Chapter Text
Three Months Post-Inversion
Kubo gives a nasally laugh as he walks into the throne room. “Youse was hopin’ to see me, Sir?” His voice is dripping with derision.
“Drop the act. I’ve known who you were for months.” Known since the start, really, but he’s not going to give away his little migraine tracking trick.
Kubo laughs again, and adjusts his Vibe. Joshua knew that Sanae doesn’t use his higher frequencies unless he has to – he’s said it’s because he prefers the Lower Planes so much, though Joshua suspects it’s also a courtesy to him. He knew that his Vibe runs on the low end, as a Composer who’s only served six years. Hazuki has a higher baseline than him, just by virtue of being a born Angel, and it’ll only climb higher as he ages. But knowing is one thing. Actually experiencing it, as Kubo goes to a frequency Joshua can barely even perceive, is another. The migraine comes back in force. And Executors are low in the ranks, he thinks, trying to stop his head throbbing.
Kubo laughs again when he’s done, and his voice isn’t nasally the same way but it is just as irritating. “More than youse can handle, huh?” he asks.
“It’s fine,” Joshua says, maintaining as close to his usual carefree slouch as he can. Like hell is he going to back down now, or show Kubo what he looks like in the RG.
“’Course it is. Wouldn’t do for a prodigy like youse ta complain, would it?” He really, really hates that laugh.
“I never claimed to be a prodigy,” Joshua says. He’d assume that title would go to Hazuki, if he ever stopped overshooting and leaving Joshua to clean up his messes.
“Oh no? Sanae Hanekoma’s little protege? Saw the UG even as a pipsqueak, didn’t ya, and jumped in almost as soon as youse could Play. But youse couldn’t be satisfied with bein’ a Reaper, oh no. That wasn’t special enough for ya. Ya broke into the UG as a living person, found the Composer, and took over for yourself before youse even died.” He laughs, and if he looked more human, Joshua would assume he was smirking. “Yeah, I’ve heard of you, Kiryu. Shibuya’s little Golden Boy.”
And here Joshua thought his superiors treating him like a nuisance was just because he was young. And trying. “Sanae and I aren’t exactly on good terms right now,” he says, “as you must have noticed in the last three months.”
“Yeah, I heard. Lot of folks was hoping you’d finally broken free. Eccentrics like him, they ain’t good for yer long-term prospects.” Joshua can almost make out him gesturing with one hand. “But then instead of doin’ the smart thing and ditching him, youse backed out of it at the last-second. Got people in a tizzy back home, ya know that?”
He shrugs. “How I run Shibuya is hardly your concern. The important thing is that my Game runs, doesn’t it?”
He practically snorts with laughter. “Oh, it sure does. That’s for sure.”
“So, are you satisfied with what you’ve seen?” It’s much harder with the way his head is throbbing, but he manages to keep his Vibe and his voice level. A perfect picture of Angelic indifference, the way he would be if he were actually anything notable.
“Who said I was just here for sightseein’, huh?” Kubo asks. “If youse know who I am, that means youse know what I am, too.”
“Shibuya never called for an Executor, before or after the near-purification,” Joshua says. Stay matter-of-fact. Act as bored as possible, like this is any other conversation with the Higher Planes. They’re never all that interesting. (Sanae and Hazuki don't count.)
“Folks back home have another name for it, ya know. They’ve been calling it the impurification,” he says. “Your dead-end Producer and his crew might be happy with things as they are here, but that ain’t the way most of us think. ‘Course, I always knew youse was still too human for it.”
“Bold words, for someone who just met me today.”
He laughs. “Like I said. Your reputation precedes ya.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, in the future.” He rests his head on his hand, the kind of casual pose he strikes all the time and not an attempt to relieve the pressure of Kubo’s Vibe. “So then. If you’re here for work, who sent you?”
He laughs. “Wouldn’t you like to know? I think I’m done talkin’ to ya the old-fashioned way. Youse want to know, youse better put up.” He wants to Sync. Joshua could know, and figure out what exactly Kubo wants on the way… but as Kubo’s so amply demonstrated, Joshua’s weak. He’d give more than he’d get. And what he’d give, he’s not willing to give up – he could probably get away with offering Misaki her deal, but not the emotions behind it. Not his desire to look out for Neku’s Partners until he can get back… and not where he put Neku, and why he hid him somewhere safe, and why he won’t settle for anything less than Neku back in Shibuya. No, he can’t let another Angel in to know that. Especially not someone who already thinks he’s too fresh, too close to the RG still. Kubo doesn’t even know how right he is.
Apparently his non-reaction serves as answer enough, because Kubo just laughs again. “Can’t, can ya? I knew youse was too human still.” Let him think Joshua’s too weak for it. He can live with that.
“Is that why you didn’t bother to introduce yourself?” Joshua asks, adjusting his position. “You thought I was too weak to notice, so I wasn’t owed the respect due to a Composer?”
“Let’s just say, if the shoe fits…” Kubo laughs again, and returns to his more palatable form. “This was a nice chat, ‘Sir’. But we’re done here.”
“As long as you’re masquerading as one of my Reapers, you’re subject to my rules,” Joshua says. Kubo practically snorts as he waves goodbye.
He knows better than to expect that to be the end of things. But it’s fine. Whatever anyone else thinks of him, whatever anyone else says, he knows he can prove them wrong.
After that he goes to lay down in the dark, because his head and his joints are killing him. Kubo’s right about one thing, Joshua is still too close to human to be respectable.
--
Two and a Half Years Post-Inversion
He doesn't intend it, is the thing.
And, sure, Joshua doesn't intend for a lot of things that end up happening. He didn't intend to lose control of his Game. He didn't intend to develop feelings for his Proxy. He definitely didn't intend to strand said Proxy in an Inversion for more than two years. (He did it, fair, but he'd never anticipated it would take this long.) But when he made the messenger bag for Neku's presents, he wasn't thinking about it beyond what was easy for him. The Reaper bags are easy for him - a simple design, and one he knows well. He overlooked that Atarashi uses one herself to bring supplies back and forth, and didn't think what would happen to it afterwards.
He wasn't expecting Neku to use it. He definitely wasn't expecting Atarashi to bring the wrong one back with her.
No, all of that's on Atarashi, who's made Dead God's Pad her lair on the grounds that no one uses it anyway. She dared him to have a problem with it, last time. Joshua doesn't. She leaves the hallway and the throne room alone, and it means she's not getting caught by the Reapers. He can avoid the lounge for a week or so every few months.
It's been over two years, and Neku's been entirely out of reach that whole time. Even Joshua only got that snippet of dream, months and months ago, and the periodic pulses through their Pact. Well, not quite - he also knows when Neku's sleeping. Useful, when he can't reach Neku's dreams without their Pact.
Neku's bag doesn't contain much - some quick snack foods, his art supplies. Not the MP3 player Beat gave him, so maybe that actually worked. His wallet, for all the good it does him in Shinjuku. And two sketchbooks, both of them standard issue on the surface, but one much more battered than the other. The newer one must be his birthday present.
What he's considering is probably a massive invasion of Neku's privacy. Scratch that, it's definitely a massive invasion of Neku's privacy. But he can apologize when Neku's back. It's not like Neku could have missed that Atarashi took the wrong bag. And if Joshua sees anything that feels too personal, he’ll put it away. (… Okay, even Joshua doesn’t believe himself when he says that.)
The battered one goes first. Most of the early pages are cityscapes and miscellaneous doodles. Of Shinjuku, mostly, but there’s one, just lines, that Joshua recognizes of Shibuya. Shinjuku looks about like what he expects, after an Inversion.
Abstract shapes and lines. Noise, not all of them Noise Joshua's actually seen. In fact, as it goes on, they're more and more hybridized creatures that Joshua doesn't recognize at all, chameleons with bird wings and wolves with grizzly claws. There are two labeled the "Tyrhinosaur", after about five names crossed out and written in. They're wildly different in style, and so's the handwriting. They still can't agree on a genre for it. Atarashi's clearly not an artist, but Neku's just as clearly not trying that hard – at one point the lineart shakes, with a couple stray marks left unerased, like he was laughing while he drew.
Fair enough. It is pretty ridiculous-looking. (One of the rejected names, courtesy of Atarashi, is “Losersaurus.” Seems accurate, if its horn is pointed upwards and it can't go on four legs due to its tiny arms.)
Somewhere about a quarter of the way in is a drawing of Shiki’s face in the corner. The next page adds Beat and Rhyme. Midway through Joshua’s sketch, though, he clearly thought it over and erased his hair – it’s not quite right for the style Joshua had when they met, more like the one he was wearing last year. Neku must have remembered it, after the dream.
Joshua just glances over the next few pages. There is something a bit too raw, seeing Neku guess what his friends look like after more than two years away. (Or maybe it’s the way the pencil’s pushed through just a bit too hard, at points, because Joshua can see the impressions on the next page. Or the way that he can still see water marks on another.) He flips past a page of a face he doesn’t know - not Shiki at all, even if the glasses make him think that for a second - with the same air as the ones he does. It’s a relief when the abstract shapes return, accompanied by everyday objects and a surprising number of sea creatures. (They're stylized, but Joshua's pretty sure Shinjuku didn't have dolphin Noise, and the crabs and sharks don't look like Noise at all.) Every so often, some of them are framed in a circle. Joshua wonders if they're meant to be pins. Or maybe he's just spent too much time with Shiki.
Eventually, the sketchbook pivots back to drawings of people. Well, parts of people, largely - silhouettes without faces, or faces alone, upper bodies without legs below the knee, shoulders reaching out without the rest of an arm... it's eerie. It could just be artistic license on Neku's part - or artistic not-wanting-to-draw-full-bodies - but there's a sense of sadness to it Joshua can feel. If this is what the lost Souls of Shinjuku look like now, it must be even eerier than Joshua thought.
This sketchbook's only about two-thirds full. Joshua sets it back in the bag and moves onto the next one. This one somehow manages to feel more intrusive from the very first pages, where there are water stains in the margins. Enough that Joshua thinks Neku's come back to them more than once in the last few months. He's careful not to let them hit the actual notes.
Joshua's not sure what he's expecting next - more studies of lost Souls? Another round of guessing what his friends look like now? - but what he gets instead is an explosion of color, dark purples and neon teals and pinks. It's a café, with a bicycle parked by the sign and a pair of drinks at a table covered by an umbrella. He looks at the steam wafting from the coffee cup, the vase of flowers at the table... this looks familiar. He tries to place it for a few minutes - there's an image that's tantalizingly out of reach - before he finally realizes. It's Shiki's latest work.
He rips the page out on impulse. He'll justify it to Shiki later, even if she won't approve. The two of them must have Synced, for Shiki to make the same four elements so similarly. "I'll explain later," he writes on a piece of paper put in the drawing's place, with a winking face.
At first he figures the next few pages are just miscellaneous drawings and a surprising number of studies of Mr. Mew. The first few are Mr. Mew, he’s pretty sure. It’s not until the final piece that it makes sense.
Or rather, it’s not until he looks at the final piece for a minute that he realizes this is Mr. Mew, and the others all make sense. The shape of him’s right, but instead of coloring it in, Neku’s filled it in with more sketches, all in a faded-black shade. Tiny cartoon pigs, a spool of thread that winds its way around the tail, Shiki’s phone charm, a pair of glasses folded and sitting on Mr. Mew’s neckline – Joshua laughs at that one, it really is an awful habit of hers – a simplified statue of Hachiko, interlocking stars, a sewing machine he can practically hear ticking. He’d recognize Shiki in it even if it wasn't positively bursting with an Imprint of her, memories of their days in .the UG and months in the RG together all blended together into a single piece, aching with longing.
It's easier to spot Beat's. This one stays the same compositionally from the first few rough sketches. The back of a skateboard, decaled with a very familiar skull and card suits, with a hand grasping the end. No sign of a rider otherwise, despite how little physical sense that makes with how it’s nearly vertical off the edge of a halfpipe. Chains arcing downwards and swooping back up into the air in red and yellow and black, tracing jumps and grinds and at least one Joshua’s certain is a faceplant, but continues without a hitch. It feels like motion, which is Beat to a T. Like Shiki’s, it’s Imprinted with its subject for good measure. Did Neku know he was doing that, or was he just trying so hard to capture their Souls that the impression came through? The longing here's just as strong, not that Joshua had ever doubted that Neku missed them all.
Rhyme’s takes a couple drafts, at least for the corners. This one actually has a few glimpses of the others in it, in vignettes around the sides as they tried every hobby and interest they could think of. He remembers a few of the more – colorful adventures (that Slam-Off with Shooter had been loud enough even the Higher Ups probably heard it,) even if he’d been keeping his distance from Neku and his friends. All of those are the framing around Rhyme’s pendant, the inside of which is a white so stark Neku must have actually painted over the paper itself. And then, at the very center, a little red Noise flying upwards and piercing the light, towards a vaguely feline shadow. That fight must have left an impression, for Neku to recreate it like this, and for the hope and determination they'd both felt in that moment underscoring the Imprint of Rhyme Joshua’s come to expect. They're not one of his Partners, but the two of them still have a bond that won't be broken easily.
The next one, surprisingly enough, is Eri’s. Joshua hadn’t realized they’d been particularly close friends, but he’d recognize that puzzle piece symbol anywhere. She still wears that pendant all the time. It’s surrounded by brightly-colored flowers and badges, in flat colors that pop off the page, and looping lines of thread in pink, green, and yellow. The Imprint’s not as strong as the others – Joshua’s memory is probably doing most of the heavy lifting. But it’s Eri, nonetheless. This one doesn’t take much drafting, just a few color studies.
He turns the page to find a finished piece in oil pastels, another ruined cityscape in red and black and gray. A chunk of wrecked concrete juts out towards the center, with a woman in pink facing away, Reaper wings on full display and surrounded by a bubbly green and purple glow. One arm’s raised over her head, like she’s squinting at a non-existent sun as she looks out at the city. It’s so different from the others that he wouldn’t have placed it as part of the series if it weren’t Imprinted with Atarashi just as strongly as the earlier ones. Joshua thinks back to the face sketches earlier, and how Rhyme’s vignettes were things that actually happened, and now the project makes sense. Neku doesn't know what they look like anymore... but he still knows them, down to the cores of their Souls, and time and isolation haven't taken that away from him.
If Shiki’s and Rhyme’s took a while to take shape, Joshua’s is even harder still – there are several pages of discarded thumbnails, ranging from a relatively detailed one of his cell phone atop a pile of junk and a surprisingly good rendition of Hachiko to be from memory after two years away, to studies of a gun and a bowl of ramen that might be practice for larger pieces, to a couple vague thumbnails that he thinks might be figures or wings divided by a line but could be undifferentiated lines Neku just happened to put in the same dimensions as the rest. Apparently he’s hard to pin down, Joshua thinks with a smile. He turns the page. He thinks this might be his throne room? This one was clearly discarded because Neku doesn't remember it well enough, judging by the impressions left over even after erasing half a dozen times.
The mural at Udagawa, fully colored. This one’s as accurate as Hachiko, or at least it would be if so much hadn’t been cleared recently. Neku will be disappointed by that, he’s sure. It makes sense – those are probably the two places in Shibuya Neku’s spent the most time. Sanae would probably be pleased to see it preserved like this, if Joshua could show it to him. Actually, Joshua tries to see if it is Imprinted like the others, but – just hints of admiration that are too vague to be anything but unintentional. Probably another attempt at Joshua’s.
Definitely another attempt at Joshua’s, when he turns the page to find something right out of his own memory, and a weird sense of deja vu. It’s Neku looking up at the mural, exactly as he had that day, reaching upwards. It’s not exactly the angle Joshua remembers – he’s pretty sure he was on the other side, and there’s something off with the perspective on Neku's face, seeing a bit too much to be facing the wall directly – but it’s unmistakable all the same, even with most of the mural left as sketch. He’s so stunned all he can see is the shadow, with the gun glinting out of it, the pool of blood at Neku’s feet, and it’s all so familiar his chest feels tight for no anatomical reason. He can’t say he doesn’t deserve it, given he’s currently rifling through Neku’s accidentally-stolen sketchbook.
Joshua closes the sketchbook and sets it down with a thud.
The next day, he stops by the old health foods store for three packs of dried mushrooms and leaves those and some gourmet rice balls in the pack along with the sketchbook. She won’t steal the rice balls if she can have one herself, he figures, and he doubts she cares for the mushrooms. Shiki gives Neku her version of the dream café, and her pins, but he leaves his note there.
It'll be easy to resist his curiosity, if it happens again, but at least Neku's getting something out of it.
--
Day One
Joshua watches Rindo make it through the first day from above the Scramble, far enough out of the way the Reapers don't see him. Neku pulses through his Pact at the end of the day, and Joshua smiles as he gives a pulse back. "I sure hope you wake up soon," he says. "Wouldn't want you to miss all the action..."
Then he goes back to HQ. There'll be a lot of paperwork for this Game, especially given his plans.
When he gets there, he's not alone. "Hello, Hazuki," he says, covering for his surprise.
"Hello, friend." He watches as Joshua returns to his downtuned form and follows suit. Like usual, he bases his appearance off Joshua's, though his style is more casual. Joshua wonders where he got that from. "I heard about your Game from our supervisors, and it sounded fascinating. I hope you don't mind if I watch?"
So that's how they'll be ensuring his good behavior. Make sure he's supervised, but use Hazuki so he can't plausibly refuse. Clever. "Not at all," Joshua says. He knew his ability to intervene this Game would be limited. He adjusts his expectations to 'none whatsoever.' "But you'll have to amuse yourself while I do my actual work, I'm afraid."
Joshua suspects he's going to play a lot of pool the next three weeks.
--
The Day After
Hazuki had to go Upstairs to explain his actions. Truthfully, Joshua would like an explanation, too - isn't he the one who brought Kubo onto this plane in the first place? - but he can't bring himself to care.
He finally stopped aching a few hours ago. Turns out, even without blood circulation he can still go numb after staying completely still for long enough. He can't bring himself to care about that, either.
Shiki and Rhyme are waiting at Hachiko, but they'll be waiting longer. Joshua knew he might be breaking his promise when he made it. Shiki should have known better than to trust him. He just hopes they know better than to break into the River. Beat's already disappeared from their contacts - how much more explanation do they need?
Does he really have to be the one to explain it?
The fish are swimming in his tanks. More than usual - he'd saved the Deep River Societists and Purehearts, and as many of the Variabeauties as he could. He'd been planning another last-chance round, when all this was done, figuring he'd probably end up understaffed again. It worked after the first Game. But as the Plague Noise spread across the city, fewer and fewer erasures have come back salvageable. And those birds...
Kubo had him outsmarted from the start. Joshua never stood a chance. How can he judge Rindo for being just as outmatched?
"Have you moved at all since yesterday?" Hazuki asks, jarring him back into something resembling awareness of his surroundings.
Joshua doesn't feel like moving. This way he can sink back into the city. If he goes far enough, maybe he can forget what it's like to be conscious permanently. "I haven't had much to get up for. Finished Upstairs?"
"They're... satisfied with my actions," Hazuki says. "You agreed to an attempted Inversion. You didn't agree to three different Inversion attempts hidden within each other. What he did wasn't sporting."
"You sound like me," Joshua says. He gets up. Everything hurts again, but he deserves worse.
"And you sound... glum," Hazuki says. "I don't understand. You won, didn't you?"
"You know me." He manages something resembling his usual smile. "I prefer my wins unambiguous."
"Hm." Hazuki looks at him. "How about a game of pool?"
"I'm afraid I'm not in the mood," Joshua says. "You've seen what you came here for."
"I suppose I did." For the first time, Hazuki shifts to his RG form before Joshua does. "Maybe I'll take a walk before I go."
"Do what you will," Joshua says. He slumps back onto his throne once Hazuki's left.
There's no point in moving. Even when Minamimoto's finished his last calibrations, whenever that will be, Joshua can't find it in himself to think about fighting back. Shiki won't be pleased by that, but Shiki always deserved better than a friend like him. Besides, he can't imagine she'll still want to be friends after all this. He used to wonder why his predecessor offered such a paltry resistance, at the beginning. But it's obvious now. A Composer only loses a match for succession because they want to.
And right now, Joshua wants nothing more.
He's not sure how long he sits in that throne room, alone, but eventually he feels the telltale ripple of time going back.
Hazuki must have made another pin. And Rindo must have used it. He waits until time settles... back at the start of the day before.
They all have one more chance. And Joshua, for his part, isn't going to waste it.