The disclaimer for this chapter has died. Sadly, as it has no soul, it will not be coming back via The Reaper's Game. If you try to sue me over this fanfic then you probably have no soul either.

aAaAa

Eurrrrrrghhhhhh...

A pigtail slowly rose from the ground, waving back and forth like a crimson snake as Ranma rubbed the sides of her head in an attempt to assuage a splitting headache.

"Why the hell am I in the middle of the street again... crazy ice girl... grahhhhhh..."

The frustrated martial artist surveyed her surroundings with gradually dying annoyance. Ice girl was long gone and she was back underneath what seemed to be the same building she crashed into before. In fact, looking up, she could just barely see the part of the building she'd smashed in on her way here. Looked like they were reconstructing it now... hey, wait, the sun looked like it was back in the same position it had been yesterday morning...

'Have I been asleep for an entire day?' the redhead wondered. How had they kept her under that long? Largely due to the constant threat of being thrown out the window if she didn't wake up before the panda, Ranma's internal clock was very finely tuned, and should have roused her from slumber about an hour ago given the position of the sun.

Then again, dying certainly could have thrown it off. It wasn't as if there had been many studies on the effects of death on a person's mental representation of time. 'I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do now...' Ranma mused.

Sitting back down in a meditative position, the currently-dead aquatranssexual took stock of her situation. Okay. So, she was dead, and stuck in a death game. If she won, she could come back to life. One apparently wins the game by completing a bunch of errands for the crazy pale girl running it. So, number one goal- win the game.

There were also animal things called Noise that looked like living tattoos, and they each seemed to have their own weird abilities that made killing... er, dissolving them difficult. They were in the game to... what, harass the dead people in general? Ranma thought it over. Yeah, from what she'd seen that seemed like something smiley girl would do. She was definitely sadiskick, or whatever the word was. Sadischick? Something like that.

Ranma shook her head and got back to her main train of thought. There were also jerks called reapers that liked to sic Noise on you and put up barriers, all of whom may or may not work for Smiley? It was probably best to avoid them if at all possible.

'Now what was that stuff little miss "master" told me?' Well, Entra's explanation on "psychs" hadn't helped much. The only example Ranma had seen thus far was a length of barbed wire that had come out of absolutely nowhere and tried to impale her. Didn't exactly narrow down what psychs WERE, per say. Presumably they were supposed to be used to fight the Noise?

Well, martial arts seemed to work fine on them, so evidently Ranma didn't need them. Oh, and she was supposed to get a "partner"...

"Feh, because my previous "team ups" have gone so well. I think I'll take the Noise over that." Ranma frowned. Smiley girl had said something about the Noise swarming her if she didn't grab a partner as soon as possible, so she might HAVE to deal with a ton of Noise if she didn't partner up with someone. She certainly wasn't going to permakill/erase anyone to get her own partner (who'd probably and rightfully despise her for doing something like that anyways), so it was looking like she didn't have much choice right now anyways... well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

'Lessee... that's pretty much it... aside from making sure the curse is still working, of course.' That stopped Ranma short. In addition to thinking over everything that had happened, she really needed to list out her actual priorities too, one of which was definitely getting some hot water. Standing up and cracking her back, Ranma decided to walk while thinking and hope she happened upon a shop. No reason she couldn't multitask.

Speaking aloud this time, Ranma went over her to do list. "Okay, step one- get some hot water. No way am I spending even a week as a girl if I don't have too." Ranma refused to think about the possibility her mind was whispering that dying as a girl might have stuck her as a girl for the moment. Nope. Not possible.

"Step two... ask someone where exactly I am. What city even IS this?" Ranma had seen a lot of cities before, but usually they didn't have buildings this... tall. Genma had tended to avoid areas he couldn't get out of quickly, and that had applied to most inner city areas more than a mile in. Ranma had only seen buildings this large a handful of times before, and never had she been right in the thick of them. This was going to make roof hopping rather difficult.

"Step three... grab one of the jerks in the hoodies, or better yet Smiley herself, and get them to spill on anything ELSE this game has lying in wait." Ranma had been tricked enough by this point to know that there was always SOMETHING being held back from you. Some "surprise" waiting to be shown, some trap just waiting to unfold. There was almost no chance they'd told her everything about this "game", and she intended to resolve that problem before disaster struck like it usually did.

There was also the matter of the conversation she'd had with the "Game Master" yesterday. Ranma had a feeling a lot of it would have made more sense if she'd had the proper context. "UG", a "sky filled with Noise" even though Noise were ground based from what she'd seen thus far, "shells"... none of those made any sort of sense to her. Entra herself had been pretty bizarre even discounting what she'd said, what with... what was that word for people with completely white skin and hair, albedo? Her albedo appearance and that constant "devilbeast that ate the canary" grin. Come to think of it, what had been up with those weird occasional references to cold and heat? Every time Entra had slipped one into the conversation it had been like she'd had to twist her sentences around to accommodate them. Why would anyone deliberately slip pointless temperature references into their speech, especially when it appeared she was really having to work at it to do so? Ranma frowned. Yeah, this was a weirdo on par with most of her rivals, at least. Given what Shin and Juu had said she was probably just as dangerous as them too- probably even more so given how casual she'd been about telling Ranma to kill someone off for her own sake.

Wonderful.

Ranma continued to walk through people, barely noticing she was so caught up in her thoughts. She supposed she should complete the mission today too after she grabbed some water, since while there were apparently others in this game that could clear it also, they either had absolutely no idea what they were doing yesterday or had started much farther away from the goal than Ranma had. That or those boots could only be bought at a store nowhere near the goal, and it had just taken that long to make a return trip... or maybe they'd had no money to buy the boots with? Ranma shook her head. The reasoning didn't matter, there was no way she could trust a bunch of strangers to get something done for her, not when her life was on the line. She just had to-

"Ow!"

Ranma looked down at her hand, abruptly jolted from her thoughts by the mission clock's appearance on her palm.

"Well, that's great, so now I have to-"

Suddenly Ranma realized that she had a major problem. Namely, that she didn't have a cell phone.

"...well that's just stupid." Ranma fumed at the injustice of seemingly screwing over everyone that didn't have a cell phone on them when they died. That... really didn't make sense. What use did SHE have for a cell phone? In fact, it struck Ranma as extremely unlikely that everyone else in the game would have one. Sure they were useful for getting help in emergencies, but all they did aside from that was let people bother you even when AWAY from you and maybe tell the time, IF that. They were also huge, clunky, and hard to keep on your person without a bag. Useless.

Come to think of it... she'd been a bit overwhelmed with everything else yesterday, but Shin and Juu's phones, and for that matter the phone of the girl she'd poked holes through yesterday, had looked way more advanced than anything Ranma had ever seen before. She really didn't know much about technology, but... looking around, Ranma realized the people on the street were using the same, miniature kind that Shin had shown her. They were easily recognizable as phones, what with everyone holding them to their head and talking, not to mention the number pads she could see, but Ranma was pretty sure she'd never seen that sort of phone back in Nerima. Apparently this city was also further ahead on the technology curve than most places she'd been. Shin had also used the word "texted"... what was that even supposed to mean?

Ranma shook her head. There was no point thinking about it now when there was no one around to answer such questions. She supposed she'd have to go find someone else playing the game who DID have a cell phone then... hot water first though.

Looking up to see where her aimless walking had taken her, Ranma found herself walking right past an absolutely enormous building, with signs outside advertising it as...

"Cool, a mall? There is no WAY they don't have hot water in there."

Almost giggling with glee, Ranma ran in and sprang into the first store she saw... or at least tried too. Before she could actually make it inside what looked to be a pharmacy, Ranma caromed off a barrier similar to the kind she had seen use yesterday to block the path.

Staring in disbelief from her current position on the floor, Ranma's expression quickly soured. "Oh yeah, I forgot..." she muttered angrily, flopping down on the floor while people obliviously stepped through her. "No entering shops unless they've got the stupid squiggly symbol on 'em. Great..." Those walls HURT. They seemed to completely ignore any physical resistance and send the shock of hitting them straight to the... soul? Spirit? Ranma wasn't sure, but she did know that had hurt way more than a normal wall would have. In fact, a normal one she could have plowed through with just a little more effort than Ryouga or Shampoo. Maybe she could circumvent-

'Wait, is that...'

There, above a nearby doorframe to what looked to be a food shop, was a small, barely visible tattoo, identical in all but size to the one Shin had pointed out yesterday.

'Sneaky bastards...' Ranma thought to herself. Even someone with environmental awareness on par with hers would have had a hard time seeing that, let alone the average shmuck who just happened to get trapped in this demented (not to mention utterly ridiculous) game.

Entering the store with no problems, Ranma looked around for a restroom she could use to return to male form. However, the store didn't seem to have any doors besides the one she'd come in from. Ranma frowned. There went Plan A. On to plan B- ask the clerk, because logically they couldn't possibly be stuck in this store without a bathroom all day.

Banzai Ayanokoji looked up from his paper to see a pretty, red haired girl walking towards him. He put on a less stern expression before she made it to him; never hurt to be nice to the customers, at least for the pretty ones. She was a bit young to be buying food from here though, unless she was picking it up for someone else. "Is there something I can do for you, young lady?"

Suppressing an instinctual snarl at the "young lady" part, Ranma gave a weak smile. "Hello kind sir, is there a restroom in back I could use, please?" she asked respectfully, hoping that would win her some points with this guy. From what she could tell of his body language, he was one of those "stern, gruff old man" types that never seemed to think you were being reverent enough of their age, so it was probably for the best if she didn't tick him off with a greeting of "Hey old timer, got a bathroom back there I could use?"

The shopkeeper shook his head. "Yes, there's one in the back, but I'm afraid I can't really let you use it miss. Employees only. Try the pharmacy next door, I believe they have some public toilets."

Ranma's plastered on grin wavered a little, already knowing she couldn't possibly do that. "Oh... are you suuuure you can't make an exception just this once? Pleeeease?" the redhead fake-pleaded, switching from "respectful" to "kicked puppy" in a matter of seconds. Fake tears brimming at the edges of huge, puppy dog eyes, combined with a quivering lip and some withdrawn body language- Ranma had this scam down to a fine art.

Banzai scowled. As if he hadn't seen young girls try THAT kind of maneuver before. He'd been tricked by his wife enough times to know when to look away. Returning to his paper, the old man hid his face before answering. "No. This isn't a place for kids, girl. Go somewhere else."

Ranma scowled, dropping her cutesy act. Apparently this oldster was wise to that sort of trick. But for all she knew this could be the only store around with that tattoo, and she didn't really want to go searching the mall, especially given her current time limit...

Well, one last try, and if that didn't work she'd just vault over the counter and use the bathroom before he could possibly stop her. "Well then, in that case could I please have some hot water, sir?"

The shopkeeper was a bit befuddled at this request. "What do you need hot water for exactly? There's no tea shop around here."

"Er... I can't really explain..." Ranma knew Nerima was sort of an oddity when it came to just accepting magic as a part of life. In other places, like the villages Genma had made them travel through on their way back from China and the various locales he'd ended up traveling to via mallet, the locals tended to call her crazy if she told them she wanted the hot water so she could change back into a guy. Ranma sincerely doubted she'd get anything out of this guy if she told him WHY she needed it. The "Vault, Splash, and Run" plan was looking more and more likely like her best course of action right now.

"Er... how about, if you get me some, I can show you why I need it." Ranma eventually stuttered out, mentally sighing. This was getting tiresome. What exactly was the big deal about getting someone some water?

Banzai's eyebrows narrowed. She wouldn't tell him why she needed it... and while he wasn't one to poke into other people's business, whatever she needed it for almost certainly wasn't something good if she couldn't even speak it aloud. Maybe she was going to throw it all over the food or something? This girl needed to leave. "If you want a glass of hot water it'll cost you 5000 yen. Take it or leave it." If that didn't drive her off he'd just stop talking to her at all; she'd have to leave eventually.

Ranma gaped, aware that it was a ploy to make her leave but incredulous at the price the man had just listed all the same. Yeah, forget this guy. "Okay, sure. I'll pay that."

Banzai looked up in disbelief. "You're willing to pay 5000 yen for wa-"

Smoothly vaulting over the counter past a startled Banzai, Ranma sprinted through the back of the store towards the easily spotted restroom with Banzai in hot... er, warm... uh... perhaps lukewarm pursuit. Give him a break, he's old.

Locking herself in, Ranma turned on the sink and splashed herself the moment the water got warm. Relief flooded through him as his hair returned to black and his body grew in height. It appeared dying did not lock the curse as he had originally feared.

He exited the room to the sight of a raging Banzai, which quickly turned from anger to puzzlement as he realized this was not the girl who he'd just chased back here. Whoever this kid was didn't have any right being here either, but he'd deal with him after the girl. "Oy, whoever you are, did a red haired girl just run in there?"

Grinning, Ranma decided to reply truthfully. "Yep, that was me. S'what I needed the hot water for old man. Bye now!" Running back the way he'd come, Ranma returned to the storefront and turned to seeing a huffing and puffing old man run/jog in, confusion and anger written on his face.

Thinking of the price the old guy had named for water, the now male Ranma began rifling through his pockets. Just how much DID he have anyways? He had said yesterday that he had no money to buy the boots with, but he hadn't actually checked. Maybe- nope, Nabiki had frisked all of it at some point. He was totally broke. Wait, no, there was something-

Turning towards Banzai, Ranma smirked, pulling the black pin from yesterday out of his pocket and holding it up for Banzai to see. "Just so ya' know, this is the only thing I got in my pockets. All my yen's been long since taken or stolen, so if you thought for even a second-"

Suddenly, the world froze, surroundings fading into nothingness. While the people remained, they had seemingly stopped in place. Or, at least, were moving very slowly, as people's legs still seemed to be moving by the tiniest amount towards destinations that didn't seem to exist anymore. Sound was muted, muffled as if coming through a wall before reaching Ranma's ears. And there were giant floating red symbols floating in the sky.

Ranma's first thoughts at these new developments could be boiled down to a single sentence-

'...Am I ever gonna get a break?!'

iIiIi

AN: Slight revision for better prose.

A bit short but I think that's a good place to stop. Also, if you prefer, the last sentence can be exchanged with "Awwwww shit.".

So, curse problem- solved! Reapers Game problem(s)- still huge, numerous, and Ranma doesn't even know the half of them yet. Hehehe...

Yeah, this entire chapter was basically just getting Ranma's take on the situation s/he is currently faced with and the activation of the player pin. The discovery that the curse isn't locked is negligible, could've been done any time really. But apparently even small stories like this one get complaints about Ranma being "locked" when that's never been stated as truth so much as speculation, and this was really as good a time as any to remedy that. Besides, Ranma doesn't want to spend much time in his girl form anyways, so it made enough sense to do this little scene now.

All other questions may or may not be handled next chapter. I did sort of lie about there being more Ranma stuff this chapter, and may have to continue doing so for now, as the setup for this may be a bit different from what you're thinking... but I have thought at least most of everything out. So, next chapter will be more plot, and hopefully some explanation.

Oh, and someone pointed out that the story really needs more of a hook than "Ranma ends up in the Reaper's Game"- yep, you're right. And there is one. We're getting there, sorry it's taking so long. I am actually attempting to do more than that above description! Honest! I have a five page planning document that's only getting larger! Just wait!