The Puzzle in the Window

Authors Notes. HELLO PEOPLE! I'm back. 'plays DX theme music in the background' Sorry, love DX. And Jeff Hardy. And London and Kendrick. Sorry, getting off topic here. Anyways, I have some news for everyone.

First off, I would like to say that I've taken the suggestions from various people, and I think I can make them work. At least, some of them. Anyway, I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that sent me a review.

Secondly, I have some fairly bad news. As a lot of people know, its close to Christmas Time (I may not have this out before X-mas, but I'm trying) and that can only mean one thing. Vacation. Unfortunately, the only computer I'd have access to during this time would be my mom's lap-top, and she doesn't like me touching it too much. Ergo (why the hell do I keep using that word? 'shrugs'), I'll get very little time to work on 'The Puzzle in the Window' during my vacation. (12/23/07 to 12/30/07) After that, the next two weeks are full of my Semester Exams at school, so studying for that will also take up a fair amount of time. Unfortunately. I'll update as often as possible, but I MAKE NO PROMISES!

I also want to make one more note. I have never read either the Sailor Moon, Yugioh, or Slayers Manga, so if there is a point I botch up, tell me, but don't go nuclear on me. It won't kill anyone. I HAVE read Ranma ½ though, so I'm fine on that one. As for the other games I'm using, well, I've beaten all four of them to the points of what most people call the 'Final Boss' of each series, but haven't beaten any of them 100. Lets see if anyone can guess them by the clues I give here:

First clue:

This is how each of my games ended:

The first one, I made a bad choice and only finished 99 instead of the 100 I'd have gotten if I had chosen the other group. I got the 100 when playing through on + mode, though.

The second game, I completed the seven chapters that actually are required to see the end of the game, but never actually beat Chapter 8, the Forgotten Adventure.

The third Game, I beat it with 99, including all of the weapons you can get, and maxed out each of my form's seven levels. The optional boss (who had 16 bars of life or so, the final one only had 13 I think) I did defeat, but it took until level 89. The only thing I haven't done is the Poster Challenge, It's way to hard.

In the final game, I've done everything there is to do, but haven't achieved A rank on all five missions on each level for all 6 people.

Your only other hint is that each game has the number 2 in it's name. Oh, and I've never beaten the first version for any of them… go figure.

I want to see if anyone can get it. Remember, you need to specify the number your guessing. I'll tell you next chapter, so you have until then.

Now, for the less important stuff

"Speech"
'Thoughts'
'Action'
"Telekinetic Chat"
CARD NAME
Card Effect

And now that that's done, on to the story!

Chapter 2

Like he had expected, the Tauk had been right and Kasumi had been home at the exact time the Tauk had said. Thankfully, or unthankfully, depending on how you want to look at it, Ranma had been exhausted from his little romp in the Canadian Forest.

His sleep was undisturbed. Not. Ranma's sleep is always disturbed in one way or another. It's always either his father, panda-baka, or Akane with the bucket in the sleeping room. It was only after a bucket was water that Ranma, now Ranma-chan, was awake. After Akane storming off, while the boy-turned-girl was mumbling something about playing too much Clue, and stalked off towards the furo.

After changing and getting dressed, he wandered into the living room. There he found something he REALLY didn't want to see. In the living room was a whole slew of people. Genma, Soun, Akane, Kasumi, Kuh Lohn, Xian Pu, Msu Tsu, Ukyo, and, somehow, even Kuno and Kodatchi were there. The smug grin on Nabiki's face, which really annoyed Ranma to no end, clearly showed who the cause of all this was. With all of the normal crowd gathered on one place, the results were fairly predictable.

"BOY! IT'S TIME YOU STOPPED THIS FOOLISHNESS AND MARRY AKANE NOW!"

"RANMA NO BAKA! HOW DARE YOU INVITE YOUR FLOOZIES OVER?!" Ah, Akane, as oblivious as ever. How I hate you so.

" RAN-CHAN"

"Airen! You come to China with Shampoo now?"

"SAOTOME! YOU SHALL NEVER HAVE MY SHAMPOO!!" The fact that he was talking to a statue by the garden pond had nothing to do with him being ignored. Really. It didn't.

"Son-in-law, It is time you returned to China with us and marry Shampoo." One guess who that was.

"FOUL SORCEROR! RELEASE YOUR HOLD ON THE PIG-TAILED GIRL AND THE FIREY LIONESS NOW!" Ranma internally smirked. 'If only you really knew, Kuno. If only you knew. Oh well."

"OHOHOHO! NOW, RANMA-SAMA, COME AND MARRY ME!" Insane bitch at four o'clock.

"Oh, my!" Ranma gave her a slight glimpse and smiled internally. 'Well, at least someone here is still sane'

Nabiki stood up and walked past him, whispering "Good luck" as she passed. Ranma sighed. "Now all we're missing is…" "RANMA! PREPARE TO DIE!" "Never mind, he's here." He jumped off to the side as the Eternally lost boy gave his overly heavy umbrella of DEATH! Wait, not of death, sorry. Unfortunately, his swing did manage to clip a wooden beam, causing a bit of ceiling to fall and hit Uyko.

"Ryoga, you Jackass!" She gave her spatula a swing, only to have Ryoga duck the swing, having her hit Mousse instead.

It quickly got worse from there. Mousse started swing a broad sword he had pulled out of his sleeve wildly, hoping to hit Ranma. He came nowhere close. Unfortunately, however, he did manage to get the end tangled around Kodatchi's ribbon. Kodatchi, in an attempt to free her weapon, gave the ribbon a good yank.

Anyone who has ever tried to untangle something knows that this is an incredibly stupid idea. In fact, only one of three things really can happen. First, whatever you're yanking on snaps. Bad outcome. Secondly, the tangle could only tighten, making it harder to undo. Again, bad outcome. Finally, the other tangled item could stay stuck to the end of whatever's tangled and be sent flying. Normally not that bad, but in this case, was very bad indeed. Mousse's broadsword was sent flying into the opposite wall, where it imbedded itself only two inches away from Genma's head. After that, everyone got in on the brawl, except Kasumi.

In fact, everyone was so busy fighting that only Kasumi noticed Ranma slide into the shadows by the door and disappear. However, she didn't really think too much of it. After all, this was Ranma. And Ranma was the embodiment of Nerima.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The shadow realm was something special. Ranma, after a little trial and error, found out that Yami was actually incorrect in his description of how the realm worked. He had explained that each world was like a bar, that ran on infinitely through time and space. Ranma had come to find, that instead of a bar, each world was more like a plane, the spread out in each direction. The shadow realm fit into the gaps in-between the planes, as they didn't have any height to them. Moving left and right in the continuum changed the place on the realm where one would end up, but moving forward and backward moved through time.

The magic of the shadow realm was just that. Shadow Magic. Ergo, it worked best with shadow and flame attacks, but poorly with light based spells. The magic requirement goes up dramatically the farther away from the dark end of the spectrum you go.

Shadow Walking was a unique ability in which someone would enter the shadow realm and instantly move the realm to another location before leaving, effectively teleporting. This can also work when traveling through time, however, it is much harder to get the exact location correct.

Unfortunately, after 1000 years of not practicing, Ranma found his aim was more than slightly off. Somehow, while aiming for the mountains of Tibet, and ended up too far to the west, by the cursed springs of Jusenkyo. He looked around and swore. A lot. In many different languages. He noticed the guide running up to him, and slid back into the shadows.

He stepped out of the shadow portal and looked around. He sighed and put his hand up to his eyes to shield the sun. "Is that the Sphinx? Close enough." He had been aiming for the desert fifty miles south of the Great Sphinx in Egypt, but had ended up only about two or so.

He looked up towards the sun, tugging on the emerald-green shirt and pants with the large silver dragon on the back. "Damn, this isn't going to work. It needs to be cooler, like… I wonder." He reached down for his deck.

When his deck left his box, he noticed it flashed yellow. He pulled the top card of the deck, and nearly dropped it.

It was Yami, (the field spell card, not the person) the card he had been thinking of. He put the card back on top and thought of the Dark Magician. He pulled the top card. Dark Magician. Again he tried. It worked.

He tried this several more times before pulling Yami from the deck again. Each time, the card he thought of came to the surface of the deck. He doubted it would work in an actual duel, but between duels, it would probably work just fine.

He pulled Yami out again and watched as the surrounding desert started to turn into a black landscape with reddish streaks and the sky darkened to a deep purple color. It was the landscape of darkness. Ranma felt more powerful just standing in it.

(AN- For the purpose of the story, and just because it is a good idea, each person and thing on the planet can fall under the Yu-Gi-Oh cards and work a lot like a Yugioh cards, including Attack Points, Defense Points, an alignment, and a classification. Example, using the Dark Magician in that order, is 2500, 2100, Dark, Spellcaster. For people, Attack and Defense points can rise as their strength does, and if standing in an area that generally increases attack and defense points, their attack and defense points rise. Ranma is somewhere around 2700, 2600, Dark, Martial Artist. Ranko, or Ranma-chan (your pick), is closer to 2400,2700, Dark, Cursed Martial Artist. It works in the long run, trust me.)

He looked over the dark landscape and drew a card from the deck randomly before holding it out. Nothing happened. He shrugged and pulled another card out and repeated the action. Suddenly a large humanoid ox was standing in front of him. It was wearing a red and yellow armor and holding a viciously sharp looking curved blade. The numbers 1700/1000 briefly floated above it's head before disappearing.

Suddenly a circular rune with a pentagram in the center of it rose from the ground, surrounding the humanoid ox, causing Ranma to jump back. The pentagram locked around the ox, and the numbers 1300/600 once again floated above it's head. Ranma looked back at the cards in his hand. BATTLE OX and SPELLBINDING CIRCLE (Japanese style.)

He played around with this cards, Trial and Explosion style, for several hours. He was about to reach for his custom deck, which he realized he had no idea what contained, but before he could grab them, the Yami field card dropped and he was standing in the dark of the Egyptian desert again. He glanced at his watch and realized it was already 9:45pm back in Japan.

"Aw, crud." He quickly Shadow Walked back to Japan, aiming for Nerima. He stepped out of the shadow of a building and looked around. He spotted Tokyo Tower off in the distance, but didn't recognize his exact location. He looked at a nearby sign to realize he was in the Azuna district, Juuban to be exact. He was about to step back into the shadows when he heard something.

"Now you're gonna get yours, freak!" "Come on, freak, do something!" and various other taunts, almost drowning out a soft "No…please…stop." Ranma ducked around the building into the ally to see three boys crowding around someone and kicking said person.

Ranma walked right up to the group and cracked his knuckles. "Hey, what's going on here?" The boys turned around slowly, and one yelled out "SHIT, IT'S RANMA SAOTOME! RUN!" 'Wow, I have a reputation. Who knew?' The three of them took of, and Ranma just watched them go.

Curled up in the corner, a young girl was clutching her head in the fetal position. She had purple eyes and short purple hair that was so dark it would be mistaken for black if the light didn't hit it in the exact way. In fact, most people did mistake it for black. She was wearing mostly grey and dark blue and had a dark brown jacket on. She was bleeding slightly from a cut above her eye and had some nasty-looking bruises on her side.

She looked up at Ranma was cautious eyes. Eyes that held pain and a shadow to them that Ranma thought no person, especially not a person that looked no older than thirteen, should have to see. She spoke timidly, like she was afraid of what someone would do once they knew who she was. "Please…don't hurt me."

Ranma's gaze softened. He'd seen this once before. It was about a year before he had gotten cursed, a young boy was found out in the woods. After getting the boy to open up (his father was asleep, of course) he had learned that the boy's life had been hell, between abuse and a lack of friends. Unfortunately, Genma had dragged him out of there and he hadn't heard from the boy again, but he assumed that the boy had managed to get along without him.

"It's ok, I won't hurt you. The other kids are gone now." He held his hand out to help her up. She flinched slightly, a bad sign in Ranma's mind, but eventually she timidly reached out and took his hand. He pulled her to her feet.

"What's your name, anyway?" he asked. She looked down for a second, before responding. "Hotaru Tomoe." She flinched back and raised her arms, as if expecting to be hit. Ranma took note. It was worse than he had thought. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Nice to meet'cha." He wasn't too sure what he should do here, so he did what he thought was best, which was also something he'd never done before. He reached out and gave her a gentle hug.

She stiffened slightly, but when she realized she wasn't going to hurt him, she wrapped around him like if she let go she was going to die, and cried. They were like that, with Hotaru crying on Ranma's shoulder in that alley way in Juuban, for a long time. Finally, Hotaru stopped crying and pulled away, blushing.

"Sorry about that. I don't know what came over me." Ranma just grinned at her. "It's fine. Do you have any family I can contact." She looked at him with fear in her eyes. "No!" She almost screamed. 'I think I found the main source of the problem' thought Ranma.

"I mean… no, not really. I don't want to talk about it. I should be going." Ranma gave her a questioning look. "Do you have anywhere to go?" She looked nervous. "Uh..yes. I can go visit a friend of mine." Ranma could tell she was lying. "You're lying." The look in her eyes confirmed her suspicion. "Come with me." She looked at him and started to follow him as he walked around the corner.

Ranma on the other hand was in a dilemma. He couldn't very well just leave her here, who knows what would happen. But he couldn't just bring her back to the Tendo Dojo. He had no idea exactly what it was like after the morning brawl, but he wasn't in too much of a hurry to return one way or another. He was in a bind, until he heard Yami's voice in his head.

"Ranma, just because I'm dead doesn't mean I don't have any money. Hidden in a pocket in subspace is a large amount of gold coins as well as weapons and magical items. One of the items is a metal cube that can turn into a fully furnished home. I recommend you use that if you don't want to return home."

Ranma sent a silent thank you to Yami before turning back to Hotaru. "Ok, I know where we can go. Hold on tight." Before Hotaru could ask what he meant, he had scooped her up in his arms and started roof hopping across the city, aiming for the woods on the northern edge of Tokyo.

Chapter End

Phew. That was hard. Ok, I'm leaving on my trip tomorrow. Next chapter, Ranma and Hotaru reach the woods, Hotaru and Ranma open up to each other, and Ranma does his first dimension hop.

Also, why Hotaru doesn't want to return home. Note, if you are a fan of Saturn, the reason will make you hate Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. It's not pretty, and is actually fairly dark. But then, the "Betrayed and in Azkaban" and "Everyone has been lying about everything (except Hermione)" genre of Harry Potter Fanfics aren't my favorite for no reason. It's dark, but not overly so. If I were to classify both of my characters, they fall under the 'Light' catagory at the moment, but will eventually get to 'Dark but not Evil' local. Now, for review responses!

Undeen: Unfortunately, I agree. I don't think he'll be finishing it. Ever

MShrieken: You asked, and I delivered. :)

isoulmani: thanks for the compliment. As for the 'new' Yugioh series, as I said, never read it, probably never will. So I doubt it.

strikeout: will do.

Talent Scout: I did have some time to read both 'Fist of the Pikachu' and the LoZ cross over (the name escapes me), and they both were well written. I really like AnimeAddiction. The guy is awesome. (FYI, he goes by AnimeAddiction on Lady Cosmos Fanfiction Library, just look, it's there)

New Lord of Darkness: That part was in the plan... somewhere. Being in a card, not so much.

Furio: Sorry, dude. It needed to be said. I won't do it again, I promise (as much as I can. It may be unavoidable, though. I could go into a long philisophic speech, but I'll leave that for later.

and finally

xXDeidara-ChanXx: thanks. Nice name.