#ips fics

Instead of getting sent to Shinjuku after being shot, Joshua somehow sends Neku back in time, tricking Shibuya’s UG into accepting his soul into the Game again because he technically hasn’t played it yet at that point.

The catch? It’s the game that Joshua first played, as an actual player. If Neku wants to get back to life and back to his time, he needs to ensure Joshua wins the game and becomes Composer, so he can send him back.

This is of course easier said than done, as Neku knows things he shouldn’t, and makes himself look very suspicious to Josh- especially since he sought him out to team up. A fun inversion of their original dynamic, with Josh not fully trusting Neku, and Neku having to hide things from Josh in order to avoid screwing with the timeline.

As they work together and Neku learns more about Josh though, and his reasonings for wanting to become Composer, Neku starts to feel conflicted about whether he should actually help Joshua, or whether he should encourage him to win the game and come back to life. He knows this could potentially ruin the timeline as he knows it, but he can’t help feel like he’s helping Joshua make a huge mistake, and he isn’t sure if he can make himself sit idly by while he does it.

Of course, he knows there would be major consequences to altering the timeline like this. He would never have to experience the Reaper’s Game, but that would mean he’d never meet his friends, might never grow or change as a person. He doesn’t want to give that up, but he isn’t sure what the ‘right’ thing to do is in this situation. And Mr. H isn’t particularly helpful either.

Things are different than he remembers them. That should go without saying, it has been three years after all. The shops he’d become so familiar with have mostly been replaced, new brands he doesn’t recognize, some names familiar but just different enough that it’s almost uncanny.

He has his friends though. Even if things aren’t quite the same as they were three years ago, Shiki is still Shiki, Rhyme and Beat are still Rhyme and Beat. And he has Rindo, Fret, Shoka, and Nagi now as well- more people who understand what he’s been through.

(he doesn’t need to talk to Him.)

None of them quite understand though. Not in the way that he sometimes wishes they would. The way he immediately feels guilty for thinking about, for wishing that kind of solitude and sorrow on them in any form. He’s glad they weren’t in Shinjuku with him, he’s glad they didn’t have to experience that.

But he doesn’t know how to talk about it with them. He can’t stand the guilt in Beat’s eyes when he mentions it. The subtle agony in Shiki’s gaze if he brings it up. They both say they’re fine talking about it of course, that he’s always free to lean on them, to share his feelings with them. They want to be there for him, to support him- and he wants to let them. He does. It just feels wrong to make them shoulder that burden.

Shiki and Beat don’t really talk like they used to, Neku has realized. Thinking back, he isn’t actually sure how much they ever talked back when he was still around. They were friends, but did they ever really have anything in common besides the Game? Did any of them have anything in common besides that…?

(they did. He was the one Neku related to the most. but he’s not ready to talk to Him.)

No. He won’t think like that. The Game might be the thread that connects them all, but their friendship is a choice, one they’ve all made; a commitment they choose to treasure and maintain.

Right?

It feels weird, seeing them as adults. They’re all still kids, really, but technically they’re grown up now. Shiki is running a business. Beat dropped out of school. He won’t say it, but Neku knows it was because he was looking for him- because he was too depressed to go about life as normal when Neku was missing, when he’d watched him get shot and disappear before his very eyes.

Neku can’t help but wish that Beat weren’t quite so loyal. He wishes he hadn’t spent the last three years of his life searching for someone he couldn’t hope to find. He doesn’t want to say that it was a waste, but he can’t help feeling it. Beat deserved better than to agonize over him all this time.

He’s glad that Shiki was able to move on somewhat. To get her life together and follow her dreams with Eri. He knows she never gave up on him, she never would- it’s who she is, and why he loves her. But her job keeps her busy, and as much as she tries to make time for him, he feels guilty keeping her. She and Eri are doing what they always wanted, and he doesn’t want to get in the way of that in any form.

(he knows how it feels to have an anchor, something tethering you to the past. he doesn’t want to be that for her. for any of them.)

He can’t talk to Rindo. Or maybe it’s more like he won’t. Because Rindo is free now, he’s safe- Neku will make sure of it, he won’t let the UG sink it’s claws into him again and drag him back like it did him. But Rindo is young, and he looks at him with eyes full of faith, like he’s some sort of hero. Neku won’t make him shoulder his trauma, won’t force him to commiserate his time in the Game for his own comfort.

The same goes for Fret, Shoka, Nagi. If they come to him to talk, of course he’ll be willing- be a good mentor, be a good friend, whatever they need him to be, whatever he didn’t have coming out of the Game. But he won’t start a conversation about the UG. He won’t make them relive those experiences.

(there’s only one person he doesn’t feel guilty talking to. only one person he feels deserves to see his anger, to bear the burden of his grief.)

(he isn’t ready to talk to Him, because he’s not ready to accept what it means that he Wants to.)

(he knows that He’s watching, always from a distance He thinks Neku won’t notice, but never quite far enough away. maybe it’s on purpose. that seems like something He would do.)

Neku sat at his desk in his room, in an apartment he never rented, paid for by a job he’d never attended. According to the schedule texted to his phone, his next shift was two days from now. He reclined slowly in his chair, gazing at the ceiling.

Adjusting to a world where no one remembers you were gone is difficult. Especially when you can almost remember what never was.

Post-NEO TWEWY, spoilers for both games and A New Day, as well as some spoilers for the secret reports.

1. Send me a ship

2. Send me an AU

3. I will write a 3 sentence fic about them

Cu had never been a stellar student, but paying attention in class was especially hard when the teacher looked like a goddamn body builder underneath that suit and tie. He wasn’t even interested in religious studies, and even with Kotomine’s deep, commanding voice, it was difficult to think about anything but how toned his arms looked whenever he took off his jacket (the only thing Cu would ever thank the faulty heating system in this building for)- how the hell was he supposed to remember the names of the different people who wrote the bible, or whatever it was Kotomine was talking about now?