There’s a weird tension in the air, like the heaviness of an impending storm but with the pregnant excitement of a crowd anticipating a victory…
…or a riot.
Something’s going to happen today, something big, and it feels like the end of this week’s Game is only a footnote, an afterthought, the means to an end.
The Reapers, the Red Skulls, all those faintly-glimmering strands of energy flow back to the underground club I think of as Reaper HQ and I ride my stolen shark through the invisible sky over Shibuya until I can dive into the warded tunnel and swim over the waterway, bypassing the wall that’s in shambles and faintly smoking black on its broken edges. The one responsible comes into sight about three-fourths of the way down, black fury seething and flickering as it hurls itself at a wall that should not be there, something new that Konishi must have put up.
But the gossamer river of red runs right by that Taboo figure, so I make a note to come back later and keep going.
Kitaniji is sitting on one of the black couches, a sulky and dissatisfied sprawl that has my fingers twitch reflexively with the urge to comb them through his hair, but I remain in the Noise plane and watch as he taps a message into his phone and send it with grimly anticipatory satisfaction. Then he puts his phone away and checks the palm of his right hand, where a countdown that must have been at least two weeks long ticks towards a deadline less than an hour from now. All those barely-there red strands lead directly to him.
Kota, what did you do?
There’s an imperceptible rushing, black lightning and hungry madness, and my hand goes to Rhyme’s bell. Whoever it is, whatever their goal, I’m not ready to let anyone do anything permanent to my ‘dear friend’ - not until he and I have had words. I’m not protecting him, I think with irritation as I go to meet that black mass. I’m just making sure I get the confrontation I’ve been itching for since I woke up in this realm, less dead than I’d planned on being.
I drop out of Noise space as the Taboo invader comes into sight, and that sight knocks the breath out of me, banishing my fancy outfit and leaving me as he would have seen me in life, jeans and an oversized fluffy blue sweater, my hair plaited tightly behind me and glasses that do nothing here perched on my nose.
I thought he was dead.
Sho rocks to a halt as he sees me, Taboo marks covering half of his body and his hair thick and wild. Black smoke comes off his skin like heat radiating from the sidewalk in summer, and there’s a wildness to him that feels almost like an animal driven nearly mindless, pushed past its limits and capable of anything.
He opens his mouth, but the bell is in my hand and it rings out before any sound can leave his mouth, pure tone rippling out and hitting him like a runaway truck as the holy relic forcibly aligns vibrations that had been out of sync and leaves him flat on his back, out cold.
It’s only the first step, but it will do for the moment. There’s sounds of combat from further down the tunnel, and it can only be Neku and Beat fighting Konishi. I take a single moment to cup Sho’s cheek, feeling the Taboo smoke try to curl around my fingers. Then I haul him onto my shoulder, an unconscious warm weight that I don’t want to let go of, but Kitaniji’s got a countdown and that something is getting closer. I prop him against a wall and give in to the urge to kiss him, just a quick touch of lips to lips, and then I’m back to the Noise plane running for where I last saw my ex.
Behind me - above me? - that something is approaching swiftly, like the shadow of a cloud racing across the landscape but white. Then it…stops. Winks out, vibrations dimming down into the UG, somewhere in the tunnel I just came down. There’s a strong impulse to go back, to find out what that other-planar visitor is and what it’s doing. To make sure Sho’s okay. But Kitaniji is running out of time, so I keep going back to Reaper HQ.
Fuck, what am I going to say? I mean, I’m angry, but am I that angry? I want to hurt him, but I don’t want to hurt him. I want…I want him to see how badly he hurt me, and regret it. I want closure before I move on to whatever my soul was going to do after I died.
…but Sho…
Kitaniji’s pacing out his anxiety. I want to see him hurt, I want to comfort him. I want to kick him in the emotional nuts, I want to kiss him. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do when he sees me and calls my name. I just stand there, like an idiot, watching him from Noise space until the door opens and the Players enter with a mix of caution and hopeless bravado.
The confrontation that unfolds is…enlightening. Egoism, disregard for others, has caused Shibuya’s downfall? Asshole, I’m here because of your disregard for me! Before I can do more than take half a step forward, though, he stretches one hand out and pulls and where did Shiki get a Red-skull O-pin?
Kitaniji flexes, bending reality to form strangely-fluid wings, and I pull invisibility over me as all four of them join me on the Noise plane and start duking it out. All I can do is watch, not sure if I’m rooting for my ex to kick ass, or to get his ass kicked. Or maybe both. Definitely both. Fuck, I’m hopeless.
He drops out of Noise space first, down but not out, leaving the Odd Couple to fight Shiki while he books it through a door that he calls into existence and opens with some pin inside the breast of his suit. Beat proves he could have had a career in football by body-slamming Shiki’s animated plush while Neku dives for the pin and then leaves both his unconscious friends to venture through that unnatural door by himself and, shaking my head, I follow him.
I can’t begin to imagine what’s going through his head by the things he mumbles - someone taught him better than ‘that’ and it’s his fight now. Whatever, it’s not my business and time’s running out. I edge past him as he pauses for some no-doubt poignant reflection and run all out to get my confrontation while I still can, but wherever Kitaniji’s hiding, I haven’t found him in this room with…weirdly funnel-shaped energy…before Neku enters as well and challenges the Composer to a fight.
Or at least, he challenges who he thinks is the Composer to a fight, and my ex seems to materialize specifically to ask the question I’m dy- the question I’m very curious to have answered: “Who’s Mr. H.?”
“You again!” Neku is flabbergasted. “But I just beat you!”
This isn’t a video game, dumbass. You beat him, but you didn’t Erase him.
Kitaniji laughs and begins laying out truths, like this confrontation doesn’t matter. But then again, if the Composer hasn’t been in Shibuya…is that what I’ve been feeling getting closer? Is that the strangely pregnant heaviness hanging over the city, the approaching end of whatever his countdown represents?
He’s going all melodramatic at Neku now, about how music needs a Composer to bring it all together, and now I know what the Red Skulls and O-pins are for. But he failed that music theory class he took with me, and all he’s doing is forcing everyone to produce the same note. That’s not music, even if it is without dissonance. He takes Neku’s Player pin, and I’m about to start our confrontation by taking my turn at kicking his ass, when it turns out Neku’s got…two pins? And then, of course, Beat and Shiki catch up and Kota goes entirely Evil Villain by declaring that once he Erases them, his plan can begin, yadda yadda.
I’m so going to kick his ass.
And then he manifests a huge, red, serpent Noise form and in disgust I back up to a wall and lean against it to watch my ex kick ass and get his ass kicked, round two. Fuck everything, if he gets himself splatted, well, I have empty pins. We can have our little chat later, when there’s no witnesses.
Still, I can’t help but evaluate what I’m seeing. The first fight was calm and controlled, a man comfortable with his abilities and in control of emotions, not going easy on his opponents but not throwing everything into the fray. This is jerkier, vacillating between lashing out and holding back. He’s still in control of his emotions, but he’s not completely comfortable with his abilities. It’s like I’m back in high school, watching him fluctuate between berserker fury and fear of what he’s doing. To be frank, it’s probably that long-running song and dance that’s the reason he’s as strong as he is. There’s no distance between himself and the destructive potential of his emotions, so he’s able to pull in more Noise than even a Game Master and not lose himself to it.
The kids outnumber him, though, and all three of them have come out of fights with Game Masters and not been Erased. They have nothing to lose, where my ex apparently does, and they aren’t holding anything back. It’s just a handful of minutes before the Noise snake shatters, leaving him panting and shaky on his feet, one hand pressed to what’s probably the stitch in his side he used to get practically every gym class.
“No,” he protests weakly to himself. “I must keep fighting. My time is…almost up…”
That was the “I just need a few more minutes” voice I’ve heard him use in mock-exams and in chess matches. It occurs to me to wonder what it is that he needs to accomplish in the next thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds, and why. Almost on cue, that heavy whiteness looms at the top of the room, squeezing itself down that energetic funnel, lowering its vibrations as it goes. It coalesces into the Noise plane, and I can almost see it - a glowing, blurred humanoid shape just outside the plane of the Underground.
“I’m back, Megumi,” the shape…says? The words vibrate against the funnel walls, everywhere and nowhere, heard and felt at the same time. “Your timer must be nearly ticked out.”
There’s a slight mocking tone to the words. Neku looks around in shock, uttering Josh’s name in disbelief, but Kitaniji cries out in sharp dismay that I’ve heard many times before.
“No! Sir! I’m not done, not yet!!”
He’s frantic, terrified. I guess this must be the Composer, the boss he bragged about working under who was so impressed by his skills. The one he wanted so desperately to live up to the expectations of, to make proud (the way his dad never was, but neither of us were going to say that).
“I will protect Shibuya,” Kitaniji declares, and that’s also a tone I’ve heard before. It means-
He flings out some sort of thorny energy, straight at that glowing figure, and summons his Noise form again. This time, however, the Composer’s energy infuses it as that glowing mass is drawn in, forming a second core as Beat and Shiki also get drawn in, and the shape that forms is more like a multi-headed golden dragon than a snake.
-it means that Kota’s been pushed past the limits of his self-control, and every iota of his being is laser-focused on a single goal.
Apparently, that goal is Erasing Neku.
The fight is fast and dirty, both sides fighting for their continued survival. Neku is able to leverage his partner bonds with all three - because now that he’s on the UG plane, it’s painfully obvious that Joshua’s energetic weirdness is him also being the Composer - and that evens out the advantage Kitaniji would otherwise have had, pulling on that boundless energy. Joshua looks smug and calm at the same time, despite both sides hurling his power at each other. It’s like watching a parental figure and two squabbling children - it doesn’t matter who wins the infantile fight, the adult has already decided what the outcome will be and it’s one neither of them will expect. It’s a dick move from a parental figure, and it’s a dick move from the Composer.
I wonder - if I threw in with my ex, could we beat him? Them? I’ve been trying to break the Game so my soul can continue its journey anyway…
…but Kiba would wake up wondering if he really did see me.
Before I can decide between my past and my future, Neku does a synchronized attack with all three of his partners, channeled through…a level five keypin?? Where did he get that? It shatters the gold draconic Noise, spitting all five out to land in a rough circle in the center of the room. My invisibility psych won’t fool the Composer, but if I keep one of the others between us, there’s a better chance of him not seeing me.
I start sneaking closer and discover that all his attention is on my ex.
The Composer’s human shell titters. “It seems I’ve won,” he says in a smug tone that sets my everything on edge.
The anguished cry of denial that rips out of Kitaniji, nearly driving him to his knees, reminds me forcibly that underneath my tangled and complicated emotions, I do still care about him.
“It can’t end like this…” It’s a quiet, broken plea and I hate it. “Who else will protect Shibuya?”
Kiba doesn’t know that I’m here.
“I will,” I announce, dropping my invisibility to stalk up between Neku and Beat, red silk flowing with my motions.
Kitaniji is startled out of his despair by my sudden appearance - and the birthday gift I rejected when I was alive, stolen out of his private quarters. “Juurou?”
My irritation comes flooding back at his dumbfounded tone. “Don’t look so surprised,” I snap at him. “You knew I was here.” Because, of course, I’ve been running around in this admittedly lovely outfit for the last few weeks. “God, Kota, when did you become such an asshole?”
The words strike him like a physical blow, and just like that all the arrogance drains out of him like it was never there, leaving him the big, gangly nerd I knew and loved, uncomfortable in clothes that aren’t his style at all.
For the love of fuck.
I can guess what happened. He got put into a position of authority with no warning and took some asshole’s advice on how he should act, and now he’s realizing that he’s been doing everything all wrong. Although his stoic expression doesn’t shift much and the shades hide his eyes, I know what he’s feeling. We’ve played this out more times than I can count, him doing something dickish because his asshole father trained him to, me calling him out on it and him suddenly afraid that he’d fucked up badly enough to lose his closest friend.
“Do you hate me?” The words are nearly empty of the emotions that he’s bottling up, and I sigh. What he’s really asking is if he’s done something beyond forgiveness.
“I don’t hate you. I’m pretty angry about the shit you pulled, but…” Six minutes, forty-five seconds. “I’m not going to waste your last minutes with any of that.”
As Shiki watches in slightly more confusion than her friends and the Composer watches in bemusement, I walk right up to my ex and spread my hands over his chest, chin raised and lips pursed. Without hesitation Kota slides his arms around me, gripping me with more than a hint of desperation as we kiss, as long and deep as he could ask for from a last kiss. While he’s distracted, I free the knot of energy I’d thought was a pin and remove it from his soul, attaching it to mine and literally taking his position.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur into his mouth. “I won’t fuck it up.”
“Like I did?” he asks dryly.
“I did get an A in that Music Theory class,” I point out teasingly.
He laughs, a quick and breathy sound before his expression sobers. “Kei, I’m sorry. For everything I did. I wish…I wish everything had turned out differently.”
He doesn’t have to say more than that. If he’d told me exactly what Game he was involved in, maybe I would have accepted his invitation. Accepted the position among the Reapers he had to have had crafted for me. And then, with me involved in the day-to-day running of the Shibuya Underground, maybe none of this would have happened and we wouldn’t be standing here, painfully aware of his time ticking away.
“I wish everything had turned out differently, too.” My voice is as quiet as his was. I take a breath, silently letting go of multiple things I can’t put into words. “I forgive you, Kota.”
Lips trembling, he gives me a weak smile as his hands go from my back to the sound-canceling headphones I gave him - how long ago? - to help him control his temper and keep him from flying into those berserker rages that got his ass handed to him so many times. Put them on and recite the Fibonacci Sequence, I’d told him. For how long? he’d asked. Until you forget why you’re mad.
“Thank you for everything,” he says, the words barely louder than a whisper as he puts the headphones around my neck, hand lingering on my cheek in the farewell neither of us want to go through again. Behind the expensive shades, his eyes travel up and down, admiring the outfit I’d stolen. “It looks good on you. I knew it would.”
“Thank you. It was a lovely present and I’ll treasure it.”
There’s nothing else to say. I back away until I’m between the silently-judging Neku and the absolutely boggled Beat, then acknowledge the Composer for the first time with a nod that says, go ahead, it’s your turn.
The pale eyebrow that had been arched descends slowly as I get a nod back, one that promises we’re going to have A Conversation later.
Kitaniji clears his throat, attracting the Composer’s attention again. “Then…You’ll do as You intended?”
That just reminds me that I have no idea what the terms of his Game were. I check my right hand, but the countdown is still on his. I guess the Game was with him personally, and not him as the Conductor.
“You’re going to erase it,” he says, half defeated and half questioning, because I’ve just thrown a huge variable into the equation. “The streets I know and love…gone…”
Okay yeah, I can absolutely see where Kota would revert to his dad’s asshole upbringing if it meant keeping the city from being destroyed.
“You did well, Megumi.” The Composer’s tone is gentle, if a little patronizing. “That was one of my more enjoyable Games.”
The praise perks Kota up a little, and he gives his boss a weak smile. “I gave it my all, Sir. I have no regrets.”
Almost grudgingly, the Composer says, “You know, I liked your idea. Shame it didn’t work out.”
Which idea was this? Surely not the Red Skulls…but Kitaniji is standing straighter, the Composer’s implication that Shibuya’s destruction is being reconsidered allowing him to be at peace with his impending Erasure.
“You gave me a wonderful opportunity,” he says warmly. “Thank You, Sir.” Kota turns to look at me, or the Players on either side of me, or all of us. “It’s up to you, now,” he says calmly, verbally passing the torch on.
Then his outline goes fuzzy, the counter finally reaching zero bringing about his Erasure, and I can feel my fingernails digging into my palms as I resist the impulse to grab a few of those shimmering bubbles. I can understand now why he made the decision to bring me here without my knowledge or consent, while still acknowledging that keeping a soul from progressing on its journy from one life to the next is still wrong, no matter how good the intentions behind it are.
Sayonara, Kota. We’ll meet again someday, somewhere. I’m sure of it.
My moment of silence is broken by Neku asking Joshua what the hell is going on.
“All of this was a Game,” he admits easily, the way one would offer a small child a simplified explanation. “One set up by me.”
The shriek of “What?” Neku lets out is almost comical. “Then that means you’re-”
Beat turns to me with an expression of inquiry, thumb jerked in Joshua’s direction, and I nod. He looks disgruntled but not fully disappointed. Shiki’s just looking back and forth between the other two, unsure of what’s going on past a story she doesn’t know.
“Let me make it obvious,” the Composer’s shell says smugly. After a thoughtful hum, he says, “I suppose they’ll do,” and the other two Players are suddenly sheathed in a paralytic psych. He gives them all a moment to react and then titters again. “It was me, Neku. I’m Shibuya’s Composer,” he announces with all the smugness of a rich brat showing off.
Neku reluctantly turns his attention back to the Composer. “What? But that…can’t be…”
I give him an incredulous look but bite back my comment. How could he not see…? I thought he was supposed to be good with psychs, and yeah, when he’s fully in the UG it’s just a bit of energy weirdness like Hanekoma has, but he descended right in front of Neku and that shit was blinding. A glance at Joshua shows him giving me an intense, scrutinizing look - like he’s surprised that I’m not surprised.
That makes me nervous.
The Composer drops the bratty smug act. “I know that must unsettle you,” he tells Neku. “Still, it’s the truth, and I need you to face it. Megumi and I decided to play this Game to determine if Shibuya should exist or not.”
Neku starts freaking out a little bit. “Then, everything I’ve done…all of it…”
He thinks he’s ensured Shibuya’s destruction, and there’s a part of me that’s afraid it’s true, but the rest of me is trusting Kitaniji’s trust in his boss. Plus, there was the comment about it being too bad his idea didn’t work, so maybe with a new Conductor…
“You were playing for my team,” Joshua confirms smugly. “Really, you did a bang-up job. I couldn’t have won without you. I had one role in this Game,” he continues while his pawn bemoans his own actions.
The Composer goes on to explain how he picked Neku to be his proxy. Apparently, there was some sort of shoot-out involving Sho, who has been trying to take the Composer’s position for himself and thought he could make it happen in a RG ambush.
The casual “I like keeping him around” isn’t really made much less creepy by the clarification that he knows how to “heat up” a Game, and the “I had to retire him early” makes my pulse race with the screaming urge to go back and check on where I left him. If I just had to watch Kitaniji get Erased only to have Kiba Erased behind my back, I’m going to do his memory proud by seeing if I can take Joshua’s position the way I took Kota’s.
To that effect, I start examining my new boss’s energetic structure while Neku’s struggling with the revelation that his “friend” actually killed him for incredibly callus and selfish reasons.
“Why don’t we play one last Game?” Joshua suggests coyly. “The winner gets to be the Composer and do whatever he likes with Shibuya.”
He means it to sound mocking, tempting, infuriating, but all I hear is that for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to be in charge of Shibuya anymore.
The Game is cruel but simple, a count of ten and firing a gun at each other. I can already see how he could use either outcome as an excuse to do what he “decided”. If Neku shoots, the Composer abdicates. If Neku doesn’t shoot, it’s because he’s learned The True Meaning Of Friendship and the Composer returns him and all his little friends to life and then puts his new Conductor to the test seeing if Kitaniji’s idea - whatever it was - can actually work. Either way, Shibuya is no longer his direct concern.
I stand off to the side, with the comatose Shiki and Beat, while the Composer has his little dramatic showdown and Neku proves - surprise, surprise! - that he, like 99% of the human race, is not comfortable shooting another human being in cold blood.
The shot that leaves Joshua’s gun just places him in the same state of suspended existence as the other two, and then it’s just me and my new boss.
Despite the apparent innocent appearance of the human shell, the Composer is remarkably intimidating as I am given a very thoroughly appraising look.
“So,” he says, arms crossed, the word fired like a warning shot or the hiss of a territorial cat. “You’re the lover Megumi was losing his head over.”
That was not the almost-accusing identification I was expecting.
“He didn’t like that name.” My words are quiet but firm, a counter-challenge.
Joshua blinks. “Pardon?”
“His given name. He didn’t like it. Hated people using it. I doubt he ever said anything to you about it, because he respected and admired you, but I’d appreciate it if you gave him a fraction of that respect and called him by family name.”
For a long moment, we stare at each other.
“You don’t seem concerned about me destroying Shibuya,” he says finally.
I let the name issue slide. “You’re not going to. Kitaniji had an idea, and you liked it, and you want to see if I can succeed where he failed.”
“You are correct,” he says magnanimously, pretending he’s not the slightest bit ruffled to get called out like that. “But first, I want to hear your assessment of things. Shibuya is toxic, and if something is not done, that poison will spread and infect the other Undergrounds.”
Well, I hadn’t been expecting that, but it does put certain things into perspective. “What happens in the Underground ripples down to the Real Ground,” I say evenly. Then I reach mental hands out to the river of gossamer red that now leads to me. Ah - the Red Skulls are an Imprinting tool, that’s how he was doing it.
“Be kind,” I command, feeling my intentions ripple down to the waiting recipients. “Be yourself; embrace your individuality.” There’s a smirk lurking in the Composer’s eyes, and I meet them fearlessly. “Destroy the Red Skull pin and forget all about it.”
One by one those slender strands break and fall away until there are none left, and Shibuya seems to draw in a deep, refreshing breath before bustling with more enthusiasm than it has in a long time.
“A good start,” he says after a long, surprised moment. “What do you plan to do next?”
“Restructure the Game,” I tell him immediately. “The way it’s run now is cutthroat and cruel. Music sounds best when the instruments aren’t trying to compete with each other. I want to put the weekly Games on hold, talk to the Reapers, and develop a new way to do things.”
“Granted,” he says with a careless wave of one hand. “The Producer will fill you in on how things work, of course, but right now there’s a…disturbance that needs to be dealt with. Sho has only gotten more unstable since his defeat, and he needed a firm hand to keep him on a leash before he transformed himself.”
It takes some effort to keep my voice steady. “Then, as your Conductor, leave it to me and I will see to it that he’s not a threat to you.”
That gets me a faint frown. “I can’t allow that. I won’t risk losing a Conductor who might just be worth his salt. But, I suppose, it does no harm to let you come with me…”
There’s a bright flash, a high vibration, and he’s moved us to where he left Sho - pinned under a pile of appliances and machines. He’s groggy but moving, limbs shifting around as he tries to figure out how to free himself. The Composer smirks, and before he can do anything I pull out Rhyme’s bell. The vibrations as I ring it once again strike Kiba, forcibly re-aligning what had been spread out and dissonant. This time, I don’t stop ringing until the black smoke is entirely gone from his unconscious form.
The Composer gives me a look that questions my judgment. “You may regret not having left him to me,” he says, somehow ominous while not being even vaguely threatening.
“I’m pretty sure he’ll be more happy to see me than he will be unhappy to see you,” I counter mildly.
Sho is relinquished with one waved hand, vending machine and car and toaster and other things fading out of reality. I call up my Taboo rhino and drape Kiba’s limp form over its back before mounting, holding him steady in front of me.
Joshua raises one pale eyebrow again. “And where exactly are you taking him?”
“Conductor’s quarters,” I tell him. “They are mine now, after all.”
He huffs and looks away. “Fine. I’ll go and alert the Producer that there’s been a change in staff, and then return Neku and his little friends to life.”
I hold the bell out to him. “This belonged to Rhyme. If she can’t be restored, give it to Beat?”
“She’ll be restored,” he says almost sulkily, but he takes it anyway. “I’ll let the Producer introduce himself as he pleases.”
“Thank you, Sir,” I say with the slightest hint of smugness, and ride off leaving the implication that unlike Kitaniji, I’m only going to kiss his ass if he stops being one.
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