Hiryū Shōten Ha

The Hiryū Shōten Ha (飛竜昇天破), translated as Heaven Blast of the Dragon, is Ranma Saotome's most powerful technique. Taught to him by Cologne, he later developed several variations of it.

Overview
The technique is based on a clash of temperatures. The user develops a "Soul of Ice", to void himself of emotion. He then attempts to lead the opponent in a circular motion, creating a spiral of opposing temperature chi or Battle Aura. The user then makes a corkscrew uppercut strike, while still maintaining an ice-cold aura. The pressure difference, from the collision of hot and cold, forms a chi-laced tornado that carries off the opponent.

It has only been used in situations where Ranma could not prevail through other means, such as against Happosai, Herb, Saffron, Rakkyosai, Ryoga Hibiki, and Kirin. However being caught in the initial blast does not necessarily knock out the opponent. Happosai, Rakkyosai and Herb were unfazed and ready to continue fighting afterwards. Lime, Mint, and even Ryoga and Mousse's cursed forms were similarly unaffected from being accidentally immersed in the resulting tornado.

Traditionally, this seeks to play off of the "fighting fury" that most martial artists enter during battle, but it actually functions on any significant temperature difference between intense heat and cold, which can be directed to create the whirlwind. This means that a skilled user of the move can use it even against opponents that would be able to control their rage; Ranma has, for example, powered a Hiryu Shoten Ha off of the intense heat generated by an aroused Happosai's lustful battle aura, as well as against the ferocious ambient heat generated by Saffron the Phoenix.

However, if an opponent has the skill to manipulate temperature themselves, then they can interfere with the Hiryu Shoten Ha. For example, when Herb changed his chi from hot to cold, he avoided all damage from the blast, but still rode the vortex upwards. It is unclear if this was an intentional choice through his ability of flight, to attack Ranma by surprise when descending. He also proved able to "detonate" it by directing cold chi at Ranma's feet, catching the latter in her own blast.

Variations

 * Flying Dragon Descent Blast (飛龍降臨弾): Since the Hiryū Shōten Ha proved ineffective against Herb, Ranma noticed that the surplus hot chi from the his stray blasts had accumulated to overflow in the surrounding air. He initiated the spiral motions for another whirlwind, counting on Herb to repeat his previous countermeasure of radiating cold chi to throw him into it. When that happened, he shot a spiral blast of "cold energy" into the centre, in effect making the excessive "hot energy" forcefully draw into the vortex of "cold energy", and forming into a giant version of the Mōko Takabisha. This took Herb, who believed Ranma to have already been defeated, by surprise and knocked him out.


 * Flying Dragon Ice Breakthrough (飛龍氷突破): Ranma's final attack against Saffron, completed with the aid of the latter and the Gekkaja, a powerful artifact that produces a freezing effect. Ranma planned on throwing a whirlwind though a channel of cold air surrounded on both sides by the hot air of Saffron's blasts. The swirl in the middle the whirlwind would become highly concentrated, squeezing the cold spiral into a razor's edge. He was unable to find an opportunity to use the move until Akane Tendo threw her frozen doll form at Saffron, tunneling through his heat and giving a Ranma a small channel of cold air to fire the Hiryū Hyō Tōppa. The refined Hiryū Shōten Ha froze Saffron's lower body into ice which quickly fragmented from his frame, in effect defeating him.


 * Flying Dragon Searching the Heavens Strike (飛龍仰天波): Used immediately after the Hiryū Hyō Toppa, while using the Gekkaja. Akane was seconds away from dying and only the cold water from the Dragon Spout could save her. Ranma, falling from the sky, had no time to get her to the water. Instead, he used all the hot air remaining from the fight to create another whirlwind. Drilling downwards and then sideways through the Dragon Spout broke off its head and made it land vertically to spew water into the sky, restoring Akane to normal, but risking the permanent drought of Jusenkyo, and the cures for Ranma and the other cursed characters in the process.


 * Flying Dragon Ascension Strike, Revised: Horizontal Spiral (飛龍昇天波, 改訂版: 下段螺旋): A counter to the unique situation offered by Natsume and Kurumi's combination Ring of Dragon Fire attack. A rationalization of this unexplained attack is that Ranma used the spiral of hot chi radiated from Kurumi's ribbon as a basis to create an opposing whirlwind. She then used it to propel Akane at her opponents. The cold chi from Natsume weakened Ranma's own attack, but since the hot chi in the spiral was stronger, the effects were negligible.