Shockingly, I do not in fact own Ranma or TWEWY! Why did nobody TELL me?!

yYyYy

The couple gaped at her.

The boy started speaking before the girl could even get her mouth to close. "Um... wow, you caught on way quicker than we did. Yeah, we're dead, apparently. At least, from what we were told and remember."

Ranma's face settled into a scowl. She had been desperately hoping her guess had been wrong. It figured that Akane was the one to do her in, but she'd always thought it would be the food...

Dead. Huh.

This was a new one.

"This can't POSSIBLY be what happens after death." Ranma bitterly muttered to herself. "Running around in a city where no one can see, touch, or hear you, and weird tattoo frogs terrorize you with bubbles? That's DEFINITELY not right. For all I suffered and managed not to snap I should be being rewarded like a freaking SAINT. Guess that explains the total lack of ki though...no life energy if you're dead..."

Ignoring Ranma's muttering, the girl, finally having regained her composure, spoke up. "Um, how did you defeat that Noise without a partner?"

Ranma turned to stare at the girl, baffled by that statement but willing to talk about anything if it got her mind off the subject of her recent deceased status. "I take it those frogs were called Noise? Not sure I understand your question. I kicked the one and threw the other high enough that it got smashed by the pavement coming back down. Rather weird that they turned into static, but what do I know about death?"

The girl still looked confused. "But... what pin allows..." She trailed off, apparently too shy to ask her question.

Ranma just shrugged in her best "fake nonchalant" manner, ignoring the cryptic statement and turning back to think over her current situation. She couldn't avoid it, no matter how much she might want too. There was no point in distracting herself from it either- this wasn't a problem she could just hope would go away or grin and bear until the situation defused for the day. This was the most permanent bad situation in existence. Death.

Crap, what was she supposed to do about death? Ranma had never really considered the possibility- she was Ranma Saotome. Death was something that could be outrun, put off, avoided as long as you could beat your opponent... well, maybe not forever, but given that Cologne and Happosai were going on 300 or so, 16 pushing 17 seemed WAY too early to die.

Ranma cursed at the hopelessness of it all. There had to be SOMETHING good she could drag out of this situation, right?! Surely life couldn't be so cruel as to leave her with NOTHING after everything she'd gone through.

Ranma thought through what she knew about ghosts. Well, she had no need for food, right? Okay no, that was actually a bad thing. Ranma rather liked food and was already missing Kasumi's cooking. She could haunt people? But what would be the point? Maybe she could be a benevolent spirit and tell someone to send a message to the Tendo Dojo to tell them what hap- wait, no, she couldn't do anything to the living world. Arrrrghhhhh...

Wait... oh hell, she just HAD to die in girl form didn't she? Stupid tomboy; who knew if she could even change back in the afterlife?! Would hot water just pass through her? It probably would! Did she have to spend the rest of eternity stuck as a girl?! 'No, I'm not even going to consider that possibility. There HAS to be a way to switch back, at least. Surely I can at least catch THAT small a break after death.' Ranma thought to herself.

Thinking it best to learn everything she could about her situation, though still holding back the urge to panic, Ranma turned to question the pair whose names she still didn't know. They were just staring at her now, completely befuddled by her silence. Turning to the boy, she started, trying to sound less... scared, than she actually was. Men weren't supposed to be scared of anything, after all.

"So... what do the dead do? And why do we get attacked by frog things? Because I did NOT sign up for that."

The couple continued to stare. The boy spoke up after a few seconds, a little disturbed. "How are you so... CALM? I freaked out for a good ten minutes when I found out! In fact, that was at least half an hour ago and I'm certainly not CALM about it! We are, basically, in HELL! And you're acting like you just woke up on an unexpected vacation!"

Ranma laughed on the inside. Calm? She only looked calm. She most certainly was not as calm as she may have looked to them. Though, come to think of it, given her daily life this WAS something of a vacation...

Ah! There was something! Dying got rid of a whole lot of unpleasant obligations! No fiancee brigade, no stupid panda, no being force fed poison or being blackmailed or getting trapped in situations entirely not her fault and being expected to fix them, right?

Not that being DEAD was exactly preferable, but given that this was about the only silver lining in sight Ranma decided to cling to that thought like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Grinning at the one good thought and looking totally insane to her two conversation partners, Ranma came up with a perfect answer to the boy's question.

"I know someone who claims to have seen Hell. He knows nothing about Hell. I'VE seen Hell. It involves curses, lots of people teetering on the brink of being batshit insane in one way or another, rampant and sometimes utterly moronic magic, dozens of conflicting and unwanted engagements, and a dash of low level orbit cross-city travel. This ain't Hell kid. It's just my life. Or death, now, I guess."

The gaping was back, this time in slack jawed-raised eyebrow format. Ranma was getting REAL tired of that expression, but then again that claim did deserve such reactions anywhere outside of Nerima. It was time to get the conversation back on track from where she'd derailed it though. "That wasn't an answer to my question ya' know. What do dead people do?"

Now the pair was staring at each other. What was WITH the staring and gaping, didn't these two talk? 'Apparently only when I'm not paying attention...' Ranma mused.

The pair turned back to her. "You don't know about the game?" They said simultaneously.

Ranma had a strong urge to slap her own forehead in exasperation. "Okay, look, can we just assume that I know literally NOTHING about being dead? Because internally I'm kind of freaking out about this, I'd ALREADY had a horrible day prior to smashing into a building, and I only woke up ten minutes ago. So if you'd please just EXPLAIN everything you know to me I would really, REALLY appreciate it." Ranma said through clenched teeth.

The couple backed up at her rather angry sounding words. "Uh, sorry, we just sort of assumed that since you destroyed the Noise... we should really introduce ourselves." The boy gestured to himself. "I'm Shin, and that's Juu. We only woke up about 30 minutes ago, but a 'Reaper' gave us a summary of what's going on."

"He was the one who explained that we were dead..." The girl (apparently named Juu) spoke up again before seemingly shrinking back into herself.

"Right. But, as was explained to me after my freak out, we don't have to stay that way." Shin added. "See, by dying, we've all been automatically entered in to something called 'The Reaper's Game'. We'll get a mission each day that gets texted to us through our cellphones, which is sent by the "Game Master", who I guess is the boss Reaper-"

"Sorry, but you keep saying the word, what's a Reaper?" Ranma cut in. "'Cause judging by how you're using the word I'm gonna assume they ain't literally death manifest."

Shin paused. "They're... er... well, they're not exactly death harbingers, they just sort of run things around here? There's some sort of power structure going on but the guy didn't make it all that clear. The important thing is they can do a lot of crazy things, and they run this game for all us newly dead people. Supposedly, if we get through seven days of it, we get to come back to life!"

Ranma's eyes lit up. Wait, so if she won this "game", that meant... she could cheat death? That changed everything she had been thinking over for the past few minutes. She could go back to... well, okay, she needed to fix her screwed up life when she got back to Nerima, assuming she even managed to get back at all, but at least she'd be alive again. Also assuming that whoever this "Reaper" guy was had been telling the truth, and ALSO assuming that this wasn't all some sort of hallucination brought on by either a major blow to the head or Akane's cooking, hell she could be in a COMA right now for all she actually knew-

She shook her head to rid herself of those depressing thoughts. Thinking like that was not conducive towards coming back to life, and even if there were probably other caveats to this whole "coming back to life" thing, it HAD to be better than being dead. Yeah, she could get out of this. Heck, she'd gotten out of situations way worse before! Death? Hah! Not even death could stop Ranma Saotome!

Slowly building up momentum, Ranma raised her head to the sky with a fist held high. "I'm Ranma Saotome, and I certainly ain't gonna let smashing into a building be my cause of death! That's not NEARLY cool enough to be what finally does me in! It's not impossible to come back from this, and I ain't gonna stop 'til I'm back alive like I should be! Beat a game to come back to life?! That ain't any different than martial arts!"

Ranma smirked, knowing exactly what to follow that statement with.

"...and Ranma Saotome DON'T lose."

Now that she had a goal to focus on, Ranma's eyes blazed with determination and re-found confidence. Rounding on Shin, she spoke once more. "So, we don't have to STAY dead if we win? Bring it! I don't care what it takes, I'm comin' back to life if it kills me two times over! What's this mission? Kill some more of those frog things? I can do that easy."

Shin shook his head, rather fascinated at how quickly this girl switched moods. "No... the mission for today was this." He handed Ranma his cell phone, the screen alight with a message.

Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure.

PS. Oh, and pick me up some size 6 women's black combat boots on the way. If you don't, you automatically fail.

The Reapers

...

The first mission in a game that would let ghosts return to life was a glorified SHOPPING ERRAND?!

"You've got to be kidding me. These 'Reapers' are having us do their CHORES?" Ranma stood dumbstruck at the lunacy of that. Then she scowled.

"Wait, is this a joke?! An impossible mission?! We can't buy anything now, we're DEAD! We can't talk to anyone or touch anything, nor do we have any money!" Now Ranma was pissed. These "reapers" had given them an impossible mission, given them the hope to live but then pulled it out from under them by-

Juu chose that moment to speak again. "Actually, w-we can still touch things, and people can even still see us... but only if we're in a shop marked with that symbol." She quickly gestured to a nearby jewelry shop marked with an odd black mark on its outside, almost immediately retracting her hand and beginning to fiddle with something in the pocket of her red hoodie.

Ranma's eye twitched. This was... far too reminiscent of Nerima for her liking. Even in death, it seemed people just threw all their problems at her and expected her to fix them... though thankfully this was rather minor in comparison to her daily problems.

Wait, if she could become solid, even temporarily, then that meant... 'I might be able to change back...' Ranma grinned. She may be dead, but aside from that things were actually looking up. "So I guess I need to go steal some boots then?" She asked, addressing the pair facing her.

"Oh no, you're good." The boy said, holding up a bag that had been lying on the ground. "See, we already got them before we came here, and as long as one pair of players finishes, so do all the others. So assuming we don't get erased along the way to the 104 Building, you'll pass too."

His face brightened. "Thanks again for saving us from that by the way, we still haven't gotten the hang of using our psychs."

"Psychs? And what, you mean the frogs? No problem. But how were those gonna 'erase' you?" Ranma questioned.

Shin's mouth settled into a grimace. "Those frogs are called Noise. I don't know how they exist, but along with the Reapers, they essentially try to make you double die. That's what 'Erasure' is- REAL death. I don't know what happens when you get erased and I don't really want to find out. But since later missions might involve killing some Noise, we figured we should practice our psychs a bit since we still had some time left after picking up those boots... as you saw, we're still having trouble with that."

Ranma shivered just a bit. Great, just when she'd thought she couldn't possibly be hurt as just a spirit, it turned out there was an even DEEPER level of death one could end up in. It was probably best to be cautious then... at least these "Noise" didn't seem too tough. All the same, that only answered one question. "Okay, got it, be careful around giant frogs. I still have no idea what these 'Psychs' ar-"

Juu, now staring at her hand, suddenly blanched. "Shin, we've got less than ten minutes left! We need to get to 104 right now!"

Shin looked startled before staring at his hand as well and cursing. "Damn, you're right. ...you're Ranma, right? You coming with us? We could use the help if a Reaper jumps us- unlikely as that is on the first day, we did have to deal with one that demanded Juu put on that hoodie before we could get through. If one of them sends out Noise like we were told they apparently do, we're gonna be in huge trouble."

"Um... sure, I'll come, but why are you guys staring at your..." Ranma trailed off as she stared at her own palm. Seemingly embedded in her right hand were black numbers reading 9:34, which were slowly ticking down even as she watched. "WHAT THE HELL?!" Ranma yelled.

Shin had already started running, along with Juu. "I told you there was a time limit! Sorry but we can't explain any more right now, and you need to make sure you find a partner!"

"Hey! Wait up!" Ranma took off after them, easily catching up. "Fine, I'll accept that there's now a tattoo of a timer stuck in my hand for now, but what's this about a partner? I get that you guys are paired up, but why do I have ta'? What's it do for me?"

Shin attempted to say something, but since he was running it came out in gasps. "You need a partner- to use psychs! *gasp* But it didn't seem- to help me and Juu- very much earlier! *gasp* Just wait until- we've made it to 104!"

Something about that sentence seemed off to Ranma. It came to her pretty quickly- "Wait, where was Juu fighting? I didn't see her at all..."

Shin just shook his head, breathing too heavily to say much right now. Apparently he was more out of shape than he looked.

Slightly less out of breath, Juu boggled at Ranma's speed. "Woah, you sure are fast..."

"This is actually pretty slow for me, but I take it you two ain't martial artists so I see whatcha mean." Ranma shot back conversationally, cutting in front of the pair and beginning to run backwards. "I mean if I knew where this building was, I could just-" SMASH

Having been running backwards, Ranma had hit some sort of barrier, which she had smashed directly into back first. Not that she could have been blamed even if she had been facing forwards, seeing as how the barrier was invisible.

The sound of laughter convinced Ranma to peel her face off the ground. Looking up, she stared into the face of... well actually no, she didn't stare into anyone's face. The man's entire head was covered by his combination of a gray hoodie and a red bandana which hid his lower face. Black, tattoo-like wings extended from his upper back. "Ohhh man, every single player ever, HA! That will never get old..."

Shin and Juu groaned, having caught up after Ranma had crashed. "Ohhhh no, another one of you guys? I thought the first day was supposed to be easy!" Juu said at the loudest volume Ranma had heard her speak at thus far.

The man smirked. Or at least Ranma was pretty sure he did. She could practically FEEL the smugness exuding from this guy. "Sorry kid, what can I say? The new Game Master's a real bitch. Selfish little brat but she sure laid out a gauntlet for you all. Besides, I gotta live too, and if I don't erase anyone I'm dead. You understand."

Ranma stared coldly at man's hood. Brushing herself off, she quickly got to her feet. "So, I take it you're one a' those reaper guys I've been hearing so much about?"

Another twitch of the bandana indicating a smirk. "Got that right girly. I'm a harrier reaper, and it's my job to narrow down the crop of weakass players until only the ones that deserve their reward are left by the end of the week. And seeing as how I can tell you somehow still don't have a partner, I've got a feeling you're gonna be my next prey."

Ranma bristled and cracked her knuckles, a vein that had been getting a lot of use during the past year beginning to once again bulge on her head. This guy was an ass. "Oh, 'Girly' and 'prey' am I? Maybe you should think twice about that..." Ranma rushed forward, intent on, well, not actually hurting the guy given that he hadn't done anything besides mock her, but certainly showing him she was in no way either of those things, maybe throwing a few too-fast-to-see punches at the space in front of his head.

"Ranma, don't!" Shin interjected right as Ranma started in. The martial artist's fist intentionally paused about an inch from the reaper's face as her head swiveled around. "We can't get past that wall unless he chooses to take it down!" Shin finished, seeing that she was listening. Ranma gave a false cocky laugh. "Well then, he can choose to take it down after I've clocked him, right?"

Despite the proximity of Ranma's fist to his head, the reaper barely reacted aside from a humorless chuckle. "Afraid that's not how it works. You've got some spunk, but that's useless without a partner or pins, since you can't erase any Noise. I'm actually kind of impressed you're still here without a partner, usually not having one while in the game usually means automatic erasure after a few minutes. Or did your partner get erased just now? I guess I can see why that might happened, if they had Little Red for a partner..."

Growling, Ranma pulled her fist back. Well, that didn't work, and her anger was rising. She was NOT about to stand here and let herself get mocked by this guy even if they did need him standing for the moment. "Little. RED?! For your information, I haven't had a partner at all, and the second this wall goes down you're goin' down with it! I don't need no partner or pins to kick your ass!"

The reaper ignored her and turned to give another bandana-concealed smirk at Shin and Juu before speaking again. "Well, you better hope that your friends here figured out psychs quick, because if they can't defeat my Noise then you're shit outta luck. You certainly can't do it without either of the two essentials, especially seeing as how you've got less than ten minutes left before you get erased automatically by the time limit expiring. I get more time alive if my Noise defeats you though, so I'd prefer you get erased by me. Are you ready for this?"

"G- give us a minute!" Shin said rather haltingly. Gesturing Ranma over, he brought the group into a sort of huddle to discuss a plan of attack. If it could be called that. "Ranma, Juu and I still haven't figured out psychs, as you may have noticed from our earlier 'fight'. But you took the Noise out no problem; think you can do it again?" Shin whispered.

"Sure thing. I don't know what this guy is goin' on about needin' a partner or pins or whatever these psychs are to beat down frogs, sure didn't seem like I needed any of those to get rid of the others." Ranma whispered back.

Shin smiled. "Great; thanks for doing this Ranma, we owe you."

"Yeah, we definitely do." Juu added.

They broke the huddle and walked back towards the harrier reaper who seemed to be counting seconds via snaps of his fingers. "Five minutes left. Still gonna try? I can summon the Noise at any time."

"Just bring them out so I can get rid of them and be done here." Ranma grumbled.

"Heh, so you're gonna go out by suicide rather than waiting out the timer? Whatever Red, all the better for me."

The harrier reaper snapped his fingers a final time and disappeared. The water-but-not-water feeling swept over Ranma again, and growls sounded from all around her as her opponents appeared. Ranma's eyes widened as she stared down no less than six wolves, their graffiti-like tails waving behind them as they quickly surrounded her.

"O... kay, so this might be a LITTLE tougher than I thought it would be..."

rRrRr

AN: Revised to add a little more depth to Ranma's thought process here, she seemed way to nonchalant about DEATH the first time around. Also, it's never really explained- is the seven minute limit a point at which erasure just "comes" to them, or is it the point at which Noise start to swarm someone, guaranteeing their erasure? Both are supposedly consequences of not having a pact (and Ranma's seeming immunity to this WILL be explained later), but does anyone know what specifically the threat is?