The World Ends With You

CAT's Mural

Second Tag Color: Blue

"…Ungh!?"

Rhyme sat up in a huff, something clattering a few feet away from her and hitting the wall. She was still by CAT's mural, surrounded by night's blanket, but she was utterly alone. Getting shakily to her feet, she tried to peer into the semidarkness but saw nothing. For a split second she was confused, but it violently hit her in one brilliant flash. Suddenly short of breath, Rhyme backed up against the wall as far as she could. A strange sort of whimpering sounded in her throat as she slid down to sit again against the towering ghost cat. It seemed to loom over her, almost like some sick kind of omen.

Glancing over, she saw what had clattered away. Picking it up with shaking fingers, she squinted at the familiar Player Pin in her hand, and dropped it. "No, no… Not again…" Rhyme moaned, hiding her face in her hands in a vain attempt to blot out the truth before her. She could not believe it, it just could not be happening. Why had it happened, happened again to her?

Footsteps, she could hear them heading towards her from the darkness. She jerked away from her hands, staring wide eyed into the darkness. Alone, she was completely terrified. The only thing she could do was run. Run, and try to hide. Scrambling to get to her feet and subconsciously scooping the Pin into a pocket, Rhyme slipped on a bit of gravel or debris – she wasn't sure which in her panic – and fell hard against the concrete, hitting her chin.

Whimpering a little as she again tried to get up on her feet, she just managed it when someone slammed her against the wall in the darkness. She cried out and violently started to kick, struggling to free herself. "Hey hey, calm down! Rhyme, it's okay! It's me, Neku!" The name hit her harder than the impact with the wall and she became still almost at once.

"N… Neku? Wh… but why? Why are you here, too?" Rhyme was in disbelief. Hadn't Neku suffered more than all of them, during the Game the first time around? Why was he back? Why was she back? What the hell was going on?

Neku quickly silenced her questions by lightly pressing a finger to her lips. "Look, we will figure it out later; what matters now is that we have to make a pact to survive. I haven't come across anyone else, and there's something really weird tracking me in the shadows. If we want any chance, we have to fight now and ask later," Neku said to the younger girl. She was quiet for a moment, but finally nodded. She trusted Neku.

"Alright, let's do it then," Rhyme said, putting a hand up. Neku clasped it, and from their touch a bright blue light started to form. It rapidly grew to cover both of them and flashed painfully bright in the darkness of night, then disappeared as quick as it had formed.

Not wasting a minute, Neku pulled Rhyme along the wall of CAT's mural while he said, "Come on, that weird light show will attract whatever's out there, and I don't want to find out what it is." Rhyme was confused. Didn't the pact mean that they wouldn't be attacked anymore? She did not waste any breath asking, it took all she had just to keep up with Neku's fast pace.

They skirted around the Wild Boar skateboard shop, which from the corner of Rhyme's eye looked as if it were crumbling, but she suspected it was just the shadows of night and her panicked state. Neku led them into a small alley in between two closely pressing buildings, shoving Rhyme deeper in to the safety as he peered out at the poorly lit street. For a moment Rhyme studied those shabby lights, wondering if the Udagawa back streets had always been so dingy. Her attention was sharply diverted when she heard a loud scraping nearby, her eyes darting to try to look around Neku without moving.

The noise stopped for a moment, but then there was a screeching scream of metal being violently twisted. The dim light flickered out, leaving the street as dark as the small crook where the two hid. Rhyme held her breath, utterly silent. She could feel Neku's hand gently pressing against her stomach to keep her still, and she felt it trembling hard. If he was scared of what was out there, Rhyme felt she should be very frightened as well. Finally the horrible screeching stopped, but the dragging started again, this time with an undertone of scraping metal. Now the thing seemed to have armed itself with a weapon.

This was not the Game that Rhyme remembered. She had never felt so terrified of Shibuya in all of her life, even when she had been thrown into the UG with absolutely no warning and the monstrous Noise all around. Back then it had been like child's play, fighting those Noise alongside her partner Beat, laughing and keeping points with him just like it had been a game! This was nothing like that time, and in the face of such revelation, Rhyme seriously wished that she could go back to that sunnier Shibuya. At least there she could see what she was up against.

The sound was drawing closer. Neku pressed more against the wall, and after a moment Rhyme saw why. Sparks flew out into the darkness every time the monster took a step, its crude weapon dragging against the concrete with such force that bits of metal were blown away into glowing sparks. Whatever it was, it was powerful. Sickly powerful.

Faintly an outline could almost be made out whenever the sparks crackled out, and for a moment Rhyme had the crazy notion that it was in the same lumbering shape of a gorilla. However, she never recalled seeing any gorilla that big before, and she was pretty sure they didn't smell like burning, acidic flesh. Much effort was placed in suppressing the urge to vomit.

"Rhyme, if we want to get out of here, we're going to have to fight it. If this really is another Game, then there is a way to win it. We're not weak like the first time around, we can handle it," Neku whispered, just barely breathing enough to sound his words for Rhyme to hear. She gripped his hand and gave it a silent squeeze, her response to say that she was ready, whether she wanted to be or not. Pulling away from Rhyme, Neku reached into his pocket and withdrew several Psych Pins. Carefully he selected one, holding it by his side in his right fist while he held two others in his left hand.

Beyond in the darkness, the thing had stopped moving. It was near their little crook, and Rhyme could hear a wet snuffling sound. It was trying to smell them out. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and into her eye, making it sting. When she tried to blink it away, the thing gave a ripping loud roar. Neku replied with a battle cry of his own, and he flew out of their hiding spot as a long sword of red light grew from the Pin in his right hand.

Rhyme scrambled to follow, a hand wrapping around the bell pendant around her neck. It chimed softly in her hand, and a pale purple glow formed around her body in response to the sound. With the burning light of Neku's sword and the fluctuating aura of Rhyme's power, the monster with the metal club could finally be seen in all of its grizzly horror. Rhyme's first guess had almost been right, if gorillas were usually twice their full size and completely inside out. Muscles gleamed in the light with their bloody wetness, and the monster gave a sort of twisted grin, although how it did it without a lower jaw was beyond Rhyme's comprehension.

Without even faltering, it raised its crude weapon as Neku came close and struck first. His beam of red light cut into the glistening flesh of a thick thigh, crippling the beast as acidic blood spurted out and onto Neku's arm, burning it. It swung its weapon down, aimed for Neku's head, but Rhyme came in and blasted the creature with a beam of soft purple light. The light hit the monster and threw it back against a building with such force that the entire building collapsed on top of the monster, crushing it with a sick wet pop. Neku's right hand dropped, the red light disappearing back into its Pin still clutched in his trembling hand.

He stared at the ruined building for a moment in shock, then turned around to look at Rhyme. "What did you do?" he asked, always unaware of what Rhyme's powers had been exactly and utterly shocked by the force of seeing it right before his eyes. She opened her mouth to respond, but when her eyes took in the sight of the blistering burns on Neku's arm, she stepped up to him.

"You're hurt, did you realize?" she asked while pulling out a Pin of her own from her hoodie pocket. For a brief moment she wondered how it had got there and why she knew it was in there, but proceeded to tap into the Psych of the Pin. A cool white light absorbed into her hand, and she spread apart her fingers above Neku's arm. The light moved from her fingers to his burned skin, covering the wounds and healing them an instant later. It was a quick and easy curing Pin.

Studying her for a moment, Neku said, "So you can use Pins too?" She awkwardly toed at the concrete for a moment before replying, "Well, just some… Mostly healing pins though. I had to heal Beat a lot those first couple of days… I got good at it." Neku nodded his approval, ruffling the black hat on Rhyme's head and messing up her blonde hair a bit in the process.

"Well, I'm glad to have you for a partner. Though, I can't help but wonder why we're both back here, in this situation again, years later…" He peered off into the darkness in thought. Rhyme's mind echoed the same sort of questions, but she held her silence while Neku thought.

Beyond, the infinite blackness had showed its first bit of weakness; the light of day was breaking out through the sky. Already the familiar soft blue of the sunnier Shibuya that Rhyme remembered was beginning to cut across the darkness, and Rhyme questioned its rapid speed of change. However, the brighter the back streets of Udagawa showed, the more it became obvious that it was nowhere near the same Shibuya of the RG or UG. All around, the buildings were derelict, decaying and crumbling in on themselves.

Glancing down the street to the famous mural of CAT, Rhyme saw to her disbelief and sadness that most of the mural was gone, crumbled on the concrete where Rhyme had woken up a short time ago. The only bits that remained were most of the Ghost Cat's looming figure, and one of the blood red crosses on the left of the disintegrating white hands. Neku saw this as well, but did not say a word about it. Instead he turned to Rhyme as he read a message that had just come to his cell phone.

"Well, it seems we've lived through today. Defeating that… thing was the mission, although it didn't tell us until now what our mission was. This Game is definitely rigged against our favor this time," Neku said as he met Rhyme's gaze. Sighing, he slipped the cell phone into his pocket and looked at Rhyme again, this time with a bit of sadness in his eyes, an almost apologetic look. It was gone an instant later, and Rhyme quietly questioned if it had been there at all.

Rather than dwelling on it, she looked up again at the sky, clasping her hands behind her back. "Rigged or not, we are stronger this time. We can do it if we really put our hearts into it, I know we can. I mean, just look up there. That sky is the same shade of blue as our Shibuya…" Neku looked up at the sky before Rhyme went on with her little speech, "And games are meant to be won. So… let's beat this Game and get back home, to the ones who are waiting for us…" She trailed off, remembering for the first time Shiki and the relationship that had finally been born between the two. Smiling, she looked at Neku. "We can do it."

-End Day 1