked a lot like a bowling ball with a cleaning rag resting atop it. The eyes, focused before on the dirt centimeters away, looked up at the blond man above him in anger.

“You! You did this to me! Ranma. Stop laughing your fool head off boy and help get me out of here.”

Unfortunately for him his comments only made Ranma laugh harder.

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Alright down to buisness. The hardest part I have found while writing this story is how to mesh chakra and ki. I'll go into further detail next chapter but Naruto's thoughts on the process are basically what i've dialed it down to. Any other energy source, say like moon magic, is going to be just that, magic. I know I've loused up the real meanings of ki/chi but this is the only way I could make the vague ideas of chakra creation in Naruto work with the Ranmaverse.

Watch for more chapters sometime soon.