Note/Disclaimer: You do not have to have any prior knowledge of the .hack games to understand this story.  In fact, if you have never played them, you'll probably be happier with things, because this is a FANFICTION not a wannabe new .hack series.  Also, this has spoilers all mover for .hack//SIGN, so if you haven't finished that series and don't want things spoiled, read this later.  Thanks for your understanding!  I also refer to people as the GENDER OF THE CHARACTER IN THE GAME, not as the gender of the player. Also, Elk may seem different for those of you who have played the game, and keep that in mind: there is a reason he's nervous and stammers and all. And I do know that not all the stuff in here is completely correct, but it's a fanfiction, so I can change some things to fit the story, okay? Thank you for understanding. Oh, and thank you all for your reviews!  I read them all and love them!  Thanks for your feedback!! I hope to read more in the future (heh heh)! ^-^;;

.hack//波

[.hack//WAVE]

foundation: 004

"Get off me…"   Tsukasa whispered under his breath, trying to lift himself up off the hard ground.

Elk jumped up, and scurried away.  "I-I'm sorry."

"Nm…" he murmured.

"We're back here," Elk said looking around himself.   "The grass!  Doesn't it smell nice?"

"Not really," Tsukasa shook his head to try and get the dizzy feeling from being thrown around in cyberspace to leave.  "But—"

He was about to inquire about cat people, when he saw something that interested him more.  The sleeping child had shifted his position.  One short, white hand—like a baby's, plump and soft—was pointed up through the translucent blue water to the surface, rippled with waves like a desert made of sapphire.  Tsukasa's violet eyes slowly followed the gesture, and Elk looked up as well.  They could see the sun, blurred, over head, through the ever-moving mosaic water.  Not knowing what was meant, Tsukasa looked back down at the sleeping child, and gasped, dropping his staff to the ground and covering his mouth with his gloved hands.

The child had moved again.  His hand was no longer pointed towards the sky, and he was no longer lying down.  His head, as if propped up against an invisible pillow of currents, stared straight at Tsukasa, with eyes open and deep, like dark rifts in the world where nothing could escape.  Everything was swirling around those eyes, as if they were black holes, the epitome of nothingness, sucking everything into them.  The water had turned dark and murky, as if infested by the red tide, or another poisonous miasma of the sea, clouding its depths and cloaking its concealed treasures with a treasure-chest of mystery.  He tried to cover his whole face up, Tsukasa did.  He tried to hide from the eyes.  His stomach lurched, and he could feel himself shaking.  There was something so empty, so hollow about that stare the child gave him.  He didn't like it at all.

When Tsukasa looked up, everything was back to normal.  Elk was giving him an inquiring stare, as if wondering what on earth could be wrong with him.  "Are you… okay?"

The earth-tone WaveMaster held his head in his hands, and made no attempt at answering.  What was that that he'd seen?  Had the child really looked at him, really opened his eyes—those ungodly portals to hell!—and stared at him?  Surely not, he decided.  He was just getting tired, and needed to log off and go to sleep.  That was a reasonable explanation.  But what if he had actually seen that?  What if that really had happened?  It wouldn't be like her, like Aura.  Nothing was wrong anymore, in "The World".  It was safe to play now.  He'd never have to go through that experience ever again.  He hoped.

"Are you okay?"

"I guess," Tsukasa sighed, staring hesitantly out at the floating child.  "What do you think that meant?"

"What?"

"The sun," Tsukasa said.  "That PK that was bugging you drew a picture of two people holding hands in the middle of a split sea with the sun between them.  What does it mean?  Is this some sort of weird quest, or a bunch of idiots playing a joke?"

"I don't know," Elk looked down at his feet.  "But…"

"'But'?"

"That PK," Elk swallowed hard.  He had to get it out.  He had to say it.  It would bug him for the rest of his life if he never got it out of his system.  "It…"

Tsukasa stared on at the blue-clad WaveMaster, waiting.  But Elk said no more.  "Come on," Tsukasa said, "let's leave.  I think we'll be safe to go back to Dona Roiak now.  The PK probably couldn't stay in a server root town for too long bugging people before someone took action."

"O-okay," he nodded in agreement.  "D-do you want to l-look up on the quest?"

"What quest?"

"T-this one," Elk pointed towards the child with his staff, and then looked back at his companion.

"Oh."  Tsukasa thought for a moment, and then answered, "Sure.  Try to ask around those 'friends' of yours if they've heard anything about it.  I'll look around for some of my… friends.  Maybe some one knows something."

"What about the BBS?"

"I don't want to try it," Tsukasa said.  "Too many people read there, and they'll probably just disregard it as someone's cry for attention if we post something about a messed-up server and whatever."

"Oh.  O-okay."

"Mia," Tsukasa said, sitting down on the grass, "You said that she was a cat PC that you met.  Whatever happened to her?"

"I don't know," Elk turned his head.  "She disappeared.  I w-want the grass so that I can give her s-some when she c-c-comes back."

"What if she doesn't come back?"

"What?" Elk looked over his shoulder.  "But she will.  I c-could use it to lure her to me?"

"Sure," Tsukasa didn't mean it sarcastically, but he sighed as he said it, and set his head on his knees.  "Isn't this game supposed to be fun?"

"What?"

"Is that all you say?" Tsukasa inquired.  "No offense, but… it's kind of annoying."

"Sorry," he murmured.  "Why do you play this game if you don't think it's fun?"

"My friends wanted me to," he answered.  "They guilt-tripped me into it, I guess.  But I guess it's sorta' fun, sometimes.  But… well, you know what happened to me.  Somehow it just all seems stupid after that, you know?  Normally, I wouldn't want to go back into something that I've had a bad experience with, especially a near-death experience… but…"

Elk waited.

"…but normally I don't talk this much to anyone, either, so I guess that, in its own way, is okay, right?"

* * *

"A quest that has something to do with the sun?" Sarath asked.  "I don't know.  I mean, I got this spiffy armor with the sun symbol from some high-level dungeon and all, but I don't think that it's anything that had to do with the sun or anything.  Not to mention it was just a dungeon, not like, anything big or anything."

"Oh," Elk said.  "Do you know who would know about it?"

"Well, try Raven," Sarath said, stretching.  "It's late in Osaka.  Is it that late where you are, too?  I just tried inviting her into my party, but she's not online—which is quite strange for her, Raven, I mean.  She might know, though.  Try to like, e-mail her or something."

"Thanks."

"Oh, and by the way," Sarath smiled, "you know that friend of yours, Tsukasa?"

"Y-yes?"

"Do you think you and him might wanna do another dungeon with Raven and I sometime?—because that would be just totally cool and I'd really enjoy that because he's—well, she's—really fun to bother because she gets annoyed really easily—or something like that."

"Huh?  Sorry, you talk with everything slurred together, so it's hard to understand…"

"Are you making fun of my accent?"

"No," Elk knew that Sarath was only joking.

* * *

"Oh, you mean that stupid, annoying PK that we met earlier?" Mimiru asked.  "God, that guy was obnoxious!  He just didn't know when to give up, you know?  I hate people like that!"

"Okay…"

"Tsukasa!" Mimiru said, slapping him on the back.  "Cheer up!  What's with you now?  You were so happy once you got out of being stuck in 'The World', and now you're back to being unsocial and cold!  Do I need to get Subaru in here to cheer you up?"

"No, that's okay," he said.  "So you don't know about it?  That picture the PK drew…"

"Yeah, it was like two people and a sun or something," the HeavyBlade said, waving her hand in a vague direction upwards.  "One of them was female, one male, or something, right?  Maybe if what you said was true about that kid in the secret server, then one of them is Aura and one is that new child."

"I never thought of that…"

"Well, that's what I'm here for," she winked and smiled.  "Where's that friend of yours?"

"Elk?  He's asking his friends about the server."

"He reminded me a lot of you, when I first met you in 'The World'," she told him.  "I mean, I didn't really get to talk to him, but just the way he moved and acted… the way he spoke…." She smiled and shook the thought away.  "Well, anyway, if you find out anything, buzz me and I'll try to help, okay?  I've gotten up a couple levels today, so I'll be tough and ready for some fights, right?"

"Nm," he mumbled.

* * *

"I didn't get anything," Tsukasa sighed, lying down on the grass of the root server, Dona Roiak.

"Me n-neither," Elk said.  "Raven wasn't on, and I'm sure she'd know.  Her or Mia."

"Wanna give up for the day?"

"Well…" Elk said, "If we're really going to get to the bottom of this thing, then w-we'd probably want to get some foundation knowledge pretty soon."

"I think we have something," he said.  "That PK.  It wanted us to do this quest or whatever.  It showed us that diagram of the people and the sun and all.  I think that it's trying to tell us something.  Maybe you should try to attract its attention?"

"No." Elk said this tersely and sharply.  "I don't like it at all.  It's no good, and it's probably just trying to get one of us thrown into a coma or something."

"Then you want to give up on the quest?"

"No!  T-that's not what I mean," Elk said.  "I mean that, well… I don't know.  It just doesn't seem right that that PK w-would give us something helpful.  Not after… not… after…"

"Do you know where we can get a hold of any hackers?" Tsukasa inquired.

"What?  Why?!"

"Well, my friend said something to me that was sort of interesting," Tsukasa mumbled.  "She said that maybe in the picture, one of the people was Aura, and one was that other person we found.  If you got a hacker, we could find some storage files of Aura's data, and bring her to her 'prince', and maybe that'll do something."

"That's right!" Elk said, ecstatically.  "And maybe then the sea in that server will part in two and show us the sun.  The secret sun we're searching for, right?"

to be continued in…

journey: 005