And here it is! The epilogue! We decided that it didn't make sense to space out the epilogue from the final chapter, so we posted both at once! They're split into two chapters mostly for easier reading and better pacing.
Thank you so much oddvector and Darkblaw for sticking with me through the whole fic! You guys always help me so much and really are the best, and other more creative compliments that I'm too sleepy to think of right now!
Scale 1: ShoRyu Gleam
"You seem like you're doing a lot better now," Shoka remarked, as they strolled the streets of the fully renewed Shinjuku. Shoka was playing FanGO on her phone because their internet was finally back online with the rest of reality. A lot of Reapers were out and about playing FanGO for that very reason. Almost like they were holding their own unofficial event to celebrate the return of connectivity with the rest of the world.
"Yeah…Yeah, I am." He rubbed the back of his head nervously, while admiring his lush surroundings. With Conductor Ayano leading the renovations, there was a lot more plant life now. Gardens on every rooftop, trees lining the streets, decorative foliage at every house and business. It had been somewhat annoying to set up, since the Reapers had to imprint suggestions on the new people over and over in order to get them to plant things. But the result was far more gorgeous than the garish lights and advertisements of Shibuya. Or whatever Shibuya had become now that Minamimoto's posse had taken control and changed it to their liking.
It didn't matter. He hadn't bothered keeping up with Shibuya news. As long as Minamimoto's posse left Shinjuku alone, they could do whatever they wanted with their new turf. Shibuya had once been Rindo and his love's city, but now…
It had been a couple weeks since that last dream. There had been other dreams since then, of course. He had trained himself in lucid dreaming after all. Sometimes Rindo was there with his love. Cuddling on a bench, or sharing a meal in a restaurant, or simply staring out from the crowd. Always in some kind of physical contact. Always linked by thin red tattoo lines connected to their chests.
Hair, clothes, skin, all made of facsimile tattoos upon closer inspection. Those tattoos freely twisting together. Two beings knitting together to become whatever they desired to be at that moment.
How cufurreal.
But then he would realize that it was just a dream. That these were just nostalgic figments of his past selves, like fleeting reveries of younger summers or earlier birthdays. And that there was no more they, only him.
Only…
"Um…Swallow?"
"Yeah?" she asked, without looking away from her phone. His own phone was warming his pants pocket, where he hadn't taken it out since meeting her near the station.
"I, uh…I finally decided on a new name."
Shoka immediately looked toward him. "Wait, really? Spill the tea! What is it?"
He glanced away. In the end, rather than meticulously researching meanings or radicals, he had chosen a rather simple method of renaming himself and had come up with…
"R-Ryusai. Ryusai Kanasawa."
Shoka kept gazing at him, probably processing the new name. Then he heard a suppressed snort of laughter. "So you really did decide to just mix-and-match your old names together, huh? Sorry, I shouldn't laugh."
Ryusai chuckled. "I mean, you're right, so it's okay to laugh." He smiled. "But yeah, it just felt like the best thing to do. I mean, I'm pretty much Rindo Kanade and Tosai Furesawa mashed together, right? Well, the 'Ryu' part came from an alternate reading of the 'Rin' part of Rindo, because, hey, dragons are cool. And phoenixes are just dragon birds in the end, right? So it at least kinda fits with the whole Noise form radical thing."
Shoka rolled her eyes, though she wore a good-natured smirk. "Good to know that you're as big of a doofus as ever, Ri–er, Ryusai. Guess that fits Rin-'dragon' after all. Or, well. Guess I shouldn't call you that anymore." She looked him over, as if seeing him for the first time all over again. "We'll have to think of a new dorky nickname for you then. Guess I can let you get used to Ryusai first, though."
"Haha, yeah…" It felt nice, being called a new name.
…
It was one thing to tell Shoka the name he'd chosen for himself. But it was another thing to tell her…How much he didn't feel like Rindo anymore. Even now, in just a couple of weeks, the Rindo part of Ryusai's memories seemed…washed out? Like there was nothing that seemed that special, so he didn't think back on being just Rindo that much?
It was really hard to explain the feeling properly. Sometimes, Rindo almost felt like a separate being from Ryusai, even though deep down he knew better. Like looking back at a photograph from childhood and only vaguely remembering what it was like to be that kid. He still was that person, clearly, and yet he had changed so much too. Had matured so much, as Ayano would say.
Meanwhile Rindo's love had become less of a memory to Ryusai and more of a feeling, faithfully entwined into every emotion. He hadn't haunted Ryusai's dreams in the same way as before because he hadn't needed to. He was already instinctually, indistinguishably, inseparably gelled into Ryusai's Soul, just as Rindo's love had always craved to be.
Perhaps that was why so many more traits from Rindo's love had seeped into Ryusai. He gravitated toward a lot of the same styles that Rindo's love did, a lot of the same foods, a lot of…well not quite the same boundless optimistic disposition, but he was getting there. It seemed like a better outlook to follow than the constant dour anxiety that had infected Rindo for so long. Though that still cropped back up occasionally, despite his best efforts.
While he did favor a lot of the tastes of Rindo's love, that didn't mean that he mirrored all of them. The light-blue frost tips he added to his curly black hair, for example, were a bit out there even for Rindo's love. And they definitely weren't from his Rindo side either. So this was Ryusai's style, and his alone.
Unless someone wanted to copy him of course, in which case…Honestly, being a trendsetter sounded kinda funny. But he was just fine with only him having this hairstyle too.
But overall, most of Ryusai's Rindo-like traits seemed to be…ebbing away? Or, maybe more accurately, were being drowned out by all the louder traits of his love instead?
But that didn't make him Rindo's love either, despite all of Rindo's previous self-sacrificial efforts. For one, not even his love had wanted to be just his love. Not even before the singing, when his love would so eagerly lean into the sync during the fights…Maybe he had been even more lonely than Rindo…
Or maybe there was a technical reason for why the Rindo side of him had become so quiet. Rindo had absorbed so much of his love's Soul. Not just once, but over multiple time loops. Which meant that he had way more of his love's Soul than if they'd just sung in that first time loop. So there was far more of Rindo's love than Rindo here. And Rindo's love had always been the most outspoken of the two, with Rindo passively trailing behind him.
Heh.
Rindo may have sung his love, over and over, but who had really consumed who in the end?
And from the mixing of these two forlorn Souls came…him. Ryusai. Ryusai Kanasawa.
A butterfly fluttered past Ryusai's face, on its way to one of the many flowers. Butterflies were a common sight in Shinjuku now, thanks to all the plants. How poetic, considering Shiba's Noise form had apparently been a butterfly. There were already quite a few butterfly insignias scattered across the city in his honor.
Oh, there were Mihi, Haruka, and Jazz, strolling on the other side of the street! Like Shoka, Mihi and Haruka mostly had their eyes glued to their phones while playing FanGO. Ha, so Haruka had given into their new desire for mobile games after all. Jazz meanwhile seemed to have tagged along just for the fun of it. She waved to Ryusai and Shoka, though only Ryusai noticed.
His other friends… The ones Ryusai had gravitated toward even when he stubbornly clutched his fraying identity of Rindo to his Soul. The ones that had helped Ryusai so much when he had struggled to move on from the sadness and guilt from his old life. The ones who patiently waited on him to figure out who exactly he was now.
They had probably been in the same boat actually. All of them forming new identities, and trying to figure out how to stitch two disparate Souls together into a new whole. Maybe that's why they had all connected, despite being so different.
But Ryusai wouldn't bother them today if they just wanted to play FanGO instead.
But they were destined to meet anyway, as both groups went after a FanGO Phoenix spawned in the middle of the street. Good thing they didn't have to worry about getting hit by cars in the UG. Ryusai cheered Shoka on as her summoned Quetzalli leaped over the Phoenix flames.
After Mihi eventually secured the Phoenix for herself, and they were all showered with phoenix down drops for the raid, they all hung out and gossiped for a while. But they all had different jobs to do in a couple hours, so they soon parted ways.
And it…always pained Ryusai, to see his friends go. To see anyone go, even when he knew he'd see them again soon enough. Maybe that was an innate urge from Rindo's very clingy love. Or perhaps Rindo's own trauma from the many disastrous time loops still affected Ryusai deep down.
"You know, I think Ayano could really get into FanGO if she got the chance," said Shoka. "It's the perfect excuse to walk around and see the sights, y'know?"
"But she's the Conductor now, right?" said Ryusai. "So she probably wouldn't have the time."
Shoka sighed. "Yeah. I mean it's awesome that she got the position and stuff, but it's gonna be harder to spend time with her too. Same with Big Su being the Game Master, once the Games start up again."
"I'm still shocked that Big Su got it and not Hishima."
"Big Su put in a lot of work in the Shibuya games. Hishima didn't. Simple as that." She flicked some capturing crystals at a wind drake she found, eventually catching it. "Ayano rewards hard work."
"Makes sense." Though Ryusai couldn't help but wonder if Hishima was also passed over for his controversial distaste toward Shiba.
"Maybe Kaie can…Nah, he's gonna be way too busy debugging the new RNS to hang out with us anytime soon," Shoka added. "He said something about organizing the data for upcoming Players. Man, I can't believe we're almost at a quarter of the Player quota for our first new Game. Imagine being reborn as a new person and then immediately dying in like, two weeks."
"I know right? What a bunch of losers," said Ryusai, brushing his hair back. "They're lucky us Reapers give 'em a second-second chance to live again, huh?"
"No kidding," said Shoka. "And if any of the new guys decides to be a Reaper, they get to be our, uh, baby siblings? And if one of them says 'Do you think I was born yesterday?' we can tell them, 'Nope, you were born two weeks ago!' See how much that melts their brains."
"Hehe, yeah," said Ryusai. "Though, uh, are we even allowed to tell them stuff like that?"
Shoka sighed. "Probably not. But it'd be really funny if we could."
Ryusai grinned. This was why he had always liked Shoka so much. But…Ryusai wasn't ready to tell Shoka about how much he had changed yet. Though Shoka would probably figure it out soon enough, if she hadn't already. And that…was a conversation Ryusai was not looking forward to.
In fact, he was not looking forward to any kind of conflict, besides maybe the Game. After so much emotional turmoil both during and after the singing, mostly due to Rindo's stubborn resistance to it, Ryusai just wanted his new life to be as peaceful and comfortable as possible. Sometimes even now loud voices or aggressive Noise were enough to make his anxiety spike.
…Anxiety. Even now. Even after everything Rindo's love had done to pacify it.
Good thing that Ryusai worked for the Noise café instead, where he was surrounded by gentle people and calm Pale Noise. It should help him avoid a lot of the stress of the Game as well, because his job was to serve Reapers, not Players. Though of course there were always the emotionally-unstable singers he served…But watching them mostly brought on a sweet nostalgia now.
Plus he was friends with all his coworkers too, and even his boss. Oh yeah, he needed to grab some strawberry pastries for Renzo's birthday coming up. And wasn't Yuzuki's birthday two weeks after Renzo's? Yuzuki had said that lilies were their favorite flower, right?
An endless drive for friendship. Almost a hunger to befriend anyone and everyone, to learn every like and dislike, to make sure they were happy and wanted to stick around. Was that from Rindo's love as well?
So many people Ryusai cared about, no matter how much or how little he knew about them…
But unless Ryusai met with an untimely erasure, he would eventually experience another round of singing, its ravenous maw forcing him into a new starving waltz with a new starving partner. That was part of being a Reaper after all, part of spiritual evolution even.
And, more than ever, Ryusai feared that endless hunger, the all-consuming love and loneliness that would drive him to take another beloved Soul for himself. Even now, even with all the Pale Noise pets he constantly kept by his side, even with all the friends he had made, he was so afraid of being alone, all the time…
He hoped his next singing wasn't soon.
He really hoped that his next singing partner wouldn't be Shoka.
He really really needed to make more friends so that it was less likely to be Shoka.
"You good?"
Huh? Oh, he had taken Shoka's hand at some point during his worrying spiral. "Y-Yeah." He kept holding her hand though. "Just, uh, overthinking things, as usual…Sorry…"
"Thinking back to old stuff?"
"Uh-huh…" Well technically it was the opposite, but eh, close enough.
Ryusai still felt very…vaporous, for a lack of a better word. His identity was solidifying more every day, but he still sometimes had trouble telling exactly who he wanted to be now. He didn't want to be just Rindo, and he couldn't be just Rindo's love, which left…so many possibilities. It would be almost exciting if it wasn't so overwhelming. At least Shoka was there to help narrow things down a little for him.
Wing massages at his therapy sessions helped too. Because those were his present feelings, not echoes of emotions from when he had been someone else. He was so glad he had finally been able to push back his fear so that he could get his wings properly treated. That alone had helped clear out a lot of pent-up feelings, which made it easier to think about the future instead of the past.
The future…he almost…looked forward to it?
Yet at the same time, leaving the past further and further behind made Ryusai sad and a little anxious. Would he one day just completely forget what it was like to be Rindo and his love at all? Surely not, right? He still had their memories. Fun memories shopping together, before and even during the Game. And their time together at Akinosuke Hotel really had been so nice, even in the desperate needy throes of singing. Maybe even because of it.
Even if Ryusai felt more and more like an outsider looking in. Like he was spying on private moments between two lovers, rather than just reflecting on his previous forms. Much like the weirdly painful feeling Ryusai got whenever he spotted them in one of his own dreams.
…Would Ryusai forget? Forget the two people he once was? Eternity was a long time to remember two mortals…
But it wasn't like Ryusai didn't have a few physical reminders from the past too. He still had the accessories from Rindo's love, which he wore with some of his outfits. Only if they matched though. Ryusai still had Rindo's phone too, with all the pictures and texts he and his love had shared together, and would occasionally scroll through them on more quiet, lonely days.
The phone still had Rindo's old FanGO account on it too. Granted, he couldn't do anything with the account since it couldn't connect online. But sometimes it was nice to just tour through Rindo's collection of summons. Rindo had almost gotten them all, though doubtless even more would be added in the new update. But despite how useless this save file was now, Ryusai couldn't bring himself to delete it.
But Ryusai could bring himself to get a new phone.
"Oh! Uh, I started a new FanGO account!" Ryusai smiled as he plucked his new phone from his pocket.
"Oh nice! How many summons have you caught?"
Ryusai gave her a perfectly sunny smile. "Including my chocobo starter? Zero! Why do you think I sat out for the Phoenix earlier?"
Shoka smirked. "Figured you were just too chicken to stake a summon. But wow, someone's been slacking. So, gonna tell your ID or am I supposed to be playing twenty questions?"
"Oh, uh. Don't laugh."
She put her hand over her heart. "Scout's honor...that I'll try not to."
"Okay. Here." He turned the phone towards her. "It's—PhoeNyx. Like phoenix, but, y'know, N-Y-X instead of N-I-X." He rubbed the back of his head again while her cheeks puffed out in barely-held-back-laughter. "At least you're trying not to laugh..."
"Sorry, sorry." Shoka still grinned though. "Capturing that Phoenix earlier would've been too tacky for Mr. Fee-Nicks, huh? Guess I can't judge too much. I mean, at least you changed the spelling a little bit, cringy or not. Mine's still just Swallow."
"Wait, does this mean you're gonna call me PhoeNyx from now on?" Ryusai frowned. "That's gonna get awkward real fast. Uh, hold on, maybe I should rethink—"
"It's not the kind of name Rin…you would've picked before," she said suddenly, looking intently at the screen. "Back then you would've done some real naïve shit again, like mashed your real-life name with the most obvious pun in the world. From Rindragon to, I don't know, Ryusimurgh, or something. Well, maybe simurgh would've been too complicated for a total dweeb like you. It's not as obvious as dragon, is it? Maybe Ryusparrow or whatever. But you—I mean—it's stupid simple, but it's—it's a different kind of stupid simple. It's a Ryusai kind of stupid simple, I guess."
He let his hand rest on his head. His curls poked into his palm. "I...Yeah."
"It's so stupid simple that it suits you. Keep it." For a second, he could see her squeezing her phone so tightly her knuckles turned pale, and then she took a breath. Her smile...looked like it reached her eyes. "Besides, the color you picked totally fits you, Nyx."
"The color?"
"Of the profile background, dummy. Rindragon's was the orange-and-blue one, remember? PhoeNyx's is purple and black. Fits the nyx part."
Funny. Rindo's love's gold and Rindo's blue should've mixed into green, right? But instead, his was…completely different. "...Like the violet of a coming dusk," he said softly.
She snorted. "He's a poet and didn't know it. Anyway, you went with a chocobo instead of a moogle this time?"
"I mean, the moogle was on that old account, so…" And no moogle starter would be as special as Rindo's moogle starter. "Anyway, can you trade me something…uh, not too overpowered? I wanna build up this account on my own without power-leveling through everything with a Bahamut or whatever."
Her smirk was back. "Aww, you don't wanna crush Lv. 2 goblins with a Lv. 99 Alexander?"
"I mean, I do. With an Alexander that I evolved and raised to Lv. 99 myself," explained Ryusai. "But at the same time, I wanna raise some of your summons here too. Especially if it's weaker stuff that you're not using anyway."
"Feeling sorry for some unused pixels?" But Shoka's smile stayed warm. "Hold on, I've got a nutkin I can give you. That's a pretty good starting summon. One sec, lemme see where I put it…" She scrolled through her phone, one-handed, her other hand still held fast by his. "One nutkin for Nyx, coming right up."
"Yeah, that'd be perfect! Thanks, Swallow!"
As Shoka tracked down the wayward squirrel summon, Ryusai felt a cozy warmth in his chest.
Because this…A friend to spend happy times with, side by side. This was all any of them had ever wanted.
ζ here with more notes on names! Rindo is written 竜胆, and Kanade is written 奏. Tosai is written 桃斎, and Furesawa is written 觸澤.
Ryusai 竜斎 Kanasawa 奏澤
Ryusai is written 竜斎, using the first character of Rindo's name and the second character of Tosai's name. In Japanese, each character has different potential readings. You can also just put together any characters you want and claim a reading, but most names use standard readings. 竜 is pronounced as "rin" in specifically the compound "Rindo", but the most common on'yomi, or Sino-Japanese, reading is "ryū". "sai" is the on'yomi reading of 斎. "Ryusai" is composed of characters meaning "dragon" and "purification/worship/avoiding taboos".
What about Kanasawa? You might think, "Oh, 'Kana' like 'Kana(de)' and 'sawa' like '(Fure)sawa'! It must be the first character of Rindo's surname and the second character of Tosai's surname!" You could, in fact, write Kanasawa as 奏澤. The kun'yomi, or native Japanese, reading of 奏 is "kana(deru)", meaning that one can read it as "kana". Likewise, "sawa" is a kun'yomi reading of 澤. However, I decided to take a slightly different approach for thematic reasons—and here's where it gets interesting.
"Kanasawa" written as 奏澤 would be composed of characters meaning "to play an instrument" and "swamp". But just like the first character of Rindo's name, 竜, has multiple readings, so does the first character of Tosai's surname, 觸. The most common on'yomi readings of 觸 are "fu(reru)", which is the origin of "Fure(sawa)", and..."sawa(ru)"! So we can use 觸, the character used for "Fure," but read it as "sawa"! 觸 means "touch, contact, feeling". That felt much more appropriate to the touchy-feely cuddle-puddle-huddler Furesawa "Fret" Tosai. Thus, Kanasawa is written with the first character of Rindo's surname and the first character of Fret's surname.
So, to summarise, "Kawasawa Ryusai" is a made-up name that Fret and Rindo got by mix-and-matching traditional readings for each character of their names; to use an analogy with common US names, imagine two people named "Stephanie" and "Miriam" singing, then naming themself "Stephiam" or "Miranie".
"Kanasawa" written as 奏觸 is composed of characters meaning "to play music" and "touch", and "Ryusai" written as 竜斎 is composed of characters meaning "dragon" and "purification". Given what Kanasawa Ryusai ends up doing as a Shinjuku Reaper, how Rindo and Fret got together in the first place, and the literal avoidance of the Taboo while they proceeded with the 4-2-1 that purified their Souls according to the Angels, 奏觸 竜斎 is pretty thematically relevant, wouldn't you say?
As an additional note, typically, one uses particular readings for names and for characters in specific positions, thus why Furesawa usually gets read as "Furesawa" and not as "Sawasawa". Incidentally, "sawa(ru)" oftentimes has a negative connotation for touch. Hmm, the symbolism?
Regarding the readings themselves, I showed Light all of the possible on'yomi and kun'yomi readings for each character, including ones atypical for names, and she selected how the final name would sound after mixing and matching. Then I tweaked the character use a bit for maximum thematic value while still viably keeping the phonetic reading that she had chosen.
The joke FanGO nickname that Sakurane comes up with for Ryusai Kanasawa follows the same name pattern as Rindragon. Rindragon uses the first four characters of Kanade's name plus dragon, to make Rinddragon = Rindragon. Ryusimurgh uses the first four characters of Kanasawa's name plus simurgh (a Persian mythological bird with similarities to a phoenix), to make Ryussimurgh = Ryusimurgh. JP: リュウサムルク (using an alternative name for the same mythological bird). We wanted to come up with something equally simple but in a different way for Kanasawa, with Light commenting, "Ryusai likes simpler names/mixing names together," so Marco initially suggested Frinix to combine "Fret" "Rindo" "phoenix". I felt like that sounded too similar to the Rin part of Rindragon. Light recommended Nyx by itself, and I thought of PhoeNyx, which sounded a little more like a username to me while keeping to a simple tweak of an obvious theme. The rebirth symbolism and colour symbolism tie-in to the purple dusk sky that Light had written in for their final dream felt appropriate. I like to imagine that Sakurane normally calls him Nyx, but sometimes swaps to Phoe (pronounced 'fee') in a rare moment of platonic affection.
The alternative joke nickname, Ryusparrow, also references their spring/autumnal theme. Sakurane, born in March and having "sakura" in her name—which famously bloom in the spring—has a clear spring theme. Her FanGO account, Swallow, was canonically given to her by Ono, which fits their respective Hanafuda designations, as the swallow is in Ono's month, not Sakurane's. But the swallow is also associated with spring in kigo, seasonal words used for poetry such as haiku: 燕 is a mid-spring (around March) word. Kanade and by extension Kanasawa have autumnal theming, so I picked rice sparrows (稲雀) as an autumnal kigo.
Also, did you notice that there are six opening chapters from the point of view of Kanade, six singing chapters from the point of view of Furesawa, and six chapters post-singing from the point of view of Kanade? 666. And then an epilogue, which has the only non-MONOCROW pin name, instead using a RyuGu pin!
Finally, now that we have arrived at the epilogue, I want to thank Light for allowing me to participate in providing research and beta for this work and to thank Marco for serving as support and co-beta. Singing is a horrifying idea in its obligation to hurt and be hurt, ordained by Angels. If I were in such a situation, I do not know what I would do, but I would hope that I would have the strength to erase myself or take the Taboo. Ethical themes in this work belong to Light and do not necessarily reflect my opinions or thoughts. I had a blast working on this! The scene at the end of the sixth chapter where Kanade sees Furesawa terrified and trying to escape from him, then deliberately goes back in time in order to effectively manipulate a Furesawa into singing for him, haunts me, as does the final line of the epilogue. This was, indeed, all any of them had ever wanted, all any of you or me or us or them would ever want. Anyway, thank you to all of the readers for bringing this work to life by reading it.
See you next song cycle!
And I always love having you and Dark around! You seriously make my work and my life so much better!
And with that...DiscorDance is finally done! Holy shit, has it been a ride. But it's been so much fun to write! Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this fic to the very end!
As for what's next...Well, I have a few oneshots that still need to be edited/beta-read, but at this point it's mostly just Runaway Rocket and Cage of Wings left as main TWEWY projects, both of which I'm eager to get back to! Look at that, I'm down to a reasonable amount of projects for once. Let's see how long that lasts.
Once again, thanks for reading! See you guys next time!