Episode 01: Black sphere

A melody started to ring in the distance. It was distorted, so Nishi couldn't catch up the lyrics. Moreover, his head was in pain, like someone had hit him, so he didn't pay any attention to it anyways.

Restless, he stood up. Where was him…? In a room that couldn't be more simple, but with a striking big black sphere in the middle. There was four more people besides him. Resting in the back wall, a man who looked foreign, blonde and with blue eyes, that was watching around bewilderment. Touching the sphere, there was a kid no more than six years old. Nishi pursed his eyebrows; he hated kids. Standing up near a door, there was a young woman who was staring at him confused.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Do I have anything on my face?", he thought, annoyed by her daring to keep staring at him like that.

And, the last one, in front of him, was a young and tall boy, well, some years older than him, with smooth hair that reached his shoulders. He was staring at him with the eyebrows a bit raised, like he was waiting for something.

-Guess that's all. -He said, turning back to fix his gaze onto the black sphere.

Nishi was confused. What was that place? What happened? The last thing he remembered was… oh, right.

"I threw myself by the window", he thought, "…then… am I dead?"

The woman got slowly closer to him.

-I… neither know what's going on, but it seems like we are locked up here. We can't leave this room, we even can't touch the door knobs… -She said.

"And who asked you anything?" Without looking her, Nishi walked through the door. One of the doors opened, showing him a corridor, but the door that could take him outside was even unreachable. He clicked his tongue, disgusted to see that what the woman has said was true.

When he came back to the room with the sphere, he was shocked to see a panda bear lying on the middle of the room."And where the fuck did this come out from?"

Noticing the doubt on his eyes, the woman said:

-He was in one of the rooms next to the corridor. Maybe you just walked across without noticing…

Then, suddenly, the black sphere opened in three compartments, where there were placed some briefcases and a set of weapons and tools. Everybody in the room was surprised with this, except the tall boy.

-While you were in the corridor, the ball showed some words… it seems it wants us to defeat a cat... -Said the woman, not trusting her own words.

Nishi wasn't sure to understand those words. A cat?

-Are they toys? -The kid picked up one of the weapons, and the woman took it away from him.

Nishi, not knowing what to do, stared to the others. The foreign guy took a big gun, and… the other boy was undressing himself?!

"…Ah, he wears a suit under the clothes", he thought, surprised to see that suit. It was black and very tight, "He looks ridiculous with that."

Nishi picked up one of the briefcases, which had his name written on it, and when he opened it he found another suit like the one the boy was wearing. Should he wear it? It seemed the guy knew what he was doing… With the briefcase in one hand, he went to the corridor. There, he got undressed and wore up the suit, surprised that it was his size. He leaved his clothes aside and sighed, thinking that he looked pathetic wearing that. He came back to the room, and took one of the guns. When he realized it, he saw that the tall boy was staring at him. It appeared that he was satisfied with Nishi's proceeding. That annoyed him. After all, he wasn't there to please anyone, and his superiority behavior irritated him.

He was surprised by the foreign' shout; he was disappearing slowly. Then the one shouting was the woman, and then the kid. They were all disappearing bit by bit. Nishi searched onto the tall guy's eyes for an explanation to this, but he only said:

-Come with me.

/ / /

Izumi settled his long hair aside. When he felt his feet touching the ground anew, he sighed. "Come with me". Why did he say that to a boy he didn't know? Maybe it pleased him to see that he didn't start to cry and shout, like everyone else did, and that he tried to understand the situation by himself. But, who was he kidding? He wasn't going to get into troubles to save that boy.

"I can test him. If he survives to this mission, I could consider it…", he thought.

Finally, the boy appeared by his side, breathing heavily. The woman was hugging the kid, both frightened, and the foreign guy was cursing in some language that Izumi thought was German.

-Where are we? -Said the boy, being that the first sentence he said since his arrival. He looked around him.- We're outta the room?

Indeed, they had been teleported to an unknown street.

Izumi didn't answer. What would be the point if they didn't find out by themselves?

-I asked you something, pretty face! -Shouted the boy. He wasn't very patient, it seemed.

-…You've already heard it. We have to defeat the alien that looks like a cat. -He said, reluctantly.

-Alien? But it was a normal cat… -Whispered the woman.

Nobody had paid attention to her.

-Wo sind wir? Was ist los? Eh! Antworte mir! -Shouted the foreign guy. Everybody stared at him, confused.- Scheiße! Ich bin hier raus!

He leaved, probably angry because no one understood him. They soon heard an abrupt noise, and when they turned around to see where the foreign man was, they saw his body falling down to a blood pooled ground. His head had exploded. The woman covered the kid's eyes and started to scream. Izumi sighed, and he was surprised to see that the boy was watching everything that happened with fascination. He approached him to say:

-The ground of the hunting is limited. You all have bombs inside your heads. If you run off the limit, it will explode.

After warning him, he started to run somewhere. If the boy was intelligent enough and was lucky, he could survive. Sometimes Izumi thought that it wouldn't be so bad to have a hunting partner. Of course, he wanted him to use him as a shield if he needed it.

He looked the tool he held in a hand; it was a radar. There were some light spots shining on it, placed in a map.

"There aren't so many of them this time…", he thought.

He stopped when he heard a meow. He drew out his katana, which he had picked up from the dark sphere's arsenal. Then a small cat came out from the shadows of an alley. Izumi held up his gaze, controlling his breathing. They stood like that for some moments, until the cat jumped onto Izumi. He sliced the cat into two pieces, and each one of these sliced parts turned up into another cat. Izumi, bothered, was forced to take out the gun. It seemed that the katana wasn't doing any damage. The cats started to grow up at an abnormal speed, and they jumped onto Izumi, who tried to stop them kicking them out. They started to struggle, giving Izumi some scars. He tried to shoot, but he didn't hit any of them. They were blocking his view, and they were sticking to his suit as a parasite. He managed to push out one of them, swelling his suit, and he shot him, making him to explode. The other cat stood alert, and that confused Izumi. Then, all of a sudden, the other cat exploded too. Izumi searched with his eyes the guilty for this, founding the boy who also wore the suit, panting, some meters away from him and staring to his own gun, with which he had just shot. Izumi approached him.

-Nice shot. -He said, slapping his back.

He expected some frightened boy after his first victim, so he was very impressed to see him smiling at the gun.

-I… I shot it… -He said to himself.- And it blew up into pieces… Incredible.

Izumi smiled lightly. It seemed someone understood him.

-There is another one left. Are you ready? -He said, with complicity.

The boy nodded. They began to run following a point in the radar.

-What's your name? -Asked Izumi.

-Nishi Joichirô.

-Mine's Izumi Shion. Nice to meet you.

/ / /

Nishi had never felt so powerful before. He had held a gun and shot. He had felt his blood flowing quickly. He had killed one of those monsters with his own hands. He didn't step back when he saw the animal's entrails blowing up. Inside, he was laughing. He was laughing to all those that bullied him at the school, and he was enjoying thinking at what kind of face they will make when they scream out of fear. It was wrong, he said to himself. It was wrong but it felt so fucking good. He felt like no one could stand against him no more. After all, he had shot that monster without feeling any pity.

He was taken off his thoughts when he heard the woman screaming. Fuck. He was fed up with her cries. Izumi and him got to where the woman was. Lying on the ground, she was screaming because the kid was being eaten by a giant cat. Nishi smiled at this, and Izumi remarked:

-What a sadist kid you are.

Nishi glanced at him coldly, trying to say something like "mind your own fucking business".

The alien quickly noticed the presence of the boys. He ran to attack them, and each of them ran into different directions. The alien decided to chase Izumi, who drew out the katana to block his attacks. Nishi pointed to the alien with his gun.

-Stop moving, I'm not able to shoot! -He said.

-Don't worry! -Answered Izumi, sarcastic- I can manage this!

Nishi clicked his tongue. It seemed that that airs-of-grace guy had seen his intentions. As he was the only one who knew what was happening, Nishi thought it will be helpful to keep him alive to help him. If he died, he was fucked up. He approached the alien to try to shoot him, but the alien gave him some knockings, scratches, and bites that he didn't see coming at all. That made his suit to start to release a sticky fluid through the joints.

-What the fuck is this…? -He touched the fluid.

-Your suit broke up! Step back! -Warned Izumi.

Nishi was forced to obey, annoyed. He had to stare at how Izumi sliced up the alien in little pieces, making him feel suddenly weaker. He cursed him with a low voice. Quickly, Izumi had defeated the alien. He stared at Nishi with a self-sufficiency look, and that made Nishi to mentally answer him with a "bud".

Then they started to disappear slowly again. When Nishi was completely transported, he noticed they were in the room with the black sphere anew. The woman sat down on the floor and hugged her own lap, frightened. Some letters appeared on the ball's surface:

"TIM3 T0 5H4R3 TH3 P0INT5"

Nishi blinked many times at this. The words changed, showing up another sentence, next to the photo of the woman:

"N015Y W0M4N: 0 P01NT5. 5T0P 5H0UT1NG."

She read the words, not understanding it. The words changed again:

"H01 H01: 0 P01NT5. W3R3 Y0U H1D1NG?"

The panda only turned on his back, not reading the words.

"N15H1: 5 P01NT5. 95 M0R3 4ND Y0U'R3 0UT!"

He touched the ball's letters. 95 more? Was that some kind of sick game? He step back when the letters showed another message:

"1D34L GUY: 15 P01NT5. 70 M0R3 4ND Y0U'R3 0UT!"

Izumi smiled to himself. When Nishi saw that he was about to leave already, he stopped him by grabbing his arm.

-Hey! You're explaining me what is this about!

Izumi stared at him.

-Are you giving me orders? I think those are no manners to ask anything. -He raised his eyebrows, as he was kidding him.

-Shut up, asshole! You better start talking or I shoot you! -Nishi was losing his patience. He didn't stand people fooling him.

-Okay, okay, calm down… I'll tell you as you survived. Nice job out there. -Izumi removed Nishi's grip.- Listen carefully. We're all dead here. That sphere is called Gantz, and it's giving us missions in order to defeat some aliens. You saw it. Kill aliens, get points. When you reach 100 points, you can get outta here.

Nishi frowned, catching up all the words.

-What the fuck… Damn… -He whispered.

"Then that sphere is a son of a bitch", he thought.

-No leaving until the mission ends, or your brain will explode. No telling police or anyone else 'bout this, or your brain will explode. Got it? We're all locked in here. We're in Gantz' hands. -Izumi said.

Nishi bit his lip. Fuuuck. He was in such a trouble now. But he was sure of one thing; he will come back. He was not going to give up and dying wasn't an option. He sighed as he saw Izumi leaving. He should do the same. Leave and…

"…Go anywhere", he thought, "I committed suicide. I'm pretty sure no one has found my body yet, so I should get there quickly and clean everything up. Can I live like nothing had happened? Won't the police call me? …Fuck everything. Screw Gantz and all this bullshit."

He leaved the room, letting the woman alone. As if he cared. He looked at the dark sky and sighed. Then a small smile showed up in his face.

"I'm gonna enjoy this."