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A momentary panic jolts through Rindo when Beat’s hand claps forcefully onto his shoulder and he declares, “Aight, then. I’mma go with my boy Rindo.”
Fret looks disappointed. He opens his mouth like he’s going to protest—Rindo wishes he would—but he shuts it just as quickly and turns to Nagi with an endearing grin. “Sounds good to me!” She groans and refuses to look at him.
“Permit me to ask: why split the teams like… that?” she asks through gritted teeth.
Rindo could ask the same question. He’d rather be paired up with Fret or Nagi, people he already knows. Beat seems… nice. But also like, a lot. And he really doesn’t want to spend most of the afternoon with someone he only just met.
He’s the leader, right? He could choose the pairings himself. But for some reason he can’t seem to find his voice.
“Well, I may a’ played the Game before, but I’m still gettin’ back into the groove,” Beat explains. “So I figure I oughta follow the leader and have ‘im lend me a hand. Just feels safer that way, y’know?”
He smiles down at Rindo, the expression bright and genuine. And, after a brief hesitation, Rindo finds himself smiling back.
Once they go their separate ways—Fret and Nagi to the Purehearts’ territory by the bus station, Rindo hurrying after Beat towards Dogenzaka—and there’s no turning back, Rindo starts to think that splitting up might not be so bad after all. Beat is still practically a stranger, and it’s a bit awkward to be alone with him, but it’s also a relief to just let him lead the way and follow in his wake. As long as Rindo can keep up.
The Scramble is overwhelming—Rindo gets disoriented fending off the swarm of jumbled thoughts and ducking the hovering Noise sigils, and he loses Beat somewhere in the middle of the crossing. Once he reaches the far sidewalk he looks around and spots Beat again—easy to pick out of the crowd with his broad shoulders and those clunky headphones atop his bright blond hair—standing just inside Hachiko square.
“Hey, there you are,” Rindo says breathlessly, jogging up to him. Beat’s leaning back against a railing with his arms crossed, surveying the surrounding area so intently that Rindo cranes his neck and looks around too, worried about enemy teams, or Reapers, or Noise. Or whatever else might want to erase them. “Everything okay?”
Beat snaps his attention back to Rindo. “All good. Sorry I lost ya back there,” he says breezily. “Yo, can we chill here a minute? I can zoom us over to Dogenzaka in no time after, we should still be able to win our turf before Fret n’ Pinny. Might as well give ‘em a chance to beat us, hey?”
“Uh, are we in a race?”
Beat frowns. “Ain’t we?”
“Sure, we can hang out for a bit.” Rindo could use the chance to catch his breath after chasing Beat. He settles into the spot beside Beat along the railing. The way Beat keeps scanning the crowd with such focus is making him anxious. “Are you sure everything’s okay? Do you see something?”
“I’m just lookin’ around,” Beat says reassuringly. They stand there in silence for a minute, like they both expect to leave it at that. Then Beat changes his mind—he lets out a long, quiet sigh and explains, “See, a friend a’ mine waits here almost every day, but she’s outta town right now, and I promised... Okay, not actually promised, but we got a understandin’. I’m s’posed to hang out and take a look around, just in case. Then I got sucked back into the UG.” He rolls his eyes and rakes his hair back in frustration, his bangs immediately flopping back over his face. “I still checked it out every day, ‘cept I missed yesterday cuz everyone was on my ass the whole damn time.”
Rindo frowns, confused, because he’s definitely missing something. “So, what are you looking for? Or, who—“ He stops with a wince, mentally kicking himself as he realizes. “Oh. It’s Neku, isn’t it?” He feels nervous saying the name around Beat, in case he’s prodding at a sore spot, but Beat just smiles faintly.
“Heh. Yeah.”
The crosswalk light turns green again. Rindo watches as a steady stream of people walk past on their way to the station. He’s spent a fair amount of time waiting around here himself, opening up FanGO with a frustrated sigh after the inevitable apology text from the chronically late Fret. He would get so annoyed over it; those few minutes used to feel like such a big deal. But Fret always made it, eventually.
Rindo glances up at Beat. “You just wait here every day hoping he’ll show up?”
“My friend does. I usually go ‘round Shibuya on my board lookin’ for him. Sittin’ around ain’t really my speed. I get kinda antsy,” Beat says. Rindo has certainly noticed. His leg is fidgeting even from the short amount of time they’ve been standing here.
“What does he look like?” Rindo asks. Beat doesn’t say anything, his brow furrowed, and Rindo is worried he’s overstepped. He sticks his hands into the pockets of his coat and drops his gaze, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the ground. “Sorry, you don’t have to— I just thought—“
“It’s cool, dude. I was just realizin’ that… I guess I dunno, anymore. Been years. He could look totally different.” Beat looks out at the people gathered around the statue and says softly, maybe just to himself, “But if I saw ‘im, I’d know.”
Rindo can’t help his curiosity now. “Then, what did he look like before?”
“Uh, so…” Beat scratches his chin, thinking for a moment. “He had this dumb spiky hair, and he used to wear big headphones all the time, but then he stopped. And he had these skinny twig arms, like, seriously, I dunno how he fought the Noise, but he sure did. Dude was fierce. Really something else.” A fond smile slowly spreads across his face. “And he’d… Huh, I dunno how to describe it, but I can see it, this look he’d get on his face pretty often when he was thinkin’. I hated it at first cuz I thought he was talkin’ shit about me in his head.” Beat chuckles. “Maybe he was sometimes. But he was just that kinda guy, thinkin’ stuff over. Could be why he always knew the right thing to say.”
“Um,” Rindo starts to say. He’s not any clearer on what he should be looking for.
Then Beat smacks his forehead in sudden realization. “Oh, duh! I forgot. He’s really into Jupes, like all his stuff is from there.”
“He was a fan of Jupiter of the Monkey?”
“Big time! Guess you guys have that in common.” He grins and pokes Rindo in the chest, in the middle of the logo on his sweatshirt.
It’s weird to think he has something in common with the mysterious, legendary Neku, the saviour of Shibuya. They’ve shopped in the same stores, walked the same streets. All of a sudden he seems very real in a way he wasn’t before. Not just a rumour, but a real person, deeply missed by his friends. Rindo can see it in the longing on Beat’s face as he gazes across the square.
Beat stands up straight, stretching his arms overhead, then strikes a ready pose with fists brandished. “Yo, le’s bounce. Turf ain’t gonna win itself!”
“We can wait another minute, if you want,” Rindo offers. The lights are green again, bringing more people their way. But Beat is already moving.
“Nah, I’m good. Kept my promise.” Beat looks back. Not towards the statue, but at Rindo, flashing a grateful grin. “Thanks, Rindo.”
“Yo, you running away already?” Beat calls after the retreating Variabeauties, crackling with electricity from his psych and wearing a threatening scowl that would make Rindo want to bolt in the other direction, too, if it was aimed at him. “Man, y’all are weak! Get back here, I ain’t even worked up a sweat yet!”
“We should probably just take the win,” Rindo suggests with a nervous smile. He reins Beat back by the elbow, drawing his attention to the problem at hand. “We still have to deal with them.”
The street is filling with Noise, frogs and penguins and jellyfish materializing out of the air, drawn by the commotion of their battle and quickly surrounding them.
“Heh, no prob! On it!” Beat claps Rindo heartily on the back before running at the Noise, shocking him with a strong jolt of electricity that zings through his veins.
Rindo sighs and pats the static out of his hair, then summons the fiery blade of his own psych and follows Beat into the fray.
Fighting with just Beat at his side takes some getting used to. There’s no Fret to chain some rapid combo attacks with, no Nagi stepping in to sweep away the Noise with a whirlpool when he needs a break for his psych to recharge. There’s only Beat, tearing through enemies at a breakneck pace, forcing Rindo to step up if he wants to pull his weight.
At first, Beat reminded Rindo of Minamimoto, both in sheer strength and unpredictability. But the more time Rindo spends battling alongside Beat, the more he sees how different they are.
Even after a week together, Minamimoto remained fiercely independent, prowling around the battlefield like an apex predator and choosing his moments to strike. Beat has a wild streak of his own, with those impatient outbursts when he heedlessly breaks away to tackle some Noise by himself—literally, with or without a psych—but more often he seems happy to stick close and fight side-by-side with his teammates, or drag one of them along with him.
He pays more attention than Rindo initially thought, quick to step in and block some Noise when Rindo fails to watch his back, jumping at any opening to lend a hand or deliver a devastating finisher. They get mixed up once or twice, Rindo barely avoiding crashing into Beat as he’s barrelling past in an all-out attack, but then they fall into a rhythm, becoming aware of the other’s movements and smoothly adjusting, tackling and slashing through the Noise in turn, coming up with new combos on the fly, and it just works. It’s almost like they’re in sync, or something.
Just when it seems like they’re done with the Noise and can finally catch their breath, the ground rumbles ominously under their feet. Rindo turns and finds himself facing down a huge rhino, definitely the biggest he’s seen so far. It paws at the ground threateningly and begins to charge at them, rapidly picking up speed.
Utterly fearless, or reckless, or both, Beat grins fiercely and takes off running to meet it halfway, calling out behind him. “Yo, le’s pick it up, Phones!”
Rindo doesn’t have time to be confused. He sprints to catch up with his partner. “Uh, right!”
Beat suddenly looks over at him with a strange, startled expression. Alarmed, Rindo hesitates at the worst possible moment. The rhino rears its head and sends him flying. His body skids across the ground, rolling sideways until his back hits a dumpster with a loud clang that continues ringing painfully in his head well afterwards.
Rindo lies groaning on the ground until the stars fade from his vision and he can manage to move his shaking limbs again. He sits up, seeing the rhino dissolving into static and Beat running towards him. “Shit—you aight?”
“Y-Yeah.” The hand Beat offers him is still charged with electricity from his psych, visibly sparking, and Rindo hesitates. Beat realizes and shakes off the sparks, then holds it out again with a sheepish smile. Rindo takes it and gets yanked to his feet like he weighs nothing.
They stand there for an awkward moment, Beat uncharacteristically silent, face turned aside and hidden from view behind his bangs. Rindo, still confused, brushes dirt from his clothes, wondering what that was all about and how he could even ask, and whether he should.
Before he can figure that out, Beat breaks the silence with a mighty shout, making Rindo jump in surprise. “Hoooo! Aight then! Good work, Cap’n—but we ain’t done yet. Le’s go find the rest a’ those Variababies and chase ‘em outta here cryin’!”
Rindo nods. He can’t come close to matching Beat’s energy, but he tries. “Yeah. Let’s do it!”
Dogenzaka is theirs. The last of the Variabeauties have fled to their remaining foothold in O-East, and that annoying Reaper commentator officially called the territory for the Twisters. Beat let out a triumphant whoop at the announcement and punched Rindo on the arm—it still hurts, probably going to bruise—and then bolted off towards O-East. But he only got as far as Crowned Curry when he ran out of gas and stopped suddenly, clutching his rumbling stomach.
Beat promised to eat really fast. Sitting across from him now, Rindo wishes he wouldn’t. It’s not really necessary, they’re making good time either way. He didn’t expect they’d win Dogenzaka so easily, but Beat is like a bulldozer, unstoppable, destroying everything in his path. Rindo almost feels bad for the other Players.
“So this is probably what your Game was like, right?” Rindo finally gathers up the nerve to ask. “With a partner, instead of a team?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Beat replies as he starts on his second plate of curry with no loss of momentum. “The four of us teamed up for a bit in the first week, but…” He shrugs rather than finishing that thought, and shovels curry into his mouth. Once he’s swallowed enough that he can speak again, he says, “When Neku and I partnered up, though, we was the only Players in the whole UG. Now that was wack.”
“Wait, how would that work? If you were the only Players, wouldn’t you automatically win?”
“It was a different kinda Game. We weren’t competin’ against other Players the same way. We just had ta survive the week and beat the Game Master.”
“Huh. Okay,” Rindo says slowly, trying to imagine it. “But you did do it, right? Win the Game, and go back to the RG?”
“Yeah. It was kinda— It was weird. But I’m pretty sure we won,” Beat says. He notices the troubled expression on Rindo’s face. “Yo, what’s up?”
“I was just thinking… I’m— I’m not sure I should be leading our team. I’m not really good at it. The only reason I am is because Fret—“ Rindo lets out a small sigh, suppressing that spark of annoyance. “Anyway. If anyone should be telling us what to do, it’s probably you. You’ve actually won before.”
Beat frowns at him. “Whaddaya mean, you ain’t a good leader? You got your team through a whole week, didn’t ya? That ain’t nothing, you know,” he says. Rindo just shrugs halfheartedly. Beat’s frown deepens. He sits back and crosses his arms, thinking seriously for a moment. “I dunno if there’s a whole lot I can tell ya. This Game ain’t like mine was. I’m still figurin’ out the new rules. And I don’t know your team, or the others, not like you do.”
“I feel like I don’t know anything,” Rindo admits.
Beat laughs. “Dude, same,” he says, which definitely doesn’t make Rindo feel better. “Truth is, when it comes to this shit, we’re all just crashin’ our way through.” As he speaks his gaze is thoughtful, faraway. Almost nostalgic. Then it settles on Rindo again and he gives that lopsided grin of his. “You need anything, I’m here to help. But I think you’re doing a great job, Cap’n.”
Rindo forces a small smile back. He looks down at his plate, chasing the last of the curry around with his spoon. “Can I ask you something?”
“Ask away, yo!”
“You’re— You’re not going to ditch us eventually, are you? Our last teammate did, and we almost…” He swallows against the aching lump forming in his throat. “It totally blindsided us. Without Minamimoto, we— we barely survived against the Noise the past couple days. But now that you’re here it feels like we have a chance again. So if you’re thinking of leaving maybe you could just tell me now, so I can try to figure out what we’re going to—“
His anxious rambling is mercifully interrupted by Beat reaching over and clapping a hand onto his shoulder, and giving him a firm shake. His voice is kind. “Hey. Hey, dude. I ain’t going nowhere, ‘cept back to the RG with you guys once we figure out a way to beat this Game. Aight?”
Rindo takes a shaky breath, looking up at Beat gratefully. “Okay. Yeah.”
“And this old teammate a’ yours—what’s his name again?”
“Minamimoto?”
Violence glints in Beat’s eyes. “Yeah. Him. If I ever meet him, I swear I’m gonna punch his lights out.” He lets go of Rindo’s shoulder after one last reassuring squeeze and sits back again. “You really been worryin’ I might ditch ya like that?”
“I don’t know,” Rindo says, feeling a little embarrassed about it now. “It’s just that— You’ve been looking for Neku here in the UG. Once you find him…”
“Neku ain’t here,” Beat says flatly, like it’s something he accepted a while ago. He sighs and glances out the window beside their table, to the busy street outside. “I dunno where he’s at. But I need to be done with this Game soon as possible so I can get back to searchin’ for him.” He tilts his head to smile at Rindo. “I’m really countin’ on you guys. I wanna see him again, and I definitely ain’t gonna if I lose and get myself erased.”
“You must miss him a lot,” Rindo says quietly.
“Course, yo! He’s... He’s my best friend.” Beat’s voice falters, just barely. He quickly recovers and deflects by cheerfully adding, “You prob’ly know what I mean—you and Fret are best buds, ain’t ya?”
“Yeah. We haven’t been friends that long though, we only met when we were in the same class last year,” Rindo explains. “How long have you known Neku for?”
“Uh. I think it was like, three months? Around there.” Beat shrugs. “Before he disappeared, I mean.”
“Seriously? That’s… not very long.“
“Some a’ that was in the Game. It’s different, y’know? Brings you closer.”
“I guess,” Rindo mutters. After the past couple days, he and Fret feel farther apart than ever.
“You’ll see,” Beat insists as they stand to leave the restaurant. “By the end of this we’re all gonna be best buds. You n’ me and Fret and Pinny. It’s inedible.”
Rindo blinks at him in confusion. “Inevitable?” he suggests.
Beat grins and punches him on the arm, same spot as before. Definitely going to bruise. “Yeah, that’s it!”
They reunite with Fret and Nagi in O-East, right after they send the Variabeauties packing. Fret jogs up to them excitedly, waving and calling Rindo’s name, and even though things have been so weird and stressed between them, and it won’t be long until they’re getting on each other’s nerves again, Rindo is really glad to see him.
“So, how was it, being partners with Beat?” Fret asks Rindo when they get a moment to talk alone, glancing over as he’s checking out the outfits displayed in the window of Tigre Punks. “He’s so cool—bet you guys had a blast!”
“It was pretty good. Exhausting, but good.” His body aching, Rindo leans back against the wall of the building to rest for a minute. He watches Beat help Nagi comb the street for dropped pins from their earlier fights. Beat finds one and tosses it to Nagi—accidentally flinging it with too much enthusiasm, so it flies well over her head. She looks on, unamused, as he sprints past to retrieve it. Rindo chuckles under his breath. “I’m glad he’s on our team.”
“Dude, me too! Next time we split up, I totally call him as my partner.” Fret notices Rindo’s disapproving frown. He cocks his head, tone defensive and weary as he asks, “What now? There a problem with that?”
Rindo’s hands fidget in his pockets as he tries to find the right words, and not make things worse. “Uh, no, I just... I hope we don’t need to split up again,” he explains. “It worked out this time, but... I like it better when the whole team’s together.” And he means it.
Fret looks at him for a moment. A grin spreads across his face and he bumps Rindo with his elbow. “Aww, I missed you too, Rindude.”
Rindo smiles back, and the knot of anxiety that’s been twisting tighter and tighter in his chest unravels a bit, allowing space for hope. Their team feels whole again, in a new way—Minamimoto’s absence still stings, but with Beat on their side they’re no longer on the verge of falling apart. The Noise they were forced to run away from at the start of the week are now no match for their combined psychs. They’re dominating in the Scramble Slam, just one piece of turf away from winning the entire thing. Maybe they can actually—
“Yo, what we waiting for?” Beat shouts suddenly, startling Rindo from his thoughts. “We got some turf to steal back, don’t we? Le’s show those thievin’ bastards why ya don’t mess wit the Twisters!” Then he turns and takes off running in the direction of 104. They watch him go, not really surprised by it anymore.
Nagi adjusts her glasses and squints after him as she remarks, “An enviable gift, that boundless energy our Lord Beat possesses. He is certainly quite motivated.”
“Yeah, he definitely is,” Rindo agrees, slumping with exhaustion from an afternoon of chasing after him. He huffs out a soft laugh, tired but fond, and then straightens up and follows, waving them along. “Well, you heard him. Let’s go, team!”