Disclaimer: I own nothing (meaning the game and characters) but this story plot and the OCs. (Is too lazy to put the whole thing).

The World Ends With You

Twister

Chapter 8

The Search Begins


The sunlight reached Neku's closed eyes sooner than the sound of cars and people reached his ears. With a groan, the young teen attempted to turn over and block the rays, but the persistent sun beams seemed to insist he get up. After all, he had a lot of searching to do.

A sigh escaped his lips and he threw the covers off of him. Stretching, Neku quickly noticed a foreign object by his bed side. Foreign but familiar. The orange plastic glinted in the sunlight and the orangette about fell off his bed. That was, until he remembered yesterday. A dash of guilt hit him when he recalled that he had, not only gone against Mr. H's wishes, but snuck into Wildkat and stole Joshua's phone, the only real lead to the Composer's whereabouts. Not only that, but he lied to his friends as well about being asked to come home. He could have just told them the truth, save himself the trouble, but instead he lied. He hid it from them. Sure they would have been upset at first, but they would have forgiven him. However, something in Neku's gut told him that he had to keep this hidden. There was no way he was going to risk his friends and their newly founded lives, just to figure out what had happened to the Composer. Neku could only hope that they would still be able to forgive him once this mess clears up.

'If it clears up," the orange-haired boy thought with a sigh. His cell phone vibrating on his night stand diverted his attention and he picked it up from its place by Joshua's. He flipped it open and saw there was one text message. From Shiki.

"Neku. Are you coming to meet us at 104 today? - Shiki"

Being so used to his new life, Neku about replied the affirmative before he recalled the object next to him. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't. He had other things to do. With that in mind, Neku's fingers glided over the keys and typed his reply;

"Not today. I have other things to do. Maybe some other time. - Neku"

He reread the message perhaps four times before he was satisfied. At least he didn't lie. As soon as the text was sent, Neku set his own phone aside to hold Joshua's. The sun seemed to glint off the surface, almost as if it were mocking him.

'Just like Joshua,' Neku thought with a sigh. Deciding he sat around long enough, he got up and proceeded to get dressed.


Shiki snapped her phone shut after she had read the text, but even when the words weren't there she still stared at it. Something about it wasn't right. Something about that text just wasn't Neku. Sure he could be brief, but it was the way it sounded in her head. The two of them talked so often she had memorized his speech pattern and could easily trace it in his texts. Such as whenever he texted 'whatever' he always left out the 'h' and second 'e'. He did that a lot. He only did things like that because he was such a slow texter. He wasn't used to having people to talk to, so he got into the habit of shortening his words and sentences. However, this text was different. Everything was spelled out and he used periods. Plus, when Shiki thought of his voice, the way it sounded wasn't right. It sounded as if he was exasperated or upset. It just didn't fit the Neku she knew at all.

"Shiki?" The sound of Eri's voice was enough to bring Shiki back to the present. She locked her brown eyes with that of her long time friend, and the frown on the pinkette's lips grew.

"Is something wrong? Is Neku coming?" She asked, and Beat and Rhyme joined her by standing on either side. At first the brunette didn't answer, her thoughts once again drifting to her friend.

'Yes.' she thought, letting her gaze drift to the ground,'My friend, who I had survived a whole week of hell with, is acting out of character. He leaves with little to no explanation yesterday, now he doesn't want to hang out today.'

"No," Shiki lied, returning her gaze to Eri's,"Nothing's wrong. Also, Neku's not coming today. He say's he has other things to take care of."

The girl raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"What other things?" Shiki shook her head.

"He didn't say. I'm sure it's important though."

'I hope.'


As soon as Neku finished getting dressed, he proceeded to walk into the living room. He was relieved to see that Asuka and Kiba weren't there, so either they were still sleeping or they had gone out. Going to the kitchen, Neku grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. As he proceeded to write out a message to his two guardians, his thoughts began to drift. Where should he look first? He certainly couldn't start near Wildkat for fear of Mr. H spotting him. It was going to be hard to try and keep the barista at a distance, but he would if he had to. Then there were his friends. There was no way he could let them see him today. If he did there would be no way for him to lie to their faces. It's not like he wanted to but he did not want to get them involved either.

Finally finishing the note, Neku paused for a second to ensure the two phones were in his pocket. After that he went to the door, put on his converse, then walked out, ready to begin his own investigation.


The streets of Shibuya were crowded as always as Neku made his way towards the Scramble Crossing. As he walked along, looking up at occasional points to ensure he was still on the right path, he clicked through Joshua's phone looking at his recent contacts. Despite it being a phone meant for the Composer it still worked like almost any other cell phone; a main menu, media folder, contacts, the internet, and so on so forth.

He opened the recent calls menu and began to search through. Just as expected, his number had been the last one to call, but there was one other he didn't recognize. The strange thing was it had been the one to make the most calls in the past two months and the boy was half tempted to call and see who it was but resisted. The last thing he needed was to get caught with Joshua's phone. On another note he had also seen Mr. H's number, but most of them had been missed calls and it was the cafe barista that had called the Composer.

With a frown, Neku went further back to see if he could find the last time Joshua had physically talked with the man over the phone. Blue eyes stared in shock at the date. It was during his third week in the game. The last time Joshua had called Mr. Hanekoma had been during the last week of the game Neku had played.

"But what does that mean," Neku thought,"Did Joshua ignore Mr. H for the past two months or something? But why would he do that?" It didn't make sense. From the way Mr. H had acted yesterday, it was almost as if he'd taken Josh's disappearance the hardest. It reminded him of a worried father. It wasn't only that, but even Joshua showed some fondness for the man. He wasn't exactly rude to him when they talked during the second week, but the words were too casual for just that of boss and employee. Once again it reminded him greatly of a father to son relationship.

Deciding he'd seen enough of the calls, the boy immediately began to search through the texts. Surprisingly, it wasn't as full as the call history, but it was still used. There were only about twelve texts in all. Half of them consisted of that strange number Neku didn't recognize, while about four of them were from Mr. H. The last two were from him.

Looking up, Neku noticed he was no longer near the scramble crossing, but was now near Pork City. Good, this meant he could check through things without interruption. None of his friends, including himself, liked coming here. It just gave off a strange vibe he couldn't ignore. Plus, it reminded him too much of his battle with Pi-Face. However, beggars couldn't be choosers, and he sat down on a nearby step. This was the only place where he had the most privacy. His friends could easily find him at his home, and it certainly didn't help that their diverse group of friends pretty much had favorite haunts all over Shibuya. It wasn't like he had many choices he could use to hide.

Flipping the phone back open, the teen began to look through the texts.


Louis was more than a little upset. Yes, he was an easygoing guy. Yes, he was patient. Yes, he had solved several cases. However, trying to find a teen in Shibuya was like, for lack of a better term, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Nearly impossible. You'd think with his hair color and imagination he'd be easy to find, but thanks to all the other clashing imaginations and the fact people had a habit of dying their hair(seriously, since when was orange so popular!?), it was making his job harder. Much harder.

Good luck, Sanea's small smirk and wave should have been enough to tip him off. The barista knew he was not going to find this 'Neku Sakuraba' so easily. Damn. To think Louis believed he was going to cooperate just fine. He should have known things would not go his way. It hardly ever does.

"Dammit," he sighed, sitting down on a nearby step,"Conner's gonna kill me if I screw this up." The angel spread his legs out in front of him, not caring how the people just walked through. Despite his status of being an angel and for how long he's been like this, one would think he wouldn't be freaked out by people passing through his body. Unfortunately, that was far from the truth. Louis still became slightly queasy when he saw people walk through him. He hated how his body would flicker, almost like static but not quite, when it was disrupted by something in the RG. Normally, he would not be spread out on the steps like he is, but as of the moment he didn't care. All he wanted to do was find this Sakuraba kid, get the cellphone, and start investigating. Easier said than done though.

"What's got you looking so glum?" With a start, the young man bolted up right and swiveled around to see who was talking to him. Surprisingly, he saw a teenaged boy. His black hair was shaggy and his green eyes, half lidded, stared in amusement. A crooked, but lazy smirk was on his lips. His clothes, a black tank top and tan, cargo shorts, were messily done. Red tattoos could be seen on his shoulders while there were some blue ones on his right arm.

For a long moment Louis stared. How could this boy see him? It should have been impossible. At least, that's what he thought until he saw the skeletal, black wings on his back.

"What do you want, Reaper?" he growled, not too fond of the 'creature' before him. Reapers, like Angels, could not be considered human. However, he still never forgave the reapers that had constantly pestered him and his partner after death. Even now he still saw red, and seeing those wings on that boy's back did not help.

"Easy, there," he said, holding his hands up in a sign of peace,"I'm not here to start trouble. It's just that we don't get many Angels hanging around in the game's territory. I was just wondering why you were here."

"What does it matter to you, Reaper?" This was seriously not his day. He couldn't find Neku Sakuraba, he couldn't find the cellphone, he's not even close to investigating, and now this reaper was here to pester him. Just great. He had been so busy glaring, he almost didn't realize the boy was talking.

"It matters because you just so happen to be in our territory. Granted, you are technically higher in status, but even then there are rules. You can't just go parading around without reason. And, seeing as how I'm a reaper, I'm supposed to make sure you're not doing anything suspicious on our plane. And enough with the reaper junk. Just call me Tempo." Another growl emitted from the Angel's throat. He was well aware of the rules. Hell! He's the one who reinforced them half the time. Now he has this little reaper out to try and reason with him. He was not staying here for this. He had a kid to find and an investigation to start. He didn't have to explain anything to this reaper.

"None of your business." He stood stiffly from his spot,"All you need to know is I'm here on an important mission and you have no right to interfer. So why don't you just go back to erasing players while I get back to doing what I need to do?" Louis didn't even throw the young reaper a backwards glance as he stalked off into the crowds, and all the while Tempo just stood there, the same lazy smirk on his lips.


Blue eyes stared at the cell phone screen, Neku's heart pounding in his chest. He knew something wasn't right. None of it. These texts weren't just reminders to Joshua to get on with his Composer duties. They weren't from any accomplice that Neku knew of, at least not a friendly one. Hell, if the orange-haired teen didn't know any better, he'd have thought Pi-Face was back. All the texts were orders and threats. The problem was, they didn' exactly vary in content. They all kept saying something about 'obeying the guidelines' and 'to keep distance from the proxy'. There was even one telling him to 'come to plane A', whatever that was. Despite how brief the messages were, each one was pretty much saying the same thing, 'Fail to do this and face erasure'. Ironic considering that the first text had came around the time a week after the Game had ended. Mr. H's texts were just asking for Joshua to stop hiding and to come to the cafe. A growl emitted from Neku's throat and Joshua's phone closed with a loud snap.

This meant that these things had been going on since the game ended. Whoever that number belonged to had obviously been harassing Josh for sometime and that did not seem to sit well with him at all. He may have been a powerful Composer, at least that's what he assumed, but he knew he wasn't invincible. Was he? Judgeing by the way Pi-Face had gone after him and how Joshua had to hide his presence in his own game suggested he wasn't, and that just made things worse.

With a sigh, Neku stood and knew he couldn't stay here anymore. The place was beginning to give him chills and Neku was not in the mood to remember his second week of the Game, if any of them. He stalked off and away from Pork City and began to make his way to A-east. He would have quite a bit of walking to do since he wanted to get to Udagawa. The first text had said to go there, so surely there might be something.

'Unless it's in the UG.' His mind thought, but Neku wasn't going to listen. He was going to find out what was going on, and that was final. As he went from the crowded streets of Dogenzaka to the more calm ones of A-East, Neku was a bit too lost in his thoughts to notice something was off. That was his first mistake.

"Neku Sakuraba I presume?"


Hey everyone! Look a new chapter that isn't a year late! Yeah, okay, I'm done mentioning that now. Anyway, sorry to cut you guys off like that towards the end, but I was feeling mischievous and thought 'Why the hell not'? Don't worry, I promise you things will pick up next chapter, and by pick up I mean we gonna be getting some pretty good action ( I think so at least). There's that and I realized in this chapter that Louis sounds like a complete asshole now. For those of you who don't like that, don't worry, karma will bit him in the ass for it. That and I hope I can redeem him later on. Plus, what do you think of Tempo so far? Don't think it'll be the last you see of him because I plan on getting quite a bit of use out of him. Hope you guys enjoyed it!