Archive of Our Own

Dear Kanade Rindo,

I hope that the past year has treated you well. I wish that I had reached out to you sooner, but the purification of Shinjuku has taken most of my recent time. You may have seen mention of Shinjuku once more on the RG news. It seems like we're finally, finally on the right track!

Oh, it makes me so happy, Rindo. Thank you. I don't think that we would enjoy the views we do now without your help, without your leadership.

On whatever rail you now find yourself, I hope sincerely that you have embraced both the present you have been gifted and the future you have gifted yourself. After all, you and I, more than anyone else, know that as much as we cannot allow the past to control, nor can we allow the future to control us. We can look forward to the future, to the next station and the next stage to which we will arrive. But though we will arrive at a next station, fate does not decide which specific next station. Neither destiny nor kismet pulls the switch-levers along the tracks for us. We must pull them for ourselves! Our past just tells us which rails we have taken to arrive at this point. But from here on, we conduct our own trains and timetables.

I hope, sincerely, that you walk forward confidently. I hope that your friends and followers, Fret, Minamimoto, Nagi, Shoka, Beat, Neku, and those who have since joined your fold as honorary Wicked Twisters such as Rhyme and Shiki, have had a lovely year as well.

Sorry if this ends up a little rushed! I'm writing it in a dimly lit warehouse with only a pot of actually really good coffee for company, and I don't know when my more talkative company will be back. But I was just talking about you and what you did as the proxy. I want to write down these thoughts before I forget. And before I leave Shibuya!

Speaking of Shibuya, I have thought much on Shibuya's prolonged Game, the one I witnessed firsthand, at least from the vantage point of a plush toy. My darling Coco has told me so much about it and its occurrences. I haven't yet decided which train I will board at the next station, but I can't overstate how much you have influenced me, for the better. If I decide to step up, not to follow in my brother's footsteps, but to find my own, I'll take your example as a truly fearless leader.

I don't think you ever knew much of my brother. He was the Conductor during the inversion. He was wonderful, Rindo. I loved him so much, and I love him so much now. Kind, gracious, intelligent, worrying. But as a leader he had, I now know, three fatal flaws. I didn't mean that pun. I'm only saying this now because I've had time to process it all. Sorry if I sound callous. I don't mean it that way. But if I had to tell you all of the wonderful things about my brother, I wouldn't be able to fit in all in these sheets of paper! So I'm going to focus on just the stuff that I want to tell you. If you ever want to hear about how much I love him, I'm sure that I'll have plenty of time to tell you in the future.

Well, leadership. I meant to write this to reflect on leadership, and I haven't done any of that yet.

Kanade Rindo.

Rindo, your skills at leadership are among the most wonderful I have ever seen in any respect, from anyone. I don't mean you're perfect! You have a lot to learn. I have a lot to learn.

But the approach that you developed over the three weeks of the Game was, and is, a sight to behold.

Your friend Fret made you the leader just because. In retrospect, from what I know of him now, I wonder if he was trying to avoid responsibility for anything serious. He's smart and clever. Figuring out that he could pass on responsibility of leadership to you by taking responsibility for making a group, then playing the part of the silly and surprisingly competent sidekick. I'm glad that he's been more genuine recently! That's what he's been working on, right? If I say something and it doesn't make sense, sorry about that. I'm still learning about what happened during Shibuya. I'm not trying to armchair psychology him, either! I find him delightful. He doesn't seem to know much about music, but he makes up for it in enthusiasm when it comes to belting out lyrics.

You see, Rindo, I don't think you're special. I mean, you are special! You're special because you took the opportunity you were given and ran with it. But what I mean is that leaders aren't born. Leaders are formed and forged by their experiences. Like a reluctant hero you had leadership forced upon you, and like the hero part of reluctant hero, you grew into a fine leader indeed. And you're still growing!

I think a lot about the differences between the Wicked Twisters and the three teams that were still surviving by the time you came around. You might be curious about the team that was erased just before you joined. Oh, but I should start with what you're familiar with, I think!

Two years' worth of Games filtered out so many teams. The ones that survived, well, every single Player had had at least six straight months of anxiety and stress, some much longer than that. You can imagine your anxiety after only three weeks, and with such a powerful team that, after the first Game, you didn't really worry about your standings. But seeing a team fall week after week, worried that your team might be next: it's hard on anyone.

When I say that the leaders failed, or that the followers failed, it's not their faults that they were erased. The blame really lies in the system of the Games. There wasn't true room for improvement, true room for getting better, because the hypercompetitive nature just took Players out. I don't think that Shibuya's previous system was much better, though. It did the same thing. The only people who were going to survive were the people who were already good enough or who had help. You know, the previous proxy, Sakuraba Neku—I know about what happened during the first Impurification of Shibuya; it's a long story about how, but basically my darling Coco told me about it too—probably wouldn't have survived the very first day of his Game if he hadn't been saved by his partner!

Or the entire first week, if she hadn't been there for him. If he'd accidentally gotten paired up with someone just like him, for example, I think that Shibuya wouldn't be around today. A scary thought, right?

But back on track to the Game you were in! I don't know if you know this, but we usually have pretty strict requirements about what kinds of Noise we can make week per week. We have all sorts of guides on difficulty curves and things like that. Oh, and by we, I mean we Reapers!

All I meant to say is that I'm not blaming the leaders or the followers. None of the Players had to be erased. None of the Players had to suffer. No one had to suffer.

No one has to suffer.

I believe that with all my heart. And I want to change the system to make it so.

And your leadership skills have shown me so much of that. So, just keep that in mind when I talk about the leaders! I'm not blaming them at all. I think that we can dissect what they went through, just like I can dissect what led to my brother's death, so that I and the world can have a better, brighter future together.

Kawahara Fuya led the Deep River Society. Deep Rivers Society? Oh, dear, I really can't remember. Sorry, DRS. But he was not a pathetic leader. You didn't see him much, but his followers believed in his plans because they'd led them to success in the past. I'm not surprised that he loved pins like Out of Your Mine! Because he liked to play mine games with the others. He was smart and clever. He knew how to leverage his team members. He knew when to disperse them like so many trickling streams, and when to bring them together into a roaring torrent.

Throughout the Games I watched and reviewed, it struck me how often people underestimated the DRS! I don't know if Kawahara intentionally played up a weak image. I don't think he did; there are other ways to get people to underestimate you. I think he knew that he lacked charisma, so he used it to his advantage as much as he could. But he ran his team on his smart decisions.

He ambushed other teams, got them on separate rails to make them easier to get off track, used codes to pass along messages. He knew the ways to get around Shibuya better than pretty much all of us did. I don't know about the Shibuya Reapers, but at least those of us who had only spent a few years in the city kept trying to figure out how he got his team to bypass the walls we were setting up, until we figured out that he knew backtrails and alleys we didn't. The roads still followed the rivers, he'd say. If he knew the history and knew the terrain, he could figure out where to put his mines. And he could figure where to put his members, too.

The Variabeauties and the Purehearts were a little more selective about who could join. But anyone could join the DRS. They had the most people for a reason. Kawahara knew that a single droplet of water might not be able to do much, but if he got everyone together and conducted them, that resultant flood could break even the strongest dam.

That's impressive, you know! Weak Players are risks in a Game like this, too, even if they're also benefits. But Kawahara snapped them all up like that, because he knew that he could figure out an elegant strategy to use each and every one of them. And he was right.

If the DRS had been mindless robots who had done nothing but follow his orders, I think that he would've won.

But people aren't mindless robots. You all knew that! You took advantage of it. You figured out how to get to the human element that Kawahara had been missing. Not intentionally, you know. He didn't get up in the morning and think that he was going to move his teammates around like cars on different trains. He tried really hard to make sure that he didn't throw anyone onto the rails and that he didn't leave anyone alone as a caboose at some lonely station somewhere. But he also knew his own strengths, and he asked that his teammates trusted his plans. He shouldered everything himself. Everything! I don't even remember what his second-in-command was named off the top of my head.

He knew that. He didn't expect everyone to always show up. He always had more reinforcements than he would need, because he knew that some people just wouldn't come!

But you did more than just the regular number of no-shows. You pushed them farther.

You saw the human elements in the DRS. Not just mindless robots who existed for the sake of opposing the Wicked Twisters. Some of them liked art. Others liked idols. Still more liked this, that, or the other thing. One of them even recognised your teammate, Nagi, and went out of his way to try to challenge her to a quiz-off without letting her in on the fact that he'd recognised her! I don't even know if she knows, right now.

You separated them. And Kawahara lost his train of thought. Where were his teammates? How had they left him in this time of need? His plans had always succeeded, even when a few people had bounced away, as long as somebody showed up.

The thing with followership is that you can't just expect other people to show up. His followers failed, because they didn't take individual accountability for their actions. The Wicked Twisters did. Every single one of them. They all focused on how to make sure that the team succeeded, so much so that even when they were without you, like during the Scramble Slam in the second week, or the day when all the leaders were trapped in the dark, that they knew what to do.

And they didn't let you shoulder the burden yourself, either.

And Kawahara failed as a leader because he wasn't charismatic and because he didn't think about the human element. The Wicked Twisters followed you because you were more than their leader; you were their friend. Not a fake friend, either, but genuinely. And you did think about the human element, so much. You thought about it every time you asked Nagi if she was okay when it came to Dives. You thought about it when you checked in on how Shoka was feeling when it came to Ayano. You didn't just magically know to do this, but you honed it over the three weeks. Like when you screwed up with Fret during the second week, but then realised your mistakes by the end of it and reconciled.

You had the charisma of someone who was trying. Really trying. And you had the charisma of someone who recognised the people around him as his friends and wanted to help them.

My brother was very smart. Very clever. But Shiba had always curried more favour with the everyone else. Because Shiba, you know. He really cared about everyone! And he knew how to make people happy. How to make people smile, how to make people laugh, how to make people feel warm. Everyone loved him. We all really did.

My brother cared so much about everyone. But he never knew how to show it, really. Not even to me, sometimes.

I loved him. I love him.

But what you did, Rindo, and what my brother and what Kawahara didn't do, was show your appreciation, show that you cared about making people smile. Because people aren't mindless robots.

We're not dolls. We're not puppets.

Anazawa led the Purehearts. Oh, I could go on for ages about Anazawa's exploits as An0ther, but you already know them so well. He had the charisma. He had so much charisma that everyone wanted to be on his best side and in his good graces. But this wasn't the best situation, either. Do you remember when you bumped into one of the Purehearts? Tanaka Sumio, was it? Sorry if I got the name wrong. So many things happened, and I know who everyone was and is, but sometimes the details get jumbled in my head like too many criss-crossing trails. Anyway, I think that was his second-in-command.

He explained that he wanted to say something to Anazawa, to tell him his honest feelings about something that Anazawa was doing that he didn't like. But when one of your friends, Beat maybe, asked him why he didn't just pull directly into that station, he answered that he couldn't speak directly. This wasn't middle school, or something like that, he said. If the culture in the DRS had been to not question Kawahara because no one really wanted to because they wanted to just trust his judgment and do what he said and not think too hard because they were all understandably burned out from the constant stress of the Game, the culture in the Purehearts was that no one could speak up against Anazawa because they were all terrified to say something that would make them sound bad.

To Anazawa, and also to the other followers.

None of them wanted to rock the boat.

You see, Anazawa could keep up morale in a way that Kawahara couldn't. Kawahara's DRS dropped from his side because his lack of what I'm calling charisma meant that they all got burned out. Anazawa kept the Purehearts from burning out with his inspiring words. Stolen words, yes, but genuinely inspirational words nonetheless! I think that we should give credit to his ability to figure out what words people would take meaning from, or what words would sound good to others. I'm saying that it's a good thing to steal. I'm acknowledging that his ability to know what to steal and how to spin to his followers made him a more effective leader.

One of the ways that they kept up morale was by perpetuating the idea that they were keeping up morale. That they were all intellectuals. That they were all charismatic and wonderful and smarter than everyone else.

Remember how Kawahara let pretty much anyone be part of the DRS as long as they could, well, play the part of liking rivers? Anazawa had a clever way of making his club feel extremely exclusive. Everyone there felt like gatekeepers in a way that appealed to them. And they kept feeding the idea to each other.

If you ever read what they said to one another, it was really positive stuff. And having a culture of positivity isn't itself a bad thing! The DRS didn't do that. But it wasn't a sincere kind of positivity.

It was the positivity of productivity.

The positivity of, I want this to be true, so I'm going to say it, because confronting the possibly negative bits in the thing I love scares me and hurts me.

The positivity of, I'm putting the whole freight of my ego on this, so if it turns out to be bad, or even to have bad qualities, it means that I'm wrong, and it means that I'm not perfect and that I'm hurt.

The positivity of, I don't have my own self to rely on, so I'm going to rely on someone else. And that someone else has to be a perfect ideal. And I'm going to follow that perfect ideal and close my ears to anything that that person might do that might be bad. I can't help it. This is what has helped my brain. I used to be worse; I used to not know what to do; I used to be lonely; I used to be insecure, and now I'm not, thanks to this perfect ideal. So I'll keep my idol as an idol. That's how the thinking goes.

That kind of positivity. I'm not saying that I believe any of that! I'm just trying to see the view from their window on the train.

You see this sometimes with fans in general. Of influencers, like Anazawa, and other things, too. They won't talk about the flaws of the things that they loved. And they'll treat critiques, even completely reasonable critiques, like personal attacks on themself. They treat their influencers like deities. They'll defend their favourite celebrities or favourite franchises from others' critiques, harass people who have negative or even middling opinions, and dismiss any and all concerns. I see this even when people talk about things that I love. When I see a critique, I read it, whether it's of myself or of something I love.

I died before I ever joined a real corporate structure. But I've heard that this kind of positivity is encouraged there too, sometimes. Like conflating your worth with your job or the brand or something. And never going against your boss. I see that in self-help books about business all the time.

But real leadership, effective leadership, means that you know you're not the only one. Effective leadership means cultivating a place where your followers can be honest if they think you're doing something wrong. A place where your followers can give genuine suggestions. A place where your followers can speak up and be whole people.

This runs on a similar but slightly different track than the one about followers being able to do things on their own. The DRS didn't. They were trained to act like toy soldiers, following commands. The Purehearts could think for themselves on their feet whenever they had to, coming up with genuinely clever solutions to carry out their tasks. But they couldn't go directly against something that Anazawa said. Still stuck in the perpetual wheel that Anazawa spun.

And that's how his followers failed, really. Because they didn't speak up. And you almost fell into that, as well. But in the end you listened to the people around you. You saw with your own eyes who Anazawa was. You were able to confront that he wasn't the idol you thought he was. And you were able to move on and make your own meanings. I know how difficult that is. It's taken me so long to stop seeing my own brother as perfect. So I understand, Rindo. And you inspire me so much. Thank you.

And that's part of how Anazawa failed, too. He built himself up as an untouchable idol. People followed him, including you, because he was an untouchable idol. But an idol can never truly be untouchable. The ruse can only last so long.

Anazawa tried to get favours from us. From the Reapers. And from everyone else, including the Wicked Twisters. But his followers couldn't tell him that anything was wrong. It pained them to even consider that something might be wrong. If they absolutely had to tell him, then they had to figure out the most tactful way to do so, instead of just speaking honestly.

And Anazawa failed because in the end he didn't care about his followers. He threw them away. And when the ruse was finally lifted, they abandoned him. The problem with being an idol like that, with acting on perfection, is that—like the metaphorical splitting of the breast—you can only see them in black or white. If they're not perfect and on top of the world, then they must be on the very bottom.

So his followers, disgusted, left. Even when Anazawa tried to change himself around in the last second, it was too late.

He failed because he made himself out to be perfect. He failed because he didn't truly care.

But you? Look at you! That argument with Fret that you had? You let Fret convince you that you were being silly. And he was right! And when Shoka asked you to help her find Ayano, you listened to her. When Fret and Beat called you on dismissing Beat just because he wasn't Neku, you listened and realised that you'd been wrong.

You didn't just go with what your followers said, though. You made your own decisions, too. When Neku told you to stop going back in time, you thought about it, and you decided that you would give it a try anyway, and you succeeded! You thought about the plans that your followers and friends suggested, and you came up with some of your own. That makes a world of difference, you know. To just listen without thinking critically, or to think critically and encourage your followers and friends to do so the same. When you thought critically about people's suggestions and turned them down with reasons, they understood. And when you thought critically and accepted them, it meant so much more than if you had just accepted them without thinking.

And you always made your friends truly cared for. When you talked to Shoka about Ayano, you made it clear that you would ultimately leave it to her. You did your utmost as a leader, and as a friend, to figure out how to talk to her about it to prepare her for the day ahead. You listened carefully to her words and considered them. And you told her, in the end, that you would trust her to do what she thought was right.

Because part of being a leader is delegating. We'll get to that stop in a moment!

But your style of leadership wasn't just to walk away and let her do whatever she wanted. You intentionally took the time to understand her point of view. You encouraged her to talk to you and to speak up when you said something wrong to her. In the end, you suggested and guided, and you let her make the final choice. You told her that you would have her back no matter what choice she made.

And, unlike Anazawa, you weren't lying. You meant it sincerely.

You trusted her, and she trusted you, and that let her make the right choice, because you entrusted her with it.

You made your followers and friends believe that you trusted them, not because you couldn't make your own decisions, but because you genuinely had thought about it and trusted them. And you didn't just make them believe it. It was true. It is true.

And they know it, because you expressed it to them in a way that they could understand and feel.

You never made yourself out to be perfect. You wore your flaws, and your attempts to get over your flaws, on your sleeve. Not at first. At first, you dug your heels in and and refused. Like that argument with Fret.

But you changed. You deliberately walked forward. You deliberately became a better person, a better leader, a better friend.

I don't know if my brother ever tried to come across as perfect, or if I just thought that he was. Most people didn't try to argue with him about the Game, because they trusted him to run it until the moment that Shiba started acting weird and all of that happened. But they still didn't speak up and tell him what was going on. I don't think that he asked, either. He assured them that he'd investigate the Plague Noise. But he did it himself. People start to get antsy and suspicious. By then, the rumour that he was behind everything and Shiba really wanted to save everyone had started to spread. Because they felt like they could tell the charismatic Shiba the truth, then.

That was then, though.

The Variabeauties. Tachibana Kanon was an incredible, insightful leader. She'd been trying to bring down the Ruinbringers for years. Honestly, I admire her so much. She alone was trying to ally with the other teams. Her teammates loved their 'kween' genuinely, more than the DRS ever loved Kawahara, but neither did she try to come across as perfect or untouchable, and her followers were willing to talk to her.

Yet she also failed. Why?

I remember that her second-in-command talked about how the rest of the Variabeauties were really too glib to function or something like that. I can't remember the words exactly. But even though she loved her team and she saw their worth, like when she delegated them out for Scramble Slams, she didn't delegate them to the degree that you did.

What do I mean by that? I really don't want to blame her for her death, so let me make that clear, first. But consider the day that she died. Tachibana decided to ask her entire team to split up for fear of them attacking each other. She didn't trust that they, as a team, together and united, could go against the Noise. And she didn't trust that any of them should know her location, because she was worried of possible attack from within her team, yes. But if you think about it, it really does come from a lack of trust in her team, doesn't it?

Why wouldn't she trust them to be able to safely restrain someone who had gotten hit by the Noise? Why would she allow her teammates to possibly run into each other after they had all individually gotten hit with Noise? She didn't delegate them to capture the Noise themselves, for example.

She told everyone to steer clear. I'm not sure what her plan was, exactly. To capture the Noise herself? She didn't want her teammates hurt. I get that.

But despite everything, she didn't trust her teammates enough to delegate the task.

What would have happened if she hadn't done that? What would have happened if she had kept the team together and faced down the specific single Noise that Shiba had released? What if she had delegated the team more effectively, instead of scattering them? She trusted them to figure out what to do without her, and they largely did, with only a few of the Variabeauties falling victim. What would have happened if she did want to split them up in order to find the Noise, then let everyone else know about it, and then come together to capture it while restraining anyone it hit?

Think about how you handled it. Yes, you had Replay on your side. But you intentionally and deliberately kept the Wicked Twisters together other than Fret. And in the end, when Fret showed up anyway, you trusted him. In other times, with Plague Noise on the loose, you kept the team together and fighting for and with each other. You kept up communications with people, texting even people outside of your team like Uzuki. You trusted your teammates to text outside the team, too. Like when Beat texted Rhyme, or Shoka texted Kaie.

Tachibana didn't. Only she and her second-in-command handled talking to other teams. The rest of her team focused inwards.

When you fought the Noise, you all worked together to defeat it. Even though you had gotten hit with it yourself! You were careful in using your team to prevent losses to one another or the Variabeauties.

And this applied to other days. You trusted your teammates. You trusted Nagi to tell you when she could or couldn't handle a Dive. You knew that it took the most out of her, so you delegated the task of deciding whether or not they would to her. And you did it genuinely! If she said no, you weren't disappointed and you didn't push her.

When it came to Reminds, you trusted Fret to figure out what to Remind people. Those lovely Reminders that popped into people's heads held such warm and affection in them that they couldn't have been anyone's but his. You trusted him to do what the team needed.

You trusted Beat's idea with the Scramble Slams, bringing the area leader on his skateboard. And you trusted him with soundsurf in general. You trusted his thoughts about his sister. You trusted his trust in Uzuki and Koki. Koki is his name, isn't it? I feel like he mostly goes by another name, but I'm afraid that I'm lacking it. It'll come to me in time. Coco dislikes him very much and calls him Carrothead as one of her least rude names for him. I don't want to write down the other ones.

But back on track to Tachibana. Another flaw: she tried to recruit a very specific kind of person to her team. The kind of person that she knew would vibe well. All of the leaders failed in this way, even Kawahara, since he insisted that everyone norm in the same way. And norms themselves aren't bad. Having a shared goal and shared ideas, even the idea that we respect everyone on the team and that we don't make fun of people, helps a team be unified. But that's not the same thing as limiting who can join. You didn't let just anyone join you at first. You had to be coaxed into Nagi by Minamimoto, and then coaxed into Beat by Fret and Nagi. But by the end of the week, you brought Shoka all aboard yourself! You learned. You changed. You grew.

You understood the value of having different people on your team, a diversity of thoughts, experiences, and values. And you understood that your role on the team wasn't to lead by orders, but to make it a space where you could bring up the potential of everyone on the team. By knowing their weaknesses and their strengths.

You took into account what they told you. You took into account your own failures and failings over time. What you'd learned from each person.

My brother never delegated either. He always did the legwork. He let us get by without having to gain points because he didn't want anyone to worry about underworking or erasure, and I appreciated that. But he also never trusted anyone, really. When it came to investigating the Plague Noise, he said he'd do so himself. When it came to trying to stop the Inversion, he said he'd do so himself. When it came to saving me, he let my darling Coco help by bringing over a vessel capable of hosting a Soul, but.

Sorry, my train of thoughts got off the rails there. Let me steer myself back to what I was talking about. Leadership. And followership.

I don't know if you know this, but Susukichi has an amazing voice and an even more amazing way with music. He and I used to play junk garage music together. Big Su and Lil Tsu. We called ourselves 2通. He got me my headphones. Susukichi always told me that I should go pro. Do it like 777 and Def Märch. Scratch that. I just remembered that the Def Märch you know doesn't have 777. Oh, you don't know this, I think, but 777 used to be the lead vocalist for Def Märch. He was one of us. When he died, the Composers changed everyone's memories in the RG so that they'd remember a different Def Märch. It's a long story. Sorry that I keep messing up and going to all these connecting stations! You must be very confused. I'll answer any questions you have, I promise.

I loved him so much. The gentlest best friend and big brother I could ask for, really. But he, too, saw the world in black and white.

I remember what he told me, over and over, when I asked him why he didn't just tell my brother what he didn't like about what my brother was doing. And he always told me the same thing.

"That's what you do with leaders. You follow them, you know?"

That's what he'd say. I can't say it the way he did. Not with the full throated gwahaha laugh he used to do. I miss him so much.

But he told me that. Again and again. That's what you do with leaders. You follow them.

You know?

Shiba convinced everyone that he would protect them where my brother hadn't. Everyone took to Shiba's side. Under Shiba's charisma, for the person he had once been, my entire family hunted down the Reapers of Shibuya one by one whenever they rocked the boat. Hishima had seen before anyone else what Shiba was capable of. When he left, I hadn't been able to understand him at all. Now I do. Only in retrospect. He'd been closest to Shiba, so of course he'd noticed it first.

By the time we realised what was going on, it was really too late. Too late for me because I was just a puppet in his hands, made to dance to his tune. But too late for everyone else, too. The ones who survived, like Shoka and Hishima. And the ones who didn't, like Ayano and Susukichi.

He'd once led them by charisma. But now he led them by fear. Everyone was scared of dying. Everyone was scared of rocking the boat. When they had been united in hunting down the Reapers of Shibuya, it had made them feel powerful and good, that they were protecting themselves against a threat, that Shiba was saving them. But suddenly they turned around and found themselves afraid of him.

Ayano begged Shoka not to go against Shiba. As long as they followed him, he would protect them. The moment that they didn't, he would cast them aside. When Shoka stood up to him, he stripped her of her Reaperhood and prepared to have her killed. When Ayano had nothing left to live for, because she had anchored on Shoka to the last and had no love for Shiba anymore, she willingly allowed herself to be infected, and Shiba used her for that, throwing her away like Anazawa had intended to throw away the Purehearts and the Wicked Twisters when they were no longer useful to him. Hishima never stood up to him because he tried to pretend that he could simply play the observer, because Shiba hadn't made a space where anyone could stand up to him.

And the train kept chugging on to the very end of the track.

Susukichi didn't want Shibuya to be destroyed. He didn't want anyone to suffer or die. He tried his best. He even tried with me. So many times, knowing that my Soul was elsewhere, he tried to reassure me. Bought my puppeted husk of a body my favourite foods. Played my favourite songs on the headphones even when I couldn't hear them. Consoled me on the Players I had to fight and erase.

When I came back to

Oh Rindo I

When I

Sorry, I had to take another moment. I don't know when my talkative company will be back, and I'm almost out of coffee, so I should really try to

collect my thoughts and

you know this is harder to write than I thought.

When I came back, and I saw that my favourite song LAST CALL had been played 64695 more times since my last number three years before and I just Rindo I memorised that number because I can you believe that he had Susukichi played that song for me even though I couldn't hear it and he knew I couldn't hear it so many times that many times manually over and over that I and you know it wasn't looped or anything automatically no he himself had decided to play it for me each time because he knew I loved it and even if my Soul was somewhere else maybe just maybe it would help my body and

Rindo.

"That's what you do with leaders. You follow them, you know?"

That was what he believed. To the very last nail on the very last rail.

He failed as a follower. He couldn't tell Shiba. Even in the end, when you all followed him out of the Shibuya River and faced him, he chose to fight you instead of fighting you with Shiba all together, because he was looking for any excuse not to confront him.

He didn't want to hurt Shibuya. And he didn't want to hurt his friend and his leader.

Thank you for seeing him off in the end. For giving him one last fight. For letting him die in the belief that he had tried his best.

Thank you, Rindo, and to all of your Wicked Twisters as well.

"That's what you do with leaders. You follow them, you know?"

Shiba failed as a leader. Shiba ruled by De Principatibus. He ruled in fear. He failed, because he had convinced his followers that a leader must have followers.

He had convinced his followers that that what was you do with leaders.

That you follow them.

You know?

You see, Rindo, leadership is honestly overrated. You can be the absolute best person in the world and still fail. Because the real deal is about your followers. Because a real leader knows how to follow, and a real follower knows how to lead. A leader who focuses on leading will never be as effective a leader as they could have been. You, Rindo, didn't lead from the top down, but from the bottom up.

You trusted your friends. You listened to them. You took the time to understand them. You recognised their individual strengths and weaknesses. You didn't force them to do anything. You didn't make them afraid. You didn't make yourself perfect. You let them talk to you and to talk to each other as a group.

What you did was you brought out their best.

You communicated. You set up others' successes. You helped them find their own confidence. You let them take the lead because you had thought about it and delegated it to them. You reassured their human elements. You let them follow their passions. You explained your reasoning to them. You worked with people not in your team. You listened to your friends' values, and you worked within those values by coming up with shared ideals.

You knew that you would benefit from Rhyme's help and you trusted her even as an outsider. But you also knew that it was important to Beat that she didn't cross the Plague-ridden Shibuya herself. And you knew that she could be hurt or possessed by Noise. So you took that value, and you did your best to bring in others like Coco and Uzuki. You admitted your mistakes. You recognised that even though Uzuki was easier to convince, she would work better helping Koki. And even though Coco was harder to convince, you figured out through her values that Neku could convince her, asking him to do so and leveraging his strengths.

You didn't come up with the plan to save the city. Minamimoto did, and Rhyme assisted. You didn't implement it. Kaie did the background work. Neku, Nagi, Fret, and Hishima were key to the moment, and Uzuki, Koki, Coco, and Minamimoto were key to cleaning up the Noise. You didn't figure out how to bring down Phoenix Cantus in the end. Beat did, truthfully, his intuition and insight of 'just keep hitting it' paying off.

But you know what you did do?

You led them. You led them all the way. You let them shine.

You didn't decide on the stations and the trains yourself. You suggested them, of course, and they took your suggestions into account. And you trusted them to tell you what station they needed to be at and when and how. And you coordinated all of their rails and tracks to get them to the stations they needed to be at when they needed to be there. You coordinated it so that they could take the tracks that they excelled on and so that they had safety wheels to work on their weaknesses without fear. You coordinated the vast network of diverse and different trains and made it work. You trusted them to steer their individual trains and figure out their individual routes. But you conducted the symphony of their calls overall, so that their individual routes were as effortless as they could be relative to each other.

A leader isn't the one that people follow. That's not what you do with leaders. What do you do with leaders?

You tell them when they're doing something wrong. You give them suggestions on what you think should be done. You speak up about your problems. You encourage them to reach out and communicate. You offer them your heart and trust them to offer you theirs. You offer them your friendship and trust them to offer you theirs. You offer them your thoughts and trust them to offers you theirs.

And you trust them with your strengths. With your weaknesses. With the things you can honestly do and the things you can't. You trust them to delegate, and you trust them to coordinate, and you trust them to help you help yourself shine.

Rindo, Shibuya would not stand today without you. Shinjuku would not stand today without you.

Not because of Replay. But because you set the stage for everyone else. Because you accepted influences from within and without. Because you became a better person. A better leader. A better friend.

A better you.

You transformed. You woke up. You lived. No matter how hard it was. You kept moving. There is no other time than now, and you are ready. You are moving. You are improving.

The next stage will always come. The next station will always arrive. You learned from your friends, and I hope to learn from you, as well.

Thank you for teaching me about how to be a good leader. Thank you for teaching me that leadership cannot focus on the far future alone. That leadership cannot only stare down the results that will come if one takes the rails of the perfect leader.

Leadership must focus on the present.

On the people around you now. On how to help them help themselves to shine, to wake up, to show appreciation. As if every call may be our last.

Thank you, Kanade Rindo. I look forward to speaking with you in the future, if ever you want to. But even if you do not, I thank you for this present of an example of genuine leadership, that I may take a similar track myself, not copying yours, but developing my own style of leadership, if I do end up travelling on the train that will put me face to face with confrontation of the train conductors and railway map composers themselves. I will not follow in my brother's footsteps. I know this now. I know how and why he failed. I do not blame him. But I will take a different rail. The one I lay down myself.

And more than anything, Kanade Rindo, thank you for this present of the present I have now.

The present that I have been gifted, and the future that I will gift myself.

I wish you and yours a lovely year to come. But I don't need to fold a thousand paper cranes to make it come true, because I know that you yourself will do so, with your own hands and your own head and your own heart. We will both travel towards the next station, whatever may await us at the next phase.

Rindo, know that you've got the power. I know, now, that I do, too.

Yours sincerely,
Matsunae Tsugumi

PS. You helped the crane, so she'll return the favour, won't she? I can't say much, but I'm throwing my full freight behind certain plans to help keep Shibuya from ever being in danger of being purified or erased ever again. So rest easy, Rindo, and walk forward. The anxieties you feel for futures yet to come are never light to bear. But the more steps you take forward, deliberately, the lighter the anxieties will become. Not just because you're going into the future! Because you're going deliberately, right now, every step in the present. I know you can, Rindo.

PPS. I don't know if you knew this, but I do woodcarvings! I would love to carve something for you. Let me know what kind of thing you'd like. Maybe your favourite animal and favourite colour? I was thinking of a blue dragon, but I wanted to ask you what you thought.