"Ugh..."

I opened my eyes, to see a familiar sight. The ground under the feet of people at the Scramble. I stood up, and saw that nobody noticed me on the ground. I stood up, almost certain what has happened again. I looked at my palm, and sure enough, there's the familiar skulled pin. The Player Pin. The pin that they give you on Day 1 of the Reaper's Game. I felt the power that this pin contained, and instantly knew what was going on. "I need to find a Partner. I need to go to Hatchiko." I said to myself, not giving any time to check my phone for the mission. I broke out into a run, knowing that there wouldn't be a wall to the place that every Player needed to go. As soon as I got there, I saw multiple teams of two, either normal people or Players connected by a Pact. I looked around and saw one guy, about my height, with light-brown hair, standing around, obviously confused. I ran up to him, and yelled, "Hey, Guy! We need to make a Pact!" He looked at me as if I was crazy, then I yelled, "JUST SAY YES!" "Uhh... Okay..." He started off...

"I accept."

I saw a flash of light, the signal that the pact was formed. "Alright. What's the mission?" I asked him. I heard my phone ring almost immediately, and read the text containing the first mission.


"All Twerps report to X IV. You idiots have 60 minutes, but that's overkill. Fail, and be destroyed.

-The Reapers."


I felt a sharp pain in my right hand, the sign that the timer began. I looked at my Partner, who was now just standing there, phone in his hand. "Umm, Hello? Earth to Partner?" I said, trying to get him to function. After trying to get him to work after five minutes, I gave up. "Okay... let's see the Mission. The Roman numbers for ten and four... 104!" I said to myself, assessing the Mission. Noticing that my Partner is still unresponsive, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him, to which he immediately followed. We double timed it back to the Scramble, where I saw a guy with a red hoodie and a ball cap, covering up his eyes. I brought my Partner and myself up to him, and simply asked, "What's the thing we have to do to get past the wall?" "Fight these Noise." The Support Reaper stated. I nodded, then looked at my Partner, and said, "If there is any time that you should listen to me, now would be it. I can't fight the Noise alone. If I go, then after seven minutes, you do too. Understand?" I got no response as we were dragged into the Noise's plane of existence.

I started out the battle with my old pins, Peace Full, Sexy Beam, Ice Risers, Yoshimitsu, Black Jupiter, and Velocity Rush. All of them were instantly ready for battle. I looked to my right to see my Partner, just standing idle. Ignoring him, I looked around to see three Metal Corehogs, and a couple of Circle Pit Grizzlys, and a Death Thrash Mink. "Great. A fun welcoming crew." I said, getting into my battle stance. I launched myself at them, using Velocity Rush as much as I could until the Pin ran out. I used up all of the other Pins fairly quickly, myself silently cursing the forced start at level one. After each were forced to boot, the Pins fairly dulled in a wait. I silently said to myself as the last Grizzly Noise raised its giant tattoo arm in a swing, and was immediately zapped by a massive purple bolt of lightning, square in its chest. I turned my head to see my Partner with his hand raised, a little smoke rising off of it.

I stood up, and said, "Thanks for saving my ass. Now, let's use the Harmnonizer Pin." I said, bringing out the big Pin, which now had a massive eye-shaped symbol on it. He put his hand on it, and sent the sync thought into it. When I opened my eyes, I saw a group of about five little monsters, looking like cockroaches, standing neatly in a row in front of me. Opposite me, and yet also facing the remaining Noise was my Partner, in a strange, ninja-like outfit with twin swords, glowing red, and one of them pointed forward. I looked at my hand to see a similar sword, glowing blue. I raised it, imitating a similar motion, and he said in a strange voice, "FIRE!" Each of the monsters fired a continuous stream of lasers, which completely erased all of the Noise. After the monsters disappeared and my Partner was back to his normal outfit, we were transported back to our plane. The Support Reaper looked at us and said, "Objective met. Wall clear!" He walked away after the wall disappeared, handing us a five-thousand yen pin. I looked back at my Partner, who now had his hand over his right eye. "Hey, it's good to see that you're functioning again." I told him. He looked at me, his left eye full of concern, and asked, "Where- where am I?" He moved his hand, and when his eye opened, I saw the same symbol as the one on the Harmonizer Pin.

"Woah. What's up with your eye?" I asked. He looked at me, confused, so I snapped a picture with the camera on my phone and showed it to him. "Oh no. Not that..." He said. I put my phone away, now concerned, when I looked at my hand again to see that we only had five minutes to get to 104. "Oh crap! We need to get to the next area, NOW!" I said to him. He nodded, and we made a mad dash to the building. It took less than a minute before we got to the front of the building with many shops. I looked at my hand and saw that the timer was no longer on my hand. "Alright! Mission complete! Now, what's going on with you, man?" I asked my mysterious Partner.

He sighed, then looked at me with both eyes, and said, "I've been taken over by a malevolent computer program, named X.A.N.A. It shouldn't even be in control of me, but I don't know why only one eye has the symbol. Normally both of them have it in there." I nodded, understanding what he said, and asked, "So, what's your name?" "It's Ulrich. Ulrich Stern." He said, putting his hands in his pockets. "Cool. I'm Neku. Neku Sakuraba." I said. "Long name, but I've heard longer." Ulrich said. "Now, Let's just focus on the next six days." I said, looking around for the almost traditional Noise attack. "Okay. Since you know what you're doing, I'll just follow." Ulrich said. I smiled, then started to say,"Good. Now, we have to be on a lookout, just in case-" before I was interupted by a familiar voice.

"Hello Neku." Said an infamous person to me. I looked to the direction it came from, and saw Joshua, the Composer of the Games." "Joshua. I thought that no one saw the Composer, except for the Conductor." I said back. "I am the most powerful Reaper here, so it doesn't matter what I do, I can do what I want. And I wanted to see my old friend, and former Proxy." He explained. "Ah. So, who did you get to replace Shades?" I asked, using Beat's nickname for the guy. "Megumi has been replaced with someone who cherishes the title. You'll know who it is after this game, which I'm almost certain you'll win." He said. "Cool. So, who's the Game Master this time around?" I asked. "An old friend of ours." He said. I hit my head, then asked, "Not the Grim Heaper again. Please tell me not him." "No, it's not Minamimoto. It's someone else." He said. I gave a sigh of relief, happy that I didn't have to deal with Pi-Face again. "Well, I have to go now. Good seeing you, Neku. And Neku's new Partner." Joshua said, then he flew off.

"Wow. You have weird friends." Ulrich said.

"You have no idea..."