AFTERMATH: HACK
Part 2 – The Never-Ending Tale

Chapter 33 – Friendship Code
Takeru

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Takeru is happy to see Yuusaku. He's surprised to see his parents accompanying him, though.

At least it means they're getting along fine. At least it means Yuusaku still has his parents. At least it means Yuusasku did take his advice and that it seemed to do him some good as well. There's no smile or sunny disposition but that would have looked almost manic on him anyway. There's a focus in his eyes, at least. And an unhappy tilt of his lips when they mention Ai.

But still, his presence is comforting, and they have a unified problem to face, even if at this stage they're not sure if there'll be enemies or not to also face. And he's happy for the possibility of seeing Flame, as well, but he's made plans twice over to return home.

"You still can," Kusanagi points out. "You initially intended to take Flame along anyway, didn't you?"

And that's certainly true, but who knows what kind of Flame he'll be taking back and he won't know until he's already on the way there, at the earliest. Then again, Revolver's calculations seemed more concerned with Lightning and Ai, so that may not be accurate when extrapolating to the other four.

But Flame and Aqua are the least volatile, which is a contradiction in itself considering they're opposing elements. Takeru is glad, though. The weight of Ai's actions towards the end sits heavily on Yuusaku's shoulders.

And Yuusaku is staring at him, slight confusion creasing his brow, and he's not sure whether it's because he's forgot to tell the other he's moving back or the other's forgotten he's already mentioned it.

Either way, he says it again. "I'm going back home. Spending a bit of time with my grandparents and Kiku. Then I'll start the next term at my old school."

"Back home… You said you would."

Takeru doesn't know what's stirring behind those words, so he hides it like he always does and prods. The old him facing someone he didn't get along with would throw a punch but he's changed since and Yuusaku is a friend. He throws a line instead. "Will you miss me?"

"I suppose…" And Takeru doesn't have time to take that the wrong way before he finishes, "the world seems smaller through the network."

"VRAINS is still down," Takeru points out.

"Public access will be limited for at least another month," Akira corrects from the next table, "but we can use the space, as we did to battle Ai."

Well, there's that, he thinks, and maybe that's for the best because if Lightning tries to destroy the world again, he'll have limited resources this time around.

Kusanagi sighs. "Having time and choices just seems to make things more difficult."

"There's no choice," Yuusaku counters. "Not for me, anyway. Not for you other." He's staring at Takeru as he says this, and the other nods.

"We were too involved," Takeru agrees. "And, really, the only choice you and Blue Maiden have is whether or not to take Ignis that originate from people close to you."

"Of course." Kusanagi shakes his head ruefully. "No chance we could've stayed out of it after all of this. Same goes for Go Onizuka, even though he's got no prior connection to the Ignis. I mean, even Blue Maiden turned out to have a link to them outside of SOL Technologies."

"Yeah, talk about a small universe." Then again, Playmaker and Kusanagi meeting in Link VRAINS seemed to have been a similar coincidence.

"It wasn't," Yuusaku says, unexpectedly. "Ai was guiding me even back then." There's a small frown dancing on his lips, but Takeru thinks he knows the other well enough by now to recognise a few of the more common meanings. To him, that frown is not angry, or even actively upset. If he has to put a word to it, he'd say "resigned", but he's not sure that's entirely right either. And he's also not sure why. He thinks there's a dash of regret, as well. And something else as well.

And the only thing he can do to try and understand that is ask. "How do you feel about that?"

The frown deepens. "What can I say? If it hadn't been for the Cyverse deck he left for us, how many more years would we have spent chasing our tails? I'd spent five lonely years searching for the truth and found almost nothing." He is silent for a moment, then admits: "I was about to give up searching. I figured I was looking for a ghost at that point."

"Given Dr Kogami turned out to be in a coma, and on SOL Technologies' records, considered dead, you weren't that far off." But Kusanagi also looks surprised by that little tidbit. Maybe he'd entered Link VRAINS at a later stage. How long did it even take to learn enough hacking? he wondered. Or maybe Yuusaku had simply duelled and demanded questions, at first, and learnt hacking in the meantime.

Takeru could barely use his school-issued datapad, let alone hack his way regularly into SOL Technologies. And now's probably not the time to be learning. He probably doesn't even need to.

"So Ai served as the catalyst for you to seize the doors to your fate," Takeru surmises, and the only reason it comes out that eloquently is because he's half-quoting Flame. "Just like Flame did for me."

"In essence, the Ignis did the same for me," says Spectre, "in giving me something to fight. Even if I didn't team up with or directly fight against my own partner Ignis, the end result was the same."

"Was it?" Yuusaku asks. "Granted, you seem to have mellowed a little since our duel."

"Why thank you." Spectre smiles – all teeth.

Takeru remembers watching those duels on rerun. Honestly, he doesn't see it – the mellowing Playmaker speaks of – considering how he'd acted against Lightning. But maybe it's the reasons behind it all. Maybe it was the genuine excitement of trying something new, of trying to become stronger, instead of just two victims clashing against each other because they viewed their suffering through different sides of the same lens.

"Well," Spectre says a little later, "I admit I was a little jealous, after. I look forward to the opportunity of meeting Earth this time around. Though I do hope they've kept their memories."

"Why?" Takeru asks, because Spectre hasn't met Earth physically, has no reason to want Earth to have his memories. Rather, Earth forgetting his suffering at the hands of SOL Technologies and his time fused with Go might be the kindest… but he's a person who forgot part of his suffering and that was a special form of suffering in itself.

"Where's the value in what they've experienced otherwise?" Spectre returns, "aside from in our memories? And how will they learn otherwise?"

"That's the crux of it," Yuusaku sighs. "Though I can imagine Ai pretending otherwise."

"I'm sure one of the others will give him away if he does," Takeru offers, though he's not that sure. Surely Flame will, though. And he doubts Aqua will stand for it, either. And Earth seemed pretty straight forward. Even if he agreed, he wouldn't be able to keep the act up for very long.

The Ignis, in general, weren't good with understanding people. It was remarkable Ai had manipulated as much as he had, but he'd also spent five years between their world and VRAINS. He probably had a better understanding than the others, who'd only had simulations. But even Ai had turned out to be wrong. He'd believed too much, or too little. He'd given up too quickly, choosing life over happiness: Yuusaku's life over his own wishes, and Yuusaku in the end had chosen the same thing, due to the costs otherwise. He wouldn't sacrifice anyone: not Zaizen until he sacrificed himself, not Jin who wound up Lightning's hostage in the middle of the fight with Revolver. But even Revolver didn't ignore the hostage and strike Lightning to win the duel. And, unlike the Playmaker versus Spectre match, it had cost Revolver the duel.

"That's ironic," he says, aloud, and when the others stare at him, he explains himself.

Spectre shrugs. "At the time, we were doing whatever it took to get the Tower of Hanoi completed, because we couldn't think of any other way to erase them from the network. Whether the Ignis evolved to withstand that because of that incident or whether it was always impossible… who knows."

"I don't think it was always impossible," Revolver piques up from Spectre's duel disk. "It was my father who created the programme for the Tower of Hanoi, after all, and he knew the Ignis better than anyone. His methods to destroy the Ignis grew more and more extreme, and I wonder if that was because the Ignis were developing defences faster than we could counter them."

"Like superbugs," says Yuusaku slowly. "Bacteria who multiply with many different variations in their genes, then when they are exposed to antibiotics, the ones who have resistance to those survive and pass on their resistance. Eventually, they are exposed to many different antibiotics, and the ones who survive them all are resistant to them all. Things like golden staph."

"MRSA," says Baira's voice, from behind Revolver. "And ESBL is the other common one. Yes, that's a good metaphor to draw."

And Yuusaku nods, though Takeru notes Kusanagi looks as mystified as he feels. Spectre just looks a little exasperated, but maybe that comes with spending time with people who are experts in fields one barely scratches the surface in.

He has no intention of working in a hospital, though. Or maybe he will have to; he's not sure how one becomes a school counsellor, but he knows he owes his one for all the trouble he's brought to the door in the past.

"School counsellor, huh," Kusanagi says, and when did he say that out loud? "How about you, Yuusaku?"

He shrugs, but his words say otherwise. "I'll probably stay in the gaming industry. I still want to work towards a world where humans and AI can live together."

And, later, when he hears Aoi's top differential is social work, he wonders if it's the Lost Incident that's driving even their career paths. But that's okay; like Yuusaku said earlier, they'd have wondered aimlessly otherwise. If it's not the Lost Incident, and the Ignis warfare, it's other defining moments in their lives that will determine their futures.

And as for Jin, he's struggling to take the next step now and Takeru remembers that moment, when Flame urges him to pick up his duel disk, when Kiku's caught up in his mess and he's no choice but to pick up his deck again… So when Kusanagi asks if they can help Jin relearn his skills, he's more than happy to volunteer.

And between Yuusaku's father and Zaizen Akira, they manage to pull out an old play mat and some cards as well. How Jin will respond to seeing them physically in front of him is another story, but all they can do is try.

Yuusaku's knuckles are white against the edge of the table, but still his fingers are trembling. He wants this to work as well. They all do. They want Sugisaki Miyu out of the hospital and Jin smiling and moving forward, and that'll be the happiest ending they can aim for because even if dead Ignis can return, there's no worldly power that can bring dead humans back to life.

He wonders how Revolver is going to handle that landmine, if it comes up. He doesn't envy Revolver that. His own head is stuffed full of how he's going to handle Flame if there's no memories left over.

Probably borrow as many recordings from Kusanagi as possible and run a marathon of them, but seeing and remembering are two different things.

He can't change the data, or even read it. All he can do is trust the others and hope.