Chapter 2: Festival Mayhem (Part 2).

It was Tanabata day, Ranma and company went to the evening festival.

The evening festival was being carried out in the Shakujii Park.

Akane opted to visit the festival grounds with her friends. The fathers went together and Nabiki and Kasumi decided to go on their own, leaving Ranma alone as well.

Everything looked so festive and jovial. Ranma went to visit the site.

In there he saw some Furinkan students, he also met with some familiar faces like Shampoo and Ukyo, although both girls were there more for work instead of being there out of curiosity like him.

The evening was calm and fun, or so it seemed. Something was going on not far from the festival.

Ranma was wandering around the site when he noticed some commotion. The pigtailed boy went to see what was going on, which led him to find…something unusual.

A hog like midget has beat up several men there and seemed violent.

When it crossed eyes with Ranma, he knew he was going to fight it.

Luckily for him, that tough act and that bravado were for nothing because the pigtailed made a quick job out of it in less than a second.

Just then Cologne appeared, and she managed to encase the weird creature Ranma just beat inside a stone urn, sealing it inside.

And not only that, it was not the only one.

There were more. The one Ranma beat was the weakest one, the other three were more astute.

And those were the events that led the two where they were at the moment. Both of them had to team up and work together. First time something like that happened.

8:50 P.M.

Ranma and Cologne were leaving the lake side area, going back to the festival grounds.

The pigtailed boy was told about a group of strange creatures that although they posed no threat they could not be let loose or else they would start to wreak havoc in the multitude.

There were four of then apparently.

Ranma has already faced one of them, it looked like a small person but with animalistic characteristics and it appeared feral.

But oddly enough, it didn't take him a minute to put the entity out of commission.

Cologne arrived moments after that, and she sealed it in an urn she brought with herself.

Ranma had questions, so the two went to a secluded spot near the lakeside to talk.

And there Cologne explained what she knew about it.

The teen was half running, half jogging, keeping up with the old woman who was ahead of him, pogoing on her wooden staff. The site was crowded if not packed with people, running blindly would tire them, cast suspicion on them and would put their targets on alert.

So they had to move with celerity but without haste. As the saying goes: haste makes waste.

"So, what's the plan?" Ranma asked. They knew they had to do something but now it was a matter of how to get it done.

"Hmmm, we have to consider the people" Cologne spoke "Fighting those entities indiscriminately with that much people around will cause more harm than good…"

"I guess" Ranma replied "People could get hurt…what do we do?" that pig like entity made an impression on the crowd on that area. And it turned out to be the weakest one but tit was too much for the two to hope that people forget about that and what they saw.

They also hoped to avoid that with the other three entities that were out there.

"*hop* *hop* Should you be forced to fight, try to lure them or chase them away from the people"

"Without the danger *hop* of harming innocent people *hop* you will be able to confront them without any problems."

"Got it, we gotta get them far from the people" Ranma said. "We could lure them here or at the other plaza, I haven't seen anyone around there"

"Good idea *hop*"

'Hope it goes well' Cologne thought to herself.

The two reentered in the festival site, through the upper entrance. Nothing appeared to be out of place, nothing unusual was on sight, but for Cologne something was off, something strange was in the air.

"Hey…uhm, where do we start?" he put his hand on his forehead, as if searching with his eyes for any sign of something out of place. "Are they like spread out round' here?"

Cologne nodded affirmatively. "They are in different spots in this place…our chance is to get them individually and separated from each other"

'If they're together, they'd have more chances to escape' she added in her mind.

Ranma turned his eyes on the Amazon matriarch. "That sounds easier said than done".

"True but it's the choice we have" she replied, matter-of-factly.

"Aight, now where to?" he asked.

"Hmmm" she closed her eyes and concentrated for a brief moment "I sense an strange spiritual energy, closer to the center of this field"

"It is close? Good, let's go" Ranma went ahead, with Cologne going some steps behind, following the sixth sense of the Amazon matriarch.

Somewhere around the baseball field, behind one of the stands, in a spot where no one was passing. A subtle cloudy like phenomenon materialized out of thin air, it pulsated with a faint signal of energy. In seconds the air around it began to heat.

At another point in a dark spot behind the outer wall of the field, away from the lights, a figure surfaced from the shadows, little could be seen from that figure except its mouth and part of its face. A smirk appeared on its face, a face that looked human like.

And that was not all.

Ranma and Cologne were making their way through the crowded middle lane.

At the same time.

Akane, Yuka and Sayuri were walking together. The three were really having fun, playing games, winning some and losing some.

"Soooo girls, what else can we play?" Akane asked.

Yuka chuckled. Akane was competitive when it came to these type of games.

"Think we played the ring toss" Sayuri said counting each game they played "Rope ladder climb, dart shooting, water tank dunk, hmm…maybe two or three more"

"Hehe, I love these games" Akane admitted.

"They're fun. I mean, I did a real good throw on the bottle game"

"Agreed, and watching you play some of them was exciting"

Akane laughed heartedly.

Moments like those were the ones she treasured, having a good time with her friends, having a good time with her family too.

That reminded her of the time she went to a festival, in the days her mother was alive.

It was 10 years ago.

That evening she and her family were near the Sumida river for the fireworks festival. At that time, Kasumi had 9, Nabiki had 7 and Akane was 6 years old.

Hers and other families were standing at the area south side of the river. The evening was pleasing, Kasumi was speaking with her mother. Nabiki was at the left of their father and in rhe middle of them Akane.

She looked up to the sky, putting her hands on the upper railing.

And there she saw it, the first firework of the going up in the sky above before it exploded in a colorful red spark.

Other fireworks sailed up in the air, exploding in different shades of color.

Akane was mesmerized at the sight, everyone there was watching the display up above.

In the end that was one of the last memories she made with her mother before she passed away.

But she would always remember them fondly.

Back to the present, she still had her dad, her sisters, her friends and Ranma too.

"So what do you say Akane, shall we see the rest of the games?" Yuka asked the blue haired girl.

"Sure, let's go!"

The party of three went up in the left lane to see what other games they could try.

They browsed around the site.

"Hmmm oh hey, look at that!" Yuka saw something that caught her eye.

"What is it?" Akane asked.

At a point not far from there they saw a stall, which did not look very attractive in comparison with those on the sides.

"Wait…what that stand there before?" Akane asked, she passed a few times but she didn't see that stand before.

"It had to be there" Sayuri answered "Who would put a stand just like that without anyone noticing?"

Hmmm, Akane was not totally convinced.

"Well, let's check it out!" Yuka went ahead to see what it was about, there was some people gathered around it.

Maybe it was a superstition but something about it did not sit well with Akane.

It was a game booth but it had a different name from the others.

'Soul Games' odd, Akane thought after reading the sign above the ordinary looking stand.

In there she found a man who looked to be in his mid twenties, but there was something unusual about him. It wasn't his black and white suit with red tie, it was that his skin was white and that he didn't have a face, instead of that, a question sign was there where the face was supposed to be.

"Weird guy, but that's an interesting mask he's using" Yuka commented among them.

The apparently faceless man was playing a game against another man in front of him. Both men were sitting across each other, with a table in the middle.

"You want to accept my challenge?" the white skinned man 'asked'.

"I'm here to play and win!"

"Remember, in this game our souls are the ante, you lose, you lose your soul"

His opponent looked amused by the mysterious vibes the other was giving to the game, as if a game would decide the future of his soul thought the man inside himself.

"Fine, let our game begin"

Akane was talking with her friends about what they would do once the first term exams were over, they were like almost two weeks away from them.

And soon after that, summer break would start.

"My folks and I will be visiting some relatives in Suwa, stay with them for some days" Yuka told her friends "We're going to visit the castle too"

"What are you gonna do Akane?" Sayuri asked the Tendo girl. "I'll be making a trip with my mom to Akita for two weeks"

"I dunno" Akane answered "Maybe I'll try practicing my swimming or do a hiking trip around"

"Sounds like a plan"

The three girls laughed.

They heard a collective gasp and they turned to see what was going on. The man playing against the faceless man was on the ground, the man probably fell sideways from his chair.

"And victory is mine, next" with theatrics he declared his victory.

The man's son (the one on the ground), a 12 years old kid, came to check on him, amused that he did something that silly like fainting after losing a game.

"Let's go dad"

After hearing no response from him and noticing his body wasn't moving, his eyes widened. He placed his hand under his nose.

"*gasp* He's not breathing!"

'Say what!?'

"Dad come on!" the kid was asking his father to wake up and breathe, but nothing happened. Someone who called himself a medic went and tried to take a pulse out of him. But the man had no pulse and he confirmed he wasn't breathing.

The people reacted, most of them between panic and disbelief, their reaction was mixed.

The kid then turned his attention to the faceless man sat across them.

"What did you do to him!?"

"Didn't I tell you all? In my soul games, the soul is the ante, lose…and you lose it"

'What did he say? Did he take…his soul?' Akane couldn't believe it. A man lost his soul as a result of a defeat.

People was disconcerted, some were starting to leave in a hurry.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you" the faceless man said getting up of his chair. "All of you are participants in my game…if you leave, you forfeit your soul"

Sensing the unspoken doubt from the people, he chuckled and kept talking. "You don't believe me? Try to leave, be my guest"

With reluctance the people stayed but some who were undaunted by the stranger's words walked away, just to suddenly collapse on the ground once they were at 20 feet away from the white skinned man and his stand.

Akane felt a cold sweat run down the back of her neck. Somehow the situation became serious in matter of minutes. Her friends were real close to her and even if she was away she could feel a growing fear in them. Whatever it was, she had to stand strong for them.

Meanwhile, Ranma and Cologne were looking around for any sign of anomaly or deviation.

"Is it near here?" Ranma asked.

"Not totally sure…I can also feel something else in the air" she sensed something else in the air, something different and yet tragic. She was close, there was no doubt about it, but not being able to locate exactly what she was looking for made things more complicated.

Back to where Akane was.

"So, who is next to play my game?" the faceless man asked. That was no ordinary man, in fact, was he even human to begin with?

The people went silent. It felt like the world just reduced to that small area. The world outside of this one seemed not to exist, outside of this one everything seemed normal and distant as if there was a wall separating them.

"…no one's going to play? My, my…how about I pick people at random and take their souls"

He looked around and when he 'gazed' in Akane's direction, he stopped and pointed at her. "You…I choose you"

Akane's eyes widened, she was selected to play that stranger's game. She swallowed a bit.

Feeling afraid, her friends told her to be careful. The short haired girl made her way towards the chair, fearful at first, but as she approached him her gaze was filled with steely determination.

"Ah, you don't look half bad" he said taking his seat. Akane did the same, sitting in front of him.

"What do you want!? Why did you take that man's soul!?"

"Because he agreed to when he played the game" he explained it to her in a few words.

Akane narrowed her eyes. "And for a game you have to steal something as important as his soul!?" the faceless person nodded as his response.

"Tell me why I shouldn't beat the crap out of you!?" she took a fighting stance, although she knew how impractical it would be fighting in a yukata.

"Hehe, because you can't…unlike you, I battle with my intellect, not like a brute"

He shrugged from his seat, and out of nowhere he brought a deck of cards. "So, you want to battle with me, huh?"

"Well, let's play…"

"Our duel will be a battle of wits…" the 'man' of white skin said. "You solve correctly my puzzle and you give a puzzle of yours"

"The one that solves three puzzles win…To issue a puzzle you have to solve the one you're given"

He continued. "I'll give you three attempts of 2 minutes per attempt, if you fail all three it's game over for you and your soul will be mine…"

"But if you win, that man's soul will be freed…not that you have a chance to beat me…" his words were laced with smugness.

*gulp*

"Now, shall we start?" he asked, materializing a deck of cards and shuffling them.

For his first puzzle, he used matchsticks, setting a number of matchsticks arranged in such a way that they were forming mathematical equations.

The equations read in this order: 3 × 9 = 5, 8 × 3 = 16, 5 × 8 = 36. The equations were evidently wrong.

"For your first puzzle, fix the equations by moving only one matchstick for equation" he issued the first challenge. "You have two minutes so…begin"

Putting aside the weirdness of it all, Akane looked at the matchsticks placed on the white table. Three equations that were wrong and she had to fix them by just moving one matchstick for each one of them.

30 seconds passed and Akane realized what she had to do. She took a matchstick from the number nine transforming it into a three, and putting the matchstick in her hand at the other side, converting a five into a nine.

The next equation, the blue haired teen picked a matchstick from the first number turning it to a six, moving it to the other side of the equation, converting the initial sixteen into eighteen.

The final equation, 5 × 8 = 36. Instead of passing a matchstick to the other side, she moved it from the multiplicand to the multiplier, transforming the 5 × 8 into a 6 × 6, which made sense.

Gotcha, Akane thought, and she finished in less than 1 minute.

"Not bad" the fellow in front of the Tendo saw the new arrangements and confirmed they were correct. Akane bested the first test, but he was unnerved, there were two tests left. Now he had to solve whatever puzzle Akane could dish at him.

"What is your puzzle?" he asked.

Akane was taken aback, and touching her jaw with her index finger as she looked up at the sky, she began to think about what riddle to give him. His first riddle was a tad basic, but sometimes basic stuff can stump people.

"H-here's mine" Akane spoke " There's one safe that for it to be opened, two codes on the combination locks, the codes are already put in place, those being the numbers 439457 and 106784"

"The problem is that both the fourth and fifth digit in the second code are wrong so the objective is finding the correct answers based on the rest of numbers" Akane has issued a challenge of her own.

Akane saw her opponent in silence, thinking.

But it didn't take him much to come up with a solution. "The answers are one and two" he said.

"There's a difference between both rows, a difference of three and since seven and eight are incorrect then one and two are the correct numbers…and they keep a difference of three"

Akane didn't want to admit but he was correct, their score was now tied with a 1 – 1.

Now it was his turn once again.

The people around the two game participants were real anxious, Akane's friends were near each other watching everything with worry.

His second puzzle was a simpler one. It consisted of a man having a lantern, a chimney, a stove, a candle and a matchstick. The matter was, what to light first?

Akane thought about what to light first.

Yuka and Sayuri were hoping the best for her friend and that she could win the game.

Soon Akane has chosen her answer…and sadly it was wrong. The real answer was the matchstick itself first.

Since the Tendo couldn't pass the current test, his opponent had to issue the next test himself.

Crap, she thought. It was the first strike, she had to think things carefully.

The next puzzle was an arranged game of peg solitaire.

In the board there were several little balls of the size of a bean inserted on holes across the board in the form of a plus sign. They were arranged in a particular form, not covering all holes. There were 11 pegs placed on the lower part of the plus sign, with an empty space in the center. The objective of the puzzle is to leave only one peg on the board.

Akane made her second attempt, she had two minutes so she had to do it well and fast.

She jumped the first ball, the top ball of the middle column left, moving then the bottom ball of the third to the left column up.

And so she picked the pegs and jumped the adjacent ones. The thing is that those could only be skipped vertically or horizontally but not diagonally.

At first instance, Akane thought she had the puzzle solved, but at one point she took a wrong turn, moving one of the pegs to the right instead of the left.

And she ended with two pegs on the board, but they were apart by one space so there was no way to hop it.

"Tsk tsk…I'm afraid you failed again, hehe" that guy could feel victory near his grasp.

Strike two, Akane couldn't believe it. A fear was growing in her, what if she failed again?

Was she going to lose her soul?

Since Akane couldn't solve the puzzle again, our stranger had to set the next and final test. The one that would spell game over only if Akane failed.

He took four cards from the top and inspected them, before placing them on the tabled, each one at a distance from the others.

"You see, I placed four cards on this table, I want you to find the spade but here are the conditions"

"The club is at the right of a heart, the end card on the far left or far right is a diamond, and next to it there is a heart card. Finally, the end card on the far left or far right is a club…with all that set, try to find the spade"

Her opponent has set the game and the rules. Akane looked at the four cards placed on the table and began to think.

Something like that required deductive thinking.

She put her hand on the table, inches away from the four cards, contemplating her course of action. The faceless guy was waiting, just like the audience around them.

Did she have to pick a card? Following the first condition, the club couldn't be the last card, it had to be either 1, 2 or 3.

The second rule told her that should the diamond had to be either first or last, followed by a heart. Since the diamond can only be at the far end, she thought the diamond would go first, the heart second and the club third.

But the final rule made her doubt, that was confused her. The club at either the far left or far right.

She had to think and think quick, her 2 minutes were about to end. Akane had figured out two of the three rules, could the third rule be a misleading one? If so, she chose an answer. She pointed at the far right card.

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking at the card Akane was pointing at.

Akane swallowed again, if she was wrong it was the beginning of the end for her. She had two extra attempts but deep inside she knew she wasn't up to the challenge.

She was falling onto the waters of reality.

Something like that required a cool disposition, someone who didn't budge under a pressuring situation like that, someone like…

"That's an impossible test!"

Everyone including the pale man looked behind the blue-haired teen to see someone approaching. Akane's eyes widened, she knew who it was. She slowly looked over her shoulder to see exactly that person who she knew it was.

Nabiki was making her way between the crowd to reach the table where the soul game was in course.

"Sis…" Akane mouthed softly. Her older sister was standing at her side and the younger Tendo couldn't hide her relief. "How did you…"

"And you are?" the guy without face asked the middle Tendo, unfazed by her mildly defiant expression. "Bold of someone to interrupt our game….care to elaborate why is it an impossible test?"

"That's easy" Nabiki smirked subtly "The last rule brings a contradictory placement of the club, if it was the third card like I think my sis was thinking, then it can't be placed at the far right for instance, or the far left without contradicting the first rule"

"So, in the end the answer is that there is no answer because" the middle Tendo began revealing each card as she spoke "there is no spade to begin with" she finished revealing the last card, revealing it to be another club.

"Huh…" Akane looked at the flipped cards on the table and back to her sister who was now smiling with confidence.

Nabiki was right.

There was no spade in that group of four cards. Only a diamond, a heart and two clubs.

It was an impossible puzzle.

And she was wrong again, she was so close to losing her soul.

"Hehe, my…very clever" the guy without face complimented Akane's sister.

"I'll be your opponent now"

"You want to take your sister's place?"

"Sure, why not? How about we make this a game between us?" she asked the guy in front of her, but there was also the matter of her younger sister. "Sis, are you ok with this?"

Akane snapped out of her trance, and nodded, mouthing a faint be careful to her sister.

Now Nabiki took Akane's seat. This was going to be a real challenge now. Nabiki was smart and kept cool under pressure.

After some moments of silence and suspense, the strange man spoke.

"Fine, I'll allow it"

"Whether it's one or the another or anyone else, the result will be the same"

'Overconfident, aren't you?' the middle Tendo rolled her eyes.

The faceless man was intrigued, Nabiki seemed interesting, like a worthy adversary in the cunning matters of an intellectual duel.

At the same time, Cologne was concentrating to narrow the range of perception with her keen sixth sense, hoping to find the other three spiritual entities before things could get out of control.

Nabiki knew about guys like that stranger, they acted collected, calm and sure of themselves but once something didn't go as planned, their façade would start to crack.

She knew how to play her cards.

She did it once when the brunette had to recover the house and the dojo by playing against the gambling king because she perceived his tells and way of playing.

Nabiki might come as an ice queen, but she was quite astute, she was hard to read but even harder to crack. She was that person that could push someone's buttons without them even noticing. That's why even those around her were cautious when she was around.

Mess with Nabiki and end up regretting it.

"You seem more interesting…let's see if you can present a better challenge than the ones before you"

Hearing that made Akane clenched her fist in frustration and indignation.

Akane was watching things now near her friends. She felt the impotency, the embarrassing mark of failure.

'Good luck sis'

Ranma and Cologne were now at the lower right lane, Shampoo's great-grandmother felt something unusual in there.

And it was just 9:15 P.M.

'Humph'.

The evening was far from over.

End of Chapter 2, part 2.

Author's notes: Greetings everyone, Ranko here with the author's notes so let's go.

So, how are you finding the episode so far? I'll let you know a little detail, at first instance there was a totally different chapter planned for it, but there were changes to it so a new concept took its place.

Second, well, this chapter turned out too big for a second parts format so expect its conclusion in a third part (it's the first time I do this) so let's see how it goes.

Third and final, with making Ranma and Shampoo's great grand-mother team up, that was a sudden idea that came to mind and I thought, 'sure, why not?' And I think I made a not so bad dynamic with the two. Maybe there will be another instance for this 'duo' in another chapter.

And that's all, I'm already working on Chapter 4, although I've been wanting to insert another chapter before it. I want to balance narrative between multi part chapters and stand alone chapters. I managed that with 'A Lady's Quest', another story of mine, please check it out too. In the end I'll try arranging everything in the best way.

I thank you all for liking/following my story so far but please leave a review, it'll help me a lot more than you might think.

Without further ado, this has been Ranko, as usual I hope you have a great time.

Ranko out!