Episode 01 - Mystery

Opening my eyes slowly, I suddenly realized I was lying on the bed...with Atsuki. I was about to scream, and thankfully I reacted fast enough to cover my mouth. For some reason...I'm now floating...beside him. The more I hang around here, the more confusing it got. Yesterday, I couldn't see Atsuki at all, but I could feel his movement and even read some of his thoughts...now, I can't even see what he's dreaming about, or if he has any dreams at all.

Staring at the ash-haired teen, I noticed that Atsuki's face scrunched up a bit, his hands grew tense..."Atsuki..." I mumbled. I figured he was having a nightmare...if only I could remember what the nightmare was about...maybe I could help him out.

Atsuki continued to show signs of pain, I hated to see him like this, it just...wasn't right. "Atsuki..?"

To my shock, he sat up, awake, and panting heavily. I sweat running around his body..."Um...are you alright?"

"H-huh..?" his head turned to where I was sitting, and nodded. "Yeah...I'm okay..."

"Atsuki...what was the dream about?" I said it slowly; I didn't want him to get mad at me...

He rubbed his left arm; I guess he had more worrying thoughts in his mind than to answer my question. "I-it's okay...you don't need to answer..." I stuttered. Out of the blue, I heard ringing coming from the desk beside him. It was his cell phone...I nearly forgot that Nola was supposed to give him a briefing before we went to school.

School...ugh. Oh well, at least I'm with Atsuki. Suddenly, I mentally squealed, and I got a feeling like it was a dream come true...it felt so cool to be beside someone that I previously thought didn't exist yet wished he was. The feeling...was great..!

"Good morning. Sleep well?" I heard Nola's voice. "Okay, let's start the briefing!" I sighed, and I thought I saw Atsuki sigh too. Smiling, I listened to what the blond had to say.

"Target, age and sex are unknown. Only that they have a love for art. FORT intelligence is confident that the target is in Kisaragi. It's the same place where the Shanghai incident started..." I nodded. "That man infected 10,000 people in just three months. As a result, thousands of crimes and suicides have occurred..." weirdly, that didn't surprise me, like I knew that already. "We found him and checked, and he wasn't the Original infectee. Someone else infected him with Silent. Checking the infection path, we found Kisaragi City...the man in Shanghai was infected there." a pause.

"Your job is to find and confirm any Silent infectees. Last night's incident seems to be Silent-related. I wonder who they were trying to contact? They sent mail to your new school, right Atsuki?" I saw Atsuki nod. "It's a good opportunity, look into that for me okay? If we find anything new, we'll contact you. We'll check out the girl from yesterday too." Nami..? I haven't told Atsuki about Nami yet..."It's creepy that she knew you had powers. If you find anything by Sigma let us know." at that last note, we were disconnected from FORT.

"Briefings sound pretty boring if you ask me." I mumbled aloud by accident.

"Yet they are important for the mission Hikaru." Atsuki replied back coolly.

"Yeah...but it feels like I already knew all that info--"

"Really..? So you know about the Shanghai incident before too?" I nodded in response, and then Atsuki jumped out of the bed. "Are you sure...that you don't remember anything?" gulping, I nodded once more, and then the teen was quiet after that.

I then realized something. "Can you sense my Shinen?"

Atsuki was still silent, yet I thought I saw a flash of surprise in his eyes. I was sure of it; he could sense my Shinen now too. Which means he can read my thoughts...

"I have to be more careful now, if Atsuki knows too much about what's going to happen, the results could be disastrous..."

Atsuki glanced at the mirror before we left to go to school. He was in his school attire which included a long-sleeved, brown uniform with a long collar, a blue tie, a white undershirt with a turtle-neck and matching brown pants. His black eyes stared at the mirror for a few moments, and then he opened his mouth. "Let's go."

We went outside and as soon as we stepped out of the apartment building, a light breeze flew by, ruffling Atsuki's ash-colored hair a bit. We weren't late...I suppose, but Atsuki still ran to the school anyway.

The city wasn't as big as I thought...or I guess the school wasn't that very far. At least it was a walking distance from where we were...

"Good morning Ms. Matsumura!" I heard another student said. "Hello! Good morning to you as well!" another voice replied happily.

From our view, I saw a person standing in front of the gate. She had long, light reddish-pink hair and red eyes, her outfit was a simple long-sleeved, beige vest with a chocolate colored undershirt.

The teacher (At least I think she is one,) had a serious expression on her face, making sure that each student that passed through the gate was looking at her in the eye. All of a sudden, she stops two students holding hands..."Hey you..! What do you think you're doing?" the mushy atmosphere around the two disappeared immediately, and the two apologized, split up and ran into the school.

"I've never seen you before..!" she suddenly said. At first I was puzzled, was she talking to us? She went closer to Atsuki with a big smile. "I transferred here today." I heard Atsuki reply.

"Oh, I see...nice to meet you." a fluffy feeling emanated from her. I guess I can still sense Sigma at work. "I'll introduce myself; I'm the language teacher, Aoi Matsumura. I hope you'll like it here!" all of a sudden, Ms. Matsumura's cheeks grew red, and when she noticed it, she started to talk again. "Aah...Aoi is still the same as always." I muttered. Atsuki glanced at me for a second, and looked back at the teacher again.

"Uh...um...it must be hard to transfer this time of year." I could tell she was pretty much grasping...hehe. Then I heard another student greet the teacher again, she greeted back happily, with a big grin on her face. "Oh yeah...your new teacher, Mr. Yamato isn't here today. If you need anything, let me know right away." she continued to smile. "I hope you'll enjoy our school!" and then she went back inside the building, leaving Atsuki and I in front of the fountain.

"So...are we supposed to be heading to class?" I asked sheepishly. It still felt strange talking with him...

"Not yet...we still have some time." he replied whispering. I think I can't talk to anyone besides Atsuki, and he's aware of it too...so the only person who knows that I'm here is Atsuki...*blush*...

We decided to look around, we both haven't forgotten the mission we were supposed to do--oh, I mean Atsuki was supposed to do, so we chose to look around the school campus, hoping to get some clue...somewhere.

At some point we found ourselves in the PC room...entering it, the place seemed deserted...until I noticed there was a guy typing on one of the computers. He kept typing, not noticing us at all, and he seemed to be working on something...

"Okay, finished." he said. Standing up from his seat, the purple-haired student grabbed his laptop and starts to walk towards the exit, at that point, he noticed Atsuki. "Hey! You studying too?" the first thing that caught my interest was his messy purple hair and his sapphire colored eyes. This guy...who was he again..?

"I haven't seen you around...are you new?" his neutral face turned into a bored expression. "Well, whatever. We've just met so no point in discussing that." his face changed again. "Okay, I'll hurry!" he mumbled, and accidentally pushed Atsuki as he ran out to the hallway.

"Ow! I felt that!" I shouted, annoyed.

"Hikaru..."

"Sorry!" I could tell Atsuki was thinking about something, so I chose to stay quiet first. Though..."Atsuki...that guy we've just met..." I think I snapped him out of his thoughts, because he seems to be staring at me intently now. "You know him?"

"I-i think so...his name...is..." I tried my best to remember, my memories were really blurry now, but I was able to fish out the guy's first name. "Shinji."

"...that's all?"

"I-i'm sorry...ever since I've been talking to you--no wait, even before that, my memory has been very foggy...I have a feeling I should know more about him...I just...can't..."

"It's okay..." he said calmly. "I'll check out the Residual Shinen Hikaru...alright?" Atsuki began to look around, sensing the new Shinen that was left on the PC. I recall something what Nola said, that they sent the mail here...Shinji…did he--

A large wave hit me again, it was Sigma. And I could feel the Shinen being erased, and somehow...decoded. I don't know...it just felt that way...and that's the only word I could think of.

Words started to swim in my head once more, they were about the mail...but they weren't exactly what the FORT was after. Shinji...simply discovered it. He didn't have anything to do with it, and that also somehow didn't surprise me. I hate it, the info's coming late, if I knew this stuff earlier, I wish I could just know instead of mumbling 'I knew that!' when it's too late. *Sigh*...how annoying. If this really is the game, maybe it's some kind of security stuff that makes me forget so I won't interfere with the storyline...hm...

"Atsuki...Shinji didn't--"

"I know...Hikaru, I'm the one with Sigma, not you." that made me flinch. "Sorry."

The teen walked to the computer and checked the data. Sadly, Shinji must have deleted the mail. So we're pretty much back to square one, with one suspect eliminated...or at least, I think so.

A/N: So, once again, I had to cut this into two parts...for now. I had forgotten how long Episode 1 was so it might stretch to three parts...

I'm still following the game script as always, though there might have been a few I changed 'cause of errors and stuff. I'm trying my best not to skip anything, because, there are some people out there who are reading this even though they don't know Lux-Pain...

*Sigh*...so that means a lot more work for me. I think it took me around two hours to finish this chapter, and now I have a headache again.

So...please review!