Perhaps, as I’ve walked this journey and been pierced with the warm and familiar lances of what it means to be a friend, the character of Rin Natsume, like those of Komari and Kud, has grown on me. I’ve said it before, and it rang true even more when I dove into Rin2: the Little Busters are more than characters than characters to me. They are more than reflections of myself. They are truly like my actual friends, that I care about and miss deeply when they aren’t around. This cast, moreso than any others, feel so real to me.
Rin was admittedly my least favorite character at first. She was physically abusive toward Masato and had nothing to offer my narrative interests that the other characters could not. I think she hit me in a low place, representing my faults moreso than my neutral or positive traits. This applies to lots of people, I’m aware, but I just so happened to be one of them. Thankfully, her violence is restrained to the common route, and her true character is fleshed out during the route. I wonder, why is Rin the way she is? Was she born with this inability to communicate to lead, or is it all a result of her past trauma?
Here it is, the rainfall that finally pounds the Earth from the darkened skies above. Kengo, the mystery, the enigma, reveals his true power in this route. In the first common route, Kengo wants nothing to do with baseball, and spends all his time in the kendo club. Then, in the second common, he gets the entire part with saving Koshiki and then decides to give the Busters his all. He, like Riki, has just been slowly unraveling into a character just as important as Kyousuke or Masato. I knew I wasn’t going to be let down by this loyal friend of mine.
Continuing from Rin1, Rin hates going to the new school, and Riki is at a loss for what to do. He is defeated at every turn, as the Hydra continues to regrow its many sinister heads and blocks his path. One of Rin’s cats is old and Kyousuke espouses to Riki the importance of accepting loss, oddly mirroring the recent loss of my own beloved pet, which ironically Little Busters helped me deal with. We get Rin and Sasami of all people having a spark of understanding as Sasami gives Rin her glove, as Rin’s is torn from obviously going through multiple timelines. 
After a bit of running around, the shadow reveals itself to be none other than Kyousuke, cradling Lennon in his arms in the dark of the night, and speaking of ‘the secret of the world’. It was all a game; nay, a test, from Kyousuke to his sister and Riki. To help others, to establish a foundation for life, and to put the needs of others above your own. Not for your own gain, but for the happiness of others.
Then we come to the climax of this story. Kengo stands with Riki against Kyousuke’s plan. Masato stands with Kyousuke, though he is incredibly reluctant and upset about it. Riki, for some odd reason, believes that getting a home run on Kyousuke will somehow compel him to bring Rin back from the sister school. For the first time, this web of steel snaps, and the Busters, the very definition of unity to me, is broken. Riki places no faith in himself and instead has Kengo bat for him, and Kengo sadly misses. This is not important, so much as Kengo’s reaction. It was a shock to see him explode the way he did, and basically tackle Kyousuke to the ground in absolute rage the likes of which had yet to be seen in the game by anybody. Kengo, the blue to Masato’s red, the calm and collected kendo god, succumbing to his emotions and letting them control his actions, left me in awe. Then, Kyousuke stands up and declares the game called, as Riki fears him to be the messiah himself, his shirt being torn at the side where Longinus stabbed Jesus, whose blood healed Longinus’ blindness.
From here, Riki decides to take Rin and simply run far away, ignoring the advice of Kengo whom Riki sees as his only ally. They go primal, and admittedly the route loses my interest here. At the Natsume’s grandfather’s house, Riki does all the work despite his narcolepsy, while Rin lounges around and gathers mouths that Riki cannot feed. I hated Rin here. She simply places burden on Riki for no reason, and then whines when there are not enough resources to sustain them. Slowly, surely, the thread dangles further and further, until Riki runs into (and away) from the police officer who is merely doing his job. This leads to the couple being captured, and the next scene is Riki alone in the classroom, lamenting his poor plan and the loss of Rin who is now alone as well. The field trip gets mentioned, and here my theory was solidified as I unsheathe the cold sword and walk into the battlefield of Refrain.
This is the main problem with the route. Rin and Riki are not in a romantic relationship. They are friends who are locked in a fantasy because they don’t know any better, and cannot crawl from the cave and into the light of the painful world. Only when it is forced on them far too soon than when they are ready is the ugly, dirty truth of the world shown in its angelic light. Perhaps if Rin was a little more considerate of the situation, rather than still being dependent on Riki, it would be a much more tolerable route for me. The entire game we’ve been leading up to the two of them needing development, but here it has yet to show.
