It was quiet in the art museum; a peaceful quiet where people could admire the art and actually hear their own thoughts. Ryou and Chigusa, the players behind Haseo and Atoli on The World R:2, were here on one of their "dates". He was really here because she dragged him along to see a new exhibit, and he didn't want to let her down. Besides, he owed her, so there wasn't much he could do anyway.
"Look, there it is!" she whispered, motioning in the direction of a large mirror embedded within a marble frame. On the stone was an unreadable text of gibberish, but the mirror was clear as a diamond. Ryou glanced at the plaque beside it, reading the inscription.
"The Shin no Tamashī mirror was located in southern-most Mikura-Jima by a group of exploring teenagers on a field trip. It is said that the mirror was created in the Edo period by a farmer who wanted to show his wife he loved her but died in a storm. The mirror is supposed to show the looker's truest self, no matter what that form might be."
What a load of crap, Ryou frowned and looked at Chigusa, who was absolutely taken by the mirror. He could see the joy and wonder sparkling in her eyes, so he kept quiet.
"Do you think it actually shows your truest self?" she asked him. Ryou gave her a confused look and shook his head. She wilted a bit, and he felt the guilt set in. She was one of the only people that could do this, he swears to himself.
"Well...Ya know, let's look anyway." he waved his head for her to move so he could get a look, and she smiled again. The moment he looked into the flawless glass of the mirror, he knew something was wrong. His eyes were too savage looking to actually be his, and a slight tinge of red danced and swirled in them. Ryou was surprised but didn't voice it. Chigusa drew in a sharp breath. Did she see what he saw? Or was she witnessing something else?
After a few cries of the couple to move for the next people to look in, Chigusa and Ryou snapped back and hurriedly headed to the courtyard adjourning the room. The moment they got outside, Chigusa fidgeted and looked a bit nervous; Ryou frowned at some people in the mirror room giving him dirty looks.
"Ryou...did you see something weird in the mirror?" Chigusa quietly asked, twiddling her thumbs as she sat down on a stone bench by a trashcan. Ryou sat next to her, crossing his arms and nodding. She made a perplexed look, and Ryou scoffed.
"It was probably nothing. Don't let it ruin your day, Chigusa," he said. Ryou laughed internally, knowing that he did see something, and she didn't imagine it either. It's not like he had answers for any questions she might have over it, so they silently agreed not to mention it for the rest of the time they were at the museum. Every time they'd go past the room, however, they both caught themselves staring at it, maybe hoping to see what it was that they saw once more.
They left around 3:36 in the afternoon, since Chigusa had to take the train back home, and she wanted to make it by curfew. She thanked him for the wonderful day and headed in the direction of the train station. Ryou gave an over-the-shoulder wave as he headed back to his apartment. When he got there, he frowned at the ajar front door.
"Hello?" he asked as he headed in, slipping his black sneakers off and leaving them in the foyer. A man in a black leather jacket with a red scarf over his bleached hair peeked around the corner from the living room. He grinned widely and walked up to Ryou with a can of Pokka™ vanilla coffee.
"Hey man, heard you took Chigusa to the museum, lover boy!" he chuckled, and handed Ryou the can," By the way, find a better place to hide your keys, it was too easy to pick these up!"
"Ikeda, shut up." Ryou sat down at the dining table as the man, Yuudai Ikeda, sat next to him. Ryou had known Ikeda since he had his first year of high school. It was actually Ikeda that introduced him to The World R:2 after he had played the previous version.
"Aww, did I make you mad, Mr. Hero?" Ikeda popped the can open and pointed towards Ryou's room, "You have an email in The World, by the way. Quite a bit, actually; it's been going off since I got here three hours ago."
Ryou grunted and headed towards his room, dumping his furred jacket on his bed before sitting down in the black swivel chair. Putting on the M2D, he heard the familiar ping of a new message and the hum of unread ones. Ikeda wasn't lying, which was strange since it was one of his greatest skills. Ryou picked up the controller and clicked on the mailer, revealing about 30 new messages in total, ranging from Pai, Aina, Gaspard, and even Natsume, who had never contacted him before. He decided to read Pai's first, just in case it was really important, which about 75% of the time, it was.
Suddenly, the M2D went blank, and Ryou jumped. Slipping them off, the monitor now showed the menu screen instead of it being in the goggles. Turning with an annoyed expression, he saw Ikeda fiddling with the viewing controls on the keyboard.
"What are you doing, man?" Ryou deadpanned as Ikeda waved at him, chewing on some dried squid.
"I wanna see your secrets, rookie. It's not every day you end up in the presence of the Terror of Death on a mission." Ikeda smirked, making Ryou roll his eyes and turn back to the screen. It was futile to try and get Ikeda to listen, it's just the way he is.
Ryou re-opened the letter from Pai since he had exited it when Ikeda switched the viewing. He had now pulled up a chair to watch, and Ryou contemplated how fast he could get him out of the apartment...
Sender: Pai
Subject: At The Utmost Urgency
Message: Haseo, this has gotten out of hand, and we need you to come to Net Slum as soon as possible. Gabi, Zelkova, and the remaining G.U. members are already here awaiting your entrance.
Ryou's eyes widened and he read the next message, this one from Atoli. It reiterated what Pai said, saying to hurry to Net Slum with the other former GU members and the Guild Masters. The one from Kuhn was the same, along with Endrance's, Sakubo's, and Yata's. Ryou hit 'mark all as read', and entered The World. He quickly hit LOG IN, transporting him to Lumina Cloth.
Ryou didn't even bother to examine his surroundings when he got there, though how much it would have helped would be unknown for now. He keyed up the chaos Gate menu and headed for Net Slum. Silently, Ikeda launched The World on his portable and put his M2D on. If Ryou was in a hurry, at least Ikeda could scrounge up the problem himself, or what he could.
"Haseo, there you are!" Pai strode up to him, an anxious and exhausted tone in her voice. Endrance, who was staring at the instant Ramen maker at the item kiosk whipped his head in Haseo's direction. A smile spread across his beautiful face, and he followed Pai up to him.
"I was worried it got you as well." he looked at Haseo with love in his eyes, but Ryou tried to ignore it and figure out why they were speaking so cryptically. Before he could ask anything, Endrance grabbed his hand and pulled him through the sliding doors to the main area of Net Slum. Atoli was nervously rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet while Kuhn paced by the broken TVs. The moment they saw him, they looked in the direction of the Tartarga control room.
"Yata wants to speak to you, Haseo," Pai spoke from the double doors, and Haseo nodded, following the other three into the control room where they saw Yata, Gabi, Zelkova, and Antares standing around the spinning ouroboros platform.
"Hey, kid." Antares turned to look at Haseo walking in. Yata looked over his shoulder but said nothing as he pulled up footage of a castle dungeon. Haseo raised an eyebrow, as any footage of a field never showed good occurrences. He wasn't prepared for what he saw, and neither were the others eavesdropping at the door.
It was near the chaos gate, and nothing was out of the ordinary, besides a couple of obviously hacked player characters meandering around the room. The White noise began to fill the room, and the two players began to take notice. They turned to see a hole in the data slowly growing larger and larger until the entire was covered in the hole. A hand, covered in black armor and spikes ripped through one of the players like paper, and they turned gray instantly. The hand slowly clawed a bigger entrance in the hole until another hand was seen pulling apart the rift in it. The player still alive was frantically trying to revive their comrade, but they lied there quietly, with a horribly pained expression on their face.
A sound as loud as cannon fire resounded in the room as the most deformed and terrifying player character lunged out of the rift and tore the final player apart. There were screams of mercy, but the monster didn't listen. The silence, when it came, was defining as the monster looked up in the direction of the camera. Haseo's breath hitched when he saw its face.
It was his own.