You may have noticed I haven't updated this story in a while. Reason being: school started. D: On the upside, though, I'm actually enjoying my senior year. ^^

Oh, note:

"Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?"

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" - Mark 15:34

Enjoy and review!


They were planning to go somewhere without me. I just knew it.

I'd seen Kite and BlackRose rush to various shops, often meeting in the center of Dun Loireag to update on their purchases. Then they'd exchange a few items and split up again.

Finally, they met up in front of the Chaos Gate. A frown planted itself onto my face when Mistral warped in, greeting both of them with her usual friendly smile.

"Where are you guys going?" I practically yelled, stomping over to the three players. BlackRose and Mistral whipped their bodies around to stare at me, but Kite's back continued to face me.

"I finally found it," he replied without looking at me. He was hunched over the small screen for hacking into areas.

"It?" I repeated, somewhat lost.

"The monster that attacked you, Orca, and Balmung."

An odd surge of panic and shock shot through my body. I'd almost forgotten about that…thing. Adventures with Balmung had distracted me enough to actually allow me to enjoy the game rather than stress myself out about finding a way to escape it.

"I'm coming with you guys," I told him matter-of-factly.

Beside BlackRose, Mistral laughed loudly. "Good luck with that. BlackRose and I practically had to beg Kite to let us come along." The other female player nodded in agreement.

"No," Kite replied, turning his head to look at me. "No offense, but you especially can't come. You know why."

My jaw tightened and my mouth formed into a hard frown. Of course I knew why.

Because we aren't sure what would happen to me if my character died, huh?

"I'll be fine," I persisted. "Besides, wouldn't it be more of an advantage to have two Wavemasters in the group instead of just one?"

Kite's blue eyes stared at me for a long while until a defeated sigh came from his lips. "All right," he muttered. "You can come." His right hand extended backward for me to grab onto.

I watched him insert the keywords "Chosen, Hopeless, Nothingness" into the small screen in front of him. I narrowed my eyes at the sound of the area. It already seemed extremely uninviting.

Before I knew it, we had transported to the odd place. It was obviously an earth-based area, what with the almost barren surface and forgotten stone statues. Like all the other areas with something strange hidden inside, the graphics were ruined by masses of data code.

A bright blue light coming from Kite's wrist caught everyone's attention. BlackRose inclined her head to get a better look at it before asking if it was hurting him.

Kite shook his head and replied, "No, not really. But my wrist in real life is tingling."

Just as he finished talking, the light disappeared and Mistral lifted a finger. "There's the dungeon!" she cried out in an excited way. "Let's go!"

The entire field was filled with Magic Portals. Although we tried our hardest to avoid them, we couldn't help but open a few of them.

The monsters were ridiculously difficult to kill. The three normal players remarked many times that they were no match for the enemies because they were too low-leveled. Even though we managed to defeat every creature we ran into, the fact that they weren't at good enough levels worried me.

The dungeon was no different. Wave after wave of monsters came at us in every room. At one point, Mistral had to switch over to using healing items because she couldn't use any more spells for a small amount of time.

Finally, we came to a doorway with purple mist hanging around. I copied Mistral and cast strengthening spells onto the party. Kite seemed hesitant to continue.

He looked at me, as if waiting for me to throw my hands up and say, "Kite, you were right. It was too dangerous for me to come along. I'm going to go back. Good luck!" However, that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm not leaving," I told him. "I'm not going to just abandon you guys because I'm scared."

Actually, "scared" was an understatement. I was horrified.

Once we all set foot through the darkness of the doorway, everything went black. Suddenly, whiteness surrounded me and I was reminded of that room with the canopy bed and teddy bears.

I heard the faint sound of static. It came in strong, but became quiet after a while to introduce the sound of waves.

"Keiko? Keiko, can you hear me? I'm going to get you out, okay? I'm going to find you!"

That was my sister's voice…

I tried to open my mouth to call out to Tsukiko, but I wasn't exactly sure where my mouth was. I couldn't see anything around me or feel anything on my body.

It was as if my consciousness had completely separated from my character's body, too. If I didn't have a body anymore, what was I? Just a floating non-existence?

There was a sudden, odd pressure around me and things felt like they were shaking. Images started to blur into my vision. Where was I?

A young girl stood above me, her large brown eyes staring down at me in shock. Somewhere behind me, I heard a monotonous beeping noise. I was in a hospital. My sister was here.

My head fell to the side where another body lay. A man seemed to be sleeping. His black hair was neatly cut to frame his face. His arms were laying palms-up on both sides of his body and an EKG machine was hooked into his left arm. I tried to focus on the medical clipboard hanging from the side of his bed.

Hatsu Satoshi

Age: 18

Comatose

Beside him, a girl who looked a year younger than me with the same color hair sat on a chair, watching me with terrified eyes.

My head was throbbing and my vision was fading again. I wanted to lie and say it was because I was crying (I wasn't entirely sure that I was), but I knew that wasn't it. My body felt heavy and my eyelids drooped.

"KEIKO! YOU, GET A DAMN NURSE!"

Tsuki, watch your language.

There was a flash of green light and I was back with Kite, BlackRose, and Mistral. My legs were shaking as I glanced down at my feet. I was Rin again.

"Hey!" Mistral called, waving her hands around toward me. "Are you okay?"

I felt lightheaded as I glanced up at her face. "Uh-huh," I mumbled, turning away to look at the new area we were in. I knew this place all too well. It was the exact same place where I'd been Data Drained.

A floating white light caught our attention. An overwhelmed gasp came from Kite's mouth as he looked at her face.

"Aura," he whispered, addressing the girl who was staring at us.

A soft, but alarmed, smile touched her face. "I see…you received my message," she whispered. Although she was quiet, her voice faintly echoed around us. "However…it is too late."

"Wait!" Kite yelled, raising a hand toward her. "There's something I have to ask you!"

My stomach lurched when the red wand appeared behind Aura. That damned thing had etched itself into my mind perfectly. The way the bottom ended in a dangerous point. The eerie circular head that, in my mind, resembled a cross.

A cross.

I had taken a religious studies class two years ago. In Christianity beliefs, Jesus Christ had carried a cross many miles only to be crucified on it.

Orca had been crucified when he was Data Drained. Could this be somehow linked to those beliefs? Was this monster, which was now carrying a cross, portrayed as Jesus Christ, who judges sinners and ultimately delivers punishment?

If that were true, what had Orca done to deserve that? What did Balmung and I do? Where was Aura in the wrong here?

"Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?"

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

A data surge formed in front of Aura. Slowly, the monster floated out from it, raising an arm toward her. A bracelet identical to Kite's flashed onto it's wrist.

I wanted to scream for everything to stop, but I felt as if I didn't have the energy to even force a sound from my mouth. Everything fell into a slow-motion state as the monster performed a Data Drain attack on her, leaving her only in the form of a small red ball.

Again, it focused on another attack. It pushed it's hands together, forming another ball of light. When it was shot out at the red ball, Aura's cries struck our ears painfully as the ball split into three parts and shot off in different directions.

The monster grabbed the wand and turned toward us. As I looked upon it's face, a name came into my head.

Skeith.

Just as our weapons appeared in our hands, Kite yelled, "Its coming!"

I didn't even realize everyone had moved until I was pushed to the side by Mistral. "GO!" she screamed, making me run away from the violence. "We need to stay back so we can heal them!"

My eyes were glued on Skeith, Kite, and BlackRose. The speed at which Skeith moved was unbelievable. I didn't know how the other two kept up with it.

They spent a lot of their time chasing the monster around, but when it suddenly stopped and turned around, the two had no time to run away. Skeith brought the wand up with both hands and slammed it down into the earth, creating a shockwave that sent the two flying back.

The faint beeping noise told me to heal them and do it quick.

"Ol Repth!" Mistral and I shouted simultaneously. We exhaled in relief when the beeping subsided.

The battle continued on for what felt like hours. Mistral had used so many items to recover her Spell Points that I'd eventually lost count. I, on the other hand, was physically exhausted.

My lungs burned painfully as I tried to breathe. I was tired of running so much to avoid getting in the way of Skeith's attacks. My legs felt incredibly heavy and I could tell they were on the verge of deciding to just quit on me when I needed them the most.

"BlackRose!" Kite shouted, watching our partner float up in front of the wand.

"AKIRA!" I screamed. My body filled with a strange sort of adrenaline and I took off after Skeith. I knew I wasn't doing hardly any damage as I slammed my staff against it's leg, but I didn't care. I had to do something, or else she would end up like-

Thud.

Her motionless body hit the ground hard. I stopped breathing completely, listening to the beeping. I couldn't tell if it was because her health was low or if it was the sound of an EKG machine.

No, no, no. Get up, Akira. Get up.

As much as I pleaded inside my head, she didn't listen. BlackRose continued to lay face-down on the ground until three different colored lights fell on her. Mistral was using items and healing spells to recover her.

"RIN, MOVE!"

"Wha-"

I felt like I had been punched in the nose, but the pain filled my entire body. My head cracked against the hard ground and my body rolled over small pebbles until I skidded to a stop. Everyone's voices sounded very far away. I couldn't see anything. The only color that was exposed to me was a dull crimson color.

"Do something!" BlackRose yelled. Her voice sounded deep and drawled.

"Ol Repth!" The same with Mistral's voice.

Green replaced the red color and the pain in my body disappeared. I sat up, holding onto my staff for dear life, only to see Kite chasing after Skeith.

I looked up at BlackRose and pointed to him. "What are you doing?" I asked her. "Get over there and help him!"

"Right!"

However, just as BlackRose returned to Kite, the sound of shattering glass was heard. The words "PROTECT BREAK OK" flashed above Skeith's head and Kite's bracelet began glowing.

"I've got it!" Kite shouted, swinging his wrist around his body to shoot a data stream toward Skeith.

The ground shook violently and Skeith started to glow. After a moment of deep groaning, it transformed into a group of rocks.

That's Skeith's true form? Rocks? What kind of screwed up game is this?

"I need one of you to attack with magic!" Kite told Mistral and me.

"I have a lot of scrolls saved up, plus the spells I already know," Mistral said, her eyes following the rocks as they floated away from Kite and BlackRose. "You keep healing!"

Only about five minutes later, the four of us figured out that this new form of Skeith had the very annoying ability to heal itself. It didn't seem to discourage Kite, however. He just went at Skeith even harder than before.

"Got it!" Kite finally yelled.

The rock formation stopped moving and began to crack into smaller pieces. Once they hit the ground, they dissolved into a sickening type of liquid. While Mistral danced around the area happily, the liquid started to bubble and expand until strange-looking trees shot out from it. She screamed when a line of trees cut off her path.

"What the hell?" she shrieked discontentedly.

"Look," Kite whispered, looking up at the dark sky. Mistral and I both followed his movements. BlackRose did, too, after a short pause.

A creature larger than Skeith hovered a couple hundred feet above us. Pale blue roots sprouted out from it, entangling themselves in each other. Right in the middle, where a heart would have been, was a red pulsating core. Was that the heart?

"What is tha-" I tried to ask about it, but the creature opened it's huge mouth, showing off a set of jagged teeth, and roared in our direction, sending us flying back.

The four of us hit the ground hard and I heard three different types of computer chairs smacking against floors. I rolled my head to the side, trying my hardest to scream.

All I could see was a woman's face looking down at me. She had blonde hair, rather large breasts, and an odd pair of goggles on her eyes. In her hand, she held a staff that didn't look as if it belonged in The World.

A reassuring smirk formed on her face. "I believe this is the first of many."