The Puzzle in the Window

"Speech"
'Thoughts'
"Telekinetic Talk"
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Flashback information

Chapter 3

Even with Hotaru in his arms, Ranma made it to the Tokyo Outskirts at a fast clip. Hotaru had been yelling the whole time. At first, it was in fear, but after she realized that Ranma wasn't going to hurt her, her screams of terror quickly became those of excitement.

Reaching the edge of the woods, Ranma set Hotaru down and reached into subspace after she turned away. Hotaru, meanwhile, was breathing heavily, after having the most fun she'd had in a long time, even sense before she had… 'No, don't go there now. Don't think about them!'. Looking back to see Ranma was digging through a bag on his shoulder, not watching her, she brought her hand up to her eye and healed the cut as well as the bruises on her side.

At the same time, Ranma was making sure that Hotaru didn't figure out that he had a sub-dimenstional tear in the Space-Time Continuum hidden in the bag on his shoulder. It didn't need to be hidden, of course, but he didn't want to answer any questions he was sure was going to follow if she saw the tear. Because both were so concerned with making sure the other didn't notice, they actually had a spot of good luck and neither actually saw what was going on.

After digging through several sharp instruments Ranma couldn't readily identify, several different forms of money, and tons upon tons of rare gems, tablets, and scrolls, Ranma finally found the damned cube. It was only about a foot in each direction, and appeared to be gold-plated. On its surface was an elegant, yet intricate, rune made of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics and smoothly cut lines. In the center of what Ranma assumed was the top, was the same Egyptian Eye. 'Really, why couldn't there have been a 'this end up' arrow?'

He walked over to where Hotaru was standing and stood by her. "Don't blink" He said, before pushing a little bit of magic into the cube, causing it to glow with a black aura, something Hotaru took notice of. Suddenly, the brightness expanded to cover the entire area of the clearing in front of them, with a flare of black light that was still bright enough to cause need for both Ranma and Hotaru to put their hands to their eyes to block out the light.

After about thirty seconds, the light subsided, and in the place the cube had been, a large four-story mansion now stood. Hotaru stared at it unashamed, while Ranma, who was cool and collected, like he had expected this to happen, on the outside, he was having a little chat with Yami on the inside.

"You didn't think to tell me the 'house' the cube made was actually a four-story mansion with enough room for eight people because…?" Yami just shot him a smart response. "You never asked." Ranma could almost HEAR the smirk on Yami's face, so he decided to cut his losses and turned back towards Hotaru.

"Well, here it is. Come on in, and let's see if we can't get you feeling better." He didn't notice the lack of a cut under all the blood on her forehead as he turned back into the house.

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After they had both taken showers and gotten cleaned up, Ranma found Hotaru in one of the spare rooms, laying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She had changed from the black and purple outfit to a grey and dark red shirt with black jeans, which had been with all the other clothing the closet had come stocked with. 'Man, when Yami said fully stocked, he meant fully stocked. There's even an ever-restocking pantry. Does this kid wear anything other than black and dark colors?'

He walked over to the desk in the corner and pulled the chair out, sitting in it backwards facing Hotaru, who hadn't moved since he had come in.

"Hey, do you want to talk about it?" He asked gently. When she didn't respond, he sighed. "Alright then, I'll tell you my story." Still no movement. "Well, the first thing you should know is that there are three kinds of magic." Even though she didn't show it, Hotaru's interest was piqued. 'Three? I thought there was only two. And why is he starting here?' "The first of these is Light. The Light characters are generally referred to as the Hero's in a story. Most light spells are used for healing or things to that effect. They are also used to banish things of Dark Magic. Light Magic users generally have pure intentions and souls. People like the Sailor Senshi of Juuban are Light Magic users." 'Yep, that sounds like us, protectors of Love and Justice. Not really all it's cracked up to be, actually'

"Dark Magic is magic designed to harm or kill a person. Dark Magic is normally used for evil and destruction, and the worst of the users use the destructive force of magic to either destroy the world or dominate it. Dark Magic users generally have either corrupted or warped views on right and wrong, but not always. Dark Magic users are known as Dark Mages or Black Mages, and are almost always fighting Light Magic Users." 'Ok, I knew that. But, what is the third type?'

"The third type of magic is chaotic magic. Chaotic magic is the most unique, and therefore, the most misunderstood of all types of magic. Chaotic magic contains both elements of weak Light Magic and Dark Magic as well as Neutral Magic, and is therefore known as the Neutral of All Magics by the ten or so people that know it exists. The problem is, that most of the people who know of magic only know of two kinds." He paused for a second, to let the information sink into the unresponsive girl.

"Now, people who use Light Magic, or White or Light Mages, generally assume that Chaotic Magic is Dark Magic, and try to destroy its users. Dark Magic users assume it is another Dark Magic User and either try to gain support from them or destroy them, seeing them as obstacles to their goal. This is why not many people know of or use Chaotic Magic." 'Interesting, but why have either Light or Dark Magic at all?' As if he was reading her mind, he answered her question.

"However, all three types of magic are needed in order for the world to survive. If there was no Light Mages to oppose the Dark, then Dark Magic would dominate the world, causing endless pain and suffering. If there was no Black Mages though, then Light would have no reason for existing and the rules between Light and Dark would fade to Gray. But Chaotic Magic is equally important. It's the magic of change. Chaos causes people to adapt to change. However, Chaotic Magic Users cannot choose a side. They cannot be either good or evil, only candid to right and wrong. I personally, use Chaotic Magic." If he heard her slight gasp, he didn't show it.

"My story itself started when I was six. My baka of a father decided that my mother 'would make me too soft' so he took me to train to be the ultimate martial artist…"

And so he told her his tale. He found it odd that he was spilling his life story to a girl who, for all appearances, wasn't listening to him at all. He told her everything, leaving nothing about his abilities or past out, even the curse, which, because she hadn't moved or given any other sign she was listening, hadn't bothered to demonstrate. When he was done, he looked at her.

"That's my life. Now, I don't know if yours has been better or worse than mine, but if you want to talk about it, I'll be here to listen." When she didn't move, sighed, stood up, and started walking towards the door. He stopped his hand about an inch from the door when he heard Hotaru's voice behind him.

"Have you ever felt you could trust someone, not have them hate you for who you were, and then find out that it was all just a lie? That they never were your friend, but had a much more sinister reason behind their actions." Ranma thought back to his first day at the Tendo's home as he walked over to the side of the bed and sat next to her. She still hadn't moved. He nodded.

"Well, then, here is MY story. It probably all started to go to hell when I was very young. My mother was killed in an explosion, and I was badly injured…" And she told her tale. If it was any other person she was talking to, nobody would have believed her. However, for someone like Ranma Saotome, he found himself mildly impressed with her after she revealed she was Sailor Saturn and what she had been through with the others. She had long sense stopped caring about who knew the Sailor Senshi were. There was one question he had when she was finished.

"It seems like the Outers were taking good care of you. Why don't you want to go back to them?" She suddenly clammed up and her eyes got a far-away to them. It was only a second before she spoke, though. "It was yesterday when everything changed."

--FLASHBACK--

"Uranus World Shaking!"

"Neptune Deep Submerge!"

Hotaru turned around just in time to see her world shatter.

It was supposed to have been a simple job. The inners were taking care of a youma call on the west side of Juuban, a smaller Youma attack was occuring on the east side of the ward. She and her adoptive parents, Michiru, aka Neptune, and Haruka, aka Uranus, had been asked by Pluto to handle it.

The fight itself was over quick. It was a low level youma, barely even able to stand up to one senshi, much less three. All it took was a quick 'Silence Glave Surprise' and it was wiped out of existance. She'd turned around to look at the property damage for just a moment, when she heard the attacks called out.

She spun around, thinking that there was another enemy that her Michiru-mama and Haruka-papa were attacking. When she saw the yellow and blue attacks only three feet away from her and closing in fast, the truth hit her.

They were attacking her.

She didn't even have time to flinch as the two orbs of elemental magic slammed into head on. The impact sent her flying back into the wall of a nearby building, damaging it and dealing several gashes to both her outit and her person. She slumped down the wall, coughing blood onto the cement.

She heard a yell and saw Uranus decend on her, her glowing blade in hand. She screamed as the sword cut deep into her left side, right below the rib-cage. After dealing several more less vital, but still mortal wounds, including stabs to her shoulders and knees, Uranus jumped back, and Hotaru caught a flash of emerald green hair. She managed to crawl to her knees as relief flooded her.

'Setsuna-mama! Thank Go-' Her thoughts were cut off when Pluto raised her key staff and whispered, something Hotaru barely caught. "Dead Scream." She screamed again as the moving ball of temporal magic slammed into her, driving her back into the wall, which collapsed ontop of her.

Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto dropped their guards and Uranus walked over to the rubble pile. She nudged one of the rocks with her feet, and watched with grim satisfaction as blood pooled out from under the rocks. She turned back to the others.

"She's dead. The rest of the world is safe now. Remember, the Inners know nothing of this. Hotaru died from a Youma's lucky shot." Her communicator went off, followed by Neptune's. Pluto's was silent, as she never answered it anyways. They met eyes and nodded, before putting on hurt faces.

Neptune reached down and pulled her communicator out of subspace. She flipped it open, to reveil a holographic image of Sailor Moon's head. She looked at them.

"Hey, we're done over here. We managed to-" She was cut off. "We, meatball head?! You didn't even do anything except trip and fall on your face!" Rei's voice sounded over the communicator. Usagi started to tear up. "WHAAA!! REI'S BEING MEAN TO ME!" She started to cry, but caught sight of Michiru's (fake) sad face, like she was going to cry at any minute. She immediately went into her 'Neo-Queen Serenity' mode. "Neptune, report."

Neptune started talking, voice think with fake emotion. "W-w-we got t-to th-th-the site of th-th-the Youma at-t-tack. It was only one Youma! How could this happen?" She broke down into sobs, dropping the communicator. Uranus put on her best sad face and picked it up.

"Th-th-they Youma got in a l-l-lucky shot. Hotaru's d-d-dead." The communicator went blank for a minute, and the sound of plastic and metal hitting concrete was heard. A second later, Usagi's voice came back, but it sounded distorted and thick with the desire to cry. She was probably composed on pure will alone.

"Understood. Get back to the shrine. We need the full story. Moon, over and out." The communicator went dead, and both Neptune and Uranus stopped acting. They quickly shared a kiss, and Uranus whispered something, making Neptune blush heavily. They both composed themselves and started heading to the Hino Shrine.

Pluto had only one thought in her head. 'Finally, the last threat is finished. I think I deserve a break from those damned gates.' She walked off in a different direction, determined to find a bar, unwind, head home, and not go anywhere near the gates for a few weeks.

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Here was one problem with their stories, though. Hotaru wasn't dead. She was bleeding heavily, unconscious, and dieing, but not dead. Suddenly, purple energy started pouring out of her wounds, surrounding her and healing her much faster than should have been humanly possible

Deep within her subconscious, the Silence had come to a decision. What? Yes, the Silence is corpreal. It was the entity that controlled all most of the pure destructive energy in the universe. It had been partially soul fused to her soul in her first life, the one before the Silver Millennium. While it did control destruction, it wasn't evil. It respected, even loved (like a daugher, baka hentai!) Hotaru in her last life and again in this one for not destroying everyone, which she could have done, for what they did to her.

Now, Hotaru was dieing, and if she died, the Silence would be adrift in an endless void for what could be another ten thousand years, so it decided to do something unprecedented. It was going to give up most of it's power to save her, by bonding. Right now, it would be enough to heal her completely, and eventually, it would be completely merged with her soul, turning her into the next Silence. She would be her own avitar, and most importantly, she would survive.

Back in the world of the living, Hotaru was completely out of it for several hours. When she finally woke up, her wounds were gone, and she was still under the collapsed wall. Pushing some of the rubble away, she de- and then retransformed to clean off the blood, before slumping to her knees and grabbing her head, and yelled, not but in pain, but for her betrayel. Not caring where she ended up, she turned and ran.

--FLASHBACK END--

"After that, I just ran until I couldn't run any more. I fell asleep in that alley, and woke up to find those boys kicking me. You found me shortly after that." She sat up and looked at him, trying to avoid his gaze. Finally, his Soul of Ice couldn't hold his anger completely, as a crimson red and black aura started swirling around him. Hotaru flinched back upon seeing this, and Ranma stood up. "Excuse me for a minute Hotaru." He walked out of the room as Hotaru watched him leave.

At first, she thought he was mad at her, but when he walked out without seemingly getting mad at her at all, she calmed down slightly. A few minutes later, she heard yells of "THOSE BASTARDS!" and "WHERE THE HELL DO THEY GET OFF TRYING TO MURDER A TEENAGED GIRL?!" followed by loud explosions. That made Hotaru feel good, as she couldn't detect any falseness in his voice, like she did in Uranus's and Neptune's (she'd ignored it, thinking it insignificant).

Ranma, on the other hand, was pissed off beyond all reason. After he left the room Hotaru was in, he walked up to the fourth floor and entered one of the doors on the left, which Yami had told him would be able to help with his anger. In the room he found a fully fledged training area that, by the runes he saw etched into the walls, was indestructible, generated targets, and hid energy signatures. After he entered the room, he dropped the soul of ice and let the inferno of Crimson Red and Midnight Black engulf the entire room.

He thought back to a comic book he had read a few times. After the first battle scene, he had instantly became hooked on it. He thought that, while he was brimming on Anger Ki, he may as well try a few of the moves used in the story. He brought his hands to his right hip and cupped them, before shoving them forward with a cry of "RAGE OF THE KAMEHAMEHA GOD!" as a red and black beam of pure energy sliced through three of the dummies, turning them to ash. He started ranting as he blew up several more dummies using various moves he'd seen from the DragonBall Z manga, including the Kamehameha wave and Android 18's Destructo-Disk.

When he returned to the room he left Hotaru, she was still there, and smiling slightly, a good sign in Ranma's mind. "It's getting late. Do you want to stay here with me for a while?" She hesitated, trying to find any underlaying tone of malice, but when it came up dry, she nodded. "Ok, then. You can have this room. Mine will be across the hallway. If you need anything ask me." She nodded again, and as Ranma walked out of the room, she was already asleep, exhausted from her day of running and her explanations. Ranma grinned as he flipped the light off. Hotaru's last thought before darkness consumed her was 'Maybe things are finally looking up.'

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When Ranma crossed the hallway to his room he sent a message to Yami. He replied with a slightly curious "Sure, it's not like we're doing anything right now anyways." A little later, as Ranma fell asleep, Yami pulled him into the Shadow Realm, just like he had asked.

Ranma opened his eyes to see both Yami and Exodia were standing in front of him, Yami looking a little confused and Exodia looking like only a giant yellow god wrapped in chains could. Ranma just stood there for a second before starting.

"Hey Yami, Exodia, how you been?" After a little small talk, he got down to business. "Ok, I think Yami is confused as to why I wanted you here, and Exodia… never mind. No idea. Well, after I did a little training in Egypt, I tried to teleport back to Nerima, but missed. I ended up in Juuban, and found a young girl named Hotaru being beaten by some kids…"

When Ranma finished his explanation, he truly feared for the lives of the Outer Senshi. Murder was clear in Yami's eyes, and the very fabric of the Shadow Realm was shaking with Exodia's Cold Fury. "So you can see why I want to help her. What can we do?" Yami thought it out for a moment.

"Well, it never hurts to have help. Does she have a deck?" Ranma just shook his head. "No, she never had a chance to grab any of her stuff. I can't blame her. I guess I could go out and buy her one..." Yami cut him off.

"Don't bother. If you look in one of the rooms on the third floor of the mansion, you should be able to find a virtual dueling arena and a machine up against the wall. If she places her hand on the panel on the machine, it should create a custom, powerful deck that's based on her personality. Those would be hers to keep. Only you can give someone permission to use the machine. The Virtual Platform will recreate a shadow duel using holograms. It's great for practice."

Ranma nodded, and then spent the rest of the night asleep dreaming of the task to come, and how to get revenge on the people that would dare hurt a young girl.

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Hotaru woke up to the scent of breakfast. Wandering the halls, she managed to stumble into the kitchen, which was decorated a lot like the rest of the house, gold with Egyptian knick-knacks scattered on the shelves. In the center by the stove was a currently female Ranma fixing what appeared to be eggs and sausage.

She sat down at the table just a Ranma through two plates high into the air, which came down to land on the table with a soft thud. Hotaru just blinked.

"Not bad, huh? Eat up. We've got a busy day today." Ranma said as she walked over to where her plate had landed. Sitting down, she started to eat at a speed that Hotaru could barely follow. After she finished, she waited for Hotaru to finish eating before putting her plate up and telling her to sit back down.

"Ok, Hotaru, I've already told you of my job, but did you want to help? I could use some companionship on my mission. And I really don't want to leave you by yourself to find somewhere to live while the crazys are out there, probably looking for you. So, do you want to help?" She asked.

Hotaru hesitated. It wasn't that she didn't trust Ranma… ok, it was that. She trusted her more than anyone else right then, although she wasn't sure why, but she wasn't sure if this was what she wanted. She paused to think.

If she said yes, she'd be stuck on yet another grand andventure, not that that was a bad thing. If she said no, Ranma would probably put up for a while, but she'd eventually have to leave, as she wouldn't want to put a burden on her. Then where would she go? Finally, she slowly nodded.

Ranma stood up. "Ok, then. Do you have a deck?" Seeing her confused look, Ranma took it as a 'No'. "Ok, then. Follow me." Without waiting for Hotaru to get up, she walked off, leaving Hotaru to catch up.

They walked up to the third floor and found the door Yami was talking about. It had a large Egyptian Eye on it. Ranma opened the door, and hearing Hotaru's gasp, said, "Welcome to the Duel Arena. First off, lets get you a deck." He grabbed her wrist gently and placed it on the metal pannel in the center of the machine. Hotaru kept it there, wanting to pull back with a portion of her being, while the rest of her wanted to see what would happen.

Eventually, the smaller part of her mind won, and she tried to pull back, only to find that she couldn't. She felt like she was being drained of her life force. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her hand, and was able to actually pull her hand off the cold metal.

That was when she realized that her entire hand was coated with a fine layer of blood, her blood, like a child does a finger-paint. Her bloody handprint was still on the metal pannel. Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I didn't do it right…" she trailed off when she saw the machine spit out a deck of about 60 cards.

"Never mind." She handed the deck to Hotaru, who looked at it confused, flipping through about five cards.

Ranma smacked her head with her palm. "I just remembered, you don't know the rules of Duel Monsters, do you?" At Hotaru's shake of the head, he sent another message to Yami. "Dude, I just remembered. Hotaru has absolutely no idea how to play Duel Monsters, and I can't be bothered to teach her. It'd take to long, and I'm a horible teacher anyway. Do you have any idea where we can go to teach her?"It only took about thirty seconds to get a reply. "I may have an idea or two…" The Wickedness in the voice amost made Ranma shiver. Almost.

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Yugi Moto was feeling pretty good about himself. He had just beaten Yami-Bakura in a shadow match, had several starchips, and all of his friends were still with him. Now he needed to get enough starchips for him and Joey, defeat Pegasus, and rescue his grandfather. That couldn't be too hard, huh? He paused. He could have sworn he heard laughter on the wind.

After a minute, he kept walking. (AN-That was me!) Suddenly, a large purple circle, that almost anyone would have described as a portal, open up, hovering about three feet in the air. "Eh, Yug? What is that?" Yugi just shook his head. "I have no ide-" He was cut off when two people were forcibly flung out before the portal disappeared.

One was a girl with red hair. She wasn't very tall, but looked both agile and strong, and was wearing a black pair of pants and a shirt designed with a large dragon snaking its way up the back, over her shoulder, and ending with its head just under her left shoulder.

The other was a slightly younger girl with black hair. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a red shirt with a golden Egyptian Eye on it. The girl in purple sat up slightly and rubbed her head. "Ouch." She moaned.

The other girl stood up and dusted herself off before raising a fist to the sky and yelling "DAMNIT YAMI! THAT HURT!" Before she started muttering about 'sadistic spirts that take kicks in forcibly flinging people across dimensions.' She offered a hand to the black-haired girl, who took it, stood up, and dusted herself off while cracking her neck.

Neither of the girls had noticed Yugi or the gang. (they were facing the wrong way)

The red one started looking around saying something like "He said they would be here? WHERE ARE THEY?!" Yugi sneezed, and they both turned around. The one with black hair chirped out "Found them!" The entire Yugi gang sweatdropped.

Tea, who was standing behind the whole group, asked the question on everyone's mind. "Who are you?"

The girls looked at eachother, before simultainiously scratching the backs of their heads.

"I'm Ranma Saotome…" the red-head said.

"…And I'm Hotaru Tomoe…" said the one with what they now realized to be purple hair.

"…And We're sorry 'bout this." They said at the same time.

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Up in a place that some people call heaven, Asgard from others, a diety simply named 'Karma' was laughing her ass off. She'd been trying to inflict some due revenge on the NWC, but because of his unique magic alignment, Ranma had always attracted her vengance by mistake. Now that he wasn't in the dimension anymore, nothing was stopping her from dealing out her justice. She loved her job sometimes

CHAPTER END