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Along Came Trouble

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Chapter One: It's the Beginning of a Brand New Day

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In a split second every feeling disappeared. The whirring of the wind brazing past his face, the tickling on his cheeks, the sensation of his legs snapping in two; in a brief moment he felt entirely empty…

Free.

At peace.

"Look here comes another!"

The first thing he saw was the black sphere, a large one that gleamed under the harsh lighting of what looked to be an apartment that he was unfamiliar with. After growing accustomed to his surroundings he noticed that he felt light, he turned down to his feet and saw that sections of his legs were missing. Where his ankles were supposed to be, just under his knees were black spaces, instead there was a laser projected from the sphere. He was not sure what to make of this but it reminded him of the previous events leading to this moment, how he had thrown himself off a building and felt his own legs get crushed after hitting the pavement. In less than ten seconds his feet appeared and he began to feel them again after the laser disappeared.

Feeling great confusion he glanced around and saw that the room was filled with people that looked to be of a complete random selection. There were middle-aged folk, some young looking adults that could be old enough to be university students (but probably not considering how poorly dressed they were), a guy that could have been in the yakuza and other students like himself. None of them looked acquainted and it really did seem like they were all just thrown together without consideration… or discrimination (he noticed there were elderly as well). He turned away from them and for the first time he saw the view from the window, they were right next to Tokyo Tower, a place he was nowhere near when he jumped just a few minutes ago.

Dozens of questions were racing through his head at this point but the most prominent one – 'why aren't I dead?'

Nishi looked forward when he heard footsteps approaching him and he nearly grimaced when he saw it was one of the middle-aged men, he gave the younger boy a friendly smile as he reached his hand out. The boy stared back at him beadily, looking between his hand and his broad smile.

"Hello, I'm Kishima Renji," he introduced. "With you there would be nine of us now, what's your name?"

It was obvious that Kishima was the type to take charge, the way he introduced himself reminded Nishi a little of his class' rep and it made him feel a little uneasy. Taking a glance behind Kishima he saw that everyone had returned to speaking completely ignoring their new addition to the group, Nishi was still terribly confused but he was not feeling so inclined to be friendly with these people.

Nishi gave Kishima a cold look and ignored the extended hand as he walked off to find a spot to sit down. He sat close to the front, further away enough that no one bothered him but close enough for him to overhear what everyone was talking about. It was mostly aimless chattering on theories and conspiracies on why they were brought to this place but a common theme seemed to be 'I'm pretty sure I died'. Apart from that no one seemed to have anything convincing.

From the corner of his eye he spotted the only other students in the room, there three of them and two were high school girls (he could tell by the uniform, it was the high school a block away from his school). The final one was a boy and Nishi was convinced he was in middle school like himself, his uniform was unfamiliar but they looked to be about the same age. Nishi immdieately looked down when the other boy turned his head and he prayed that he would not come over but unfortunately he seemed to have taken notice of someone similar his age and has already begun walking over.

"Hey, you're a middle-schooler too, aren't you?" he sat down beside the uninterested boy. "I'm Ichiro, nice to meet you."

"… Nishi."

"Nishi, huh?" Ichiro nodded. "… So any ideas on why you think we're here?"

"…"

"I think we're part of a TV show or something," he grinned. "Sounds a bit crazy but I don't actually believe in all that heaven crap."

"Yeah…"

"You're kind of weird, aren't you?"

Here it came again… Nishi turned away from the boy as he felt the familiar recurring discomfort in his heart. It was not unusual and at least Ichiro had been relatively polite about it but it was normal for people to shy away from him after getting to speak to him for a bit. Nishi understood why but it was not as if he could help who he was.

"Look there's another one coming!"

The laser from before returned and it stopped in the spot where Nishi had been standing in earlier, he watched as a pair of feet begun to materialise from the ground, bits of bone and flesh were being scanned at a painfully slow rate and he realised right away that this must have been how he was brought into the room as well… how they all were.

By the time the body has appeared from toe to waist Nishi had gotten tired of the lengthy process but he had made out the body to be a female's, she had a nice figure too from what he could tell; all the men lightened up noticeably at the sight and all were eager for the rest of her to show. Unfortunately for the men despite her round little butt, thin legs and narrow waist when two thirds of her appeared it was apparent that her chest was lacking and not as large as anticipated. She wore a tight black suit that hugged her body well and the curves from her legs to waist were mind-blowing but the curves stopped at her chest and that was an immediate letdown for most of the men in the room. For the ones that were still interested they held their breath as her face began to show starting from her chin – perky red glossed lips, cute little button nose and perfectly arched eyebrows.

Nishi recognized her from when she opened her fierce blue eyes. Dressed in her skin-tight black outfit that looked very much like cosplay, it didn't come to him at first but he recognized her the second she opened her eyes and looked around the room. She was the high school girl that all the boys in his class had secretly taken pictures of to jack off to later, she was the high school girl all the girls would always gossip and gush over. Like the other girls present she was from the high school a few blocks away from his, he has always seen her around when he was walking home; she was always in her uniform that was a teensy bit too short for her long legs and surrounded by a large group of friends that seemed to adore her very existence. If he remembered right her name was Shiho.

"Nakara Shiho?" one of the schoolgirls laughed. "Is that you, Nakara? What's up with that outfit? Some kind of kinky leather cosplay for your ten-year-old boyfriend? I wasn't aware our school idol had such creepy fetishes."

Shiho spared them but a single glance without much reaction to their provocation and instead she turned to the rest of the group and eyed each one of them critically. Her eyes softened slightly when she reached halfway past the room and by the time her eyes landed on Ichiro and Nishi her gaze was no longer a glare.

"Alright, listen up fellas," she murmured, her thick accent showing through. "I'm probably going to be the last one so there isn't much time for me to explain what's-."

"I'm sorry, but what on earth are you wear-."

"Please, ossan!" she pushed a long strand of hair behind her ear. "Questions later. Let me speak first. As I said, we don't have much time."

Kishima would have spoken about her poor manners if it weren't for that sweet little curved smile that played on her glossy lips. He swallowed uneasily under her heavy gaze and sat back down.

"Alright!" she clapped her hands and walked over to the sphere. She ran a hand down the sleek curved surface before speaking again. "This ball here is Gantz. If you were doubting your own death before then let me confirm this for you: We have all died and we belong to Gantz now!"

Everyone in the room grew deadly silent. No one knew how to react to what they've just been told. This whole time all they had done was make assumptions on what they think would happen and there wasn't one person that even had the slightest clue to why they were here but now this high school girl shows up from out of the blue, dressed in a strange suit and sprouting nonsense about them belonging to a large black orb.

"What the hell are you on about, Nakara?"

It was the high school girl again. Everyone turned to her and back at Shiho, all expecting her to reply. Shiho stared the girl down, her cold gaze sent shivers down the girl's spine. At this point Nishi knew that Nakara Shiho wasn't one to be trifled with.

"You can see yourself as fortunate souls that have been given a second chance after death to reclaim your lives but it's no easy process," she chose to ignore the girl's comment. "It only gets harder from here."

"I'm sorry, but I really don't understand," Kishima stood up again. "Why are we here? What do you mean we're dead? I still feel very much alive. Why have we been-."

"Shut up, ossan!"

As she tried to argue back one of the other young adults stood up and shoved Kishima out of the way, he walked straight up to Shiho and leered down at her with an overly friendly grin. He reached his hand up for a strand of her long dark hair and he tucked it behind her ear but much to his dismay she did not even bat an eye at his advance.

"Shiho-chan, right?" he spoke. "Instead of this creepy Battle Royale shit, why don't we have-."

Before he could continue the yakuza-looking man pulled him away from Shiho, he had grabbed the boy and held him off the ground with his feet swaying in the air. Shiho's mouth widened slightly as she watched the boy struggle mid-air but she did not say anything and the room's atmosphere suddenly grew tense as no one knew would to do or if they should stand up to the most dangerous looking man in their group.

"Girl."

"Hm?"

The yakuza tossed the boy aside and walked towards Shiho.

"H-Hey! Calm down!"

It was Kishima yelling from the ground and the group have began standing up slowly one by one, for starters the boy who had just been tossed were now being helped up by his friends but most of the men who had their eyes on Shiho were also up. Before anyone could say or do anything though the teenage girl was forcefully dragged into the corridor around the back and everyone stared in disbelief as they realised what was happening.

Nishi stared at the adults before him expecting them to do something but it was the grim unspoken truth that no one wanted to risk the man's raw strength that he had just displayed earlier. Nishi thought about how pathetic Kishima was, for all his preaching he was just as frightened as everyone else when it really counted. He glanced back at the other women in the room and they looked absolutely terrified but some relieved perhaps because they were spared the assault… even the high school girls that spoke to Shiho looked apathetic. It made him sick.

A few seconds passed since they disappeared around the corner and everyone strained their ears for any sounds to indicate the specifics of what was happening to the poor girl but instead of screams and crying, they heard a single loud thud and within moments Shiho returned into the room looking intact and not even a hair out of place.

"Okay… so like I was saying," she returned to her earlier position beside Gantz. "This is Gantz and we gotta kill whatever… or whomever? Yeah, whomever shows up on the screen later in a bit after the music stops playing."

No one spoke back, nothing she said made any sense and it was already difficult enough to comprehend her words with her accent. They were more interested in how she managed to escape from the yakuza who looked set on raping her and how come she was acting as if nothing had happened, some of the men walked to the corridor to see what had happened to the man.

Though he was also curious to how a thin little girl managed to free herself form such a large man Nishi did not want to stand up and go see with the other men like Ichiro had so that would remain a mystery to him. He just sat there and waited for whatever was supposed to happen while listening to Shiho try to explain to them (not very well despite the effort she was making), perhaps the music she mentioned would start playing soon.

Ichiro returned into the room before the others that had gone into the corridor, looking a little pale as he walked back over to Nishi and sat down. "Dude… that guy just now… he was lying on the ground holding onto his stomach… I think she beat him down."

Suddenly the room was resounding with a familiar tune, the music came from the black sphere and it was a song that everyone recognised from their primary school years. For such a mundane song that every single person in Japan would have known it now sounded ominous hearing it from this so called Gantz.

Shiho hummed along to the tune with a smile on her face.

"Ich! Ni! San!"

"Sweet," she said after the song ended and she tapped her knuckles against the sphere. "Okay. Open up, Gantz."

As if responding to her instruction the black sphere opened up on three sides, the two rows on the left and right held things that looked like weapons and the back held a batch of labeled cases.

"Suits on the back and guns on either side," Shiho pointed appropriately. "You'll need those to kill the aliens."

Everyone had returned to the room after hearing the song and each was looking at another unsurely. The first to act were the young adults that reached for the guns with great enthusiasm, comparing the different types and discussing the likelihood of them being real. Everyone else began to gather around the guns and also picked them up to examine. As more people surrounded Gantz the screen flickered slightly before displaying a message, Kishima had brought it upon himself to read it out for the group and there was an uncanny resemblance between the message and what Shiho had said. The screen then changed again and this time it looked to be a character profile, there was a picture of what looked like a Kappa and beside it a list of seemingly useless information.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"Isn't that just a Kappa?"

"A what?"

"That's the thing we got to kill," Shiho spoke up as she took a brief glance at the screen. "Koepa?"

The girl's accent was really ridiculous, everyone thought it was hilarious and they would have laughed at her if the situation did not seem so ominous.

"…Well forget it for now and get ready…" Shiho saw that no one had moved towards the cases yet despite her words and she simply sighed as she reached for a pistol for the empty holster on her leg before stepping back, seemingly given up on convincing them.

Nishi noticed she had another weapon attached to her hip, on closer inspection it seemed to be a hilt of a katana but there was no blade attached to it. There was not a similar looking weapon amongst the ones given to them by the sphere and Nishi realised that she must have been a lot more experienced than the rest of them, it was his first time here but for her it could be her hundredth time for all he knew. He broke his stare and slowly walked around Gantz and retrieved the case that had his name on it.

"Uh- Nakara-san?" Ichiro had followed Nishi and picked up his case as well and he was now approaching Shiho with it in hand. "We just put this on, right?"

As Ichiro spoke, Nishi opened the case and picked out the dark suit that was identical to the one Shiho wore. He felt the material between his fingertips and sighed when it became apparent he would have to be seen in something so embarrassing.

"Oh I like you two!" Shiho had smiled when she saw Ichiro with his suitcase but her grin widened when she noticed Nishi behind him not only with his case but with his suit also out. She patted Ichiro's head first before walking over to Nishi to do the same. "You actually listened to me!"

Ichiro blushed bright red and began chuckling in a flamboyant manner but Nishi on the other hand was completely shaken by her gesture, all he could manage to do was look down to hide his face from the glowers they were receiving from the majority of the men in the room.

"Learn from these guys, you fools," she directed the remark at the schoolgirls who had not moved an inch from where they sat. "We're going to fighting against these Koepa and you don't stand a chance unless you put the suit on."

"Yeah right, we'll leave the cosplay to you Nakara," the girls laughed again, maybe it was the accent they found hilarious but it was obvious they have no intention of changing or even so much as moving.

"Right, whatever then. Good luck out there," Shiho rolled her eyes before turning to the rest of the room again. "Oh wow! More of you have suited up!"

Shiho's eyes immediately lit up when she saw more suits out of their cases, a fraction of the men have followed Nishi and Ichiro's example and have put their suit on and grabbed a pistol. They looked content with themselves after being praised by Shiho and this only made the remaining women somewhat bitter and unwilling to follow Shiho's instruction, all but one lady who introduced herself as Yoko and Nishi thought she must have been smarter than the rest to think logically instead of being blinded by her emotions. For whatever reasons they may have put on their suits it was without a doubt that their cooperation pleased Shiho greatly as shown by her bright smile.

"Awesome!" she gave them thumbs ups. "Maybe more of you will come back this time!"

"… Nakara-san…" Yoko spoke up warily. "Do people usually not come back?"

"Well it'd be weird if they did," Shiho shrugged as she crossed her arms. "I've played over ten rounds and there's only been… two survivors in different occasions? But then they died soon after…"

She had said it so nonchalantly but that only alarmed everyone all the more. If that were indeed true then that meant the chances of any of them returning was close to nothing, even though they had followed her instructions there was no saying what was going to happen out there. None of them even knew what they were going to face.

"B-But you can save us, right?" Kishima asked. "I mean if you've passed so many rounds you should be experienced enough!"

"… I…" she looked troubled she trailed off. "… I can't afford to do that… sorry."

No one spoke to her after that, no one knew how to react to her anymore. It was as if she set them up failure, she prepped them for survival but expected them to die anyway; it was like she did not care to begin with. The chattering soon returned but it was different from before and no one heard a peep from the thick accented girl anymore, everyone's tone was now filled with concern and anxiety. Shiho stood in a corner by herself, far from the others as she waited. Nishi chose to stand closer to her (and by doing so Ichiro followed him) as he felt he would have a better chance near her, even though she said she would not help she honestly did not seem like the type to abandon people when the situation called for it.

"Oh shit!"

"What the hell's going on?!"

The schoolgirls began to squeal when one of their heads began disappearing and everyone in the room ceased their conversation and began to panic when they realised that they were all being sent away somewhere. The ones that had ignored Shiho's earlier instructions ran for their cases with forlon hope that they would make it in time but they did not and soon they also disappeared.

"It's starting," Shiho gripped the hilt on her waist. "Hey Sato, grab a gun for yourself and Tanaka. Trust me when I say you'll need them."

The remaining schoolgirl out of the two, Sato just managed to reach for two pistols before she too vanished. Shiho walked over to where the girl just was and sighed. "Well those won't help much… but whatever," she shrugged with a little smile. "Hey kid, take the shotguns okay? Those little pistols are practically useless and the lag-time is crazy."

Nishi was not positive if she was speaking to him or Ichiro but either way he grabbed a shotgun like she instructed immediately in case he started disappearing as well. The gun definitely felt real in his hands and not some cheap plastic replica but neither did it feel entirely impressive like one of those six chamber barrel shotguns he has seen on television.

"Are these real guns?" Ichiro asked out of the blue catching Shiho's attention.

"What d'ya think?"

"… Yes?"

"Correct!" she grinned as she picked one up and pointed it at the bottom half of what's left of the yakuza that was being transferred. "You can blast a man's head straight off with one of these."

There was a playful tone in her voice but Nishi would not be surprised if she actually pulled the trigger on the man's lower half but for whatever reason she did not as she placed it back down with a smile. He was not sure why she acted the wa she did, he was both intrigued and concerned by her whimsical attitude towards everything.

"Oh… ha-ha, cool…" Ichiro fiddled with the triggers of his own gun with a sheepish smile. "So have you been- Whoa!"

The first two inches of Shiho's scalp was gone and the rest was vanishing at an alarming pace. "It's my turn!" she gave the boys a cute wink. "See you two there!"

Nishi's mouth went dry as her whole head disappeared and soon followed by her whole body. After she was gone Ichiro was next (looking a little teary when it was his turn) and the rest followed one after the other, soon it was only him left in the room. He closed his eyes and began taking deep breaths as he tried to mentally prepare himself for what was about to happen.

All of a sudden he felt cold air on his forehead, his eyes immediately snapped open when he heard screaming and the sight before him was horrendous.

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Author's Note:

So I did a rewrite for the first two chapters. Nothing new but I fixed it up some :)

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