Author not: Ok, a few things first

Author note: Ok, a few things first. This story takes place approximately two years after quarantine. I am writing in first person, which is a deviation from my normal style, so be patient with it. I'm going to try to keep this as true to the characters as I can and I am going to try and make my OC believable as a .hack character. I have high hopes, but nothing is the same to others as it is to you, so you may think it is all total crud. I do hope you will read it though, it was one of the few Natsume romance fics out there. She deserves more than that, especially since she got kinda screwed over in the game series. Well anyways, I have gone on long enough. Hope you enjoy this. Please R&R.

Maverik-Yuri Misuri Age: 18

Natsume-Natsume Oguro Age: 17

Tsukasa-An Shoji Age: 18

Subaru-Mariko Misono Age: 18

Mimiru-Megumi (I don't know if they ever gave her real name anywhere, so I'm using this one) Age: 17

Note: This is just a partial section of ch.1 I still need to type the rest.

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Ch.1 Meetings

Maverik's POV

Blackness. An infinite void surrounded me as far as I could see. I had no physical form, but that was why I was in this place to begin with. I chuckled behind my FMD when the window asking for my name popped up. It seemed senseless to have a user wait in that. Normally, I would make up some random name, for security purposes, but this was The World, the largest MMORPG in history. Therefore, I felt comfortable using my real name. Yuri Misuri. Next, it had me create my appearance. I gave myself brown shoulder length, rocker style hair, leather armor with no undershirt, black pants, and leather shin guards. My height was around average and I made myself only semi-muscular.

After debating with myself for a while, I decided to be a Long Arm. When I was done, I affectionately named myself…Maverik. Once I accepted the character, It had me chose my elemental proficiency. Naturally, I chose darkness. Automatically, wave symbols were generated onto Maverik. A large black X covered my chest and long, snaky line ran down my arms. When that was done, a message appeared on the screen.

Is this the character you want?

I chose yes. Immediately, blue spiral beams surrounded me. When they went away, I was in the middle of a large town area. A window labeling it Mac Anu appeared in the top right of my screen. Scottish music played in the background and the sound of people chatting filled the air. I wasn't one for crowds, so I warped to an area I had seen mentioned on the board. Delta Bursting Passed Over Aquafield.

There were quite a few other newbies in the area, I laughed at the sight. A goblin appeared out of a magic portal and I dispatched it with a few swings of my spear. This area was easy. Within an hour I cleared the field and dungeon, increasing my level up to three. I was getting bored of this, so I decided to gate out. The town was much less crowded when I arrived, so I decided to explore some.

As I turned a corner to check out the item shop, someone ran into me and knocked us both to the ground. After recovering myself, I looked at the person still on the ground. It was a female Twin Blade in a blue one-piece outfit and green hair. She hopped to her feet and bowed low. "I'm so sorry. I should have looked where I was going."

The sincerity of her apology melted the anger in me and I just sighed. "It's OK. I suppose I should be more careful as well. I'm new to this game and am still trying to figure everything out."

The girl laughed happily. "I know, I can help you figure some things out as an apology." She extended her hand and I shook it. "My name is Natsume."

"Maverik."

"Nice to meet you Maverik." She sent me her member address along with a party invitation. I surprised myself and accepted it. We walked to the chaos gate and warped to a level eight area. With her help, I was able to level up quite a bit and even learn some more about the game. She had obviously played for a while. Talking with her seemed almost natural and I even laughed happily a few times with her. I lost track of time and when I finally did check it, I was horrified. It was an hour past when I was supposed to be off.

Luckily, we were back in Mac Anu. I turned to her sadly. "I have to go now."

She pouted a bit. "Aw…and we were having so much fun. Oh well, see you later. And don't be so sad, happiness goes further." She smiled at me and I couldn't help but smile back. "Nice to meet you Maverik."

I nodded. "Nice to meet you too, Natsume." With that, I logged out and removed my FMD. I was back in the real world, back into my solitary depression. I could hear my parents yelling at each other downstairs and my sister sobbing in the room adjacent to mine. The bruise on my arm still hurt and my left eye was blackened, a gift from my father. I curled up on my bed after shutting down my computer and tried to hold back my tears long enough to fall asleep. I failed miserably.

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Natsume's POV

The alarm rang and startled me awake. I wasn't used to it and didn't particularly care for what it meant. Today was the first day of school, what I considered to be the worst day of the year. Sure I got to see friends I hadn't seen all summer, but the very fact I had to sit for hours on end through boring classes overshadowed that completely. Also, there was running. Every time I thought about that it made me sick. I could stay in bed though, So I sprang up, dressed, and made my way downstairs. I could here dad snoring in his bedroom, he never woke up early. Mom was in the kitchen, a bowl of cereal already on the table for me.

"Eat up Naty, you need to get a good start to your first day of Senior year." She smiled brightly at me.

I cringed a little at the nickname, but forced a smile back to her. That name made me feel like a bug. I looked at my food. "I'll be fine mom, what you should focus on is getting dad off his butt." We both giggled at my joke. Suddenly, a chime rang on my phone. It was time to head out to school. Sighing, I hugged mom goodbye and left.

School wasn't far, so I had fallen into the habit of walking everyday. It gave me a chance to talk to a specific friend before school. Sure enough, not two minutes after I walk out, Yami skipped up beside me with a wide grin. "Sooooo...how was your summer?"

I smiled back at her, but before I could speak, she asked another question. "Did you get to meet that guy you were moon eyed for? What was his name...oh yeah, Kaitou?"

I blushed and laughed embarrassedly. "N-no. He moved to Tokyo. He's dating someone else." I looked at the ground. Two years ago I had met Kaitou online in the game, The World. I knew him as Kite then. Sometime during my adventures with him, I had fallen for him. Of course, I could tell it was a one-sided feeling. He was obviously enamored with BlackRose, or as I know now as Akira Hayami. Still, I had foolishly allowed my feelings to grow. It wasn't until this summer I was finally able to get over him. I had never been good with guys. Even if one liked me, I always screwed it up somehow. I sighed again.

Yami put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. "It's OK Natsume, I'm sure you'll catch one this year." She laughed and gave me a grin. I couldn't help but do the same. Yami always seemed to know how to cheer me up.

Once we were settled into our classroom, our teacher saw it fit to reassign our seats. Yami was seated on the other side of the room among a group of our friends, wile I was stuck in a back corner next some guy I had never seen before. It was so unfair! What made it worse, was the guy didn't even so much as look at me. He just sat there looking gloomy all day. Day one of school went by annoyingly slow.

When we were finally released, more bad news awaited to my dismay. Yami had to stay after for soccer practice, meaning I had to walk home alone. Library work didn't start for a few more days and running was in the spring. I walked home quietly, not happy with my first day of senior year.

When I got home, no one else was home. I had no homework so I decided to play The World for a bit. A smiled crept onto my face when I saw my avatar's green hair and cute, blue outfit. It was because of her I had met Kite and so many other of my close friends. Unfortunately, the only one of them that was on, was an annoying Heavy Axeman by the name of Piros.I decided to do a little shopping.

I went through the various shops in each of the Root Towns starting with the omega server and working down. Eventually, I found myself at the Mac Anu item shop. My shopping complete and still no one on, I decided to save and log out. The save shop wasn't far, just a short sprint around the corner. Turning the corner however, did not go as planned. I ran head on into another PC. Jumping up quickly to apologize, I surprised to find he wasn't that mad at me. As it turns out, he was a new player, a Long Arm named Maverik. We exchanged member addresses and I invited him to join me, offering to teach him a few things. All-in-all, it wasn't to eventful, but we became fast friends and I found he had quite the sense of humor, even though he seemed guarded at first. All to soon though, we both had to go. I promised to invite him again some time and we shared one final laugh. Then we logged out.

I found myself smiling when I removed my FMD. This guy was interesting. Who knew...maybe in time...I could even come to 'like' him. The thought made me giggle. Tonight had just been so much fun. My stomach growled and I laughed. It seems in my fun I had forgotten to eat. Mom and Dad weren't home, so I fixed myself some ramen and went back upstairs to the computer, where two emails awaited me.

Sender: Kite

Subject: Absence

Hey there. Sorry I have been gone so long. I've been...busy with Akira. School is a real pain and most of my free time I spend with her. See you around, I plan to log on soon.

The message seemed like the kind you can and had sent to multiple people, so I didn't bother to respond. It was foolish, but I was still somewhat sour with him. The next email though, made my day even better.

Sender: Mimiru

Subject: Were Back!

Hey Natsume. Mariko, An, and I are finally back from our vacation. We were planning on having lunch tomorrow at 'the place' but I have to stay home, but Mariko and An are still going and were hoping you would to. Anyways...hope to see you soon. Bye-!

I smiled widely at that. Megumi, Mariko, and An were quite possibly my three closest friends and I had missed them all summer. I had met them for the first time three months after the Twilight incident and they had helped me get over Kite. I was so happy I was going to see them soon. I wrote a reply email then slipped under my covers and snuggled into my warm bed. I was asleep in minutes.

Autumnmycat23: Thanks for the spot on the area name. I will update this as soon as I can, but I have limited access to the computer right now, so it may take a while to even finish ch.1. 9-6-08