Hello! Welcome to my fic for the 2022 TWEWY Bang, and my fic for Halloween! As such, the artist wolver has done some lovely art for this story as well! Sadly I can't link it here on FFnet, but it should be with the Ao3 version of this story once I figure out how that works.
Actually, the origins behind this story are a bit...complicated. Basically, this story was the first idea I ever had for NEO, back when all I had access to was the demo. But when complications arose with the original plot once I knew the full story of NEO, I ended up doing a different approach, and that resulted in Cage of Wings. But when discussing the original story idea with my best friend oddvector, we decided that there was enough different and interesting about it that it was worth writing on its own. Thus this fic now exists, and happened to line up perfectly with the Bang event, so it become my project for that.
This fic is about 80% done already, and would probably be 100% done if the last month hadn't been so cursed with irl drama. It's going to be about 12-13 chapters total, with 10 of those chapters already written, though there still needs to be editing and such. I'm hoping to finish this fic by the end of the year, but we'll see what happens. (Originally I planned to have it finished by the end of the month, but the fic got a little bit too big for that haha).
This is a singing/consumption fic. If you don't know what that is, it'll be explained in a few chapters. If you do, then you may know a little bit of what's going on already in this first chapter.
Finally, big thanks to oddvector, who has been here as a great beta and a great friend throughout this whole fic! You really are the best dude!
Disclaimer: I don't own The World Ends With You. Some tame Noise pets would be cool though.
DiscorDance
"How people play the game shows something of their characters. How they lose shows it all." –Frosty Westering
Scale 1: Watch Your Step
Okay. Day 4. After this, three more days to go until this weird Game ended. Okay. Rindo could do this. He just had to...
His sight had that weird red fuzziness around the edges. Another vision of the future?
Fret. hunched over, holding his chest. All around them, a...glowing cage?
Where was this?
"Gwaaaaahgeglegegle! H-Heavens, what horrendously incomprehensible feelings are these?"
Oh shit, why was she there with Minamimoto, outside of the cage?
Minamimoto stood outside of the cage, lips curled in angry disgust. "Sum of a binomial. It's already started!"
Huh? What had started?
"Rindude...Rindo..." Fret sounded pained. Scared.
"Zeptogram No. 1!" Minamimoto barked. "Is this what you want?"
"I...I..."
Somewhere, a strange reverberating cry. A Noise, but what kind? He didn't see it. But the sound only made Fret cower further.
"Uh, R-Rindo?"
Rindo answered with a harrowing scream. Pain. Horrible pain. Had he been attacked by the Noise?
Fret screamed too. A lot of people screamed, actually, but Rindo didn't know where they were.
Panting, Rindo glanced over his shoulder, and...
And that was it. Rindo found himself back in reality, heart racing. What kind of vision was that? How did he and Fret get trapped in a cage with a Noise? Why did Fret seem sick? Minamimoto had asked Fret if this was 'his choice', but what did Minamimoto mean by that? Was the whole cage thing Fret's idea? For some reason?
Rindo looked at his phone's time. If things went horribly wrong, knowing the exact times of events would make it easier to jump back later. Right now it was 10:01 am.
"Rindude? Hey Riiiindude."
Rindo jumped, even though his friend's voice wasn't that loud. "Y-Yeah?"
Fret's posture looked pretty relaxed, but his eyes wandered. Bored, maybe? "So, uh, since yesterday ended up being a bust..."
Right. Her. "Sorry..."
"You sure you don't wanna try to recruit—"
"Yes," said Rindo, a little more tersely than he meant to.
Fret frowned, folding his arms. "Okay then. Sheesh."
Still, how could Rindo have explained it? That girl they'd tried to recruit had invaded Rindo's mind or something and nearly freaking murdered him from the inside out! What would've happened if he hadn't somehow turned back time...? The very thought made something in Rindo's Soul shriek.
Oh yeah, Rindo should check to see if Swallow had sent anything new. He checked his phone. Nothing. Well, that kinda sucked. Maybe Rindo should send—
"Rindude?" Now Fret looked more concerned than annoyed, leaning toward Rindo a little. "You okay, buddy? You seem kinda worried."
"Yeah, I'm fine." It was fine, he was fine, everything was—
And then that Susukichi guy suddenly barged in out of nowhere, went on about giving them points if they helped some random dude, and then left.
Rindo waited for his nerves to settle down. Okay, now everything would be—
"Ruinbringer trash, fresh from the heap."
Rindo yelped and spun around. Why did Minamimoto always have to appear out of nowhere like that?
"Heyyy, my Mina-man!" Fret said with an effortless grin, like Minamimoto had just casually walked through a door. How did he not get spooked by Minamimoto's sudden arrivals?
Minamimoto barely paid any attention to Fret's jovial greeting, however, his cat-like eyes peering down at Rindo.
"So, apparently Susukichi has a different game for us to play," explained Rindo. "He said it'll earn us a lot of points, so..."
"Zeptogram No. 2." Minamimoto interrupted, tone clipped.
Uh oh. "Y-Yeah?"
"This trajectory...4-2-1."
"Huh?" asked Rindo, smiling nervously. He had no idea what that meant. Maybe if he looked it up on his phone...Something about the 4-2-1 rule of maintenance fluids? Was Minamimoto telling him he needed to hydrate? "Uh, okay? I'll make sure to get an extra drink next time we eat?"
"Hollow-skulled hectopascal," said Minamimoto, still frowning. "Double-check your work, or you'll be plugged into 3n + 1. Your margin of error is less than a picopercent...but not zero."
"So uh, don't mess up?" asked Rindo. Geez, no pressure or anything. "Got it."
"Don't worry Rindude, we definitely got this!" said Fret, giving him a thumbs up. "Especially with Mr. Minami the math machine on our side! Ain't that right, my Mina-man?"
"Hmph. I'm not a calculating machine. I'm a calculating artifex," said Minamimoto with a toothy grin. Rindo couldn't tell if he had accepted the compliment, or if he wanted to bite Fret's head off instead. He could never tell with Minamimoto.
"Gotcha! Whatever you say goes, my dude!" said Fret. Probably because he had no idea what Minamimoto just said. "So let's...uh...crunch this mission?"
Minamimoto's sneer grew wider. "Ninety degrees."
"That's right! Let's get going while the iron's still hot!" Fret exclaimed, marching on without them.
Rindo sighed. Might as well try Susukichi's mission then. It gave them something to do, anyway. Gave him something else to think about other than...what? Why was he so anxious when nothing was happening yet?
He had had another vision, sure, but all he had to do was avoid getting him and Fret caged in with some Noise, right? Should be easy enough: just avoid cages and don't let Fret do anything stupid. He could always ask Swallow for advice...sorta. Not that they had any idea of the kind of Game Rindo was stuck playing, but they...could help calm Rindo's nerves at least? He wondered how Swallow was doing.
And if worse came to worst, maybe he could just turn back time again. Maybe. He didn't really know how the time travel thing worked, now that he thought about it. But it seemed to kick in whenever he really needed it to? But what if it didn't? What would he do then? What if—
Well first things first. They had to fight three reduction rounds of Noise in order to get past the wall Reaper. Fine. That they could do.
Strange part-tattoo creatures surrounded them. Noise. Everything from frogs to wolves to ravens to even a couple bears. But despite being vastly outnumbered, they took on the monsters easily. Well, mostly easily, since Rindo still had to slash at every frog a few times before it fell apart into static. At least this time he didn't have to rely on Fret's energy bullets to finish it off, so Rindo was getting a little better at fighting Noise at least. But he still was pretty weak compared to...
Minamimoto cackled with dark glee as he crushed three ravens against a wall with his flying kick, before his foot spun around and clocked a bear right in the jaw. As the towering Noise fell onto its back, Minamimoto charged up another kick and put his boot right through the bear's chest, erasing it instantly.
...Yeah, Rindo and Fret weren't quite there yet. And probably never would be.
Speaking of Fret, it seemed like he was having fun. Though Rindo couldn't physically see Fret right now, the sync connecting their Souls allowed Rindo to detect him several feet away. Sensing others' feelings and sharing Soul energy still felt really weird to Rindo, though he didn't exactly dislike it either? But Fret was always so happy during the sync, even when they were battling to survive. Then again, Fret was pretty much always a ray of sunshine, sometimes to a scorching degree.
Fret kept his distance so he could safely snipe away at Noise, while Rindo kept them at bay with his up-close melee combat. Rindo would have never imagined going toe-to-toe with such terrifying beasts a few days ago, but Fret had this way of...making him braver? More accurately, Fret did this...thing where he siphoned off Rindo's anxiety and other bad feelings, and that made it easier to fight without fear? Rindo still wasn't sure how he did that, but he definitely appreciated it. He wouldn't have been much use if he just collapsed into a ball of terror during the Noise fights.
Thanks to their combined efforts, though mostly Minamimoto's, the Wicked Twisters made quick work of the horde of Noise. The RNS app on Rindo's phone jingled right as they returned to the RG.
"Oh, you leveled up? Nice!" said Fret, before his expression turned slightly more sour. "Hey, why didn't I level up then? We've been in the same amount of battles together!"
"Uh, I dunno? I erased more Noise, I guess?" said Rindo.
"Or the temporal translation," said Minamimoto.
...The what?
"That's my current hypothesis," said Minamimoto, sounding strangely thoughtful for once. "It correlates to the 4-2-1, but is there causation?"
Fret side-eyed Rindo. "You getting any of this?"
"Nope."
Minamimoto folded his arm and let out a growling sigh. "Zeptograms, converge at Donburi Town."
"Uh, okay?" Rindo supposed he could use a bite to eat.
Upon entering the restaurant, Fret and Minamimoto sat across the booth from Rindo. Fret ordered the Tokyo Roast Beef Bowl before Rindo had even fully read over the menu yet, as usual. Minamimoto demanded his Nagoya Eel Bowl soon afterward. Finally, after lots of careful consideration, Rindo finally ordered the Toyosu Seafood Bowl. Oh, and he needed to make sure he drank lots of water too, since he was dehydrated or whatever.
"So, what's up, Mr. Minami?" asked Fret with a friendly grin, while they waited for their meals.
Minamimoto's expression remained sour. "Zeptogram No. 1, diverge from Zeptogram No. 2, especially during combat, if you don't want to get your matrices compiled."
Fret blinked. "What?"
"Zeptogram No. 2." Now Minamimoto's stern gaze turned to Rindo. "Your previous temporal translations have skewed my calculations. But according to my recalibrations, you're just a picopercent from 4-2-1."
Rindo didn't know what any of that meant. But there was that 4-2-1 thing again, which didn't seem to be about hydrating at all. "What is 4-2-1?"
"4-2-1 is a formula of forced integration multiplied by a strange attractor of emotions produced by the unprecedented growth of the harmonic eigenvector."
Both Rindo and Fret stared. "...Huh?"
Minamimoto sighed. "It's dangerous for you zeptograms to stick so close together because Zeptogram No. 2's numbers are unstable."
"My numbers are unstable?" asked Rindo. "What numbers?"
"Your matrix numbers. They're getting garbage information from your eigenvector."
"But what does any of that mean?" Rindo almost groaned. Why couldn't this guy talk normal for five seconds?
"What, is Rindude sick or something?" asked Fret, giving Rindo a mildly worried look.
"I feel fine though?" said Rindo. But if Minamimoto of all people, who normally didn't give a crap about anything other than calculations, was treating this 4-2-1 thing this seriously..."Is it contagious or something? Should I put my mask up so I don't get you guys sick too?"
"Irrelevant," said Minamimoto.
So it wasn't an infectious disease at least. Of course Rindo wasn't even sure if it was a disease at all, given all the math metaphors.
"Still, shouldn't we stick at least kinda close to Rindo?" asked Fret. "To, uh, make sure he's okay and stuff?"
"If Zeptogram No.2 does go 4-2-1, then by my calculations you will be the factor selected to fill in the missing variable," said Minamimoto, pointing at Fret.
Fret glanced between Minamimoto and Rindo. "Meaning...?"
Minamimoto huffed. "Do I have to break it down to basic arithmetic? You plus Zeptogram No. 2 plugged into 4-2-1 equals you both getting crunched. Understand?"
"Whoa! You serious? Shit's that bad, huh?" said Fret.
Rindo paled at that description. Just what the hell was 4-2-1? Something that would kill both him and Fret by...what? Was Rindo gonna literally explode or something if Fret got too close?
"But is there, like, anything we can do to make Rindo not go all numbers?" asked Fret.
"Simple. Keep your equations divided," said Minamimoto. "Syncing will only accelerate the formula."
"Wait, so we shouldn't sync?" asked Fret. "But what if we have to fight any tough Noise? We're way stronger when we're synced!"
"Ha! You're worried about power when I'm part of this set?" Minamimoto grinned. "I'll crunch those 000s with or without your help!"
Fret smiled back. "Guess you got a point, Mina-man!" He turned to Rindo. "So we'll just take it easy today until you're feeling better, Rindude! Sound good?"
"Sure?" Rindo would rather not turn into a time bomb, thanks.
Then their food arrived, and they feasted without saying much else. Though, even stuffed full of seafood, Rindo kinda wanted...something else? But he wasn't sure what?
Rindo wanted to talk to Swallow. Like, really wanted to talk to Swallow. So while Fret grumbled to Minamimoto about how clothes sizes were always so inconsistent across brands, and Minamimoto devised some formula to fix this problem, Rindo sent a text to Swallow.
"morning, swallow"
Rindo knew that part of the point of texting someone was that they could reply whenever they could, or whenever they wanted, but he eagerly stared at the screen. Man, Rindo hadn't missed Swallow this bad since the time they first started talking online 3 years ago. Back when Rindo first began getting extra stressed about everything.
No response. They were fine, probably. They were just busy, probably. They weren't going to abandon him, or get into an accident and die, probably. They'd be there for him later, right?
The restaurant was already getting crowded, so he didn't want to linger here for that much longer. Swallow would text him when they could—
A ding. Swallow!
"hey, rindragon! busy day yesterday?"
"ya kinda. dealing with a...newcomer"
"ooh that's always exciting :)"
"ya, especially if they try to kill you for literally no reason"
A pause. A few instances of Swallow is typing... kept vanishing and reappearing before a surprisingly short message finally popped up. "in the game?"
"...ya"
"Rindude! We're leaving buddy!"
"Oh! Coming!" He hastily typed out a message. "anyway brb, game stuff"
"okay! see you later! :)"
Rindo put his phone in his pocket and headed out with everyone else.
Man, it was so bright out! Rindo shielded his eyes against the sun with his hand, as Fret babbled about things as he always did. In this intense sunlight there were so many sparkling things: signs, buckles, dropped soda cans, even Fret's metal earrings. Had Fret's earrings always been this shiny?
"Earth to Rindude? You there?"
"Huh?" asked Rindo. Had he really spaced out that hard? He did kinda have a headache...which hopefully had nothing to do with this 4-2-1 thing.
Fret let out a purposefully dramatic sigh. "I said, you wanna go check out that Kaie guy's fortunetelling place? You're supposed to take it easy and avoid getting into fights anyway, right? At least according to what Mr. Minami just said. So, no doing the mission, and no helping big guy Suzy K either."
Well, if trying to do any kind of mission could make Rindo's mystery condition worse, then he might as well goof off with Fret. "Y'know what, let's do it. Hey Mr. Mina—"
But Minamimoto wasn't there. Huh?
"Mr. Minami just left," said Fret. He gazed at Rindo, looking a bit concerned. "Do you...not remember him leaving?"
"No?" admitted Rindo. Though, to be fair, Minamimoto had this way of coming and going without warning. "Anyway, let's do fortune stuff, sure."
But it turned out that Spain Hill was blocked off by a Reaper wall, with no way to take it down. Well, that sucked.
Only for it to not be that big of a deal, because Kaie apparently spotted them moping by the wall and lamenting not getting their fortunes told. Or spotted Fret doing that, anyway, Rindo din't care either way. With a flick of a funky-looking key pin, Kaie opened the way for them and led them to his little shop, which happened to be next to Bubblevision.
They entered, and whoa it was so purple. Purple curtains, purple tablecloth, a ton of spiky purple crystals, and chairs with indigo cushions, one of them housing a stuffed purple rabbit that was honestly pretty cute. Tons of books were piled to the side, with a crystal ball on a cushion resting on top. In the middle of the table seemed to be a...projector of some kind?
"Greetings! :D" texted the tall, morose-looking man known as Kaie. It was always interesting to see how much different someone's online voice was from their real life way of talking. Or not talking, in this case. Rindo knew his own online presence was less than poetic, not anywhere near as memorable as An0ther's, but spelling was hard and long words took too long to type.
"Yo!" said Fret, all smiles as usual. The way Fret could just be so casual when talking to people he barely knew, Rindo admired in the same bewildered way someone admired a skilled optical illusion. How did he do that? "So, what kind of fortune-telling do you do?"
"Ah, what style would you like?" asked Kaie, a small smile on his face as he typed. "Dowsing, palm reading, name divination, Four Pillars, tarot—"
"Ooo, let's do tarot cards!" said Fret.
"Excellent! :D The cost will be 5000 yen per reading."
"Okay!" said Fret.
That seemed a bit pricey to Rindo, especially since that was money they could put toward food or more powerful clothes. But whatever, Fret already had his ShibuPay out, and Rindo definitely wasn't letting Fret pay for both of them.
"Would you like Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, or the Tarot of Marseilles?"
"Uh..." Fret's gaze wandered as he thought about it. "What about the ones from that one game? What was it called again..."
Kaie waited a moment, but when Fret just sat there with his face scrunched up in thought, the tech wizard-slash-fortuneteller sent out another message. "The Rider-Waite-Smith is the most well known by the general public, so you likely saw that one. :)"
"Sure! We'll do that one!" said Fret.
"Very well! One moment while I prepare the deck! :D"
Rindo expected him to go and get a deck, but instead Kaie sat down at the table and tapped a couple things on his phone. The projector lit up, showing a single tarot card floating vertically in the air, rapidly flickering between images like a sped-up slideshow. "Now how many cards would you like to use for this reading? One? Three? Five?"
"Oh, uh, how about three?" said Fret.
"Very well, three it is!" Another tap on his phone, and the single card split into three. "So, who would like to go first? Or do your questions pertain to the both of you?"
"Uh..." said Rindo, glancing towards Fret. "What do you wanna do? I don't know how tarot cards work, like, at all."
"I'll go first then!" said Fret, squishing the poor rabbit toy against the armrest as he sat down. "Alright, how's my future love life looking?"
...Leave it to Fret to ask a question like that.
"Always a good question to ask! :3" With a tap of his phone, the three holographic cards started spinning like tops.
Rindo's phone softly dinged in his hand. Swallow!
"hey rindragon! still gaming? ;)"
"swallow!" Rindo answered, followed by a flood of happy Moogle stickers.
...Okay, that was probably a bit much. If he wasn't careful, he was gonna turn into Fret.
"looks like someone's sure happy to see me today. everything good? is that other mean player still giving you trouble?"
"no, i havent seen her today. which is good," Rindo messaged, before he paused, gazing pensively at his screen. "shes scary"
The way that girl had stared him down in his own mind, face streaked with angry tears as she told him what an awful person he was for always judging others...
How ironic. People like her were why Rindo always carefully considered the people around him. To make sure they weren't some kind of sociopath like her.
"Hey, Rinduuuuuuuuude."
Rindo yelped, accidentally hitting the Send button. "Huh?"
With one more tap from Kaie, the three cards abruptly flipped over in the hologram, showing the golden butterfly on the back of each card, then spun around one at a time to reveal the reading.
The first card looked like an angel, complete with white wings, carrying a lantern and a stick, turned upside-down. What did that say at the bottom, The Helmet? No, The Hermit. Man, he really needed to brush up on his English classes. To the right, the third card had two people with large bat-like wings sprouting from their backs, and wow they were naked, though anything too scandalous was covered up with a plethora of Noise-like tattoos. Another angel hovered over them. It had the text The Lovers at the bottom.
But Fret seemed to fixate on the card in the middle. A skull tangled in tattoo lines, sprouting skeletal bat wings, surrounded by a spiral of dark thorns much like what the Reaper barriers used. At the bottom: the word Death.
Rindo tried really hard not to snicker, and failed. "No love life for you, huh? Bummer."
"Aw man, seriously?" Fret whined.
Another ding. Swallow again. "don't worry rindragon, not everyone is that scary. :)"
"ya but what do i do? its rly making my anxiety spike haha," Rindo texted back.
"hmm...i usually try to avoid the mean players as much as i can, and try not to let them faze me, since that usually makes it worse. oh, and don't forget that you can contact the mods if she won't leave you alone. i don't know what kind of game you're in, but i'm always here for you if you need someone to talk to :)"
Rindo smiled. "thanks. i will" Swallow always knew what to say to calm his nerves.
"Can I get a redo?" grumbled Fret, his lips out in a pout. "An UNO reverse card?"
Kaie chuckled. "Do not worry, the Death card does not represent actual death. :)"
"Kweh? But then why's it called the freaking Death card?"
"The Death Card pertains to transformation," explained Kaie. "Since one often has to give up their present form in order to become something new. A metaphorical death and rebirth, much like a caterpillar must give up its current form to become a butterfly."
Fret giggled a little anxiously. One of his hands tugged at the rabbit toy's ears.
"But it's not a physical death, don't worry. ;) It just means that change is coming for you, and a positive change at that! :D"
Fret's shoulders relaxed some, though his leg still jiggled under the table. "So what do the other cards mean then?"
Kaie glanced over to the first card. "Hermit Reversed for the past. The true self has become reclusive and hidden away." He peered at Fret almost sadly. "Something happened in the past that caused your true self to withdraw from the world. Are you lonely?"
Fret stared blankly at Kaie for a few moments, before snorting with laughter. "Lonely? Pshh, nah. I'm the life of the party! Just ask Rindude over there!"
"Yeah, he ain't exactly a wallflower," said Rindo. "Leave him alone for five minutes, and he'll spam everyone with texts until someone answers."
Fret squinted at Rindo. "Says the guy who's never off his phone ever. You sure this ain't the fortune for Rindude here instead?"
"It is, in fact, the reading meant for you. :/," said Kaie.
Fret looked back at the cards. "So, I'm a...recluse who..." His eyes slid to the Death card "...transforms into..." His gaze went to the last card. "...a lover?"
"The Lovers is about making a choice between your heart's desire and what society or a higher power desires for you," explained Kaie. "So, based on these cards, I believe that soon you will encounter an event or person that will change your perspective on life and on yourself, something that will bring out more of your true self. And this event will open several distinct futures for you that you must choose from."
"...Huh," said Fret, tapping his foot before smiling. "Well I'd say that sounds pretty good for a love fortune, don't you think, Rindude?"
"I guess so?" said Rindo.
"Okay, buddy, your turn!" said Fret, hopping out of the seat.
"Uh, sure?" said Rindo, sitting down. He carefully set the rabbit toy on a nearby pile of books, watched for a moment to make sure neither the rabbit or the books tumbled down, before finally taking his seat.
"Wonderful! And what question about the future would you like to ask me? :D"
"Um..." Oh man, why hadn't he thought about this during Fret's reading? "Is my future...good? Is there anything I need to worry about? D-Does that work?"
"It certainly does! Now let's see..."
Kaie set the three cards scrolling again, waited a few seconds, before tapping his phone to stop them. They halted, showed their butterfly backs, and then flipped one at a time to reveal...All upside down cards, huh? Did that...mean something special? Something good? Or something very not good?
The first had a woman with bat-like wings blowing a conch shell, with a man, woman and child rising from their snowy graves, wearing Reaper pins on their chests: Judgment. Second was the Death card again, just upside down this time. Then a wheel with the letters R.E.A.P. with a weird mix of flowers and animals inscribed on it, surrounded by a whole bunch of different humanoid Noise reading books. A sphinx Noise sat on the top of the wheel, and some guy with batlike wings on the bottom, with a serpent Noise woven around the wheel's side. Wheel of Fortune.
"...Okay, so...how is it?" asked Rindo, reminding himself that this was just fortunetelling. Something they were doing just for fun, or at least Fret's idea of fun.
"Hmm... :/" said Kaie, and that didn't help Rindo's nerves, even though this was all stupid anyway. "Judgment Reversed suggests a lack of confidence in yourself and your decisions. Has this always been the case for you?"
"Well..." Rindo glanced at Fret, who watched him curiously. "...Not really?"
"Death Reversed is stagnation, or fear of change," Kaie added.
Fret snorted. "Sounds about right. Rindude here always wants to eat the same old thing all the time, and I don't know how he stands it."
"Better than getting myself sick on something I can't pronounce half the ingredients of," Rindo answered, squinting at Fret. "Like what happened last time."
"Okay, maybe that weird kimchi wasn't such a great idea..."
Kaie seemed to patiently wait for them to finish before he continued: "Wheel of Fortune Reversed, meanwhile, suggests a negative event fated to happen in the future, regardless of someone's actions to stop it. Something that can teach you about karmic responsibility."
Funnily enough, this bothered Rindo the least. Those visions he sometimes got...those probably counted as fated too, but he also had time travel. And he had gotten a vision earlier today.
...A vision he still had no context for. No cages, no big scary Noise. Fret had seemed sick in the vision, but apparently Rindo was the one who actually had something wrong with him? Though Minamimoto had mentioned that the 4-2-1 thing could put Fret in danger too? Somehow?
Ugh, all these random pieces of information, and nothing to connect them. Maybe 4-2-1 didn't have anything to do with what happened in the vision at all, in which case Rindo was back to square 1. Hmm...
"So if we look at these cards all together..." Kaie began, studying each card intensely like he wanted to engrave each feature of the art permanently to his mind. "I would say this means that your lack of confidence in your decision-making can lead you to stagnate and act passively, but you'll have opportunities in the future to learn and grow—so use those opportunities to your fullest advantage. Sometimes there are things we can't control, but if you learn to make the most of what you have, you can still come out of it stronger." He smiled kindly.
"Oh, um, okay?" said Rindo. He wasn't sure how 'inevitable negative event' became 'opportunity to learn', but he'd take it he supposed.
"Now, are there any other readings you would like while you're here?" asked Kaie, still grinning gently.
"Nah, we're good," said Fret before Rindo had a chance to open his mouth. "Thanks though! Let's get going Rindude! Maybe after that 'learning opportunity' you'll be able to choose between Indian food or ramen!"
"Ha ha," said Rindo. He probably didn't want another fortune anyway. Especially once he noticed the time: had they really spent over an hour in there? How was it already 14:12? They hadn't even done anything today! Well, Rindo was supposed to be resting or whatever, but what if they got in trouble with the Reapers for slacking off or something?
Fret sighed as they trotted down the steps of Spain Hill. "Man, those readings were garbage!"
Rindo smirked. "Careful, you're starting to sound like Mr. Minami."
"Hey, maybe I'll osmosis some of his math brain power and ace all my math classes!" said Fret with a cocky smile. "Actually, I wonder if he'd actually enjoy doing my math homework if I got him ice cream or something?"
"Or you could try studying for once," said Rindo. "Works for me."
"But studying's booooring," Fret whined. "Seriously, I don't know how you stare at stuff for hours without completely zoning out like I do."
Rindo would normally offer to study with Fret, except that Rindo knew that didn't work. They only both got distracted from their studies instead, as Fret would go on some marginally-related tangent that somehow turned into a conversation about monkeys in space or something. "Maybe ask Mr. Minami to tutor you?"
"Do you really think he would?" asked Fret.
"I mean, you could always—" Rindo began, but then he froze mid-step, eyes wide.
"What's wrong, buddy?" asked Fret.
It was a swarm of Deep Rivers Society guys, the angle of the sunlight off their glasses hiding their eyes behind a white glare. And among the bespectacled dweebs, which Rindo wasn't that worried about, was a dark-haired girl, also wearing glasses—and a purple backpack studded with pins of some fictional character.
It was her. The girl they had tried to recruit yesterday. The girl who Rindo just couldn't quite bring himself to approach again, despite getting the voucher and Fret's pestering. Had she joined the DRS then?
The DRS nerds were standing around, saying something about water and rivers because of course they were. If they noticed the Wicked Twisters' presence, they didn't care. But Rindo's attention stayed focused on the girl. She grimaced as she observed him in silence. Not being able to see her eyes because of the glare of the glasses only made things worse.
Rindo stayed rooted to the spot, heart racing, something in him shrieking, just like that day too.
"Rindude? Hey Rindude?"
She kept studying him silently. Careful. Observant. Like a cold-blooded creature sizing up her prey, assessing the right angle at which she should swoop in and—
Run. Run. Run run run run fly—
The signal finally reached the rest of his body, and he bolted up the steps without a second thought. His legs kept going until he was somewhere near Tower Records, where he bent over panting.
"Rindo!" Fret shouted, sounding winded too, as he staggered to a stop beside Rindo. "You...you good, buddy?"
"Y...Yeah..." As long as she hasn't followed them here. She...she hadn't, had she?
"Dude, what happened back there?" asked Fret, as Rindo glanced behind them, just to be safe. "What scared you so bad? Did you see a big Noise or something?"
Once again, Rindo wondered how to explain this. Rindo didn't know if even Fret would believe in something like time travel.
"...Was it that girl?" asked Fret. "You freaked out the second she looked your way. What, some classmate I don't know about?"
"No. She's..." Rindo began. "Don't you get this really bad feeling when you see her? Like, really really bad? Because I do."
"Uh, no?" said Fret. "But if you're so scared of her that you suddenly turn into a cheetah, then I ain't messing with her either."
A cheetah? No, Rindo had felt more like flying than running...Wait, what was he talking about? Maybe he did need to hydrate more if he was this out of it. "Yeah, but if she's part of a team now, we might have to deal with her at some point." Rindo sighed. "I wonder if that's supposed to be the 'inevitable learning experience' or whatever..." Even the thought made his heart start racing again.
Fret was quiet for a moment. "Y'know, I bet we could get some real fortunes down at the shrine. Not this tarot whatever. And if our fortunes still suck, we'll just nail them to a pine tree and call it a day! Sound good?"
Rindo took a deep breath. "Sure, I guess."
They started walking, but a third set of footsteps suddenly joined them.
"Or we could go back and recruit that odd function that you just ran from," said Minamimoto.
Rindo sputtered. "W-What?"
"But we can't recruit her now, right?" asked Fret. "She's part of another team."
"Even if she's aligned with another set, she can still be a valuable asset to our own equation," explained Minamimoto. "Particularly her latent ability to enter the coordinate planes of others' Souls."
"Wait, that girl can go into other people's Souls?" exclaimed Fret.
"Correct," said Minamimoto with a toothy grin.
"And that makes her extra dangerous too, right?" said Rindo.
"Ha! Only if she intercepts you and crunches your eigenvector to absolute zero. A minor subtraction won't hurt. Much." Minamimoto tilted up his hat as he looked at Rindo. "And that minor reduction in your eigenvector can deflect you away from the 4-2-1."
Rindo still didn't know what an 'eigenvector' was, but that was probably what almost happened to him when she Dove into his mind. He sure felt close to absolute zero then. "Yeah, no thanks. I don't want any of my Soul getting 'crunched' like a snack."
"Getting 'crunched' is the exact expected value if you don't get off this 4-2-1 trajectory," growled Minamimoto.
"Huh? W-Wait!" said Fret. "I thought he was already off that tragi—that trajectory or whatever!"
"No, he's still just a picopercent from 4-2-1. Any stray variable could plug him into that formula."
Fret gave Rindo a panicked glance. "So you're saying he'll be...g-gone even if I..."
"No. If that odd function Dives into Zeptogram No.2's Soul to reduce—"
"No! I don't want that!" shouted Rindo.
"Dude! You're gonna die if you don't, right?" Fret snapped.
Rindo flinched back from Fret's sudden anger.
Fret blinked, before taking a deep breath. "So you gotta do it, right? She's probably still back there somewhere, so let's—"
"H-Hold on, uh..." Even if both Fret and Minamimoto were right, and he did need to do this, all Rindo could think of was her raging rambles that led to a raging screech in the depths of his Soul. A force so terrible that it left a lethal rend in his mind, one that only time travel could mend, and he was supposed to trust someone like her? "Listen, can...can we go to the shrine first, since we're already here? Then...Then we'll figure out what to do."
"Rindo..." Fret took another deep breath, before grinning. "Y'know what, you could use some blessings right now! Yeah, we'll do that first! How's that sound, Mr. Minami?"
"Hmph. A waste of t-variable," said Minamimoto. "But if you can minimize that time loss, then the impact on the eigenvector should be less than a yoctopercent. After that, we're converging with the odd function."
"Sweet! Then let's go Rindude!"
"O-Okay..."
The Miyamasu Mitake shrine was on a hill, so of course there were tons of stairs. Still, going on a small hike should be far less stressful for his eigen-whatever than dealing with mission stuff and Noise. Or her. Man, what was he going to do about her?
Rindo enjoyed watching Fret eagerly hop up the stairs, then bounce back down a few steps while waiting for Rindo to catch up. Rindo was pretty sure that Fret had enough excess energy to power all of Tokyo, maybe even all of Japan.
If only Fret could transfer a little of that extra energy to Rindo, like he often did in battle. Rindo's legs already ached from the climb. He should exercise more. Well, actually, fighting Noise was pretty good exercise, and he had done a lot of that the past few days, so maybe that was why he was so drained? He could go for some Noise right now, actually. They would make a nice...pick-me-up?
Rindo was way too tired for this. He was barely halfway up the stairs to the shrine, and already he just wanted to sit down and sleep. Couldn't the day just end already, in that sudden blackout flash they liked to do for this Game? Would Fret be okay with him just taking a nap in the middle of the stairs? Probably not, because Fret was always going and going like that damn pink drumming bunny in the commercials...No, that wasn't right, Fret wasn't a rabbit...And Minamimoto had told them not to waste their t-whatever...
"Rindo?" At some point Fret had scurried down the stairs once again. "You good?"
Rindo's pulse pounded and pounded as he breathed through his mouth, even though he had barely moved the past few minutes. His heart felt hot and prickly all over.
"Whoa, you look like shit," said Fret. "Uh...Why don't we rest here for a little bit, actually?" He sat down as he talked, though his gaze stayed on Rindo.
"That...That sounds good, yeah," said Rindo, mirroring the motion. It was a relief to be off his feet, honestly. His chest still kinda burned though, and so did his head, so he shed his coat and tied it around his waist. He brought out his phone. 15:28. Maybe he could talk to Swallow for a few minutes while he rested? Yeah…Yeah that sounded so nice…
Rindo jolted, startled, when Fret touched his shoulder.
"Oh, uh, right, you're not really into the whole touch thing." Fret rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry. Just wanted to check on you."
"It's okay," said Rindo. "I appreciate it."
"Man, you shoulda said something if you were feeling bad, Rindude," said Fret. "Wouldn't have had you hiking up all those steps if you felt like you were gonna keel over. Uh, hold on." He fished out a water bottle out of his pocket and gave it to Rindo.
"Thanks." Rindo took the water bottle and gulped some liquid down, before resting the half-empty bottle against his brow. "I didn't feel sick earlier though? Tired maybe, but not sick." Even the sunrays on his back were unpleasantly warm...Wait, but he was facing the sun though?
"I dunno man, what if this was what Mr. Minami...Hey Mr. Minami!"
Minamimoto scowled at them from the foot of the stairs, just beyond the gate. "Get outta that quadrant, Zeptogram No. 2!"
"Wha?" Fret looked pale despite his smile. "Uh, okay? So, you got this, Rindude? I know it's a lot of stairs, even going back down..."
Rindo was thinking that too, staring down all the steps before him. Moving that much was definitely not a thing Rindo wanted to do right now, even if going down stairs was easier than going up.
"Uh, I guess I could help you down, if you're really feeling bad?" offered Fret. "Y'know, in case you get dizzy?"
Right, a tumble down that many steps would probably kill him faster than any Noise would. Or kill him again, or however this afterlife Game actually worked. Which only made him even more nervous about actually attempting to walk, even if Fret was there as backup.
But Rindo needed to leave, right? At least something in him did. What if this area somehow straight-up exorcized him or something? What if a boss Noise made it here somehow? What if she found him again, while he was too exhausted to flee? Well technically he should actually be happy to see her, if she could fix him somehow, but...
"Zeptogram No.2!" Minamimoto yelled again. "You're further down the 4-2-1 vector than I'd calibrated. Converge! Here! Now!"
Converge...Yeah, it wouldn't be so bad to converge, right? Or at least be near someone? At least Fret was here…But where was Swallow? Why was he even thinking about them right now? He hadn't met them in real life ever.
"You okay, Rindude?" asked Fret.
"Y-Yeah, I think so." Right. As much as he wanted to text Swallow right now, as much as he had to hear from them so bad his chest actually hurt, he had to get down the stairs first. Had to get out of here. He didn't belong here...Or something?
Rindo pulled himself to his feet using the guardrail on his left. Carefully going down one step at a time, he kept an iron grip on the rail as his heart thudded in his chest and head. He had to stop a couple of times to catch his breath, but at the same time he had to keep going. His anxiety screeched at him to move.
Fret stuck close to his side, almost matching him step for step. "Sorry, Rindo. I'm the one who suggested this whole shrine blessing thing."
"Dude, you're fine. I'm the one who got sick all of a sudden."
"Yeah, but...I dunno, I'm your friend. I feel like I should've noticed that you weren't feeling so great?"
"How were you supposed to know that I was sick if I didn't know I was sick either?"
"Um, because Mr. Minami said that you were sick?"
"I guess? But I felt fine until a few minutes ago."
When they finally reached the end of the stairs, Minamimoto frowned down at Rindo. "Zeptogram, you—"
Rindo swayed a little as his head swam. He wanted to lie down. He wanted to go home, where he would be nice and safe. He wanted to...fight Noise? Lots and lots of Noise?
Rindo felt himself scanning the area before he was fully aware of what he was doing. As the sky turned blinding hot pink above, Noise symbols swarmed from all sides, much faster than usual.
"Whoa! Why are there so many—" But they all got warped into the Noise plane before Fret could finish.
As the Noise took on their true forms, Rindo felt the rush of power from the sync. Suddenly he felt so much better, almost giddy. Maybe that was just Fret's feelings, considering how much he adored the battle connection. But maybe it wasn't? Maybe Rindo himself really wanted the sync? Needed it even?
But suddenly Minamimoto wasn't in the sync anymore? Even though he was still with them in the battle?
"Zeptogram No. 1! Cut your sync now!"
"Wha? Uh, o-okay?" said Fret. "But how do I—"
Minamimoto teleported over to Fret, holding something shiny in his hand. A pen? No, a marker? He slashed a large purple ⊕ on the back of Fret's hand. Then Fret's sync connection dropped out too.
And abruptly Rindo was alone. Anxiety laced into his happiness, as it always tended to do. He...He needed that connection though! Just as he needed to destroy every Noise in the vicinity. Not because they were a danger, but because he needed to claw apart those packets of raw mindless Soul and guzzle them down like Superhero Sodas. Stay hydrated, right, Mr. Minami?
"Zeptogram No.2! Don't listen to your trash eigenvector! We're leaving! Don't waste my time!"
"Y-Yeah, let's go Rindude!" added Fret, shrinking against Minamimoto's back. He fired some energy rounds to keep some ravens at bay. "When you're beat, you're beat! And I know you're not feeling super great right now, buddy."
But Rindo needed to destroy more and more and more Noise and there was still more to go! But it wasn't enough? More and more and more and yet he was only getting hungrier? What if there wasn't enough Noise to keep him filled? Even now, he felt a jabbing pain in his chest when he wasn't feasting on a meal. As if he were the one being eaten. But that was stupid, that wasn't how—
The pain suddenly lanced right through him, and so did his fear. It wasn't enough! It wasn't enough! All these Noise in Shibuya, and it wasn't enough! Why was it never enough? Why was he never—Someone! Swallow! Fre—
"Zeptogram No. 1! What the factor are you doing?"
Rindo felt his anxiety suddenly drain away. No, not on its own. Fret. Fret was doing that feeling absorption thing again. He had activated the sync after all?
Fret...Fret had answered the cry that hadn't even had the chance to reach Rindo's vocal chords.
"It's okay, buddy, it's okay." Fret's voice was quiet, almost soothing, so strangely subdued compared to his usual boisterous tone. Fret had kneeled down next to Rindo, when Rindo couldn't even remember his own legs failing him. One of Fret's hand was on Rindo's burning back, the other planted on the ground as an anchor. The weird marking Minamimoto had drawn on it was now nothing but a dark purple smear.
And Rindo did feel soothed. Safe even. Especially with the connection as well as the physical contact, which normally he didn't want. But the last thing he wanted right now was to be isolated in any way.
But...
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..." Fret sounded like he was trying to reassure himself as much as Rindo. He gaped at the ground, the hand on Rindo's back now clutching his coat.
"Fret?" What Rindo sensed from Fret...It wasn't just worry or fear or even friendship...
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay...I-I-I gotta make sure that you're okay..."
...It was a crushing guilt. Why? Because Fret had let Minamimoto cut off the sync before?
Rindo heard snarls and screeches from behind. No, from everywhere. The Noise! They were still here, circling around them. Where was Mr. Minami? Had...Had he just left? In the middle of a fight? Oh wait, there he was, shooting through a pack of wolves with a flying kick.
"Zeptogram No. 1! 4-2-1!" Minamimoto barked. "Divide or be divided!"
Divide or be divided? Rindo wasn't sure what Minamimoto meant, but maybe he was right? If these terrible feelings didn't devour both himself and Fret, then these Noise around them would. Not even Minamimoto could handle this much Noise by himself. Maybe.
But Rindo felt that horrible heat in his chest rising and rising, that feeling bleeding into the rest of his body. At this rate it would...And he would have to...have to what? What...What was this...?
Shouts. Roars. Flashes of static. Another team was here, fighting the Noise. The Deep Rivers Society. And...
Her.
While the rest of the Deep Rivers Society sliced up whatever Noise were near them with Vortex Sabers, she scattered wires everywhere, tangling and electrocuting the ravens so her teammates could easily skewer them.
Rindo shuddered, shrinking even closer to Fret.
Then her head snapped toward them, and Rindo froze. He could almost feel his Soul tear all over again.
"Easy, buddy, easy." But Fret's gaze was also fixed on the other team. He sounded a little breathless, even though he hadn't moved from Rindo's side since all this began. "I...I think they're here to—Uh, you're not here to fight us, right?"
The girl stopped a few feet short of them. "Nay. We are only here to hunt our tattooed quarry. You both seem rather exhausted. Are you able to flee?"
Rindo sure wanted to flee, his heart hammering in his chest as he tried to get up.
"Buddy, buddy, it's okay! Hold on—" Fret hoisted Rindo under his arm, only for Fret's legs to suddenly fold under him. He stared blankly at his knees. "Wha? Why'd I...?"
"Hrmmm...I see. Prey enmeshed in the foul beasts' snare." She raised her hands. "Haaalt!"
"Huh? But we are—"
A tangle of electrified wires jutted from the ground all around Rindo and Fret, crackling loud with voltage.
"W-Whoa!" Fret exclaimed, jolting upward, only for him to sway a little and sink back down to Rindo's side. Rindo keenly felt the absence for those few brief moments. "Uh...?"
Rindo's eyes nervously darted between her and the barbed wires. Trap, trap, cage.
The vision!
Her gaze set on them, she walked up to the cage, her face partially hidden by the vertical bars. The girl's narrow eyes looked like they were about to run Rindo's Soul straight through.
Rindo could barely breathe: was that why she'd trapped them? So she could kill him again? No, no, he had to survive, had to sink his talons into—
"I raised these bars to protect you from any errant Noise. Be still and stay within their confines, and you shall be safe until the Noise is muted. The Deep Rivers Society shan't attack you so long as you remain under my protection. We are only here to battle the Noise, not you."
That sounded...almost nice of her. For someone who had tried to literally murder him over fandom merchandise the day before, anyway. Except Rindo knew that something was going to get in this cage anyway. But from where? The electric bars stretched to the sky.
"Odd function!"
"Gwarghgark!" she exclaimed, spinning around to see none other than Minamimoto. Her harried expression softened into a slack-jawed stare, "C-Could it be?...L-L-L—"
"If you really want to crunch things down to size, then start with that zeptogram's Soul!" he barked, pointing at Rindo.
She blinked. "P-Pardon?"
"We need to reduce his eigenvector before it passes the event horizon!" Minamimoto cut in. "That latent psych of yours—use it. Step into his mind and subtract his eigenvector into a fraction of itself But only reduce! Not erase!"
A terrified screech ripped out of Rindo's throat, as he tried to hide behind Fret.
"R-R-Reduce the...eigenvector?" she asked, mouth bent into an uncertain squiggle. "I-I-I would do anything Your R-Radiance asked, b-b-but I-I'm afraid I don't understand the request."
'Your Radiance? What the hell? Did these two know each other already? Had Minamimoto been secretly working with her behind their backs? Could...Could he not trust Minamimoto either?
"Hmph. I can join you in the convergence, and then I can fully demonstrate my theorem." As she kept blankly staring at him, he huffed. "I'll go with you into his mind, odd function. Just follow my formula."
At this declaration, she seemed almost...delighted? But she paused to study Rindo's fearful eyes. "But it seems your teammate is u-unwilling to be part of your 'theorem'? Yet...h-how could I decline a mission from L-L-Lord..."
Rindo trembled all over. Not just from the fear though. He felt...cold?
"C-C'mon buddy, I know it's scary, but you're gonna 4-2-1 or whatever otherwise, and that girl seems happy to help you out, so..." Fret tried to reassure Rindo. "So it's not like we have...much of a choice..." Fret's hand gripped his chest while gazing at the ground.
"Fret?" asked Rindo.
The girl's gaze snapped back toward Fret. Despite Rindo's terror, he found himself shuffling between Fret and the girl, glaring. Because Rindo wasn't gonna let her jump into Fret's mind either.
"What ails you now?" she asked, watching Fret with a concerned frown.
"I feel...weird?" mumbled Fret, eyes drooping. "Like my heart's trying to cook me from the inside out? W-What about you, Rindude?"
"...Yeah, actually?" What was this weird, ugly heat in his chest? But Rindo didn't feel tired anymore? Unlike Fret, whose body sagged forward a little more. If anything, Rindo felt more energized than ever? But that was strange. Being synced meant that they should have been equally sharing the energy, right? "But I feel...better, I think?" Whoa, why was his voice full of echoes and...static?
But Rindo needed more, even with all this excess energy from Fret coursing through him. He needed more...more everything. He needed more or he would collapse from within and turn into a black hole of panic.
"Gwaaaaahgeglegegle! H-Heavens, what horrendously incomprehensible feelings are these?"
Incomprehensible? Incomprehensible to her, maybe. Fear, need, overwhelming loneliness…
Minamimoto snarled. "Sum of a binomial. It's already started!"
…Love?
"Rindude...Rindo..."
"Zeptogram No. 1! Is this what you want?"
"I...I..." Rindo could still feel Fret's crushing guilt, but he also sensed growing fear. Did...Did Fret want to leave? Now?
Help. Help me, Fret! But all that came out of Rindo's throat was a strange warbling and the occasional squawk. Help help help help help. Rindo couldn't speak and he was trapped and he couldn't get out and he had to get out and please he didn't want to be alone, he couldn't be alone, and Fret was right there but—
"Uh, R-Rindo?"
—But it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Fret being close by wasn't enough, and the sync wasn't enough, because now his skin burned like it was being branded from the inside out. And his back throbbed and throbbed as his heart raced and raced, and he doubled over as something in his back writhed and twisted and stretched his back until—
Rindo screamed as his heart and back burst open. He heard Fret scream in terror too. A horrified wail from her. Even more frightened and confused shrieks somewhere behind her: the rest of DRS, mouths agape in shock.
Panting, Rindo shuddered as air flowed over whatever things had been burrowed in his back before. He glanced over his shoulder, even though he was scared. What would he see?
Wings. Two pairs. The first pair were black skeletal bat-like wings, about as long as his arm. The same kind of wings he had seen on the figures in the tarot cards. The other, smaller pair were blue and bird-like, slightly glowing, though each feather was made of...tattoos? Were the bat wings made of tattoos too then?
Was...Was Rindo turning into a Noise? How?
"W-What the hell?" Fret stammered out, backing away.
And why did Rindo almost feel...good? Maybe because his heart wasn't rushing against his chest like before. The torrid feeling was still there, unrelenting, but it almost felt wonderful now. And his back didn't hurt anymore, so that helped.
A low trill bubbled out of his throat. Blue lines bled up from his skin and began weaving themselves over him, starting with blotches on his hands. Rindo watched with wonder and fear as they infected his full hand and transfigured fingers to talons. Then the color burrowed up his arms, sharp feathers sprouting along the way.
A new spike of panic. Not enough not enough not—
His gaze snapped to Fret.
"Uh, h-hold on..." Fret tried to back up away from Rindo only to get zapped by the electric wire behind him. "W-What're you—" He whined, gripping his heart as his eyes squeezed shut.
What was Rindo doing? He didn't want this! He needed this, but he didn't want this! But his body turned toward Fret anyway.
Fret stared, shaking, one hand clutching his chest. Then his eyes darted to the side. And he turned away from Rindo. "Mr. Minami! Help me!"
Rage flared up in Rindo. Why was Fret calling for someone other than him? Fret was his! Fret had chosen this by syncing with him! Rindo bared his talons and—
No, I don't want this! thought Rindo, even as he lunged.
Yup, evil cliffhanger is evil.
ALSO fun fact, but when you get a bad fortune, you're supposed to pin it to a pine tree, so that the pine tree (matsu) absorbs the bad luck instead. This what Fret was talking about.
Thank you to Petalene on the Nano forums for the actual tarot readings!
Like most of my NEO fics, this fic is named after a pin. I find it especially interesting that a pin called Discordance isn't an attacking pin at all, but instead boosts groove.