Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma or the game this fic is based on

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Nabiki dug through the mounds of data the Terminal supplied her. The Terminals were rather strange, they were… addicting. The ability to have endless knowledge at your fingertips was just incredible.

Nabiki blinked.

The information had stopped coming.

Confused, Nabiki peered into the Amala Network to try and figure out just what the heck was going on. There was something blocking the information.

"Ryoga?"

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If the outside of the Nihilo Obelisk was impressive, the inside beat it in every way. The main entrance was a huge room, with winding pathways leading to a Magatsuhi-powered elevator on the other side of the room. Deep channels of raw Magatsuhi ran around the room. A huge pillar similar to the one in the Nihilo Core ran up from the floor to the ceiling. Akane had a feeling that it ran up all 120 floors.

Ranma was impressed by the sheer magnitude of the edifice. He whistled. "Nice place."

As the two advanced toward the elevator, a loud peal of laughter boomed through the entryway that would put Kodachi Kuno to shame. A other voices, slightly higher pitched, laughed with it.

Soon the deafening laughter stopped. Ranma and Akane uncovered their ears and looked around.

A walkway stretched across the chamber, about twenty feet above them. Three women stood on it, all identical except for their robes. One wore black robes, one wore red, and one wore white.

The one in white spoke. "So… you two are the ones Commander Hikawa warned us about?"

The one in red replied "Perhaps they thought that, since they are humans like him, they would take control over us?"

The one is black finished "You two shall not destroy our system. We, the three Moirae Sisters, shall end your life quickly!"

And with another loud round of laughter, the three sisters vanished.

Akane's ears were still ringing from the noise bouncing off the chamber walls. "…Wow. So they guard the tower?"

Ranma ground his teeth together. "Let's just hope that their fighting skills are as bad as their laughing."

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Grinding her teeth, Shampoo tossed another Candelabrum to the woman in the Labyrinth. The room had not changed one iota since Shampoo started her trek through the Labyrinth. The fire still blazed, the old man still cradled his cane, the gramophone still played that nice mix of harpsichord, piano, and organ.

"Shampoo, I thank you for returning so many Candelabra to my master. You are very nearly halfway there. I think you deserve to learn something. Ask me anything, and I will teach you about it. What is it that you wish to know?"

Shampoo had never heard the veiled woman say something like this. However, Shampoo wasn't arguing. "Tell Shampoo about Creation."

"…Very well. Observe."

Images began to appear in Shampoo's head, of Kagutsuchi, balls of light on an infinite plane, and the Vortex World.

"Kagutsuchi's sole purpose is to provide power to the one who is destined to oversee Creation. Kagutsuchi will allow the one who proves themselves worthy to Create the next world. Personally, my master does not approve of this… but you will learn of that when you arrive here.

"There are those who survived the Conception who strive to become the Creator, and realize their vision. The shape of the world to come rests on the Creator's shoulders. In the vast universe of Amala, Kagutsuchi oversees the rise and fall of hundreds, thousands of worlds. The recreated world can be made however one wants, yet surprisingly, the Creator rarely outlaws another Conception.

"However, one can only even start on the path to becoming Creator by proving their worth even then. First, one must be exposed to a large amount of Magatsuhi, and one must be strong to be able to even withstand something like that. Ingesting Magatsuhi allows them to evolve into what we refer to as a Higher Being. It grants them powers beyond their imagination.

"Then, by performing a sacrifice in the presence of even more Magatsuhi, they will gain divine protection from one of the Old Gods. That moment when they become the Avatar for a God is when ones Reason is considered officially finalized. They will then be able to become the Creator, with their God watching over their world."

Shampoo spoke softly. "A God, like Saffron?"

The veiled woman pursed her lips. "Saffron was no God. He was a Higher Being with delusions of Grandeur. He was a disgrace to Higher Beings. But you, Shampoo, you will not have to worry about sacrificing anyone. All will be explained when you reach the bottom of the Labyrinth. You have three floors left. Do not disappoint my master, Shampoo."

With that said, the curtains closed once again on the woman and her crippled employer.

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Hikawa fingered his pendent again. Mousse sat in the corner meditating, the baggy sleeves of his robes together. "They have arrived?"

The Moirae sisters nodded. Their names were Clotho, the youngest, Atropos, the eldest, and Lachesis, the middle sister. Well-known in Greek Mythology as the Three Fates, they killed by toying with the strings of life.

Clotho spoke. "Yes sir. The boy and one of the girls. The fairy and the other girl weren't with them. Perhaps they are dead?"

Hikawa frowned, shifting the bandage on his cheek from the wound Mousse gave him. "It would certainly make your job easier if they were. We will soon be leaving. You three shall stay behind and take care of them. I don't care what you do with them, just don't let them reach the top floor. If they do, the Hellfire System will be in danger."

The sisters three nodded. "Yessir."

"Good." Hikawa nodded and turned to Mousse, motioning with his head to come. Mousse rose from his meditations and headed after him to the Obelisk's private Terminal.

"Mousse, your infiltrating the Obelisk has alerted me to the fact that I need to work on my self-defense. Your weapons trick was quite impressive..."

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Akane looked cautiously over the edge of the walkway. She and Ranma had been ascending the Nihilo Obelisk for an hour now. For some reason, the Magatsuhi-powered elevators didn't go to any floor they wanted, so they had been going up the tower very slowly. An hour had passed and they were only on the sixty-ninth floor. Or seventy-second, they had lost count long ago.

What made Akane nervous was the fact that the long, winding walkways didn't even have railings. They were little more that cement roads spiraling upwards through the Obelisk. On a whim, Akane picked up a piece of trash on their walkway and tossed it over the side. She didn't hear it land.

"Oi, Tomboy, what are you doing?"

Akane turned to give Ranma her usual retort- when something wrapped around her wrist. Akane looked down.

A piece of thread was wound around her hand. Where did that come from...?

Akane picked at in it. The thread stuck. Moving her arm, Akane felt the string go taut. She looked up. The thread wound up into the depths of the tower.

As if her looking up was a signal, more threads shot down from the darkness. Akane screamed as she felt them wrap around her arms, her legs, her chest.

Ranma sprinted down the walkway towards his fiancee. He leapt, grabbing her wrist just as the threads stetched taut. Akane's neck whipped backwards as the threads yanked her, then stopped.

Ranma dug his heels into the ground, desparately trying to hold Akane there. For several seconds this tug-of-war went on, each side slowly gaining, or losing, ground.

Ranma suddenly felt a jolt of pain as the thread that was on Akane's hand under him became razor sharp.

He instinctively let go.

Akane went flying upwards into the darkness, screaming. "RANMAAAAA!"

Ranma cradled his hand. "Akane!" He turned to look down the walkway and began to run. The martial artist ran as he never had before, taking stairs two at a time, shoving passing demons aside.

Ranma channeled his chi into his legs, allowing him to achieve a speed that would have made a marathon runner proud. Incidentally, his run up the tower became legend among demons, saying that it took three demons to see him that day- one to say 'here he comes', one to say 'here he is', and one to say 'there he goes'.

In short, he made very good time.

Ranma ran up the staircase that led to the 111th floor. His mind dimly registered that the top floor was just above him. There was a horrible sight before him.

The three women whom they had encountered on the first floor stood in a row. The one in white- Clotho- held a spool from which the thread came that had ensnared Akane. The one in red- Lachesis- stood in the middle, securing the thread around Akane, who stood in front of her, tightly bound. The one in black- Atropos- stood smiling, a pair of golden scissors in her hands. She was clearly the one in charge.

"Ah, so you came for her. Loyalty, I like that in a man."

Ranma growled. "Let her go. Now."

Atropos smiled. "Oh, you'll find you can't just order us around, human. Lachesis?"

Lachesis nodded, reaching a hand to Akane's left temple. Pinching the skin with her index finger and thumb, she began to pull outward. Akane winced in pain. A long, golden string had extended from Akane's head.

"Do you know what this is, boy? That thing coming from her head is one of the strings of life that is in every human being. It is what ties her to this world. I expect you know what will happen if this pair of scissors were to... slip." She snipped the scissors together to make her point.

Ranma clenched his fist. "Fine. What do you want?"

"You will turn around. You will go back down the Obelisk. You will leave and never return. Do you understand, little boy."

Ranma's fist clenched tighter. Blood leaked down between his fingers. "Fine. I'll go. Just don't hurt her."

Atropos grinned. "Now when did we agree to that?" She slipped Akane's thread between the scissors blades, and began to bring them together.

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Cliffhanger! I'm such a bastard.