Ryou Misaki woke up to the sight of the open sky.

The only problem is that he remembered going to sleep at his bedroom.

Bringing up a hand to his face, he saw a scarily familiar glove.

In a panic, Ryou got up from the stone table he was lying at and yes, he was wearing his PC clothes, Haseo's clothes. Even his hair's white as his character's.

"What's going on?!" Haseo thought "Is this a dream? No, it's too realistic to be one. Maybe I am trapped in The World? But I don't remember logging in yesterday!"

While he was trying to figure out what the hell was happening, he didn't notice two beautiful girls, a blonde voluptuous elf and a taciturn black haired catgirl nearing him.

In fact, he only acknowledged their existence when they gave him a kiss in the cheeks.

"Uh?" blinked Haseo somewhat stupidly. If you put a hormonal teenager in his video game avatar body and bring him to an unknown place with two fantasy girls kissing him at the same time, how do you think he would react, uh?

Suddenly, Haseo felt some sort of force entering his body, nay his soul, trying to pervade his very being. Until a wall blocked it.

And the entity responsible for that wall wasn't very happy.

It was FURIOUS.

Translucent red markings surrounded Haseo's body while grunting in pain due to the reaction of his Epitaph against the alien power. Space temporarily distorting, mashing the digital against the analogical, data against matter.

"Arghhh!" with a shout, Haseo's body erupted with a pillar of red light that shoot towards the sky, tracing eye symbols made from mathematical equations and raw power and unleashing a strong wind in the tower that forced the two girls to guard themselves least they're blown up from the tower.

Soon, the light show receded and Haseo breaths heavily "The hell… was that?"

"Yay, I knew that I would do it! My very first summon and a good one to boot!" the elf girl exclaimed enthusiastically like she won the lottery, which isn't too far.

"That power…" murmured the catgirl in awe of the display that just happened in front of her "Wait, what do you mean with your summon?!"

"It's true! I summoned him myself!"

"You didn't! Besides, I made the contract!"

"Aah? No! I made it!"

"No you didn't, cow-breasted elf!"

"At least I have boobs, you flat-chested pantherian!"

"Why you…!"

While this cat fight ensued, Haseo was trying to make sense of what they were talking about. "Summon? Was I summoned from my world? And in Haseo's body? Like those novels? And what's that about a contract? Were they trying to control me!?"

'Darn right they did, kid.'

"Whoa, what the?" Haseo reacted to the sudden voice in his head.

'What? Forgot about me already? How cruel…' the voice said in fake hurt.

"Skeith… you're here too?" asked Haseo in relief. While he didn't know how his Epitaph was talking directly to him apart from that one time, at least he still had one of his most powerful abilities of his arsenal. Skeith, The Terror of Death. First Phase of the Cursed Wave of Morgana, Key of Twilight and the most powerful Avatar in The World.

'Yeah. Remember? You are me and I am you. Now seriously, you're lucky they brought you here with this body. Without me or the modifications in your PC, your real self would be now a rabid dog that mindlessly follows orders without any option. Not that I would like to be controlled by someone other than YOU at this point anyway. By the way, they're bickering over you, sound familiar?' if Skeith had a mouth, it would be grinning impishly.

"Ha, ha, very funny. Now we must know what is happening right now, remember?" thought Haseo with sarcasm.

'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' Skeith dismissed nonchalantly 'Doesn't seem they're going to stop soon.'

Now, while everyone knows that Haseo is a honest-to-God good guy, everyone also knows that he was an antisocial short-tempered jerkass at the beginning, and part of that temper also remains, promising to bring forth again due to the useless fight between the girls were having right now.

And that temper exploded.

"SHUT UP!" Haseo cried angrily "I don't know what's happening and don't care who's right or not! I was summoned against my will and I would like to return home. And we cannot do that if your fighting between yourselves, so shake hands, make peace with each other with each other or something! But stop bickering for the love of God!"

The two girls were surprised that a Summoned Beast was talking to them, even one so humanoid but shook it off quickly.

"It wasn't my fault! That bimbo-Urgh!" the pantherian froze suddenly.

"Who are you calling a bimbo?! I am- Urck!" the elf also suffered the same.

The girls hands were now nearing each other, against their will, freaking them.

And they had no option but to put on a strained smile, like they were doing something they hate with all their soul but were obliged by some unblockable force.

"I-I am sorry for calling you a bimbo."

"It's n-nothing. I shouldn't have called you flat-chested."

The awkwardness was so palpable in the air that even Haseo knew something weird was happening.

Then chokers appeared in the girls necks, making an expression of absolute terror.

"The Contract Collar, but how…?!"

"He should have been the Summoned Beast not us!"

Haseo only has a dumbfounded expression while Skeith was humming with amusement inside his head.

'This sounds funny, don't you think?'

And that's why you shouldn't summon The Terror of Death.

HNtsTToD

AN: Haseo is different from Diablo in different aspects. While both are considered the best players of their respective games at level 150, Haseo had to deal with life or death battles in a virtual reality game that can rival SAO's levels of lethality in some aspects while Takuma only played a normal MMO game without danger of having his psique damaged. And Diablo is a magical caster like Ainz while Haseo is a physical DPS like Kirito.

Diablo also needed his game persona to talk to other people, which gave him, while Haseo was his true self all time and knows more about personal relationships than pre-transition Takuma, which also could bring him some trouble due to his ham.

Doesn't mean he won't get flustered about ecchi shenanigans, only be more vocal about it.

Note to mention that the .hack verse has viruses and god-like data entities that could have destroyed the communication society and possibly the world in a manner reminiscent of Megaman Battle Network.

Digitalizing a huge amount of humanity is one of the most powerful feats there.

And while Haseo won't use Skeith so frequently, the First Phase can offer an amount of reality warping by partially substituting the real world by a digital one, digitalizing matter, offering access to The World Status menu and inventory, Data Drain…

However, because of being in a world without computers, Skeith's full hax potential is very limited, especially when there are not other Epitaphs giving him power like in Cubia's battle.

And Skeith has Sora's personality too so prepare yourselves.

I think I would sound a little pretentious, but for the GU games players, could you give me an example of a post-Volume 3 inventory and gear? And what spells could Haseo use without scrolls?

While a fan of the series, the only game I played is Infection and watched a gameplay of all games of the series, even LINK, so some reminder could help me apart from rewatching the gameplays and reading the wiki, thank you.

This is post-Forest of Pain in Volume 3 and months before Volume 4 so it's Xth Form, no Ultimate Steel, sorry. While Gate of Ouroboros is an amazing blade and using the power of the eight Epitaphs even more, I liked it when he could wield multiple weapons.

I've seen all the hype about my other story, Something Greater, and while I have some planning for it, I want to focus more on other projects that I've been conceiving from some time, apart from wanting to advance in Hollow Knight and rewatching/reading Rising of the Shield Hero. Kingdom of Swords and Hearts is one of my focus and I have studies too so you'll probably have to wait some time before the Knight and Naofumi encounter each other.

Any other advice to help improve my writing would also be appreciated, thank you.