I do not own Ranma. You do not own Ranma. According to most of the people in the series Ranma HIMSELF does not own Ranma. Look, the subject of who owns Ranma is in dispute, alright?

TWEWY, on the other hand, just plain ain't mine. As if that was ever in question.

AN: The story underwent some rewriting to make it read a little better, so a reread is recommended. We aren't that far in yet; it won't take too long...

sSsSs

The pigtailed boy leapt back through the blue area, putting as much distance as he could between the floating red symbols and himself. Shoving the pin back in his pocket, Ranma landed in a battle ready position and prepared himself for the worst.

The symbols... just sort of floated.

Ranma waited, but after a minute or two of nothing he couldn't take it anymore and faked a dropping of his guard, just to see if the things would react. They didn't, so Ranma relaxed... partially. The hovering red and black tattoos weren't doing anything, which was nice and all, but there was no way he could trust they'd stay that way. This was undoubtedly another weird "game" thing he knew nothing about and hadn't been explained. So... what was he supposed to do here, besides hopefully get out?

Well, he didn't have any "psychs", so he was going to have to hope those weren't needed here. He wasn't going to try touching the things either, since they'd probably do... SOMETHING bad if he did. Burn him, attack him, eat him- he needed to expect the worst. He had no ranged attacks now that he had no ki, so what did he have left?

Ranma looked around the now blue environment. Maybe there was something he could use here? If there was, it was well hidden, Ranma could see nothing but blueness, red floating tattoo symbol things, and very, VERY slowly moving people outside where the door of the store used to be.

Ugh, these new shoes! My heels are killing me... The fronts are really long, so I bought a size smaller than usual. Urg, bad idea.

"...what the...?" Ranma momentarily forgot about his current predicament due to what seemed to be someone's voice sounding inside his head. All he had been doing was staring at some woman whose expression had been caught in a rather hilarious position, somewhere between nervousness and constipation. And he was pretty sure he had just heard her thoughts.

To test this hypothesis, he stared intently at a random girl who he was pretty sure had been blocked out of view by the store's wall a few minutes ago.

My Pegaso room is starting to overflow. Maybe it's time to build another extension for closet space...

Ranma blankly stared off into the blue abyss. "Yep, I'm reading people's minds. This game is insane."

Well, that was a cool ability, but he'd gladly take getting back to the city he'd been in over wherever he was now, even if he could hear people's thoughts here.

Though, maybe if someone had the city's name on the brain...

Ranma looked over a few more people, finding thoughts on fashion, dating, and something called Tin Pin before eventually finding what he wanted.

Shibuya's so crowded.

I wish I could throw on some ninja garb and just leap from rooftop to rooftop.

Aw, but I already wore mine on Tuesday...

Ranma grinned a bit at that one. He could relate. In fact he had to go try that when he got out of here- hopefully the roofs of buildings weren't blocked the way that store had been.

Still, at least this had been helpful, he knew where he was now. Shibuya... well, he'd never been here, and he was pretty sure he'd only heard the name once or twice in passing, but once he was back to life he'd at least be able to figure out which way he should be heading to get back to Nerima.

That didn't help him get out of here though. And he didn't really want to touch those red things... maybe he could get out of here without actually doing anything to the symbols? Boy, wouldn't that be a surprise, getting somewhere WITHOUT fighting? It was practically an impossibility, at least in Ranma's experience.

Ranma mulled his predicament over. "Okay, even in a game THIS ridiculous, there has to be some sorta reason I'm here. I didn't see any of those reaper guys so I don't think it was them, unless my situational awareness is really just THAT out of shape without ki sensing. No one else was here except the old guy, who was still in the process of gapin' at me. So how did I get..."

He suddenly groaned at the obviousness of it all. Fishing the black pin out of his pocket, Ranma resisted the urge to smack himself for not realizing a few minutes ago. He'd been holding this little trinket and talking about it right before he ended up here. It was probably what got him here, and thus likely his best chance at getting out.

"Hmm, so how do I use this...?" All he'd done the first time was hold it up and look at it, so...

Ranma concentrated on the pin, and the world fell back into motion and color. Banzai was still panting at the counter, looking at him.

"Huh. Well, that was about par for the course." Ranma said to himself as he sprinted out the door. He'd deal with this after he got out of range of the confused and likely angry store owner.

Banzai gaped as he suddenly lost track of the raven haired teen just a second after he ran out the entrance. Had... had that boy just disappeared? This wasn't the first time someone had seemingly vanished after exiting his store, but he'd brushed it off the other few times as just losing them in the crowd. However, the crowd was light today; he had clearly seen that boy run out and disappear just a few yards away... and that boy had been a girl a few minutes ago... maybe it was time to get a new location. That, or an eye exam.

nNnNn

Outside the shopping center, Ranma contemplated this new development, looking at the pin from every angle. He was taking care to not examine it TOO hard, lest he get sucked in to the blue world and be unable to get out this time. It seemed like an ordinary pin, albeit with a weird, stylized design, that Ranma now recognized as very similar to the style of the emblems he'd seen adorning the shops from yesterday and just now, as well as the red and black things. Yep, this was definitely part of the "game"- as if there had been any doubt about that.

"Hmm... guess I should just get rid of this." Ranma said to himself. "This game thing is complex enough without adding THIS to it."

However, just before Ranma was about to chuck the pin away, a pair of thoughts occurred. The first was that this was possibly one of those "psychs" he'd had to hear about all of yesterday. It probably wasn't the best idea to throw it away, even if he didn't think he'd need it. Maybe someone else could use it, even if he didn't want it- next time he saw Shin or Juu, he could ask them.

The second was that despite the constant presence of the weird floaty symbol things, the pin had let him read minds. And also basically stopped time. No matter what he thought of this game, it wouldn't be smart to toss an item that granted an ability like that. But if he wanted to use that, he'd have to practice and make sure he could use it correctly...

Ranma shrugged and re-pocketed the pin. He could practice whatever this was later if he wanted. For now, he needed to find someone else that was playing who could tell him what the today's mission was. Hopefully it wasn't more chores.

oOoOo

Fifteen minutes ago...

Elsewhere, a purple haired girl in a red hoodie and a green haired boy with a frustrated expression were discussing current events. They had just woken up outside what looked to be a concert hall, and since the mission wasn't here yet they had time to discuss amongst themselves.

"...yes, Juu, I know we should probably see if we can find Ranma again, but we also need to learn how to fend for ourselves. We can't rely on her forever, right?"

The purple hair and red hood covered Juu's entire face, but Shin could still recognize the shaky nod he received. "Glad you agree. Come on, brighten up! Let's see if we can get these stupid pins to work. The ones we got to begin with are supposed to be ones we can definitely use, aren't they? So it must just be that we're doing something wrong. Let's go fight a test battle or two, then when it shows up we can get to the mission and finding Ranma."

Looking away for a moment, Shin allowed himself a brief frown. Damn, she still didn't remember... and that was probably how it was going to stay assuming the info that reaper had given them yesterday was correct. This was harder than he'd thought it would be...

A sharp pain flashed on his hand. Grimacing and holding it up, Shin could see that the mission clock had started up again. "Guess it's here..." he mumbled as he took out his phone. "Well, we can still practice, we've got a while after a-"

Shin's face froze in disbelief, paling at what he was reading in the new text message. This was...! They were just Normal players...! They couldn't...!

He turned to see Juu staring at her phone in a similar manner, trembling like a leaf in the wind. "S-shin, are you sure we can't..." she trailed off.

Shin shook his head. "Juu, I take it back. You're right, let's go find Ranma first."

Eliminate five teams of Noise. No psychs allowed. You have three hours. Fail and get iced.

The Reapers

tTtTt

"...ya know, you wouldn't think it'd be too hard to find people fighting weird tattoo animals in the street that no one else can see." Ranma grumbled. Maybe that wasn't as regular a thing around here as yesterday had seemed to indicate. He'd been walking around for at least twenty minutes and hadn't found anyone else that could see him. Attempting to roof hop hadn't worked- without ki he could still jump a good amount upward, but it wasn't even high enough to get on a roof in Nerima, let alone the buildings here. So he was stuck on the ground, trying to find another player and growing less and less hopeful that this plan would work by the minute. He'd started running after the first five minutes, and yelled if there was anyone who could see or hear him a good dozen times, but nope. Nothing. He hadn't even found one of those reaper guys to demand info from. The clock was ticking away...

Well, maybe it was time to try practicing that pin thing. Couldn't hurt to have a "psych", certainly, and running around had just led him in circles and into the occasional wall. Maybe if he waited around here long enough someone would find him? He was tired of running in to walls. Those things were painful. He needed to figure out a way to know where those were BEFORE running into them.

Ranma took out the pin again. It had been pretty easy to activate the first time... all he had to was was look at it and concentrate. And he'd gotten back pretty easily last time, so it seemed unlikely he would get trapped there...

A few seconds later, the world had dropped away again, replaced by the blue void, its ground filled with very slow people and its sky filled with glyphs.

"Alright, let's see..." Ranma tried a few basic katas and found no problems in performance. Looked like he could still function at full strength and speed (well, full minus ki) even when everything else was slowed down. He did seem to be unable to move past a certain point, though it was more like sliding off a certain perimeter than hitting a wall... then again, he could be running in to a building for all he knew, given that he couldn't see any of the actual structures. It would probably be best to get around without having this on so he could see where he was going.

Now, he just needed something to fight and see if they were slowed down by this place...

He stared warily up at the symbol-laden sky. Those were PROBABLY some sort of enemy... but could he even fight those? They looked two-dimensional.

Only one way to find out...

With a powerful kick off the ground, Ranma was in the air and next to a symbol that looked like... honestly he had no idea, it was completely alien in shape. 'Here goes nothing!' Ranma thought to himself as he flipped and kicked the floating glyph.

Suddenly there was a flash of white, and the odd water like feeling swept over Ranma again as he found himself standing back on the street, the blue void gone. Three of the wolves from yesterday were standing around him, looking almost confusedly at the pigtailed boy.

'Well, that explains what the tattoos are...' Ranma mentally groused. So that was what Smiley had meant by "a sky filled with Noise". Figured that he'd get wolves instead of the easy to beat frogs. He quickly sprang out of the center of the wolves and moved in to an attack stance.

The wolves did not move.

What is going on?

Why is this one attacking?

This one has no reason to fight.

We have no reason to fight.

This one is not like the ones who hurt us.

We must multiply. We must eat.

We should not eat this one.

This one and we should not fight.

Ranma looked on with an expression of bafflement as the wolves started walking in the opposite direction, ignoring him completely. "Uh..." Well that was unexpected. From what he'd seen so far these things just attacked whoever they saw, so why not now? Did they just think he was too strong for them? The ones from yesterday had jumped at him without a second thought... though they had been sent out by that reaper guy, so maybe that was a special case.

The martial artist abandoned his position and rubbed the back of his head, a bit indecisive about what to do. "Huh... seems wrong to attack something that ain't attackin' me first..." It felt too much like he was taking on the role of his rivals or fiancees back in Nerima for his taste, even when the opponent was a pack of wolves.

Well, he didn't really need to attack them per say, but he at least needed to test out if the time slow thing worked on these things. There was no point to practicing with this "psych" if it didn't do anything.

Ranma took the pin out of the pocket he'd shoved it in while practicing earlier. Concentrate, and...

Nothing. No void, no symbols, no time slowing down.

"Figures..." Ranma sighed, not entirely surprised. It had been entirely too good to be true. The thing didn't work during fights, which was one of the only times he could think of where decelerating time would be useful, at least while he was in this game. Probably didn't work on those reaper guys either.

He turned his attention away from the pin. The wolves were gone. Looked like he didn't need to fight them after all.

It appeared that the pin was... well, not useless, but far less useful than he'd thought it might have the potential to be. Maybe it would come in handy later for the mind reading thing, but since it apparently stopped working in battle its uses right now were rather limited. Mind reading was cool and all, but he really didn't need to hear any more about dating and fashion right now. Or ever.

Ranma sighed. Ah well, he'd been doing fine without this thing up until now anyways. Not a big deal.

Although, there was still no one around that could see him...

'Screw it, I need something to eat.' Ranma thought as his stomach grumbled. He checked his hand. 140 minutes. Hopefully that would be enough time to find someone else, get the mission, and get a meal.

Trying to resign himself to the fact that he'd have to take a page out of his father's book and steal a bite to eat, Ranma went off looking for a restaurant. It was only about a minute before he found one- a ramen cafe, funnily enough. By then Ranma had decided that his current situation more than warranted a little thievery. He wasn't going to fight well if he didn't eat, and if he didn't fight well he was going to die permanently. Why dead people still needed food Ranma wasn't sure- maybe it was just for the people stuck in this not-exactly-limbo?

The restaurant was empty aside from a guy with ridiculous orange hair sitting at a table with a girl with equally absurd pink hair, though hers was only weird in color, not style like that of the guy she was with. It wasn't unexpected that the number of restaurant goers was scarce really, by the clock on the wall it wasn't even ten in the morning yet.

Still, Ranma hadn't had anything to eat all of yesterday- in fact the entire reason he was in this mess was because he'd refused to eat Akane's special "surprise" breakfast. Surprise in this case being the same sort of surprise one would experience at having an active bomb thrust under their nose and being expected to act like it was a present. Without being allowed to deactivate it. Since he'd chosen hunger over near-to-actual poison, food was something Ranma was in sore need of right now.

Behind the order counter, a woman with shoulder length lavender hair ('Does EVERYONE in this city have weirdly colored hair?' Ranma thought to himself) was working at a stove, her back turned to the cafe as she focused intently on whatever she was cooking. Further inside the cooking area Ranma could see a man with his back to the counter washing dishes, his black hair nearly twice as long as the woman's. Presumably the woman was also the one who took orders, as Ranma couldn't see anyone else near the front. He waited a minute or so, during which she didn't notice him at all, before clearing his throat to get her attention.

The woman finally realized Ranma was there and turned to greet him. "Hmm? Oh, hello valued customer! May I help you?"

Ranma's thought process abruptly screeched to a halt as he got a glimpse of the woman's face. 'No way...' The man in the back turned around, having finished the dishes, letting Ranma see his face as well.

It was Shampoo and Mousse... at least twenty years older than they should have been.

iIiIi

Ranma didn't disappear immediately after exiting the store because the decal has a radial effect, more of a "sphere of influence" sort of deal than "this particular room is special" one. At least, that's how it works according to the wiki.

I'm interested to see what kind of reviews this chapter garners. I expect there will at least be some guesses as to what's going on. I don't... THINK anyone will guess everything, at least not down to every last detail, but you may have gathered at least a few things from the hints that have been popping up...