Chapters

by Azalee

/ReseT/ Neku finds a new app in his phone. :Hiatus:

Rated: Fiction K+ - English - Friendship/Angst - Neku S., Yoshiya K./Joshua -

Chapters: 13 - Words: 18,562 - Reviews: 79 - Favs: 157 - Follows: 167 - Updated:
11/23/2010 - Published: 7/22/2009 - id: 5239787

URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5239787

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1. opening

2. shiki, day 1

3. shiki, day 2

4. shiki, day 3

5. shiki, day 4

6. shiki, day 5

7. shiki, day 6

8. shiki, day 7

9. interlude

10. another day

11. joshua, day 1

12. shiki, day 2'

13. joshua, day 1'

opening

Warnings : Swearing and death themes (duh). There might be shounen-ai of the
Josh/Neku variety coming - like, WAY later - because I'm a stupid fangirl, but I
kind of want to keep as strictly canon as I can, just because. Also, gonna have
outright spoilers for the WHOLE FRIGGIN' GAME.

Notes : This doesn't have much of a point, actually, because, well. But the idea
bit me and I'm ridiculously proud of how I'm managing with it so far. My writing
style for this just may have gotten terribly rambling instead of the stream-of-
consciousness thing I was aiming at, though.

* * *

(OPENING)

* * *

There's a new feature in Neku's phone.

Now that's hardly the most surprising new thing in his life ever since his death
(even when you're just taking his latest death from one week ago into account), but
the button has got some bastard's smirking face on it and it's like a punch in his
guts every time he flips his phone open, and it's kind of distracting.

His only intent is to change the picture when he selects it, but the menu is
cryptic if anything and he has no idea what any of those weird buttons do.

He can hear Beat's voice again, loud and clear : Yo, you show me a button, and I
wanna push it. Aight ? And nothing had actually combusted or exploded or turned
into a giant wolf Noise, not at that time anyway.

Neku shrugs and presses the first large white rectangle, top left.

After all, what's the worst that can happen ?

As it turns out : a lot.

His head is pounding.

That's the first thing he notices. The second is that he's sprawled on the concrete
in the fucking, middle, of the Scramble Crossing, again.

He is himself amazed that he manages to refrain the urge to slam his head down on
the concrete ground. He pushes to his feet, a lump that could very well be his sick
heart in his throat, his head spinning, his hands and knees scraped. He tries to
dust his shorts and notices his Player Pin is nestled in his palm. He flips it up,
automatically, before remembering that it's been a week since he last had it.

The scraps of thoughts that immediately assault his mind are strangely intense, and
even though really he should have expected it and he's barely had the time to
forget what it felt like to hear voices in his head for three weeks, he still feels
the need to throw up. He bends over, his stomach twisting and something in his
chest aching, licks his dry lips and waits to ride out the wave of nausea.

He's barely starting to feel better when his phones beeps in his pocket and his
whole body freezes. Then he chuckles to himself, nervously, pretending that he
finds it ridiculous that even a week out of the Game he still gets a mild panic
attack everytime he gets a text message.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and glances at the screen.

If he felt cold when he heard the mail signal, this is a fucking iced bucket
dropped down on him. Litres of freezing water poured down on him.

Reach 104.

You have 60 minutes.

Fail, and face erasure.

— The Reapers

He wants to scream. His lips stay shut tight, only letting out a surprised "oww !"
when the timer - the timer, three seconds lost already and he just can't bring
himself to move - appears on his hand, a sharp, throbbing pain in his palm that's
really nothing in the face of all he's been through already, but what it means
makes it worse than anything.

He's back in the Game.

He's back in the Game, oh God no anything but this don't you have ANYTHING ELSE to
do than make my life hell.

He's not even surprised when the Noise frogs appear, and he doesn't even think to
check his pockets for pins because he remembers, quite clearly, taking them all out
and locking them away in a drawer because there was no reason whatsoever that he'd
ever need them again.

It's raw instinct, raw fear. He turns on his heels and

runs.

* * *

(TWISTER)

shiki, day 1
THE 1ST DAY

* * *

He runs, runs, runs as if his life depended on it, because it does. It does.

He runs past the crowd of Shibuya, runs through people who can't see him and God,
to think he once enjoyed this, and he'd barely just rediscovered the feel of
bumping into passersby again. The sheer contact. Clashing.

His breath hitches, which really isn't the best thing that can happen to you when
you're running for your life, but he's spotted Shiki in front of him. Wait, no, Eri
- but no, no, he can see it in her eyes : Shiki, in Eri's body again but definitely
Shiki, standing in the middle of the street with her stupid stuffed cat - pig - and
her eyes wide and scared, and his heart is probably just about to explode -

She doesn't look at him.

- and he just runs right. Past. Her.

And he can't stop.

He can't stop, he can't stop. Here's Beat on his skateboard, with the serious and
unstoppable look on his face that he only has when it's about Rhyme. His eyes are
dark and focused on something past Neku's shoulder and he, too, just slides right
past him without so much as glancing at Neku.

His legs are still moving, taking him, he knows, to Hachiko, because Hachiko is
where it always starts, and he hasn't got the slightest bit of control over them.
Even when he recognizes someone else in the crowd, the only, only fucking person
that's looking at him and his mouth goes dry and his heart quite possibly just
stops beating altogether - even when he runs right up to him and

Joshua

smirks

- he can't stop.

He can't stop.

He can't stop.

Until Hachiko.

After that, there's more Noise everywhere and people screaming and being Erased and
Shiki, Shiki, in Eri's body and she still doesn't recognize him even as she grabs
his arm - and the simple contact makes the hair on his skin stand up because her
fingers are cold, dead cold - and asks him to forge a pact.

Forge a pact.

Neku's mind reels and screeches and weeps.

This is Day One of Week One, all over again.

His throat is scratchy and his voice is hoarse but he's never meant anything he
said more than in this moment.

"I accept."

Shiki's hand clasps his and he wonders how it's possible for his broken heart to be
singing like this again, as little of a song this is.

The Pyrokinesis pin is horribly, horribly familiar in his hand ; even though he
stopped using it over three weeks ago it's still the first pin he ever used and
like hell if that didn't make a strong impression. The frog is gone in less than
three seconds.

Shiki beams and tells him how good he is and this rings a painful bell. He's
powerful, he's here because he's powerful.

He looks away, to where Joshua was standing just seconds ago - but he's gone, of
course, gone.

Shiki introduces herself, she goddamn introduces herself, says "Call me Shiki" and
"We've got a long week ahead of us !"

She's all smiles and friendliness, but her little frail hand goes up as if to brush
something off her chin or nose - that gesture that is, now, so obviously fake and
copied and imitated and a defense mechanism, something to put up between her and
fear, to hide her trembling lips from him.

He can't even choke out his own name, can't even do this, at least this, for her.
Can't even be polite to her, to thank her for all she's done for him - all she's
about to do for him all over again, he can figure it out, thanks.

A long week, indeed.

"Something wrong ?" she asks, and the worry is fake fake fake how could he never
see it before - oh, now here's an easy, painfully harsh answer : he never cared.

Everything's wrong, he wants to say. Everything, can't you see.

He can say nothing. There's a lump in his throat that's blocking the words, keeping
them in. He can say nothing, so he turns away, stalks off to 104 and tries to
pretend her quick panicked footsteps behind him are any comfort.

The timer is down to 20 minutes already.

He can just hear the Composer's voice, chuckling and drawling, Oh, how time flies
when you're having fun.

But when Pinky - Uzuki Yashiro, with her partner, Lollipop, Kariya, right beside
her, gun in hand and eyes some color that isn't red - sicks Noise on them he's got
Shiki fighting with him. Can't see her, never could, but he can feel her and he
focuses all of his mind on her, because helping her fight is the least he can do.
He syncs up with her just like that, easy and smooth and oh so natural, and
unleashes the Fusion before he can even notice it but she doesn't even comment on
it when they're done.

"Hey, Stalker," he hears himself say when the bear Noise rushes at them, because he
doesn't mean that so of course he can say it. "Don't mess this up !" and what he
means, what he just can't choke out, is

Shiki, please, please get through this safe.

The bear lasts five seconds, tops. Yashiro screeches and goes mental. Neku's chest
aches. Everything's in order.

Shiki's looking at her phone and he's clutching his head when the day ends.

* * *

REAPERS' GAME

shiki, day 2

THE 2ND DAY

* * *

Shiki's looking at her phone and he's clutching his head when the next day begins.
He gazes at her from afar, sitting on a bench with her small light pink phone
clutched in her hands, her two faces grinning at her - the one she used to have and
the one she has now. He wonders if she realizes that they're mocking her.

He reaches out to touch her arm, lightly, carefully, because he craves the simple
thing that is human contact already - and she jumps like he's just electrocuted
her, yells and stares at him with her wide frightened freaked out eyes.

"... S-Something wrong ?" she asks, because she's just scared and absolutely
incapable of caring about someone else right now, especially an asshole such as
him, but that's what Eri would ask and she thinks she's Eri right now.

And there's just no way he can explain to her that he's missing her, so instead he
tries to remember. What did he say the last time this happened ?

The words slip out of his month unprompted, unthought.

"Where are we ?"

She smiles ; easy question, impersonal, safe. She can answer that. "Isn't this the
underpass by the station ? I can hear the trains."

And there comes the beep of the mission mail and Neku really, really feels like
jumping in front of one of those trains but even if this didn't mean Shiki's
erasure as well, for some reason he doesn't think suicide works in the UG. You
don't get a say in what happens to your soul.

Set the cursed sculpture free.

You have 60 minutes.

Fail, and face erasure.

— The Reapers

Oh, Hachiko.

Isn't today going to be just embarrassing.

First off is making himself bump straight into a Wall because Shiki has no idea
it's there and for some stupid reason he still can't work the words out.

He can't hug her, either, or say her name. His body simply doesn't respond to the
commands when he tries doing something else than what he did the first time, and so
he simply can't. Can't tell her that he's been through all this before, that he's
so sorry for being such an asshole - all that does get out of his mouth is the kind
of horrible, hurting stuff he probably never stopped spouting all throughout that
first week, not that he cares to remember.

So that's how this is going to be.

Well, fine then. He can manage with that. He can do this, he knows : he's done it
before. It's not going to be a lot of fun but it's not impossible, either - and
hey, not like he has a choice, anyway.

First things first ; he checks his pockets, just in case. And ooh, look, someone
must've been feeling nice somehow (despite putting him through this shit in the
first place) because he's still got all the items and pins he had when the Game
ended a week ago, stuffed in his pockets. It's ridiculous in some way. Erasing
Noise is easier than cake with his fully evolved pins - yet Shiki still insists to
make him experiment with the old, old starter set, even though he hates using that
Psychokinesis pin to move obstacles around. (The Sexy D+B pins are so much easier
to handle.)

And oh, yay, they look through his pins together and what do you know. He's got two
Player pins. Isn't that just great. Doesn't he wonder why he can't just get rid of
them, both of them, right now.

After they wipe out all the Noise in the station with a three-reduction chain that
Shiki doesn't question either, the Support Reaper in the red hoodie clears the
wall. It's so strange, having Shiki freak out and wonder what's going on and throw
wild guesses at how the Game works when he's got used to his partners of the last
two weeks having access to a bit more info than normal Players would have, to say
the least.

Before passing through, he snaps at Shiki, because he's just an antisocial bastard
like that (god how he wishes he could get away from himself), and Shiki looks at
her phone again as if to ask it for advice, for comfort. Her own face is smiling at
her, except it looks more like a smirk, and Neku wonders if it hurts yet.

He remembers who's going to start shouting at them a split second before actually
hearing the yell, and damn but it's good to see Beat looking at him again, furious
or not. And there's Rhyme right by his side, little fragile kind-of-alive Rhyme,
smiling and being cute and adorable and so, so helpful and nice and gentle.

And all he's able to do is sulk and insult them and hurt Shiki some more, of
course.

He listens to them over the tuned-down music playing in his headphones (can't take
them off, obviously). Beat hesitates for just a second before introducing Rhyme as
his 'partner', but of course Shiki doesn't notice that. The two of them teach Shiki
how to use her phone and she thanks them and doesn't remark on the fact that Neku's
been playing with his non-stop all morning ; they talk about how you can't scan
Players and Neku tries to say it's the pins, not the being dead and isn't surprised
when his mouth stays clamped shut ; they mention walls and, in Beat's case, trying
to break through them and Neku almost manages to chortle out loud at that. Same old
Beat, definitely.

Too bad that for the life of him (ha, ha), he's absolutely incapable of vocally
agreeing with the teamwork plan.

He listens to himself as he rebukes them, puts them down, not knowing what the hell
he's saying as he snarls that he doesn't need them doesn't need anyone bringing him
down doesn't want to open up and

other people just hold him back

and oh God, he's only understanding himself now.

And he's aware as he stalks off that Shiki's looking at her phone for help again
but if he can't even weep for her, he certainly can't weep for himself.

"So," Neku sighs a little while later. "Hachiko. Curse. Crazy guy talking to
statues. Box. ... The hell is this box doing here ?"

"Oh, that's funny," Shiki chirps, having calmed down and gone back to being naive
and bubbly and oh-so-fabulous. "There was another box just like that one at Hachiko
yesterday. This was inside," she adds, completely unfazed, as she pulls out a pair
of...

... nose glasses.

"... What the hell," Neku says.

Shiki shrugs.

"Maybe someone felt like leaving surprise gifts laying around ? Well, go on, open
it," she encourages him, completely ignoring the look he gives her for suggesting
something so ridiculous with such a straight face.

He eyes the box suspiciously for a while, but Shiki has never met Pi-Face, she
can't understand why he'd be wary of a piece of thrash laying around. Eventually,
he has to admit to himself that Pi-Face probably isn't hanging around this week,
sighs, and opens the box.

He blinks, takes the sailor suit lying inside and holds it up in front of him,
dumbstruck.

"What. The. Hell."

Shiki giggles.

"You found it, you wear it ! I'll put on the nose glasses if you wear this !"

All the running around, being creeped by statues-obsessed weirdoes and finding
strange boxes and fussing about and murdering innocent pigs because guaranteed pin
drop ! and all the mess from their attempts to 'free Hachiko from his curse' when
it's all just about a Noise painted over - it all does, at least, have one bright
side. The sheer stupidness of the mission (and in Shiki's case, also the cuteness
of the dog - until it jumps on them with all fangs and claws out, anyway) lets the
pair of them think that just maybe this whole Game thing might actually be a little
fun.

Even the second time around.

Except of course, that's when Yashiro comes around and how, how could Neku forget
that.

His hand moves up, slowly, gathering a ball of pure energy to suffocate his own
partner and it's frightening how willing his body is, how quickly he resolved
himself to this.

He times it. He now knows that it took him 56 seconds to make up his mind about
murdering someone ; a girl, his age, only fault : being a bit too loud and
friendly. This has got to be a record. He hopes that it's a record, that assholes
like who he was - who he is right now - aren't a norm.

A one-minute time limit doesn't excuse this - amnesia doesn't excuse this - trauma
doesn't excuse this -

- and he sees now what the Composer saw in him that day, in Udagawa.

He can't even squeeze his eyes shut and so he watches Shiki in the eye as she
whimpers and sobs and Hanekoma just can't possibly arrive fast enough.

* * *

DON'T KILL ME

shiki, day 3
THE 3RD DAY

* * *

Neku awakes to darkness and silence.It scares
seconds - then he realizes that no, nothing's
hasn't actually killed Shiki this time around
conventional kind of afterlife-place to atone
just A-East's constantly dark stage.
the crap out of him for about two
suddenly gone out of order and he
and hasn't been sent to a more
for the crime. This, he remembers, is

He stands up and walks, blindly, straight on to where he supposes the exit is. His
outstretched fingertips brush what he knows is Shiki's face and he smiles, almost
grins as she screeches in shock.

She breathes loudly in relief when she realizes it's him and he wishes he could see
her eyes, know whether there is still fear in them.

She scolds him, a little. He lets her. The worst thing she calls him is "dumb" and
he bites his lip silently because really that's not a tenth of what he'd deserve
for what he did the day before - but hey, this is Shiki. She grins at him - he
can't quite see it, but he can hear it in her voice - and rejoices that they can
finally talk and is sorry for his amnesia and how the hell, he wonders not for the
first time, did he never notice how fake her worry was ?

At the root of it all, she is gentle, nice, caring, and that's probably why she
managed to keep up the act for so long during that first week. But she's always
been jealous and bitter and mediocre, the average envious teenager, and right now
she's scared of the Game and scared of him, of his hatred for people and of what he
did only a few hours earlier - for them, only minutes earlier.

He can see it now even though he can't see her face, just listening to her voice in
the dark. She's awkward, she's nervous, she's tired and terrified and the only
thing keeping her head above the water is the thought that it's fine, she's Eri
now. All throughout that week with him, he now realizes, she pretended that she was
happy to be teamed up with him, that she didn't hold it against him that he tried
to kill her, that she wanted to win the Game with him - that she wanted to win at
all, really. He's only realizing this now because she's doing it all over again and
now he knows enough, knows what she's really thinking as she supposedly looks at
the picture of her best friend for comfort, knows why she's here.

For just a second, he wonders if it really was an accident that brought her to the
UG. He hates himself for it the instant he's formed the thought, but the worst part
of it is that he has every reason to wonder.

As bleak and sinister as the neighborhood of A-Eeast looks, he's unspeakably

relieved to finally get out in the light, take a gulp of fresh air (because yes he
does still need to breathe), and see Shiki's face again. The smile on her face
isn't as obviously fake when he can see it, and he can pretend that he can't tell.

o
It's kind of a wonder how easy it is to forget about things you don't want to think
about, to get distracted when you're willing to be. Neku kind of understands the
tech's feelings, though he doesn't have such an impossibly short attention span
coupled with a goldfish memory. Neku mostly remembers what they had to do for the
missions, but hey, they've got three hours, and he's not exactly impatient to go
bother giant bats hiding in dark places. So he fiddles a little.

Having been in the Game for three weeks makes a new playthrough interesting to say
the least. Shiki changes into the impossibly expensive Pegaso cocktail dress he
gives her with a squeal.

"Wow, thanks ! Why the honor ? How'd you get it anyway ?"

He bought it during his third week - two weeks ago - when he had money to spare ;
he bought it for her, as a promise to himself that this was it, he'd see her again
and give her that dress because the mind-boggling price didn't come even close to
what he owed her. He can't even begin to imagine how to explain that ; his lips
seem sewed together anyway.

"Hmf," he grunts.

Shiki sighs and doesn't question him any further.

She insists on keeping the nose-glasses on as well, though, unabashedly claiming

that fashion is about daring to wear what you want to wear and bold is stylish.
Neku is very thankful that they're mostly invisible, and just pretends that he
doesn't know her when they walk inside a store.

From then on, things only get more and more ridiculous by the minute. The nasty
clerk at Cosmic Corner won't sell them anything, for one, even though Neku has half
of his shop stored in his pockets already.

For second, after they find 777's tech hiding at Ramen Don, Neku buys half a dozen
of each meal in the menu and Ken Doi just cheerfully complies without questioning
it. The cook also, despite having technically never seen Neku before, keeps giving
him extras and chats with him as if they've been long friends - which yes, they
are, actually, but the guy shouldn't remember that. He doesn't seem surprised to
see just how much Neku can stuff into his pockets, either, but no one's ever seemed
surprised by that, even the first time around. (Neku has long given up on solving
the mystery of his magical practically-bottomless pockets.)

Nothing Neku can really do about all the weirdness, so he just shrugs it all away
and, when they meet Beat and Rhyme again, suffers through a lecture on how to
imprint.

He's bored by now, really. They run around Dogenzaka and A-East, pounding into
Noise of all colors as they go. The old regular red Noise, a few yellow symbols
lurking around the depressed tech. Lurking in a corner of the concert space, they
find a large blue Noise symbol which turns out to be the friggin' so-called 'master
of A-East', complete with crazy flickering lights, swarms of other little but
vicious bats and a smaller, golden bat only appearing after they've turned the
large one into dust. Their timer doesn't seem to think it counts, though. There are
also green symbols floating around the neighborhood : more pigs, which keep running
before they can hurt them, but Shiki is a stubborn girl and Neku doesn't really
like to be made fun of by small pink porcins, so they don't give up and just keep
challenging the green Noise until they finally manage to make chopped pork out of
it.

When they get tired of fighting, they look for memes to experiment with and then
watch with morbid, detached interest the apparently brainless tech wander aimlessly
everywhere they send him. Neku remembers 777's nasty cough, thinks about the
concert and how everything's been going awry for Def Märch all day, admits to
himself that the band members were never actually bad guys (just a little annoying
sometimes, but still, pretty decent, the lot of them), decides to be nice and
subtly advises the tech to buy cough drops - to Shiki's great confusion.

Then there's the ramen incident when they remind him of the noodles he ordered and
never ate. That's just weird.

"Another box ?!"

"Ooh, ooh, let's see what's inside ! C'm'on, open it, quick !"

Shiki looks way too excited about this, Neku decides. He sighs again but still
opens the box.

"Oh, snap."

"Omigosh." Shiki is flailing. "This is so adorable. Wait just a sec, I need to put
this on right now."

"What ? But - the Pegaso dress -"

"Oh." She looks sheepish. "Right. It's amazing quality, isn't it ? But come on,
look at this !" She holds up the cotton yukata in his face, almost flailing again
already. "It's beautiful ! We can't not wear this !"

Neku instantly catches on to the 'we' and inwardly cringes. "I'm not wearing it."

Shiki scowls at him from behind her ridiculous fake glasses. "Oh, come on ! You
never did put on that sailor suit we found yesterday, you can at least wear this !
It's not as girly, you don't need to be as brave ! Also !" She pauses, smirking,
knowing her next argument is a strong one. "It's got good stats !"

Neku moans, but he can't argue that.

Thus, he is wearing a long turquoise-blue yukata embroidered with pink flowers

while they smash the face of what the Noise Report on his phone calls 'Vespertilio
Canor' for the second time that day.

He can't find the smaller bat this time around and Shiki freaks because their timer
doesn't disappear and the countdown is drawing frighteningly close to zero, but
then, right on cue, enter Beat & Rhyme to save the day.

The four of them step outside afterwards, to wind out and talk for a bit. They sit
on the metal fences surrounding the concert hall, and 777 waves and grins at them
as he passes them to go in. They hear the rehearsal finally start a short while
later ; Neku realizes he's still never heard Def Märch play before and is a little
surprised to discover it actually sounds promising.

"This guy's got some nerve, when you think about it," he muses out loud. "I mean,
forcing the Players to do his dirty work and making his concert a matter of life or
death."

Beat snorts and the girls giggle, a happy little chorus with the Def Märch drums in
the background. Neku smiles and manages to raise his hand along with the others
when Shiki calls for a team high-five.
* * *

WHO 2 TRUST

* * *

[A/N : I personally do not believe that Shiki killed herself, for a few reasons
(particularly, because she is trying to win the Game in the beginning and it takes
character development for her to admit to herself that she doesn't actually want a
second chance). But you gotta admit there are reasons to wonder.]

shiki, day 4

[A/N : So I'm getting a little stuck on writing the next chapter but I really like
how this one came out and I'm very late on the schedule I had decided on, so yeah.
Here this is but next chapter will probably take longer to get posted - RL is busy
busy busy.]

* * *

THE 4TH DAY

* * *

Neku has a bad feeling when the day starts. He can't quite figure it out
immediately but he just knows something's wrong - no, more accurately, that
something's about to go wrong.

His eyes fall on the other pair of Players waiting with his partner in front of 104
; on the little girl standing beside Beat. He never quite got to know her that
well.

It comes back in a jolt, a shock, what day today is : the day Rhyme died.

It's so unfair. It was unfair already the first time. She didn't deserve - any of
this, none of them deserved any of this but she the least of anyone. She hadn't -
hasn't, hasn't, because she's still alive for now, or well, as alive as you get in
the UG - she hasn't even had time to fight with her parents or to be jealous of her
friend or to hate the world or even to have her dreams broken - no, oh, no, she's
just lost them.

A million reasons to live, Beat said. A million things she's lost.

Well, damn if Neku will let her lose them again. He's not going to let her lose the
Game, lose anything, this time around.

Rhyme grins at him when he walks up to them. "A good day to you, Neku !" she says,
brightly, innocently, completely unsuspecting of what is supposed to happen to her
in less than an hour.

Neku's stomach clenches and he isn't surprised that he's not able to grin back.

Can he stop this ? Can he prevent something so huge
even do something as little as smiling just because
Even when he knows there are walls, he still has to
makes him think he can stop Rhyme from being erased
from almost erasing Shiki ?
from happening, when he can't
the Game doesn't want him to ?
walk right into them ; what
when he couldn't stop himself

Nothing. But that's not the point, is it ? The question really is - what else can
he do but try ? He's not going to just stand and watch, he's not.

So he tries, hard as he can. He can't work the words out, can't tell Beat to forget
that stupid race idea, but he can glare and cross his arms and roll his eyes and
make it pretty obvious he's not going to take up the challenge. Beat doesn't get it
though, of course. Neku can't suggest that they all stay together and keep their
guard up because today's mission is suspicious as hell, can't they see it's got to
be a trap ? But when Beat slides away on his board, leaving the girls giggling
behind, Neku can stay with them, their silent, unsuspected guard.

It does occur to him, suddenly, that crap - BEAT has gone, but then again he knows
Beat wouldn't go anywhere without Rhyme. Beat'll wait. He'll be safe.

For sure.

Rhyme turns around to face them, smiling, saying how happy she is that Beat asked
her to be his partner. Her pendant swings and jiggles around her neck and Shiki has
a fashion-fanatic moment.

"It was a present," Rhyme says, smiling brighter if that was ever even possible,
"from my brother."

Neku almost cringes at that, but she's happy, she's practically radiating
happiness. How could Beat ever think that just because she forgot him, she didn't
love him just as much as he loved her ?

Shiki reassures her, says she'll see her brother soon, but Neku knows she's still
acting, still in Eri mode because ten seconds later she says she wants to be a
designer - and then Rhyme starts saying she's never had any dream and how she
admires Beat for having one and Neku feels the burning need to shake them both hard
until they realize what they're saying.

He's not even sure anymore that the Player who was the most badly hit by the loss
of his entry fee was really him.

He hears Beat's unmistakable roar cutting across the noise of the Shibuya crowd and
looks up just in time to see Rhyme happily skip away, not a care in the world, and
shit. He makes to go after her right away, but Shiki steps in front of him and
asks, all shy smile and careful eagerness, can they please go shopping for a bit ?

Of course, she can't imagine that Rhyme is going to die if they go shopping, and of
course, he can't tell her. Of course.

Fuck it all.

He steps around her and tries to follow the spot of bright orange he can still
discern in the middle of the colorful crowd, but Shiki grabs him by the elbow and
demands to go shopping. Right. Now.

As she whirls him around his feet trip on something ; he stumbles, looks down - and
what the hell, another box. A Mrs. Claus outfit this time. He completely expects
Shiki to fall over laughing, but instead she points at it with a gaping mouth.

"That's mine !!" she very nearly screeches. "I pulled an all-nighter to finish
sewing it in time ! What's it doing in a box in the middle of the street ?!"

"What was a pair of nose-glasses doing in a box in the middle of the street ?" Neku
deadpans.

Shiki shakes her head and apparently decides she's just too freaked to keep
thinking about it. (Neku is thankful, really, because it's got even better stats
than yesterday's yukata and he's not sure he'd be able to resist Shiki if she
decided to make him wear it. He loves her a lot but she's scary sometimes.)

Shopping it is, then. Neku prays Beat and Rhyme will wait for them.

Neku's been in 104 who knows how many times now, but it still always gives him the
same feeling of being in a zoo. Somehow, it manages to be even worse when Eiji Oji
is around.

What the hell is it with spicy tuna rolls, anyway ?

There's so much noise and activity all around them, the crowd buzzing and hustling
even worse inside 104 than in the streets, Neku can barely pay attention to what
Shiki's saying, ranting on and on about fashion. He perks up when she says Eri's
name, as if it slipped her tongue, as if she couldn't help but talk about her. He
catches up to her as she looks at the D+B boots, still chattering, but she sounds a
little different. He thinks she realizes he's actually interested for once. She's
sharing something personal and he cares and they both know it ; it's refreshing and
very welcome, and even though he already knows everything she's telling him, it's
nice to hear Shiki finally talk about herself.

She's still adamantly stuck on wanting to be a designer, but there's no bitterness

in her voice, not just yet or maybe not anymore already. But it is her own future
she's laying out in front of him, her own desire, her own logic.

"Nice clothes make people happy," she explains with her disarmingly naive,
childishly simple, wonderful Shiki-logic. "And that makes me happy, too."

Neku snorts out loud, but inside he thinks that the world would be such a different
place if only there were more Shikis around.

She's being herself, not Eri, finally, and it suits her so well. She's almost
coming alive before Neku's eyes, beaming and gushing on, with passion lighting up
her eyes and laughter bubbling up in her voice. She's being herself and Neku can't
fathom why she would ever want to be someone else.

Shiki as Shiki is awesome. But she gets carried away real quick.

Neku narrowly escapes being forced into a D+B miniskirt, but only because he flees
the shop and his fashion-crazed partner's stubborn attempts on his masculinity
altogether. On his way out, he glimpses a strangely reminiscent belt buckle shaped
like a ram's skull and wonders for a second, but Shiki is coming after him with a
purple bikini and he has no time to waste.

"I'm sorry," she mutters sheepishly when he lets her catch up with him outside the
mall building. Always quick to get rid of conflicts, never giving hard feelings a
chance to pile up. She could give lessons on good partnership. "I, hem, I shouldn't
have tried to force you to put on something you don't want to wear. It's your
choice. It's not like you look really that awful, after all."

No lessons on tact, though.

"Wow, thanks," he can't help grumbling, but she looks so distressed and honestly
bothered that he sighs. "I'm not really angry, just forget it."

She smiles, a little shyly, and follows him back to the scramble, skipping behind
him in her brand new boots (which do not have particularly good stats, but
apparently look great).

And then, just after they pass Makoto Miki, Useless Businessman Extraordinaire, and
his schoolgirl acquaintance in the street, Shiki spots the button.

No way, Neku's mind screeches. No way ! She fixed that ! Why's it coming loose
again ? This has nothing to do with the Game, why — I don't want to have to strip
again !

Shiki is absolutely not apologetic anymore and unabashedly ignores his protest as
she tugs his shorts off in the middle of the street.

It is all very humiliating and distracting.

Neku's brain doesn't really start working again until Shiki finally hands him his
pants back and they get walking again (Shiki's heels clacking on concrete)... and
catch up with Beat and Rhyme.

Good, he thinks, distantly, as he and Shiki walk to the other pair. They waited.

Of course that means teasing Beat because he really is just a big softy underneath
his thin tough-guy cover. But Neku really isn't complaining. They're here, he's got
his eyes on them now, stupid Noise has got to be there in front of Towa Records but
he's prepared, he and Shiki'll just go first and take it out now and keep all four
of them safe -
Beat and grins at him and sprints away, Rhyme only a few steps behind, and that's
enough to make Neku freeze for a few seconds. Just a few seconds but

- Shit ! -

seconds have never had more importance than in the Game.

Even as he runs, some part of him knows - nothing actually happened differently
today. Beat's still ahead, barging first in the street of Towa Records, not
watching out, and Rhyme's still chasing him and Neku's still behind and too far and
too late. He keeps running, as fast as he can and then some more, never caring that
Shiki is calling his name worriedly and that his side is aching and his lungs are
burning and he knows he's going to be too fucking late.

His mouth opens to scream, but there's only silence.

He can see it. Later, he'll wonder whether it was just his imagination or a freaky
afterimage the Game conjured or quite possibly his mind finally snapping, but right
now he can see it, clear as day. There's a car, rushing much, much too fast, and in
front of it a little girl stumbling and tripping on the concrete and a teenaged boy
running to push her out of the way -

not fast enough.

* * *

(For a second the world freezes and flickers and it's just a boy there, a
different, younger, even more innocent kid, excited and impatient and careless and
only there because his best friend called him.)

* * *

And then Beat is in Rhyme's place and Rhyme is in Beat's place, crashing into him
just to push him away and the car is a giant shark Noise and Rhyme's pendant
glitters in the dim light and chimes softly as it falls down onto concrete.

And Neku has failed again.

He is calm, in appearance. Stone calm.

That is because all the rage is boiling inside his veins.

He is so fucking angry, he barely notices as Hanekoma waltzes out of nowhere and

takes Beat away to safety, he's barely thinking as he beats up the goddamned Noise.
He is functioning entirely on fury and the want to hurt. Sharks were always a
bother to fight with their habits of swimming underground thing, but this one poses
absolutely no problem : Neku just dashes into it, slashing and burning pins all
out, unable of paying any attention whatsoever to Shiki - and he is disgusted at
how quickly, how easily he gets rid of it. Too late. Because it seems screwing up
someone isn't enough if there isn't sinister irony involved.

When they get out of their respective Noise battleground zones and back into the
UG, he looks at Shiki and sees she isn't crying. She's quiet, worried about Beat,
but she's not crying.

"Why couldn't we save Rhyme ?" she whispers, faintly.

"Because we couldn't."

For the first time, the words that are forced out of him are the exact words he
would have said anyway. And that makes it all worse, somehow, that he means it.
This hasn't changed since the last time, he hasn't changed since the last time.

"We couldn't," he says. "That's how it was meant to be."

And just like that Shiki bursts out, bursts open, bursts in tears and screams of
anger, virulent and utterly helpless.

Before she can blink - before she can even have a choice to shut up or to keep
shouting - he's lashing out right back at her, and he knows what he's saying stings
so much more because he's never felt a need to hold back.

It was never her he was mad at, though. It was at Rhyme, for having sneaked close
to him and then just left him ; it was at Beat, for being so openly broken. It was
at himself, for letting them in despite everything.

What he's telling Shiki right now - we're better off without friends - he still
thinks that, somewhere. Part of him is wishing that he never met Rhyme just so he
didn't lose her, wishing he never became friends with her so this didn't hurt so
much - only part of him, though, because Rhyme was / is / is so sweet and gentle,
small and innocent Rhyme and just so likable and even though he barely knew her, he
can't bring himself to really regret it.

Not when he's seen just how much Beat missed her and blamed himself for this, when
he's fought to get her back, when he's seen her again, smiling and laughing and so
happy to live again, after it was all said and done and over with (or so he
thought, anyway).

He cuts himself off and breathes in, harshly.

It's okay, he reminds himself. It's okay, we're going to save her, we are.

When I team up with Beat, after I've lost Shiki and

Shiki is still yelling at him but he's not listening.

Fuck, this is too much. Just like that time, he remembers, just like that time and
oh how well does he remember. He doesn't want to think about it. It's too hard,
there's too much pain and he doesn't want to deal with it. He doesn't think he can
bear it anymore - he did it once already but it seems it only gets harder.

Why did this happen to him, why is this happening to him ? He's no hero, he's never
been one.

He's just a kid.

"You're inhuman !" Shiki screams.

He just stares at her, blank-faced and empty-eyed, because the truth is he's really
so human it hurts.

* * *

ERASED

shiki, day 5

Sorry for the delay and more apologies in advance 'cause next chapter will probably
also take some time to get written and posted. Real Life is getting very busy (and
I'm lovin' it).

This aside, am I the only one who gets chills during Higashizawa's speech to Shiki,
never mind how many times I read it ? I hope I managed to do it some justice
despite the rush I'm currently in.

'Kay, enjoy (I hope) !

* * *

THE 5TH DAY

* * *

Waking up is eerie. Mostly because Neku feels he shouldn't be waking up, not after
the previous day. Maybe because he feels he doesn't deserve to keep living - if you
can call this living - and definitely because he wishes he didn't have to deal with
any more of this shit.

He breathes in deep, and tells the emo urges to go screw themselves.

He's still trapped in this joke of a new Game, Shiki's still depending on him, he's
still got to make it through it all (again) and he will. Day Four is over, done
with, in the past, and even though nothing guarantees he'll never have to go
through it again, it's not an issue at the moment.

Right now, what's important is Shiki, trying not to look at him and not to fidget
and being such a brave girl even when she's scared witless.

"Sorry about yesterday," she mutters. "I crossed the line with what I said."

Hard feelings don't make for good teamwork. Always apologize, never let hard
feelings pile up, get rid of conflicts because you can't survive on your own here.
You need your partner.

You need to trust your partner.

Yeah, well, trust Shiki to take that to heart and apologize even when they both
know she was absolutely right.

Rhyme...

... is not the issue at hand anymore. The mission comes beeping and Neku is fairly
sure they're the only pair left already - Yashiro said fifteen erased, just by her,
just yesterday. It's up to them from now on, although really it was always up to
them.

Today's program : free Spain Hill. Perfect. Beating up on Noise is exactly what he
needs right now.

No matter the time of day, Spain Hill always has large patches of shade positively
swarming with Noise. Neku chains up a four-reduction battle and just crashes his
way through them - and is disappointed when he realizes the fight's already over.

"Stupid things don't even last ten seconds," he mumbles.

"Hem." Shiki's lightly biting her thumb again. "Neku ? I don't think this is making
any difference."

Neku is scanning the area again before he even thinks about it. It's a bit of a
scary habit to have, but at least there aren't many people in the street to throw
their thoughts at him - or black Noise coming after his hide. Though Shiki's right,
there's still just as much Noise as ever -

- heeey there. Yellow Noise, negative Noise, Noise that like to feed on people's
emotions, hello.

That's right. It's the pair of schoolgirls. They were in that ridiculous, hugely
blown out of proportion argument about something or other.

Getting rid of the dark yellow symbols floating around them is no use either, they
just spawn more the next second. Only one solution : invasion of privacy. Neku
wonders if the Game was specifically designed to screw over anyone with actual
ethics. (And considering who's in charge of it, it's even pretty likely.)

The girls are scary, really.

The whole thing is stupid, a silly misunderstanding caused by a hasty assumption

and a complete absence of trust, and Neku has always thought that girls were weird
in general but these two ? That Ai chick ? She's taking all this way too seriously,
way too far, and being way too frighteningly bitchy. How the hell is the human race
still around if girls react this way when they're jealous ?!

The way she 'summons' the 'Reaper' of her game, it doesn't sound like she's hoping
that it will answer her questions so much as that it will curse her supposedly best
friend. She's almost murderous when Neku slowly nudges the coin to the true answer
rather than the answer she'd like : yes, your friend lied to you, but no, she
doesn't have a crush on anyone (as far Neku knows, anyway). You're just imagining
things. She's just looking out for you, trying to do something nice for you.

So much for friendship, Neku catches himself thinking again.

Shiki tried, he's gotta hand it to her. She tried to get him to believe in
friendship... to make herself believe it. As they stand side by side, watching the
two girls make up, she starts her big speech again and Neku listens to it with new
ears. She sounds so convinced, so sure of what she's saying, too, he probably would
never have guessed that she was just reciting by heart bullshit she didn't believe
in at all either. It is disturbing to think that the only sincere thing in it all
is probably that Eri really was nice to her - but Shiki didn't like it, didn't like
it at all, maybe hated her friend for being so loving and lovable.

The thought takes him by surprise, so much that he's not sure if it's really his -
maybe he did just think it himself or maybe he used to think it, or perhaps he
simply accidentally scanned it from the crowd or something, or someone imprinted it
in him - but he's got to agree with it, reluctantly :

It's scary, the strength with which humans hate, and just how much easier it is for
them to hate than to love.

The scariest thing of all is probably the Game Master, though. Neku faintly
remembers having been creeped out like hell when the huge guy just popped out of
nowhere, having apparently been stalking Shiki, but he'd forgotten all the lame
puns and food analogies. Somehow.

'The barbecue of your heart' ? 'The tomato of your soul ' ? Seriously ?

Worst thing is that there's nothing funny about this. Shiki is shuddering, about to
fall to her knees on the ground but not daring to cling to Neku for support - not
even looking at him.

He's not sure she even remembers that he's there, actually.

"Oh, how deeply you must hate yourself," the Game Master coos, with a sickly sweet,
sugary voice that gives Neku chills and must be doing so much worse to Shiki.

She's staring at the ogre of a Reaper with eyes open wide and bulging and far away
and maybe she doesn't see him, either, although she certainly hears him.

"No one loves you," he hisses on, like a serpent, delighting in the horror painted
all over her face. "You can't love yourself."

"Stop," she whispers. "Stop !" she whimpers. "Don't say it, don't say it..." and
she clutches at 'her' face, 'her' skull, 'her' cherry-colored hair that's not hers
at all and she pulls.

Neku can almost see how much she wishes she could get out of her own skin (not,
not, not her own).

"Nothing will change if you are restored to life. You'll just go on hating yourself
and being jealous of everybody else."

Shiki makes a choking sound.

The guy, Higa-something, is about twice Neku's height and at least five times
larger than him, and a friggin' Game Master - (Neku knows being a proxy really
means nothing as far as actual power goes) - but he really, really doesn't care.
That's not what's stopping him from running to the huge Reaper and making him shut
up, fuck it, shoving something in his mouth before he breaks Shiki down into pieces
that never did hold together so well in the first place.

What's stopping him is his own body, absolutely refusing to move a finger, once
again. Neku can't believe he didn't move at all, didn't do anything the first time
this happened - Shiki is freaking out and falling apart right in front of him and,
judging by the words that come out of his mouth, all he was concerned about the
first time around was that he was dead.

"I'm dead ?" he repeats, machine-like and still as a statue, trapped in his own
body while his partner runs away on shaky legs, sobbing and clinging to the raggedy
stuffed animal that is all that's left of her.

* * *

EMPTY URBAN LEGENDS

shiki, day 6

To all the people who have reviewed this fic and/or added it to their story
alerts : thank you for keeping me motivated. I almost gave up on this project, but
the fact that I kept getting notices that people were waiting on this kept me
going.

Thus, I am very, very, very sorry this is so late. Real life this year has been
much more hectic than I expected it to be, and I'm genuinely ashamed of how long it
has taken me to churn out this chapter. Yet I really didn't want to half-ass it,
because it feels pretty important to me, just as Day 6 was in the game. I hope it
will be worth the wait (turned out extra-long) and satisfy you guys enough to keep
you hooked on this little fic.

Thank you again for reading. Please enjoy !

* * *

THE 6TH DAY

* * *
Neku is the first awake the next day. Shiki is still laying on the ground, next to
him (making even more obvious the fact that they are transported during their
sleep), curled up in a tight little ball, clutching her knees close to herself and
looking very much like a foetus hugging itself.

The day's mission, he remembers upon finding a familiar pin in his hand, is that
one about advertising the Red Skull Pins. He's rather sure he doesn't want to do
it. It seemed innocent enough, at first, but if he remembers right, two weeks later
it degenerated into some epic mess.

Like a huge, Shibuya-sized brainwashing.

It's a long few minutes until the beep announcing the actual mission mail, but
Shiki still doesn't budge. Neku wonders, fleetingly, whether she's really still
asleep or just pretending. Maybe she's trying to convince herself that she can just
sleep the day away, that if she doesn't get up she won't have to get through any
more of this.

"Hey, rise and shine !" he's saying, poking Shiki's elbow with the tip of his shoe.
He's not too gentle about it, but she doesn't protest, slowly gets up without a
word nor any expression on her face.

He doesn't even need to wonder whether she's simply not a morning person.

It's about time she tells him, isn't it ? he seems to remember, vaguely. About Eri,
about her real appearance.

(He's seen her. He's met her, the real her. He doesn't get what she ever thought
was the slightest bit wrong about it.)

Well, confession time isn't just yet, it seems ; she barely says a word, barely
looks at him. She's not even particularly actively avoiding his gaze, just...
staring in the distance, her face blank and her voice toneless. Following him, but
that's about it ; just not paying attention to him.

As if he wasn't really there.

He shakes the uneasy feeling of being stalked by a life-sized doll to focus back on
the Game — with some difficulty, because seeing Shiki this cheerless is simply
disturbing and he really, really doesn't like it.

The mission, he reminds himself, firmly. Game comes first. The thing with Eri isn't
getting resolved until after they've gotten started on the mission, from what he
remembers.

So.

Those pins.

So what, is he just expected to do this again, to go along with what he knows is a

plan to brainwash, mindcontrol and overtake all of Shibuya ? He knows what's going
to happen if he does this, he can't let it happen again !

... But, there's no other choice, is there ?

He needs to win this. He knows there's nobody else around anymore, no other pair to
complete this mission for him - and even if there was, well, what would it change ?
The only way for him and Shiki to survive this day is for this to happen. This
isn't like Day 4, it's the mission that went wrong. As much as he may hate it, he
can't do anything about it, can't fight it.

... And maybe, he finds himself thinking out of the blue, maybe he shouldn't fight
it, maybe he doesn't need to. After all, it worked out fine the first time around,
in the end, didn't it ?

Except, not really. It may have turned out okay in the very end, but the way to get
there... It's just, it's just that Rhyme died, and Beat actually made himself a
Reaper to save her and was almost erased as well — and Shiki was taken away, and
Joshua sacrificed himself for Neku (except not, not at all) and the ganguro couple,
Sota and Nao — Nao-Nao for short — they were erased, by illegal and crazy powerful
Noise. And, talking about crazy and powerful, Minamimoto blew himself up and turned
himself Taboo, and all the people of Shibuya lost their mind and their heart and he
and Beat had to fight brainwashed Kariya and Yashiro still sticking together and
they erased a dozen brainwashed Reapers, and though they could afford sparing 777
he was erased by his own superior just because he had a sense of honor, and then
they killed Konishi for that and because she had squished Rhyme in her hand but
Kitaniji was erased because of a bet even though he had good intentions and the
seventh day of that third week was definitely the worst day of Neku's life.

Well, so far, anyway, 'cause his life seems to love getting worse and worse
everyday. And then making him relive it.

It did turn out fairly okay for the four of them, ultimately, but Neku refuses to
believe that there's no better way to fix it all without that ridiculous screwed-up
massacre.

(Also, his exhausted brain is praying for mercy.)

But.

No other choice any-fucking-way. Mission terms. Only possible option to survive the
day.

Once again, fuck it. (Note to himself : this stupid Game thing has made him
mentally swear more over the span of a few weeks than during his whole life.)

He wants to win this, damn it, wants to finish this week, get it over with, wants
him and Shiki out of this madness. And there's only one, single way to do so.

He sighs and, dragging his feet, walks (literally) through the crowd towards Makoto
Miki, Candidate to Sacking of the Week.

It's ridiculous, actually.

That book poor Mick's taken his pick-up-lines-slash-one-liners from must date back
from before Neku's birth - or be a joke. Or so Neku fervently prays, because he
actually likes his newly rediscovered faith in humanity and he'd rather keep it.

Seeing Sota and Nao again was refreshing, though just a bit disturbing as well
because right now they're still, well, alive. Watching Makoto make up a far-fetched
story on the spot (so he is a professional salesman, after all) was funny, if
weird, as was watching him get pwned at Tin Pin by an overenthusiastic ten-year-old
Slammurai so fast that he didn't even have to time to realize what was going on.
But this ? It's just... just really bloody ridiculous.

Neku sighs, and inspires Makoto with the last possible suggestion he's got - the
one he really wishes he didn't have to see the clueless marketing agent use on
another guy. A guy he knows, at that.

Neku watches with some kind of morbid detachment as Mick cheerfully seems to hit on
Def Märch's tech.

Repeatedly.

Shiki make absolutely no comment, but he's not quite sure that seeing her reaction
to this would actually be less upsetting, so he lets it go. Not like he's got many
other options anyway.

And so there they go through the bustling streets of Shibuya, back to the scramble,
swallowed in the crowd and yet untouched ; two dimensions so close to each other,
yet not touching.

They catch up to Makoto, and there, right there, is where Shiki snaps.

"Just... give it up," she whispers, before jetting off, away from him, and it takes
him a few minutes to find her again in the middle of the crowd.

When he does find her, she still won't look at him ; it takes every amount of
tactful prodding he's able of to get just a word out of her, and then some more to
get her to look at him again.

And that's when the floodgates open. She looks him straight in the eye, finally,
and the words just spill out of her lips as if she'd been holding them back for too
long.

Which she has.

She's hurting ; she's hating herself ; she's more than ready to give up and she's
begging him to understand, and to let her.

He can understand, he can ; but, still.

... Yeah okay but what about me ?!

Then it strikes him, why she doesn't seem to care - not only because the GM was
right, horribly right, and she's always only ever thought of herself first ; but
also because he never really cared so much if he lost, either, and somewhere she
knew that. That day, it wouldn't have mattered to either of them if they'd failed,
if they'd lost, if they'd died.

How the hell did their team, out of all people, how did they manage to win this
stupid Game - how did he manage to win it three times in a row ?!

This whole thing is really taking a toll on Neku and his brain.

She keeps talking, in her monotone and tired voice, and when she says that she's
never been pretty he remembers thinking, that first time, and almost saying aloud,
that he found her beautiful - because it's still the case. The only reason those
words didn't make it out the first time, he suspects, is because there was no way
he could've brought himself to interrupt right now.
But it's a fact that the beauty is there, and not only in her looks that aren't
hers. In her sorrow, in her eyes ; in her words, in the way she's finally opening
up to him and trusting him, in the way she clutches her stuffed animal and he can
see she'd like to clutch his hand instead. There's a beauty that's all hers, all
her own.

Suddenly Eri's there, just a few meters away, chatting and laughing and
effortlessly fashionable - and knowing what the deal is, it wouldn't be quite that
disturbing if only she wasn't wearing the exact same clothes Shiki is ; the clothes
Shiki sewed. She looks happy, and a part of him is shocked and furious to see her
so carefree when her best friend died just a week earlier... but he knows. And he
can see it, knowing where to look, he can catch the glint of sorrow in her eyes as
she discusses clothes and fashion with another girl.

He looks back to Shiki, half curious to see if sadness looks quite the same in her
eyes ; but she isn't there anymore.

You think you're more important than anyone else.

Those words ring through his head again as he chases her across the crossing. They
were true.

She's so ugly, inside.

That's why he likes her.

She's ugly and she hates herself and it breaks his heart to know that she never
realized how beautiful it all made her, how great she really was, until the Game.
Knowing her changed him and saved him, but the opposite is true as well, Neku
knows, and he's unspeakably glad of it. She's a bit like him, in some ways, more
than a bit actually. It was nice, knowing he wasn't alone, knowing he wasn't weird
for being unhappy with himself and the rest of the world.

There's something else he remembers as she explains all about her entry fee, other
words that echo through his mind - well, more accurately, do whatever the contrary
of echoing is, because technically they've never been spoken yet.

Give up on yourself, and you give up on the world.

Don't, he thinks. Don't give up. Hang in there, girl, stay with me.

He likes her the way she is, human and imperfect, weak yet brave and strong enough
to get through this, in the end, with him, standing beside him all the way. God but
he missed her, missed having her by his side, those two weeks, and the week of
"rest" he got after that.

And he tells her so - as clearly as he possibly can when those three other weeks
haven't yet happened - and her face shifts before his eyes.

He blushes, suddenly, old instincts catch up and he borrows his face in his large
collar as she opens his mouth to ask - probably ask him to repeat because she can't
believe he just said this -

and Makoto quite effectively ruins the moment with a heartfelt scream of,
"Nooooooooooooooo !"

Neku could never decide whether he was fond of the poor guy or hated the sightof
him ; he was probably more on the "love" side the first time around, seeing how
Makoto just saved him from more embarrassment, but this time he doesn't care about
sounding ridiculous and just wishes he could keep talking with Shiki.

He sighs, but there's no helping it. Saving Makoto's job and their own necks
first ; they can talk more after this.

They will talk more after this.

Putting on the Red Pin feels weird. Heavy, somehow - and Neku isn't sure whether
it's just his imagination, just because he knows there's something very wrong with
that pin, but it feels harder to move when he's wearing it. Like he's slowed down,
like the pin is pulling him back and hindering him somehow. It's very unsettling,
but, as always, it's not like he can do anything about it.

So he fights, as best he can with that thing doing weird stuff to him. He chains
battles ; he fishes through his deck for that pin he got from some wolf Taboo
Noise, weeks ago, the one that allowed him to run and smash into enemies. He makes
do with what he's got.

Doing a quick scan of the crowd, just out of curiosity and habit, is unexpectedly
gratifying when he catches a few threads of thoughts around the lines of Ooh, that
pin design is sweet !

The one guy who noticed that it's a CAT design makes Neku a bit twitchy, though.

After the last battles-chain, Makoto gleefully marches from 104 back to the
crossing, showing off his pin, proud as peacock and so gleeful Neku almost smiles.
Instead, he sits down on the pavement for a bit, catching his breath ; Shiki stays
standing, of course, not particularly feeling like making her beautiful dress
dirty.

Neku looks at her, standing there, wringing a handful of the cloth of her skirt,
then abruptly turning to tugging at her bracelets after she realizes what she's
doing to the delicate fabric. He can see it coming, and really would smile if only
he could when she suddenly faces him and takes a deep breath.

"Neku... Umm... I'm sorry."

Don't be, he thinks. It's okay. It's going to turn out fine, we're going to be
alright.

And that's when, as if just to prove him right, Eri comes back in, obviously
grieving so much more than her inspiration and passion for designing, and Shiki
catches her breath.

Neku can understand why Shiki would think it wrong to look in a friend's mind, even
though scanning's become too much of a habit for him to question it anymore ; he
still wishes she would, right now. He has no doubt that knowing for sure how Eri
sees her, thinks of her, cares for her, would be the best thing that could ever
happen to Shiki's ego.

But Shiki is a respectable and well-raised young person and she hasn't been playing
the Game long enough to have her ethics twisted like his, and thus she doesn't scan
her best friend. She looks torn, though, as if she might just give it a try, but
then Eri opens her mouth again

"Well, there was this girl, Shiki —"

and Shiki breaks down and runs away once more.

She's such a chicken, Neku thinks as he chases after her again, through the crowd
and back to the scramble crossing : there's nothing for her to be afraid of.

He catches up to her, and he can barely believe it but his mouth starts working and
obeying him again, and he's finally able to tell her what he's been wanting to say
for six days :

"Cut the crap, who are you ?"

And, before she gets time to understand him wrong, to be hurt :

"You're you."

And it's enough.

"You're not Eri. You'll never be Eri. You'll only ever be you."

It breaks his heart all over again to see the tears shimmering in her eyes as he
keeps talking, as she mutters that Eri is so much better, but he's got to do this.
He's got to make it right, to fix her — to make her ready to confront life again,
to want life again.

So he keeps talking, until he gets across to her.

"So... shoot."

Until she nods.

"You're right."

Until she uncrosses her arms, straightens, stops hiding her face behind her hands ;
until she takes a step forward and, as Makoto's ad plays on the giant screen of Q-
Floor and all of Shibuya looks up and watches it, she weaves through the crowd and
walks up to Eri.

The mission's over, completed, the day is won but she doesn't seem to care. She
just stands there, staring at her best friend, as if trying to take her in, as if
she hadn't seen her in so much longer than a few days, as if she weren't wearing
her form in this very moment.

Somehow, incidentally, accidentally, Eri seems to be staring back at her over her
friend's shoulder when she says :

"This girl, Shiki — I'm nothing without her."

Shiki freezes, and Neku stays where he is, a few steps behind her, not intruding
but just being there - and smiles behind the cover of his high collar.

Shiki stares, open-mouthed, stares and stares, and Eri keeps seeming like she's
staring back -

She's still my best friend even now

I want her back

so I can tell her I'm sorry

so we can be a team again

Shiki is crying when she turns around, turns her back to Eri and faces Neku. She's
crying, and smiling at the same time.

"I... I want to see her again," she whispers, her voice choked up and yet also
smooth. "I'm ready. I'm ready for a second chance."

Neku straightens, lowers his collar so she can see he's smiling, at her.

"Then let's win. Let's live." He holds his hand out to her and she clasps it.

She swipes her hand over her eyes, wipes her tears away and nods, fiercely.

And then Neku feels something just unlock and it's like a weight's just been lifted
off his shoulders and when he tries to open his arms... he can. He can reach out to
Shiki, he can touch her he can grab her, hug her, gather her up and clutch at her
and press her close against his chest. And she squeals something inarticulate and
tenses up and probably blushes crimson, but after a while her frail shoulders relax
a little and her hands snake up his back, tentatively, and she half hugs him back.

He can't force out the words Thank you afterwards, but she smiles up at him with
the brilliance of a thousand suns and she says it herself again and You're welcome
he can actually manage, and it's fine, just fine, more than enough.

"Just one more day."

* * *

SUPERIORITY/INFERIORITY

shiki, day 7

THE 7TH DAY

* * *
This is it ; this is it. Today, they end this. Neku will finish the Game, once
more, and surely it'll be enough. This time, he's not gonna settle for anything
less than a win and resurrection for both he and Shiki.

Because this time, he knows that he, too, has got something worth coming back to.

He's way past caring that the mission is asking him to erase someone from existence
; he's done it before, to this very Game Master and to loads of other people
afterwards, and he doesn't regret it. Maybe not every single one of them quite
deserved it - they weren't all evil, they weren't all out to get him specifically,
they'd erased lots of other Players but it was just their job, the Players or
themselves - but all that doesn't even matter. It's his turn to be a selfish
bastard. He has to do this in order to win Shiki's and his life back, and he's
perfectly willing to.

So, no, that doesn't bother him.

What does, is that his phone rings, receiving a call for the first time in weeks.
And he remembers quite clearly Shiki and he trying to call some people, all through
this week as well as their very first one ; she attempted to contact some friends
or family on her first few days, and after the Rhyme fiasco they tried to get in
touch with Beat a few times. He's had plenty of proof that Rhyme had been right :
normal Players' phones just don't work in the UG.

It's Mr. Hanekoma calling.

Now, Neku's always known that Hanekoma wasn't anything at all like a regular guy.
But he doesn't really enjoy finding this kind of evidence. The more he thinks about
it, the more obvious it is that the role his great idol Mr. H plays in the Game
involves more than observing and occasionally helping random unlucky Players.

He was there at the end, after all, wasn't he. Neku tries not to think about that
day too much, but he can't quite manage to forget what he saw then, right before he
closed his eyes for what he believed to be the last time. Of course, he just might
have been hallucinating - the combined effects of blood-loss and of having expected
to see Mr. H in the Composer's chamber for days could've done that, and really,
with what he went through that day, no one could blame him if his mind had finally
snapped. But he doesn't think that's what happened.

Because he'd heard Joshua laugh, and it hadn't sounded evil or anything. Just
amused, and satisfied, maybe. Possibly even proud of him, somehow.

He wouldn't have imagined that.

And he'd seen Mr. H standing there and smiling at him, looking proud of Neku as
well, for some incredible reason, and yet looking tired and relieved that all that
mess was finally over. And he wouldn't have ever imagined that Mr. H could be
tired, he can barely believe it even now.

The whole thing is too weird and absurd and makes too terribly much sense for him
to have simply imagined it all.

Yashiro clearly didn't know Hanekoma, back on Day Two, but that doesn't mean much.
There was a hell of a lot of stuff she obviously wasn't aware of. No reason for her
to know about everything that's going on behind the scene of the Game ; Hanekoma
wouldn't be the kind of normal bureaucrat doing normal work. He's definitely
responsible for a lot of shady, important stuff — God, but those Red Pins really do
look like a CAT design, don't they.
Just this, just what's going on right now, him being able to call Players — and
then there's the fact he knew how to save Beat from erasure, and he did so and no
one stopped him, Yashiro didn't come after him to make chop suey out of his lazy
ass for meddling.

Mr. H isn't anything like a Reaper, but he isn't even remotely close to banal
either. Can't possibly be anything else than, what, a secret agent of the
Composer's of some kind. A direct underling, someone who does his dirty work,
someone who knows all the rules and loopholes of the Game system and is allowed to
mess with it because he knows what he's doing and he's too important to be punished
and restrained or fired.

Neku sighs.

For all that he respects Hanekoma and admires (alright, more like worships) CAT,
they'll have some talking to do when he's done with this.

But for now, it's GM-mashing time. He doesn't think Beat is in actual danger of the
Reapers — the doofus has got to be asking to join them, by now — but, just in case
they don't feel like listening to him before summoning Noise this time, Neku'd
rather do this quick and not take any risks.

They definitely do not have time for shopping.

But hey, with all the fighting they
their last meal was, and the Reaper
fight yet one more chain of battles
damnit, he's standing right next to
burgers is impossible to resist.
did yesterday, they finished digesting whatever
guarding the wall past Hachiko wants them to
before he lets them proceed to the freeway and
the stationside Sunshine and the smell of

Beat, or burgers. Tough choice.

Of course Shiki leaves him to stand in line and get her salad while she drops by
Kurakura next door. "Just a quick look, I promise, but I need to see this, they've
got some new stuff in store !"

Yeah. They do.

Standing outside with his fries in hand, Neku definitely recognizes the frilly
umbrella in the store window, and it definitely wasn't around during his first
first week. He's sure of it, because he can still hear Josh's cry of delight upon
seeing it (it had sounded an uncomfortable lot like a squeal), and he also quite
clearly remembers Josh explaining that the only reason he hadn't bought this
wonderful umbrella before was because it'd only just got out in store.

Oh, fashion and crazy partners.

The umbrella doesn't catch Shiki's eye, luckily, although Neku supposes she
wouldn't even remark on the fact that he's already got the exact same one in one of
his magic pockets. But something else does.

She pops her head out of the shop, waving at him with one hand and holding a black
short-sleeved coat in the other, and Neku chokes on his fries.

"Neku ? Are you alright ?" she frets, looking at him concernedly.

"Tha-that's..."
The coughing fit that stops him from saying 'Pi-Face's goddamned coat how the hell
did that end up here ??!' is, for once, perfectly natural.

"Looks nice, uh ?" Shiki immediately, cheerfully gets started. "Not really my
style, but it could be really interesting for you. Plus, it's great quality - I
mean, duh, Gatito ! I think Gatito could really be your kind of thing."

Cue big, bubbly pleading eyes.

It's also completely normal that Neku cannot even begin to explain to her exactly
how just weird it would be for him to wear Pi-Face's coat.

Fortunately, it's a trade item, which means that no matter how much the store owner
seems to like Neku, she just won't give up the coat unless they find something
called 'shady matter' or whatever for her — and in all the time Neku's been around,
he hasn't seen or even heard of anything of the sort. With a dejected sigh, Shiki
puts the coat back on a rack without begging Neku to try it on.

It's much easier to get her out of the store than usual, due to the circumstances
(For once, thank you, Beat.), but Neku walks out feeling even more disturbed than
the day of the purple bikini ordeal.

The store owner just wouldn't spit out where she got the coat from. Neku gets a
strange mental image of Yuu Narumi, purple bandana hiding the lower half of her
face, pummeling the crap out of Minamimoto with Josh's frilly umbrella and stuffing
his coat into her (tiny but magical) polka-dotted purse.

That's it, getting back to business now.

Chain-battle, yadda yadda yadda. In order to grab some Noise's attention, you've
got to wade through people's thoughts, as overwhelming as the physical crowd
itself, and Neku lets himself get distracted for just a bit. It's interesting, or,
fail that, at least entertaining. It always is around Hachiko.

He catches some names, here and there, mentions of people he thinks he knows — that
skater guy is the one who works in the Wild Boar store over in Udagawa, isn't he ?
And, hold on, that dark-skinned blonde criminal wouldn't be — hey, someone knows
Mr. H's café ! And Rikako is that Sunshine waitress, who does give extra fries to
her friends (Neku should know). Unsurprisingly, lots of people are thinking about
eating.

Then there's a completely unfamiliar but funny country guy feeling completely lost
in the big city, and another guy from Nagoya who even thinks with a weird accent.
There's a girl looking for her grandpa's shop (Neku wishes her luck, she'll need
it). There's a guy looking for the phone booth of love, a girl deciding she's going
to confess to the man she likes, a guy late for his date.

There's a girl sitting by Hachiko, alone but just waiting for some friends.

There's one girl obsessing over 777, a dozen others obsessing over the Prince ;
there are a few fellow CAT fans, and a bunch of D+B followers who are actually
followers of Shiki's invisible boots and pink cap. (Neku doesn't think it goes with
the cocktail dress at all, but Neku apparently has the fashion sense of a
colorblind monkey anyway.)

There are even, surprise, a few people who seem half aware of the Game, or at least
capable of noticing a few things — in particular, a poor woman obviously freaked
out of her mind came up with a creative name for the Noise she seems to see.
It's strange, Neku reflects while distractedly thwacking the hell out of a few
dozen Noise tadpoles, to know what all those people are thinking about. He feels
connected to them, somehow, a connection to every single body in that huge faceless
crowd rushing past him every day.

Well, he could have lived without knowing what that one girl thinks of 777's
attractiveness, exactly, but that's what you get for intruding on people's privacy.

Three-rounds chain-battle fought, wall cleared, moving on. What is it that's taking
Neku's mind off the matter at hand today ? It can't be the fact that this is the
last day of the Game. It's not like he could miss this.

They run on ; past Hachiko and the Moyai, across the bus terminal, towards the
station. They're stopped before the underpass by some nondescript Reaper that
speaks in rhyme and Neku fleetingly wonders if this could be one of the other Def
Märch guys, BJ or possibly Tenho. Not like he's ever seen either of their faces,
with those stupid hoodies, but, well, it sounds like BJ ?

Whatever.

BJ, if it really is him, doesn't remember that Neku once helped him in a future
that never happened anymore, of course, why would anyone remember anything useful.
So he sicsa freakin' giant raven on Neku and Shiki. Which flies real high and is a
bitch to hit.

Always nice to know you're loved.

Beat must be talking with some Reapers by now — Neku would bet on Lollipop and
Pinky, for some reason, because as sick as thinking of Rhyme makes him they're not
evil.

Well.

Kariya at least is too lazy to be evil, anyway.

Anyway, Beat is probably alright, but Shiki still looks worried, and so as soon as
possibly-BJ's bird has been turned into a cloud of static, they dash to the
freeway, together.

They slow down when they get to the underpass. The sound of the trains reminds him
of Day 2, but now Shiki is walking right next to him instead of trailing behind.
Her gaze is fierce and her smile is real when she turns to look at him.

It's really going to be over. Just a few steps ahead — not even all the way to the
River — just a big guy to get rid of and then they're done.

Back to life.

Meet up in front of Hachiko with Beat, Shiki and Mr. Mew after this is over with.

(But there should be more of them.)

He clutches Shiki's hand tight, and doesn't let go.

o
She smiles in Higashizawa's face, the brave girl, holds her head high and looks him
in the eye as she tells him there's no way they're going to lose, not to him, not
today, not ever.

His gruesome transformation into something huge and ugly and simply inhuman doesn't
change that.

His calling out to Kitaniji doesn't change that, doesn't change anything.

He's not listening, Neku would like to tell him, feeling a bit bad despite himself
for the irrelevant, unimportant proxy of the week. Your Conductor won't lift a
finger to save you.

He syncs up with Shiki and leaves her the satisfaction of pounding the big guy's
face with a dozen Mr. Mews.

It's that easy.

They've won.

And then.

He looks up at Shiki, all bathed in white, warm light, smiling, smiling.

He reaches out to her.

* * *

There's still music playing in his ears, almost white noise but not quite ;
distantly, numbly, he can still register it, and the irony in the lyrics calling to
him.

lucky me destiny

you are on my side

just once more unto the breach

dear friend

once more

wake up leave your hesitation wake up time for us to realize

wake up show appreciation wake up time for us to realize

* * *
It's over.

It's really over.

... Isn't it ?

Right ?

Light flashes white in his eyes — then black and he's falling, endlessly.

* * *

WAKELESS DREAM

interlude

(INTERLUDE)

* * *

Please, he prays, eyes closed tight as he feels himself falling down in the dark.
Please, let this be over now.

The familiar hustle of a crowded street slowly surrounds him, again. Lifting his
eyelids feels like trying to lift twice the weight of the world, but somehow - he
has no idea how - he manages.
And wishes he hadn't, of course.

No one is looking at him.

Shiki.

Shiki.

They took her, again - of course, but of course, Neku, did you really think they'd
let you both go this once if you just asked ?

You did, didn't you.

You never learn, you absolute fool, do you.

Mission mail comes — Minamimoto's mission, too painfully obvious to pretend

otherwise — and Neku pushes to his feet and tells himself he's not shaking.

It's hard to catch his breath, but somehow he manages this, too, gasping for air
and not completely choking on it. Breathe in, Neku. Breathe out. Breathe in,
breathe out and you can do this, you can get through this if you just breathe.

Start running now, you know where to, and just... don't look around. Just don't
look and you'll be fine, just fine.

Just breathe.

* * *

( CALLING)

another day

ANOTHER DAY

* * *
Another day in another Shibuya in another universe, another Neku is also being
demonstrated that his life has no meaning and the world makes no sense whatsoever.

The situation this Neku is in would probably make the other Neku laugh his ass off,
but to this Neku, it's very serious. He has just been forcefully enrolled in some
kind of brigade of Tin Pin players out to save Shibuya through the means of
slamming. Which is fine in and of itself. It's just that his self-appointed
'leader', genius Tin Pin Slammer Shuto Dan, is a fifth-grader, and also,
incidentally, hyperactive and most likely completely insane.

And then there's everybody else.

Alright, so "Yellow" and "Green" aren't that bad — Yellow just has some slight
difficulties focusing his already-not-remarkably-bright mind on something else than
food in general and curry in particular, and Green makes some unexpected leaps of
logic sometimes and has a small Princely obsession problem. But mostly, they're
really fairly fine compared to the others. Like Shuto, aka Shooter, aka Red.

And like Pink or whatever he said his name was.

Oh God, Pink.

Neku would rather not think about that subject at all, but it's kind of hard when
said subject is a crazy kid making eyes at him and giggling behind him — very close
behind him — and always saying stuff which takes unfortunate implications when
taken out of context.

Like, "Do me like this."

Forgetting about Pink, though (better for Neku's mental health), by now there is
the Black problem.

Black is Yellow's sister, apparently, and she's a traitor and it's something
personal and Red is absolutely devastated as though he'd known her for more than a
few hours and Pink had guessed it but didn't say anything because no one asked and
this is just simply ridiculous.

And that is why they are now standing in Miyashita Park, about to challenge a band
of thugs in Tin Pin because it's obviously the only way to settle this mess.

Sigh.

(And Pink is breaking the fourth wall again.)

* * *

THIS DAY ENDS WITH YOU !

joshua, day 1

I am. So. Sorry. For the absurdly long wait. Thing is I don't really know where
I'll be going anymore with this story (apart from, you know, the obvious). My
original plan seems to have gone out of the window (then again, that plan was made
last year, so...), notably because of how fond I've grown of Shiki while writing
the first 7 Days.

Anyway. My apologies and I hope some people are still sticking around to read this.
A warning before you proceed : the end of this chapter is kind of evil, but the
next one (at least one) should be uploaded in a few days. You might prefer to wait
a bit in order to avoid the cliffhanger.

Or not. It's up to you.

Obviously, I'm still posting them separately because I'm evil like that.

Love you all ! *hearts*

* * *

THE 1ST DAY

* * *

Running to Hachiko, again.

The forging of the pact is like a punch in his guts.

At least he isn't even given a choice and he doesn't have to wonder whether or not
to accept this and its consequences. Light, everywhere, an aura of serenity and a
song that isn't coming from him, vibrating all around him and within him,
resonating, forcing a bond of souls between him and

Joshua.

Joshua.

Neku wants to cry. Really, really wants to cry, but the tears won't spill just like
the words won't come out of his mouth — he's forced into battle with a partner he
never agreed to have before he can even see him, but the bond, link, chain is there
already and he can feel him there, all through the fight.

The Noise dissolve and Neku breathes in, out, in out, looks up to the boy casually
making his way to him through the crowd

the Composer of Shibuya stares at him, an almost hungry light in his eyes, hands in
his pockets and a smirk on his lips.
"Howdy."

He can't act on it, obviously. All he can think about is how much he would love to
ball his hand into a fist and punch Joshua — his partner, for fuck's sake, his
humor is even sicker than Neku already thought — but his fingers won't even twitch
as long as that's what he intends to do. He's frozen into submission, back to the
point the two of them used to stand at, four weeks earlier.

Just as obviously, this doesn't change the fact that he knows.

And mostly, he's thinking that the Composer is the sum of all the bastardry of the
entire universe, the compiled reincarnation of all of the biggest assholes that
have ever been since the beginning of existence. Judas included but this isn't even
just Judas — Neku's biblical knowledge isn't very extensive but this is Judas,
Barabas and Pontius Pilate all at once. And the soldier who stabbed Jesus with his
spear. And possibly Jesus himself, except that's actually only making him more of a
fucking bastard.

Of course he's known that for a while, wanted to skin the Composer alive ever since
he learned who he really was, but somehow it's even more intense now.

In the whirlwind of raging feelings, there is hatred, of course there is. There is
anger. There is despair, bitterness, betrayal.

There is trust, still, inexplicably.

Worse still, there is happiness, as well ; because Joshua, Joshua is back, here in
front of him again and Neku is delirious to finally see him again — because even
though he had to have heard, he never did turn up at Hachiko.

But also — most of all — there is hurt.

Because Joshua is here. Josh is here, right in front of him, he's here with Neku
and he's pretending that there's nothing wrong with this.

And Neku is going to have to pretend he doesn't know, pretend they've never been
friends, pretend Joshua didn't kill him twice, didn't take Shiki away, didn't try
to destroy Shibuya —

didn't spare and give him back his life, with added wonderful friends as a bonus —

and didn't put him back through this living-dead hell again.

And it just hurts, fuck it all, to know that even a second time around he cannot
fix this ; that he and Josh could never be honest with each other.

Also his hand is seriously starting to itch from the desire to punch Josh in the
face real hard.

He just can't believe he never noticed. There's just so much, so much that's so
obviously wrong with this 'kid', from the way he knows everything about the Game
and Neku to the buzzing static and the tension in the suddenly heavy air around
him.
When Neku tries scanning, the entire area is quiet, except for him. Joshua's
conscience, lone chime amid an ocean of silence, is shimmering, almost blinding,
and Neku is willing to believe it's overpowering the mind of everyone else around.

It's certainly overboard enough to give Neku an agonizing headache just from
scanning him.

This is ridiculous. Neku remembers always thinking there was something just grating
about his second partner (duh), but how did he never realize that Joshua's simple
presence constricted him so much ? This could never have passed as something
natural.

All he got was a blurry glimpse of Udagawa, barely a flash of a picture, and by the
way that's not how scanning normally works — and then he's clutching his head
because it feels like it's being split open, for God's sake.

And then Joshua touches him, a fleeting contact, fingers barely grazing his
shoulder [skin-to-skin], probably just trying to get his attention back but it
feels like a jolt.

He can feel it all. Joshua is warm, Joshua is alive, Joshua is practically

overflowing with sheer power —

"I... I'll be fine," he mutters, and he's acutely conscious that he's saying it
more for his own benefit than for his partner's.

— and then Josh flicks his hair and says Neku's name.

Fucking ridiculous. He must have been deaf all this time, as well as blind and
numb.

Okay, know what ? Whatever. Josh is an ass and that's it, nothing new here. Neku
knew this already.

He's not going to give Joshua any kind of power over him, not any more than he
already has, not anymore. He's not going to let himself be bothered by this gleeful
asshole.

Josh would just love it way too much.

First tactic to get some alone time when dealing with Joshua : fiddle with your
phone. Josh is almost constantly using his, mechanically texting when he's not
calling Mr. H ; 'phone' means 'I'm busy, leave me alone' in Joshua-speak — both
ways round. For some reason, that's one rule of privacy that Josh never seemed to
even think about breaking.

Of course, when Neku flips his phone open with no idea what to do exactly except
kill some time, his first impulse is to click on the little box with his current
partner's face on it. Josh just never gives him a break, uh.

All the little white boxes are still there, but there's something strange. Neku
frowns, then realizes some of the boxes with Shiki's face on them have a little
rectangular blue icon in them, while the others are empty.

He will later blame this on the buzz in his head not helping his mental faculties,
on top of the fact that even if he were a normal human Joshua would drive anyone
insane ; but still, seriously, Neku never ever learns. He clicks on the blue icon
in the first box.

A window of text pops up.

Some sort of... report, apparently, about whatever, to whomever it may concern.
Utter nonsense to him, at first ; it does mention the Game but also it being under
"Our supervision" (with capital O, if you'll please), and then something called the
Higher Plane — "common knowledge", what, really ? — and Neku's global reaction is
along the lines of 'Uuh, what ?'

But then he clicks the yellow arrow to the next page, because it seems to be
winking and making eyes at him and, you know, he's just naturally gifted at finding
out things he'd rather not and generally getting into trouble.

And that page's a bit more interesting.

He doesn't get quite everything — even if the writer wasn't evidently trying to
sound annoyingly professional (stuck-up), there's particular terminology Neku just
doesn't know about — but he does understand that he's reading a list of the things
that are going on in this Game to make it a bit different from the usual (what a
'normal' Game is like, of course, Neku sure wouldn't know).

Quote, unquote :

1: its role in plans for Shibuya's destruction,

Nothing new, though still a shock to read spelled out so bluntly.

2: the Composer's absence from the UG,

New in some way, except it makes sense now that Neku thinks about it.

Also definite proof, if there was ever need for one, that Josh really is a cheating
bastard.

3: the resulting limitations to his powers, and

Waaaait —

4: the Game being played by a proxy.

— oh, nice.

That'd be yours truly, wouldn't it ?

But he knew that, didn't he.

Putting the small matter of Neku's unwilling involvement in a bastard's whimsical

plans to destroy Shibuya aside —

Neku clearly remembers the huge shiny laser-beams things Joshua had deigned use by
the end of the week and how they allowed him to wipe the streets of Shibuya with
Taboo Noise. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he's fairly sure his partner was
using them again against those annoying crabs, just a few minutes earlier.

So.

This is the Composer when he's handicapped himself and given up over half his
strength.
This is insane, Neku concludes.

He skims through the rest of the report — doesn't understand much of all the
rambling about 'frequencies', 'vibes' and 'Imagination' but does realize when it's
talking about Joshua's — the Composer's — ridiculous bet with Conductor Kitaniji,
and then about himself — clicks the next blue icon before allowing himself time to
think.

His cursor slips down a little.