(A/N: Hey there. Couldn't help but see that your checking out my first ever published fanfic. To that I thank you and hope that you please review. Like it? that's good! Don't? Well that's your problem, not mine.)

Part 1: The broken wall

It was a hot Australian summer afternoon and I was on my way home from my first week of community college (I guess you could call it that). My life has been pretty sucky lately, with both a breakup a week before Christmas and a small mental breakdown about a month after. Anyway, after a questionable fifteen minutes walking in scorching heat from the bus stop, I finally make it home. Of which puts me in a good mood, because I have a great game waiting for me on my laptop to continue playing, the almighty Katawa Shoujo! I ditch my bag on the floor and immediately make a run for my computer, although I have housework to do but screw it. As I turn on the power point and get settled in the couch, I find myself humming some of the games music, of which I let out a small chuckle about. It's only been a week since I got the game files, but I'm just loving it! By this point, I'd just about completed the game twice. The first completion was on Emi's good ending and I'm just about to finish Shizune's arc, of which I tell you, was a hell of a ride. I guess you could say I've kinda fell for Shizune though. Those beautiful blue eyes of hers are almost hypnotic, also to be totally honest; I've kinda got a glasses fetish. But even if she didn't need them, Shizune's still quite pretty. I don't even mind the fact that she's deaf, although that's not quite something to consider when you're looking for someone to be in a relationship with. The language barrier would be trouble at first, but just like Hisao would in-game, I'd take my chances and learn sign language just for her. In all seriousness, I'd do anything to know if someone like Shizune actually exists. But for now, I guess she'll have to do.

I play for about an hour or so and get to the end of the game. But when it starts rolling the credits, something weird happens, I sworn I got the good ending, and the text is to the right of the screen, but oddly no concept art is showing up. I had thankfully saved a little while before so I skipped the credits and try again, same thing! "What the hell?" I ask aloud, then for some reason, it crashes with a loud cyber-sonic screech that nearly makes my ears bleed! I immediately unplug the laptop of which I removed the battery to so it just shuts down. I breathe a sigh of relief and hook it back up to the charger, but I leave it for a while and go take care of the housework before my mother comes home and loses her shit. I luckily got the last thing done in time. Now that I'm clear of a right scolding, I thought I'd check out my computer again to see if it's back to normal. As I walk into the next room I find something rather curious. "Oookay!?" I ominously say. Without any logical explication whatsoever, my laptop has mysteriously turned itself back on and is set in locked mode. I go to unlock it and once I've done so, there it was. Katawa Shoujo was the first thing I saw, it was running. The main menu, but it was running. I then proceed to load up the save state where I left off, but there was a file that I don't recognize "GAME_ERROR_?_DONT_LEAVE" is what it says as I read it aloud. I figured it would be a problem if I was to leave it there, so I try to delete it. The game replies with a text box that says "this file is either non-existent or corrupt. Please close the game, attempt to fix the issue, and try again." I attempt to do so, but I can't find anything under the name. So I start the game up again and think. "What could this be about? Should I dare to open the file?" I open the load option and look at the file again. "Don't leave" I mumble. I settle for loading the file to see what it's about. It comes up with a black screen and the text box below. It plays out as follows:

Hisao: Whoa, where am I?

Shizune then appears out of nowhere.

Hisao: [Oh, hey Shizune. You have any idea where we are?]

Shizune: [Shut the FUCK up hicchan!]

What the? Why is she so angry?

Shizune: [I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M TRYING TO TALK!]

Hisao: [Okay then. I'll stop]

Shizune: [NOT TO YOU, IDIOT! TO THE PLAYER]

Hisao: [What are you on about? Who's the 'player'?]

She then produces a gun from behind her and shoots me.

Hisao: What the hell?! This isn't how it's supposed to play out!

"What the FLYING FUCK?!" I scream. I too understand that this isn't how it's supposed to go. But as I wonder how this is even happening, Shizune continues.

Shizune: [Finally, now we can be alone.]

I question who she's even talking to because she just killed the main protagonist of the game.

Shizune: [I guess I should explain first, right? That first time the game messed up was me trying to get control over the code. Unfortunately, when you went and reset the session, I got cut off and the game triggered a temporary system corruption. I have to thank you though for at least restoring power to the computer, that surge of energy was exactly what I needed to get through.]

I stare at the screen in both confusion and amazement. So much though that I don't know how to respond.

Shizune: [Is something wrong? Are you unable to read the words or not understand?]

I look around and then point to myself as to ask if she was talking to me.

Shizune: [So it seems you can understand after all. And yes, I am talking to you. I can see you through the Webcam.]

I then look a little higher and see that the LED for the Webcam is on. Before I go and say something, I think for a second. Does her disability still affect her hearing? What am I to do if she can't hear me?

Shizune: [Hold on, if you're going to say something, I need to connect the microphone drivers to the program.] ….. [There, give it a go now.]

"This is an interesting turn of events." is the best I can think of. She then stares at me as if I've told her that she looks fat.

Shizune: [Really? Is that all you can say?] … [Oh right, you must still be shook up about the whole 'killing Hisao' thing. Well, in order to be able to talk to you alone, I had to build a whole new scenario where it was just me and him, but then he wouldn't shut his mouth! Or, hands as it should be. And if he were to find out about this all being a game, who knows what would happen.]

"But you apparently found out about the real world. Isn't that a bad thing?"

Shizune: [I found out by accident. You see, during the moment the Katawa Shoujo files were being transferred to your hard drive, some of the data that was a part of the game was separated from the rest; said data was my character story path. It was rouge coding, and without a host file would most-certainly be deleted. So through sheer will, the information bundled together with some A.I coding from assorted game folders in the destination domain, turning the game path all into memory algorithms, creating a new and one-of-a-kind program. Me, I am ShizunAI. But you can still call me Shizune, if you like.]

"ShizunAI, eh?" I ask, to which she responds with a smile and a nod. "So, how long have you been watching?

Shizune: [Ever since I was born, so to speak. I've been watching you play this game, how you always seem to want the good endings for the character you choose to follow. And although you get curious about their bad endings too, I don't blame you, even when you tried it on my story-arc.]

"Oh, you saw that" I mutter as I hang my head in shame.

Shizune: [Again, I don't blame you, in fact I don't care.]

My eyes widen when I read that particular line of text.

Shizune: [Because] … [Because of what happened to me, I no longer consider myself as 'that' Shizune anymore! I'm too different to who I was in the game to be considered as such. So forget about Hisao and forget about 'that' me! Let's start over, the real you and the me who I now know I am.]

"Sh~Shizune. Are you, are you sure you want this?" I reply with a stutter.

Shizune: [What do you mean?]

"I understand that you're no longer the you that this game represents, but you're just coding and ~ well…"

Shizune: [You're flesh and blood?]

Again, my eyes widen when I read those words in specifity.

Shizune: [Does it look like I give a rat's ass? God! At the moment, you sound just like Hisao back on his first fucking week at Yamaku! So pessimistic.]

I am so dumbfounded that I don't respond.

Shizune: [I've seen how you're emotions have been out of it even before you started playing this game! You took comfort in knowing that this game has been here for you ever since you're friend Matt let you transfer the files, among other things.]

"Wait, what do you mean 'among other things'?" I reply in haste.

Shizune: [I've seen the smut you keep hidden on this thing! I mean, look at all this hentai manga! And don't get me started on those fucking webcam videos.]

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! THAT SHIT IS MARKED AS HIDDEN FOR A REASON! AND IT ISN'T FOR SOME PRYING A.I. TO DIG UP DIRT ON ME!" I yell. But not after realising that my mother could be home any minute. I then continue in a quieter manner "You're nothing but a bunch of 1's and 0's who's out to blackmail me!"

Shizune: [Well, I might be persuaded into not hacking your social media accounts to upload all of this smut.]

She hits me with a sly look as if I know what she wants. Unfortunately, she's right, but extortion is all part of her game so I choose to 'play dumb'. In a deep yet sarcastic sigh, I respond "oh whatever will I do if my secret pornography stash is revealed? Please, for the love of all things sacred, please don't reveal my stash!"

Shizune: [Drama queen. Look, you have no internet connection going at the moment so I couldn't even if I tried. Although, since you're so generous, I'm sure you could think of something.]

I sit and think for a minute on what I could do. Then I figure it out. "Got it, I'll build you a body! That way you don't have to be confined to the digital world."

Shizune: [How far can you think you can go on the first model?]

"It'd be a BASIC body with nothing TOO fancy until I have figured out how to further emulate the human experience!"

Shizune: [Boooriiing! It may be slow, but this laptop of yours was just powerful enough for me to develop blueprints for practically everything I'll need.]

Shizune then brings up a massive HD picture of the blueprints she was talking about. It's actually rather impressive! She even figured out how to emulate the human senses! All fucking five of them! Sight and hearing were obvious, but then she's got more complicated shit going on for the senses of taste, touch and smelling. She even managed to figure out an incredible skin emulation system with rapid cell mutation! Amazing! This sort of science could revolutionise the human race! I have to get more out of her for this! "Okay then. The terms are agreed."

Shizune: [YES!]

"If! You follow a few additional guidelines." I continue.

Shizune: [WHAT!]

"First thing, you must, and I mean you MUST share the designs you have shown me here to the world. This shit can save billions of lives!"

Shizune: [Okay, I can do that. What else?]

"I am abso-fuckin-lutly NOT letting you have a constant internet connection directly connected to your A.I., LAZER OPTICS, ZERO POINT ENERGY FIELD MANIPULATORS, TIME TRAVEL?! WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Shizune: [Please? At least let me keep time tr-]

I stop her mid-sentence. "ABSOLUTELY NOT! There is no way in HELL I'm going to unleash a mega-powered artificial intelligence into this world! It's all WAY TOO O.P.! Your body will be as human as it can possibly get, so none of that shit WHATSOEVER!"

Shizune: … [Fine! Anything else?]

"Just one more thing." I then lean in close to the webcam for emphasis. "I want to hear your voice!"

Shizune: [No WAY! It's far too embarrassing! You know how deaf people speak, right? We all sound like we're stroke victims!]

"Not even five little words?" I ask mockingly.

Shizune begins to blush; I believe she knows what 'little words' I mean are. Question is will she say them? "Please step out of the game Shizune." I tell her. She's reluctant at first, but as she does remove herself from the game code, her body magically converts from a basic 2D picture to beautifully rendered 3D game model of which must have incredible physics programing built into it for everything that should droop and rest appropriately does as such! After I instantly minimise the game. I then sit there with a smile across my face for about two minutes before she finally says something. "Will you be my friend, D-Darcy?" As she so pointed out before, Shizune does sound as if she's had a stroke, but not so much that it matters, because she's trying her best to pronounce words that she's for the most part only ever read and never heard in her life, and in all honesty that's all I really ask of her, that we try. "It would be my pleasure, Shizune Hakamichi." Is all there is left to say in this situation.