Chapter Text
Nanashi was used to seeing numbers above people's heads. It was something he was born with, and never thought of it as weird. Details like a persons three sizes,health, and even sex were discernible at a glance for him. Yet, there was a different number floating over peoples heads now. Oddly enough though, was that not a single person with the numbers, ever had one higher than seven displayed. He didn't know why but it made him feel uncomfortable.
--- Though let's go back to the start.
It was a hot day in Blue Sun Street. Honestly, Nanashi would rather be home in front of an AC playing video games. Every step felt like death was slowly encroaching. It didn't help that he didn't sleep very well last night, and had some cramps. His friend Misane had asked him to meet up near the big tower, and of course Nanashi couldn't refuse. He was a bit giddy at the thought of what they might be doing around there... like... a... date...? The white haired male holds his face at the thought, his pale face burning even more than it already was under the sun. Finding a spot near the meeting place with some artificial trees to give shade, he quickly sits down and drags out a soda can, reveling in it's cold touch.
"Uh... Nanashi?" A familiar voice sounds from above him as he looks up with a girl dressed in purple and blue shades. She had clearly seen him running the can over his face, and possibly even heard him moaning about it. Embarrassing!
"A-a-ahhh! Misane-chan! F-fancy meeting you here! I mean, well, we were supposed to meet here but.. uh... ummm..."
"It's alright Nanashi. Anyways, I wanted to give you something."
Looking at her shoulder, Nanashi notices a totebag hanging off it, with cute cartoon cats illustrated on it. Waaahhh a gift?! What could this possibly mean?! To answer that thought, her hands withdraw what looks like portable gaming devices. One of them was colored pink, and the other purple. The letters COMP could be seen legible from the devices top screen, signaling to the boy what they were.
"Hm? Are those COMP's?"
"I knew you'd recognize it."
"Well, of course! COMPS are the most popular device on the market! With how you can not only play games on it, but also send email and browse the web,it's a very versatile and essential item! I own seven of them! Launch version, lite version, Improved camera version, XL version, and a few ones with cute designs and colors!" He rambles on about COMPS for awhile, going so far as to take out his special edition Monpoke XL COMP to show off. "Oh, but why do you have some? You don't seem much like a gamer to be honest Misane-chan."
"Well, you're right about that. I'm not much of a gamer. I didn't even buy these. Mikado gave them to me."
"Mikado?" Nanashi tilts his head at the thought. How kind of him! A new COMP can go for 2500 bits, so to get two for free is so nice!
"Yeah. But that's not all... I can't actually use them. It looks like they're locked or something. He told me not to lose them, and to give the other to you." With that, the pink COMP gets passed off from Misane's left hand to Nanashi's. Her own Purple COMP lingers in her right hand.
"Locked huh? I bet I can crack it! Hacking into COMPS is pretty easy! All of mine have homebrew~ Maybe Mikado's testing me?! I'll do my best to not be a total failure!" With that said the white haired boy takes out his neon pink laptop, using the number world he sees to his advantage to quickly hack into them. He didn't want to use up his laptop battery too fast anyways. It was starting to die. "There we go! It looks like he was using a custom programming language for encryption."
Mikado's programming language was pretty unique and thoroughly thought through. Nanashi only knew bits of it from what Mikado'd tell him to write down on his body, so if it was anyone but Nanashi or Mikado, they wouldn't be able to crack the COMP. Nanashi was lucky to have managed with what he knew of the language even. Blinking back at Misane rapidly, Nanashi hands over her comp back to break out of his reverie. "Welp. Not everythings cracked, my programs still working it's magic, but emails can be accessed and sent now, so that's a plus! Oooh speaking of emails, lets exchange friend-codes with each othe-"
A loud beeping noise comes out of the two comps, a notification sounding that of an email being received. "Huh. We both got emails at the same time. Perhaps an automated message upon registering for email usage?" Misane muses to no one in particular, her fingers clicking to open the email. Nanashi does the same, and within seconds the two's expression darken as their eyes widen. As if in sync, the two turn towards each other, blurting out the same words.
"Someones going to die!"
The message they received was unlike one they've ever read. In it listed details of a city wide blackout, along with reports of poisonous gas in the area. The most worrisome was the death of someone within an hour. A normal person would disregard such emails as nothing but a prank, but with Misane being raised by her dad who was a police officer, she couldn't just turn an eye to a potential threat to someones life. And Nanashi was a very kind person, to an almost disturbing degree. He'd rather sacrifice his own life rather than turn around and ignore the possibility of someone else dying. The location was included in the prophetic letter, and immediately the duo were off down the streets to arrive at the appointed area. It was an hour before the so called murder was to occur.
_end chap 1_