TWEWY: A Fall Into Honor:
This story is about how Joshua became the Composer. The story is from Joshua's point of view, and others if the story needs to. This is a prequel of the game The World Ends With You. TWEWY is made by Square Enix. And I own the OCs. This is a FAN FICTION and not the real prequel. Enjoy! =3
Hey everyone! Finally this is it, Iwao vs. Joshua's party!
Though at first, I had something completely different in mind for the battle which heavily involved the environment their battle took place in. But then again, it got so confusing and would have lasted very long! It really didn't suit what I had initially visualized. After I scrapped the idea, I came up with something else that suited more of what I wanted, but I still kept the same environment. Plus, I thought it would be cool to have this battle take place below the main floor of Pork City Tower. Since we already have seen the top, I think we needed to see the bottom =3
Also, sorry for taking so long for this chapter, I hope you are ready for this! And... enjoy!
Week 1, day 7:
Chapter 32: Rumble Down Below:
"Let's go," declared Rei as she marched up to the door.
Joshua nodded; they had to beat the GM before they ran out of time.
He knew the outcome of this battle meant one wall between getting back his and Ayumu's Entry Fees, and also what would happen afterward. Sanae only explained to him that the Composer decided if they were worthy for another chance at life or they stayed in the UG. This could be the tipping point between another week scrambling for his life and freedom.
They all entered through the door in a single line fashion before coming to a large room with crumbled walls and a couple of saucer-like world war era lanterns high above, clearly marking this place unused and never renovated for Pork City Tower. Ironically, included in the general neglect were a number of concrete columns that seemed to be supporting the upper-body of the structure.
In the midst of the decaying Parthenon stood a lone imposing figure: Iwao Saiyama.
The man's murky green eyes glinted as soon as he saw Ayumu. "Finally, the turn I present justice has come." Right away, he drew out his whip and cracked it on the ground with a loud snap to ring in the large room. "Let me cast my judgment quick!"
Joshua instantly jumped in front of Ayumu and glared at the GM as he ran towards them. "He takes things to the point, doesn't he?"
Everyone prepared their attacks as Iwao charged at them.
Bringing his whip in a wide circle over his head, the GM lashed it down into the cement. The area of impact instantly shattered, filling the air with a deadly rain of leaden chunks.
"Dodge it!" called Joshua as he and Ayumu sped off to the side. Joshua did a small roll, stumbled, and quickly recovered as he continued to seek refuge from the downpour. Right now he trusted that everyone else managed to evade the flurry of cement like he did.
But he was thrown to the ground by a rock wave the very next second and let out a cry of pain. Many of the needles dug into his skin like fine-crafted stone splinters.
He pushed himself up to see that Iwao was already head to head with Ayumu. The grey-brown haired man was thrusting his whip down nonstop while dealing earthen assaults at Ayumu. None had struck the frail boy yet because he had projected a golden yellow force field to shield himself. Iwao kept cursing at him while viciously transferring more power into his whip as each of his attacks came, utterly intent on destroying the blind psychic.
In other words, the GM was leaving himself open to assault. Joshua knew that this was his time to attack.
He ran around the space that rocks were sent towards Ayumu, either as airborne chunks or as serrated pillars rising from the ground. The ash blond managed to reach Iwao's exposed back when he summoned the Psych of his Thrash Splash Pin, covering the last stretch of distance in an aqueous charge. Reaching his target, Joshua hit Iwao with a flurry of gliding blows before he felt the rough leather of the whip snag his wrists.
"The turn of events in a trial can be steep and heartrending!" Iwao had started spinning around while Joshua was perilously heaved along, his Psych vanishing into light blue particles. His stomach churned and his vision started to blur as the bitter taste of stomach acid started to well its way up his throat. He willed the GM to stop, dreading that he would lose all the food that he digested inside and perhaps even his existence.
Just as he felt like he was going to vomit, Joshua's mad flight was brought to a snapping halt as the GM's whip lost momentum. A half instant later, it became apparent why.
A wall of wind washed over the battlefield, tugging at Joshua's hair and face and pressing him into the broken foundation. When the pull subsided enough that the ashen blond boy could peel himself up off the crags of the pavement, he could finally identify the source of the attack.
At the center of the room, the GM was now caught up in a shimmering golden twister, courtesy of Ayumu.
Seeing his chance, Joshua bolted over safely to Rei, Izo, and Ayumu.
As he fell beside Izo, the lavender eyed boy saw Ayumu was continuing his twister while Rei kept slashing furiously her pen on her clipboard. "Thank you. Brilliant counter combo attack, Rei and Ayumu!" His face fell as he asked in confusion, "Wait a minute… are you even attacking, Rei?" he saw nothing of storms forming as Rei continued scribbling; no lightning, no rain, nor snow or hail (if Rei was even able to do that, she'd never done it in front of Joshua).
The ashen ponytailed lady tutted as she shouted over the loud winds of the twister just as it pulled Iwao up into it, "Sure I am! In order to free ya, Aleck, Izo said we had to reverse the Whipster to spin the other way!" now the powerful winds started to bite at Joshua's hair. "Your half-bro created one of those nifty twisters, but I had to throw some of my good ol' gales to alter its course and focus it!" She flashed a grin. "Cool, huh?"
Joshua nodded and took caution by edging away from the twister that had started to creep towards the four of them. "Sure it is. But it looks like its heading for US!" he shouted out the last part as Izo let out a scream when he was sucked into the air and hurled into the twister without any sort of resistance. "IZO!"
"Not again!" screeched Rei as her bright brown eyes almost popped out of their eye sockets. "Fos-bro! No!"
Of course it had to be Izo who was to be trapped in the twister with their enemy, Joshua only wished that Izo was close enough to the GM so he could claw at him for Joshua and Ayumu. But alas, at this rate, Ayumu's twister could erase Izo as well as the GM. Joshua couldn't let one of his friends be erased for the sake of finishing the mission itself; his conscience screamed at him to save Izo.
Despite the urge to let both of the people who almost resulted in causing his younger half-brother's erasure, he called out to Rei and Ayumu, "Stop it! Izo will be erased!"
Rei of course let her pen slide across the paper until it was off before halting her assault.
But Ayumu… Ayumu didn't.
The slightly messy haired boy kept focusing on the twister as it sent a column crumbling to the ground; it was as if he was deaf to the command that Joshua ordered.
This scared Joshua, to think that Ayumu might even destroy the whole place and erase them all if he continued like this. That his half-brother was willingly bringing about his own demise through an act of revenge; it was insane!
Behind the blond, Rei kept pleading franticly to Ayumu as tears welled up in her wild eyes, horrified that at any time she could lose her foster-brother. Even if they somehow made it out before her seven minutes were up, Joshua knew she wouldn't be able to go on without him.
The thought of this made Joshua grit his teeth and shake in rage. 'I won't let Izo get erased! I'm sorry, Ayumu!' Taking a resolute step forward, Joshua willed himself all the strength his frail form could muster and tackled the petite blond to the ground.
At once, the twister broke and shattered into evanescent particles.
Joshua was almost ready to punch Ayumu in the face again like in day 5, but he could see that wouldn't help them in this situation. So he let the anger die like he threw a bucket of water on fire and firmly stared into Ayumu's pale pewter eyes. "Why did you do that Ayumu!?"
The younger boy replied, "Iwao… Mission… You… want Josh…"
"It doesn't matter!" snapped Joshua as he scrambled off Ayumu and got to his feet. "Izo's up there with him, I can't let him fade! If we finished the mission for that way, we wouldn't deserve to make it back to the RG. He's my friend! I won't win this game alone, not if I carry the disgrace of my friends' needless sacrifices on my shoulders! We are going to the finish line together!"
Ayumu clumsily got to his feet and continued on, "Izo… You anger Josh-"
"Yes! I'm still angry with him, but erasing him for that is just plain wrong Ayumu!" screamed Joshua and shook his blind half-brother as hard as he could. It would make no difference if he did that to Ayumu anyways though.
Something then struck him like a baseball bat to the back of the cranium, at the beginning of this week and before he wouldn't have cared less about what happened to anyone except Ayumu, his parents, Auntie Chise, and Sanae. Was it because of how no one extended their hands out before to the two half-brothers to offer friendship? Maybe it was because Rei and Izo were the first to accept the two when their first meeting was nothing more than a weird coincidence regarding their circumstances. They were all in a place that Joshua watched in the RG as long as he could remember. A place that, even though it was filled with people, felt more lonely than an empty room.
Now that he'd actually met other people though, there was no way the two foster siblings could shove them away. Especially when they were standing in the very place everyone who knew Joshua dubbed him a freak and a lunatic for. In the end, Joshua knew the four of them meeting each other was meant to be. He could have ignored them, but there was no escaping Rei who popped over to them every morning of each new day and squeezed through their personal spaces without consent.
A smile formed on his face. 'I have friends, "one of the greatest gifts in the world" my mother would tell me when she was still alive. I don't understand how I missed out on this great experience.'
His smile altered into an ugly frown of horror as Ayumu was whipped on his face by the sadist GM who knocked Joshua away into a column. "Justice... I will oblige!"
A cry of anger escaped Joshua's mouth as he watched Ayumu receive battering of lashes on his face from Iwao's whip. The savage treatment fueled Joshua's hatred of the GM as an unsettling huge grin grew on Iwao's face along with cruel laughter.
Joshua made blue fire spark into his hands and threw it up. Just as he compressed the fire into a hue of crackling bright orange, he cast it at the GM with his psychic powers. Joshua was pleased when he burned the psychotic whip wielder's fedora to a crisp and made an ugly exposed bald spot after burning through the man's grey-brown afro.
This allowed Ayumu to launch his special psychic twisters at his back when the GM spun around to Joshua to spit out his anger; from the look of Iwao's snarl, he was truly pissed.
"I should have erased Kazumasa when I had the chance, so I could rid all of you delinquents from the Underground!" spat the murky green-eyed man as he drew his whip up to attack Ayumu again. "Now, I won't fail… oh ho! No, not now… because this case isn't over until I send you to oblivion!"
But Joshua already had compressed fire ready and scattered it at Iwao's turned figure.
"I will never allow you to erase my brother!" screamed Joshua, irate at the man.
Joshua was sure his own eyes went ablaze in rage when he and Ayumu attacked in turns to Iwao who pitifully had no chance in any advances himself.
Soon Joshua finally noticed a flare of vivid green light was drifting back and forth from himself and Ayumu, driving him to strike more determined and harder. He wondered what this green flare was but he knew it somehow allowed the two of them to assault the GM better.
After a while, a shimmer of pure white emitted from Joshua while golden yellow engulfed Ayumu. A strong feeling of trust welled up in the scraggly haired teen that made him feel warm and fuzzy inside; he heard two heartbeats at the same rhythm in his ears.
A burst of energy shot though him, making him feel confident enough to do anything as he boldly shouted out, "I'll lead, Ayumu!"
In return Ayumu called out, but no emotion was evident in his tone, "'Kay."
Just as he said that word, a bright golden yellow aura swelled around the both of their bodies and a clink sounded inside of Joshua's head. He raised his arm up as tall twisters swirled around the three of them. Iwao was captured by one and cursed many times per second, helplessly bound in the golden gale.
Feeling the flow of power rush through his body, Joshua clenched his raised arm's hand. At once the twisters' top and bottom closed into the middle, compressing the chamber of air. Once there was no space left to be crushed any further, they all exploded.
The powerful feeling suddenly ebbed out of Joshua like water going down a large drain hole. Far away from the scraggly haired teen, Iwao crashed to the ground moaning in pain, but Joshua gave no attention to him and instead rushed over to Ayumu without a moment to lose.
Suddenly Rei ran over to them once Joshua reached Ayumu with Izo by her side jogging. She screamed just as she skidded to a stop with excitement shaking through her voice, "That. Was. Awesome!" her eyes sparkled so much you would think they were glowing. "What was that anyway? With those twisters and how they almost made me think they could have erased the Whipster back there-"
"We were over there, fighting Noise that were sprung upon us by Iwao." explained Izo coldly despite the scowl Rei shot him.
Joshua nodded as Rei began screaming her head off at Izo for interrupting her along with bashing him on the head with the clipboard. At once Izo began cursing at her.
This didn't last long because Joshua saw that they had only 5 minutes remaining, so he spoke loudly over them, "Ahem… We don't have a lot of time guys, so… we really need to concentrate on erasing the GM instead of bickering like children."
"We're not kiddies!" protested Rei hotly and shook her clipboard at him.
Izo said nothing about what Joshua had just commented about them. His maroon eyes flickered to the GM as he adjusted his glasses. "Undeniably. I deem our élite germaneness is we ought to abolish that whip so we can trounce him."
"He practically was born with that whip!" cried Rei fretfully as she hugged her clipboard to her chest. "Can't I just smash his face 'til it's zilch?"
"It's appealing," remarked Joshua with a dry chuckle, "but maybe we just need to separate it from him first, Rei. Then unleash your clipboard bashing, alright?"
A complaint came from Rei but then she fell silent with a pout.
"I recommend we riven into two groups," growled the frozen boy, holding a bitter expression the whole time. "You, Aleck, and the Tyke-"
"Stop calling me a tyke already, Fos-bro!" protested Rei angrily.
Izo rolled his maroon eyes with a sigh. "You two will try to pilfer the whip from him-" his eyes flicked to Ayumu who stared at him with his usual indifferent look. "-whereas myself and the Blind Brat will attempt to preserve him diverted."
For a moment, Joshua wanted to yell on the top of his lungs at Izo's crude epithet for his half-brother. But he knew this wasn't the best of time to fight amongst themselves with what time they had hanging over them like an axe.
He gave a mumble of agreement before Izo took Ayumu away to set their plan in motion.
Left with his former Partner-for-the-day, Joshua mused wryly, "I guess this means we're the attack crew Rei, huh?"
He let out a giggle along with Rei who chirped while saluting him playfully, "Aye, aye. Partners again, Captain Kiryu!"
'Hopefully, she'll switch back to Aleck or Twity, when we return to the RG,' thought Joshua frowning. 'It would be too humiliating to be called that in public.'
They waited in eager silence as they watched Izo and Ayumu amble towards the GM, who was chanting about 'justice' and how 'guilty' they were in helping the 'murderer'. He halted his proclamations as Izo and Ayumu stood three feet from in front of him as he let out a sneer, "Come to be served your due sentence, Ki?"
Ayumu said nothing but stared at him absently.
At this time Joshua and Rei snuck around, hiding behind the columns from time to time to hide from sight in order to ambush the GM successfully. Izo watched them from the corner of his eye after signaling them to go around by pointing in opposite directions with his hands that were behind his back.
As soon as they hid behind columns and Izo did a nod, the dark blue haired teen twirled his threads in a swirl as he let out a scoff, "You talk like this as though you are a saint, yet you are an imbecile who is blighted in folly." He lashed his threads at the GM in a flash and tripped Iwao before he could react to his attack. "Now!"
Joshua and Rei shot from the place they were concealed towards the GM, who was thrashing from being tangled by Izo's thread. Just as he nearly got out Ayumu restrained him by locking him in place with his psychic powers. Rei brought down bolts of lightning down from above while Joshua summoned the use of his Breezifreeze Pin to shower him with hail.
The assault continued as Joshua eased his way to the fallen Reaper when he saw Ayumu was faltering in holding the GM in place, so he pried the whip out of Iwao's hand. The woven bands, although visibly ordinary, had survived even the fusion assault; Joshua could deduce there was no way in destroying it with any of his Pins. So he gripped it hard as he sprinted back to Rei when Ayumu let the GM go from overexertion of his powers.
Clearly the GM was enraged beyond words. He spat curses as he charged over to Ayumu after clouting Izo a fair feet into a concrete column. With a monstrous hand, he grasped Ayumu's neck and lifted him off the ground. "Justice…will be… served!" he ground out as he began to tighten his grip on the young petite blond's neck.
He was going to choke Ayumu to erasure!
"Ayumu!" wailed Joshua desperately as he was about to dash straight to his half-brother when Rei yanked him back by his white shirt collar. "We need to stop him!"
"No! You can't!"
Angered by Rei's foolishness, he roared at her and thrashed despite hurting himself, "Let me go! He'll erase Ayumu, Rei!"
"I know," cried Rei uneasily, "but there's no way you can't attack the Whipster without hurting your half-bro. You need to pull them apart somehow, Aleck."
Right away Joshua ceased his thrashing and gnawed his bottom lip bitterly as Ayumu was sending out twisters to try and defend himself.
The twisters never met the GM; they merely hit and knocked down pillars easily.
Joshua feared that they would soon bring the upper floor crashing down. The situation turned completely grim. If the floor came down, RG people would plunge down with it and be killed by this battle!
But Rei did have a point; none of his Pins would be adept to help his flailing half-brother, they were all too imprecise!
Izo wouldn't be able to lash his threads at the GM if Ayumu was there either.
Rei could control the weather, but most of them could hurt Ayumu. But now that he thought of it, Rei did have one option if she sent out the weather…
Turning to her with a flare of hope in his heart, he exclaimed in fury, "Blow them away, Rei!"
She looked quite pleased with his choice of words. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Aleck!" she grinned as she cracked her knuckles before furiously slashing her crimson pen across her scarlet clipboard with a determined gleam in the eye.
A split second later, Joshua heard whispers turn into howls as a powerful wind threw Joshua's locks over his head while he felt himself soon be pushed back by it.
Desperately he thrust himself behind a not destroyed pillar while Rei stood unaffected as the wind made her red jacket with a cape part whip fiercely around her.
Suddenly a choked cry came from Iwao as he was hurled away from Ayumu. The wind pushed Joshua's half-brother to safety beside Izo, who hid behind the shelter of a column like Joshua. The dark blue haired boy looked afraid that he too might be thrown into the gale like he had earlier on.
The gale died as quick as it came, this worried Joshua because they only had a minute left and the GM was going towards Ayumu again with an insane look in his muddy green eyes.
Unexpectedly that same feeling from before surged through Joshua and he saw his pure white aura surround himself again. He wondered if Ayumu was going to do that attack with him again, but he knew it wasn't Ayumu this time.
In front of him Rei was bathed in a brilliant dazzle of silver that rippled around her lone figure, she seemed to glance at him in astonishment as though asking what was going on before flashing him a poised smirk.
Turning back to the GM, she raised her head and exclaimed in delight, "The forecast for today is… erasure!"
Joshua gave a smirk as well as he cried out confidently, "Alright! I'll be ready for it!
At once he was covered in a bright silver aura now as he felt the gale return, but instead it moved in a steady loop around the GM. Joshua felt his own psychic powers course through him as he saw bright silver emit from where the gale swirled and rushed it to close in on Iwao, who was trapped within.
With 30 seconds left on the timer, the gale thrashed around the GM and ultimately engulfed him as he screamed in agony. Soon it started to press hard on his body, trying to compress him like Joshua's and Ayumu's twister rampage. Joshua saw brown specks slip off Iwao and past the gale as they grew in numbers from the GM.
Quickly the particles escaped, and soon it looked like Iwao's body distorted with a buzz, like the television wasn't working, as it swept across it before his entire body was consumed by the winds that scattered the brown particles that exploded from him.
Joshua fell on one knee from exhaustion before the gale waved over the whole area, sending everyone flying in different directions.
When Joshua's spine hit the far wall, his vision spun and filled with white…
To be continued…
Hope you enjoyed the chapter =3