Okay, the surprise Sora gets isn't in this chapter...but it'll come! I promise!

Summary: An accident sends Neku back into the Reaper's Game, but this time it's more than accomplishing missions or even survival. Neku knows these new creatures aren't noise, and a certain keyblade-wielding teen may hold the answers for him. (Kingdom Hearts Crossover)

Playing For Keeps

By FlikFreak

Chapter Five: Clean-up Duty

Sora yawned and stretched. On a typical day, he wasn't a morning person, but his adventures to the different worlds had changed that pretty quickly. It was hard to sleep in Shibuya, anyway…there were plenty of sounds to keep him from nodding off. Glancing around, Sora noticed that they were in what appeared to be some sort of concert area. He could barely see a thing. Standing, Sora spotted Neku not far away, looking toward the exit of the tunnel they were in and crossing his arms. He seemed upset about something.

I'd be upset if I were him too, Sora mused. After all, he died a few days ago. He's never going to be able to see his friends again. He paused a moment, considering the fact. Sora had fought alongside a dead person once before, and it hadn't been all that strange. Even so, something was simply different about Neku. He was a lot younger, and he certainly hadn't been summoned out of the underworld to do someone else's bidding.

Neku must have noticed Sora waking up, as he grunted quietly and and turned to him. "About time you woke up," he said. "The mission hasn't come yet."

Rubbing the palm of his hand unconsciously and noticing there was no burning sensation, Sora nodded. "So, what do we do for now?"

"Not much to do," Neku replied. "For starters, though, we could try getting past that wall."

Sora glanced over to where Neku was gesturing to and did a double-take. "What wall?" he asked. "I don't see anything."

"Trust me," Neku said. "There's a wall there."

"All I see is the street outside," Sora protested calmly.

Neku shrugged. "Don't believe me? Go see for yourself."

Sora rolled his eyes and began forward. He was about to call back to Neku and say that there was indeed no wall when he slammed into something. Shocked, he stumbled backward onto his rear and stared at the world in front of him. There was a brief pattern of hexagons that rippled in the air before fading, leaving the street looking just as normal as before. "What the…"

"Told you," Neku replied. "There's a wall. They do this in the game."

"So there's an invisible wall," Sora grumbled, standing on his feet. "What now?"

Neku sighed. "We get rid of it," he said. "The problem is, I don't see a Reaper anywhere around here. Usually they tell us what objectives to meet to clear the wall, and once you reach them they use a keypin to take the wall down. Usually the objective is to clean up the noise in the area or something."

Sora eyed the place where the wall was with suspicion. "Can't we just break it?"

"No," Neku replied, groaning. "Only something insanely powerful can. A psyche probably could, but you can only use those when you're fighting noise…" he paused thoughtfully. "…well, you can use psycho-kinesis to an extent, but I doubt that'd do much."

With a quick thought, Sora summoned the keyblade and searched the wall for any sign of a keyhole. He glanced at Neku, whom was busy looking the other way at what appeared to be a tangled mess of barbed wire further down the tunnel. If psyches can be used out of battle, it must count for the keyblade, too. I've used it plenty of times for more than just fighting… Tilting his head curiously, he fingered the handle of the weapon. The tip flashed, and a small keyhole appeared. Grinning, Sora pointed the keyblade at the hole as he had done so many times before. A stream of light emerged from the weapon and surged into the hole in the invisible wall. An audible click was heard, and the hexagons rippled in the air, shattering and falling to the ground like glass before vaporizing. Quickly, Sora dismissed the keyblade.

The sound caught Neku's attention, and he spun around. "What happened?!" he cried.

"The wall going away happened," Sora replied.

"No way," Neku said, eyes wide. "Only a keypin can open those…unless you meet the objectives a Reaper gives you, then he uses his keypin to open it…"

A familiar beeping reached their ears. Shaking his head, Neku pulled out his phone and flipped it open. "Looks like we got today's mission."

"What's it say?" Sora asked.

Neku stared at his phone. "'Defeat the king of shadows. You have 120 minutes. Fail, and face erasure."

On cue, the burning sensation embedded itself into Sora's hand. Both Neku and Sora winced. "Timer's back," Sora mumbled. "Who's this king of shadows?"

"I got a mission like this in my first game," Neku said. "We had to get the electricity working again and defeat some bat noise. We would have failed if some other players hadn't come when they did. I don't think there's a bat involved this time, though"

"We've got two hours," Sora said. "That gives us plenty of time to figure this out."

"We could figure this out over a bowl of ramen," Neku suggested. "Ramen Don isn't very far from here."

Sora grinned and nodded. "Are we allowed to go in?"

"Yeah. There's always a reaper decal outside, so it's UG-friendly."

The two stepped outside and headed into the streets, passing downward past a few shops. Along the way, Sora noticed Neku pulling out a blank pin. "What's that?" he asked.

"Mr. H gave it to me when I cane to the game for the first time," Neku replied. "It's blank now, but if you're synced with your partner you can use it as a psych. I haven't seen any other players with one, though."

"Whoever made this game sure was heavy on the whole partner thing," Sora commented.

Neku snickered almost humorlessly. "He sure was," he said, "But I don't think we'll ever know why."

"What's with syncing, though?" Sora asked. "And what does the pin do when you are synced?"

"Amazing things," Neku replied vaguely, a hint of a smile on his face. "It works like another pin psych, but it takes two people to use. It's really powerful; I've seen waves of noise get wiped out when I use this thing."

Sora nodded, remembering when he had cooperated with some of his other allies in a similar way. Sometimes they had fought literally side-by-side – when paired up with Riku, he was a force to be reckoned with – and other times he had used his drive techniques to combine powers. For Neku to have a similar power certainly did surprise him, but it didn't leave him in the dark as to what it meant.

"Here it is," Neku said, jolting Sora from his thoughts. "Ramen Don. It's a great ramen shop; don't let the smell fool you."

Nodding, Sora walked into the store behind Neku and almost gagged. Indeed, the smell was terrible. It took him a few moments to adjust, which thankfully wasn't difficult. Neku took a spot at the bar and Sora followed, just getting comfortable as a voice reached his ears.

"Irasshai!"

"Hi Mr. Doi," Neku said. "How's business?"

A man in a white apron and a blue headband showed up behind the counter. Upon seeing Neku, he grinned. "Ah, Neku! It's been a while. Ever since you and Joshua helped me out, I've been getting plenty of customers! Ah…who's this?"

"This is Sora," Neku replied. "He's from out of town, so I'm showing him around a bit. We've got some errands to run, but we squeezed in just enough time to come get some ramen before we run off again."

He's pretty good at this, Sora noted. He and Joshua helped this guy out? I'll have to hear about that.

"Good to hear you're doing alright," Doi replied, the grin still on his face. "What'll you have today?"

"I'll just have the usual," Neku replied. "How 'bout you, Sora?"

Sora glanced at the menu on the wall briefly. "I'll get whatever Neku's getting," he said after a few moments' consideration.

"Right!" Doi said, heading back to the kitchen. "Two shoyu ramen, coming up!"

Once the man was safely out of earshot, Sora leaned toward Neku. "Are you sure about this?" He asked. "Aren't we on a time limit?"

"We've got plenty of time to figure out the mission," Neku replied, smiling. "Besides, Mr. Doi cooks really-"

"Here you are!"

"…fast."

Sora still wasn't quite sure about what Neku had said. Sure, figuring out the mission was all fine and dandy, but what had his mind buzzing at the moment was the ramen he was about to eat. The moment the plate was set in front of him, however, he instinctively picked up his chopsticks and took a bite. To his absolute surprise, the ramen was delicious, and he couldn't help but dig in. Next to him, Neku was doing much the same.

"So, who do you think this king of shadows is?" Sora asked.

"Dunno," Neku replied. "We'll probably get a hint at some point though. That's how it usually goes. We've been given two hours to figure out who he is, find him, and get rid of him. Maybe we'll be given a bit of leeway afterward so we can look into those dark monsters or whatever that Hanekoma was telling us about."

"Dark monsters," Sora echoed. He knew of only one kind of black monster that would get him sent to another world to investigate: heartless. This world seemed to have its own problems with noise and the Reaper's Game.

"You know something about them, don't you?"

Sora felt himself go rigid. Neku was staring at him with narrow eyes. "Wha…you know?" he asked. Wow…he's pretty smart.

Neku shrugged. "When Hanekoma mentioned 'dark creatures' yesterday, you kinda went quiet, even though you weren't given any real explanation or details. You know something. Spill the beans."

I guess I can tell him a little bit, Sora decided, sighing. "They're called heartless," he replied. "They're basically the darkness in someone's heart made real. I've had to fight them for two years, and they always keep coming."

"No wonder you're so good at fighting noise," Neku commented, slurping a bit more ramen. "You've had a lot more practice defending yourself than I have."

Sora shook his head. "I really just hope sometime it'll all end. I can't keep fighting forever. But even though it's put me through some rough times, I've met so many friends and I've done so many things I couldn't have done otherwise. I wouldn't trade anything for it."

"I guess that's one way to look at it," Neku said, standing. "Well, I've cleaned my plate. You ready to get going?"

"Yeah," Sora replied, nodding.

"Leaving already?" Doi said.

"'fraid so," Neku replied, tossing some coins onto the counter. "Keep the change."

Doi grinned. "Thanks, Neku!" he said. "Come back soon!"

Neku waved back cheerfully. "Count on it!" He said, walking out the door.

As Sora followed, giving his own farewells before he exited, he shot a curious glance to Neku. "Doesn't he know that you're dead?" he asked.

"I honestly don't know," Neku replied. "If he does, he probably thinks it's another Neku Sakuraba that's dead. I'm not exactly a celebrity in the RG, you know."

Sora was about to reply when his skin prickled with a familiar sensation. Summoning the keyblade, Sora spun around to find a small group of creatures behind him. His eyes widened when he recognized them as Neoshadow heartless. "Looks like we've got company," he said, narrowing his eyes and summoning the keyblade.

Neku quickly picked up on Sora's comment and noticed the enemies approaching. "I think we found our dark creatures," he said. "These are Heartless, right, Sora?"

"Yeah," Sora replied. "Get ready!"

"I don't know if I can fight them!" Neku cried. "We're not in a noise zone!"

Sora didn't have time to ask what a noise zone was. Two of the Neoshadows lunged forward, and he dispatched them with relative ease. He saw a few more approaching Neku and batted them away as well. Neku flung a few more away with psychokinesis, slamming them into walls and causing them to vanish into dark mist. The two remaining neoshadows began to flee, but Neku was faster, and they quickly found themselves crushed beneath a truck.

With the area now clear, Sora groaned. "Neoshadows are a pain in the neck," he grumbled.

"They're called Neoshadows?" Neku asked, his eyes lighting up all of the sudden.

"Yeah," Sora replied. "The weaker versions are just shadows, and there are stronger ones called da…wait a sec, why do you need to know?"

"Don't you get it?" Neku said excitedly. "The mission is to get rid of the source of these things!"

"But that doesn't make sense," Sora pondered. "The source of the heartless is the darkness in people's hearts. The mission said the 'king of shadows, not the source."

Neku furrowed his eyebrows and crossed his arms. "You're right. Maybe it just wants us to beat a really strong or really big heartless…but why use heartless? The reapers usually only use noise."

"Whoever's running this game must be using the heartless," Sora said. "Either that, or the heartless are using him."

"Or the Composer could be using the players to get rid of the heartless," Neku replied. "Any idea on a strong or powerful heartless, Sora?"

Sora looked upward in thought. "There are tons of big and powerful ones. If it specifically means shadows, then I think I know which one it's referring to. All we need to do is lure it out…"

"They're attracted to the darkness in people's hearts," Neku repeated. "Are they attracted to just plain darkness, too?"

"I think so," Sora replied. "Why?"

Neku grinned. "I think I know the perfect place."

"What do you mean, they've gone missing?!"

Leon nodded. "It's exactly what it sounds like," he repeated. "The king, his servants, Riku and Kairi have all vanished…at the same time."

"This is way too much to be a coincidence," Yuffie said, pacing a groove in the floor. "For it to happen so close to the time Sora stopped responding to our calls…"

Aerith, whom was standing quietly nearby, shook her head silently. "I have a bad feeling about this…something must have happened to Sora on the mission he took up, but the situation in that world wasn't all that difficult."

"Which makes it all the more suspicious," Cid grumbled. "Leon, you and Yuffie need to get to the bottom of this. Take the Excalibur and head over to Shibuya. Make sure you find out what happened to Sora and report anything you find to us immediately."

"On it," Leon replied. "Come on, Yuffie. Let's make this quick."

"You weren't kidding when you said it was dark in here," Sora said. "I can barely see a thing."

Neku grinned. He and Sora had headed back to A-East, the concert stage where they had started out. Their eyes were still adjusting to the light, but Sora had told Neku that they didn't have long before the heartless would appear.

"Can you tell me anything about this king of shadows we're expecting?" Neku asked. "Is it supposed to be some sort of giant?"

"If it's what I think it is," Sora replied, "Then it probably will be. I was once told that the closer you are to light, the greater your shadow becomes…that's when I first saw it. I've never forgotten it since then."

Neku gave Sora an odd look. Pretty true…but still, that's an odd proverb. "Who told you something like that?"

Sora shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "It was this voice that came out of nowhere." Sora paused, chuckling oddly. "You probably wouldn't believe me, but it was in this weird dream I had. I was running around along these stained glass platforms, and there was a voice guiding me… A few days after that, the heartless appeared and overran my home. At the time, it was all just a big blur, but now that it's already happened, I remember every last detail."

When Sora stopped talking, Neku suddenly found the area unnaturally silent. What the boy had said had struck him oddly. A strange dream had shown him this monster? And the way he talked about the heartless appearing for the first time…he says he's fought them for years, but why? Maybe the reason has something to do with why he doesn't seem to like talking about it…

A low whirr reached their ears. Sora took a battle-ready stance and summoned the keyblade. "It's here," he whispered. "Neku, get the lights!"

Neku, not bothering to ask Sora how he knew the creature had arrived, did so. When he did, what he saw was enormous. It was much like the Neoshadows they had encountered moments before, only this one was much, much larger. Its head, rather than simply having two straight antennae, was wrapped up in a mess of what looked like hair. Two eerie, glowing yellow eyes stared back down at the two, and there was a gargantuan heart-shaped cavity in the monster's middle. Neku, shocked, stumbled backward. "This is the king of shadows?!" he cried, noting on the side that Sora didn't seem the least bit surprised.

"Yep," Sora said, his eyes narrowed and the keyblade at ready. "We call him Darkside for short. His hands are the easiest weak spots to get to, but if one of us can climb up one of his arms and get to his head, he should be easy pickings.

He sounds sure of himself, Neku noticed. He must have fought this thing before…

The creature reached back a fist and pounded it into the ground, with Sora and Neku dodging out of the way just in time. A dark pool appeared, spreading outward, and Neku saw smaller, weaker versions of the neoshadows appearing from it. "I'll take care of the small fry!" Neku cried. "Can you get up near his head?"

"On it!" Sora cried, leaping on top of Darkside's fist and running up its arm.

Neku returned his focus to the shadows and unleashed a trail of flame at them. Unlike the Neoshadows, the smaller shadows were gone in a single hit. Unfortunately, more appeared to replace them. Damn it! Do these things ever stop coming?!

Glancing upward momentarily, Neku saw Sora deftly running up the giant's arm, keyblade over his shoulder. Satisfied that his friend was doing well enough, the music-loving player returned his attention to the shadows, finding that the pool of darkness was gone, leaving the shadows to attack him. Quickly disposing them with a few blades of wind, Neku was about to begin attacking the monster's hand when Darkside began to stand again. Now that Neku was closer, he had a much better idea of how tall this beast really was, and it wasn't very comforting.

There was a cry of shock, and Neku watched as Sora grabbed onto a stray strand of Darkside's "hair," relinquishing his grip on the keyblade in favor of keeping his position. The weapon clattered to the ground. Is he stupid?! He gave up his psyche just to stay near the weak point! "Sora! You okay?"

"I'll be fine!" the brunette yelled. "Just stay focused!"

Neku nodded. For starters, he thought, I should probably toss him the keyblade. He can't fight without a psych. But as Neku ran forward to give Sora back his keyblade, he found that the weapon had vanished. There was no time to do a double-take when the beast knelt down onto its knees and spread its arms outward, forming a sphere of white energy. There was a burst, and three smaller beams traveled outward, all three centered on Neku. He leapt out of the way of the first two, but the third slammed into his back and sent him stumbling. Scrambling to his feet, he looked upward to see that Sora was climbing back onto Darkside's shoulder, keyblade in hand. Neku's eyes widened. Wait a sec…I thought he dropped it!

There was another energy burst, and Neku quickly decided that the matter was best left unexplained for now. He quickly threw out another aero blade and struck the incoming beams of energy, deflecting them in another direction. Above, he heard Sora cry out, and looked up just in time to see the boy stab the giant in the head with his oversized key. The air rumbled as it would have if the beast bellowed out in agony, but no sound came. Sora leapt down, and the creature vanished, a glowing, heart-shaped object floating upward and vanishing.

Neku glanced down at his hands, and the timer vanished. "Mission accomplished," he said.

Sora landed on the ground, placing the keyblade on his shoulder. "Nice work, Neku."

That's one I don't get every day, Neku thought. He grinned. "Sora, did you intentionally give yourself the hard part?"

"Eh?" Sora replied, blinking. "Well, it's not necessarily the hard part…it's just a lot more dangerous. Falling from that height isn't exactly good for your health."

"You stuck your landing just fine," Neku pointed out. "What, do you fall from tall buildings on a regular basis, too?"

Sora shook his head. "No. I've just had to adapt to moving around like that."

He's using that word again. Definitely hiding something. If I'm going to get any answers out of him, now's my chance. "You adapt to a lot of things, Sora. Does the rest of your group have to do that, too?"

Sora froze. "The rest of my group?" he echoed.

Neku rolled his eyes. "Earlier you said 'we.' Are there more people like you?"

Sora hesitated, eyes wide. "Ah…well… Not really. There's a group of us that try to keep the heartless under control. I'm the newest one in the group. Everyone else has a lot more experience fighting them than me, but they consider me to be their most valuable member."

"Why?" Neku asked, suspicious. "Because you use an oversized key for a weapon? A key that just happens to disappear on its own?"

At his words, Sora's eyes widened considerably. Bingo, Neku thought, doing his best to hold back a victorious smirk. I'm definitely onto something. He's got secrets, but he's a lot easier to crack than Joshua.

Sora scrambled for his words. "Ah, well…you see…" Finally, he sighed. "Look, Neku, I'd like to tell you everything, but I'd be breaking the rules."

This caught Neku by surprise. "Rules?" He asked. "What rules? We're in the Reaper's Game."

"There are other rules I'm following than just this game," Sora said. "The heartless can thrive a lot easier when there's chaos. The rules I'm following keep order in the places I visit. Break those rules, and in comes the chaos. Someone I knew – my best friend – broke one of those rules. He didn't mean to, but he did. Because of that, my home was overrun by heartless. I'm not letting that happen again. Ever."

Neku scowled inwardly. Damn. If only I could scan him, I could get some answers! Even through his frustration, he kept his cool. "Must have been a hell of a cleanup job for an island to be run over by those things," he said sarcastically.

Sora's gaze narrowed dangerously. "Neku, when a place is overrun with heartless, it's completely destroyed; and the people that live there usually disappear with it."

Neku paused. "What…?"

"When my home was attacked by heartless," Sora began, anger in his tone, "I couldn't do a thing to stop them, even when I found the keyblade. My home just vanished, and my friends were gone too. I was lucky enough to end up in a place where someone was willing to help me, but…" The boy turned away. "Nevermind. I'm sure you're not interested in hearing me rant."

Wow, Neku thought. No wonder he's been hiding it. I'd be touchy about it too if Shibuya were to just vanish in front of me. Even when it sucks, it's still your home. "Sorry," Neku said. There wasn't much emotion in his voice, as he wasn't used to actually caring about other people, but he meant it.

Sora shook his head. "It's not your fault. You didn't know. I'm the one that should be apologizing… You probably went through some rough stuff before you died, didn't you? I'm sure you'd be kind of iffy when you talk about it."

He doesn't know he's dead, does he? Neku thought. He thinks Joshua only knocked him out… He shook his head. "My life sucked. I hated people in general, so I only had one friend. He died not too long ago, and I blamed myself for it for a long time. After I went through three weeks straight of the Reaper's Game, my look on life kind of changed. A lot happened in those three weeks…" Neku paused suddenly. Why am I talking about this? More importantly, why am I talking so comfortably about it with Sora? The last time anyone ever did this to me was when I met Hanekoma.

"And this is your fourth week?" Sora asked. "Man, that's got to be terrible."

"I beat the Reaper's game each time," Neku said. "And by beating it I mean I survived it. I'm only here a fourth time on accident, and while I'd rather not go through this crap again, this time I'm doing it for more than just myself."

Sora paused, looking upward. "Come to think of it, what do you actually get when you beat this game?" he asked. "What's the grand prize? More importantly, what happens when you lose?"

"You pay an entry fee to get into this game," Neku explained. "If you don't make it, you lose your entry fee as well as…" He paused, looking for the right words. "…well, you also lose the right to even exist."

"Reaper's Game indeed," Sora scowled. "Who'd want to play a game like this?"

Neku grit his teeth. "Everyone comes for the same reason: a second chance. That's what the prize is if you win."

Sora looked like he was about to respond when a sick look came to his face, and he rubbed his arms as though he were shivering. Cocking an eyebrow, Neku put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay, Sora?"

"No," the boy replied. "I don't feel so good. Something just feels…different. A really, really bad different. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it…"

"Heh, heh, heh."

Neku scowled. He knew that voice anywhere. He and Sora raced outside to see none other than Sho Minamimoto standing before them, a grand smirk on his face and the familiar whirr of taboo noise surrounding him. "Fancy meeting you here, Pi-face," Neku growled.

"Pie face?" Sora echoed.

"Well, if it isn't the proxy!" Minamimoto said grandly. "And the factoring hectopascal from the alley!"

Sora blinked. "Hecto-what?"

"He's making fun of you," Neku grumbled, "By using math."

"So you subtracted some of my heartless!" The math-loving reaper shouted. "Big deal! I can always make more."

"And we can always get rid of them," Sora shot back. "If you think you're so tough, get over here and fight us yourself! Stop hiding behind others to do the work for you!"

Minamimoto rolled his eyes. "Stupid zeros." He raced forward at Sora at a blindingly fast speed, slamming into him from the front. "SINE!"

Sora flew into the air from the impact. Minamimoto, however, wasn't done, and ran at him again, clawing at his back and sending him up further. "COSINE!"

There was a black blur and Sora was sent tumbling downward, crashing into the ground. "TANGENT!"

Neku raced over to Sora to see if he was alright. Thankfully, he was, but he was badly bruised. Sora pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing in pain but still giving Minamimoto a death glare. "You piece of…"

But the math geek only laughed at him. "For the legendary keyblade master, you're not as tough as I thought you'd be!"

"Keyblade master?" Neku echoed. "Legendary?"

Sora's eyes widened. "Who told you about that?!"

Minamimoto laughed. "Who gives a digit? You yoctograms don't have a right to know! Now, do me a favor and beat it."

"Why should we?" Neku protested.

But Minamimoto didn't answer. Instead, he simply left, leaving the two with only an echoing laugh.

Sora scowled, scrambling to his feet. "Get back here!"

Neku, however, didn't move. I knew Sora was hiding something, but something this big? What about this legendary stuff? Pi-face can't be making that up…can he?

GASP! Sora's friends have gone missing! ...next chapter soon!