"Well, what are you waitin' for? Do it, I know you'll do fine," her brash, lovable hunk of a brother told her while everyone stared at her like she was making the absolute most important decision of all their lives. Her eyes turned to the man behind all of this, that clever, cat-like master, and watched him give her a knowing smile and nod.

Finally, with a quavering lip, she gulped and nodded, saying, "OK, let's do this," and released the object in her hand. She watched it fall down, almost as if in slow motion, hit the ground below it, and bounce and tumble before settling down innocently, unaware of the horrible implications it had brought about.

"OK Rhyme, with that 8 you rolled, you managed to push Beat out of the way and saved his life..." Mr. Hanekoma informed her, causing everyone to let out a collective sigh of relief. "But, unfortunately, you were not able to get out of the way yourself. Because of the level of this Noise, I'm afraid to say...you've been killed." Hearing this, they all were shocked and aghast that something so horrible happened so early in the game. Rhyme, in particular, was only able to stare down at her piece, looking upon it sadly and internally cursing the roll of the die.

Her brother, in contrast to her silent sadness, looked from the board to their GM with his eyes bugged out, practically looking like a pair of those weird googly eyeballs she occasionally saw in the joke shops they frequented. After a few seconds of indecipherable babbling, he shouted, "WHAT!? No, this, this can't happen man! I roll to save her from the Noise!"

Mr. H looked at him with pitying eyes as he watched the boy start to desperately shake the die in his hand and said, "I'm sorry Beat, but she used her move to save YOU from the Noise. You can't do that now."

Hearing this, he then said a few curses through his teeth, having clenched them tightly enough to save his little sister's poor ears from his foul language, and then said, "Fine! Then I'll try and revive her or somethin'!"

The others were now looking at Beat pitiably as Neku sighed, telling him, "Beat, you don't HAVE any revival powers, remember?"

Looking at him with angry eyes, he pointed at Neku and shouted, "Well then, why don't YOU do it, huh!? You have all the fancy powers, right!? I'm SURE you must have at least one Pin that could bring her back!"

Rhyme, seeing her brother's anguish, patted his back and said, "Beat, it's fine. So I lost, big deal. I'll just watch the rest of the game. Don't cry over spilt milk."

Hearing his sister comfort him, Beat felt stupid for having gotten so upset over this, quickly putting on a strong face and saying, "Y-, yeah, of course sis. I guess, I just didn't want you bein' left out, you know?" Soon calming himself down as Shiki giggled, finding his brotherly love rather cute, and Joshua smirked, knowing that he was just trying to save face, Beat finally told Mr. H, "Sorry man. I didn't mean to flip my shit li- I, I mean-!"

Mr. H, however, interrupted him with a smirk of his own and the familiar jangle of a glass jar filled with lots of coins, held before Beat as he told him, "50 yen in the swear jar young man."

Looking at the infamous jar with a look of contempt that even Rhyme couldn't help but giggle at, he dug rather viciously into his pockets, yanked out a handful of coins, and grumbled, "This da-...DARN, thing, is gonna leave me broke..." before throwing the coin into the jar. He flinched as he heard it connect with the pile of coins that had accumulated inside the jar since its reveal. Most of it, much to his chagrin, were his before he lost them to the hateful little glass bastard.

Joshua, chuckling quite a bit, told him, "You know, for someone who's supposed to be mourning the loss of his sister, you sure are choosing some colorful language to do it."

As the others laughed at Joshua's observation, Beat turned to him quickly and said, "Hey, fuck you man! And hey, couldn't YOU have done somethin' to save her!? Yer always stalkin' us, you could've done SOMETHIN'!"

Raising up his hands as if he was stopping an oncoming car, he said, "Well, I am appalled that you would suggest that I would stoop so low as to stalk ANYONE... and besides, I was busy staring at Neku's fine behind. I can't help not having been able to help her. I'm sorry it happened, but I had no choice but to look." As Shiki blushed brightly at what Joshua just said and Neku looked both annoyed and disturbed, he added, "By the way, I think Mr. H is waiting for your next donation," pointing behind Beat to indicate Mr. H holding out the jar again.

As Beat grumbled out a few unheard obscenities and fished for another yen coin, Neku told Josh, "Hey, do you think you could cut that out? I know you're not serious about it, but it's still really creepy."

Giving a chuckle and turning to him, he said, "Who said that I wasn't serious, DEAR~?" leaving the group unable to tell if he was just trolling them or if he was actually serious but just saying it in a teasing way.

Quickly pushing her round glasses up her nose, her face flared brightly from embarrassment as she was undoubtedly imagining yaoi fun times in her mind, Shiki asked, "H-, hey! We should probably continue the game! I mean, after all, we ARE still in the middle of an encounter, right?"

"Indeed we are," Mr. H said with a nod. "Though perhaps after this battle we should close out for today. After all, I think we should give Beat a little time to relax from what happened."

Hearing this, he quickly said, "Hey, whoa man, you don't need to do that! I'm cool now, honest." He paused for a second, then said, "But, you know, I bet Rhyme's feelin' pretty down about this, right sis...?"

His little sister sensed he really was upset about it, as did everyone else there, and since she herself was rather sad about having died so early on, she nodded and said, "Yeah, I am. We should probably end the game after this encounter."

Giving a nod, Mr. H said, "Then we're in agreement. Alright guys, roll your dice for attack order." The remaining fighters nodded and rolled their dice. Shiki was first, then the monsters, then Neku, and finally Beat. Since Josh was still just watching from the sidelines, he wasn't participating in any battles. "Alright then Shiki, what will you do?"

She turned to him, hugging her stuffed cat close to her chest, and said, "I'll try to look for a weak spot on the Noise."

"Got it," he said with a nod. "Roll wisdom to see if you succeed." Soon everyone was watching her again, making her worry that she might fail like Rhyme had before. But, pushing away her worry, she finally managed to shake the dice in her hand and release them to see how she would fare. Then, to everyone's relief, she got a 15 on her roll, to which Mr. H said, "Alright, nice roll Shiki. You examine the Noise, making sure to keep your distance, and find that you're up against a Swing Shark. Its weak point seems to be its eyes, though its fin is also a vulnerability. However, be cautious. At times, this beast will dip below the surface and attack from below."

Shiki sighed in relief and said, "Alright, got it," before giving the others a thumbs up, mostly looking at Neku who just gave her a small smile and nod of approval. "Alright, now let's see what happens next," Mr. H told them before rolling his own dice, looking them over, and saying, "OK, the Noise attacks Beat, but knowing what to look for this time, you manage to jump out of the way," causing them to sigh in relief again, thankful they hadn't lost a second player that day. Turning to Neku, Mr. H told him, "OK, your turn."

Nodding, he looked down and said, "Alright, I'm going to attack it with my..."

"Itadekimasu!" they group said before starting to eat their ramen they'd ordered from Ramen Don, as was their ritual after completing one of their role playing sessions. As each one noisily slurping the damp, flavored noodles into their mouths, Mr. H eventually stopped slurping his mystic ramen long enough to tell the quintuplet of adventurers, "Alright guys, this was a good session today, as usual. It IS unfortunate that we managed to lose one of us so soon, but that happens sometimes. Let us hope that it doesn't happen again."

"Mmmhmm!" Beat moaned through a mouthful of tonkotsu noodles, soon biting them off and saying, "I mean, it's pretty unfair that we get to keep playin' while she has to sit on the sidelines!"

Biting off her own shoyu flavored noodles before chewing and swallowing them, Rhyme gently reminded him, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full. You might choke. And don't worry about it Beat. I can just watch and do homework while you guys finish the game. Once it finishes, I can join back in again."

Hearing this and giving a slightly embarrassed blush, Beat swallowed his noodles with an audible gulp and said, "R-, right, sounds like a plan sis."

Slurping a little more of his shio ramen, Joshua eventually bit them off as well, swallowing and saying, "Ahhh, Ken Doi sure knows his noodles. It's a lucky thing he didn't go out of business. I'd miss his food."

Shiki nodded, gulping down her own miso ramen and saying, "I know, tell me about it. And he's so nice too. It'd be a shame for him to lose his job."

Nodding a bit and looking up from his own shoyu ramen, Neku raised an eyebrow and said, "Hey Shiki, isn't that Eri outside?" This caused the poor, bespectacled girl to practically choke on her ramen before ducking down and looking behind her. Blushing brightly in embarrassment as she saw it was indeed her and sighed in relief as she noticed that Eri hadn't seen her.

Staying low and slurping the rest of her ramen so quickly they swore she'd probably win a record, she then clapped her hands together and said in a hushed tone, "Gochisou sama deshita!" before starting to shovel her things into her bag. Looking over to her friends with apologetic eyes, she said, "Sorry guys, I should get going! I'll see you all next week, OK?" Nodding and bidding her goodbye, she then threw her bag over her shoulder and left the store before casually walking away, trying to make it seem like she'd just been passing by.

As she disappeared from view, Rhyme looked at her with a rather saddened look and said, "It sure is sad that she's so embarrassed about her interest that she doesn't want her own best friend to see her."

Beat shrugged, saying, "Well, I've heard that she's kinda ragged on this in the past. You know, nothing unforgivable, just stuff like, hang on..." He then cleared his throat before saying in the best impression he could muster, "'I don't understand how anyone could possibly be interested in sitting around pretending to be knights and wizards killing monsters for hours.' You know, shi-ttttuuuuufff like that..." He noticed Mr. H give a small smirk at him, giving the swear jar a shake but not holding it out.

Joshua gave a chuckle, looking over at Beat and saying, "You set SUCH a wonderful example for your sister, you know that?"

Turning and glaring at him, he yelled, "Ahhh, shaddup Josh! And wipe that smirk off'a your face before I do it for you!" Then, he suddenly heard the familiar jingle of coins and looked to see it in front of him, groaning, "Ahhh, come on Mr. H! I didn't swear at all!"

He chuckled in response, saying, "Well, technically, you're right. However, I consider saying 'shut up' to be rather rude, so pay up."

Groaning in irritation, Beat pulled out another coin and, staring at the glass jar, muttered to it, "I'll beat you one of these days," before reluctantly dropping in the coin.