Chapter 4: Savior?

"…Wake up…"

As if on instinct, Sora immediately opened his sapphire eyes and sat up, his face suddenly drained of color. He carefully looked around slowly, undoubtedly noticing his area. The Scramble Crossing. He saw the same people he saw about an hour ago; mushy couples, emo kids, clueless teens, the whole nine yards. Neither Rhyme nor Beat was in sight.

'The Scramble…? But I was just at Leon's house…'

He let out a sharp breath he didn't know he was holding and proceeded to stand. As he stood up, a small clink sounded on the ground, making him look down. It was a pin with a decal of a graffiti skull. Or something like that. Sora shrugged off the thought and picked it up, sliding it into his pants pocket.

'I have to get back.'

Sora couldn't wrap his head around the questions that glared at him.

1: No one was home. Not Leon. Not the girls. No one. Everyone there with the exception of Xion would've called him if they had to go somewhere, but where did they go?

2: Even after Naminé called him, Leon never called back, being the overprotective brother he is. And when she called, she sounded frantic. That was rare, considering that Naminé was almost never frantic. It's been that way since they were kids.

3: Leon NEVER leaves his phone. It didn't matter where he was. He could be in the bathroom and would still have his phone. It was his life.

And 4:

'Who the HELL was that guy in the house? Where did he come from? How did he know my name?'

Sora shook his head, trying to relieve his poor brain from the growing headache that threatened to form. He turned around slowly and began walking back to the house. He stopped midway after realization hit. He was talking to Beat and Rhyme so much so that he didn't notice his surroundings. In other words, he forgot where to go. He scanned the area then walked to the closest stationary person to him, which was a girl propped up against a building. She had long ebony tresses with two thin neat braids that framed her pale face and halted at her mid-thigh with the brightest violet eyes he had ever seen. The tips of her bangs were highlighted a light brown that flared out to the left side of her face. She sported a light saffron yellow and dark red sailor uniform shirt, dark aqua blue pleated skirt which had a single white stripe on the hem, and black on brown knee high socks and penny loafers. The kerchief on her uniform was the same dark ruby color as the collar of her Those bright violet pools of hers were glaring at the small screen of her standard flip phone with black and red tribal designs on the back. The charm that hung from her phone was a black heart outlined in red; it had two skewed lines on the inside of the heart that resembled thorns and the bottom of said heart flared out in three directions. Sora walked forward and stood in front of her.

"Hey… Um…I'm kinda lost. Can you help me get to A-East?" Sora smiled as he fake laughed. The girl, however, didn't answer so he tried again. "Hello?" He said again, waving a hand in her face.

Not even a flinch.

She snapped her phone closed and sighed softly, stepping forward. Sora instinctively took the same amount of steps back. They continued this until Sora's foot hit a dip in the curb and fell backwards, landing on his butt.

"H-Hey! I'm sorry about waving my hand in your face…I-I was just trying to get your attention!" Sora stated.

But what Sora didn't realize is that she didn't hear him – much less see him. She walked straight through him as though he was air.

'Wha? What just happened?'

He stood up and stared at her for a moment before someone else passed through him in the same manner.

'What the hell just happened? What's going on?' He thought to himself. He was scared…horrified. And for the very first time, he wished he was back home, with his mom and Leon. Back when Ansem was never in the picture. Sora spun around and looked for someone to talk to, trying to get anyone's attention.

That, however, was an epic fail.

He felt tears gather in his sapphire eyes. Nothing made sense. He felt that whatever he did, those people would see him as invisible. Sora screamed into the air as loud as he could in one last attempt to be heard. But alas, no one turned. Everyone around him didn't so much as give him a sideways glance.

'Please…can someone help me…'

'…Leon…'

At this point, the tears were completely developed and were flowing down his cheeks like streams. He couldn't stop them. They refused to stop. After a few minutes of crying, a loud roar sounded near the center of the plaza, close to Sora. He turned quickly to come face to face with a large creature, which looked like a mammoth. The brunette took a step back as its vibrant lime green eyes bore into his own frightened sapphire ones. The creature was unusually majestic in size with orchard skin and violet tribal-looking tattoos; though its front legs and trunk looked more like…graffiti, violet and pink respectively. Hatred filled its eyes as the creature stomped the ground only once, making Sora effectively fall over for the second time that day. When his elbow hit the curb, he gripped it tightly with a sharp yell. It howled loudly, stomping the ground again with extreme force. By the time it came within 3 feet of him, Sora had already recovered and was on his feet, running as fast as he could. He didn't know where to go and since nobody seemed to hear or help him, he simply ran. It was gaining on him. For every 10 steps he made, there was a fierce earthquake-status stomp behind him. He cringed when his arm decided that every move he made would be painful. It burned.

"Help! Please, someone help!"

His cries went unheard as he and the monster played cat and mouse down the street. His heart was jumping into his throat too many times to count and his head was pounding way too hard for comfort. Things weren't making sense. Why couldn't anyone hear him? Why was that thing chasing him? Where was Leon? Why couldn't he save him?

'Why me!?'

From the corner of his eye, the brunette noticed a flash of pink flying towards him. He tried to speed up his pace to avoid being struck, but it had collided with his head with extreme force. He flew to the bottom platform of the Hachiko statue as his head crashed into it, ultimately making him scream in pain.

'Oh… so statutes don't apply?' The voice in the back of his head screamed.

The monster began to approach him, obviously hell-bent on killing him. Its eyes glowed with a sinister presence about it, almost deadly. All the poor brunette could was stare into them with the fear of 10,000 slaves for the next last moments of his miserable life. He couldn't move his body at all. He didn't even notice the figure behind the monster charge toward him.

"Hey! Kid, get up!"

Sora clutched his head in his hand and sat up slowly onto his knees. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open as the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. The brunette coughed it up as the person that called him came closer to him. He carefully peered over to him, careful not to make any sudden movements to agitate his already rattled brain.

"Leon?..." he mumbled. The person in his eyes looked too blurry to make out an exact figure. For all he knew, it could've been some random pedophile or an assassin. His imagination was broad enough for the assassin bit to be possible and given the series of previous events, anything was possible.

"Don't know 'em. Are you player number 47?" the person asked. Said person turned his attention to the creature, watching it while he awaited a response.

'Oh…a boy…' he pondered.

"Wha? I-I don't understand…who…who are you?" Sora mumbled, obviously still disoriented from his collision. The boy sighed and grabbed Sora's hand roughly, not caring about the boy's wince from the pain and stared down at his palm. A bright red 47 formed in his palm and vanished just as fast as it came. The brunette's sapphire blue eyes widened as he saw the number appear and disappear quickly. "Wh-what the hell…? What did that mean…? What's going on?"

"You gotta make a pact with me." The other said sternly. "There's no time to waste on questions! You'll just have to trust me!"

Sora looked at the monster beginning to approach them slowly. The confused boy was hesitant to say the least and genuinely worried more of the outcome of this 'pact' than the creature itself. He heard the austere eagerness in his voice, clasping the part of 'no time to waste on questions'.

But he just had to ask.

"What's gonna happen…if I do?" the brunette said. In that instant, he watched as the boy seized him by his shirt rather roughly and stared into Sora's terrified optic stems.

"You'll live a bit longer! Now accept already before we'll both freakin die!" the boy shouted.

Sora was officially more terrified of the boy grabbing his shirt than both the creature and the 'pact' put together. He had enough venom in his voice to rival and possibly surpass Ansem's. He had to shake the fear that resonated in his soul as the boy had instructed earlier.

"A-Alright! I accept!" He gulped.

The very moment he said yes, an extremely bright blue light engulfed them both. Sora looked around fearfully, waiting for something to manifest and attack them. But it never showed. His body felt lighter as he felt something link with his heart, mind, and soul; like a tight bond. Once the light faded from their bodies, the 'venom boy' charged toward the creature fearlessly. Sora screamed behind him.

"Wait! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! THAT THING'S LIKE TWICE YOUR FREAKIN SIZE!" He shouted. His hand instantly went to his mouth as he coughed and gagged. The metallic taste was back and more bitter than ever. He felt something wet drip from his forehead onto the ground. He didn't have to look at it to know what it was. He knew. Blood was denser than water and the liquid that was dripping onto the ground was slow to drip.

Sora's eyesight was beginning to fail him once more as he looked back to 'venom boy' to see him returning to him.

The monster was no longer behind him. Almost as if it vanished into thin air. He stood above Sora quietly, staring him down.

"Wh-Where did it go?" Sora asked, wiping blood from his mouth.

"Away. You're new to this, aren't you?" He asked calmly.

At that point, Sora snapped.

"New…?" He started. "New to WHAT? From the moment I woke up I've been ignored, walked through, stared down, chased, and launched into a statue of a dog, head first with the blood to prove it! I can't find my brother or my friends coupled with the fact that my head wants to freakin explode from the fucking splitting headache that I have and you're asking me if I'm NEW TO THIS? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL! IS BEING CHASED DOWN BY A PINK AND PURPLE ELEPHANT SUPPOSED TO BE THE FUCKIN NORM AROUND HERE!?" Sora screamed. He didn't care about the blood dripping from his chin. He didn't care about the headache that threatened to damage his brain. He didn't even care about the injury itself. He just wanted to go home. He took in a shaky breath and allowed his gaze to sink to the ground. The boy knelt down beside him and placed a calm hand on Sora's shivering shoulders.

"And screaming won't help that headache of yours. We shouldn't talk here…I can explain everything when we get to Cat Street. We'd be a lot safer there than we are here." The boy said sympathetically, his hand grabbing for Sora's wrist. Sora lifted his head to 'venom boy' as he sniffled. He followed him into a standing position. "Do you think that you could hold on a little longer until we get there?"

The brunette nodded.

"Good."

Sora rubbed the mixture of clear and red liquid from his eyes. He then took a good look at his savior. He had orange hair that was just as spiky as his own; dull sapphire blue eyes and pale skin. He donned a purple sleeveless turtleneck that was quite loose around his neck, white shorts, purple sneakers and to top it off, a pair of purple stereo headphones that connected to the white mp3 player around his neck. The redhead held out his right hand for a proper greeting.

"I'm Sakuraba Neku ." he said. The brunette took his hand and shook it lightly.

"Sora…Sora Leonheart…" he responded.

The boys began their small journey down to Cat Street quietly. The wounds on the brunette prevented him from advancing any faster than he needed to. That worried Neku. The more steps he took, the more blood he lost to where a trail of blood soon followed behind them. The redhead grimaced at the sight; watching the staggering boy barely follow behind him.

'This is taking too long…at this rate, we won't last a day…' Neku sighed. He pulled his royal blue cellphone from his pocket and flipped it open, pressing some buttons before placing it up to his ear. It rang about 5 times before someone actually answered.

"Hey Neku."

"Hey. Tell Mr. H to get a medical kit and that bed ready."

"Huh? Why? OH MY GOD! ARE YOU HURT? I TOLD YOU TO BE CAREFUL!"

Neku sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not me dammit. My partner took a critical hit and he needs help."

"So you found him…But can't you fix him right there?"

"No. I didn't think I'd need some of them and left them at the shop."

"Ugh….you should really consider what COULD happen instead of what you think WOULDN'T happen out there, Neku." The voice sighed.

"Thanks for the advice. When I need it, I'll ASK you for it. Now will you go tell him?" the redhead growled exasperated. Time was running out and this idiot wanted to give him advice.

Talk about bad timing.

He heard footsteps behind him indicating that Sora had finally caught up.

"He left a little while ago but since you sound so desperate, I'll do it instead."

"Thank you. I'll meet you later."

"You owe me Neku Sakuraba." And with that, that person on the other end hung up. He sighed and in one swift motion, shut his phone and stuffed into his pocket.

"Neku…" Sora whispered. He heard his name and spun around quickly.

"What's up? You feelin ok?"

"No…My head's gonna split…How much further to Cat Street…?"

Neku then turned his attention to his surroundings. People chatted by in the street all around them as the 104 building obscured his vision of the sun.

"We're almost there, Sora. Just hold on a bit longer, kay?" Neku begged. Sora, however, fell to his knees. He was at his limit. He looked paler than he earlier. So sickly. So drained. Almost like death.

Neku then moved closer to him. He knelt down in front of him and grabbed his uninjured arm carefully. And as he did, Sora released a shaky breath.

"Sora, C'mon. We got this."

Sora nodded softly as he tried to stand on his feet. He suddenly winced and fell back down, all energy lost.

"Hey!" Neku shook him lightly but to no avail. The injured boy fell onto the ground. His entire body was now throbbing in pain and his arm and head was hurting even more. He carefully began to close his eyes as his hearing failed him.

"Is this what it's like to die…?"

~*Psyren*~