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"Same streets. Same crowds, too. Yeah, Shibuya hasn't changed a bit.

"But still… I don't think I can forgive you yet. You don't see it, but those few weeks were very hard for me. Learning to trust people. Having that trust broken.

"Trust your partner. And I do. I - can't forgive you - but I trust you. You took care of things, right? Otherwise Shibuya would be gone, and my world with it.

"Hey. Did I mention? I've got friends now. I'm going to see them for the first time in a week.

"…See you there?"

Sometimes, he remembers what it was like, being human and mortal and oh-so-fragile.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya was but a vague thought within a womb, birthed into life only to witness the dead. He remembers silence towards the "normal" cacophony of newly-born screams, all pale skin and wide brown eyes and inquisitive thought.

He remembers the agony of broken strings as the wombs were crushed or could not grow and the thought would not form. He remembers the melody of harmonious love as new families were made alive. And he remembers his quiet absence throughout what made the room alive.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya was simply a five-year-old boy, quiet and smart and able to see the dead. He remembers people being there before the monsters came, colorful and yellow-eyed and so, so noisy, and then simply being gone, disappearing in the static that the television sometimes showed.

He remembers the curiosity as the strong, strong notes of determination rang throughout Shibuya, only to become disjointed as failure reached its course.

He remembers the way the others always wondered what he was looking at, never able to see the older kids fighting the scary monsters or the siblings laughing over an inside joke while looking at their cells; never able to see the little girl screaming in pain as she disappears, her friend crying silently, wailing as she follows, or the old man holding his daughter close as she sleeps; never able to see the two worn-out comrades seated back-to-back, holding hands and smiling, with bloody noses and shredded clothing and weary faces, or those strange adolescents dressed in hoodies and scarves, with giant black wings extending from their backs.

He remembers the strangeness, where his parents ignored his words as imaginings of a small child, lonely and quiet and necessary for growth.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya was merely an eight-year-old kid, quiet and intelligent and an excellent piano player. He remembers taking up violin, teaching himself alongside his schoolwork.

He remembers the apathy and soul after he had moved back to his father's home of Austria, back to further his education and get a better instructor. By then, he remembers ignoring the dead, or at least ignoring the masses at large.

He remembers the physical music as a mere passing, and can't help but cringe at the broken song of Austria, devoid of true expression and built on a culture that has long since faded away.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya was just a twelve-year-old student, aiming to please his parents and succeed.

He remembers moving back to Shibuya and basking in the upbeat tune of the center of individuality, of expression and life. He remembers being unable to join in, lacking imagination and ambition beyond the joy of his mother and father. He remembers drowning in the sea of them and being unable to stop the pity as the spirits and souls of the dead fall to the Noise one-by-one, or, in this case, two-by-two.

He remembers telling his parents about the people that simply weren't there, being stuffed to the brim with pills and poison and silence. He remembers his parents' love and care, their smothering of him in affection to make up for later years.

He remembers love and pain and shouts and anger, beer bottles littering the floor and a quiet burning permeating the air.

He remembers losing himself, losing his ability to compose and conduct those wonderful compositions, losing the sights of the undead and the goddamned noise, losing the song of Shibuya.

He remembers trying to forget it all, to keep himself closed-off from the world. He remembers becoming distant, losing himself in music. He remembers the stagnation, the decay, the emptiness of it all.

He remembers wanting to end his life.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya was nothing more than a fourteen-year-old boy, with brittle bones and a keen ear for music. He remembers the loneliness, the knowledge that no one could see what he could see.

He remembers meeting Sanae Hanekoma, after the death of a little girl, in a car accident gone horribly wrong.

He remembers the crimson splashed on the asphalt, fresh and bright and unable to congeal on the ruined and mangled corpse fast enough. He remembers his fascination at the twisted limbs and dead eyes, the man's worry and surprise when he had said that he could see the Players, too.

He remembers the happiness and acceptance and understanding. He remembers the solitude and routine finally being broken, torn apart. He remembers finding a father.

He remembers a time when the Composer of Shibuya had become a fifteen-year-old introvert, entranced by Shibuya's music and welcomed into Sanae's arms.

He remembers the silence of an empty home, no parents left to care for him as they move on to their work, desperate to make a living. He remembers the beauty of everyday life as he visited the WildKat café more and more. He remembers the intrigue the Reapers' Games had held for him.

He remembers wanting to die.

He remembers ascertaining the details of the Game from Sanae Hanekoma, concealing his reasons in a mask of feigned indifference. He remembers going home and taking his father's personal pistol from the top drawer. He remembers sitting in his room for hours and contemplating the chances of his plans succeeding.

He remembers slowly raising the gun to the side of his head, knowing he is so close. He remembers hearing his mother's screams to stop! as his fingers tightened.

He remembers smiling as he shut his eyes and pulled, the loud bang reverberating in his mind as he imagined the look on Sanae's face.

He remembers ending up in the Game, joining with the math-freak Sho Minamimoto. He remembers his partner being a Reaper aiming for Composer, how he, himself, had crushed those dreams when he jacked Shibuya.

He remembers winning the Game at the end, but refusing Ascension or a Second Chance. He remembers forcing his way through the Noise, leaving his dear, dear partner to fight the rest of them off as he entered the Dead God's Pad by the Shibuya River.

He remembers finding that silver-haired woman with the blind blue eyes, the old Composer of Shibuya, seated on her throne.

He remembers smirking softly as he raised the pistol that had brought him into the Games, and the old Composer of Shibuya nodding her head in agreement.

He remembers fighting and winning and murdering that woman in cold blood, only to find himself laughing hysterically and crying.

He remembers realizing that she, too, had wanted to die, and could not help but wonder if the UG was no different from the RG, after all.

Sometimes, he remembers what it was like, being human and mortal and oh-so-fragile.

And he can't help but hate himself for it.

He remembers his weakness, his inability to cope with the affection and the loneliness and the horrible, tangible difference.

He remembers the disregard for feelings he gave to his parents and Mr. H. He remembers the betrayal towards his partner and the crushing of his dreams. He remembers the death by his hands, and the murder for her position.

He remembers becoming a mere copy of what he had wanted to change so much, gaining no more control over his own life than when he had been alive.

He remembers so much blood.

He shouldn't have to feel these things anymore, this gnawing guilt and raw sadness and crushing weight on his shoulders, but he does. The missing notes had left behind their own echoes, and he could still remember the human buried beneath all this power.

He wishes he could end it all, and does not need to remember to think that he wants to die.

He remembers that same human emotion forcing him to want to change the discord within Shibuya, to fix things only weeks after his induction into the life of Composer.

He remembers finding a bright, overflowing Soul that could change Shibuya for the better, but finds him too withdrawn, too distant, too broken by the loss of a friend in the face of social status.

And so the Composer had left his throne.

He remembers befriending the boy, becoming his best friend in school, his only friend, and the Composer can't help but feel as if life was worth living.

He remembers meeting in Udagawa — CAT's mural — a gunshot to the head killing that beautiful Soul — the consequences of his actions — betrayal by Sanae —

He remembers that he had become too close, that he could no longer exist in the RealGround. He remembers dying again, run over by a car on a street near Udagawa, as part of his re-initiation as Composer.

He remembers erasing his existence from memory, leaving behind a broken shell of a boy who had thought he had killed his only friend.

He remembers adopting the old Conductor, Megumi Kitaniji, and the various Reapers left behind after his upheaval.

He remembers power at his fingertips and the loss of Imagination, Shibuya's song broken and unhealable, festering like an open wound.

He remembers the people trapped in a perpetual cycle, the city dull and gray and, like a conveyor belt, forever repeating its same mistakes and messes.

He remembers the greediness of the people, their inhuman character and the heaviness of pride and lust and envy, of laziness and hunger, anger and their own undoing.

He remembers Shibuya's tainted music, its devouring of itself until nothing would remain. He remembers danger towards surrounding cities, disease to the people, a world unable to be expanded upon, stuck too deep in its ways.

Most of all, he remembers silence.

But then, the stagnation disappeared, and his reason for a third suicide no longer mattered.

That broken boy had been restored, remade, and that envious girl had found herself.

That callous boy had found reason to care. That mindful girl, pure of heart and soul, had given up her dreams in order to remember love.

The lovers had expanded their thievery and hoards to helping others, giving away rather than taking for themselves.

The Reapers had realized that the purpose of these Games was not to erase the Players, but to weed out the ones who would never reach salvation. To, as Minamimoto would put it, take out the trash and "add them to the heap."

Even Sho Minamimoto had come to understand his place, faced with the burden the Composer often carried in his mind.

But there were some that could never change, some who valued Shibuya over all else, some who refused to work with the Composer, going so far as to erase him permanently through "taboo" means.

So when Neku Sakuraba — his dearly-chosen proxy who had survived against all odds — failed to shoot him, failed to shoot Joshua because he had valued their friendship and his own change of heart over Shibuya, Joshua had been confused.

The change was far more drastic than it had first appeared, apparently.

He remembers restoring Neku, reviving him, forcibly willing his existence even if he had lost the game, because the damned Game didnotmatter anymore, and —

He remembers restoring Shibuya, finding that it could change, like people could change —like he had changed — only for the better.

But he could not help but envy them.

He was doomed to rot perpetually in this fifteen-year-old body, weak and strong and empty, and he could not help but wish that he was still human, that he could still change.

And then he would remember his weakness, and curse his very — missing — soul for the thought.

When the Council appears before him, he can't say he's surprised. The bet he had made with Megumi was bound to have many repercussions.

But they had wanted Sanae. They had wanted his Producer, his friend, the coffee barista and former Angel, because he had tried to kill the Composer.

Kill. Murder. Assassinate. It was all the same, and the twinge of hurt that Shibuya had meant more to the now-Fallen Angel than Joshua cannot be put aside. He knows if he had been human, it would hurt more, far worse than Neku's realization that it was Joshua who had killed him, befriended him so closely, and killed him again because Joshua was the Composer, and everything had been a game.

Despite these facts, the Composer of Shibuya cannot allow the Council of Angels and their Higher Plane to erase his Guardian, his Producer, his Father.

Nor can he allow them to follow through with his original plans to erase Shibuya, or allow them to declare the Long Game invalid, to allow them to recreate the pain in those crystal eyes again.

Needless to say, he is surprised Sanae is spared because of the punishment that is to be placed on the youngest Composer of Shibuya.

He is also surprised that he is not outright erased.

He soon learns that he is needed to rebuild the cacophonous music that is Shibuya, and thus he cannot be removed from his throne. However, the punishment, he thinks, is far worse than erasure:

He is to become human once more.

And, he will be unable to die.

He finds himself waking up in the Scramble Crossing, oddly enough, though it is to be expected. But the people are crowding around him, asking if he's okay or if he's hurt, and he knows he is no longer in the UG.

He waves them off, understanding, as he picks himself up. The Angels always did love their irony, he thinks.

"Actually, they consider it 'poetic justice,' or somethin'."

The voice startles him out of his thoughts, but he relaxes when he recognizes it as his Producer's. In the UG, but still the Producer's.

"How ya' holdin' up, J?"

"As well as can be expected, Sanae," he replies without mirth.

Sighing, he dusts his clothes off and straightens his Pegaso shirt before checking his phone. If he's right, then —

"I wouldn't go tryin' that, J."

Well, that's interesting. Of course he can't atop himself from asking, "Why not?"

And he can just see his Producer fidgeting, hands wringing his wrists and eyes darting everywhere but at him, frantic in a "cool and collected" way, as his proxy would say. Because, of course, CAT can do no wrong, despite the fact that he had tried to kill Joshua.

Joshua, who had trusted him and cared for him and seen him as a father; Joshua, who had needed his guidance and couldn't do anything without him, really; Joshua, who was never as important to him as fucking Shibuya and —

Wait. Where had those thoughts come from?

If he had known being "human" again had meant getting back all of these stifling emotions and thoughts and feelings, he would have chosen erasure without a second thought. How in the world was he to survive the next few centuries as this?

He was doomed, he was sure of it.

"—rebuilding Shibuya. Good luck, Josh."

He had just barely caught the tail-end of Sanae's answer, and once more wished for his Composer status; these mindless emotions and childish worries and inane thoughts caused far too much inattentiveness in work that required far too much immaculate notice to detail.

"Hey, Sanae, could you repeat that?"

He could just imagine the older man carding a hand through his messy hair, five-o'-clock shadow all the more prominent with his frown. And the dark shades never could hide the exasperation behind closed eyes.

A sigh, then, or perhaps the wind.

"Well, the gist of it is like this: the Higher-Ups apparen'ly limited your powers as Composer. You'll on'y be able t' do the bare minimum, ya' dig?"

And he simply giggles, knowing all too well that his powers haven't simply been limited; no, that would be far too lenient. Surely there had to be a punishment worse than stripping the delinquent of his powers.

And there was: Forcing him back to his old life as a human. He doesn't bother to even assume that they had given him a new body, most definitely wanting him to suffer through his old one.

When he finally bids Sanae farewell, promising once more that no, he will not over-exert himself, and that no, he is not going off to stalk Neku — not really, even if he plans to, eventually — he walks towards Pork City, taking stock once more of the brittle, brittle bones and the pale, pale skin, no longer an ethereal glow, sickly in comparison to his Player form in the UG.

His hands still shake and his knees still wobble, he realizes. By the time he has reached the sewers, he can't even seem shocked when he finds his chest hurting, his knees stinging as they hit the pavement hard, and air refusing to go into his lungs because he can't breathe, can't think, too tired, so goddamned tired and —

And he pushes aside the weakness and crawls into his abode, leaning against the creeper-covered walls of the sewage complex, half-walking, half-slipping.

He can't help but groan when he remembers too late that he can no longer access the UG beyond the rebirth of Shibuya, that there is no "home away from home" for him, not really, and that, in his pathetic state, with his own Reapers antsy and his Producer willing to kill him and not a single soul alive that will be willing to help him, he really should rethink his chances. Because, really, he's screwed any way he looks at it, and —

And since when has he started to adopt his proxy's brash and depressing attitude?

He's going insane, or at least more insane than he already is, and there is nothing much to be done, after all, is there? He's collapsed in the middle of the sewers, leaning against a crumbling wall for support, hands shaking and veins throbbing and bones feeling like nothing more than glass shards, brittle and fragile and able to be broken with the slightest of touches. He's coughing up blood and, as Neku would so eloquently put it, looking "like shit," arms riddled with nearly tattooed-in razor lines and that hole in his skull choosing now, of all times, to become agitated and bleed.

His blurred, fucked-up vision doesn't really help, and everything aches and hurts and feels far worse than when he was alive. The glaring image of the Dead God's Pad, translucent and faded, but there makes his situation all the worse for wear.

Perhaps because this body was legitimately dead, he reminds himself, and he can't help but try to listen for his heartbeat, just to make sure.

Of course, the pulse is gone. The fact that there is a giant skull-and-crossbones, unique to the Red Skull and Player Pins, branded onto his front is also another dead give-away.

By then, the stress has caught up to the once-Composer, and everything, every horror and pain and ounce of misery and hurt he has left, every bit of stripped dignity and lost power, is so glaringly funny, and he can't help but laugh and laugh and laugh.

Broken and hysterical, the reverberations bounce back and forth throughout the sewage complex, echoing into Shibuya and unwittingly twisting it further and further.

After all, the Composer is Shibuya. When one starts to crack, the other would not be far behind in its self-ruination.

Several hours later, he finds himself waking up to the ever-present gurgling of the murky sewage water, hair covered in the grime slithering down the creeper-covered walls. His clothes are damp and reek of waste, ironically giving off the appearance of Mus Rattus rags, despite the fact that they are Pegaso and Dragon Couture.

The numbness of waking up prevents the pain from hitting him full force, and everything appears blurry, as if in a haze of dark and muted colors.

For instance, the blood may have seeped through the expensive fabric, — and he knows he should be worried, because, for now, these are the only clothes he has left — but he can't bring himself to care.

That little rat over there may have also given him more than a friendly bruise on his right hand, but, again, the world is till distant, too far away.

It is not until after the mink hiding behind the corner chooses to wrap itself around his torso, biting down into the gray-green skin of his neck, that he is jolted awake, assaulted with static and pain and the feelings of erasure.

He manages to frighten the thing with enough movement that it quickly lets go, snaking its way out of reach of his arms, yet remaining still close enough to see.

It stares with its bright yellow eyes in an almost-glare at him, as if blaming him for the loss of its meal. It hisses a little, and Joshua wonders if it was after the rat that had scampered away in the scuffle.

The ferret-like creature appears too much like Noise, however, and its sentience could very well be justified as some poor Player blaming the Composer for its loss of self. But the rules are the rules, and so he can't really see what a Noise would want with him in the RG.

Wait.

Noise can't stabilize their forms in the RG. They exist in the UG alone, designed to serve as the "negativity" of Shibuya after having lost their chances at life.

And so, with the growl of another mink, this one black and gray with narrowed red eyes, Joshua panics.

Inwardly, at least, he is calculating all possible reasons why the two parallels are merging. Outwardly, however, he is frozen, standing stock-still as the Noise circle around him, watching, waiting, wondering.

They leave him soon enough, with the small scatterings of mice racing wildly through the sewage water, splashing and screeching and appearing an easier catch than the larger prey behind them.

Confused, the once-Composer stares blankly to his right, listening to the soft, desperate music of the living as they are torn apart by the fast-paced, adrenaline-filled chaos of the hunt. He's not quite sure what to make of it, and he wonders if he isn't as human as the Angels would like him to believe.

When the numbness fades away, the realization eventually hits, and it hits hard.

He marvels at his stupidity, for, in reflection, that is all it could ever be. After all, the Noise may very well still be in the UG. When he was alive, he could see the Games, couldn't he? He had known of the strange creatures, the Noise, long before he had killed himself.

The only discrepancy lay with the rats and the mice, and he sincerely hopes they were merely remnants of their living counterparts, and nothing more, for if they were, Shibuya was in too damaged a state to go on for much longer.

He can't help but remember that he and Sanae could only do so much, and, at the end of the day, his power was insignificant when faced with the city's reparations.

It was at times like these that he regretted allowing Megumi to Ascend to the Higher Plane. He really did need a Conductor, especially now.

Ignoring the nagging doubt of his ability, Joshua listens to the awkward, trailing limp that is Shibuya, and slowly plucks out the notes he had carelessly thrown in earlier, adding a more soothing and peaceful tune. But, even as he alters the Music, he can't help but flinch as he hears the gaps where vitality should be, where the inspiration should carry throughout Shibuya in a violent and joyful mix of emotions.

When he is finished, all he can hear is the quiet melody of a lullaby, of sleep, of serene death. He wonders if his emotions are affecting the piece too much, or if his thoughts have really lost so much Imagination, disillusioned as he had been since before the Long Game.

Regardless, he does not plan to take in a new Conductor beneath his wing, at least not yet. After all, he has managed before, and it will not harm Shibuya too much if its reigns remain loosened.

He doesn't let himself admit that the real reason he refuses a new Conductor is because of him.

He doesn't admit that he doesn't want to see broken crystal eyes anymore.

After several hours of attempting to fix Shibuya's song, the once-Composer gives it up as a bad job. His legs have collapsed from standing for so long, and his arms hurt from the otherworldly strain of altering the very presence of Shibuya, its heart and soul and life.

He ignores the angry celestial burns in favor of regulating his breathing, ignoring the playful swishing of mink Noise and the echoes of things he'd rather not know about.

He swears they've multiplied, ignoring the logic behind several arriving in his abode as he worked. The red and gold minks he recognized as some of the older Noise had arrived with that white nine-tailed fox, and the other two minks seemed content to watch the newcomers.

They're probably communicating telepathically, he thinks, and he knows then that he really should just take another nap. His mind is on auto-pilot, run by someone who really cannot work the controls, and he is going insane.

Or maybe the sewer water is just finally getting to him, the toxic fumes far more invasive and detrimental to his human body than to his Composer form. He doesn't bother to move from where he's laid down, in the middle of the stream of waste and urine and other unsavory things.

Leaving becomes his only option, though, when the quiet becomes oppressive, and the almost bored and disdainful looks he receives from the Noise shift to hunger. Without any real power, or any real proof that the Noise that bit him, he recalls, is at least not able to access the RG, he worries. After all, he could see Noise, but Noise were not supposed to touch him, not supposed to even see him.

His past flawed logic is consequently crushed under several vending machines of his own making, and his new findings cause him to worry all the more.

Perhaps Neku is free today, he thinks, as he quickly gets up, turns around — trips and falls into the water, because grace only came with the job — and half walks, half runs back to the entrance of the sewage complex, limping.

Somewhere, the dragon has fallen.

The fox worries, and awakens.