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

Date: posted the 30 of august 2023

Beta: None

Fandom: The World End With You

Disclaimer: No, I don't own TWEWY, and I'm not making any profit from this story.

Summary: Just after the Long Game, Joshua saved and resurrected the rest of the Hashiko gang but was condemned by the Angels for his actions: He is confined to Shibuya and half of his powers have been sealed. Neku dies again, but without his powers, Joshua cannot resurrect him. He takes him to safety anyway, which leads to M.H being banished by the Angels. Joshua is left alone to manage Shibuya, well not quite since he's got Shinjuku's scum on his hands. Months pass, Joshua is struggling to manage the UG without Sanae and Kitaniji and Shiki and the other reach out with an offer of friendship. But Shinjuku's Reaper strike a coup and Joshua loose a lot of powers. He still tries his best to make the city survive. He became friend with the Hashiko Crew, keep in touch with Neku in his dream and, finally, after 3 years, succed in launching a game with his Tuners which will decide of the futur of Shibuya.

Trigger of this chapter: None I can think of


Enjoy your reading!


Kubo had been truly ecstatic when the Tuners had called him into the throne room to tell him about the Game. No doubt he was already imagining not having to pretend to be a Reaper in a small human town any more. Oh, he'd liked it at first, but Joshua had done his best to make him even more miserable than he was. No doubt, after three years of fighting tooth and nail, the idea of a complete resolution, whether good or bad, seemed like a definite relief. After all, while Joshua was putting a lot on the line, the Enforcer wasn't exactly doing so. Of course, if he failed, it would undoubtedly be a black mark on his record, but after the frank success of the Shinjuku Inversion, and if Shibuya recovered fully afterwards, it would only be a minor setback in his career. But Joshua... Joshua was gambling his city, his friends and his future on this Game. His life, in short. Nothing too important, eh? Joshua smiled darkly. It was ironic, wasn't it? He had fought three years before for Inversion, and now he was fighting against it. But in a way, he too was relieved about the Game. Good or bad, at least it would soon be over. After all, this waiting game had long since lost its flavour.

As soon as the terms of their new Game had been laid down, the Tuners had left. Kubo had barely stayed a minute to give him a smug smile when he too fainted, no doubt eager to get down to work.

Joshua didn't linger long either. Of course, the game hadn't just popped into his head; he'd been trying for years to find the right moment to launch it. Many of the necessary preparations had been ready for a long time and were waiting patiently for him to use them. But others were more time-sensitive, and Joshua had to do them now. In particular, the search for a Proxy.

Joshua stopped walking for a second. Unsurprisingly, the word proxy only conjured up "Neku" in his head. Still, Joshua wasn't sure it would be the best choice this time. As Joshua had a limited range of action, the choice of Proxy was critical. He needed someone who could counter whatever Kubo threw at him. Because the Enforcer hadn't waited. At the same time, the choice didn't seem very complicated. Having mentally manipulated the conductor for years, there wasn't much The Executioner could do about his Proxy. With Joshua, Sanae and himself contractually barred from acting, the Conductor was, after all, the highest authority in Shibuya and surely the most powerful. But to thwart his plans, Joshua had to wait and see what The Executor had in store.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long. As soon as possible, The Executor put his plan into execution (ha!). In fact, he too had started his plan earlier, selecting humans with a high latent capacity. Only now, because of his Tuners' rules, he could go even further. In other words, a mass production of special badges forcing the activation of skills poured onto the streets of Shibuya. Even if he'd tried to hide it from Joshua, he couldn't have. Similar to the tactics of his former conductor, Kubo had to order several missions over a good three weeks for them to become popular. Joshua wasn't sure whether they'd taken so long to sell because the players weren't as good as Shiki and Neku or because the design was a poor plagiarism of Sanae's. Probably both, Joshua thought viciously.

Whatever the case, there was no denying that the tactic was effective. A good half of Shibuya's inhabitants had the pin, all they had to do was die, and if they had a strong enough Vibe. They were automatically entered in the game. It was a good way of giving the Composer the finger, as he was normally the last choice when it came to selecting players. But what was worse? Anyone with a powerful enough Vibe with a latent ability could be drawn into the Game while they were still alive. And there was absolutely nothing Joshua could do because he wasn't allowed to interact directly in the Game... without the proxy he didn't have yet. It was incredibly frustrating.

In any case, finding the right proxy had been no small task. He'd never admit it to them, but he'd thought long and hard about his partners for this crucial role. Apart from Neku, he had carefully considered Beat, Shiki and Rhyme, weighing up their strengths and weaknesses very carefully. The truth was that there were far more pros than cons. Indeed, it wasn't misplaced pride to say that his partners were particularly skilled. Whether it was their natural talent or the development they had undergone over the three weeks they had been playing and their constant exposure to his presence... their Vibe had developed incredibly well. These three were, without question, the best adapted individuals to the UG and the most powerful currently living in Shibuya. The weak points... well, Joshua really didn't want to see them die for good. Because Joshua wasn't kidding himself, he knew there was little chance of him winning this game. After all, he had very little to his advantage this time. He wasn't the one who decided the rules, nor was he the referee, and in fact, the arbiters wanted him to fail. He couldn't act directly, the opposing proxy was an experienced if mentally manipulated Conductor and Shibuya, despite his best efforts over the last three years, was still terribly unstable.

Joshua was selfish. If he couldn't save his city, then at least sending his partners to another district like Nakano or Minato would protect them.

So yes, Joshua had completely ignored the logical choice, preferring to try and spot a new diamond in the rough. His time was limited, but Joshua was the Composer, it was literally his job to look after his city and therefore, inevitably, its inhabitants. If the Enforcer had to look specifically for talent, Joshua stumbled across it every day during his frequent scans of the city. That was how he first noticed Neku, after all. His music had caught his attention, even more so when he'd found him completely fascinated and under the spell of Sanae's tag. Oh, sure, CAT's tags were powerful, but normally they were carefully diminished so as not to imprison their target, but only to suggest change. The problem was that even at that time, probably because of his history with young Kikuo, Neku already had a Vibe very close in frequency to the UG and was therefore incredibly more sensitive to suggestions from another plane without having the means to defend against them like the Reapers and Players.

Anyway, that wasn't important now. What he was getting at was that Joshua, even if he was in a bit of a hurry, still had several options at his disposal. Whenever he came across a soul with great potential and/or interesting latent abilities, Joshua kept them in the back of his mind. Usually, this was in the event of their death, so that he could pay them a little more attention when sorting them out with a view to recruiting them, but in this case it was just as useful. He had spent an entire morning stalking each of the names on his list, carefully analysing their behaviour, re-evaluating the strength of their Vibe and the interest of their latent abilities. The first was too egotistical, and Joshua found it difficult to guide him towards the choice that interested him. The second was incredibly lazy and this was clearly not the time to end up with a Kariya bis or worse. The third, on the other hand, was incredibly thoughtful about her own existence and as a result, Joshua couldn't find a weakness big enough to handle her properly. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh... At the end of his analysis, he was left with three promising candidates.

His favourite was a young girl, in her first year at university, just like Beat. Nagi Usui had the latent ability to enter people's unconscious hearts, an ability that Joshua thought would be incredibly useful for his project. With it, she would undoubtedly be able to awaken Matsunae or at least the consciousness of certain Reapers. What's more, the young girl, though a little strange, had a good head on her shoulders and a strong sense of empathy that she handled particularly well. Not only did she understand others, but she could connect with them without drowning in them. She was certainly the most stable and useful of all her candidates... But perhaps a little too stable. She would surely be more useful as a support for the Proxy than as a Proxy herself.

The second candidate was a journalist in his forties who had a magnificent Vibe. It had been incredibly refined by all the situations and places its owner had been confronted with. But unfortunately, Joshua had barely thought of selecting him when he left for Osaka to report on a story. A shame, really.

The third candidate would not have been the obvious choice for everyone. His latent ability wasn't very interesting and he wasn't even sure it was close enough to the surface to manifest itself during the Game. What's more, his Vibe was stable and on the high side, but he had a rather weak imagination that didn't allow him to wield it with ease. He did, however, have several points in his favour. Firstly, he was incredibly adaptable. Accommodating, he had the unconscious habit of aligning himself with the music of others around him. He would then use all his efforts to achieve their desired result as if it were his own. So he was the perfect person for Joshua to manipulate: willing and hard-working.

A second argument in his favour was that young Rindo Kanade had a strong friendship with one of the game's Reapers, Shoka Sakurane. On its own, this fact wouldn't have been enough, but it turns out that Shoka Sakurane was a core member of the Shinjuku team. The only Wall Reaper to survive the city's inversion, she had become a lieutenant shortly after arriving in Shibuya under the care of Officer Ayano Kamachi. Treated almost like a little sister by Kamachi, she was regularly protected and sheltered by all the Shinjuku Reapers.

Shoka Sakurane was a weakness.

If Shiba, in his unstable state, didn't have much to do with her, that wasn't the case for his followers. Sakurane was perhaps the only reason why the Shinjuku Reapers would rebel if Shiba decided to eliminate her. And, under Shinjuku's annoying rules, that was a not insignificant possibility, considering that helping a player was punishable by erasure.

What's more, in addition to his links with the Reaper, Kanade's best friend also possessed an interesting power: the ability to bring back memories. So Joshua had made his choice: Rindo Kanade would be his Proxy, but he would place the young Tosai Furusawa at his side and, if he managed to manipulate things well enough, Nagi Usui too. All that remained was to attract Coco and Minamimoto and he'd have one hell of a shock team on his hands. Not only would they be very strong, but Joshua wasn't one hundred per cent convinced that he could predict them.

But after all, what was the point of a Game without a bit of suspense?


Think about letting a review on your way out, and see you the 10th for the continuation!