Shibuya Snapshots

Rise

I had a lot of fun writing this one. Hope y'all enjoy it.

-xXx-

She had always yearned to achieve. To raise higher and higher above everything and everyone else, always trying to reach the next highest point. The thrill of her achievements being recognized and acknowledged, especially in oppressive workplaces, kept her going.

At first, she would look back down to see how far she'd come. Then she'd look back up to where she could go next. Higher and higher she would climb. The higher she did, the less she wanted to look back down.

Shibuya is a mountain一 a beautiful mountain 一and she wants to be able to cast a gaze upon it from the peak. But she has to get there first.

She slips a few times here and there. Others that climb alongside her slip too, and some even fall off completely. But she learns where not to step and reaches for some of their footholds and keeps going.

Her first major slip is when she dies. She had grown too tired to keep going, slipped from the exhaustion when she had reached forward again, and fell all the way back to the bottom. Just when she thinks that life is over, she wakes back up at the bottom, nary a scratch on her.

She stays off the mountain and agrees to participate in the Reaper's Game. Once she makes it back to life, will she have to start from the bottom again?

She plays the Game with a partner, always rushing headfirst into battle, ending up getting injured, nearly falling for a few Reaper traps too, until her partner pulls her aside and drills a lesson into her head.

She has to take things more slowly. Plan things out. Look for openings and opportunities and then she'll have the chance to fight.

So she does, and begins to rely on the moments of weakness in her enemies to capitalize on. It becomes a habit to search for those weaknesses. It provides them a leg up in battle and ways to pull one over on the Reapers. She becomes more strategic and finds that she's good at it. She doesn't provide her enemies and mercy and tears through them like a tiger would their prey.

Unfortunately, she develops a bad habit. She starts to capitalize on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in her allies.

The first time it happens, it's an accident. It's the fifth day, and she and her partner had shared intel on the mission with one of the last few remaining teams. A simple Noise erasion at the Scramble. The group comes up with a plan. One of them is good with black hole psychs, so once one of those is made, cast all the Noise into the center to keep them in one spot while everyone else wails away.

All had gone according to plan except for the fact she had knocked away a Bassbanfrog, not paying attention to where she had batted it away too. It had been knocked towards a Player on a different team and had quickly changed targets. She had underestimated it. The frog is quick to recover and tears into them.

They all still for a moment in shock, but the Erased Player's partner is quick to avenge them. The battle against the Noise waged harder than before and the battle ended a few minutes later.

None of them are able to stop the Erased's partner from following them into oblivion due to the loss of partner time limit none of them had known about.

The second time is the next day. There are only two teams left, including her own. They had been fighting a giant Noise that had taken the form of a leviathan that had been accompanied by Fusion Sharks.

They had all taken out the small fry rather quickly, leaving only the leviathan left. It had stomped into the ground rather harshly, kicking up clouds of dust. She had seen it charging a large beam of water, but she didn't say a word. Didn't even open her mouth. Just waited for the opportunity.

And the opportunity came in the form of the leviathan launching its attack at the other team through the dust as she surged forward and got a decent few attacks in. She managed to Erase it, too, but when the dust cleared she and her partner were the only ones left standing.

It truly sinks in as a habit by the seventh day when she and her partner are fighting the Game Master. She watches as her Partner blocks an overpowering attack. She watches as they beg for her help.

She goes after the GM instead.

The GM disappears into a cloud of static and the two end up in a white room. And she prepares for the good news, for exactly what she had calculated would happen.

And then the Conductor declares her not worthy for revival and revives her partner instead.

She's offered a choice. Play a second time, join the Reapers, or welcome oblivion and face Erasure.

She highly doubts that she would stand a chance in the Game a second time given the fact that she and her partner were the only two standing. And Erasure is a flat-out refusal. So, the choice is obvious through the process of elimination.

She makes her choice and Mitsuki Konishi officially joins the Reapers; starting at rock bottom.

She looks to the top of the mountain, her goal in mind, and starts to climb. She goes as swiftly as she can, but is as cautious and sneaky as a Tigress. There are people in her way on the path up, but she doesn't let them stop her. She stealthy cracks their foothold and watches as they, too, fall.

She smiles.

She uses the space they were forcefully vacated from and continues to rise. It doesn't take her as long to reach where she was. Thanks to her endurance as a Reaper, she's not even a fraction as exhausted as she was before.

She continues to rise and rise and rise. She comes to a stopping point near the peak, not quite there, but as close as she can to be content with where she is. There is one individual above her, the Conductor, and above him, the Composer. She's never met the Composer, not even seen a glimpse of them, which makes sense considering how high up they must be if they rule the mountain.

She would climb higher, but the path above her is far too dangerous for her to come up without a plan, a backup plan, and a backup plan for her backup plan. And perhaps she's alright with Mr. Kitaniji there.

Higashizawa falls one day, never to be seen again. Minamimoto disappears, which makes her suspicious, but she dares not move from her position above the city, lest she were to fall once again, to even think about investigating his actions.

Mr. Kitaniji turns into a time bomb, threatening to cause an avalanche and take them all down with him. Or perhaps the Composer was the true bomb once Mr. Kitaniji's panic, anxiety, and desperation was considered.

She looks out at the view. She doesn't want to lose it. So, she thinks and plans and schemes. The solution is quite simple. Both have to go.

Minamimoto returns, power threatening even the Composer, so she strikes a deal, not caring about the two boys at their heels. They would fall by her own hand, they needn't matter.

She lets the demented lion pass her and he rushes past Kitaniji, and, given the lack of fighting, she suspects something may have happened.

Well, no matter how this ends, she will be at least one step higher up.

She fights the two boys, taunts them, toys with their emotions to break them and their footholds.

Except she fails to defend herself and slips.

She tumbles down from how high she's risen straight into oblivion and does not get back up.

-xXx-

A Konishi character study was the first thing I thought of when I wrote this prompt down and I just had to do it. I hadn't originally intended for it to be as lengthy as it turned out to be, but I am very satisfied with the result.