Hi! This is my gift to Yoshiyakiru for the Halloween fic exchange! This was a surprisingly difficult fic to write, particularly because I kept getting busy during this time with other things. You gave me a wide variety of ideas and characters to choose from, so I ultimately decided to write a Rhyme fic for you. I hope you like it!

Thanks as always to oddvector for reading this over, even if you didn't have time to fully proofread it. So any goofy errors are on me haha.

Shadow Matter

"Where is the life that late I led?" —Shakespeare

Everything seemed fine, at first.

No, that was a lie. Everything had always felt off.

Rhyme wondered why. They had won the Game, and she had been brought back to life. As if nothing had ever happened.

And it really did feel that way. It was as if that Noise shark attack never occurred. As if she had never been in the Game at all. There wasn't even a strange gap in her memories, or a tremor of suppressed trauma. That time simply…didn't exist in her mind.

No shark attack, no Game, no shared death by a runaway car. No, she remembered, clearly remembered, how she had simply watched Beat run that day, her feet staying planted in the ground like the good houseplant she was. And Beat had almost got hit by a car, and even their parents had gotten a jolt of fear out of that. But soon after that their parents returned to ranting about her delinquent son, how uncontrollable he was, how irresponsible he was, how stupid he was just running out into the street like that.

And to be fair, it was a stupid thing to do, and at least part of their anger was a kneejerk reaction to their fright.

But still, it felt unfair. If Rhyme had run out into the street stupidly and had nearly got steamrolled by a vehicle, she had a feeling that their reaction wouldn't have been irritated anger. No, they would have rushed to see if she was alright, maybe give her a light scolding for her dumbness, before assuring her how much they loved her unconditionally and to take better care of herself.

Funny how conditional their love for Beat was then.

But life had gone on, in all senses of the word. She continued to get praise for every minor thing she did, while Beat continued to get lectured on his every little flaw. And Beat kept growing more distant and snappish, from both Rhyme and their parents. Until one day they all woke up to Beat's room deserted, stripped of all his valued possessions. And ever since he had run away, she had never seen him again…

Except, clearly, that wasn't what happened. Beat never left, and he was happier now. Sure he still didn't get along with their parents, and he would still probably move out sooner rather than later, but he seemed to…not care as much about what they thought? Did having Neku and Shiki as friends make that much of a difference? Or was it the Game that Rhyme had no memories of at all?

IIIIII

And then Neku died again. Apparently that was related to the UG too. Killed by a Reaper named Coco for some reason? Something that shook Beat to his core, because he became more…distant after that?

Rhyme didn't see much of Beat for years, even though he would always proudly proclaim how much he loved his little sister. But she also noticed that he had stopped wearing the pin that had once contained her Noise form. Even though he had always worn it before.

Beat was always out looking for Neku, trying to find some way to return to the UG without signing a death certificate. Shiki meanwhile always waited by Hachiko for Neku, like the spirit of the loyal dog would lead the spirit of Neku back to her if she was just patient enough.

Knowing that there was an afterlife where the dead could return if they were strong enough, and he had been strong enough to return before…It made grieving a lot harder, didn't it? Because there was always the slightest hope. Much like the cold case of a missing person, where even years later they could return against all odds, so real closure was almost impossible.

Much like when Beat ran away in that time she clearly remembered, but also clearly didn't happen because Beat was right here. Even if they didn't spend that much time together anymore due to his constant search for Neku.

Though maybe one day Beat would vanish one day without coming back, just like her not-memories insisted that he had.

And knowing that possibility…created this weird distance between Rhyme and Beat. She did care about Beat of course, because she always had, and she didn't want him to disappear. But at the same time she had trouble really connecting to Beat, because…Actually, Rhyme didn't know. If she was really worried about something happening to Beat, then shouldn't she have more of an urge to stick to him no matter what? But she didn't?

Rhyme wondered if it somehow tied back to her losing her dreams as her entry fee. She couldn't even remember what those dreams had been, but maybe that was part of it as well. Had her dreams been something as simple as being the best sister she could be, and now that those dreams were gone, that was making it hard to connect with her brother?

No, surely there had been more to her dreams than that.

But perhaps it didn't matter. Even if she asked someone about what her dreams were, those wouldn't be her dreams anymore. Like listening to her grandma go on about how Rhyme loved teddy bears when she was two. It was like hearing about another person's interest, if you couldn't remember it yourself.

Rhyme had lost her old dreams, one way or the other, and needed to form new ones. She just had to figure out what she wanted.

IIIIII

Rhyme gravitated toward the internet and computers. Maybe it had something to do with her old dreams that she didn't remember. Maybe she went there in search of new information for new dreams. Maybe she just wanted to ignore that strange distance between herself and the others by putting natural distance between them instead?

None of those answers felt right.

Hours upon hours of browsing the internet, looking for…something. Something she should already know. But she couldn't quite pull back that foggy veil, so all her aimless searches turned up fruitless. Which was even more frustrating because she wasn't sure what she was looking for in the first place.

In her aimless boredom Rhyme found herself studying the code of the sites themselves. The codes of many things actually, from computers to apps to video games. She wanted to know how to make them work…or how to make them not work?

Was this…her new dream? Or the old dream that she couldn't remember? Wait, it couldn't be her old dream because that was gone. And yet it felt…familiar? Like this had always been her main interest? Even though that was literally impossible considering how her lost entry fee worked?

And yet maybe she was recovering her old dream after all? The coding felt…not easy, not natural, but the drive to learn and perfect it felt strangely nostalgic. Yeah, hadn't she…hadn't she submitted a game to one of those quick game contests once?

But she couldn't find that old game anywhere, either in computer files or even in paper notes. The contest she was thinking of didn't seem to exist either. And of course no one remembered anything about her making a game either, though Rhyme is as pretty sure she had actually made the game in secret so her family wouldn't judge her for it.

If only she could remember enough to recreate it…Didn't it have something to do with a squirrel scurrying around to collect as many acorns as it could under a time limit? Not the most creative idea, but she had been twelve or so…

And certainly Rhyme could make something like that again, only better. It would be an amusing time waster if nothing else.

IIIIII

Rhyme had a functioning game before long, though she didn't share it with anyone she knew in real life. For one, she was endlessly dissatisfied with it. It was funny, because this game was certainly better than the old lost game it was trying to emulate. Better graphics, better controls, better processing speed. And yet it irked her because it was clearly not that old lost game that she couldn't quite remember, even if it took direct inspiration from it.

But that was something…sad about it too. An imperfect recreation of a thing that no one could actually remember. Rhyme was pretty sure that Beat had actually found out about the original at some point and played it…and enjoyed it…and that was one of the last memories he and Rhyme had shared together before he ran off, never to be seen…

No, that wasn't right. Beat hadn't run off, at all. No, Rhyme remembered actually getting a little mad at Beat because he had blabbed to his old friend Neku about it. Maybe Rhyme should have expected it, because they'd been friends ever since elementary, but…

No, that made even less sense. Why did thoughts like that keep popping up?

Maybe she had dreamed up this old game from nothing too, and that was why she was never satisfied with it. She was trying to recreate something that had never existed.

IIIIII

Then one day Beat really did vanish. No note, no packing, no warning. He simply went out looking for Neku one day, and then didn't come back.

This wasn't Beat running away. She already knew how that would have gone. No, something must have happened. The strange distance between them suddenly didn't matter. Rhyme had to find him!

But where to start? There seemed to be no trace of Beat anywhere. But such a strange disappearance…Could it have had something to do with the UG as well?

She couldn't see the UG or the Game. At least at first. But those kids over there were clearly talking about Noise and Players and the Game, like they were actually playing it. Complaining about the missions they were getting over the…RNS? And they were wearing pins just like the one Beat had shown her this morning, right before he vanished.

That sounded like a lead. Time to track down this RNS and crack it open like a skull.

IIIIII

She did it. And then the next three weeks became hell. In all senses of the word. Hell on her sleep, hell on her brother, hell on Shibuya itself. But they all pulled through it. She pulled through it without even losing her cool.

Rhyme…Rhyme finally got a good look at what Beat and the others went through. She finally understood what it was like to be a Player, even if she couldn't remember her own time as one.

She could…finally start to connect with her brother, now that she had the tools and experience to bridge the strange distance between herself and the others.

With Operation Awakening now underway, a plan devised by her and Kaie from Minamimoto's theories, soon Shibuya would become normal again.

Rhyme could feel herself and the rest of Shibuya's population being connected by Neku, even though she didn't need the wake-up call that the rest of the city did. Well she did count as a citizen of Shibuya, after all.

Then she got a Trailer vision from Tsugumi—Which showed Rhyme sitting on the step of a shop holding a black box in her lap. Huh?—felt Nagi's Dive in the bowels of her Soul, and then Fret's Remind hit, Reminding her to love life, and—

And literally nothing came to mind. Leaving Rhyme feeling surreally empty, even as she witnessed the Souls of Shibuya rise from their slumbers.

IIIIII

In the heat of saving Shibuya, Rhyme hadn't had much time to dwell on the strange void within her. But once the dust settled, everything returned to how it should be…

Well, sorta.

The Wicked Twisters and her brother had rightfully been returned home. And Neku had returned too, even though he was supposed to be dead. So the Composer picked favorites after all.

So it was with muted fascination that Rhyme watched reality itself be bent and twisted to make things absolutely perfect. No one noticed how Rindo's group had been missing for three weeks. Or how Neku was suddenly back with the living after three years in a casket. Or how almost everyone in Shibuya had their minds and Souls infested with a terrible apathy and lethargy that had ground everything to a standstill. Nope, as far as everyone not a former Player was concerned, everything was, and always had been, completely normal.

Rhyme had heard Beat and the others mutter about how 'normal' everything had seemed despite 'everything', but it was another thing another to experience that kind of dissonance firsthand. How easily the world had been…'corrected'. How seamlessly people's memories were altered, even erased…

Memories…Maybe her own memories had been tampered with? Why though? Why give her clearly fake memories that only disrupted the illusion of normalcy? Hmm…

And why did the Remind give her nothing? Rindo said that even when he didn't know anything about the thing Fret was trying to get people to remember, he would just get random reminders of other things instead. Which was honestly kinda annoying, experiencing that every time Fret set off a Remind, but uh, don't tell that to Fret, okay? It wasn't like Fret could control that anyway.

The more Rhyme tried to puzzle it out, the more puzzled she became. What was she missing?

Kaie. She needed to talk to Kaie about this. She needed his ability to analyze data and Soul alike, and the ability to bounce ideas off him.

She also needed his ability to keep secrets. Well, maybe need wasn't quite the right way to put it. But anything that kept her brother from being too worried and overprotective would be for the best. These memories were strange, but they weren't dangerous, just disconcerting. So the more quickly and quietly she could get to the bottom of this, the better.

IIIIII

Of course, since Kaie was a Reaper, the only way they could actually meet face to face was to go into a building with a Reaper decal. Which most of the main stores in Shibuya had, but the most cozy of places would be Kaie's own fortunetelling shop. He had been allowed to keep it even though he was back in Shinjuku now. Granted, it was mostly ran by some Reapers that worked under Kaie, but he still liked to come back every now and then.

A bit of a shame that Kaie had to waste one of his visits scanning Rhyme's Soul instead of something more fun and relaxing.

Kaie squinted at his phone as the results popped up. "Hmm…This is quite strange indeed :/."

"What is it?" asked Rhyme.

"According to the scans, your Soul design is very fragmented :0," Kaie explained. "Your Soul is full of several slightly different patterns"

Rhyme blinked. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn't that. "Wait, so what does that mean? That I'm made up of different people?"

"Hmm…It's more like these are…fragments of you from different times perhaps? It's very bizarre. Usually when the Soul pattern grows and changes over time, it changes uniformly. But certain parts of you seem very stubborn to change, or prefer to develop in their own way."

Rhyme smiled. "We Bitos are pretty stubborn." Then her expression turned more serious. "Actually, could it be a genetic thing? Do you think Beat's Soul might be like this too? Birds of a feather."

"Souls don't reach this kind of state naturally, or even through traumatic events," said Kaie. "I don't believe these are traces of Soul Pulvis either. It doesn't match the patterns left on the other residents of Shibuya."

"Huh," said Rhyme. How did her Soul get like this then? "Oh, I wonder if it has something to do with the way I was revived after the Game?"

"What do you mean? :o A winning Player is simply downturned to the RG once again, with any contradictory memories in Shibuya amended. It should not change the very nature of your Soul."

"That's the thing. I didn't win my Game." said Rhyme. "I got erased, but then someone named Hanekoma—" Whom she had yet to actually meet. "—Managed to gather my Soul into a Noise Pin that my brother could use. So basically I spent two weeks as a Noise before Beat and Neku finally won the Game. And since Beat was my partner originally, I guess it qualified as me winning a ticket back to life too, even though I technically lost."

Rhyme had never seen such a blank look of confusion on Kaie's face before. She couldn't help but giggle into her sleeve. "Anyway, do you think that maybe that's why my Soul is like that? Because of my rather unusual circumstances?"

Kaie spent a lot of time typing and backspacing before Rhyme ever got a reply, his face suddenly more determined than ever. "I'm afraid this only leaves me with many, many more questions. Does your brother still have the pin that your Noise self was bound to?"

"Pretty sure he does, yeah," said Rhyme. "Why?"

"I would like to examine it," said Kaie. "I'm very curious about a pin that was made to house the Soul of an erased Player functions. :)" Despite the playful emoji, Kaie's expression looked almost sour.

"Oh, sure! I'll just ask Beat to let me borrow it," said Rhyme. "It's not like he needs it for any Games. He has way better pins for that."

"Wonderful! I think this pin will bring us a step closer to why your Soul is the way it is :D," said Kaie. "So please bring me that pin as soon as you can :3."

Rhyme nodded. "Of course."

IIIIII

But Beat refused. Vehemently. Saying that it was his pin and he wanted to keep it safe no matter what. And yeah it was probably stupid because Rhyme was here and not in the pin, but he nearly gave his life for that pin over and over during his first Game, so he just couldn't let go of that feeling and had to keep protecting it. Or something. Anyway, that pin wasn't going nowhere for no testing because he said so!

And something about all that…

Beat had always been such a bad liar. So most of the time he didn't bother, no matter how much his bluntness hurt himself and others. So for him to actually try to lie was…

It only made Rhyme more uneasy, and more curious.

Beat was also bad at physically hiding things too. Emotions, forbidden rap CDs, Rhyme's toys back when they were bickering younger siblings. So when Beat had left to hang out with Neku and Shiki again, it was easy enough to sneak into his room. After sorting through his somewhat messy room, sure enough, under the bed was a conspicuous black box.

A black box…Hadn't she seen this before? Wait, was this the black box from her vision?

And nestled within that box, a black-and-white pin with a flying squirrel-like Noise outstretched.

The 'Rhyme' pin, as Beat had always called it. Something about holding this pin made her skin prickle. A…memory? No, that didn't fit this feeling. No, it was more like a current that flowed through her palm, a current that decayed into crawling static as it climbed up her arm, though the faint feeling never reached her shoulder.

What an unpleasant feeling. But Rhyme closed her hand around the pin anyway. She wouldn't need this pin for long. She would simply give it to Kaie, let him analyze and copy its data for his archives, and then return it where she found it. Beat would never know, and Rhyme would never tell. It was well worth the risk.

But the vision…It was supposed to be a warning though, right? Perhaps she needed to think about this more carefully…

Actually, the answer might be simple. Beat did not want her near the pin, for whatever reason. So if she just sat with the whole box outside of Kaie's shop, and he just happened to pass by…It didn't seem like she was in mortal danger during the vision. so…

Well, that would be easily avoided if she just never took the box. So she stuffed the pin into her jacket pocket instead, texted Kaie, and arranged for another meeting.

The meeting that would change everything.

IIIIII

Kaie took the pin, scanned it from all angles with his phone, and flicked through the results with his finger.

"So, is it as interesting as you expected it to be?" asked Rhyme.

Kaie continued to study the results. Not even a text in reply.

Rhyme's chipper smile slowly disappeared. The look on Kaie's face…It wasn't just his usual intense gaze as he figured out a problem before him. No, it was a look of…sadness?

Rhyme squirmed in her seat despite her best efforts. "What is it?"

"One moment, I need to test this pin out in the UG," said Kaie. "I will be back in a few minutes :)"

Rhyme nodded. "Sure. Can I…Hmm, well I can't exactly go to the UG myself, but could you record anything interesting on your phone?"

Kaie nodded back. "Very well. That would probably be for the best, if my hypothesis is correct. Now, I will head out :D."

Rhyme stayed patiently seated, but her mind did anything but rest. What did Kaie want to test? What could he test, with an empty pin? Why did have such a morose look even as he smiled?

Time stretched on. It must have been a rather extensive test. Or maybe something had happened? Rhyme had no way of knowing, since she was stuck in the RG. Still, it hadn't been quite long enough to be worth sending a text to check on him.

It had been enough time for Beat to send Rhyme a text though. Asking how she was doing. Telling her about the picnic he was having with Neku and Shiki. Mentioning how they'd spotted Rindo napping in the park under a tree. Also mentioning how Fret and Nagi and Shoka were all dueling it out in EleStra. Some kind of friend vs friend super-dramatic event thingy that Beat didn't follow the logic of in the slightest, and…

And Rhyme smiled, because she honestly had no idea how any of that stuff worked either. She was about to text him back that they could be clueless Bito siblings together when Kaie finally returned. Looking even more somber than ever.

"Welcome back." Rhyme bit down the growing discomfort in her stomach. "So, did the test work out? Or did it fail? Or maybe something in-between?"

"No, it was quite successful." No emojis or explanation. Instead, he put his chair right next to Rhyme's and angled his phone so that Rhyme could see it too. Right now, the screen was blank, nothing but a glossy black mirror Rhyme could see herself in.

That changed with a few careful taps from Kaie's finger.

A shot of the Rhyme pin in Kaie's hand. The pin glowed. And changed. Changed into a Noise. A flying squirrel Noise. Who looked up at Kaie with bright, inquisitive, intelligent eyes.

How?

It climbed up Kaie's arms to sniff at the phone.

How did the pin still have a Noise in it?

It scratched carefully at the phone.

How did it still have her Noise in it, when Rhyme was standing right here?

It squeaked at the phone.

What was this then?

It jumped off and flew around for a while, circling around Kaie, zipping in and out of frame. It eventually settled back onto Kaie's shoulder again. Something that she did all the time as a Noise. According to Beat.

Something that Rhyme still didn't remember.

Eventually, it reverted back to a pin, and the video cut off.

For a while, neither Rhyme or Kaie moved. Then Kaie took up his phone and began typing again. Began typing a lot, with many stops and starts.

While Rhyme waited for the long yet inevitable reply, Rhyme thought about everything. Really thought about it. Her Soul had many different patterns, patterns that stemmed from herself but were still different. The Rhyme pin still contained her Noise, even though that should be impossible. Many of Rhyme's memories didn't make sense, and never had.

Maybe that was because…

Her phone dinged.

"When someone is erased, data is lost. Even if someone somehow gathered all the static of the erased Soul and condensed it into a new form, like a Noise, it would still be missing vital data. That's because a regular Noise doesn't have enough Soul capacity to store a full human Soul intact. It's much like compressing a file: data must be discarded or downgraded to make it fit the new format. It isn't like a Noise form, where a Reaper can change back and forth without consequence, because the Reaper code has enough storage to fully contain and preserve the personality and memories of the Reaper during transformation. But the Noise in this pin is just a regular Noise."

"So it can't…So what does this mean? For me?" Even though Rhyme had a sinking feeling that she knew, to at least some extent.

"It means that reviving someone fully from such a state is impossible." Kaie looked so sad, and Rhyme finally understood why.

Rhyme gazed down at the pin, resting in Kaie's other hand.

"So, that means…" Rhyme carefully began. "...That real Rhyme is still in that pin. What's left of her, anyway."

Kaie nodded.

Rhyme didn't say anything else for a while. Beat…Beat had fought for a ghost this whole time. Thought of that Noise as Rhyme Rhyme. Had never even questioned it. Only assumed that everything was okay once he saw his sister in human form again. Only…

"So then, what am I?" she asked. "If the real Rhyme never returned to the RG?"

"I think what most likely happened is that they analyzed the data they already had on hand for Rhyme, and created copies of those memories to create…you."

"So that no one would be the wiser," said Rhyme. "But wait, then that would mean…I don't think that's all there is to it."

"Oh? :o What do you mean?"

"Because the Rhyme before the Game would still be missing a lot of memories. And there is a lot of stuff that I can't remember, like being in the Game or being a Noise. Which actually makes sense now! Because if the real Rhyme's data was essentially corrupted by being erased and then turned into a Noise, then there's no way they can recover that data. And I don't remember my dreams, because those probably got discarded as soon as I got erased too. No point in hanging onto entry fees for someone that lost, right?"

"I would have archived them, for the sake of the records if nothing else :(."

Rhyme smiled. "Of course you would. But my entry fee isn't in the records still, is it?"

Kaie shook his head. "I did search for them, but unfortunately I found nothing :(."

"I see," said Rhyme, though she wasn't terribly surprised. "Point is, there's a lot of stuff that pre-Game me would have been missing. But I think they tried to cover that up so I wouldn't notice. Or maybe me as a copy wouldn't have worked unless they brought in some…extra help."

"That's what I was thinking as well," said Kaie. "Making a new sentient Soul from scratch isn't an easy thing, even if you're using the data from a previous form as a base."

"Do you remember what Minamimoto said about not just different timelines, but alternate worlds as well?" asked Rhyme. "I think that maybe they found a way to, hmm, sample the Souls of other Rhymes to complete my own? Because I have a lot of memories that just don't make sense, like my brother running away and never coming back, or me making a squirrel game that apparently doesn't exist. I think they were trying to fill the gaps that couldn't be filled by just copying the pre-Game Rhyme's memories."

"Interesting…." Kaie's face scrunched up in thought. "It would certainly explain the state of your Soul, if your Soul were made of several different Rhymes instead of just one. Still, seems like a strangely sloppy job. They could have simply left a blank on the memories of the Game, and it wouldn't have seemed that unusual, given the already unusual circumstances."

"True. Hmm…" Rhyme held her fingers up to her cheek. "I wonder…Maybe it's like some kind of algorithm rather than a manual process? If there are suspicious gaps in memory, then fill them in any means necessary? WIth maybe a separate algorithm that's supposed to fact-check for contradictions, but it…doesn't work on me, for some reason?" Hmm, she wasn't satisfied with that last theory.

"Hmm…perhaps they are being corrected constantly, but the changes aren't sticking because certain parts of your Soul refuse to change and assimilate with the rest?" Kaie offered. "A bit like a donated organ or blood being rejected by the host body, though not nearly as severe. But it's still a vital part of your Soul, and it's being accepted just enough to function, so it can't be removed and replaced. But eventually, it will be fully absorbed into the rest of the Soul, so those memories will probably eventually fade with time."

"So perhaps it doesn't matter in the long run, so they don't try to fix a minor bug like that." Rhyme hummed in thought. Because the memories had been getting fainter and less frequent over time. Those parts from other Rhymes she had been made from, slowly melting away. But somewhere, in some other world, those Rhymes still existed in full…probably.

Unlike the Rhyme in the pin, fragmented and forgotten. Unlike herself, functional and existing only because this world's Rhyme was not.

Up to this point, she had been so focused on the puzzle of why, probably deliberately so. Because now that she simply focused on what was, regardless of the explanation…

"Can I…have the pin back, please?" asked Rhyme.

Kaie nodded, handing it to her.

Rhyme stared right through the pin in her hand for several minutes. Her palm tingled, probably because of the living thing still sealed within.

"What…should I tell Beat?" she eventually croaked out. "Or anyone? Should I even tell anyone? That the real Rhyme is…And I'm…"

"That's entirely up to you," said Kaie. "If you want to tell them the truth, I understand. If you don't want to tell them the truth, I also understand. Indeed, it may be cruel to tell them that the person they fought to protect never left this pin, and will never be the person they know again. But perhaps denying them this knowledge is cruel in its own way."

Rhyme kept gazing at the pin.

"It is also a decision that you don't have to make right away. You can wait to tell them until you're ready, if you ever are. I know this is a lot to process, so please take time for yourself as well."

"...Yeah," she said. Her hand closed around the pin. "Thanks Kaie."

IIIIII

For three days she simply thought, as life flowed around her.

The pin rested in its black box, its brief absence unnoticed. Just as she expected.

This…was her life now. Maybe she hadn't earned any of it, but she had a place. A place she was always welcome, because so many people cared about her. So many people supported her. So many people needed her.

And Rhyme needed them too. Needed them to be somebody, anybody. Did Fret's Remind not work on her because so much of her Soul was taken or copied from other people? Because there was nothing specifically about her? Just her echoing the memories and expectations of others?

Or was it simply that she just didn't know what made her happy in life, because her memories and Soul were full of contradictions? Or maybe Remind just didn't work on a fragmented Soul like hers.

That…required more research, honestly. Research that she could do alongside Kaie. Research that would make her face the void within her until she got sucked within it. Was she…ready for that? How many questions did she actually want the answers to? What did she want, and what did she actually need?

Her brother needed her, regardless. Even if he wasn't really her brother, any more than that runaway brother had ever been. Did that other Rhyme ever find out what happened to that brother that vanished? Was he living a better life now? Or had he only run headfirst off a cliff instead? She herself would never know.

And that…hurt, even though she never personally knew that Beat. Even if it all went wrong, even if he was in a ditch somewhere, she…she would have liked to have known. Even if that knowledge would only bring her pain.

And Beat…this Beat…He would've liked to have known too. What had happened to his real little sister. Even if he never knew anything was wrong in the first place. And then she…

Was she even entirely doing this for her friends? Or was she doing it for herself? If she wasn't the real Rhyme, and knew she could never be the real Rhyme, then she would rather become someone else. But she couldn't be a new self, couldn't leave this role of Rhyme, until the truth about the real Rhyme was revealed.

So she knew…She knew…

And yet still she waited. Still she held her tongue. Still she…

Until that fourth day, when all that silent pressure became unbearable. She snatched the box, went to Kaie's shop, texted everyone to meet her there, texted Kaie to set up some kind of RG-to-UG decal for his shop, and sat on the doorstep, staring at the box in her lap. Soaking in the silence, even though Shibuya was as rowdy as ever.

…Huh. Wasn't this what she had gotten a vision of during Operation Awakening? But weren't those visions supposed to warn people about future dangers? Was this dangerous then?

Well, in a way it was. For these were her last moments as Rhyme. Once she opened this box and summoned the real Rhyme from her coffin, proving that she had never been revived, and Kaie showed them the irrefutable data of her Soul, her life as Rhyme would be over, and a new one would begin.

A new life, all her own. It was tantalizing. It was terrifying. It was torching everything she knew, and her friends may or may not remain among the ashes. What would she build from all those charred remains for herself? She still didn't know. She may not know for a long time.

She could see Beat climbing the steps now, laughing with Fret and Rindo about something. He looked so happy.

How quickly would expression changed once he saw her and the box in her hands. Not confusion, not anger.

Horror.

And that's when Rhyme realized something that had been right in front of her all along.

Before, Beat had always worn the Rhyme pin. No matter what. But once Neku died…Once Beat and Neku had been pulled back into the UG and could use all their pins again, then Beat must have…Probably by accident…

Used the Rhyme pin.

Beat knew. Or at least knew that something was screwy about the whole revival thing. And that was why he took off the pin, and hid it in a small black box under his bed. Either to protect it, or to protect her.

She and Beat stared silently at each other for several moments. Her stare calm and cool, his stare sweaty and desperate. The two boys beside him confused by the sudden tension in the air.

Still…Did she…If Beat knew and didn't want to…Then should she really…

No.

No turning back. No fake smiles. No more claiming what wasn't hers. No more clinging to the memories of shadows.

Only who she was right now mattered.

Only. right. Now.

"Guys, there's something important I need to talk to you about, once everyone gets here…"

Between her revival despite not winning (and therefore not getting her fee back), and the weirdness with her in NEO's Another Day, Rhyme really feels like an anomaly in the system. She's just not noticed as much because of all the other weirdness/corruption going on with the Games, UG, Higher Planes, etc. So I wanted to write a Rhyme fic where it's not entirely clear what she actually is. Oddvector also inspired me quite a bit with his own fascinating takes on Rhyme, though I hope mine is distinct enough from his take to be interesting.

Hope you enjoyed!