A bright beam of light cut through the prevaling darkness that surrounded the Shibuya River, revealing a vast assortment of junk that had been left to rot for years now. As quickly as the pillar of light had arrived, it suddenly vanished; leaving two winged figures in its wake.
"Ugh, I'm never going to get used to that," Uzuki groaned as she hobbled over to the nearest wall and leaned back against it.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Kariya said in agreement as he shook his head to try and regain his focus. "Only problem is that the higher ups still have this place on lockdown, meaning that if we're going anywhere, its through one of those."
"Oh yeah, about that," the pink-haired Reaper said as she drew her magnum and began tossing it in the air. "When are they going to let us go back to work anyway? We've already wasted a week in that box they kept us locked up in- I'm afraid my aim might get rusty if we don't get back to shooting players soon."
"Hey, we're lucky to be alive right now," Kariya said as he and Uzuki began walking deeper into the dark tunnel surrounding them. "From what I heard, the only Reapers that were left after that last game session were couped up with us in that room."
"What?" Uzuki physically recoiled from the disturbing news; which almost cause her to drop her gun into the murky waters beside her. "But there were only like, a dozen or so Harriers and support members that I was aware of. What happened to the others?"
"All erased," Kariya said nonchalantly.
"But what about the Conductor? or that manipulative bitch Koinishi?"
"Gone too. With such a high casualty list from that last game, it's no wonder that the brass has this place locked down. They've actually shipped over some prodigy of an Officer to replace old Megumi as Conductor- in fact, we're supposed to be meeting her now."
"Hmm, a new Conductor..." the pink Reaper began thinking of all the possible ramifications having a new Conductor might mean. Always one to try and make it to the top, Uzuki almost instantly jumped to one particular conclusion.
"A new Conductor will need a few new Game Masters!" the gun-toting Reaper practically cheered at her self-revelation. "Ones with experience and who know the layout of the city like the back of their hands! Oh, they sent us here to get promoted and help get the game up and running again! I better start thinking of challenges now so that I-"
"Woah, woah, woah- easy girl! Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions." Kariya said quickly; trying to contain his partner's enthusiasm.
"Oh, come on! We're easily the most senior Harriers left; why else could we be down here?"
"I guess we'll be finding out shortly," The orange Reaper said as the bright multi-colored lights of Dead God's Den finally became noticable. From the outside, the headquarters of the Reaper Officers looked rather uninteresting; it had no windows, unpainted concrete walls, and a single steel door. Once you entered through the door however, its like you just walked through time and returned to the American 1970's. Hanging from the ceiling was an enormous disco ball that gave off a wide variety of different colors. Blasting from a jukebox in the corner was an endless march of music that was much older than either Uzuki and Kariya were. On either side of the room was a sofa set situated around a round table; and next to each sitting area was a pool table with a much smaller scale disco ball hanging above it. The whole place had a very retro theme to it, and the Reaper duo had a running bet going on which of the Officers had done the decorating; although they both knew it probably had been Megumi's design. Sitting in the left hand booth was a young woman wearing a black trench coat with a matching undershirt and pants. She was currently multitasking between scribbling some notes and taking bites out of a rather large cookie.
"That must be her," The pink Reaper thought to herself as she made her way across the aquarium beneath her and headed over to where the new Conductor was sitting; with Kariya shuffling along behind her slightly. Once she was standing close enough to the table that she believed the woman would hear her over the music, Uzuki cleared her throat and composed herself as formally as possible.
"Uzuki Yashiro and Koki Kariya, reporting for duty."
The black-clad woman turned her attention from her notes and fixed her dark brown eyes on the Reaper duo. "Ah. Good, you made it. Come, have a seat."
The Reaper pair sat down across from the new Conductor, feeling themselves sink slightly into the foam of the red cushions.
"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Merril Anderson. As you may already know, the Shibuya UG's Reaper personnel suffered an unprecedented level of casualties in the past month. The brass has assigned me the task of traking down those who were responsible for the incident and brining them in for questioning; so I'm going to have to ask you two some questions about what you remember from the last few weeks. Now for starters, was there anything particularly odd that happened during the three game sessions of last month?"
"Oh, there was plenty," Kariya responded as his mind began crawling through his memories to select various bits of information. "Knothing too out of the ordinary happened during the first week; although Mr. H did intervene for these two kids-"
"What?" Merril said as she frantically grabbed a new piece of paper and began scribbling down some notes. Producers almost never interacted with the game itself- let alone the players within it. "Who did he help?"
"I can't remember the girl's name, but the boy's name was Neku. And let me tell you, he was a real trooper. He played the Reaper's game for three consecutive weeks."
"B-but that's unheard of," The newly appointed Conductor stammered; this situation was indeed unique. "Why didn't he get reincarnated after winning the first time?"
"Beat's me. Although the kid's list of friends didn't stop at Mr. H. During the second week- which was also the one where the Taboo noise started showing up everywhere, Neku somehow made a pact with an illegal player..."
Merril continued to frantically write down notes as the Harrier continued to tell the story of the last month in the Shibuya UG. Unfortunately for her, Kariya's info only seemed to make the incident even more confusing. One of the two Angels stationed there had played the game in the second week- and judging by the fact that Kariya hadn't said it was Hanekoma, the Conductor automatically asumed that it had been the Composer; the only problem was, why had the Composer played his own game? On top of that, neither of the Reapers had any recollection of how the week had ended; although Merril could gather that the Game Master for that week and the previous Conductor had both died after the Harriers had been blanked out. However, she still didn't know who had erased them. Was it that Neku kid who had managed to survive in the UG for three consecutive weeks? Or had the Composer eliminated his own underlings so that he could flee without being tracked? At the very least, Kariya had confirmed the Taboo noise presence in Shibuya had occured while the Composer was still in power; meaning that it must have been either Mr.H or Joshua who had set up the manufacturing sigils. That alone was enough to bring them both in; all she had to do now was to find them. It's a shame she had no way of knowing whether or not that Neku kid could be reached, as the Angel blockade of the city meant that no one could send a message in or out for atleast another month. If the fallen Angels couldn't be brought in before the blockade ended, then the games would be started again in order to return the system to normal; meaning traveling between the planes of existence would become possible again, giving the two renegades an easy chance to escape. She would just have to insure that they were found before that chance was open to them.
"Thank you both for coming in and telling me this." the Conductor said as her pen fell from her hands and crashed onto the table below. "As I told you earlier, I'm in charge of tracking down the individuals responsible for last month's incident; and the brass believes that Mr. Hanekoma and that illegal player- who's name is Joshua by the way, are the prime suspects. Since both of you have served in the Shibuya Reapers for quite some time, I'm promoting the two of you to the Officer's corps. Your first order is to organize the remaining reapers into groups of two to begin a city wide search for the suspects. Report back to me once you are finished."
"Yes ma'am!" Uzuki said excitedly as her earlier suspicion was validated; she had indeed been promoted. "We won't let you down!"
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