Tin cans, plastic plates, rusty forks and knives. A tattered ribbon, a forgotten note, and a worn toy. Used, discarded, tossed aside. He piled the shunned items up higher and higher until his metallic mountain obscured the sky. There weren't many people that would see it in the make-believe Shibuya, but those that did would surely look upon it with disgust.
"It's just a pile of garbage!" they would say. He couldn't really argue. He knew that they would view his masterpieces with their tinted shades. He knew that they wouldn't understand what the heaps of refuse really meant. In the end, it didn't make a fraction of a difference to him. He was doing it for himself. He would show them all how foolish they were to believe in a rotten world, full of rotten people and rotten thoughts. The world was garbage, and it was only a matter of time before everyone else saw it his way, too.
Sho Minamimoto found that he had a lot of time on his hands to think and reflect. He pretty much blew off his duties as a Reaper – teamwork was for squares – in favor of hackling the Players that would scuttle about on their daily missions. He might not have been able to eliminate them this early on in the Game, but that didn't stop Sho from making their lives that much more difficult. He didn't pin himself as the villain, really; more of a joker, and soon, would-be king. As they all had discovered, life was short. It was better to enjoy it to its fullest before it slipped between your fingers.
It went without mentioning that the UG far topped anything found in the real world in terms of fun factor as well. At home, he was just a useless geek. Here in the Game, he was a pi-crunching powerhouse, a master puppeteer, the uncontested noble of numbers. He was everything he wanted to be, no longer soldiering through day after dreary day of the same boring crowd. Players had a zest for life because they couldn't win the real one back if they didn't; Sho, on the other hand, was perfectly happy just where he was. The line between the Game and his life had blurred long ago, with the old, weak Sho banished to the darkest corners of his mind. Now, there was only him, and a world full of beautiful garbage.
And speaking of beautiful garbage…
The pair of enormous headphones racing past the oblivious passerby, along with the stuffed cat that followed, was unmistakable. Deciding he had done more than enough thinking for the day, Sho spread his wings from atop the scrap metal and ascended the nearest rooftop, content on stalking the fiery youth for the remainder of the afternoon.
Soon, he hoped, he would add the greatest treasure to his collection. Until then, he'd whittle his hours away caring for what others did not. Such was the nature of a garbage man.