"Hot towels, surgical gloves, elevate their legs, and someone get me a penlight. I need to make sure they didn't receive a concussion," Ienzo ordered, immediately in crisis mode. "Foaly, show me how to kneel. Now."

"Tuck your legs in, like this," Foaly replied, caught off guard. "I am glad I went with you, can't do a thing without me," he added under his breath.

Ienzo bent over Mary and gently forced open an eye as soon as Uriel hurried over with the gloves, light, and towels. "I don't think she's got a concussion, but she's in stage two of recompletion. I didn't even know one could do this without having their Nobody form, erm, discorporeared, for lack of a better term."

"There's stages now, 'Enzo?" Lea asked, groggily, hair even a bigger mess than normal as he poked his head out and choked out a "The fuck? More unicorns?"

"Centaur, Lea," Ienzo sighed. "Everyone who came through the Destiny Islands portal came out the other side fairies."

"Riiiiight," Lea said, like it was normal. To their credit, getting to the Gravity Falls portal required passing through Monstropolis, so fair was fair.

"And yes, stages. Don't think I've been slacking in my research. I'd been working under the theory that kil- well, taking care of- a Nobody body might not be the only way to regrow a heart with force. We've learned a Nobody can grow their own; Roxas a prime example. But that's a new heart, and it takes time. I thought it might be possible to force the original heart back by some sort of non-lethal shock to the system as it were," he said, concentrating on the pair of passed-out people before him, sighing as he worked.

"Where they lie," he added sternly to Rudol as the older man tried to move Mary into a room. "You never want to move someone with a potential concussion if its safe to leave them where they are."

"You're the doctor," Rudol admitted, backing away.

"Ha! Hardly," Ienzo whinnied out- now he knew how Roxas felt in Los Angeles- though he couldn't say he wasn't pleased with the remark.

Ienzo, satisfied with the resting pair, crossed his arms and turned to Rudol.

"You knew this woman, too, didn't you?"

Rudol merely stayed silent, bearing a poker face as Lea slowly pulled himself out of his quarters, tying back his hair in an attempt to tame it. The snoring had long since stopped, and Isa too, scooted out in what was definitely something of Riku's.

"Rudol, she mentioned nine-hundred years. If she's not a human, like, say, me in my current state, I may have to rethink treatment. No human lives that long."

"Nobodies can, or more specifically, Nobodies must, as there isn't any other explanation that makes a lick of sense," Rudol finally said, after a long silence. "She is human- now, I suppose, as well as before her heart was taken. My own, Myde's, Elrena's, and Lauriam's as well. The five of us were all Keyblade wielders in times of old."

"How old."

"Pre your world shattering into countless others old, yeah?" Gabriel asked, sliding down the ramp she'd made between the third and new fourth floor. "I… caught up on some of your history," she added, when Rudol gave her an odd look.

"How?" Ienzo asked again. "I was turned as a prepubescent child. I went through puberty as a Nobody- a hell I wouldn't wish on anyone, mind," he added, flinching just before saying hellas if a klaxon would sound from nowhere.

Rudol just shrugged. "I was a mage, not a medic, I only can tell you what I know firsthand. If anyone knows how this might actually function, it would be your father."

Ienzo looked confused a moment. "Even?" he finally asked, muttering, "suppose that's fair."

"So, a Keyblade wielder, huh?" Lea asked, changing the subject for Ienzo. "Means Myde is one too, right? Do we start calling him Myde?"

"Suppose that's up to him," Rudol said with a shrug. "However, losing my heart made me lose my Keyblade as well. I've only just regained mine." He flicked his wrist nonchalantly, showing it off before dismissing it just as fast.

"Fitting," Isa remarked. "Yet Mary had access to hers, though now her snippy attitude makes far more sense. My temper was much shorter without a heart."

"Because you didn't havea temper," Lea rebutted, rolling his eyes. "Lashing out without remorse is way worse," he added, before wincing out a, "oof, sorry, probably a sore spot."

Isa wiggled his hand in a noncommittal gesture. "Juuuuust a bit," he replied dryly with a small smile.

"Sounds like I owe you ice cream. There a place for sea salt around here?" Lea asked the room.

"Not unless you want to go to Chiba," Gabriel said with a shrug, stepping around the two resting former-Nobodies to go wake the rest of the people smart enough to cast Silence on their rooms.

"Lea!" cried Roxas and Xion, tackling him as he scooped them up and flung them around.

"Look at my pair of monkeys!" he beamed back, while Mickey, mildly embarrassed, introduced himself to Artemis and his group, thanking them for the trouble.

Isa, now fully awake, sat by Ienzo. "Just so you know, Vexen is doing just fine. He and Naminé are on the other side, taking care of some cleanup there."

"So I heard. But cleanup?"

"It… is a long story," Ienzo said, slightly embarrassed.

"Long, nothing," Holly cut in. "My comms have been going nuts about some localized hellscape."

"Remember that chat about the demon we had after everyone else hung up?" Lea asked, swinging his 'children' around now that they were small enough to cart one in an arm each.

"No."

"Yep, thing was summoning Heartless like crazy. It was so much black magic Isa and I could even call our Lesser Nobodies again- er, we used to be able to summon legions while we were Nobodies, oh, this is just word salad to you all, you'll never memorize half of this," Lea said, letting Xion sit on his shoulders while Roxas fluttered around at eye level.

Artemis simply pulled up the Kingdom Hearts wiki and showed Lea the screen. "It really isn't that confusing. Just a lot to keep track of."

"I… right, Dipper showed Kairi and I something like this, too. I think… the question that's been on my mind this whole time is how the heeeeello," Lea said, changing his word halfway out of his mouth, "ahem. How this even exists here- and, as games? It's so accurate its kinda spooky. Someone knows way, way,WAYtoo much about us."

"Well, Riku and I did save Joshua, Neku, Beat, and Rhyme during our Mark of Mastery exam," Sora offered, Flood nesting in his hair. "But… we didn't exactly give him our life story."

"And you probably didn't know anything about ours, given you'd've been like what, four? Five?" Ventus asked, peering over Artemis to click through the website to the section on himself. "Wait. What?!"

"What, what?" Aqua asked, worried.

"It says here I'm from Daybreak Town?"

Vanitas sighed and shook his head. "So you didn't keep those memories."

"Okay, kiddos, storytime," Vanitas offered, with more than twenty sets of eyes on him. Flood was fluctuating in size- nothing severe, but certainly noticeable.

"You don't have to do this," Sora said, trying to keep the beast calm with Goofy. Flood very much liked Goofy's demon claws, winding around him to get chin scratches.

"I'll make it quick, since we have to head out to that meeting soon anyway," Vanitas offered. "And I'm not gonna repeat myself five million times." He sighed, and plopped down in front of everyone, wings curled in for his own sanity like a lacy blanket.

"So yeah. Ventus and I were one person. I can't say I remember everything, and that's a story in and of itself, but here. We were one person. Ventus Halbherzig."

Rudol, ever so slightly, raised an eyebrow.

"Somebody's familiar with the Halbherzig family, thank you. Minor nobility. Venty-Wenty here was a Viscount."

Ventus did the very mature thing in response to the nickname and raspberri'ed in Vanitas's direction.

"We were a Keyblade wielder. I'm almost positive we were Ursus Union, but don't quote me on it, it's been hundreds of years and I've long lost the damn journal we kept. I'd bet munny the old coot took it, so maybe when you're back on the other side you can try and backtrack where he'd put such a thing."

Tomo bristled at the 'you' instead of 'we', but said nothing.

Ventus growled low. "Anyway. I think at some point we lost our heart. Rudol's right, we're just human, or at least Ventus himself is. I'm a castoff, not sure if I play by the same rules. Or maybe time travel, I dunno, its fuzzy. I could tell you the exact day I sat and saw Myde play at the giant fountain in the center of Daybreak Town, yet there's entire centuries after the Keyblade war where no matter how hard I think of 'em, there's nothing. And it feels like there should be."

"Someone call me?" a voice asked groggily.

Eyes turned away from Vanitas and toward the wiggling spot on the floor. "Ugh. Everything hurts."

"Demyx, please don't move," Ienzo warned him. "Your heart returned to you."

"Ugh, yeah, I can feel that," Myde replied, clutching himself. "And Myde is fine. Better than fine, even."

Ienzo nodded. "Very well."

"Question."

"Possible answer, depending."

"I'm… I'm lying next to Mary Poppins, yes?"

"If that's her full name, yes," Ienzo said, stifling a chuckle.

"Oh good," Myde replied, squeezing her hand under their blanket. "Just checking I wasn't dreaming."

"You're not, my ball of Lux," a second voice said carefully from the same spot on the floor. "Ohhh, this hurts worse than that time a rabbit in a spotted bow-tie ran me over in a black car."

"Tell me who that rabbit was and I will go and make them pay," Myde replied, darkly.

"Dear, that was at least five centuries ago," she replied wistfully. "Also I was told you were sporting a mullet."

"When I'm back to human you can see it," Myde replied with a bit of an audible grin.

"Oh, can you two get a room," Lea snapped good-naturedly. "There's children present. Also does that mean your full name is Myde Poppins?!"

"Shut up, matchstick," Myde replied without bite, closing his eyes but moving just a little closer to Mary.

"May I finish?" Vanitas asked, eyebrow raised. "Or is this the Happily Ever After hour?"

"You just asked permission," Aqua said, carefully, dumbstruck. "Vanitas just said 'may I'. Are we on the right world?"

"It's a world without Xehanort," Vanitas responded pointedly.

It shut up the room immediately, as Aqua looked down and away.

"Right, yeah," she muttered, before slowly looking up to face him square. It was eerie, looking at a red-eyed Sora. And Sora was the right word for it, not just in physical structure, but a few mannerisms, too. The way he'd look diagonally away from people and scratch at the back of his neck, now that it wasn't confined in a thick neoprene suit.

Red-eyed.

Aqua blinked a few times. Terra… she originally thought he'd been defending the creatu- the kid- out of some sense of guilt. Yet, here, his eyes were red. They'd been gold before.

Terra wasn't just defending him. They hadboth been possessed to a degree.

Aqua felt a knot tighten in her stomach. "Vanitas can I ask you one more side-tracked question?"

He glared, but grunted a yes.

"Your eyes… used to be yellow, didn't they?"

"And?" he asked.

"That's all," Aqua said simply. "Continue."

"Well, that's more or less it, really. Ventus and I are old. Our old personality was closer to his, though I think I kept the sarcasm- and the memories, though I've got gaps for sure. Maybe we were a Nobody for a while, before you-know-who got us. Maybe not. Like Rudol said, I'm not a medic." Vanitas scratched the back of his neck again, looking to Riku without realizing.

Vanitas inhaled sharply, and untangled his wings a little. "Questions?"

People quietly shook heads.

"Not sure there's anything to ask, really," Isa said, shrugging. "You've been as helpful as you can be."

"Now," Gabriel said starkly. "We have a bit of… I won't say problem, but…"

"There's twice as many of us as there are goggles, aren't there?" Mickey asked, looking around the room.

"Not twice as many," Uriel replied. "The fairies can see past the veil. In other words, there's fifteen of you who need eyepieces, but we only have ten sets. Mortals cannot enter an angel's sanctuary. It's not technically on this plane of existence."

"So what, five of us can't go?" Lea asked.

"We'll be able to make more tonight. But yes, for now, four will have to stay behind."

"I think the answer is obvious," Naveen said shrugging, gesturing to himself and the other Assassins. "We're four. We're just here to assist."

"Are you okay with this?" Gabriel asked, unsure.

"If I'm bein' honest, sugar," Tiana said, smiling gently, "having a rest for once would be heavenly. I hear you have a bath?"

"Yes, we do, but that doesn't completely fix the problem. One more needs to stay behind. Mary?"

"I will if I must," Mary said, sitting upright. "Though I think I could walk and listen if it is an option." Myde slowly pulled himself up to squeeze her hand gently.

"Then I will stay," Butler insisted. "Holly, I trust you will reign in Artemis on my behalf?"

Holly looked shocked. "Even after… the issue with Hybras?"

"Holly, I just flew you all for fifteen hours from Dublin while you slept. Either Artemis goes with you, or he stays here with me while I rest."

"I… believe I will head out with the group, if you're amenable, old friend."

"Very much so," Butler replied, "but should you return in any worse condition, well, I hope I don't need to finish that sentence. Just do not be coming back with black wings."

Artemis gulped. "I will make sure of it, Butler."

Uriel lazily tread air over Hachiko, scanning the area below. The group from Oregon waited by the Outback Coffee facing the station, with an unusually large number of empty seats around them. She frowned. She knew the fairies were with them, somehow, but there wasn't any sort of magic blocking her ability to perceive them. So however they were hiding, well, it bothered her.

It was likely the same reason the fairies and angels stopped coming into contact with one another. Something less magic, more technology.

She watched as Lea patted at the air to his side, where an empty chair sat.

They had to be there. There wasn't any possible other option.

"Fairy tech," she muttered. "Maybe Gabriel can talk nerd with them.

Gabriel was, indeed, 'talking nerd' with them.

She hovered just over Riku's chair with a drink that was more cream than coffee, looking down at the spot where Foaly's voice emanated from, at least, without a visible Foaly.

"So, holographic film? Simultaneous 3D projections?" she asked the air that was definitely containing a centaur somewhere below her.

"Tron's been working on something similar for us as a defense mechanism. Hard light embedded holographic projection systems,"Ienzo's voice said. "I'm happy to trade schematics if you are."

"Ienzo, I might not be Vex, and I hardly count as voice of reason, but something something, world order?" Lea asked, tipping himself back in his chair until he was balancing on its back legs alone.

"I was also explicitly told as far as technology goes, trade sideways or up," Ienzo countered. "So long as I'm not bringing Gummiphones to Arendelle, it's fine. There's no way to make progress otherwise."

Sora's face turned three shades of pink.

"Soooora?!" Goofy said, accusingly.

"What, I just showed Queen Elsa how to take a photo! There were portraits all over her castle."

"Painted," Goofy quipped. "Trompe l'oeil isn't a photograph."

"Well those trump-loy thingies looked like photos to me!"

Gabriel bounced gently in the hot breeze wafting off the pavement, watching the statue. If Rhyme and Joshua ran their city the way that she and her Composer ran theirs, then Gabriel was about to have front row seats to one hell of a show.

A few Reapers were first, the curious new ones that had been initiated after Joshua's reclamation of Shibuya after the dirty nonsense back in February. They'd never been inside the Conductor and Composer's sanctuary, hidden in liminal space past the area under the sewers. The Shibuya River- a real place indeed before modernization paved it all under tons of concrete.

Now, unless you knew exactly how to look, it was reduced to little more than a trail of wastewater underneath the JR Yamanote train line.

For the higher ranking Reapers, the ones with a little more access to the labyrinth that wasn't, it was a place to practice expanding their Imaginations in peace, the source of their power. There were ample open spaces with just the right amount of wattage to plug in an electric guitar, a rack of more traditional instruments, that never seemed affected by the slight humidity of the place, and always a free wall or three to whip up a new mural, or just tag something rude, until it was mysteriously messed with- usually Joshua's personal doing. He was very open about personal expression, but equally reminding the older Reapers that some were as young as six and seven.

Draw all the butts you want, he'd said. Just know that the most risqué things might just… vanish. Or at least the mural would move to a part of the underground that required a gold keypin.

The Dead God's Pad- the Conductor's private space at the center of the maze of concrete- was hardly ever open to outsiders. Other than the time Joshua rounded up the Reapers to face the proverbial music after February, the only time it had been open to the public was Tanabata- and most Reapers opted instead to go to other parts of the city or haunt their families. Occasionally, an individual or small group would be called into the inner sanctuary, and the reason was either extremely good- a chance to thank a Reaper privately with a bottle of some ancient vintage or fine food or both- or extremely bad. And the extremely bad didn't go through the Pad directly, no.

They went right to Joshua's personal domain in the rear of the complex. And some did not come back out.

"Neku," Gabriel said sternly. "Do me a favor and walk our off-world friends downstairs, please."

He didn't reply; Gabriel smacked her head realizing that his goggles were around his neck and not over his face. Thankfully, Rhyme tapped him, whispering in his ear. He pulled up the goggles, and motioned for everyone to follow.

"See you in a bit, sis?" Beat asked Rhyme.

"Mhmm!" she said. "I'm just going to help the Players down. We can't all go at once, unless someone wants to swim in the runoff."

"Eeeeyck, no," Beat said, making an overly exaggerated face.

"Oh, Neku!" Rhyme added, as some Most Definitely Empty Chairs put themselves away. "Do me a favor? Can you tag a wall, since you have some time? There's plenty of spray cans down there."

"Huh? I could," Neku replied, scratching at his neck. "Any reason?"

"Yeah, Hanekoma's finally gotten permission to come to Shibuya next week to gather his stuff. Figured he'd be happy to see one of your tags down there."

Neku lit up. "He's finally getting out of Angel Jail or whatever it is? What's the sentence?"

"Demotion," Rhyme said, with a sad sigh. "They've sent him to the boonies. We're all glad it's not worse."

"How bad?"

"Hachioji."

Neku laugh-snorted. "You all did that on purpose."

"Uh-huh," Rhyme said. "You have no idea how much he begged to not be stationed there. So, naturally, that's where they put him. He's been in Hachioji the past two weeks, but they plucked his wings, so he's been sulking and trying to grow new feathers. Poor guy looks like a cooked chicken."

"A cooked chicken in sunglasses." Neku rubbed at his eyes, as if he were wiping off a tear. "I'll be sure to find his new place when I come back home after school."

"Sure he'd like it."

"Okay, I think this is past the Point of No Return," Neku said, looking to Beat and Komaeda, both of whom were, or had been, Reapers.

"I've only been down here twice or three times in a decade," Komaeda replied, touching the walls. "It's supposed to be a space for the Lieutenants and such to unwind."

"Heyyyy spiky!" A voice hollered. "Don't tell me you got offed again!"

"Kariya!" Neku called out, waving.

"Oh, sheesh, that's new, you're actually saying hi." The Reaper, a twig of a thing in a sleeveless hoodie and yellow shaded glasses, leaned against a mural with what looked like an unlit cigarette in his mouth, before pulling it out. It was just a bright blue lollipop.

"Switching flavors, too?" Neku asked, grinning.

"Sick of cherry," Kariya said, flicking the pop around before sticking it back in his mouth. "Seriously though, you dead or what?"

"Nope," Neku said shrugging, pointing at the goggles. "Just helping. We far enough in that the living can't enter?"

"Oh, yeah, plenty," Kariya said, a little surprised. "There's a mural where the space shifts. Guess nobody's there at the moment."

There was a sound of rustling leaves, and the fairies took off some sort of holographic fabric.

"I almost tripped over it, thrice," Ienzo sighed out, passing his back to Foaly.

"Fairies!" Kariya cried, his pop falling out of his mouth, rolling down into the sluice drain. "Haven't seen one in decades."

"You're that old?" Neku asked.

Kariya shrugged. "Too lazy to be an angel, c'mon, something tells me that whatever Josh wants 's got something to do with your lot, so I'm sticking with you. Oy, Uzuki, stop sulking and join us!"

A woman stepped out from around a side corner; when Vanitas peeked in it was a solid concrete room with music notations taped up everywhere Myde and Mary behind him were practically salivating.

"Excuse me, I was working," a woman's voice huffed, carrying a violin, a case floating telekinetically behind her.

"It's 4:30, we'll get some brownie points if we help Josh set up. And by we, I mean you, Boss."

"That's right, your lieutenant," Uzuki huffed, with a smile, letting go of the violin and allowing it to return to its case and float off to its space on a rack.

"Where's the spray for tagging?" Neku asked.

"Dude, you're not even dead," Kariya replied, ruffling Neku's hair. "Come back in a few decades or something."

"Conductor's orders," Shiki insisted, grinning a little.

"Seriously?" Uzuki asked, in disbelief.

"Seriously," Komaeda echoed.

"Oh, well, you I believe," Uzuki huffed. "You're one of Eri's, right?"

"Yes, Underpass Team Alpha, Miss Yashiro."

"And a proper address too, huh," Uzuki said, elbowing Kariya in the ribs. "Who would've thunk it."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll buy you some ramen," Kariya whined out, rubbing at his side. "Visual art area's a sharp left. You need long?"

"Ten minutes?" Neku asked. "I'll just do one color."

"I can wait ten," Kariya said. "And I wanna see you work."

Neku looked nervous behind him, as the crowd waited. He flicked off the tops of two orange spray cans and shook them both, inhaling. "No paint smell."

"No sewer smell either, thank God," Uzuki commented. "No way I could practice if it stank."

"I like the smell." Neku sighed out, clearly a bit nervous. "Of spray paint, I mean. It's…"

"Quit stallin' and show off," Uzuki whined. "If the Conductor wanted you to tag, he has to have a reason."

"She," Neku replied, as he quickly started to work. In under a minute, the direction of his work was pretty clear, and he capped the orange and switched to blue.

"Thought you said one color?" Kariya asked, impressed with the stylized Son Goku imagery.

"Has it been ten minutes?" Neku shot back, and quickly finished his tag.

"Can't believe that's ten minutes. You kept some of your magic when you revived, had to," Kariya insisted, when it was done. It was a pretty impressive monkey-teenager, in mid jump, with blue over-ear headphones and a can of blue spray paint in his left hand. It was Neku's, through and through.

Neku just shrugged. "Probably. Parents let me switch to an art school starting second semester. Think someone else managed to convince them, though," he said with a small grin.

"Oh, trust me, if Josh wants you staying in Shibuya, you're his," Kariya said, matching his grin. "Favor of the Angels comes with a few perks."

"You… you weren't Erased?"

"Oh god, I thought you'd been!"

The two young woman screamed, and ran towards each other, sobbing and holding each other like nothing else mattered.

Gabriel wished she had some popcorn.

So did Uriel, for that matter.

The Players, none of whom would possibly know the way to the Dead God's Pad- or even, what it was- were slowly converging on Hachiko.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, and all other Players!" Gabriel shouted out, to a group of forty. With the Game half over, they'd lost most of who they'd probably lose by now.

Which likely came as a massive shock to the players, thanks to a tiiiiny bit of sleight-of-hand.

After the first day, nothing said all the Players would be playing… simultaneously.

On Tuesday, they'd been split into two groups, one of about 15 pairs, and the other the remainder, with their start and end times staggered. On Wednesday, they were three groups, and by Friday, six. By Sunday, their time to complete their objective would be about three hours, but with their start times staggered and the challenge in such a way that it was much like Tokyo Disneyland- a group finishing a challenge ushered on, and as soon as they'd be out of sight, a new pair would face the same thing.

By the end of the week, every pair would be fighting for their life, either completely alone or with only one other set, under the assumption everyone else had long since lost.

That wasn't to say some players weren't Erased- wild Noise still had bite, after all- but the Reapers themselves no longer shot to kill.

But with the all-hands meeting, Joshua had made it clear that Players weren't put back in stasis until the next day. At least they were all learning the little trick now, and not inside the sewers where the shrieking of surprised reunions would be bouncing infernally against the concrete.

"Come on, I know everyone's shocked and appalled," Gabriel said, flying in low, lazy circles around the group, "but we have a meeting to make. Come, now, stay together, we're going to the sewers."