The World Ends With You

CAT's Mural

Sixth Tag Color: Green

All was silent and dark again. Rhyme lifted her head up off of the ruined marble floor and winced. She had a fierce pounding headache – not exactly the best way to start off that particular day. Sitting up completely, the young and battered girl took a long look around. She studied the endless darkness around her as if she could see different details of it, different aspects.

Her hand idly picked up a big chunk of marble, causing her eyes to turn away from the darkness to study the debris she held. After a moment, she threw it with all the strength she could will from her tired and aching body. It quickly vanished from her sight and into the darkness, clattering away loudly. The noise stirred Neku, who was still sleeping nearby.

He sat up in a huff, a Pin already held out in his hand, but once he realized that there wasn't any immediate danger, he put the Pin away. "Rhyme…?" he called softly to the girl, hesitantly. She turned and looked at him, her blue eyes heavy with her emotions and distress. Neku couldn't hold her gaze for long; it was too painful for him. Instead he stood up, purposefully turning his back to Rhyme so he wouldn't have to look at her.

"So, uh, do you still have the black planet Pins like Mr. Hanekoma said? I have the same six I had yesterday…" Neku asked, looking down at his Pins to avoid eye contact with Rhyme. He heard some shuffling behind him, then a few soft clanks, and despondently Rhyme mumbled a yes. Well, it was just as Mr. Hanekoma had promised, which meant that they would be fighting him as well. Neku was kind of hoping it had been a bad dream.

Putting his Pins away with a slow breath, he said, "I guess we should get going though. It might take us all day to pick our way through this darkness…" His voice trailed off and died on his lips as before the two Players a familiar little light grew. Somehow Neku managed to give a crooked smile despite the whole damn situation. Beat Joshua, but didn't kill him it seems.

Rhyme didn't comment at all on the wings, but her expression did harden a lot. The wings gave their customary flap, and just like that Neku and Rhyme found themselves racing with all their exhausted bodies could muster towards a fight they didn't want to face. It was a cold, cruel twist, making the two rush headlong into such a mess, but they didn't see much choice otherwise. They had to survive.

The run through the everlasting darkness didn't seem to bother the two as much as it did before. Neku was running strategies through his head that he could think of with his current set of Pins; Rhyme was just trying to keep up with the furious pace. One of the glowing wings seemed to angle a little oddly, and when Rhyme noticed this she couldn't help the small grin of satisfaction.

The scenery didn't change in the slightest, but after an uncertain amount of running, the wings had stopped. The two Players gladly stopped as well, both raggedly panting for breath. Once Neku had enough wind to speak, he said, "Th-there's no way we're already on the r-roof of Pork City…" The wings disappeared, leaving the two alone in the empty darkness.

Taking a few steps through the darkness with his hand held out, Neku felt his fingers come in contact with a wall. Leaning in closer and squinting, he followed along the wall until he found a door. "Rhyme, come on," he called over his shoulder while grasping the cold metal. The girl stepped closer, still holding her eerie silence. Turning the handle and opening the door, Neku led the way.

Just as before, it was inky darkness, but they could see far enough to make out the stairs. "Guess we climb up," Neku said. "Let's go." They started up the bland steel staircase, their shoes making odd dull thuds rather than loud clanks. The slow climb up and through the abysmal darkness was just as silent and torturous as running blindly through it. Eventually Rhyme lost count of how many flights of stairs they had climbed, one stairway looking exactly like the one before it and the one right after it.

Thud, thud, thud. Thud, thud, thud. Silence.

"Something doesn't seem right," Neku whispered as he came to a stop, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up on end. For once Rhyme gave some kind of reply, pressing herself against Neku and hugging his arm. She agreed that something was definitely out of whack. He could feel her shivering just the slightest, trembling with fear.

Without any immediate ideas coming to mind, Neku decided it was best to keep moving, so they continued climbing up. "This would be floor 25, if Pork City somehow grew to be that tall," Neku murmured, counting off the next flight of stairs. Rhyme felt a little sick at the tone in his voice. The dull thuds of their footfalls began to sync more and more with Rhyme's racing heartbeat. Before she realized it, they were running again headlong, up the stairs.

"This has to be some kind of puzzle or something that we have to figure out," Neku gasped, "to get to the roof!" His mind raced, trying to understand what the puzzle was so he could seek the solution. Steadily from below them, far below them, a loud sound was growing. It sounded like steel grating together very slowly, but the noise was picking up.

When their feet hit flat ground signifying another floor, Neku went towards the wall rather than up the next flight of stairs. "What are you doing?" Rhyme cried, turning sharply when she saw that Neku wasn't beside her any longer. "Look for a door! It might lead us somewhere else!" Neku screamed, running his fingers over the wall and squinting at it. A moment later and Rhyme joined him in the search, grasping for a handle of some kind.

"Neku, there's no door! We need to keep climbin', yo!" Rhyme shouted, the din below now a chorus of crashing and screaming steel. Neku didn't listen, ignoring her and the sounds from below while he scraped and groped the wall. The smaller girl pulled on his clothes, trying to get him to move, screaming his name over the loud sounds below. While she struggled against him, her bell hit her chest and gave a dull thunk. Her aura responded with a dismal, dark flash, and a black light formed around her.

When Neku still wouldn't move, Rhyme pulled a Pin from random out of her pocket and aimed it at the blank, unforgiving wall. Her dark aura focused on her hand rapidly, and instantly black balls of energy flew from the Pin. They hit the wall with a deep roar, coating the surface and eating away at it like it was ice. So Rhyme could use Black Venus, too. Where the wall gave way to the consuming energy of Rhyme, a light was shining. Neku stood up straight with a loud ah-hah!

"See, I told yo-" Neku started, but was cut off when Rhyme shoved him through the growing opening with surprising strength. After that, there was nothing but light. Even the sound had stopped, and when the Players tried to look behind them, they saw only light; there was no dark.

Rhyme opened her mouth to say something about the light, but she was overcome by a strong, vivid memory. With a gasp she sank to her knees, her mind flying back to that night she had shared with Shiki before she had died again…

Oh, why did her head feel so heavy…? She couldn't move at all, but she wanted to get her head off of Shiki's lap, to look in her pretty chocolate eyes again… Was Shiki crying? She could faintly hear the older girl sobbing hard, so she tried to ask what was wrong. Struggle as she might, she just couldn't get any sound to come out and her lips were barely moving. What was Shiki saying?

"How could you… Oh God, Rhyme, please, open your eyes!" Rhyme was confused. Weren't her eyes open? Why was Shiki crying so hard? Her conscious was slipping though, fading into nothing, but the very last sound she heard was the firing of a gun, shooting a second shot, and then silence. Shiki wasn't crying anymore. Was she…

Slowly, dusty blue eyes fluttered open. Rhyme stared down at the rapidly fading light in between her hands, until it was gone and there was nothing but wooden floor. She was on her hands and knees, gasping at the floor, but once she realized where she was again she silenced her breath. Sitting up on her knees, she looked towards the boy calling her name. "Rhyme, what happened?" he asked when she moved.

Instead of replying right away, Rhyme forced herself onto her feet. She was completely numb from head to foot, her heart tingling madly in her chest. Gently she pressed her hand against her chest, against her aching heart, and she let out a little sad sound. Her knees wouldn't hold her up any longer, and she fell without so much as a cry. Neku managed to catch her, and the two sank to the wooden floor.

"Rhyme…" Neku called softly, holding the girl close. She gently touched his cheek and finally managed to say in a somber voice, "Whoever killed me… shot her, too. They shot her." Shocked is hardly befitting for the feeling that came to Neku, but somehow he found a way to keep it inside. Rhyme had seen a flashback of her death. Neku wasn't sure what to say. An apology certainly did not fit the criteria for a good response.

Her eyes closed for a moment and she pressed her hands over them. She took a deep breath, and just a second later she was getting up. There was no expression in her eyes or on her face. Neku felt a little cold inside.

Around them, the room was empty. The wood floor shone a little in the strange light that illuminated the entire room. The windows beyond were inky black, though, reminding them that they were still in the Game. Neku knew it wasn't the best time to worry about what Rhyme had remembered, so his gaze of the room got a steady attention. "If there's some kind of riddle in this room, I don't know what it is," he finally said.

"No doors," Rhyme quietly pointed out. Neku turned to be greeted by the sight of a blank wall. "Hmm," he mused, studying the wall. As he reached a hand out to touch the surface, the wall suddenly exploded around them. The Pin Walk On, Walk Off was just a thought away, Neku activating it while scooping Rhyme up and moving the two away from the flying debris.

Through the dust and rubble, a huge metal monstrosity walked. Made entirely out of every single step Rhyme and Neku had overcome, a giant and jagged almost wolf-ish creature was born. The twisted metal whined and screeched with each subtle movement of the beast, and the thing's maw was filled with jagged and pointed steel. The thing almost seemed to have eyes, the metal twisting around two dark holes, and Neku could feel it staring at them. Rhyme finally looked at what had been creating the monstrous noise while Neku put her down and stood between her and the beast.

"Oh God," Rhyme said, "how in the hell do we fight that?" The wolf towered over them, the room of Pork City somehow contorting itself and growing to fit the mass of twisted steel. Sitting on its haunches with a whine of grating metal, the wolf eyed the two Players down. Then, it did something that utterly shocked Neku and Rhyme alike.

With a somehow controlled whine of moving steel, the wolf formed words and said, "To be able to move forward in your current mission, listen very carefully now. A jump away and the prophecy of darkness was born. A promise of safety was given a skip away, but faithlessness followed in an ignorant hop. Fear and woe are just one step away, but find the Light at the door. If that is so, then where does the door lead?" The wolf thing tilted its head when it asked its question. Neku stared at it blankly, at a loss as to how to respond.

"Take as long as you want to answer. Get it wrong, and the Light will fade to leave you alone in the dark, where monsters dwell," the wolf said while digging sharp steel claws into the floor, splintering it with ease. Rhyme looked up at Neku with expecting eyes, waiting for him to brilliantly come up with the answer.

He had no fucking clue.

Think, Neku! You've gotta know! Rhyme thought silently, her blue gaze turning to watch the steel wolf. Standing on all fours, it shifted its weight around slowly, making a constant low wail of grating metal. It was hard to think with that endless sound.

Something about what the wolf had said seemed familiar to Neku, in a way that almost made him think of Mr. Hanekoma. The two had to be related somehow, and since they were going to fight Mr. Hanekoma, it only made sense that any riddle involved would be linked to him. What was it? Perhaps something Mr. Hanekoma had said or shown them. One step away…

Suddenly, Neku had his answer. "The door," he started, causing the wolf's metal ears to perk up, "leads to Eden." Rhyme gave him a rather confused look, but the wolf sat down with a nod of its head.

"And so, to Eden you will go," the wolf said, its words billowing out into a howl of moving steel. The form of the wolf vanished as all of the twisted steel crashed into the floor, leaving behind the ruined remains of the stairs they had climbed. Standing just beyond the pile of scrap metal was a solitary red wooden door. It rested inside of its doorframe, but the doorframe wasn't attached to anything, making the door look like it opened up into nothing.

The two Players walked around the metal and to the door, Neku reaching his hand out to it. Once the handle touched his skin, it emanated a pleasant warmth. Neku turned the handle and gave that door a push, opening it to reveal a rather puzzling sight.

Stepping through the door, the two Players now walked through a misty, beautiful jungle. Feral flora of all shades of vibrant colors sprouted in between the towering trees that grew into a natural green canopy. Here and there patches of golden light from an unseen sun beyond the leaves shone through, decorating the jungle floor with patterns of shadow and light.

The scent – oh, it was heavenly, a perfect blend of wild flowers and exotic breezes. "This is so strange…" Neku mumbled, stopping by a particular tree that shone with a faint silver aura. He squinted up the tall smooth trunk to see the lowest hanging branches heavy with a mysterious silver peach shaped fruit, far beyond his reach in the canopy.

"Neku, look out!" Rhyme screamed from behind him. He vanished with the help of his Pin and appeared a few feet away. Right where he had been standing, an arrow was still quivering from where it stuck fast to the silver glowing tree. "What…" Neku started as he turned around, but his breath died on his lips at what he saw.

A beautiful silver blade lightly pressed against Rhyme's throat, the girl frozen to keep from slicing herself against the pristine sharp edge. She stared at Neku with wide blue eyes, her fear obvious. Standing behind her and holding the stunning sword was what Neku figured to be Mr. Hanekoma's Highground form.

At about six foot two towered a panther that walked like a human. His fur was darkest black that glimmered faintly in the golden light, and from behind him extended a striking pair of black angelic wings. Physically he was beautiful, his well toned shape obvious from the highlights and shades of his sparkling fur, and his clothes were of an Egyptian god. Resting against his bare chest lay bands of gold and glittering green the same vibrant shade as his eyes. Around his waist he had tied a simple white hemmed in green clothe, and from a belt hung the scabbard for his blade, his longbow and quiver tossed carefully aside.

Those brilliant green eyes met Neku's gaze, a long, thick, and gorgeous tail swaying from side to side slowly. He spoke to the boy, and said, "Haha, you two better keep your guard up! You're playin' in my field now, and I don't grant second chances." With another rumbling laugh he released Rhyme, then gave his powerful black wings a flap and jumped into the air, spiraling up around the trunk of the silver glowing tree.

The young girl stumbled and fell to her knees, but her blue gaze was focused upwards and she was holding a Pin, her dark aura fluctuating with raw power. This time she had pulled out Black Jupiter, and from her hand erupted screaming black lightning. The eerie electricity quickly snaked itself up the glowing trunk right behind the panther's long tail and catching up to it. Rhyme was about to grin at the hit, but her expression hardened when the black electric power diverted to a shining band wrapped around his tail and fizzled out to nothing.

Cursing under her breath, she searched for another Pin while Neku drew out his crimson blade, his eyes on the flying panther. The mighty being swooped down and landed behind Neku with sword swinging, but the boy had vanished. He reappeared right behind the panther with his attack already in motion, but his blade came to a sparking crash against silver. Struggling against the panther in a test of strength with their blades crossed, Neku stared him down eye to eye, growling.

The panther gave him a toothy grin, then suddenly stopped bracing against Neku's force with a step to the side. This quick movement made Neku stumble just one step, but it was enough for silver to slice him open. Blood quickly flooded the cut in his left side and instinctively he pressed his hand against it. Lucky. It wasn't deep.

Balls of roaring dark energy surged through the air from Rhyme's Black Venus Pin, in the direction of the panther. He easily dodged this attack by becoming airborne with a powerful leap. From above he called, "Fierce courage, when joined by sinister wisdom and merciless power, shall surely break the gods' spell over all!" He was grinning with the rush, like it was all some kind of fun game to him.

He came down again with blade ready, Neku only managing to block it in time. The impact sent him flying back, but he merely vanished and regained control of his momentum. Using it, he found a way to overcome his human limitations by leaping high – to the point where he could have easily picked that silver fruit if he desired – and headed for the panther.

Busy with dodging more bullets of darkness, the panther didn't realize what Neku had done, giving the Player the element of surprise. Neku mimicked his own injury and merely grazed a light cut in the panther's side. When the panther turned to strike at Neku in surprise, the boy had already vanished into thin air. He expended the Pin getting himself safely back on ground, so he would have to wait for the reboot.

"Ah, getting strategic now, eh? Brilliant!" the panther called from above, his silver blade dancing between his paws. Neku braced himself as the panther came charging down at full speed, sword ready. At the last moment, black wings gave a powerful flap and the force of impact was eased. Sparks flew from the blades, but before it could become another test of strength, Neku threw his weight into it from an angle and pushed the silver sword aside.

He went for the opening he had just made, but the panther quickly compensated by swinging his great tail, the metal band wrapped around it deflecting the blade. Unbalanced from the shift in direction, Neku vanished from sight as a cleaving blow sliced the air he had just occupied an instant before.

Rich green eyes scanned around for Neku, but the panther had to move away as Rhyme came running towards him with black fire blazing from her hands. "Stop flying and hold still, damnit!" Rhyme said as she switched from Black Mars back to Black Venus, which had just rebooted.

The panther flicked his tail playfully as he waited for the dark aura shots, then he cut each one in half with his sword, the silver slicing through the black as if it were a physical body and not raw energy. While the mystic being was distracted with that, Neku struck with a fast, precise combo, and it landed.

With his crimson blade in one hand and the lightning Pin in his other, Neku swung the sword directly at the waving tail, hitting the ring at just the right angle to send it flying off. Not missing a step, he aimed and fired blue lightning towards the black cat. This time, the lightning had an effect.

Striking the panther mid-back, the blue electricity left a star shaped burn mark from impact. He roared in pain as high voltage raced through his entire body, making every nerve ending feel like fire. Once it subsided, he slumped a little and stumbled, but surprisingly he stayed on his feet. Rhyme had seen what Neku had done, so she tried using Black Jupiter again, but before she could launch her attack the panther was zooming up into the air.

The expression on the panther's face was hard, all playfulness gone. Neku knew he was going to be in for the fight of his life now. While the black cat took a moment to clear his head, Neku used a combination of his time bomb Pin, the lightning Pin, and the teleportation Pin, creating a controlled explosion that he used to propel himself up and into the air, straight for the hovering panther. His crimson blade was bared, and he struck at the cat as he appeared in the air in front of him.

The panther gave a fierce growl and roughly shoved Neku's blade out of the boy's hand. The Pin fell from Neku's grip, the red sword disappearing as it dropped, but he was already raising his other hand with a back up plan. With a flex of thought, blue fire erupted from his left hand and struck the panther's arm as he turned to shield his face from the blow. Neku tisked and vanished from sight again with another controlled blast of a bomb, sending him up higher.

Roaring with pain and battle lust, the panther gave his mighty black wings a flap, dilated green eyes completely focused on finding Neku. From below, Rhyme gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes in concentration, taking careful aim with Black Jupiter. A blink of an eye later and black lightning shot forth, aimed for the panther who had seemed to let his guard down. The lightning flew almost too fast to see, but somehow without even turning, the panther's blade caught the electricity and absorbed it without so much as a little zap to the wielder.

Rhyme swore loudly, looking around her for something else to use rather than her Pins, because they were not working here. Neku meanwhile appeared for an instant, balanced perfectly on a faintly glowing branch, but he disappeared as the dark cat came roaring up after him. Silver flashed and sliced a branch on the mystic, fruit bearing tree, and the panther screamed in pure rage. Neku was headed back for the ground to retrieve his crimson blade.

Appearing next to the girl and panting fiercely, Neku gasped, "Ha-have you seen my Pin?" She pointed without words in the direction she had seen the small glinting object, but her eyes were cast in a different direction. From above, the panther gave a furious roar and fell into a spiraling dive-bomb to reach the ground as quick as physically possible. While Rhyme darted off between some trees and beyond sight, Neku was left to scramble for his sword Pin before that sharp silver edge found him. Where was Rhyme going?

Neku didn't have much time to think about it. As soon as he scooped his Pin up from the soft dew covered grass, he barely had the time to activate it to block the panther's slashing attack. The point of the silver sword had managed to graze Neku's cheek, but thankfully it had not done more. A small trail of blood oozed down the boy's face, and the panther grinned.

His expression fell, however, and his right wing gave a violent twitch. Neku chanced a glance, and he saw the sharp tip of an arrow, glowing with raw dark energy. The panther roared in pain and finally turned his attention away from Neku, away from the boy and towards the girl. He growled, snarling and baring his sharp white teeth at Rhyme. The girl held another arrow already notched in the bow, string pulled taunt and waiting for the release. Her dark aura fluctuated and attached itself to the arrow, and once it burned on it like black fire, Rhyme let it fly.

Slicing the darkly poisonous arrow right in half with a brilliant ring of silver, the panther surged forward with blade held high in one hand and sharp gleaming claws exposed on the other, both aimed for Rhyme's throat in what could be a precise and deadly two swipe combo. The girl dropped the bow and stood at the ready, her hands held down by her sides and glowing with dark energy, her fingers curling and uncurling.

Just as the panther reached her, his sword curving down in a graceful arc meant to glide right through her jugular, she brought both of her hands swinging upwards, a different Pin in each hand. The two Psyches acted instantaneously, and from her palms flew electrified black water orbs. They burst upon contact, coating the black cat in sticky water that shocked him harder than Neku's initial blue lightning, the black water acting as a conductor to intensify the charge all over his body.

She dropped her hands, watching as the panther fell on his knees, sword tumbling away from his slack and twitching fingers to lay harmlessly on the vibrant green grass. Taking a step back, she moved just as the cat slumped forward, paralyzed. Black lightning still licked across his soaked fur, making his body convulse slightly as the power expended itself in a sort of echo effect through his body, hitting him again and again with decreasing intensity.

By the time he could move again, he felt the tip of a sharp sword pressing very lightly against the nape of his neck. For a moment there was silence, a light warm breeze stirring the leaves high above their heads and making the patterns of light and shadow dance around the Players who stood over the Fallen Angel. Then, the black panther gave a deep and rumbling chuckle.

"Good job, Rhyme and boss. You did it," he grunted in a tone that told the Players that the fight was indeed over. Neku let the red sword fade and stepped away, giving the panther room to roll over and catch his breath. The girl, however, dropped to sit on the ground with her back to a tree. She promptly crossed her arms and buried her face, showing that she had no interest whatsoever for whatever Mr. Hanekoma wanted to say.

Neku was all ears.

After several long minutes, the panther was finally able to sit up. First, he gripped the arrow that still protruded from his black feathered wing and ripped it free with a pained growl, tossing it aside. Then, he began to lick the long burn along his left arm, and as he licked it, a cool green light encompassed his entire body from that point of contact. When the light faded, the wounds were somewhat healed, but the panther would always bear a white star shaped scar cutting through his velvet black fur on his back as well as a spiraling flame mark curling around his arm.

Flexing his newly healed arm and looking at the gleaming white marks, he nodded with his approval. "Very good… very good." His green gaze lifted to meet Neku eye to eye, and the panther said, "I can now tell you the purpose of this Game, of why you two are here in the HG." He got to his feet, his long thick tail swaying as he watched the two Players. As he took in a breath to finally explain, Rhyme looked up at him with such emotion in her blue eyes that he held his tongue in favor of what she wanted to say.

"Can you at least tell me who shot me?" she asked, suddenly standing and approaching the tall black cat. "I want to know, so I can get revenge on the fucker. Whoever killed me shot someone very close to me… They don't deserve to live." Rhyme fell quiet, but her clutched fists were trembling violently with her suppressed rage and sorrow.

The panther's eyes studied the girl standing before him now, seriously taking her in and gaze penetrating to her very soul, from where her now black aura originated. After a long and silent revision, the cat merely shook his head and said, "No… that bit of information is not for me to give. I'm sorry, but I can't answer that. However, I can tell you why you're here now…"

Rhyme bit back a sour and crude remark, turning away. She didn't want to listen, but deep down she was desperate to know what stupid reason could be worth more than her life, and her shaky but blossoming affection for Shiki, for the older girl that had to die for Rhyme's sake. What idiotic, pathetic logic could be worth all of that suffering? She knew there couldn't be anything, but she still wanted to know why. At least they were being blessed with that much.

Turning back to look at Neku, the panther said, "Currently, you two are participating in a Game being held on the HG, by a certain circle of Higher Beings. This particular Game is very special, and very important, for several reasons: one reason is that a Game of this magnitude has not taken place since the dawn of this reality; another reason is the end result of this Game will determine the very future and destiny for several planes of existance at once. You two are both very important people, and very powerful. It was no accident that you two were brought here, to the HG.

"In the previous Game, Neku had proved himself strong in the face of overwhelming odds, and exceeded the expectations of him as a pawn for a bigger plan, rising up and in the end turning the outcome that was supposed to be beyond his control.

"Even though you lived through three weeks of hell that no one should ever be forced to suffer, Neku, you still managed to find heart, and discovered the real key that none of us could see, that we didn't realize we had given to you from the very start. You single handedly changed the entire outcome across three planes, when you were but a mere speck on the entire picture who's course had already been predetermined. That is why you are here, in this Game.

"Rhyme…" He paused until the girl would finally look at him, and he gave her a small smile. "Your pure heart and compassion brought you here. In the first Game, you fell into a long period of darkness due to being yet another pawn in someone else's grand plan, the trigger to ignite the proxy Neku, and yet you did it willingly and without regrets. In the process, you lost something most precious to you and never recovered it, but from the very start it was destined that you would lose. You had no choice; it just had to be that way.

"Now, you've been given a second chance at what you had lost, and an opportunity to gain so much more in return for your first unrealized sacrifice. That is why you are here, in this Game." A sort of stillness followed these words, the tall cat peering down upon the two humans standing before him in meditative silence. Not a breath of a word was uttered for several long, painfully tense moments, and finally Mr. Hanekoma went on to explain the rest of what he was allowed to tell them.

"As to what this Game is about exactly… Win this Game, and you will become the most powerful being across three planes of existence. At the very beginning of this reality's cycle, a similar Game had taken place; during which it had already been decided that by the twilight of this cycle, a second Game would be held to find the one to lead us through the long night ahead and to the end of this reality. Mind you, that is still millennia away, but twilight has already fallen on our time."

He became silent, and for the first time Neku realized that the light around them was starting to fade into the cooler shades of dusk. The panther's words were very confusing, but the two Players would wait for him to go on, holding their questions. "Before I tell you what exactly it is you struggle for, I want to tell you about the first Game held here, on the Highground.

"At the dawn of our timeline, four Players participated in a Game where the one who proved to be the worthiest was given a very important and heavy responsibility. You already know three of those Players, the three of us who did not win that Game."

These words were followed by a quick moment of silence, but Rhyme interjected, "Wait, you've been around since… since the beginning of time?" The panther gave a nod, flicking his tail as he went on before the girl could ask more.

"Yes, me as well as Joshua, Minamimoto, and the winner of that first Game. Of course, since that time, a few of us have fallen a little from grace, but we do what we have to…" He flexed his now black feathered wings to emphasize what he meant. Neku was a little surprised to hear that Mr. Hanekoma, Joshua, and Minamimoto had lost that first Game. It made him wonder what kind of powerful being had managed to beat them all…

A thought hit him, and he blurted out, "There can only be one winner, right? Just like the Reaper's Game?" Silence followed this statement, and Rhyme looked at Neku, fearing the implications. Green eyes softened with sympathy, the black cat giving his answer without having to voice it. He went on.

"The Game lasted for seven days, just as the Reaper's Game does, which purposefully mimics that first Game. Through those seven days, we had to survive hell and high water, learning to trust one another as well as finding inner enlightenment just to make it day by day. By the end of that week, we were all tired, not certain if any of us could go on but knowing that we had no other choice.

"Right now, you two are participating in the second most important Game to ever take place in our time. You two are playing for the highest position in existence; in several existences, actually. The winner becomes the big boss of… well, of everything, and tomorrow is the final day. Congratulations, you two are nearly there, but… tomorrow will be the hardest day of your whole life. Tomorrow, you will finally meet the current Game Master of this timeline."

Rhyme sat down hard on the jungle floor. The Game Master of their entire subsistence? The position almost sounded like something akin to being God… Suddenly, the girl started to chuckle. The sound grew into a loud, uproarious laugh, and she said, "Oh, so we are in heaven, and tomorrow we get to meet God! 'Hello, God, thanks for killing me not just once, but twice! I love playing these Games, they're so much fun! I hope I win, so I can make someone else just as miserable as me!' Man, and here I thought that God would always be beyond me." Her words were bitter and her expression fierce, but her anger quickly melted away as the exhaustion from the situation hit her.

She averted her eyes, holding her silence; however, her distress was still apparent. Something else Mr. Hanekoma had said tickled at the back of Rhyme's mind, but she ignored it. The one thing that screamed through her head was Shiki. No one had mentioned Shiki, or the reason for why she needed to be shot too, but Rhyme was starting to think that it had something to do with her entry fee. Suddenly her gaze turned on Neku, her mind pondering the weight of that circumstance. If what Mr. Hanekoma said was true, and Rhyme was pretty damn sure he wasn't lying, then one of the two Players had to lose. With Shiki on the line, Rhyme knew it would not be her. She couldn't let the older girl suffer for the mess Rhyme had been pulled into.

The cat and the boy said nothing to Rhyme's outburst, but they both felt a stab of pain for the young and kindhearted girl who certainly did not deserve the place she was in. With a twitch of his long black tail, Mr. Hanekoma said, "Well, for now you two rest here, in this garden. Tomorrow comes soon enough." He lashed out with a quick jab that struck the glowing silver tree and held out both paws. Two beautiful, perfectly ripe silver fruit fell and landed, one fruit per paw, and he presented the mysterious fruit to the two Players. Without a word Rhyme and Neku took the offering, and a blink of an eye later they were alone, a warm breeze stirring the grass where the Fallen Angel had stood a moment before.

Rhyme studied the soft silver peach in her hand, letting everything run through her mind slowly. Long after they had finished eating the energy filling fruit, Rhyme looked up at Neku with an expression that clearly stated she wanted to say something. After a few quiet moments, she asked, "If tomorrow is the final day, then this Game is only six days long… Doesn't that seem a little strange to you?"

Neku quickly turned away to hide his expression, mumbling an agreement, "Y-yeah, that is kinda weird…"

- End Day 5…