Story: Mind the Gap (French version available : "Intervalles")

Date: 9 March 2022

Beta: None

Fandom: The World End With You

Disclaimer: No, I do not own TWEWY and do not make money with this story

Summary: Choosing to not erase himself and the whole city has consequences that Joshua would have loved to not deal with. But, well, that was his choice and he will stick to it. Especially considering he doesn't quite want to see Shibuya, Sanae, Neku and the others definitely erased anymore. Saving his precious things with half his powers binded and an interdiction of meddling, thanks to the Angels, is going to be tough but he has all faith in himself. Mostly.

Trigger du chapitre: mention of attempted suicide

Tadaaam, New Fic ! Well, not that new since I've been working on it for month but... I needed someting to work on and post it that why I participated on the Twewy Big Bang 2022 with it and as you can see, it worked admirably well ! So here we are, the firsts chapters and I'll try to update it each months after that.

My partners for this Big Bang were John (TWEWYCrimes on twitter) and Soundofez (Soundofez on Tumblr and Twitter)! They illustrated scenes from chapters 7 and 8 respectively, don't hesitate to check out the drawings!

Enjoy your Reading !

It was strange to be there again. Sitting above 104, the lights of the shops making the city glow in the dark. He had said goodbye to this view a month before, convinced that he would never see it again.

But Neku did as he pleased.

So there he was again, enjoying the wind on his face, and wondering what he was going to do in the morning. It must be said that he had not been shy at all in his attempt at self-destruction. All his officers were dead, he no longer had a conductor, Hanekoma was on the verge of having his wings torn off and there were barely a quarter of his reapers left. He had saved a few here and there if he happened to come across them when they were wiped out and they weren't totally inept, but he was far from having a functioning team.

But all this could wait a few more hours.

The sun light was beginning to rise behind the tall skyscrapers and a few people were gradually emerging from the buildings and walking down the street with tired steps. Another two or three hours and Joshua would have to put his... guests in their place. Glancing behind him, Joshua stared at the blue bubbles with a conflicted expression. There, two steps away from him, in four transparent shields, floated his game partners.

His' because Neku had made a pact with Joshua, Shiki and Beat, and Beat had made another with Rhyme, so the five of them had managed to get tied together. It wasn't a very good idea, most of the time. All it took was for one of them to get killed and everyone else would die, and getting them all to sync up together was a nightmare. But when you did... the Vibe you got was so powerful that it was like an Angel. That is, if there were only players. With Joshua... well, let's just say there was a nice extra boost.

It was only because they had proved to him that it was possible that Joshua had saved them all. Not because Neku would have hated him if he'd brought him back alone, not because he'd gotten to know them by watching them so closely, and certainly not because, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Joshua had felt understood, as if he were part of a whole complementary. Like different but perfectly fitted pieces of a complex and beautiful puzzle.

Not at all.

Yet it would have been so simple to leave them dead. It would have been enough to wait a few more hours until the last shades of their Vibe had irretrievably disappeared from the accessible planes. And that was it. Instead, having waited a little too long, frozen as he was with his head full of whydidn'theshootedwhydidn'theshootedwhydidn'theshootedme!, Joshua had to painfully take them all into a dormant world so he could rebuild them from scratch. It had taken him the better part of the evening and night, but he had succeeded.

And now...

Now he allowed himself a break, a time out, just a small intermission before the next act. In a few hours, he would alter the city's memory, reintroduce the four teenagers to their lives as if nothing had happened, and go plead his case in the high places to avoid his own incarceration and Sanae's fall.

But in the meantime, he was enjoying his time in abeyance, surrounded by his city and his partners. In peace.

That is, until a flutter of wings made his lips curl down.

"The rules of politeness state that you must notify the composer before you can visit his city." Joshua stated calmly, painfully looking away from the protective shields to focus on the newcomer.

"My apologies, I didn't think there would be a Composer left to warn." Haz replied softly and Joshua rolled his eyes, as if, of course there would be! When he himself had been convinced of the contrary only a few hours earlier.

Not seeming to understand Joshua's hostility, Hazuki approached his counterpart before sitting gracefully beside him to look around the city with some curiosity. "Its music is as discordant as the last time I was here. Why didn't you purify it as planned?"

"Hmmm, not quite." Joshua contradicted and he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the other Angel frown confusedly. Not seeing Joshua elaborate, Haz closed his eyes and reached out to listen. Josh let him listen in more detail and took the opportunity to look at the bubbles. The four humans were still carefully asleep, floating blissfully unaware of anything.

"She seems a bit healthier." Haz suddenly admitted and Joshua refocused his attention on him. "But just barely."

"Barely." Joshua agreed. "But it's still an improvement. I thought Shibuya was lost, that there was no chance of her being saved and yet..."

"So... you're not going to cleanse it? Only because there's a faint hope that it'll get over it on its own?" Haz insisted and Joshua smiled. "But wouldn't it be more efficient and quicker to cleanse it? Start over on a blank slate?"

"Surely." He replied with a shrug but did not explain his choice further.

Frustrated, Haz pointed to the bubbles on the other side of Joshua. "Why make it hard for yourself? Is it because of them?"

Yes

"Of course not." scoffed Joshua, "But I gambled and I lost. I'm just respecting our bet."

Hazuki didn't seem convinced, and rightly so. Joshua was known to be a bit... free with the rules. He was only left alone most of the time because he was getting results that were previously unthinkable. It wasn't until Haz looked away from the humans that Joshua realized he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "Shinjuku is stagnating." he declared and Joshua exhaled softly before returning to a bored look.

"Oh yeah? So what, you want to purify it too?"

Hazuki nodded. "Clinging to Shibuya as it is, it would only hinder your efforts to rebuild. Minato is unstable as well, this would risk spreading and making the situation worse."

"Seen like that..." Joshua replied pragmatically. It was one of the reasons he'd been convinced to purify Shibuya, after all.

"The high council has accepted my proposal, they are going to send me an Executor very soon. We will attempt a reversal."

"An inversion?" Joshua muttered blankly, and Hazuki nodded, not seeming to notice his companion's sudden rigidity. "Well, this isn't going to be easy, good luck with that."

"It will be done." Hazuki stated in a deadpan tone and Joshua could almost hear the 'unlike you' that pressed against the other's tongue, barely held in by his lips.

"I don't doubt it..." Joshua murmured and he turned back to the city. Dawn was almost fully upon them now and a beautiful sunrise burned the tall buildings red. Hazuki soon disappeared as he had come: with a flutter of his wings and Joshua stood up. It was time to take care of his problems... and he could add Shinjuku to the list.

Joshua had a feeling that things were not going to go as smoothly as Hazuki had described.

Hope you liked it ! Go see the other Big Bang fics, you won't regret it ;)
Think about letting a review on your way out and see you on the next chapter !