Disclaimer - I do not own .hack. I do not live in nor are associated with the Chiba prefecture of Japan or Ichikawa city. I also do not attend nor have never been affiliated with the Ichikawa High School, mentioned in this fiction. I own none of it.

A/N – So far, at the time of me typing this, all the responses to this fiction seem to be positive. I am thoroughly glad that people are enjoying the idea and the story so far. I will try to do what I can to separate this fiction from other romance fictions and make it something of a "fresh" read rather than following the strict formula setup for romance fictions, but I cannot guarantee how well that will work. Mostly, I am going to rely on subtle differences in the "form" and see how well that turns out. In any case, here is the next piece to this particular story.

One warning though: This contains spoilers for all three volumes of the .hack conglomerate (Rebirth, Reminisce and Redemption.)

-Let's Meet Offline-

Chapter Two: The Proud Falcon and the Killing Vultures

A multi-chapter Fanfiction by,

TheEndOfTomorrow

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Last Chapter in our tale:

Ryou cracked a small smile, but not exactly the cocky one Haseo tended to have. "I thought you were supposed to be the ugliest thing alive? There's no need to lie, you know."

Chigusa's blush now deepened, and she swore she could feel it spreading all over her body. "We-well...uh...um...th-that...well, it's a wonder girls don't fawn over you, too!" Chigusa blurted out the last bit, blushing more when she realized she had said it.

However, it was now Ryou's turn to tinge red as well. The two of them avoided eye contact for a couple of minutes, the awkward air pervading heavily between the two of them.

"Well, good thing we've got the introductions out of the way." Ryou said, a light jest to the situation.

---(Rejoining our hero and heroine..)---

Chigusa walked down the block, with Ryou following her at a minor distance. Not much had been said for an awkward five minutes after Ryou's sarcastic comment, until Chigusa had finally broke the awkward silence by asking Ryou what he had wanted to do.

"Well, you know Ichikawa better than me I'd hope? You pick something." He had replied. Chigusa complied and began walking, but with no set destination in mind. She of course had plenty of things she liked to do, but each time she began to entertain the thought of them, she convinced herself Ryou would hate it.

"Chigusa?" came Ryou's voice, causing her to stop and face him. She glanced at him questioningly, until he spoke once again. "We've gone in a circle three times. Thought you might like to know." He said, before cracking into a slightly cocky smirk.

'Ah, there's the Haseo part of him surfacing...' Chigusa mentally sighed. "Sorry about that, Ryou, I just don't know what you would like to do..."

Ryou sighed, putting his palm to his face. He peeked out one eye from behind his hand and looked at Chigusa very pointedly before speaking, "Didn't I tell you to just pick something?" Ryou waited now for the quickly spoken, self-deflating response that would normally come from Atoli had this conversation been online.

Sure enough, "I just don't know what you like to do, Ryou!" Chigusa spoke quickly, her words rushing together into one rambling sentence. "Please, Ryou, just pick something, I mean, we have to have something you like around here and I'm dead sure you won't like anything I do, I just do my schoolwork or go to the pet store or go to the park and watch the birds and-!"

Ryou put a finger to Chigusa's lips, silencing her as well as turning her a tinge pink. "The park. Sounds fine. See?" He said slowly, before removing his finger. Chigusa nodded slowly, her blush fading, and quickly lead Ryou down a street they had yet to venture onto. During the walk, Ryou noticed Chigusa continually almost running into things, as she kept turning her head to look at him. The third time this had happened, Ryou caught her gaze with his own stare, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"S-sorry, it's just..." Chigusa spoke, sounding a little embarrassed at getting caught staring several times in a single day. "Your eyes, they're just like...like your PC's are."

Ryou nodded a little, thinking back to when he had argued with himself mentally over the subject of his own and his PC's appearances, and if there was any correlation between them a couple of months back. "You really think they're the same?"

Chigusa nodded. "They are. I look at them enough-nevermind..." Chigusa trailed off; aware she was about to cause yet another bout of awkwardness between the pair.

"What was that?" Ryou questioned.

"Nothing, Ryou." She turned to face him, smiling. "Well, here we are!" Chigusa spread her arms, as Ryou glanced around. The park was not very large, but covered in bright green. The Sun now shone higher overhead, inching ever closer to its 12-o'clock pinnacle height. The park wasn't crowded, with one small family in a corner and a couple walking along a path, clinging onto one another such that they seemed to be as one.

'God, what I wouldn't give...' thought Chigusa, with another sideways glance at Ryou. The pair of Epitaph-Users were now walking forward into the clearing towards a park bench, but they weren't quite as close as either of them hoped to be. Both of them sat down on the bench that seemed to be too small, their arms touching at the slightest movements.

Chigusa shook off the haze that had settled into her thoughts at simply being so close to Ryou, and spoke first. "Are you sure you don't mind this, Ryou? We can do something else if you get bored."

Ryou shook his head. "This is fine, Chigusa. Don't doubt yourself so much."

The pair spent the next half-hour discussing various in-game things: The narrowly-avoided Third Network Crisis, the Epitaphs, and their in-game friends and fellow Epitaph-Users.

Chigusa, fighting a fit of laughter, said, "Ryou, you really might want to..." She broke into a small fit before continuing, "...You know, um...Just don't drop anything you have to pick up when Endrance is near you!"

Ryou sulked. "It's not like that! Endrance is just...he seems that way, because he's 'The Temptress'!"

Chigusa was no longer trying to hold back the laughter. "That means you better watch out, because he's going to turn on the charm near you!"

Ryou sank into his coat, which was now hanging off his shoulders. He didn't need the warmth in Chiba's climate, at least not at the moment. "Well," muttered Ryou darkly, "You sure tried the same thing with Sakaki back then, huh?"

Chigusa stopped laughing, and looked away. Ryou, knowing he had hit a sensitive spot, quickly tried to apologize. "Sorry, Chigusa, I know you still don't want to talk about him..."

Chigusa shook her head. "I didn't like Sakaki like that, Ryou. He was just the one I could tell everything to, and...nothing more than that. It really affects a person, you know, when someone stops them from killing themselves..." Chigusa paused, as Ryou let this sink in. He had heard where Chigusa had met Sakaki, but it had never really registered that Chigusa had truly once been that depressed and unhappy with life. Chigusa continued, "Of course, he's not even that important now..." Chigusa looked back at Ryou's face, smiling. "You are."

Ryou felt a blush creeping up his face, before giving a short nod. "Any-anytime, Chigusa." Ryou wanted to turn his face away from Chigusa, but found himself simply unable. Chigusa seemed to feel the same, as she was rapidly flushing red in the face as well, yet she remained looking into Ryou's eyes.

"Oh, gross! Kusaka finally nabbed herself some poor blind guy!"

Chigusa buried her head in her hands. The voice belonged to someone from her school, one of her former friends. As she had confessed to Haseo under the effects of AIDA, these friends had shunned her because they wouldn't hang out with some 'uncool' girl. Since that time, ridiculing everything about Chigusa had become their new past-time.

A tall brunette and a short blonde stood near the pair, laughing. "Poor guy...That's shameful, Kusaka, using his inability to see just to finally get yourself a boyfriend!"

Ryou growled, getting to his feet. "I can see just fine."

The short blonde laughed at Ryou's comment, as though it couldn't be true. Both of them had shrill laughs and holier-than-thou tones about them. As the blonde laughed, Ryou gritted his teeth together, and spoke through them, "Stop laughing! You're pissing me off! Get out of here, Chigusa hasn't done you any wrong! She doesn't deserve this crap!"

The blonde gave a fake gasp. "You mean she hasn't been so uncool that she had to try and draw us down to her level with her? 'Please, can't you just accept me for who I am?'" She and her friend laughed, as Ryou balled his hands into fists.

"Chigusa isn't on your level, that's right." Ryou's eyes flashed menacingly in the blonde and brunette's direction. "She's on a far higher level than either of you pathetic skanks could ever hope to be!"

Chigusa's eyes widened as she watched the scene unfold before her. Ryou was defending her...! 'This is the first time, in real life that someone's ever gone so far for me...' thought Chigusa. Unfortunately for Ryou, both of the offending girls had brought rather sizeable boyfriends along to the park with them, and after hearing Ryou's last sentence, both of them made their way over to the offending pair, audibly cracking their knuckles.

"Ryou, don't!" Chigusa called as she saw Ryou raise his own fists in response.

Ryou held his position, his eyes narrowed and surveying his opponents like the keen eyes of a falcon, studying how to best handle them. The two larger boys circled their prey, like vultures waiting for the kill.

---( Ryou's POV )---

Don't? Don't defend your honor, Chigusa? Never!

"Stand back, Chigusa." Came my reply, coolly. Heh, it was cooler than I felt about the situation, in any case. In a perfect world, only one of them would be here and I might have a chance.

Anyway, it's a shame Skeith doesn't work in the outside world.

One of the lugs took a gigantic swing at me, and I held up an arm to block the outside swing. I'm not a weakling or anything, but two-versus-one? Stuff like this happens in animes; I knew I wasn't going to win in real life. But, for Chigusa's dignity...I'll have to fight, since she won't stand up for herself.

I aimed a kick at the leg of the first attacker; He had a minor limp earlier, and I was willing to bet he might have some leg problems. Sure enough, the brute stumbled back in pain. I grinned a little at my own victory, and then remembered I was in a fight a little too late. His companion had come up behind me, and was holding me in some kind of choking position. As I fought for air, my head flailed backward, and I felt pain. I think I had connected with his nose, and I felt the hands holding my neck from behind slacken.

Taking this opportunity, I twisted and threw back my elbow into the assaulter's solar plexus. As the wind rushed out of his mouth and he fell, I was forced to remember that there were two of them.

The other one had recovered, and clocked me in the side of the face. I fell, and for the next few minutes, all I felt was pain all over as they dished out all they could while I was down.

I couldn't get back up again...

I failed you, Chigusa, I'm sorry...

The pain stopped...

I barely saw the pair of girls and their boyfriends stalk off, laughing...

I was left to contend with my own failure...

I saw Chigusa's worried face over my own...

And everything went black from there.

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A/N – In a perfect anime world, Ryou, the defender of Chigusa's name, would have won that fight. I don't want this to be a perfect world, so he did not. That's one of the subtle differences from most romance stories that I threw in, I'm not entirely sure that it makes it different, though. I will try to come up with more ideas to further that difference. I also grappled with the idea of staying with continuity and showing the fight from the 3rd/person-w/ access to Chigusa's thoughts perspective, but I figured it would be easier to show it through a participant rather than drag another person into the narration. Since I was already changing from Chigusa to Ryou, I figured I'd go ahead and make it first person anyway. I hope this chapter is to your liking, Dear Reader.

Until next chapter,

Take care, Dear Reader.

-TheEndOfTomorrow.