Most people wouldn’t get a feeling of deja vu when they woke up in an unfamiliar place with nothing but the skateboard under their arm and the clothes on their backs. Daisukenojo Bito, known as Beat to just about anyone who he could convince to call him by the much shorter nickname, had had a few very crazy weeks in his life three years ago, so his first reaction, rather than freaking out, was to sigh, sit up, dust himself off, and check his cell phone. “This is wack, yo…” he muttered to himself as the device failed to ring, the “no signal” symbol in the top right corner of the screen making him wonder if this had anything to do with Joshua and his stupid Game after all. Say what you will about the UG, but it had good service. You couldn’t do anything with it, being dead and all, but the Reapers sent out missions that way.
That was one more in a plethora of things pointing towards this not being the Reaper’s Game; he didn’t remember dying, and he definitely wasn’t getting any missions with his phone on the fritz like this. His surroundings weren’t the Shibuya he was familiar with. There were some superficial similarities on the surface, but the scramble crossing he woke up in was in the middle of a ruined city, collapsed buildings and tough, overgrown weeds dominating the view instead of the tall skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. He’d never been here; the ruins were vastly different from Shibuya. Even with everything in disarray like this, with everything collapsed like the ground had slowly fallen out from under it, Q-Floor and 104 had distinctive shapes that he should recognize, and he couldn’t spot them in the rubble.
A quick inventory of his pockets revealed the pins he’d carried on him since the last Game. Neku might have been some kind of psych wizard, but Beat could only use two pins to defend himself from the Noise in the UG. Sure, the skull-branded Player Pin was pretty on-theme with his style, and the Shockwave pin was so generic it didn’t raise any eyebrows, but the Natural Puppy pin that rounded out the trio was definitely more Rhyme’s style than his. Beat flipped the Player Pin into the air like a coin and caught it as it fell, trying to scan, but he didn’t feel the familiar sensation of his mind opening to any minds that may or may not be around him, and no Noise made themselves apparent with the familiar motion, either.
“Man… this definitely isn’t the kind of Game I’m used to,” Beat muttered, but he pulled a familiar green wristband from his pocket and pinned the Shockwave and Love Me Tether pins to it anyway. Odds were good he couldn’t actually use Psychs if he was still in the RG, and even if he were in the UG he’d be partnerless and powerless until he found someone to Pact with, but, stranded in an unfamiliar place and unnerved by the lack of any sounds around him, he at least felt better with the hypothetical ability to defend himself.
All this thinking was definitely more Rhyme’s thing than his. Five minutes by himself and he was already getting stuck in his own head, what was up with that? Sucking in a deep breath, Beat shouted at the top of his lungs; ”IS ANYBODY OUT THERE, YO?” For a moment, only the silence of the city and the echo of his own voice answered back. Then all Hell broke loose. He could feel something grating against the raw, sensitive surfaces of his psyche that he remembered using to Scan during the game, waves of agony, pulses of intermittent rage and sadness that weren’t his. A psychic scream from something powerful, something Important with a capital I. It felt like Joshua, but not quite the same; something like Shibuya’s Composer, but not the arrogant young man he’d met while saving Neku’s bacon from the Noise during their second game, when he’d been acting as a Harrier Reaper under Kitaniji.
“Man, what the hell?” Beat ground out, holding his hands against the sides of his head, crouching down and trying to ride out the psychic wave of whatever it was that was causing this. At first he thought he was blacking out, but when he shifted to try and lean against some of the nearby rubble to support himself and the dark spots didn’t move, he realized something fucky was going on in the world around him, too. Black patches of nothingness started to creep over the ground, and Beat didn’t want to think about what might happen to him if he fell into one of them. He kicked his board up under his arm and started to run for it, moving out of the mostly-clear crossing and into the ruined city proper as the sound of the psychic scream slowly petered out, replaced by a more varied chorus of normal screams carried on the air. They sounded pitifully quiet after the mental assault perpetrated on Beat’s thinking meats by whatever passed for a Composer around here, but he definitely recognized the sound of mortal terror. He’d heard it more than a few times, during the Reaper’s Game.
Beat was moving towards the screams before he really had time to think about it. Nobody was getting Erased on his watch if he had anything to say about it. Just the thought of it made him remember that shark taking a bite out of his little sister, the memory enough to make an icy pit of terror form in his stomach. He’d gotten Rhyme sucked into the last Game too by not being able to save her from that car. He didn’t know if she was here, but he hoped with all his heart she was safe at their house where he’d seen her last, chilling on her computer and mixing her latest track. He never wanted her to have to hear whatever that psychic scream was, and he definitely didn’t want her involved in whatever was making all these other people start screaming, either.
He couldn’t just run away from this, though. He had to see what was happening, he had to help. If Rhyme was here, she’d be running to the exact same place as he was; the place where people needed help. He threw his board onto the ground and stepped onto it, kicking off the ground to pick up speed and hurtling down the straightaway, weaving around bits of fallen rubble and holes in reality at a breakneck pace, as the screams grew more distinct and were joined by the sounds of grinding metal and breaking stonework.
"Please don't be here," Beat practically begged under his breath as he hopped up onto a straight pipe and used it to grind over one of the strange gaps in reality. "You gotta be safe at home this time, Rhyme, please."
That was one more in a plethora of things pointing towards this not being the Reaper’s Game; he didn’t remember dying, and he definitely wasn’t getting any missions with his phone on the fritz like this. His surroundings weren’t the Shibuya he was familiar with. There were some superficial similarities on the surface, but the scramble crossing he woke up in was in the middle of a ruined city, collapsed buildings and tough, overgrown weeds dominating the view instead of the tall skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. He’d never been here; the ruins were vastly different from Shibuya. Even with everything in disarray like this, with everything collapsed like the ground had slowly fallen out from under it, Q-Floor and 104 had distinctive shapes that he should recognize, and he couldn’t spot them in the rubble.
A quick inventory of his pockets revealed the pins he’d carried on him since the last Game. Neku might have been some kind of psych wizard, but Beat could only use two pins to defend himself from the Noise in the UG. Sure, the skull-branded Player Pin was pretty on-theme with his style, and the Shockwave pin was so generic it didn’t raise any eyebrows, but the Natural Puppy pin that rounded out the trio was definitely more Rhyme’s style than his. Beat flipped the Player Pin into the air like a coin and caught it as it fell, trying to scan, but he didn’t feel the familiar sensation of his mind opening to any minds that may or may not be around him, and no Noise made themselves apparent with the familiar motion, either.
“Man… this definitely isn’t the kind of Game I’m used to,” Beat muttered, but he pulled a familiar green wristband from his pocket and pinned the Shockwave and Love Me Tether pins to it anyway. Odds were good he couldn’t actually use Psychs if he was still in the RG, and even if he were in the UG he’d be partnerless and powerless until he found someone to Pact with, but, stranded in an unfamiliar place and unnerved by the lack of any sounds around him, he at least felt better with the hypothetical ability to defend himself.
All this thinking was definitely more Rhyme’s thing than his. Five minutes by himself and he was already getting stuck in his own head, what was up with that? Sucking in a deep breath, Beat shouted at the top of his lungs; ”IS ANYBODY OUT THERE, YO?” For a moment, only the silence of the city and the echo of his own voice answered back. Then all Hell broke loose. He could feel something grating against the raw, sensitive surfaces of his psyche that he remembered using to Scan during the game, waves of agony, pulses of intermittent rage and sadness that weren’t his. A psychic scream from something powerful, something Important with a capital I. It felt like Joshua, but not quite the same; something like Shibuya’s Composer, but not the arrogant young man he’d met while saving Neku’s bacon from the Noise during their second game, when he’d been acting as a Harrier Reaper under Kitaniji.
“Man, what the hell?” Beat ground out, holding his hands against the sides of his head, crouching down and trying to ride out the psychic wave of whatever it was that was causing this. At first he thought he was blacking out, but when he shifted to try and lean against some of the nearby rubble to support himself and the dark spots didn’t move, he realized something fucky was going on in the world around him, too. Black patches of nothingness started to creep over the ground, and Beat didn’t want to think about what might happen to him if he fell into one of them. He kicked his board up under his arm and started to run for it, moving out of the mostly-clear crossing and into the ruined city proper as the sound of the psychic scream slowly petered out, replaced by a more varied chorus of normal screams carried on the air. They sounded pitifully quiet after the mental assault perpetrated on Beat’s thinking meats by whatever passed for a Composer around here, but he definitely recognized the sound of mortal terror. He’d heard it more than a few times, during the Reaper’s Game.
Beat was moving towards the screams before he really had time to think about it. Nobody was getting Erased on his watch if he had anything to say about it. Just the thought of it made him remember that shark taking a bite out of his little sister, the memory enough to make an icy pit of terror form in his stomach. He’d gotten Rhyme sucked into the last Game too by not being able to save her from that car. He didn’t know if she was here, but he hoped with all his heart she was safe at their house where he’d seen her last, chilling on her computer and mixing her latest track. He never wanted her to have to hear whatever that psychic scream was, and he definitely didn’t want her involved in whatever was making all these other people start screaming, either.
He couldn’t just run away from this, though. He had to see what was happening, he had to help. If Rhyme was here, she’d be running to the exact same place as he was; the place where people needed help. He threw his board onto the ground and stepped onto it, kicking off the ground to pick up speed and hurtling down the straightaway, weaving around bits of fallen rubble and holes in reality at a breakneck pace, as the screams grew more distinct and were joined by the sounds of grinding metal and breaking stonework.
"Please don't be here," Beat practically begged under his breath as he hopped up onto a straight pipe and used it to grind over one of the strange gaps in reality. "You gotta be safe at home this time, Rhyme, please."
