Mr Reaper

by EeveeGen9988

A young Reaper set in his ways has enough of seeing Shibuya being left unprotected from criminals, and finds himself leading those of common interest to take action. If only he knew how one step to betterment would lead to another he would take alone... Written for [Shibuya Operation - Story Storm 2019-present] and [Twelve Shots of Summer 2019].

11. Mr Reaper

Mr Reaper

I do not own The World Ends With You, Square Enix does!

Mr Reaper Part 10 was written for Shibuya Operation - Story Storm (SOSS) 2020/21; previous chapters (Parts 0 and 1) were posted during Twelve Shots of Summer (TSoS) 2019 and Parts 2 to 10 were posted during Shibuya Operation - Story Storm (SOSS) 2019/20 and 2020/21.

...

Part 10 - Mr Reaper

---

Months Ago...

---

"Alright. It looks like we got things under control for now, but it still doesn't look right."

"If I may, I believe your efforts have not gone to waste. This is merely a matter of making sure the new player does not show any signs of relapse, then I believe your job will finally be finished."

"Phew… and here I thought I was going to have to take more whacks with him."

"Nonsense. I trust in your judgement now that I have seen the end product of this gruelling affair. And for that matter, consider the amount of points that you will be receiving will be a grandiose quantity of-"

"I don't need more than the standard amount."

"...While I understand your integrity, I have already slated the amount of points to be rewarded to the one who finished this task successfully. That goes the same for you."

"Save it for later."

"I… I beg your pardon?"

"Look, with what I managed to do, with how long I had to do it for… I have a feeling that someone else will be needing them more than I ever will need of them down the line. I have plenty of time left to survive in the underground, and you know that I wouldn't want to steal points away from someone else."

"For your information, the points I shall give you stems from me and me alone. No loss will come upon others if you do not forfeit the calibrated amount now, while no gain will there be if you do so. Each decision is equal in every aspect of their right. I had chosen you among all reapers because you of all reapers would know how to go about solving the issue. I had a numerous amount of reapers try their best to rectify the matter, and none had come out with favourable results... unlike you have now."

"Not to mention your crackpot scheme of jackpot points is stupid. This line of work isn't a sport, it's a job that's intended to help those venture into our plane when they have lost their chance to continue living. ...Now you tell me why this job has more weight to it- that you had to go make it into some kind of carnival game- just so that it could be done prematurely!?"

"...I assure you, this was not a net gain for attribution."

"Like hell it was- Do you know how many reapers you pitted against 'narrow odds' before you finally had the common sense of bringing me into the picture? Huh? Huh?"

A sigh sounded, "Must you be so insolent…"

"Excuse me, Sir, but you can't be seriously thinking that this was a great idea. Oh wait- caught myself. That was a shitty idea!"

"This is exactly what I was talking about."

"That doesn't make what you did any better."

Another sigh sounded, "If you must act nonsensical, I believe the task has run it's course long enough. Prepare our newest player for when he will be joining the other players tomorrow, and ensure that you leave him in the hands of the support reapers that will be coming by later to retrieve him. I bid you farewell, and congratulate you on how the fruits of your labor have gone swimmingly."

"..."

"..."

"...Wow, I can't believe you're finally not talking anymore. Even when he was here, you kept your trap shut as if you knew you should mind your manners around that guy."

"..."

"Heh... "

"..."

"...You know what? I miss having to hear you. Not to sound creepy, but hearing you speak made me feel relieved."

"..."

"Oh dear, I mean- 'relieved'. As in, relieved that I know I haven't lost you in any step of the way, and that you were still there all this time."

"..."

"I was so close in losing you, you know. With how you kept unraveling and unraveling my work, making it nearly impossible to finish you… I've never had this much stress since I first came into the underground myself. ...Or was it before I died? Hmm…"

"..."

"Doesn't matter. All that matters right now is you're one-hundred percent complete, so I guess I might as well get going. Now that the job's done, I'll be pretty much wasting my time loitering here and doing nothing if I stick around any longer. From the last I checked, I think I had something along the lines of a mountain on my desk waiting for me… I wouldn't be surprised if an avalanche happened while I've been prepping you today. Hahaha…"

"..."

"Although, just to be on the safe side… I'll just do one last checkup then I'll be off."

"..."

"Let's see now…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Looks about right. Yeah, I must have been imagining it."

"..."

"Alright. All's done, that's done, so enough worrying, more going!"

"..."

"...I guess this… this'll be goodbye then. Remember, I'm not supposed to be seeing you anymore."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Although, if we do manage to run into each other again… it's not like you'll remember me. And for me, it's not like I'll remember you by the time we might see each other again. I have more work to be done, and the number of faces I've seen will probably make things harder to remember your own, heh."

"..."

"T-Take care, and don't do anything stupid out there."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Trust me."

---

- 1975 -
Present Day

---

After being found puking scarlet particles on to the stairwell of Jimmy's home, he was ushered into it by said Reaper. The Harrier couldn't count the number of times the Support eased Cure Drink cans into his hands and down his throat until the Harrier eventually laid himself down on Jimmy's bed and passed out. And once he awoke, he didn't waste any time to explain what happened to the concerned Reaper.

He lay back afterward and let his head hit the pillow with a groan once he was finished, throwing an arm over his face. "I should have taken more caution…"

"What did you expect, Bro," said Jimmy testily with a shake of his head, who was standing at the Harrier's bedside. "The stink fulla was gawkin' for you."

The Harrier chose to not disturb his position instead of responding, remaining still as he groaned again at the forming of a headache. He knew Cripplecheck had the knack to hit him hard if he was under the effects of anything before using it, but he wasn't certain how his head's pulsing had anything to do with a Totter Til You Drop Pin. His Imagination must have barely made the deadline for Cripplecheck's use, he always thought, so difficulty channeling it was a given.

He didn't know how much longer it was that he suffered with his headache, but upon the knocks of the faraway door aggravating it, he felt as if centuries had passed.

Slowly drawing his arm away, he blinked as Jimmy motioned for him to stay. Once the Harrier acknowledged that with a pained mumble, the New Zealander left. The Harrier was alone for quite some time, so he used it to nurse his head with his hand, rubbing his tender temple with a grimace. Yet after the Harrier started to strain his ears, when he heard voices in the living room, he eventually stopped when a stronger spike of pain skewered his brain.

When the Harrier managed to make his head ache less, Jimmy returned and shut the door. But when he turned to face the Harrier, the tentative look Jimmy had turned serious as the Support spoke, "Daitan, Kiba and Itoh returned with the Reapers you asked for."

Oh yeah… the Harrier had forgotten about that too for some reason. Did he tell them to bring Reapers this early?

"Um, okay." The Harrier pursed his lips. He wasn't expecting this. "How many?"

Jimmy was silent for a bit then answered, "I thought I saw seven."

Seven? Well, a small number wasn't by any means bad, but the Harrier was anticipating more than that. However, with what he had in mind… he supposed keeping numbers to a maximum was suitable for clandestine footwork.

Nodding slowly, the Harrier mulled over this thoughtfully. 'I could work with that…' He blinked as he soon half-closed his eyes. 'Any more than this and we would have trouble keeping an eye on all of them.'

After all, the nuance of carefulness was much desired.

With a breath to collect himself, the Harrier eventually nodded again. "Do you think they're trustworthy?"

"Just met 'em, Bro," said Jimmy with a noncommittal shrug. He inhaled before adding on calmly, "Mean if you yack with 'em first, eh?"

"Right," said the Harrier with a smile. Although, he could say it wasn't meeting his eyes as a lump of uneasiness gathered in his chest. "Meeting Reapers…"

Jimmy frowned at the Harrier. "You all good, Bro?"

The Harrier felt his smile slide off as he replied quietly, "Not too enthused to convince seven more Reapers I have no knowledge about to join me faithfully, to be frank."

"You wanted extra hands, why not give 'em a chance?" asked Jimmy as he looked back to the door. "Don't want to keep 'em waitin'..."

Yes, that would be rude of course, wouldn't it?

The Harrier smiled again but with tightness as he felt the need to squeeze his nape. "I suppose that would be for the best…"

'Damn my insecurities towards strangers fucking with me now of all times!' He slowly eased himself out of the bed even though he felt staying under the covers would be better. Perhaps if he had Andy at his side, he could easily chase away the stupid stage fright and face them unflinchingly. 'Time to shine, let's put on a show-'

While Jimmy walked ahead of the Harrier, the black-hooded Reaper hesitated to join the other. He merely stayed in the doorway, trying to compel his nerves to cooperate so he could move, then inhaled deeply. 'Deep breaths, deep breaths…' After a few more seconds, he experimentally started to inch out into the hallway. 'If you fail, you at least have five willing Reapers to support your ass.'

Just as he arrived at the lip of the right hallway wall, he knew from the gazes already watching him from the facing sofa he couldn't hide away in the bedroom out of lack of self-esteem. So he moved more to stand past the edge of the wall, steeling himself when he spotted the new Harriers that had joined the usual crew.

After bowing to them, he rose back to his usual height. "H-Hello," he started, only to nearly flinch at all of the eyes zooming on to him. He took a few more moments to ground himself before he spoke again but dizzily, "I see you found your way here."

...What a stupid introduction.

A few hellos were returned to him, one of them from Nakai in particular. But other than that, the Reapers were silently judging him. He knew they expected a more intelligent response from him of all people… so he couldn't be lame in front of them.

Inhaling before exhaling as his eyes closed, he reopened them to stare at the crowd again as he sternly spoke, "I'm glad all of you could make it on short notice. And for that, thank you for being here."

"It's no problem," said a new voice, which he turned in the general direction of. As he regarded them, the unknown Harrier spoke, "Just surprised to see you got away, since those guys ran back screaming about if we saw you."

Oh, right… The Harrier couldn't help but grimace. His perceived failure to escape...

"I have my secrets, mind you," the Harrier said warily with a blink and a nod. "Tricks up my sleeve I will indefinitely remain tight-lipped about."

The mustard-hooded Reaper nodded back but didn't say anything else.

For a split second, the Harrier felt his nerves attack him again as he dwelled on the silence he was now holding. But it was shortly washed away by his attention to another speaker. "Was it what you used to get away a month ago?"

"Like I said, lips will remain zipped." He made a motion to accompany that across his lower half of his face. "And I won't deny the possibility of that being correct." He then raised a finger up with a nod.

So far, so good at being cooler than he actually was. Awkwardness be damned, he couldn't allow for himself to be pathetic right now.

Taking in a steadying inhale, he lowered his hand before speaking again in a murmur, "But I believe that's not the reason you're here for…" He sauntered over to Jimmy's clay mat, not facing them as he tried to make his tone be cool-spoken. "You're here because you were invited here. An invitation I personally offered to all of you today."

As murmurs began to ripple from the gathered Reapers, he pivoted to gaze out to them again while placing a hand over his heart. "I'm not certain how many of you are aware of me, but I'm considered to be someone the Conductor- or the Posh Bastard, as I call him- has bias against."

While various hoods began to turn back and forth between each other, a few giving nods, some of them had whispered to their neighbours.

The Harrier, in spite of his unease, didn't dare to clasp his hands together. If he did, it would only show he was nervous, so he opened his arms out as he tried raising his voice, "I know there's not really many places to sit, but I believe what I have to say will take time to explain. So please make yourselves as comfortable as you're able to in these conditions."

Some of them started to take his advice and the Tenants, Jimmy and three other Reapers he didn't know decided to stay standing. Once the seating arrangements were in order, the Harrier composed himself to the best of his ability as he knew it was time for him to begin.

"A few Days ago there was a Player who got in, one who Erased some Reapers on Day 2. What the Posh Bastard may have told you about them may not have been the whole truth, and I'm not sure if you knew that yet," said the Harrier grimly, lowering his head as he sighed, "But in case you want to know…" He frowned as he half-closed his eyes. "That same Player was also killing former Players… in order to draw me out."

His heartbeat increased the moment the information was out there, as he could only watch the seven visiting Reapers exchange gasps or silence as they stared back at him. He immediately stretched out his arms towards them as he nervously continued, "I know it may sound bad, and I wouldn't blame you for feeling like you should direct your anger on to me... but I believe honesty is to be appreciated right now. You have every right to hate me, because if I wasn't so foolish to have fallen for it…"

He turned his gaze sadly to Jimmy. "We wouldn't have lost some of our friends to that asshole."

The New Zealander had gazes drawn to him, but instead of looking doleful or uncomfortable, the Support merely raised his chin. He spoke up firmly, yet his voice still sounded like he was being choked, "'Ey were only tryin' to stop that Player from hurtin' him." He drew in a shuddery breath before exhaling out sadly, "'Ey didn't have to do it, but 'ey pushed up daisies for it."

A hand rose up. "Weren't you the one who brought the Player over here in the first place?" skeptically asked the nameless Reaper attached to that arm. The Harrier half expected them to establish the fact that Jimmy deserved the repercussion of losing his friends, yet they didn't. Maybe it was out of politeness over the lost that made them not go further than that, and in that case, the Harrier felt himself untense as he drew his attention back to the Support.

Jimmy gave a jerky nod. "Nah, yeah." His expression hardened as he went on, "But I didn't rue doin' it. I only wanted the stink fulla to get what he deserved, not push up daisies peacefully when he did trashy thin's to Blackie." Any remainder of his grief seemingly vanished at that time as resolve filled his gaze, which the Harrier was thankful to see.

"We didn't know the Posh Bastard would ignore the Player Killer," quickly jumped in the Harrier, upon anticipating that the congregated Reapers were about to dig deeper into it. Even if the New Zealander was holding himself together now, the Harrier didn't want the Reapers to possibly say the wrong thing to Jimmy still. He wasn't quite certain if Jimmy was going to not fall apart if an onslaught of reminders continued to assail him.

The Harrier crossed his arms before he sternly spoke again to the Reapers, "Did you think any of us could have anticipated this? That the Posh Bastard would leave the Player Killer to his own devices?"

"It's possible the Conductor didn't know about it," piped up a Reaper in defense. "He usually doesn't have to deal with that shit."

The Harrier narrowed his eyes and scoffed, "It's unfortunate but that's not true." He couldn't help but frown tetchily as he continued, "The Posh Bastard was informed by Jimmy about the fact that Realgrounder nearly killed me, yet the man in charge deliberately chose to underestimate the threat he now had in his Plane. Even if it was known the Player Killer was the one responsible for the return of previous Game veterans, there were no precautions or failsafes whatsoever for one who was bold enough to attack a Reaper in broad daylight." He hardened his expression as he huffed, "Wouldn't you agree that in itself is seriously screwed up?"

As he studied the Reapers after speaking, he couldn't help but make note of the fact that some of them were now squirming a little. Even if their hoods allowed him no access for the inference he was creating, he sensed he got through to them.

He eventually raised a palm up as he pursed his lips, bringing his gaze around the gathered Reapers. "How many of you were present in the Scramble Crossing today?"

After four of the seven invited Reapers raised their hands, the Harrier inhaled then exhaled, "Okay, then I'm certain you would love to hear the context." He turned his eyes towards the other group as he intoned coolly, "For those who don't know, I had an argument with my friend Andy today. But from what you didn't know, all of you…" He braced himself before speaking again, "Was that we were only using that as a platform to reach out to Reapers like you."

While he couldn't see their faces, as they in return couldn't see his, he didn't say anything else to prepare himself for their reactions. But he could only blink in disbelief when they didn't say a word or alter their body languages. It made him think that they were in too much shock or dismay or disbelief to properly conduct their responses...

Yet he faintly had a feeling they may have thought he was going to say something else.

Grimacing as he glanced at Jimmy, the New Zealander looked not as bewildered as the Harrier was. However, as the Harrier returned his attention to them, he awkwardly coughed into his arm then frowned. "I-I mean, we staged that argument to see if any of you were interested in hearing me out. So... I hope you didn't take much offence to us deceiving you like that…"

One Reaper shrugged. "We're here now."

The Harrier's nerves slightly settled yet he uneasily ran a hand to soon rest on his hooded nape. "What I said wasn't technically lies. ...Just to be clear."

"It kind of was hard to tell, but what you said about the Conductor got me intrigued," said another. "Totally can believe he'd do that stunt."

Then another Reaper, on the sofa to the Harrier's right, sat up taller. "What you said about the Conductor dismissing those Erasures was what got me!"

"Oh- has that moron ever told you you should try to hunt less Players just because you're hogging the Players!?" suddenly asked a Reaper with irritable eagerness, who was close to the front door. Hoods promptly turned to them as they scoffed with a shake of their head, "Because damn does that guy get riled up over nothing!"

The Harrier could only widen his eyes as the seven Reapers, soon nearly the whole room, devolved into frustrated chatter about the Posh Bastard. He grimaced as he wondered how he could have done so poorly to let this happen, but when he eventually listened closely to the various conversations- or to be frank, insults- about the dastardly man, a thought soon grew on him.

He slowly part his lips in awe that he did in fact hit the right market of Reapers.

"Wait a moment-" The Harrier threw his arms up. His shout somehow gathered back everyone's concentration and he grinned crookedly as he murmured, "Do you mean to tell me that you hate the Posh Bastard…?"

He didn't have to wait long for the instantaneous yells to set in. All of the Reapers were trying to deafen each other to get a word in, as though he somehow signed them up for a shouting match that each Reaper were keen on being the winner of. The Harrier eventually had to clasp his hands over his ears and tried shushing them, whipping his head to the door furtively as he bit his lip.

When it was apparent no one seemed to be pounding on the door, the volume had lowered enough for him to speak over the dying voices. "Okay…" he started with a sheepish chuckle, raising his palms to them as he focused on the Reapers. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let's quiet down a bit so this remains a private meeting, everyone."

After he got confirmation that they weren't going to start up another round of shouts, he tried to steady himself with an inhale while lowering his arms. "Okay, so the reason why I brought you here is because I wanted to know if you're interested in doing something." His voice pinched higher as he rotated his wrist briefly. "It's a little against the Posh Bastard's wishes… but with success, it will get you on his bad side without him ever finding out?"

This time, the reception was less rowdy and definitely positive as murmurs merely started up.

"But that's only if none of us tells him about the operation." The hoods soon turned to him again as he was smiling in ease. He cheekily raised a finger up. "I don't know about you guys, but who doesn't love wanting to make his Day a bad Day for once after all the times he's made us out to be the bad guys?"

He placed his hand back on his chest, pressing down on it as he hummed, "That's why I'm here to offer you an outlet to do it. While at the same time too, making Shibuya into a safer place."

"What are you suggesting?" asked a Reaper, as they leaned forward in their seat on the sofa facing him.

"If the Posh Bastard doesn't want to deal with Wrongdoers, on this Plane or the Realground's…" He smirked as he tutted, shaking his head. "I believe he'll mind if they keep showing up on his doorstep, right? And that's where we come in…" He lashed an arm across his front. "To show that the Game can be used for something greater than trying to find the enjoyment out of harassing innocent people all Day!"

"Wait, are you talking about the Recruitment you said we'd legalize!?" shouted a Reaper suddenly in disbelief.

As if he were a balloon, and that speaker was a needle, the Harrier deflated miserably from hearing that reminder.

Almost all of his confidence evaporated, leaving him reeling as he gawked at that Reaper while his breathing sped up. The invited Reapers began questioning the speaker about his outburst, but the Harrier couldn't make sense of the words being passed around. All he had was a ringing in his ears as the message from the Com-Posh Bastard came back to ruthlessly taunt him, his sight narrowing…

But then he blinked. He saw the Reapers again; their full-attention was on him.

He could barely come up with a response when he heard another Reaper speak, "I'm cool with it. But what does that have to do with getting on the Conductor's bad side?"

"Um…" He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again as he lamely raised a finger. "It's… it's to inspire change in the system he doesn't want to tweak."

"Yeah, but why would he get mad about it?" asked another confused Reaper.

While variants of the same question were tossed around, the Harrier almost wanted to look to Jimmy for help. But that would be stupid, seeing as the Harrier was supposed to have all the answers for his scheme.

He hung his head but tried his best to not let his strained voice falter his speech. "Because he doesn't believe that killing Wrongdoers is a worthwhile venture... only that it's meaningless trouble." He slowly pulled his posture back into place as he crossed his arms, trying to look unruffled as he went on bitterly, "But, what he doesn't know, is that he's only contributing to the issues behind presumably half of our deaths."

A hushed murmur fell over the crowd, yet the Harrier didn't dare to let it settle as his eyes hardened. "I don't mean to assume that's how any of you came to be here, for your information. I only am setting up an example." He lowered his gaze after that. "Yet that doesn't change my opinion on the matter." He took in a breath before continuing, "We cannot expect that the Posh Bastard will be willing to turn over a leaf or bring himself to do anything for those he deems inexcusable. By now, he's made it clear that he will never do it for us."

As he felt nods start to happen, he tried to collect his thoughts to brace himself for the next bit he would deliver. It certainly wasn't going to be an easy topic to tackle, but it was a necessary one. One that may or may not actually turn off his audience; losing those he could have allied himself with.

He couldn't afford to mess this up.

"Has the Posh Bastard ever told you you're an asset? That you had potential? That you were important?" stressed the Harrier firmly. He narrowed his eyes as he opened his arms wide. "Told you that you could do great things... stuff you never thought you'd possibly be able to do... and you believed him? Thought the man you just met, who was second-in-charge, believed in you when no one ever has?" He felt his own memories spill over his gaze, but he tried to filter past them as he retorted bitterly, "But he was lying, all the same?"

He threw a hard look at all of them, clenching his hands as he raised his voice. "Because I was one who foolishly took them at face value." Bringing his gaze to the side, he frowned as he growled, "And when it came down to the time I asserted my voice, he dismissed my ideas."

The Harrier kept his gaze hardened as he boldly faced forward again. "In the Underground, we're told we can make a difference, can express ourselves… Yet when the Posh Bastard deems our pursuits to be too elite, against his pool of values... he tugs us back like we're on a leash. Told to keep our heads down, wanting us to keep in line instead! Doesn't it make you angry? Fed up he doesn't want anything to do with our 'nonsense'? What we think can better the Underground, even the Realground, because we're supposed to respect the limits he pushes down on us!?

"This is our home... why can't we have a say for what we want to do with it?" he asked sternly, frowning deeper as he closed his eyes. "If we're keen on making an alteration to suit the Plane we live on, why are we suddenly less important? Less respectable?" He narrowed his eyes as he critically spoke on, "He acts like we're scum, gum found under his immaculate shoes… He tries to smother us and we would want to pretend we're okay with being muzzled. How is that right when we have just as important values and beliefs as he does!? Why does he think we deserve to be put through his floccinaucinihilipilification!?"

God did he love the opportunity he had to use that word. Even if that garnered a room of blank stares, he wasn't ashamed of his knowledge from fact-checking his Spanish with Latin.

Immediately turning to Jimmy, the Harrier jabbed a finger in the lanky Reaper's direction. "Jimmy had a shop before he died. Even after death he's tried to maintain it, but the Posh Bastard has been trying to shut it down all this time." He shook his head and huffed harshly, "Why is it wrong that Jimmy wants to continue to pursue his dream of having one? How many Reapers do you know runs a shop like he does?"

When the Support in question nodded with an intent look, the Harrier turned to the invited Reapers and folded his arms. "And what's wrong if a Reaper found a better strategy to Erase Players? How is it right that the Posh Bastard wants you to do worse?" He shook his head as he narrowed his eyes. "You could be struggling to survive… and that's your way of trying to live in the 'kill or be killed' world he's been painting for us… So doesn't that make him a hypocrite!?"

A Reaper, who he assumed was the one to have mentioned that, nodded as the Harrier lifted his chin. "We all are Reapers who can open up new ventures to explore, yet he constantly tries to trip us over. If we can make one dream a reality… one possibility a reality… we can project more and get our foot in. We deserve a voice too." He pursed his lips. "If we work together, we can achieve the changes we want in our Underground. After all, Shibuya isn't entitled to one person, she's owned by her people. Dead or alive."

As he swerved, trying to face the general direction of all of his listeners, he pushed out his chest and pursed his lips. "I know asking you to believe in me is a tall request, and I wouldn't think less of you if you choose to not take me up on my offer." He placed his hand over his heart, bracing himself as he uttered his next words, "But I'm not forcing you to join me and the other Reapers who have already accepted this opportunity. I can only hope my words had an impact on you today about the issues I see at large in our society."

With bated breath, he held his position and waited with his nervousness.

In the edges of his vision, he observed how the invited Reapers exchanged looks with each other. He was almost ready to give in to the urge to babble clarifications, in case he didn't frame what he had just talked about right, as he felt sweat roll down the sides of his face.

Other than feeling like a stupid statue being gawked at, it was like he was a koi being fried… Gasping for breath, wanting to slip back into the river before he was set on a table to be served as someone's dinner platter... The Harrier almost wanted to sidle over to Jimmy for support to curb off the overwelmment as the Harrier rigidly stood there.

Yet a hand rose, making him snap his attention to the Reaper. "Will it have to do with killing people?"

"Y-Yes," he replied wobbly and thankful that he had a familiar topic to unwrap. He let his body have a break from the position, placing a hand over his covered nape. "But since it's only those who did wrongdoing, or Wrongdoers as I call them, it gets e-easier over time. Think of it like Erasing a Player… it's no different."

That brought out some nods.

The Harrier had a feeling he slid into the question and clarification stage, so he tried to compose himself as another hand rose. "Isn't that what you were doing beforehand but failed? How will it work this time?"

"Ah, but this time it'll be different," he promised them with a little more confidence in his tone. He let his arm fall to its side as he went on as nonchalant as he could, "In order to receive what we want, sometimes we need to resort to things we otherwise wouldn't consider undergoing in a perfect world. That includes underhanded means." He tapped his temple wisely as he was nearly finished with speaking.

"I tried going about it the fair way, but it has come to head that it's no longer an option to cling to," he added sadly with a shake of his head. "Instead, with your help, if you decide to help out…" He stared at all of them with determined eyes. "None of us will get caught."

One of the Reapers at the end of sofa on the Harrier's right shot to their feet. "But how can you be so sure!?"

The Harrier shed them a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye. "I won't disclose the details until I'm certain you're dedicated to the cause." While that made the Reaper falter as they whipped their head to the others, the Harrier pressed his lips together. "To be fair, I can't trust any of you yet. I'm not a dullard to think none of you could potentially gain information and run back to tattle on us if I told you the plan from top to bottom now."

Jimmy gave him a warning look he ignored, instead waiting on the new Reapers to understand their position on the matter.

"And wouldn't gathering us up like this count?" ventured one of the seven Reapers warily.

The Harrier smiled crisply as he hid his irritation. "Risks are necessary investments. I gave you my time, you gave me yours." He crossed his arms as he added tersely, "It's a worthwhile exchange."

Sadorume nodded as she put in, "He may be prickly and abrasive now, but he's got it sorted out."

The Harrier roughly took that as a compliment as he nodded back. "Point being, I need your earnest commitment before we swap any more words," he said before he quietly inhaled and furrowed his eyebrows. "But I must ask that if you do not decide to join, you have to keep quiet about it or it'll blow up in our faces."

When the seven new Reapers stared back, he placed a hand over his chest and breathed, "So, can I trust that nothing will leave this room?"

He didn't let his gaze waver as he waited again, pursing his lips more as he felt his anxiety pick up the longer the minutes passed. He almost clenched his hoodie fabric instead of his neck to maintain his composure as he eventually received wordless nods.

Even before he felt his chest sink from relief, he saw Jimmy walk over with a notebook and pen. It took him a moment to realize it had been the one they used nearly two months ago. "We'll need your names, mates." The Harrier immediately understood where Jimmy was coming from and watched as it was handed to each of them.

With a promise that the next meeting was tomorrow, the Harrier was soon left with Jimmy and the other Tenants after a few minutes of their adjourned meeting. He didn't know what to think as he finally sat on his usual sofa spot, as he couldn't help but contemplate on his next move instead.

---

"Bro, could you remind me why we're goin' out today?"

It was the next morning after the meeting and they were walking around Shibuya. The Harrier was glad he was able to wake up early enough to get his disguise on and snag Jimmy before he opened shop for the Day, as it was important for the New Zealander to be present.

All the Harrier did was shrug at the question as he continued forward. "Well, Jim-san, I thought it might be nice to get something out of the way now than later."

Jimmy offered him a sigh and a lighthearted smile. "You're enjoyin' this."

"Maybe." The Harrier hid his smirk behind his hood and pressed on. He spoke again after a few moments, "Anyway, the reason is simple. I did some thinking and planned forward for when we meet Reapers again." As much as he'd rather say it more blatantly, the Vultures were on high alert today. He saw they were searching for him in various places while him and Jimmy were passing by.

And because the Harrier anticipated this, he made Jimmy promise him before they left to call the Harrier 'Michito' once and awhile.

"And…?"

The Harrier hummed back noncommittally, "And you're the only person I know that I can pass as a foreigner."

Jimmy's footsteps halted immediately. "Why?"

He turned back and pointed at his friend. "Blackie's fallout with Andy happened yesterday, Jim-san. I doubt we have any reason reason to see him with her again any time soon."

At that, Jimmy grimaced before slowly nodding back. "You… got a point there, Bro." He then frowned. "And I am a foreigner…"

The red-hooded disguised Reaper chuckled as he put a hand on his side, "Which is why this'll be quicker." He spun around and started walking again as he trained his gaze forward. "If my memory of it was cooperative, we'd already be there."

"Where?"

The Harrier glanced around more. "For me to know and you to find out." Sensing that Jimmy wouldn't understand, which was completely understandable in its own right, he promptly added nervously, "Just let me do the talking, Jim-san."

By the time he spied what he was looking for, he perked up as he slowed to a stop. Once Jimmy joined him, he saw Jimmy gawk at the small building from the corner of his gaze. "...Michito?"

"Yes?" The Harrier crisply smiled at it then Jimmy.

"Why are you gawkin' at that kōban?"

The Harrier didn't hesitate to veer off into a nearby alleyway. "Come on."

He didn't wait for Jimmy to catch up as he slid into it, ignoring the immediate unease flaring up in him as he slunk in further. But as soon as Jimmy arrived, he released a sigh of relief at a familiar face in the middle of his anxiousness of being in the darkened space again. He started talking in hush as he shifted his feet, "I promise this will be the last time I go into the Realground."

While the New Zealander at first gave him a quizzical look, the other's expression twisted slightly. "...Are you feelin' all good?"

The Harrier hid his disquiet when he recognized what the question was for and traded it for indifference. "It's not like doing it in the open is optional." He reached in for the cord of his being, knowing it may take a while to change his Frequency. "I'll join you soonish."

Jimmy stared at him in concern as the Harrier continued his progress, waiting and shoving his irritation away the best he could before he noticed Jimmy was now dully coloured. He gritted his teeth yet felt better knowing Jimmy wouldn't watch him struggle, continuing until he saw wingless Jimmy resume his usual saturation.

With a puff of tiredness, he shakily grinned at his friend before wordlessly brushing past to leave the alley. 'Time to shine… let's put on a show.'

As soon as they walked into the kōban, the Harrier quickly gained the attention of the resident police officer at the front desk by clearing his throat. He smiled at the uniformed man and spoke, "Hello, we're just here to ask about something."

The person on the other end of the desk immediately frowned back in seriousness. "What appears to be the trouble?"

"Well, you see…" With a quick look to Jimmy, the Harrier let the other shuffle in beside him before clasping his hands together mindfully. He gazed back calmly at the man at the desk. "My friend here just moved in from another country and has been having trouble wrapping his head around certain laws. So I thought we'd ask if it's possible to get something to help him out so he doesn't do something to get arrested, in that aspect."

Blinking at that in surprise, the police officer's frown disappeared. He quickly started shifting through things on his side, from how paper ruffles reached the Harrier's ears. "Hmm… well, to make things simple-" He started writing stuff out on a stack of paper he just procured and the Harrier threw a look back at Jimmy with a subtle nod. "If you do get charged with anything, you would get detained for a certain amount of time. About twenty-three days, give or take, at the most…"

The Harrier glanced back at the man. "But what sort of things can he get arrested for?" he asked in suspense.

He promptly got a stern look back. "That depends on the severity."

Nodding, the Harrier bounced on the balls of his feet with a hum, "I see, I see…"

It was a good, solid twenty minutes, the Harrier crunched, of sitting around before they walked away with a packet of pages tucked underneath the Harrier arm. He almost wanted to cheer about it but reined himself in so he wouldn't blow his cover, instead settling for his satisfaction that the vital task went so well.

Even though he was born and raised in Japan, not even he knew the exactness of all of the laws. It was better safe than sorry when teaching the Reapers about what to do and what not to do, after all, to avoid Recruiting new Wrongdoers for the wrong reasons.

Once they were just entering Circle Route after shifting back was when they heard Jimmy's name. While the Harrier had flinched and stopped, Jimmy had merely turned back to greet the speaker. "Hey, mate."

"Hello, Jim-san," said Michito shyly as he went to join them. The Harrier didn't look back, feeling instantly uneasy over the fact Jimmy was talking to two Michito's in plain sight as the deeper voiced Reaper spoke on in a rather bleak tone, "I-I… I never got a chance to talk with you about it, but is this a good time?"

Jimmy immediately sent the Harrier a look but the Harrier gave a quick shrug, hoping that was enough to say he'd be fine. Or at least, should be fine with sneaking back. He didn't trust using his voice would be acceptable as he spotted Harriers milling around further ahead while they were shouting instructions to each other.

He would be lucky if he got out of it by saying his name was also Michito.

Gulping as quietly as he could, the Harrier started walking forward as Jimmy was responding, "Nah, yeah, I'm all good for a yack… Same place as always?"

As soon as the Harrier crossed along the roads, away from the two of them and the Realground cars, the Harrier could see movement from nearby as he felt the burn of a set of eyes catch him. He tried to not let his discomfort show as he willed himself to appear calm, hopefully calming his own nerves in the process as he continued forward. Just the thought of screwing up something as simple as getting back to Jimmy's home made him want to squeeze his nape as hard as he could.

If his nervousness revealed itself, that may have been the reason why they were walking towards him now. He cursed his ability to mask his emotions failed as he squashed the instinct to run, only stopping once they got close enough to call out for him.

When he turned to the first two Reapers, he kept his mouth closed as one of them spoke, "Do you have a moment?"

The Harrier forced himself to nod as the last Harrier arrived. He didn't want to do it but what choice did he have? If he bolted now they would know it was him.

"Okay, so as you're aware, we're looking for the Reaper that escaped capture yesterday," said the same Reaper as her fellow Harriers nodded in affirmation. "We think he may be adopting disguises because no one's seen anyone wearing black hoodies around. That, or he has some kind of Teleportation Psych."

That made the Harrier sweat a little as another spoke, "It's because Blackie disappears like it's nothing. He's practically the Underground's escape artist." A second later, the male Harrier added, "Could you do us a favour and tell other Reapers on the search about it? Or have you seen any Reapers acting suspicious like that?"

He nodded then shook his head, giving a thumbs up before they turned around. The moment they were leaving the district, he released his sigh slowly before walking again.

While he felt relieved it didn't take long nor did they try to get him to speak, he didn't waste more of his time to get back. And once he had, he began speaking with the other Tenants about what he found out to their dismay.

"You can't go out anymore then," said Sadorume sharply as the Harrier halfheartedly agreed. He was clenching the fabric of his pants as he sat with the packet next to him while she paced between the start of the hallway and entryway. "You should be lucky they didn't ask you for verbal responses!"

"Or why you were mute," put in Itoh tersely.

"And I'm grateful," the Harrier replied curtly as he then gave a huff. "Not only that, Michito and Jimmy went somewhere, so we should be glad they hadn't interrupted us then."

"But what did you get?" then asked Nakai, curiously leaning forward.

The Harrier released his lap and scooped up the pages, brandishing them impassively as he frowned. "Even if our newest recruits are street smart, I don't want to take any chances with them blindly killing jaywalkers. This will help sort out any uncertainties."

Nakai nodded while Sadorume halted to glance at the Harrier. "But still," she said shrewdly as she let out an exasperated sigh. "You want to dispel everyone's suspicions yet they'll be looking for your disguises. Do you plan on just working for Jimmy until you fade, or do you know how you'll sustain yourself until they stop hunting you again?"

The Harrier dropped the packet at his momentary alarm but then reminded himself he did say that. He started to worriedly frown as he regarded the two of them again, biting his bottom lip's insides. 'Shit, she's right.'

He hated the fact that it was still an issue he had to decide on what to do for himself. The venture of going after any Player was gone, Erasure-Assists were out of the question…

Grabbing his head with his hands as he hunched over, he whispered out in disbelief, "I swear… I'll think of something."

"You don't know what you'll be doing!?" Sadorume's accusatory exclamation didn't make him look up as he stared at his lap anxiously. "But we're having the second meeting this afternoon!"

"I know, I know-!" He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly. "I'll think of something, trust me!"

When he whipped his head up to the now silent duo, he let go of his head and began to resort the disorganized papers as he explained, "My hands may be tied with my options but I assure you I'll have everything under control by then. But one thing's for certain-"

As he carded through and continued slipping pages back into place on his lap, he sighed, "I'm not supposed to Erase anyone ever again."

---

And yet, as the meeting grew near, the Harrier wasn't ready.

The Harrier squeezed his neck as he was well aware of how movement was a little ways from him on the other side of the wall, sitting on the bed as he distracted himself with the packet again.

'I'm supposed to be more organized than this-' he thought as he flipped the pages. However, the words he hadn't crossed out in pen for two hours didn't register in his mind as he repeated it again unseeingly. 'I bet I'll be yelled at and scorned over not having something ready at this point-'

A noise of aggravation was climbing his throat, but he strived to keep it inside as he grabbed his head and shook it despairingly.

When a knock sounded at the bedroom door, he was too busy with his panic to answer it. So of course, it opened when he wasn't ready. He caught Andy's molten gaze then all but stared down at the packet like it would give him the solution to his problem.

"Auh…" Andy's voice was a blessing; godsend to his ears as he urgently took heed of her again. "Leaadee?"

Feeling his shaky smile form, he merely let out a half-yell before folding over himself. The door shut then and he felt a hand touch his shoulder, making him tense as she sat next to him. It was all he could focus on.

He couldn't remember the last time she caught him freaking out like this. He immediately threw out the Day the Player Killer was Erased, but he could only think it may have been near the beginning of their earlier Days together or the two Days when they first met. However, his recollection of his meltdown over seeing the comments from the Reapers who gave up on the Legalization made him cringe that it wasn't noteworthy enough for her to remember it. Either way, he couldn't remember the exactness as she tried to calm him down.

...But she shouldn't have to be calming him down. He was better than this.

He was normal.

At first it took her a bit to get through to him, but once her coaxing started to feel less disparaging and more welcoming, he slowly felt himself uncurl to sit up taller. And once he had, she sighed with a small smile.

"Therre yaa aahrre," she said as she chuckled. "Waasn't the waolrstt aone waas eit?"

He mutely shook his head as a pang of exhaustion waved through him. He began to readjust the packet in the meantime as Andy watched him, frowning as he heaved out a sigh as he stared down at his lap.

"Andy…" She blinked at him attentively. "I don't think I'm exactly prepared for this."

The dark dirty blonde merely tilted her head as she spoke, "'Caourlse yaa aahre prleaapaarred. Yaaw'rre jaust getting caorld feet."

"Am I?" He smiled slightly in dryness before he sighed again, "That could be it."

"Nerlvaousness daoesn'tt suitt yaa, spirl the beaans!" She narrowed her eyes as she promptly pointed at the door. "They'rre waaiting faorl yaa."

He shot her an annoyed look before huffing, "If I go out there now without an important piece to the plan, I'll seem like an idiot." When she silently continued to gaze at him, he read her question off easily and mumbled, "I'm only missing the part about what I'll be doing to keep myself from Self-Eradication, alright."

She blinked in surprise at that. "Thaatt's aahrl!?" To his dismay, she started to laugh and shake her head. "AI thaought yaa aahrlreaadee taold meh aahbaoutt eit! The night wee aahlrued!"

The black-hooded Reaper gaped a little but quickly gathered back his composure as he sputtered out, "That was just a hypothetical to get you off my back at the time!"

Andy didn't look too impressed with that as she raised an eyebrow. "Sao? Eit saounded leike yaa haad aahn eideaa."

"But still-" He shook his head as his eyes remained wide. "It was a hypothetical-"

"Aahnd eit's purlfect." Andy nodded then rolled her eyes. "Whaatt's wlaong with eit?"

The Harrier was about to answer that when he stopped, lowering the finger he raised up to place it on his chin instead. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with it... but he knew the moment he told Andy that she was going to shove him out the door to present his case to their potential recruits.

He had to be smart about what he decided now or it would bite him down the line. He couldn't just accept something that simple...

Or could he?

While he didn't necessarily have what he needed so far, he could always frame it as a temporary solution until he figured out a better one. After all, you didn't just have epiphanies overnight. Although, he would have to put a lot of effort in to maintain the amount of Points he needed for his survival if he did go the route of Processing...

He looked up after he felt Andy poking into his arm, blinking at her as she huffed at him. She didn't even have to say her thoughts as he gave her a pointed look in return as he stood up, holding the packet close as he followed her out the door.

Now that the Harrier was finally outside the room, he was faced with several Reapers milling about the living room and kitchen. They were locked in small talk and as he was tallying up the numbers, he couldn't help but blink in pleasant surprise at the sight of Michito sticking to the side of Jimmy.

That's right… Michito originally was told about the Legalization by Jimmy, if he recalled it correctly.

As a smile came to his lips, he didn't waste any time greeting them as he instead slid into the living room. He already had caught the attention of the congregated Reapers as he pivoted to face them at the corner of the hallway and living room, glancing around himself as he inhaled to steady himself.

"I'd like to thank everyone for coming again," he began coolly, taking the moment to readjust his grip on the packet before he went on, "Unlike last time, this meeting may take longer to go through than yesterday's. So I believe I might as well say that we better come up with a reason why you may or may not be where you usually are this Day."

"We could always say this was a get-together?" Itoh threw out with a shrug. "But it could come off as suspicious, so we should think of a better way to meet again without that happening."

The Harrier nodded thoughtfully at that point before he responded, "Quite so. We could always frame it as a sympathy party to make sure Jimmy and Michito are doing well?"

"What kind of a party is a sympathy party anyway?" asked one Reaper in confusion.

"One that Blackie just made up," replied Sadorume before taking a drink of her water. "We might be safe if this is just an one-off occasion."

"Then how do we frame the other gatherings?" asked another Reaper the Harrier hadn't gotten the name of yet.

While the Harrier was at a loss for this himself, he couldn't help but eyeball how Michito whispered something to Jimmy suddenly. In the middle of the New Zealander's response, the Harrier took note of how the other Reapers began talking to themselves and were seemingly losing interest…

The Harrier didn't want the evening to devolve into disorganization. He had to rein everyone back into the conversation.

"Okay, I think it's best that we can always think of something later," he said while suppressing his distress, taking inventory of their focus until their interest were absorbed in him again. He raised his free hand as he spoke on, "For the meantime, I'll cut to the chase."

Upon waiting to gauge their attention span again and their readiness to listen, he collected his thoughts before he explained, "In order for us to carry out our goals, we will be creating a killer. Not just picking and choosing someone to be our scapegoat…" He met Andy's gaze as she intently stared at him from the nearby kitchen counter, nodding to her before he added, "But part of the plan will include a scapegoat for courtesy's sake. We all know that Andy will never stop hunting and killing Wrongdoers, so we'll capitalize on that by having Andy do what she does best."

Andy sighed out before she gave a crooked grin. "AI waourldn't aahsk faorl aahyneething erlse."

"But do we have to work with her?" asked someone, who immediately received an affronted glare from the dark dirty blonde.

Before his friend could answer that, he stepped in instead. "If you're seen with her while she does her thing you could be linked as accomplices. I'd rather anyone who isn't Andy stay away from her other than Jimmy for the time being."

The outspoken Reaper backed down after that, which allowed the Harrier to continue, "Everyone's jobs will be to sell the fact that nothing is out of the norm from here on out. If we stray from our tasks or have missteps we'll invite suspicion from the Posh Bastard and other Reapers." He briefly cleared his throat. "Because if we handle this correctly, no one will know who this offending perpetrator is and only that they could be anyone. Any out of place behaviour could lead them back to us and that's not what we want. We need to make a point that everything is the new normal."

Murmurs picked up after that and he listened in carefully, trying to discern if anyone found disfavour with it before he straightened his back.

"In other news, I'll be giving everyone tasks to carry out you must all stick to without question," he said firmly, training his gaze on the Reapers. "Part of which will include, as we talked about yesterday, killing Wrongdoers." Michito glanced at him when the Harrier said that. His hooded face didn't reveal any of his emotions, so it was challenging to gauge what the other was thinking about. "We need to synchronize our movements to make it appear one person is at fault. I believe it would be favourable if you plan that in your own time together so we don't have two killings happen in two Routes that aren't close to each other. It is vital because if we screw up then the Reapers will notice the holes in the narrative.

"Andy's killings can be the exception because it can be accepted that the killer couldn't be her," he said kindly with a little chuckle, sending a smile Andy's way as she rubbed her hands together happily. "After all, if it isn't me or Andy doing it, who else could it be?"

"But that begs the question of who the person is," said one Reaper, to the Harrier's momentary bewilderment.

He turned to them. "The point is that no one knows who they are."

The Reaper tilted their head. "But if we don't know who they are then how will they know who they are or if there's a person?"

Immediately, the Harrier grimaced as he stared at them, wondering what exactly they were getting at. But before he could figure it out, their neighbour on the sofa spoke up, "That's what I've been wondering... What do we call this person?"

In response to the question, the Harrier slipped a hand into his hood to squeeze his nape as his eyes flickered between Jimmy and Andy. "It's not a real person, just a concept of a killer. There's, heh, no reason to really have a name for them…"

His expression contorted more when that caused Reapers to start conversations again. He felt the need to let his body keel over in defeat that the crowd kept getting distracted but he saved face by not releasing the scream that threatened to leave his throat. Instead, he withdrew his hand and spoke less enthused, "Do we really need a name, is all I'm asking…"

"Well, maybe what they're trying to say is that we need something to refer to when mentioning the killer," suggested Sadorume shrewdly with a sigh. She didn't appear as ruffled as the Harrier wished he wasn't as she put in while crossing her arms, "It would make information sharing easier. Like how we call you Blackie and spoke about the Player Killer when talking about you two."

The Harrier blinked in realization at that. 'That… makes a lot of sense.' He put his hand on his chin as he thought more, 'We can't really convince everyone there is a killer Reaper on the loose without some concrete proof they exist. Even a name as their label would dispel any doubts they're more than one person!'

"Then I suppose we'll come up with a name…" he said with a shaky smile and forced himself to not cringe. He snapped his fingers and he tried to be cheerful about it. "We need something not too vague and not too specific and then we can continue on with our meeting!"

"So that knocks out heaps of names then…" mused Jimmy as he frowned.

The Harrier nodded. "Probably something that's not too stupid or ridiculous, either. After all, we need something that sticks so we don't have to argue for it to and bring attention to ourselves over something as small as a name." While he didn't understand the intricacies of why a name mattered so much, he wasn't a wizard at creating them except a few.

As in, the Posh Bastard's was namely his pride and joy…

Stifling his snickers, he cleared his throat before he spoke, "So, any thoughts on the name?"

The Harrier would have thought the question would be easy to answer with at least ten Reapers in the room… but he was proven rather wrong when fifteen minutes of fruitless suggestions passed. He had to try to drag them into a different subject for the shouts to stop before he was stuck wondering why it brought so much chaos to the meeting.

"Let's just think of something better later and move on," he mumbled finally in defeat as he sighed, watching the equally weary and stumped crowd as they nodded back.

After a few moments of receiving silence, he inhaled very deeply and contemplated whether or not the presentation was going well.

He soon spoke again when he felt ready to continue the meeting but with more assurance, "Now, when you guys do your killings… you'll be leaving little, random objects until Jimmy gets the momento he's been working on on his shelves. That will become our killer's trademark calling card to make things easier to convince everyone our killer exists. I don't know how well it will sell with Jimmy's other customers, but what I do know is that we need it to sell and become so popular no one will know who to look at to figure out who the killer is."

He smiled as he then passed the paper packet to Andy, who started to flip through it with a bemused then eager expression. She soon passed it on to a Reaper beside her. "Just today we stopped by and got a hand of different laws Wrongdoers could get arrested for or be considered for our hitlist. I edited it to suit who we need to target, so I advise everyone to memorize it so we don't cause unnecessary killings." He clasped his hands together as he continued confidently, "But if murder isn't your forte, we can always delegate you to a different task to help us out."

"Which is…?" The Harrier didn't pay attention to who had spoken.

He smiled crisply as he regarded the person. "It's simple." He closed his eyes as he explained, "Jimmy has been having trouble with juggling his Support duties, creating his wares and working hours in his shop to make his profit." He quickly opened his eyes to address the Support as he continued, "I'm already lending my abilities to help him out with shifts for our operation, but if some of you are creatively inclined and are willing, maybe you can help him create his wares so we don't struggle with any of those departments."

Michito sighed at that, catching the Harrier's attention. As he focused on the other, seeing him not react more than that, the Harrier soon frowned before he regarded the other Reapers again. "In other words, ensuring Jimmy doesn't struggle on his end is very important for himself and for the production of our killer's calling cards."

"But will we have to pay for them ourselves?" asked the Reaper from earlier who was big on naming their killer.

The Harrier frowned at that before acknowledging Jimmy, who spoke then, "I don't want to be an egg when it's your Yen…"

"You might lose money if we don't," said Itoh gruffly, shaking his head as he added sternly, "And what if the Posh Bastard wants to check on your sales? Wouldn't it be suspicious if you're practically giving away your wares to us?"

As the mustard-hooded Harrier brought that up, the Harrier couldn't help but concur. If he had his knapsack with him, of which he was pretty certain was lost to Vultures desperate for Yen Pins and not the bag itself after a little over a month of losing it, he would have tried to give the Yen Pins to Jimmy once he knew of Jimmy's financial difficulties. Which was a real shame, since he was certain he would have immediately jumped on the notion at that point of time.

Jimmy appeared uncomfortable over it upon the murmurs of shared agreement. Yet as the Support's facial features screwed up, Michito grabbed his arm. "Jim-san… it wouldn't hurt to accept that they want to help. It might be your shot to not lose out on rent anymore."

While the New Zealander appeared ready to argue with that as he frowned more and opened his mouth, the Harrier focused on him as the black-hooded Reaper uneasily spoke up, "Unless it's about your pride… then we can think about something else." He frowned worriedly at the other, beginning to think about what else they could do if Jimmy felt that was the case as he waited on the Support.

Jimmy merely lowered his head and looked unsure, but the Harrier decided they could come back to this topic later when the Support didn't respond further than that. It kind of bugged him they had a lot on their plate to come back to, but he knew not every meeting had to be perfect.

...If he ignored how the Posh Bastard probably thought differently about it.

The Harrier inhaled again to compose himself before speaking again, "How about we focus on other aspects for now?"

He tried to keep his smile from faltering when conversations started up again.

---

Surprisingly after that point in the meeting, everything else they had to discuss fell into place. Even the portion where the Harrier had to convince everyone why he had to stick with Processing as his primary food source blew over faster than he thought it would. He was kind of glad that Andy got him back on that line of thinking again as they went through more processes and settled burning questions. And he had to say, they were pretty much done after he sorted through their concerns.

However, it kind of bugged him how Michito decided to bow out halfway through after mentioning he didn't want any part of their scheme. He was the only one to voice his choice but thankfully he promised to not disclose a word about it at Jimmy's insistence. Although, the Harrier couldn't help but feel bummed out he didn't have the other's aid, even Jimmy echoed that sentiment silently if he read the other's emotions right.

So that brought the meeting to the point where they could adjourn again, but the Harrier couldn't help but be caught off guard when the Reaper who was big on names asked a question he wasn't quite prepared to have thought would come up.

"And what will we be called?"

After blinking for a while, dwelling on both the suddenness and the importance of it, the Harrier felt himself shake his head soon. "We… we don't need one." He couldn't help but feel bewildered about why it was a question to begin with.

That didn't seem to bother the Reaper as they went on, "But how do we know to refer to ourselves if we don't have a name to refer to ourselves?"

The need to facepalm became strong but the Harrier resisted it strongly as he tersely spoke, "We don't actually need one because we're trying to assert our killer exists. What do we need a name for if we're the people masquerading as the killer?"

"Every organization has a name," simply said the Reaper, as if that was a known fact. His neighbouring Reaper nodded as he added stubbornly, "The Conductor called every Reaper a certain name, so we can't forget about that part, guys."

As the Harrier prepared his response to it, conversations started up as he felt his composure start to lessen again. He didn't understand why the Reapers were so insistent on names, he just wanted them to understand how horrible of an idea it would be to yell out a name on the street for no reason. If word reached the Posh Bastard that Reapers were starting to call themselves names, the man himself would get his Vultures to investigate into it then nearly everyone would figure out the Harrier made a secret society that was bent on ensuring Wrongdoers were dealt with!

It was a no-brainer that they couldn't have names so what was the point of talking about it!?

"W-Would it hurt us if we just had one but never talked about it?" asked Nakai nervously.

That caused Harrier to look to him curiously. "I… I suppose if that's how we'll use it, that'll be fine?" The Harrier nodded at the Support appreciatively afterward. He noticed the two Reapers from earlier gave happy hums and they turned to each other excitedly in their seats.

The Harrier felt a little frustrated that his arm was twisted, but if arguing lost their support, he felt this was a necessary surrender. ...As long as everyone didn't happily sing it in the streets, that's all that mattered.

"We can only say the name during the meetings then," he said with a weak smile.

At first, he expected the two to pipe up again and demand they must yell it out, but he was pleasantly pleased that they nodded without a single comment. He released a sigh before he started to open his mouth to end the meeting, but that's when one of the two spoke to his dismay, "But what about the killer's name?"

Shit. "That's right, we need to-" He grimaced behind his hood when the other of the pair spoke up.

"First we need to get the organization's name chosen!"

The Reaper who initially spoke released a surprised sound then exclaimed, "Oh yeah! Nearly forgot that!"

Could anyone blame the Harrier for finally bringing his hand half over his face and to his forehead? It was not his problem that he did that and breathed out heavily.

He was well aware that Jimmy and Andy were sending him worried looks as he peered out from the gaps in his fingers and looked around himself, biting his lip as he tried not to feel angry over the fact everything was derailing because of the stupidity of names. But he felt better when Andy moved to join his side, lowering his hand as he regarded her when she faced the crowd with him.

"Eaasee," she said cheerfully as she leaned against his side, to his niggling discomfort. He tried to flatten the feeling down as she grinned wolfishly. "Wee kirl the Wlaongdaoerrs, sao why naott saomething aahbaoutt getting lid aof them?"

The Harrier widened his eyes in surprise at that as he side-glanced her. "...Andy, that's perfect."

She turned to him, stepping away from resting against him to give a thumbs up as he exhaled in relief. But someone in the crowd captured his focus and made him frown a little. "What did she say? Her Japanese is atrocious."

Andy's face fell as a glare overtook it, but the Harrier spoke up before his friend could start yelling, "She's trying her best to improve it, so don't look down on her for struggling." He gave them a hard look afterwards, waiting on them to further complain about it, then sniffed in disgruntlement as he scowled, "Please keep your questions or concerns related to our meeting."

As much as it worried him standing up for Andy could cost him a member, he shoved it away when he told himself he wouldn't let his hope for members cause him to look past his friendship. Andy was important to him just as much as pulling this off was. He didn't want badmouthing to be in any part of their daily comings and goings.

When he deemed the Reaper wasn't going to challenge him, his gaze sharply checked on the other Reapers as he snorted in annoyance. 'The nerve of some Reapers…' He took the time to calm himself down to a considerable degree before recollecting his thoughts about what they were going on about again.

"Basically we're going with something about how we kill and get rid of Wrongdoers," he told them in a note of terseness, inhaling before he spoke milder, "If anyone has any bright ideas about a sort of name that fits, please speak up now."

As he waited for the Reapers to volunteer them, he looked at Andy as she silently fumed while glaring at the Reaper from before. He didn't say anything but pointedly turn his head to them, scowling as he wondered if them being here was going to be an issue or not if they were going to have more conflicts with Andy.

"Wrongdoer Killers?"

He turned his head to the speaker and grimaced. It was exactly what he asked for, but that wasn't exactly striking a cord with him. Despite his dislike towards the fact they were wasting time coming up with names, he didn't want to say he was a hypocrite about it. He just didn't want to accept a poorly or dumbly chosen one.

Therefore, he decided to wait on more before he announced the name.

The Harrier spent the time thinking about one himself in the meantime, ignoring the urge to cross his arms as to not deliver the message he wasn't happy with the selection as more and more were shouted out.

"Wrongdoer Get-Ridders!"

"Murder Wrongdoers!"

"Wrongdoer Hunters!"

"Secret Reapers! No, uh, wait- you said it has to do with killing! Uh… Secret Killers!"

The list went on and on, but the Harrier closed his ears off to them at this point. He kept his arms glued to his sides instead of pressing them against his face and groaning.

Was it really worth it saying yes to the name? He felt like he should call it off now to save themselves from being called a stupid name even the Posh Bastard would somehow find that he could laugh at… Sure, the Harrier never witnessed the man laugh before, but at the rate the names were going… he'd say there was a high possibility that the man would finally release one and be amused for once.

Especially when the Posh Bastard announced what punishment they would have for killing Wrongdoers in secret as the 'Murder Killers'.

With his body stiff and feeling one of his eyes twitch, the Harrier suppressed the intense urge to scream as Andy said something, "Wlaongdaoerr Elaaticaatuun Blrigaade." She offered him a questioning look and he blinked at her in confoundment. "Daoes thaatt saound gaood?"

Blinking again as he glanced at the previously cacophonic room, he pressed his lips together as he brought his hand to his chin. "Wrongdoer Eradication Brigade?"

As Andy eagerly nodded at that with her amber-brown eyes bright with excitement, the Harrier couldn't help but feel like her contribution to the name pool sounded less cringey than the others'. In fact, right now, he could faintly hear 'oohs' and 'awws' around him from the gathered Reapers. He couldn't help but blink at the positive reception Andy was receiving.

"A mouthful, but it works." The Harrier smiled warmly. "We could always shorten it."

He could only watch Andy's glee as she cheered at that while he pretended some Reapers weren't muttering about favouritism. He felt ready to call them out on it, but instead settled with liking how Andy was enjoying his approval. It was nice to see that she was happy about it, he mused as he closed his eyes, and it was good that they finally had something so they wouldn't get stuck on this topic.

Speaking of other topics, he couldn't help but feel exhausted over the fact that they still had to name their killer. He already heard enough bad names for today, so he felt that he wasn't going to enjoy this portion of the meeting again.

Inhaling as he braced himself about mentioning it, he suddenly felt an arm land on his shoulders as Andy piped up gleefully, "Eisn'tt aour readerr faantaasttic aaht eideaas?"

For a moment, the Harrier had to ponder about what she said before he frowned in confusion. "Leader…? What are you talking about?"

Andy merely gave him a frown of dumbfoundment back, to his dismay. The Harrier had hoped she had a reason for why she said that because of how confident she was in announcing it, but it would appear she wasn't going to. He decided to ignore the fact he hated the weight on his shoulders as he shot a look at Jimmy, who didn't seem as confused or concerned as the Harrier thought the shopkeeper would be.

It occurred to him that Andy simply said that because of the thrill of the meeting, the Harrier eventually settled on as the purpose. Sure, it was unfounded that she would think he was a leader when he was merely bringing together Reapers to work together… but the moment Jimmy spoke, his deduction crashed and burned, "Course you are, Bro."

The Harrier ducked and slid out from Andy's hold to glance between the two in shock. "Okay, I know that you're big on my suggestion, but I assure you that I feel too humbled for you to call me that…"

Andy stared at him with an odd look and frown. "Whaatt's wlaong?"

"What's wrong?" the Harrier echoed with a chuckle and then a shake of his head. He felt amused about the question as he replied, "Calling me a leader when there's no reason for it." He touched the back of his neck as he smiled. "It's a good joke, though."

The silence he received from Andy and Jimmy was concerning when he glanced at them good-naturedly, feeling his smile slide off as he frowned when he watched the rest of the room looked at each other and him once and a while. He even heard a dry cough instead of conversation somewhere in the crowd as he lowered his arm and simply remained bewildered.

After a blink or two, he tightened his jaw when he spoke up, "You can't seriously be telling me that wasn't a joke."

"Uh… I was under the assumption that you were going to lead us when you talked about your plan the first time," admitted Itoh awkwardly, causing the Harrier to grimace as Reapers echoed that sentiment. "But if you're not, who's the leader then?"

The Harrier cleared his throat then replied plainly, "There's no reason to have a leader when no one is more important than the other."

"We still need someone to tell us what to do, though," said the Reaper who was big on names. "What's an organization without a leader?" That brought out more agreeing murmurs out from the Reapers.

When the Harrier gave a disbelieving look to his friend, she was frowning at him with a lost look. He stared back until he quietly asked forlornly, "But… why me?"

Andy's gaze became more alert as she threw her head back to laugh. It made him widen his eyes at her reaction until her head returned to its normal level as she grinned crookedly. "Naow thaatt's aah jaoke eif aI evarr heaarld aone! Why waourldn't yaa reaad aus?"

"But I just said…" he began before she grabbed his shoulders. He flinched, being turned around to fully stare at her until her molten eyes took on an intensity that froze him to the spot.

"Yaaw'rre purlfect ta bee aourr reaaderr," she said without an ounce of doubt in her voice, nodding before she went on, "Yaa gaott aahrl the eideaas… yaa knaow whaatt wee wirl bee daoing…" Her hold tightened on his shoulders before she let go, facing the crowd as she hooted out, "Raaise yaa haand faorl him eif yaa think he's the reaaderr!"

For the first few moments, the majority of the Reapers looked on in confusion. No one were raising their hands, but Jimmy was the first as Andy was raising hers. Soon after they had, the other Tenants that stayed here did so as well, then the Harrier watched in near horror as every other Reaper seemed to have finally decoded Andy's message somehow in the last five seconds as theirs shot up.

After crunching the number of hands raised, just in case he misread his calculations, the Harrier dizzily realized everyone in the room was basically saying they believed it. He wanted to call them out on misunderstanding bias- if that existed- because there was no way they were plopping him in the driver's seat for what they planned to do…

He also felt kind of nauseous over the fact as he swallowed hard while pondering about how misguided they were about believing he should lead them. It was ludicrous…

"B-But why…?" He cursed his stutter as he felt faint, trying to keep himself from falling over pathetically as he glanced around in dumbfoundment. "Wh-Why would you think…?"

He absently felt a hand patting his left shoulder as Andy crowed, "Thaatt settles eit!" Andy added proudly when turning her head to him, "Wee haave aourr reaaderr!"

The Harrier muttered his disagreement over that but his voice swallowed by the various cries of support from the Reapers. And when he shook his head back at her and tried to explain he wasn't, he bitterly resigned to the fact that no one was listening to him. Therefore, he released a heavy sigh in embarrassment eventually as Andy jostled his shoulder a little with an elated beam.

He couldn't deny that he hated this, even when he felt less winded from the vote he wasn't even a part of.

Once he realized that the Reapers were staring at him, he awkwardly grabbed his nape from within his hood. He tried to pretend his composure wasn't lost. "Now that we settled… that…" He grimaced as he went on, "We still have one more thing to finish before our meeting's adjourned."

There was a beat of silence before the name-loving Reaper cried out, "OH YEAH! We need the killer's name!"

As the Harrier tried to wait out the insurgence of chatter, he took the time to further calm himself down to appear collected again. At least, as collected as he wished he actually was while he cleared his throat. "Yes, that…" He was pretty sure no one was listening again but settled with waiting for the voices to die down.

Once everyone was quiet again, with a few words exchanged in between, he began, "With how long it's been since we last spoke of it, has anyone thought about names since then?" When he received blank looks to his question, he grimaced a little before continuing, "There's nothing wrong with that." He decided to clasp his hands despite not wanting to, shifting his feet on the spot. "It's… very important we choose the right name, in this case."

The Reaper big on names sat up taller in their seat as they exclaimed, "If we're called WEB, we can call ourselves the Spiders and our killer can be the Big Spider!"

"What?" the Harrier breathed out incredulously as he and the other Reapers stared at them.

They shrugged and happily replied, "All serial killers have a theme. So if we're called WEB, the killer has to be the Big Spider! It makes sense because it's how killers get caught!"

The Harrier was about to respond to that terrible line of logic when Sadorume beat him to it. "We don't want to get caught," she said sternly while shaking her head stiffly. "That's the whole point of the operation."

At first, the Reaper stood up, appearing as if ready to speak from how he carried his body. The Harrier braced himself for what they had to say when they merely sat back down and nodded slowly, soon lowering their head. He blinked in bafflement until he realized the Reaper seemed to comprehend the implications, thankfully.

He sighed quietly at that. 'I'm so glad we settled that quickly…'

"So can we name them the Big Spider then?"

The Harrier stiffened then inhaled to calm himself before replying in strained politeness, "If word got out we're called WEB… they'd link the killer back to us within an hour with that kind of name. So I apologize that I have to say we can't use it." Once they nodded in return, the Harrier wanted to rub his temples as he tried to maintain his composure from dealing with that Reaper. He didn't want to say he hated them, but the sooner the meeting was over, the better he would feel.

In fact, he felt like not talking to anyone after this meeting.

As he drew his hands together, he regarded the crowd again as he asked, "Any other ideas?" He could only say he felt nothing but dread over what other names they wanted to come up with.

"I think we've exhausted our ideas," stated Itoh with a heavy sigh as his shoulders fell. Other Reapers nodded back to the Harrier as the mustard-hooded Harrier added glumly, "Have you thought of anything yet?"

While the Harrier blinked as Reapers murmured and raptly stared at him, he suddenly felt uneasy with all their eyes on him. The Harrier awkwardly coughed into his sleeve because of that, "W-Well, since you're asking…" He tried not to grimace as he took the time to mull it over himself again. "Hmm…"

They needed a name to sate their insistence on it… but the Harrier had to say that he was at loss over it as well. Sure, he knew if he had more time he could probably scrounge up an excellent one, yet he knew that he wanted the meeting to end sooner than later. If it lasted any longer, he was certain other Reapers would get suspicious about where these Reapers were, which risked their operation, so the Harrier knew he had to figure it out as soon as he could.

A good name usually was one that could be remembered; one that people would feel strongly about when talking about them. When the Harrier first came up with the Posh Bastard's, he remembered it was from an 'on the spur of a moment' moment. It had to have been the fifth time he was being lectured for following his agency to kill Wrongdoers when all he could think about was backtalking back to the man doing it, and the next thing he knew, he was shouting about how much of a bastard he was. A posh bastard, to be exact. It was later on when he was serving his punishment for insulting the man that he realized how fitting it was because of how uppity the man was for thinking he was better than the Harrier. Thus, he decided to stick to using it to spite the man any way he could because the Posh Bastard, for the next few times he used it, reacted negatively, to the Harrier's mirth.

It was fun getting under that man's skin for once. The Harrier happily sighed at how proud he was of himself that he stood up for himself with that insult, as well as how the man couldn't stop the Harrier from pinning it to him permanently...

Snapping back to the present, he tried to pretend Andy wasn't giving him a weird look as he went back to thinking.

Since they were trying to pin the blame on any Reaper, what name could they use to effortlessly woo the masses to accept that was who the killer was? They had to be both sneaky and clever about how they would weave the name into conversations, but it had to be perfect for it to work. Something not too complex, not too weird, not too stupid to be believed...

And what name would better reflect that than...

He pursed his lips before he nodded. "...Mr Reaper." When he received questioning voices, he elaborated as coolly as he could, "Since it could be anyone, why not cash in on the idea that no one knows their name? We're forcing everyone to call them by a moniker that implies they're a Reaper, but they don't know which one."

"Like a John Doe, Bro?" asked Jimmy curiously.

"A John what?" asked the Harrier in confusion.

The lanky Reaper stood up taller as he explained, "Whenever you don't know a bloke's name, where I'm from, we call 'em a John Doe as a placeholder. I'm ow sure it was a thin' from America too." Jimmy's grey gaze shifted away from the Harrier. "Right, Annee?"

When the Harrier turned to the tenor-voiced Reaper, she nodded quickly in response. "Jaohn Daoe."

"Huh…" The Harrier put a hand on his chin. "Then does that work then?"

"But why are you using mister in the name?" question Sadorume with a head tilt. "That's the one thing I don't get."

The Harrier pointed to her. "It's not that I'm saying it couldn't be Mrs Reaper, I just feel a little more inclined to use Mr Reaper. Either could be used, but choosing one and sticking to it is easier. As well-" He pointed his thumb to his left. "Andy could get more flack if Reapers think she's the killer, so we need to separate the connotation that the killer's a girl. It gives more of an umbrella for Andy to work under without convincing everyone she's the sole killer. So we need to hammer in that there's two separate killers operating at the same time that's not me, and not one that's been around from the very start of her Wrongdoer killing career."

Sadorume drew her head back to its normal level before dipping her head. "That makes a lot of sense…" He nodded back when she added strictly, "But you still have a lot of work to do to make sure no one suspects it's you."

The Harrier crisply smiled at that as he responded, "Like what I said, I don't plan on killing a single person throughout the rest of my existence. The Posh Bastard won't know what to think when he's looking at everyone with a hard eye."

That caused a lot of Reapers to snicker.

He clapped his hands together in finality as he spoke next, "With that being said, I believe we've covered everything in the meeting. Are there any other pressing or lingering concerns we should be aware of?" When no one answered him, he nodded contentedly as he hummed, "Then I believe our meeting has met its end. Just remember to coordinate with each other, use caution, as well as to act like nothing's out of the norm. We need to be as convincing and careful as possible for everything to fall into place." After another beat of silence, he added tenderly, "I'm counting on all of you to do your part. Trust me when I say we won't get caught if we do so."

As the minutes went by and the other Reapers slowly took their leave, the Harrier felt himself deflate a little when nearly all of them were gone. He didn't waste time to stagger over to the sofa he usually sat on and flopped down, letting his body go limp just as the door closed again.

The Harrier felt the remaining five gazes settle on him before he heard the stomps of Andy soon approach him.

He raised his head a little from where it lay against the back cushion and breathed out, "Man, that was a long meeting…"

"Yaup." Andy flopped down beside him as she sighed, "AI weish they waourld haave jaust ristened ta yaa einsteaad aof questuuning yaa evarree time leike they werre daumb caatttlre thaatt faalrmerrs herld aout ta feed evaaree three minutes…"

The Harrier decided to not comment on how he really felt about it and instead let himself recline. He closed his eyes as he murmured, "I just hope not every meeting is like this one…"

"If you're that exhausted from this one, I can't imagine how you'll survive the future ones," shrewdly said Sadorume as she was collecting water from the kitchen tap again, soon turning it off to sip it as the Harrier regarded her with a side-glance. She soon spoke again, "If you're going to be leading us, you need to know how to keep everything in line."

"I can't control how people feel, though," admitted the Harrier with a grimace.

"That's exactly how you lose them then." Sadorume put her glass down before crossing her arms. "When you told us about the plan the first time, you didn't act like you were put on the spot every five seconds if we responded."

The Harrier knew there were points where he had, yet he settled with being quiet as he drank her words in.

It wasn't like he was choosing to be deterred by everyone, nor did he choose to be their leader, but being that leader meant keeping everyone in check, it appeared. But could he actually do that? His public speaking skills were average at best; he clammed up a lot whenever he did presentations in school when he was alive. Although, he couldn't deny that he got better at it when got to the Underground… He had to thank the Posh Bastard for that at least whenever they fought with each other as well as a book on public speaking from the River's Library.

But Sadorume was right, though. He couldn't just let this meeting be the standard when he met with the Reapers in the future. Having his nerves frayed for each one wasn't exactly a pleasant thought to have in anticipation of them, he felt. He had to step up and be better at communicating with them. As much as he despised going out of his comfort zone, he had to get his hands on something that would help him get a better handle on it.

Adjusting how he sat, he nodded back to her. "I'll do my best." She merely picked up her glass to sip again as he added coolly with a faint frown, "I won't make promises that I'll improve substantially, but I will do what I can in the meantime."

Andy slammed her hand down on his shoulder, causing him to jump as he faced her grinning face. "AI think yaa ded gleaatt!" She gave him two thumbs up. "Aahrlreaadee a shining exaampull aahmaoung evaareeaone!"

He picked up her hand and drew it off his aching shoulder, grimacing slightly even as he chuckled mildly at that, "If that was me being a shining example, wait until you see the new and improved me." She stuck her tongue out at him, which he translated as her saying 'yeah, right', before he regarded the other Reapers again on his right. "But I couldn't have gotten everyone together without your support. And I guess you could say I hope I'll have your continued support every step of the way."

Itoh crossed his arms. "I wouldn't dream of leaving before and after the fun starts." Nakai nodded shakily and Sadorume continued drinking while the other male Harrier added with a laugh, "I just want to see the Posh Bastard's face every moment he fails to find out about us."

The Harrier smiled in satisfaction at that as he laughed, "I would say the same but that's not my department in the plan. If everything goes well, I won't even have to see him again." Yet as the warm feeling in his chest settled, the Harrier soon frowned as he sighed when it became cold, "But that brings up a point…"

When the room regarded him, he lowered his gaze. "I know you said you don't want to go back to the Barracks, but there's always a chance they may suspect you guys if you don't show your faces."

Silence greeted him after he had spoken, something he had expected when that thought crossed his mind. Despite how he felt about the Tenants previously, he couldn't help but feel almost disheartened about the idea of them not being here if they chose to leave at any time. Sure, he knew next to nothing about them, but a part of him felt that with their shared dislike of the Posh Bastard… it was kind of nice to have a lot of people relate to you. So he guessed at some point he did warm up to them without realizing it; that part at least was what he hated about the situation.

The Harrier never meant to grow close to them, though, and yet…

Before he could finish his thought, Itoh walked over into the living room to face him and Andy. The Harrier blinked more alertly in surprise right before the male Harrier spoke firmly, "If we have to go back to cover our tracks, I'm willing to do that." The Harrier widened his eyes as Itoh gave a bout of hearty laughter, "I can't see the Posh Bastard's stupid face if I never go back to the River, right?"

Although the Harrier was saddened by Itoh's sudden decision, he couldn't help but laugh also. "You got a fair point."

"So it'll be just you and Jimmy again then," stated Sadorume as she paused from her drink, closing her eyes as she sighed, "As much as I liked getting away, I kind of do miss sleeping in the beds."

"Even though they're shitty?" asked the Harrier in disbelieving annoyance.

Sadorume frowned. "Only you think they're terrible. No one but you complain about them."

The Harrier sat up straight immediately and pointed at her with accusation. "I'll have you know that my standards are just like everyone else's but I'm the only one who cares to actually talk about it!"

"I wouldn't know, Bro," said Jimmy with a shrug. "I've never crashed there before."

Nakai turned to him. "I-I don't mind them, though."

Itoh merely made a noise in his throat as he rotated his hand up and down in the air then shrugged too. "I'm not looking forward to fighting for one. I had a good setup before I left, actually."

The Harrier widened his eyes at what he was hearing before he rounded on Andy. "Are you listening to this, Andy!?" To his confusion, she looked uncomfortable as she started to whistle and looked the other way. His jaw dropped as he shouted out in exasperation, "Not you too!"

He suddenly heard laughter from behind him and whipped back to see Jimmy smiling as the other three Tenants joined in, momentarily making the Harrier freeze up before he frowned with a huff. But in spite of that, he smiled small despite how wrong they were about the beds.

Even if this could be the last moment he got to spend with everyone before they started the plan, he couldn't help but cherish the time he had left.

---

To say that things were going well, the Harrier couldn't help but feel that was an understatement.

Things were going fantastically.

When Jimmy took time to teach the Harrier how he ran Saddleback Mana during daylight hours, as per agreed upon shortly after Operation Mr Reaper was properly hatched, the Harrier didn't have a problem getting around and knowing the intricacies of the shop. Even when the first few waves of Reapers started to invade Saddleback Mana, on order of the Posh Bastard each time they stated their business, the Harrier's safeguard fell into place easily to ward them off. He had to repeatedly tell them the Posh Bastard knows the Harrier wouldn't relent on his declaration to not step into the River to simply to drop in for 'unnecessary' interrogation and the Vultures would leave in a fume each time. And, thankfully, the circumstances didn't line up for them to successfully cast the Harrier into the circle of being the guilty party. Thus, eventually, true to the Harrier's word, their timely visits ceased after a fortnight.

Just before he was manning the shop on his own by that time mark, the end of the tenth Day after Recruitment was when Jimmy brandished the completion of WEB's first stock of momentos. The tiny dark grey metal paperweights stylized by one side being covered in a silver web glinting in the light was beautiful... and the WEB Reapers dividing them out amongst the Wrongdoers gave reports saying the mementos looked just as beautiful on their Processed targets. Even the gained blood stains from the gruesome injuries didn't ruin their attractiveness.

On the note of touching base with everyone about it, they luckily managed to keep WEB under wraps by insinuating the ideation that the congregation at the end of the Week were new friends of Jimmy, who were interested in game nights and leisure after a long Week of duties. The Posh Bastard either was oblivious or didn't care about what was going on after Game hours, because the man never sent Reapers to intrude on their 'celebrations' to sniff them out.

While the Harrier hadn't quite begun going out to do his portion of the tasks, as he wasn't feeling quite ready to Process new Players yet, he took the time to analyze their progress and check in on everything and everyone so far today. He knew once his Survival Capacity was lower he had to do it, but for the moment he was content with everyone else's progress, even though he was starting to feel woozy and tired more than usual lately. So until the time was right, all he had to do was continue to monitor his symptoms.

Suffice to say, everything was going according to plan…

The Harrier was in Jimmy's room while he was mulling over this. He had needed a break from socializing after the WEB meeting, so he was certainly glad the WEB Reapers were understanding on their part.

Although he wasn't there, he couldn't help but feel happy as he heard the muffled mingling in the room on the other side of the wall. It seemed like after two solid Weeks not only was their kills going up, but the affinity for friendship was in the works. He wasn't certain what relation any of the newer Reapers had with each other, but he could tell everybody was getting chummy and were no longer acquaintances.

The black-hooded Reaper smiled as he let his eyes close and sighed out contentedly. He told himself they had to keep it up if these friendships were to bloom more...

Yet as soon as his thoughts started to lull the longer he listened, the moment a bang came and what sounded like a rising commotion was happening, it stirred him rudely out from a nap? A near slumber? Heck, call it dozing because whatever it was, the Harrier realized that wasn't the sound of celebration anymore.

He rubbed at his eyes groggily, yawning small as he twisted his legs off the bed. He didn't understand what the hubbub was about, but it nonetheless put him on edge the louder it became. 'What the hell is going on...?'

Just as he was about to grab the doorknob, he realized hastily someone else was behind it. He stumbled backwards to avoid being slammed into by Jimmy.

Despite being spooked, the Harrier began to speak, "Jim-"

"Don't panic, Bro," hurriedly said Jimmy, sounding awfully stressed while shutting the door. The Harrier raised his eyebrows as Jimmy anxiously continued, "I-I tried to tell him to go away, but the door unlocked on its own, Bro, I don't know what happened! I even relocked it and relocked it, but it kept openin' like it was possessed then he barged past me-"

"What- who?" The Harrier's shoulders were grasped suddenly, causing him to flinch.

"I only got past him, my excuse won't work forever-" After he finished speaking, Jimmy released a haggard exhale. He nearly slumped against the Harrier, had the other not reluctantly grabbed the taller to steady the New Zealander.

"Jimmy," said the Harrier firmly as he narrowed his eyes at the panting Support. "What happened? Did the Posh Bastard find us?"

"Worse…" The taller deeply gulped in a breath before replying more, "That bloke with the army uniform… he's insistin' to see you."

The Harrier widened his eyes in shock. "Sadist Saiyama is here!?"

Jimmy had a guilty look pass through his eyes before sadly nodding. "N-Nah, yeah…"

Blinking as horror reared itself from within, the Harrier felt his hands loosen as he took a step back. 'Sadist Saiyama knows I'm here…? What the fuck- How did he know where to find me!?'

"I-If we play it right, we can keep you in smoke without him bein' suss," said Jimmy as he half-closed his eyes with a hefty inhale. "J-Just crash here, and we will handle him…"

A scowl gradually fell over the Harrier's face. He shook his head stiffly. "He doesn't fall for bluffs, Jimmy."

As the other displayed his worry, as evident by his knitted eyebrows, the Harrier clenched his teeth as he bit out, "The Old Man is probably sitting on the sofa calmly, knowing where you went is where I am. I know that there's no way we can persuade him otherwise."

The curly haired Reaper's face fell as he whispered warily, "Straight-up?"

"As frank as I can be," the Harrier confirmed in a hard tone as his face grew taut. "I loathe to admit it, but I have to scare him off myself."

"Bro, you said we couldn't reveal your location yet!" protested Jimmy as he scowled back. "The Saiyama bloke is-"

"Jimmy, I know him better than anybody in WEB..." The Harrier turned around to grab the doorknob as he spoke curtly, "The Sadist unfortunately won't leave people alone until he gets what he wants. And just this once, I'm shoving it into his stupid mouth."

And if that meant the bare minimum would be used to ensure it, the Harrier would have to make due with the consequences.

Stalking out of the room, with Jimmy following close behind, the Harrier set a grim look on his hooded face as he mentally prepared himself throughout the short passageway. He already could see the giant being swarmed by Reapers in the entryway, pleased the man hadn't gone further than that as the Harrier came to a halt.

From the looks of it, the Old Man had a stoic expression on his squashed face as the Reapers' chatter undermined their words' meaning. But the Harrier easily saw past that to identify the disgruntlement the burly man must have felt being boxed into the small space. However, as his familiar murky-green gaze easily skirted over the heads of chattering Reapers, the Harrier couldn't understand why he thought he saw relief shining through them the moment the Sadist's eyes seemed to land on the Harrier.

...Although, the Harrier was certain he must have imagined it.

Pursing his lips as the man still kept his eyes on the Harrier, the black-hooded Reaper merely cleared his throat audibly so the other Reapers could possibly hear it. And when they appeared to, the Harrier crossed his arms and sighed, "I heard you wanted to see me."

The older Harrier didn't speak, but his eyes seemed to speak louder as they switched into confusion then concern. Following the man's gaze, the Harrier adjusted his arms by dropping them, so the man could stop staring at the stretched lines of his hoodie flank's repair.

He merely scoffed before turning away, "Good, you saw me. Get out."

As he began treading back to the bedroom, the Sadist bellowed out, "Wait a minute-" The Harrier kept walking. "I'm not-" The Harrier narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "Just look at me!"

How childish, how desperate… how stupid it was that the Harrier actually slowed to a stop.

Clenching his hands, the Harrier pinched his lips as the Sadist sighed heftily. He then rumbled out less frantically, "I need to talk to you."

"You 'need' to talk to me?" The Harrier twisted his tone to be conniving once he smacked his lips. "Why not talk about the other things you 'need'? Or rather-" He rolled his eyes. "What you impose on others."

A ripple of scornful laughter made his stomach flourish with amusement, content that the WEB Reapers found just as much hilarity in the Sadist's sorriness as he had. Or rather, acted like they knew what the Harrier was talking about. He wasn't a stranger to fake laughter.

"Kid, I just need to talk to you," said the Sadist again but softer; firmer; grimmer…

Patheticer. Or, pathetic, if one was to be grammatically correct. The Harrier didn't care right now.

"You don't need to talk with me, what are you doing here?" the Harrier coldly asked as he inclined his head. He soon gave a dismissive sniff when the Sadist didn't respond right away, "If you have nothing to say, don't bog me with your annoyingness and get out."

The Sadist let out a frustrated growl yet, despite knowing how the man would react, the man instead exhaled out the air slowly. He eventually spoke in a more levelled tone as the Harrier still felt the man's eyes on him, "You want me to get out when I know what you're doing…"

From hearing the man's deep voice reach the grating lilt of gravel, the Harrier couldn't help but shiver a little when the man added solemnly, "I want to join."

Before the Harrier realized it, his eyes were unseeing in front of him and his mouth was parted in surprise.

The Sadist… the Sadist wanted to join!?

A flare up of emotions went off in him, swathing him with excitement, with overwhelming glee, with… The emotions quickly died just as they were arriving to unveil the ugliness of the hidden meaning behind the man's words.

It hit him like a truck. The Sadist was only saying that to make the Harrier regard him!

As his hands shook with unbridled rage, the black-hooded Reaper whirled around to stomp back towards the Sadist as he snarled, "Do you really expect me to be fooled by your lies!? Get, out-"

The Sadist had an encompassing steadiness in his gaze now, causing the Harrier falter in his yelling upon noticing it. The man didn't hesitate to breathe out again, "I want to join."

"No you don't-" spat the Harrier icily and stamped down, jabbing a finger at the man who was being as stubborn as a rock with him. "If you think you can bulldoze in here and fuck around with me- oh you're in for the nastiest surprise of your existence!"

Just as he advanced closer, opening his mouth to tell the WEB Reapers to help him push the man out on to the streets, he suddenly stopped in horror at the scene in front of him.

The previously chortling Reapers were now milling around the man with awe waving off of them.

"You hate the Posh Bastard too!?" asked one Reaper furthest from the giant man, causing the Sadist to yield a pointed, questioning look to the Harrier. The Harrier's eyes widened then narrowed again as he simply averted them. "Oh man, who would have thought!"

"Is it true that you died in World War II?"

"No, I fought and died in the War," admonished the Sadist with a blustery huff. That apparently confused the asker, but the Harrier internally tsked that they would mistake the iconic uniform so easily. Even with all the grime, tear and wear... that there, sister, was from the first, or what the Sadist believed to be, the 'only' War. Or, at least, thought of it as that because it was the first and only war the man may have fought in and was feeling jealousy of those who had fun without him...

...The Harrier couldn't help but be livid for a moment that his Senior High School had a field trip to a war museum. Damn his knowledge!

As more and more comments and questions were fired off in a flurry of words from the milling Reapers, the Harrier felt his face contort more and more; his expression likely becoming ugly with disgust even without checking a mirror for himself. It was terrible that the WEB Reapers turned their opinions around so easily after the Sadist lied. Why were they smitten with the prospect of gaining a new teammate when the Harrier had a list practically dedicated to why this man's presence was terrible to be in.

He could only fume as Jimmy came up to stand by him, shedding a slight glance to the other. From the New Zealander's frown to his wary gaze that occasionally flickered to the Harrier, but mainly remained fixed on the intruder in Jimmy's home, he was glad that Jimmy was apprehensive about this. He would have thought he was going insane if Jimmy also was on brand with letting the Sadist stay, so it gave the Harrier the assurance of what he had to do.

Just as the Harrier was ready to tell the mixture of Support and Harrier Reapers to get a grip on themselves, the next speaker momentarily cleared his angry thoughts from his head enough for him to comprehend what they were saying.

"It would be cool to have an Officer Reaper around," said the Reaper happily.

Once the Harrier heard those words, he gave a loud scoff as laughter exited his throat. It finally earned the attention of the room again, even the Sadist was giving him a curious stare, as the Harrier continued laughing until his sides ached.

Wiping away the tears that had formed, the Harrier chuckled dryly while shaking his head, "Officer Reaper? No, no…" He shook a finger smartly at the man. "That, my fellow Reapers, is a Harrier."

When many eyes gave him odd, quizzical looks, the Sadist himself appeared entirely deadpan. The Harrier eventually grimaced a little in his own confusion at that. 'What? Is something on my hoodie, or…?'

The Sadist gave a sigh before his murky gaze crinkled lightly in amusement. "You really believe that."

Straightaway, the Harrier couldn't help but have his stomach squirm uncomfortably. Yet he held his ground firmly as he nodded curtly. "Don't kid yourself," he snarked snidely. "You sleep in the Barracks like the rest of them."

How the Sadist was smirking wryly now made the Harrier all but annoyed. "The beds are shit." The Harrier twitched irritably and hardened his displeased expression as the man shook his head. "I need a hard mattress under me, something to tell me I'm actually lying on something. An actual bed." He rolled his eyes. "The Officers' Quarters are kidding themselves about luxury with their feathers and poofy pillows-"

"Excuse me, but you can't seriously convince me lying on planks and curling under raggedy towels is comforting!" snapped the Harrier irately as the chilling realization reared itself. He gritted his teeth as he shook his head. "You got to be shitting me…" he hissed in disbelief.

"I thought, with how intelligent you are… you knew about my rank since we met," mused the Sadist smugly, causing the Harrier to become more frustrated. The man then cocked his head with a breathy chuckle, "How you knew my namesake-" The Harrier hated how he could picture the man was laying out his sausage fingers onto his other palm. "Had the authority to interrogate you…"

"St-Stop- stop…" The Harrier had turned his head away and thrust out his palm towards the other, clenching his teeth harder at what he was hearing.

As much as he loathed to admit it, the Sadist had a good point. Without the Sadist mentioning the fact he was able to scare off the Posh Bastard from damaging the Harrier's mental state more during their first encounter, was always available to sit in on conversations the Harrier would have with the Posh Bastard, was almost always sitting by the Harrier's bedside while the latter was recovering from the Yellow Noises' influence… the Harrier realized numbly that he'd never actually seen the man do any Harrier duties despite having a bunk in the Barracks.

On the other hand, with a build and attitude as the Old Man had… everything screamed over-glorified Harrier! Why the fuck would an Officer want anything to do with the Harrier!?

His face had slackened at some point, blanched at the Officer, who merely shifted. The man's expression had become calm and passive the longer the younger Reaper stared. 'He's… he's an Officer?' Blinking as he tried to register this, the Harrier then blinked again but in excited realization. 'Wait… he's an Officer!'

Shaking his head to recover faster from his shock, the Harrier set a scowl back on his face. He scoffed and raised his chin while sardonically speaking, "You want to join…?" The Sadist sighed but humoured the Harrier with a nod. However, that was when the Harrier smirked cruelly as he huffed out a laugh, "Oh I'm sorry… but we have a strict 'no Officer' policy here."

At the startled looks, including the newly revealed Officer's, the Harrier crossed his arms. "Close the door behind you on your way out." He indignantly turned back towards the hallway, not sparing the man anything else to use against him.

However, he didn't have a chance to take a step as the Sadist spoke in a low tone, "If you thought of me as a Harrier Reaper first, what's stopping you from letting me join?"

"Wh-What!?" The Harrier frostily whipped back again to the Sadist. "Don't tell me your senility made you go deaf in the last minute!?"

If the Sadist was offended, the man didn't show it. He crossed his arms and raised a bushy eyebrow. "If you thought of me as a Harrier Reaper first, what's stopping you from letting me join?" He grinned squalidly. "You did consider it, didn't you?"

"Th-That's besides the point!" The Harrier bristled as he stubbornly shook his head, whipping his arm across his front as he growled, "Sadist Saiyamas and Officers are not allowed to join!"

"Now you're twisting your own rules," huffed the man in disgruntlement.

"Shut up- you're not joining!" shouted the Harrier hotly. He coldly leered back while snarling through growls, "I'm not going to even use the fucking magic word- so you better be out of here in the next minute or-!"

The door swung open. "AI'm baack yaa'rl... Wh-Whaatt the fucck!?"

Immediately, the Harrier perked up and shouted frantically, "Oh good, you're finally here! Keep the door open, we need to get him out!"

"What!?" Andy's shocked voice carried over the increasingly disgruntled Sadist.

"Less talking, more evicting-" The Harrier stomped over to the crowd, who dispersed with confusion and disbelief plain on their faces. The moment he was in front of the Sadist, the Harrier began pushing against the behemoth with a gusty grunt.

Sadist Saiyama sighed deeply from above, "Just give me a chance…"

That caused the Harrier to shove his weight against the man harder. "I gave you my answer, dammit- It's final!"

While it frustrated him his efforts had no fruition in even nudging the larger man towards the door, he was about to twist himself around and use the full-force of his back when he halted upon the sound of a click. He straightaway craned his neck around the massive blockage to scowl at his oblivious friend.

"Andy, what the hell!?" he spat incredulously.

The dark dirty blonde merely pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, bringing her hand up towards the hulking shape. "Why eis hee herre!?"

"Doesn't matter, why'd you lock the door on us!?" he threw back ill-temperedly as he narrowed his gaze. "He doesn't have the mind to leave!"

"I told you, I want to join and I don't understand why you want to kick me out…" grumbled the man in question.

"That's because you're not welcome here!" The Harrier at once removed his hands and body from the other. He coldly glowered as he backed away while Andy trotted up to the other's side bemusedly. "You have no reason to join unless it's to fuck everything up for us!" the Harrier retorted back.

Andy's now curious eyes broadened. She turned to the man towering over her. "Yaa waantt ta jaoin!?"

The Harrier twitched rigidly as he locked his jaw shut, clenching his teeth as the Sadist began to smile with his yellowed ones. Andy kept staring until she eventually turned back to the Harrier with her hands on her hips and one of her eyebrows raised. "Hee waants ta jaoin aahnd yaaw'rre naott rletting a bee'z knees jaoin!?"

He half-grimaced, half-glared at her now. "Don't tell me you suddenly like him!?"

As soon as she gave him a critical look, she promptly started towards him and clutched his arm. "Taarlk, naow."

Gaping as she wordlessly began dragging him off, he threw one good, dirty look at the calmer looking man before preventing himself from tripping as they were passing by Jimmy.

Andy didn't slow her pace as she pulled him through the hallway until they came into the bedroom, only releasing his arm to slam the door closed before she quickly stomped over to the centre of the room. The Harrier could only tighten his lower jaw as he regarded her back. "Andy…"

She pivoted back to him and raised her arms. "Whaatt's wlaong with yaa?"

"What's wrong with you!?" he immediately shot back harshly. He angrily threw his arms in the general direction the man may have been still located. "That's Sadist Saiyama- a Posh Bastard loyalist- my enemy! What does not compute when I say he must leave now!?"

"Yaaw're pautting aup aah fauss faorl nao leaasaon!" she told him dourly. He narrowed his eyes more in response. "Thlaowing aahwaay aahn aoppurltunetee!"

"What are you even talking about!?" he indignantly retorted as he gritted his teeth, feeling himself stiffen more. "He's one of the Posh Bastard's mutts! He knows our location! Why the ever loving fuck do you see this as an opportunity and not a quick end to our operation!?"

She brought her arms slowly down, holding her gaze towards him carefully with caution. Andy didn't answer his question as she stared at him silently, and as if that was the key, he felt himself relax slightly. But only slightly, he told himself, before she actually spoke, "Think aahbaoutt whaatt yaa jaust saaid."

"Oh!" He dropped his arms abruptly in frustration. "So you now understand how crazy you're-"

"Shautt yaawrr yaap!" Andy's eyes instantly narrowed again and he merely wrinkled his nose in annoyance. She took a few steps closer to him as she hissed, "He's aone aof them!"

"And I established that," he snarked pointedly with a sniff. While Andy didn't appear to like his response, he forgoed the fairness of speaking in turns as he added on brusquely, "That's why we have to get him away from here before-"

Andy didn't hesitate to place a hand on a hip and frowned flatly. "Aahnd haow aarre yaa praanning ta dao thaatt?"

The Harrier stopped, pursing his lips as he leered back incredulously in anger. "Excuse me?"

His friend sighed as she shook her head at him. "Yaa haalrdlee maade him budge." While he had a perfect comeback for that, she pressed on bluntly, "Aand raast time yaa faoughtt him, yaa neaarree waas Elaased."

"By the Posh Bastard," he protested stiltedly.

"Yaa stirl armaost werre Elased," she affirmed firmly. He felt his eyes avert from her involuntarily as the memory arose stronger, balling his hands at his sides as she continued with another sigh, "Aahnd maaybe yaa might this time. Yaa can't Elase him faasterr thaan aah cheetaah caan taackle meh, whaatt differrence wirl yaa maake this time turlning him aahwaay this time?"

He scoffed at that and merely glowered at her again. "If you actually assisted me back there we wouldn't be having this discussion."

"Aahnd why werren't the aotherrs daoing aahneething ta herlp yaa?" she accused him back techily as she stomped down. "Yaaw'rre the aonlee aone whao haas aah plaobrem with him!"

"Why is that a bad thing now that I loathe his fucking guts!?" He raised his head and arms to the ceiling in frustration, gritting his teeth harder as he growled on, "I know first hand what he's like, so why not trust me when I say he's going to fuck us over after all the shit he's put me through!? Or why you don't understand the security risk when a mutt of the Posh Bastard knows what we're doing and can and will tip us off without question!? Argh-"

The Harrier lowered his chin and brought his arms down as he stalked towards the bed, pivoting sharply to face her before depositing himself onto it. His blood continued to simmer as he regarded her darkly, feeling his face ache from the constant contortion it was set in as he refused to back down from this stupid argument over a stupid topic.

When Andy finally turned around to look at him, he met her with a terse expression. "Why can't you understand something so simple why this is a downright terrible idea!?"

Andy still seemed frustrated for a few seconds, but then a resigned look took over her face when she replied, "Because he caan be ausefurl ta aus."

He snorted at that with skepticism, "Useful to us?"

Andy gave a nod and inhaled before speaking in a steadier voice, "Wee aonlee haave Sauppaolrtt aahnd Halrierr Leaperrs ein WEB." He blinked in acknowledgment at that. "Bautt eimaagine whaatt eit caourld meaan ta aus eif wee haad einsiderr einfaorlmaation?"

He stubbornly pretended he didn't like that idea as Andy continued, ever growing confident from how her voice was rising with excitement, "Eif wee haave him aahtt aourr side, wee caourld knaow things wee caourldn't befaore! Wee caan knaow wheen Missions staalrtt ealrierr thaan aotherr Leaperrs aahnd prlaan ein aahdvaance- wee caourld haave him caoverr aup faorl aus- Daon't yaa see this eis aah bressing!?"

The Harrier sighed through his nose and pursed his lips. "So what? We get more perks… but that doesn't do jackshit to pardon him from what I know he's done to me." He brought his arms up and crossed them over his chest as he huffed, "He's using this to get in, Andy, and I'm not dumb enough to believe he's changed his tune from the 'goodness' of his heart."

The light in her eyes died as her face twisted with vexation. "Think aahbout eit…!" she cried out with sheer aggravation.

He shook his head stiffly and tightened his grip on his arms. "I have."

While Andy shook her head distastefully, he raised his chin up defiantly as he added with a bite to his growl, "I don't know why you've forgotten about the things he's done so easily, I won't allow for that fucking Old Man to rat us out because he said his please and thank yous, and I don't care what the others think. I know him and I know that he's the last person we should accept into our folds blindly! The Posh Bastard probably has him planted here and the Sadist will flag him down and point at Jimmy's door when we least expect it and have us screwed over."

"Yaa daon't haave aahnee aotherr paoints ta lepeaatt aoverr aahnd aoverr?" she asked dryly after he paused to breathe.

His eyes darkened as he curtly returned, "I'm not going to change my mind, so why don't we just go out and do what we have to do."

The dark dirty blonde put both of her hands on her hips and narrowed her molten eyes. "This eisn't jaustt yaawrr decision ta maake aahneemaorre. Flaom whaatt aI saaw wheen aI gaot ein, yaa werre the aonlee aone maaking aahn effaolrtt ta maake him reaave."

He flattened his lips, refusing to feed into that as he found himself struggling to counter her claim. While he could drag Jimmy into the discussion and say that the New Zealander warned him of the coming threat, and that Jimmy wasn't enthusiastic as the rest of WEB were about enlisting Sadist Saiyama, he knew that Andy wouldn't accept that as an end-all answer. Instead, all he could think about was how she was implying he was the problem here; how petty he was being when he had a sound argument against the apparent wishes of WEB…

As he closed his eyes, feeling his mind ache from how many dead-ends he was happening upon for new reasons why they should kick out the Officer, he was aware of how Andy was waiting on him, waiting for him to comply to her side… But then something hit him as he was about to throw out a half-baked thought.

The Harrier felt himself sit straighter as he perked up, feeling his lips curl into a smirk as he stared directly at his friend. "And what if he doesn't have the skills to stay here?"

Andy's immediate reaction was to blink like an owl at him, something he took pride in causing as he snidely explained, "What if he isn't up to snuff, Andy? What if we take him in and find out he's a detriment to our inner workings and can't kill to save a life?" While his last point was a stretch, as he knew the Sadist had been in the army before he died… he did know how the Sadist felt about the idea of killing people, if their many discussions determined his distaste for the Harrier's actions.

"Whaatt…?" Andy looked pretty clueless. He wanted to say it was cute, but his excitement over one-upping her and preventing the Sadist's entry into WEB overshadowed her completely.

He grinned happily, undoing his arms in order to hold an index up smartly. "If he's so set about actually joining us, he shouldn't have qualms about showing his worth, right? So… I suggest before we try to let him in, we take him out for a little test drive to see if he's not faint of heart and lying to our faces."

Andy had disbelief forming on her face soon; an eyebrow raising as he smugly patted himself on the back. But when she spoke, he already had his potential responses at the ready to make sure she didn't disagree to this, "Nao aone elrse haad ta bee tested…"

He met her gaze with steadiness. "I'm afraid those are my conditions if we are to accept him, Andy. I won't let a potential weak link enter unless we know what he's capable of. In fact-" He narrowed his eyes to slits as he hummed, "If he does show merit, I'll let him off the hook for killing Wrongdoers and go with all the jazz you told me were opportune earlier."

Her eyebrow rose even higher. "Yaa saound aoddlee haappee thaan yaa werre befaorre..."

He dropped his grin for a conniving smile as he chuckled, "Oh, Andy… I only realized we were thinking ahead when we should have skipped to the chase of assessing his conviction. While all the pros you said are all and good… what use is there for them if what he says doesn't line up and he chickens out?"

Andy blinked thoughtfully at that while he lowered his arm to his lap, sitting more comfortably soon. "Plus, as an added bonus, I'll do the deed of proctoring him."

Just as quickly as it seemed she was about to cave, Andy's eyes sharpened. She warily took in him as she growled, "Why yaa? Yaa jaust spent ten minutes caompraaining aahbout why yaa haate him."

"Uh-uh-uh-" He raised a finger again. "You also spent that same ten minutes telling me why everyone trusts him already." He then frowned. "All I need is for him to give me a reason to trust him. Why should someone who trusts him test him if I can't seemingly get over my hatred of him, Andy?"

"AI… gauess thaatt maakes sense?" Andy grimaced while the Harrier's happiness thrived from her simple acceptance.

He leaned back as he grumbled, "But that doesn't mean I have to like it." Andy nodded at that with a sigh. "But I'm willing to see if he's able to fit in, per say."

As in… not let the Sadist get in, he meant. ...Not that Andy needed to know that. All she needed to know was how huge of a mistake it would be to take in an useless asset.

---

As soon as the Harrier and Andy left the room together and went back to the living room, they were treated to the sight of WEB Reapers that were scattered about, turning their heads and warily watching him and Andy approach from the kitchen area and/or the living room. But his eyes had immediately set upon Sadist Saiyama, who was occupying the sofa the Harrier was inclined to use.

The Harrier scowled as he saw the Sadist lounging there, taking note of how the man's body was somewhat relaxed. The Officer's murky gaze hadn't lost it's steadiness since him and Andy left, to the Harrier's immediate annoyance. It was as if the burly man expected no resistance so he was already owning the place, but that wouldn't do. The Harrier knew despite what he begrudgingly agreed upon with Andy, he didn't want to grant the Officer the confirmation that the man wasn't going to be kicked out when it was the last thing the Harrier wanted to do.

But his hand was forced by his friend, so it wasn't like the Harrier could attempt anything that would hook him back into another argument with Andy…

...Unless he was careful about it, of course.

Gathering his composure to some degree, he didn't let himself not show how cross he was about the situation but whittled it down to a mere folding of his arms as he irritably regarded the man and cleared his throat. Within seconds, he gained the Sadist's attention, watching as the flat lips of the man transformed into a frown as the Harrier coolly began, "Even though you shouldn't be here…" That earned an instant warning look from Andy which he ignored, shifting a little on the spot as he tilted his head slightly. "It has been decided that we will give you a chance to prove your intentions for coming here are genuine."

Even though Andy kept giving him leers of disapproval, which he still ignored, while Jimmy gave him a nod from where he was standing from earlier, Sadist Saiyama on the other hand took a moment to rise to his feet to stand at his full height. His eyes had narrowed at some point.

"You're giving me a test," gruffly growled the Sadist, as his question clearly wasn't enunciated well enough to denote whether or not it was one.

The Harrier tensed but still gathered himself enough to respond to that without raising his voice. "An evaluation, actually," he said stiffly as he narrowed his eyes and pinched his lips. He watched the other still give him an untrusting look while he went on to explain with a bite to his voice, "You coming here out of the blue raises too many questions, especially when you've been against our vision since the very beginning. So why should we welcome you in with open arms when you've only been a thorn in our sides every step of the way?"

Sadist Saiyama's unruly hair bounced when he reared his great head back and snorted, "You mean a thorn in your side." When the Harrier bristled at the very mention of that fact, the Sadist merely smirked wolfishly as he laughed mockingly, "You can't really expect to run me off when you're twisting the truth."

"In that case-" Just as the Harrier took an abrupt step forward out of ire, Andy suddenly extended her arm into his path and snatched his left shoulder. In a matter of seconds of him going rigid, she spun him towards her and grappled both of his shoulders, which caused him to tense even more.

She hissed irritably, "This waasn't the plraan!"

"Bite me- he's not taking us seriously!" he bit back ill-temperedly in a lowered voice. He shot the Officer Reaper a nasty look as he added tersely, "Not to mention, we need to show him we're not afraid of him!"

Andy's grip on his shoulders increased exponentially. "Shaow rlestriant!"

"I am!" he retorted before ripping himself away from her. He stomped up to the Sadist with a huff before standing right in front of the giganticer man.

Feeling his face contort with aversion as he stared up at the Old Man, he gritted his teeth in his glower as he growled, "You're with me. I'll explain on the go." Without waiting for a reaction or response, he swiftly pivoted away and began stalking off towards the door.

It only took the Sadist a minute or two until he joined the Harrier outside, who had his shoulders stiff in his rigid form, then the Harrier started walking away from the stairwell without another word. The Sadist didn't begin to follow until a few heartbeats had passed then fell in beside the Harrier, to the Harrier's frustration.

When they reached a favourable distance away from Jimmy's home and shop, the Harrier, while remaining tense, finally spoke in a growl as he came to a stop, "Unlike the rest of them, I know you're up to something." The murky-eyed man merely gave him a questioning gruff look when the Harrier turned to him- in fact, most of his faces were gruff looking, so it took a lot to analyze the finer details to get the best read on the man's current expression.

"Where's your proof?" the sadist merely asked stoically.

The Harrier bristled and spat back, "Whenever you fucking appear, you make everything worse!"

"What you think is 'worse' only happens because you're making a mountain of a molehill with me," growled the Sadist with an eye-roll. "You're making excuses when you have no reason to."

"For your information, you're so oblivious you can't even tell that you're not wanted here," countered the Harrier bitterly before he went on uncaringly, "And for that matter… don't even dream on thinking you're welcome." Internally smirking at that, he closed his eyes. "If it was up to me, I would have told everyone to Erase you right on the spot. But since you seem to be nothing more than amusement for the others to keep around, I'll let you know that you're going to regret trying to barge in. You're not even going to get in if I have anything to do about it."

"So this is what you've been up to…" murmured the Sadist in an odd tone, narrowing his gaze as he all but sighed soon, "Surrounding yourself with other idiots only to get swamped by their misconceptions of you."

"I'll have you know that I'm the deciding factor, Buster," hissed the Harrier frostily then, taking a step forward. He went to be as uncomfortably close as he could to get on the other's nerves then growled as his eyes became slits, "I don't like you… I loathe you… Any moment now, I can choose to say you royally fucked up on your little evaluation and you will only become a pest that knows too much. A pest that is meant to be squashed."

Upon receiving a glare from the man, the Harrier laughed haughtily into his victorious sneer, "I dare you to lie your heart out when you're all but at a disadvantage here! Because at least to me, I can safely say you have the gall to think you're safe. But believe me, you're only safe for now until you have the gall to think otherwise."

Silently the Sadist gave him an disgruntled look, his feathers clearly ruffled to the Harrier's satisfaction. However, he merely lowered his chin to stare straight down at the Harrier; his murky-green eyes half-closing. "Oshiro doesn't know I'm here," he said in a softer sounding voice.

"I didn't ask for that, but thank you for the donation," grumbled the Harrier as he all but glared back. "Even though you're lying, at least I know that no one will muzzle me for being the one to make sure you understand your place here."

"Oh really?" The Ex-Army Man's expression didn't change, but the vocalization of his unconcern was there. "You think you're in control?"

Clenching his hands hard, the Harrier shook his head furiously. "I'll have you know that whatever fuck I get you to do for this, you're not going to go through with the fuck because you're clearly bluffing about your change of heart!"

In response, the Sadist exhaled again then growled, "Then you're doing a shit job of getting me to do nothing, Scamp."

At that, the Harrier sent an icy look as he tried to regain his cool. Breathing deeply for a while, he soon came to speak again but curtly this time, "I know you're lying… even if they don't think you are."

Sadist Saiyama gave him a measured look, as if he was trying to figure out the meaning to the obvious he was just given. "Then what is it?" He crossed his arms; not looking impressed to the Harrier.

The Harrier sniffed at that, soon stepping back to give himself back his personal space. He huffed shortly after, "What else?" He paused momentarily then smirked. "You're going to do exactly what I've been telling you the whole time." When the Sadist's gaze narrowed almost straightaway, darkening as he regarded the Harrier in an unfavourable fashion, the Harrier then went on with a sniff, "I won't tell you more than that. I don't have to repeat myself anymore because you know what I'm talking about."

Sadist Saiyama merely frowned, but the Harrier took that as an invitation to relish in his victory. At any moment, the Harrier knew the Sadist would realize he fucked up when he came tramping into the Harrier's territory unknowingly… or rather, thought he could get away with avoiding it altogether. It was a no-brainer that the Sadist had his hands tied, and the Harrier had the joy of leading the stupid ass on wherever he would please without any more questions asked. However, the Harrier knew there was no way the Sadist could attempt the task that had to be done. Not if he were to discard his convictions first, that is.

It was simple. If the Officer Reaper were to go through with the commitment, he had to sacrifice the very thing he wasn't willing to tolerate. And knowing all the hassle he made over such values he wasn't willing to comprehend… it was practically set that he wouldn't even-

A grim but resolute look formed on the larger man's face. "Fine." He nodded.

Blinking in dumbfoundment, the Harrier couldn't help but stare back with a gape. "S-Seriously!?"

"Yeah," hummed the Sadist with yet another nod; his face hiding nothing from the Harrier. "I'll do whatever it takes."

For a minute, the Harrier could only stare at the Sadist in disbelief, only to shake his head to jog thoughts back into it and cast away his shock. Quickly coughing into his elbow, the Harrier used that ploy to buy himself time to comprehend whether or not he really did hear that right before he simply huffed, "Very well then. Get to it."

The Sadist grunted and turned around without hesitation, leaving the Harrier to watch him start to lumber off before the Harrier briskly shadowed his movements.

As he was following the larger man, the Harrier couldn't hide the burning irritation he felt when he realized the Sadist didn't make any comments about how he seemingly knew the Harrier was tailing him. The Harrier expected some kind of snark after that deliberate move, but maybe that was asking for a little too much in compensation for subjecting the Harrier to having the rug being pulled right from under his feet when the Sadist agreed all too quickly. There was no way that the man would do the opposite of what he had been doing for- what? - Weeks! No one would flip over like that when all odds pointed to the Sadist refusing to do the deed he was going against for Weeks on end!

Stashing away his inability to piece together what was the meaning behind the Sadist's choice, the Harrier went back to observing what the Sadist was doing.

From where the Harrier stood, he could see that the Sadist had stopped to survey his surroundings, not yet having to walk up to the Harrier to declare his inability to go through with what was being asked of him as he silently kept glancing around. While the Harrier wasn't one to argue over taking one's time to carefully go about doing tasks, he couldn't be more impatient and wondered if the Sadist was deliberately stalling and hoping the Harrier would get bored over his inactivity and leave him be. Unlike what the Sadist was planning, the Harrier planned on not losing track of anything the Sadist did. After all, he knew that in the exact moments you thought you had nothing to show to anyone, you would reveal your intentions at a flick of a Yen.

Thus, the Harrier didn't dare to do so much as let his gaze wander, instead letting it remain on the other man steadfastly to prove his point by finding any dirt to use for later.

Once the Officer was on the move again, the Harrier followed to a fault without hesitation. He couldn't allow for himself to miss anything noteworthy, nor did he want to let himself fall behind and find that the Sadist feigned doing the deed and expected the Harrier to accept a half-assed story. He kept his gait to be casual yet didn't let his body totally relax as he knew he couldn't allow for the…

Sadist Saiyama turned around and hollered over to the Harrier, "From the way you're following me, I could almost say you're like a stray dog."

His cheeks immediately burned hotly and the Harrier snapped back in irritation, "Shut up!"

The Sadist guffawed at that, "Seriously, Scamp, don't take offence to what seems to be true."

Leering at the man now, the Harrier merely felt his hackles rise as he humourlessly laughed back, "Haha, very funny-" He then bitterly growled, "Just do what I want you to do, Old Man."

"Alright, alright- don't bite my head off." The Sadist turned away, not moving when the Harrier stopped after deciding to not come closer after hearing that comment. The older man looked off into the distance before he spoke again, "You know, I can't exactly do that unless you tell me who the Wrongdoers are."

"Enough of asking that and don't even bring that up right now," grumbled the Harrier as he clenched his hands into fists.

"Then who am I supposed to go for?" asked the Sadist after he gave a sigh.

"This wouldn't be an effective evaluation if I give you the right answers, now would it?" asked the Harrier rhetorically in a sneer as he soon gave a sniff, "Stop stalling, get going. We're wasting sunlight, it'll be evening soon."

"What!? That's practically making things impossible for me to do anything then!" cried the Sadist in frustration before he curled his lips back unhappily as his tone turned grim. "I expected resistance from you of all Reapers when I arrived, but I hadn't expected that you would react with pettiness. It's like you don't want to give me a chance."

"Didn't you hear me earlier." The black-hooded Reaper frowned as he continued to scowl in annoyance. "I don't want you anywhere near me if I can help it, and that includes what I'll be doing from here on out."

For a while the man was silent. His face was contorting and eyes darkened as they remained on the Reaper, whose head slightly reached above the Officer's shoulders. But when he next spoke, his eyes lighted with distrust as he simply harrumphed, "Tag along as much as you want... I intend on joining your ragtag idiots."

In return, the Harrier glowered as he retorted coldly, "Then do the assessment already. Fail it so I can go back and have my peace."

"I'm a war veteran, I know how to take direct orders. I'll only fail this because you're rigging a fair test through its instructions."

"Good, because I love being a pain in the ass for everyone," growled the Harrier. "Might as well get paid to do it from how much I apply it in my every Day existence…"

Sadist Saiyama merely narrowed his eyes more before he hmphed, turning stiffly away to lumber off once more. "I wouldn't give a single Yen for it."

"Too bad then, you're missing out on an experience!" shouted the Harrier for his comeback as he bristled, waiting for the Sadist to turn back so he could offer another onslaught of insults.

"Pah! What experience?" asked the man without a single glance. "The one customer experience?"

"One customer!?" spat the Harrier in disbelieved anger sharply, immediately glowering darkly as he began stalking after the other. "I'll have you know that if I ever-"

"Oh forget it…" grumbled the Sadist with a sigh, his voice becoming quieter the further away he was from the Harrier. "The only experience you would have with a customer would be with yourself..."

The Harrier halted on the spot when the man said that to huff unhappily in annoyance. He clenched his hands at his sides tightly as he leered at the Old Man and thought irately, 'I could Erase you now… I want to Erase you now… but that would be asking for too much, wouldn't it?' Eye-rolling, he kept his gaze on the retreating form of the behemoth before stalking forward again.

As the Harrier kept his distance and tongue to himself, he fumed as he continued trekking after the other Reaper. He hated how much the Sadist had to act like the Harrier was an idiot, but the Harrier wasn't going to let that steer him off course from what he hoped to achieve.

And that was making sure that man didn't get in.

---

After several minutes of walking, the Harrier had his anger in check- to a minimum- while the Sadist hadn't even snagged any potential targets yet. To say he was bored, the Harrier couldn't really say he was but he found the lack of incentive from the Old Man was frustrating to say to the very least.

The Harrier did, however, calm himself with the thought that perhaps the Sadist was biding his time. It wouldn't surprise him that the Sadist was being careful, but if that carefulness lent itself to ensuring no Reaper caught him in the act, the Harrier would accept the wait for now.

When the Sadist diverged from his current lumber to angle his ear towards a nearby alleyway, the Harrier felt a spark of excitement jolt through him. He halted when that happened, feeling his heart whirl with anticipation…

Only to grimace bitterly when the Sadist started to amble past the entrance.

Without thinking, the Harrier sped up until he was flanking the behemoth. "Scared?" he hissed irritably through his gritted teeth.

The Sadist merely sighed while keeping his face forward, "If you haven't noticed, nobody walks around in an outdated army uniform."

So he was being cautious because of his ill-advisedly chosen attire…?

"And I care about that?" The Harrier scowled with a huff, "Yeah, no… don't be a baby. You're just trying to squirm your way out of this."

"Now you want me to do it?"

The Harrier trailed behind briefly before recovering as he shook his head and retorted, "Shut up!"

In return, the burly man twisted his head to the black-hooded Reaper when he caught up. "You want me to fail yet you act like you want me to pass." His smirk became a frown. "What are your priorities?"

Despite how his shoulders rose, the Harrier sharply turned away. "Nothing would make me happier than to see you flop."

Before the Sadist had the mind to poke into that, the Harrier halted to let the man create distance between them. He sullenly started after the Officer afterward as he harshly drew in a breath. 'You better not be getting ideas about me wanting you here…'

It seemed the Sadist wasn't perturbed by his lonesome as he didn't wait for the Harrier's reappearance, and it was better that way, mind you. The Harrier didn't have a reason to walk at the man's heels like the dog the Sadist kept drawing comparisons of him to… nor was this a friendly venture for a stroll.

This was a damn assessment. The Sadist was a fool to think this was an opportunity to rub elbows with him.

Stuffing his hands into his pants pockets irritably, he kept modulating his pace based on the Sadist's to not allow for the Sadist to slide back at the Harrier's side. The Harrier had to have his mind clear in order to concentrate on his observation.

Yet… the Harrier couldn't help but wonder. If there was a possibility that the Sadist wasn't lying about his intentions, why was he so determined to join?

One clear deduction was that the man was planning on bringing down the organization from the inside. It was one reason to not allow fair play to rule him out if such was the case, or to at least keep a close eye on the man to prevent that headway. Another one, as ludicrous as it was, was that the man truly felt he had a change of heart and was awe-inspired by the prospect of doing Shibuya service… But still, that was absolutely unlikely provided how many countless times he challenged the Harrier's belief system…

And yet, there was still the most important question of all: How did the Sadist come upon the knowledge the Harrier was recruiting Reapers again? He trusted his Reapers hadn't slipped up in the secrecy department, so how did this happen?

Gritting his teeth and gnashing them slightly, the Harrier shook his head. 'I'll have to investigate further into this later to get to the bottom of it.' He mentally nodded to promise himself that.

For now, he had to make sure the Sadist wouldn't get in.

He pushed his chest out as he continued his trailing, trying to roll ideas into his head to figure out how he could manage it without it becoming explicit sabotage. It wouldn't be a hard task to handle, but having the Old Man lodge a complaint would only bring the WEB Reapers, Jimmy and Andy's attention to it. He just had to make sure it didn't come off as petty stubbornness or they'll demand for him to pardon the Sadist a seat among them…

The Harrier tried to not let his frustration come out in his body language, thankful the Sadist had his back to the younger Reaper to not notice it. But that was when he watched the Sadist stop in the streets; the man's head rotating slowly…

When the Harrier did the same, he couldn't help but feel his face soften. 'Ah.'

It wasn't apparent to the blind eye, but the Harrier could easily recognize the person skittering around the corner was acting shifty. With their arms tucked around themselves, as though clinging desperately to something, the Harrier knew the poor sap was guilty of trafficking. It was probably drugs.

While the Harrier had his differences with drug dealers, feeling murder was a much more important prospect to prevent, he wasn't impartial to knowing it was illegal. If those items entered the hands of the client who practically was thriving on their existence, they could die from overdose or miscalculated payment.

Immediately the thought that the Sadist had just honed in on his first target sent thrill through the Harrier. As much he hated it, he couldn't deny he was eager to see how it played out as the Sadist beelined after the Wrongdoer.

Already the Harrier's feet carried him into the gloomy corridor, having probably sprinted over, but he found he couldn't care much about his overexitement right now. He did, however, have to force himself to take a mental step back before going deeper into the location.

By the time he pinpointed the Sadist, the man was watching ahead of him a group of people. Yet that brought his enthusiasm to a full halt as he knitted his eyebrows at the scene. 'Huh?' He pursed his lips. 'That doesn't look like a typical exchange…'

Did they wander into the wrong arrangement?

The aforementioned Wrongdoer they shadowed was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders and shoved into the hardness of the building behind him. He was alarmed, from the looks of it, as one of the gathered people spat, "You stupid moron-" They tsked before continuing angrily, "You had one job and you did shit!"

"I'm sorry-" sputtered the helpless goon as they soon released another cry of pain. "I-I'll do better next time- just give me a chance!"

"Second chances don't do shit when it should have been done right the first time!" shouted the leader of the drug ensemble. He stomped his foot down and spat, "Unlike what you've learned in school, mistakes can't be afforded here!"

"I swear- I'll do better…" half-wailed the goon into his whimper. His eyes were becoming wet as he shook his head. "I swear!"

The leader turned his head away. "We have more qualified people than you…" He started to stomp away and the Harrier turned his attention to the motionless Officer in front of him as his breathing almost stilled. "Dispose of him."

Letting himself ignore the scream that went shriller in seconds, the Harrier could only frown at how the Sadist was allowing the alleged leader to pass through him without so much of a head turn. The Harrier straightaway wanted to shout at the Old Man about why he wasn't doing anything, even as the other lackeys pranced off smugly, before the burly Reaper finally approached the forgotten one bleeding out on the cement.

'What?'

For a few seconds, when the man halted before the wounded goon, he inhaled steadily before the Harrier could no longer feel the man's presence. He sort of felt instant jealousy the man could do that seamlessly while the Harrier continued to flounder the process, but tried to cast it away to focus on the muted-coloured Sadist again as his confusion settled in.

Sadist Saiyama had knelt down beside the body, angling his head as his tone was soft. "I'm sorry." The Harrier blinked out of bafflement when the man continued, "It's tough satisfying people, isn't it?"

While the Harrier had no idea what the man thought he was doing, the downed Wrongdoer let out a gurgled groan, "I-I swear… I meant to have gotten the right amount, b-but he was-"

"Shh…" The ex-army man placed his hand on the rigid shoulder closest to him. "You don't have to be sorry."

"I-I-It hurts…!"

"I know it does." The Sadist shook his head and lowered it. "But did you have to do it?"

In reply, the wounded goon whimpered out something. And instead of raising his voice, he repeated it as the Sadist nodded slowly.

The Harrier, on the other hand, couldn't be more frustrated over this. He had the mind to pull himself over and demand answers for why the Sadist was mocking him in the face with this. The Sadist had one job and he was utterly screwing with the younger instead! This was unacceptable!

If the Harrier had a tail, he reckoned he would be lashing it right now. But as he gazed at how the Sadist was whispering something else to the wounded goon, the black-hooded Reaper couldn't help but feel his throat start to dry.

Where was his comfort when he was in the middle of dying?

By all means, either suffocating or burning to death under the hood of a car had no leeway for that. All he did was cry out for the Scumbag to release him from that torture, and yet all he could do was flail and cough and scream and cry and-

His lower lip quivered.

Was the Sadist doing this on purpose!?

Slowly his eyes started to steel, clenching his hands as he felt the Sadist return to the Plane. He watched as the man continued to remain where he was in front of the now broken-necked Wrongdoer, his breathing growing faster as he gritted his teeth.

Oh did he know how to prevent the Sadist's entry now...

After Sadist Saiyama's body started to rise as he then stepped away from the corpse, the Harrier kept his glower strong on the behemoth as his arms folded stiffly. "What was that?"

Instead of facing him, the Officer continued staring off at the Wrongdoer as a rumble eventually came from him, "...Were you expecting fireworks?" It was as if the Sadist already knew what he did wrong for the ordinance but wasn't measuring up to it with his lack of concern!

The Harrier simply tensed, feeling the muscles of his face strain as he leered now. Yet, as the animosity he held nearly fuelled his next selection of words, he took a mental step back before coolly replying instead, "That was... decent." He nodded contentedly to himself. "Decent, but not what you were asked for."

A sigh came out from the Sadist and he finally began to turn, soon facing the Harrier with a disgruntled stoicism. "Do you take me for a fool? I know what I did, even if you're about to tell me to do the same thing four more times." His yellowed teeth kept baring themselves throughout the time he talked, shortly peeking out after he was done. He settled with a measured look to rest on the Harrier next. "With how much you talk about not creating victims, wouldn't you say depriving them of further pain and suffering is better than that?"

The Harrier wiggled his jaw with annoyance as he mulled over that, merely sniffing soon as he huffed, "As noble as your expenditure was, you took the easy out." He slowly let his eyes travel to the corpse past the Sadist and lingered on it. "You're scared to do the deed yourself, so you had others do the majority of the dirty work for you." He shook his head stiffly. "That's not passable."

He crossed his arms. "Not only did you do that, you let other Wrongdoers go." He mentally smirked at that one. "You let three other Wrongdoers leave without doing anything- Getting rid of them is practically child's play, yet you thought you'd shimmy on out of here with one measly kill on the notion that's how it works..." He narrowed his eyes and huffed, "Why should I let you in when you clearly don't understand our policies, Old Man?"

Even as the Harrier was gifted with the relief of silence, the Sadist seemed to think the Harrier didn't need much of it. "Ever wonder about the worth of doing the murder?" When the Harrier pinched his lips hard in response and dropped his arms, the Sadist went on sombrely, "The act of taking another's life away, giving them no opportunity to let them find out for themselves if whether or not what they're doing is wrong...?"

"That's stupid," the Harrier retorted coldly. "They'll never learn… And why would they when they can get away with it again? As many times as they want to?"

"Criticize me all you like... but even you should know what it's like."

The Harrier immediately whipped towards the Officer, his eyes almost betraying him when they seemingly were refusing to leave the corpse. He puffed his chest out as he slapped a palm on it. "For your information, I'm doing our dear city a favour." He shortly jabbed a finger towards the other as he spat icily, "What you're implying is nonsense."

As murky-green eyes simply looked down at the offending finger then back towards the Harrier's hood, it was a long time until his lips curled. "When you died, were you at the mercy of one who wanted nothing more than pleasure to see you withering in pain? Struggling to live?"

The Harrier's eyes hardened as they narrowed to slits. "My death is of no importance to you, Old Man."

"Is it really?" challenged the Sadist. A grim frown started to rise on his sneered lips as he growled, "Because if you ask me, you seemed to make it out to be everything when you failed to ruin my face."

Bristling sharply as his shoulders rose rigidly, the Harrier took a step forward and bit out, "That isn't relevant!"

The Ex-Army Man released a longsuffering sigh, his gaze starting to soften as he measured the Harrier with a pathetically sympathetic look. "When I died, I died thinking it was worth everything in my wounds that oozed out the life I put out for our country. It was sudden, not even painless, so I got to hand it to you... yours must've sucked."

Just as the Harrier was furrowing his eyebrows in wary confusion, the Sadist gave him a doleful smile. "To know what happened to us as we lay dying, after arriving in this Plane... I can never understand what it may have been like for you of all people." The Harrier offered up a conflicted scowl, trying desperately to resist the urge to look away as the Sadist continued but gentler, "However it moulded you into the Reaper you are today, to view the world in such a narrow lens as you have…" He gave a shrug and held it. "I would think you're only going backwards, downgrading yourself when you can be so much better."

"I am better!" the Harrier hissed out indignantly. "Better than-!"

The Sadist shook his head. "You died in a fire…" No quicker did those words render the Harrier speechless did the Sadist add sombrely, "And someone called 'Kage' was with you…"

As the Harrier drew back his lips after swiftly recovering from the Officer's 'revelation', the Sadist's gritty voice rumbled again but wearier, "It must have been excruciating… but what's stopping you from forgetting about it? You have the ability to move on, yet you linger in the past. You can do better things, yet you choose to dig your heels in where you're standing now- before a dead body you asked me to kill." The Sadist threw his arm towards it lackadaisically as he then heavily sighed out, his eyes boring deeply into the Harrier, nearly capturing him on the place he stood as a spike of stress shot through him, "Can we not let them have their mercy? The mercy during a death before you choose to condemn them further to Erasure?"

Even though a response was already formed on his tongue, ready to pass his judgment on to the suddenly sentimental giant… the Harrier hesitated. His gaze was concentrated on the corpse in silence, finding himself almost parched as his throat suddenly felt drier than it ever has been.

The look on that Wrongdoer's face was the fault of it, he told himself vehemently, not the genuine stupidity the Officer expected him to lap up eagerly like a famished hound. The glassy-eyed individual's blood was already pooled around him, yet the Harrier couldn't look away as he almost saw flashes of a coal-black haired teenager replacing him. It was someone the Harrier couldn't name for the existence of him as chocolate orbs steadily took over the hollow brown…

Reeling back from almost forgetting who he was dealing with, the Harrier pretended he hadn't started as he slowly felt his lips turn down.

He threw his head away to the left, from both the Sadist and corpse, with a sniff, "If they wanted that, they shouldn't have gone down the wrong path." Although, as he said that, he felt as if educating that to the Sadist was going to be harder work than actually getting rid of the burly Officer. In fact, he didn't even want to talk about this, and yet, he was stuck here entertaining the fool who thought he could wiggle into the depths of WEB all because he thought he was WEB Reaper material.

But even now, he felt as if contradicting the Sadist and removing him from the group was very much impossible if the man so much as blabbed to WEB that the Harrier was giving him a hard time over doing the one thing required of the man. It would be better to stew on the matter and lie in wait for another chance, as much as he didn't want to postpone his victory of getting Sadist Saiyama away from the Harrier's imminent work at the moment. And, to be frank, it took a lot of his willpower to come to that understanding as he mentally grumbled to himself over the loss.

In his peripheral, the burly, muddied-khaki uniformed man's lips flattened against each other, yet the Harrier chose to narrow his gaze. He huffed disdainfully, "...Alright, I suppose you have earned your keep. However-" His gaze hardened as he severely breathed, "This doesn't change anything. You're still untrustworthy… and you can bet that the moment you reveal your colours, no matter if you're in front of me or behind closed doors… I will be the one to cut you down."

Instead of looking at the Sadist when his breathing indicated he was about to speak, the Harrier's face tightened sourly as he listened to the Old Man. "Heh, forever believe that, Scamp, until you can actually fight me as your equal. You should be worrying about getting your aim right first."

Suddenly, without warning, the Sadist turned then thumped deeper into the alleyway, making the Harrier draw his gaze to him. The black-hooded Reaper blinked warily in confusion. 'What the fuck is he...'

The Old Man had lumbered over to a dumpster, passing by it before turning to face the wall to mumble something then leaned down with a groan. No sooner did he stand again and head back did the Harrier stutter out a gasp, his eyes widening disbelievingly until he exhaled out again when his ochre knapsack was shoved into his chest.

Without thinking he wrapped his arms around it, as he instantly took to wondering why his knapsack was here to begin with. The last time he recalled he had it, it was in the Scramble Crossing when he was about to fight the Sadist over his upset distraught over the Legalization failing and pent up frustration with the man bursting free to spur him into the fighting. But another thought abruptly entered to further bewilder and disconcern him, as he then wondered why the man knew the knapsack was here to begin with, where an illegal money exchange was precisely happening between Wrongdoers...

Did the Sadist plant the Harrier's knapsack here knowing it was going to happen!? But there was no way of knowing the Harrier wanted him to kill a Wrongdoer or the money exchange was going to happen! There just was no logic in any of these coincidences lining up as they had!

He only broke himself out of his daze and frazzled fussing to acknowledge the other with incredulity and his bafflement as the Old Man rumbled gruffly, "Next time, take care of your belongings. You should be glad no Reaper thought to rake in your Yen Pins for themselves when you disappeared without it that Day."

The moment the Harrier pushed himself into stepping away from the Officer with renewed ire and better composure, he sent a leer to the Sadist as he crabbily held his knapsack tighter. He refused to offer anything back to the other as he felt its rough fabric within his grip.

To be frank, it was a godsend to have it back in his possession after a month-and-a-half of it going missing, especially if it wasn't for the sake of having his Erasure spoils again. That didn't mean he wasn't entirely ignorant to the currency, as he knew exactly where he was going to put it into.. even if he never actually had a clue about the true amount it counted up to.

But regardless, he had to convince Jimmy to accept the Harrier's Yen Pins first after all now that he had the funds to shower Jimmy with.

Once he put his attention back on Sadist Saiyama after placing his arms through the straps, experiencing the brevity of not being used to its heavy weight again, instead of staying or demanding for unwarranted gratitude from the Harrier, the Ex-Army Man began to lumber off to the maw of the alleyway as if that favour was a token gesture. Yet that didn't stop the Harrier from blinking from being taken aback by it.

The Harrier was about to briskly stalk after him to show he was unfazed but he merely watched the larger Reaper disappear into the sunlight quietly, soon bringing his sharpened gaze back to the corpse with a greater pensiveness.

However, even before it was fully realized, in the midst of watching the black-haired individual flicker back in front of him, the smouldering stench wafting into his nostrils made his decision to leave for him. He didn't waste time as he told himself he wasn't vying to get out of the darkening alleyway via running until he caught up to the ever slow Sadist.

He just didn't want to be discovered near the crime scene so soon since his operation began...

---

Months Ago...

---

"Argh- I just got it repaired yesterday! Grr… I can't believe this! Now I have to see what's wrong-"

"Goddammit! Why the hell did I even agree to this when your damn Cherry was a literal smoke bomb waiting to cause an accident in the Scramble Crossing!?"

"Be glad we had enough juice in my baby to get us off the road. I'll back us out of here once we get her running again, Jiji. Don't give me a long face-"

"That does it- I'll just run to the shop!"

"Hey- I told you you'll never make it in time!"

"Like hell I won't- At least running will ensure that I don't have to wait on a self-combusting engine that you parked in an alleyway- making it near impossible for a pickup to get us to an autoshop- like it's a good thing! I trust I can get there sooner than you will get this DAMN CHERRY TO ACTUALLY WORK RIGHT!"

"Now that's just rude, Jiji. Here I went out of my way to help you because I felt bad, and now you're giving me shit without even giving me a chance! I seriously want to-"

"Don't you dare tell me you want to fix my father's cushion when you could have not drunk umeshu on it when nobody was home with my key that woman trusted you with! I fucking hate you and you know it!"

"If you don't want it to stain, running through Shibuya will only make it remain..."

"Argh- Why did your damn Cherry have to be a junkmoble!? You should have gotten rid of it for a better car, bastard!"

"It was my brother's car, and my brother can't always give me free cars anytime he wants to like candy! Once I get my next paycheck, I'll be able to get the wheels I do want!"

"Does it look like I care about that!? Taking the bus would have been more worth it than to catch a ride with your shitmoble!"

"You wouldn't have made the bus-"

"Because you blocked my path from the bus!"

"Seriously... I have to wonder why we can't work together when you're the reason why I couldn't have a nice evening with your mother back at your house."

"Oh trust me… if I wanted you to have a nice evening with that woman, you could have just left me be and had your way with her all you damn wanted! But no… you had to run after me and ruin everything! You don't even care about the cushion anyway- if you did, you wouldn't have soiled it with the umeshu!"

"..."

"..."

"...Go open the hood and tell me if you see what's wrong."

"Wh-What!?"

"I said… go open the hood of my car and see what's the matter with it!"

"It's your Cherry- how does that make me the one that has to do it!?"

"...Jiji, you want the stain out, right? Instead of bitching about it, why don't you be a man about it and do an actual adult thing instead of criticizing me!? You're complaining about how I'm the one whose car is fucked up- but you could be using this time to fix the issue!"

"You should be figuring out how your shitmoble died- not me!? It's your car!"

"Hey, the longer you take to whine about it, the longer you'll delay us in getting there. So just go take a look under the hood and get it over with, so you can fucking do what you wanted to fucking do in the first place- It's that easy!"

"..."

"..."

"...Fine."

"Finally! Is it that hard for you to actually be mature for once?"

"I am mature. I just can't stand you."

"...Happy trails, Jiji."

"...Fuck you."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...How's it going? See anything?"

"...I haven't gotten it open yet. Hold- just hold your horses."

"Alright."

"...Oh my g- It's-"

"Mmm?"

"I-I c-can't feel my lungs!"

"See anything now?"

"St-Stop- Th-There's s-smoke- t-too m-much s-smoke-"

"On fire then?"

"I-It's sm-sm-smouldering- J-Just let me- f-focus, bastard! M-My eyes- m-my e-eyes are burning! Th-th-this is your f-fault-"

"Hey now… once it clears, you can get a closer look."

"Th-That's the last thing I want to do right now!"

"Oh don't be a baby- maybe you need a closer look after you cough it out."

"Did you hear me!? With all this smoke, I could-"

"Fine, fine, I get it. Let's see…"

"Ugh, seriously? Now you're getting out- Fuck, it's like you wanted to watch me struggle before-"

"...Okay then, I won't help. ...But would you just stop talking for one second and do what I asked you to do?"

"Don't tell me to shut up when you've just been patronizing me!"

"I'm not patronizing you- you're just whining instead of doing anything, Jiji!"

"Stop calling me Jiji!"

"You think you know better than me so why not slap a nickname that suits you!"

"That's not my name!"

"Which is what a nickname is!"

"Get back in the car, asshole!"

"How am I being an asshole when you've just been delaying us because you love criticizing me!?"

"You nearly hit that woman yesterday! Just go back in!"

"Ugh- this again!? Fuck that, I'm not budging now- why are you calling your own mother a woman now!?"

"That's what she is- a woman!"

"I don't know what the hell went on before I came by today, but let me tell you, Jiji, that you shouldn't be rude towards Amaiya-chan!"

"Don't give me that shit- you've been practically disrespecting her since day one!"

"What are you talking about- I love your mother!"

"You're lying… Don't give me excuses when you've been constantly bulldozing everything that had been our way of life and assuming I'll rollover and present my fucking underbelly to you like a damn dog who doesn't understand the meaning of abuse...!"

"That's just like you... taking offence for anything I do because you suddenly started hating me the moment I started dating your mother… I'm tired of being treated like an idiot by a damn teenager who thinks he knows how the world should work like the back of his hand-"

"Don't make me the bad guy here when-"

"I'm just fucking tired of this, Jiji! Why can't we just make up instead of making your mother feel terrible as she has because of our fighting-"

"Making up won't solve anything, asshole!"

"Now you're being petty-"

"I'm being petty!? I'm being PETTY!?"

"Exactly! And because you're being petty, why don't you go back into the car and let the fucking adult fix this shit so you can go home and cry yourself to bed, you little shit!"

"I'm not going anywhere!"

"Would you just listen to me for once-"

"That woman can have you for all I damn care!"

"..."

"..."

"...Wh-What?"

"You heard me… You can have that fucking woman- she's yours! What use is there for me to be around if she's blind for you!? What use is there for me to be there when she wants you!? What use is there for me… wh-when… wh-when…"

"Ji- ...Hang on, what are you talking about?"

"D-Don't act like you care… You should be focusing on the fact that you're going to get married to that woman."

"...How can I focus on her when she created this mess?"

"N-Nice try… but I'm not going to fall for you mitigating-"

"Jiji… ...Okay, I can't keep lying to you anymore."

"- the conversation to save your own… What?"

"...I have to come clean, or it'll just make things worse."

"How can you make things not worse!?"

"Would you just shut up for one minute!? Being insolent isn't going to make me breaking the news any easier-"

"What news!?"

"That we're out here to stop the umushu from staining the cushion because of her!"

"Wh-What…?"

"Your mother was the one that spilled the umeshu on that cushion- alright!?"

"...Y-You're lying-"

"I'm not lying for fuck's sake! Your mother is an alcoholic, Jiji!"

"You're lying!"

"Be in denial for all I damn care, your mother does stuff that she hates doing but she can't help it, Jiji! ...A month ago, when you found out about her cigarettes- yes, her cigarettes that she had me buying for her- and kept going off to see your friends while my purchases kept disappearing on her… your mother couldn't handle not smoking so much that I found her sobbing one night- chugging the umeshu down by the bottle! I didn't want to do nothing and let her get goddamn alcohol poisoning, so I tried stepping in- but she wasn't in her right mind- and the next thing I know it's spilling- and spilling-"

"Stop giving me fucking lies, you bastard!"

"Oh be a man and stop with the theatrics, Jiji- Your mother got it all over her clothing and at the time we didn't know about it seeping through into the cushion! And because I was so focused on taking her soiled clothes to the laundromat, I didn't know about the cushion getting stuff on it at the time, but-"

"Stop it!"

"You know what!? I'll just go and say it then! That's not even your father's cushion, it's your fucking mother's!"

"..."

"..."

"...I-It's... wh-what?"

"Finally…! Yes... that cushion beside me right now is your mother's cushion."

"Wh-What?"

"I guess it makes sense, why you're so confused… You said it yourself: No one ever took out your father's cushion after he died. Except, you probably never checked the cupboard since he died, because you clearly couldn't tell the difference between either of them."

"..."

"Your mother was horrified that she ruined her cushion, knowing you of all people would lose it over finding out about her breaking that sacred rule your father made, so she swapped them out hoping you wouldn't go in the cupboard because you had no reason to open it! You of all people wouldn't remove your father's cushion from the cupboard, so it was the best thing to do for you to not find out about how she drank alcohol, Jiji. A-As horrible as that sounds, you wouldn't believe how hard she pleaded with me to keep it a secret. No, not pleaded... demanded that I keep it a secret!"

"B-But sh-she… sh-she…"

"I didn't like what she was doing, but I knew you wouldn't like it either. I never wanted to keep it a secret from you because I know how important your father was to you… You didn't think I had forgotten the numerous times you told me great things about the guy, did you? ...And yet she wasn't acting rational so I knew I had to play along, even if for your sake it wasn't the best. I almost cracked at your house while you were gone last night, and I almost struck your mother out of frustration over how she was being stubborn over not telling her own son the truth! ...I-I'm so sorry for hitting you... I never even knew when you arrived home from how angry I was with how she was treating the situation. W-We both know how she doesn't think of you as a mature human being… but it's just been gnawing on my conscience and it still makes me wonder where her conscience is."

"..."

"I-I don't know why she thought of suggesting to take out the cushion today, or maybe she had forgotten… but all I know is that if she hadn't mentioned it, we wouldn't be here, wouldn't be arguing... ...You're a smart guy, Jiji… so imagine how much you scared your mother and I when you mentioned the stain. You clearly didn't know because you of all people wouldn't be acting chill about the whole thing, so imagine my surprise when you caught on to my hints to check the cupboard. I think it must have hit her too late that you were actually going to get it, but it had come to that point where there wasn't going to be a band-aid to shield you from the truth anymore."

"..."

"I know my joke about you and alcohol was an awful far stretch, but you know how it is when I get nervous! I-I just couldn't help but laugh it off even though it only made things worse! B-But I think your mother was the true culprit for making it spiral out of control when she stupidly tried to mitigate the blame to you. Everything from there went out of our control, and every second it s-seemed like I was cringing every moment after you started to confront us about it!"

"..."

"All I wanted was for us to have a civil conversation and come clean like it should have been… b-but I guess we won't be having that now, will we?"

"..."

"Look, we both know that she's been stupid to you again and again… and today, she was being stupid to you again. I know you don't think that, but let's just… give it up. I want to make things up to you, Jiji, I truly do…"

"..."

"..."

"...You think you can make excuses and throw her under like she's trash, huh?"

"...What!?"

"Listen to me, you rotten bastard! I'm not going to let you lead me on to think you're innocent when you're the scumbag of the Earth!"

"Jiji, th-that's not-"

"I've had it! All the disrespect, and all the misery you're instilling into my life... because you think you're better than me!"

"That's uncalled for! I've been trying to help you every step of the way since we met!"

"Shut up!"

"Jiji-"

"Shut up!"

"Jiji-"

"SHUT UP! ...I'm fucking tired of dealing with shit in my life! I'm fucking tired of having you cuddle up to that woman as you walk all over me like a fucking saint! Don't you dare breathe another, damn, word about how you think I'm dumb enough to believe you when you're ensuring my father's cushion is ruined because you're the final nail in the coffin to ruin all else in my LIFE!"

"B-But I-I told you the truth!"

"You're telling me lies! I'm not going to stand here any longer and- ga-AHH!"

"...!?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Oh sh- JIJI!"

---

End of Arc 1 - Rights and Wrongs...

To be continued… hope you enjoyed the chapter! =3

---

EeveeGen9988: Well, after so long, I finally got this one finished! :D

It's weird getting to this point because I originally didn't think I would be able to manage it. But now that it's done, I'm more than happy because the next installments won't be posted until the end of December. And this next SOSS I plan on finishing not half a year later. XD

For this chapter's name, I'm sure you understand where it came from and boy am I so glad I didn't have to choose another S related word. To be completely honest with you, I never planned on having all the chapters start with S up to this point. I wanted to originally choose different words then had a funny thought to have all the chapters start with S then halfway through realized how hard it was to find words with Ss that worked with the chapters. I actually spent hours on end finding different S related words so I feel like it's almost poetic we get a chapter with R instead of S now. XD

Initially, for those who don't know, this chapter and Part 9 was originally one chapter. But since I knew having one 50K word chapter would be much too long, I split them up which was a better choice in my opinion. =3

Funnily enough, I wanted to write in a scene where MR Protag and everyone got code names, but I feel like code names wouldn't be useful in the sense of what they would be doing for the Mr Reaper Operation. One prominent example would have been MR Protag being big on the nickname Catalyst, but everyone would denounce it quickly because most of them would think it's a stupid name despite MR Protag insisting it's a cool code name. Other ideas on that would have been Prince or Knave, and I eventually didn't go with code names because MR Protag's pettiness towards names doesn't align with him wanting to have a code name so it would be out of character for him to want to go with code names in the first place and that Reapers suddenly calling other Reapers by code names would be pretty suspicious I think to an outsider Reaper's point of view. Other examples include Andy's, which would have been Joroo after the Joroogumo, Foxglove, Hawkeye, or Bloody Crane (to her frustration of the last code name idea). And finally, Jimmy's would have been Birdie or Birdy, as an homage to his love for Saddleback birds. To compensate for the loss of these code names, I made parts in the scenes of the second meeting where there were Reapers big on naming stuff from a joke my sister made when I explained to her what MR Protag's operation was going to be like. Luckily, she gave me feedback on a lot of pitfalls and stuff that made sense, so I would like to thank her for putting up with the craziness I came up and that it took two hours to explain to her everything. XD

I also have to thank Hyoxjnn, a fellow TWEWY writer, for mentioning in a review a really long time ago about something I hadn't put much thought into originally. Originally I thought wine could spoil if it was out in the environment for over a day, but apparently it can take longer for wine to spoil. So thank you for pointing that out, Hyoxjnn! I don't know if I got the exactness right but hopefully having a longer period of time than a day makes it more believable than before. =D

And it looks like you unlocked... oh? Oh my, it looks like not only have you unlocked something, you unlocked THREE somethings! I think by finishing the first Arc, you have tapped into bonus content that the likes of hasn't been seen before! Well aren't you lucky! *gives thumbs up*

---

NEW LETTER THREAD CONTENT HAS BEEN [SUCCESSFULLY] CREATED

DATE_OF_CREATION = 6/00/55/PM/WED/16/JUL/1975

GAME_DAY_SEQUENCE = DAY/01

THREAD_TYPE = [PRIVATE [HM to ?]

ENTRY_NO = 5

LOG_NAME = RI

DOCUMENT_ALIAS = Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry 5

INCOMING RESPONSE [SUCCESSFULLY] RETRIEVED

DATE_OF_RETRIEVAL = 7/11/20/PM/WED/16/JUL/1975

GAME_DAY_SEQUENCE = DAY/01

---

Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
DOCUMENT CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear person I still don't know,

I think this is a crazy thing to say, and please dont tell the person I was mention earlier, but I think I've felt les stressed than I had been since we started talking.

Even with hearing about this new Reaper, even with Angels getting on my back, you have really been there for me. I kinda feel ashamed that I'm not saying this about the Angel I worked with before, but it's like talking to you is a breath of fresh air.

Sorry if this isn't anything particular, I just wanted to reach out and thank you.

Hoping this isn't misuse of Letter THread,
Hiraku Maeda

---

Response #1? to Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
RESPONSE CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear Rulemaster,

With the progress you are accomplishing, I have no doubts that you are faring better now than when we first spoke. You have no need to thank me.

But on the topic of 'Mr Reaper', how have your developments been regarding the 'serial killer', as you have put it? Our fellow Angels have been eager to know whether or not this new threat has been vanquished.

Lending my ears to you,
[Failed Identity Retrieval]

---

Response #1HM to Response #1? to Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
RESPONSE CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear person I am working with,

No, no- I really did need to thank you! You have been kind enough to talk to me without shutting me out so the least I can do is thank you!

On the case of 'Mr Reaper', I haven't gotten zilch done. It's not that I don't want to do it or that I'm nervous about going out (which is pretty much me all the time), it's just that it's not clear enough for me to figure out how to search yet. I've been thinking about looking at those papperweights I've sensed on a lot those affected, but it's really impossible too get close enough if I have to actively intervene on the Players' progress in the Game to do it (and that requires facing probably not nice Players too who are not happy campers about dying!).

And ever since I mentioned that one thing (the thing you encouraged me about), I feel like I have to choose between impacting the Game or settling with what I want to do! I've never been a detective and I've never been autheorative!

What do you suggest?
Hiraku Maeda

---

Response #2? to Response #1HM to Response #1? to Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
RESPONSE CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear Rulemaster,

It looks like you are conflicted. I would say putting together your priorities is a must before running in blind, if that is of help. Knowing that you know that your territory is not sneaking around the Composer's awareness, as we discussed before that the Composer is oddly silent in regards to our recent reachings, I think that is a good place to start for you.

Even if pursuing your ambitions strays from investigating, I believe the best you can do is going with your gut. It is up to you to decide what is more important.

Did that assist your judgement?
[Failed Identity Retrieval]

---

Response #2HM to Response #2? to Response #1HM to Response #1? to Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
RESPONSE CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear person who I am still talking to,

If that's what you think, then I'll try to gauge if the Composer or Conductor can handle the threat for a while and go with feeling out myself. Not in the weird sense, but in the sense that I'll try to figure out what I want!

Thnaak you for your wise words, I'll try to keep in contact when I can! (Although, I may not send in as many Documents unless something unique strikes me or try to keep up! I hope that's aright!)

Going to be busy on my end,
Hiraku Maeda

---

Response #3? to Response #2HM to Response #2? to Response #1HM to Response #1? to Rulemaster Inquiry - Entry #5
RESPONSE CONTENT IS AS FOLLOWS

Dear Rulemaster,

That is excellent to hear. I wish you the best of luck and that windfalls may strike you. I will be reviewing information from the former and current Player and Reaper roster history I had requested from you to compile in the meantime to better acquaint myself with the Lower Grounds, as working with you requires me to be fully-aware of the Underground residents and their motivations.

Gladdened to hear your resolve,
[Failed Identity Retrieval]

---

[Bonus Content Unlocked - MR Protag Player Battle Quotes]

You feel as though these are of general thoughts and of hypothetical origin from a certain someone as you read them...

---

Battle Opener - "Shall we get along?"

Battle Opener Alt. - "Be careful, Partner."

Low HP Battle Opener - "We need to assess our options."

Low HP Battle Opener Alt. - "I-I trust we'll figure out a plan."

Attack - "H-Here we go!"

Attack Alt. A - "Feel that?"

Attack Alt. B - "Hiyah!"

Direct/Perfect Hit - "I got it!"

Direct/Perfect Hit Alt. - "D-Did I do good?"

Miss/Attack Fail - "N-No!"

Miss/Attack Fail Alt. A - "I-I missed..."

Miss/Attack Fail Alt. B - "Oh no-"

Struck - "...I-I was too slow!"

Struck Alt. - "Gahugh-"

Combo Start - "...I think I'm feeling something."

Combo Start Alt. - "I-I can't lose focus-"

Combo End - "Th-That went great!"

Combo End Alt. - "I-I thought I would screw up..."

SOS Assist - "L-Let me help you!"

SOS Assist Alt. - "M-My Partner-!"

SOS Call - "H-Help me..."

SOS Call Alt. - "I-I can't fend them off!"

Entering Low HP - "I-I need to recover..."

Entering Low HP Alt. - "H-How did it come to this...?"

Defeat - "I-Is e-everything… o-over…?"

Defeat Alt. - "M-Maybe it won't be so bad..."

Victory - "Th-Thank you for being by my side."

Victory Alt. - "Th-That went as well as expected."

Low HP Victory - "W-Were we over our heads…?"

Low HP Victory Alt. - "W-We'll get better next time... r-right?"

Five-Star Victory - "W-Wow…"

Five-Star Victory Alt. - "...It's all thanks to you."

---

[Bonus Content Unlocked - MR Protag Reaper Battle Quotes]

You feel as though these are of general thoughts and of hypothetical origin from a certain someone as you read them...

---

Battle Opener - "Time to shine- let's put on a show!"

Battle Opener Alt. - "Hmm… you don't appear to be tough."

Low HP Battle Opener - "J-Just a second- I-I'm not feeling so good…"

Low HP Battle Opener Alt. - "No sw-sweat! I can go a little more!"

Attack - "A little of this-"

Attack Alt. A - "A little of that-"

Attack Alt. B - "Don't be scared- you're only going mano-a-mano with me!"

Direct/Perfect Hit - "Gotcha!"

Direct/Perfect Hit Alt. - "Perfecta!"

Miss/Attack Fail - "How did that happen!?"

Miss/Attack Fail Alt. A - "Whoops-"

Miss/Attack Fail Alt. B - "Don't look at me- the sun was in my eyes!"

Struck - "Watch it!"

Struck Alt. - "Don't invade my personal space!"

Combo Start - "What comes around- goes around!"

Combo Start Alt. - "Don't stand in my way!"

Combo End - "Now that's just perfect!" *snaps fingers*

Combo End Alt. - "And... presto!" *snaps fingers*

SOS Assist - "Hold on- I'll be there!"

SOS Assist Alt. - "Sheesh- do I have to do everything!?"

SOS Call - "I might need help! Hello!?"

SOS Call Alt. - "E-Everything looks so… br-bright…"

Entering Low HP - "Careful now… we may be in for a struggle…"

Entering Low HP Alt. - "H-How did it get to this!?"

Defeat - "If the world wants to burn… l-let it b-burn…"

Defeat Alt. - "I-I don't want to die again… p-please..."

Victory - "Hahaha- I crunched the numbers right!"

Victory Alt. - "Ahah… a fine turnout, wouldn't you say?"

Low HP Victory - "Wh-What was that!?"

Low HP Victory Alt. - "They weren't fooling around… I need to perform better next time."

Five-Star Victory - "And now we bow to our audience…"

Five-Star Victory Alt. - "Was that the match!? ...I-I haven't lost my touch, I suppose…"