Story: Mind the Gaps (French version available : "Intervalles")
Date: posted the 10 of september 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!
Joshua had to admit that he wasn't one hundred per cent convinced that he understood the Executor's objective. Oh, sure, the endgame was the inversion of Shibuya, but his plan to get there wasn't easily understood.
Today was the first day of their game to decide the future of Shibuya and everything that lived there, Joshua included. As he had decided, Joshua had approached Rindo Kanade to recruit him. The choice and staking of the proxy was one of the only freedoms Joshua had in this Game. Practically everything else he did from then on had to be done through Rindo's actions. Oh, of course, there was always a way around things, but with his Tuners having decided to play referee, Joshua would have to be very careful. However, the Composer hadn't even had time to recruit his own proxy before he was already in the running for the game. Joshua had barely approached Rindo Kanade that he dropped one of Kubo's new player badges. Picking it up, the Composer handed it to Kanade, but the boy seemed too distracted by his friend's antics to really notice Joshua. It was just as well, and Joshua walked slowly away, one hand absent-mindedly playing with a lock of hair. Between one step and another, he found himself back in the UG, disappearing from the RG as quickly as he had appeared.
It could have been a coincidence, Joshua supposed, that Kanade found himself in possession of a badge on the first day of their Game after Joshua had appointed him as proxy to Father, Mother and the Executioner the day before. After all, a large proportion of Shibuya's population had the little badge after Kubo's aggressive marketing campaign. And the number was rising exponentially among the younger generation. But it was still a bit big. After all, those badges were expensive and from what Joshua had noticed after observing Kanade and therefore his friend, Furusawa, even though he tried to keep up with the times, wasn't obsessed with them. Standing in line for hours and spending so much money on two little accessories, one of which he gave to his friend, wasn't really in his character. If Joshua had to give an explanation, he was betting on a well-placed meme.
So, The Executioner had taken care of putting the Composer's Proxy into the Game himself... Why? He had absolutely no interest in carrying out this simple formality. He'd even enlisted Furusawa! Joshua might have thought that, if this had happened three years earlier, it would have been a way of getting the Game off to a respectful start. But too much had happened between them for them to feel anything but deep annoyance for each other. At least he hadn't had to kill Kanade and if he won the Game, it would be all the easier for Joshua to put him back into his life as a well-ordered schoolboy. And this badge... it was discreet, but Joshua was sure he'd heard a different melody to that of the Executioner's other Player badges.
Well, to be fair, Kanade and Furusawa weren't quite in the Game yet. However, that was only a matter of time. While Furusawa had remained more or less the same, Kanade's Vibe had begun to fluctuate strangely since he'd taken the badge in hand.
Disturbed, Joshua spread his wings and jumped. Less than a second later, he landed as silently as a feather on one of the buildings surrounding Scramble Crossing. Not as comfortable as the roof of 104, but from here he had a perfect view of his proxy below. From this high up, he and his friend were barely discernible ants, but having taken the trouble to familiarise himself with their internal music over the last few days, Joshua had no trouble observing them as if he were standing just over their shoulders. Watching them talk where he had just left them, Joshua divided his attention for a second to check where each of his partners was. Rhyme was at home, in her room coding, if Joshua had to guess. Shiki was... ah, in their shop at 104, a little too close for comfort, but she wasn't due out of the building any time soon so it should be fine. It was much less easy to spot Eri, it wasn't as instinctive as for the others due to the lack of pact, but he'd hung out with the girl enough for him to know her melody by heart. It took him half the time it would have taken another average human to spot her at Dogenzaka, unsurprisingly in a clothes shop.
The competition had to be weighed up, Joshua supposed. And the person he was most worried about... Ah, Beat was still on the train home from University, so no worries there.
Satisfied, Joshua turned his attention back to his new Proxy. Accustomed as he was, the whole manoeuvre had only taken a handful of seconds, but in the meantime the two boys had started walking towards Dogenzaka. To eat, judging by the images of ramen and curry in Furusawa's mind. Raising his Vibe above what an average Reaper could spot, Joshua lazily followed them into town. As always, Kanade was incredibly indecisive and it took them a long time before he finally decided on a restaurant. They ate and Joshua was contemplating whether he should do the same when they hurried out the door, Furusawa trotting ahead while Kanade followed laboriously behind. This caught Joshua's attention, because the two boys had had the misfortune of choosing one of the restaurants with a gamer's sigil and when they'd gone out... the sigil had done what it was supposed to do. Spotting a player badge with enough power to back it up, it forced the boys' Vibe into the UG as soon as they walked through the door. Immediately, Kanade's already unstable Timbre began to panic, randomly going up and down. Of course, this near anomaly triggered Furusawa's own Timbre too, sending them back and forth between the UG and the RG without them even realising it. All the way back to 104, their Timbre was swinging dangerously far from the RG, not quite in the UG yet, but certainly higher than they should be, to the point where people in the vicinity were beginning to lose sight of them, running into them without even realising it. The two boys had even begun to hear the thoughts around them and see the Wall Reapers without them seeming to notice. They would soon notice, however, as the Scramble Crossing was about to turn into a battlefield, with the players all converging to attack one of the Boss Echoes who seemed to be the target of the day. Already, the atmosphere was saturated with the Vibe of dozens of desperate players, doing their utmost not to be the last team standing this week, the last to receive this fate, fresh in their minds from the previous day.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the boys noticed something was wrong. Joshua wondered sarcastically if it was the giant multicoloured wolf that had given them a clue. Still, at least they had the good sense to start running away, so Joshua assumed there was hope. Suddenly, one of the giant screens crackled and the shrill voice of its so-called conductor pierced the calm of Shibuya.
Joshua pursed his lips. It wasn't as if he could complain about the drama of the announcement, Joshua could have done that himself, but it clearly lacked class. Nevertheless, Rindo's attention was caught by the screen and immediately his Vibe snapped into place, abandoning its fluctuations near the RG for good. Between one step and another, he was firmly in the UG, Furusawa losing sight of his friend for a second before his own Vibe was pushed into the UG by all the ambient forces.
It was a bit amusing to see, and more importantly, feel, the complete lack of understanding that Rindo was projecting even though Furusawa didn't seem to notice anything, just running madly ahead of him like a headless chicken. Well, amusing until a car flew through the air, narrowly missing his proxy. Damn, Furesawa could have been so usef-...
What the...?
A huge wave of Vibe suddenly grew around Joshua, rising faster than a blink and the focal point was... Kanade? Impossible, he shouldn't have that much Timbre at his disposal, especially not for mani-...
Joshua blinked.
The Scramble Crossing spread out before him, the players on their way to take care of the Boss Echo in the middle. Rindo Kanade and Tosai Furusawa were running along the pavement below, ready to get through the pedestrian crossing. Suddenly, one of the giant screens crackled and the screeching voice of its so-called conductor pierced the calm of Shibuya.
Joshua had a huge déjà vu.
The feeling was only heightened when the two boys' Stamps below him stabilised in the UG and the players began swinging their psyches left and right. Suddenly, Kanade grabbed his friend's hand and held him back, pulling him in the other direction and barely preventing him from being run over by a truck. How had he... but it was no use, because immediately another disaster struck, leaving Young Kanade screaming. Immediately, a wave of Timbre flowed out of his Proxy. Impossible, he shouldn't be able to-...
He'd already thought that.
Half a second before the wave of Timbre imploded, Joshua took all his power and propelled himself through the planes, passing the UG, the Composers' plane and settling uncomfortably in the last one before the higher planes. This was the one his Tuners usually used when they came to visit Joshua, just low enough to allow them to reach the lower planes, but high enough so that Joshua couldn't maintain human form.
He didn't even have time to stretch the luminous puddle that served as his hand before the world swirled around him, blurring at the seams before stabilising again as if nothing had happened.
The Scramble Crossing spread out before him, the players on their way to take care of the Boss Echo in the middle. Rindo Kanade and Fret Furusawa were running along the pavement below, ready to cross the pedestrian crossing. Suddenly, one of the giant screens crackled and the screeching voice of its so-called conductor pierced the calm of Shibuya.
They had gone back in time.
Think about letting a review on your way out, and see you the 10th for the continuation!
