Warnings for eventual Decode spoilers, canon divergence post-Frontier, character death, memory loss.

Part One – Everything is a Blur

Shinomiya Rina was born on the first anniversary of Orimoto Izumi's death. By themselves, both events were perfectly harmless, if evoking different emotions. Together, maybe someone notices a pattern.

No, that's unlikely. It's much too coincidental.

Then again, the Digital World thrives on the magic of coincidence and good timing.

Shinomiya Rina loved the summer. It gave her an excuse to go to the beach and practice in her swimsuit. It gave her an excuse to fly a kite and run after school and not care what the world thinks. Not that she tended to anyway. She put her brush down and grinned at the mirror, making to leave the room as quickly as possible.

"Rina, your shirt!" V.V.'s voice shattered her excitement from the Digimon app and she pouted, red eyes dancing beneath messy green locks.

"Do I gotta," she said at him in a whine, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "C'mon V.V., it's warm out, right? I can go without it!"

"You cannot!' he hollered back, making the phone shake on its charger. "You have boys looking at you in the summer, don't you dare! Your mom would kill me."

Rina huffed again, squinting at the blue and white face of the V-mon on screen. He of course, squinted right back.

These were the days that she wondered if it was worth being able to hear Digimon through the barriers of space and time. Other days she absolutely loved it.

With reluctance, she pulled on her shirt and grabbed her phone, running to leave her apartment with a cheerful yell to her mom. Something about picking up groceries or whatever, she had no idea. Oh well. What did it matter? She had battles to win, games to play!

If you asked Izumi how she would die at the age of eighteen, she would freely say: exam stress, and leave it at that.

She hadn't expected it to be via a murderer in a hooded outfit.

Then again, considering her childhood, maybe she should have. But it was too late to wonder now as the blood poured out and felt sleep pull her down.

Down, down down.

Rina had always had an aversion to alleyways.

Not that she didn't use them, but she never liked staying in them for very long. Like now, her boots were jumping from spot to spot faster than her usual pace of blindingly impossible.

All it made her think of was red-coated metal, a darker shade than her eyes. Or a chilling cold made worse by the rain. Overwhelming sensations, empty ones, it was full of those paradox elements. So she tried never to linger for too long in them as a result.

Of course, she was in such a hurry to get through this one in particular that she missed the hooded figure watching her from the other side. He licked up the last crumbs of his chocolate cake and pulled out his phone.

"Tomoki?" he chirped. "Tomoki, I found her! I know I did!"

There were things the Digital World did that no one could understand. It brought its children back to life to start anew and full of hope. It created fantastical monsters and expected peace and good to always reign. It told stories of fragile humans holding great power and reforming what might have been left broken.

Those stories tended to buzz in Shinomiya Rina's dreams.

V.V. didn't help, telling her of the old books and stories he read when he wasn't practicing for the battles or the coliseum or anything fun. Then again, she liked to read too. Some of the time.

She passed by a store window full of television screens and froze. Each screen was covered in static. For a moment or so, she could only stare at them, the sound growing louder and louder, cloaking her ears. A gentle thud of steps made her freeze, until a hand touched her shoulder. Rina jumped and spun, eyes bright with alarm. Then, after a few seconds, her shoulders slumped.

"Oh… it's just you." She relaxed fully and beamed, like she hadn't done anything weird herself. "Hey, Niko."

Niko raised one blond eyebrow. "Just me? That hurts." He placed a hand over his chest. "Feeling it right here."

This display only caused Rina to grin wider. "Aw, you know what I mean." She clapped a hand on his shoulder, causing him to grunt. "What are you doin' following me anyway?"

He flicked her nose, grinning despite himself. She tended to wrangle that out of him somehow, heaven knew how. "You check your email this morning?"

"No," she said, falling into step beside him as he started walking. "I never check it until after I get to the arcade. My phone charges in the mornings. Why look at your phone when you're movin'?"

Niko shrugged. "True, I guess." His eyes kept traveling over her, lips pursed in slight confusion. It was probably the shirt. V.V. was wrong; wearing extra layers didn't stop people from staring. Was easier to get around though. "Taiga and I got a weirdo email to our Digimon accounts last night. He said Akiho and Yuuya did too, but there wasn't a name that we knew on it."

"You didn't delete it?" She saw the arcade only a short few meters away. The others were probably there. She wished she could remember how they met, if only to be able to make up embarrassing stories. But, well, she couldn't. And wasn't that the rub? First meetings were important, something in her gut whispered that over and over. First meetings, new beginnings, they were so necessary.

She rubbed her head, staving off a potential migraine. Because those were not fun at all.

Niko seemed to notice and pulled her hood over her head to block out the sun. "Tried. It popped right back. I forwarded it to my dad. He was actually home."

Rina patted her cheeks to keep the pink off of them before looking over. "Wait, the workaholic was home? Stop the presses."

Niko gave her a weak glare. He really wasn't able to refute that, like it or not. Even though for some reason he had been home more often over the past few months he was still very busy, and well, it was hard to keep unwanted resentment from spilling out from any and all of them. "His assistants told him that if he came in today, they would lock his office." he cracked a smile at the image.

Rina only grinned wider. "Yeah, security is mean, huh?"

"They don't like being called on their days off," Niko told her in a conspiratorial whisper. Rina laughed and laughed as they entered the cool air of the arcade. He craned his neck (making Rina mentally grumble about a severe lack of height), and pointed. "There they are. Can spot pink and barely fixed bedhead a kilometer away."

Rina laughed, waving at the other three.

Then her phone started to beep, along with so many others. To be precise, every child's Digimon app began to beep. Loudly.

Rina held hers up and a strange symbol, almost like a warped star, pulsed black over red and white.

The static filled her ears again and not even Niko's voice and shaking her shoulders was enough to make it go away.

"Hello, Warrior of Wind," whispered a voice that hurt her stomach. "The third time is the charm. We need you."

A/N: I blame a remi for this. She's the one who gave me the earlier plot bunny and this just came first. I know she wanted me to write more Frontier, but really! This one's absurd. Hehe. Anyway. Please let me know what you think, especially as it goes on.

Challenges: Ultimate Sleuth 0.6 - write about a call for help, AU Diversity Boot Camp - prompt 26: clover (reincarnation AU), Diversity Writing Challenge J5. Write a fic with exactly 15 chapters, and Prompts In Steps 5.01 - gracious.