A/N: Realised trying to post chapter 18 that I accidentally forgot to post ch 17. So read Ch 17 before reading this one... so remember to drop by and check Ch 17 out as well.

Stay safe and healthy everyone!

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AFTERMATH: HACK
Part 1 – The Spoils of Battle

Chapter 19 – Reaching Backwards
Ryoken

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He doesn't drop by Café Nagi, even though he knows he'll see Kusanagi Shoichi there, and likely Soulburner as well. He might even see Playmaker.

He's not looking for any of them, though. He's not looking for anything. Rather, he's feeling the cool sea breeze on his face and hoping they'll have a night free of storms.

The weather forecast says clear skies, but it always feels strange, at the end of long battles.

Ryoken, of course, wouldn't have been content without knowing exactly how it all ended. And he can't, in good conscience, call Fujiki Yuusaku a friend. He squandered that chance, ten years ago.

He wonders if Yuusaku has accepted that. He wonders if Yuusaku even thinks of extending a hand of friendship anymore. They had Soulburner colouring the situation, of late. Soulburner: the welcome relief. A representation of what Playmaker should have been: angry, blaming, not looking for a saviour who hadn't really saved him at all and regretted the path it led to.

Because he still regretted how it led to the disgrace and loss of his father, how it had led them all to war. He didn't regret setting those children free, but maybe there was a better way.

And he knows Playmaker is still thinking that now, even with blatant proof in front of his face and no reason to pursue that line of thought any longer. Or he hopes there isn't.

Because Ryoken knows his father and knows the Ignis, he knows total destruction of something capable of regenerating is very difficult to achieve. An Ignis might be able to do it, but they might be like humans in that respect as well. Not all suicide attempts are successful, after all. And it's not as though there is a precinct for AIs committing suicide.

Because that's what it is, in the end. The dark Ignis effectively used his own partner as a suicide weapon. And he wonders how he didn't see it coming. It's the opposite of Lightning. No, the opposite of Windy – but Windy was manipulated as Lightning.

No, that's not right either. It's a cross between Lightning and Windy, in the end: wearing someone as a puppet, versus killing them because they're of no use.

As long as that's the end of the story though, it no longer matters. Ryoken thinks he's closed that chapter for himself as well, with that duel from Soulburner. If watching over the network is sufficient repentance, then he'll do that for the rest of his life. He has the funds to manage it, after all. Has the obscurity to manage it. As long as he makes the occasional visit to his home and to the supermarkets of Den City, he'll be fine. As long as Taki stays out of public sight, they'll be fine. As long as Playmaker and his allies don't suddenly decide to expose his other colleagues, he'll be fine – and he doesn't think they will. They've got every reason to support Soulburner's demand – and Soulburner has every reason to want him to continue the same.

Though, until SOL Technologies get it back up and running again, nothing of the sort will happen. Perhaps he should send Aso or Dr Genome to SOL Technologies to assist in that. If there are secrets still buried, or any new ones that begin to brew, then they'll have an easy backdoor in. And he wasn't naïve enough to give the company his full support after where his father wound up, and neither were they.

Spectre, of course, would never go, and Baira was too much of a risk.

Poor Baira, he thinks, glancing to where she sits on the deck, with her laptop. She risks small trips – has to risk – because humans aren't meant to live forever on the sea, but she can't return to her work as a doctor. She'd be scrutinised too closely, caught too quickly. Link VRAINS offers anonymity. The world of data, of networks, of behind a screen offers anonymity. But she's forced into it now, because Playmaker caught her.

Clever of Playmaker, really, and they're lucky Faust had covered his tracks after seeing how she'd been uncovered. Then again, that had been a risky play, as well: risky for Playmaker, risky for Faust. That had been Ai's doing, he surmised, in the end. Playmaker had seemed confused, Faust said.

But Playmaker had also been blinded by his desire for revenge. And now… what does he call it now, Revolver wonders? It's not Stockholm syndrome, because Ai wasn't the captor. But it's an unhealthy dependence, all the same.

And pity he'd seemed more lively the longer he spent with Ai, as well.

Humans crave company, in the end. Revolver knows this: he was a lonely child with his father working long hours, and later incarcerated. But his father's colleagues had looked after him, had become his colleagues later on: big brothers and sisters and, later, a family. And now they spent most of their time on a private yacht out at sea.

And if they tire of the sea, Zaizen Akira's idea of a plane in long flight wasn't too bad either. And there's always space, as well. The world when data links them is both frightfully big, and small.

A plane flies overhead as he thinks this.

Ai had threatened to crash the plane. Pandor seemed pretty sure he was bluffing.

But Pandor is not an Ignis. Revolver knows he's still no match for his father's abilities, still no match for their self-improvement, and their free will, and their foolishness. He's seen his father's simulations, after all. He's run his own simulations. He knows Lightning did as well. He suspects Ai did as well. That's their fallacy – and it's a fallacy he shares: the need to know, to calculate, to predict.

But duels aren't things that can be simulated, or predicted. Especially not with skills like his and Playmakers and Bohman's, who can pull new and unforeseen cards from the data storms, who can turn the tide of the duel from the brink of defeat.

He wonders if the data storms will still blow, now that there are no Ignis to fuel them. If that's an issue, they can easily replicate it, or create something similar. It's not that important.

What's important is the finality they haven't proven yet.

"Revolver." Spectre has come up to the deck. "SOL Technologies has recovered all the data from the SOLtis."

"Excellent," he replies, because now they can begin analysing it and digging out the remains of the Ignis. They deserve a funeral: the closing of the casket to free them all from the past. And he also needs to be sure that Pandor will be contained as she thrives.

Ai scorned it. He justifies it, given humans are in cages as well: cages of mortality and morality and bonds of friendship and love.

"Spectre." Spectre, he realises, has almost gone back inside but he stops and turns back. "I don't think I ever asked you what you thought of the Ignis?"

"I think they're all arrogant," he replies. "Those who side with humanity seemed to do as though offering us a priveledge, while those who scorn us think we're not worthy of such things. Either way, they look down on us. But I said as much to Lightning."

"You did," Revolver agrees.

"I also lost." Spectre shrugs; he doesn't seem disappointed. "Honestly, I'm more upset about losing to Playmaker. Lightning and I are of similar minds. He only didn't want to admit it."

"Lightning was Kusanagi Jin's Ignis," Revolver points out.

"I suppose that makes Earth mine." Spectre shrugs. "He is nearly the opposite of me, as far as I saw. Straight-forward, shadowing his mentor… Oh wait." He laughs. "I suppose that makes you my Aqua."

Another person might be unnerved, but Revolver knows Spectre, and appreciates his forgiveness and his loyalty.

"You told me when we first met, that you needed something to ground you," he says. "The Lost Incident was that for you: the same thing that uprooted five other children, because you never had a home or a purpose or a place to beyond."

"I belong here," Spectre says simply, and however it happened, Revolver is glad for that fact.

He can't erase the suffering of five other children so easily though, and he can't erase the fact that Spectre denies his own suffering in the face of his salvation. He's not looking to either, though. That's the difference between humans and Ignis: they recognise their limitations, but they also believe in infinite potential. But humans can make the same mistakes Ignis do. That's why they will be the dark knights of the network now, and it's a risky balance they've hopefully learnt and experienced enough to uphold.

And hopefully he's simply too suspicious, too cautious, too restless after chasing the Ignis for ten long years to believe Playmaker has rid the world of his quarry.

Speaking of Playmaker, he wonders when an appropriate time will be to collect his card again. Certainly not now because, although he doesn't agree, he can't deny the chance for mourning a lost partner.