I was fresh off the plane in Tokyo, and I was kinda lost. I had picked up a map of the city, but it didn't help much, so I ended up wandering around aimlessly until I found a bus stop. The bus there didn't exactly go where I wanted to be, but beggars can't be choosers. I ended up in the Shibuya district. I figured it wasn't so bad, considering Shibuya was one of the most popular places to be. The streets were incredibly crowded, people spilling over from the sidewalks just to have room to walk. I wandered for a while, paying attention to nothing in particular, when a car slammed into me. I guess I had wandered too far from the sidewalk while sightseeing. Funnily enough, the last thought I had before everything went black was, "Damn, there goes my vacation."

I woke up in the middle of an intersection filled with people. I spent a few minutes wondering exactly how I was still alive and kicking, when my cell phone started ringing. I pulled it out, but then I remembered that I didn't bring my cell phone. I stood there in shock for a second, the phone still ringing. I figured that I might as well answer it. I had gotten a text message. "Get to 104 within 60 minutes. Fail and be erased." It was from some people calling themselves 'reapers'. I figured it was probably just a prank, at least until I felt like someone put my hand over a fire. I raised my hand to look at it and found a ticking red timer on my palm. "This is insane," I muttered, only half believing it. "At least 104 is just a block away."

I began walking towards the gigantic shopping center, but hit an invisible wall when I tried to leave the intersection. It became visible as interlocking hexagons where I touched it, but otherwise there was no sign of it being there. That's just dumb, I thought. Why would they assign an impossible task? Since I couldn't go that way, I decided to see where I could go. For some reason, the only exit that wasn't blocked off was the one that led to the famous statue of Hachiko. Apparently Hachiko was a real dog that waited for his dead master for years before dying himself. Why they would erect a statue in a dog's honor, I have no idea. I wandered over, my timer ticking away slowly, and sat on a bench. Suddenly, some animal-like graffiti symbols appeared floating in midair. I watched stupefied as they descended on random people, and those people disappeared.

I was frozen in horror as one of them began to move towards me. I knew I needed to run, but I couldn't. I heard a voice cry out, "Make a pact with me!" I absentmindedly nodded and stammered out my assent, my attention still on the symbol. I was pulled off the bench by an unseen force and there were some random flashing lights. I closed my eyes against the brightness, and when I opened them again, I was standing next to a teen with a purple shirt, baggy shorts and violently orange spiky hair. He was examining me.

"I guess you'll do. Not that I have a choice now, anyway," he mused. "You got any pins?"

I checked my pocket in answer to that, and discovered a couple of pins I knew I didn't have before. One was black with a white skull decal. One was white with a blue and yellow projectile on it. The last was blue with crisscrossing black slash marks on it.

"Good. Why don't you try to use them?"

I looked at him like he was insane. "What do you mean, use them?"

"You can erase the Noise with these pins. Why don't you try it out?"

"Are you high? How could pins do anything to erase Noise, whatever the hell that is?"

"Focus your thoughts through them."

I sighed. "Fine. I'll try it." I put away the skull pin and bullet pin, and concentrated on the one that was left. Nothing happened. I felt an urge to punch something. I refrained from punching the dude next to me, figuring I could do something constructive with this violence, and instead hit one of those graffiti symbols. Translucent claws emanated from my fist and ripped it apart.

I stared at my hand, unwilling to believe what just happened. I glanced over at my new partner, who was smiling a little. I turned to him and said, "I guess we're stuck with each other, then?"

He nodded.

"So, what's your name? I'm gonna need to call you something."

"Neku. Yours?"

"Alan."

We shook hands. "We should probably get to 104. We only have ten minutes."

I checked. 9:43, 9:42, 9:41… "Yeah." We walked the short distance to 104, the wall having disappeared for some reason, and completed the mission.