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The Mysterious Man was at his mirror, watching the events go by. For the most part he was glad that Emeral was happy with the correction of her hack job, and he heard both Joe and Emeral thank him. DS, on the other hand, had been pissed, and hadn't understood the reasoning behind the coal. But DS could focus well enough, that was for sure. The man hoped he hadn't underestimated his underestimation of DS's powers.

The next day the Man saw Emeral tease the shopkeeper enough to get the disc, as well as find the disc in the tree. The rest of the discs were found that day without much enjoyment for the old man, however the antics of Ranma kept him busy laughing for a while. Another day passed without much happening, and the man was starting to get bored.

The next day Ranma caused another laugh or two, more discs were found uneventfully. Happosai's curse ended, and he noticed quickly enough, and he returned to his panty raids, trying to make up for lost time. That provided some entertainment value, but not much.

Really bored, the man saw the dreams that Joe was having, and figured DS was still managing to hide something from him, but wasn't sure what. In the end it didn't matter anyway, he was too bored to care. He needed something to do to alleviate this boredom, and making things harder on Joe and Emeral seemed like a good place to start.

The Mysterious Man, having watched Joe and Emeral find two thirds of the total discs with all too much ease, for his tastes anyway, decided to put some trouble in their path. He would make the last third of the discs harder for them to get, for starters anyway. Or at least, that is what he planned.

To begin with, he moved a disc into the Kuno residence, in the floor of the bath to be precise, then dropped a map to it where the disc had been. The book and rose symbols on the map would be sure to attract the right attention, and he hoped the intertwined MM that also appeared would intrigue them.

For the benefit of those reading, or in some cases writing, the Intertwined MM:


The Man was going to mess with the lone disc in the school, but since the school was buried in snow he didn't think it would be needed. He therefore turned his attention to a few that hadn't been discovered, but were somewhat in the open. He pulled one to his workshop, built a box with a complicated puzzle on the front, and placed the disc inside. He put the intertwined MM on the top of the box in the middle of a Book and a Rose, and then dropped the box into an empty lot, behind a bush. To be really sneaky he took two discs and placed them under the mattresses Joe and Emeral were sleeping on, they weren't large enough for them to notice, but they would be otherwise hard to find.

The Man looked over the history of the town, and found that Happosai was generally protective of his things. Therefore the man placed one of the discs in Happosai's stash of items, with a string tied to it describing it as a magical luck charm. He intentionally left out "good" or "bad" in front of luck.

Deciding that he hadn't been nearly devious enough, the man put one disc in Azuza's room, inspired by Azuza's attempt to take one of the statues. Azuza would have to be defeated for any chance of getting the disc, which would at least be entertaining to watch.

The Man then came up with an idea. He placed one of the discs within the Barrier, near where Kalshion, Katarina, and Tommy were camping. The disc wasn't exactly on either side of the barrier, but an attempt to get it made from BOTH sides of the barrier would suck the disc, Kalshion, Katarina, Tommy, and that Cat into town. Deciding that was too easy, the man made it so that the force used to suck them into town would throw them into the barrier.... on the other side of town. As soon as they were sucked through the hole in the barrier would close up again.

Wanting to be ni ce one more time, since his evil side was having most of the fun, the man placed one disc in the middle of another empty lot. The disc was stuck in the ground, hidden from view, but with a scent that would make that blasted cat Kalshion had decided to take in go nuts. As soon as Joe, Emeral, Kalshion, and the Cat, as well as anyone else that might be with them, entered the lot the disc would be released. When the disc was picked up a small house would appear, big enough for Joe and Emeral to stay in. The door would have two keys hanging from it, one from a rose and another from a small book. The book would merely show the pictures of the discs that they had located already.

The Man, at that point, wondered if the discs under the mattresses would be found before or after the house came into existance. After pondering it for a moment, he put an additional spell that would, if the discs had not been found, move them to the beds set up for Joe and Emeral in the house.

As the Man completed his spell he saw an opportunity too good to pass up for the only disc left he was going to mess with. Granted, it would make it EASIER to find in the end, but oh well. Kodachi was baking a cake for Ranma, for once WITHOUT anything funny in it. It seemed that was only because she had mistaken a little extra flower for sleeping powder. Moments later there was a disc in the middle of the cake, right about where it would end up hitting Akane or Ranma in the face if things went like they usually did.

As a final piece of information for Joe and Emeral, the man cast a spell that put his intertwined MM on the back of all the discs. He wasn't sure if they would take something with that symbol as something to investigate or as a warning, but then again it would probably serve as both.

Morning was approaching, and the man realized that the discs also had to be put in the statues. What if he could make that harder? It didn't take him long to put a smaller barrier at each statue, that kept only the discs away. When a disc got close enough a puzzle would appear in front of the statue, and the puzzle would have to be solved to allow the given disc past. The puzzle would be different for each disc, making it so that a total of 30 puzzles would have to be completed, most likely several times each, in order to break the curse. If that didn't complicate things enough then nothing would.

The man was, at this point, bored with just Joe and Emeral, not to mention having never conquored his boredom anyway, so he went into town himself, leaving his mirror on auto-record. Walking around for a bit he found himself at Ukyo's, and decided to grab some Okonomiyaki. Ukyo had apparently fixed her cooking surface counter, as she was in full swing, but showed curiosity when he sat down. She made his order, which he quickly ate. As he was paying her she started to speak.

"I don't recall seeing you in town before," she said. "You arrive recently?"

"I arrived a mere hour ago, actually," the man truthfully said. "Interesting weather, though. I had to walk past Rain, Snow, Hail, Fog, and the occasional Tornado to get here. Is something wrong?"

The last comment was in response to Ukyo's stare at the man's first comment, Ukyo having frozen at it. As Ukyo didn't respond right away, the man left. Moments later Ukyo came running out of her shop to find the street empty. There was no trace of the man in the rain soaked end of the street or the hail covered other end, nor were his footprints in the snow that was falling right outside of the shop. Soon Ukyo had closed her shop and was running for the edge of town. She ignored anyone and everyone, running right out of town and right into the barrier.

"How did he get into town if the blasted barrier is still up?" Ukyo asked herself as she picked herself up off the ground. Still thinking about it, she started back towards her shop.

Having enjoyed that little stunt, the man had altered his appearance slightly and entered th e Cat Cafe. Cologne showed her own curiosity when the man ordered. The man ate his Ramen and asked that some be delivered to the Dragon Residence and the Tendo Dojo. Cologne couldn't contain her curiosity at that, and finally spoke up.

"So you know the Tendo's, do you visit them often?" she started, not wanting to sound too suspicious.

"I only visited them once, a few days ago," stated the man.

"Then why, may I ask, are you sending them Ramen?" Cologne asked. "It would be nice to be able to tell them why they are getting free Ramen, if they were to ask."

"Just want to offer them a gift for the trouble I caused when I visited them," replied the man. "I had been out of town until a few hours ago, so I hadn't gotten a chance to. Now, if you don't mind, I have things to take care of. Make sure that Ramen gets delivered."

With that, the man left. Cologne was shocked to hear him, apparently truthfully, say that he had come into town mere hours ago. She closed up the Cafe, after telling Shampoo to make the deliveries the man asked to be made, and went to the edge of town herself. She was more cautious then Ukyo had been, and didn't slam into the barrier. Instead she used her cane to poke at the barrier, and found it to still be there.

The Man was currently laughing his head off on the roof of a house, wondering when the stories would start to filter through town. He decided to go to the market and spread his story a tad more, firing himself through the barrier as a finale.

It didn't take him long to make it to the market, where he inquired about several things that someone from town should know. Eventually someone got curious.

"So mister, did the barrier trap you in town?" asked the merchant.

"Nope, I arrived several hours ago," started the man. "I noticed you have been having some interesting weather lately."

The first comment didn't quite sink it right away, so the merchant continued. "Yes, it has been rather interesting. We think that has something to do with the animals acting oddly as of late, as well as with the fences seeming to be impossible for anything to sit on top of."

"I see," responded the man. "Well, I don't see what I am looking for, so I guess I will be leaving town."

"Won't be easy with that barrier in place, you know," smirked the merchant.

"I made it in, didn't I?" said the man, just before a blast of energy launched him into the air. A portal opened just below the top of the barrier, which the man flew through. It was then that the earlier comment about arriving in town hours before sunk into the merchant's brain, and he went wild trying to tell everyone the news.

Back in front of his mirror, the Man smiled. He had caused a LOT of commotion, and hopefully the outer-worlders would realize who the mysterious people, all with different descriptions, had really been. The man hoped he had missed seeing something that his mirror had recorded for him, so he started to watch eagerly.