Broken Glass (Joshua x reader)

Chapter 18

Anxious was an underestimate compared to what I was actually feeling. My heart, was ready to beat out of my chest as it thumped wildly against my rib cage. My wing had finally healed to the extent where I could leave it unwrapped and would respond to what action I wanted to do. It felt nice to be able to move my wings freely though, and not flap one around hopelessly as the other was pained trying to move in sync with the other. As of right now, my frequency was lowered to hide my wings from the RG as I looked down at my arms.

I examined the markings that were going up my right arm, that just made up another sigil, that Mr. Hanekoma made. There were dark blue and black symbols I didn't understand, but Mr. Hanekoma seemed to know what he was doing, and I was going to trust him on this one. After all, he does know more about sigils than I'll ever hope to know. The symbols even seemed to sway slightly on my arm as they circled it from my hand all the way to my shoulder. The sigil, however, didn't just stop there. It covered the imagination-reversal sigil on my back, stopping it from restricting my imagination, and slowly corrupting it, so that it would compress and destroy itself. That was what Mr. Hanekoma had told me anyway, since he couldn't remove the imagination-reversal sigil. He wrote the sigil on me to keep my imagination flowing (and to stop the 'bad' or corrupt sigil).

The Reaper's Game, which was going on this week was halfway through, and Mr. Hanekoma wouldn't tell me anything about it. Even about how Neku was holding up with Joshua. And of course, how Joshua was doing, too.

I grabbed a jacket and threw it on to cover the sigil that moved along my arm. My hand could still be seen with the sigil, but I doubted anyone would notice it, and if someone did, they would most likely pass it off as a tattoo. Even that imagination-reversal sigil still seemed to be taking up my strength to move though. Although, that could just be the result of my body being weak previously, and not being given enough time to heal. Nevertheless, I walked out of the room, occasionally leaning against the wall as I moved down and into the main part of WildKat. It was completely empty. Mr. Hanekoma must've gone out to either stop a rouge Reaper, correct someone whose breaking the rules, or none of the above.

He had stopped a Reaper before, when Neku was playing the Game on his first week, when a Reaper was trying to get him to erase Shiki; His partner. That was when Neku (who is still oblivious to what Mr. Hanekoma actually is) first met Mr. Hanekoma, who was teaching him the rules of the Reaper's Game. However, another Reaper, Koki Kariya, is starting to get suspicious as to why some random person would know all of their rules, and act like a guardian of the Game. Because of this, Mr. Hanekoma has had to be more careful with his decisions for being a guardian of the Game.

I took a spare key from in a drawer behind the counter, leaving a note on the counter to Mr. Hanekoma if he happened to return and find out that not only am I missing, but one of his keys also. I opened the front door to WildKat and locked it behind me, stuffing the key into the front pocket of my jeans. The wind was harsh today, causing my clothes to ripple and nearly even make me trip over my own feet. I continued to walk and even felt the presence of some players in the Game, when I walked by the Scramble Crossing. This made me self-conscious since players weren't able to hear my thoughts since I was an Angel. Because of this, players mistook me for a Reaper, or another player, which made my life difficult when I couldn't explain that I was neither. With my heightened senses (and angelic powers), however, I was able to see into the UG, from the RG. I usually chose to ignore players to avoid talking, which was difficult when trying to move on foot through Shibuya, while a Game is going on. Players ran all over the place during their Game. I wasn't allowed to affect the results of the Game, just as the Producer couldn't.

I came up to a familiar building and it never occurred to me how much I come here, to 104. It seemed that no matter where I was trying to go, my feet always brought me here. 104 was almost like a comforting, calm place to be, when you weren't in the midst of crowds, and on top of the building itself. I walked around the building, slipping away from the crowds undetected which was as easy to do as it was to say it. When I reached the roof, I swung my legs over the edge and looked down at Shibuya. I brought my left knee up to my chest as I laid my arm on it. My right hand was holding the edge of 104, and the jacket I grabbed was slightly oversized, causing it to fall over the sigil visible on my hand.