Disclaimer: I disclaim it. I disclaim it all. Including responsibility for my actions.

Chapter 2:Shiki

Shiki finished her club activities at the home-ec club. Aaaah, her sempai were such a nuisance sometimes. They had exploded both layers of a large wedding cake, and the unfortunates on cleaning duty for the day were despondently stuck at school well beyond twilight.

"It's dark…" Eri observed needlessly, as the pair contemplated the long, eerie walk from the school entrance to their respective homes. "Theschoolgrounds are kind of scary out there, at night."

"It is creepy." Shiki agreed, adjusting her glasses to find that, no, that didn't make it any less shadowy and spooky. "I'm going to call Neku." She surmised. "He'll walk us home."

"Eh?" Eiri exclaimed. "Jus – Just like that? It's late!" she objected.

"But it's spooky." Shiki needlessly pointed out. "Right?"

Eiri stared at her friend. "It's amazing how quickly you call that guy. Are you totally into each other or what?"

"No." Shiki rolled her eyes reflexively, before realizing that it was just the two of them in an abandoned high school. "…Maybe." She admitted. "I wouldn't know a green signal if it was attempting to knock me unconscious. I don't think Neku would, either."

"But you still rely on each other so easily." Eiri smiled. "That's a wonderful friendship."

Shiki smiled to herself. Eiri was so upbeat. So positive about life. She liked that about her friend.

"I'm always calling him about helping me with my homework and walking me home. And he's always calling me about his drama and how to be less intolerable. This much is nothing for us."Shiki assured Eiri. "We're partners."

x-x

How it had happened was such a cliché. A drunken posse of thugs. How predictable. Right in the middle of the residential district, not so much.

Furthermore, that the role of the hero was taken by the surly and poorly dressed Neku was something Eiri just could not reconcile.

Drunken fists flew and Neku just sort of flowed around them.

"Neku's dodge is pretty legendary" Shiki commented."Although I've never actually seen him use it on the noise." She appended.

Eiri was alarmed at just how easily her friend was taking this.

Seeing the impending trouble, Neku had simply told Shiki to stay out of it, and she had complied impassively.

"Doesn't this scare you?" Eiri demanded. "Am I the only one scared?"

Shiki blinked at her friend, before looking back to the action. "I guess. But his dodge really is legendary." She assured. A boken-wielding punk went high, aiming for Neku's head, and the boy froze mid-point-turn.

The inaction didn't last long.

"That dashing palm-thrust is called a Lance Lunge" Shiki commented. "It isn't any kind of martial art, or sport. It's a psych meant to crush the carapace of a reaper's monster. The pin's useless in the RG, but Neku's still really good at doing the motion. After all the times of using the psych, it's engraved in his soul…. Is how he explained it to me."

The armed assailant wen tumbling back, clutching a severe injury to his stomach, and his bokken sailed through the air.

As Neku nonchalantly caught it, the thugs all tensed for they felt the sudden finality in the air.

But hey, they were drunk.

Against this instinctive feeling of pure futility, the thugs charged at the boy.

And in a flash of motion, all that surrounded the young orange haired youth found themselves laying on their backs and wondering where exactly on their body didn't hurt anymore, that they could drag themselves home using that appendage.

"And that's vortex sabre." Shiki nodded.

Eiri stared in awe. Her friend, Shiki, seemed so normal most of the time. She was… more at peace with herself, ever since coming back but she was otherwise good old Shiki.

Only at times like this did she realize that she really had lived through the stuff of nightmares.

"I don't know how I would handle myself if I had to fight in the RG, since Mr. Mew doesn't move for me anymore, but for one week of battle and despair, I learned one thing for sure. Neku's strong."

"You should get a Taser or something." Neku advised, striding up to the two girls with the flat of a bokken resting on his right shoulder. "You could even hide it in the pig and throw the doll at people. It'll be just like old times."

"He's not a pig." Shiki objected bitterly. "He's a cat. And your sense of humor still needs work."

The apparently very dangerous boy ran a hand through his unruly orange hair. "Ryhme said that, too. Is there any point in getting funny?"

"It's part of your rehabilitation into normal society." Shiki insisted as sheled the group in continuing their walk.

In the process she may have stepped on a groaning thug or two.

"This rehabilitation thing is so stupid. I'm not that bad." Naku muttered. "Hey… are you just mad at all the pig jokes?"

Shiki rounded on her partner with violent accusation. "Those were jokes?" She demanded. "Actually? Seriously! Since when?"

Neku shrugged. "Since forever?"

Shiki stared at her partner for five terse seconds, recalling every annoying instance.

Or she tried. There were too many.

How many times had she passed it off as him being fashion-incompetent? How many more had she passed it off as him simply being a jerk? Somehow... somehow the very idea that all this time she had been the butt of tasteless jokes was... was just so-!

Neku considered the girl that was his 'most precious thing' after round one of the reaper's game.

She had changed significantly in coming to the RG, being much more honest with herself, and with him. Frankly, her overly bubbly attitude had constantly put him on edge and annoyed him ,so he was glad to see it much diminished. Her vast heart was retained, and now expressed with much less aggravating… peppiness.

He saw her shaking silently and thought to inquire."Shiki? What –"

Abruptly, with little warning and truly ungodly force,Neku found Mr. Mew slammed into his face.

"O…Ow." Neku collapsed.

A/N: Yeah. Shiki. Neku is retraining to become an upstanding member of talkative society.

...Maybe he should just stick to being emo.