.Hack//Heist
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.
Disclaimer on the Disclaimer: I didn't think that one up, I ripped it off some other story. Damned if I can remember which, but I found it so endearing I had to use it at least once :)
Notes: Takes place just after the start of Mutation. Parentheses indicate thoughts. Well folks, this is it. The last chapter of Heist. For all who've read and all who've written in support, I thank you; it's because of your comments that I kept going on this. Like I said, a little compliment goes a long way in the world of fanfiction, and you guys were fantastic. This will by no means be my last foray into the world of .Hack, so don't think you're free of me just yet :)
With that in mind, read and enjoy!
Chapter XXV - Denouement
------------
*DING*
With a chime and a clunk, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the far wall of the pristine hospital hallway. The taupe tunnel stretched for several hundred feet in either direction, white-clad hospital staff busily milling about. There was not a shred of evidence that the building had been the scene of a crime, though he had heard two of the doctors on the previous floor discussing it.
"So what did he say?" he asked as they stepped off the elevator and turned left down the hallway.
She shook her head. "No raise this time," she grumbled. "And after all the overtime I've been putting in..."
Hiroshi rolled his eyes. "Geez... those guys would be lost without you."
His mother chuckled ruefully. "That's what I keep thinking, but apparently they can't take one less golfing trip a month." She sighed. "I swear, I don't know sometimes..." she muttered as they walked, sliding to one side of the hallway as a nurse pushed an empty gurney past them.
Three doors down turned into two, then one; he found himself staring through the expected door, one he recalled passing through more than once in the past few weeks.
Hiroshi exhaled slowly, looking up at his mother. "Mom, do you... mind if I..."
She smiled, her eyes alight with understanding. "I'll wait here. Go ahead, Hiro."
"Thanks," he said, and reached for the doorknob. The brass felt cold to the touch as he twisted the knob and pulled, spilling sunlight from the room out into the hallway as he stepped through.
He made his way to the side of the bed, his eyes falling upon the prone form of Yasuhiko, mask around his mouth, covers up to his neck, arms at his side. His chest rose and fell calmly, almost mechanically, a faint beeping from the attached machinery measuring his pulse, slow but steady.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Hiroshi nearly leapt out of his skin at the man's voice. He glanced wildly about the room, and quickly spotted a man in a leather jacket, sitting in a chair in the corner.
"Who are you?"
Slowly, the man stood up and approached the bed, his face coming into full view of the sun's rays. He was middle aged, or looked it, though Hiroshi guessed he could just as easily have been in his mid-30's. Short, straight hair topped his head, his eyes a dark brown, his face rounded and smooth. Though his expression was blank, his eyes bore a retained spark of humor, and his posture was relaxed and non-threatening, his hands shoved nonchalantly into the pockets of his jacket.
He smiled and nodded. "Hajimemashite, Kite-san."
Hiroshi should have been surprised, shocked, any number of harsh-sounding S-words would have fit the bill. Instead, his mind worked with uncommon speed, logically deducing not only who the man was, but how he had found him.
The boy smiled back. "Hajimemashite, Stolls-san."
The detective's smile grew wider. "Just Dean is fine."
Hiroshi chuckled, for once more interested in a complete stranger than the friend who occupied the bed to his right. "So..." he began, breaking eye contact. The proverbial ice broken, he found himself at a loss as to what to do or say, how to properly converse with a man he had helped to commit a crime.
"So..." repeated Dean, lightly shifting his left foot side to side on his toes, a hint of shyness in his stance.
And yet, the older man didn't bear the countenance of a thief in the least. Despite a gravity to his voice and presence, his passive, almost friendly demeanor dispelled whatever preconceptions Hiroshi had previously held. (He looks... normal,) he thought. (Just like anybody else. Not like a bad guy.)
So many questions poured through Hiroshi's mind - the who, the where, the why, the when and the what - but the first that translated itself to words came up as the how.
"How'd it go?"
Dean glanced at the window, at the brilliant Tokyo skyline, a city of gold in the eyes of the sun. "Well... we won," he said softly. "How about you?"
Hiroshi nodded. "Yeah... we did win."
"Hmm," half-grunted Dean. "What a day, huh?"
"Hard to believe it was only one," replied Hiroshi. "Guess a lot can happen in a day."
"You can say that again." Dean drew a long pull of air through his nose, and exhaled through his mouth. "I never thought I'd see the light of day again."
"They just let you go?"
Dean shook his head. "Max bailed me out," he said. "He headed back to the States."
"What about you?"
His eyes drifted shut, and he leaned back, favoring his left leg. There was a guardedness to his posture that suggested he was injured. To accent the point, he removed his left hand and gingerly rubbed his side through the jacket, a slight grimace coming to his lips.
"Let's just say," said Dean, "That I'm curious."
(That's how I got started, too...) Hiroshi turned to face Yasuhiko, his ears picking up on the beeping of the monitor once more. "I know the feeling."
Noticing the movement, Dean glanced down at the comatose boy. "You two are friends?"
Hiroshi nodded again. "Yasu introduced me to The World. I just wanted to play the game..." His words grew heavier. "I think that bracelet was meant for him."
Dean fell silent, leaving room for Hiro to continue. "It's just... I want to know what's going on. What Aura is... what those things are... why I was given this power." He paused to swallow. "Why Cyber Connect was after us. And what I'm supposed to do."
"It's a mystery, no doubt about it," muttered Dean.
"So where does that leave us?" asked Hiroshi. "What do we do now?"
Dean glanced down at the young man. "I think it'd be obvious, don't you?"
Hiroshi blinked, peering up at Dean. "Uh?"
"It's simple," said Dean. "We solve it."
"Solve it?"
"Just do what we can," he said with a nod. "Start with nothing but a lead, one lead. Follow the trail, follow the evidence. It's all a matter of finding that lead. And I know you can, you've gotten this far."
"You sound like you know what you're talking about..."
To his surprise, Dean's face took on a slightly sheepish quality. "Well... kinda."
"Kinda?" Hiro raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'kinda'?"
"Wellll..." Dean fidgeted. "I've... really only been doing this for about a year."
Hiroshi blinked. Twitched. He fought to keep from bursting into laughter, struck speechless at the sudden contrast in the detective's demeanor. (Only a year?? Geez... he really is different from how I thought he'd be.)
"Yeah..." murmured Dean. "This is really my first big case..."
"Heh heh heh... your first case, huh?"
Dean got the impression that if he could have, Hiroshi would've emoted a smiley face. "Well it's not like it's easy to advertise being a P.I... it's not quite as glamorous as TV makes it look. Even when they try to make it look gritty, it's... off, at best."
"Is it as cool?" asked Hiroshi, calling to mind many images of tough-as-nails, hard-boiled fugitive cops doing battle with dozens of criminals, doing impossible stunts while using two handguns at once.
"No..." Dean admitted, shyly looking down at his shoes. "No, not that either... it's really not like the cop movies make it out to be. There's a lot of paperwork, I was kinda let down, myself."
Hiroshi chuckled again, shaking his head. (So much for Mr. Tough Guy... guess he's not such a bad guy after all.)
"Ah well," said Dean with a sigh. "In any case, I'm planning on sticking around for the long haul, seeing what happens." He smiled at Hiroshi. "How 'bout you?"
"Me?" Hiroshi hesitated only a moment before answering. "Me too," he said, again turning to Yasuhiko. "I want to help him... and I want to know the why."
"Couldn't think of a better reason if I tried," said Dean in agreement. "You're a good man, Hiro. Doesn't matter who that bracelet was meant for; I couldn't imagine anybody putting it to better use."
Hiroshi smiled, not bothering to ask how the detective knew his name. "You too, Dean."
Dean drew his right hand out of his pocket, a small white card dangling from between his fingers. "Here. Do us both a favor, hang onto this."
He took the card and turned it in his hand, eyeing the neatly-printed letters which adorned its surface.
"Cell: (272) 555-3926
Member add: Stolls@theworld.com
Email: DStollis@mailserv.net"
"This could be the start of a beautiful relationship," quoted Dean.
Hiro grinned. "Are you making me an offer I can't refuse?"
Dean laughed out loud. "Hah! Maybe, man, maybe. After all, you're an outlaw player and a hacker, and I'm an ex-con ex-cop. I think the answer is obvious."
"Well, keep at it," said Dean. "And drop me a line if you need anything."
"All right. Thanks, Dean."
"You too, Hiroshi, you too." Dean stepped around Hiro and headed for the door; he stopped about an inch short of the knob and turned back to the young man. "Oh hey, hey, almost forgot. What happened with that Heavy Blade friend of yours? The cute one, with the short fuse?"
Hiroshi flushed slightly, turning away slightly to hide the sudden color in his cheeks. "Well... we got to talking today, and, uh..."
"Yeah?" asked Dean, arms folded across his chest.
"Well, let's just say you were right," finished Hiro, grinning bashfully.
"All I needed to know," said Dean, smiling with a hint of pride. "Take it easy, Hiro."
"Yeah, you too." Hiroshi offered a small wave to Dean as he opened the door and stepped through, and turned back to Yasuhiko as the door was closed.
He turned the card in his hands for a moment, then pocketed it. He smiled, emboldened by events that were only slightly related to his friend's condition, yet nonetheless gave his self-esteem a much-needed shot in the arm, reinforcing his determination to get to the bottom of this mystery.
"Don't worry, Yasu," the young detective said reassuringly. "We're working on it."
-
"So what'd he say?"
"Not much." Kite tilted his hand in a so-so gesture. "Enough to know that this particular problem is over."
BlackRose nodded. "What was he like?"
"He was a nice guy, I was surprised."
She leaned an elbow against the bridge railing, angling her body to face Kite. "I kinda figured him to be a... well, you know, like in the movies."
He grinned. "So did I. This whole thing..." his grin faded, "it's just hard to believe."
"Yeah, I know." She glanced out over the canal, eyes trailing a riverborne party of adventurers as they coasted beneath the bridge. "Nothing changed, either... it didn't help us much, did it?"
Kite shrugged. "I guess not..."
BlackRose sighed and turned back to the canal, but glanced at Kite when he spoke again.
"But you know... we still did pretty good, didn't we?"
She smiled slowly. "Yeah, we did."
"That's good enough for me." He smiled back, turning slightly to meet her gaze. "We gotta try, right?"
"Right," she said with a nod. Her eyes took on a distant look, and her voice grew softer. "We have to try..."
(We all have our reasons,) thought Kite. (Maybe you'll tell me yours someday...)
Coming back to herself, BlackRose stood up straight, away from the railing. "Well, let's get going! Where should we go today?"
"Anywhere's fine with me," said Kite. "For once, I wouldn't mind fighting something I didn't have to data drain first."
She emoted a smile. "C'mon, I found a field on Theta server we can use."
Together they strolled off the bridge, leather and metal colliding with stone in an even, repetetive beat. They neatly filed into the crowd of adventurers cluttering the broadway, deftly picking their way to the Chaos Gate. Eventually they stood before the spinning blue portal, and Kite hatched the plan his controller had been waiting the whole day to try.
"Hey, BlackRose?"
"Yeah?"
Nervous and uncertain, Kite nearly faltered; gulping loudly, he turned to BlackRose, meeting her face-to-face. "Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" she asked, head tilted slightly to peer curiously at him.
"Well..." he started, nearly trailing off to silence before he composed himself. "What are you doing this weekend?"
Her brow arched, curiosity giving way to surprise. She quickly shrugged off her initial bout of shyness, and stared at Kite thoughtfully, as if silently debating something. For a second, Kite wondered if he'd crossed a line.
She dispelled his worries with a smile. "Nothing yet."
- Fin
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.
Disclaimer on the Disclaimer: I didn't think that one up, I ripped it off some other story. Damned if I can remember which, but I found it so endearing I had to use it at least once :)
Notes: Takes place just after the start of Mutation. Parentheses indicate thoughts. Well folks, this is it. The last chapter of Heist. For all who've read and all who've written in support, I thank you; it's because of your comments that I kept going on this. Like I said, a little compliment goes a long way in the world of fanfiction, and you guys were fantastic. This will by no means be my last foray into the world of .Hack, so don't think you're free of me just yet :)
With that in mind, read and enjoy!
Chapter XXV - Denouement
------------
*DING*
With a chime and a clunk, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the far wall of the pristine hospital hallway. The taupe tunnel stretched for several hundred feet in either direction, white-clad hospital staff busily milling about. There was not a shred of evidence that the building had been the scene of a crime, though he had heard two of the doctors on the previous floor discussing it.
"So what did he say?" he asked as they stepped off the elevator and turned left down the hallway.
She shook her head. "No raise this time," she grumbled. "And after all the overtime I've been putting in..."
Hiroshi rolled his eyes. "Geez... those guys would be lost without you."
His mother chuckled ruefully. "That's what I keep thinking, but apparently they can't take one less golfing trip a month." She sighed. "I swear, I don't know sometimes..." she muttered as they walked, sliding to one side of the hallway as a nurse pushed an empty gurney past them.
Three doors down turned into two, then one; he found himself staring through the expected door, one he recalled passing through more than once in the past few weeks.
Hiroshi exhaled slowly, looking up at his mother. "Mom, do you... mind if I..."
She smiled, her eyes alight with understanding. "I'll wait here. Go ahead, Hiro."
"Thanks," he said, and reached for the doorknob. The brass felt cold to the touch as he twisted the knob and pulled, spilling sunlight from the room out into the hallway as he stepped through.
He made his way to the side of the bed, his eyes falling upon the prone form of Yasuhiko, mask around his mouth, covers up to his neck, arms at his side. His chest rose and fell calmly, almost mechanically, a faint beeping from the attached machinery measuring his pulse, slow but steady.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Hiroshi nearly leapt out of his skin at the man's voice. He glanced wildly about the room, and quickly spotted a man in a leather jacket, sitting in a chair in the corner.
"Who are you?"
Slowly, the man stood up and approached the bed, his face coming into full view of the sun's rays. He was middle aged, or looked it, though Hiroshi guessed he could just as easily have been in his mid-30's. Short, straight hair topped his head, his eyes a dark brown, his face rounded and smooth. Though his expression was blank, his eyes bore a retained spark of humor, and his posture was relaxed and non-threatening, his hands shoved nonchalantly into the pockets of his jacket.
He smiled and nodded. "Hajimemashite, Kite-san."
Hiroshi should have been surprised, shocked, any number of harsh-sounding S-words would have fit the bill. Instead, his mind worked with uncommon speed, logically deducing not only who the man was, but how he had found him.
The boy smiled back. "Hajimemashite, Stolls-san."
The detective's smile grew wider. "Just Dean is fine."
Hiroshi chuckled, for once more interested in a complete stranger than the friend who occupied the bed to his right. "So..." he began, breaking eye contact. The proverbial ice broken, he found himself at a loss as to what to do or say, how to properly converse with a man he had helped to commit a crime.
"So..." repeated Dean, lightly shifting his left foot side to side on his toes, a hint of shyness in his stance.
And yet, the older man didn't bear the countenance of a thief in the least. Despite a gravity to his voice and presence, his passive, almost friendly demeanor dispelled whatever preconceptions Hiroshi had previously held. (He looks... normal,) he thought. (Just like anybody else. Not like a bad guy.)
So many questions poured through Hiroshi's mind - the who, the where, the why, the when and the what - but the first that translated itself to words came up as the how.
"How'd it go?"
Dean glanced at the window, at the brilliant Tokyo skyline, a city of gold in the eyes of the sun. "Well... we won," he said softly. "How about you?"
Hiroshi nodded. "Yeah... we did win."
"Hmm," half-grunted Dean. "What a day, huh?"
"Hard to believe it was only one," replied Hiroshi. "Guess a lot can happen in a day."
"You can say that again." Dean drew a long pull of air through his nose, and exhaled through his mouth. "I never thought I'd see the light of day again."
"They just let you go?"
Dean shook his head. "Max bailed me out," he said. "He headed back to the States."
"What about you?"
His eyes drifted shut, and he leaned back, favoring his left leg. There was a guardedness to his posture that suggested he was injured. To accent the point, he removed his left hand and gingerly rubbed his side through the jacket, a slight grimace coming to his lips.
"Let's just say," said Dean, "That I'm curious."
(That's how I got started, too...) Hiroshi turned to face Yasuhiko, his ears picking up on the beeping of the monitor once more. "I know the feeling."
Noticing the movement, Dean glanced down at the comatose boy. "You two are friends?"
Hiroshi nodded again. "Yasu introduced me to The World. I just wanted to play the game..." His words grew heavier. "I think that bracelet was meant for him."
Dean fell silent, leaving room for Hiro to continue. "It's just... I want to know what's going on. What Aura is... what those things are... why I was given this power." He paused to swallow. "Why Cyber Connect was after us. And what I'm supposed to do."
"It's a mystery, no doubt about it," muttered Dean.
"So where does that leave us?" asked Hiroshi. "What do we do now?"
Dean glanced down at the young man. "I think it'd be obvious, don't you?"
Hiroshi blinked, peering up at Dean. "Uh?"
"It's simple," said Dean. "We solve it."
"Solve it?"
"Just do what we can," he said with a nod. "Start with nothing but a lead, one lead. Follow the trail, follow the evidence. It's all a matter of finding that lead. And I know you can, you've gotten this far."
"You sound like you know what you're talking about..."
To his surprise, Dean's face took on a slightly sheepish quality. "Well... kinda."
"Kinda?" Hiro raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'kinda'?"
"Wellll..." Dean fidgeted. "I've... really only been doing this for about a year."
Hiroshi blinked. Twitched. He fought to keep from bursting into laughter, struck speechless at the sudden contrast in the detective's demeanor. (Only a year?? Geez... he really is different from how I thought he'd be.)
"Yeah..." murmured Dean. "This is really my first big case..."
"Heh heh heh... your first case, huh?"
Dean got the impression that if he could have, Hiroshi would've emoted a smiley face. "Well it's not like it's easy to advertise being a P.I... it's not quite as glamorous as TV makes it look. Even when they try to make it look gritty, it's... off, at best."
"Is it as cool?" asked Hiroshi, calling to mind many images of tough-as-nails, hard-boiled fugitive cops doing battle with dozens of criminals, doing impossible stunts while using two handguns at once.
"No..." Dean admitted, shyly looking down at his shoes. "No, not that either... it's really not like the cop movies make it out to be. There's a lot of paperwork, I was kinda let down, myself."
Hiroshi chuckled again, shaking his head. (So much for Mr. Tough Guy... guess he's not such a bad guy after all.)
"Ah well," said Dean with a sigh. "In any case, I'm planning on sticking around for the long haul, seeing what happens." He smiled at Hiroshi. "How 'bout you?"
"Me?" Hiroshi hesitated only a moment before answering. "Me too," he said, again turning to Yasuhiko. "I want to help him... and I want to know the why."
"Couldn't think of a better reason if I tried," said Dean in agreement. "You're a good man, Hiro. Doesn't matter who that bracelet was meant for; I couldn't imagine anybody putting it to better use."
Hiroshi smiled, not bothering to ask how the detective knew his name. "You too, Dean."
Dean drew his right hand out of his pocket, a small white card dangling from between his fingers. "Here. Do us both a favor, hang onto this."
He took the card and turned it in his hand, eyeing the neatly-printed letters which adorned its surface.
"Cell: (272) 555-3926
Member add: Stolls@theworld.com
Email: DStollis@mailserv.net"
"This could be the start of a beautiful relationship," quoted Dean.
Hiro grinned. "Are you making me an offer I can't refuse?"
Dean laughed out loud. "Hah! Maybe, man, maybe. After all, you're an outlaw player and a hacker, and I'm an ex-con ex-cop. I think the answer is obvious."
"Well, keep at it," said Dean. "And drop me a line if you need anything."
"All right. Thanks, Dean."
"You too, Hiroshi, you too." Dean stepped around Hiro and headed for the door; he stopped about an inch short of the knob and turned back to the young man. "Oh hey, hey, almost forgot. What happened with that Heavy Blade friend of yours? The cute one, with the short fuse?"
Hiroshi flushed slightly, turning away slightly to hide the sudden color in his cheeks. "Well... we got to talking today, and, uh..."
"Yeah?" asked Dean, arms folded across his chest.
"Well, let's just say you were right," finished Hiro, grinning bashfully.
"All I needed to know," said Dean, smiling with a hint of pride. "Take it easy, Hiro."
"Yeah, you too." Hiroshi offered a small wave to Dean as he opened the door and stepped through, and turned back to Yasuhiko as the door was closed.
He turned the card in his hands for a moment, then pocketed it. He smiled, emboldened by events that were only slightly related to his friend's condition, yet nonetheless gave his self-esteem a much-needed shot in the arm, reinforcing his determination to get to the bottom of this mystery.
"Don't worry, Yasu," the young detective said reassuringly. "We're working on it."
-
"So what'd he say?"
"Not much." Kite tilted his hand in a so-so gesture. "Enough to know that this particular problem is over."
BlackRose nodded. "What was he like?"
"He was a nice guy, I was surprised."
She leaned an elbow against the bridge railing, angling her body to face Kite. "I kinda figured him to be a... well, you know, like in the movies."
He grinned. "So did I. This whole thing..." his grin faded, "it's just hard to believe."
"Yeah, I know." She glanced out over the canal, eyes trailing a riverborne party of adventurers as they coasted beneath the bridge. "Nothing changed, either... it didn't help us much, did it?"
Kite shrugged. "I guess not..."
BlackRose sighed and turned back to the canal, but glanced at Kite when he spoke again.
"But you know... we still did pretty good, didn't we?"
She smiled slowly. "Yeah, we did."
"That's good enough for me." He smiled back, turning slightly to meet her gaze. "We gotta try, right?"
"Right," she said with a nod. Her eyes took on a distant look, and her voice grew softer. "We have to try..."
(We all have our reasons,) thought Kite. (Maybe you'll tell me yours someday...)
Coming back to herself, BlackRose stood up straight, away from the railing. "Well, let's get going! Where should we go today?"
"Anywhere's fine with me," said Kite. "For once, I wouldn't mind fighting something I didn't have to data drain first."
She emoted a smile. "C'mon, I found a field on Theta server we can use."
Together they strolled off the bridge, leather and metal colliding with stone in an even, repetetive beat. They neatly filed into the crowd of adventurers cluttering the broadway, deftly picking their way to the Chaos Gate. Eventually they stood before the spinning blue portal, and Kite hatched the plan his controller had been waiting the whole day to try.
"Hey, BlackRose?"
"Yeah?"
Nervous and uncertain, Kite nearly faltered; gulping loudly, he turned to BlackRose, meeting her face-to-face. "Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" she asked, head tilted slightly to peer curiously at him.
"Well..." he started, nearly trailing off to silence before he composed himself. "What are you doing this weekend?"
Her brow arched, curiosity giving way to surprise. She quickly shrugged off her initial bout of shyness, and stared at Kite thoughtfully, as if silently debating something. For a second, Kite wondered if he'd crossed a line.
She dispelled his worries with a smile. "Nothing yet."
- Fin