She should be unkempt and smelling like sweat and fatigue when she gets back home.
She's not; her parents seem to think she smells like roses.
The fragrance is sweet, but there's something missing from it. Her brother isn't there.
He's the one who tells her she doesn't smell like roses at all and she should quit following him because it's lame if others see her doing that.
It's strange to think he's gone abroad now, and this time, he hasn't given her a pendant to treasure.
Neku, Day 2
It all comes down to this. Fail, and face erasure.
Rhyme's palms are moist with sweat. She grips her pins tightly, faces her opponents and feels her resolve well up within her.
"Come at me, bro!" declares Shuto Dan, the Tin Pin player known as Shooter.
They slam.
Rhyme manipulates her pin with careful, precise and fluid movements. She makes sure to save her Whammies for when they matter most.
Shooter's pin zooms across the table as if it is on fire. Rhyme waits until Shooter is on the cusp of battering her and then she uses the Stinger.
She watches. But Shooter is not defeated. His pin skids to a jarring halt about a millimeter away from Rhyme's. His seemingly unrestrained ferocity masks his expert control.
He's good.
Rhyme is determined to match him.
They run out of time before they run out of pins. The referee holds up the winner's arm. Shooter wins by one point.
"Oh, gee!" Rhyme can hear Shooter yell enthusiastically. "You were really good! Let's play again sometime!"
Rhyme responds with a small, strained nod. She is pensive because her mind is working furiously. She needs a new plan.
Shooter peers at her. "Whoa! I didn't know you were a girl! Br-!" He stops himself. "Sis!"
Rhyme smiles. It is impossible to resent the boy who defeated her.
"Oh, great," says a glowering Neku. "Now what?"
Now what indeed. The two of them signed up for a Tin Pin tournament in Molco because the mission mail seemed to hint at that but now they're both out of the running.
They're players. They need to win the Reaper Game for the sake of their friends.
"Sorry, Neku," she says with a sigh. "I wasn't good enough to cut it."
He shrugs, taps his foot against the carpet, paces around, glowers some more. He's frustrated but not at Rhyme. "At least you could play," he says. "Anyone teach you?"
"Yeah, my brother. We played a little bit when we were bored. Loser treated the winner to curry ramen."
Neku nods. He looks somewhat interested, but he's still casting anxious glances towards Shooter. The final round of the tournament is about to commence.
Rhyme knows they need a miracle.
They get their miracle, too.
Shooter loses, and as the crowd cheers a young couple as the winners, Rhyme examines the room and thinks she sees someone shuffle away into obscurity.
He is familiar.
Rhyme nudges Neku. "It's Joshua."
"Where?"
Rhyme squints. "I can't see him," she says. "But if you do a scan…"
"Right on it."
Neku touches his player pin and closes his eyes. He is silent for a moment. Then suddenly he grabs at the sides of his head and groans. He is in pain.
"Are you all right?" Rhyme asks anxiously. She's never seen Neku so shaken.
"I saw… at Udagawa… on the ground…"
There's more to the Reaper Game than winning it, and as Rhyme watches her partner struggle to regain his composure, this single thought pulsates through her mind.
Rhyme fights with energy chakrams she summons from around her wrist. They're like flat little hoops but they're shimmering and sharp and they have the power to erase the Noise. She flings them at her enemies and catches them on the return if she can. So far, they've served her pretty well and she was able to perform some nifty fusions with Beat.
But Neku isn't Beat, and the Taboo Noise come out of nowhere.
Rhyme has always been a natural pacifist; she has always preferred to settle things with words. "The pen is mightier than the sword." It's one of the things she has always said to Beat.
("My skateboard could crush 'em both, yo," was Beat's reply at the time, and that made Rhyme giggle because Beat really was amazing on a skateboard. He was, he was.)
Now she has to fight because even though she doesn't have dreams, there are other things worth fighting for.
She's scared. It's like jumping into a dark and endlessly vast ocean and there's no lifejacket, no nothing.
She has a partner, though, and if there's one thing she's learned in Shibuya, it's to trust her partner.
Neku whips out his pins, taps his foot against the ground to some rhythm playing from his headphones and prepares to fight the Noise.
They fight, and even though these Noise are tough in a way Rhyme has never quite experienced before, she thinks of Beat and Shiki and Neku.
Rhyme wonders how far her partner's come and how far they can go together.
"Put your best foot forward!"
"Same to you!"
They're panting when it all ends.
"What were those things?" Neku demands, although strangely, Rhyme is not so concerned with the Taboo Noise themselves.
The Game is out of their control.
Rhyme looks at Neku, sighs and then smiles. "I'm glad you're all right," she says.
Neku nods in reply. "You too," he replies. They don't need to say much to each other.
It's through the silence that Rhyme can perceive how much she needs Neku. They both want the same thing and without him, her plan of action could never succeed.
It's funny, really. She doesn't even know what sort of music he listens to. He doesn't share his headphones.
She wonders if she is right for him. She is not Shiki. She is not bright and cheerful in a way that brightens up the lives of those around her.
Somehow, this is important.
Somewhere, she can feel Joshua watching.
Author's note: Since so little is provided by the game itself, I took some liberties with Rhyme's backstory and abilities. I chose energy chakrams as Rhyme's weapon of choice because she's small, agile and seems to be rather smart. Chakrams are versatile weapons that would probably suit her physique and (as I imagine it in my head) her auxiliary fighting style. I imagine you could be disagreeing with me on this, and for that, I'm sorry.
Story-wise, from here, I'll slowly be filling in the gaps I've left in the plot since chapter 1. This probably won't be longer than ten chapters. Hopefully, I'll be able to update again soon. Thank you for reading this far!