Author's note: I've been focusing on trying to improve my pace and get words out faster. Hopefully this doesn't result in too bad a dip in quality, but it might. Regardless, I'll edit everything once the story is complete.

Joshua had managed to get through the first two days without a partner. He wasn't quite as invisible to the Smears in the UG as he had been before his death, but he'd been able to outpace them before they could destroy him – his high Imagination translated to durability in the Games, another hypothesis now all-but proven true. The first day was easy; the mission had been to make his way to Hachiko and partner up; he'd run to Hachiko, as good a place to search for the Author as any, but the mission had ended before he could make a pact. The second day he'd ignored the mission outright – he suspected the Author's location had something to do with the mysterious walls; wherever she was, would be somewhere the Players weren't supposed to be – he'd spent his time trying to find a way to get past them while the other Players did the mission for him, something involving the music of Kawano Shiori again.

But he hadn't found a solution to getting past the walls yet. He'd seen Players bribe Wall Reapers in exchange for passage before, but apparently, that only worked when the Walls weren't supposed to last the day anyway. Not for the first time, Joshua wished he'd taken just a little more time to prepare. He could have observed that from the RG, if he'd bothered. But it was too late now; and he had other problems to worry about.

One of these problems, a high school senior by the name of Yasunaga Manako, was trudging behind him now. He'd run into her, alone and at the mercy of a pack of wolf-like Smears, early in the day, as he speed-walked down another alleyway sprouting off Dogenzaka. With no other leads, he'd simply hoped that being in the UG would be enough of a boost to his senses to enable him to sense the proximity of power. He could already sense some things he never had before – the weight of the Smears pressed on him more heavily even when they weren't trying to feed on him, the sparks of soul like a crackling fire from the Game Master who had welcomed Joshua to the UG and instructed him on the goals of the Game, the cadence of thoughts that flowed all around him whenever there were lots of living people around. So perhaps, if he searched widely enough, he would eventually sense the presence of something, something unfamiliar and powerful. And then, at least, he would have a lead.

But Manako was not having it.

"We don't have time for this," she complained again, "we really don't have time for this! I'm going to be so behind by the end of the week!"

"You do realize you're dead, right?" Joshua said.

"Not as dead as I'll be if I don't pass my exams!" Manako countered.

"And," Joshua continued, "you do realize you owe me your life? If I hadn't come by when I did, you'd be Smear food. So, the least you could do is indulge me a bit on my personal goals, don't you think?"

"I know, I know! I'm grateful and all, but I really don't have time!" Coming to the end of the alley, they turned the corner and continued on down the main street; Joshua walking right through the living people they passed, Manako unable to shake the habit of walking around them, thereby wasting her oh-so-precious time.

Joshua paused where he was for a second, giving Manako the chance to catch up. He turned towards her and smiled knowingly. "Oh no, Manako-kun. We have plenty of time. We're not due back at Miyashita Park until sunset. I'm sure you'll get the chance to bury your nose in your books while everyone else is watching the sunset like they're supposed to."

Manako's lip and forehead both creased as she caught up with him, looking down at the haiku on her hand, as though she had expected it to have changed. It hadn't.

Yin, yang, shadow, light

As such you all must attend

Summer's curtain call

"That's Manako-sempai to you," she said sharply. "And why are you saying that like you understand the mission?"

"Because I do," Joshua said matter-of-factly, turning around to continue back down the street.

"How?" she said skeptically.

Joshua let out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. "Goodness, Manako-kun, do those books of yours really not tell you anything about interpreting poetry? You have to look beyond the literal, to the feeling the poem conveys. It's April – there's no actual summer. So you have to relate the feeling of summer to the actual timeframe we have to work with – the day. Now, summer is the mid-point of the year, the sunniest part. The closest equivalent would be the noon-afternoon time of day, with the sun high in the sky. But the mission is referring to the curtain call of this 'summer' – the curtain call comes at the end of the show. Hence, sunset – the end of the daylight period."

Her lip creased even more. "Okay. Why Miyashita Park?"

"Where else would you watch the sunset? A little pocket of nature in the midst of this concrete jungle, and high enough to get a nice look – there's nothing in the mission requiring us to go to Miyashita Park; it's simply the best option we have."

"Well then, what does all that other stuff mean? Yin and yang?"

Joshua grinned; enjoying that she seemed to finally be looking to him as an authority. He was going to savor this. "Think about it, Manako-kun. What is the relationship between yin and yang, shadow and light? How might we relate it to our situation here?"

"'Sempai!'" Manako corrected again. "And they're opposites."

His grin widened. "Wrong. It may seem that way, but yin and yang are more than just opposites, as are shadow and light. Where there is light, there are shadows; where there are shadows, there is light. One can never be without the others. They're partners."

"So we have to partner up!" Manako exclaimed, finally understanding. She stopped walking, looking again at her hand, then up and down the street nervously. "So, if the mission is solved, shouldn't we go tell everyone else?"

Joshua shrugged. "If you want to tell everyone else, you're welcome to break the pact and go find them yourself. I'll meet you there before sunset." He knew Manako would do no such thing. Joshua could tolerate the Smears for a decent amount of time without a partner. Manako couldn't. Sure enough, she groaned in protest but continued to follow him along the hill.

They didn't speak much as they slowly, steadily, explored all the alleyways of Dogenzaka; some beyond. Though Joshua did not show it, he began to feel just a little panicked at the depth of the situation he'd thrown himself into. It was one thing to take a risk; another thing to take a literal blind jump into the UG with no semblance of a plan. If he'd taken a bit more time to prepare, he thought –

But no, he couldn't trust his parents. If he'd taken a bit more time to prepare, they could have sent him away without warning, and he'd have lost his chance. He'd done the only thing he could.

As time passed on, Manako grew even more anxious, and Joshua finally had to admit it was time to go back and meet up with the others. If they'd figured the mission out, they'd surely be waiting at the statue of Hachiko for the other partnerships; if they hadn't, they'd be there anyway, hoping someone else would show up and tell them what to do. He conveyed these thoughts to Manako, who sighed with relief and eagerly started power-walking back down towards the Scramble.

"Funny," Manako said when they were side-by-side, "I died of an asthma attack. I never could have gotten this much exercise before without my inhaler, but right now it isn't bothering me at all. My feet are sore, though." She looked down at her feet, tennis shoes poking out from the bottom of her white kimono – it was a terribly unfashionable combination, but Joshua supposed he was glad the Author allowed the Players the option to wear practical shoes while running across Shibuya doing their bidding, even if it meant diverging from the traditional image of a ghost.

"Of course," Joshua smiled. "Your existence on this plane is made of Imagination. You can suffer injuries on this plane and experience damage to your Soul, but physical ailments you suffered when living have no bearing on it."

"And you know this how?" she said. She frowned again, a look Joshua was beginning to recognize as her thinking face. "Seriously, you know way too much. You're not – some kind of traitor, are you? A secret Reaper here to spy on us?"

Joshua laughed. "Why would the Reapers want to spy on us? Trust me, most of them have about as much enthusiasm for their jobs as the average Sunshine Burger employee. They want as little to do with Players as possible."

She pointed a finger at him accusingly. "See! That's something else you shouldn't know!"

He laughed. "I'm not a spy for the Reapers, Manako-kun." He slowed to a more leisurely pace; they had a decent amount of time, and he supposed that if they were going to be partners, Manako ought to know what they were up against. "Quite the opposite, in fact. Have you ever heard of the Author of Shibuya?"

She shook her head. "Obviously not. No one has. Stop talking to me like I'm stupid just because I haven't heard of all these things."

"Oh, don't worry, Manako-kun. That's not the reason I think you're stupid at all." He smiled condescendingly, but before she could retort, he went on. "Somewhere in Shibuya is the person who rules over everything that touches the boundaries of this city. Not just on the plane of the dead; he or she has sway over the living, too. Everything – fashion trends, construction projects, even the street graffiti – anything creative that happens in this town was influenced by them. Do you like Kawano Shiori, the enka singer?"

She looked confused at the abrupt change of subject, but said, "Yes?"

"No, you don't," Joshua said, "you just think you do, because the Author of Shibuya regularly uses their influence to make her more popular."

"And what does any of this have to do with you?" asked Manako.

"Nothing, yet. I'm after their job."

Manako's face twisted into several false starts before she gave up on trying to think of a way to respond to that. Smiling mildly, Joshua continued towards the scramble, letting Manako come to her own conclusions.

They were at the Scramble before Joshua spoke again. He couldn't help think of his mother as he approached the intersection where he'd witnessed Mrs. Nakahara's erasure; what was she doing? Was she grieving? Was she relieved? As much as he wanted to believe the guilt of his early death would haunt his parents forever, he was smart enough to realize he was more of a burden to them than anything. Maybe they'd have a new child, now that they were free of him.

"What does that mean, after their job?" Manako finally said.

He'd almost forgotten she was there. He turned back at her, then continued on to walk across the intersection through traffic; Manako flinched but ran to catch up with him anyway.

"Don't repeat this," Joshua said as a taxi drove through him, "but you have to erase the previous Author to become the new Author."

"So you're wandering all over Shibuya looking for some big-shot powerful Reaper, so you can kill them and become the big-shot Reaper? And you're dragging me into it?"

Joshua raised his eyebrows. "In case you don't remember, I saved you. If you really insist on not being involved, I will gladly dissolve the pact, and not bother to help the next time I see you cornered by Smears." A pause, in which he let Manako remember the fear of being almost eaten alive by wolves. Once the worry sunk into her face, showing that she remembered her place once again, he smiled. "On the other hand, if you help me, I'll make sure it's worth your while once I rise to power."

Manako said nothing else, and they soon found the other players at the Hachiko statue as expected. Joshua looked the group up and down – seven. That meant one was missing. He surveyed the survivors. First, the Arita family, tourists from the rural part of Hokkaido, dead in a car accident. A husband and wife, Ryuuji and Eriko, each partnered to one daughter, Mio and Momoka – their third daughter, they had explained, survived the accident, and they were desperate to return to life so as not to leave her an orphan. Then there was Nakamura Kenji, the twenty-something drunk driver who had caused the accident, and his girlfriend, Satou Sachiko. Lastly, Sebastien Santos, a middle-aged domestic servant, dead of a heart attack. He had been partnered with Hasegawa Nobuhiko, the Arita family's unfortunate taxi driver, who was now nowhere to be seen.

"Was Mr. Hasegawa erased?" Joshua asked.

Mr. Santos grimaced. "Sadly, yes. Those Reapers cornered us. We tried to fight the Smears off, but they made too much." He cast a grateful look towards the Arita family. "If these kind people hadn't come when they had, they would have killed me, too."

"It was nothing," said Mr. Arita cheerfully. "Anyone else would have done the same."

"What about the young man who was with you?" Mrs. Arita asked Manako, referring to Tanaka Yuusuke, the quiet and gloomy twenty-one-year old who had partnered with Manako on the first day. He hadn't told anyone how he died, and Manako hadn't explained how he'd been erased, but Joshua had his guesses. He couldn't help but smile at the irony of someone choosing to end his life, seeking blissful oblivion, only to find the exact opposite of that. Perhaps being forced to fight for their life would give some the perspective they needed to be able to return to life; Yuusuke, however, did not appear to have experienced that perspective shift. Which was fine, Joshua supposed. If Yuusuke had wanted oblivion, he had every right to seek it. But it wasn't fair of him to leave Manako behind to deal with the consequences.

Manako frowned, clearly hesitating to broach the taboo topic of suicide with unfamiliar adults. "He's gone, too," was all she said.

Mr. Santos made the Catholic sign of the cross. "May they rest in peace," he said. No one commented on the irony.

The silence that followed was heavy and long, and Joshua didn't have time for it. "I hate to disrespect the dead by being so abrupt," he said, "but we need to think of a plan."

"The mission requires even partnerships, yes," Mr. Santos agreed, nodding. "And we need to get somewhere we can see the sky."

Joshua had to admit, he was surprised, and even a little miffed. Perhaps he shouldn't have been – the missions weren't intended to be impossible for normal people to solve, of course – but he had been expecting to have to explain everything again. And maybe even looking forward to explaining everything again. Which was stupid, because none of these people should have meant anything to him – they wouldn't even make it to Day 6, most likely – but the tiny useless and suppressed part of his soul that desired the company and validation of other humans (despite the awareness of his rational mind that he was better than them) had been yearning to be able to talk about his interests to people who would appreciate his knowledge and not consider him crazy.

"I suggest Miyashita Park," Joshua said. "We can still make it if we leave now."

The group looked at each other to see if anyone else had any better ideas, before everyone gave their assent and started on their way. Joshua and Manako led; the Arita family followed Mr. Santos as though he was a tour guide. Sachiko and Kenji shuffled along after them like bored teenagers. "What are we going to do about the uneven partnerships?" asked Sachiko after a minute.

More long silence, until Manako spoke up. "I mean, we don't all have to partner up, do we? If someone completes the mission, everyone lives."

"Not necessarily," Joshua said. "There is more than one way to interpret the mission. Either it means that one duo must be together to watch the sunset, or it means that all players must be incorporated into a partnership. Yin and yang must be equal, after all. Now, perhaps that wasn't the Author's intended meaning – but with our existences on the line, is it really so wise to take that chance?"

Another long silence. Finally, as they walked again across the street, Mr. Santos spoke up. "If it is necessary for a sacrifice to be made, I can accept my fate. You have all been very kind to me so far, but I have already experienced a wonderful life, and I have no family depending on me. When the sun begins to set, I will find a Reaper and ask them to erase me."

Everyone started talking at once, but Manako's voice rose above the rest. "That isn't right! Look, I hate to say this, but if one of us has to die, I think it's pretty clear it should be the drunk driver who got six other people killed!"

Kenji looked away in shame, and Sachiko grabbed his hand defensively. But she could say nothing to refute Manako's argument. Little Arita Momoka started crying, and her mother picked her up to comfort her, and it was all so dramatic Joshua couldn't help but giggle.

Manako shot him a death glare. "What is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with you? I'm not the one trying to make calls about who deserves to live and die." He looked around the group, who had all stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk. "Who says anyone has to sacrifice themselves? Nothing in the mission requires the Players to pact only amongst themselves."

They stared at him blankly. Joshua smiled smugly. Seemed he had been the only one to find the solution after all.

"A lasso! A freaking lasso! Did it never occur to you all to simply ask me if I would help you on your mission? Hello! I mean, Reapers have feelings, too, you know! I know you Players tend to think we're all the bad guys, but I'm literally a support Reaper! I'm here to help! You could have asked!"

The Players more-or-less tuned out the complaints of the Wall Reaper as they watched the sunset. Sachiko and Kenji leaned over the fence, talking in low voices. Mr. and Mrs. Arita sat on a park bench, holding hands, while their daughters raced themselves up and down the stairs. They looked at ease, and had it not been for the white kimonos they wore and the fact that the children kept phasing through RGers, Joshua could have mistaken them for any ordinary tourist family.

Manako was sitting on the edge of a concrete planter, doing work out of a calculus textbook. Joshua took a seat beside her, watching her scribble out solutions line by line – which gave him a funny feeling. Joshua was smart. Joshua was far ahead of the rest of his grade. Joshua had memorized poems in Japanese and English, could recite biographies of historical figures and debate from the point of view of philosophers he disagreed with just for fun. But Joshua had never learned calculus. Would he ever learn it? Would he need to, now that he was destined for better things? He could feel regret lashing against him like waves against a rocky shore, eroding his confidence slowly but surely – but no, he reminded himself, he'd had no other choice. He could mourn his lack of calculus education as much as he wanted, but there was no point in having second thoughts.

"Have you ever wondered why the Author has us do missions like this?" Joshua asked Manako, to distract himself.

She finished jotting down a line of numbers that, to Joshua, appeared meaningless, before turning around to glare at him. "No. But I'm trying to study here, so can this wait for tomorrow?"

Joshua giggled. "You prove my point. Our job as Players is to do the Author's bidding in Shibuya – make a certain artist popular, convince people to get along better, influence trends – all that. And most of the missions revolve around that kind of thing. But every once-in-a-while, when someone in a group of Players needs to learn a lesson, the mission will have something to do with that. I wonder who here could possibly need to learn their lesson about slowing down to watch the sunset?"

Manako went back to her scribbling, not bothering to look up at Joshua as she replied. "Me. And you. And if they're trying to stop either of us from being so ambitious, it's probably you. Since my ambitions don't involve killing them."

"…Fair point."

The sun sank a bit under a cloud, casting a layer of shade over the city, and the haiku disappeared from their hands. "Guess that means we passed," Manako said, closing her book. A minute passed and she opened it again. "Or not. Shouldn't we be losing consciousness or getting taken wherever we go when we're done with the mission?"

"They're giving us a little more time to relax. You should appreciate the sunset, Manako. Who knows if any of us will see another one?"

Before she could retort, Joshua stood to leave. Maybe it made him a hypocrite, but he didn't have time to sit around chatting with Manako.

He had something else to do, he thought, as his eyes fell on the annoyed Wall Reaper, tied to a tree in the planter behind them.