Sanctuary

Ain't fun being left out.

It's confusin'.

How am I the stable one, yo?

I don't understand but issokay.

I'll protect everyone – no matter what.

Chapter Eleven - Song

"Yammer! Stop looking at your feet while you're dribbling. You're going to trip over the ball again!" Neku called out as the younger player then, of course, fell over. He groaned – how exactly did this team win against Odaiba Academy, again?

"Yo, Neku, continue with your story, man." Beat and Neku were currently having a water break from their morning soccer practice. The rest of the team were on the pitch, with half the members playing against the other half. Coach Higashizawa was stood on the sidelines nearby, shouting words of encouragement.

"He walked in and I was sort of surprised. I mean, it's the Sanae Hanekoma. The Mr. H." He could not emphasise the fact any more that he was actually related to Sanae freaking Hanekoma. "He drove me back home and told me we should have dinner tonight."

"Sounds like someone's a big fan," said Joshua, as if appearing out of nowhere.

"Bwaaah!" Beat was obviously caught off-guard. "Where'd you come from?"

"I decided to come to school early today to see what all the fuss about Neku being the Ace was all about." Neku frowned at Joshua's nosiness. "This topic seems to be more interesting, though. I've met Mr. H once too."

"Really?" asked Neku, trying to hide his eagerness. "I was only with him for a short while yesterday. What's he like? Where did you meet him?"

"My, my, calm down. I think it was about a year ago – Father had some business with him and brought me along. He was interesting." Thanks for being specific.

"Woah Priss, didn't think you'd be someone who'd wanna meet Mr. H," said Beat. "You into music?"

"I didn't ask Father to bring me along. It was strictly for business," said Joshua, clearly. "Although it is necessary to sponsor CAT concerts, Father says that music is unnecessary." There it was again, Neku noticed. Joshua's expression was masked. As a person who always hid his emotions, Neku recognised the effort Joshua was going through to conceal his own.

He was debating whether to call out Joshua on it when Shooter got right up to Neku's face, hands clenched in fists and looking very enthusiastic. "Master Neku! C'mon! You've had a long enough break. You were going to teach me how to slide properly!"

Against Shooter's never-ending flow of energy, Neku had no choice but to follow him back onto the pitch. Oh well. It can wait. Who was Neku to pry, anyway?

Xxxxx

"I have to say Neku, I'm rather impressed by your playing."

"Gee, thanks. I'm honoured." Sarcasm was now second hand to Neku when it came to Joshua.

"You should be. Oh? Isn't that Rhyme over there?" Down the corridor, Rhyme spotted them too and ran up to greet them. Her hair looked damp, and it curled up slightly at the ends. "May I ask why your hair is wet?"

"She went swimmin', yo," said Beat. "She's in the swimmin' club, now. She joined them just yesterday." Beat gave off the aura of being very proud of Rhyme and he grinned down at her.

"Hm. This can't have anything to do with trying to control your Soul Energy, can it?" Joshua, crossing his arms.

"Well, it does have a bit to do with it. I used to swim a lot back in elementary but I stopped in junior high because we didn't have good swimming facilities. I thought it would be a good time to get back into it – I think swimming helps me focus better," she said, "I think if I can focus better, I can control my Soul better too."

"Ah…I see." Joshua looked like he wanted to say something but was refraining to.

Neku was then distracted by Shooter catching up to them again. "I just wanted to say thanks again Master Neku for teaching me how to improve Ultimate Shuto. I think it's evolved into Superior Shuto. Doesn't it sound cool?"

"I guess…" This guy should be a bit more tired after morning practice…

"So does that mean you manage to perfect the move, Shooter?" asked Rhyme, interested.

"It's almost perfect. I've just got to practice it a few times more and then it'll be the best technique ever!"

"How exactly does it work again?"

"Oh, right! First it – " Shooter and Rhyme began walking past the older students, their conversation now lost to them as the corridor started to get more crowded.

"Huh. They know each other."

"Didn't you know, Neku? They're in the same class, yo."

"Right." Sometimes Neku forgot that Rhyme was in the year below. She was a lot more collected than Beat and if Neku didn't know them any better, he was sure many would mistake Rhyme for being the elder. That is, if they ignored the height differences and based their conclusion on personalities.

"…" Joshua had watched them leave with a frown and it didn't get past Neku.

"What's wrong, Josh?"

"Despite what she said about swimming being good for her, her Soul looks increasingly edgy. If you were looking carefully enough, there was more black sand around her than yesterday."

"She gonna be alright?" Beat's voice was raised in alarm. "I can't see the sand!"

"Settle down. She'll be fine." And then that ever-irritating smirk was back again. "Although if her Soul does go off, don't be surprised if she comes crying to me to teach her." The idiot just wants to show off his powers.

Beat retaliated to Joshua by punching his shoulder. "Rhyme ain't gonna cry. She'll do it – I believe in her, just like she believed in me."

"Oh dear, we're getting all sentimental even before school starts."

"School's starting now,idiots. C'mon, let's go."

"Bwaaah! Hurry!"

"Beat, your class is the otherway!"

xxxxx

"…I looked up into the sky for salvation, but all I could see was the lonely star above. I am not waiting for your confirmation. And yes, I know this is the only start..."

"Nice timing there, Shiki. We just finished our food, yo," said Beat as Shiki came through on the loudspeaker again.

"Hehe, I see you don't have as many bento as you had yesterday." Her giggle echoed around the group. "What happened today, Joshua?"

"Hm, it seems that the girls might have seen Beat and Rhyme bringing down the boxes yesterday…and figured out they wouldn't waste their time on creating meals that I wouldn't be eating." He neatly packed away his own high-class bento box. "Shame, really, they looked so delighted with themselves when they were giving them to me."

"It's not nice to look on other people's feelings," Rhyme scolded. "They must have put a lot of effort into making the bento."

"Which is why I am saving them from, as I've already said, wasting their time."

Seeing as there was nothing left to argue, Rhyme dropped the argument with a shrug of her shoulders. While Neku could see what Rhyme was saying, Joshua did have a point as well.

"Hey, Neku," Shiki spoke up after a while.

"Yes?"

"Aren't we going to tell them about the attack, yesterday?"

The shift of the atmosphere at the word 'attack' was instant. Rhyme looked alarmed, Joshua's eyebrows shot up, and Beat looked about ready to jump up and 'attack' something himself. "Yo, what's Shiki talking about?"

Neku didn't tell Beat earlier on how he ended up in the hospital and Beat, being Beat, did not ask. He gave them a short run-down of two he encountered the day before, and they all looked very concerned. This is why I didn't want to tell them…

Joshua put a hand into his trouser's pocket and pulled out a folded note. Carefully unfolding it, he read it out loud. "Dear Yoshiya. Blue and Green have almost been separated. We do not want this. Please watch over them more carefully - or else we will be at a disadvantage once more. Through strengthening of the Soul, Blue should be able to call upon Green. Green will protect. Do not worry if you do not grasp what I am getting at. It will be clear, soon enough. – Joshua." He put down the note and his violet eyes met Neku's. "I thought the fake was just being a nuisance and feeding me random riddles again, but it seems to be relevant this time."

He nodded, understandingly. "Bet you get a lot of unhelpful notes."

"Regularly. 'Don't worry if you don't grasp what I'm getting at'. I am worried because if he wants to write something down, I end up on the floor like a puppet with its strings cut." He crumpled the note; he didn't look angry but his actions said otherwise. "He always manages to make a mockery out of me."

"Do you always faint when he wants to come out?" asked Rhyme, meekly.

"Unfortunately, yes." He closed his eyes. "Depending on how long the Fake is out and about for, I can stay unconscious for a long time."

"Watchu mean by long?"

"Several hours, usually. Sometimes it's for several days, even," he admitted bitterly. "He simply has no courtesy. Does he not know that it's an inconvenience to both me and everyone around me? I came three weeks after school started – that was because I was stuck at home. Every time the family doctor thought I recovered enough to go to school, I would go unconscious again." He stopped himself now, turning his head away.

"I'm so sorry, Joshua," said Shiki. "He did show up in front of Neku just before we met and I think he was writing notes to us."

"No, it's not your fault." Joshua said this more to right her than to comfort her. "I got snapshots of him roaming about places that I don't think any of you have gone to recently. I think it just strains my Soul if he keeps taking on a form out of my body."

"If that's the case, then it really is our fault. It must have taken a lot of energy to have brought over Nimew to Neku's apartment."

"…Nimew?" Joshua looked towards the phone, confused.

"It's your cat. Or at least, we think it's your cat. It got sent to my flat with a note from the Other Joshua. It's got black fur and a serious attitude problem."

Recognition poured onto Joshua's face. "Ah, you mean Nigrum."

Neku and Beat blinked at Joshua, while Shiki remained silent. "Is that English?"

"It's Latin for black," said Rhyme, helpfully.

"We do have at least one knowledgeable person besides me," said Joshua with an appreciative nod towards Rhyme.

Neku gave him the obligatory eye roll of the day. "If you wanted to name it for its fur colour, going with 'Kuro' would have been completely fine."

"The Latin word sounds so much more beautiful than the Japanese one, though," Joshua pointed.

"What Japanese person knows Latin, yo?" Beat looked scandalised by the revelation and stared at both Rhyme and Joshua as if they were crazy.

Rhyme poked her brother. "Dad wanted us to try it out, remember?"

"Oh yeah. 'Said somethin' about being more culted." I'm sure he means 'cultured'. He crossed his arms. "Hell, I can't do English, how am I supposed to do Latin?"

"Forget English. You can't even handle Japanese yet," said Neku.

"Damn straight!" He paused then glared at Neku. "Wait a minute!"

The other four laughed, and Beat eventually started chuckling along with them too.

"At least we got the 'Ni' character the same," Shiki said positively. "Aside from that, aren't we getting kinda off topic. I thought we were talking about the note Joshua got and us being sprung on?"

The laughter ebbed away slowly. Rhyme looked the most worried of all, "There's always a chance that they'll attack again. As they say, 'what happens twice happens thrice'."

"Although that's true," said Joshua, "they also say, 'third time's the charm'. Like my note says, I think we should try and get Neku to learn how to get Shiki's visible form out by will since she can use her...toy cat to fight. Then we might be able to somehow catch those Spirits and get them to tell us who wants them to 'sever' the 'Pacts' that they talk about."

"How are we going to do that?" asked the Spirit on the phone.

"I'll think of something," Joshua assured her. "One of my Soul relaxing training methods might work. Or perhaps we have to make your Soul more unstable. I'm not sure yet, but by tomorrow I'll have something ready." He glanced at Rhyme. "You're free to join us if you'd like."

She smiled but shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I can manage."

"Yeah! An' I got Rhyme's back. I'll stay with her while she does her own training!" He hooked an arm around her shoulder and gave her a noogie, much to her protest. "But first, Phones. You gotta get ready for your dinner with Mr. H tonight."

"Yep! And then you can get the autograph you want so much."

"Shiki!"

xxxxx

Neku wasn't quite sure what to expect when he was invited by his uncle to dinner. He asked if he needed to dress up more formally, but his uncle chuckled and told him that his casual clothes would be fine. Still, he hadn't imagined having dinner at Outback Café. Being just outside the 104 building, it was very busy and very loud and almost unbearably crowded. He spotted Hanekoma already seated in a corner, the other seat saved for him. It was a wonder that he managed to get a space free.

"Hi," he said, feeling slightly nervous as he sat down. He was hoping that Hanekoma had forgotten that embarrassing outburst he had in the hospital, but he could never be too sure.

"Heya," said the man with a grin, eyes glinting behind his shades. "Must be wonderin' why we're having dinner here. I thought we'd just have a quick bite and head over to my studio."

"You mean the CAT studio?"

"The one and only."

"Sounds cool." Stay calm Neku. Stay calm. He was excited as hell though. It was a good thing he was a light eater, but even if he wasn't he probably would have ordered something small just so that they could get to the studio quicker.

Being a café, it didn't have much of a menu anyway, so he picked a random sandwich of the menu. Hanekoma ordered a sandwich too, along with a doughnut and a medium roast coffee. Hanekoma still had his coffee in hand as they entered they entered the TV Tokyo building and took the elevator all the way to the twenty first floor.

"TV Tokyo has a big investment with CAT so they've let us have a few floors in this building. We've got another building in Kyoto and a really big one in Sapporo. Ah, you were in Sapporo before this, weren't you?"

"Not exactly. I did live in Hokkaido but not in the capital. I was about two hours away."

"That's right, that's right," he said, nodding as if he already knew that.

The elevator came to a smooth stop, and the metal doors opened to reveal a brightly lit floor. There were several rows of desks on one side and the other side was where Neku presumed the actual recording studio was. They made their way into Hanekoma's personal office. As they did, a lot of the desk workers looked up and said 'welcome back' to Hanekoma who shot them back a grin; he seemed to be very well liked among his employees.

Hanekoma sat down behind his own glass desk and Neku sat in the chair opposite of him. His eyes wandered around the room, taking in the posters that were hanging on them. They were all of artists that Hanekoma was credited to helping make famous.

"Recognize any of them?"

"Er, yeah. The band in the middle is S.S. Ice, right?"

"Bingo. They're actually down at Dizni Sea for the start of their tour."

"Right."

…now what?

His guardian was looking at him as if expecting him to speak. There was something about Hanekoma that made him what to talk to him too, but he couldn't think of anything to say to start off a conversation. That and he was wary that another stupid thing might come out of his mouth if he tried to say anything.

He really was helpless. Fortunately for him, Hanekoma smiled, noticing his discomfort and decided to talk again. "You seem to be really into music."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Heh, I could tell from your 'phones." He gestured towards the headphones hanging around Neku's neck. "They're the type that you gotta keep money for."

Neku nodded – he did save up for a period of time so that he would be able to afford buying these headphones; good quality headphones were expensive.

"What kinda music do you like?"

"Anything, really," he said with a shrug. It was true. He could listen to just about all the genres out there. If he liked the song then he would listen to it. Popularity didn't mean a thing to him.

"Even the classics?"

Neku smiled, knowing what he was referring to. "Yep, I listen to Classic CAT too."

"That's good, that's good. I take it you know Okami, then?"

"Okami?"

"You know, Okami!"

"Sorry, never heard of Okami before. Is that a new artist?"

"Kind of." Hanekoma laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Surprised you haven't heard of her as a music fan. She's got videos on Nicoh Nicoh Doga of her playing self-composed violin pieces and she's grown really popular online."

"That explains it. I don't have a computer."

"That makes sense, then. The thing is, in the videos she wears an Okami mask, so we can't tell who she is."

"A wolf mask. So that's why she calls herself Okami."

"You got it. We're tryin' to see if we can recruit her for an instrumental track in our new Classic CAT album but we have to find her first. We don't have any clues but we're trying to contact her through her account. No answer though. She doesn't socialise online except for posting the videos but the site records logins and she checks it daily. It seems like she hasn't logged into her account for about three weeks in a row now, though. Wonder if something happened to her."

Three weeks? That was around the time Shiki appeared. Maybe she's… It did seem a little too farfetched to think that Shiki was Okami. Although even if she had been, he didn't think it would make that much difference. If Okami was Shiki, Okami didn't socialise online so nothing would be known about her and there wouldn't be anything new to learn about Shiki either.

"You okay?" Neku was pulled out of his thoughts by Hanekoma.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"So, I heard from your previous family that you've been bouncing along places a lot. I didn't hear the whole story from them, though. Wanna fill me in on that?"

He was slightly thrown off by the sudden change of topics. Guess I'll start at the beginning. "After my parents died, I was sent to stay with my grandparents in the Akita prefecture. I was around four. My grand-dad passed away six months later, though and my grandma was too frail to take care of me by herself so I was sent to live with my mum's sister. She was young and she got married just over a year later. He was from Germany and they wanted to move there. She thought it'd be unfair to force me to go so I was sent to another aunt."

Maybe he was just a child of bad luck, because every time he was sent to a relative there seemed to be some reason to have to pass him along. He was old enough, now, too realise that it wasn't as if his relatives were cruel people, but the feeling of being abandoned was something that was set in his mind as a child. He never grew too attached to the adults he stayed with, because he knew he would leave them before long.

With that being the case, there wasn't much opportunity for him to make friends that lasted since he moved around so much.

"I was with a different uncle and his family in Shibuya for my first two years in junior high before moving to Hokkaido." Looking at it now, the Hokkaido family must have had Neku at his worse…he felt kind of bad for them now… "And well I'm obviously back here again."

"Sounds like you've had it pretty rough, kiddo." He studied Hanekoma's expression – it wasn't as if he was pitying him, but it did feel as if he understood Neku. "Well, you don't have to worry about moving around anymore. I may move around a lot myself from time to time for business, but I'm based in Shibuya and I don't plan on changing that any time soon. You have my word."

Unlike many of the adults who promised that they would stay with him, his words sounded sincere. There was no explanation as to why, but Neku believed him.

"Thanks…Uncle H."

A/N: Tadaaaa! 8D We've got a more relaxed chapter here with more Uncle H. in it :D I don't think I've got his character nailed down quite yet but I'll work on it. Anyyywayy, TWEWY day is on the 27th! The 6th anniversary, at least. And apparently there's some sort of event for it. I wonder what it'll be…Hmm.

On random notes, if you guys have tumblr and write/draw, I'd like to advertise the Big Bang for the TWEWY fandom is going to have. If you want to know what that is go visit ' .com". I'll be writing for that too – not sure what I'm writing yet but I'll do something.

That updating weekly thing will probably not be happening. I think I'm still busy in the summer…besides, you guys are used to my 'every two week' schedule :'D

Thanks to those who put this on favourite/followed this fic: Canadalchemist, en gul fed, crimson-dust-blade, Ide-chan, amazingakita, Prussianess

Thanks to my lovely, lovely reviewers: Xerzo LotCN, Reilie, MySweetYaoi49, Shinra-ex-SOLDIER, B.A.G-GOMEZ, eolhcsullivan452, Canadalchemist, crimson-dust-blade, Foxxel, Prussianess , cutekitty5597

Content notes:

Kyoto is another city in Japan.

Hokkaido is another prefecture in Japan and Sapporo is its capital city. (Look up the map of Japan for these locations if you want a clearer picture).

TV Tokyo – a Japanese TV station (specialises in anime). Hmm I wonder if I could get sued for this. NAHH probably not. I don't own TWEWY? Disclaimers in content notes ftw.

Okami – This means 'wolf' in Japanese (well basically explained but just in case…). Type in 'Japanese wolf mask' into google images if you want to know what it looks like. You can get them in some Japanese festivals and such. And online of course xD [Edit: And there's a game called Okami. Never played it before but there ya go].

Thanks for reading!

- 14 July 2013

Chapter 12 – Assumptions

Hey! Hey! Hey!

"Yo, Josh. Hang in there."

I got to be in another chapter with Master Neku!

"Could we visit your house, Joshua?"

Master Neku is always busy.

"It's good enough for Father."

Erm, Rhyme, are you feeling okay?