A correction on the first chapter. Eri should be the one wearing the star shaped hair pin since she's the one not wearing the hat anymore. Also, I'm still working on drawing the new Shiki but it's...really difficult for me. Also, a new character appears although he doesn't have much of a role in this chapter. I'll expand on him in the later chapters.
The World Begins With You
Chapter 2: Angel's game
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"Mr. H...is that...really you?" Neku asked, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him and sure enough, they weren't. It was the exact same Sanae Hanekoma that had helped all of them during the reaper's game "In the flesh. How've you guys been?" Hanekoma replied with that same cool expression as always.
Before Neku could speak, Hanekoma asked everyone to take a seat before sitting down himself. "Now, I'm sure you kids are wondering just what Einstein over there's doing helping you guys. Well it's-" He was quickly interrupted by the ever energetic math wiz who slammed his fist on the table.
"The hell are you calling Einstein you old hag? So what if that geezer discovered a formula? I'd crush him and add him to the heap pile. CRUNCH! Just like that!"
"Well that comment was sooo helpful" Neku thought hoping that Sho would shut up. Hanekoma noticed that everyone was starting to lose focus so he clapped his hands continiously until he got their attention back. "Well if everyone's ready to listen now, let's continue. You see, I hired Sho because right now, we'll need all the help we can get," The man said before reaching in to his pocket and taking out pieces of paper. He then put them on the table for everyone to see.
"Huh? What's this supposed to be?" Shiki asked as the group rolled their eyes over the papers. "These papers...are reports that I've written while all of you were playing the game. You see, I'm actually of...how can I say this? Another world,"
Hearing that statement, Beat quickly got the wrong impression of that. "Whoa! You mean you an alien!? But I thought they had green antenas and we're all like "we come in peace" kinda thing, yo?" The blonde said and everyone sighed as soon as he said that. Sho couldn't help himself but shoot back with another one of his insults.
"How zetta stupid can you possibly be? You probably can't even multiply a hundred by ten!" Sho challenged with a laugh before Beat vigoriously stomped one foot on the table "I can just fine! A hundred times ten equals ten thousand, yo! See, dig that!" Beat grinned although everyone except Sho sighed again with an embarassed blush. "Beat, it's a thousand. Not ten thousand" Rhyme corrected and Sho immediately laughed out loud.
"Ahahaha! I probably couldn't even add your brain to the heap coz' it's not even there!" Beat probably would've charged at Sho and started a brawl already if it weren't for Hanekoma who once again stopped the argument. "Geez, can't you let a guy finish first? Moooving on, I'm sure you still remember that the normal Shibuya was called the RG and the Shibuya used in the game was the UG right? Well, those two fall under the category of 'planes'. You could call them different dimensions if you want," Hanekoma adjusted his shades before continuing.
"Planes are numerous and are determined according to their frequency and the frequency would decide how much power you'd have in that certain area. The plane I belong to is the higher plane or the plane of angels which is far above either the UG or RG. In order to observe the reaper's game 6 months ago, I had to lower my frequency which also lowered my power by a lot. Think of it as a radio. To get to the radio station you want you'd have to change the frequency,"
"So...you were an observer of the game after all. No wonder you knew so much," Neku said as he took one of the papers from the table and started browsing it. "Yup, that's right. Now, the reason why reapers could actually appear in the RG is because the UG has a higher frequency then the RG and the only thing reapers had to do was just to adjust their frequency a bit so that it would be at the same level as that of the RG,"
A certain phrase on the paper Neku was holding managed to catch his interest and decided to bring it up "Fallen angel?" He mumbled as he looked at Hanekoma for an answer. "Yeah, Fallen angels are people of the higher plane that are considered as traitors for doing something against the code of the angels. Those red things that I'm sure you would've seen by now, are what happens to those fallen angels when the higher-ups get ahold of them. They're turned into some brainless numbskulls that only know how to kill. We call them the Soulless,"
Shiki suddenly glanced over at Sho then looked back at Hanekoma. "So, how'd you get him to cooperate," She asked, pointing at the black dressed man which made the middle aged man chuckle "Well, this guy actually owes me one for saving his butt. You could say that I'm the one who taught him how to summon all those Taboo noise," He said which surprised everyone. "Huh!? so it was you that put that sigil at Udagawa," Neku said as he recalled in his mind that large black sigil over at udagawa which was long gone now.
"I did but at the same time I didn't. If I explain this it'll just complicate things. Trust me alright?" He replied. Neku always did have faith in the guy so he decided to put that issue aside for now. Suddenly, Hanekoma's face looked a little more serious than his usual calm and cool expression that he always had.
"Now, it's time I hop on the main problem here. You see, Joshua's...in a big heap of trouble right now. Wait, let me rephrase that. We're ALL in a big heap of trouble. Right now, the seraphs, or the highest ranks on the higher plane, aren't thinking like they used to. We all agreed before that the reaper's game would determine the faith of Shibuya. If Joshua won, then Shibuya would be history but if Megumi won then it would be spared. Because Joshua won but didn't follow his own rules, the seraphs think that he'd been corrupted or something while he was in Shibuya. By the way, Joshua also had the rank of Seraph in the higher plane but now they think of him as a traitor,"
"So...do you know where he is?" Neku asked which put a slight frown on Hanekoma's face. "I don't know for sure.. The only thing I know is that he's in hiding right now and we can't contact each other because other Seraphs might be able to sense it. It only gets worse from there. The only place that the Seraphs haven't checked...or it's just that it's too dangerous to check is...the Noise plane which obviously...is inhabited and infested with noise,"
Because of that statement, Neku managed to remembe the time during the reaper's game where he and Joshua went to Pork City to confront Sho for the first time. Everytime they fought some noise, they were transported to a whole different area which was black and white. Neku decided that it would be wise to tell Hanekoma about that. "So you've already seen it huh? Well, that's where I think Joshua's been hiding. The angels won't go looking for him but the bad thing is...it's pretty dangerous there even for a Seraph..."
"So you want us to go look for prissy face?" Beat asked, trying to piece together the puzzle which made Sho clap his hands in sarcasm. "Bravo! Looks like you're not some stupid yoctogram after all!" He said and Beat once again took that the wrong way. "Yeah, that's right yo!" He said making everyone sigh one more time. "Beat, I think he's making fun of you..." Eri elaborated and everyone nodded in agreement, making Sho get a kick out of it again.
"Alright, enough with the jokes. This is serious business right now," Hanekoma sighed getting everyone's attention. "Fortunately, not everyone agrees with those seraphs. There are even a few seraph that disagree although they have to work in secret since majority of the seraph are still against Joshua but hey, at least we have help. Those Seraphs have come down to the RG to recruit some more people for this new game that we'll be playing," The word 'game' got everyone's attention.
Neku unconciously took his headphones off from his neck and started spinning them around with his index finger. "Another game huh? And here I thought we were through with all those. So we're playing the Seraphs now?" Neku asked finally getting the gist of the explanation which made Hanekoma grin "That's right. The Seraphs have organized a game that determines the faith of Joshua...and everyone on the entire RG,"
Shiki didn't like the sound of that one bit. Just hearing the phrase 'Entire RG' made her slam her hand on the table "E-Entire RG!? Why go that far with this!? It's not like innocent civilians have anything to do with this so why include them too!?" She exclaimed. Neku could see the anger in his friend's eyes and thought he should do someting "Shiki, calm down," Neku instructed, making Shiki look down at the table then sit back down. "Unfortunately, the people DO have something to do with this. The Seraphs think that if they were bad enough to corrupt a seraph of their own, then they should be thrown away. This is why this game is unlike any other Reaper's game that has ever happened and is also why we need as many players as possible on our side,"
"So what's the deal with the first round, yo?" Beat asked and Hanekoma rubbed his chin. "Well the first round of the game is simple. Whoever finds Joshua first, gets to do whatever they want with him so if the Seraphs win this round, he's a goner but I'm sure he's got faith in us,"
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There was still one more thing bothering Neku. "So, what exactly do we use for fighting now? Is it still pins?" The orange haired boy asked which put a smile on Hanekoma's face. "Heh, finally we get to my favorite part. Hey missy, lend me that stuffed animal of yours" He asked as he pointed at Mr. Mew. "Y-You're not gonna make him my entry fee are you?" Shiki said making Hanekoma chuckle. "Of course not. That entry fee crap's over and done with," He assured so Shiki decided to lend him her stuffed Mr. Mew.
As soon as Hanekoma got ahold of it, he took out a pin that looked kinda like a telekinesis pin but at the same time, had a different design. "Ok, here we go!" Hanekoma slammed the pin against the doll causing a bright light that lasted for a few seconds. When everyone had their vision back, Mr. Mew was still there although the design of the pin was now etched on the chest of the stuffed animal.
After that, he set Mr. Mew on the ground and just smiled. After a moment, the stuffed animal got up on its feet and jumped unto Shiki's arms and started hugging her. "Big sis! Oh, I can finally talk to you! I'm so happy!" Everyone was surprised to death and their jaws just dropped as fast as you could solve 1 plus 1. "THE STUFFED ANIMAL JUST TALKED?!?!?!?!?!?!" Everyone except Shiki shouted in strange emphasis. You couldn't really blame them though.
"Y-You're talking! You're really talking!" Shiki happily said as she hugged the animal back while Neku, still in complete shock, turned his head towards Hanekoma. "W-What the hell...did you just do?" He asked and Hanekoma let out a laugh. "Like that little trick I pulled? The pin I used wasn't some ordinary pin. It's called a zodiac pin and it can only be used on objects that have a high deal of value to a person. These pins act as a bridge that connect a person's 'Soul' to any of the planes,"
"Soul? what's that?" The still shocked boy asked again "'Soul is the power of imagination that you use when operating any of the pins. You can call it a person's inner artistic approach if you want. You see, zodiac pins only have one ability each but the power that they have is more than 100 of the simpler pins combined. The one I just used is the 'zodiac of telekineses'. It's a telekineses pin that has the power of 100 telekineses pins combined into 1 formidable pin. Since Shiki's Groove pawn was under the category of Telekineses, that power was multiplied a hundred times over which even gave it the power to actually make it speak. The speaking part was also because of Shiki's Soul. Different souls have different effects"
"But you can only use one of those?" Neku asked one more time as he grew more interested. "That's the draw back of those pins. They need so much Soul power that using two or more might have a serious effect on you. The way better part is that zodiac pins have room for infinite possibilities. What I mean is that they can evolve in so many different ways making you learn different abilities with them. Say you have a zodiac of Shockwave pin. Shockwave's are just for close range right? The trick is that if you put enough training into it and you're creative enough, that pin could easily become a pin with abilities suitable for both close and long range attacks. Am I making sense?"
The group nodded, making Hanekoma smile. "Good, now I should show you another demonstration of this before I give this power to you guys. Ryou, you can come in now," He signalled to the backdoor and a person came out a moment later. The person had violet hair and blue eyes. His clothing was mostly black. His gloves, cloak, and pants were black. The only articles of clothing not black were his shoes and shirt which were both violet as well. He had a silent expression on his face which could be easily told even through his eyes. He looked about Neku's age and his most distinguishable things were his goggles and a long chain wrapped around his right arm.
"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Ryou. He's part of the plane of angels and decided to take part in this game on our side. His rank is only archangel, which is the second lowest rank, but he's still pretty strong and he got the hang of zodiac pins right away. Show us what you can do, Ryou," Hanekoma instructed and the boy replied with a silent nod.
"This guy's pretty quiet..." Neku thought as the boy took a dagger out of its sheath. After taking it out, he calmly closed his eyes and focused. In a short moment, the dagger suddenly changed into a long sword filled with flames surrounding it. It also had the symbol of a pyrokineses pin although it looked altered. "The pin that's in Ryou's dagger is the zodiac of pyrokineses. Because of his unique Soul, the dagger turned into a much more powerful sword filled with the power of fire from the pin,"
"So this is what he meant by infinite possibilities..." an amazed Neku thought as the group stared in awe at the flaming sword which the boy eventually reverted back to a dagger.
After the demonstration, Hanekoma let the others decide what pins they would want to use. Beat chose the zodiac of shockwave which was put in his skateboard, Rhyme chose the zodiac of healing which was placed in her pendant, Eri chose the zodiac of ice pillars which was placed in her star hair clip which was given to her by Shiki. Before Neku could choose, Hanekoma stopped him.
"Neku, there's something you should know before I let you choose. Your particular Soul has more power than anyone else here. It's one of the most powerful Souls I've seen yet. It holds a lot of promise and could lead to so many more possibilities. When I analyzed the amount of Soul you have, I've determined that your Soul has the power for even 3 of the zodiac pins and that's not even where it can stop. Your Soul hasn't even reached its max yet and you might even be able to use more in the future. It's a phenomenon that not even Joshua could explain,"
Neku was once again completely surprised by his words. "Are you...serious? Is that why I was able to use every single pin in the reaper's game...?" He asked recalling each and every pin he ever used in the reaper's game.
"Now, Neku my question to you is...which pins will you use to fight in the Angel's game?"
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And cliffhanger ends here. Hope you enjoyed that chapter. Took me awhile to piece together myself all the details and whatnot. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask. I'm still searching for a unique combo that Neku could use so I'd like to ask you guys to tell me your suggestions on what zodiac pins Neku should use and maybe I'll use that for the next chapter. Also, more Mr. Mew-ness and its newly found voice in the next chapter so stay tuned. I'll also explain why Eri gave Shiki the hat and why Shiki gave Eri that hairpin in the next chapter. Guyinblack out.